Count Dooku
- "He was one of the most brilliant Jedi I've ever had the privilege of knowing." — Jocasta Nu
Count Dooku (102–19 BBY) (also known as Darth Tyranus) is a fictional character from the Star Wars universe. In the films, he is played by Christopher Lee, and is voiced by Corey Burton in the video games and the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars. He is a supporting villain in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Dooku is a Sith Lord whose war crimes during the Clone Wars indirectly bring about the Great Jedi Purge and the fall of the Galactic Republic. His Sith name is Darth Tyranus, a name obviously derived from "tyrant" but particularly more at "tyrannous." The name Dooku is said to derive from the Japanese word "doku" (毒), which means poison. However, "Count Dooku" could simply be a joking reference to "Count Dracula", whom Lee has depicted in many Hammer movies. His full birth name is unknown, but it is believed he has no other name beyond Dooku (similar to his old master, Yoda, and his second master, Palpatine).
Biography
Dooku was once an esteemed Jedi Master and apprentice to Yoda and padawan learner to Thame Cerulian. However, he was tempted by the power of the dark side and became an apprentice to Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, succeeding the late, previous apprentice, Darth Maul. His bronzium bust is displayed in the Jedi Archives, along with the rest of the Lost Twenty, the only Jedi Masters ever to resign their commission from the Jedi Order. An accomplished philosopher, orator, warrior, and Force-adept, he was regarded as one of the greatest Jedi in the orders twenty-thousand year history for his strength of character as much as his strength in the Force. With his deep voice and seductive charisma, this political idealist and wealthy aristocrat displays elegance, class, and intelligence.
Dooku had been a practitioner of the Force for nearly eight decades, and he and his student, Qui-Gon Jinn, would have surely sat on the Jedi Council if it were not for their maverick views. In addition, Dooku is a master swordsman, specializing in the ancient, seldom-used and elegant Form II art (see lightsaber combat), which makes use of his special curved saber hilt. Form II is known for its efficiency in lightsaber vs. lightsaber combat, as it was bred for lightsaber combat. Dooku chose the style because of his beliefs in elegance and gallantry. This fighting style probably makes him able to defeat the skilled Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker.
Dooku leaves the order around the time of the Battle of Naboo and reclaims his family title as Count of Serenno. He is frustrated at the bureaucracy of the Galactic Senate and the unwillingness of the Jedi Council to step in and aid the poor and oppressed Galactic systems. The disastrous Battle of Galidraan has already soured him towards continued service to the Republic; the death of Jinn, his favorite padawan, proved to be the final straw. Unhappy with the power of the Senate and the new Chancellor, he begins thinking on how to help the Jedi return to their true glory. Rumors suggest that he had secretly studied knowledge of the dark side, which is stored inside Sith Holocrons in the Jedi Archives. Controversially, Dooku holds that one could draw from both sides of the Force equally — light and dark — to achieve perfect balance. He believes that as long as he is 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. Ironically, the Chancellor soon becomes his new master and mentor.
It is unknown exactly how or when Dooku first comes into contact with Darth Sidious (Palpatine's Sith alias), the mysterious Dark Lord of the Sith (and the Master of the late Darth Maul, who slew Jinn), but Dooku falls to the dark side of the Force and becomes Sidious's second Sith apprentice, taking the Sith name Darth Tyranus. The two Sith Lords orchestrate the Clone Wars as part of a larger scheme to turn the Republic into the Galactic Empire. They plan to smash the Jedi Order and use its remnants as the basis for a new Sith Army.
The mysterious Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, who is a friend of Dooku's in the Jedi Order, contacts the master cloners on Kamino at the request of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and employs them to create a Clone Army for the Galactic Republic. Darth Sidious commands Tyranus to kill Sifo-Dyas, as proof of his loyalty. Dooku obeys, and takes over the project. As Tyranus, Dooku then recruits the mercenary Jango Fett to become a template for the Grand Army of the Republic's clone troopers later to be used by Chancellor Palpatine and the Republic. In the video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, he tests Fett by having him defeat the Bando Gora and their Dark Jedi leader, Komari Vosa, his first Jedi apprentice.
