The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: The Dune Chronicles

[JohnT]

I'd forgotten about that, but you're right Scowler. Thanks.

[Harry Seldon]

I thought the HMs were bastard Bene Gesserits. I remember the fish speakers being treated as inconsequential in Chapterhouse Dune. I think there was a specific dialog that had two BGs talking about potential allies and dismissing the FS for this reason. Did I miss the ball completely on this?

[St Leo]

I thought Honoured Matre was a derivation of Reverend Mother...

[JohnT]

They are a combination of both Fish Speaker and BG forms and rituals, actually. It is never truly explained where or how the HM's evolved as they did so in the unknown space of the Scattering, it was just made clear that they were kicking the BG's butts.

[Scowler]

Fish Speakers, that was the revelation the Bene Gesserit absorbed with fascination. They had suspected, but Murbella gave them confirmation. Fish Speaker democracy became Honoured Matre autocracy. No more doubts.
"The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant. "Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy."
Idaho could hear the Tyrant in that judgement. If history had any repetitive patterns, here was one. A drumbeat of repetition. First, a Civil Service law masked in the lie that it was the only way to correct demogogic excesses and spoils[sic.] systems. Then the accumulation of power in places voters could not touch. And finally, aristocracy.

Chapter House Dune p. 364 (New English Library, 1986)

A quote for our time perhaps...

[Harry Seldon]

Ok, here's another: Why did Paul decide to run into the wasteland? Was it to escape a future he created for himself or to create the possibility of the future Leto II foresaw in his visions?

[JohnT]

Paul went into the wastelands for a number of reasons:

1. At the end of CoD Leto states that Paul couldn't handle doing what had to be done to avoid Kralizek, so he gave up the reigns of power so that his newborn son could give it a go. His blindness gave him a legitimate excuse to do so, and he took it.

2. To preserve the Atreides legitimacy over the Fremen, Maud'dib had to walk into the desert as any blind Fremen would have been required to. Had Paul not done this, the Atreides could've faced a rebellion in the Fedayen. This is the reason given in Dune Messiah and it is kind of lame imho, but perhaps others buy it.

Paul did gain the ability to control his prescience to such a degree that he could see the future as it almost happens, to a point where it appears that he actually does regain his sight - he can grasp objects handed to him, walk unassisted about a room, etc. He loses this ability before the end of the book though, loses it or gives it up.

The central conflict/theme in the series is, imho, that the using prescience on the scale that the Atreides used it was almost inevitably to cause a war so destructive it was the essential end of humanity - but to maintain their current civilization, they had no choice but to continue using prescience (and melange, of course). Paul got a glimpse of this catch-22 in Dune*, but by the beginning of Dune: Messiah he had almost convinced himself that the warring Atreides banners he glimpsed in his visions had already happened, in the Fremen's subjugation of the Sardaukar and the Empire.

But by the end of Messiah, this view was no longer tenable and Paul realized that he was in a bind: He had to continue to rule by the use of prescience, but the use of prescience was (and most likely already had, by the time he made this realization) to bring about the destruction of mankind in a final war. He understood that the only means for mankind to remain as is was to use means and techniques that he did not have the guts to do: he would have to become the Ultimate Tyrant, one that wouldn't mind sterilizing whole planets in an effort to prevent the final battle, nor extending his lifespan in ways that dilutes his humanity.

Seeing the disaster he had created, his response was to walk away and dump the responsibility of cleaning up the mess to his son. Whatta guy.

*And I must allow for the fact that Herbert likely wasn't thinking about Children of Dune or God: Emperor when he wrote the original story: it's obvious that he took a number of elements in Dune and extended them beyond their original meanings. This is one of them.

