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Corrupt Jedi/Qui-gon’s death

A lot has been said about this by others (and me) already, and since that’s not the point of this ask, I’m just going to skate over this topic. Dooku mentions more than once that he feels the Jedi have become corrupt, that they serve politics, that they have abandoned their ideals. If we take the EU into account, it really seems like the Battle of Galidraan had a huge effect on Dooku, after the Jedi got involved with the Mandalorian Civil War (of course it was the Mandalorians. Interesting stuff, although almost always referred to in an oblique manner.) Bottom line, the Jedi killed close to 300 Mandalorians, Dooku became appalled and started to lose faith, with the culmination being in Qui-gon’s murder by Darth Maul, as pictured above. 

Home/Orphans/Parents/Existential Angst

Now, this is where it gets interesting. 

Dooku seems to have never really gotten over the fact that his parents handed him over to the Jedi. This is fascinating in that a) he can remember that and b) he feels such a sharp sting of betrayal that this happened. I mean, look how he chews out someone else later on in Dark Rendezvous for giving up her child to the Temple. 

WOAH. Dooku, even into his adulthood, has some MASSIVE abandonment issues. 

And it’s not only in Dark Rendezvous. Check out this snippet Karen Traviss’s Clone Wars novelization:

“The galaxy will be torn apart by orphans,” Dooku said at last. “I think that everyone I know who has the potential to bring down empires has been robbed of parents.” He seemed to be talking to himself. 

Even Sidious has picked up on it, when he visits Dooku on Serenno in the Jango Fett: Open Season series. 

There’s this…hole, it seems, in Dooku, this emptiness that sees the universe as a pointless, lonely place and it seems to stem from the very action of Dooku being given up to the Temple in the first place. And so in some ways he almost expects betrayal, goes looking for it, and finds it within the Jedi, prompting him to nurse that open wound deep inside himself, to rage against it, turn to turn to the Dark Side. 

It also totally explains his teaching obsession, and, in my mind, his desire to bring Obi-wan to his side. As a teacher, Dooku can delude himself into thinking he is in control of this relationship, that he is not dependent on his students for companionship, for someone to share his knowledge his life with. This, of course, is a damn lie, but seen in this light, it explains his never-ending parade of Padawans and apprentices, and surely why he wanted Obi-wan, who, as I have mentioned before, shared so many characteristics with Dooku - just without the existential malaise. 

Because Obi-wan has that light in him. He has to, it’s the only way the man wouldn’t have completely broken after the life he led. And it’s a choice, to be a light in a universe that is ultimately uncaring, and no one understands this better than Dooku’s teacher.

But Yoda goes on to explain -

Dooku tried to choose the light, but ultimately could not. (Again, from the Clone Wars novelization.)

Don’t think, Padawan Dooku.

“You were wrong then, Jedi,” he said aloud. “And you’re wrong now.”

Destiny was not about feeling; destiny was about thinking, about rationality. Dooku didn’t see reacting blindly to feelings as some mystic virtue, but as a weakness.

In a child, he would have punished it as giving in to impulses, a lack of maturity and self-control.

As a child, he had been trained not to think. As a child, he had been trained to be a Jedi.

Don’t question so much, Padawan Dooku. Feel. Don’t doubt. Believe.

Well, he questioned things now. And he didn’t believe.

Because Dooku does not believe in a kind universe, not with betrayal bored so deep in his soul. 

No belief in the afterlife, in the Force, so unlike the Jedi.

I mean, that is BLEAK. And so he rages against the meaninglessness of his existence, because what does it matter? He is alone in the universe, merely a sack of flesh, another life that will dissolve into the “featureless wet spill.”

And yet he cares enough about the Jedi to turn to the Dark Side, cares enough about the Republic to try and save it through his twisted means. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy, and Dooku loves (and hates) but would never admit to it. Otherwise, why even try? Why not leave the Order and retire to Serenno in peace? Because he was abandoned in his own mind? Because his new family in the Jedi also eventually betrayed him by betraying their ideals? Because it is easier to be alone, to think yourself alone - to be beholden to no one, to nothing - to pretend that none of it matters when in fact you are just looking for ways to fill that void? Your last student murdered, your family absent, the ideals you tried to cling to now fetid, rank with hypocrisy. 

Yeah, Dooku has an ongoing crisis, and the sad part is, he would probably have never filled that void unless he was able to reach out and accept Yoda’s offer. And even in trying to recruit Obi-wan - it would be the next best thing, would give meaning to Dooku’s existence, but it would still be a fractured relationship, even if Obi-wan gave himself totally to the dark (and Obi-wan’s own reasons for turning are very different than Dooku’s). And yet, I think he yearns for this messed-up version of family he keeps pushing away. Look at Dooku’s first reaction when Jango asks for an unadulterated clone:

A son? I mean, wow, that’s a telling statement on Dooku’s part. And yet he never quite gets there - not with Ventress, not with Savage, and not (most likely to his severe disappointment) with Obi-wan.