Dune 1 Summary

Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Four
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Dec 6, 2016 12:00pm 40 comments 5 Favorites [+]
The Dune Reread is going to keep questionable items in our dining rooms, ponder age-old feuds
and sit with guilt, then get almost-assassinated! So. Pretty full docket, there.
This week we’re questioning the practicality of bobblehead toys. What is the intended purpose of
bobbling? Does it provide any measurable joy? These are the questions that plague us. (Actually,
the questions that plague us are hopefully more meaningful, but this is still a big one.)
Index to the reread can be located here! And don’t forget this is a reread, which means that any
and all of these posts will contain spoilers for all of Frank Herbert’s Dune series. If you’re not
caught up, keep that in mind.
With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing implant-legends through
the Missionary Protective came to its full fruition. The wisdom of seeding the known universe
with a prophecy pattern for the protection of B.G. personnel has long been appreciated, but
never have we seen a condition-ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and preparation.
The prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis to the extent of adopted labels (including Reverend
Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is generally
accepted now that the Lady Jessica’s latent abilities were grossly underestimated.
—from “Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis” by the Princess Irulan [private circulation: B.G. file
number AR-81088587]
Summary
The Lady Jessica stands in a great hall on Arrakis in their new place of residence, a very old
complex from days of the Old Empire. She has unwrapped two things that strike her as symbolic
and unsettling—the portrait of Leto’s father and a black bull’s head mounted on wood. Duke
Leto arrives and tells her that other areas of the place are more inviting than this hall, particularly
the living quarters in the south wing. He rejects her desire to hang the portrait of his father in this
hall, insisting on having it hung in the dining room even though he knows that its presence
makes Jessica uneasy while she eats. He renews her permission to eat in her own quarters
excepting formal occasions. He tells her that he is concerned for her comfort and that they have
engaged servants who have been vetted. The housekeeper is Shadout Mapes—“Shadout” is a
Fremen title of respect that means “well-dipper”—and she is well thought of by Hawat, and keen
to serve Jessica due to her Bene Gesserit background.
Leto also tells her that Duncan is working hard on getting the Fremen to be their allies, and
Jessica asks about what he will need for his rooms when she assigns them, putting aside her
worries. She wants Leto to rest, but he is busy trying to ensure that the many spice hunters on
Arrakis don’t chose to leave the planet with the change of fief. He tells her that he will send a
guardcar for Paul to attend his conference, then leaves and sends Mapes in. The old woman
refers to Jessica as “Noble Born,” which she corrects, explaining that she is the Duke’s
concubine but only companion. There are people calling outside and Jessica asks after them.
Makes tells her that they are water sellers, which she will never have to worry about because
there’s a cistern on the premise that holds 50,000 liters.
Jessica and Mapes converse, and Jessica plays into the Bene Gesserit stories, showing her talents
and acknowledging that Mapes has come with a weapon. Mapes insists that it is intended as a
gift if she proves to be the “One,” but Jessica knows it will be used against her if she is not.
Mapes produces a crysknife, the weapon of Arrakis, never taken off-planet. She asks Jessica if
she knows what the weapon is, and Jessica realizes that Mapes asked to serve her for the purpose
of asking that single question. She knows that the ancient name for the weapon translates to “the
maker of death,” but as soon as she says “maker”, Mapes is overcome. Jessica realizes that
Maker is the key word and uses it, and Mapes believes that the prophecy is about her. When she
makes to offer the knife, Jessica points out that she sheathed it without drawing blood, and
Mapes tells Jessica to “take her water.” Jessica draws only a line of blood and notes that Mapes
stops bleeding almost immediately; it appears that the people of Arrakis have ultrafast
coagulation to retain their water.
Someone is coming and Mapes makes to hide the knife in Jessica’s bodice, saying that anyone
who sees the knife has to be cleansed or killed. Mapes asks what Jessica needs her to do, and she
tells the woman to hang the old Duke’s portrait in the dining hall and the bull head on the wall
opposite. She is not to clean the bull’s horns because they are covered with the old Duke’s
blood—this is the bull that killed him. Jessica tells Mapes to start unpacking boxes once she has
completed that task, and notes how wrong she feels after these encounters. She rushes off to see
Paul.
Commentary
The opening section here gives us a few clues, but perhaps the most interesting of all is the note
that this work is in “private circulation.” As it lists a “B.G.” file number, we can assume that this
is from the private Bene Gesserit collection containing works that deal with their histories. So we
can guess that there are elements of this piece that the Bene Gesserit would not like the general
public to know, likely in the vein of “myth seeding.” Here we have record that the order makes a
point of creating and spreading its own legends for the purpose of keeping its operatives safe.
This is an awesome way of incorporating prophecy into a fictional world without relying on it as
truth, the way fantasy often does. Here, mythology is a matter of careful pruning and passing,
something that sharp organizations can use to their benefit if they are constantly spreading their
people about. The originator of the need for implant-legends likely comes from the fear that
Bene Gesserit women would be perceived as “witches” as women once were, and harmed or
even killed for their perceived abilities. So now the reader understands that these measures are
taken to ensure the survival of Bene Gesserit operatives, and that these particular measures will
be invaluable to Lady Jessica in the rest of this story. We are getting the insider scoop so that we
know not to take these legends at face value—we are privy to the truth, which is of great value in
this tale.