[Sarxis]

Re: The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: The Dune Chronicles

Originally posted by JohnT
I’m sure everybody has read the first book, probably the second book (possibly the most boring and depressing sequel in science fiction up to that time), and you probably gave up Dune sometime during books 3-5, picked it up again a few years later determined to plow through it (including Chapterhouse, and having done so then promptly forgot all that weird crap about the Honored Matres and the Scattering, remembering only the bizarre sex scene between Duncan and that HM who then became the BG’s reverend mother in the final novel, after the death of Darwi Odrade. Or maybe not - but that's how I read the books, and I'm willing to wager that a couple of you did it the same way.

I've read the first book, then got bored with the second right after the first chapter.

The reason I keep from finishing the series is because of discussions like these- that keep telling me how disappointing the rest can be. :|

[Bosh]

Like a lot of people I got bored with the depressing sequel but because of this discussion and the richness of the culture that Herbert sets up I'm going to give the third one a go if I can find a copy here.

Dune is one of the few series where I'd really prefer just to read a straight-up history of the setting rather than a novel set in it. The little historical chapter header quotes are far and away my favorite part of the books.

[Mordoch]

One interesting thing I noticed about the first book was regarding Duke Leto I. Not only did he know he was walking into a trap by going to Arrakis, but he also knew he wasn't going to walk out of it alive. The evidence I have for this is that Duke Leto thinks to himself at one point that he will never again see Caladan. Given that Caladan was taken over by a noble house other than the Harkonnens, I don't see why Leto wouldn't eventually have been able to at least visit there again, unless there is some convention in the Dune universe that I don't know about.

The other compelling evidence of Leto's knowledge regarding his future likely death is that in the same passage in which the duke is thinking to himself regarding Paul "I may think of Arrakis as a hell I've reached before death, but he must find here something that will inspire him."

The logical explanation is that Leto doesn't believe he will live long enough to arrange such a visit and be confident that his holdings on Arakkis would remain secure while he was gone. Given that if he lived, it was highly probable he would be able to achieve victory over the Harkonnens, it appears to me that Leto knew he was going to be killed sooner or later, and he expected his son would have an opportunity to turn the Freemen into a powerful army. The only surprise to Leto was that his death and the defeat of his house occured so quickly.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by JohnT
Bumpity - c'mon people, this is a CLASSIC. Where are Ming, Rah, and the other supposed sci-fi buffs? Not commenting on Perdido Street Station is one thing, but not commenting on Dune?

Anyway, another thing that I liked about the series is how Herbert used both the passage of time and new characters to destroy the cherished assumptions of previous protagonists. In Dune he built the world and the mythology of Paul Atreides, the prescient leader of fanatical fighting men conditioned exquisitely to believe in the rightness of their Maud'dib. In Dune Messiah Herbert started attacking Maud'dib from within and without, from Pauls inner torment at what he unleashed to the stoneburner attack. This process was completed in Children of Dune, where Leto II is pressed to finish destroying the mythology of Maud'dib in order to save interstellar civilization from the collapse of the spice trade brought about by the successful terraforming of Arrakis.

Leto II ends CoD building up his own mythology at the expense of his fathers by using the sandworms to change his body into a form that will last for over 3,500 years - long past the time when all sandworms will be extinct. He does this so that he can use his prescience to guide mankind safely around the upcoming Armageddon (Kralizek? Typhoon war of some sort) that he foresees in mankinds future if the spice isn't preserved by means of force and religion.

God: Emperor begins the deconstruction of Leto: II. Tired, old, agelessly cynical, Leto is beginning to look forward to his death and to releasing mankind from the bonds of his authority. He has spent 3,500 years guiding mankind around Kralizeck and is now in the process of purposely revealing chinks in his armor so that his enemies can safely strike at him. He has but one requirement: that he dies in water, so that the sandworms in his body can break up and start the re-desertification of Arrakis that is needed to fuel the upcoming Scattering.

The deconstruction of Leto II is completed in Heretics of Dune, while the Atreidesian focus of the story lands on Darwi Odrade, long-time descendent of Siona Atreides and Duncan Idaho. HoD opens thousands of years in the future, with Leto II being a fading memory and people focused on more important concerns, especially the return of some groups from the Scattering, including the Honored Matres. HoD also follows the story of a special Duncan Idaho ghola and an Honored Matre whom Duncan persuades to switch sides.

