Characters Master Dooku//Padawan Qui-Gon: Because it's all so dramatic.

Thank you for the up, Star-Foozle

Re falling out over Xanatos: I think Dooku's misstep might have been trying to 'comfort' Qui-Gon by diminishing his grief. I can just see Dooku telling Qui-Gon the GFFA equivalent of c'est la vie; and then Qui-Gon, whom I fully admit can be prickly at best where his hurt feelings are concerned, flounces off in a huff. And then of course, they're both too damn proud and stiffnecked to kiss and make up, each alternately trying to make conversation whenever they bump into each other. Boys?

Personally, I like to think that Dooku had a certain fondness for Obi-Wan. I know, I know?complete lack of canon and/or EU evidence. But still! There are quite a few similarities between the two of them, and I think Dooku sees a little of himself in teh Padawan. I sometimes theorise that could have caused a bit of that blow-up with Qui-Gon over Anakin. They meet on Coruscant during TPM, exchange pleasantries; then Dooku goes 'You know, about that kid you're dragging about?'

Qui-Gon, frustrated at Obi-Wan's coolness toward the Chosen One, pouts. 'Oh, Master, not you too!' and leaves for Naboo with both of them seething self-righteously, which eventually causes Dooku a lot of anger and guilt when Qui-Gon gets skewered, and he beats himself up over it. He then goes into denial, and starts beating the Council up over it, and then leaves the Order.

Just my tuppence worth. I like using that to explain why Dooku seemed so reluctant to kill Obi-Wan on a few separate occasions in the two films. And perhaps it's just the way I looked at Mr Lee's performance, but I think the scene with Obi-Wan in the Geonosian dungeons show us Dooku interacting with another character as honestly and sincerely as we'll ever see him on screen.

 

An up! How happy!

Ooooh?Cael, darling, I think I agree with every one of your points. Well-said, lady.

Dooku goes 'You know, about that kid you're dragging about?'

This whole post had me giggling somewhat foolishly.

Actually, though, I think there is a canon source for some Dooku and Obi-Wan fondness! In the Episode Three novelization by Matthew Stover, Dooku has this elaborate argument with Sidious to get him to make Obi-Wan The New Sith instead of Anakin. He admits to not wanting to kill him for sentimental reasons, and even tells Sidious that Obi-Wan is ?practically his grandson!? (Upon reflection, I can?t believe he actually tried to use this argument on Sidious, of all people. The, um, Dark Lord of the Sith. Like Sidy?s gonna be all ?Oh, what, you have cutesy sentimental attachment to a Jedi?! Why, this changes everything! Sure, and would you like a pony for your birthday, too? Tell me more of your important feelings!?)

Ahem. I wish I could think of a better source for you, because Stover?s take on Dooku is so very bizarre to me. It seems to me as if the character did a couple lines o? crack before his scenes. My favorite part of the book is where Dooku finishes up talking out loud to himself, throws his comlink across the room, calls Obi-Wan and Anakin ?idiotic peasants?---and worries idly about going into the lightsaber match with his pants on fire.

Oh, Dooks, put away the crack before the crack puts you away. *shakes head sadly*

I think he might have mentioned some fondness for Obi-Wan in LoE, though I?m not sure if that was just part of his general nostalgia over seeing a good Master/Padawan team work together. I haven?t read LoE in forever. Anyone else remember?

But anyway, I agree. Obi-Wan and Dooku's respective character flavors go so well together, like peanut butter and chocolate. They both have that sort of dignified, dry humor thing going for them, and I think considering Qui-Gon, they'd have a lot to talk about.

*coughs* *nudges anyone wishing to read a take on such a conversation to Drea an PK's Things That Never Happened to Dooku, Unfortunately *

 

*chokes* Oh, Jess, your summaries just bring out the absurdity so well....

I get the impression Stover likes Obi-Wan, which might I suppose have contributed. *grin* Mind, you can also interpret the scene in AotC that way when Dooku's supposedly preparing to finish Obi-Wan off. "Flourish, flourish, flourish... flourish... Skywalker, get over here, I didn't zap you that hard!"

Or he could be drawing out the moment of triumph for taunting and/or dramatic purposes (which is not the greatest idea when he could assume other people were on their way, but possible) or maybe there was a mosquito in the hangar. But I'm going with "not that enthusiastic" myself. Probably with a side order of drama.

