Obi-Wan Kenobi(RotS) Respect Thread
By WollfMyth 67 Comments
I've recently gathered several sources for an Obi-Wan Kenobi Respect Thread. But because there was so much content on him, I decided to split it up into 3 parts: TPM Kenobi, RotS Kenobi and ANH Kenobi. Since this is RotS Kenobi, all feats from AotC to RotS will be counted. I also credit @shootingnova for the gifs from imgflip. Now, respect Revenge of the Sith's Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Accolades
Obi-Wan is stated an expert swordsman:
Obi-Wan is a Jedi Knight of Supreme skill:
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi noted for his wisdom, strength and power:
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a dedicated and legendary Jedi Knight:
A dedicated and legendary Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi had a long and tumultuous career that helped shape the galaxy.
The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
(Canon)Anakin Skywalker regards Obi-Wan as a great master; as wise as Yoda and as powerful as Mace Windu:
"Obi-Wan is a great mentor; as wise as Master Yoda, and as powerful as Master Windu."
Attack of the Clones
(Canon)Mace Windu implies Obi-Wan could potentially be greater than him:
"I am called a great swordsman because I invented a lethal style; but who is greater, the creator of a killing form—or the master of the classic form?"
Revenge of the Sith novel
Obi-Wan is regarded as an equal with Anakin Skywalker, mostly due to sparring with him thousands of times:
Years of fighting side-by-side left these warriors evenly matched, and their exhausting duel crossed the fiery landscape of a Mustafar refinery.
Lightsabers: A Guide to the Weapons of the Force
(Canon)Count Dooku believes that Kenobi becomes the master of Soresu:
Kenobi had become a master of Soresu.
Revenge of the Sith novel
Kenobi is one of the most highly regarded and respected masters of the Clone Wars, as he is a highly capable strategist:
His[Kenobi's] reputation is well earned as he deals with many trials on the road to becoming one of the most highly regarded Jedi Masters.
With the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan becomes a general in command of thousands of clone troopers. His stalwart presence and leadership skills earn him respect of his troops and fellow Jedi, as he proves a highly capable and trusted strategist.
Clone Wars Campaign Guide
(Canon)Few can match Kenobi in combat:
Kenobi would rather talk than fight, but when there is fighting to be done, few can match him.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are heroes well known throughout the galaxy, but Separatists, civilians and other padawans and younglings. They are the best of this age of heroes:
Beings across the galaxy watch, and shudder, and pray that they might wake up from this awful dream.
Because they know that what they're watching, live on the HoloNet, is the death of the Republic.
Many among these beings break into tears; many more reach out to comfort their husbands or wives, their creche-mates or kintriads, and their younglings of all descriptions, from children to cubs to spawn-fry.
But here is a strange thing: few of the younglings need comfort. It is instead the younglings who offer comfort to their elders. Across the Republic—in words or pheromones, in magnetic pulses, tentacle-braids, or mental telepathy—the message from the younglings is the same: Don't worry. It'll be all right.
Anakin and Obi-Wan will be there any minute.
They say this as though these names can conjure miracles. Anakin and Obi-Wan. Kenobi and Skywalker. From the beginning of the Clone Wars, the phrase Kenobi and Skywalker has become a single word. They are everywhere. HoloNet features of their operations against the Separatist enemy have made them the most famous Jedi in the galaxy.
Younglings across the galaxy know their names, know everything about them, follow their exploits as though they are sports heroes instead of warriors in a desperate battle to save civilization. Even grown-ups are not immune; it's not uncommon for an exasperated parent to ask, when faced with offspring who have just tried to pull off one of the spectacularly dangerous bits of foolishness that are the stock-in-trade of high-spirited younglings everywhere, So which were you supposed to be, Kenobi or Skywalker?
Kenobi would rather talk than fight, but when there is fighting to be done, few can match him. Skywalker is the master of audacity; his intensity, boldness, and sheer jaw-dropping luck are the perfect complement to Kenobi's deliberate, balanced steadiness. Together, they are a Jedi hammer that has crushed Separatist infestations on scores of worlds.
All the younglings watching the battle in Coruscant's sky know it: when Anakin and Obi-Wan get there, those dirty Seppers are going to wish they'd stayed in bed today.
The adults know better, of course. That's part of what being a grown-up is: understanding that heroes are created by the HoloNet, and that the real-life Kenobi and Skywalker are only human beings, after all.
Even if they really are everything the legends say they are, who's to say they'll show up in time? Who knows where they are right now? They might be trapped on some Separatist backwater. They might be captured, or wounded. Even dead.
Some of the adults even whisper to themselves, They might have fallen.
Because the stories are out there. Not on the HoloNet, of course—the HoloNet news is under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, and not even Palpatine's renowned candor would allow tales like these to be told—but people hear whispers. Whispers of names that the Jedi would like to pretend never existed.
Sora Bulq. Depa Billaba. Jedi who have fallen to the dark. Who have joined the Separatists, or worse: who have massacred civilians, or even murdered their comrades. The adults have a sickening suspicion that Jedi cannot be trusted. Not anymore. That even the greatest of them can suddenly just... snap.
The adults know that legendary heroes are merely legends, and not heroes at all.
These adults can take no comfort from their younglings. Palpatine is captured. Grievous will escape. The Republic will fall. No mere human beings can turn this tide. No mere human beings would even try. Not even Kenobi and Skywalker. And so it is that these adults across the galaxy watch the HoloNet with ashes where their hearts should be.
