Nahdar Vebb’s Real Death Was Dark, Then LEGO Star Wars Turned It Into A Fish Joke

Nahdar Vebb has one of those Clone Wars deaths that gets darker the more you think about it. He is a newly promoted Jedi Knight, eager to prove himself beside his former master, Kit Fisto, and General Grievous knows exactly how to punish that confidence.

Then LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars adapts the same moment and apparently decides being shot to death was not memorable enough.

So Nahdar becomes a fish joke instead.

Nahdar Walks Into Grievous’s Lair With Way Too Much Confidence

Nahdar Vebb is a Mon Calamari Jedi who trained under Kit Fisto. By the time they reunite in The Clone Wars episode “Lair of Grievous,” Nahdar has passed his trials and become a Jedi Knight.

Kit even apologizes that the war prevented him from seeing Nahdar’s training through to the end.

Unfortunately, becoming a Knight seems to have given Nahdar exactly the amount of confidence you do not want while walking into General Grievous’s house.

Kit, Nahdar, Commander Fil, and a group of clones are tracking escaped Separatist leader Nute Gunray. Instead of finding Gunray, they discover that they have been led into Grievous’s castle on the third moon of Vassek.

And it was deliberate.

Count Dooku arranged the trap to test Grievous after his recent failures. The Jedi basically arrive thinking they are on a rescue mission and slowly discover they have walked into Grievous’s personal haunted house.

Nahdar handles this discovery badly.

After Grievous’s pet roggwart, Gor, attacks the group and Commander Fil is killed, Nahdar becomes openly vengeful. Kit recognizes the problem immediately. Nahdar wants Grievous to pay, while Kit is increasingly interested in the much healthier Jedi strategy of getting out of there alive.

The official StarWars.com rewatch describes Nahdar as foolhardy and points out that he believes he can take Grievous alone despite Kit’s greater caution.

That becomes a very short-lived belief.

Grievous Doesn’t Beat Nahdar Fairly – He Beats Him Like Grievous

The funny thing is that Nahdar is not completely useless against Grievous.

He tears through the MagnaGuards guarding the general and manages to hold his own when their duel begins. For a few seconds, it almost looks like his confidence might actually be justified.

Then Grievous remembers that he has more arms.

While Nahdar is locked against two of Grievous’s lightsabers, Grievous keeps another hand free, pulls out a blaster, and shoots him at close range.

That is it.

No heroic comeback. No final speech. No dramatic sacrifice.

Nahdar learns the worst possible lesson about fighting a four-armed cyborg: winning the lightsaber part of the fight does not mean you are winning the fight.

StarWars.com specifically highlighted the scene in its “An Ode to Grievous”, noting how Grievous uses only two hands for the saber clash before reaching for a blaster with a spare arm.

It is also one of the best little examples of why Grievous is dangerous. He is not trying to have an honorable duel. Nahdar approaches him like a warrior who wants to prove himself.

Grievous approaches Nahdar like a problem that needs to stop moving.

The death also fits the episode’s opening lesson: “Most powerful is he who controls his own power.”

Nahdar certainly has power. What he does not have is Kit Fisto’s restraint.

He lets Fil’s death turn into anger, ignores the warning signs, and rushes toward the galaxy’s most enthusiastic collector of dead Jedi’s lightsabers.

That collection gets one item larger.

And Then LEGO Star Wars Somehow Makes His Death Worse

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars reaches the same basic point in the story and takes a slightly different approach.

By “slightly different,” I mean Nahdar gets turned into seafood.

The game replaces the grim blaster death with classic LEGO slapstick. Nahdar confronts Grievous, things go very badly, LEGO body parts go flying, and Kit Fisto is left staring at what has become of his former student.

Which includes a tiny fish skeleton.

And somehow, the LEGO version feels more disturbing.

The television show shoots Nahdar and lets him fall to the floor.

The family-friendly LEGO game apparently looks at a Mon Calamari Jedi and thinks, “Okay, but what if there were leftovers?”

It is worth being precise about the joke, though. The cutscene does not literally show Grievous sitting down and eating Nahdar. That is just the obvious interpretation people make when a fish-person disappears and a fish skeleton suddenly becomes part of the crime scene.

So no, there is no secret canon story where General Grievous gets hungry halfway through murdering Jedi.

Unfortunately.