Literature / Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

aka: Dark Rendezvous

"Tomorrow, go you must, into the darkness between the stars. But home always will this place be. If ever lost you are, look back into this garden. A candle will I light, for you to find your way home."

— Yoda, to young Dooku

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous is a Star Wars Legends novel by Sean Stewart. Thirty months after the Battle of Geonosis, Count Dooku sends a message to Master Yoda, claiming to be tired of a war that has spun out of control and caused untold devastation to the galaxy. Dooku offers to meet with Yoda in person to negotiate an end to the conflict, and despite the likelihood of treachery, Yoda decides that the possibility of ending the war and redeeming his former apprentice is worth the risk.

The book delves into the complex relationship between Dooku and Yoda, as well as some of the philosophical differences between the Force and its dark side. There's also a related B-plot that involves two young Jedi apprentices named Scout and Whie Malreaux, both of whom have their own struggles to deal with even as they and their Masters are assigned to join Yoda's titular dark rendezvous with Dooku on the planet Vjun.

Also, despite the title, there are a number of light-hearted and humorous scenes in the book involving "goofball Yoda," which harken back to the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker first meets Yoda.

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Yoda: Dark Rendezvous provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: A standout is Scout and Whie's discussion of his two recent prophetic dreams while they're fixing the ship, and whether (as Whie believes) they indicate that he will fall to the dark side.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Jai Maruk has a pretty good Yoda impression, which he unconsciously slips into while in a meeting with Yoda. Yoda snorts, but in an amused fashion.
• The Alleged Car: After Ventress attacks a spaceport to get to them, Yoda's party buys a used freighter rather than continue to rely on public transportation. Yoda insists on using as little of the Temple's money as possible, and they end up with a piece of junk so old it can't even get off the ground until the Padawans spend a whole day repairing it.
• All There in the Manual: Supplementary material divulges that Scout is close friends with Ahsoka Tano, Hanna is actually terrified that she will die on the battlefield and lashes out at Scout in an attempt to cover for it, and Whie is actually the young boy that Anakin is seen killing in the holo recording during Revenge of the Sith.
• Animal Motif: Being a small, green creature with stumpy limbs, Yoda is sometimes equated to a swamp toad in a nod to his later time spent on Dagobah. But another comparison that is drawn a few times later in the novel is that he is a dragon. He is, after all, an ancient, powerful, and inhuman creature who only seems goofy and friendly partly because he wants to be.
  The green eyes narrowed to gleaming slits under heavy lids. Dragon eyes, old and terrible.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Surprisingly, perhaps, Yoda expresses this philosophy in response to Whie's angst over Ventress's nihilism. Yoda admits that in his darkest moments he doubts that the Force has a greater hope for the galaxy, but then, what difference does that make? One must live life to the fullest anyway.
  Yoda: Grief in the galaxy, is there? Oh, yes. Oceans of it. Worlds. And darkness? [points to a star map] There you see: darkness, darkness everywhere, and a few stars. A few points of light. If no plan there is, no fate, no destiny, no providence, no Force: then what is left? Nothing but our choices, hmm?
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Ventress asks one to Dooku about his relationship with Sidious. Despite his charisma, Dooku can't come up with any response, and changes the subject.
    Ventress: Fine, fine, take your shots. You're just buying time now, because I'm right. Ask yourself one question—ask it from the dark side, look at it clear-eyed, Count. Your master uses you now because he is beset by dangers. What happens when you are the most dangerous being left standing?
  • Yoda also has one for Dooku, regarding himself and Sidious, which Dooku again is unable to answer:
    Yoda: Which of us loves you better?
• Ask a Stupid Question...: When Yoda accurately states Scout is crying after being named a Padawan due to the sudden relief of years of tension thinking she wouldn't make the cut, Scout asks how he knows that.
  Yoda: Secret, shall I tell you? [leans in close] Grand Master of the Jedi Order am I! Won this job in a raffle I did, think you? How did you know, how did you know, Master Yoda? [snorts] Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is.
• Badass Boast: Yoda gets a couple. He tells Dooku that not killing him when he had a chance was a mistake.
  Yoda: Eight hundred years has Yoda survived, through dangers you could not dream.
  Dooku: I know how to kill!
  Yoda: Yes, but Yoda knows how to live!
• Bad Boss: Darth Sidious embodies this trope, in a spectacular combination of Mean Boss, Manipulative Bastard, and For the Evulz, as he plays cruel mind games with Dooku throughout the novel:
  “Ridiculous?” his Master had said, in that soft, terrible voice of his. “I hardly think so.” And then, his voice like honeyed poison, “A good student always loves his teacher.”
