Four-armed baddie General Grievous pals around with the Sith in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. But is Grievous himself a Sith Lord in Star Wars canon, or merely a poser?
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General Grevious’ Connection to the Sith in Star Wars Canon, Explained
General Grievous isn’t a Sith Lord, although he shares plenty in common with those who are. He loathes the Jedi. He’s a proficient lightsaber duellist trained (as he’s fond of pointing out) by Sith Lord Count Dooku. He wears a black swirly cape. And he even has a breathing condition, like the legendary Sith Darth Vader. Yet for all this overlap, Grievous is unequivocally not a Sith Lord in both pre and post-Disney Star Wars lore. There’s an obvious reason for this, too: Grievous isn’t Force-sensitive. As such, the general has as much chance of being inducted into the Dark Side outfit’s ranks as Jabba the Hutt has of winning a foot race.
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So, if General Grievous isn’t a Sith, what is he? As his rank suggests, he’s the supreme commander of the Sith-backed Separatist Droid Army. That’s all Darth Sidious and Dooku wanted from Grievous: to order around battle droids and the like in the field. On the plus side, Grievous isn’t an unwitting pawn blindly serving the Jedi Order’s arch-enemies. He’s fully aware that his bosses are Sith, although (like Dooku) he’s not privy to the full plan Sidious has cooked up to conquer a galaxy far, far away. Grievous nevertheless does his part like a good little soldier and helps the Sith claim victory, however, he doesn’t live to see it.
Was General Grievous the Only ‘Sith-a-Like’ Separatist Combatant During the Clone Wars?
Nope, several other lightsaber-wielding warriors besides General Grievous fought for the Separatists in the Clone Wars. The most famous was Star Wars: The Clone Wars‘ Asajj Ventress. While Ventress received considerable Sith training from Dooku and served the order as both an assassin and military leader, she never officially became a Sith Lord. Correctly assessing the Dooku/Ventress combo as a threat to him, Sidious eventually commanded Dooku to cut his pupil loose. Meanwhile, Jedi Master Quinlan Vos briefly studied as Dooku’s disciple, but never made the jump to fully-fledged Sith apprentice, either.
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Then there’s Darth Maul’s brother, Savage Opress. Opress represented yet another of Dooku’s attempts to recruit a fellow Force-user to help him oust Sidious as Dark Lord of the Sith. The plan failed and Opress never got the call up to the Sith Order’s big time. Oh, for completeness’ sake, the now extra-canonical Star Wars Expanded Universe also included a bunch of other Dooku-trained Dark Acolytes. None of these folks ever became legit Sith Lords, either.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is currently streaming on Disney+, as part of the platform’s Star Wars collection.