There are so many things at play in this section. My first curiosity comes from the Bene Gesserit
manner of essentially selling their students off to powerful people. We know that Jessica was
“bought” for the Duke, and that the same purchase could have ultimately extended to marriage.
This means that the Bene Gesserit train their recruits to this purpose, by and large, and that
people throughout the Imperial region recognize certain privileges in essentially owning one of
their trainees. There was some talk in the comments last week about how much the general
population knows about the order’s machinations and power, and it prompts a question of what
sort of front they present in this world. They clearly produce women of great power and
importance, but do they downplay that power to the general public?
For example, the Duke and many others know about the Bene Gesserit “voice,” but trust that
these companions they purchase will not use it on them. This suggests that the order greatly
downplays their political motivations, and largely bill these abilities as tools for the purchaser to
use to their own benefit. These women are touted as useful to your own station and ambitions.
I’m sure that the Bene Gesserit vet these clients, but they also clearly have no compunction about
selling their women off to unsavory figures if the benefit is great enough to their overall goals.
Jessica struggles with the burden of such power and how she employs it. She knows that she has
the ability to control the Duke, but pleads with him instead to prove to herself that she won’t.
That in and of itself gives us a clear idea of her struggle; the ability to shape things as she sees fit
versus the desire to give Leto what he wants because she loves him. It doesn’t help that not all of
Leto’s demands are remotely fair—giving your wife “permission” to dine alone in her rooms
because you have to hang a gross painting of your dad and the head of the bull that killed him?
Gee, what a swell guy.
Is there a real tradition behind this? Leto indicates a certain ancestral duty in it, but it’s never
specified. Is it Atreides law that you have to keep an image of the previous Duke where you eat?
Is it necessary to also have the means of his demise on hand? Does it have to be the dining hall?
Then there’s the question of the matador cape and the old duke’s death by bull; a family right of
passage? A weird personal passion? A form of execution ordered by someone in power? I
believe that as far as we know canonically, it’s just a hobby of his. It does make you wonder if
it’s linked to the Atreides heritage. (Their name is Greek, of course, after Agamemnon’s father
Atreus; his descendants were known as Atreidae.) We learn later that Jessica really hates that old
guy, which makes you wonder if she knew him, or only knows him by the unfortunate
temperament he left to Leto.
There’s an oddness also to the politics of marriage in this universe. The Duke teases Jessica
about being thankful that he never married her, otherwise she’d be forced to dine with him
whether she liked it or not. There is mention later about keeping the potential for a Great House
alliance open, but there’s also a suggestion that keeping Jessica as a concubine allows her more
freedom. On the other hand, the Duke might just frame it that way to take the sting out of his
choice not to marry her, something we learn in the next section that Jessica truly wants.
I bring up these politics because they are central to this story; the idea of legitimate
companionship and where affection does and does not come into play. This is important for
Jessica and Leto, and will later be very important for Paul, Chani, and Irulan. It is interesting to
me that marriage is still deemed emotionally important in this system at all—if motivation to
marry is largely a political thing, you’d think the weight of the institution would lose some of its
potency. It would be regarded as a means to an end, rather than this complex issue where the
question of a person’s true affections come into play. But instead we have a layered system
where both a concubine and a wife can be the same or different in terms of what they offer.
(Now wondering if this extends to women with power, i.e. are there male concubines. It doesn’t
seem likely, given what we’re presented with, but it would be interesting.)
The meeting between Jessica and Mapes is one of my favorite exchanges in this book. We watch
Jessica expertly turn the Bene Gesserit myth-making to her advantage and play on this woman’s
desire for a prophecy to come true. She is well-attuned enough to know how to present herself,
when to speak and not to speak, when to be unforgiving and when to withdraw. This is what the
opening section from Irulan’s writing was alluding to—Jessica was underestimated because the
Bene Gesserit did not glean her talent for playing on the expectations of others, for sussing out
their desires and twisting them to her advantage. She doesn’t know everything she needs to, but
she never missteps, learning information by allowing Mapes to give it to her. It’s sort of similar
to how fortune-telling and mediums work; you let the person you are reading give over
everything you need.
This is also the first we see of a crysknife, the native weapon of Arrakis that has some very
particular rules surrounding it. If you draw the knife, you are not permitted to sheath it without
drawing blood, which is kind of an awesome rule—basically “if you’re going to draw this you
better mean it, don’t just keep pulling a weapon all willy-nilly.” Also, it has to stay close to your
skin or it dissolves… which I would love some fake-science reasoning for. I mean, you could
make a comment about skin oils, but the knife is always sheathed, so maybe it’s body heat thing?
No idea. Of course, Mapes tells Jessica that it comes from “shai-hulud,” but we don’t yet know
that this is a reference to the sandworms. The breakdown of those terms in Arabic translate to
“royal-eternal.” Which seems an apt set of terms for describing something that you tie heavily to
god.
* * *
“Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!” goes the refrain. “A million deaths were not enough for Yueh!”
