# What if Obi-Wan & Yoda had decided to double team Vader (or Palpatine)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971 "2009-01-05T18:38:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/21 "2009-01-05T20:22:35Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > the Jedi are clearly morons. The minute I got to this part of the OP, I started to hear it in Vizini’s voice. Aristotle? Plato? Yoda? Morons. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/22 "2009-01-05T20:24:39Z")
Is Windu necessarily dead? Sure, he was in tremendous agony and thrown far out of the umpty-umpth floor window, but could he have used the Force to stabilize his trajectory and land, if not safely, at least non-fatally? Or was he injured too badly by Palpatine’s lightning? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/23 "2009-01-05T20:26:10Z")
You know what would have really changed the balance of power in the Star Wars universe? Light sabers with wrist straps. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/24 "2009-01-05T20:28:55Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Who went down in the first few seconds of the fight without so much as swinging their sabers. That was a one on one match for 99% of the time. Sorry, wasn’t saying that Windu was a wuss because he had help, just pointing out that Palpy took out even more people than **Chance** ’s message indicated. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/25 "2009-01-05T21:02:18Z")
You notice how these otherwise bad-ass Jedi stood around like idiots while Uncle Palpy sliced/diced three or four of them, before Mace Windu (Bad Motherfucker!) finally woke up and started fighting? Very badly done. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/26 "2009-01-05T21:16:25Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > You notice how these otherwise bad-ass Jedi stood around like idiots while Uncle Palpy sliced/diced three or four of them, before Mace Windu (Bad Motherfucker!) finally woke up and started fighting? > > Very badly done. I think it was supposed to be surprise… -Joe ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/27 "2009-01-05T21:40:28Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > You notice how these otherwise bad-ass Jedi stood around like idiots while Uncle Palpy sliced/diced three or four of them, before Mace Windu (Bad Motherfucker!) finally woke up and started fighting? > > Very badly done. Well it was said pretty obviously that the Jedi’s main strength was the ability to know the future, and react to events before the happen. Palpatine’s main power seemed to be to cloud the future, both immediate and long-term. Kinda like if your brakes have been replaced with brakes that react ten seconds after you hit them. They were dead before spidey-sence that there was danger kicked in. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/28 "2009-01-05T21:53:57Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > I think it was supposed to be surprise… > > -Joe Thats what i thought to but if you read the behind the scenes stuff those jedi with mace weren’t just redshirts. They were badasses and they still got mowed down ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/29 "2009-01-05T22:32:33Z")
> [@ChrisBooth12](#): > > They were badasses and they still got mowed down Like punk-ass bitches. Hell, there were “red shirts” in _Saving Private Ryan_ that could not have done any worse than three Jedi Masters. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/30 "2009-01-06T00:35:19Z")
in regards to anakin, it was an arm and 2 legs. as for leaving him there… as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/31 "2009-01-06T01:13:04Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > in regards to anakin, it was an arm and 2 legs. as for leaving him there… as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed. Yes, but Anakin was only **partially** unarmed. He still had one left. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/32 "2009-01-06T01:28:11Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Yes, but Anakin was only **partially** unarmed. True, but he didn’t have a leg to stand on. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/33 "2009-01-06T01:41:20Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > in regards to anakin, it was an arm and 2 legs. as for leaving him there… as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed. Ha. This gave me the image of Obi Wan killing him and planting a blaster on his corpse corrupt cop-style. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/34 "2009-01-06T01:45:41Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > …as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed. But a Jedi is never unarmed, even if he cannot wield a lightsaber. Clearly, the Force is a weapon all on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/35 "2009-01-06T01:56:37Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > in regards to anakin, it was an arm and 2 legs. as for leaving him there… as anakin said earlier, jedi don’t kill the unarmed. It’s just a flesh wound. Have at you! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/36 "2009-01-06T04:29:37Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > You know what would have really changed the balance of power in the Star Wars universe? Light sabers with wrist straps. That’s why the “cut yer bleedin’ 'and orf” move was invented. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/37 "2009-01-06T06:39:27Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > I think it was just a run of bad luck they had. > > Palpatine wasn’t that strong. Samuel L Jackson even had him down (although that could have just been an act to win over Anakin). Yoda just got unlucky. Yoda just chose to fight him right when Anakin was killing baby jedis. Had they fought at any other time, Yoda would have kicked his ass. > > Obi-Wan and Anakin seemed to be evenly matched when it came to light saber skills. Obi-Wan was just smarter, calmer and more experienced. With that being said, he probably should have finished him off. > > So I think they made the right choice but got extremely unlucky. I think it was more trusting that the Force had a will to make it come out on the side of Good, not understanding that the Force is about storytelling, and the story was just starting. Palpatine understood that it was an authored story of which he was just a character, but a character with the power to change the story through duplicity and lies. That was why Yoda and Obi-Wan threw the dice and tried to win both combats with one on one, rather than a double team, which should have been Palpatine first. The Jedi didn’t understand that for the purposes of the conflict in the story that they had to first come within inches of becoming extinct and plunging the galaxy into potential perpetual darkness and that there must be an example of 20 or so years of darkness to make clear what was at stake. Palpatine was playing possum with Mace Windu, who got lucky and knocked the lightsaber out of his hands. He could have done the lighting trick a lot longer, or just rolled out the window and floated down. He was playing the conflict with Anakin as the audience, holding Padme’s safety in the balance. The only way out of Palpatine’s long and terrible trap was by way of the traditional story: a fallen hero who is not dead must be redeemed. Luke understood that his father must be redeemed and that there was good in everyone, but I doubt that he understood it as a part of a story. Only Palpatine seems to realize that this is all a story, and he knows that no one else realizes that, and cannot conceive of Luke figuring it out. That’s why he does not think that Luke will make the ultimate sacrifice when the time comes and he has never anticipated having to kill Luke in front of Vader after Luke sacrifices his life to try to redeem Vader. Palpatine did not adequate foresee that someone could resist turning to the dark side and what that example would do to a parent. Any human child or parent would have known better, but Palpatine is only a character in the story and not really human because he understands he is only a character, while the others really believe they are human. Palpatine is a sociopath manipulating the world around him to bring about the desired outcome of the story, not realizing that people who think of themselves as real and with relations to each other cannot so easily divorce themselves from their reality. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/38 "2009-01-06T14:31:32Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > True, but he didn’t have a leg to stand on. this is the a.1 to the unarmed rule. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/39 "2009-01-06T19:01:42Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Palpatine was playing possum with Mace Windu, who got lucky and knocked the lightsaber out of his hands. He could have done the lighting trick a lot longer, or just rolled out the window and floated down. He was playing the conflict with Anakin as the audience, holding Padme’s safety in the balance. Maybe, although Mace Windu was the #1 badass duelist among the Jedi ( probably surpassing Yoda in that one category ), so its entirely possible he won on his own merits. Afterall he disarmed Palpatine seconds _before_ Anakin arrived on the scene and Palpatine presumably wasn’t burning away his good looks just so he could be a more frightening boogeyman in later movies ( well, okay, that WAS what he was doing, but still… ). Kenobi was also one of the best duelists alive at that point. That he wasn’t as great a warrior as Anakin is reflected in his choice of combat styles, which was primarily defensive in nature and not as good at bringing the pain to multiple opponents. But one on one he probably was at least the equal of Anakin on a technical level, maybe a bit better. They probably should have tried to take out Palpatine together, simply because he had the command of the clones and the was angling for the affirmation of the senate, at least second of which would have been much harder for Anakin to achieve. But as noted the Jedi didn’t seem to be great thinkers. You all remember what Kreia said about how helpless they’d be without the Force that they lean so strongly on ;). That’s my semi-canon-based fanwankery, anyway :D. ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971/40 "2009-01-06T23:59:54Z")
What frustrates me is the way Yoda gives up so easily. By this point he knows everything he needs to know about Palpatine. There’s no reason to leave him alive. He takes a serious fall during their fight, but nothing indicates that he was particularly hurt. So why leave at that point instead of continuing to fight? If you know this guy is the Sith Lord, you know he’s responsible for the massacre of all the Jedi, know he’s setting himself up as emperor, isn’t it imperative to do your most to kill him? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-obi-wan-yoda-had-decided-to-double-team-vader-or-palpatine/479971.md?page=3)