  There was always a risk, talking with Sidious. Sometimes the conversation would go badly, and Dooku would fail to please somehow. It was a terrible thing, failing to please his Master.
• Batman Gambit:
  • The book's premise is this. Dooku and Sidious rely on Yoda's enduring affection for Dooku and earnest desire to end the Clone Wars to orchestrate the rendezvous on Vjun with the goal of corrupting or killing the Jedi Master.
  • It's also implied that Palpatine pushing Mace Windu to send Anakin to Vjun is really Sidious pulling this on Dooku—he knows Yoda has a fair chance of redeeming Dooku, so he sends Anakin (whom the Count is jealous of) to spoil the process. It works.
  • Yoda haggles to buy a ship at an excellent price, with a number of excellent qualities. The one thing it doesn't do is fly, requiring the Padawans to fix it up. This gives them heavy manual labor to do, which will in turn wear them out enough that they'll have something to focus on other than losing their Masters, and when they go to sleep they'll be tired enough to crash without dreaming.
• Being Evil Sucks:
  • A running theme throughout the novel. Despite Dooku's political influence, extraordinary wealth, prodigious skill, and extraordinary Force power... he's a perpetually miserable pawn in his Master's schemes. As he himself muses:
    He imagined Yoda tumbling through the air, bloody and insensible, dashing his brains out on the flagstones far below. Then it would all be mercifully over and Dooku wouldn’t have to feel this strange, jumbled confusion. His hands would stop shaking and he would be dry inside and tight: dry and tight and empty as a drum, just a drum for Darth Sidious to play. How easy that would be.
  • Similarly, despite how powerful and deadly Ventress is, she in turn is nothing more than just a useful tool for Dooku. And deep down, she knows it.
    Ventress: [Sidious is] going to use you up, Count. He’ll drain the blood from you and throw you aside. He’ll pick someone younger, weaker, easier to influence.
    Dooku: Someone like you?
    Ventress: I wish. No, when you go, I’ll be swept aside. I’m just one of your creatures to him. Maybe to you, too. Loyalty runs stronger up than it does down, in case you hadn’t noticed.
  • Despite all the might of the Dark Side, it still can't create anything beautiful.
    Yoda: I want... I want a rose.
    Dooku: Be serious.
    Yoda: Serious am I! Another rose, make for me!
    Dooku: The dark side springs from the heart. It isn't a handbook for cheap conjuror's tricks.
    Yoda: But like this trick, do I! The trick that brings the flower from the ground. The trick that sets the sun on fire.
  • The Badass Boast duel they have later really sums it up:
    Dooku: I know how to kill!
    Yoda: Yes, but Yoda knows how to live!
• Believing Their Own Lies: Dooku lures Yoda into a trap with the bait of pretending to be willing to return to the Light. Yoda goes anyway because, in the words of Qui-Gon's spirit, Dooku "thinks he is lying."
• Benevolent Boss: When Ventress sourly notes that loyalty runs stronger up than down, Dooku muses Yoda is probably the exception to the rule and cares about his students more than they do him. Throughout the novel, Yoda is shown to care deeply about his Jedi, knows them well, and even if he doesn't show it he grieves deeply at each of them lost. About the only mark against him is his sheer status as Grand Master, Scout noting that as kind and non-judgemental as Yoda is, there are still concerns a Padawan doesn't feel comfortable bringing up to the man who can make or break them as a Jedi.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Yoda is funny, and silly, and eccentric, and has very strange taste in food...but he's also a master of the Force and the lightsaber, and you really don't want to invoke his wrath.
• Big Bad: Darth Sidious, natch.
• Bilingual Bonus: Chateau Malreaux. Also a name to run away from, since "Malreaux" is only a few letters away from "malheureux", which is French for "unhappiness".
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • On the one hand: Dooku's plot to corrupt or kill Yoda fails at the last moment, Whie overcomes his deepest anxieties, Scout is recognized as a proper Jedi, and Padmé is briefly reunited with Anakin on Coruscant.
  • On the other hand: Yoda's effort to redeem or kill Dooku fails at the last moment, Jedi Masters Max Leem and Jai Maruk are killed in action, and the Clone Wars continue per the design of Darth Sidious.
• Bookends: The novel opens on a symbolically rich Coruscanti sunset, while Padmé watches a ship land at the Jedi Temple, disappointed that it's not Anakin's. The last passage is dawn on Coruscant, as Padmé finally sees Anakin's ship returning home.
• Born Winner:
  • Whie Malreaux is said to be just one step below Anakin Skywalker in terms of potential, but carries it better—pays more attention to detail, doesn't show as much pride or temper.
