PT Was Yoda smart in sending Obi Wan to Mustafar?

For real.
"Sith Lords are our speciality" = gets destroyed in both duels with Dooku.

 

double post

 

True but he beat Maul and Vader singlehanded. Two Sith Lords out of three is the best record of any Jedi on screen thus far, so you could say it really is his speciality.

 

Yeah, that's true
But they didn't die and endings of both fights are weird.
I always hated how Obi Wan was potrayed against Dooku. Is Dooku supposed to be just that much stronger or what?

 

Dooku just happens to be the only person whose personal style of fighting happens to be the one Obi-Wan is consistently weak against. If you look at him fighting Maul, Grievous and Anakin they all use big sweeping attacks and power styles that he deflects or defends against - Dooku uses little lunges and flicks that Obi-Wan struggles against, he goes for precision over power and Obi seems to struggle with that (given that precision is normally HIS thing instead.)

 

No idea if it's considered canon or not these days, but to my knowledge of old EU at least, Dooku utilized Makashi saber form, which is specifically made for lightsaber duels. Obi-Wan used Ataru at first but later switched to Soresu, which is a defensive form. It was pretty much his tactic to fight carefully until he saw an opening and to take that opportunity. Of course, Makashi isn't exactly an exhausting form like Djem So (Anakin's style) and was specifically geared towards saber dueling, so Obi-Wan was at a natural disadvantage

 

I recall the old Legends stuff about the different styles and was thinking on similar lines but even if none of that is canon any more you can still see it in the actual duels I think - Dooku fights 'side on' (fencing style) and likes small, exact attacks whereas Obi-Wan tends to be more of a defender soaking up attacks and only rarely does he go on the offensive instead of counter-attacking. In theory this should mean an endless circle of Dooku attacking carefully and Kenobi defending them but Dooku is basically just plain better and comes out with the better record head-to-head.

Anakin is the better fighter between he and Kenobi (on Mustafar he's setting the pace right from the beginning and maintains it) but Kenobi just waits to have the high ground and then hey presto, fights over and Anakin's a burning torso. Dooku would never be put in a position like Anakin ended up in, he's too crafty and careful to lose the high ground so carelessly in a one-to-one situation.

 

That's true. All of it.

 

Newcanon work that references "Form II" in the context of Dooku: The Updated & Expanded Character Encyclopaedia:

"Count Dooku is a formidable opponent. He is a master of ancient Form II lightsaber combat, characterised by graceful moves. He can also project deadly streams of Sith Force lightning from his fingertips."


And elsewhere in the book:

"Offee practiced a form of lightsaber fighting known as Soresu."

"A master of Form VII combat, Mace Windu is one of the best living lightsaber fighters."

Rebels:

"In close-quarter fighting, Billaba's emphasis was always on Form III, which you favor to a ridiculous degree."

I think we can safely say that Lightsaber Forms, their numbers, and what each form involves, carry over from the Legendsverse to the canon-verse.

 

True enough, though the Grand Inquisitor also claims Kanan uses the same style which doesn't quite bear out to my eyes. Granted that could be inconsistency of presentation instead of evidence the style itself is any different.

 

Yea Obi-Wan's defensive style simply was never good enough against Dooku, it never would have been. 10/10 times Dooku beats him at any point in his career. At the same token Anakin's offensive style and over powering sweeping counter strikes were EXACTLY the recipe to beat Dooku, and at his utmost peak Anakin beats Dooku at a comfortable majority. Styles make fights as they say.

The most intriguing matchup we never saw in any format was Dooku vs Mace Windu... now that would have been a very interesting clash of styles. Not sure if Mace's EU bios are canon anymore but I remember reading that the only two guys that ever bested mace were Dooku and Yoda so I have Dooku edging out a close victory as his calm/relaxed fencing style does not feed into Windu's Vaapad. It would be a battle fought for inch of advantage.

 

That would be a decent match-up to see, personally I would say Mace would edge it for the same reason Anakin beats Dooku - sheer power and volume of attacks eventually proves too much for Dooku's elegant defending. Similarly though I would question if Mace would beat Obi-Wan on the latter's best day or whether he too would come up against the brick wall especially as the super-defensive style would give Vaapad practically nothing to feed on.

I would also imagine in a hypothetical universe where Mace was alive and Yoda and he chose which was to go against Vader and which would face Sidious, Mace would be the one to go after Sidious for the same reason he did in canon - the opponent's drawing on the Dark Side plays into his own strengths. How well Yoda would have done against Anakin I think would be another interesting duel to see - especially on Mustaphar where Yoda's flipping and jumping might be restricted.

Yoda and Kenobi tag-teaming Sidious and then going after Vader might have worked if you think that Kenobi could hold off against Sidious and let Yoda really cut loose but then you risk losing track of Vader. I think the prevailing view is that Sidious would have steamrollered Kenobi though and you'd still have Yoda against Sidious and absolutely no-one to face down Vader until it's too late.

 

To be fair, in ROTS, Dooku changed the conditions of the fight by taking Obi-wan out, rather than straight up beating him as he did on Geonosis. The novelization depicts Dooku as realizing that Obi-wan's improvement was not hyperbole and that if he didn't change tactics, he would be in trouble.

 

In trouble in a solo duel with obi wan or both obi and Anakin? The latter is obvious dooku could only hold off both of them for so long.

 

With both Obi Wan and Anakin. The novelization said that at the start of the duel, both Obi-Wan and Anakin used different forms in order to trick Dooku; Obi-Wan started off with an Ataru stance, and Anakin with a Shien stance. Then midfight, they changed to their specialty forms; Soresu/Djem So. It was at that point that Dooku changed tactics as Darth Sinister said, and was also astonished how much improved Obi-Wan and Anakin looked dueling/skill wise.