Characters / Star Wars – Count Dooku

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Count Dooku of Serenno / Darth Tyranus

"The Sith control everything.
You just don't know it."

Species: Human (Serennian)

Homeworld: Serenno

Portrayed by: Christopher Lee (films, The Clone Wars^note in the pilot movie)

Voiced by: Corey Burton (The Clone Wars^note for the rest of the series, Tales of the Jedi), Euan Morton (Dooku: Jedi Lost) ^{Foreign VAs}Latin American Spanish dub: José Lavat, European French dub: Bernard Dhéran (Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars up until Season 4), Philippe Catoire (Season 5 and 6 of The Clone Wars), German dub: Klaus Sonnenschein, Sebastian Walch (Tales of the Jedi)

Appearances: Age of Republic | Dooku: Jedi Lost | Tales of the Jedi | Padawan | Master & Apprentice | Attack of the Clones | Brotherhood | The Clone Wars | Son of Dathomir | Dark Disciple | Revenge of the Sith | Tarkin^note flashback only

"I want only to bring peace and order to the galaxy."

Count Dooku was a former Jedi mentored by Yoda, as well as the former master of Qui-Gon Jinn and Rael Averross. After witnessing the hubris of the Jedi and the corruption of the Republic over several decades, and experiencing a perceived betrayal in which he was denied a seat on the Jedi Council, Dooku left the Jedi Order altogether to claim the title of Count of Serenno after deposing his brother's despotic rule. However, by that point Dooku was already treading perilously close to the dark side anyway and, shortly before the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, he was ultimately found and recruited by Darth Sidious to become his second Sith apprentice, Darth Tyranus. Bringing together thousands of planets who shared his views on the galactic government, Count Dooku forged the Confederacy of Independent Systems with himself as their public face in a ploy to bring Sith dominance to the galaxy once more.

