born in a sopping wet cloning facility all alone

Starting off with commentary about Dooku:

So, it’s quite obvious based on Dooku: Jedi Lost that Dooku has been struggling for a long time, even before Qui-Gon’s apprenticeship. He feels the call of the Dark Side as early as 12 years old and spends decades trying to resist it (sometimes not really trying too hard). He also spends a lot of time with kids—he teaches Initiate-level saber classes at the Temple and has a history of leaning on padawans for stability (which is plainly stated in the novel when Rael, Dooku’s first padawan, urges him to take on another padawan both after he was knighted and after Qui-Gon was knighted). However, this obviously won’t have only great effects on the children he’s teaching if he’s using them to hold himself together.

Rael and Qui-Gon got two different versions of Dooku, versions where he was at different places in his personal spiritual journey (which, in Star Wars, is if he’s Fallen/how far he is from doing so/his relationship with the Force in general), and thus he acted toward them in different ways.

Dooku is struggling to keep himself together during Qui-Gon’s padawanship. In Master and Apprentice, Qui-Gon spends a lot of time thinking about his relationship with Dooku and comparing it to his relationship with Obi-Wan. During this, he notes that Dooku was obsessive over a prophecy holocron that they once studied, keeping it in his room in the Temple for a week/weeks. It consumes him, takes up presence in the room, takes up all of his thoughts and time. When they eat dinner together, it is as if it is an unwelcome visitor that Qui-Gon wishes to avoid. (Simile coming straight from the book.)

Master & Apprentice really goes deep into Qui-Gon’s own personal spirituality, his special way of connecting to the Force that all Jedi have. And throughout the book, he has to come to terms with the fact that he does believe in prophecies, he does take them literally, and, actually, he has his own prophetic vision.

He starts the book very outwardly firm in his stance that the ancient prophecies are just metaphors, and that they reflect a truth about the world at the time of their recording that can also shed light on the reality of the world at the present. But when Qui-Gon truly opens himself to the Force and connects with it like he never has done before, he realizes something: he can no longer lie to himself and pretend like, deep down, these things don’t have incredible meaning to him. He does believe in them, he does take them literally.

Why is he so against this in the beginning, then, when this is the way the Force speaks to him specifically?

He saw how it impacted his own master.

When he was a padawan, as I mentioned before, Dooku went through a period where he was completely obsessed with prophecies—and not in the way Qui-Gon was. Qui-Gon liked to think of ways prophecies could have already been fulfilled and such like that, but for Dooku, it was all about the future. It was about control. He wanted to know the future so that he can change it (which tracks with his characterization in Dooku: Jedi Lost as well). 14 year old Qui-Gon was watching his master actively fall to the Dark Side and had no idea what to do to prevent it.

By the end of the novel, Qui-Gon comes to the conclusion that he understands why many masters say that studying the prophecies can lead to the Dark Side—because it can. He began to see it happen with his own eyes as a child and he blamed himself for re-introducing this into his master’s life, as Dooku had previously warned him of the dangers of it and Qui-Gon basically replied “I’ll refrain out of respect for you but once I’m a knight I’ll study them again.” In response, Dooku decided to teach him about them himself. (In reality, this was Dooku not being able to resist a temptation, a personal failing on his part, rather than any inherent misbehavior on Qui-Gon’s.) Still, Qui-Gon holds this guilt in himself for “causing” his master to err in such a way. This is obviously stressful for such a young boy and impacts both how he interacts with Dooku later and how he interacts with his own padawan when the time comes.