Ashes because they can't see two prismatic bursts of realspace reversion, far out beyond the planet's gravity well; because they can't see a pair of starfighters crisply jettison hyperdrive rings and streak into the storm of Separatist vulture fighters with all guns blazing.
A pair of starfighters. Jedi starfighters. Only two.
Two is enough.
Two is enough because the adults are wrong, and their younglings are right.
Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) The legend of other Jedi Master's pales in comparison to Obi-Wan's and Anakin's:
Say what you will about the wisdom of ancient Master Yoda, or the deadly skill of grim Mace Windu, the courage of Ki-Adi-Mundi, or the subtle wiles of Shaak Ti; the greatness of all these Jedi is unquestioned, but it pales next to the legend that has grown around Kenobi and Skywalker.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker are not just a team, but the team and together they are nearly unstoppable:
Together, they are unstoppable. Unbeatable. They are the ultimate go-to guys of the Jedi Order. When the Good Guys absolutely, positively have to win, the call goes out.
Obi-Wan and Anakin always answer.
Whether Obi-Wan's legendary cleverness might beat Anakin's raw power, straight up, no rules, is the subject of schoolyard fistfights, creche-pool wriggle-matches, and pod-chamber stinkwars across the Republic. These struggles always end, somehow, with the combatants on both sides admitting that it doesn't matter.
Anakin and Obi-Wan would never fight each other.
They couldn't.
They're a team. They're the team.
And both of them are sure they always will be.
Revenge of the Sith novel
Force Reserves/Power/Willpower
Obi-Wan Kenobi, while injured, resists a potent Dark Side nexus:
Obi-Wan let his head fall back against the uneven wall behind him. His headache was ferocious now, and the black sludge in his veins was bubbling. It clogged his heart. Darkened his vision. The only thing he could see was death.
Die Jedi, die Je-
No. He scrambled upright, then fell against the wall, panting. Fought against the words. Fought against corrosive despair, against capitulation, fought to feel the light side in this place of utter dark. Threw his nearly thirty-six years of Jedi training and discipline at the gibbering Sith voice that was bent upon his obliteration.
The dark retreated.
Clone Wars: Wild Space
The nexus was so potent it could twist the outer atmosphere of it's planet, and influencing an unready Kenobi:
"We're here! Zigoola!"
He double-checked the nav comp's readings-good, definitely clear space-then disengaged the hyperdrive, easing them back to sublight speed. His heart was pounding. His palms were damp. As hyperspace began to warp and twist, stars emerging from its unreality, he heard Kenobi's footsteps behind him and turned. Swore.
"What in-Kenobi, are you sick?"
The Jedi's face was bloodless again, tightness pinched around his eyes and mouth. "No," he said shortly. "A headache. It's nothing."
[...]
Bail stared at the planet, so tauntingly within their grasp. Stared again at Kenobi. Felt his skin crawl with unease. How does the saying go? When In doubt, don't? "You're sure?"
Kenobi lowered his head for a moment, as though gathering his strength. Then he looked up and nodded. "Quite sure."
"All right," he said, feeling his heart thud. "But if the pain gets worse-if you feel anything else, anything-then we turn back. We think of another way to do this. Deal?"
"Deal," said Kenobi tightly, taking hold of the comsat chair. Didn't sit, though, no, he was too kriffing stubborn for that.
Bail shook his head. Jedi. "All right," he said. "Here we go."
Here I go, Breha. Wish me luck, my love.
He pushed them out of cruising speed, and the ship hurtled toward Zigoola. Moment by moment the planet seemed to expand until it filled the viewport. They flashed past its moons. Hurtled closer, closer. Breathing deeply, he eased back the ship's speed, preparing to enter the planet's exosphere.
"How's the headache, Master Kenobi?" he asked, tossing the question behind him. "Are you all right?"
Kenobi grunted.
The ship's bones vibrated gently as Zigoola's highest atmospheric layer claimed them. His heart was beating so hard it felt like his veins would explode. He couldn't drag his eyes away from the planetary surface so far below them, the cloud-swirls and the continents, the dearth of open water.
Clone Wars: Wild Space
The planet's nexus was also likened to an army of Darth Mauls:
I should have fought harder. I should not have succumbed.
The voice had struck out of nowhere, a deafening shout rank with malice and hate. Battering his spirit. Annihilating his will. Ink pouring into a glass of clear water. Ink with blood in it. Ink full of rage. It was the voice of the Sith, smashing through his defenses as though they weren't there.
Submit. Submit. Jedi, submit.
Only once before had he felt a darkness like it. Felt the dark side trying to turn his blood to sludge, trying to disrupt his light and brilliant connection with the Force. On Naboo, in Theed, fighting the red-and-black Sith assassin. But then he'd been able to resist that dark slurry. He'd been able to purge himself of its taint, and win.
But not this time. This time it was as though an army of Sith had bent their malevolent minds upon him. And though he'd fought against them, battled the shattering compulsion to fly the ship to its death...battled until he thought his sanity would give way...in the end, the Sith had won.
Jedi, submit.