P.S. Thank you for the plug.

 

It would be easy for Dooku to be fond of Obi-Wan, especially before he even met him. Dooku could imagine Obi-Wan being that higher class Jedi he always wanted instead of the scruffy, disobedient Knight his first apprentice turned into.

I really don't think that Dooku would get along well with any Skywalker in any universe. Peasants really.

Some of the weird behavior from Dooku in the ROTS novelization might have been in the draft of the script that thankfully got expunged when they had Christopher Lee sitting there and they realized, "Oh, he can't beg for his life."

What is LoE? I am acronym challenged here.

I have a lot of trouble imaging adult Dooku and Qui-Gon just chatting...

-- The com beeps. Qui-Gon, ungainly and leggy in his underwear in his room in the Temple, answers it.

-- "Hello, Qui-Gon. It's your old Master. How are you doing?"

-- "Oh, ah." Looking for pants. "Fine."

-- Silence.

-- "I hear you have a new Padawan."

-- "Yes, Obi-Wan."

-- "How is this one working out?"

-- "Ah, fine." Putting on pants. "How's life outside the Temple?"

-- Silence.

-- "Ah, well.....Fine."

-- Silence.


It's just hard for me to imagine either of them initiating a conversation unless they had some Jedi business to discuss to get it started.

 

LoE - Labyrinth of Evil.

I had to laugh about the conversation. Somehow, I could just picture Qui-Gon doing that.

 

Oooh, my goodness, NoPants!Qui-Gon! Great dialogue!

I rather see your point. Perhaps some sort of Anti-Council Rant could have been their segue?

 

Oh have I missed this thread!

LOL! Jess, you certainly seem to speaking about crack with a lot of authority there.

No way! I didn't pick up on that at all!

Actually I think Dooku?s problem with Anakin had more to do with Anakin being Sidious? special project (going more with Stewart than with Stover here) and less to do with Anakin?s origins. Dark Side turn aside, I don?t think Dooku would have minded training Skywalker himself. Think of what it would have done to his career ? Master of the Chosen One!

 

*stops making faces* Ahem.

I don't know about not minded. I think Dooku and Anakin could have either been an excellent combination or driven each other completely around the bend. Possibly several bends. But I get the impression Dooku was somewhat skeptical about this "Chosen One" business anyway, which would have made for a particularly interesting dynamic if Qui-Gon had survived.

(I think Drea and I were thinking of doing something with this at one point.

Council: Qui-Gon, you can only have one Padawan at a time.

Qui-Gon: *opens mouth*

Dooku: Fine. I'll take him.

Everyone else: What are you doing in here?

Anakin: ...Who are you?)

 

Ardavenport: I think Dook and Obi would have gotten along fairly well under different circumstances, actually. Like Charm said, their styles do seem to compliment each other well. And NoPants!Qui...Haha! *snickers*

Charm: As much as I liked the rest of the RotS novelization, I agree with you completely on the weirdness of Dooku. It's the main reason I didn't like him until I really started checking out these boards. He was just kinda there in the movies (to me, at least) and the book version acted so oddly that I was just like, "Okay, weirdo Darksider, moving on..." But now, of course, I appreciate him much more.

P_K: You're right about the whole Dooku/Anakin thing, I think. Either they would have made a great team, or they would have annoyed each other to kingdom come. Each of them would see enough of himself in the other that A)They'd appreciate it, or B)It would drive them nuts. That would make an interesting story...hmm. If you ever write one along those lines, I'd love to see where it goes.

 

Most definitely. I've always wanted to read an epic AU where Dooku rather than Obi Wan took on Anakin. I think that without Palpatine's insidious influences, Dooku would have been one of the biggest card carrying members of the 'Anakin is Chosen One' club. For one, it'd annoy the council members . For another, it'd fit in perfectly with Dooku's own Doom and Gloom opinions of the times he lived in. And for a third, it'd supplement his own sense of destiny (read as ego) as the Chosen Master of the Chosen One.

 

Good point, Leia. It would definitely fit in with Dook's whole melodramatic outlook.

I'm massively off-topic here, I know, but I had a stray plot bunny wander up and bite me last night: What did Dooku think of Xanatos? What were his opinion of Qui's teaching methods, and his opinion of the boy himself? Did Xan ever have the opportunity to meet Dooku, or was Dook aloof and detatched like he seemed to be with Obi-Wan?

