nearby podium, and Yoda follows. Palpatine turns around and blasts Yoda back against another podium, which falls down to the bottom of an energy shaft. Stover describes Palpatine after the duel as "a very old, very tired man." Palpatine cannot direct the search for Yoda as he hurries to rescue Vader, but he tells the clones to destroy the whole building if they have to. Obi-Wan's duel with Darth Vader The duel between Obi-Wan and Vader is mostly similar to, albeit shorter than, that of the movie. The narration focuses mostly on Anakin and Obi-Wan's respective inner monologues. There are slight variations, however: the section where Anakin manually chokes Obi-Wan is one that is notably different. In the novel, Obi-Wan initially disarms Anakin, taking away his weapon and leveling both blades in front of Anakin. Anakin, however, manages to choke Obi-Wan with great velocity and strength, after which the latter releases himself by undoing the drivers in Anakin's mechanical arm. In the movie, however, the part where Obi-Wan disarms Anakin is omitted (so claims Lucas), and Obi-Wan releases himself by kicking Anakin in the back. Darth Vader's reaction to Padmé's death The novel is more explicit than the film in describing Anakin/Vader's emotional transformation after learning of Padmé's death. It reveals that he blames himself, thinking, "You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself." He realizes that Darth Vader – the fearless warrior he imagined himself to be – does not really exist. Only he – Anakin Skywalker – is responsible for her death and his own fall from grace. The narrative also describes how it feels to be Darth Vader: robbed of much of his power, in constant pain from his injuries, and "more than half machine," he now feels like "a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf." Other key information found in the novel Names and details are given for the lightsaber techniques the characters use in their respective duels. All the seven lightsaber combat forms are mentioned and described except Form VI. Anakin wants to access the Holocrons of the Archives to know more about Darth Plagueis so that he can learn how to save Padmé. As the Holocrons are only available to Jedi Masters, this explains his outrage over not being