Qui-Gon comes to accept prophecy in his own spirituality by the time Obi-Wan is 17 and he was 40, meaning that he forced himself to avoid thinking about it for 26 years. He purposefully would play it down to himself, tell himself it was just metaphorical, that it reflected an inherent truth that spans across the ages rather than any true prophetic merit, etc etc and it would seem like it didn’t have any effect on him except for when he would go to bed and couldn’t help but think, what if…

Another thing that is just crazy that happened during Qui-Gon’s padawanship is Dooku just (presumably) using Sith Lightning on someone who was going to kill Qui-Gon. Like, Qui-Gon’s first reaction to seeing this (or, well, seeing the reflection of the light and hearing the sounds) is essentially “I can’t interfere with what Master Dooku chooses to do” despite the fact that this is Scaring Him Big Time. He doesn’t feel like he has enough autonomy in the situation to be more than just a silent learner obeying their master in the background (something which Qui-Gon notes that Obi-Wan does not do—Obi-Wan speaks up and to people even when other padawans *cough cough Qui-Gon cough cough* would feel like they are overstepping their bounds/upsetting or undermining their master).

Something I noticed about that scene is the focus on Qui-Gon being “his padawan,” like, Dooku basically says “and now you dare to try to kill my padawan” when he confronts their target. Though small here, I can see the starts of selfish attachment starting to leak through there (which is another big theme of Dooku: Jedi Lost)—though I have no doubt that Dooku would have been angry no matter who had been attacked, I also have no doubt that it became personal to him when Qui-Gon became involved, and part of that is this implied mentality that his padawans are extensions of him, rather than independent people. In Dooku: Jedi Lost we see that Dooku has been struggling with attachment since he was 12 years old and that he often will go against the Council’s orders or straight up use/be exposed to the Dark Side if he personally believes in a mission. He doesn’t really care if he uses the Dark Side of the Force so long as he thinks he maintains his control of the situation.

Also in D:JL do we see another scene that mirrors this last one. Told through Dooku’s point of view, Qui-Gon, now older, is being perceived essentially as the “perfect padawan.” He’s sassy, yes, and he has a lot of fun banter moments with Dooku (Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are both actually really sassy, it’s a very funny observation to make when they canonically just Don’t like each other’s sense of humor), but ultimately Dooku is trying to stop himself from remembering Qui-Gon’s reactions to his brutality.

Here, we get another scene of Dooku torturing people with Dark Side abilities (this time a Force choke). We’re getting to the point where Dooku isn’t really resisting very much. Older now (I believe around 20), Qui-Gon is less hesitant to at least /try/ to get his master to stop, basically ordering him to stop torturing a random criminal for information. (For quotation, see this post of mine.) However, we see in this scene, after, and then during another scene where Dooku almost does this again later that Qui-Gon /isn’t/ as okay with this as Dooku seems to think.

In fact, a few pages later, Dooku straight up tells Qui-Gon that his “acting was good” or thereabouts, believing that Qui-Gon was only speaking up because it would help sell their story… yeah, maybe you can see the level of deranged Dooku has sunk to at this point. He protests this, says that he told him to stop because torturing people is bad (duh), but Dooku moves right along to the next crazy thing he wants to do (I think he stole a speeder?). Obviously, this part of the story is told by Dooku, who brushes over the emotional aspect, but Qui-Gon thinks about this a lot in M&A, so we can see that this level of brusque cruelty is something that really bothers him.

We see this happen AGAIN in Tales of the Jedi, Episode Two: Justice. Here, Dooku is Force-choking a guy for being a tyrant and Qui-Gon, realizing he can’t stop him, basically sets the tyrant’s captured son free and then tag-teams begging Dooku to Stop Being Insane. I’d suggest that you watch the episode if you can, it’s only 15 minutes long and it tells you the gist of how these interactions tended to go. (With people basically ignoring that Dooku is cracking lol.)

In all, I would say that Dooku’s very present signs of his Fall impacted Qui-Gon a lot as a child, and the way Rael (Dooku’s first padawan) reacted also harmed him, as well.

Rael is, at this point, a knight, and though we know later that he becomes a very “controversial” character, we also know that Qui-Gon, at least, thought that he was the epitome of a Jedi Knight when he first met him. He had the support of many in the Order, who treated him perhaps a bit softly due to his trouble adjusting, but still, until the incident that cost Nim Pianna her life, Rael Averross was kind of how I could imagine Anakin to have grown up if Palpatine wasn’t around.

