ShootingNova

Are there not numerous quotes confirming Dooku's own substantial growth as a dark sider in Canon?

There's obviously not much talking about Yoda between TPM and AotC, but this is really a case of absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence IMO. If there are sources saying Dooku grew a lot stronger, then we'd just have to upscale Yoda.

Yeah I can see AotC Obi-Wan not having enough material to make a clear case, but you'd think someone that young would be growing a fair amount in a decade. I guess if you buy Gillard's claim that AotC Anakin would cream TPM Maul, then Obi-Wan's proximity to Anakin would put him well above his TPM incarnation lol.

Based on his continued parity with Anakin, the Dooku on the Invisible Hand is probably "vastly more powerful" than his DD self in keeping with Anakin's growth. I don't think it's fair to scale Vos above Kenobi on that basis.

I can probably agree with RotJ and RotS being favourites as I've always been willing to overlook their faults for the emotional climaxes. Of course ESB is the best from an "objective" standpoint.

I used to have difficulty deciding between TPM and AotC, but TPM's more likable protagonists (minus Jar Jar if you count him), better use of practical effects and less reliance on split and poorly paced plotlines puts it ahead for me. I wouldn't put it quite as high though lol.

Not really convinced that Quinlan is an entire level above Obi-Wan as of RotS, or that Dooku more than a decade into his Sith career is still somehow on the same level as his Jedi self.

Same with AotC and TPM Obi-Wan, but admittedly AotC Obi-Wan's a bit of a vague area.

For Qui-Gon and Ahsoka, I can see the reasoning but if Maul was holding back against Ahsoka then she probably isn't an entire tier ahead of Qui-Gon IMO.

Also more inclined to think that the differences between the various versions of characters in the same movie are really just a matter of mental states (which the lore makes clear is a big factor for Jedi) rather than an amp in the same way that being on a nexus is an amp.

People drastically overestimate the gaps between the characters. Plenty of characters with comparatively little to their name have lasted more than a few seconds against Vader and Ahsoka.

Bloodlust could be bad for Obi-Wan stylistically, but it's a close fight either way at the very least.

@hellothere5432:

Sure. I request we agree to disagree on the Obi Wan rag dolling argument as we clearly aren't going to agree there.

Happy to oblige.

For a couple of seconds at best.

Time aplenty for approximate another person's abilities, especially for Force users who could be making dozens of exchanges in that time.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that fighting in a 2v1 will lead to not be able to focus entirely on either one at a time, which naturally results in each individual member of the two not being as pressured as they would be otherwise if it was a 1v1.

Except the Jedi were separated numerous times, as you pointed out, leaving one or the other to fend for themselves for short periods.

You implied it was in the Homing Beacon interview. Regardless, how does Anakin not being mentally stable have anything to do with Obi Wan's aggression being an unwanted trait? They aren't the same character's lol, so Gillard wouldn't' be referencing the same thing for both.

The fault of Anakin's cited here was "being on a slope", an obvious tongue-in-cheek reference to the moment responsible for his loss on Mustafar. Gillard lists "aggression" as Obi-Wan's comparable fault, which goes to say that it's the thing that can get him to lose. This is exactly the whole point behind the "being caught off-guard" moment with Dooku; Obi-Wan slips up as he's attacking. Similarly, Maul's lands his Chokes on Obi-Wan mid-attack, mid-speech, or when he's weakened. It's a consistent theme and unrelated to my point anyway.

Which inherently makes him unreliable. The topic being slightly different changes nothing.

It makes him unreliable where he needs to precisely number things.

Even if we ignore Gillard's blatant contradictions of interviews both pertaining to the tiering system and other topics, Gillard thinking that way in AOTC changes nothing. I could just as easily argue for Gillard having realised he was wrong later on and having TPM Maul as tier 8 and AOTC Anakin as tier 7 in the years following the PT. Said conclusion is also reflected in the source material while you have nothing but a wayward Gillard quote to go off on.

What's there to realise he was wrong about when he was working on the levels themselves during the PT? If anything, he'd be misremembering afterwards.

Don't see why the email taking place after the PT changes anything. Especially given Maul never being stated to be in any other tier elsewhere. It also lines up with Lucas affirming TPM Maul being at least on Grievous's level, who based off his performances against TCW Kenobi and LOE Windu is certainly a tier 8.

Grievous' performances against TCW Obi-Wan and LoE Mace are clearly not factored into Lucas' vision for the character. Lucas radically reinterpreted the character for RotS and TCW, while LoE operated under a continuity where OCW was Grievous' only source material.

Consider that Mace by RotS is a 9 and capable of contending with other 9s by Lucas' account, while Lucas envisions Grievous as below TPM Maul and Tyranus, who you accept as level 8s. We're also told that the difference between level 8 and 9 is "enormous". That's pretty difficult to reconcile with your notion of Grievous "fighting evenly with Mace while hindered".

Lucas' (RotS / TCW+) Grievous and the pre-TCW EU Grievous are entirely different beasts that you're trying to mix and match.

Yes, the intention was to portray them as equals. Doesn't actually make them equals, when Maul isn't holding back.

It does insofar as we're citing directorial authority as you've been eager to do throughout this thread.

The notion of Maul holding back is something you've scrapped together from extraneous sources. It clearly isn't the intention of the fight as directed in the film.

They were holding their own in the sense they weren't being stomped, the very same line notes Maul as having the comfortable advantage.

My turn to cite dictionary definitions.

Cambridge:

"to be as successful as other people or things in a situation:".

Free Dictionary:

To be able to do something with a sufficient level of skill or as well as others can.

Collins:

If you hold your own, you are able to resist someone who is attacking or opposing you.

Even Google's dictionary gives us this:

"retain a position of strength in a challenging situation."

It's pretty clear that "holding one's own" goes beyond just not being stomped, to being comparable. The novel notes that Maul was "more than holding his own" as an indication that he held the edge, but it's far from being as drastic as you're indicating. This is in line with Gillard's depiction of them as near-equals.

Not only is this N-canon due to conflicting with the film however this doesn't portray a close gap at all. A few minor burns due to the heat of the lightsaber's slashing at his robes, don't mean much.

I don't see where this policy of being N-Canon due to conflicting with the film comes into effect. We're debating Legends to begin with.

This is even reflected in the script for the film itself, which clearly depicts them as being significant enough to warrant medical attention on Maul's end, comparable to Qui-Gon re-energising himself with meditation:

The JEDI must wait until the next pulse to advance down the corridor. OBI-WAN is impatient and paces, waiting for the wall of rays to open. QUI-GON sits and meditates. The SITH LORD tries to patch up his wounds.

Source: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Phantom-Menace.html

Clearly they were wounds of enough significance to impact the fight.

Awfully ironic since the "whole picture" showcases a hindered Maul having the decisive advantage over both Jinn + Kenobi with the only arguments for Qui Gon + Obi Wan hinging on maximising tiny details like Maul's robes being cut and a few cherry picked sourcebooks which pale in both authority and number compared to the actual novels and the film.

You're the one trying to cite trading cards to argue that Maul's opponents enjoyed amplifications in every fight against him, lmfao.

I've been citing from the novel liberally, in fact. You've just been keen to dismiss them arbitrarily in favour of tertiary sources and trading cards.

On the other hand, you haven't managed to actually establish that Maul held back besides citing some arrogant PoV quotes and his tactical play of luring them in. Him allowing the Jedi to believe they had the lead is exactly just him luring them in. It doesn't mean that he could've cut loose and murdered them on the spot if he wanted to.

One source.

Three, as I recall. And since nothing indicates that Maul could've won without luring them there besides your projections, one is enough anyway.

