He may have been holding back initially but once he realizes Palpatine's ture plan I doubt he would continue to hold back.
Here is the part where he realizes the truth.
"Dooku thought blankly, Kill me?
He and Skywalker paused for one single, final instant, blades locked together, staring at each other past a sizzling cross of scarlet against blue, and in that instant Dooku found himself wondering in bewildered astonishment if Sidious had suddenly lost his mind. Didn't he understand the advice he'd just given? Whose side was he on, anyway?
And through the cross of their blades he saw in Skywalker's eyes the promise of hell, and he felt a sickening presentiment that he already knew the answer to that question. Treachery is the way of the Sith."
This is before Anakin choped of Dooku's hands and before Anakin fully gave in.
Originally posted by ares834
He may have been holding back initially but once he realizes Palpatine's ture plan I doubt he would continue to hold back.
Here is the part where he realizes the truth."Dooku thought blankly, Kill me?
He and Skywalker paused for one single, final instant, blades locked together, staring at each other past a sizzling cross of scarlet against blue, and in that instant Dooku found himself wondering in bewildered astonishment if Sidious had suddenly lost his mind. Didn't he understand the advice he'd just given? Whose side was he on, anyway?
And through the cross of their blades he saw in Skywalker's eyes the promise of hell, and he felt a sickening presentiment that he already knew the answer to that question. Treachery is the way of the Sith."
This is before Anakin choped of Dooku's hands and before Anakin fully gave in.
"The play is still on; the comedy of lightsabers flashes and snaps and hisses.""The play goes on, but the suspense is over. It has become mere pantomime, as intricate and as meaningless as the space-time curves that guide galactic clusters through a measureless cosmos."
"Dooku, cringing, shrinking with dread, still finds some hope in his heart that he is wrong, that Palpatine has not betrayed him, that this has all been proceeding according to plan--"
and finally, at the VERY end, right before his death.
and he knows THEN that all has indeed been going according to plan. Sidious's plan, not his own.
"The play is still on; the comedy of lightsabers flashes and snaps and hisses."
"The play goes on, but the suspense is over. It has become mere pantomime, as intricate and as meaningless as the space-time curves that guide galactic clusters through a measureless cosmos."
Dooku is dead already. The rest is mere detail.
Dooku, cringing, shrinking with dread, still finds some hope in his heart that he is wrong,
Originally posted by ares834
The "play" refers to the fact that this duel is already over. After all,
However, the scheme to allow Anakin to capture him is referred to as "the play" repeatedly.
Here we see that Dooku is terrified. He thinks he is dead, sure he is still clinging to a little hope, but he thinks that Anakin will kill him and that Palpatine will not intefere. An assumption that ultimately turns out to be true.
Then why the other quote I put, where it says "NOW" Dooku realizes?
Also, that moment of reckoning, where Sidious says "kill him" the first time, that you referred to, is non-canon since Sidious never says it in the movie and we see the whole duel.
Also, the quote from Lucas in the post before this one is helpful as well.
Really he already thinks it is a possability that Anakin will kill him, why would he then allow himself to be at Anakin's mercy?
I'm not saying he lost his hands on purpose. I certainly didn't mean that, however, by saying he was toying with Anakin most of the duel without going all-out, he put himself in a position to lose: A result that is far from legitimate in a situation where we assume he would be going for the kill from the beginning.
Also, since in this duel, fatigue is definitly referred to as a major factor, the fact that Dooku WAS toying with anakin AND Kenobi (and had two opponents at the beginning, BTW) definitly factors in, and neither circumstance would be true in a duel.
Finally, There is a definite reference to how much of Anakin's Hate came from knowing he was the only thing that could keep the two men he loved most from dying. In a vs. duel, this would also not be true.