Why Palpatine Didn't Allow Grievous to Duel Anakin During the Clone Wars

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Composer: Whitesand (Martynas Lau)
Year: 2017
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[Currumpaw]

If the two had met prior to RoTS, Grievous would always be wondering why Anakin wasn't older and Anakin would be wondering why Grievous wasn't taller everytime they fought.

[frankh.]

The fact that Palpatine held Grievous in such high regard, and yet Grievous failed over and over again during TCW to defeat Kenobi, should have caused Palpatine to respect Kenobi a lot more than he did at that point. IMO, underestimating Kenobi was one of Palps’ fatal flaws in the prequel era.

[frenchfriedbagel]

The meta reason is the “I thought you’d be taller” line from episode 3. And how Dave Filoni didn’t want to retcon it during the Clone Wars so did everything he could to keep Grevious and Anakin from encountering each other in the show.

[bronsonedward]

I love how my boy Obiwan had rivalry with Vader, Maul, and Grievous, they could not take him down. Obiwan is definitely my favorite Star Wars character.

[MrBulletwood]

Even though they never canonically met, I still like the fact that they still have interaction voice lines in Battlefront 2

[unclestoma]

imagine if anakin found out grevious backstory and potentially empathised with him

[andrewgarrett]

A clash between two of the angriest and fiercest lightsaber duelists in all of Star Wars would be epic to see; but despite my confidence in Anakin, I think Grievous could succeed in killing him. This is mainly do to the fact that Grievous' fighting style revolves around countering aggression with aggression, literally mimicking the moveset of his opponent, and tearing them apart. The only conceivable way I could see Anakin winning is if he used his massive power in the Force to crush Grievous, or by going against his nature by fighting defensively like Obi-Wan. Considering Obi-Wan being the undisputed master of Form III, the all defensive form, is what made him the only Jedi who could take Grievous in a straight up duel, Anakin would have had to at least fight half as well on the defensive as Obi-Wan to beat Grievous. Yeah, the Dark Side would have made him stronger, but Grievous would have been able to turn all that added aggression against him.

[ZenKrio]

The reality is that GL had Anikan say "You're shorter than I expected", and because that line implied that they hadn't met beforehand, it would be written that Anikan could only ever "just miss" Grievous.

[Predatornc]

I wish they’d use grievous more in the new canon. His backstory and how he became this monster is tragic.

[patriceclark]

When I was a kid watching 2003 Clone Wars, the interaction between Anakin, Obi wan, Mace, and Palpatine talking about General Grievous, when it focused on Anakin I took it as it implied Grievous gave Anakin his scar.

[goisles]

Grievous relies on his opponent being intimidated. It keeps them from having a clear connection to the Force.

Anakin fears many things, but all of them have to do with harm to others, not himself. This is a rare situation where Anakin’s overwhelming arrogance would work to his advantage. Anakin would be absolutely free to draw on the Force on a fight, and with Form V lightsaber Mastery, Grievous would find it difficult to keep Skywalker on his backfoot; Anakin would always be able to swing back hard if Grievous got the upper hand.

Grievous miiight be able to win in an ambush, but in a fair fight, Anakin would pull off the win.

[johnquach]

Short form: didn't want Anakin to die early.

[CaldwellLowell]

We all know the real reason is the throw away line in RoTS that made Dave Filoni spend 6 seasons jumping through narrative holes to ensure continuity

[juliankinsella]

I like how palpatine stoped him from attacking Anakin and sent him after obi wan and it is a good plan. This is because if he succeeded he would have obi wan out of the way and Anakin would have more fear and hate to take advantage of and if grevious couldn't kill obi wan he would be obsessed with defeating him.

[vetal]

On one hand Anakin is impulsive in a fight and a bad match for Grievous that trained to exploit imbalance in Jedi. On the other, Anakin never shies away from copious usage of Force abilities such as Push or Crush, which Grievous doesn't have a countermeasure against and always retreats from.

[_Raven_]

I love those "This is *insert name*"
The paragraphs that follow sums up the characters that Stover is describing beautifully.

[lancetennenbaum]

Either I'm going full skitzo or this video was already posted.

[mageofdoomsie]

I also think that Palpatine also knew that Anakin was an “Act first, speak later” type of person, especially closer to the end of the war. Anakin never hesitated to kill a direct threat, and General Grievous was definitely a direct threat. Had Anakin engaged Grievous, most likely the cyborg general would be either completely incapacitated and captured, or killed (which IMO he would choose to do first). Palpatine couldn’t have this, as he said when Grievous actually was captured in the Clone Wars by the Gungans, because he was a key role in the whole war that Palpatine controlled. Had he lost Grievous too soon, everything could’ve fallen apart. There wouldn’t be another like Grievous to replace him with either, unlike with Dooku. Having the two meet both had negative outcomes, with either Anakin dying or Grievous dying, both ruining his whole plan.

I also just love how we have all of this speculation because of one throw-away line in the movie, its pretty great.

[romeoceron]

I think Anakin would win. Grevious is used to his opponents fearing his and always being on the defensive and always on the back foot, while skywalker who is the opposite and his form 5 is defensive with rebounding powerful offense which grevious wouldn’t know how to handle cause he never faced anyone like that. Just like kenobi, kenobi wasn’t scared and went at grevious, as well as kit fisto, kit went at grevious making him look bad. Anakin would win.

[StoneyGamerNetwork]

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Grievious laugh a bunch of times. May have been and ironic evil laugh but he did laugh… but I get the whole” he doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t laugh” thing sounds pretty badass and menacing.