I don't disagree. But this is a straw man - I never said Maul could one-shot/stomp Qui Gon or Obi Wan as a pair at least. I'm saying he would of beaten them solidly if he went all out from the get go.

I never said anything about one-shotting; I'm saying sources don't agree that Maul could've murdered them without the separation. You're citing his tactical plays as an indication that he was holding back when the sources make clear that he was making those plays because he needed to.

Yes there is. Your source is claiming Maul needs to seperate the Jedi to survive and that Maul knows this himself while my sources affirm Maul being completely casual about the fight and dragging it out for glory.

Maul extending the fight out of his enjoyment isn't incompatible with the notion of him struggling, especially when your own sources indicate that his overconfidence is a significant weakness.

Oh I don't know, maybe because they are completely separate character's with completely seperate mindset's to fights? Maul isn't always "joyful" during his fight's, you can see that in both TCW and in his fight's pre TPM like against Komari Vosa or Anoon Bandora, he wants them gone from the get go and is always dead serious. Here however, he is joyful during a point where according to you, he is having the fight of his life.

Sheev on the other hand is always enjoying himself when he fight's. He very clearly enjoys himself against Yoda yet he also is clearly going all out against Yoda. That's just his character - he loves the thrill of battle and fear. Hell, this is even stated in the Darth Plagueis novel.

Sith in general are able to enjoy the fights of their lives. That's kind of their thing.

You're also holding a rather obvious double standard here given your preoccupation with facial expressions and contradicting the movie - Maul doesn't look "joyful" during the fight in the film, except when he's behind the barrier and taunting the Jedi.

Even the smallest amount of reading between the lines would tell you that that wasn't the point I was making. Qui Gon was attacking Maul with Obi Wan's help yet wasn't' pressuring him to nearly the extent he was alone. You didn't respond to my point regarding the duo having perfect chemistry rendering the idea of Obi Wan hindering Qui Gon moot, so yes - Qui Gon pressuring Maul alone more than he was beforehand despite having Obi Wan for backup does mean he was amped.

No, it doesn't, lol. The entire point of that scene is that both Qui-Gon and Maul were depleting themselves over the course of the duel. When you're both declining, it doesn't matter so much that you are as long as your opponent is too. However, Qui-Gon's meditation restores some of his energy, which allows him to surprise Maul and drive him back briefly.

That's all the text is saying. Your notion that every second event in a fight constitutes an amplification is hilariously off-beat and out of step with the expressly stated intent behind the duel.

I can't tell if this is either a mistake on your part, sarcasm or just blatant intellectual dishonestly. Qui Gon doesn't have to do damage to Maul to have his damage output be increased lmao, it's not a magical buff that only increases your power if you hit your opponent lol.

It's sarcasm, because that didn't warrant a serious response. You're quoting some nonsensical game mechanics about "doing damage" from some esoteric source, and trying to pretend that was a factor of any degree when the fight was being directed, filmed or written. It clearly wasn't.

Because Maul is someone who acknowledges when he is being pressured hard. His fight against Sidious makes this very clear - he goes onto the defensive because it's the best option. See also him against Obi Wan in S5, - he clearly wants to beat Obi Wan as soon as possible. There is a consistent difference in demeanour in Maul when he is being pressured and wants to end the fights and when he isn't trying hard and is dragging fights out for glory.

There's also the rest of the novel from the objective narrator and from even Qui Gon himself acknowledging Maul being comfortably ahead, contradicting Obi Wan's views.

Maul is also someone who is overconfident and constantly eager to derive satisfaction from combat. Literally nothing indicates that he wasn't "trying hard"; again, Sith relish struggle and mid-battle crises.

Once again, you're completely out of step with what the director has already told us in no uncertain terms was a fight between near-equals.

TCW Maul is an entirely different character too, as you've already lamented in this thread.

Being in control of the fight while holding back and hindered (something you also neglected to respond to) does lead to a significant disparity.

Because they don't need a response; I'm trying to cut down here and I'm not interested in picking additional fights.

You haven't established he was holding back other than citing that he allowed the Jedi the illusion of pushing him back, which as I've repeatedly said was a tactical ploy that was crucial to his plan of separation. There's no significant disparity because the Jedi are able to "hold their own" per the novel and the director of the fight tells us that it's a fight between near-equals. This has just been you trying to piece together disparate second-hand sources to try and contradict what's flat-out stated to us.

Uhhhh, yes it does. Anakin see's Qui Gon as a father figure, he literally states a few lines above that he want's to protect Qui Gon. He is not going to take the side of the man trying to kill his father figure lol. Same way you will have a bias towards the team you are supporting in a sports match.

Wanting to protect someone doesn't preclude you from being concerned for their safety. This is a whole load of meaningless headcanon to try and twist a source into saying something it doesn't yet again. Qui-Gon fighting for his life against "another Jedi" is not comparable to a sports match at all.

Anakin's observation is just an observation, and frankly good enough for your case as is. You don't need to add all this extra fluff about his bias making the observation better than it already is.

Said arguments were already refuted in the blog I linked above. To avoid derailing my post regarding Grievous vs Mace I will just link it again. If there are any specifics, you can bring them up here.

I've debated the thread creator formally and informally on this topic countless times. I haven't anything to add to this particular piece; we can just agree to disagree.

He doesn't "dominate" them. In the first encounter, he only dominates because they for whatever reason insisted on engaging Savage in H2H rather than saber's. In their second encounter, they are losing however it is still a close match. Nothing in S3 insinuates he would of stomped Obi Wan in a 1v1.

I'm confused as to how there's any meaningful scaling from this version of Savage then. In their second encounter, Savage literally charges at them and sends them flying, before continually driving them back out into the hallway despite tiring. That isn't a performance that he's even approached in the later seasons.

Yoda was never stated to be able to "annihilate" Dooku in AOTC.

Way to miss the forest for a sapling. The point is about how the fights mirror each other's arcs perfectly, which your non-response suggests agreement on.

For the record, a secondary source does say that he was "about to destroy" Dooku, which is comparable enough. What Y:DR states is not that Yoda is able to annihilate Dooku in a vacuum, but that he was about to do it in that moment, where Dooku was fleeing and spent. That's why he never did it earlier the fight.

You've conjured the notion of him holding back but as we see with his willingness to destroy Dooku in AotC once he actually fights, that's clearly out-of-character.

There are exactly 4 quotes saying Sidious stomped them. There are three other's claiming the fight was close:

Elementary mathematics would suggest that 4 outnumbers 3, but maybe the 3 sources were amped because they're on your side?

You're wrong in any case. There's four from Filoni alone, and another four from additional sources. That's a grand total of 8, which vastly outnumbers the three quotes.

And Shadow Conspiracy actually supports the idea that Maul was deluded regarding Sidious' level of strain, as he was in the Episode 1 Journal. Towards the end of the fight, Sidious increases his speed to unprecedented levels, eventually reaching a point where Maul can't even see his blades anymore. It's pretty clear that Palpatine held back and won with contemptuous ease once he cut loose.

I should also state that epic and epic fight do not mean the same thing. Epic fight only has one definition - long and difficult.

Actually, it didn't take long for me to find other definitions.

Merriam-Webster:

extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope

Google's dictionary even indicates this informal definition which seems to be the most appropriate here:

particularly impressive or remarkable.

From the standpoint of not trying to find contradictions for personal benefit, but reconciling sources for continuity, it seems pretty obvious that these definitions are the ones to take. It was a long and impressive fight because Sidious allowed it to be; meanwhile Sidious himself was barely tested and won easily once he decided to go all-out.

