Questions about the Nyriss Fight

So, for a long while, I had taken the approach of treating Meetra Surik and the Jedi Exile as different characters, mostly just because Drew's character in the novel doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the one in the game (none of her defining traits or talents actually appear or even get mentioned, and of course there's plenty of things that he gets wrong about the game). It's been a little convenient, admittedly, for avoiding the hard questions surrounding that Nyriss fight, but I wonder if anyone has ever really dealt with them. There are some elements of that fight that seem to be serious internal contradictions to the rest of the book, let alone outside of it, and just some bad writing. Here are just a few that I've noticed:

1) Nyriss gets the early advantage because Meetra and Scourge dodge her Lightning, which leaves them exposed to attack before they recover. The question is why they didn't just intercept it with their lightsabers, with at least Meetra being explicitly noted to have hers drawn already? Neither Surik nor Scourge were unfamiliar with Lightning either. It seems like a highly contrived advantage for Nyriss here.

2) There's a huge gap between Meetra and Scourge here, which doesn't line up with the rest of the novel. When Nyriss attacked both of them, Scourge was forced into retreat in just two sequences, even with Surik by his side. By comparison, Meetra stood her ground solo, even if she was still outmatched in the end. That's quite a dramatic disparity, which doesn't appear in any other comparison the novel gives us between the two of them. Earlier in the novel, Scourge saw Meetra in action and estimated them to be roughly on par with one another. Admittedly, Meetra was fighting complete fodder, which is pretty shaky grounds for comparison, but surely someone who is so clearly would above you would be demonstrating noticeably superior speed or something. Even if we factored in Sith arrogance, Scourge's assessment is still a mile off what we actually got in the fight against Nyriss. And Sith arrogance probably isn't a compelling explanation either, seeing as Surik and Scourge later do appear to be roughly equal when they fight the Imperial Guards. Meetra didn't appear to be injured, so she might've slightly outperformed him there, but it's still the sort of thing that lines up with Scourge's estimation of their relative standing. The Nyriss fight simply doesn't.

3) There's also seemingly a huge gap between Meetra and Scourge now and just a few chapters later. Here she's clearly overwhelmed and at Nyriss' mercy along with Scourge, with a clearly intentioned contrast between their helplessness and Revan's effortless disintegration of Nyriss. Yet despite overwhelming Revan, we later have the Emperor (who gets described as being "infinitely more powerful" than Nyriss) feeling palpable "hesitation and uncertainty" (which even Scourge could detect) when confronted with Surik alone. We're then presented with the Emperor needing to assess her strengths and weaknesses, which doesn't sound like something you would do if you could just crumple someone instantly. The fact that Scourge and Meetra were capable of being factors in the fight against Vitiate at all doesn't make any sense if he's "infinitely more powerful" than someone who had them at her mercy in fairly short order.

The Nyriss fight just seems to be terribly contrived to give Revan his epic moment, and some pretty bad writing in general. What do we make of it?

1.I assume they dodged it on the basis that they didn't expect her to be able to take advantage so quickly.

2.Meetra could've fought anywhere between 2 and 4 Imperial Guards at any one time in the fight. Scourge got tagged more than once and even had one arm neutralised. Meetra did not. That's despite the fact Surik's resisting Tenebrae's corruptive influence and the dark side power in the Citadel itself the whole time.

I don't get why Scourge is a special case of objectivity when we have Sith claiming all sorts of things that they believe and aren't true.

3.It's only a dazed Scourge that claims they were defenseless, as the whole fight is from his POV until Revan stops spazzing out.

Not to mention, Surik's got the feat of being able to throw her lightsaber at Tenebrae from across the throneroom faster than he can complete the swing of a lightsaber and knock it out of his hands.

1. Maybe they knew they weren't strong enough to block it.

2. The discrepancy between Scourge's performances vis-à-vis the Exile's can be explained with the greater intensity of the dark side permeating the Emperor's citadel than Nyriss' stronghold. While all of Dromund Kaas is a potent dark side nexus, the citadel was noted by Scourge to be a special hotspot where he could draw power from even while on Dromund Kaas. He would be stronger there than in Nyriss' stronghold, while Meetra would be even weaker, balancing out their earlier disparity.

