Dooku/Legends

"Then best of all would be the strongest student, yes? Wisest? Most learned in the ways of the Force? Best of all, Dooku would be! Our greatest student! Our greatest failure."

- Yoda

Count Dooku of Serenno was a legendary Jedi Master and the Count of Serenno. Later in life, Dooku fell to the dark side of the Force and became Darth Tyranus, the Sith apprentice of Darth Sidious, replacing Darth Maul and being replaced in turn by Darth Vader.

Under Sidious's orders, he formed the Separatist movement and was the political leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems until he was slain in a duel by Anakin Skywalker during the Second Battle of Coruscant near the end of the Clone Wars.

Jedi (102 BBY–32 BBY)
"I've seen your heart, and I know how empty it is. I've seen your anger, and I know how deep it is. I've seen your ambition, and I know how ruthless it is. And all of that will ultimately destroy you&hellip; I will never be a Jedi, it's true. But neither will you. You will never be a great Jedi Master."

- Lorian Nod



Born on the planet Serenno, Dooku was once an esteemed Jedi who, like all Jedi of his time, trained under Grand Master Yoda as a Youngling until he became a Padawan under Thame Cerulian at the age of thirteen. Cerulian molded Dooku into a powerful Jedi, tapping into the vast potential he sensed in his student. Yoda also took a particular interest in him and had some part in his later training.

Dooku had several friends when he was younger, including fellow youngling Lorian Nod and alien Senatorial aide Eero Iridian. Both eventually betrayed him, and these experiences made Dooku wary of friendship and attachment. A taunt by Lorian spurred Dooku to first access a Sith holocron.

Dooku became a Jedi Knight in his early twenties, and immediately took Qui-Gon Jinn as his first Padawan. He would later train other Jedi, including Komari Vosa.

During his time as an instructor within the Jedi Temple, his teachings on methods for conquering arrogance were particularly well received. He was fond of telling his students:
 * "The acceptance of others is not a guarantee. Like everyone else, a Jedi is accepted or not based on his behavior. The Jedi who believes that he is more important than others only demonstrates that his opinion is to be ignored."



Almost ironically, Dooku had his mind set on becoming the greatest Jedi ever.

But not all of Dooku's theories were widely accepted. Controversially, Dooku held that one could draw from both sides of the Force equally &mdash; light and dark &mdash; to achieve perfect balance. He believed that as long as he was not tempted to one side or another he could stay the course and harness the kind of power needed to change the Galaxy for the better. Unfortunately for Dooku, his own pride, expressed in his goal to be the greatest Jedi ever swayed him closer and closer towards the dark side when attempting to study both sides of the Force.



Dooku's colleagues on the Jedi High Council strongly disagreed with these beliefs, which was probably one of the reasons why neither Dooku nor any of his students were ever invited to join the august body.

In his later years Dooku came to believe that the true identity of the Chosen One was not the young Anakin Skywalker, but rather a seasoned philosopher of sharp insight, someone with solid character and the intellectual clarity to see the path to galactic enlightenment; someone who possessed the titanic willpower to walk such a path; and, most importantly, had the charisma and leadership to carry others along with him. Ironically, Dooku fit that personality exactly &mdash; at least in his own mind.

Dooku was a political idealist, and was skilled at resolving disputes throughout the Galaxy, such as the Sevarcos Dispute of 52 BBY. He had always held strong opinions on what he saw as the ongoing decline in the Galactic Republic, and so it was not unexpected when he chose to leave the Order of his own accord.

"You know, m'lady, Count Dooku was once a Jedi. He couldn't assassinate anyone; it's not in his character."

- Mace Windu to Padmé Amidala

Dooku departed around the time of the Battle of Naboo, under the belief that the Jedi Order had become a blind pawn to the corrupt Senate, and retook his family title as Count of Serenno. The disastrous Battle of Galidraan and the disappearance of Komari Vosa had already soured him from continued service to the Republic and the death of his first Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, proved to be the final straw.

Dooku had been a Jedi for many years, and his bronzium bust was displayed in the Jedi Archives, along with the rest of the Lost Twenty, the only Jedi Masters ever to voluntarily resign their commission from the Jedi Order.

Dark Lord of the Sith (32 BBY–24 BBY)
"Powerful you have become, Dooku. The dark side I sense in you." "I've become more powerful than any Jedi. Even you."

- Yoda and Dooku

Dooku left the public eye in 32 BBY and disappeared, not resurfacing until eight years later in 24 BBY. By that time, he was no longer the Jedi Master that he once was, but a fully-fledged Dark Lord of the Sith.



