#qui-gon

It’s funny how much it matters to me and improves Dooku’s story that he didn’t leave the Jedi out of growing disillusionment with the Order itself. In the current canon, it’s all framed around a very Padme-esque disenchantment with current political makeup of the Republic, the Jedi being used by the Senate and political machines inappropriately, and how planets with little wealth or influence are left out. In the penultimate moment of crisis, he leaves for Serenno, not because he can’t be a Jedi any longer. Because of a conviction that he could truly make something better. 

And I don’t mean to suggest that he never expresses any criticism of the Jedi or particularly, the Council. He seems to have founded that characteristic trait within the Disaster Lineage. (Ironically, the person in Dooku’s story who should have the most legitimate reason to have a personal problem with the Jedi Order is fucking Sifo-Dyas, who never seems to have considered leaving and literally dies telling the camera he did it all to save the Jedi, but that’s a different post.) But that isn't what compels Dooku to leave. In fact, he remains close with the Order for years afterward.

Why it matters to me is because that detail makes Dooku ultimately betraying the Order SO MUCH MORE FUCKED. 

Because they weren’t an old score he was settling. It wasn't seething resentment that boiled out into revenge years later. They were innocent collateral damage of his decisions. His family. His lineage. His legacy. It makes his treachery so much more personal. He had a wager, power for a horrible cost, and he took the power and paid the horrible cost. Sidious really gets him with:

If Dooku hated them and had always thought they deserved to be destroyed, it wouldn’t have been a true Sith bargain, the trade off wouldn’t have tallied. In the same way that Vader could not have existed if Anakin hadn’t loved Padme and yet still killed her.

⋆˚｡⋆✧˚ Obi-Wan Kenobi ˚✧⋆｡˚⋆

⋆˚｡⋆✧˚ Qui-Gon Jinn ˚✧⋆｡˚⋆

⋆˚｡⋆✧˚ Darth Vader ˚✧⋆｡˚⋆

‘We don’t choose the light because we want to win… We choose it because it is the light’

To me it very well puts together the fight of the Jedi in the Clone Wars and later, the remaining Jedi’s battle against the Empire. They could of very well of given up but they chose to keep fighting on the side of good not because they knew it was the winning side, but because it was good because it was filled with light.

It’s Rael restating Qui-Gon Jinn’s line from earlier in the novel but I prefer the more simple way Rael phrases it.