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A-F

• Abusive Parents: Dooku's father, Gora, disowned him upon finding he was Force-sensitive. He even left Dooku at the edge of a forest inhabited by spine-wolves, who would have devoured him if the Jedi seekers had not found him first.
• The Ace: During his days as a Jedi, he was one of the best swordsmen, Force-users, and negotiators the Order had ever seen to the point that he was still held in incredibly high regard even after he left the Order. He is able to fight his master Yoda and often had the upper hand in his duels with Mace Windu, the best of the Jedi swordsmen who both manage to almost defeat Sidious. His variety of skills is one of the things that makes him so dangerous, as he often relies on his superior command of the Force to overwhelm enemies whose sheer physical strength and dueling skill are otherwise too great for Dooku to easily overcome (namely late-Clone Wars Obi-Wan).
• Action Dad: He was a surrogate father to Qui-Gon Jinn and possibly Asajj Ventress and is one of the greatest lightsaber duelists in the galaxy.
• Action Politician: A villainous example. He has experienced combat at multiple points during the Clone Wars, while serving as the elected Head of State of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. While evil in both continuities, the Legends version of Dooku was a humanocentric racist, a trait that he doesn't show in canon. Also in Legends, Dooku considered all his servants as mere tools, especially Asajj Ventress, to the point where he ordered her to be sniped down and abandoned in Boz Pity only because she couldn't reach his ship in time. In The Clone Wars (and by extension the Disney canon), Dooku cares about Ventress for a time and has no problem to say this to Sidious of all people, even though such a thing is contrary to the Sith way; when he betrays Ventress, it's only due to Sidious' demands and he's left distraught afterward. That said, he doesn't try to explain her the truth when she survives and instead tries his hardest to kill her, eventually succeeding.
• Adaptational Personality Change: In The Clone Wars, Dooku has speaking manners slightly more akin to Dastardly Whiplash than his personality in Legends. He even lets out a sound Evil Laugh in The Clone Wars' movie, possibly the first time in Star Wars history that the perpetually serene Dooku is shown laughing. Those traits get toned down for the rest of The Clone Wars, although he's still consistently portrayed as more emotional and expressive than in Legends.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In Legends, Dooku's relationship with Asajj is nothing more than assassin and master, there's no deeper relationship than that. In canon however, Asajj was essentially raised by Dooku for a good few years, following him after his descent of the Dark Side and being trained by him personally as essentially his surrogate daughter. She also becomes a hated enemy of his, something she never got to do in Legends.
• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed. In both canon and Legends, Dooku was reputed to be one of the top three Jedi of his time, only paralleled by Mace Windu and surpassed by Yoda (and Sidious and Talzin, if expanding the list to Force-users in general). In Legends, however, Dooku used to be actually better than Windu and it was all but stated he could have become a rival to Yoda and Sidious under the right conditions: he was touted as a young Force prodigy at tournaments in the Jedi Temple, beat Windu in sparring at least once, fended off him and other powerful Jedi at several battles in the comics and novels, and Darth Plagueis of all people was wary of his untapped potential, considering him a possible future menace for him and Sidious. In addition, he was skilled in Force healing and other techniques that he doesn't demonstrate in canon.
• Agent Provocateur: He is sent by Sidious to stir up the galaxy against Chancellor Palpatine in order to make it so the latter can justify seizing more power.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In Revenge of the Sith's novelization, written based on the original script, Dooku pleads with Anakin and Palpatine for his life. Averted in the film itself, since Christopher Lee convinced Lucas that Dooku above all prized his dignity and wouldn't lower himself to beg.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Just looking at Dooku's face before being beheaded by Anakin is disheartening, since he genuinely never counted on betrayal. Also, in his final moments, Dooku realized too late that Darth Sidious has been using him all along and Anakin was the apprentice Sidious was searching for from the start, and feels like a fool for trusting him and somewhat regrets betraying the Jedi in the end.
• Always Someone Better:
  • To Obi-Wan, despite viewing him as a Worthy Opponent in an intellectual manner. Kenobi shows himself to be highly competent, intelligent, and skilled throughout the Clone Wars, and a remarkable Jedi, even to the point he's the only jedi alive besides Yoda that Sidious has any genuine respect for. Despite that, Dooku consistently and unfailingly manages to best Kenobi, and until their last fight (where Dooku is actually intimidated by Kenobi's skills), it's with relative ease. Somewhat justified when you consider Dooku's fighting style is in-universe seen as a hard counter to Kenobi's, and he's a significantly more skilled telekinetic despite being, at best, only moderately stronger in the force^note Kenobi being able to match a mentally-compromised, but still enraged Anakin's force push means he might actually be stronger than Dooku in the force, if Palpatine's opinion of how Dooku stacks up to Anakin is any indication.
  • His old Jedi master Yoda is also this to him. Despite Dooku's impressive mastery of Force techniques as a Sith, Yoda shows Dooku how much he falls short of him when he counters all of his Force attacks without even trying. Though the gap in lightsaber combat isn't as big as Dooku manages to put up a decent fight against Yoda which Yoda admits to, Yoda is still his superior as a lightsaber duelist as Dooku flees from the duel the first chance he gets.
• Anti-Hero: Back in his Jedi days, he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and outright Force-choked a corrupt senator in the name of justice.
• The Apprentice: He was Yoda's Jedi Padawan before turning to the Dark Side and becoming Darth Sidious' second Sith apprentice.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Anakin Skywalker, who resented Dooku ever since he put Padmé in danger, killed hundreds of Jedi in the arena of Geonosis, and cut off his arm. They dueled multiple times throughout the Clone Wars, with Anakin's resentment at him only growing stronger after each encounter and it ends with Anakin finally executing him, despite Dooku being a (literally) unarmed prisoner. This act of personal revenge is one of the most significant factors of Anakin ultimately turning to the Dark Side.^note However, it should be noted that Anakin is reluctant to execute Dooku because Jedi don't do that, only doing so because Palpatine is egging him on, and is horrified at what he's done after the fact precisely because it's the behavior of a practitioner of the Dark Side.
  • Dooku was also a personal enemy for Yoda, who was Dooku's mentor during his days as a Jedi. During the First Battle of Geonosis, Yoda proved powerful enough that he forced Dooku to flee the battle despite his initial confidence that he could beat Yoda.
  • Asajj Ventress spent a lot of the Nightsisters and Brothers arc seeking revenge against Dooku for pulling an Uriah Gambit on her after she supposedly failed him. In truth, Dooku reluctantly betrayed Ventress on the orders of Darth Sidious, who feared that Ventress was growing too powerful and might enable Dooku to attempt to overthrow Sidious.
  • Mother Talzin also spent a good portion of The Clone Wars plotting against Dooku, and even tortured Dooku personally with a Voodoo Doll when he invaded Dathomir.
  • Ultimately however, Dooku's most personal foe, like Maul and Anakin, is Sidious/Palpatine. Palpatine is the reason his surrogate son and daughter are dead (even if he didn't carry it out), he corrupted Dooku's conviction, and completely took over his life in his elder years after becoming Count of Serenno. With his vast wealth, charisma, power, and the respect he commanded from the Jedi Order, his homeworld and what would become the separatists, he could've set up a grand legacy of genuine good, whether through charity, reformation, or even a more principled separatist movement motivated less by the Council and more people like Mina Bonteri. Instead, Sidious used him for his own ends and Dooku is left as a footnote of history.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: He's the wealthy Count of Serenno who later became a Sith Lord, one of the most evil individuals in the galaxy (though he has some justifications), and the leader of the Separatist Alliance.
• An Arm and a Leg: Anakin cuts off both of Dooku's forearms before decapitating him in Revenge of the Sith.
• As You Know: During the Citadel arc, he explains the importance of the Nexus Route coordinates to Osi Sobeck, who is the warden of the Citadel.
  Count Dooku: I don't need to remind you...
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed; yes, he's a traitor to the Jedi and looked down on Anakin Skywalker (who would ultimately be both his killer and his successor as Palpatine's apprentice when he turned into Darth Vader), and yes not many of the Jedi or those loyal to the Republic were particularly heartbroken with Dooku's death (neither was the people of his homeworld Serrano,). However, in the context of the canon, he's truly a Alas, Poor Villain (see above) like Darth Maul. Further subverting this, Anakin was reluctant to kill Dooku and when Obi-Wan tells him about it to Ahsoka, it is no way said as a moment of triumph, with Ahsoka visibly shocked at hearing it.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His form of lightsaber combat (Makashi) was viewed as this until the start of the Clone Wars. By that time in history, most Jedi were never in a single serious duel their whole lives, with most combat situations having their opponents wielding blasters instead, while Makashi was almost exclusively built around dueling, and is pretty weak against blasters. Despite this, Dooku's fighting style was one of the most graceful and precise ones in galactic history, and served him incredibly well as a Sith Lord, when he was in regular duels with Jedi.
• Back for the Dead: For his grand importance in both Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars (along with the other canonical installments set in the Republic era), the most he does in Revenge of the Sith is get into a duel with Anakin and Obi-Wan before having his hands chopped off and then meeting his end via decapitation at the behest of Palpatine.
• Badass Boast: A subverted one when fighting Yoda, who quickly puts him in his place:
  Dooku: I have become more powerful than any Jedi. Even you!
  [Yoda effortlessly deflects all of Dooku's Force lightning attacks on him]
  Yoda: Much to learn you still have.
• Badass Cape: He wears a full-body length cape constantly, adding to his dignified manner. It can "dissipate blaster bolts".
• Badass in Distress: He suffers being this after getting captured and held for ransom by pirates in "Dooku Captured" and "The Gungan General" before escaping in the latter episode.
• Badass Teacher: To Ventress and eventually to Savage.
• Bad Boss: Ventress and numerous other subordinates have found this one out the hard way after too many failures, although he only reluctantly tried to kill Ventress after being ordered to by Sidious. He also has no hesitation in removing some of the more idealist members of the Separatist Parliament from the equation if they prove too annoying.
• Baddie Flattery:
  • He complimented Windu during the First Battle of Geonosis.
    Dooku: Master Windu, you have fought gallantly, worthy of recognition in the archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. Surrender and your lives will be spared."
  • When Obi-Wan cleverly uses the Jedi mind trick on a pirate to escape a prison cell he, Obi-Wan, and Anakin are held in, Dooku genuinely compliments Obi-Wan's mastery of the technique as "most impressive" in contrast to Anakin arrogantly brushing it off as "not bad".
  • Just before his escape, Count Dooku commends Obi-Wan for his skill in infiltrating the Dooku's kidnapping conspiracy and taking it down from the inside. In Dooku's eyes, this proves Obi-Wan is a great Jedi, unlike Anakin Skywalker, who Dooku reprimands for his poor form.
• Bait the Dog: Count Dooku seems to be rather Affably Evil and has some fondness of Obi-Wan, and seems to have genuine disappointment with Mace Windu when he knows the Jedi are outnumbered and in for a horrible fight. This veers quickly into Faux Affably Evil when he tries to execute the unconscious Obi-Wan, and then tries to kill both Anakin and Obi-Wan as a distraction to get away from Yoda.
• Bastard Understudy: It's in the job description for being a Sith apprentice. Unusually for Sith, Dooku hadn't been as such, trusting Sidious completely to see their "vision" come to fruition.
• Batman Gambit: In "Dooku Captured", he lures Anakin and Obi-Wan into the cave system by heading in there, knowing they're going to realize it's a likely hiding place and follow him in.
• Beard of Evil: Dooku may have a beard, but he's a ruthless antagonist to the heroes. Of note, Tales of the Jedi shows he didn't have a beard when he was Qui-Gon's master, but he did start growing a beard after nearly killing a corrupt and vicious senator and it grows increasingly bushy as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the Jedi and approaches his destiny as the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Dooku started off as a principled idealist disgusted with the Republic's corruption, which ultimately drove him to turn to the Dark Side. However, by the time of The Clone Wars he's become just as much of a corrupt tyrant as those he despised.
• Benevolent Boss: When compared with the likes of Vader and Sidious, Dooku initially treats his minions well. He looks upset when Jango is killed. Dooku also initially tries to protect Ventress from Palpatine, subverted as he gives in when intimidated.
• Big Bad: Dooku is the main antagonist of Attack of the Clones, as Jango Fett's employer, the public leader of the emerging Separatist Alliance, and The Heavy to Sidious. In the context of the Prequel Trilogy as a whole, though, it's subverted. He appears to be the leader of the Separatist Alliance, making him the Big Bad in the eyes of the Republic, but he's really The Dragon (and another Unwitting Pawn) to Darth Sidious, the true mastermind of the Clone Wars.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: He forms an alliance with Ziro the Hutt in The Clone Wars' pilot movie, although Dooku is obviously the greater of the two.