Your thoughts?

 

Hmm. I definitely can see it fitting in with Dooku's ideas about current events at the time, and with Watson's line about why he wanted to train Qui-Gon. (Although the other side of the 'ego' issue is the idea that at some point he apparently thought it might be him. I'm not sure that wasn't some random person's play on the idea of expecting your messiah to show up as a king and getting someone who's initially rather unprepossessing.) And even leaving aside the idea of choosing his padawans to make him look good, I think there's little question that Master Dooku would have been far less bothered by people being impressed with his Padawan than Count Dooku was by feeling Anakin was his replacement, either as the Jedi's star pupil or in Sidious's favor.

On the other hand, especially if you merge Dooku-training-Anakin with some changes that allow Qui-Gon to live and keep up his side of the argument, I think it would be possible to have a lot of fun (which means "stress," from the characters' perspective) over the idea of Dooku remaining skeptical. I personally think no matter how busy they both were, Qui-Gon and Dooku would end up making time to discuss that disagreement! (And then I suppose there's the Council's side of things. Poor Ani, all argued over. )

 

Argued over? Well, it depends on how closely you hold to Watson's portrait of Dooku and Jinn's relationship. I've never seen it as cantakerous as Qui and Obi's. While they might argue over superficials e.g. methods of training Anakin, but not if he should be trained.

 

Well, if you extrapolate from Watson's portrayal of Dooku, then he would have had a lot to say about training the 'Chosen One' if Qui-Gon had been his master. But by then he likely had given up on the Jedi. It looks like Dooku was already working for Sidius right after TPM, setting up the clone order on Kamino. Sidious handled the Chosen One personally. How interesting that it seems that Dooku underestimated Anakin's potential, just as the Jedi never figure out Sidious until it was too late.

I don't think any of the pro-fics say much about how Dooku felt about Xanatos. In the JA books you don't see Qui-Gon comparing his training of Obi-Wan with how he was trained (something I'm pondering in a fic) until Legacy of the Jedi. I suppose that is mostly because no one knew about Dooku until AOTC came out. Minor detail.

I just have a general impression that Dooku and Xanatos would have gotten along fine, but Dooku would have been extremely strict with Xanatos. Probably stricter than Qui-Gon. But I don't think strictness would have worked that well with Xanatos. It's possible that disagreements over training padawans distanced Qui-Gon and Dooku as adults? I don't think that Dooku would have blamed Qui-Gon for Xanatos's fall, but I do think that Dooku would have expected that it would not have happened if he had been Xanatos's master.

 

Eh? Oops. Apparently I need to write clearer posts.

I was still talking about the idea of Dooku training Anakin, but remaining skeptical of his status as the Chosen One. I can't really see Dooku and Qui-Gon disagreeing over whether Anakin should be trained at that point -- I mean, Dooku's doing it, and Qui-Gon doesn't seem likely to reverse course on the subject all of a sudden.

But I can see Dooku considering there to be sufficient reason to take him on, without being convinced that Anakin was the Chosen One. And while it wouldn't necessarily have to be cantankerous or acrimonious, I do think they'd probably argue about that. It seemed to me that it was an important enough point to Qui-Gon that he wouldn't just drop it once Anakin's training was secured.

(Mind, I think he'd also argue if someone were to seem determined to view Anakin only as the Chosen One and not, you know, a kid.)

 

And that as they say is that, because I loathe Watson's portrayal of... anyone.

LOL! You and me both. ardavenport actually thought I was citing Watson!

I never got the impression from the movie that Qui-Gon saw Anakin as only the Chosen One and not a kid. In fact, I think he was the only one who saw Anakin as a kid, and not as a potential threat. The Jedi and Obi-Wan seemed to be of the mind that the 9-yr-old boy, Chosen One or not, was dangerous. And that, I believe, is what went wrong with Anakin's training. The Jedi and Obi-Wan, his eventual Master, always considered him as a weapon to be controlled. Only Qui-Gon Jinn saw him, Anakin the boy.