In all, Rael was an authority figure to Qui-Gon, no matter how much he wanted to just be a cool older brother to him.

In fact, here’s a quote from M&A on how exactly Qui-Gon felt about him: “At the time, Rael Averross had seemed like the bravest, best Jedi Knight the Order could produce. Qui-Gon had been too young to see the cracks in the bravado—the pain that all Dooku’s guidance and Rael’s accomplishments had never been able to erase.” (Chapter 25)

Qui-Gon goes to Rael and tells him about the incident with the Sith Lightning (which wasn’t actually identified by name in the text, since Qui-Gon didn’t know what that was—he was 14!!) and Rael brushes him off. His response is essentially this: “he’s like that sometimes, don’t be such a stick in the mud, he just cares about you and wants you to be safe.”

Like. Bro.

I’m not actually sure how much of this attitude comes from an unstable Dooku teaching Rael, who already had issues fitting in and which Dooku /canonically encouraged/, and how much comes from him not being there/seeing the full picture, but. Yeah.

I think that Dooku was also ultimately bad for Rael, in the sense that he encouraged him to not conform to the Jedi customs in such a way that led to him being extremely isolated for his whole life.

“Dooku had told Rael, many times, that his isolation was a self-fulfilling prophecy. ‘Do you not keep your own customs rather than adopt those of the Jedi around you? Do you refuse to explain yourself more often than not? Why then does it surprise you that you stand apart from the rest?’ Master Dooku had liked that about his Padawan, had always encouraged it. So Rael had cultivated that quality within himself—his isolation was at least half his own doing. Yet the solitude kept its sharp edge, always.” (Chapter 19)

Now, if this was just a spiel about individuality and nonconformism, I would have no problem with it. But that’s not what it taught him. Right there in the text, it says that Rael refuses to explain himself to others when they’re confused as to why he acts a certain way. No offense, but I think just about any other Jedi Master would say literally anything else when noticing that problem. This isn’t Rael wanting to be himself, it’s Rael struggling to find himself in his own community and Dooku saying “this is your own doing—but keep doing it.”

Not only this, but I’ve seen a lot of confusion from Rael on the topic of the Jedi Code. Specifically, he says a few times that the Code “means that he can’t love” which even Anakin acknowledges is literally not the case at all in AOTC. It’s pretty clear that what’s discouraged is attachment, it’s obsession, it’s selfishness, it’s making other people a thing that belongs to you. (Things which I see beginning in Dooku in M&A, see developing in D:JL, and definitely see in him fully once he’s a full-blown Sith Lord.)

Dooku also helps contribute to Qui-Gon’s distrust of authority figures/dislike of the Council (which, by the time of The Living Force, seems to mainly come down to practical implementations of philosophical ideals AKA following the living Force and what that means which I’ll talk about a bit later). This probably also contributes to why Qui-Gon doesn’t feel comfortable reporting the Sith Lightning incident to anyone other than Rael, who he thought would get it since Dooku was also his master. I’m pretty sure it says in the text that “no one else would understand but Rael, who was also his padawan” or something like that. Qui-Gon’s trust in authority figures is hurt by Rael brushing off his concerns. He thinks, if Rael of all people sees no issue, then I’m the issue. I’m wrong. There’s nothing going on here other than what should be.

(Something that’s also interesting is the fact that Obi-Wan picks up on this distrust of the Council and mirrors it in a way, even though he trusts them way more than Qui-Gon and goes out of his way to defer to them. Like, Qui-Gon’s deal with the Council doesn’t begin and end with Dooku and Rael, but it sure is interesting that it started there. In Dooku: Jedi Lost, it is a theme that masters can foster distrust of the Council in apprentices when they want to hide something they did wrong—chiefly through the character of Lene Kostana, who influences Dooku to be less trusting of the Council, saying that she’ll he punished/Sifo-Dyas would be taken away from her/Sifo-Dyas would be sent away/basically anything she has to say to get Dooku to not report the crazy missions she goes on without their knowledge. I believe a similar thing happened with Rael and Qui-Gon, but, over time, as Qui-Gon was more accustomed to life in the Temple and became closer with other masters, which included the Council, he saw how hard they were trying and the limitations imposed on them, never giving up on his ideals but becoming more of a realist. [Him toning down his arguments with the Council over time is canon.] Obi-Wan picked up on some of this inherited dislike of the Council and, though he himself always defers to them, canonically sometimes finds it creeping in at times when he’s frustrated. I just find this neat.)