3. Vitiate's being a terrible combatant is the usually accepted explanation. His baffling level of ineptitude here is probably a pointer to the idea he didn't execute the Dark Council of his own might but rather had elaborate rituals planned both times. As you said, he shouldn't be feeling any trepidation from a foe he could dust on the spot simply because she threw a lightsaber at him. It's clear he had never been put into a situation like the one in the novel at least since he became Emperor (e.g. his corruption of Revan and Alek was noted to be a prepared trap, and as such he bested both in moments without having to exert himself), and the writers even seemed to acknowledge that on some level and had him improve in his weakest areas. SWTORE notes how he specifically created his Voices as a response to how close to death he had been at the hands of Revan and his allies, to ensure it wouldn't happen again; on Dromund Kaas against the Hero of Tython, his doppelgängers drew lightsabers and so did he in gameplay; and on Ziost, he again engages the Hero with a blade, and appeared superior to Lana as a martial combatant.

I tend to take the view of the Exile that doesn't assume she and Scourge are rough equals. Based upon how she performed against Nyriss and the Emperor, and just how potent the nexus of Dromund Kaas was, I think she is significantly stronger than people give her credit for.

I don't actually think Scourge and Surik are equals, especially considering the circumstances under which Scourge made the assessment to begin with. And there's definitely no guaranteeing that he's right, but there's still a clear contrast between the later fight with the Imperial Guards (which does more or less hold up to Scourge's assessment) and the Nyriss fight. The nexus argument is fine, although it doesn't excuse the bad writing aspect, as I rather doubt Drew had that in mind when writing.

I've always proposed the "bad combatant" theory for Vitiate, but I honestly don't think it explains why he didn't just snap their necks right there. This is an even weaker Meetra than the one who fought Nyriss, if we're taking the nexus argument into account. Inexperience in combat only goes so far, and it's not just the hesitation either. Meetra and Scourge being capable of giving Revan the win over Vitiate makes no sense when they should really be dying from the residual effects of Vitiate and Revan's fight, lol.

As for Meetra and Scourge knowing they weren't strong enough to block the Lightning, it doesn't seem like that would be the case if they didn't even try.

@LadyKulvax — Where are you getting that she could've fought four Imperial Guards at once? It's repeatedly mentioned that she was fighting two guards, and presumably neither of them were a match for Yarri. That may make up for Scourge getting tagged at least to some extent.

The issue is that the fight starts off with Yarri and six guardsmen. Scourge is fighting only Yarri at the start. The first guard Revan faces is an unconfirmed kill from T3. Revan kills the guard that moves to intercept him. That brings the number in total down to six or five. It isn't clear what the guard who triggered the alarm did after the fact but I imagine he rejoined the fight.

It isn't clear that Scourge and Surik are fighting a pair each until they are retreating into the throneroom. That's because Surik was fighting three of them at once until one breaks off to help Yarri against Scourge.

The mucky part is that the whole fight is either Scourge's POV or Revan's. Revan only accounts for one confirmed kill. Scourge is fighting only Yarri until one guardsmen goes to join them. Thus it's entirely possible Meetra killed a total of four. Two of them prior to entering the throneroom.

Like Azronger said, this sort of stunt put the emperor in an extremely awkward position, being placed into direct conflict with unknown enemies that cut through his imperial guard and gained access to his very person. Again, as Azronger suggested, the last time he'd done some serious power flexing was elaborate rituals to kill the Dark Council. Even if he didn't use rituals on them, he killed them on his terms, and he's lived for so long without having to be dumped in situations of danger that it makes him extremely uncertain about what to do. Honestly, it makes sense.

Yes, but Meetra has a feat that makes it clear she's on par with his speed, if not outright faster. Not to mention resisting his passive influence which has utterly cowed Dark Councils and corrupted the likes of Master Tol Braga.

>Assuming I'm having a dig at Meetra, or that my post has anything to do with Meetra's power relative to the emperor.

My point is that the emperor is placed in an awkward situation. I'm not here to debate Meetra's power relative to the emperor.

My point is that it's true either way. Not to mention, it's very highly likely that he knew who she was long before she almost killed him.