Ten years later, the Machiavellian Count Dooku comes out of hiding, appearing on Raxus Prime and heavily criticizing the Republic and the Jedi Order for their hypocrisy and corruption. Dooku, on the orders of political mastermind Darth Sidious, publicly calls for entire systems to secede from the Republic and join the Separatist movement, culminating in the formation of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The first meeting of the CIS is hosted on the planet Geonosis, where Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is captured by the Geonosians and accused of espionage. Dooku cleverly claims that he has no power over the decision. Furthermore, with equal cunning, Dooku deflects suspicions of Chancellor Palpatine's plotting of all this by simply telling the truth to Obi-Wan about the conspiracy, ensuring that the hostile Jedi would never believe this allegation coming from him. Dooku may in fact have been trying to acquire Obi-Wan as his own apprentice, intending to wrest power from Palpatine (such fighting was a common occurrence among the Sith). They argued many times over who to try to twist to the dark side. Invariably, Palpatine would put his foot down and insist on Anakin, not Obi-Wan.
Dooku almost let go of Separatist leader and aide to Passel Argente, Denaria Kee, but Passel threatens to resign if Denaria (who is secretly his lover) is dismissed. Shu Mai, President of the Commerce Guild, convinces Dooku that letting go of the Corporate Alliance leaders will cost the Separatists or the CIS leaders a considerable amount of power, so Dooku lets Denaria Kee stay on the CIS.
Later, when Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala arrive to rescue Obi-Wan, they are captured and are sentenced to be eaten alive by large beasts in a Colosseum-style arena while chained to large poles. However, the executions are interrupted by the sudden arrival of Jedi reinforcements, led by Jedi Master Mace Windu. Though the Jedi are overwhelmed by the new droid army of the CIS, they are soon rescued by Jedi Master Yoda, who leads the very Clone Army Dooku helped create, forcing the Separatists to recoil.
While the clone troopers advance and obliterate the droid forces, the Separatists call for a retreat while Dooku pretends not to know how the Republic had gathered such a powerful army in such a short time. Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, commands a full retreat and proceeds to turn over the plans for a moon-sized superweapon (the future Death Star) to Dooku to keep the Jedi from finding them.
Count Dooku flees to his secret hangar, but he is followed by Obi-Wan and Anakin. After injuring Obi-Wan, he duels with Anakin, which ends when Dooku severs Anakin's sword arm. Before he can escape, however, he is confronted by one last Jedi — his old mentor, Yoda. After a battle of Force powers, Dooku insists on settling their contest with a lightsaber duel. Dooku uses the Force to drop a crane on the wounded Obi-Wan and Anakin to distract Yoda long enough to make his escape. Count Dooku soon arrives on Coruscant, where he meets with Sidious and informs him that the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems are officially at war.
In the video game Star Wars: The New Droid Army, a Count Dooku Clone raids the Jedi Temple library ten months after the Battle of Geonosis. This clone oversaw the Cortosis Droid project. It is killed by Anakin Skywalker on Metalorn.
In the video game The Clone Wars, Count Dooku leads the army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, or the Separatist Army, as in the films. He hires Cydon Prax to replace the deceased Jango as his bodyguard. He finds the Force Harvester, an ancient Sith artifact, on Raxus Prime. He later finds the pieces, scattered by the ancient Sith, and revives an antique Sith weapon known as the Dark Reaper. The Dark Reaper is first defeated by a Jedi Knight named Ulic Qel-Droma 4,000 years before The Phantom Menace during the Great Sith War. At the Sith Temple on Thule, it is defeated again by Anakin Skywalker at the final confrontation of the video game.
During the Clone Wars, Dooku took up a few apprentices of his own, though of the non-Sith variety, in Sev'rance Tann: Asajj Ventress, Durge, and General Grievous. He also acts as the political figurehead of the CIS. Of course, even though Dooku's co-conspirators are aware that he is a Sith and serves Darth Sidious, they are unaware that they are mere puppets in a larger scheme. At the end of Star Wars: Clone Wars, Dooku has Grievous capture and imprison Palpatine to trick the Senate into believing he has been kidnapped, thus creating the sympathy necessary to give the Chancellor even greater emergency powers.
During the opening of the Revenge of the Sith, Anakin and Obi-Wan battle Dooku while trying to save Palpatine. Dooku has orders to kill Kenobi and then allow Anakin to capture him after defeating him and then turning Anakin to the dark side of the Force. Palpatine has convinced Dooku that Kenobi's death will make Anakin vulnerable to the dark side. Once turned, Dooku believes, Anakin will be the perfect commanding general of his new Sith Army, built from the remmnants of the Jedi Order.