Anyway, we’ve talked a lot about how Dooku impacted him as a child, but now I want to shift to talking about him as an adult more.

I believe that the youngest we see him outside of his padawan years in canon is in Padawan by Kiersten White, in which he isn’t a main character but is pretty important anyway. Here, we see him have Obi-Wan wait in the Temple for a good chunk of the beginning of his apprenticeship working on meditation and trying to guide him into letting go of his fears. He ends up manufacturing a solo mission for Obi-Wan (who is 16) so that he can work through these emotions on his own. However, before this he had worked with him extensively in the first lightsaber form, wanting him to be well-prepared for the outside world (as he said in M&A a year later). (And for clarity, Qui-Gon did not expect the silly little space exploration mission Obi-Wan designed to end up being a battle with a crazy guy hopped up on the Star Wars equivalent of Trigger (from MHA). So no, I don’t agree with the people who hate on him for this and say he was an awful master. George Lucas firmly believed that padawans younger than him were prepared for war, Qui-Gon had no reason to believe Obi-Wan’s adventure would end particularly badly because he had faith in him. Should he have probably brought him on another mission? Maybe, but Qui-Gon is a man who focuses on the internal rather than the external when it comes to himself and thus when training Obi-Wan. He saw that Obi-Wan would never advance if he didn’t conquer his fear [which Obi-Wan acknowledges is true], knew that he couldn’t be the one to do it for him, and came up with a little plan to try to make that happen after months of not being able to help him in the way he knew how.)

Okay, I promise I explained all of that for a reason. The way Qui-Gon is so focused on both his padawan’s internal struggles (self-doubt, etc) and his ability to protect himself (hence not letting him advance past Form One until he was 17 and had mastered it completely) is because he knew what it was like to be thrown into the deep end as a padawan. He was 13 when Dooku took him on and, that same year (presumably not much later at all), Dooku took him into an active war zone, stole a sailboat (probably a good time to mention that Qui-Gon couldn’t swim), and basically tried to defeat the other army with his padawan. Dooku didn’t even end up teaching him to swim—Rael promised to teach him, instead. But in M&A, as he’s remembering this, Qui-Gon realizes that he, too, had never taught Obi-Wan to swim, and decides that he needs to fix that. (Obi-Wan already knows how to swim, as per Padawan. But this was very cute of him.) Anyway, all that for me to say this: Qui-Gon didn’t have a very easy early apprenticeship (as per Dooku: Jedi Lost) and he tried really hard to avoid the mistakes that Dooku made with him (which I would say he did successfully). Of course, this doesn’t mean that he didn’t make his own mistakes, but in my opinion, he really wanted to be a master his padawan didn’t have to fear, which I would say he succeeded at.

Obi-Wan never feared Qui-Gon, never feared that Qui-Gon would hurt someone when he could avoid it, would torture someone for information. Obi-Wan’s time with Qui-Gon was full of their own issues (guilt and miscommunication, mainly), but never violence.

Okay, now, I can’t talk about M&A without talking about the main conflict of the story: Qui-Gon was offered a seat on the Council. However, to take it, he would have to stop training Obi-Wan. He doesn’t tell Obi-Wan at first, planning on telling him at his own time, but then someone else reveals it to him and it goes a bit downhill.