LadyKulvax wrote:Yes, but Meetra has a feat that makes it clear she's on par with his speed, if not outright faster. Not to mention resisting his passive influence which has utterly cowed Dark Councils and corrupted the likes of Master Tol Braga.

Resisting his passive influence is a damn good feat for her, no doubt. But there's nothing substantiating that she is faster than the Emperor. Vitiate likely wasn't moving at top speed to strike Revan down. IIRC he was actually described as fairly casual about it, even. She reacted faster than he did in that one instance, I don't see this as evidence that her top speed clocks out above his.

His walking over to the weapon was done in 'calm, purposeful steps' sure. But nothing of the sort is stated when he actually moves to kill Revan:

Revan wrote:Meetra was moving fast, but she was too far away to stop the Emperor from eviscerating the prone Jedi at his feet.

In desparation, she hurled her lightsaber with a wild side-arm throw. Guiding it with the Force, so that it spiraled end over end to intercept the descending blade, knocking it from the Emperor’s grasp, and sending it skittering across the floor.

Suddenly empty-handed, the Emperor took a quick step back. His attention had been focused solely on Revan; Meetra’s trick had caught him by surprise. Scourge realized that if she had aimed at the Emperor instead of the blade, she could’ve ended his life even as he ended Revan’s.

But her instincts to save her friend overrode her desire to kill her enemy, and Scourge could only lament the lost opportunity.

Meetra was still rushing forward, using the Force to return her lightsaber to her waiting hand.

Sensing hesitation and uncertainty in the Emperor as he tried to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his new foe, Scourge rushed forward to join Meetra and Revan.

Again, not sufficient evidence. In fact, they seem to be moving at similar speeds, as Scourge notes that had Meetra aimed for the Emperor, she would have killed him as the Emperor killed Revan. Additionally, Meetra is noted as "moving fast" and "in desperation," but no mention is made of the Emperor's speed, which leads me to believe that he wasn't moving notably fast or slow.

Nova wrote:I've always proposed the "bad combatant" theory for Vitiate, but I honestly don't think it explains why he didn't just snap their necks right there. This is an even weaker Meetra than the one who fought Nyriss, if we're taking the nexus argument into account. Inexperience in combat only goes so far, and it's not just the hesitation either. Meetra and Scourge being capable of giving Revan the win over Vitiate makes no sense when they should really be dying from the residual effects of Vitiate and Revan's fight, lol.

Yeah, I've always been a strong proponent of the idea that numbers become irrelevant once the gap is large enough, which it definitely should be here, so I empathize with your exasperation. Earlier Vitiate incapacitated Scourge with a thought, and in the aftermath of the fight he immobilizes him casually; Meetra should go down with a similar ease. Our only way to make sense of the situation is to essentially just speculate: maybe Vitiate's dearth of combat experience resulted in poor stamina and the unprecedented amount of effort he had to put into subduing Revan exhausted him, which left more realistic chances for the team to take him down, or maybe he was so rusty he couldn't properly focus his Force senses his in the middle of heated combat and had to take time to evaluate the Exile's power. Who knows?

As for Meetra and Scourge knowing they weren't strong enough to block the Lightning, it doesn't seem like that would be the case if they didn't even try.

They might have sensed its power.

SithArchaeologist wrote:Again, not sufficient evidence. In fact, they seem to be moving at similar speeds, as Scourge notes that had Meetra aimed for the Emperor, she would have killed him as the Emperor killed Revan. Additionally, Meetra is noted as "moving fast" and "in desperation," but no mention is made of the Emperor's speed, which leads me to believe that he wasn't moving notably fast or slow.

Except that his actual fight with Revan prior doesn't mention anything in regards to how fast he is moving. Much like is the case here. Yet it is confirmed via Scourge that their entire engagement from beginning to end was only a few seconds, obviously indicating incredible speed in their exchange despite nothing in the fight itself suggesting anything of the sort.

One can wax ironic about Vitiate's impotency as a combatant, but he isn't dumb enough to not kill Revan as fast as he can when he's bloodlusted at this point.

I am certain that Drew "hates" KotOR 2 and what they did with Revan's character.