  • Deconstructed with Dooku himself. Born to considerable privilege and wealth, he was abandoned by his parents to the ascetic life of a Jedi. Once considered the Jedi's greatest student, he has become one of its greatest threats. Despite exceptional power, skill, and influence, he's become an insecure, lonely, petty old man plagued with doubt.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • The debate between Maruk and Leem about whether to train Scout as a Jedi. Maruk holds that Scout doesn't have what it takes and they have a duty to her not to let her try, their work is dangerous and indulging her desire to take part in it when she's unfit will only get her killed. Leem argues that Scout has clearly given her all to become a Jedi and they have a duty to respond in kind, giving their all to help her succeed. Yoda takes a middle ground, agreeing to let her become a Padawan if she finishes in the top half of the tournament's final round, despite having already surpassed more than half the contestants in the tournament to get this far, because she really doesn't have the talent and needs to prove she can triumph over adversity.
  • The argument between Scout and Hanna about Scout's tactics in the tournament. Scout actually agrees with Hanna that she used unfair strategies to win and it wasn't very Jedi-like of her. Pax, someone Scout beat through a I Surrender, Suckers gambit, claims being a Jedi is about being clever, resourceful, and determined and by that metric Scout showed him a thing or two about being a Jedi.
• Breaking Speech: Yoda and Count Dooku get dueling speeches that also serve as each other's Shut Up, Hannibal!.
• Call-Forward: Common in Prequel-era books.
  • Obi-Wan knows Anakin has someone back on Coruscant and covers for him, though he knows Anakin won't thank him for it later.
  • Dooku's housekeeper Whirry offhandedly foresees Dooku's demise as "death from a high place" and "the easy destruction of a faithful servant," which is mentioned again by Ventress when she tells the Count that Sidious will kill him when he's not useful anymore.
  • Master Maruk, saddled with Scout as a Padawan, thinks that she's incredibly brave and determined but will probably be dead in six months—the book is set exactly six months before Revenge of the Sith. (Ironically, Scout does survive Order 66, getting rescued by the Mandalorians in Imperial Commando: 501st.)
  • In a conversation with Maks Leem, Yoda half-jokingly suggests moving the Jedi Temple off Coruscant, to "Somewhere wet. Somewhere wild," with fewer machines and artificial structures. In about six months, Yoda will go into exile and spend the rest of his days in one such place (Dagobah), and later, Luke Skywalker will establish a new Jedi Academy in another (Yavin 4).
  • The ecological disaster on Honoghr was introduced in The Thrawn Trilogy, and while it was established that the original incident was during the Clone Wars, and that the Empire uses the disaster to manipulate the native Proud Warrior Race, whether it was deliberate or an accident is not known. In this book, the Jedi decry the Separatists' devastation of the world, which is mentioned offhand by Dooku to be quite deliberate—a test run by General Grievous of a bioweapon he wants to use in the Outer Rim campaigns.
• Cassandra Truth: Both Whirry and Ventress warn Dooku that Sidious is eventually going to screw him over.
• Choke Holds: The Weak, but Skilled Padawan Scout has a particular move where she can grab someone's throat, cut off the blood flow, and render them unconscious in seconds without permanently damaging them. She uses it in Padawan tournaments to great effect.
• Colon Cancer: The book's full title is Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, plus the subtitle "A Clone Wars Novel" on its cover and title page, but not the copyright page.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Scout. Her less-than-average sensitivity to the Force has led her to learn, research, and utilize every dirty trick she can in order to keep up with her classmates.
  • Dooku himself is this when pressed. 99 times out of 100, the Count outclasses any opponent with respect to raw power and skill. But on the 100th occasion, when he's up against Yoda, Dooku's willing to fight dirty.
• Complexity Addiction: Dooku thinks Sidious suffers from this, musing that it would be simpler to just allow the Separatists' droid army to win the Clone Wars outright rather than go through so many covert manipulations.
• Cool Old Guy: Not only is Yoda as wise as ever, he allows himself to be more eccentric and fun-loving than usual.
• Death World: Vjun, which is steeped in The Dark Side thanks to an atrocity that killed everyone on the planet and rendered most of it otherwise uninhabitable anyway.
• Determinator: Scout is weak in the Force, but refuses to fail. She's kind of the Jedi equivalent of Batman—Scout makes up for her weak, unreliable powers by training harder than anyone else, at everything, and by the time the tournament comes around she's studied all of the other Padawans and made plans for how to take them down. She's spent time burning herself with her own lightsaber in order to get used to the pain.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Whie lashes out at Yoda in grief after Maks Leem's death, accusing him of not caring since he's seen so many Jedi come and go. Yoda sets him straight—he cares just as much as Whie does, multiplied by every Jedi he's lost over the centuries, and carries on anyway.