Clone Wars: Wild Space
Obi-Wan Kenobi keeps fighting with Asajj Ventress and Durge despite being under the influence of a poisonous gas that took a Jedi Master, Glaive, all his considerable strength just to keep said gas from melting his lungs:
Valor
Kenobi forms large afterglows of his lightsaber, whilst also deflecting tens of shards of glass thrown at him by Asajj Ventress:
Kenobi appears to be in three places at once whilst landing several hits on a beast:
Obi-Wan tanks several blows from ShadowMen and is almost completely unharmed:
Obi-Wan Kenobi forms a circle of blue light around him:
Obi-Wan kills a thug before he can react:
Several examples of Kenobi dodging and deflecting tens of blaster bolts:
Kenobi dodges several blaster bolts and cuts down tens of droids:
Kenobi performs a leap, then deflects several blasters and swiftly cuts down a droid and disarms a lieutenant:
Kenobi survives an explosion and then proceeds to get smashed by Durge, and still keeps going:
Obi-Wan kicks Asajj Ventress:
Kenobi's not particularly harmed by an explosion, and catches himself on his feet:
Kenobi leaps to a ship:
Obi-Wan leaps towards Asajj Ventress:
Kenobi leaps over Durge, and twirls in the air:
Kenobi leaps a great height:
Obi-Wan survives a massive explosion, and then a fall:
Kenobi tanks being shot:
Obi-Wan throws a man through a window:
Obi-Wan breaks his restraints:
Obi-Wan Kenobi beasts a four-armed, fighting champion in unarmed combat, throwing him out the window. Here he demonstrates excellent martial skill and good strength/durability:
Obi-Wan lands several kicks on Darth Maul and Savage Opress:
Obi-Wan breaks Savage Opress's leg:
Kenobi deflects and dodges several of Jango's blaster bolts:
Kenobi dodges several explosions:
Obi-Wan kicks Jango Fett several times:
Obi-Wan pulls down Jango from flight:
Despite being tortured by Asajj Ventress for days, Obi-Wan Kenobi leaps over and subdues several people with his strength:
(Canon) Obi-Wan kicks a spider droid's head and snaps it:
A single slash of his lightsaber amputated the shoulder cannon of one power droid and continued into a spinning Force-assisted kick that brought his boot heel to the point of the other power droid's duranium chin, snapping the droid's head back hard enough to sever its cervical sensor cables.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Kenobi bends Grievous' forearm:
But Obi-Wan's arm had the Force to give it strength, and the general's arm only had the innate crystalline intermolecular structure of duranium alloy.
Grievous' forearm bent like a cheap spoon.
Revenge of the Sith novel
Kenobi bowls Anakin over:
Anakin did a back flip onto the table to gain the high ground. But Obi-Wan had been expecting something like that, and did not follow. Instead, he threw himself into a long slide, bowling Anakin over.
Revenge of the Sith Junior novel
Obi-Wan survives and keeps fighting despite transparisteel piercing his entire body:
The entrance hall's transparisteel skylight shattered, spraying them with high-velocity lethal shards. A swarm of small and highly maneuverable remote droids, each armed with a miniaturized laser cannon and heat-seeking sensors, poured through the jagged hole.
"Stang!" Treve cursed. "Mosquitoes!" Raising his blaster he started to fire.
Obi-Wan felt his blood surge. Shockingly, his armor was pierced but there was no time for him to pull the slivers of transparisteel from his chest and arms and shoulder. No time to feel the white-hot pain, to worry about severed nerves or tendons. Fight or die. That was the choice.
Clone Wars: Stealth
Obi-Wan lands physical blows on Anakin:
https://youtu.be/UOhZ5wD6u7A?t=163
Kenobi forms a shield out of his lightsaber:
But still his[Kenobi's] arms moved, weaving light into a deadly shield against all of Anakin's blows.
Revenge of the Sith Junior Novelization
Obi-Wan holds back the mouth of a Sarlaac:
Obi-Wan rips open Grievous' chestplate:
Obi-Wan deflects blasters from hundreds of droids:
(Canon) Obi-Wan deflects blaster fire from an entire army:
An instant later the Force had him hurtling through a storm of blasterfire as every combat droid in the control center opened up on him at once. Letting go of intention, letting go of desire, letting go of life, Obi-Wan fixed his entire attention on a thread of the Force that pulled him toward Grievous: not where Grievous was, but where Grievous would be when Obi-Wan got there...
Leaping girder to girder, slashing cables on which to swing through swarms of ricocheting particle beams, blade flickering so fast it became a deflector shield that splattered blaster bolts in all directions, his presence alone became a weapon: as he spun and whirled through the control center's superstructure, the blasts of particle cannons from power droids destroyed equipment and shattered girders and unleashed a torrent of red-hot debris that crashed to the deck, crushing droids on all sides.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Kenobi forms a "wheel of lightning" out of his blade:
Only to find himself again facing the wheel of blue lightning that was Kenobi's blade.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi-Wan seems to vanish:
"Very well, then," the Jedi said, and shot straight upward over Dooku's head so fast it seemed he'd vanished.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Kenobi demonstrate speeds of a respectable fraction of light:
Droids closing rapidly on their tails, cannonfire stitching space on all sides, the two Jedi pulled their ships through perfectly mirrored rolls that sent them streaking head-on for each other from opposite ends of a vast Republic cruiser. For merely human pilots, this would be suicide. By the time you can see your partner's starfighter streaking toward you at a respectable fraction of lightspeed, it's already too late for your merely human reflexes to react.
