Was Dooko really evil though?
I just rewatched Episode 2 (not yet Episode 3) and it seems like he’s trying to save the Republic from the Sith, and told Obi Wan that directly. They just couldn’t accept he was telling the truth about the Senate being controlled directly by the Sith, which is funny because earlier in the film Obi Wan himself is scolding Anakin for not being more distrustful of the Senate and politicians. Seems like Dooko was building an army for a coup against the Sith but the Jedi ruined it.
The “Tales of the Jedi” animated miniseries goes into this a little bit. Dooku started off as a political dissident after witnessing firsthand the levels of exploitation and corruption in the Republic once you got outside of the core worlds. While he was still a Jedi, he visited one of the worlds in the outer rim that had basically been plundered to nothing by industrialists and the various guilds (e.g., Banking Clan and Trade Federation) who wielded a disproportionate amount of power in the Senate. He and his padawan (young Qui-Gonn) were tasked with extracting a hostage from the “terrorists” on this remote planet, but he ended up sympathizing with their cause. This is why he left the Jedi Order shortly afterward, and tried to do a heckin’ entryism only to find out that political power does not flow from the barrel of a
.Since this is Western storytelling and we can’t have revolutionaries every be remotely sympathetic, this is why he had to do the hell-turn and something something hand-wavey reasoning, something something dark side. I guess the only explanation that makes any kind of sense there is that Papa Palpatine sold him on doing a little bit of adventurist accelerationism, with Dooku probably planning on taking down Palpatine (like you pointed out, maybe even with the clone army that Sifo Dyas commissioned) if he ever got the opportunity. Instead, he got caught up in yet another “Anakin Does a War Crime” story, and didn’t exactly come out ahead.
MFer should have read theory instead of being an idealist
. Scratch a Dooku, and a Darth Tyranus bleeds.Dooku still sounds like he did nothing wrong other than being a little lib at first but then realizing force was necessary, which they portray as the “Dark” Side, and that’s when we see him in the movies.
I do hate how US media must necessarily make any potential revolutionary be evil for no reason just to make the good guys be people like the Jedis sitting around doing nothing except reinforcing the slave “Republic”/Empire.
To be fair to the prequels, it doesn’t let those in the Republic off the hook. They all were complacent, corrupt, overlooked slavery and criminal syndicates, punished love, etc and it led to their downfall and drove Anakin to do what he did. I know most people see the Jedi as the “good guys” still but it’s pretty obvious they were kinda dogshit to me.
Fun Dooku quote
The Jedi Order’s problem is Yoda. No being can wield that kind of power for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it’s overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, “Why are we not acting to stop this?” Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench. The Jedi cannot help the slaves of Tatooine, but they can help the slavemasters.