In the end, there's only one quote that flatly contradicts my narrative, which is the one about the brothers having the advantage early on; but that's contradicted by quotes from both Filoni and the website saying that Sidious always enjoyed the upper hand. And even that doesn't make the fight close per se; since that could still be attributed to Palpatine's restraint.

The other quotes — "furious", "intense" and "epic" — describe the fight accurately, under the condition of Palpatine fighting at a lesser level. He only cuts loose at the end, where he "easily defeats" Maul. As such, he is "barely tested".

This is, after all, consistent with the Episode 3 commentaries where Sidious' entire style is described as "fight[ing] less than you and draw[ing] you in".

Said strain was replaced by a grin which is also noted in SC, and that grin is what we see on screen.

How convenient that every indication of strain prior to the final bladelock just wasn't captured on screen or got deleted under time constraints.

The consistent picture that we're actually left with on screen is one where Sheev isn't struggling at all.

Addressed above. Regardless even if we were to take your interpretation, Filoni's word cannot override the scene explicitly showcasing Sidious as trying to get out of the force grip..

Baseless and Sidious himself doesn't agree. See him grunt in strain and effort in an attempt to get out of the grip. And no, before you say it, Sidious laughing about being able to drop the chandelier on Maul's head doesn't mean he wasn't taking the bladelock seriously, it just means he was delighted at the prospect of both getting out of it and potentially injuring Maul badly.

Baseless? We have Filoni himself, along with the SW website, saying that Sidious always had the upper hand (contradicting that other quote you had about the brothers starting off with the upper hand). The fact that this scene was deleted, and ultimately incongruous with Filoni's commentary on the fight, the quotes on the website and other sources, makes it pretty clear that we don't need to factor it in at all. Deleted for time or not, it was a deleted scene. It didn't even make it into Shadow Conspiracy. That's about as non-canon as it gets.

Per the definition of intense Sidious was either going all out or was completely serious about the duel. I'll let you decide.

No, it was intense because Sidious allowed the illusion of the fight being close and dangerous for him. It's clear from both the start and end that he could've ended the fight at any time he wanted; hell, the fight only existed because he let the brothers down in the first place.

Sidious is outright affirmed to have gone all out:

More quotes with invisible ink — or just a blatantly dishonest reading on your part.

The quote says that Sidious attacked openings and kept his position secure. Nowhere does it state anything in relation to Palpatine's mindset or effort, only his actions as viewed from outsiders.

Obviously Palpatine had to keep the fight close to maintain the act; he was toying, not throwing the fight. Maul had to believe that Sidious was genuinely putting in his all and was working hard.

Contrast that with Filoni's commentary:

At the end of the day, with Sidious, nobody was really going to be able to touch him. He had to be the strongest, most dangerous guy. And you could see at a certain point, he just puts his lightsabers away at the end of the fight and says, “I’m done with this,” and goes in and mauls Maul, so to speak. I love the part where Maul begs at the end, because that’s the thing about Sith. At the end of the day, if you break them…

Source: http://www.starwars.com/news/interview-dave-filoni-on-star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-five-part-2

It's pretty clear that Sidious never went all-out until the end, at which point he "mauls Maul".

This would encompass their Hypori duel. Where Sidious was stated to have been struggling and going all out, both by Maul and by an OOU source:

You're cherry-picking once again. The Episode 1 Journal has Maul thinking Palpatine is struggling in the heat of the moment, then realising he was wrong after the duel:

I realize then that he has just begun to tap into his own reserves. Mine are played out.

Sidious fought with a fraction of his reserves. It was under that handicap that he "barely deflected" Maul's attacks. The only other evidence for his struggle is Maul's narration, which we later learn was unreliable.

As well as SW.com, saying Sidious wanted to destroy Maul, the complete opposite demeanour of someone who viewed the fight as a game:

You're taking the piss now, lmao.

That clearly refers to Sidious' overall objective, which was to end Maul's influence as a potential rival. That doesn't describe his mindset during his duel because it literally comes before the sentence talking about Sidious throwing the brothers, let alone drawing his lightsabers.

Of course Sidious was going there to destroy Maul. He was never in any danger of not completing that objective; hence he allowed himself some sport.

Yes. Filoni liked the scene of Maul rag dolling Sidious and Sidious explicitly doing everything he could to get out of it.

He can like it all he wants. He's already said on multiple occasions that Maul is not nearly as powerful as Sidious, can't touch him, can't compete with him, and agreeing that he always has the upper hand in the fight. Based on that, the only conclusion is that Sidious allowed it for sport - which makes it a pretty entertaining scene. So he has plenty of reason to like it for reasons congruent with his commentary on the topic.

Lucas was the person behind the films so yes, it does.

Unfortunately Legends encompasses a universe of significantly greater scope than the films, including completely different portrayals of characters we've been discussing such as Grievous. Even the Lucas-edited novels have details contradicting the films. It's clear that his notion of authorial intent is rather broad and doesn't come down to the minutiae we're discussing.

No. If Dooku was able to stand a chance or even change the fight at all, it wouldn't of called his combative abilities irrelevant.

That's called hyperbole. If it was literal, Dooku would've been one-shotted. They were relevant enough to keep the fight going for another thirteen seconds or whatever it was.

I've already lost track of why Anakin was in this discussion and I don't care enough to go back and find out, so I'm dropping this.

Not what it means. The quotes note their magic being fuelled by Dathomir. Said magic is unique, hereby making the dark-side on Dathomir different from other's. Only user's of said unique magic can tap into the power of Dathomir. It's a closed case.There is not a single quote saying otherwise or instance of a normal dark-sider being amped by dathomir, at least that I'm aware.

It's exactly what it means. The quotes literally only discuss the production of magicks. It has nothing to do with general amplifications.

And Vos draws on Dathomir for power in DD, which is another TCW-adjacent source. So yes, it can be tapped into by non-Nightsisters. Closed case indeed.

Grievous landed a solid blow back to Ventress as well.

He landed it first, and Ventress recovered from it.

And Maul was easily driving Grievous away while Grievous and Ventress were more or less stalemating before Ventress gained the upper hand.

Yeah, because Ventress went for a decisive blow which Maul couldn't manage. But we've agreed to disagree here.

Yes, except he wasn't rage amped against Anakin and Obi Wan, as per both his clear difference in demeanour and the two quotes saying he was actually hindered. And I'm not argueing for S5 Savage > Amped S3 Savage so I don't see why you even bought it up.

Probably because I think he was rage amped against Anakin and Obi-Wan as well.

Difference in demeanour? He literally starts the fight charging and screaming at them as they're sent flying. The fact that he was beginning to wear down and tire is not inconsistent with him still being enraged.

Circumstances literally define fights lol. In the fight circumstances TPM Obi Wan would stomp DE Sidious. There being circumstances in Maul and Grievous's first fight render's it void since we don't know what would of happened without said circumstances. However based off Lucas saying a much weaker version of Maul was on Grievous's level and Maul easily beating Grievous later in the comic, I think we can guess.

But you're missing the point here. This fight isn't a usable feat because it doesn't look good for Maul. Even if that's only for circumstantial reasons, it's not a usable fight.

And all that may well hold up for Lucas' vision of Grievous, but that's a bit different from the one that fought Mace in LoE and Dooku in OCW (who was still disarmed handily).

Which Filoni said hindered him:

That's a retrospective on S4, where Maul had just acquired them and had no combat experience with them. The fight in question takes place in S5, after Maul had numerous duels under his belt and was acclimatised to the legs.

This advantage would also apply to Savage too lol.

Maul is clearly the much greater tactician and has a much better understanding of stylistic approaches.

When? Dooku stomping Ventress before S3 is irrelevant since that version of Ventress is far inferior to S5 Savage. Ventress also fought evenly with Dooku at a point in DD, even driving him back for a time.