It is unknown when or how Dooku met Darth Sidious. After the death of Darth Maul, a Sith Lord who was under training for many years, Sidious had no time to mold another potential Sith into a perfect warrior, as the Battle of Naboo sparked the start of his climb through the Republic. Requiring another apprentice, he chose the maverick Jedi Master. Dooku fell to the dark side of the Force as a result of his own arrogance and pride, the former Jedi Master transformed into Sidious's Sith apprentice, Darth Tyranus. His murder of his friend Sifo-Dyas sealed his transition.

As Darth Tyranus, Dooku's first mission was to recruit a template for the Grand Army of the Republic's clone troopers to be used by Chancellor Palpatine and the Republic. He placed an extremely large bounty of 5,000,000 credits on Bando Gora leader Komari Vosa, a former pupil of his, and pitted the Galaxy's most fearsome bounty hunters against each other. In the end, the ex-Mandalorians Montross and Jango Fett faced each other on Kohlma. Fett triumphed over his rival, defeating Vosa and claiming the reward. He agreed to be cloned on the condition he received the first unit "unaltered". Komari Vosa was then killed by Dooku.

With his plans in motion, the Machiavellian Count Dooku reappeared on Raxus Prime in 24 BBY, heavily criticizing the Republic and the Jedi Order for their decadence, hypocrisy and corruption. Dooku, a political mastermind, publicly called for entire systems to secede from the Republic and join the Separatist movement, culminating in the formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Leader of the Confederacy (22 BBY)
"He is a political idealist, not a murderer."

- Ki-Adi-Mundi



The first meeting of the CIS was hosted on the planet Geonosis, where Obi-Wan Kenobi was captured by the Geonosians and accused of espionage. Dooku cleverly claimed that he had no power over the decision and that, unless Kenobi joined him, it would be "difficult to secure [his] release".

Later, when Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala arrived to rescue Kenobi, they were also captured and sentenced to death. They were to be executed in a Geonosian fashion, but the executions were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Jedi reinforcements, led by Mace Windu.

Dooku, however, had been anticipating this and revealed that the captured Jedi were simply bait as hundreds of thousands of battle droids awaited Windu's task force.

Though the new Separatist Droid Army of the CIS overwhelmed the Jedi, Yoda soon rescued them, leading the very clone army Dooku had helped create, forcing the Separatists to withdraw their forces.



While the clone troopers advanced and decimated the droid forces, the Separatists called for a full retreat, all the while Dooku pretended not to know how the Republic had gathered such a powerful army in such a short time. Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, commanded a full retreat and proceeded to turn over the plans to the Ultimate Weapon, based on plans made by Raith Sienar, to Count Dooku to keep the Jedi from finding them.

Dooku fled to his secret hangar, but he was followed by Obi-Wan and Anakin. Anakin foolishly ran into the hangar with a headstrong attitude, attempting to face Dooku alone, although his Master notably warned him not to do so, only to be blasted away casually by the Sith Lord's Force lightning. Obi-Wan was next up, proving to be a bit less naïve and more experienced and more powerful than his apprentice. So the Jedi Knight and Sith Lord began their duel, and it immediately became clear that Dooku had the far greater power and skill (not because of the dark side, but because even as a Jedi he was supposedly far greater than Kenobi). Eventually injuring Obi-Wan, Dooku went for the killing stroke. His blade was stopped by Anakin's.



The injured Obi-Wan Force pulled his lightsaber into grasp and tossed it to Anakin, Anakin then came at Dooku with both blades swinging. The young Jedi applied Jar'Kai tactics on Ataru swordsplay, but his advantage was short-lived, as Dooku managed to destroy one of Anakin's lightsabers. The duel continued, and the battle ended when Dooku severed Anakin's weapon arm. Before he could escape, one last Jedi, his old teacher, Yoda, confronted him. After a battle of Force powers, Dooku insisted on settling their contest with a lightsaber duel.

A powerful and incredible duel followed. Yoda, using his mastery of the Force and Form IV, showed amazing agility as he jumped all around the room, though Dooku skillfully defended himself. Realizing that he could not prolong the duel without possibly suffering a critically nigh defeat, Dooku used the Force to drop a crane on the wounded Obi-Wan and Anakin to distract Yoda long enough to make his escape in his Genosian solar sailer. Count Dooku soon arrived on Coruscant where he met with his Master, Darth Sidious, and informed him that the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems were officially at war.

Clone Wars (22 BBY–19 BBY)
"This is just the beginning!"