—from “A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica enters the room where Paul was meant to be studying with Yueh. He’s not there, so she
asks after him; Yueh tells her that Paul was tired so he sent him to rest, calling Jessica by her
first name. He apologizes for his familiarity, which Jessica easily forgives, and Yueh is grateful
that his slip will prevent Jessica from overanalyzing how off he seems. He knows that Jessica
does not have the full Truthsayer powers the way his wife did, but he tries his hardest to be
truthful with her regardless, and talks of how the people on Arrakis look at them. He directs her
attention to the palm trees lining the house and points out that watering one palm for a day is the
same amount required for five men. He’s thinking of his wife, unsure if she’s dead or alive at
Harkonnen hands. He also has a plan to betray the Baron when they finally come face to face.
Jessica asks if she can look in on Paul, and Yueh agrees since he gave Paul a sedative to relax.
Jessica looks in on her son and thinks of all the genetics that had to combine to create him. Yueh
goes back to the window, wondering why Wanna never gave him children, wondering if there
was a Bene Gesserit reason. Jessica retreats from Paul, and she and Yueh consider the abandon
of a child in sleep. Then Jessica asks about the water situation on Arrakis, pointing out that
according to the planetary evidence, there should be water on the world. She believes that
something is plugging it, and Yueh suggests that the Harkonnens have kept information from
everyone. Jessica notes that Yueh seems to have a deep hatred for the Harkonnens, but he can’t
manage to voice his sorrow. She feels affection for him and his struggle.
Jessica points out their precarious position on Arrakis, the fact that the citizens rioted when they
found out how many new people the Duke was bringing along and only quieted when they
learned that they were bringing more windtraps and condensers. There are shields and guards
everywhere, and she senses death on the planet. She knows that Hawat is bribing people at high
levels to ensure their survival. Yueh suggests that she distract herself, but Jessica knows that is
not her purpose. She figures that the Duke wants her to be a sort of Bene Gesserit secretary, one
bound to him by love. Yueh dismisses that, knowing the Duke’s love for Jessica.
Jessica knows bloodshed is coming, that the Harkonnens hate the Atreides for two reasons; the
Atreides line has royal blood while the Harkonnen name was bought, and an Atreides had a
Harkonnen banished for cowardice after the Battle of Corrin. Yueh asks Jessica if she remembers
her first taste of spice, and talks of how some believe that it creates a learned-flavor reaction,
prompting the mind to interpret the taste as pleasurable. Jessica reckons that their family should
have gone renegade and fled beyond the Emperor’s reach. Yueh wonders why she hasn’t used
her powers on the Duke, and asks why she never forced him to marry her. Jessica is surprised by
the question, but admits that the Duke being unmarried allows for an alliance with another of the
Great Houses. She also tells him that forcing people to do your bidding makes you cynical. Yueh
almost confesses his role in the Harkonnen scheme, but Jessica prevents it by going off on a rant
about how the Duke is two different men—one whom she loves, another who is cold and cruel
like his father. She decides to go looking through the south wing to assign quarters, thinking that
Yueh was clearly hiding something, but that she shouldn’t press and put more trust in friends.
Commentary
This conversation with Jessica and Yueh is dramatic irony at its most wince-worthy. They have
known each other for years and decide to be a bit familiar in this shared moment of trepidation;
Jessica is trying to put more trust her her friends, while Yueh is feeling extended guilt over lying
to her in that precise moment of trust and familiarity. It’s worse for learning that we don’t even
know if Yueh’s wife is still alive at the hands of the Harkonnen, and that he feels a special
kinship toward Jessica in this moment because his wife was also a Bene Gesserit.
The point about the palm trees is excellent commentary on how extravagant displays of wealth
are extra specially demoralizing to those who have nothing. Jessica figures that the plants give
hope to the local population, but the wastefulness that water is probably still rude-seeming to the
people to dwell in the cities, and must be deeply offensive to the Fremen. (I feel the same way
whenever I think about how much water Las Vegas wastes in the middle of a desert, and I don’t
even live there.)
Jessica goes to look in on Paul, and I have a weird moment where I recognize those features—
another boy with dark black hair and bright green eyes—
—oh my god, are you serious, Paul Atreides and Harry Potter have the same coloring, what is
my life again, how did I do this to myself, heeeeeelllp….
Mind you, this is hardly surprising. Dark hair and bright eyes are a very common color combo in
fiction (think how many superheroes have black hair and blue eyes in comics: Tony Stark, Bruce
Wayne, Clark Kent, practically every Robin, etc….). For one, it looks striking. For another, since
blue and green eyes are less common and dark hair is pretty common, you’re combining traits
that are usual and unusual. Your hero blends traits that make them at once average and
noticeable.
I’m still gonna stomp my feet over doing two rereads in succession with a main character who
essentially looks exactly the same, though.
Jessica makes a comment that she believes perhaps Leto chose her (or a Bene Gesserit concubine
in general) because it was a good idea to have a “secretary” who also loved him, and while Yueh
tells her that’s not a worthy thought because the Duke clearly loves her… I’m pretty sure she’s
right. Leto being in love with her does not prevent that from being his reasoning behind taking a
Bene Gesserit as his primary companion. And what she says is true—she has no chance of
looking the other way in this madness because she is deeply involved with all of the Duke’s
affairs. She is expected to do a great deal of work in this relationship, not sit back and get
pampered because she is part of the Atreides household.