The example I had in mind was actually in S3, but this was a performative exercise in demonstrating cherry-picked circumstantial examples anyway.

We're taking Ashoka's mid combat taunts as canon now? Seriously? Said version of Maul was also severely hindered as per Almec and Witwer regaurdless.

And if you want to bring up S7, I'll bring up Filoni, SW.com and Witwer saying S7 Maul + Ashoka >= ROTS Sidious.

Honestly, given the standard for evidence you've presented so far, I don't think it looks particularly out of place.

I'll have to express doubts on the severe hindrance point, but again, this was a performative exercise so I'm not interested in quibbling over it.

*Easily driving him away. And in a pure duel no, Dooku would not have an easy time against Grievous based off the latter's performances against both Windu and Obi Wan.

Well, other than the fact that we saw him defeat Grievous rather handily in OCW, and we're told that Grievous pressing him was a rarity, sure...

I wholeheartedly agree. However it is enough to place them as relative peers or at least in the same range as each other.

Not really, not when it's clarified immediately as to what the likeness is.

We know he wasn't talking about potential since he said earlier in the quote that Maul could surpass Sidious (which is also stated IU) while Dooku and Post suit Vader could not.

I just checked the entire interview and this is the only time Maul was even mentioned, so once again you're being dishonest.

I've never seen that quote before. But regardless fair. Though there is no evidence for Mace underpeforming against Grievous, therefore it is void.

No, it's just too short to be relevant and against a totally different interpretation of Grievous to what Lucas had in mind anyway. It is a good feat for Grievous, but I don't see how it puts him that close to Mace. Fighting evenly with Mace for that period of time is something even Saesee Tiin has managed.

@hellothere5432: We're dancing around the same points with little to no progress and I'm not interested in protracted agonising over details for points we both don't seem to remember any longer. Let's not respond to points we don't need to and try to reduce the points of contention so we can come to some kind of consensus.

During those "few days" I became awfully busy with exams and other stuff irl and as such forgot about this debate until a few weeks ago where I re-stumbled upon it and decided to counter. And the only reason I've been active so much more than usual in the past few weeks is due to irl not being as demanding as it was beforehand. Let me assure you I have no fear of debating you, merely prioritise other things like CaV's and stuff irl.

I'm perfectly convinced that you don't have a fear of me, just as I'm convinced that you are willing to resort to dishonest and underhanded moves. This isn't the first instance where you've lied and misled people about your intentions and activity.

How was it self evident? Mace barely encountered Maul for long and never fought him one on one, so he wouldn't' have nearly an accurate of an evaluation of Maul. And there is far more to Dooku being the master than just power levels.

He'd just fought Maul, and I see no reason to subscribe to your notion that you need to fight someone one on one to gauge their abilities.

Hardly. Otherwise Dooku wouldn't note Kenobi becoming a master of Soresu:

If Obi Wan had only "became" a Master of Soresu then naturally he wouldn't have used it at least against Dooku. Otherwise the Count wouldn't be so surprised at Kenobi's turn to Soresu.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with my point. I think we can both read the text and see that Tyranus was surprised by the shift; I said Obi-Wan maintained Soresu afterwards as there was no point in returning to the ruse of Ataru anymore. This shouldn't be controversial.

Dooku's mid combat taunts mean less than nothing. And due to the Senior novel being line edited by Lucas it holds more weight than the comic.

I see no reason to believe there's any weighting associated with line edits, since even the novel contradicts the film. All we have is a confluence of different sources that we need to negotiate.

Citation? Also note that one part of a source being invalid doesn't inherently make the whole source invalid.

It's not text, but in the section on lightsaber forms where exemplary Jedi are displayed for each of the forms, we have classic cases like Dooku for Form II and Mace for Form VII. Obi-Wan is displayed for Form VI while Luminara is the representative for Form III.

Maul not throwing Obi Wan into unconsciousness means nothing since the only time Dooku had done so was when he caught Obi Wan off guard.

Your source only ascribes the initial Choke to surprise, not the incapacitation, and it contradicts the film regardless.

Just checked through the Homing Beacon interview and Gillard at no point mentions of even implies Anakin is "being on a slope". Regardless, I'm not seeing how my interpretation doesn't hold.

You're looking at the wrong one. It's in his interview for the game.

What's Anakin's particular fault?

Nick Gillard: Anakin has the least of them all, but his would be being on a slope.

How about Obi-Wan?

Nick Gillard: Obi's is his aggression. If he has a downfall that's it.

Pretty straightforward.

Yes, demonstrating Gillard's complete unreliability. So with that in mind his statements credibility in of themselves are horrific.

Gillard's notorious unreliability lies in his imprecise numbering for the tiers each time he's asked. What I was pointing out was a direct comparison between characters, given at the time of AotC, while you're trying to fit together a series of disparate statements over more than a decade to get a contradiction.

Though as far as I recall, I've never actually taken the stance that Anakin in AotC would easily beat Maul, so the point I was making must have been a performative one which we've spent far too much time dallying around without results. Not particularly keen on continuing this.

Maul's one placement coming out a few years after AOTC changes nothing. If anything Gillard could of realised he was mistaken or changed it.

Maul's placement came from an email only a few years ago, long after Gillard had stopped working on any of the movies, actually. He has never been part of the official rankings, that's just Gillard's estimate from many years after the fact.

Nope. He said the fights were meant to be like confrontations of near equals.

Yes, that reflects the intention behind the directing of the fight, which we have no reason to doubt.

A couple sourcebooks pale in comparison with the actual novels portraying Maul as having a comfortable edge as well as the film rather explicitly showing Maul handling the duo in the Hangar.

The novel depicts Maul having the advantage but also the Jedi "holding their own" and Maul being wounded even prior to Qui-Gon's meditation. You're obviously cherry-picking rather than looking at the whole picture here.

And the film doesn't contradict anything. It shows him being able to knock one of the Jedi off balance at various points but never seizing enough of an advantage to actually win outright, hence the continued fight into the power generator and the more significant separation there. If anything, it lends credence to the notion that he needed that drastic distance to focus his efforts on one of them.

Not only is this not the only thing hindering Maul on Tatooine, but Maul only draws on the pain for strength later on in the fight. Once he does so, in moments Jinn is nearly defeated, only surviving due to the convenient arrival of the ship. Doesn't exactly bode well for the supposed parity between them.

You neglect that Qui-Gon had literally just been running in the desert before this fight; regardless, it seems like a walk in the desert is a fairly paltry trial for someone like Maul who has been subjected to much worse. This seems like a whole lot of reaching to find circumstantial evidence for widening the gap between them when comparisons make it explicitly clear that they're close.

And Qui Gon being amped, both by Anakin's presence and the LS Nexus on Tatooine:

This is laughable. Anakin being the vergence is him being the Chosen One. Maul's speculation that Anakin had somehow abetted Qui-Gon is part of his frenzied search for excuses as to his failure; he literally starts the fight thinking that the Force was favouring Qui-Gon.

There's no LS nexus. Your card is some trivial source that seems to be describing a very specific location on Tatooine. There's no reason whatsoever for me to believe that it had anything to do with the duel.

Would be overridden by the wealth of sources claiming otherwise, including the Lucas line edited novel:

That doesn't contradict anything. Qui-Gon was spent and nearly killed as a result of his flagging stamina, but he put up a good fight before that.

He was "allowing the Jedi to think that they were succeeding". Very clearly holding back.

Not at all, that just means he was tactically luring them into a place of his choosing. That reflects his chosen approach to his fight, but says nothing about how much effort he was putting into it. You're certainly quite the imaginative interpreter, though.