Revenge of the Sith novel
Telepathy
Telepathy allows a Force user to manipulate ones mind, or to exercise telepathic communication.
Mind Trick
A telepathic power that allows a Force user to mentally influence a target.
(Canon) Kenobi performs a mind trick on a Slythmonger:
"Wanna buy some death sticks?" came a guttural voice from the side.
Obi-Wan didn't even turn to fully regard the speaker, who wore a wild mane of dark hair, with two antennae twirled up from his hair like curly horns.
"Nobody's got better death sticks than Elan Sleazebaggano," the ruffian added with a perfectly evil smile.
"You don't want to sell me death sticks," the Jedi coolly said, waggling his fingers slightly, bringing the weight of the Force into his voice.
"I don't want to sell you death sticks," Elan Sleazebaggano obediently repeated.
Again the Jedi waggled his fingers. "You want to go home and rethink your life."
"I want to go home and rethink my life," Elan readily agreed, and he turned and walked away.
Attack of the Clones novel
Beast Language/Beast Trick/Animal Friendship
These abilities allow a Force user to control/communicate with animals and beasts.
(Canon) Obi-Wan commands the veractyl Boga:
In a fury of light, Obi-Wan sent a volley of shots back at the battle droids and whistled for his riding lizard, just as the general kicked his scooter into motion and roared away.
...
He urged the lizard up onto the wall, and then the ceiling.
Revenge of the Sith Junior Novelization
Sense
This ability allows a Force user to sense different things through the Force.
Obi-Wan senses Anakin's turmoil:
Kenobi senses Dooku's presence:
(Canon) Obi-Wan senses Asajj's frustration:
https://youtu.be/7q2TNPxSxj0?t=72
(Canon) Obi-Wan is able to sense the presence of Darth Maul:
Obi-Wan and Anakin fight an entire army while blindfolded, relying only on their sense abilities:
Tutaminis
This ability allows a Force user to absorb or deflect harmful energy attacks.
Obi-Wan deflects several bolts from Durge, and then a flamethrower:
Kenobi deflects several blaster bolts from a Droideka:
Immovability
This ability allows a Force user to root themselves in place and being unmoved, to an extent.
(Canon) Obi-Wan makes himself immovable, preventing Jango from dragging him:
He rolled about a pylon and came back to his feet again, now having the leverage of the metal pole helping to hold him there.
Reaching deeply in the Force once more, he grounded himself, becoming, for an instant, almost as one with the platform.
Immovable.
Attack of the Clones novel
While riding Boga, Kenobi roots himself in place and makes it impossible for him to fall as he clings to the lizard:
The lizard used its natural abilities to cling upside down, and Obi-Wan used the Force to cling to the lizard.
Revenge of the Sith Junior Novelization
Electronic Manipulation
This ability allows a Force user to manipulate mechanics and electronics.
(Canon) Kenobi uses it to make General Grievous drop his lightsaber:
Because all there on the bridge was one in the Force, from the gross structure of the ship itself to the quantum dance of the electron shells of individual atoms—and because, after all, the nerves and muscles of the bio-droid general were creations of electronics and duranium, not living tissue with will of its own—it was just barely possible that with exactly the right twist of his mind, in that one vulnerable quarter of a second while Grievous was distracted, flinching backward from a spray of flame hot enough to burn even his armored body, Obi-Wan might be able to temporarily reverse the polarity of the electrodrivers in the general's mechanical hands. Which is exactly what he did.
Durasteel fingers sprang open, and two lightsabers fell free.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi-Wan later disarms Anakin with the same method:
Obi-Wan had only one trick left, one that wouldn't work twice - but it was a very good trick.
It had, after all, worked rather splendidly on Grievous...
He twitched one finger, reaching through the Force to reverse the polarity of the electrodrivers in Anakin's mechanical hand. Durasteel fingers sprang open, and a lightsaber tumbled free.
Revenge of the Sith novel
Telekinesis
Telekinesis is the basic capability to manipulate objects through the Force.