We get some background on the fight between the Atreides and Harkonnen families and discover
two facets to this hatred; on the one hand, someone in the Atreides family got a Harkonnen
charged with cowardice during an old battle. On the other, we have a classic “old money” vs
“new money” fight—the Harkonnens are pissed that the Atreides are related to royal blood when
their own fancy titles were essentially bought. So it’s about power, certainly, but pride has a
great deal to do with it as well. Importantly, this feud is really, really old. The Battle of Corrin,
according to the Dune Encyclopedia, is the battle from which the Emperor’s house Corrino gets
its name. This was the battle that saw them rise to the Imperial position, and it took place about
10,000 years ago. Apparently, the ship commanded by Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen fled the
battle. Gunnery officer Demetrios Atreides took command of the Lu-ta and led a surprise attack
that turned the tide of the fight, dying in the process. After the fallout, House Harkonnen was
striped of its titles and honor.
Again, this feud is ten millennia old. So. The Harkonnens really love their grudges.
Jessica admits to Yueh that she feels that Leto is two people; one is the man that she loves,
another is the man shaped by his father, who is callous and cruel. This is a clue, of course, in its
own way. The temperament of this man made its mark on Leto, and therefore must make its
mark on Paul as well. Her reservations about the old duke’s memory is a warning of sorts—what
of his personality has imprinted on his grandson, and how will that affect they destiny?
Yueh’s question about why Jessica has not forced Leto to marry is one of the first places where
we encounter another theme of the series, which centers around what constitutes true free will.
Paul will have to deal with this in greater depth when he ends up on the Golden Path and is
constantly burdened by knowledge of the future. In Jessica’s case, it’s the knowledge that forcing
people to do anything just because she has the ability robs actions of their meaning. She wants
Leto to marry her, but if it isn’t his choice, then it counts for nothing.
* * *
Many have marked the speed with which Muad’Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene
Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the other, we can say that Muad’Dib
learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the
basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can
learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience
carries its lessons.
—from “The Humanity of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
During Jessica and Yueh’s conversation, Paul was only pretending to be asleep (he palmed the
sedative Yueh tried to give him). There are strange controls and false doors all around, elements
that intrigue him the same way that the planet does. The filmbook Yueh gave him on Arrakis
came from before the discovery of spice, detailing plants and animals. Paul decides that he
should slip out through a bookcase and go exploring. Once he stands and moves to the door, he
sees the headboard of the bed fold down and freezes. A hunter-seeker emerges, a common
assassination tool. A shield would have slowed it, but Paul isn’t wearing his. The only thing he
has is immobility, as the person operating the hunter-seeker would rely on his movement to
locate him.
Paul thinks of calling for Yueh, but knows that the thing will kill him the instant he comes to the
door. There is a knock and the door opens, and as the hunter-seeker streaks past Paul to the
newest target, he shoots out his hand, grabs the thing in midair, and slams it against the wall.
Mapes enters the room, telling Paul that the Duke is waiting for him with Hawat’s men. She asks
why he didn’t let the hunter-seeker kill her, and notes the debt she owes him. To help settle it,
she tells him that there is traitor in their midst, though she does not know who it is. Paul takes up
his shield belt and goes to find his mother where Mapes told him she had gone—the weirding
room.
Commentary
This opening paragraph. I love it so. This philosophy about learning is something that should be
carved into plaques and hung over the doors of classrooms everywhere. It would help so many
people. Because the greatest feat of school is truly to teach you “how” to learn, not what. If
schools prioritized teaching students how to learn, how to think critically, then those skills would
be with them for life, applicable to literally every situation. And it is also true that one of the
greatest enemies to learning is the belief that learning is difficult, and that certain individuals are
less adept at it than others. The number of people I know who have been held back by precisely
this thought is staggering. And so we learn that our hero’s greatest strength is one that any person
could achieve—he knows he can learn, that learning is not difficult, and he has been taught how
to learn. These are the only tools he needs.
That is the greatest attribute I can think of to give your central character.
Of course, this short section is primarily about Paul thinking of getting up to a little mischief by
wandering off, then getting cut off by an assassination attempt. It’s frightening, of course, but
knowing that it’s so common is also interesting. Paul has known about hunter-seekers since he
was a small child because they’re apparently so often used. Between this and the earlier mention
of poison snoopers for their food, we know that people with this level of power are constantly
wary about death threats. We already know that this attempt is meant to fail, and fail it does, but
with the added benefit (for a definition of benefit) of getting Mapes to tell Paul of the traitor in
their midst.
Paul adds Mapes to his “mnemonic memory,” which sounds vaguely similar to the idea of a
“mind palace” or other memorization devices created for maximum retention. Paul leaves—
remembering his shield belt this time—to find his mother, all thought of exploration gone.
Almost getting murdered will do that, I guess.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Five
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week the Dune Reread is going to find foliage in a desert, worry about our son, and have a
very long meeting talking about the specifics of spice harvesting.
What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in her time of trial? Think you carefully on this Bene
Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: “Any road followed precisely to its end leads
precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top
of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
—from “Muad’Dib: Family Commentaries” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica finds an oval-shaped door at the end of the south wing with a palm lock. She knows her
way around the lock and opens the door to find an airlock on the other side, meant to keep in
moisture. (Many households have airlocks to preserve moisture indoors on Arrakis, but this
home was largely without it as a display of the family’s extreme wealth.) Beyond the airlock,
Jessica finds a special environmentally controlled area covered in wet-climate plants. She finds a
note from Lady Fenrig, who is also a Bene Gesserit and has left Jessica a hidden message, using
an important phrase: “On that path lies danger.”