- Dooku



Darth Bane's Rule of Two prevented Tyranus from taking his own, bonafide apprentice. Instead, Dooku acquired a cadre of Dark Acolytes &mdash; Asajj Ventress, Sev'rance Tann, Sora Bulq, Quinlan Vos, Tol Skorr, Kadrian Sey, and others. He honed their skills but taught them few, if any, of the Sith secrets.

As the Clone Wars continued, his identity became more and more feared across the Galaxy. One of the first campaigns in the war was the re-creation of the Dark Reaper, which the Dark Lord took care monitoring. Boba Fett was later captured and sent to the Count on Raxus Prime. The Count apparently wanted to help train Boba to be his father's successor, but later ordered him to be terminated when he disappeared and learned about the Force Harvester.



Fett escaped, but Dooku's malevolent figure never disappeared. During the course of the war, he immersed himself fully within the persona of Darth Tyranus, Dark Lord of the Sith. He fully embraced the ancient teachings of the Sith, probing the graveyard world of Korriban for ancient relics he could turn against the Jedi, in addition to long lost Sith holocrons, such as the one created by the long dead Darth Andeddu. In a daring raid on Coruscant, he even breached the Jedi Temple itself and stole the Sith holocron he had studied as a young man.

Dooku's charisma swayed many to the Confederate cause &mdash; whole planets pledged themselves to the Separatist cause on the former Jedi's words alone. In addition to his force adepts, Dooku recruited warriors like Durge and Cydon Prax to augment the Confederacy's already potent arsenal.

The Jedi suspected their former comrade was indeed a true Sith, but could not discern the identity of the elusive second Dark Lord. Some, like Quinlan Vos, suspected Sora Bulq to be the one they sought, but this was a deliberate deception on both Bulq and Dooku's parts.

Darth Sidious, the true Sith Master, remained in the shadow. Then, like a dejarik master of old, the Dark Lords put in motion their final moves.

Endgame
"Your swords, please. We don't want to make a mess of things in front of the Chancellor." "You won't get away this time, Dooku."

- Dooku and Obi-Wan Kenobi



At the Second Battle of Coruscant, Dooku, with the help of General Grievous, "captured" his Master in an elaborate plan to be apprehended himself. They both knew that the only rescuers likely to arrive in time would be Kenobi and Skywalker. Despite Sidious's wish, Dooku tried to convince his Master to trade out Skywalker for Kenobi, citing that a Jedi of Kenobi's integrity would lend support to the New Order. Sidious disagreed and claimed that Kenobi was too indoctrined by the Jedi way. So the plan stayed as originally conceived: Dooku would kill Kenobi, but be "defeated" by Anakin.

He would then, in captivity, turn on the CIS by surrendering to the Republic forces and claiming to have only recently learned of the extent of the atrocities committed by the CIS, and specifically General Grievous, who would be the perfect scapegoat on whom to hang all of the CIS's war crimes. He would later ostensibly emerge as Emperor Palpatine's right-hand man in the new Empire, with a newly turned Anakin Skywalker leading a new Sith Army of dark side Force-wielders to replace the Jedi Order and bring order to the Galaxy. Dooku was confident in his Master and their plans and fell slightly back on trust.

The day would not turn out that way, however. Both Kenobi and Skywalker's saber skills had improved dramatically since their last duel, although they initially did not reveal this, allowing Dooku to underestimate them. As the duel wore on however, Dooku soon realized that he was being tricked. Both Jedi changed their saber styles mid-battle and began wear down the Sith Lord's defenses. Eventually, Dooku was able to regain the upper hand when he used the Force to hurl Kenobi across the room and knock him unconscious.



Anakin carried on the fight, engaging Dooku in a ferocious flurry of blades. Against seemingly overwhelming odds, Anakin was eventually able to outmanuever Dooku, overmatching Dooku's Makashi with his mastery of Djem So and proceeded to cut off both of Dooku's hands, bringing the Count to his knees.



Expecting his Master to intervene and save his life as Sidious had promised to do in the case of defeat, Dooku instead was shocked to see the Dark Lord relentlessly goading Anakin to deliver the deathblow, thus driving him one step closer to the dark side.


 * "Good, Anakin, good! Kill him. Kill him now."
 * ([[Image:Gnome-speakernotes.png|15px|(audio)]][[Media:KillHim.ogg|Hear this quote]])

It was only then that Dooku finally came to realize the second deception: Palpatine never intended for the Count to survive, nor for him to be his apprentice; he was simply the tool used to create the CIS and make Sidious's plan truly possible. Anakin, holding two lightsaber blades to Dooku's throat, beheaded the helpless Count &mdash; driving one more dark side wedge into his soul. Dooku's final thought was:
 * "Treachery is the way of the Sith."

