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The Slave Who Makes Free: An Anakin Skywalker Quest

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alexthealright said:
What's with all the support for Form 1? There's a reason most Jedi don't use it.
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The quest has concluded that Form One is a 500IQ move that will lead to us being an extremely potent duellist later on when we pick another form because our fundamentals will be so strong. Or alternately it's a way to make up for not having trained as much with the lightsaber by shoring up our weak fundamentals. Personally I think both of these are somewhat dubious quester logic at best, and we should instead pick a Form because we genuinely like it and think it is good in itself.

To be clear, there's certainly an argument to be made for Form One on it's own merits; all the forms can be made to work well with the right mindset after all. But I suspect that for Anakin, Form One may lead to us doing worse against Dooku on Geonosis than the canonical Anakin did. (Although it's not like we can really win that fight.) The Forms are self-consistent in themselves, so whilst I think Form One can shore up our fundamentals a bit, the idea that it will act as an enhancer to the other Forms is somewhat dubious to me; I suspect we could get the same effect just by practicing extra hard at Soresu or Djem or whatever.

In the Fantasy Flight RPGs it's actually stated that Form One is apparently based most closely off of actual techniques from physical metal swords, because it's the oldest Form and was created when lightsabers were first being introduced. (This is also why it's mentioned to be bad at blocking blaster bolts.) So that's pretty cool I guess? Personally I think that's the most interesting thing about it.
 
[X] Form I - Shii-Cho
[X] Form III - Soresu
[X] Form VI - Niman
 
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Skippy said:
To be clear, there's certainly an argument to be made for Form One on it's own merits; all the forms can be made to work well with the right mindset after all. But I suspect that for Anakin, Form One may lead to us doing worse against Dooku on Geonosis than the canonical Anakin did. (Although it's not like we can really win that fight.) The Forms are self-consistent in themselves, so whilst I think Form One can shore up our fundamentals a bit, the idea that it will act as an enhancer to the other Forms is somewhat dubious to me; I suspect we could get the same effect just by practicing extra hard at Soresu or Djem or whatever.
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I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I'm dubious of the idea that there's any form that ends with Anakin beating Dooku on Geonosis. Anakin's talent is very much the sort that grows in conflict and he's matching up against an Old Master Dooku that is a Legendary Duelist trained by both Yoda and Sidious.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
Have you never seen a martial arts movie where the old master absolutely clowns someone with the most basic moves possible?
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You're looking for Makashi then. Makashi is ease of movement and energy conservative, and Dooku fits the idea of swift, precise and mundanely basic movements to dispatch his opponents. Shii-Cho is basic at the start but gets progressively more advanced; it's a lot of wide sweeping movements and good at deflecting oncoming blaster fire. Kitt Fisto is unironically one of very few who likely could've survived a clone assault just due to his mastery over those principles; ironic then, that he died to Palpatine.

It isn't so much the foundation for all other forms, as it is very easy for younger students to adapt to early on and grow familiar with using a saber.
 
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Dooku is a noted master of the Dueling People With Lightsabers lightsaber form, and acknowledged (in the old canon, though it hasn't really been countermanded by the new) as one of the finest duelists of the age, matched only by Windu and surpassed only by Yoda. Anakin is not beating him in the first encounter unless he is stupendously lucky and Dooku is fatally careless. His chosen saberform is fully irrelevant.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
Have you never seen a martial arts movie where the old master absolutely clowns someone with the most basic moves possible?
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Okay, but like, all the Forms are that, and our resident old master users Form IV. No one uses Form I apart from Kit Fisto, a guy who's only role in the films is getting immediately killed by Palpatine. To be fair he's also stated to be a pretty good duellist which is why Mace chose him to come along, but there you go.

There's definitely something to be said for the fact that we need to reinforce our somewhat shakey fundamentals here, but I think the idea that Form I will actually be super-powerful is something that voters are attempting to manifiest via the power of positive thinking. We could also shore up our fundamentals by training extra hard in another Form; to some extent all the others contain Form I.