  "Teach me about pain, think you can?" Yoda said softly. "Think the old Master cannot care, mmm? Forgotten who I am, have you? Old, I am, yes. Mm. Loved more than you, have I, Padawan. Lost more. Hated more. Killed more." The green eyes narrowed to gleaming slits under heavy lids. Dragon eyes, old and terrible. "Think wisdom comes at no cost? The dark side, yes—it is easier for them. The pain grows too great, and they eat the darkness to flee from it. Not Yoda. Yoda loves and suffers for it, loves and suffers."
• Doomed by Canon: The audience knows Dooku is never going to turn back to the Light. He comes close, though.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: Yoda does, every chance he can get. It's very hard to get the better of a Jedi Master of Yoda's caliber, and he quite enjoys this fact. In this case, he gets a fantastic bargain on a used freighter—because it doesn't fly anymore. But that's okay, Scout and Whie can fix it up in no time!
  Yoda was a gleeful, cranky, relentless bargainer who thought haggling was fun. So much of bargaining is about patience, and bazaar-stand shysters on a hundred planets had learned to their sorrow that one doesn't know what patience is until one has tried to outlast an eight-hundred-plus-year-old Jedi skinflint.
• The Dragon: Dooku to Sidious, Ventress to Dooku.
• The Dreaded:
  • Sidious to Dooku, Ventress to the Jedi Order at large—especially the Padawans.
  • Yoda briefly supplants Sidious as this to Dooku at the end of the book, when the good Count experiences a Force vision of what Yoda might become if he fell to the dark side.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: A special Force talent of Whie Malreaux. The dreams are described as terrifying—while he's dreaming, he's stuck in his future-self's head, and says it's like being buried alive in his own body. Sometimes the panic is strong enough to wake him up.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Whirry Malreaux, which doesn't help her madness at all.
• Eccentric Mentor: Yoda seldom shows off the lighter side of his personality in other Legends works, but here, the "kooky little green gnome" persona from The Empire Strikes Back isn't an act, but truly how he behaves when he can afford to be less than serious. He teases other Jedi, fights a cafeteria droid who tries to take away his "inedible" food, steals some kid's soda, speaks in the third person, and haggles gleefully over a ship that can't fly. Consider this bit of wisdom, which Yoda delivers as only he can:
  "A band around her heart there has been, years on years. And now she feels it loose, and the blood running back into her heart: stings it does!"
  "Yes!" Scout cried between sniffles. "Yes, exactly! ... How did you know?"
  Yoda scrambled up onto the bed and sat beside her, letting his little legs dangle in space. His ears perked. "Secret, shall I tell you?" He leaned in close, so she could feel his whiskers rasping against her face. "Grand Master of Jedi Order am I!" he said loudly right in her ear. "Won this job in a raffle I did, think you?" He snuffled and waved his stubby fingers in the air. "How did you know, how did you know, Master Yoda?" he said mincingly, followed by another snort. "Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is."
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Count gets hit with many of these throughout the book:
  • In his introductory scene, Dooku wistfully euologizes Jedi Master Jang Li-Li, an old friend and Ventress's most recent victim, after disapprovingly remarking on his disciple's callousness and cavalier attitude.
  • Shortly after, Sidious orders Dooku to string along envoys from the planet Troxar who seek reinforcements for their desperate war of attrition against Republic invaders. When a disgusted Dooku silently muses "how casually we betray our creatures," an eerily aware Sidious asks Dooku if he's having an attack of conscience.
  • Dooku gets a glimpse of what would happen if Yoda ever fell to the Dark Side: a Sith of such immense power and so corrupt and evil that Sidious himself would be annihilated before him. He doesn't like what he saw.
  • Ventress is not an indiscriminate murderer. She kills Jedi on principle, and will kill anyone Dooku commands her to, but she spares the actor impersonating Yoda because he's neither her target nor a threat.
• Eviler than Thou: Dooku realizes he was a fool for trying to turn Yoda to the Dark Side for this exact reason: if Yoda ever fell to the Dark Side, he concludes that Darth Sidious himself would be nothing in comparison to a Yoda "gone rotten."
• Flaw Exploitation: A good part of how Scout wins.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Ventress' Armor-Piercing Question is going to come back to haunt Dooku in a major way in six months' time, not to mention Whie's "I'm so glad you're not here to kill me!" statement to Anakin.
  • It's mentioned early in the book that between the Jedi's losses and their deployment to countless battlefronts, the Temple is practically empty at this point in the Clone Wars. With so few defenders on site, the Jedi Temple is unprepared for a major assault, which of course will come in 6 months.
  • In his message exetending the invitation to Yoda, Dooku warns him that the Jedi are betrayed more profoundly than they realize. He's of course talking about Palpatine being Sidious.