Anakin Skywalker would then proceed to become Darth Vader, Darth Sidious's third, but certainly not last, apprentice. Luke would go on to serve the Dark Lord years later.

Traits
"He was one of the most brilliant Jedi I've ever had the privilege of knowing."

- Jocasta Nu



Dooku was an accomplished philosopher, orator, warrior, and Force-adept, regarded as one of the greatest Jedi ever for his strength of character and his strength in the Force. Yoda considered him both the Temple's greatest student and one of his greatest failures.

With his deep voice and veneer of elegant charisma, this political idealist and wealthy Count of Serenno displayed elegance, class, and intelligence.

There were other aspects to his personality, however, that were less laudable, particularly later in his life. Dooku was a speciesist, an elitist, incredibly arrogant, and he viewed almost every other living being as a tool to be used for his own advancement. He divided the entire galaxy into two personal categories: Threats and Assets. The threat category was for beings or things that interfered with his personal advancement and would have to be eliminated, the asset category was just the opposite.

Though as a Jedi he had suppressed these characteristics, he later gave in fully to them after falling to the dark side. He came to believe that the Jedi Order should embrace the dark side and rule the Galaxy alone without the interference of the Senate.

Dooku believed that the sorrow and injustice of the Galaxy could only be responded to with anger and hate, and it was most likely this belief that first drove him to the dark side.

By the time of the Clone Wars, Dooku had been a practitioner of the Force for nearly eight decades. Dooku and his student Qui-Gon Jinn would have surely sat on the Jedi High Council if it were not for their maverick views.

In addition, Dooku was a master swordsman, specializing in the seldom-used Makashi (see lightsaber combat), which made use of his special curved lightsaber hilt. Form II was known for its efficiency in lightsaber vs. lightsaber combat. Dooku chose the style for its elegance and his belief in gallantry, and considered the other forms to be lacking at best. Dooku seemed to possess a particular distaste for Ataru, claiming it a form of "ridiculous acrobatics", as well as Jar'Kai, feeling that one blade should be enough for a duelist. His dueling skills with Makashi made him able to defeat the skilled Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker.



Lightsabers
"It is obvious this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force, but by our skills with a lightsaber."

- Dooku to Yoda on Geonosis

As a Jedi Youngling, Dooku wielded common training lightsabers under the tutelage of Master Yoda, but after Thame Cerulian took him as his Padawan, Dooku constructed a curve-hilted lightsaber with a green blade. Having studied Jedi holocrons, he wanted to create a lightsaber that had no connection to the common Form III used against blaster-wielding opponents, but rather one that suited the classical Form II. The end result was a curved hilt which allowed for precise movements as well as perfect flexibility in lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat. The design and its properties were stored in holocrons, but Master Tyvokka's own curved hilt lightsaber might have also been an inspiration.

In his last mission as a Jedi, Dooku wielded a curve-hilted lightsaber with a blue blade, though during his training of Qui-Gon Jinn he carried a regular lightsaber. As a Dark Lord of the Sith, Dooku swapped out his Jedi crystal with a red synth-crystal, the common color of Sith blades. After being corrupted by the Bando Gora, Dooku's final Jedi apprentice Komari Vosa constructed new lightsabers based on Dooku's design. After Vosa's death, the Count gave these unique weapons to his Dark Acolyte, Asajj Ventress.

His lightsaber was most likely destroyed when the Invisible Hand broke in two over Coruscant.

Fighting style


As a Padawan, Dooku's favorite training was lightsaber combat. His swordsmanship was uncanny even to the most revered Jedi Masters. Though styles like Form III, Form IV, and Form V were more practical in the age of blasters, the competitive spirit in Dooku drove him curiously towards mastery of Form II: Makashi lightsaber combat. Form II was a concentration on lightsaber to lightsaber combat. Resentful of the needlessly rambunctious acrobatics of Form IV (which better suit a specimen like Yoda, not a Human), Dooku saw Form II, as the perfect rebuttal to all forms of lightsaber combat. As such, it was a more elegant, precise and classical style, and appealed to his sense of gallantry. His mastery of Form II indeed made him one of the greatest swordsmen of the Jedi Order. Although highly respected for his abilities, his pride was a cause for alarm amongst his peers, as he possessed an aggressive and competitive nature not normally seen in Jedi. His Form II mastery, paired with his deep connection with the Force, made Dooku a nearly impossible adversary to overcome. Dooku was so well versed in lightsaber combat that he was able to hold his own against three or four opponents by himself despite the fact that Makashi was less efficient and less effective with multiple opponents.