• Big Bad Ensemble: As the public leader of the Separatists, with Sidious busy managing the Republic, Dooku is one of the lead villains of The Clone Wars, with Grievous as The Heavy and a large majority of the Arc Villains faced being his less important minions. In later seasons he serves a more traditional Dragon role to Sidious, when the story isn't focused on the machinations of his predecessor Darth Maul.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Despite his competence and the threat he poses to the heroes, Dooku is nothing but a pawn to the real Big Bad, Darth Sidious; he never gets a real chance to overthrow his Sith Master, and his own plans become meaningless in the face of Sidious' grand scheme.
• Blackmail: He does this to Clovis by threatening to expose the deal he made with the Separatist leader in the previous episode. This is all part of the Sith's plan, of course.
• Blue Is Heroic: Back when he was still a member of the Jedi Order, Dooku's lightsaber was blue like most Jedi Knights. When he left the order and became Palpatine's new apprentice, he was given a red kyber crystal to replace his blue one, fully solidifying his Face–Heel Turn.
• Bring It: During the First Battle of Geonosis, he challenges Yoda with a lightsaber salute after wiping the floor with Obi-Wan and Anakin. Yoda responds by igniting his own weapon.
• Broken Ace: Despite being one of the greatest lightsaber duelists in the galaxy and a cunning schemer, he's deep down a broken, bitter old man because of his disillusionment with the Jedi and the Republic and the death of his former apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn. He also clearly regrets some of the horrible things he's done working for Palpatine, but he feels that it's too late for redemption.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • He was Qui-Gon Jinn's master who Obi-Wan held in high regard until he discovered Dooku had turned to the Dark Side.
  • Being one of the Lost Twenty (twenty Jedi Masters who left the Order over ideological differences), he was still held in high regard by the Jedi Order even after leaving it, a number of them believing he wouldn't betray the Republic or turn to the Dark Side. It took being exposed as one of the masterminds behind the Separatist movement for the Order to change their opinion on him.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Subverted. When Lux Bonteri calls Dooku out for having his mother killed, Dooku claims that he doesn't recall doing so, as he considered it unimportant, but he's clearly lying just to be cruel.
• Cain and Abel: He is the Cain to his sister Jenza's Abel. Dooku has Asajj execute Jenza to cut off the final ties to his past.
• Cassandra Truth: In Attack of the Clones, he reveals to Obi-Wan that hundreds of senators are under the influence of a Sith Lord called Darth Sidious. Obi-Wan immediately refuses to believe him as he saw Dooku was the one behind the assassination attempt on Padmé and the Separatists arming for war. Subverted later when Obi-Wan discuss this with the Jedi Council and while they have no reason to believe in Count Dooku, the Council agrees to keep a closer eye on the Senate. Which is exactly what Dooku wants to happen, as now there will be tension and distrust between the Jedi Order and the Senate, which will allow Chancellor Palpatine to turn the Republic against the Jedi.
• Casting Gag: Christopher Lee plays a character named Count Dra... sorry, Dooku.
• The Cast Show Off: Christopher Lee was a competitive fencer and one of the greatest screen swordfighters in history, so Dooku's lightsaber technique was designed around fencing to allow Lee to show off.
• Character Death: Dooku is beheaded by Anakin Skywalker aboard the Invisible Hand during the Battle of Coruscant.
• The Chessmaster: Dooku attempts to have Padmé assassinated and instigates a war between the Republic and the Separatists. And escapes at the end.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
  • He and the Separatist generals have a persistent habit of screwing over the local leaders and/or populations they ally with for help in taking over systems — sometimes for failing to fall in line as utterly as they want, sometimes for no real reason at all.
  • He first betrayed the Jedi to become a Sith, then he planned on betraying both the Confederacy and Grievous to rule with Sidious, and finally he was planning on betraying Sidious with a new apprentice (though only after Sidious made him discard his first Sith apprentice).
• Clean Dub Name: Count Dooku's name was changed to Dookan in the Brazilian Portuguese dub, due to an unfortunate innuendo involving the character's name.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: After capturing Anakin on Naboo, Dooku tortures Anakin and has torture session transmitted live to Padmé in order to pressure her into releasing General Grievous.
• Combat Aestheticist: He chose his fighting style for its grace and beauty, mixed with deadly effectiveness.
• Combat Pragmatist: During his duel against Yoda, he chose to distract the Jedi Grandmaster by trying to drop a pillar onto Anakin and Obi-Wan (who were both unconscious on the floor) in order to flee before the fight turned bad for him while the Jedi Master was occupied.
• Contemplative Boss: He usually receives his subordinates with his back turned to them, but he often turns around and looks at them during the conversation.
• Cool Old Guy: He's evil, but he's awesome. In Attack of the Clones, at least. Played by Christopher Lee, who was in his 80s and did around 80% of his own stunts. But not running. He is also this in The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith as well.
• Cool Sword: His curve-hilted lightsaber allows for a more fencing-like fighting style, giving him an advantage in lightsaber duels for its unique angles at the expense of being harder to block blaster bolts.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: With Sidious' previous apprentice, Maul. Maul being a tattooed, nightmarish looking non-human compared to aristocratic gentleman Dooku. Personality-wise, they were far apart, Maul being a barely-contained ball of hatred and rage, completely uninterested in the less physical aspects of being a Sith, while Dooku was the collected, charismatic face for the entire Confederacy, someone who was equally valuable for bringing legitimacy to the cause as he was for his skill with a lightsaber.
• The Corrupter: He swayed Ventress to the Dark Side while she was vulnerable after her Master's death, playing on her desire for revenge. He also tries to be this to Obi-Wan, hoping that he could turn him into his Sith apprentice so that they can overthrow Palpatine together. Unfortunately for Dooku, Obi-Wan is incorruptible and completely looks down on the Dark Side.
• The Corruptible: In his Jedi days, Dooku was a Cowboy Cop not unlike how his student Qui-Gon would turn out, more concerned with doing what he felt was the right thing than following the Jedi Council's rigid obedience to rules and the increasingly corrupt senate. Then he fell in with Darth Sidious, and suffers a bad case of The Dark Side Will Make You Forget, being talked into committing more and more heinous actions as a Sith.
• Cowboy Cop: As a Jedi, Dooku was more interested in what he regarded as right than in following protocol. In Tales of the Jedi, this quality is shown costing Dooku a seat on the Jedi Council when Mace Windu reports his conduct.
• Cryptic Background Reference: Apparently, Count Dooku and Mother Talzin have a history with each other, but the only things revealed are that Dooku had helped Talzin once "long ago", and apparently gave a lock of his hair to her as part of some sort of deal.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In Attack of the Clones, he bests Obi-Wan with contemptuous ease and Anakin proved barely more for him than a warm-up for Yoda.
  • In The Clone Wars movie, he has the upperhand against Anakin, obviously toying with Anakin. The duel only ends in a stalemate after Anakin catches Dooku off-guard in the middle of an Evil Gloating speech.
  • In The Clone Wars episode "The Lost One", Dooku engages Anakin, Obi-Wan, and a small army of Pyke soldiers. He constantly keeps Anakin on the defensive, tosses Obi-Wan aside, knocks out the Pyke soldiers, and kills their leader.
  • In Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir, he delivers one against the Nightbrothers and is barely touched by the end of the fight.
  • In Revenge Of The Sith: He rather effortlessly throws around Obi Wan even while taking on both him and Anakin, he then knocks him out and takes him out completely.
  • In the same fight, he gets one against Anakin when he goads Anakin into using his anger and hatred towards him. Anakin promptly overpowers and disarms him in 15 seconds.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: In "The Gungan General", during the first escape attempt, he uses the Force to nab a knife next to an abandoned pirate meal and uses it to open the cell door.
• Dark Is Evil: He frequently wears dark clothing and is a conniving Sith Lord.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget:
  • Dooku began his rule as Count of Serenno as a Philosopher King that sought to reform both the Republic and the Jedi Order. However his fall and corruption by Sidious twists this into tyranny, when his Internal Reformist ways didn't work.
  • As a Jedi, Dooku was appalled by the corruption of the Republic and the indolence of the Jedi Council. As a Sith Lord and head of state for the Confederacy, he has become no better, treating enemy and ally alike with cruelty and having no concern for those who suffer because of his actions.
• Deadly Euphemism: In "Pursuit of Peace", he orders a pair of criminals to kill Padmé via saying that she should be "taken out of the game".
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: He and Palpatine know that Clovis was innocent of the charges levied against him, being a pawn in their plan. The only other one who knew he was innocent was Clovis, and he's dead.
• Deadpan Snarker: Dooku's wit is nothing if not dry.
  Sobeck: I was hoping to surprise you with good news...
  Dooku: Good news would indeed be a surprise.
• Death by Irony:
  • He gets killed by his successor, the same man Dooku completely disregarded as an unworthy Jedi. The real kicker is, despite his disrespect towards Anakin, Dooku's master was conditioning Anakin to take his place the entire time.
  • Plus, there's his words to Anakin during their final duel. "I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger — but you don't use them." Guess what Anakin immediately starts doing?
• Defector from Decadence: He left the Jedi Order when he came to believe the organization had fallen from its path, much like the Republic he felt to have become corrupt and ineffectual. Mace Windu getting a promotion to the Jedi Council, replacing Master Katri (whose death he and Windu had just investigated), is implied to be one of the reasons why he left the order.
• Demoted to Extra: Goes from being one of the driving forces in Attack of the Clones to less than four minutes of screen time and a handful of lines in Revenge of the Sith.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Count Dooku seeks to create a galactic empire that will bring order to the universe. He doesn't care what methods he has to use to do it.
• Didn't See That Coming: The look on his face when Palpatine orders Anakin to execute him screams this; he never expected that Palpatine would actually betray him at that moment and he realized that Palpatine really was just using him in the end.
• Digital Head Swap: It is done for Count Dooku's lightsaber battles in the theatrical films (which is justified due to Christopher Lee's age).
• Disc-One Final Boss: Of the Prequel Trilogy. Dooku serves as the central antagonist of Attack of the Clones before being executed by Anakin at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith. After his death, the heroes have to deal with Dooku's former lieutenant, General Grievous. After Grievous is killed, Darth Sidious openly takes center stage as the Big Bad, with Dooku's own killer, Anakin Skywalker, taking Dooku's place as Sidious' apprentice under the name Darth Vader. Sidious and Vader concurrently serve as the two final antagonists the Jedi face in the Prequel Trilogy.
• Dispense with the Pleasantries: When he calls Osi Sobeck, he tells him to "dispense with the proprietaries".
• Doomed by Canon: His advanced age, Vader being Sidious' apprentice in the original trilogy, and how he's nowhere to be seen in said trilogy made his eventual death in Revenge of the Sith inevitable from the very beginning.
• The Dragon: He serves as this to Darth Sidious while pretending to be the Big Bad of the Separatist Alliance.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Well, being the Sith apprentice means that one day, he'd have to try to usurp Sidious, but the first time he really considered turning against his Master was when he got Savage as a replacement for Ventress.
• Dramatic Irony: Wishing to go with Qui-Gon to face the Separatists on Naboo makes him this trope. While whether or not he could've defeated Maul alone has been debated by fans, what isn't debatable is that he undoubtedly would have defeated (and likely killed) Maul with the assistance of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had he gone with them. Having Qui-Gon stay alive as his Morality Chain and having potentially revealed Sidious as an influence corrupting the Republic from within would've made Dooku a significant threat to Palpatine, rather than an Unwitting Pawn to be disposed of. Dooku also may have not been as merciful towards Nute Gunray and the others of what would become the Separatist Council, which may have ended up averting the Clone Wars entirely.
• The Dreaded: As a Sith Lord, Dooku is this too many Jedi. With Sidious' identity unknown (and his very existence questionable) to the Jedi, Dooku stood as the most powerful Dark Side user known to the Jedi. At the start of the war, other than Mace Windu and Yoda, nobody stood a chance against him.
• Dub Name Change: In Brazilian Portuguese dubs and text translations, his name is changed to Dookan. This is because "Dooku" is pronounced just like the Portuguese phrase "dou o cu", literally meaning "I give the ass" or more colloquially "I get fucked in the ass." Yeah…
