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In Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, when Obi-Wan challenges Grievous to a lightsaber duel, Grievous replies:

You fool! I've been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!

This makes it sounds like he and Obi-Wan have never fought before, and he's gloating that Obi-Wan doesn't know what he's up against. But The Clone Wars firmly establishes that Obi-Wan and Grievous had already engaged in at least one lightsaber duel prior to this point. Obi-Wan already knows that Grievous is trained in the Jedi arts, and Grievous knows that Obi-Wan knows.

So why did Grievous say this? Why would he brag about something Obi-Wan already knew perfectly well?

I know the out-of-universe answer is a) the line was for the audience's benefit, and b) they hadn't written The Clone Wars yet, but I'm looking for an in-universe answer, if one exists.

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    I'm assuming both Anakin and Obi-Wan suffered multiple concussions given how much stuff they forgot between film 2 and 3. Anakin entirely forgot his Padawan learner.
    – Valorum
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 17:46
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    You might also want to note that the comics firmly establish that Luke and Vader have duelled twice between ESB and RotJ, something that's never mentioned in the films and directly affects continuity.
    – Valorum
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 17:47
  • Did Obi-Wan know who trained Grevious? Commented May 29, 2020 at 4:33
  • To be fair to the films, during the events of RotS Ahsoka wasn't Anakin's padawan or even officially a Jedi, she was off somewhere else at the time, and the things he was involved in didn't particularly provide a reason why she would come up. On the other hand, a concussion might explain why the cool, confident, self-assured Jedi knight who left Ahsoka became a whiny immature angst-monster. Commented May 31, 2020 at 1:59

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Bad guys brag about how badass they are and how outclassed the hero is all the time, even if the person they're facing already knows them. It's common enough that TVTropes has a long list of examples. In the Star Wars setting itself, consider Luke's confrontation with Palpatine. Palpatine goes on and on and on about how Luke only has to give in to his hatred to turn to the Dark Side, which Luke already knows, and how doomed his friends are because Palpatine has planned everything, which Luke by this point also already knows, but Papa Palps won't freaking shut up about it.

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