The Star Wars Heresies by Paul F. McDonald

Author:Paul F. McDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2013-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

But Dooku himself was highly enamored of it, and in dueling it gave him an unprecedented edge over other Jedi.11

Anakin quickly rejoins the fray, establishing a move that catches Dooku’s blade before he strikes down Obi-Wan. This perfectly mirrors his subsequent move as Vader when he blocks his son’s blade from killing the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. “I would have thought you’d have learned your lesson,” Dooku replies before breaking the stalemate. Anakin retorts, “I am a slow learner.” The line has quite a bit of relevance when his move as Vader echoes this one.

The duel steps up in intensity when Obi-Wan tosses Anakin his blade, as, for a moment, the young padawan is fighting with two lightsabers. When Dooku cripples one, soon a blade crosses an electrical cable, and Jedi and Sith are left fighting in pitched darkness. The scene becomes something akin to Lucas’ student days doing visual tone poems, with blue blade crossing red and back again. Keeping with the philosophy that the duels must tell a story, this is powerfully symbolic of a dark side that is clouding everything, one that lures Jedi into arenas where they can no longer see.

Again drawing parallels with the original trilogy, a Sith Lord expertly takes the arm of a Skywalker, Dooku severing Anakin’s limb and then Force-pushing him out of the way with a fallen Obi-Wan. For a moment the only sound is the light tapping of a cane, which introduces Yoda onto the scene.

“I have become more powerful than any Jedi,” Dooku claims to the diminutive master, foreshadowing Anakin in the next film. “Even you.”

This isn’t entirely the case, as Yoda explodes into a whirling dervish of action, his green blade flashing. Much like the famed “Duel of the Fates,” this is one of the scenes from the prequels that was so awesome it flew free of all the other criticism. Dooku finds himself fought to a standstill, and only escapes the situation by Force-pulling a crane down to threaten Obi-Wan and Anakin. In classic Sith fashion, he uses distraction and subterfuge to draw Yoda’s attention.

The count boards his ship, ominously proclaiming, “This is just the beginning.” And indeed it is.

“I think it comes out of a rationale of doing certain things and denying to yourself that you’re actually doing them,” Lucas remarked in his interview with Bill Moyers. “If people were really to sit down and honestly look at themselves and the consequences of their actions, they would try to live their lives a lot differently.”12

This observation describes the character of Count Dooku rather well. The process of rationalization probably began with breaking his oath to the Jedi and the Republic, which was perhaps understandable given the corruption and hypocrisy of it all. Before it was all over, however, he was rationalizing leading the Separatists, starting a war, and becoming a Sith. Dooku obviously was a firm believer in the ends justifying the means.

In an abandoned industrial district back on Coruscant, the count finally meets his true master, the elusive Darth Sidious.

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