• Dying Alone: Arguably has the most tragic end of Sidious' apprentices because of this. After they were mortally wounded, Maul came to some measure of understanding, perhaps even forgiveness, with Obi-Wan Kenobi, wishing him and Luke luck against Sidious to avenge the loss both of them suffered from Sidious, and Anakin/Vader died redeemed with his son by his side after destroying Sidious. In stark contrast to either, Dooku dies (at least emotionally) completely alone. His surrogate son and daughter are dead because of the man he serves (and he even carried it out in the latter case, without explanation), Yoda has given up on him, Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi Order have lost all respect for him, Grievous and the Separatist Council are presumably upset, but only because the loss of Dooku's power and charisma, not because of losing him personally or caring about him. Dooku dies with the only conscious individuals at his side being Anakin, a man who may have once respected him as Qui-Gon's teacher, but now hates him probably more than anyone alive, and Palpatine, the man discarding him. Dooku dies having lost everyone that was important to him, in one way or another, including himself.
• Electric Torture: He uses Force lightning on Savage as a punishment for killing King Katuunko, whom he was supposed to capture alive.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In The Clone Wars' first season, he temporarily teamed up with Anakin and Obi-Wan to escape from Hondo's base, where they were all mutually imprisoned.
  • In Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir, he briefly teamed up with Maul to fight off the Jedi and clones who break into Maul's hideout.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite being shocked and disappointed by Dooku's turn to the Dark Side, Yoda still cared deeply about his old Padawan and has made attempts to turn him back to the light in the Clone Wars. Unfortunately, none of his attempts succeeded and Dooku sank deeper and deeper into the Dark Side until his tragic demise at the hands of Anakin Skywalker.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • His sister Jenza, who was his Morality Pet for years and kept him from going all the way down the path of the dark side. Unable to kill her himself, he had Ventress kill her shortly before the Clone Wars began to prevent Jenza from exposing his secrets to the Republic, further Ventress's own path down the dark side, and to cut off the last ties he had to his past.
  • Though it doesn't stop him from trying to kill him, he does have a distinct soft spot for Obi-Wan, perhaps seeing himself a bit like a grandfatherly figure, as Obi-Wan's master Qui-Gon was his former apprentice and was like a son to him. Notably, he's remarkably insistent on trying to turn Obi-Wan to the Dark Side, even more so than Anakin, instead of simply killing him.
  • When ordered by Sidious to kill Ventress, Dooku objects, saying that Ventress is "quite important" to him and is thrown at the notion of murdering his most trusted assassin. After believing he has carried out the deed, Dooku is clearly fuming over it, and it's implied that this influenced his decision to train Savage in the hopes of overthrowing Sidious. However, Ventress' efforts at avenging Dooku's betrayal (unaware that it was forced) end up killing any affection Dooku has for her, and he later seeks her death without a shred of remorse (and he never revealed to Ventress the true reason behind the betrayal).
  • He remains saddened by the death of Qui-Gon even 10 years after he was killed, with his apprentice having been like a son to him. Tales of the Jedi even shows Dooku, shortly after Qui-Gon's death, calling Sidious out for it, though Sidious quickly talks him into accepting it as a necessary evil.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • In "The Box", he's totally disgusted by Moralo Eval's cowardice. In Tales of the Jedi, he vocally expresses how far Sidious has gone.
  • Tales of the Jedi reveals that part of the reason why he left the Jedi was his disgust towards the Republic's corruption.
• Evil Brit: He is a Sith Lord who is the face of the Separatist Alliance and speaks with a British accent. His first actor is even a classically-trained British actor who tended to be type-cast as villains.
• Evil Counterpart: Dooku is the evil counterpart to Mace Windu, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
  • Dooku and Mace Windu were both the right hand and enforcer to either Emperor Palpatine or Yoda (respectively). In the Expanded Universe materials, they were both shown to have some familiarity with both sides of the Force.
  • Dooku and Qui-Gon Jinn had a mentor-mentee relationship, and both saw massive corruption in the Jedi Order, were rebellious against the Jedi dogma or rulings of the Jedi Council, and were willing to supersede their orders. While Dooku's rebelliousness caused him to leave the Jedi Order, Qui-Gon stayed in the Jedi Order despite his grievances, instead trying to reform it from within.
  • Dooku and Obi-Wan both become the last members of their respective Orders, and both were subordinates in their Orders to their particularly high-ranking mentors. Their mentees (Qui-Gon in Dooku's case and Anakin in Obi-Wan's case) followed opposite paths as them (with Qui-Gon following the Light Side and Anakin following the Dark Side). Moreover, both of them were killed by Anakin sometime after besting him in a fight.
• Evil Gloating: He has a tendency for this during lightsaber duels, which serves to disorient his opponents. It backfires in Revenge of the Sith when it only serves to make himself angrier and more aggressive.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's 6'4"/1.93m, which makes him tower over most Jedi he faces like Anakin and Obi-Wan.
• Evil Laugh: When Anakin takes off on Dooku's speeder bike to save Ahsoka, Dooku cackles.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: While the Dark Side never deformed him to the extent of Sidious or Vader, Tales of the Jedi showed that Dooku looked far younger than his age during the events of "The Sith Lord", which is an Interquel set during the final act of The Phantom Menace. Ten years of being a Sith seemingly caused old age to catch up with him rather quickly.
• Evil Mentor: To Ventress and, briefly, Savage. Later, he was this to Quinlan Vos.
• Evil Old Folks: He's an elderly Dark Lord of the Sith, played by the then-80 (later 83) Christopher Lee.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Dooku speaks in a deep, sinister and powerful bass voice that is provided by Christopher Lee and Corey Burton (the latter of whom did such a good imitation of the famous actor's voice that Lee himself was impressed).
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • He comes into conflict with the Nightsisters of Dathomir. The Separatists win and wipe out the Nightsisters, causing Asajj Ventress to fight with the Republic.
  • At another point, he, Savage Oppress, and Asajj Ventress all duel each other at once.
• Face Death with Dignity: Though he is shocked and horrified by Darth Sidious' betrayal, he nevertheless resigns to his fate at the last moment and dies without begging for mercy or ratting out his master's ultimate plan to Anakin.
• Face–Heel Turn: After being disillusioned with the ongoing corruption, he becomes an apprentice of Darth Sidious and forms the Separatist Alliance.
• Fallen Hero: Count Dooku is a former Jedi Master who trained under Yoda and was the Master of Qui-Gon Jinn. Once considered to be one of the greatest Jedi alive, Dooku left the Jedi Order when he became disillusioned with the corruption in the Republic and the Jedi who seemed content with it. Dooku also found Sidious' plans to remake the galaxy appealing.
• False Flag Operation: He claims that Mina Bonteri was killed in an attack by Republic forces, but Bail points out that Republic spies are reporting the hit was carried out by Dooku's thugs.
• Faster Than They Look: He is quite up there in age and seems to conduct himself as someone his age would. Turns out he's fast enough to match the equally deceptive Yoda in speed, and the much younger Anakin.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Extremism much like his nemesis Anakin, ironically. In theory, Dooku could have been one of the greatest forces for good in the galaxy, and despite his ego, pre-Face–Heel Turn he was genuinely the best choice for Big Good other than Yoda. He is just as perceptive of corruption as his student Qui-Gon and has no respect for senators he views as corrupt even pre-Face–Heel Turn to the point of being openly rebellious at times, he is one of the few force-users who could pose a threat to Yoda or Sidious (and if he fully embraced the light and did more genuine good in his means regardless of the end, perhaps even rival them on his own), to the point Sidious was wary of the potential for Dooku to overthrow him with assistance from Ventress (a powerhouse in her own right) should she be trained more completely, and with his vast wealth, he could have fought lobbying with his own lobbying, or helped the downtrodden through personal charity, perhaps even growing a movement through this to challenge the corruption of the republic. Additionally, with his wealth he still could've easily funded a clone army not under Sidious' control, as he and Sifo Dyas saw the future of a war, and had Dooku still been on the Light Side doing this, Order 66 would've been impossible, and he is personally formidable enough that no one other than Sidious could have assassinated him to co-opt the army in such a scenario, which would've risked his own exposure. Lastly, because of said perceptiveness, distrust, cynicism, and intelligence, a Light-Sided Dooku likely would have figured out exactly what Palpatine was really up to well before it was too late. However, his willingness to do what "needs to be done" ultimately corrupts this, and is exploited by Sidious to make an increasingly less well-intentioned minion, and not only does he end up being The Pawn for Sidious, he ultimately ushered in the very thing he swore to destroy in Sidious' oppressive, corrupt regime that went against everything Dooku initially was against.
  • In a true Sith fashion, Dooku suffers heavily from overconfidence and he gets blindsided by others as a result. His belief that he's become more powerful than Yoda leads to him trying to kill Yoda in a lightsaber duel and fleeing when Yoda starts kicking his ass, he's so convinced that he could betray and supplant Sidious as the Sith master that he's surprised when Sidious betrays him first and replaces him, and he's so convinced that he's much more powerful and skilled than Anakin that he's utterly shocked when Anakin actually manages to out-duel and overpower him in their last battle before killing him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's perfectly capable of acting polite but is ruthless and sadistic. This is seen as early as Attack Of The Clones when he tries to execute the unconcious Obi-Wan, and then tries to kill both Anakin and Obi-Wan as a distraction to get away from Yoda. In The Clone Wars, he veers much more into Faux Affably Evil territory which is shown for example in "Ambush" when he tries to convince King Katuunko to join him by talking very suave and flattering, but orders him killed without a second thought after the man declines. In "Lair of Grievous", Dooku also politely apologizes for the Jedi's inconvenience in going so far out of their way to grab Gunray despite Dooku hiding him elsewhere, despite it all being a trap meant to get the Jedi involved and their squad brutally slaughtered by known Jedi killer Grievous. In Revenge of the Sith, he also drops the affability, spending all his time being condescending towards Obi-Wan and Anakin as he continues to conduct himself in a gentlemanly manner.
• Feeling Their Age: Suffers this on account of his age. While fit for a man of his age, Dooku's physical deadliness comes from his long years of experience and finesse-based fighting technique that few can match. When he goes up against Anakin's Unstoppable Rage, a combination of his age and his fighting style cause his defenses to quickly crumble in Revenge of the Sith. Beforehand, Anakin pokes fun of how Dooku isn't as able-bodied as he once was due to his age in The Clone Wars.
  Anakin: You should be more patient, master. After all, the count is an elderly gentleman and doesn't move like he used to.
  Obi-Wan: I suppose you're right.
• Fiction 500: He is explicitly stated to be the single wealthiest person in the galaxy.
• The Fighting Narcissist: He has a lot of characteristics of this trope: he's a Faux Affably Evil upper-class gentleman who is a Master Swordsman and is also rather condescending to anyone who tries to fight him. To his credit, he is a very skilled duelist, although this backfires on him a couple of times - notably, thinking he was so awesome he could go up against Yoda and win, or that he could troll Anakin Skywalker into a rage and think that could end any way except badly.
• Final Solution: He orders the genocide of the Mahran after they refused to join the Confederacy and provide them with the rich resources found on their planet. The Separatists subsequently invade their homeworld of Mahranee, destroy their cities, and annihilate the refugee convoy that attempts to flee the planet. The remaining Mahran on the planet go into hiding with the occupying droids having orders to shoot them on sight. The majority of the Mahran still alive are those who were off-planet when the invasion occurred.
• Flunky Boss:
  • In "Shadow Warrior", he fights alongside several Magna Guards against Anakin Skywalker on Naboo. The assistance of the Magna Guards enables Dooku to capture Anakin.
  • In Revenge of the Sith, Dooku brings two Super Battle Droids during his final duel against Anakin and Obi-Wan. The Super Battle Droids are destroyed by the Jedi effortlessly.
• Foreshadowing: His last words foreshadow Anakin's fall to the Dark Side.
• Foil: Per George Lucas, he's one to Anakin, specifically the anger both men have towards the Jedi Order. Both grew to distrust (and eventually betray) the Order, but Anakin held out for so long because he wanted to be a Jedi more than anything else, only for the events of The Clone Wars to shatter his faith in the Order and push him towards his downfall into Darth Vader. Dooku, however, saw this downfall coming long before most others, and was all too happy to fight against his old comrades when the opportunity presented itself.
• Frame-Up: In The Clone Wars' pilot movie, he frames the Jedi in front of Jabba for the kidnapping of his son, Rotta.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: An interesting example. He never was a nobody, but, being a Jedi the majority of his life, he had to reject both material possessions, and much of his individuality. After resigning from the Order however, Dooku reclaimed his rightful inheritance and became Head of State for the entire Confederacy, one of the richest, most powerful and most feared beings in the galaxy.

