Lit What felt like the most near-universe-breaking things in both Legends and New EU?

The Mandalorians, the Yevetha, Etahn A'baht defending Dornea, the Force Unleashed crew, Wrenga Jixton, Bib Fortuna, Anja Gallandro, Kir Kanos, Dean Jinzler, and so many characters.

 

The fact that "having cool powers" is being equated with "mastery" is a problem of fandom perspective, not the text itself. Anakin and Luke both had untrained powers (and that was while the Force was shrouded by the dark). The mastery provided by training is over oneself. The Empire Strikes Back would be a completely different movie if your take were the case.

 

It's not just my take. As far as I can see it's pretty well established law that the "cool powers" come with lots of training. It's not just a case of anyone can do anything with the force within a few days of knowing about it, and all training is just learning when/how to use it.

 

One should make the distinction between unfulfilled potential and fulfilled power-Anakin in legends had the potential to be as powerful as GM Luke was in legends but he never reached his full potential. A lot of the sky solo clan in legends had the potential to be extremely powerful yet they didn't all reach it-Anakin Solo, Jacen Solo, Jaina, Leia, and Cade, as well as Ben I think could be extremely powerful Tier 5 force users-jacen got pretty close but he was still I think far from complete mastery, Ben may have reached his potential, and Anakin did not, Jaina and Leia I don't think ever got close to achieving what they could really do.

Some force users have more unfulfilled potential than others-Danni Quee for example had likely minor to moderate potential.

Jori Car'das apparently had some minor potential as well.

Some force users probably had even less. Meaning that even if they reached their potential they would still be far lower on the power scale.

 

Things Anakin can do before training: See the future, be a great pilot. Things Anakin can do after one lesson (with Qui-Gon): Destroy a superweapon (the droid control ship).

Things Luke can do before training: Be a great pilot. Things Luke can do after one lesson (with Ben on the Falcon): Destroy a superweapon (the Death Star), deflect blaster bolts, telekinesis (lightsaber into hand).

Things Rey can do before training: Be a great pilot, fight with melee weapons. Things Rey can do after one lesson (or a half-lesson each, from Maz Kanata and from Kylo Ren): mind trick, telekinesis.

I don't get the problem. She doesn't even destroy a superweapon, if anything that makes her underpowered compared to her predecessors.

 

Anakin didn't just determine himself to destroy a superweapon. He hid in a ship that launched on autopilot and brought him to the droid ship. Then he crashed into the hangar bay, and started pressing buttons. He wasn't cognizant of destroying it.

 

And Luke switched off his targeting computer and started pressing buttons. "A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."

 

Exactly. Luke's great achievement there was pressing the right button, at the exact right time. He was flying in a straight path allowing his comrades to intercept all those lasers with their lives. He almost didn't make it anyway, and had to be saved by the smuggler.

But in Luke's case, he was actively trying to destroy the superweapon, and told how to do it. Anakin destroyed the droid control ship entirely by accident.

 

"Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."

 

****ing yes. Rey is not some uber Force badass. She's armed with a pretty basic understanding of the Force and how to use it, and does nothing absolutely universe-breaking in the two films she has appeared. It's even spelled out with the lifting rocks thing--that's what she understands the Force to be, and she lifts the rocks in the end. Compare that to Luke projecting himself across the ****ing galaxy which I think is the most powerful use of the Force we've yet seen in the films and Rey is milquetoast.

but she beat kylo!
but he was weakened and stuff
but that means he's not a compelling character
????????

And so on and so forth.

 

This debate is so ridiculous, intellectually dishonest, and retreaded, I don't see why either side would desire to engage in it.

 

I really don't like it when a character uses the force to directly effect something light years away from them. Holograms using the force looks ridiculous to me, especially if the force users hologram moves their hand to move or effect somebody. How can they possibly know which direction in the universe the person they are taking to actually is? They could be under their feet and standing upsidedown relative to them. It gives the appearance that they are using the hologram as a conduit for their force ability, which is stupid. No force user should have fine object manipulation control over such vast distances anyway.

 

Wait, what? You think I am being intellectually dishonest?