And if that's not enough then here's this:

As you've already established, Maul is highly arrogant and overconfident. He had similar thoughts a moment prior to Obi-Wan bisecting him.

Maul doesn't want Obi Wan to die yet. The complete opposite picture of someone being massively pressured or needing to seperate his opponents and win.

He realises this after he'd already kicked Obi-Wan away and wasn't in a position to do anything about it. This is just typical Sith eagerness rearing its head; it certainly doesn't contradict what sources explicitly tell us about his need to separate them.

And based off Maul's complete domination of the Jedi in the hangar while holding back, I would argue yes, he could of killed the Jedi there had that been his intention from the get go.

As far as I'm aware, no source explicitly identifies Maul's ability to have won without separating them, bar perhaps his own ego. That's contrary to the rather direct statements that Maul needed the separation. You can cite as many sources as you want of Maul holding the upper hand; I won't contest them, but I'll point out that having the upper hand isn't the same as having somebody dead to rights. There's simply no contradiction between your sources and my comments on the fight, despite what you're obviously wishing.

Again, this is the clear mindset of someone who views it as a game. A notion reiterated by:

So his enjoyment of the fight means he was holding back? Funny, you refused to take that stance with Palpatine.

Qui Gon wasn't tired at the beginning of the duel though?

He was tired when he meditating... I didn't think that needed to be spelled out.

And meditations have been confirmed as amp for Jedi:

Well, it's too bad he didn't actually do damage then, isn't it?

Said notion is reiterated by the script and the Junior novel:

That's called desperation and drive. Fights aren't static in how they go down. Not convinced of any amp.

Doesn't really mean much considering Maul wasn't going all out at that point and it's from Obi Wan's POV. It's only natural for him to favour his master, father figure of sorts, over a Sith Lord - something he has been raised from birth to believe are the absolute evil.

We have Qui Gon himself admitting Maul is comfortably ahead:

Why is Obi-Wan's POV biased with respect to Qui-Gon, but Maul's PoV isn't with respect to himself?

And I've always acknowledged that Maul was leading the fight. I just don't believe you've established that it means as much of a disparity as you've said it does.

Not the point. The point it, it's coming from Anakin, also the guy who practically worships Qui Gon and see's Maul as a demon. The fact that he of all people believe Maul to be ahead speaks for itself.

Anakin respecting Qui-Gon's character and status as a Jedi doesn't preclude him from thinking people (including "another Jedi", as he interpreted Maul at first) can compare to him.

Counteracted by Gillard's other comments, as detailed above. And there are other ways to debunk this as well. For instance Qui Gon > Fisto per Gillard. Fisto tooled S2 Obi Wan in spars who himself is obviously > AOTC Anakin.

Gillard ranking Qui-Gon above Kit comes from an unofficial remark made many years after he worked in any official capacity. There's no reason to lend it the same weight as a published source. And what happened to Gilllard being notoriously unreliable?

There was enough to affirm parity.

Their clashes are also referred to as "again and again."

1. Sure, parity in the limited timespan involved.

2. So they clashed blades three times? An exhausted Shaak clashed blades with Grievous more times than that on Hypori.

He's not:

I can sense him, Grievous. That creature, Savage Opress, is growing stronger and stronger as each day passes.

Source: TCW Season 4 Episode 21

Yes, that's accurate as a general comparison of the character. But Savage in that particular episode was vastly overperforming for the level he should have been at, so the comparison isn't relevant here.

They grew as well? Savage also beat Ventress lol and there were a wealth of circumstances even without the amp in S5 outlined in SC which contributed to the brother's performance.

And Savage and Kenobi's brief bout in the S4 fight merely prove Kenobi is out of Savage's stomp range which is never shown in S3 anyway.

Savage literally sent Ventress flying with one blow in WotM, while later on the Turtle Tanker, she was able to stonewall a leaping assault from him.

Likewise, Savage dominates both Anakin and Obi-Wan, yet in all later encounters fails to demonstrate anything of the sort against Obi-Wan alone.

To an extent sure. However not when they are rushing to attack their opponent and know that their opponent are aware of their presence.

That doesn't mean he was anticipating a telekinetic attack at that moment. He was trying to get Maul's attention and as far as he'd known up to this point, Maul's modus operandi was to engage in lightsaber combat. Their two bouts prior to this were virtually entirely physical in nature.

Well obviously his power was the reason for him flinging Obi Wan across the room lol. However it was his knowledge which allowed him to exploit an opening in Kenobi's guard.

Well that's according to the junior novel, which contradicts the film - by your standards, that should invalidate the junior novel. You've already conceded to this.

My comparison was strictly about flinging Obi-Wan across the room - the actual ragdoll - anyway. I wasn't comparing them Choking him. I was comparing the force with which they could fling him into walls.

Force exploitation and lightsaber exploitation are not the same.

Half of the portrayals of the fight (the comic and your beloved line-edited novel) depict Dooku exploiting Obi-Wan's lapse with a physical attack. Only half depict Force exploitation.

Well if there's no evidence for it, either visually or a quote, then no, that's not the case.

That's entirely the standard in the lore, actually.

Could be mistaken here, but wasn't that your original argument?

No, my argument is that Tyranus flung Obi-Wan into a wall with demonstrably far greater force than Maul did. As it's turned out, the single even remotely comparable instance on Maul's end involved him being the beneficiary of an outstanding rage amplification.

Obi Wan is an exception to this - due to his unique rivalry with Maul.

Not at all. TCW Maul employs these tactics habitually with various Jedi - refer to the comics and his fight with Ahsoka. He's a completely different character now.

Hardly. Nothing indicates Maul's preference for blade to blade combat over force abuse changed between TPM and TCW.

Other than the actual fights themselves, which are about as strong of evidence as you could possibly muster. TPM Maul employed Force attacks in duels about once - to end the fight with Obi-Wan. TCW Maul employs telekinesis liberally.

And if you continue to read the quote you will see Obi Wan draws said conclusion from the extent to which Dooku dominated him compared to everyone else. It's very clearly the inferred context.

They're two separate statements. The first statement refers to the mere act of encountering such power, with the second adding that he had never experienced such domination.

Gasping for breath doesn't necessarily mean you are completely out of energy.

But in this case, it clearly is. This isn't a point worth labouring over.

Based on?

Based on the duels sharing the exact same arc? Yoda slowly drives Dooku back until the latter's spent, at which point they exchange words briefly and the Count escapes by threatening Obi-Wan and Anakin's lives.

This is self-evident. If you were arguing in good faith, you'd try to reconcile and reduce the points in contention as much as possible. Instead, you seem to be eager to pick unnecessary fights and force people to reiterate the obvious as some kind of battle of attrition.

Maul stared up at his Master’s face. He saw the strain as Sidious called upon the Force to keep the brothers at bay.

Or at least, that's what he thinks he's seeing. A character opinion doesn't really rank up with the litany of objective quotes indicating otherwise. For the record, this also contradicts the show, which doesn't depict any strain on his face during the initial saberlock.

As for Maul pinning Sidious, didn't I already reconcile that with the quotes about Palpatine enjoying himself? He allowed Maul to do it for sport. The fight was "intense" and prolonged because Sidious kept up the illusion of the fight being close, again for sport. He was never in any real danger and struggled maybe once or twice, at which point he put his back into the fight and "maul[ed] Maul", to use Filoni's own words. That reconciles all the commentary on the fight pretty nicely, I think.

The vast majority of the sources state that Palpatine was Maul's vast superior and was simply having fun; it's even stated outright that he won easily. I don't think this could be more clear-cut.