His Padawan would show the same rebelliousness that Dooku himself had shown Yoda. It would be Qui-Gon's devotion to Form IV that would, as Dooku saw it, lead to his death at the hands of the Sith Lord Darth Maul.

Dooku's grasp on Form II only grew during his descent into the dark side of the Force. Athough reaching eighty standard years of his life, Dooku managed to stay in good physical condition, enabling himself to use acrobatic skills and speed which most Jedi Masters his age could not have accomplished. Using aggression more freely, Dooku would arrogantly assume that he could finally defeat Yoda in combat. His victory over Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker at the Battle of Geonosis was a given due to the fact that neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin were trained in the lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat of Form II. However, when he fought his former master Yoda he was still unable to overcome Yoda's overwhelming speed. Dooku had to concede to his former master. He escaped the duel and spent the next three years honing his craft.

Dooku would lose once and for all to Anakin Skywalker in a duel during the Second Battle of Coruscant. Old age and arrogance had caught up with the Sith Lord. Skywalker had abandoned the passive aggression of defensive combat that had been taught by his elders, and mastered the more offensive Form V of lightsaber combat. Drawing on the forsaken powers of the dark side, Anakin eventually killed Count Dooku by decapitating him at Chancellor Palpatine's urging.

Behind the scenes



 * Count Dooku was played by Christopher Lee in the movies, and was voiced by Jeff Bennett in Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter video game and Corey Burton in the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon and all other video game appearances. Kyle Rowling portrayed Dooku during most of the character's lightsaber sequences, due to Lee's inability to work the sequences at the desired speed on a regular basis. His head was removed and replaced with Lee's during post production.


 * The color of Dooku's hair as a young man is not portrayed consistently. His hair is shown as blonde, brown, and black in various sources. This could be easily explained by assuming that Dooku was prone to artificially tint his hair; however, official sources have not confirmed (or refuted) this theory.


 * Tyrannus &mdash; or more properly, Tyrannos &mdash; is an ancient Greek word. It was originally used to describe someone who ruled a city-state after overthrowing the preexisting government. It was a legitimate form of government and the word's meaning was not unfavorable in itself, but over time, as democracy developed, it gained negative connotations and came to mean 'oppressor' or 'tyrant' in the modern sense of the word. Tyrannus (Tyranus) is quite accurate, as he was attempting to overthrow the pre-existing government to create a dictatorship.


 * Dooku's homeworld of Serenno may be a reference to Sarzano, the historical Italian seat of the Carandini family. Christopher Lee's mother was Contessa Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano.


 * Originally, Dooku would display his masterful dual blades combat ability against Yoda in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, making him a possible Jar'Kai duelist. However, the idea was later dropped, and Dooku was stated to dislike usages of multiple blades in Labyrinth of Evil, which made him no longer likely to be a Jar'Kai master. Photo with Christopher Lee wielding two lightsabers (with visual effects) became promotional pictures, one of them can be seen in Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary. In addition, the comic version of Attack of the Clones kept the idea intact. In a likely reference to this cut sequence, Dooku's first action figure included a secondary lightsaber, albeit with a green blade.




 * In the comic version of Episode III, Anakin Skywalker only sliced off Dooku's right hand, instead of both hands as seen in the movie.


 * Aside from his name, Count Dooku has many similarities to Dracula (another famous role of Christopher Lee). Both are villainous, erudite and sophisticated counts who wear a cape and dress in black.


 * There is also believed to be a parallel between Dooku and Saruman, another Lee character. Both were once forces for good and had great potential, however, they both ended up as grave disappointments as they were seduced by a Dark Lord of great power and evil (Dooku by Sidious, Saruman by Sauron). They both also tempted a good character to the dark side but were refused (Obi-Wan Kenobi by Dooku, Gandalf by Saruman.) Both characters also seemed to regret turning to evil, but were too proud to turn back.


 * "Dooku" could be based on the Japanese word "doku", meaning poison. In Galician and Portuguese languages, "do cu" (pronounced exactly as in "Dooku") literally means "from the ass". For this reason, Dooku's name was changed to "Dookan" in Brazil.


 * The full name of Count Dooku is unknown, but some fans have been known to use "Yan Dooku". However, this is fanon, not reflecting Dooku's canonical name.


 * Dooku's curved lightsaber hilt is similar in design to King Charlemagne's sword, ironic considering that Christopher Lee is himself a direct descendant of Charlemagne.