Count Dooku nearly had a secret romance with another Jedi referred to in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, mirroring the star-crossed love of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. Count Dooku is a particularly complex Star Wars villain, leaving the Jedi Order initially with good intentions before he succumbed to the corruption of the dark side as the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus. With a potential Jedi Code-defying love affair with another Jedi, Dooku is more of a foil to his Clone Wars-era enemies, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Dooku’s lover, Jedi Master Jocasta Nu, possibly retaining feelings for Dooku well after he joined the ranks of the Lost Twenty.
The Jedi Order infamously forbade romantic attachments in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In Legends, this was partially adopted as a means to keep the Jedi from falling to the dark side and to keep them focused on defeating the Sith Lords in their various wars, while in canon, the Jedi Order adopted the restriction at the end of the High Republic era when Yoda became the Jedi Grandmaster. The Legends-era New Jedi Order finally did away with the restriction, allowing Jedi to form attachments such as romantic relationships as long as they did so in an emotionally healthy manner.
According to Jocasta Nu’s actress, Alethea McGrath, deleted dialogue in Attack of the Clones would have established that she and Dooku once shared a romantic relationship before the latter left the Jedi Order. As both a Sith Lord and one of Attack of the Clones’ primary antagonists, Dooku’s relationship with Jocasta Nu would both mirror Anakin and Padmé’s romance and foreshadow Anakin’s fall to the dark side. Nu might have also covered for Dooku’s erasure of Kamino from the Jedi archives due to her feelings for him, something the Sith Lords might have counted on.
How Dooku's Scrapped Romance Mirrored Anakin's Arc
While romantic relationships are typically healthy and normal, in both reality and the Star Wars universe, Attack of the Clones would have created a fascinating parallel between Anakin and Dooku by having each future Sith Lord have a relationship during their time as Jedi. In Anakin’s case, his eventual secret marriage to Padmé directly led to his fall to the dark side, as he was desperate for the power to keep her alive, joining the Sith as a last resort. The fact that Dooku’s former romantic partner is also a Jedi also creates a parallel to Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Legends universe, as Kenobi fell in love with fellow Jedi Siri Tachi (as opposed to the Mandalorian Duchess Satine Kryze in canon).
Dooku and Nu’s past romance also potentially explains the latter’s behavior when Obi-Wan searched for Kamino in the Jedi archives. After falling to the dark side Dooku erased numerous worlds from the archives, including Kamino, Dromund Kaas, and Dagobah, perhaps convincing Jocasta Nu to cover for this by using their past romance to manipulate her. This would explain Nu’s insistence that any system not in the archives doesn’t exist, but since the romance was not canonized, her words represent the arrogance of the prequel-era Jedi writ large instead.
As demonstrated by canon’s High Republic-era Jedi and the Legends-era New Jedi Order, Jedi romances are not inherently harmful, nor do they necessarily lead to the dark side. While Anakin and Padmé’s secret marriage led to the former’s fall from grace, Obi-Wan and Siri Tachi adhered to the Jedi way despite their feelings for each other. Count Dooku and Jocasta Nu’s potential romance in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, however, doesn’t appear to have had an impact on Dooku’s corruption.