Means nothing since the novel explicitly states Dooku was helpless to do anything:

It means that he probably could've performed better if he had anticipated it.

What the cited text means is that Dooku had no chance of doing anything besides prolonging the inevitable, which I've already accepted.

No, KFV fully embraced the dark side:

That's him trying to convince himself that he did. The junior novel explicitly has Sidious sensing that his ties to the dark side weren't as strong as they should be, but hoping that killing the Jedi would make it so.

1. MF Vader's shortcomings don't apply to KFV.

2. Senior novel also naturally overrides the Junior Novel.

Novel > comic.

1. I wasn't referring to Mustafar.

2. Nope, no reason to believe that. Since the canonical hierarchy has been abolished, there's no reason why Lucas' input is a stamp of greater authority.

Yes they do. Second quote notes the Night sister's being the only ones able to tap into the magic which is fuelled by the dark energies of the planet, aka the dark-side. That's what the dark side does on Dathomir. Said magic is also noted as being unique to the night sister's.

Yes, the magic, which as I said is referring to their exclusive ability to cast spells of the ichor variety. That has nothing to do with the ambient dark side nexus. You're reaching and adding to the quotes, which simply don't say what you want them to say.

Here's another quote affirming the dark-side on Dathomir being unique to the nightsisters:

Again, this says nothing of the sort. They embody the potential of the planet due to their ability to tap into the dark side and cast ichor-based spells, which others can't. That doesn't preclude the planet's dark side nexus from being tapped into in more conventional ways, which would very much represent a failure to exploit the planet's unique potential.

Per the definition of a spar he was.

Sith sparring is of a distinctly different character. This seems like a bizarre point to labour when there's no strict evidence.

Which in of itself confirms they are peers. Why else would Mace want to stop fighting Grievous?

Because he had an urgent mission to get to the Chancellor, and time was of the essence? Just because he couldn't afford a protracted duel to determine a victor doesn't mean he couldn't manage a win under circumstances more conducive to a proper duel.

Okay:

But that immediately clarifies the kind of advantages that you can have by referring to multiple attackers and Force attacks, which don't apply here.

I'm not interested in litigating this, however, and I don't see any harm in accepting this. I don't see how this changes any point in contention. The point was that Maul failed to show any of this apparently significant superiority against Grievous in the Issue 1 fight. You can try to explain it away with circumstances, but we're still unable to use the fight.

And Maul is confirmed to have not recovered from his torture when facing Grievous:

As I understand, that quote is from a canon-only source?

Ventress never easily drove Grievous away lol. They were closely matched in their fight.

No, she did better than drive him away by landing a decisive blow, lol. Maul failed to land anything of the sort.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree, as I think it's fairly obvious that Maul driving Grievous away refers to the combined context of the lightsaber clashes and his Force Push.

S3 Savage at no point dominated Ventress, unless you count when he was rage amped. And addressed this point above.

Yes, I'm referring to the rage amp. That's the only time Savage attacked her.

Difference is there is explicit context surrounding Maul's fights with Obi Wan which I can go over if you wish. And Dooku having a form advantage over Obi Wan in TCW.

Maul has an advantage over Savage too, owing to his legs and familiarity with Savage after fighting side-by-side with him. But we can also point to Dooku's superior performances against Ventress, more favourable comparisons to Anakin (being roughly equal to RotS Jedi Anakin, whom Ahsoka remarked would make short work of Maul), Grievous (actually disarming him and not just "driving him away"), etc. in addition to his better performances against Obi-Wan.

I imagine you'll be able to protest the circumstances in all of these, and I'd agree entirely. But this is entirely my point - all fights involve circumstances and almost every one we've cited so far has been laden with them. That's why the ABC logic doesn't fly. Not without some pretty airtight analysis; and doing that has made it clear that we can't seem to reach a consensus on almost any one of these fights.

Which is invalid how?

Explained above (and immediately after the section you quoted, actually).

Comic never says he was on guard either iirc.

We don't need it to say that lmao, we need it to indicate that he was off-guard somehow.

Great counter and appeal to majority fallacy. As far as semantics go, yes that quote does work. Provide something other than appeals to incredulity if you want that to change.

There's no appeal to anything, I'm just ridiculing your capacity for inserting meaning into words that don't have them. I don't have an interest in engaging bad faith interpretations.

The quote says he is "like" Dooku and Maul, which only indicates a shared quality of some sort, not parity. That shared quality is immediately clarified when Lucas goes on to talk about how none of them could surpass Palpatine.

Citation?

I refuse to believe that someone who's willing to search for obscure quotes with your degree of pedantry is unable to find the quote, but here:

Mace was highly distressed that his mission involved fighting his old friend and colleague Sora Bulq.

Source: Fact File #108

This is most likely how this fight would go down if it was written in a story.

Light really isn't a good character for these threads lol

I think the answer's pretty different depending on whether we're going by game mechanics or lore.

@hellothere5432: Covid isolation's giving me some spare time, so I figured I'd make a response. Your "few days" which turned into two months' delay (all while you were perfectly active) looks awfully like waiting for your interlocutor to disappear before responding behind their back, though. Seems like the ultimate "cheap jab" to me.

Servants aren't trained by their master's. A twenty year old training a seventy + year old is simply illogical. Not to mention the Jedi knowing Maul had been inactive between TPM and TCW, as Maul says as such to Obi Wan " It was I who languished for years thinking of nothing but you." And Maul being crippled from Naboo also solidifies him not being around to train Dooku from TPM to TCW.

Essentially leaving Maul no time to supposedly train Dooku. Once again making any notion of Maul being the master of the two illogical.

But Mace's interpretation was clearly self-evident rather than "logical" in nature, and once again a significant disparity in Maul's favour would've prompted him to question any such logic anyway. It's clear such a thing doesn't exist; if anything, the opposite.

The novel states Dooku only at that point realised Kenobi had become a master of Soresu. If Kenobi was using Soresu constantly against Dooku, that wouldn't come as a surprise.

That's because Obi-Wan was using Ataru as a ruse beforehand, but his switch to Soresu afterward seems positively permanent to me, given the ruse had been exposed by then. You've also neglected that other portrayals of the fight display no such thing. The comic, for instance, has Dooku simply claiming that Obi-Wan is predictable and knocking him out instantly.

The guidebook you cited does not even list Obi-Wan as a master of Soresu but of Niman, anyway.

I concede this point. Still it is irrelevant considering Base Maul still accomplished the same feat.

He certainly hasn't. His previous ragdoll into a wall in that fight left Obi-Wan completely unfazed. I don't recall any other time Maul throwing a healthy Obi-Wan has led to anything that could even be interpreted as unconsciousness.

Following your interpretation, Anakin too would be hindered by his anger, something which is hardly the case.

Regardless, "fault" doesn't mean it is a hindrance, merely that it is an unwanted trait, which is reasonable since Jedi aren't supposed to use their aggression.

Obi-Wan's aggression is explicitly stated to be his weakness. In the same answer, Gillard claims that Anakin's is "being on a slope", which makes it clear that he's talking about something very different to what you are.

Going onto the offensive is hardly the same as fighting with anger. And following this, Kenobi was hindered against Dooku in S6, since he went on the offensive there as well.

Obi-Wan is explicitly noted as taking the offensive in the Florrum fight. The duel with Dooku was a case of him trading blows and positions with the Count and being caught out of position a few times, yes.

I'm not claiming AOTC Anakin is a 5. I'm merely pointing out the inconsistencies in Gillard's statements. However from that quote, yes AOTC Anakin is a 4 in fact, since Gillard has said that at beginning of ROTS, Anakin was an 8:

Except that's a different statement from Gillard, and the entire point here is that Gillard has different levels every time you ask him. So there's no reason to take your fusion of different quotes as any indication of what Gillard was thinking. Again, Gillard has separately suggested that Anakin is on an entirely different level to Yoda, which would certainly put the "four levels" increase in perspective.

