Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Yoda

[Sharpandpointies]

You must be THIS special to ride this ride.

Pretty much. Adding in 'you were also born/fated/"chosen" to be that special' or whatever.

[Nik Hasta]

Chosen One narratives often skew uncomfortably close to a eugenics-y kind of view of the world.

Without wanting to bring up the larger arguments about it, a thing I really liked about The Last Jedi was that Rey was no one special. She was just a person, obviously strong with the force, but not tied to any of the extended family around which the locus of galactic politics had turned for like several generations at that point.

Or you run with the Chosen One thing but you make it a deterministic universe and then make your characters aware of that and let them bathe in the cosmic horror of their insignificance.

Yes, I am talking about recent revelations in spoilers:

Kill Six Billion Demons

end of spoilers and I do think it is equal parts awesome and horrifying.

[Sharpandpointies]

Chosen One narratives often skew uncomfortably close to a eugenics-y kind of view of the world.

It's certainly one of the reason I dislike it. There's other stuff associated with it that bugs me, atop that.

Without wanting to bring up the larger arguments about it, a thing I really liked about The Last Jedi was that Rey was no one special. She was just a person, obviously strong with the force, but not tied to any of the extended family around which the locus of galactic politics had turned for like several generations at that point.

That something I did like about The Last Jedi as well.

Or you run with the Chosen One thing but you make it a deterministic universe and then make your characters aware of that and let them bathe in the cosmic horror of their insignificance.

Yes, I am talking about recent revelations in spoilers:

Kill Six Billion Demons

end of spoilers and I do think it is equal parts awesome and horrifying.

If it's done in an interesting way, it can work, and this is one of the ways I can appreciate it.

[Nik Hasta]

It's certainly one of the reason I dislike it. There's other stuff associated with it that bugs me, atop that.

While I give Naruto a fair amount of guff as a series, perhaps not undeservedly so, one thing it did do good (in part) was deconstruct the whole special blood thing.

The Uchiha are the strongest ninja clan around because of their techniques that are biological traits. Unfortunately, due to generations of interbreeding and blood purity nonsense, the clan now has a massive problem with inherited psychological conditions that contribute to a lack of emotional regulation, psychopathy and extreme paranoia. They are powerful but they are messy and erratic as a result.

Kishimoto then went, "no wait, magical destiny is good actually and our outcast character who came from nothing is actually part of one of the strongest bloodlines ever," which undercut it a bit, but that previous element was quite fun.

If it's done in an interesting way, it can work, and this is one of the ways I can appreciate it.

The author was on Twitter saying effectively, "No - I'm not going to subvert this. This series takes place in a deterministic universe, the protagonist has to sit with that and the horror of that as do you the readers,"

[BitVyper]

Eh, two important things to remember about K6BD are:

spoilers:

1.Demiurges make their own prisons. What's-her-face being a nihilist doesn't mean her perspective is correct, and her omniscience also seems like it only extends to the end of THIS iteration of the universe. Honestly, my main hope is that a reset button isn't Abaddon's solution for this particular narrative corner, but it seems pretty likely. Whatever is going on, we pretty much know she's giving the worst most toxic possible version of her personal truth because she's a demiurge. Hell, wave functions and probabilities and all the advanced math bullshit (which I've never felt negates determinism tbh) COULD be a thing in this universe, but then a demiurge observed the whole thing from end to end and collapsed them all into one answer, which would fit with the general theme of demiurges being fuckups 2. Determinism (in the laplace sense, not the 'force cares about this guy in particular' sense) isn't scary and doesn't mean you don't get a choice. It just means you have a limited perspective on time and you already made/are making/will make your choices. But then from your actual perspective, determinism is academic. Being concerned about what it means for free will is like being concerned about universal entropic decay. You're dust in the wind long long before you hit the scale determinism operates on. There are so many more personal things that are controlling your decisions than math. Determinism horror is just "the universe is bigger than you" horror. Which brings me back to Demiurges make their own prisons Personally, I've always felt like strings and probabilities just mean Laplace needs more math anyway. Like we're in here deciding determinism is real or not based on a fraction of a fraction of a fractional understanding of the universe through a construct we came up with down here.

end of spoilers

As to Star Wars, I just pretend midichlorians don't exist, and then the explanation changes to "the Jedi are glimpsing the future and seeing that this guy will be really strong but they're coming up with their own explanations as to why and they're ruled by a decrepit council of old men so of course they're dumb."

