Books A/V DARK DISCIPLE (Ventress/Vos novel) (spoilers)

While I think Duchess Satine just means Anakin and Obi-Wan have the same weirdly specific taste in women, I tend to think she makes more sense as a romance than Ventress.

 

I love Dark Disciple. In my opinion it was a great conclusion for Asajj Ventress.

 

Why's that? I liked that the Count wasn't as invincible as the comics portrayed him. A senior Jedi Master who's embraced the power of the Dark Side should be able to give him a serious run for his money. Coupled with Vos's younger age and unpredictable combat style, I found it very believable that he could overwhelm the aged Count of Serenno.

 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

 

I'm laughing at the idea that Ventress is in any way a match for Obi-Wan

 

I wanted to like this, I really did.

(To be fair, the combat scenes and certain areas within the plot were good.)

At first I was pumped for this because Quinlan is one of my favorite characters. I also liked Ventress, but I found the characterization to be really off. (Especially Ventress)

SPOILERS:

Quinlan falls to the dark side but Asajj's Love for him pulls him out? Extremely Lame

I was hoping this wouldn't happen but unfortunately I saw this coming after reading a few chapters.

This read like a Twilight Book for Tweens than an actual Star Wars Book

2 out of 5 stars.

 

Respectfully - and not to turn this into a versus thread or anything - but Vos being able to take on Dooku is... honestly indefensible.

Dooku was Yoda's prized pupil, a Jedi Master for decades, and a student of Darth Sidious for 10+ years.

In AOTC, he curbstomps Obi-Wan, Anakin, and still has enough juice in the tank to not get flattened by Yoda. In TCW, he routinely bests Anakin (and in the Lost Missions, casually dominates Anakin & Obi-Wan together on Oba Diah), defeats Ventress & Savage Opress together, and fends off three invisible Nightsisters while blind and drugged.

The Count's age is and should be irrelevant: cf. Yoda and Sidious.

This is a guy who, by virtue of reputation and feats, should be outclassed only by the likes of Yoda and Sidious. The list of people who should even be able to challenge him 1 on 1 should likewise be small: Mace Windu, Talzin, eventually Anakin and perhaps Maul. The Kenobis and Ventresses and Savage Opresses and Kit Fistos and General Grievouses of the galaxy are powerful warriors, but are no match for someone of Dooku's caliber.

So for a relatively no-name Jedi Master like Quinlan Vos to defeat Dooku strains credulity, dark side or no. Dooku's not just above-average. This guy is a Windu-tier heavyweight and should be well beyond the vast majority of even the Jedi Council.

 

I used to think that too.

But I think, in canon, Dooku was starting to slow down near the end of the Clone Wars, which is when his final fight with Vos takes place. It was certainly after this event.



I think that his possession by Talzin left Dooku worse for wear. Especially since it was the second time in a year it had happened. That's the way I justify Dooku being beaten by Vos. Note that the Count beats Ventress and Vos on Raxus in their initial encounter. It's only after Vos has been tortured for long periods of time and given in fully to the Dark Side that he defeats Dooku.

Savage Opress flattened Dooku with his rage multiple times and the Count only held him off with Force Lightning and speed. There is a precedent for unadulterated rage to strengthen a Dark-Side user enough to overpower a more skilled opponent.

Ventress gives into pure hate over Sullust and Force Chokes Obi-Wan and Anakin simultaneously.

Anakin overpowers Dooku through focused anger.

Luke defeats Vader by giving into his inner rage.

I agree with you that, on paper and through prior achievements, Dooku is out of Vos's league. But circumstances change and the fight we're referring to did in fact happen. (I think I'm channeling Sinrebirth, trying to justify strange canon events here).

Clone Wars had a habit of downplaying Dooku's power, and I'm certain Talzin's two attacks on him did drain his strength.

I use a similar explanation to justify how Maul, who could toss Obi-Wan around with ease on Florrum and Mandalore, goes down so easily on Tatooine fifteen years later.

 

I think Dooku vs. Talzin (A Dark Side Master), Maul (A Sith Lord), and Oppress (An extraordinarily powerful brute) was always a deeply one sided battle.

 

Vos being able to take on and defeat Dooku isn't unheard of. Let's not treat characters and battles and events like it's Dragonball or some sort of RPG where we think in terms of power levels and trait levels and such.

At any point in time, anyone could probably defeat anyone under the right circumstances. It's just a simple matter of keeping in mind that those circumstances happened here with the Vos/Dooku match.

 

And don't forget Hondo Ohnaka taking Dooku hostage on Vanqor. Right time - right circumstances. And both Yoda and Sidious could see their humiliated apprentice. And that was even before Talzin owned him. Definitely not Dooku's best moment.

 

I appreciate the effort that has been made to downplay Force Users here in the last few years. Before 2008, Dooku probably could have sliced through Hondo's army no problem, and I'm sure it would've been awesome, but I'd rather see heroes and villains with more down to earth abilities and prowess.

 

We also had Pre Vizsla holding his own in a lightsaber duel against Obi-Wan, and even against Maul for a while.

It's the argument I use with Kylo and Rey. That duel could only go the way it did in those specific circumstances - an angry Rey vs an emotionally-and-physically-injured and caught-off-guard Kylo.

People are too quick to think of Force training as a "levelling-up" process, and the character with the highest "level" will always win.