Form V is well-suited there, since the breakdown mentions that Anakin is so suited to it that he can effectively get more benefit out of the same training time:
Kirook said:
Obviously, Anakin's natural inclination is to study this form; he won't learn many broader lessons from it that he doesn't already know, but conversely it will be the easiest for him to pick up out of all of the forms, giving him more time for additional training or working on the Kalee relief plan.
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Deadly Snark said:
I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I'm dubious of the idea that there's any form that ends with Anakin beating Dooku on Geonosis. Anakin's talent is very much the sort that grows in conflict and he's matching up against an Old Master Dooku that is a Legendary Duelist trained by both Yoda and Sidious.
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That's definitely true, I think it's entirely relative.

We might do worse than Anakin did in ATotC, or perhaps even impress Dooku a bit more, but there's not a scenario where we "win" in a literal sense. That being said, if we're talking about what will make us the best at laser sword fights, we presumably want to do as well as we can.
 
Dooku is likely a forced loss if we have a run in with him that early. He's near peerless in saber combat; you've got maybe Yoda and Windu able to best him - honestly Windu likely has a better chance of it now more than he did with Dooku using the Dark Side.
 
To be clear, what I said was "we might do worse against Dooku than Anakin did canonically", not "actually with my twelve step plan, here's how we win". There is no Form we pick here which magically lets us win against a duellist of Dooku's experience and power, but there can absolutely still be relative differences between them.

Right now our Anakin might do worse than Anakin in AOTC, all other things being equal, simply because we've practiced less. But there's obviously a lot of things we can do to alter that, not to mention other variables involved.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
Have you never seen a martial arts movie where the old master absolutely clowns someone with the most basic moves possible?
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And yet almost nobody uses it, almost like the other styles came after and were themselves refinements of it.

For example, Form 2 is better at energy efficient dueling, Form 3 is better on the defensive, Form 4 is better in bursts, Form 5 is made to beat down someone's defenses with pure power, and lastly Form 6 is the best at incorporating active Force use.
 
Skippy said:
Okay, but like, all the Forms are that, and our resident old master users Form IV. No one uses Form I apart from Kit Fisto, a guy who's only role in the films is getting immediately killed by Palpatine. To be fair he's also stated to be a pretty good duellist which is why Mace chose him to come along, but there you go.

There's definitely something to be said for the fact that we need to reinforce our somewhat shakey fundamentals here, but I think the idea that Form I will actually be super-powerful is something that voters are attempting to manifiest via the power of positive thinking. We could also shore up our fundamentals by training extra hard in another Form; to some extent all the others contain Form I.

Form V is well-suited there, since the breakdown mentions that Anakin is so suited to it that he can effectively get more benefit out of the same training time:
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The QM has already stated that it's not uncommon for Padawans to start of in one style and then switch to another as Knights, once they gained more experience and knowledge of themselves.

Obi-Wan and Anakin both trained in Ataru as young Padawan in Canon before switching to their more well-known styles. And it's also stated that yes, later on one can combine elements/lessons learned from one form to another.

In other words, just because it's the first Form we learn does not mean it's going to be the form Anakin will use to fight in the Clone Wars.

I'm not arguing that Form I is super special powerful. But it's not weak either, Kit Fisto is a fan-favorite fishman for a reason. But it's a good way to shore up Anakin's fundamentals as a young Padawan.
 
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Skippy said:
Form V is well-suited there, since the breakdown mentions that Anakin is so suited to it that he can effectively get more benefit out of the same training time:
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I'm not sure we want Anakin learning to necessarily take that path to which he seems most naturally inclined. Our choices for the last couple scenes have emphasized conscious self-control over our natural inclinations to lash out at Grievous and Ferus, and Obi-Wan is instructing us to be open to possibilities other than seizing what seemed like a golden opportunity of Palpatine's promise to strong-arm the Senate. I also don't want to "compensate" for neglected fundamentals by leaning into Anakin's obvious strengths. That way lies hiding exploitable weaknesses from ourselves, possibly until it is too late to correct them.

EDIT: that said, Anakin has and will continue to have a lot on his plate (especially since we didn't take Palpatine's shortcut out of having to deal with the Kaleesh crisis), and there is good reason to favor Form V in particular purely for time-management reasons. It is also, IIRC, the first "blue" option in the quest, and while we don't have much Stress accumulated at the moment, I imagine that taking it here would let us devote future actions specifically to burning off Stress by practicing in Form V.
 