In Chapterhouse Dune Darwi Odrade is removed (or dies, I don't recall) and the above-mentioned Honored Matre is made Mother Superior or whatever of the Bene Gesserit, a BG pounded nearly into submission by the superior training and numbers of the HM's. The pattern is kind of lost in this book as the following novel was left unwritten. However, at the end of Chapterhouse we are left with the knowledge that the Honered Matres weren't expanding, they were fleeing, and were going to use the Old Empire as the base of their final counter-attack - Kralizek returned despite the machinations of Leto II and Paul.

The final book was to be the Final Battle, with a combined HM/BG force fighting a return of the machines from the Butlerian Jihad. This is purely speculation on my part, but there are a lot of signals in the long story of Dune that point to a final war. Too bad it's going to be left to the hacks of Anderson and Jr. to depict the war that even Leto II feared.

I was banned when this was first posted

I liked the 1st book best

than the 4th

the 5th and 6th next

than the 3rd

than the 2nd

I always wondered what was up with those two who allowed the fleeing ship to escape at the end

they dont' seem to be machines

doesn't darwi sort of come back as basically a kid, but with all the memories and abilities of his old self?

I remember that as being sort of weird

I haven't read any but the first in quite a while

and the first was by far the best

Jon Miller

[Q Classic]

i'll link to it, because it's got f**king in the text.




edit: seeing as rah's posted a pic with it here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=99313 ... i've put the image up.

[JohnT]

By coincidence, there is a thread discussing Leto's Golden Path currently on the SDMB.

[JohnT]

Re: Re: The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: The Dune Chronicles

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba


I've read the first book, then got bored with the second right after the first chapter.

The reason I keep from finishing the series is because of discussions like these- that keep telling me how disappointing the rest can be. :|

It all depends upon what you want. You know how metaphysical and philosophical the first book was? The rest get even worse: if you are the sort of science fiction fan who wants action and space battles and Very Exciting People who scurry around doing Very Exciting Things, then the sequels of Dune will be a major disappointment. Otoh, if you don't mind what amounts to a 2,000 page discourse on one mans opinion about politics, religion, environmentalism, and a whole host of issues wrapped up in a convoluted plot that becomes severly disjointed between books 4 and 5, then the Dune Chronicles is your cup of tea.

Personally I enjoy both kinds... but, yeah, the sequels of Dune do take some effort to appreciate. I do believe that they are worth the effort, however.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Mordoch
One interesting thing I noticed about the first book was regarding Duke Leto I. Not only did he know he was walking into a trap by going to Arrakis, but he also knew he wasn't going to walk out of it alive. The evidence I have for this is that Duke Leto thinks to himself at one point that he will never again see Caladan. Given that Caladan was taken over by a noble house other than the Harkonnens, I don't see why Leto wouldn't eventually have been able to at least visit there again, unless there is some convention in the Dune universe that I don't know about.

The other compelling evidence of Leto's knowledge regarding his future likely death is that in the same passage in which the duke is thinking to himself regarding Paul "I may think of Arrakis as a hell I've reached before death, but he must find here something that will inspire him."

The logical explanation is that Leto doesn't believe he will live long enough to arrange such a visit and be confident that his holdings on Arakkis would remain secure while he was gone. Given that if he lived, it was highly probable he would be able to achieve victory over the Harkonnens, it appears to me that Leto knew he was going to be killed sooner or later, and he expected his son would have an opportunity to turn the Freemen into a powerful army. The only surprise to Leto was that his death and the defeat of his house occured so quickly.

I agree, and I think that the fatalism that this realization caused him lent Leto's character a quality that made it hard for me to understand why he was considered by the others as such an inspirational leader. But since he was gone by page 60 of an eventual 2,000+ page series, I paid him little heed and assumed that his leadership qualities were in abundant evidence in events that happened before Dune.