The important thing to remember about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon is that they BOTH feel crazy large amounts of guilt. I think it’s one of Obi-Wan’s character traits tbh. Qui-Gon’s feels more developed, like he gained it after dealing with Dooku for so long. Anyway, they both feel like they themselves are the reason they aren’t meshing as a pair. Qui-Gon constantly blames himself, saying that a better master would be able to teach x y and z, whereas Obi-Wan thinks that he’s failing as a padawan. Obi-Wan was a very rebellious Initiate and part of the reason he reacts to Qui-Gon like that is because it’s his only way of rebelling (I believe the text says that the “only way to rebel against such a rebellious master is to become the perfect Jedi” or something, I can find the quote if you want) whereas Qui-Gon never really rebelled against his master or the Council (by his own choice) as a padawan. Obi-Wan, obviously, has a very different way of seeing the Force than Qui-Gon (as do most characters), which is where most of their genuine conflict comes from once you get through their lack of and mis-communication.

Anyway, they both struggle with communication. Qui-Gon tries to give Obi-Wan room for independence, since that’s what he was used to at his age, not knowing that Obi-Wan felt like he wanted to advance with the help of his master. Obi-Wan often felt like he was falling behind when he was 16 and younger, but basically accepts that he just wants to help people and works through his perceived failings by the time he’s 17. After Padawan, they still don’t mesh as a duo, but Obi-Wan is confident in his position as a padawan. After M&A, they fall into their rhythm and end up becoming very close. They work well together after that, understanding each other better.

We see them again when Obi-Wan is 24 (one year before TPM) in The Living Force by John Jackson Miller. Here, we get a lot of fun Qui-Gon interactions with people. We see him continue to press on issues he might disagree with the Council on, but the text is very clear that it’s just a philosophical difference and that he’s trying to work through it with them, rather than rebel against them. Qui-Gon describes his relationship with the Council like this: “I’m not insubordinate. I’m unorthodox. The insubordinate are ignored. The unorthodox are heard—grudgingly.” (TLF p. 398)

Qui-Gon’s differences with the Council basically come down to this: the Council sees things very big picture all the time, where Qui-Gon likes to help in very small ways. He believes that “when you help one person now, you create the potential for them to do many good works in the future” (TLF p. 399). He perhaps thinks that the Council needs to leave Coruscant more often, but honestly he thinks that about everyone. At the beginning of the novel, he was having Obi-Wan approach strangers on public transportation to attempt to make new friends, so that Obi-Wan would remember that having the Force does not make them any better than other people, but rather their duties as Jedi place them below others instead, as servants. He’s a very interesting guy and is very philosophical—Obi-Wan is more practical. Qui-Gon absolutely hates politics (and is awful with politicians XD, what did he do to deserve a politician master and a padawan who gets the nickname “the Negotiator”?) but acknowledges that Obi-Wan has the touch when it comes to negotiations with them. By the time Obi-Wan is 24, they’re a well-oiled machine and don’t really have any doubts in their relationship. We see that Obi-Wan is still learning things at 24, so there’s no reason to think that Qui-Gon was purposefully holding him back from being knighted (like some people say about him). Instead, I think that their time together just hadn’t come to an end yet, and it was always supposed to culminate on Naboo. It’s one of those things that was the will of the Force (Qui-Gon’s favorite thing XD).

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I mentioned that I would touch on Jedi Apprentice for you. I’ve only read the first 3 books, but I can say with full conviction that people who say that Qui-Gon was being cruel/purposefully endangering Obi-Wan/didn’t come rescue Obi-Wan after he got kidnapped/etc. must not have read the books because this guy basically got a kid he didn’t ask for and then ended up taking care of him anyway. He’s obviously still hurting from Xanatos here and isn’t really in the right state to take on another padawan, but as we see, he gets one anyway. And he’s a good teacher, but not the most prepared. He always tries to save Obi-Wan when he gets in trouble (which is basically always). He acknowledges that he makes mistakes (lots of guilt in this man) and tries to get better.

Think Obi-Wan on Tatooine before the events of OWK.