She searches around and finds a message coded onto the leaf above where the pad of paper had
been sitting. Lady Fenrig tells Jessica that the duke and Paul are in danger. One bedroom has
been planted with many deadly devices to kill her son, in hopes that one of the devices will avoid
detection. There is a traitor in their midst, and Jessica is to be given to a minion in victory. Lady
Fenrig apologizes for not knowing more, but her husband is not on the Harkonnnen payroll.
Jessica goes to rush back to Paul, but he arrives in the same instant, holding the hunter-seeker,
and telling her that he meant to submerse it in water to short it out for sure. She advises him to do
so in the fountain. Once it’s truly shorted, she and Paul debate the safety of the room, though
Jessica assures Paul that it is secure due to the note from Lady Fenrig.
One of Hawat’s men enters the room and tells them that they caught the man controlling the
seeker, but they messed up in the pursuit and he’s dead. He assures Jessica that he is disturbed by
their error, and that they are using sonic probes to scan the area. Paul’s attendance to the duke
will be delayed as they continue to scan; Jessica tells them that they are safe in this room and can
be guarded there. Paul suggests that Hawat is getting too old and working too hard, that they
should do their own investigations around the place. Jessica thinks not, that trying to alleviate
Hawat’s workload would make him ashamed and only lessen his accuracy. Jessica notes that
Paul is withholding, so he tells her about the warning that Mapes gave him about there being a
traitor among them. Jessica shares the secret note from Lady Fenrig with him, but tells Paul that
he must only tell his father about this when they’re alone, as these messages might have been
unknowingly crafted to sow discord among their people.
Jessica looks out onto the landscape and notes that stars are appearing, and one of them seems to
be tapping in a distinct rhythm; it’s a coded signal, likely from Harkonnen agents, who cannot
use the usual communications array for fear of the net being tapped by the Atreides. Hawat
comes in and gives the all clear, ready to take Paul to his father.
Commentary
Jessica finds the weirding room as Mapes mentioned to Paul in the previous section. Mapes is
clearly displeased with the room’s very existence, and we get a callback to what Yueh was
talking about earlier, that their new premises flaunts its water waste as a manner of showing
wealth. But with its filtered sun and variety of flora, it is clearly also meant to serve as an oasis
(both physical and mental) for those who are unaccustomed to the climate of Arrakis.
Lady Fenrig is another Bene Gesserit operative on Arrakis, and she leaves Jessica a warning
coded onto a leaf. She is another of their order who is married to the man she was sold to, and
Jessica feels a certain amount of bitterness over it yet again. Of course, we can presume that
Fenrig isn’t a high enough official to warrant a political marriage, so it’s hardly a surprise.
It’s truly fascinating to me that the Bene Gesserit system appears to be built largely on the
assumptions that others make of female interaction. What appears to be a polite note from one
hostess to another, a kindness to make the next lady of the house feel more comfortable is in fact
a coded message, a specific warning to the next operative stationed in the house. The Mentats
seem to have a larger understanding of the Bene Gesserit than most, but Hawat still has no
inkling to suspect such a mild communication. Even with the suspicion heaped on this
organization, the men around them are missing large cues. We either have to assume that it’s
down to a certain implicit bias about the importance of female relationships and communication,
or else it’s a weak narrative device to ensure that no one ever figures out what is going on with
Jessica. Hawat may be slowing down, but I’m sure that the fact that Lady Fenrig was Bene
Gesserit wouldn’t have escaped his notice, and that note to Jessica however subtle is a pointed
moment of contact.
Paul arrives with the hunter-seeker and is suddenly withholding toward his mother, something
that surprises Jessica. A later section would seem to suggest that this is down to Paul being
shaken over the attempt on his life, but it’s also typical of cagey teenage behavior, and he has
more reason to be cagey than most. I love how Herbert writes the dialogue here; he doesn’t make
the mistake of having the conversion flow perfectly. Paul has a couple of bits that seem like non-
sequiturs, but are in fact thoughts that bubble to the surface as they speak, just like a normal
conversion.
One of these turns occurs when he becomes irritated with his mother, and tells her that every
time his father is angry with her, he says “Bene Gesserit” like it’s a swear word. I’m always
curious about his purpose in telling her so; is he confused by Leto’s choice of curse? Does he
want his mother to know what specifically bothers his father about their relationship? Is he
attempting to tell her that he is similarly annoyed with the Bene Gesserit in that moment? It
could easily be any or all of the above. But it yet again highlights this extreme suspicion and
aggravation that people hold with the Bene Gesserit. There was some talk in the comments last
week about whether or not anyone could ever trust them knowing about the Voice and its power,
but there are several points to negate that—for one, the Bene Gesserit know they cannot overuse
the Voice for fear of it losing its effectiveness. We also don’t know how well people outside the
circle understand those abilities; it’s possible that Yueh only knows about those powers in detail
because he was quite close to his wife. (Sidenote: it strikes me that one of the greater tragedies of
this entire book that gets very little attention is that Yueh and Wanna seem to genuinely, deeply
love one another, and have have their lives utterly destroyed by the Harkonnens.)