• Good Feels Good: More subtle than the Being Evil Sucks theme, but it's certainly there. Jai Maruk chooses to stay in the Light as he dies rather than give into despair, and dies smiling. By the end of the book, Scout and Whie, despite everything they've been through, are content because they've chosen to stay on the Jedi Path. And Yoda, despite all of his losses, is still able to smile and laugh.
• Graceful Loser: Pax, the young apprentice Scout beats in the first round of the tournament using trickery ^note  the rules stated that fighting will continue until one person is hit three times with a training saber or until one forfeits, Scout deactivated her saber and held her hand out to shake his but never actually stated she was forfeiting . He holds no grudge against her for it and even when another apprentice speaks up saying Scout should be disqualified he quickly defends her actions saying it's his fault for forgetting the rules and she won fairly. After Scout wins the tournament he cheers for her and tells her how much she taught him about being a great Jedi.
• Grand Finale: For the literary side of the Clone Wars multimedia campaign—while Labyrinth of Evil would follow Dark Rendezvous's release, it's technically classified as an Episode III prelude rather than another Clone Wars novel.
• The Greatest Story Never Told:
  Nobody would ever know how close Jai had come to giving in to the dark side. Nobody but Maks would ever know he had resisted at the end. In a few minutes they would both be dead, and to the universe, his choice would make no difference at all.
  To Jai Maruk, it meant everything.
  For the next thirty seconds he fought more beautifully than he had in his life, and when Asajj finally cut him down, he was smiling.
• Guns Akimbo: When Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive at Vjun, the former leaps out of their ship and attacks a squad of battle droids in this way. Considering that he has a lightsaber, this is a rather odd thing for him to do. Perhaps he's just showing off.
• The Heavy: Asajj Ventress, on Count Dooku's behalf.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Dooku seriously contemplates turning back to the Light and Yoda makes a serious effort to convince him to do so. He wavers, but ultimately doesn't, because he finds out Anakin and Obi-Wan have arrived on Vjun and immediately thinks Yoda's ploy is a trap to get him killed.
• Horrifying the Horror: Count Dooku is an exceptional person on a galactic scale: extraordinarily charismatic, influential, wealthy; a master swordsman and one of the most powerful Force users alive. He awes or terrifies almost everybody he encounters. And yet even he's utterly horrified when he's treated to a vision of what would happen if Yoda fell to the dark side.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Vjun seems to specialize in these. The Chateau Malreaux, built across the Bay of Tears from the city of Bitter End, right next to the mouth of the River Weeping? Best vacation spot EVER! The Chateau's own cellar is known as the Crying Room, for some reason.
• I Know You Know I Know: The premise of the novel. Dooku has set a trap for Yoda under the pretense that he wants to return to the Light Side, or is at least willing to negotiate. Yoda knows it's a trap but goes in the hope that he can turn him anyway, since as Qui-Gon puts it, "He thinks he is lying," but really does sort of regret becoming an evil Sith Lord. Of course, Dooku knows that Yoda will know it's a trap and knows that Yoda is only coming because he wants to turn him, and in turn Dooku wants to turn Yoda to the Dark Side and possibly justify himself to his old master, since he secretly sort-of knows that he really does want to turn back to the good guys...
• Innocently Insensitive: When Yoda laments he was "so close" to winning Dooku over back to the Light, Anakin sympathizes with Yoda's frustration, thinking he is saying he was almost able to kill Dooku. As it was, inadvertently, Anakin's fault Yoda's attempt at getting through to Dooku failed, the comment prompts a rare look of genuine anger from Yoda.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Scout sort of pulls this to win a match in an apprentice competition, dropping her lightsaber and bowing to her opponent, then grabbing him when he goes to shake her hand. "Sort of" because she doesn't give the actual surrender signal, which would of course automatically end the match. Her opponent, being a friend and a gracious (and slightly naieve) type, takes this as a useful lesson in paying attention.
• Jedi Mind Trick: The novel twice shows us the perspective of the tricked.
  • In her first round of the apprentice tournament, Scout is up against a boy who's hard to fight because he's just so likable. Before the match starts, she gets the idea that she could throw the fight, stop worrying about the tournament, and share in the enjoyment of her foe's victory. It seems like such a good notion that she almost goes through with it, until (it is implied) Yoda breaks his hold over her. He didn't mean to influence her; he just radiates likability in the Force. Scout gets him back with the I Surrender, Suckers trick. A Continuity Nod is given to the Trope Namer from A New Hope.
    Scout: [laughs and waves her hand] This is not the victory you were seeking.
  • Played for Laughs when Yoda goes out looking for food on a starliner, disguised as an R2 unit.