(Canon) Obi-Wan brings down an object large enough to crush several MagnaGuards with ease:
Obi-Wan crushes Durge's flamethrower and manipulates his lightsaber so he can cut Durge's flail:
(Canon) Obi-Wan crushes two droids with ease:
(Canon) Kenobi hurls a MagnaGuards torso onto Grievous:
(Canon) Several examples of Kenobi removing Grievous from the battlefield:
Obi-Wan demonstrates skill in saber throw:
Kenobi casually dismisses a droid:
Despite going through days of torture, Obi-Wan disarms a man:
(Canon) Kenobi deflects several telekinetic blasts from a hindered Anakin Skywalker:
They spun and whirled throughout its levels, up its stairs, and across its platforms; they battled out onto the collection panels over which the cascades of lava poured, and Obi-Wan, out on the edge of the collection panel, hunching under a curve of durasteel that splashed aside gouts of lava, deflecting Force blasts and countering strikes from this creature of rage that had been his best friend, suddenly comprehended an unexpectedly profound truth.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi stalemates a hindered Anakin Skywalker:
(Canon) Obi-Wan casually dismisses Cad Bane with TK:
Obi-Wan holds a man in place, even while deflecting blasters:
Obi-Wan and Master Judd hold up a large door:
Kenobi, Anakin and Shaak Ti collapse a tunnel:
Obi-Wan pulls his Jedi Fighter by the nose, whilst piloting it:
Obi-Wan and Anakin deflect several Challat eaters:
Obi-Wan brings down a tree with strain:
(Canon) Obi-Wan stops several books thrown at him by Asajj Ventress:
Kenobi blows Durge to bits:
Kenobi uses a Force Throw on a Droideka:
(Canon) Obi-Wan easily lifts and brings down a speeder:
Obi-Wan knocks down a large quantity of pykes:
Obi-Wan hurls back Pre Viszla:
Obi-Wan moves Durge's ship:
(Canon) Obi-Wan throws Asajj Ventress:
Obi-Wan staggers Darth Maul:
Obi-Wan hurls a distracted Anakin:
Obi-Wan does so again, saving him from an explosion:
Combat skill
Obi-Wan Kenobi is regarded as a master of Form IV Ataru:
Obi-Wan did such carnage to Xist's forces that Xist was of the opinion it was done by an army:
Obi-Wan Kenobi beasts a four-armed, fighting champion in unarmed combat, throwing him out the window. Here he demonstrates excellent martial skill and good strength/durability:
Obi-Wan Kenobi fights a vibro-whip armed Xist, defeating him via unarmed combat:
Obi-Wan casually fodderizes Dooku's and Grievous' droid body guards:
Obi-Wan demonstrates skill in mounted combat, quickly defeat Durge:
Obi-Wan Kenobi fights Kit Fisto, one of the Order's greatest lightsaber duelists, in a spar, although he is defeated(keep in mind, this is still AotC Kenobi):
In standing within arm's reach of an opponent, a Jedi walked the edge between life and death.
Obi-Wan and Kit had been engaged for an hour now, each seeking holes in the other's defense. Obi-Wan swiftly discovered that Kit was the better swordfighter, astonishingly aggressive and intuitive in comparison with Obi-Wan's more measured style. But the Nautolan gave himself deliberate disadvantages, hampered himself in terms of balance, limited his speed, emphasized his nondominant side to force himself to full attention, the kind of full attention that can be best accessed only when life itself is at risk. To relax and feel the flow of the Force under such stress was the true road to mastery.
A Master from the Sabilon region of Glee Anselm, Kit was a practitioner of Form I lightsaber combat: it was the most ancient style of fighting, based on ancient sword techniques. Obi-Wan's own Padawan learner, Anakin, used Form V, which concentrated on strength. The lethal Count Dooku had used Form II, an elegant, precise style that stressed advanced precision in blade manipulation.
Obi-Wan himself specialized in Form III. This form grew out of laser-blast deflection training, and maximized defensive protection.
For hours the two danced without music, at first falling into a preplanned series of moves and countermoves learned in the Temple under Master Yoda's tutelage. As they grew more accustomed to each other's rhythms, they progressed into a flowing web of spontaneous engagement. Slowly, minute by minute, they increased pace, stuttered the rhythm, increasing the acuteness of attack angles and beginning to utilize feints and distractions, binds, rapid changes in level, and to introduce random environmental elements into the interaction: furniture, walls, slippery floors. To an observer it would have seemed that the two were trying to slaughter each other, but the two knew that they were engaged in the most profound and enjoyable aspect of Jedi play, lightsaber flow.
The Cestus Deception
Obi-Wan Kenobi fights Asajj Ventress several times, trading wins and losses:
(Canon):
https://youtu.be/7q2TNPxSxj0?t=72
(Canon) Obi-Wan Kenobi also trades wins and losses with General Grievous:
(Canon) And finally, at the end of the war, Kenobi beats General Grievous:
The bio-droid general cast back his cloak, revealing the four lightsabers pocketed there. He stepped back, spreading wide his duranium arms. "You will not be the first Jedi I have killed, nor will you be the last."
Obi-Wan's only reply was to subtly shift the angle of his lightsaber up and forward.
The general's wide-spread arms now split along their lengths, dividing in half-even his hands split in half-Now he had four arms. And four hands.
And each hand took a lightsaber as his cloak dropped to the floor.
They snarled to life and Grievous spun all four of them in a flourishing velocity so fast and so seamlessly integrated that he seemed to stand within a pulsing sphere of blue and green energy.
"Come on, then, Kenobi! Come for me!" he said. "I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Lord Tyranus himself"
"Do you mean Count Dooku? What a curious coincidence," Obi-Wan said with a deceptively pleasant smile. "I trained the man who killed him."
With a convulsive snarl, Grievous lunged.
The sphere of blue lightsaber energy around him bulged toward Obi-Wan and opened like a mouth to bite him in half. Obi-Wan stood his ground, his blade still.
Chain-lightning teeth closed upon him.
So now, facing the tornado of annihilating energy that is Grievous's attack, Obi-Wan simply is who he is.
The electrodrivers powering Grievous's mechanical arms let each of the four attack thrice in a single second; integrated by combat algorithms in the bio-droid's electronic network of peripheral processors, each of the twelve strikes per second came from a different angle with different speed and intensity, an unpredictably broken rhythm of slashes, chops, and stabs of which every single one could take Obi-Wan's life. Not one touched him.
