Obi-Wan: The Greatest Duelist of all time?

I was watching ROTS yesterday and the thought occurred to me:

Obi-Wan is really nice with the lightsaber...Too nice.

Apparently, during his time he was considered the a duelist that could rival Windu and Yoda. He defeated Vader, Maul, A'Sharad Hett, and Grievous, and held his own against Dooku and Ventress.

He never had a shot at Sidious, but judging from his record, he could have very well have defeated Sidious. Even with the EU, with the exception of Luke, no one seen has been this good in dueling or has this type of record when going up with the strongest duelists of all time.

-b

 

Yoda sent him after Anakin in RotS specifically because he didn't stand a chance against Sidious. Though I guess you could argue that skill as a duelist and raw power are different things.

 

I definitely think he had one of the greatest potentials ever. In ROTS, he is still very young (compared to Mace Windu, Qui-Gon, and especially Yoda), so he hadn't realized his full potential. While we don't see him fight much in his old age, I'd we willing to be he was easily on the level of his old master, Dooku or Mace Windu, since I don't really believe skill with the lightsaber and the force decreases with age.

 

IMHO, only Yoda, Mace, Sidious, and Dooku could outduel him.

Anakin beats him in raw power, but not dueling.

 

Definitely not.

As far as the movies are concerned he lost every fight since his defeat of Darth Maul and he was only able to defeat Anakin in ROTS, because as Anakin's former Master he knew him so well.

I don't count Grievous, since he doesn't have the Force and compared to Mace, Anakin, Sidious or Dooku Ventress is a non-entity.

 

I don't think Grievous should be dismissed; he killed many Jedi, and in the cartoon took on 3 Jedi Master's (although they were all exhausted), and beat Shaak Ti one on one. He's more skilled than the vast majority of the jedi.

I agree with Ventress, though; if we're talking about that fight in the Clone Wars movie, Obi-Wan basically toyed with her, and even held her off without his lightsaber.

 

Of all time? No, that'd go to Luke Skywalker, who whupped Darth Sidious so badly it looked like Mace's posse in reverse.


Of his time? I'd be willing to go with yes if you divide Force-based fighting from sheer skill with a blade; Grievous was well on the way to probably being the most prolific Jedi-killer next to Vader despite not having a lick of Forceness, and Kenobi absolutely destroyed him at swordfighting. Plus he did school Assaj pretty much whenever they met. Also, in the ROTS novel, Dooku's only able to outdo him in the Force department; it's Dooku's own opinion that Kenobi's defense is so fast that he didn't dare try an attack.

Once you throw using the Force into the story...ehh...not so much.

 

Nothing I've been exposed to puts him in the top 5 even, and for his own era at that, never mind others.

Good, but not the best. Not by a longshot. For whatever that matters in a universe where author handwaves (or no explanation at all) determines the victor, contrary to all reason.

 

Obi-Wan is, possibly, the greatest example of a Form III master we've ever encountered in the canon -- but he's very much a specialist. His victories rely on being in an environment in which he is able to give ground and his opponent making a mistake which he can exploit.

The first time he faced off against the Lord Darth Vader, he had the additional benefit of knowing him inside-and-out, as well.

 

If I recall the RotS novel correctly Mace considered Obi-wan to be the best form III duelist in the Order at the time, which made him the best possible opponent to challenge Grievous.

On the whole, I think Obi-wan is underrated as a duelist. He managed to defeat Maul as a padawan, held his own against Dooku, and beat Anakin, and Grievous. That's an impressive record for any jedi. He would have lost to Palpatine, but I think he would have fared better than most masters. Certainly better than all the ones who accompanied Mace.

 

I'd say, besides Luke, he's the greatest duelist. The only way people were even able to get an upper hand on him was to use the Force and if they didn't, then it was pretty downhill from there for them. Windu even said that Kenobi was not a master of Form III, but THE master of Form III.

As for knowing Anakin inside and out in ROTS, I disagree. Mainly because the war had separated them, years had passed, and Anakin's style basically responded to how pissed he was in the moment. Obi-Wan wasn't the most powerful Force user, which is why I didn' ask if he was. I asked whether he was the greatest duelist and, like people have said before with the exception of Luke, to me, he is.

