Dooku is said to have been a Jedi Master for many decades, but based on what we see in Darth Plagueis, he seems to have been on the edge of the Dark side for most of his life. Even before he leaves the Order, he's confiding in Palpatine, and after Qui-Gon dies, he says that he wants to ally with the Sith to tear down the Republic. At what point did the renowned Jedi Master become so dark?
He saw the flaw of the republic and could not accept it, he wanted to bring peace and order to the galaxy that's why he joined the Sith.
There was a battle about a decade before the movies that is said to have disillusioned Dooku. But I sure do wish Luceno has time to write a Dooku book.
Yeah a Dooku novel is long overdue. Lord knows that Shadow Hunter did wonders for Darth Maul. That battle with the Mandalorians and the way the Jedi were manipulated by politics was definitely what broke the camel's back, but even then i'm not sure if i'd call him evil. I don't think we have any one point where the character lost it. Hell even being a Sith he was doing to take down what he saw to be a corrupt system, and then fell into the idea of the ends justifying the means.
I really wish that even as a Sith lord in TCW, he'd stop being a cackling goon and have a little bit of that idealist inside him that caused him to become so twisted in the first place. He's pretty much just Palpatine's flunky at this point.
I really never placed him on the same level as Palpatine or Vader, in terms of evil. It didn't seem he was an out of control power-hungry Sith hellbent on destroying the Jedi. I always viewed his as more of a gray character who didn't really fit the criteria of a Jedi or Sith. I would love to see a Dooku book though. He has a lot of potential if handled by the right author.
RoTS (the Stover novel) suggests that Dooku's always been a bit prone to seeing people as "assets" and "threats" but not as persons. Legacy of the Jedi shows Dooku being betrayed by a fellow Padawan- Lorian Nod- who suggests that Dooku is already dangerously self-centred.
He never came across as cruel. Both Vader and Palpatine came across as cruel in the movies and in the EU. Dooku is interesting. I'm not sure if Lucas actually developed him enough for him to be called evil. He tells Obi-Wan about Sidious and tries to recruit him to "destroy the Sith". That was an odd. In TCW he's none of the contradictions that he is the EU. So I'll go with this. In TCW he's evil. In the movies he's kind of evil, and the jury is still out on the EU.
Dooku is fully corrupted to the Dark Side by the Clone Wars. The idealist never was involved in the Separatist movement.
And somehow the guy who spoke, like, three words in the entire Prequel Trilogy has more personality and discernible motivations than the guy who went evil out of the belief that he was the Chosen One.
I think if they did do the book it would reveal Dooku is just a raging egomaniac. The Chosen One belief would just be one of the beliefs we'd find out. Ironically, there's a hilarious bit of serendipity that Dooku seems to have believed he was awesome because he was of noble birth despite the fact the Jedi probably drilled it into him it wasn't important. It never really left him, though. As a result, he's EXACTLY like Qui Gon's apprentice Xanatos.
Of course noble birth matters. This is the Republic we're talking about, not some Rimkin-based hippie organization. The Jedi are pillars of the establishment.
Whatever the case, poor Dooku grew up entitled and spoiled so he eventually decided the Sith would be his new Jedi Order and galactic nobility. Then the Emperor betrayed him.
Dooku was an elitist douche, but he did train Qui Gon, so he couldn't have been all bad. Komari Vosa was a bad egg, but at least he gave her sabers to Ventress.
Qui Gon had some fun notes on Dooku in the Star Wars: Jedi Quest books. They basically boiled down to, "When I train my apprentice, do the opposite of everything Dooku did."