After all, he had often walked unscathed through hornet-swarms of blasterfire, defended only by the Force's direction of his blade; countering twelve blows per second was only difficult, not impossible. His blade wove an intricate web of angles and curves, never truly fast but always just fast enough, each motion of his lightsaber subtly interfering with three or four or eight of the general's strikes, the rest sizzling past him, his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them by centimeters.
Grievous, snarling fury, ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attacks-sixteen per second, eighteen-until finally, at twenty strikes per second, he overloaded Obi-Wan's defense. So Obi-Wan used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brought Obi-Wan's blade in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the handgrip. -slice-
The blade winked out of existence a hairbreadth before it would have burned through Obi-Wan's forehead. Half the severed lightsaber skittered away, along with the duranium thumb and first finger of the hand that had held it.
Grievous paused, eyes pulsing wide, then drawing narrow. He lifted his maimed hand and stared at the white-hot stumps that held now only half a useless lightsaber.
Obi-Wan smiled at him.
Grievous lunged.
Obi-Wan parried.
Pieces of lightsabers bounced on the durasteel deck.
Grievous looked down at the blade-sliced hunks of metal that were all he had left in his hands, then up at Obi-Wan's shining sky-colored blade, then down at his hands again, and then he seemed to suddenly remember that he had an urgent appointment somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi-Wan Kenobi and Asajj Ventress fight Darth Maul and Savage Oppress with unfavourable circumstances, and are ultimately outmatched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJiphrbLyg
(Canon) Obi-Wan fights both Darth Maul and Savage Opress, and manages to hold them off and land several hit, albeit with the aid of several circumstances:
Obi-Wan spars evenly with Anakin Skywalker:
(Canon) Obi-Wan gives Darth Tyranus a good fight, albeit Dooku was under unfavourable circumstances, but Tyranus still admits Kenobi's utter mastery of Soresu:
He threw himself spinning up and away from the two Jedi to land on the situation table, disengaging for a moment to recover his composure-that had been entirely too close-but by the time his boots touched down Kenobi was there to meet him, blade weaving through a defensive velocity so bewilderingly fast that Dooku dared not even try a strike; he threw a feint toward Kenobi's face, then dropped and spun in a reverse ankle-sweep-But not only did Kenobi easily overleap this attack, Dooku nearly lost his own foot to a slash from Skywalker who had again come out of nowhere and now carved through the table so that it collapsed under Dooku's weight and dumped the Sith Lord unceremoniously to the floor. This was not in the plan."
[...]
He drove a series of flashing thrusts toward Kenobi's legs to draw the Jedi Master into a flipping overhead leap so that Dooku could burn through his spine from kidneys to shoulder blades-and this image, this plan, was so clear in Dooku's mind that he almost failed to notice that Kenobi met every one of his thrusts without so much as moving his feet, staying perfectly centered, perfectly balanced, blade never moving a millimeter more than was necessary, deflecting without effort, riposting with flickering strikes and stabs swifter than the tongue of a Garollian ghost viper, and when Dooku felt Skywalker regain his feet and stride once more toward his back, he finally registered the source of that blinding defensive velocity Kenobi had used a moment ago, and only then, belatedly, did he understand that Kenobi's Ataro and Shii-Cho had been ploys, as well.
Kenobi had become a master of Soresu.
Revenge of the Sith novel
(Canon) Obi-Wan stalemates a hindered Anakin Skywalker, winning due to Anakin's arrogance after gaining the high ground:
https://youtu.be/UOhZ5wD6u7A?t=103
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tzqehBgi4I
Blade-to-blade, they were identical. After thousands of hours in lightsaber sparring, they knew each other better than brothers, more intimately than lovers; they were complementary halves of a single warrior. In every exchange, Obi-Wan gave ground. It was his way. And he knew that to strike Anakin down would burn his own heart to ash.
Exchanges flashed. Leaps were sideslipped or met with flying kicks; ankle sweeps skipped over and punches parried. The door of the control center fell in pieces, and then they were inside among the bodies. Consoles exploded in fountains of white-hot sparks as they ripped free of their moorings and hurtled through the air. Dead hands spasmed on triggers and blaster bolts sizzled through impossibly intricate lattices of ricochet.
Obi-Wan barely caught some and flipped them at Anakin: a desperation move. Anything to distract him; anything to slow him down. Easily, contemptuously, Anakin sent them back, and the bolts flared between their blades until their galvening faded and the particles of the packeted beams dispersed into radioactive fog.
"Don't make me destroy you, Obi-Wan." Anakin's voice had gone deeper than a well and bleak as the obsidian cliffs. "You're no match for the power of the dark side."
"I've heard that before," Obi-Wan said through his teeth, parrying madly, "but I never thought I'd hear it from vow." A roar of the Force blasted Obi-Wan back into a wall, smashing breath from his lungs, leaving him swaying, half stunned. Anakin stepped over bodies and lifted his blade for the kill.
Obi-Wan had only one trick left, one that wouldn't work twice— But it was a very good trick. It had, after all, worked rather splendidly on Grievous... He twitched one finger, reaching through the Force to reverse the polarity of the electrodrivers in Anakin's mechanical hand. Durasteel fingers sprang open, and a lightsaber tumbled free. Obi-Wan reached. Anakin's lightsaber twisted in the air and flipped into his hand. He poised both blades in a cross before him.
"The flaw of power is arrogance."
"You hesitate," Anakin said. "The flaw of compassion—"
"It's not compassion," Obi-Wan said sadly. "It's reverence for life. Even yours. It's respect for the man you were."