Dooku is once more able to render Kenobi unconscious before being disarmed (literally, as both of his hands are severed) by Anakin. At the Chancellor's urging, Anakin uses his and Dooku's lightsabers to decapitate the Count with a crossed-lightsabers, scissor-like strike, killing him instantly. Sidious had promised Dooku that he would intervene in the unlikely event that Anakin won the duel, but unfortunately for Dooku, he only realizes Palpatine's betrayal right before he dies. In reality, Palpatine never intended Dooku to be the true apprentice; Dooku was merely a placeholder for Anakin and a tool for engineering the Clone Wars; Anakin would later become Darth Vader, Palpatine's third and greatest apprentice.
Lightsaber Training
Dooku originally studied Ataru form IV lightsaber training under Master Yoda. Though more practical in the Age of Blasters, the competitive spirit in Dooku drove him curiously towards mastery of Form II combat. Form II was a concentration on lightsaber on 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. His mastery of Form II indeed made him arguably the greatest swordsman in the Order (second only to Yoda) becoming the head instructor for advanced lightsaber training at the Jedi Temple, but was also a cause for alarm among his peers, as it suggested an aggressive and competitive nature not normally seen in Jedi. His form II mastery, paired with his exposure to Ataru made Dooku a nearly impossible adversary to overcome.
Though Dooku would try to pass Form II to his apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn, his padawan would show the same rebeliousness that he himself had shown Yoda. It would be Qui-Gon's devotion to Form IV Ataru that would, as Dooku saw it, help lead to his death at the hands of the Sith lord.
Dooku's grasp on form II would only grow in his descent into the dark side of the force. Using aggression more freely, Dooku would accurately (if not a little arrogantly) assume that he could finally defeat Yoda in combat. Though his victories over Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker at the Battle of Geonosis were a given, he soon found himself in over his head when dueling Yoda. 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 Battle of Coruscant. Old age and arrogance had caught up with the old master. Skywalker had abandoned the passive aggression of defensive combat as instructed by his elders, and mastered the more offensive Form V lightsaber combat. Drawing on the forsaken powers of the Dark Side, Anakin drew on the same dark energies that Dooku so-benefited from. Count Dooku was destroyed by the young Jedi Knight.
Behind the Scenes
There is a parallel between Count Dooku and the wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (both of whom Lee portrayed.) In both sagas, the character is a fallen hero who is seduced by power and uses deception to hide his true intentions. Both Saruman and Dooku imprison a heroic character (Gandalf the Grey and Obi-Wan Kenobi respectively) and offer him a chance to join them. In both situations, the hero refuses and escapes. The two possess excellent oratory skills, as Saruman can use his voice to control others and is described as "honey-tongued" while Dooku leads the propaganda campaign for the Separatists. Both are servants to a greater evil (Sauron and Darth Sidious, respectively). In the end, Dooku is betrayed by his master. Though Sauron could easily have sent some of his limitless military forces to Saruman's aid, he declines, in effect doing the same thing as Sidious. (In the original book, Saruman works independently, though unwittingly serving Sauron through his actions; in the movies, however, their relationship is much closer.)
There is also an intentional parallel between Dooku and Anakin, as both are former Jedi who become apprentices to Darth Sidious. In addition, aside from his name, he does have many similarities to Dracula (again portrayed numerous times by Lee in movie adaptations), for both are villainous, erudite and sophisticated counts who wear a cape and dress in black.
References
- ^ Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Novelization - Novelization, 1st edition hardcover, 2005. Matthew Woodring Stover, George Lucas, ISBN 0-7126-8427-1
- The New Essential Guide to Characters, 1st edition, 2002. Daniel Wallace, Michael Sutfin, ISBN 0-345-44900-2
- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary, hardcover, 2002. David West Reynolds, ISBN 0-789-48588-5
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary, hardcover, 2005. James Luceno, ISBN 0-756-61128-8
- Star Wars Roleplaying Game: Revised Core Rulebook, hardcover, 2002. Bill Slavicsek, Andy Collins, J.D. Wiker, ISBN 0-786-92876-X