PT What's in a Name: Darth Tyranus.

I have been wondering this for years. Every Sith Lord has a title that is fitting for their personality and role. For example, Darth Maul served as an assassin for Darth Sidious. Sidous gave Vader that name because he was about to send him to invade the Jedi Temple, and he knew that he would be his enforcer of the new Empire. But what about Darth Tyranus? I don't understand why Sidious gave Count Dooku that name. Any theories? Having said that, I usually refer to him as Darth Tyranus. Whenever I call him Dooku, I use George Lucas's pronunciation.


"It is my will to join my destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords."
"Then it is done. From this day forward, the truth of you, now and forever more, will be Sidious."
―Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis

 

Tyranus would act as a the tyrant leader of the Separatist movement.

 

Perhaps this is what Sidious told him: "You shall be a tyrant for me to oppose in this sham war."

 

I thought the origin of "tyrant" meant something more like "leader" and then it got corrupted? If so, that would be a nice bit of symbolism.

I always associated "Tyranus" with "tyrant" too.

 

Good theory. Tyranus/Dooku was a corrupted Jedi.

 

Darkly ironic.

Dooku's public persona is that of a well-meaning aristocrat and knight who leads a democratic uprising against the corrupt Republic central government. He even chairs sessions of the Separatist legislature like his counterpart on the Republic side of the Clone Wars.

Dooku's actual self is one of a two-man dangerous cult, a colluder with the avaricious warmongering economic elites of the Galaxy, and the superior of an infamously brutal general.

In truth, Dooku is far from a defender of democracy. He's almost the polar opposite. He actively works to destroy and subvert democracy, whether that of the ancient Galactic Republic or the nascent one of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. His Sith name reflects that.

 

Well to nit-pick,

Darth Vader was originally a human general, not a Sith.
Also Lucas went to school with a Gary Vader and Darth Vader can sound like Dark Invader.
Which is what Vader does in a later draft of Star Wars, he boards the rebel ship and fights Deak Skywalker.
And some argue that Darth Vader means "Dark Father" in Dutch. It doesn't. Dark Father would Dunker Vaader as far as I know.

One oddity, from memory I don't think Darth Tyrannus is ever said in the films. Jango mentions just Tyrannus. And Sidious says Lord Tyrannus. But his full Sith name is not said.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

OBI-WAN One more thing. Jango mentioned
he was recruited by someone named
Darth Tyranus. Any idea who that
might be?

YODA With the forename Darth, a Sith he
must be.

 

Yeah. I was disappointed when I read that in the AOTC novelization. I wouldn't have been had they figured out that Dooku was Darth Tyranus.

 

Darth Tyranus was certainly one of the most lethal and skilled Sith Lords in the Banite line. If he were real, I would be terrified if I ever met him.

 

Was that from an early draft?

 

It's from the online draft at IMDB, is that one not reliable?

 

It's definitely not how the movie shows it. Maybe IMDB is prone to fanon moments?

 

YODA With the forename Darth, a Sith he
must be.
-------------


Pretty stupid line, more a line of Ric Ollie than of Yoda.

Then again you did have Windu's line "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi" took him two and a half films to figure that one out but what the hey

 

Always figured Tyranus was derived from the word "tyrant". To be honest, I never really looked deeply into the Darth names

 

This probably wasn't intentional, but the name Tyrannus sounds similar to Taranis, the ancient Celtic god of thunder. Derived from the same Proto-Indo-European deity as the mighty Thor, Zeus and Jupiter, Taranis was apparently depicted in art as a bearded man with a lightning bolt in one hand and a 6- or 8-spoked wheel in the other.





Purely coincidental yet fitting nonetheless.

The Celtic god of thunder was the namesake for a prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV). Most of these drones are remotely controlled, but they could theoretically be made more autonomous. Our skies are not yet crawling with autonomous Vulture droids.


"Welcome home, Lord Taranis. You have done well."
"I have good news for you, My Lord. War has begun."

 

^^

6- or 8-spoked wheels. Just coincidence? I don't think so.

The 8-spoked wheel is another favorite motif of the Emperor...

 

They probably initially just thought of things that sounded 'dangerous', 'threatening' or whatever, and decided to impart some meaning to them later on.

 

Oh yeah I'm a big Dooku fan. I grew up watching Christopher Lee as Dracula and I'm a fan of his saber duel double Kyle Rowling from Dpartacus.

 

Absolutely, Iron_Lord. I've seen several quotes for AOTC with changed/altered dialogue on IMDB before.

 

Rechecked the screenplay transcript in my Art of AotC book. Looks like Jango Fett simply told Kenobi that he was recruited by a man named Tyranus and that's it.

 

The Galactic Republic state emblem seems to be based on the Dharmachakra, a Buddhist symbol.



The spoked wheel is a common symbol in art around the world, especially in Eurasia where it's associated with the chariots of steppe peoples. One version is the Sun Cross, which has gone the way of the swastika as another misappropriated symbol of (neo) Nazism.

It's interesting how often they show up in Star Wars. You could interpret the Republic, Confederate and Imperial state emblems as representing the arms of the GFFA connected the galactic core.