Thaidakar the Ghostblood

"I... I wish he were still alive.

"I could use his help right now."

"I am afraid...

"I am afraid it is too late now."

Count Dooku is one of the greatest characters in Star Wars merely because of one fact: He was right. Darth Tyrannus was right about the Jedi, right about the republic and so much more.

There is one thing that he said which describes his arc and the entire prequel trilogy, all of it except in regards to one person. "Twice the pride, double the fall." The only person it fails to describe until Return of the Jedi is Darth Sidious. 

The prequel trilogy and the stories set in that era are about how pride and ego are things that are not to be trusted. The moment that you stop to question, the moment those who have power stop to question the nature of the power, the moment people are prideful and forget to ask questions, that moment, the prequel trilogy tells us, is the moment of downfall.

Dooku died because he stopped questioning Sidious. Obi-wan fell because he stopped questioning the Jedi's morals. Yoda fell, presumably, because he stopped questioning his own moral correctness. Mace fell... well, Mace fell because he got kicked out a window; morally, however, he didn't really have more to fall. he trusted the Jedi's inherent rights to rule as, well, just that. Inherent obligations. 

Anakin fell because he was greedy, had an ego the size of a supreme star destroyer, and more.

"Twice the pride, double the fall."

Count Dooku is one of my favorite characters because he is so human. He blinded himself by accident, losing sight of what truly mattered when he saw true flaws in the system. I pray none of us fall to that, but you never know. Dooku fell in party by what I mentioned above, but also because he didn't ask the question "Are my methods going to far?"

What we learn from Dooku and the prequel trilogy is to never stop asking questions.

If we do, then we lose any foresight for catastrophe that we can have. The moment someone tells you to stop asking questions is the moment when it should be evident that they either do not have answers, actively don't want you to have the information or are saving it to give you when you are mature (in any meaning of the word) to receive it.

In other words, never tell me "because I said so."