In my mind anyways, i think General Grievous represented everything the Sith strived for. The way of the Sith, or more specifically the Sith Code states: "Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken." Grievous kind of represents this in the purest way possible. He voluntarily sacrificed his body little by little until he became the Monster he is. His own stronghold held many statues depicting his various victories and transformation from what he was to what he eventually became. General Grievous sought power for the sake of having power always seeking battle and fueled eternally by an unending hate that didn't need to be manipulated into being. While he wasn't necessarily a Sith himself he was trained in the way of lightsaber dueling by Count Dooku to such a degree that the vast majority of Jedi Masters struggled in single and even multiple-on-one combat against him. Even though his actions were most certainly not beneficial to the CIS alliance in a way he was almost like a walking living ideal of what Sith and their apprentices strove to be, and ultimately that may just be the real reason that Darth Sidious / Emperor Palpatine and Count Dooku kept him around.
I have to nitpick. Dooku was ordered to kill ventress because Sidious told him she was becoming too strong in the force. Dooku even protested saying she was still very useful to him.
He organized the CIS droid army killed multiple Jedi and nearly won the war with operation Durge‘s lance and even when the CIS was pushed to the brink of defeat during the Outer Rim sieges he stretched the Republic thin across the Outer Rim and then attacked Coruscant itself. Of course he’s important.
Not only was Grievous a brilliant tactician and strategist, but he could take the fight to the enemy himself with little hesitation as he was a skilled warrior. Trying to get rid of him would have been throwing away the most unique combination of skills and sheer terror factor the CIS could have hoped for. Ventress and Durge on the other hand were tools at best and never inspired the level of fear Grievous did, forget the 2008 version he doesn't count.
The main reason he was a necessity for Palpatine was that he was an instrument of fear and terror that Palpatine could use to fight against, so any increase of his/the GAR’s power in the Republic was to stop this monster from harming anymore Republic citizens. And the fact that he was very good at killing Jedi also didn’t hurt his career prospects...so long as Palpatine needed the war to continue.
@@PeterWolniewicz Malgus was the best duelist ever in star wars and had far more jedi to kill. But if the two fought I'd give it to Vader. Force > sword skill.
As other people said below, perhaps the main reason as that he was the only commander in the entire CIS that could really maintain and instruct a cohesive structure with the CIS droid horde armadas. Contrary to the Galactic Republic, who had a program that ensured that all the GAR was a cohesive force in which all variants of Clone Troopers complement each other, the CIS droid armadas were more like trying to make your school work fit with the school work of you classroom mates, or when you are programming and you need to combine the code of you with the code of others. It was more like "add everything we find on the way". Without a good administration, such actions only create a mess, confused army that no one really knows how to use it in the first place. Grievous managed to incorporate many types of battledroids from different companies like the GAR did with the Clone Troopers, so they would be more effective overall.
I think the reason the Separatist Council never questioned why Dooku and Sidious never got rid of Grievous was simply that they were merchants and bankers, not soldiers or politicians. They might have had an eye out for obvious treason (such as a subordinate trying to usurp them personally), but keeping a military commander in place after losing seems like something they themselves might do with one of their favorites. Besides, as others have pointed out, Grievous lost relatively few battles. Of course, for the sake of an interesting story in the Clone Wars series he had to lose, and lose a lot, but given that the war was fought over millions of planets, failing to take or hold one here or there doesn't, on its own, diminish Grievous' record. And, like you said, he was good at killing Jedi, which given that the Jedi were some of the most effective assets for the Republic was probably considered a decent enough counterbalance to those failures Grievous did suffer.
My alternate scenario: what would happen if Trench was the Commanding Admiral/General & he gave Grievous the Field Commanding position, especially when it was needed the most?
Aside from the other Battlefronts, I couldn’t agree more, @@thorpeaaron1110. I can already hear the ringing in my ears from all those screaming fangirls when those two take the stage, if you know what I mean…
I think Grevious was mainly a distraction for the jedi and republic because we saw a lot of episodes of them eaithers capturing Grevious or hunting him. This in the end helped mask Palpatines presence as a sith lord for his master plan.