 

I have to disagree with you. "This read like a Twilight Book for Tweens". I HATE Twilight but this book (at least for me) is the opposite of Twilight.

 

It was an incredibly cliché way to take this, and a flat-out insulting way to treat Ventress's character. Also it trivializes falling to the Dark Side, and yeah I didn't buy Vos beating Dooku either, not at all.

Yeah none of that was handled particularly well.

 

Man, this thread was so much fun to read back through.

 

Isn't "insulting" overstating things? The wrong word perhaps? EU Vos was one of my favs, but I'm not insulted his characterization was totally different and just bad in DD. I just...didn't like it. I didn't take it as a personal affront. The word is disproportional to what happened. Abusing a word like insulting takes power away from the word. And trivializes things that actually are insulting.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

I hear what your saying. But still...a fictional character is insulted? Idk...maybe a semantics issue? I just have concerns for such an overused word...in particular how it can be used as a political tool.

But I respect what your saying. Perhaps my own pet peeve.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

As anakinfansince1983 said, not insulting to us, but to the character. I also might add that it was insulting to the character's original creators, as the entire mess with canon Vos was done without consulting Ostrander & Duursema, who spent over 6 years developing him, only to have a handful of people throw all that in the trash.

 

Didn't I address "the character being...insulted" thing directly. And are the creators insulted? You speak for them? Perhaps with a word like insulted, you can only speak for yourself. Especially with consumate professionals Ostrander and Duursema, they know what they are signing up for when they create characters in franchise universes. They have even expressed delight that their creations have persevered in different mediums. They've specifically endorsed it.

So...who is actually insulted here. I'm started to honestly feel weird about my own somewhat crazy tangent rant here. But that word is thrown around too willy nilly, in my opinion.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

Honestly I'm more annoyed by what they did to Ventress's character (because I'm more a fan of her than of Vos, although I can certainly sympathize with the latter's fans and why they don't like this either).

First of all, as others have said, they picked the wrong Jedi to try and do this with. If they really wanted to go the "she falls in love with a Jedi" route, then it really should have been Obi Wan here. It'd have made FAR more sense, given their dynamic in TCW.

But I was annoyed that they even went in that direction period. It's like "really, her last big story involves the power of love, seriously?" How very cliché, especially since it also plays into the "oh she's a female character, so of course it ultimately has to be about romance?" See the ongoing "Rey and Kylo Ren should totally hook up at the end of the ST" thing that some keep pushing. If she were a man, or he was a woman, that conversation would not be happening.

And as for Vos, this ties into a greater irritation that I have. The fact that he could "go dark" and then come back with little more than a slap on the wrist. Again to use Rey as an example, some people going "well she can totally go dark for awhile because they can just bring her back later on." Going dark is supposed to be a HUGE deal. It's a very hard thing to come back from and you need to pay a very high price for it:

-Maul, Dooku, and Sheev were consumed by the darkness and arguably died because of it.

-Anakin suffered horribly mentally, physically, and emotionally. His punishment for turning dark was to be horrifically maimed and need to spend the rest of his life in chronic extreme pain while being stuck inside a suit of armor and helmet just to survive, and to also lose the very person (Padme) whom he cared about most and went dark trying to save in the first place. He suffered terribly for his crimes. And his "redemption" came about by his DEATH. Not only that, he had to willingly sacrifice his life to save another person. That was how he obtained his measure of redemption.

And Anakin only did it ONCE. Vos did it repeatedly and still got off with the most minor of punishments.

Going dark and then coming back shouldn't be like turning a light switch on and off. It cheapens the act of doing it, and characters like Vader and their stories as a result.

 

Well I'm not a fan of the TCW/Rebels team style of storytelling and characterizations, they're always rather strange.


I think it was made clear that Talzin did not have enough time to consume Dooku, and as Brother Viscus stated the whole process would leave her in a weak state. Its likely Dooku resisted her for as long as he could until Sidious set him free, which was basically just bolting him with Force lightning until she fled the body. Tazlin certainly had skills with a lightsaber, as her duel with Windu indicated she could hold her own with the best of them, at least for a limited time. Dooku managed a good recovery as he was firing off Force lightning of his own shortly after . So how much if at all age had anything to do with it, I don't know if that argument is present. This is the same Dooku that made short work of Kenobi in ROTS that came after this book.

Vos in DD at least had the benefit of a Nightsister crash course in the Dark Side training that he did not have in the DH comic series, where he was more in control of the Dark Side rather than the Dark Side him . Most of the comic he was more play acting but its clear in the novel that he becomes a Sith Apprentice where now Vos kinda pushed all that Dathomir training away since Dooku worked him over and molding him. Anakin wanted the power willingly for the most part overall, Vos really did not. DD starts off with that the Light Side could not defeat the Sith so lets try fighting the Dark Side with the Dark Side and hence he was given a mission by the Jedi initially that was supposed to train him in the Dark Side but later he gets captured and he was tortured and manipulated into becoming Dooku's apprentice while he still also has the Nightsister and Jedi training prior. Its likely that some of Ventress' training that allowed Vos to keep some of his humanity and aided him in returning. Some of what really played Vos becoming consumed with rage was that Ventress lied to him about Tholme, had she told him the truth from the onset, its likely that Dooku, despite all the torture would not of been successful at breaking him.

The whole end result was a disaster mission , typical of TCW/Rebels arcs, seemed like one big ride just to kill off Ventress as it served no other real purpose like the Dark Horse Republic comic.