G-L

• Genius Bruiser: A terrifying force in combat, and also a very wisened Sith.
• The Ghost: He becomes this in the context of Season 7 of The Clone Wars. During Season 7, one of his lieutenants, Admiral Trench, serves as the Arc Villain of the Bad Batch Arc, and Trench mentions that Dooku would kill him if he fails. Dooku's death in Revenge of the Sith is mentioned in "The Phantom Apprentice". He's also mentioned various times throughout Catalyst, though he doesn't make a physical appearance.
• Glass Cannon: Dooku is perhaps the finest swordsman in the series and is also one of its strongest Force Users, often utilizing both telekinesis and lightning to subdue his enemies. However, he is over 80 years old, and he quickly fatigues when subjected to brutal hammering blows, most notably from Anakin Skywalker and Savage Oppress.
• Government Conspiracy: He manipulated the Kaminoan government into keeping Order 66 a secret under the pretense that it was a safeguard against Fallen Jedi. When clone trooper Fives discovers the mind control chips implanted in the troopers, the Kaminoans attempt to have his memory wiped before drugging him to make his testimony seem unreliable, and lie to the Jedi that the chips were to prevent the clones from becoming overly aggressive. Their efforts to conceal the truth ultimately turned them into unwitting accomplices to the fall of the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order, which Prime Minister Lama Su regrets by the time of The Bad Batch.
• Gruesome Grandparent: He's Obi-Wan's surrogate grandfather in a sense that his master Qui-Gon Jinn was raised and trained by Dooku and Dooku certainly held a sense of twisted but sincere affection for Obi-Wan as a result. Throughout the Clone Wars, Dooku has made repeated attempts to corrupt Obi-Wan to his side and sometimes tries to kill him if he won't turn. Fortunately, Dooku never comes close to succeeding before dying.
• Handy Cuffs: In "The Gungan General": he escapes from his cell using the force now that the power to the door is cut, and chokes/burns the guard outside the door using the electricity binding his cuffs together.
• The Heavy: He's the main villain of Attack of the Clones while acting under the orders of Darth Sidious. He continues this role in The Clone Wars before finally subverting it in Revenge of the Sith, where he gets killed off in the opening battle.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • In Tales of the Jedi, he kills Yaddle on Palpatine's orders since she could've told the Jedi about Maul's now-ex Master.
  • In Dooku: Jedi Lost, Dooku himself does this to his sister Jenza after she realizes he is falling to the dark side, having her killed by Ventress.
  • In "Rising Malevolence", Dooku also orders the deaths of any fleets the Malevolence attacks in order to prevent the Republic from finding about the warship or its giant ion cannon.
  • When Nute Gunray was captured by the Republic in "Bombad Jedi", Dooku in "Cloak of Darkness" orders Ventress to either "free Gunray, or silence him" in order to prevent Gunray from revealing sensitive information under interrogation.
  • Dooku is on the receiving end of this in Revenge of the Sith, where Palpatine goads Anakin into killing Dooku not simply to push him further into the Dark Side but to also tie up a loose end. Dooku knew almost everything about Sidious' grand conspiracy, and the Jedi would want to interrogate him for further information on his master. With Dooku's death, the Jedi are forced to find other means to gain more intel on Sidious, enough time for Palpatine to seduce Anakin to the Dark Side.
• Hero Killer: He's personally responsible for the death of many Jedi, either by having them killed or killing them himself. This is part of Anakin's vendetta against him, to the point where he declares that he'll pay for all of the Jedi he killed before their first duel. Tales of the Jedi reveals that he personally murdered Yaddle under Palpatine's orders.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Tales of the Jedi shows that part of the reason Dooku became disillusioned with the Jedi Order was the belief that they were being used as lapdogs by a corrupt Senate, and his experiences on multiple worlds whose senators were bleeding them dry for their own personal gain. Season 2 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch reveals that this is exactly what Dooku ended up doing to his home planet of Serenno after his Face–Heel Turn — while it was partly to fund the Separatist war effort, he himself retained so much wealth that when the Empire comes to collect it all, it takes up three massive container ships.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Anakin uses Dooku's own lightsaber to kill him. He also taunts Anakin about feeling hatred and fear but not using them, and that's the point where Anakin starts to whup his ass.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Honestly thought that Palpatine would be trustworthy enough to listen to his orders without ever thinking that he would be replaced when the opportunity presented itself. Hell, he wasn't even planning to enact the Rule Of Two until Sidious becomes Improperly Paranoid.
  • He also believed that Qui-Gon would've taken his side and be a useful ally to him and Palpatine if he were still alive. Obi-Wan bluntly tells him that Qui-Gon would have never joined him.
  • Similarly, he genuinely believes that he can turn Obi-Wan to the dark side so that he can become his Sith apprentice and they can overthrow Palpatine together. He never comes close to corrupting him because Obi-Wan is incorruptible.
• Hostage Situation: He and his master attempt to create one by luring Padmé to the scene of the battle so the Republic fleet can't destroy the Malevolence. It doesn't work, partly because Padmé sets her ship to blow up and sneaks off to contact the fleet.
• Hover Bike: He uses a Flipknot speeder bike to flee the Separatist headquarters on Geonosis as they are losing the battle that starts the Clone Wars, and later encounter Anakin on Tatooine during the Clone Wars in order to retrieve Jabba the Hutt's son.
• Icon of Rebellion: Count Dooku serves as the figurehead and leader of the rebel Separatists.
• Ignored Epiphany: After Qui-Gon's death, Dooku begins to question the things he's done in service to his and Sidious's plans, and after seemingly killing Yaddle, Dooku falls to his knees in shock. As soon as Sidious addresses him as "my apprentice", however, Dooku overcomes any conflicted feelings he has and accepts his new role as a Sith.
• I Hate Past Me: It's heavily implied that part of the reason why he dislikes Anakin so much is that he reminds Dooku of his younger self; hotheaded, emotional, and a maverick Jedi who frequently disobeyed orders.
• Inadequate Inheritor:
  • Sidious viewed Dooku as, in his own words, a proton torpedo meant to serve his purpose and be discarded once it was time to draw Anakin to the dark side, and preferred Maul as an apprentice.
  • Dooku in turn sees Anakin as this in the Jedi Master-Apprentice Chain that he began with Yoda. Dooku was very proud of his apprentices Qui-Gon and Rael and considered his former master Yoda and Qui-Gon's former apprentice Obi-Wan Worthy Opponents, but he ironically never saw Anakin as worthy of inheriting his or Qui-Gon's legacy.
• In the Hood: Not usually, as his attire doesn't have a hood, but he does occasionally wear one.
  • He's introduced wearing a hooded over-cape in The Clone Wars' movie (which actually does the same with other characters who rarely wear a hood, like Ventress and Ahsoka).
  • In "Conspiracy", he wears a hood when contacted by Lama Su in order to conceal his identity, since the Kaminoans know him only as "Tyranus".
• Internal Reformist: For the first nine years as the Count of Serenno, he did try to legitimately reform the Republic, but his failures to do so let him to take on a darker route.
• Interim Villain: He is a subversion. In the prequel trilogy, Darth Sidious is the Man Behind the Man for Nute Gunray and Rune Haako in The Phantom Menace. In Revenge of the Sith, he establishes himself as the Galactic Emperor, wipes out the Jedi Order and reorganizes the Republic into the Empire. In Attack of the Clones, he has a minor role (even as Chancellor Palpatine), whereas Count Dooku is given more screen time and treatment as a Big Bad, but in a subversion, Sidious is the one that pushed for the formation of Dooku's organization (the Confederacy), and intentionally placed Dooku as a scapegoat while he pulled the strings from the shadows. Furthermore, the threat of the Separatists prompted the development of the Clone Army, later known as the Imperial Stormtroopers. In The Clone Wars, Dooku serves as one of the main antagonists of the series.
• Irony:
  • He confesses to Palpatine that he feels the Jedi Order has become corrupt because of how long Yoda and the Council have been around, and believing they have become overly complacent and in over their heads. Seeing how he says this to Palpatine, who is very much corrupt with power and playing everyone for fools while committing the most heinous of crimes, his statement loses a lot of validity.
  • Sidious views him as his only unworthy apprentice, due to his age, but Dooku is the only apprentice of Palpatine to best Obi-Wan in a clean fight without Kenobi being exhausted from torture, or rusty, something Maul and Vader are held back by, the latter even being lampshaded by Palpatine. Vader has been humiliated by Obi-Wan repeatedly, and Maul lost against Obi-Wan even with Savage as backup.
  • He is killed by Anakin, someone who he constantly looked down upon as not worth his time.
• It Has Only Just Begun: When Dooku escapes Geonosis, he says this to Yoda:
  Dooku: This is just the beginning!
• I Want Them Alive!: In "Witches of the Mist", Dooku orders Savage to bring King Katuunko to him alive. Dooku was displeased, to say the least, when all Savage returned with was the king's corpse.
• Jerkass: Dooku slowly becomes more and more Faux Affably Evil as the series progresses. By the time of The Clone Wars' later episodes and Revenge of the Sith, Dooku has almost completely diminished his affability.
• Jerkass Has a Point: During the fight in the Geonosis arena in Attack of the Clones, Dooku points out to Windu that the Jedi are "impossibly outnumbered". Sure enough, most of them are killed, and they would have all been slaughtered had Yoda not shown up with the clones.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: During his days as a Jedi, he is often abrasive and cold in his methods but does believe in doing the right thing and commends his apprentice, Qui-Gon, for surpassing the teacher in terms of finding solutions. However, that kindness is slowly crushed and eroded by Palpatine to ensure that Dooku will never leave the Dark Side.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • During the Clone Wars, he's shown to genuinely respect Obi-Wan and have a soft spot for him. This doesn't stop Dooku from attempting to kill him many times.
  • It is believed that Dooku cares about Ventress, but once Palpatine wants her dead, he never explains himself and keeps attempting to kill her until he eventually succeeds.
• Joker Immunity: During the first six seasons of The Clone Wars, Dooku always survives any attempts by the protagonists to capture or kill him, due to it being a Foregone Conclusion that he will survive until the opening battle of Revenge of the Sith. This expires in the latter portion of Season 7, which runs concurrently with Revenge of the Sith, and therefore mentions Dooku's death.
• Just Between You and Me: Dooku has Obi-Wan imprisoned and tells him the truth: Darth Sidious is in control of the Republic. Not only does this not backfire, it actually helps the Sith: telling the Jedi this prompts them to start investigating Republic senators, and Sidious latches on to this to create tension between the Jedi and Republic, ultimately allowing him to declare them traitors.
• Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: Like Grievous, he is not ashamed to use this tactic, mostly with MagnaGuards.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In Attack of the Clones, he manages to get away at the end of the movie, dropping rubble on Anakin and Obi-Wan as a distraction for Yoda, which allows him to return to his master's side. But his luck runs out at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, where Anakin (literally) disarms and kills him. For bonus points, said death comes at the behest of Dooku's master.
• Karmic Death: For a multitude of reasons.
  • Most obviously, Anakin uses Dooku's own lightsaber to kill him.
  • Anakin also cuts off Dooku's hands just as Dooku previously cut off Anakin's arm.
  • Dooku had repeatedly disparaged Anakin as an unworthy opponent, but during their final duel aboard the Invisible Hand, Anakin defeats Dooku, beheads him, and ultimately takes his place as Darth Sidious' apprentice.
  • Dooku (albeit with some reluctance) tries to kill Ventress under orders from Darth Sidious, who felt she was growing too powerful, and he eventually succeeds. This makes Sidious discarding him all the more cathartic.
  • Sidious's ordering Dooku to murder Ventress caused Dooku to start stepping up his ambitions to do the same to Sidious. These plans are put to an end by (soon-to-be) Darth Vader on none other than Sidious's orders.
  • He dies because Palpatine's plan required disposing of him and pinning the Clone Wars' atrocities on him, but the plan he originally sold to Dooku involved disposing of Grievous and pinning the atrocities on him, which Dooku was all for in return for a position of power in Palpatine's new empire, despite Grievous having saved his life multiple times.
  • Dooku invades Coruscant with the Nexus Route coordinates ^note  Leaked to him and Grievous by Palpatine himself, according to Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy hoping to deal a crippling blow to the Republic and the Jedi, but after his death at Anakin's hands, the Separatists are the ones who got dealt the crippling blow, losing nearly a third of their fleet and bringing the Clone Wars to a near end before Utapau.
  • Dooku's Sith Lord career and his life ended under the exact same circumstances in which he cemented his Start of Darkness when he murders Yaddle in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi- i.e. both are gravely wounded past the point of being able to defend themselves when the final blow is struck and the one killing them does so at Palpatine's direct bidding while he gleefully looks on. It can't get any more karmic than that.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Killing loyal Separatist senators that truly wanted a peaceful end to the war such as Mina Bonteri and Bec Lawise (by means of forcing Padmé to shoot him when she tried to shoot Dooku).
  • Ordering the extermination of the Mahran people just because they were Republic citizens despite not being directly involved in the war.
  • Orders Wat Tambor to have villages of unarmed Twi'leks bombed, intended to show the galaxy "the cost of a Republic victory".
  • Doesn't even tell Ventress the real reason for his betrayal, coldly telling her that she's failed him.
  • The first three are particularly glaring given the events of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, specifically the fact that Senator Dagonet's use of Make an Example of Them against a mostly unarmed population is what set him off and led to the Dark Side awakening within him in the first place.
• Kick the Morality Pet: In Dooku: Jedi Lost, Dooku has Asajj Ventress murder his sister Jenza when she tries to turn him away from the dark path.
• Killed Off for Real: He is executed by Anakin Skywalker during the Battle of Coruscant.
• Killed Offscreen: In the context of Season 7 of The Clone Wars, though his fate is shown onscreen in Revenge of the Sith.
• Klingon Promotion: Naturally for a Sith apprentice, he plans to eventually overthrow Sidious, as demonstrated during the Nightsisters and Brothers arc in The Clone Wars.
• Knight Templar: Despite using the Dark Side of the Force, he genuinely sees the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order as being more corrupt than himself and allies with Darth Sidious to rectify this. He also believes that anyone who has allied with the Republic regardless of innocence is deserving of death, even if they are just citizens.
• Large and in Charge: Dooku is 6'4" (1.93 meters) tall and both the ruler of Serenno and the Head of State of the Separatists.
• Large Ham: He's deadpan and composed, but whenever he tries to sound menacing, it's as dramatic as only a Sith can be.
  "You MUST JOIN ME, Obi-Wan, and together WE WILL DESTROY THE SITH!"
• Laser Blade: He fights using a red-bladed lightsaber with a curved hilt. Back when he hadn't become a Sith Lord yet, it had a blue blade.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He cuts off Anakin's arm in Attack of the Clones before getting both his hands and head lopped off by Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.
• Last-Name Basis: He typically prefers to call people by their surnames and at times precedes it by an honorific if they have one and only when he has a certain respect for them. The only people he regularly calls by their first names are Qui-Gon Jinn and Savage Opress.
• Leave No Survivors: In "Rising Malevolence", he orders this regarding the fleets that the Malevolence has destroyed, as he doesn't want the Republic to find out about the warship or its giant ion cannon. Obi-Wan notes that the Separatists are being "unusually tidy".
  Dooku: We must keep our position secret. Send out the hunters. I want all of those life pods destroyed.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Compared to most other Sith, at least earlier on. Although at the end of his life, he'd basically sunk to the same level of depravity as his brethren, he turned against the Republic and the Jedi out of a genuine desire to help the less fortunate, viewing the Sith as a quicker way to achieve the level of power needed to accomplish that goal. But, as is the nature of the Dark Side, those ideals degenerated into just a front for the self-serving, authoritarian monster he became.
• Like a Son to Me: When speaking about Qui-Gon, his lament about how he grew up so fast and fond reminiscence about things he did with his apprentice when he was a little boy comes off as being like a father acknowledging his son's growth. Even asking about Obi-Wan sounds similar to wanting to meet a grandchild. When Dooku tells Obi-Wan he wishes Qui-Gon was still alive and that he could use his help, he's not lying. He's deluded himself into thinking that Qui-Gon would've sided with him like a dutiful son.
• Literal Disarming: Anakin chops his hands off in Revenge of the Sith. Fitting, since Dooku cut off Anakin's arm in the previous movie. A moment later, his head goes with them.
• Logical Weakness: Despite his absolute mastery of sword fighting and incredible force prowess, Dooku is still an incredibly old man and can be overpowered by brute strength. For instance, a trainee like Savage Oppress managed to disarm Dooku through trading blows because of his titanic physical strength. Anakin Skywalker, no slouch himself in the muscle department, also pushes Dooku back in several encounters when the Count sufficiently enrages him. As Dooku is also not strong enough in the Force to compensate for his age much unlike Sidious, this ultimately leads to his death in a final battle with Anakin.
• Love Makes You Evil: It is implied that part of the reason he fell was Qui-Gon's death, who was his beloved apprentice. Said death was ironically inflicted by his predecessor as Sidious/Palpatine's apprentice, Darth Maul.