He sighed. "It's regret for the man you should have been."
Anakin roared and flew at him, using both the Force and his body to crash Obi-Wan back into the wall once more. His hands seized Obi-Wan's wrists with impossible strength, forcing his arms wide.
"I am so sick of your lectures!" Dark power bore down with his grip. Obi-Wan felt the bones of his forearms bending, beginning to feather toward the greenstick fractures that would come before the final breaks. Oh, he thought. Oh, this is bad.
.....
With Anakin's grip on his wrists bending his arms near to breaking, forcing both their lightsabers down in a slow but unstoppable arc, Obi-Wan let go. Of everything. His hopes. His fears. His obligation to the Jedi, his promise to Qui-Gon, his failure with Anakin. And their lightsabers.
Startled, Anakin instinctively shifted his Force grip, releasing one wrist to reach for his blade; in that instant Obi-Wan twisted free of his other hand and with the Force caught up his own blade, reversing it along his forearm so that his swift parry of Anakin's thundering overhand not only blocked the strike but directed both blades to slice through the wall against which he stood.
He slid Anakin's following thrust through the wall on the opposite side, guiding both blades again up and over his head in a circular sweep so that he could use the power of Anakin's next chop to drive himself backward through the wall, outside into the smoke and the falling cinders.
Anakin followed, constantly attacking; Obi-Wan again gave ground, retreating along a narrow balcony high above the blacksand shoreline of a lake of fire. Mustafar hummed with death behind his back, only a moment away, somewhere out there among the rivers of molten rock. Obi-Wan let Anakin drive him toward it. It was a place, he decided, they should reach together.
Anakin forced him back and back, slamming his blade down with strength that seemed to flow from the volcano overhead. He spun and whirled and sliced razor-sharp shards of steel from the wall and shot them at Obi-Wan with the full heat of his fury. He slashed through a control panel along the walkway, and the ray shield that had held back the lava storm vanished.
Fire rained around them.
Obi-Wan backed to the end of the balcony; behind him was only a power conduit no thicker than his arm, connecting it to the main collection plant of the old lava mine, over a riverbed that flowed with white-hot molten stone. Obi-Wan stepped backward onto the conduit without hesitation, his balance flawless as he parried chop after chop.
Anakin came on. Out on the tightrope of power conduit, their blades blurred even faster than before. They chopped and slashed and parried and blocked. Lava bombs thundered to the ground below, shedding drops of burning stone that scorched their robes. Smoke shrouded the planet's star, and now the only light came from the hell-glow of the lava below them and from their blades themselves. Flares of energy crackled and spat.
ergy crackled and spat. This was not Sith against Jedi. This was not light against dark or good against evil; it had nothing to do with duty or philosophy, religion or morals. It was Anakin against Obi-Wan. Personally. Just the two of them, and the damage they had done to each other.
Obi-Wan backflipped from the conduit to a coupling nexus of the main collection plant; when Anakin flew in pursuit, Obi-Wan leapt again. They spun and whirled throughout its levels, up its stairs, and across its platforms; they battled out onto the collection panels over which the cascades of lava poured, and Obi-Wan, out on the edge of the collection panel, hunching under a curve of durasteel that splashed aside gouts of lava, deflecting Force blasts and countering strikes from this creature of rage that had been his best friend, suddenly comprehended an unexpectedly profound truth.
The man he faced was everything Obi-Wan had devoted his life to destroying: Murderer. Traitor. Fallen Jedi. Lord of the Sith.
And here, and now, despite it all... Obi-Wan still loved him.
Yoda had said it, flat-out: Allow such attachments to pass out of one's life, a Jedi must, but Obi-Wan had never let himself understand. He had argued for Anakin, made excuses, covered for him again and again and again; all the while this attachment he denied even feeling had blinded him to the dark path his best friend walked. Obi-Wan knew there was, in the end, only one answer for attachment...
He let it go.
.....
"Yes, Anakin, so do I," Obi-Wan said as he sprinted into a leaping dive, making a spear of his blade. Anakin leaned aside and deflected the thrust almost contemptuously; he missed a cut at Obi-Wan's legs as the Jedi Master flew past him. Obi-Wan turned his dive into a forward roll that left him barely teetering on the rim of a low cliff, just above the soft black sand of the riverbank.
Anakin snarled a curse as he realized he'd been suckered, and leapt off his droid at Obi-Wan's back— Half a second too slow. Obi-Wan's whirl to parry didn't meet Anakin's blade. It met his knee. Then his other knee. And while Anakin was still in the air, burned-off lower legs only starting their topple down the cliff, Obi-Wan's recovery to guard brought his blade through Anakin's left arm above the elbow.
He stepped back as Anakin fell. Anakin dropped his lightsaber, clawing at the edge of the cliff with his mechanical hand, but his grip was too powerful for the lava bank and it crumbled, and he slid down onto the black sand. His severed legs and his severed arm rolled into the lava below him and burned to ash in sudden bursts of scarlet flame.
The same color, Obi-Wan observed distantly, as a Sith blade. Anakin scrabbled at the soft black sand, but struggling only made him slip farther. The sand itself was hot enough that digging his durasteel fingers into it burned off his glove, and his robes began to smolder. Obi-Wan picked up Anakin's lightsaber. He lifted his own as well, weighing them in his hands. Anakin had based his design upon Obi-Wan's. So similar they were. So differently they had been used. "Obi-Wan... ?"