[Sharpandpointies]

While I give Naruto a fair amount of guff as a series, perhaps not undeservedly so, one thing it did do good (in part) was deconstruct the whole special blood thing.

The Uchiha are the strongest ninja clan around because of their techniques that are biological traits. Unfortunately, due to generations of interbreeding and blood purity nonsense, the clan now has a massive problem with inherited psychological conditions that contribute to a lack of emotional regulation, psychopathy and extreme paranoia. They are powerful but they are messy and erratic as a result.

Down with that. And it's a more realistic idea of 'special bloodline' because...yeah, it's not magical perfection, you get flaws with the benefits.

The author was on Twitter saying effectively, "No - I'm not going to subvert this. This series takes place in a deterministic universe, the protagonist has to sit with that and the horror of that as do you the readers,"

Much like ByVyper, I'm not really all that personally concerned about deterministic universes, for some of the same reasons they note (a big one being 'it doesn't matter if everything is decided beforehand or if it's just my own limited viewpoint of what makes up our Universe and such, because I HAVE a limited viewpoint of what makes up our Universe, and I'm gonna feel what I feel and live through what I live through and make what appear to be my choices regardless'. ^_^).

But I understand why it might hit a protagonist who is struggling with stuff on the level that we see in KSBD. Also, when it's presented in a specific way like 'Nothing actually matters' it could be horrifying, especially to people who have gone through loss like the central character.

Setting all of that aside, there are other things I don't like about the Jedi, but I've derailed this thread enough and the OP isn't the Arbiter*, so I will politely bow out of this part of the discussion. ^_^

* also it's not Tolkien, martial arts, or any of my other hyperfixations ^_^

[BitVyper]

Oh Alice struggling with it is fine. I mean she's like 19? 20? And her life up until, I think less than two years ago (all of this not counting the current timeskip) was extremely thoroughly planned out and she's never really dealt with her feelings about that and here's a woman listing her thoughts as she thinks them after she thought she was over it. It's a good step in her character development to have her deal with this because it has personal resonance for her.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Yoda will win.

Unless people follow all the canon (movies, tv, Clone Wars, Fallen Order game, comics, etc…..) fights and power-scaling can be really hard to get a bead on in Star Wars canon (worse in the EU/Legends stuff).

In canon, Yoda is the stronger Force User than Obi-Wan (note his effortless stopping and taking the lightsabers away from Ventress), alongside his moving heavier things more regularly than Obi has.

https://youtu.be/VcsrxcHZz6s

There is also Sidious’s performance against Maul and Savage, who he treats as jokes (two people Obi has fought well against simultaneous, but not effortlessly) but Yoda duels him one one one for a very extended time twice (once in a vision during the Clone Wars and again in RotS). We also have him fighting Dooku who Obi never out and out beat (Obi’s saber style was partially to blame, as Dooku’s was a good counter to it and was meant to fight against lightsabers IIRC). Obi did so well against Vader because he knew how Vader/Anakin fought and could counter it.

Generally speaking, Mace Windu was the best swordsman and Yoda was just a step below him but had more raw horsepower in the Force. Below them was Obi and the likes of Plo Koon and others.

Feat wise, Obi has gained a few nice ones in his TV show and the Clone Wars that firmly cements him in the top three to five Jedi shown (from the Republic era) I’d say.

[Darth Drizzle]

Using Live Action only Obi Wan takes this. His Lightsaber skill and overall raw power with the Force is more than what Yoda has shown to be able to deal with. The Vader that Obi faced was more powerful then Sidious who Yoda battled and was and his use of the rock barrage and his eventual escape from being buried alive showed more versatility with the Force then countering lightning which was Yoda's best feat besides countering the Floating Stands being thrown by Sidious(and Vader's Startship feat and Rock toss over the horizon combined with Obi Wans feats outdo that by Leagues.)

By story line and presentation both Yoda and Sidious are above both, but with actual shown feats both Vader and Obi Wan are above their mentors. The oddities of Sidious in the Last Jedi and his powers are hard to just give to him as feats as it's implied that he is getting an outside power up which makes sense given his Force Lightning feat which makes no sense if you want to say that he can bust that out at any time he wishes now.

[The Drunkard Kid]

You must be THIS special to ride this ride.

There's a mystical force permeating and guiding everything and everyone, which can be interacted with and manipulated in order to allow the faithful to perform miraculous feats and have a deeper understanding of the cosmos... if they are born with the Jedi/Sith genes.

:/