-b

 

It doesn't matter. We're told explicitly in the RotS novel that such was the case.

 

I was always under the impression that Obi-Wan was the 3rd most respected fighter on the Jedi council, behind Yoda and Mace. If you add in the Sith, that would put him just outside of the top 5, I guess.

Of course, Kit Fisto and Plo Koon may be his equal or greater, although I've never seen any evidence one way or another on that.

Anyway, on to how Anakin fits into the equation, I personally figured that he gained a fair amount of power after turning to the dark side, like so many others had. That may not be the case, though, as I have no reference for that.

 

Defeating Maul could had weighed heavily to gain that respect. Obi-Wan was one of very few Jedi at that time to encounter and survive duels with multiple Sith.

 

Although I absolutely hate how quickly Dooku dispatches with Obi-Wan I can't help but think lines like, "Surely you can do better." And "Qui-Gon spoke so highly of you" was simple goading to ruffle Obi-Wan's distinct lack of anger during his dueling. I can't figure out if Dooku wanted him to tap into the dark side or if he was goading him for not tapping into the dark side.
Obi-Wan may not have been the best but the man was cool as a cucumber while fighting (the Maul duel asside.) I can't say that about any other principal Jedi from the prequels. Dooku trumping Obi-Wan with dark side kinetics doesn't-doesn't count.

 

While most of us love Obi-wan, I wouldn't quite put him as the greatest duelist. Perhaps the greatest defensive duelist ever, but Yoda and Mace would probably be better saber duelists in that time period, and that's not taking into other time periods, like Luke's NJO (though sadly we very rarely see Luke's full power).

Although Obi-wan held his own in most fights at the least, and defeated Maul as a Padawan and fought Jango to a standstill, when Jango had back-up (sorta), with Jango running while Obi-wan was still alive (though Jango didn't realize that). Definitely on par with Council Masters (considering Jango killed a Council member pretty quickly at Geonosis), and I'd probably put him in the top 10 of prequel era fighters, if not top five. By the end of the Clone Wars, not quite a match for Yoda or Sidious, but definitely a match for Anakin.

 

According to the ROTS novel Mace's lightsaber skills were unmatched.

 

Hehehe...

 

That is a fact but why don't we have more Mace duels to inform us of this fact?


Answer: The Force bless him, Mace is so boring that no one cares to do any.

 

Obi Wan was arguably the most skilled user of Soresu in Star Wars history, apparently able to block over 20 strikes a second, but he wasn't the greatest duelist of all time. Yoda, Mace Windu and Sidious were more skilled than him in the PT era. In the post OT era Luke, Caedus, the reborn Sidious, and arguably Kyle were more skilled than him.

In the pre PT era, a lot of the ancient Jedi and sith are highly ambiguous in terms of their combat abilities. Exar Kun, Revan and other sith lords might have been more skilled than him, but it's hard to tell.

 

Obi doesn't even come close.

In a debate like this, it is important to remember that strength in the Force does matter a great deal towards lightsaber proficiency, and thus cannot be dismissed as separate from it, even if not a single "spell" is cast.

And then I'm not even counting the author handwave that is letting the Force take control of the duelists body, thus pushing him above and beyond his normal skills (which is what gave Obi victory in spite of the above).

EDIT: The OS too, eh? I guess that means the death of Mace the "Unmatched".

 

There's definitely an argument to be made for Obi-Wan Kenobi as the best duelist ever. The list of Jedi who defeated two Sith Lords in duels is a pretty short one, and Kenobi managed to beat Anakin Skywalker in his prime.

Not bad

 

No, because that reference comes from 19 BBY and Mace's skills have the capacity to increase over time just like anyone else's; furthermore, it is a canon source which was line-edited by Lucas and fails to be contradicted by anything in the film. The assumption that a less skilled combatant simply cannot defeat a more skilled combatant is demonstrably false, and is specifically contradicted by ROTS. Now, if this were a movie forum, you'd hear the standard refrain "but that's just EU". Except... this is Literature, isn't it?

I wonder what the junior novel has to say about it?

Having already used mou kei in the same film, he knew how to use it to counter the same move he had used against Maul.