But more importantly, there’s the fact that Jessica has already defied the Bene Gesserit for the
sake of Leto. It is possible that no one really knows this—I assume that Leto does, but I could be
misremembering that—either way, Jessica does not appear to have ever openly defied his
wishes. She clearly attempts to persuade, she wheedles and chips away at things, but she is
always deferential from an official standpoint. And of course, if there were a clear reason to
mistrust her, one that outweighed the benefit of Jessica’s skills, then she wouldn’t be the duke’s
concubine in the first place. It’s hardly surprising that people don’t generally trust the Bene
Gesserit as a group—even if they’re keeping their political machinations generally a secret, the
idea that they would not have political leanings of some sort given how they train their women
for positions with powerful men is improbable in the extreme—but the suspicion that surrounds
Jessica early on, the irritation with her background, is down to pure paranoia given her history
with the duke.
While Leto is concise and scathing in his methods at times, Jessica is the one who takes it upon
herself to teach Paul diplomacy in every realm. Her insistence that they be respectful of Hawat
despite his error is pure irony by the end, however, seeing as he is being directed toward
suspecting her as the traitor in their midst. Nevertheless, Paul is learning to put aside his feelings
about people, and think first of how to help them function optimally as assets.
We see the first of the signaling system, blinking lights on the horizon, which really only serves
as a reminder of how little power the Atreides currently have. There are agents everywhere, and
no ability to control them without carefully rooting them out one by one. Even in this beautiful
haven, Jessica is keenly aware of the precariousness of their situation.
***
It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he walked heedlessly
into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had lived so long in the presence of
extreme danger he misjudged a change in its intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately
sacrificed himself that his son might find a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a
man not easily hoodwinked.
—from “Muad’Dib: Family Commentaries” by the Princess Irulan

Summary
Duke Leto thinks of the signs posted across the planet signaling his transition to run Arrakis in
the name of the Emperor, filled with anger at how meaningless it is. He is furious at the attempt
on Paul’s life and misses his home on Caladan, but he is determined to make a good show of it in
hopes that Paul will find a way to call this place home. Gurney and the last of his men arrive, and
the duke asks him to spare some of them for Hawat so that they can secure things right from the
start. He also asks Gurney to persuade some of the spice hunters that are leaving with the next
shuttle to stay and work for them. They talk over what incentives Gurney is allowed to offer to
get them to stay, and what sort of battle they can expect to engage in going forward, both secret
and not. Then Leto tells their propaganda man to tell the men where their women can be found,
and tries to show every confidence, still thinking of Paul.
Commentary
There are a few practical bits of knowledge in this section, including the fact that Arrakis has
more women on it than men. There is also a reiteration of the importance of keeping on
specialists in this time of transition, which comes up in the next section as well. But mostly these
few pages are working in concert with the opening section from Irulan about whether or not Leto
might have willingly sacrificed himself to the cause for the sake of giving Paul a better chance
going forward.
Some of this section seems to confirm that line of thinking; though Leto misses Caladan dearly,
his true concern is Paul’s adapting to the environment so that he might consider Arrakis his true
home. On the other hand, there is no indication that Leto believes he won’t survive this crucible,
only that he knows he will be stuck on this world unto his death. It seems as though he’s under
no illusions about the extreme danger they are in, but the the truth of the matter is simply that the
deck is stacked against him in ways he cannot predict. So Irulan has the shape of things perhaps
at the start—Duke Leto is so accustomed to danger that he misjudges the far reach of that danger.
***
Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with a poor instrument,
there was an inscription that Muad’Dib was to repeat many times. He saw it that first night on
Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal command post to participate in his father’s first full
stage conference. The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell
with dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped a close brush with death. They said:
“O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.”
—from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Duke Leto is speaking with Paul in the conference room about the hunter-seeker attack and
Mapes’s warning, and he’s having difficulty keeping his anger in check. He thinks of turning it
on Hawat, but Paul has taken his mother’s words to heart and is no longer angry with the man,
saying that they should leave him to do his work. Leto is impressed by Paul’s maturity and
agrees that Hawat will punish himself more thoroughly than they ever could. Hawat bursts in
immediately after and insists on resigning, but the duke won’t hear of it. He has him call the men
in and they begin their meeting with Leto making light of the incident and elevating everyone’s
mood.
Leto asks for the new report on the Fremen, and Hawat tells him that while they don’t have their
trust entirely, the Fremen are warming to them, and have already gifted them with stillsuits and
accurate maps. There seem to be many of them, sietches with thousands of people who are all
loyal to a man named Liet (who Hawat concedes might be a local god rather than a person). The
Fremen work with smugglers, and Leto wants to bring them in under their wing. He tells Gurney
to meet with them and agree to look the other way on their operations, as long as they pay tithe.
He plans to bank the whole thing in the Emperor’s name so it’s all above board. Hawat tells the
group that the Harkonnen were bringing roughly ten billion in profits of the planet every year or
so, and that they left all the equipment needed to collect spice in horrible disrepair. Gurney is
dismayed at the injustice of it all, particularly the fact that none of the Great Houses have offered
to help them.
They begin looking through the equipment, first being a projection of the harvester factory. Paul
asks if there are sandworms big enough to swallow it whole and the answer is yes. There is a
discussion of the lack of shielding; the shields draw the sandworms, and the Fremen find shields
amusing. There are also carryalls to deposit harvesters in the desert and pick them up, and
ornithopters as well. While they replace the equipment, their profit margin will be rather low—a
third less than Harkonnen output. The duke wants five battalions of Fremen ready before their
first inspection, expecting the same amount of Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnen before long.