This made me think of this: What if Admiral Trench is the Supreme Commander of the Separatists Droid Army instead of General Grievous? This would make a lot more sense if this happened. After all, Grievous did plenty of stupid things just because the cause he was fighting for at the moment has no use for him anymore at that moment. And while I have to admit that I like him since that he is not a prideful and arrogant guy who is not going to fight a battle he knows he cannot win, I greatly dislike him how he treated the Battle Droids and other stupid things he did. After a number of failures, Greivous shoud be demoted or transferred to a corp specially created to kill the Jedi while Admiral Trench assumed the position as the Supreme Commander of the Separatists Droid Army.
Grievous organized a divided and little cohesive army into a united and efficient force, before he became General the droid army was in complete chaos, he knew how to put everything in its place, so that there would be no mixed army of droids and in instead there would be divisions for each group of droids that is used in a battle according to more or less convenient, also organized the separatist navy to be able to fight in a more effective way, instead of making total attacks in battles that simply cannot win, He implemented a kind of war of harassment, in which the separatist army hit the Republic, did all the damage it could and withdrew, which allowed them to prevent the Republic from achieving air superiority until the last months of the war. Grievous also, even though he was not loyal to the Confederate cause, he was one of the most interested in winning the war, since without a victory for the CIS it was impossible that he could end the Republic and the Jedi order. And the thing about mistreating the droids is only something that The Clone Wars included for reasons of childish humor (since the series is for children), but in any other medium Grievous is represented as simply indifferent to the droids, since he does not see them as living beings but as objects to use to win the war, despite that Grievous highly respected anyone who showed courage and determination on the battlefield, for example he admired his Neimodian captain Lushros Dofine for having risked his life in the first Battle of Geonosis giving time to the separatist leaders to escape (that's why he chose him as captain), he also came to respect Shak Ti for attacking him without fear when he kidnapped Palpatine (thanks to that he spared her life), or the The respect he had for Kenobi, that respect was so great that during his final duel he faced him without the help of his droids, even though those artificial intelligences could have annihilated Obi Wan in two seconds, of course, if they had all fired at him from all directions at the same time.
General Grevious was one of the most effective commanders in the CIS during the entire war once he died the Separatist war effort collapsed resulting in the Separatists losing territory in the Outer Rim to the Republic near the end of the Clone Wars. Plus Grevious is good for propaganda Palpatine used General Grevious as an evil cybernetic monster so citizens would support to keep the war going.
I will say one of my only issues with clone wars was how they did grevious; they kinda over exaggerated his supposed cowardice and he never seemed to really to show why he was a general and a jedi killer.
The Legends version of Grievous never loses in a battle its mostly with that version most Jedi its a run or die situation and also most of grievous plans won. He also faced mace windu in a stalemate. Also, Grievous in legends also not only successful but also Pragmatic as well and much smarter then his canon counterparts..and dose less war crimes. And a bonus Grievous is the least evil of Dooku major villains and has the best reason to be a separatists. +: Durge: To just kill people for Sadistic pleasure. +: Ventress: Simple revenge on what jedi did..that dont involved them. +: The sep councile: Who prefer to make money on the war. +: Grievous: General Grievous joined to both save and avange his people, after what the republic and Jedi did...and also the least sadistic out of the seps main generals and he is mostly stoic.
Very true, Grievous committed atrocities if it were necessary to win the war, but he would not do it for pleasure and he would certainly not allow anyone to order him to do something that he considers useless for the war effort, since he needs the CIS to win. In order to carry out his revenge against the Republic and the Jedi order, so even though he is not loyal to the separatist cause, he is the most interested in its success.
Love this video. Agree on all accounts. I do however think he was more loyal than you might think considering certain of his actions in the Clone Wars series. There are some moments where his loyalty is pushed to the test and he sticks around and rise to the occasion. So I believe Grievous does have some loyalty to Dooku on a personal level, but that is it. I am only speculating ofc.
