What if Anakin Was Blinded By Dooku Instead of Losing His Arm

What if Anakin Was Blinded By Dooku Instead of Losing His Arm
Voice Acting & Narration: Steven Waters ⁨@bobablackfly602⁩
Discord:   / discord  
YT Memberships:    / @darththeorist  

What if Anakin Was Blinded By Dooku Instead of Losing His Arm? Let’s explore the depths of it in the scenario.

Obi-Wan: Anakin, look out!

The words come out too late as Dooku’s lightsaber flashes with blinding speed. Anakin’s lightsaber tries to come up to defend, but the Count moves faster than his age suggests.

There is a sickening hiss of flesh being burned that is immediately drowned out by Anakin’s screams as the blade passes across his face. It shears through flesh and his eyes. In an instant, the young Padawan is on his knees, howling as the whole world is thrown into darkness.

Obi-Wan shrieks in horror as he sees his student, the boy he had trained since he was a child, howling in pain, the place where his eyes once were burning and smoking. For a moment, his cool composure breaks, and he rushes towards Dooku, lightsaber whirling while he ignores the pain lancing across his body.

The Count is ready and parries the strikes, pushing them aside and then turning to face him. Their lightsabers light up the darkened hallways, turning light into dark as Obi-Wan’s furious face is illuminated, his normally composed expression contorted into a snarl. While he easily blocks the clumsy strikes, there is hesitation in Dooku’s movements, an unwillingness to harm the student of Qui-Gon. This allows Obi-Wan to cling on until Yoda arrives, and this fight becomes overwhelming.

As he sees the two of them surrounding him, Dooku realizes this battle is lost and begins to retreat back to his ship. The Jedi do not pursue, as both turn back to their injured comrade and take him to be treated.

The rest of the strike team are horrified at what happens and give him medical attention. Though skilled, there is little the clone medics can do as the damage is too severe and they deem Anakin’s eyes beyond saving, leaving the Chosen One blind.

None is more surprised at this than Palpatine, who sees his favored champion permanently crippled. He seethes and curses Dooku with all his heart, both in public and in private. This at least makes his conviction believable, but it fails to hide his frustration at how badly his plan has gone awry.

Still, for the moment, he must accept this loss and try to mask it with a veneer of impartiality, only lightly reproving his student for being overzealous while trying to make hasty adjustments to correct for situation.

However, even his frustration pales in comparison to what Anakin feels. Once he is suitably recovered, he returns to training. To his dismay, his scheduled trials are pushed back to allow him to recover.


Obi-Wan tries to help Anakin adjust as much as possible. They do meditations and other techniques to compensate for his loss of sight. He tries to strengthen Anakin’s other senses and spends long hours seated in silence to try and heighten the young Jedi’s hearing and sense of smell. They program training droids to lower settings and have him spar with them or conduct rituals to feel the power of the Living Force flow through to him.

Despite Anakin’s insistence on not going easy on him when he returns to training, Obi-Wan hesitates. He does not wish to push his student too hard and goes slowly, yet even when he holds back, Anakin cannot keep up.

Their spars are painfully one-sided, and Anakin is constantly left on his back, being tossed aside like a rag-doll even as Obi-Wan apologizes and tries to go easy on him. In the end, it becomes clear that it will take years for him to recover to his original level, and years more to advance beyond that.

Unfortunately, that is the time they do not have, and the young Padawan is painfully aware of that.

Each time they practice, Obi-Wan can feel the frustration growing in his student at not being able to do more and having to be treated so delicately. And with that frustration comes anger and doubt. He can see it in the way Anakin swings grossly less sure over time. They lack purpose and drive, only fueled by frustration.

Rather than just plateauing, there grows the risk that Anakin’s skills may begin to regress as he gives himself into these emotions.

Obi-Wan says as much to Yoda after one particularly bad session where Anakin is trounced close to a dozen times and gets so mad he looks ready to attack even after the session ends.

Yoda: Troubling it is to see such darkness growing in the boy. But such a risk it was when we took him in.

#starwars #starwarswhatif #whatif