Revenge of the Sith novel
As Anakin’s lightsaber hummed toward him, a calm certainty filled Obi-Wan. Anakin was going to kill him. Oh, he’d make Anakin work for it. He’d fight with everything he had. But he was positive, with the sureness that came from any Force-driven insight, that he would die at Anakin’s hands.
His lightsaber came up in an instinctive parry. They had sparred together so often that they knew each other’s favorite moves. Obi-Wan hardly had to think to counter Anakin’s attack. Lightsabers humming, they battled their way down the hall and into the control center. It felt … familiar, like another practice session, except for the exploding equipment.
He saw the same emotions reflected on Anakin’s face. “Don’t make me destroy you,” his former apprentice said again. Then his expression changed to a sneer. “You’re no match for the dark side.”
“I’ve heard that before, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “But I never thought I’d hear it from you.”
They were in the conference room now. There were headless and limbless bodies on the floor; Obi-Wan recognized several of the Separatist leaders. Anakin has been here before, he thought. But still his arms moved, weaving light into a deadly shield against all of Anakin’s blows.
Anakin did a back flip onto the table to gain the high ground. But Obi-Wan had been expecting something like that, and did not follow. Instead, he threw himself into a long slide, bowling Anakin over.
As he fell, Anakin lost his grip on his lightsaber. Obi-Wan caught it and stared at it in surprise. How can Anakin kill me, if he doesn’t have a lightsaber? Then Anakin charged him. Before Obi-Wan could swing his own weapon, Anakin was on him. His left hand gripped Obi-Wan’s right wrist, holding off the deadly lightsaber; the mechanical right hand fought to repossess his own weapon.
Durasteel and servomotors proved stronger than flesh and bone. Anakin wrenched his lightsaber away, and attacked once more.
Out into the hall, they fought, then onto a balcony above a river of lava. A slender pipe led from the control center to a collection plant on the far side of the river. As Anakin’s attack intensified, Obi-Wan was forced onto the pipe, where a single misstep would send him plunging into the fire.
***
Crossing the collection pipe was difficult, even for a Jedi. At one point, Obi-Wan slipped and nearly fell into the lava, but his Jedi reflexes and agility let him recover. On the far side, Anakin rushed him again, driving him back onto the collection plates.
But the collection plant had never been designed to take the weight of two men, and in the heat of the battle in the control room, they had smashed the shield controls that protected the plant from fiery lava, weakening the structure. A spray of lava from the river that melted one of the supports provided the final straw. A huge section of a collection arm broke away and fell into the lava, carrying the two Jedi with it.
Still the fight continued, even as the collection tower sank slowly into the lava. And still, neither man could gain an advantage.
But that’s not really true, Obi-Wan thought as he ducked and wove and parried. Both he and Anakin felt the anguish of their need to kill the other. But Anakin had turned to the dark side, and despair and pain strengthened the dark side. It gave him an advantage Obi-Wan could not match. Unless he let go of his own despair and let the living Force move him — the Force that bound all living things together, even Obi-Wan and this new, deadly, evil Anakin.
It was hard. It was, perhaps, the hardest thing he had ever tried to do. For in letting go of his anguish, his despair, and his pain, he would have to let go of the Anakin who was his student, his brother, and his dearest friend. He’d have to admit that this time, he could not save the man who had saved his life so many times, whose life he had saved at least as often.
Obi-Wan couldn’t do it. As the collection tower sank farther into the lava, he looked for a way to escape. A droid platform floated on air near the tower. Obi-Wan took another swipe at Anakin, then grabbed a hanging cable and swung out toward the platform. At the height of his swing, he flipped himself into the air, landing precisely.
The platform wobbled, but it held his weight. He leaned to one side, steering it away from the collection tower. Perhaps the sinking tower and the lava would do what he had been unable to finish.
But when he looked back, Anakin was standing on a worker droid, coming up fast. “Your combat skills have always been poor,” he taunted. “You’re called the Negotiator because you can’t fight!”
“I have failed you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan told him. “I was never able to teach you to think.”
Anakin nodded. “I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over.”
“From the Sith!” Obi-Wan cried, shocked. “Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil.”
“From the Jedi point of view!” Anakin retorted. “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.”
The words stabbed at Obi-Wan, even though he knew that Anakin was speaking out of his own pain. He felt the dark side grow stronger, feeding on his despair. And then, as Anakin came close enough to swing his lightsaber once more, the Jedi in Obi-Wan rose up and at last he did the thing he hadn’t thought he could do.
He let go. Calm, centered, free — for the moment — of sorrow and despair, resting in the living Force as he had been trained to do, Obi-Wan Kenobi looked at his former friend and student, and did the unexpected. He made a soaring leap into the air and landed on the high bank of the lava river.
“It’s over, Anakin,” he said, looking down. “I have the high ground. Don’t try it.”
“You underestimate the power of the dark side!” Anakin shot back, and with the last word, he jumped.
And Obi-Wan’s lightsaber moved, slicing through Anakin’s knees and then coming up to take his remaining hand. Anakin’s lightsaber fell at Obi-Wan’s feet. What was left of Anakin fell on the burning black sand almost at the edge of the lava.
Revenge of the Sith Junior novelisation