 

Agreed. While people dislike RPG'ing the Force (as seen in PC and tabletop games), it helps set hard rules on Force powers. While the desire to take the Force back to something magical and mystical is understandable, all that translates to in the real world is a lack of limit on Force powers and Force users doing anything/everything they want with arbitrary limits written by rule of the plot (and Force Projection lethality is really an arbitrary limit, since we never heard of this lethality before).

When Zahn started the modern EU, he created ysalamiri for this very purpose, to start putting limits on Force users.

 

I don't know what a person's relative position has to do with anything. I also don't know that "Force choke" (as seen when Vader did it in The Empire Strikes Back) or "hurling a guy blindly across a room" (as seen when Snoke did it in The Last Jedi) really count as "fine object manipulation".

How is the lethality of an ability we'd never seen before an "arbitrary limit written by rule of the plot" but the ysalamiri are not?

 

No, I think this debate is, along with many long running fandom fueds. People will choose a camp and fight for it, for or against.

 

I guess the ysalamiri are an arbitrary limit too. Still, some attempt was made at explaining how they work (they generate bubbles that block the Force), while I don't recall any explanation on why Force projection was lethal at all. Were Luke's midichlorians drained? Did Force usage increase his heartrate past survivable levels or cause a cardiac arrest?

 

"You aren't doing this," Kylo says to Rey. "The effort would kill you." The film additionally spends a lot of time establishing the parameters of the ability, by showing instead of telling: we know that it's more than a mere projection, as several times we see them interact physically (the rain on Kylo's face, for example). The fact that physically manifesting in more than one location is enough to kill someone doesn't feel like it needs a huge deal of explanation, given what a big deal is made of it both in Earth mythology and in the movie itself. And we get one anyway, much more of an explanation than a... bubble that blocks the Force, blugh.

 

Luke killed himself. "Jedi Suicide"(if you will), just like Obi-Wan did.

 

This actually raises more questions than it answers. Kylo and Rey aren't doing the projecting, Snoke is. Yet it didn't kill him. When Luke does some projecting it does kill him. Or is it lethal only when you project yourself? Or does Snoke have a higher midichlorian count than Luke?

The irony being if Luke had just gone back to the Resistance like was asked, he might not have needed to die. Rey, Luke, and Leia could have put up a united front against the FO. By refusing to return, this potential force was split in multiple directions. (Rey trying to redeem Kylo, Leia undoing Poe's ridiculous mutiny, Luke burning Jedi books)

 

He didn't need to die, he wanted to die, but he didn't really die. He became immortal, like his masters. We don't yet know why he did this.

Obi-Wan died to help Luke and his friends, and to be Luke's ghost guide n'stuff. It was a pretty good plan, I suppose. Yoda died of old age.

The purpose of Luke's death/suicide will hopefully be explained in episode 9.

 

I mean, I pick my friend up off the ground but I can't manage to do it to myself, is that a real life plot hole?

Ok, so Rey shows up on Ach-To, Luke goes "Sure, I wasn't doing anything, time for another adventure" and then... He ends up in a coma with Leia? Or does he just die on one of the other ships? Does he an Rey board the Supremacy? If so, doesn't his presence prevent Kylo from betraying Snoke?

You can write the fake movie where he goes back and saves the galaxy with one hand tied behind his back. Or you can write the fake movie where he goes back and fails even more miserably. Either way, it's a fake movie; the fact that you can come up with fake movies changes nothing about the real one.

 

A couple of things regarding Kylo's comment and what happened to Luke: my guess is that the effort would have killed Rey given her still relative inexperience.

As for Luke, maybe cutting himself off from the Force for so long hurt him when he used a Force projection. Imagine trying to go without exercising for a long time, then doing the most strenuous exercise possible. While it may not kill you, it certainly wouldn't help your body.

That's my theory, FWIW.

 

I was thinking of Ezra's meeting with Palpatine's magic hologram in the last series of Rebels. Palpatine reached out towards Ezra and removed his handcuffs with the force. We assume Palpatine was on Coruscant, Ezra on Lothal light years away. Now Palpatine must have been reaching out to his hologram of Ezra, not in the actual direction of Ezra. I feel the amount of force power needed to effect something across the galaxy should be huge, and should seem huge, like the force storm in Dark Empire. What Palpatine did in Rebels, to me feels comparable to a surgeon doing an operation over the internet, via a robot fitted with a chainsaw and large pliers.