None of this contradicts his rather explicit comparison between the two characters, especially since he's made the point of indicating that the levels indicate how well you've learned rather than how well you fight per se. Again, if anybody can circumvent the restrictions of their training to perform above their alleged paygrade, it's the Chosen One. After all, the entire point of the AotC duel is that Anakin holds his own against Tyranus, who is established as TPM Maul's significant superior by Gillard.

That quote was referencing to inside the tier's themselves, how people in the same tier compare to each other.

Which naturally includes Dooku and Maul... the former of whom Gillard has given the upper hand to both officially and unofficially.

And has affirmed that in a fair fight, the higher tiers always win:

That's not what the quote says, it says they "could easily win". As always, narrative and environmental circumstances can influence the outcome of fights.

If he really saw AOTC Anakin as a stomp gap above Maul, then he wouldn't be a tier below Maul. Also, the tiering system was worked on by Lucas as well, so it holds more weight than Gillard's random statements.

Except Maul is never officially ranked in the tiers because they were only conceived from AotC onwards. Maul's entire placement in the tiering system is down to "Gillard's random statements".

Gillard says they were supposed to appear as near equals. Which they did. On Tatooine Maul was hindered by his leg injury, making him and Jinn closer than normal. Though despite this he was still overwhelming Jinn as the Lucas line edited novel portrays:

No, he says they were equals, not that they looked like it, and it's backed by several other quotes. Maul's hindrance is significantly counterbalanced by him drawing on the pain for strength.

Cherry-picked snippets of Maul driving Qui-Gon back don't contradict anything. The novel goes on to say that Qui-Gon and Maul drove each other back and forth, in support of my point:

The most recent depiction of the fight in End Game clearly states that Maul only began to get the genuine upper hand at the end when Qui-Gon tired out.

And during the Naboo fight, Maul wasn't going all out until the end, as he was luring the Jedi to the generator core. Giving the illusion that he and Qui Gon were close.

Your quote only says that he was luring them to the Core, not that he was holding back beforehand. It's pretty obvious that Maul had to do it as a means of securing victory, as supported by numerous other quotes.

And Qui Gon was amped during their final fight, which the novel also states:

Qui-Gon was attacking with strength that hindered Maul's progress, that wasn't happening before given the phrase "and now".

Drop the fanciful theories. It wasn't happening before because Qui-Gon was tiring and he rested in between that segment.

By the way, the novel also has Obi-Wan stating that Qui-Gon was the best swordsman he'd ever seen... even after the entirety of that duel with Maul. And a closer look at your quotes suggests that they don't support your points nearly as well as you think they do:

He was skilled, Anakin saw-more skilled, perhaps, than the men he faced. And he was confident in a way that was disturbing. He would not be overcome easily.

The "perhaps" makes it pretty clear that any disparity is slight at best, which is in line with my interpretation. It's certainly not some vast gap as you're suggesting.

And solidified by the duel in the novel going from Maul being in control of the duel against Qui Gon + Obi Wan to Qui Gon alone near equalling him.

No, because two-versus-ones don't necessarily involve better performances. Anakin in the RotS junior novel was on par with Dooku while alone and wasn't doing better with Obi-Wan involved.

No he couldn't of. Firstly, Lucas has confirmed TPM Maul is at the very least on Grievous's level:

Nah, this ABC logic doesn't contradict my rather explicit comparisons of Anakin's abilities to Qui-Gon's. Performances in a fight come down to much more than mere comparisons of abilities, hence why things don't always line up as we expect.

Grievous being able to fight evenly with Mace while hindered:

For a brief instance, which isn't conclusive.

Savage at that point being able to fight evenly with/beat S3 Obi Wan and Anakin while hindered:

Savage in Witches of the Mist is also a PIS-induced character far above any of his later incarnations, as seen in him failing to replicate those performances against Ventress and Obi-Wan in later fights.

So Obi Wan rushing to attack Maul doesn't count as a "combat-relevant scenario." Seriously?

It's identical to the circumstances in which he attacked Tyranus, so I'm quite serious indeed. You either take both or neither.

And Obi Wan was indeed on guard against Maul:

It had become instinctive for all the apprentices, almost second nature. As soon as the blade was drawn, the protective veil went up.Guarding against the Force powers of the enemy and obscuring your own intentions required as much concentration and energy as augmenting your physical prowess or anticipating the moves of your foe. It was that unseen part of combat, the invisible battle of wills, not the obvious interaction of bodies and blades, that more often than not decided the fate of a duel.

Source: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

Even novice Jedi's force barrier's went up when they drew their blades in fights. Obi Wan had his blade drawn all the times Maul rag dolled him and was never stated to have been off guard. Therefore he was on guard.

He also had his blade drawn up against Tyranus and is certainly no novice. It's clear from your line of argument that you think even Master Jedi can easily let their guard slip in combat situations.

Grievous is sub ROTS Dooku per the Lucas quote and Grievous can't use the force, so he can't exploit openings the way Dooku can.

Fact is, Dooku's knowledge was the reason for him overpowering Obi Wan with the force, not his power. Nothing states this was the same with Maul. Nothing more to be said.

Nah, other quotes state quite clearly that Tyranus' power was responsible for his incapacitation of Kenobi. There's just a few wayward quotes you like to latch onto.

Grievous below Dooku doesn't change the fact that he has the same alleged knowledge advantages.

Are you really going to claim Dooku would have an issue with dispersing more power around to incapacitate the Pykes and Anakin, along with Obi Wan? Especially considering a weaker version of Dooku was able to casually pick up around over a dozen pillars with the force, more than affirming that he can disperse enough power to dismiss a few pykes:

I'm claiming that it's obviously a weaker attack than one concentrated on Kenobi, lol.

Following this, Dooku cannot rag doll Obi Wan, since he didn't do so during any of their fights in TCW or AOTC, nor during the beginning of ROTS?

The AotC fight is explicitly stated and shown to be toying, with Dooku being described as "battle-hungry" and other sources indicating that he was interested in testing Obi-Wan's lightsaber skills.

That said, I'm of the view that even superior Force users wait until a lapse in their opponent's Force defences before ragdolling them, rather than just overpowering their defences on a whim. Even I don't think Tyranus can just ragdoll Obi-Wan whenever he wants to; the gap isn't that big.

Regardless, there are a few reasons as to why:

Firstly, Maul prefers lightsaber combat a great deal, this has been emphasised consistently:

This refers to TPM Maul, not TCW Maul. Your own quote says he neglects Dun Moch, which he evidently doesn't by TCW as per the Turtle Tanker fight. We can safely dismiss this quote.

Secondly, the show needs a fight. This is also why force user's don't just rag doll characters like Grievous or Bounty Hunter's instantly, to overpower them.

But between Force users, it's typically because they're actually just close, with the exception of Sidious which then gets explained away as him playing around.

Citations would be appreciated. There could be plenty of other factors at play. And assuming Ferus wasn't combat ready for Vader's blitz attack, it isn't comparable to Obi Wan in TSH. You're also going to need to provide proof of Vader being unable to rag doll Ferus under normal circumstances.

They're from Last of the Jedi: Secret Weapon and Reckoning and are pretty widely available on RTs.

I never said Vader was unable to ragdoll Ferus. All I said was that being mid-speech can result in you lowering your guard to whatever degree.

No, the Junior novel states Obi Wan was trying to attack Dooku from two directions and wasn't expecting an attack, which is why he was rag dolled. Meanwhile there is nothing at all insinuating the same for Maul, with all the evidence actually being to the contrary.

