Until Kyle Katarn fought Jacen, I had never seen anything from him. He's some kind of hardcore, from what I've read. We need more novels on these guys! Kyle, Corran, Kyp. I'd love to see original adventures by all these guys.
The potential is definitely there, but its never tapped for some strange reason. I really do hope for a third Jaden Korr novel to wrap everything up though.
Corran has had a bit of exposure - the X-Wing series, "I, Jedi" and some of the NJO books; but more would not come amis! Kyp, too, has had a bit of exposure, but as second-fiddle (maybe Luke/Council still don't really trust him, deep down, not to blow up more systems!). Kyle has been criminally ignored - he's supposed to be the Jedi Warmaster, for Force's sake!
He's been ignored for the same reason that Stele was ignored by EU up until a single namedrop in Outcast; because galaxy-spanning threats would be too easily defeated if they unleashed them.
I've only read the first one, and I wasn't thrilled with it... though to be fair, that was Kyle in his really early days. I might have to try the other two. Of course, it does have that legendary "An officer turned, saw Kyle, and died." line Doesn't help that my only other experience with Deitz's work is the exceptionally bad Mass Effect book
If Kyle had been accurately portrayed, Jacen would have bitten the dust right there. Kyle took out seven Dark Jedi, one of whom was near Vader-level, while he was still figuring out the whole lightsaber combat thing with a little bit of guidance from a Force ghost. Thirty-odd years and who knows how many dead bad guys later (including beating a fully armored Vong in hand-to-hand combat), he should have pantsed the little Sith-wannabe brat. At least he survived getting hit in the back with a freaking airspeeder and then impaled.
Well, theoretically Jacen is supposed to be above even Vader, though it seems many don't feel most of LOTF portrayed him that way. Beating Kyle was probably intended to be Jacen's rite of passage into badass villain category. Too bad how that one turned out.
Where did Jacen learn to fight with transportation? Surely not on the playing fields of Eton (Prisoner of Zenda reference)! Seriously, since Desann dueled Luke to a stalemate, and Kyle later thrashed that big lizard (who had a serious height and Lightsaber length advantage), he should have had no problem at all!
Playing devils advocate here, I guess, but that was a pretty young Luke, and Desann ended up running. Really, I've got no problem with Jacen being the second most skilled Jedi in the order, but I haven't read LOTF, so my opinion of him has yet to be irrevocably stained.
All things being equal, Kyle should have developed roughly in step with Luke. Actually, Desann was running to catch a ship!
Well again I can more than believe Jacen/Caedus was stronger in the Force, but in lightsaber ability? No, I don't think so.
I am a massive Luke Skywalker fan. He's my favorite Jedi, but surely he isn't head and shoulders above the rest, right? I mean, if Jacen was supposed to be so insanely powerful (more powerful than anybody except Luke, from what I've gathered), then how is it that Luke was able to so easily defeat him on the bridge of the Anakin Solo? He held him to the floor with the Force to the point that Jacen couldn't even turn his head. That would mean that Luke stands head and shoulders above all the other Jedi, that none even come close, not even Kyp or Kyle. Luke the greatest Jedi of all time? To me, yes. But surely there have got to be others nearly as powerful as him. After all, Yoda and Dooku were near equals, and Yoda was considered the most powerful Jedi of his time, even by Sidious.
If you believe that Luke Skywalker inherited all of Anakin Skywalker's potential with the Force- personally, I do- then he would stand quite a bit above most other Jedi. Anakin is described as a "being of pure Force", after all, in The Tenebrous Way. We know that Anakin had the potential to almost double Palpatine's strength. Even if you don't take "double" literally (I don't), being stronger than Palpatine is enough to testament enough for being above almost all other Jedi. As strange as it is, it often seems that Force strength and skill with the lightsaber go hand in hand. I guess it makes sense in the context of Star Wars though, since all Jedi seem to rely heavily on their precognitive abilities in lightsaber fights.
I understand that, but still you have times wher I actually can believe that, but still you have times with a person significantly weaker in the force holding their own against someone far stronger, due simply to lightsaber skill. Ulic Qel-Droma vs Exar Kun, Asajj Ventress vs Mace Windu, Kas'im vs Darth Bane, etc. It seems to me that Kyle vs Caedus would be this type of case, instead of say Yoda vs Palpatine (Where both combatants are known to be excellent duelists and powerful Force Users) Kyle's no slouch in the Force to begin with, and he took on 7 Dark Jedi when he was only half trained. Jacen's pretty much the opposite. A Force Powerhouse, but someone who's never focused that much on lightsaber combat in his later years. That's why I found the fight to be so disappointing.
Now that you mention Ulic Qel-Droma, one noteworthy instance is him actually holding his own with a Jedi in Redemption. Either he was ridiculously good while he could use the Force that he can still take most Jedi, or maybe he did a great deal of training in the 10 years he was severed. Either way, it's the only example I can think of of a non-Force sensitive holding their own against a fully trained Jedi in a lightsaber fight. Well, I guess Viszla did okay against Obi-Wan in TCW.
Well General Grievous comes to mind, but its not like he's a normal organic. There's that one girl from the YJK series who was addicted to spice. Anja...Gallandro? I don't know if she actually fought anyone, but she was able to use the blade properly from what I remember. But yeah Ulic's definitely the standout. From what I remember though, when he was a Knight he was known as one of the best duelists in the Order. So that's something that could've made up for the lack of the Force...though to go toe to toe with a force user is something else.
A bit back on topic, I've long been curious as to the makeup of Jaden's Academy class in 14 ABY. Luke was assigning multiple students (presumably two each) to a master and if I remember correctly early on we see twelve students and six masters (including Kyle) standing before Luke. We know Corran was one of the masters, with Raltharan as a student. Makes me wonder who the other four masters were, and if we can put any known Jedi into that illustrious group of students. It makes some sense that those twelve would have suffered casualties against the Disciples of Ragnos; in theory at least they would have been the most inexperienced Jedi on the field.
By the same token, in the battle with Ragnos there is A LOT (TM) of Jedi. Especially if you go for the Dark ending. Way more than were on Yavin. (the battle on Korriban that is)
Yes, which makes me wonder how fast the Praxeum turned them out and how much attrition there was. JK:JA takes place just three years after Luke's first class opened on Yavin IV and we have a fair amount of lightsaber-wielding Jedi in the final level; however 11 years later at the start of the YV war there are only about 100 Knights in the order. We might be able to ignore some of the bits in JA as gameplay or level design factors, but it seems to indicate that either a) the Praxeum grew very rapidly in its first few years, then admissions slowed to a crawl; or b) there was a pretty high washout or mortality rate. I imagine the fight against the Disciples of Ragnos involved significant casualties.