Dooku wanted to keep Ventress around, He always had an attachment and pride toward his pupils He wanted to keep Obi-Wan Alive and turn him to the Dark Side, regarding him like his “grandson” being the apprentice of his apprentice Qui-Gon Ventress was his latest work, and had enough pride to train her with no limits with the apparent desire to overthrow Sidious But Sidious saw through it seeing how powerful Ventress was becoming and warned Tyranus that he was becoming a rival. He had to choose between betraying Ventress and jerk his position as Sidious’ Second or stay with Ventress and die It was with a heavy heart Dooku had to comply and betray Ventress Grievous, Dooku disliked more, but kept around as Sidious and Dooku needed him fir their plan Grievous became the face of the CIS, his war crimes scared the Republic to continue hating the CIS and refuse to try for peace The average Separatist Citizen is like Lux Bontari, they didn’t want to be violent, they wanted to secede from a Corrupt Republic and find their own democracy where big business and corrupt politicians don’t decide their destiny The average CIS citizen would rather coexist with the Republic But the war crimes of those like Grievous hid that side from the Republic citizens They only saw Armies of death machines controlled by monstrous aliens that sought to destroy the Republic Despite his failures, Grevious is a valuable symbol to demonize the CIS, discredit the immortality of the Jedi, and give justification to continue the War. Palpatine used the Clone Wars to gain emergency powers from a desperate Senate and People, powers that would eventually make it legal for him to become Emperor and do away with the Jedi with no opposition In the end Dooku planned to defect to the Republic, making it seem the CIS under Grievous was too brutal and he was rejoining the right side. With Grievous as the face of evil, the Republic takes him down and becomes the Empire which Dooku then hoped to be part of. It knowing he too was to be done away with. But Palpatine did do Dooku justice by making him to be remembered be Imperial History as an idealist, which despite finding the Evil CIS, Dooku was right in pointing out his ineffective the Republic was and had to evolve into the Empire Because of Grievous, droids and aliens were looked down on, by Imperial Society, making it easier for Palpatine to gain supporters from this alien/droid racism So yes Grievous was irreplaceable, he was a valuable symbol that made it easier for Palpatine to prolong the War and come to Power
In addition, he won many important battles and campaigns that do not appear in The Clone Wars, he reorganized the CIS army and its navy so that they could dominate the battlefields for a year and a half and space for about three years.
Grievous only struggled with Windu in combat. Windu would actually defeat him multiple times. But Windu knew he was learning Vaapad and that would make him a much more efficient Jedi killer. Grievous did lose to Obi-wan and was killed but I'm not sure it was matter of Obi-wan being more skilled or a better tactician so much as Grievous' heart had been exposed after Windu crushed his chest plate the last time they fought.
Palpatine controlled both sides of the war. theirs battles where he should have lost and some he should have won if left to his own choice we would have seen a different war/outcomes from all sides if palpy wasn't pulling the strings
I feel like Dooku never got rid of him was because he was part of Sidious ' plan. No matter how much of a failure he was Grevious was needed for the plan.
Is the reason grievous lost to gungans because his body was edited to be weak and improper on purpose because palpating feared grievous would destroy thir plans.
I really REALLY dislike the tactical droids, like, you mean to tell me that a large amount of planets cant scrounge up more than a handful commanders? Come on, even a dozen low population worlds who want independence would be commited enough to find a few. In fact make it a something with it. Like have some CIS worlds INSIST that their guy be in charge somewhere but even though they are not qualified and have them flounder about because of it until Grievous show up and set them straight, that would increase Grievous' dread level immensley
From the Star Wars wiki: The droids wear created to regularly showcase a more capable villain without having to introduce a unique organic commander that would need to be eliminated.
CIS couldn't get rid of dooku because Palpatine wanted him on cis's side to distract the republic from questioning the war. Grievous was a giant red herring.