He also wants to strip all the Harkonnen sympathizers in a clever move that will allow him to
confiscate their lands legally. Paul and Gurney are both displeased by the continued scheming.
Duncan Idaho comes in. He tells the group that they found Harkonnen agents dressed as Fremen,
but in the fight, one of his Fremen allies was mortally wounded, and he obtained the man’s
crysknife. Before he can unseat it, he is stopped by the voice outside the room: Stilgar, chief of
the sietch Duncan visited. Stilgar tells the duke that outsiders may not see the weapon as they did
not know the man it belonged to. Others at the table try to argue, but the Duke Leto respects the
wishes of the Fremen and agrees that if that is the way, he orders it so and will not look on the
blade. Stilgar spits on the table, but before anyone can overreact Duncan thanks Stilgar for
offering the water from his body; it was a sign of respect. Stilgar wants Duncan to enlist with his
people, and Leto asks if he’ll accept dual allegiance, hoping that Duncan will go with them.
Stilgar accepts the offer, trading Duncan’s water for their fallen friends to create the connection
between his sietch and the Atreides, then makes to leave. The duke asks if he will stay a while,
but Stilgar isn’t interested. Leto is impressed by the man, and tells Duncan that he needs five
battalions. Duncan tells him that there is a reward of one million solaris for anyone who can
bring a crysknife off world because it is the perfect infiltration object. Duke tells Duncan to take
great care of the knife.
Hawat makes mention of advance bases that might have more equipment in them, but no one
seems to know where they are. The Duke wants them to ask the Emperor’s man Kynes if they
exist, just to see if they can get their hands on some of that equipment. Hawat and Paul don’t like
the idea, noting that it is politically unsound to try and find the advance bases as they have
significance for the Fremen and technically belong to the Emperor. Leto asks for them to prod
Kynes gently about it regardless. The meeting is ended and Paul realizes that they’re in bad
shape—the meeting ended poorly and his father is acting desperately. The duke tells him he
might as well stay in the conference room for the rest of the night, and Paul thinks on the
Reverend Mother’s words “…for the father, nothing.”
Commentary
There is a lot of information dropped off in this section, from the specifics of spice harvesting to
our first introduction to a Fremen chief. There’s also our first mention of “desert power,”
something that Duke Leto claims they will need to harness the assets of Arrakis for their own
purposes, and a phrase that will stick with Paul in the long run. It is also a pointed section for
how it gives Paul the chance to observe his father in good form and bad. At the start, Leto cracks
a joke with precision, lightening the mood of everyone in the conference room. Paul recognizes
how his father works the room from that standpoint, a leader who knows how to make everyone
at his table feel trusted, understood, and important.
We learn about how the Harkonnen have cut the Atreides off at the knees—they have left all the
spice harvesting equipment in extreme disrepair, making it impossible for them to meet quotas in
their first term on the planet. Leto has certain sharp plans for making sure that they retain
goodwill of the people on Arrakis while also maintaining good relationships with the Emperor;
he plans to allow smugglers to operate, but will tithe them and deposit all those earnings legally
in the Emperor’s name. He wants a fighting force of Fremen ready to go by their first inspection,
expecting Sardaukar dressed as Harkonnens to show up before long. There is still much about the
Fremen that they have not learned, and Hawat is perplexed by a figure named Liet, who might be
a real person who is largely in charge of the Fremen or perhaps a god. (This is always fascinating
when rereading because we know the true identity of Liet, and get served with a reminder of how
clever his deception is.)
The unfolding of this complex meeting is essential in how it differs from your typical narrative;
in most stories, the tension would be delivered by withholding the identity of traitor, forcing the
reader to suspect everyone at every turn, especially everyone in this room. Instead, the tension
here is delivered by a sense of inevitability—we watch these people carefully plan, move from
one action to another, knowing that their planning is largely useless. We are present for the
meeting to learn more about Arrakis, about its political ins and outs and the specifics of
obtaining spice in such an environment (Paul’s point on the sandworms being able to swallow
the harvesters is central to that), but we cannot prevent this slow march toward destruction.
We get our introductions to Duncan Idaho and Stilgar, and everything about these first
encounters are meant to show us that they are both exceptional men. We know this is true of
Idaho because he has managed to earn the respect of the Fremen so quickly, and we know this of
Stilgar because he just. so. cool. I mean, I could be more analytical about it, but it’s still true—
Stilgar has an instant vibe to him that makes it clear he is no-nonsense, an honorable man who is
blunt and true with no room for subterfuge. He is precisely the sort of person you would want as
an ally, and Leto recognizes this instantly. He respects Stilgar’s wishes about the crysknife
because he knows it is best to have this man on his side and prove that he is worth their time and
support. (It is weird to be introduced to Duncan and have him so quickly spirited away. It always
struck me as a bit of an error on Herbert’s part—it seems that the narrative would have benefited
from learning more about Idaho earlier in the story, given his importance.)
The idea of the Fremen spitting as a sign of respect by giving their body’s water is a nice, deft
touch that clearly elucidates that differences between cultures, and shows the importance of
diplomacy in those moments. They are lucky that Idaho has done a thorough job in getting to
know that Fremen, and prevents anyone from reacting poorly to the display. Then we have an
exchange to create the bond between the Atreides and Stilgar’s sietch; they offer Turok’s water
and take Duncan’s for their own. The importance of water continues to unfold and gain more
complexity they closer we get to the Fremen.