    Donni gulped as the top of the little R2 swiveled around and locked onto his eyes. A queer, almost glassy feeling came over him, and then, as if by magic, two ideas popped vividly into his head, one after another. The first was that actually, when you got right down to it, Chuck was kind of a creep, and it would serve him right if some R2 unit stole his drink. The second was: What drink?
  • Sinisterly played with when Dooku meets with diplomatic envoys from the Separatist-aligned planet Troxar. Sidious has ordered Dooku to persuade Troxar to continue resisting Republic invaders in order to "chew up resources" from both sides. But instead of mind-tricking them, Dooku prompts the diplomats with mere rhetoric and then once they've naturally arrived at the desired conclusion, he nudges them with the Force.
    Count Dooku’s meeting with the Troxan delegation went well. He made a cold kind of game of it, trying to see how little he could say, letting them do all the lying for him. “There are new battle droids in production,” he had remarked. That was all it took; they did the rest. [...] Each of these fine hopes he reinforced with a smile and pushed into their minds with the Force, like a seal pressed into warm wax, so it felt like certainty.
• Jerkass: Darth Sidious, more than usual. Jai Maruk, Mace Windu, and Padawan Hanna to a lesser extent.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Scout's friends view Hanna as a Sore Loser for claiming Scout didn't really win any of her matches. But Hanna's point is not without merit, as Scout abused the rules and circumstances of these being friendly sparring matches and in particular only won each of the three rounds by exploiting her opponents not wanting to hurt her. ^note In the first round, she pretended to surrender to get the drop on Pax. In the second, Hanna herself had Scout at her mercy and gave her a chance to surrender rather than beat on her defenseless body, an opening Scout exploited. In the third, Scout broke free of Whie's hold by twisting in a way that would have seriously injured herself if he just hung on. Whie intentionally lets go to spare her the injury, which leads to his defeat. When Lena argues Scout won fair and square, Scout herself admits she won, but it wasn't exactly fair.
• Last-Second Chance: For Dooku to perform a Heel–Face Turn.
• Manipulative Bastard: Dooku, Ventress, Scout, and Sidious all have their moments.
  • Dooku exploits both Yoda's eagerness to end the war and their personal history to lure him to Vjun.
  • Ventress exploits Whie's affection for Scout and Fidelis during their confrontation.
  • In her sparring battles with Pax, Hanna, and Whie, Scout exploits their kindness (and Hanna and Whie's lack of sadism) to win the contest.
  • Sidious exploits Dooku's jealousy of Anakin by sending Anakin to support Yoda, ensuring that Dooku will be too angry to return to the Jedi.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • This novel gets silly at times. And then Ventress and her assassin droids storm in and start killing people to get at our main cast.
  • Yoda and Fidelis's feast for the Padawans swings between appreciation of the food, a somber toast To Absent Friends Maks Leem and Jai Maruk, Whie and Scout shouting at each other over the loss, fear of Yoda when he demonstrates his power after Whie shouts at him, and Whie falling into despair, only for Yoda to shake him out of it by laying out his views as The Anti-Nihilist. All in the course of four pages.
  • Yoda and Dooku's conversation goes from levity to despair over two pages, then becomes genuinely frightening. Yoda is merrily stringing Dooku along, asking for the dark side to grant him things that sound ridiculous on the face of it. Dooku exhorts him to wish for something else, such as to be safe and free from fear, and suddenly Yoda is bitterly recounting all that he has loved and lost, knowing he will never be safe from loss like that. When Dooku encourages him to be angry about it, then, Yoda uses lighting and his voice and a touch of the Force to grant Dooku a vision of just what would happen if he did fall to the dark.
• Mundane Utility: Yoda, fed up with how long the Padawans are taking to get lunch, uses a Jedi Mind Trick to swipe a soft drink from a kid (it's okay, 'cause the guy's kind of a jerk). However, he refuses to do the same while haggling over the cost of a used starship, a far more important task, saying it would disrespect the Force and his opponent. The Padawans suspect that the real reason is that Yoda thinks haggling is fun, and doesn't want to ruin the experience by cheating.
  • When Whie in a fit of grief after the death of Maks Leem tries to sweep the feast Yoda and Fidelis set up to the ground, Yoda keeps the food from falling and sets it back on the table.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Scout is a Rare Female Example; to compensate for being weaker in the Force, she has developed as much muscle mass as a slim-built girl of fourteen can have in order to gain as much of an edge as possible in close quarters combat.