M-R

• Major Injury Underreaction: When Anakin slices off his hands in their final fight, his reaction is merely that of silent shock and surprise. It's quite impressive when compared to Mace Windu and Luke Skywalker's agonizing screams when Anakin chopped their hands off and Anakin passing out from shock when Dooku hacked his arm off at the end of their first fight.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: When he hears from Ziro that Padmé has been snooping around, Dooku suggests that he "have her meet with an accident with extreme prejudice" if she continues to be a problem.
• The Man Behind the Man: In Attack of the Clones, he is the person who hired Jango Fett to assassinate Senator Amidala. He was also behind the creation of the clone army. Sidious, in turn, is The Man Behind the Man to Dooku.
• Manipulative Bastard: He is shown to be one when he forces Rush Clovis into a Deal with the Devil situation that results in war coming to Scipio, Clovis' death, and control of the Banking Clan falling to Palpatine.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: As stated in Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan and Anakin are directly down the chain from him. He also seems to take some pride from this, too; he is still very proud of Qui-Gon, genuinely likes Obi-Wan (though he won't hesitate to kill him), but views Anakin as a completely unworthy successor.
• Master Swordsman: He was one of the most skilled lightsaber duelists in the Jedi Order, and turning to the Dark Side did nothing to lessen his skill. He comfortably kills Yaddle in single combat, despite her power and experience, with the only thing slowing her death being her attempts to talk him down and his wobbling on the edge of the Dark Side. He consistently manages to take down Obi-Wan and Anakin on his own and holds up well against Yoda. He also teaches Asajj Ventress the ways of the Dark Side and trains General Grievous into a powerful swordsman who's able to slay Jedi in single combat without the Force. Just to underline the point, when Ventress comes for him with two other Nightsisters, all of them functionally invisible and having drugged a sleeping Dooku, he duels all of them to a standstill, blind, and even when they get him down, this just opens them up to be fried with Force Lightning and hurled out a window. Later, when Savage turns against Ventress, Dooku is able to defeat and disarm Ventress in a one-on-one duel in less than fifteen seconds.
• Meaningful Name:
  • According to Christopher Lee, the name "Dooku" is a homonym for the Japanese word doku, which means "poison".
  • His Sith Name "Tyranus" is derived from the Greek word tyrannus meaning "illegitimate ruler", which later morphed into the modern English word "tyrant". Appropriate for a would-be despot.
• Mêlée à Trois: His fight against Asajj Ventress and Savage Opress quickly degenerates into Count Dooku vs. Asajj Ventress vs. Savage Opress when the latter grows fed up with his mistreatment by both of the former two. Meanwhile, the Jedi are after Opress and have to contend with the Separatist forces deployed against him by Count Dooku as well. This is without even mentioning Mother Talzin's nebulous loyalties throughout the episode.
• Mind over Matter: He is proficient at telekinesis, which he repeatedly utilized during combat. During their fight on Geonosis, Dooku used the force to throw wall fixtures at Yoda, and later, brought the ceiling down on him. He is also capable of using the Force to life people into the air and hurling them.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Despite the general policy of betrayal amongst the Sith, Count Dooku has no active plans to overthrow Darth Sidious until Sidious forces Dooku to betray Asajj Ventress to prove his loyalty. Afterwards, killing Sidious becomes a present goal for him.
• Modest Royalty: He's a count, but his outfit is quite simple compared to other royals in the Star Wars canon, probably a hold-out from his days as a Jedi Knight.
• Moral Myopia: He sought revenge against Ventress and the Nightsisters for their attempt to assassinate him, disregarding that it was his own (albeit reluctant) attempted murder of Ventress that inspired the attacks.
• My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: He says as much during his duel with Yoda in Attack of the Clones.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: He feels Yoda's actions on Moraband before Sidious even summons him. Sidious outright says that only someone significant to Dooku would be felt this way in this situation.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Per the norm for Sith Lords, his Sith name is derived from an evil sounding word, in his case "tyrant".
• Neck Snap: In "The Gungan General", he uses the Force in order to do this trope in a brutally epic fashion to one of the pirates in the Ohnaka Gang.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He created the Separatist Alliance specifically to start a war crisis that would justify Chancellor Palpatine seizing absolute power and turning the Republic into the Empire. As shown in The Bad Batch, however, by doing so he unwittingly helped to inspire the Rebellion that would ultimately topple that same Empire. Many of the anti-Imperial factions that coalesced into the Rebellion grew out of surviving Separatist cells.
• No Flow in CGI: The out-of-universe reason that he's often seen without his cape in The Clone Wars.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
  • For Robert E. Lee, both being leaders of a Confederacy that wanted "freedom" from a corrupt government/system. (Though in Dooku's case, it's more about the people of the Outer Rim being exploited by corporations like the Trade Federation and greedy Republic Senators, rather than the U.S. South wanting the freedom to own African American slaves because of their economic necessity in picking cotton and other crops.)
  • He's also one to Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, who wanted to help the Vietnamese people be free of corrupt colonial powers, like France and Japan. Additionally, both have a gray beard and are seen as evil extremists by the United States and the Republic, though the latter is more justified due to Dooku being a Sith Lord that the Republic has to defeat in the Clone Wars to bring down the evil Separatist Alliance.
• Not Me This Time: Quinlan Vos believes that Dooku killed his master, Tholme, but it was actually a lie by Ventress, who was Tholme's real killer.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • According to Ventress, Dooku is this trope with the Jedi Council. Ventress compared the way the Jedi Council abandoned Ahsoka with the way Dooku abandoned her.
  • After his death, Maul admitted that he and Dooku were both pawns.
• Off with His Head!: He gets beheaded by Anakin scissors-style in Revenge of the Sith.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • He's visibly rattled after witnessing Jango Fett get decollated by Mace Windu.
  • In "The Gungan General", he is pretty panicked when he nearly falls to his death due to the shackle connecting him to Obi-Wan being shot in two during the second escape attempt while they're hanging from a high wall.
  • He is also extremely concerned when Trench describes Tup as being in a trance-like state when he killed Tiplar.
  • Count Dooku's face is frozen in this state when his hands are chopped off and he hears Palpatine say to Anakin: "Good, Anakin, good! Kill him. Kill him now."
• Old Master: A villainous example. Dooku is in his eighties but can still beat the younger Anakin, his own failed apprentice Ventress, and the monstrously powerful Savage Opress.
• Older Sidekick: Dooku was born 18 years before Palpatine, his Sith Master.
• Older Than They Look: While he looks his age in the prequel films and The Clone Wars, he looked fairly young during his appearances in Tales of the Jedi. While it isn't known exactly when "Justice" and "Choices" take place, "The Sith Lord" takes place during the events of The Phantom Menace, Dooku would be seventy years old at that point, but looks to be in his forties at most, since his hair and beard are mostly black with only a few gray hairs. Given the physical decline most Dark Side users seem to undergo, this might be intentional.
• One-Man Army: When Senator Dagonet pisses him off during a shootout, he takes out all of his men on his own without Qui-Gon's help. Throughout the Clone Wars, he's taken on multiple lightsaber duelists on his own many times and won the majority of those fights. It's doubly impressive when one remembers how his lightsaber form, Makashi, is at a significant disadvantage when it comes to fighting more than one combatant as it specifically prioritizes one-on-one lightsaber duels.
• Only One Name: Barring his additional Sith name, Pablo Hidalgo confirmed that "Dooku" is the entirety of his birth name.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He loved Qui-Gon Jinn like a son and is genuinely saddened by his death at the hands of Darth Maul.
• Papa Wolf: He was quite protective of Qui-Gon back when he was a Jedi. In fact, one of the first times he used Force Lightning was to protect him against a bounty hunter who had kidnapped and attempted to kill him.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: He used to be one of the finest members of the Jedi Order until he turned to the Dark Side.
• Parental Abandonment: His father abandoned him at the edge of a forest to be eaten by wolves after discovering he was Force-sensitive.
• Parental Favoritism: Grandparental example. He raised and loved the late Qui-Gon Jinn like a son and Qui-Gon was a father-figure to both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Despite this, Dooku's treatment of both Obi-Wan and Anakin couldn't be anymore different. Dooku has a small but noticeable soft spot for Obi-Wan and treats him with a lot of respect, considering him a Worthy Opponent because of his cunning and sees him as a prospective Sith apprentice he can overthrow Sidious with. In contrast, he has nothing but contempt and disgust for Anakin, considering him a reckless and arrogant brute who's both an unworthy Jedi and adversary.
• Parental Substitute:
  • He served as a father-figure to his former Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn, whose death deeply upset him.
  • It's implied that he sees Ventress as a surrogate daughter, even calling her such in a non-condescending way. Unfortunately for him, Sidious orders Dooku to have her sacrificed, fearing the Count might use her growing power against Sidious himself.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In addition to his crimes against the heroes and innocent people, Dooku is also responsible for the deaths of a few unsavory characters, such as Rish Loo (who betrayed his people to the Separatists), Miraj Scintel (who presided over a society of slavers), and Lom Pyke (a crime lord who murdered Sifo-Dyas and deals in narcotics).
• Pet the Dog:
  • Subverted with Grievous. Though he fails him time and again, Dooku never disposes of Grievous in the manner most Sith would. However, it's all but stated that Dooku never thought highly of Grievous, and only kept him around out of pragmatism, and because he was an important pawn in Sidious' plans. Had he kept Ventress around, he would have preferred letting Grievous rot the moment his ego got the better of him.
  • In Attack of the Clones, Dooku apologizes to Obi-Wan about the treatment and claims he will try to set him free. Dooku laments that he wishes Qui-Gon was still alive.
  • Also in Attack of the Clones, Dooku looks saddened after he defeats Obi-Wan and Anakin. He looks saddened by Jango Fett's death too, where every other Sith Lord in the franchise would laugh over their subordinates' weakness.
  • Despite having the Jedi at his mercy, Dooku orders the battle droids to stand down and offers to spare the Jedi's lives if they surrender. He is clearly upset when Mace Windu turns the offer down, so he most likely would have kept his word. He even apologizes to Windu for having to kill him.
  • When Palpatine orders Ventress killed in The Clone Wars, Dooku initially refuses. He only complies with it in the end because he knows disobeying Palpatine is out of the question, but even then he is clearly unhappy about having to let Ventress go.
  • During the Ryloth arc in The Clone Wars, Dooku demands Wat Tambor to escape the planet as he will bomb it. Dooku also warns Tambor that Mace Windu is too powerful; however, this could just be pragmatic villainy, as Tambor's skills are vital to the Confederacy.
  • Gives Rako Hardeen (actually an undercover Obi-Wan) a chance for a fair fight against Moralo Eval.
  • In the Age of the Republic comic issue centered on him, he runs into a Jedi Knight on a journey (before revealing his true nature to the galaxy). When discussing this development with Sidious, Dooku seems more interested in taking the Jedi as a potential ally, though Sidious just quotes the rule of two at him.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: He is far more polite than even Obi-Wan, which is to say a lot, and better not to talk about more blunt personalities like Windu or Anakin.
  Dooku: You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. Surrender — and your lives will be spared.
  Mace Windu: We will NOT be hostages to be bartered, Dooku.
  Dooku: Then, I'm sorry, old friend.
• Poor Communication Kills: He never tells Ventress the reason for his betrayal, despite their former familial bond and the fact it could have helped him not gain another enemy in the form of the Nightsisters and Savage.
• The Power of Hate: He teaches Savage how to use his hatred to channel the Dark Side.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • He criticizes Grievous for smashing Battle Droids that annoy him, on the grounds that they are expensive.
  • He may be cruel, but Dooku knows when to keep potential pawns alive and when to kill them off. His attack on Savage comes when the Zabrak can't follow this ideology and kills without thinking.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: After accepting his turn to the Dark Side, Dooku delivers one to the defeated Yaddle before killing her.
  Dooku: I want only to bring peace and order to the galaxy.
  Yaddle: Already so many have suffered for what you call "order".
  Dooku: Then let me give you peace, Master Yaddle.
• President Evil: In addition to being a Dark Lord of the Sith, he's the head of the Separatist Parliament and the public leader of the Separatist Alliance. He is not above ordering assassinations on politicians on either side of the war. He also leads a Council filled with Corrupt Corporate Executives.
• Prisoner Exchange: He forces Padmé to give up General Grievous to the Separatists by torturing Anakin and threatening to kill him. Even though Grievous' capture likely means the end of the war, Padmé loves Anakin too much to see him killed because of her.
• Properly Paranoid: During the Nightsisters and Brothers arc in The Clone Wars, he assumes that Ventress' assassination attempt against him was the work of the Jedi. As a former Jedi himself, one would think Dooku should realize that Jedi don't normally attempt assassinations, but given the psychological stress the Clone Wars are leaving on the Order and some of them falling to the Dark Side, this suspicion isn't completely unfounded. Eventually, the Jedi do try to have Dooku assassinated in Dark Disciple for crossing the line one too many.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Dooku: Jedi Lost and Tales of the Jedi showcase his gradual disillusionment with the Republic and Jedi Order, resulting in his fall to the dark side and becoming the apprentice of Darth Sidious.
• Psychic Powers: He often uses telekinesis during his battles.
• Psychic Strangle: He's almost as fond of using this as Vader, using it to casually kill anyone who gets in his way that he views as an inconvenience.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: He had started out as one of Yoda's students, but wound up falling to the Dark Side in his later years.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's a nobleman and the political leader of the Separatists as well as one of the galaxy's deadliest fighters.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Tales of the Jedi shows that he had raven hair and pale skin in his younger years.
• Real Name as an Alias: He uses his Sith name, Tyranus, in his dealings with the Kaminoans and the Pykes.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Like most other Sith Lords, he wears black clothes and uses a red lightsaber.
• Redemption Rejection: In his final Tales of the Jedi episode, Dooku, caught colluding with Sidious by Yaddle, is torn between two options: allow Yaddle to leave and report him to the Council, or, as Sidious demands, kill her to protect their plans. He chooses the latter, and after Yaddle is defeated, Dooku doubles down on his choice and becomes Sidious' new Sith apprentice.
• Revenge:
  • In "the Nightsisters and Brothers Arc", he wants revenge on Ventress and Talzin for attempting to assassinate him.
  • Early on in The Clones Wars, he is taken hostage by Hondo Ohnaka, who intends to ransom Dooku off to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for Hondo, Dooku escapes, and later in the series, he sends General Grievous to punish Hondo for his treachery by taking everything Hondo owns.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Betraying the Jedi Order aside, he conspired with Palpatine to throw his Separatist allies under the bus to secure a position of power in the Empire. Palpatine went through with the plan, but replaced Dooku with Anakin.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He's a count on his home planet of Serenno who's trying to purge the galaxy of corrupt politicians.