Something to note is that he also has prophetic dreams here (specifically in Book Two). However, it seems like Legends tends to treat this as a more ordinary application of the Force, to be cautious of but generally accept (whereas it is pretty rare in the canon media I’ve consumed, aside from Anakin, Sifo-Dyas—and as far as I know, no curse was mentioned in D:JL, so he’s just Like That—and some weird moss that makes people see visions of the future.

2.) I think both Xanatos and Dooku had a very imperious/self-righteous attitude, but in all honesty I don’t think Qui-Gon would ever dare think of his master in such a way until he finds out about him falling. Or some other situation that makes him reevaluate his past. A lot of what he does is subconscious—Obi-Wan notes in Padawan that Qui-Gon has never said an unkind word about Dooku, which is honestly kind of depressing because I don’t think he ever realized what Dooku was doing was wrong beyond not doing it himself and teaching Obi-Wan not to do it

3.) no yeah I totally agree with you. Just thinking about that as a scenario… 😭😭 ghost Qui-Gon must have been going THROUGH it cuz Dooku literally uses his death as self-justification for joining Sidious (TOTJ) when he literally teamed up with the guy who is the reason he was killed 😐 the whole “Qui-Gon spoke fondly of you/I wish he was still here” crap he was bringing up during the Clone Wars and AOTC is insane because bro. You know your master is the guy who ordered that right??

Honestly, I’m not sure how canon Force ghost Qui-Gon got through all of that. There must have been a LOT of letting go to the Force going on because wow. The guilt would have actually been crazy. If he was still alive?? Obi-Wan would not be the only person hiding on Tatooine

4.) Dooku is, IMO, a very unorthodox Jedi but is very serious when it comes to respect (for him only lol as previously mentioned he’s fine with Rael disrespecting everyone else and he himself is a big Council hater). Dooku will do basically whatever he wants whenever he wants but by golly Qui-Gon does NOT get to make the decisions, that’s HIS job (despite the fact that he went against Yoda SOOO many times as a padawan). This said, he holds some measure of affection for him (I think he does the “you’re even wiser than I am” thing at some point, which is a fun theme with the Disaster Lineage because I’m pretty sure Qui-Gon does it to Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan does it to Anakin—I would have to find the quotes to be sure tho), it’s just obviously not enough (nor should it have to be to stop him from being a trash person, but whatever💔)

Anyway, it is in Dooku’s nature in general to be a very attached person (I could list times it’s shown in D:JL, but it might be as long as the book). Attachment is inherently selfish and we see many times how, despite claiming to care about Qui-Gon, he violates his trust (tortures people) and doesn’t take his wishes into account.

This is VERY different from Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, who, after the events of Master and Apprentice, are partners as well as teacher and student in everything they do, as shown by

and

(Mainly the first page talking about how Obi-Wan sees his apprenticeship. But I also included the last bit because it makes me sad and I thought you might like it 💔💔 this part is post-TPM by the way)

5.) I have very little knowledge of Komari (I tend to prefer canon novels to Legends and haven’t really gotten into her before), but if you ever want to talk about Rael/hear about his lore I’m willing to because I have A Lot of thoughts about that guy

6.) YES YES YES YOU GET IT. EVERYONE ALWAYS TAKES HIS CHARACTER SO SERIOUSLY IN JA BUT GUYS THE BOOKS ARE FOR 12 YEAR OLDS. 😭😭😭 Sorry for the caps, I’ve just seen SO MANY anti-Qui-Gon arguments based on the JA books and it gets on my nerves sometimes.

I had a few other quotes that I saw while tracking the others down that I wanted to put here:

(Open images to see full quotes)

In the first one, this is Qui-Gon turning down the Council seat and explaining some of his relationship to the Force. I think it’s a really good quote, since it includes a lot.

Secondly: why Obi-Wan hates flying (when he loved it before) XDD ALSO: HE PUT HIS ARM AROUND HIS SHOULDERS😭😭😭

Thirdly, Qui-Gon and Rael😭😭they love each other even though they’re not perfect