It's been a while. I'm not slacking off! I had to redo this video from scratch twice, and then wrestle with the finished product forever. And I'm still not terribly happy with some of the technical glitches, but since it had already taken me three weeks instead of one... I decided to go ahead and post it. Hopefully the hell of the last three weeks won't happen again, so these will be more timely from here on out.
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evilrpgwriter
Every time I read the comic I find it pretty clearly portrayed that Kressh is of high intellegence. What he is, however, is paranoid.
So many big villians tend to break across one of three big character traits - scheeming, bloodthirsty, or paranoid. Sadow obviously has the scheming bit down, while Kressh seems the paranoid type.
It isn't that he is stupid, but rather letting his imagination fill in small gaps of information. As a defensive man, when he sees an attack, he jumps to the worst possible conclusion (a Republic attack). -as a response to your previous video- [I]Having not seen republic technology firsthand, he assumes they just as well may use similar weapons--bladed weapons, et cetera (although, Massassi arrows would be a dead giveaway, but I chalk that up to author or artist incompetance)[/I].
Before someone jumps on me about Kressh being a terrible Sith because he is paranoid/fearful, let me remind that it is a fear of losing power that drives him (whether it be his own personal power, or the Sith Empire's power as a whole--which is in a sense an extention to himself). In a sense it is more a form of greed than pure cowardice; he's certainly willing enough to enter into battle with his enemies directly.
As for Kressh being stupid for not having spies in Sadow's base... I don't see how he could get one in there (unless Sadow actually wanted to leak info to Kressh through that base). Putting Kressh's more honorable nature aside and that I'm not sure how many spies he actually uses, if any at all (well, honorable compared to Sadow perhaps). Kressh is a very traditional figure, he faces his enemies directly and pays respect to those who have preceded him.
I got on a tangent. Anyway, Sith own their worlds wholly with iron fists, and guard their structures with Massassi that never beetray their masters. Plus, they all use the Force. I doubt someone could last more than a week or so before being discovered by a vigilent inspector or two.
I don't want to pull too much off from the comics, but from the other appearances of Ludo in Lost Tribe of the Sith he's definantly competant enough to dabble in some serious Sith magic powered devices and he is able to think ahead about his lineage.
We all have our opinions, but I just want to try to voice mine that rather than 'being an idiot,' Kressh is a bit eccentric and a lot paranoid. Sadow is just able to on occasion play to Kressh's paranoia. It just explains so much more of his caracter than simply 'he's incompetant.'
I think you've analyzed Ludo's paranoia correctly, but still I'm surprised he didn't at least consider Sadow a possibility. The sheer lengths Sadow had to go through to get Ludo to attack (setting up a decoy base, leaving behind an insignia deliberately, etc.) points to a guy who's pretty thick.
But that's just my interpretation. One of the fun things about this is I'm extrapolating a whole lot from what is a five issue comic book series. And one which really doesn't go into deep character development for anyone. So that's my take on Ludo, but that doesn't mean yours isn't legitimate. Also I'm reading this in chronological order as well, and there was no "Lost Tribe of the Sith" last time I was really into Star Wars, so my opinions might change when I finally read those.
But I just love the bug-eyed expression in the "Maybe this attack wasn't from the Republic at all!" panel. He looks so very shocked and surprised. "What? You mean someone LIED to me? In the SITH EMPIRE? Impossible!"
I think also for me it's a bit of nostalgia shock. My copies of Golden Age of the Sith have been in storage since I was a teenager, and I dusted them off for this. And, well... the story held up a lot better as a teenager in the 90s. I remember really liking Jori, for instance. Of course I also really liked Kyp Durron as a teenager. Luckily tastes change. But yeah, I know I'm being really harsh on Ludo. Maybe it's just because with a name like Ludo, I keep on expecting him to be friends with the rocks.
I just don't connect that with intellegence. Maybe I should. Just thinking maybe more like a bookish or history-buff intellegence (he at least [I]knows[/I] a lot about tradition et cetera), while his situational awareness may be very low and he is thinks so highly of himself he is made gullible?
Maybe like a DnD character or something, he may have a decent Intellegence score, but his Wisdom modifier for things not Force related is really really terrible? Oh wait, even better! He never spent any points in Gather Information or Sense Motive! I know I never do hehe.
But yeah, that makes sense. It's been established that Ludo is the staunch traditionalist, while Sadow was the one pushing for new methods, so it would make sense.