Duel on the Invisible Hand

Count Dooku

"*"Get help, you're no match for him, he's a Sith Lord."*
“Chancellor Palpatine, Sith Lords are our speciality.”*"*

―—Sheev Palpatine and Obi-Wan Kenobi

This fight took place in *Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.*

The fight took place on a Separatist Dreadnought called *the Invisible Hand* during the Battle of Coruscant: it was a lightsaber duel between the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi against the Sith Lord Count Dooku.

Anakin and Obi-Wan each used a blue coloured lightsaber, and Count Dooku used his signature red coloured curved lightsaber. Count Dooku was a Master of Form II, also known as Makashi. Anakin specialized in Form V, also known as Djem So and Form 6, also known as Shien. Obi-Wan used Form III, also known as Soresu.

## The Duel

### Prelude

During the Clone Wars Palpatine, secretly the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, played both sides and staged his own kidnapping by General Grievous because the Jedi were very close to discovering the identity of Darth Sidious.

Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi were sent on a mission to rescue the chancellor without knowing that he was a Sith Lord. During the Battle of Coruscant, Anakin and Obi-Wan managed to crash-land their ships into the hangar bay of *the Invisible Hand*. After R2-D2 located Palpatine’s homing beacon, they headed towards the signal emanating from the upper observation deck. They eventually made their way to Palpatine. Before the two Jedi could release him, Dooku arrived with two B2 Super Battle Droids and confronted Anakin and Obi-Wan.

### The Battle

#### Obi-Wan and Anakin against Dooku

Before the duel started Obi-Wan told Anakin that they are to fight Dooku together to avoid their failure facing Dooku on Geonosis. The two Jedi began the duel utilizing basic attacks of the forms Ataru and Shien as a ploy. At first, Dooku was easily able to counter their attacks with his mastery of Makashi. However, he was caught off guard when they switched to their traditional and more preferred forms of Soresu and Djem So. Dooku then force pushed Kenobi away so he could focus on Skywalker. Skywalker drove Dooku up the stairs while Kenobi got up and destroyed the two super battle droids. He then headed over to attack Dooku from behind. Dooku then kicked Skywalker aside and quickly incapacitated Kenobi, pushing him into a wall with the force. Dooku then used the force to cause debris to fall on Kenobi to make sure he didn’t rejoin the fight.

#### Anakin against Dooku

*"My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count" "Good twice the pride, double the fall" –* Anakin and Count Dooku

After Dooku had subdued Obi-Wan, Anakin was enraged and kicked Dooku off the balcony and engaged him once again. Dooku sensed that the situation had instilled fear in Skywalker. Dooku used the Sith technique Dun Möch to exploit Skywalker’s fear in order to break his concentration. However, the technique backfired because Dooku had incorrectly assumed that Skywalker was afraid of facing him alone when the fear Dooku sensed was actually out of concern for Obi-Wan. Anakin then began to feed of the dark side and landed fast and heavy power attacks. Although at first Dooku had been toying with Anakin, he now was concerned, and struggled to block Anakin’s strikes. Anakin was able to completely overwhelm Dooku with his incredible speed and strength and eventually got through Dooku’s defences and cut off both of his hands. Anakin then caught Dooku’s lightsaber, and as Dooku fell to his knees, Anakin held both blades in a scissors-cross across Dooku’s neck. Palpatine commended Anakin’s victory and then encouraged him to kill Dooku. Although Anakin initially hesitated, he eventually gave in to his anger and desire for revenge and cut off Dooku’s head.

## Anakin's anger

*"I sense great fear in you Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger... but you don't use them"*

– Count Dooku

In this duel Anakin shows glimpses of the Sith that he will eventually become. Palpatine betrays Dooku to encourage Anakin to start using his anger. Anakin is ashamed of what he did and he says: *"I shouldn't have done that, this is not the Jedi way"* but Palpatine answers: "*It is only natural, he cut off your arm, you wanted revenge: it wasn't the first time Anakin."* referring to when Anakin slaughted the Tusken Raiders that tortured his mother to death.