S-Y

• Salt the Earth: He orders everything that isn't being stolen and can be destroyed on Ryloth demolished while the Separatists evacuate their own forces.
• Sarcastic Confession: He "warns" Obi-Wan that the Republic has fallen under control of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who is secretly Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. He says this after making a half-hearted attempt at proclaiming innocence behind the attempted assassination of Padmé and the Separatists arming for war, and likely knew what Obi-Wan had seen considering that he was caught making a transmission to the Republic. Obi-Wan doesn't buy his offer and finds his claim of a Sith Lord secretly controlling the Republic outrageous... at first.
• Secret Identity: He hides the fact that he's Darth Tyranus from the public eye. Apart from Darth Sidious, the only people who know that he's Darth Tyranus are people he had covert dealings with such as Jango Fett and the Pyke Syndicate. His secret identity only gets exposed in the final year of The Clone Wars where the Pyke Syndicate accidentally reveals it to Obi-Wan and Anakin, who later reveal this to the Jedi Council.
• Secret-Keeper: As Darth Sidious' apprentice, Dooku is the only member of the Separatist Leadership who's aware that Palpatine and the Sith Lord are the same person.
• Secret Test of Character: Several times in the lead up to The Clone Wars, he visited then planetary governor Wilhuff Tarkin, trying to recruit him into the Separatist fold. Each time, Tarkin resisted, maintaining loyalty to Chancellor Palpatine, never knowing that Palpatine himself had directed Dooku to make the offers to test his loyalty.
• Self-Serving Memory: He refers to Ventress as "that traitor", conveniently forgetting that it was he who betrayed her (on Palpatine's orders) and sent her running back to Dathomir in the first place.
• Settle It Without Weapons: Inverted. In Attack Of the Clones, after Yoda demonstrates that he can block Dooku's Force Lightning, Dooku declares that it'll have to come down to pure swordsmanship. Yoda, silently agreeing, draws his own lightsaber.
• Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: During the Clone Wars, Dooku kept wearing his elegant garments and royal Serennian cloak while the Jedi dressed themselves in a jumbled mishmash of clone armor and traditional Jedi robes due to being on the front lines more often.
• Shadow Archetype:
  • He serves as one for Anakin via being a former Jedi who left the Order due to disagreements in philosophies.
  • He's also one for Luke Skywalker. Both of them are immensely powerful Force-users who became military leaders and public representatives for their respective rebellions against Palpatine's regime. Though while Luke and the Alliance were genuine in their intentions, Dooku obviously was not.
• Shock and Awe: His use of Force lightning.
• Shoot the Dangerous Minion: Darth Sidious ordered him to kill Ventress because he was worried Dooku would use her to turn against him.
• Shoot Your Mate: A non-romantic example. In "Nightsisters", Darth Sidious orders him to kill Asajj Ventress in order to test his loyalty, claiming that refusing to comply would indicate his plan to eventually overthrow Sidious with Ventress' help.
• Sink the Lifeboats: Dooku orders the destruction of escape pods from fleets that the Malevolence destroyed.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Tales of the Jedi depicts Dooku's descent from an idealistic and well-meaning Jedi Knight, to disaffected Jedi Master, to collaborator with the Sith. It also depicts the first time he kills another Jedi, Master Yaddle, and shows him accepting Sidious' offer to become Maul's replacement. From there, he eventually becomes the corrupt and evil Separatist leader shown in the films and The Clone Wars.
• Solar Sail: He flees from Geonosis in a ship that is at least partially propelled by a small solar sail.
• Spectacular Spinning: In Revenge of the Sith, Dooku does a random frontflip before fighting Anakin.
• Squishy Wizard: Dooku is a supremely skilled lightsaber duelist and has tremendous control over his Force abilities like Force Lightning and telekinesis. Underneath that though, he's a very old man who has a decade left to live at most and is physically getting weaker because of it. When fighting Savage Opress, he does a great job warding him off with Force Lightning but every time the monster closes the distance and lands hit on him, he's sent flying. His declining strength eventually catches up to him during his duels with Anakin who, by comparison, is a far younger man than him and is only getting stronger, allowing him to eventually overwhelm Dooku's defenses with his physical might and kill the old man.
• The Starscream: In The Clone Wars, he sometimes seeks opportunities to overthrow Sidious and become the new Dark Lord of the Sith after Sidious forces him to betray Ventress. He never finds a good plan and eventually gets killed in Revenge of the Sith due to Sidious' own planning before Dooku even comes close to overtaking Sidious.
• Starter Villain: In Revenge of the Sith, not even qualifying for Disc-One Final Boss, as he gets dispatched within 15 minutes into the film.
• The Stoic: He very rarely shows his emotions. When he does use his emotions, he usually keeps how much he shows well under control. He is visibly shocked when Jango dies and does start to panic when he realizes that Sidious is planning on letting Anakin kill him.
• Stronger Than They Look: Downplayed in that he isn't getting any stronger and can get overpowered by much younger (and therefore much stronger) combatants, but Dooku is still quite strong for a man his age. In The Clone Wars, he's able to knock out a Weequay pirate in only two strikes while handcuffed and during his duel with Anakin and Obi-Wan in Oba Diah, he's able to throw the two around with his kicks and grapples.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: After being one of the major antagonists of Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars, he gets killed in the first act of Revenge of the Sith to begin cementing Anakin as the greater threat he's about to become.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: On occasion, when he taps deeply into the Dark Side, most notably in "Witches of the Mist" when he blasts Savage with Force lightning.
• Surpassed the Teacher: He tries to pull this against his old master Yoda, but ends up retreating and distracting his former master to survive.
  Dooku: I've become more powerful than any Jedi, even you!
  [Yoda effortlessly blocks, absorbs, or deflects all of Dooku's Force attacks on him]
  Yoda: Much to learn you still have.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In Tales of the Jedi, he acknowledges that even if their actions went too far, he does concede that the coup on Raxis had perfectly valid motivations. Unfortunately, this proves to be a factor in his own Start of Darkness.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
  • His preferred lightsaber form, Makashi, is focused on precision and efficiency in lightsaber duels. This has allowed him to defeat Soresu duelists such as Obi-Wan and Yaddle with little effort as he can get past their defense with the form and thus it served him well during his time as a Sith because of Soresu being the most common lightsaber form within the Jedi Order.
  • Unfortunately, the form's low kinetic power gives it a disadvantage against aggressive lightsaber forms like Djem So and Ataru, as seen in his fights against Anakin and Yoda. This is why in Revenge of the Sith, Dooku gets overpowered and beaten by Anakin's dark side-fueled assault while Obi-Wan can successfully counter and defend against them and match Anakin blow-for-blow despite Dooku being able to outduel Obi-Wan without much trouble.
• Talented, but Trained: He was one of the most talented Force users of all time, to the point where he could channel Force Lightning long before he turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith. What makes him truly dangerous though, is how well trained he is in the ways of the Force, having received extensive training under Yoda and Sidious, who are the strongest Light and Dark Side users respectively, and is the undisputed master of Form II of lightsaber combat: Makashi.
• That Wasn't a Request: Invoked; when Queen Miraj remarks that she has no desire to execute Anakin, he snaps she's not being given a choice in the matter.
  Miraj: I have no desire to end Skywalker's life. He has become...a valuable asset to me and my throne.
  Dooku: Your compliance is not optional! I command you to kill Skywalker!
• Temporary Substitute: At the end of the day, this is what Dooku is to Palpatine. With Maul unexpectedly "killed" by Obi-Wan and Anakin still too young and inexperienced to be his apprentice, Palpatine needed a Sith apprentice to help him with his plans and do his dirty work and Dooku, one of his political allies, just so happens to be one of the most skilled lightsaber duelists in the galaxy and is the Count of Serenno. Palpatine then took Dooku under his wing and trained him as a Sith apprentice in Maul's place until Anakin grew powerful enough to defeat him and take his place as Palpatine's final (and true) Sith apprentice.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: In contrast to the Horned Humanoid Maul, Dooku looks like a dignified older gentleman who never even develops yellow Sith eyes.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In Dark Disciple, his massacre of the Mahran race solely for being Republic citizens is considered to be the tipping point for the Jedi Council to decide to have him assassinated, something that normally goes against their principles.
• Took a Level in Badass: While we can presume he took countless while learning from the Jedi, and a few when learning from Sidious, this isn't just averted, but if anything possibly an Inverted Trope in the Clone Wars. His age, combined with the dark side's degenerative effects^note From what Tales of The Jedi shows us, Dooku undergoes borderline Rapid Aging from the end of the series (where he is 70), to Attack Of The Clones (where he is 80), as he goes from looking 30 years younger than he actually is, to looking much more his age, presumably due to dark side degradation of the dark side mean he has been sapped of much of his vitality before the Clone Wars has started, and has a decade at the very most left to live. While he's still plenty powerful throughout the Clone Wars and more than a match for any jedi not named Yoda, by Revenge of The Sith he's very tired and despite being a Knight Templar and very much dedicated to the cause, wishes to retire. It's more than fair to say by the end of the Clone Wars, Dooku wasn't long from dropping dead from old age. Perhaps best shown by his confrontations with his masters at the start and end of the Clone Wars. Against Yoda just before the war begins, Dooku, while outclassed, more than holds his own and shows himself to be fair competition for Yoda both in the force and as a lightsaber duelist. But towards the end, Sidious is capable of choking Dooku out without resistance. This is most likely why Sidious decided he needed to go at the end, among other reasons.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In The Clone Wars, Dooku becomes more cruel, contemptuous and evil with less genuine hospitality than Attack of the Clones. He kills his loyal followers for disagreements, tries to have Ryloth bombed, and orders the genocide of Mahran. Similarly, he goes from polite in the way he speaks to just condescending.
• Tragic Villain: In spite of growing into a cruel, ruthless Sith Lord during the Clone Wars, Dooku's fall was teeming with tragedy. He set out to do good in the galaxy, only to find corruption and injustice at every corner, and the Jedi Order's seeming inability to enact real change disillusioned him until the death of his former Padawan, Qui-Gon, finally pushed him into the arms of Darth Sidious, who used and manipulated him for his own ends. Dooku was forced to turn on his second pupil, Asajj Ventress, and he ultimately died alone with no one on his side.
• Two Aliases, One Character: In Attack of the Clones, the audience is introduced to Count Dooku, ex-Jedi and political leader, and Jango Fett claims to have been hired for the clone trooper project by a man named Tyranus. It isn't until the end of the film that it's confirmed that the two are one and the same. In-universe, the Jedi remain unaware that Dooku is Tyranus until The Clone Wars.
• Undying Loyalty: He claims this towards Darth Sidious in "Nightsisters", and we're given no indication beforehand that he was anything but truthful. Sidious, however, demands proof of this loyalty and orders Dooku to eliminate Ventress, which, ironically, inspires Dooku to train his next apprentice Savage Opress to help him overthrow Sidious.
• The Un-Favourite:
  • As far as Sidious' apprentices are concerned, Tyranus was the only one Sidious did not truly value as a student or successor, but simply as a pawn to be discarded when the time came. Maul was taken in long before taking The Chosen One became an option, and was still seen as a Worthy Opponent of sorts after becoming a rival Sith Lord, while Sidious spent years meticulously seducing Vader to the Dark Side, and in the canon genuinely admitted to Vader that, in spite of his crippling, he is still everything Sidious hoped he would be. When discussing his previous apprentices with Vader, Sidious even comments that Maul was a lamentable loss, but Tyranus was little more than a "proton torpedo"; he fulfilled his purpose and was done away with. Somewhat of a Justified Trope, as Maul and Anakin both have more potential in the force than Sidious, while Dooku may or may not be, at best, comparable to Sidious, and at any rate had not fulfilled that potential despite being decades older than Palpatine (and also because, being decades older, Dooku was not a viable successor due to being likely to pre-decease Palpatine himself). Though they have a harder time defeating Obi-Wan than Dooku, Maul and Anakin are also still considered superior lightsaber duelists to Dooku.