Except this doesn't square up with your earlier quote about how novices put their guard up the moment they draw their blade. A Master Jedi isn't going to let that up just because they're attacking somebody from behind.

Since you think it's easy enough to Obi-Wan to drop his defences if he simply isn't expecting an attack, why should it be any different when he doesn't expect an attack mid-speech? He was trying to get Maul's attention then.

Your continued reliance on the junior novel in spite of your prior concession regarding the film's alternate depiction (where Obi-Wan was still ragdolled) is pretty telling.

Because in most fights, you won't have the chance to focus on abusing the force, as you will be defenceless for that moment.

That's not a concern in most of Maul's fights with Obi-Wan though, since he's engaging him in a 1v1 or even 2v1.

I fail to see how my interpretation doesn't hold up. Gillard clarifying that being in the same tier doesn't mean being equals doesn't place Dooku over Maul at all.

Because that comment wasn't an answer to a question. It's obvious he threw it in because of its relevance, and we know the direction in which he holds the two combatants since he has previously claimed that Tyranus exceeds anybody in TPM.

This interpretation would hold if the entire quote didn't revolve around Obi Wan drawing said interpretation from Dooku overpowering him. That's what the entire quote revolves around.

The "quote" is actually two statements, with the former simply stating that Obi-Wan had never encountered such power before. That's not conditional on his loss. And as suggested previously, Obi-Wan's circumstances in the TPM duel don't stop him from appreciating Maul's abilities by any means. It's quite clear what the intention and effect of the quote is.

Nothing in the text insinuates Dooku being utterly out of energy. And annihilated is rather explicitly meaning dominate.

Other than him gasping for breath and being described similarly to the end of their bout in AotC, which this duel was meant to mirror?

No, annihilated here clearly refers to the taking of Dooku's life lol, in much the way a missile annihilates the inhabitants of a city.

Yes you can.

I'm happy to see proof of somebody tiring faster because they're holding back. The obvious parallel to draw here would be Sidious against Maul on Hypori, which ends with Maul realising that Sidious had "barely tapped into his reserves".

If you think of reserves as fuel, it's pretty obvious that holding back in your performance would result in lesser consumption. There isn't any precedent as to otherwise in the mythos, though I'm sure you'll be able to conjure more fanciful nonsense in support of your point.

He was. He says so himself.

That was prior to them actually fighting.

Because he still wanted to persuade Dooku, and to not have to harm him. Once he says he will kill Dooku however, that changes entirely.

Your interpretation still rests on this change in attitude occurring mid-duel without any narrative developments or dialogue, which is laughable.

It's extremely clear that his last pleadings with the Count were when they first drew blades, but had yet to commit to the fight. By the time he sets down the mother and engages Tyranus fully, it's clear he's committed to the Count's demise, as was the case in AotC.

Also, if you're going to claim Dooku vs Zonakin wasn't a stomp, then you will also have to acknowledge bloodlusted Maul vs Sidious not being a stomp. Since Maul lasted longer, forced Sidious onto the backfoot and landed a kick to Sidious. And Sidious being explicitly portrayed as struggling heavily to overcome Maul in the blade lock:

I'm entirely happy to take Palpatine struggling to overcome Maul in the bladelock, because that's the one time he has to actually put his back into the fight here.

Regarding Dooku vs Zonakin, if you look past Stover's purple prose, he clearly describes the fight as ongoing, merely one-sided. He even describes Force attacks and an absence of ragdolling. You can well argue any one-sided fight to be a stomp. I'm just observing that the term is typically employed for more drastic defeats.

Not to a large extent, but it still exists. Meanwhile KFV fully embraced the dark-side. And KFV was an equal of Sidious per Lucas:

Even KFV wasn't fully connected to the dark side per Sidious in the junior novel. There isn't a huge disparity. Anakin isn't ever at his hypothetical best; he's hindered throughout RotS in some way or form.

No he wasn't. He went all out before Zonakin:

That isn't what I'm referring to. The website explicitly states that he failed to anticipate Anakin's sudden surge of strength:

You ignored the second quote entirely. The second quote states that the Nightsisters were the only ones capable of wielding the power on Dathomir. Nightsister Magic being a part of the dark-side render's any quote saying the dark-side is on Dathomir, to amp Maul, void.

Neither quote states only the Nightsisters benefitted from the dark side nexus of Dathomir. Both quotes explicitly refer to the production of magicks which aren't related to my point.

When the General has to hold back on his physicals. Grievous is indeed close to Dooku as a duelist, since he fought evenly with Mace while hindered, who DR confirms to be a peer of Dooku.

There's no indication that Grievous holds back on his physicals at all.

He fought evenly with Mace in the span of Kit blitzing the Magnaguards, which isn't saying much. Mace wasn't interested in a protracted duel.

In their first fight, Maul had previously been fighting Grievous's entire droid army for a considerable amount of time, including 4 magna guards, and had before that had lost his brother and had been tortured by Sidious and Dooku. And Juyo is inherently weak against counterattacks. It's hardly a fair comparison.

Juyo is only stated to be weak to Force counterattacks. You still haven't supplied any evidence for that.

And my interpretation of the Maul easily beating Grievous quote is only solidified by the comic:

Maul and Grievous were visibly much further away from the cave at the beginning of the duel, than at the end of the duel. Cementing Maul driving Grievous away during that time.

Which still amounts to a lesser showing than Ventress, somebody who's well below the Count.

Literally said night sister's were amped by Dathomir. Ventress is a Nightsisters. And Lucas was purely referencing the film villains, as he said "that we've had." Referencing the team behind the PT, which is different to the team behind the 2003 show. And DR already confirming Grievous > Ventress.

All dark siders are amped on Dathomir. Your quotes only pertain to ichor magicks which aren't related to either of the duels with Grievous. Both Ventress and Maul benefitted from the nexus, and Maul hardly outperformed her.

Y:DR isn't really describing the same Grievous, though. If you want to reconcile Y:DR with TCW, then it's retconned into taking place in 22BBY, well before the events of either duel - and therefore giving Ventress plenty of time to catch up to him.

And that is far from my only argument for Maul > Dooku:

This is just more crude ABC logic. PIS-induced Savage is far above his later incarnations who never display dominance against Ventress or Obi-Wan in the same fashion again.

This is no different than contrasting Tyranus' dominance of Obi-Wan in S6 to Maul's relative parity with him throughout their duels. Or Dooku knocking him out with contemptuous ease in the RotS comic. It's pretty easy to cherry-pick material to support your case, especially if you're going to ignore everything else to the contrary.

As for the old TPM Maul being ranked alongside Dooku and Vader by Lucas, nobody really buys that rather sad and desperate perversion of the quote, lol.

And I found the Beware the Sith quote saying TPM Maul > Dooku in force power and force skill:

Congratulations, we've found contradictory stats. It's a good thing I've never tried to argue that fights are decided by putting in arbitrary stats from books (which aren't even RPG sourcebooks) into a calculator.

This book also suggests that Maul is significantly less cunning and mentally strong, which is probably not something you agree with. Even SoD makes a point of Maul's cunning in capturing Tyranus.

Mace jobbing does mean he was holding back which is what you were claiming.

Jobbing means underperforming in general. I know the intent behind my own words.

Only during TPM, and during the later stages during the war.

Ever since TPM, more like.

No, it merely signifies Mace's growth during the war.

Nope, Mace is said to be distressed after the revelation with Bulq. He's always been a clear cut superior to Ventress; see AotC Anakin being a peer of Ventress, whereas you've already made the point of Mace's superiority to Anakin.