• Nice Guy: Pax Chizzik is described as such with Scout saying "Everyone liked Pax". However, even though he's extremely charming and friendly, he also doesn't seem to fully control his powers yet and subconsciously uses the Force to make people like him.^note He almost unintentionally made Scout want to lose against him using this power until it's implied Yoda subtlety broke the connection.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Thanks to nudging from Palpatine, Anakin and Obi-Wan go to try and help Yoda. Count Dooku learns of this while in the middle of deciding which Master he should ultimately follow, knowing that Sidious will discard him eventually and Yoda will forgive. When he finds out, paranoia about them attacking him and his jealousy of the young prodigy and of the attention both Yoda and Sidious give Anakin is sufficient to prevent Dooku from completing a Heel–Face Turn; he and Yoda stop debating and start fighting. Of course, Palpatine is Sidious, so this isn't a straight example, not so much because the Big Bad instigated it as because Dooku might have deduced who really sent them (then or later) and knew that Sidious was reminding him just how tight the leash is.
  • Anakin, facing droids that have cover and a superior position, tosses a grenade into their cave without considering who else might be inside. He ends up collapsing most of the cave system, nearly killing Scout and Whie, and unknowingly driving them into Ventress's clutches that much more quickly.
• No More for Me: Yoda, disguised inside a droid chassis, uses the Force to telekinetically seal a security droid inside a bathroom stall after failing to evade pursuit by said droid. This strange sight is witnessed by a heavily intoxicated onlooker, who promptly pours the remainder of his drink down the drain.
• Noodle Implements: An AI operating a security camera on the low-end commercial transport the Jedi are using is dim enough to be little more than a glorified smoke detector, and ignores any suspicious activity not involving a fire risk, including "several spectacular thefts and one rather amusing con game featuring a fish, a diamond, and two deaf-mutes."
• Nostalgia Filter: Maks Leem, a Gran Jedi who goes with Yoda, doesn't like how the Jedi seem to be moving away from being peacekeepers and towards being soldiers. She often waxes nostalgic about how the students used to have time for gardening, hand-mending their robes, and games; now they have to spend all that time on hand-to-hand combat, small-unit tactical training, and military infiltration exercises.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In a rare moment of candor, Dooku suggests to Yoda that this may be the reason he dislikes Anakin.
• Odd Friendship: For a while, the 900-year-old Grand Master of the Jedi and a droid Footman of the Malreaux line.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Dooku, when he gets just a glimpse of what it might be like if Yoda ever went to the dark side.
  • Anakin, when the whole cave system begins to collapse because of the grenade he had thrown.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Scout" whose full name is Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy is called by her nickname by almost everyone even Mace Windu and the other council members. Jai Maruk specifically tries to avert this by forcing himself to refer to her as "Padawan Enwandung-Esterhazy" because he doesn't want to form an emotional attachment by using nicknames.
• Overly Long Name: Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy. No wonder people call her Scout.
• Place of Power: Vjun's population had always had a high percentage of Force-sensitives, and then the Viscount Malreaux conducted an experiment to unlock Force potential in the rest. It went horribly right; those who weren't killed outright went mad and murdered each other. Vjun is now steeped in the dark side, one of the reasons Dooku chooses it as a retreat. All Jedi visitors, even the Weak, but Skilled Scout, have their powers amplified on Vjun, and those who are already strong and prone to the lure of the dark, such as Whie and Anakin Skywalker, find themselves capable of amazing feats.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Scout, to Jai Maruk, when he falls in battle just after they'd finally connected as Master and Padawan.
  He was smiling. She didn't think she'd ever seen him smile before. Tears welled up inside Scout. "Don't try to talk. It will be all right, Master. Master Yoda will be here soon to take care of you." Tears dropped from her eyes onto his shattered chest. There was a long hitch in his breathing. His eyes closed. "Master Maruk? Master Maruk! Don't go," Scout cried. "Don't leave me!"
  His eyes opened, and he smiled again. "Never...," he whispered. "... my Padawan."
  His eyes closed, and he was gone.
• Pressure Point: Another specialty of Scout's in Padawan tournaments. An apprentice's lightsaber doesn't do him much good if his arm is too numb to hold it.
• Prophecies Are Always Right: Whie's dreams of the future may be confusing or lacking in detail, but they invariably come true sooner or later.
• Prophecy Twist: Whie knows he'll be killed by a Jedi, and that he'll be surprised. He thinks this means that he'll go to the Dark Side and someone he knows will kill him. In actuality, he gets killed by Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker in the Jedi Temple, as witnessed after the fact by Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith.
• Refuge in Audacity: Invoked by Scout, who makes up for her lack of strength in the Force by doing things her opponents don't expect, such as dodging behind the tournament announcer or grabbing her opponent's (training) lightsaber by the blade.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • Dooku sets one up for Yoda as his escape plan, in the same way he did during their duel in Attack of the Clones but on a larger scale—he launches a missile at his own castle, and gives Yoda the choice of killing him and allowing the missile to hit, or saving the other Jedi while Dooku escapes. Yoda is briefly tempted to choose the former, but in the end easily nudges the missile off course while Dooku makes his getaway.