Now my Dooku, not the two-dimensional Waston clone, is an older, sterner version of Qui-Gon. (Or rather, the other way around with Qui-Gon as a younger, looser-limbed version of Dooku). His eyes would probably round in horror at the sight of Anakin's thread-bare slave clothes and he'd whisk the child off to the Infirmary to be tested and innoculated against 1,000 type of infections before he'd even discuss midichlorian test results. Like you, I see Dooku fighting for Anakin simply on the strength that someone that powerful should be trained, and the Outer Rims have long been neglected by the Jedi, and the laws against older students are undogmatic and segregatory, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

I'd also see Dooku believing that Anakin is the Chosen One simply because my Dooku is a believer. It is misguided belief that takes him to the Dark Side but it is belief all the same. I'm not saying that he'd be looking for a bandwagon, any bandwagon to jump on, but he's an intelligent man who appears to have been studying the times for a long time and I believe he would put two and two together as easily as the next guy.

 

Well, I was kind of surprised that your idea of Dooku's motivation for choosing padawans seemed to match so well with LotJ....

Hence why I said he would argue if someone else saw him that way. I got the impression from the movie that both points were very important to him. Of course I do think we're shown that Obi-Wan came to care about Anakin a great deal as a person, but I'll leave it at that so as not to go even more off topic than usual.

*chuckles* I can just picture Dooku sweeping Anakin off to the infirmary, yes. (Ani: What is it about Jedi sticking me with needles?!) And I'm sure in a good story I could believe interpretations where he went either way on the subject of whether Anakin was the Chosen One. But I think it would also be plausible -- and should make for a really interesting dynamic between him and a surviving Qui-Gon -- if he were inclined to be skeptical or reserve judgment. I think the disagreement could get quite lively without getting hostile. *g*

Edit: Oh! I forgot! I think you make a really good point about Dooku treating the question of Anakin's training in context of those other concerns. With or without EU, the ties between the Jedi and the Republic's government seem to been a particularly sore point. And I think one of the problems with it was probably some of what we saw on Tatooine. Aside from having their authority both expanded and checked within the Republic by their association with (or submission to) the Senate, I think we see on Tatooine that their authority and options are sharply limited there by the fact that the Republic's practical influence is around nil. (As I understand it, Tatooine was at the time officially part of the Republic, but in practice arguably part of the Hutt Empire.) Very different situation from Naboo, but also, I think, a powerful example.

 

Not entirely. I don't see Dooku as a two-dimensional character from any perspective. I can see him taking on Anakin because a, it's the right thing to do and b, because it would tick off the Council and c, because it'd be nice to be the Master of the Chosen One (not so much because Dooku's the conceited prig of Watson infamy but because Dooku genuinely believes he has a destiny of his own to fulfill). To me, the reasons are not mutually exclusive.


One of these days, I'll probably understand the official status of Tatooine in terms of the galactic Republic. I thought from Wattoo's refusal to use Republic currency that Tatooine was out of Republic jurisdiction but I've heard opposing arguments to that as well.

 

Can anyone tell me how old Qui-Gon was when he was knighted?

I'm afraid, I lent my copy of "Lecagy of the Jedi" at the moment, I could probably find it in there...

 

I don't think we've ever been given a definitive date. Early twenties is probably a fairly safe bet, but you could push it somewhat later -- or earlier, as Sabarte places him as a Knight in his late teens.

As our best evidence for birthdates seems to put him and Dooku about eleven years apart, Dooku can't have been Knighted later than about age 24 and still caught Qui-Gon before he hit thirteen. Could have done it earlier, though. But that doesn't pin down Qui-Gon very well.

 

I put it at about twenty-two.

 

Early twenties is also what I thought...

Thank you very much!

 

Haha, the thread lives!

A quick question for you guys: Does Dooku actually have an official first name? In all the books I've read, he's just 'Count Dooku of Serenno.' Fanfic seems to give him several different names, the most popular of which is Yan, as far as I know. Is that just a fanon thing, or is there basis for that name?

 

Fanon. Dooku has not received any more canonical names than Yoda, as far as I'm aware. I suspect it's partly because we culturally seem to have a hard time with the idea of only having one name, and partly because, let's face it, a lot of people find "Dooku" kind of a hard name to swallow at first.

I can now think both "Dooku" and "Padawan" with a straight face, which I consider to demonstrate that the prequels have eaten my brain.

 

Do we know who sat on the council around the time when Qui-Gon was knighted?
Yoda is a certain candidate, and Yaddle probably as well? But who else?
I think that from the council members of Episode I are at least Mace Windu, Depa Billaba and Adi Gallia too young...