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I wonder what would happen if juyo actually won the vote somehow because there's no way mace windu would teach us juyo so it would be the battle master who probably would but even then I doubt it
 
I'm hesitant of the idea that we really want Anakin to get a Pavlovian Conditioning that tells him "Boy swinging my Lightsaber when I feel frustrated sure is relaxing!"

It can work fine, mental and physical conditioning leading to harmony and whatever. But it's also a bit of a red flag.
 
Skippy said:
The quest has concluded that Form One is a 500IQ move that will lead to us being an extremely potent duellist later on when we pick another form because our fundamentals will be so strong. Or alternately it's a way to make up for not having trained as much with the lightsaber by shoring up our weak fundamentals. Personally I think both of these are somewhat dubious quester logic at best, and we should instead pick a Form because we genuinely like it and think it is good in itself.

To be clear, there's certainly an argument to be made for Form One on it's own merits; all the forms can be made to work well with the right mindset after all. But I suspect that for Anakin, Form One may lead to us doing worse against Dooku on Geonosis than the canonical Anakin did. (Although it's not like we can really win that fight.) The Forms are self-consistent in themselves, so whilst I think Form One can shore up our fundamentals a bit, the idea that it will act as an enhancer to the other Forms is somewhat dubious to me; I suspect we could get the same effect just by practicing extra hard at Soresu or Djem or whatever.

In the Fantasy Flight RPGs it's actually stated that Form One is apparently based most closely off of actual techniques from physical metal swords, because it's the oldest Form and was created when lightsabers were first being introduced. (This is also why it's mentioned to be bad at blocking blaster bolts.) So that's pretty cool I guess? Personally I think that's the most interesting thing about it.
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I laid out my reasoning pretty clearly when I proposed Shii-Cho. It doesn't have anything to do with quester brain; I just think a mastery of the fundamentals will make Anakin a more well-rounded swordsman and Jedi than immediately leaning in to what comes easiest. I expect people prefer that sort of logic over being scolded and belittled.
 
[X] Form III - Soresu
Edit: Changed. 'Learning patience' is worth the stress gain. We can pivot to Niman after we learn to slow our roll.
 
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Etranger said:
I laid out my reasoning pretty clearly when I proposed Shii-Cho. It doesn't have anything to do with quester brain; I just think a mastery of the fundamentals will make Anakin a more well-rounded swordsman and Jedi than immediately leaning in to what comes easiest. I expect people prefer that sort of logic over being scolded and belittled.
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I do have an argument then that isn't meant to belittle or degrade anyone.

I already mentioned that Shii-Cho as a means of foundation and fundementals is a fairly inaccurate assessment of the Form; it's simple, and that's what makes it easier to start, but it doesn't function as building blocks to others beyond "This is how you swing without hitting yourself." It eventually becomes a very advanced form that encompasses a large range of use; mostly in group combat; Kitt Fisto is a monster in a wartime setting - him being no slouch in duals is more a testament to his own ability than it is a point in favor of the Form itself. Kitt Fisto is an exceptional Jedi who has taken Shii-Cho further than many will ever even attempt.

Not useless, but important to emphasize what it is, and what it isn't.

Djem So is, as has been stated, very much perfect for counter-attacking and utilizing a great amount of force and relies on posturing yourself into a position where you can essentially muscle your way into controlling the ebb and flow of battle. Anakin came to become near peerless with Djem So, but his focus was more on the initiative and those powerful movements than the counter-attacking aspect of things.

Now that's canon Anakin, but Form V or Djem So also focuses on counter attacks and an ability to channel your momentum back into an immovable defense. This is something canon Anakin lacks until his later turn funny enough, out of a need more than a want - but it proves that even the fundemental philosophies of the Form may even be healthy for Anakin if done well.

That all having been said, I think the therapeutic aspect of being able to relax and just simply enjoy a style that flows well with Anakin would be good for him. It's a means of comfort to sink into, and if done well a perfectly healthy strategy for de-stressing. We're gonna be pushing Anakin to look at himself and test his comfort level at times. This feels like one of those opportunities to let him just have this one.
 
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