  • Dooku was also this to his birth father, Count Gora of Serenno, when he was found to be Force-Sensitive. Gora immediately contacted the Jedi so they could take him away, but not before abandoning baby Dooku naked and alone in a dangerous forest. When Dooku returned years later as a Padawan, Gora treated him with just as much disgust and refuses to even acknowledge him as his son.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In the version of his plan that Palpatine sold Dooku on, Dooku was to use General Grievous as a scapegoat for the Separatist movement's atrocities so that the Count could still seize a position in Palpatine's new order. This in spite of Grievous possibly being Dooku's most loyal subordinate and saving his life from the Nightsisters during the war.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • He never realizes that he's merely being used by Darth Sidious to take all control of the galaxy for himself and to fill in for Anakin as his apprentice until it's too late.
  • According to the canonical reference book Star Wars in 100 Scenes, Sidious promised Dooku that he would come to his aid if he got into trouble. Then, Palpatine coldly tells Anakin to kill him, sparking the realization.
  • In later years, Palpatine admits to Vader that he only saw Dooku as a proton torpedo—a tool to be used, then disposed of.
• Uriah Gambit: He falls victim to one of Palpatine's early in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin comes to the kidnapped chancellor's rescue and kills Dooku at his insistence.
• Villain Cred: He respects Jango's abilities — he personally chose him as the template for the clone army — and displays a small token of mirth when the bounty hunter disposes of a Jedi master brandishing a lightsaber at him.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Once Yoda overpowers him at the end of Attack of the Clones, Dooku flees Geonosis with the Death Star plans.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Part of the reason why he lost and got killed by Anakin in their final fight is this. Throughout the Clone Wars, Anakin only got stronger and more skilled in lightsaber combat thanks to getting involved in several battles while Dooku only fought when he had to or was forced to, preferring to manipulate events behind the scenes and send out Ventress, Grievous, or Savage to do his dirty work instead of getting directly involved. As a result, Dooku's skills largely remained the same as they were in Attack of the Clones while Anakin's has massively improved, leading to Dooku getting absolutely demolished once Anakin taps into the Dark Side.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Count Dooku, through his career as a Jedi, did identify several real issues with both the Order and the Republic government they served (issues that would eventually spiral out of control). His defection, at least, is warranted for how much faith he had lost in his brethren. Joining up with an organization that specializes in spreading anger and hate (and a major source of this corruption too) and specifically with a man he knows full well is complicit in inciting a war to consolidate all the power in the galaxy is hardly the right solution.
  • Even to the last, he gives his archnemesis Anakin extremely sound advice foreshadowing the consequences of the latter's eventual turn to the Dark Side.
    Dooku: Twice the pride, double the fall.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: He sports a widows peak fitting for a scheming nobleman.
• Villain Reveals the Secret:
  • He has Obi-Wan imprisoned and tells him the truth: Darth Sidious is in control of the Republic. Not only does this not backfire, it actually helps the Sith. By telling the Jedi this, they start investigating Republic senators and Sidious latches on to this to create tension between the Jedi and Republic, ultimately allowing him to declare them traitors. If they did nothing, Sidious continues his plan unbothered so he wins either way.
  • In "Crisis at the Heart", Dooku is only too happy to tell Padmé that Clovis made a deal with him to get control of the Banking Clan. It doesn't backfire for similar reasons, and the fact Clovis dies and nobody will care because of what it looks like he did.
• Villain Takes an Interest: It's heavily implied that the main reason why he wants to Obi-Wan to join him so that they can kill Palpatine is partially because he wants Obi-Wan to become his new Sith apprentice once he usurps Palpatine's spot as the master in the Rule of Two.
• Villain Team-Up: In Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir, he forms an alliance with Maul and Talzin to bring down Sidious and the Jedi. Dooku, however, seems to be only drifting with the flow, since moments before he accepted the offer, he also set Grievous free, without Maul noticing anything.
• Villainous Breakdown: He briefly yet silently loses his composure right before Anakin chops off his head when he realizes that Darth Sidious wants him dead.
• Villainous Friendship: It's not explored in any depth, but Count Dooku does seem rather perturbed by the death of Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones.
• Villain Respect: Towards Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom he genuinely compliments for successfully thwarting his attempts to kidnap Palpatine twice and has a genuine fondness for to the point where he attempted to recruit him to the Dark Side many times.
• Villains Never Lie: He outright tells Obi-Wan the truth about the Republic being under Darth Sidious' control. Given his allegiance to the Sith, the Jedi are not inclined to believe him.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • He is seen in the eyes of many as a charismatic idealist crusading against the very real corruption endemic in the Republic, while the more overtly villainous Separatists are simply allies he's stuck with. Neither is wholly true; if anything, his idea to weed out corruption is to set up a sprawling dictatorship.
  • Even five years after the end of the Galactic Civil War, there are still old Separatist loyalists who see him as a champion of the people and remain ignorant to the fact that he was actually in bed with the same corrupt politicians he claimed to be opposing.
• Weak, but Skilled: Well, not that Dooku can be considered weak at all, but his Form II: Makashi fighting style is this, utilizing precise parries, fluid ripostes and light, accurate cuts to redirect and intercept an opponent's blows. Dooku is in fact the most finesse-oriented duelist among the lightsaber wielders in the Canon, beating out most other characters in terms of raw skill (Yoda, Windu^note Dooku and he were always considered to be roughly equal, and were the top contenders for the second most powerful member of the Jedi Order and Palpatine are implied to be the only duellists of greater skill), but at 83 years old, he has a disadvantage at physical strength, stamina and raw power. This is why he was able to pick open Obi-Wan's Stone Wall defense, but ultimately loses to Anakin's relentless offense. However, this is somewhat Deconstructed along with Maul in the grand scheme of things. Dooku, along with Maul, has the martial skill to actually hold his own against Sidious (or in Dooku's case, his only peers at the start of the Clone Wars, Yoda and Mace Windu), but neither has the force power necessary to fend off his telekinetic power as Vader^note himself hampered by mental trauma and his cybernetics being weak against force lightning and Yoda do, to the point he doesn't seem able to resist Sidious' force choke from lightyears away.
• We Can Rule Together: He offers this to Obi-Wan while revealing the truth about Darth Sidious to him in Attack of the Clones, claiming they can join forces. Prior to this, Dooku also asked his first apprentice Rael Averross to leave the Jedi Order and join him, knowing that Rael had never fit in well amongst the Jedi, but was turned down.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He left the Jedi Order because he believed that the Order is becoming nothing but glorified Space Police in the service of a corrupt, apathetic and ineffectual government, and as a Sith, the only real thing he craved is the power to effect real changes in the galaxy.
• Wicked Cultured: He is a ruthless and fairly villainous gentleman, but a gentleman nonetheless.
• With My Hands Tied: A variant. He never limits himself physically just to show of, but his lightsaber style deliberately keeps his left arm behind his back most of the time, unless he's using the Force. As a fencer, he generally doesn't need it.
• The Worf Effect:
  • His death early on in Revenge of the Sith showed how powerful Anakin had gotten (and further cement the latter's eventual transformation into Darth Vader) the meantime after being defeated by Dooku in Attack of the Clones and occasionally The Clone Wars.
  • Defied during Asajj's first assassination attempt on Dooku. She overwhelmingly has the advantage, having stealth, two other nightsisters, and managed to poison and blind Dooku, whose fighting style is mainly for one-on-one fighting. He manages to best all three of them in the end.
  • Asajj's second attempt goes no better. Dooku is able to subdue both Ventress and Savage, and once Savage turns against them both and escapes, Dooku disarms Ventress in less than a minute.
• World's Best Warrior: Downplayed compared to some other examples in the verse, and he isn't the World's Strongest Man (and among Sidious' apprentices, he is the weakest in terms of potential despite being the best student of his generation), but he is in the running for characters the next level down, and is easily one of the best force users in either faction in terms of martial prowess or skill with the force. He doesn't quite measure up to the likes of Yoda, Anakin or Palpatine in terms of raw force power, but he isn't far off and he is a match for the best in terms of raw skill. He is also considered to be the best user of the fencing lightsaber form (Makashi) in the Order's history.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • He considers Obi-Wan to be this; Dooku even genuinely compliments him after Obi-Wan successfully foiled his attempt to kidnap Palpatine twice in one day.
  • Despite his boasting, it's clear he sees Yoda as this, as he still has some respect for his master if saluting him before they duel is any indication. Yoda actually reciprocates, complimenting him for holding his own during the duel.
  • This is subverted with Anakin, whom he frequently snubs as an unworthy opponent and a terrible Jedi due to his recklessness and short temper. This comes back to bite him though, as Anakin eventually grows powerful enough to kill him in combat.
• Would Hit a Girl: He personally killed Queen Miraj Scintel and Asajj Ventress.
• Would Hurt a Child: He tried to kill Rotta the Huttlet and is more than willing to sentence women and children to work camps beside. He was also willing to massacre a convoy of refugees that included children. As far as he's concerned, there are no innocents in war.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • He says that to Ventress when he has her killed, but in truth he did so because of Sidious's orders, albeit reluctantly.
  • In a more played straight example, He tortures Savage Opress with force lighting when he screwed up his mission to bring in the Toydarian King alive.
  • He does this to Death Watch after they fail to get rid of Satine. Death Watch survived, but now they're independent.
  • In an alternative death scene for Osi Sobeck, Dooku inflicts this on him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine orders Anakin to kill him after beating him in a duel.
  • In "The Box", Count Dooku himself does this to Moralo Eval when his testing course for the bounty hunters is easily outwitted. Fortunately for Eval, he does this by forcing him to fight Rako Hardeen to the death. Since Hardeen is Obi-Wan in disguise, he spares Eval. As such, Eval just gets replaced as team leader by Cad Bane.
  • Dooku murders Rish Loo after the Gungan lures Anakin to his laboratory.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: Despite being his Sith apprentice, he's actually eighteen years older than Palpatine. This would later factor in Palpatine's decision to replace him with Anakin as a Sith apprentice, as Dooku's advanced age meant that he doesn't have long to live and is only getting weaker which makes him unsuitable as an heir while Anakin's youth and increasing strength makes him a more suitable heir than Dooku.
• You Will Be Spared: After his forces have cornered the survivors of Mace Windu's Jedi rescue team in the Geonosis, Dooku offers to spare the survivors if Windu surrenders. Once Mace bluntly refuses, Dooku prepares to have the survivors executed en masse.

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"You have hate. You have anger. But you don't use them."