  • Several minutes earlier, he uses a similar tactic, throwing Whirry out of the window and making Yoda divert his attention to saving her, while Dooku attacks him. Seems to be his trademark tactic when confronting Yoda.
    • As Qui-Gon notes, Dooku is a fencer. Leverage and tactical advantage are second nature to him.
• Sarcasm Mode: Being in an almost constant state of this is the Phindian species' hat. Even the synthesized voice reading out security announcements over the speakers at Phindar Spaceport gets in on it: "If you want your droids seized and searched by all means let them wander around unaccompanied."
  Major Quecks: I love your sense of humor. Those of us in security love jokes about blaster cannons from juvenile aliens traveling with dangerous droids. It's our favorite thing in the world.
• Shout-Out:
  • The character of Evan Chan is a reference to a murder victim in the Alternate Reality Game The Beast (used to promote the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), for which Stewart was the head writer.
  • Dooku says that the Force isn't a "handbook for cheap conjuror's tricks," a subtle one to Gandalf's famous line: "Do not take me for some conjuror of cheap tricks."
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Scout's combat philosophy in a nutshell. She can't beat many of her fellow apprentices in straight-up lightsaber skill or Force powers, so she compensates by taking advantage of their weak points.
  • The Light Side of the Force may not be able to pull flashy tricks like Force lightning, but it's the part of the Force that makes the sun shine and flowers grow.
• Space Elves: The Arkanians are well known for their arrogance; two Arkanian Jedi each display it in their own way. The Padawan Hanna Ding looks down on Scout for her weakness in the Force and Combat Pragmatism, and an Arkanian Knight leaves the Order over conscientious objection to the war. Obi-Wan and Anakin try to change her mind, but their arguments are rather easily defeated.
• Spirit Advisor: Building off the quick hint in Attack of the Clones, this novel contains a scene in which Yoda and the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn confer over the sincerity of Count Dooku's offer of peace. Being both one with the Force and Dooku's former apprentice, Qui-Gon has a dual insight into the Sith Lord's state of mind. Qui-Gon concludes "Dooku thinks he is lying" about the peace offer.
• Stealth Mentor: Yoda, pretty much always. There are many instances throughout the book, but one in particular is when he instructs the Padawans to lift and carry extraordinarily heavy casks of water into the spaceship. When Fidelis offers to help, Yoda tells him not to: He and Fidelis are old, and wise, and have lost many friends. But the teenagers are young, and full of grief and guilt, and if they sweat and toil a lot, they might actually be able to get some sleep that night. It also gives Scout and Whie a chance to be by themselves and away from Yoda, who, for all his beneficence, is the Grand Master and more than a little intimidating at times.
• Third-Person Person: Yoda occasionally refers to himself in the third person during his more eccentric moments.
• To Absent Friends: After Maks Leem and Jai Maruk fall to Ventress, as soon as Yoda's remaining party gets a moment of peace, Yoda arranges a small feast and a (non-alcoholic) toast in their honor, taking advantage of Fidelis's cooking skills.
• Tradesnark™: Played for dark humor when Solis learns what it means to hate.
  The great thing about Einblatz/Docker ultrahigh-fidelity auditory sensors with built-in real-time sonographic analysis software and HyperBolic™ directional virtual-mike capability, Solis thought savagely from his hiding place on the other side of the cellar door—as Fidelis's death scream went on and on—is that one can set them to mute.
• Verbal Backspace: Whie is surprised to hear Scout was named a Padawan.
  Yoda: Master Leem and Master Maruk, going for a mission for the temple, they are. As their Padawans, you will go with them.
  Scout: Already?
  Whie: They made you a Padawan?
  Scout: Where are we— What did you mean by that?
  Whie: I mean congratulations!
  Maruk: [to Leem] Your boy is agile.
• What If?: Dooku gets a look at "What if Yoda fell to the Dark Side?" He'd become a Sith of such unbelievable power and evil that Darth Sidious himself would be completely annihilated. Dooku is horrified.
• Weak, but Skilled: Scout is this trope. The Force comes to her intermittently and with great effort, and so Scout has learned every skill and scrap of knowledge she can in order to remain a Jedi Padawan without relying on it.
• We Can Rule Together: In a rare example of the weaker party offering this (and not doing so out of desperation), Ventress offers this to Dooku, offering to team up to kill Sidious together because Ventress knows she'll be thrown out with Dooku. He doesn't take it.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ventress warns Dooku that Sidious will eventually pull this on him. He doesn't listen.

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