I love that the duke asks Stilgar to stay, and his response is just “…why?” And then Leto says
that they would honor him and Stilgar is basically like “that’s great, but I got things to do.”
Yeah, Stilgar is the best.
Leto caps off the meeting by insisting that they seek out the advance bases for extra equipment,
even though Hawat warns him that these sites might be important to the Fremen, and that the
Emperor would be furious if he found out. So Paul starts the meeting respecting his father’s
moves, then ends it realizing how incredibly desperate his father is to maintain their foothold,
knowing that his choice in this instant is reckless. (He was also displeased alongside Gurney
earlier at the use of more trickery to gain lands and sidestep the current people with power.) He
is learning as the Reverend Mother said he would—that his father does not quite understand the
“language” of a place, and is making errors because of it.
On the other hand, this all plays much in the same way a Shakespearean tragedy does. It is
written, unavoidable. Do we take it at face value, or criticize the participants regardless?
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Six
Emmet Asher-Perrin
The Dune Reread is here to spot its very first wormsign! Also to discuss the difference between ecology
and planetology, and also mull over the relative helpfulness of “bravura.”
We will have a break next week also! So come back in the new year for more desert-y fun.
On that first day when Muad’Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his family, some of
the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy, and they ventured to shout:
“Mahdi!” But their shout was more a question than a statement, for as yet they could only hope
he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention
was focused, too, on the mother, because they had heard she was Bene Gesserit and it was
obvious to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib.
Summary
The Duke goes to see Thufir Hawat and asks him to set up a raid against the Harkonnen spice
stockpile storehouse, knowing that they won’t be able to retaliate publicly for an asset that
they’re not supposed to have. Then he asks Hawat what is on his mind that he has been
withholding. Hawat admits that they intercepted a message from a courier bearing the Harkonnen
seal, and though most of the message dissolved, the part that remained implicated that Jessica
was the traitor in their midst. Leto refuses to believe it. Hawat gives him his preliminary report
on the Fremen and tells him that the people in the streets were calling Paul “Mahdi,” in reference
to a belief they have that a messiah figure will arrive who is the child of a Bene Gesserit. Leto
leaves Hawat and goes back to the conference room where Paul is asleep. Then he watches a
glorious sunrise and wonders if this place could be a good home for Paul. A dew-collector comes
out to collect moisture.
Commentary
The opening section here does a good job of intimating how desperate the Fremen people are for
change. Irulan’s texts, though smacking of propaganda in many cases, read truthfully here.
Arrakis is a planet long-abused by the Harkonnen, long taken advantage of for their resources.
They are ready to break away, something that Paul is already sensing in the narrative.
The plan still goes off just as the Harkonnen intended, with Hawat getting evidence that Jessica
is the traitor and believing it. To be fair, it’s a pretty good misdirection, especially since the
message is almost destroyed. Nice touch.
Leto tries to redirect Hawat, suggesting that she would never plot against her own child (which
precludes the possibility that the Bene Gesserit want control of House Atreides through Paul),
but he’s really only saying it for Hawat’s benefit; he trusts Jessica’s loyalty regardless.
To give some background on the legends that the Bene Gesserit have seeded on Arrakis, the
actual term “Mahdi” in Arabic translates to “guided one,” and is a prophetic figure believed to be
the redeemer of Islam who will rid the world of evil and rule for a number of years. Different
sects of Islam have different interpretations of the Mahdi, and a number of people have claimed
to be the Mahdi in times past. The term Mahdi cannot be found in the Qur’an itself, but the
figure is referenced in hadith, and is supposed to arrive alongside the Second Coming of Christ.
***
“The is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover
your father in a man—with human flesh.”
—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul is looking over Hawat’s filmclip on the Fremen, seeing references to himself and realizing
that they think he might be a messiah. The duke tells his son that the Harkonnen are trying to
make him distrust Jessica, and because of this, he must be cruel to her in the hopes that they
think their plan worked. Paul wonders why he would tell him, since his knowledge might give
the game away, but Leto figures that the people watching for Jessica’s reactions will not be
watching Paul. He tells his son to reveal the truth to his mother should anything happen to him.
Paul insists that his father isn’t going to die, that he’s only tired. Leto agrees that he is tired of
these battles between their Houses, how they’re degenerated. Paul doesn’t believe they have, but
Leto knows his rule is built on clever propaganda, and part of him wishes they’d gone renegade.
He tells Paul that they are creating filmbase to further spread word of how well he rules that
place. He also has learned that the spice present in everything makes people immune to many of
the known poisons. Not only will it be hard to poison them, but they cannot poison their
population. Arrakis will make them more ethical. Paul is shocked to see his father so despondent.
Leto tells him that if anything happens to him, Paul will be left with a guerrilla house, hunted. He
tells Paul that he might think of capitalizing on this “Mahdi” status, should it come to that.
Commentary
Paul has a true but slightly cheeky comment when the duke tells him off the plot to mane him
suspect Jessica: “You might as well mistrust me.” I always assume a bit of ribbing intended in
that statement when I read it, as Paul clearly thinks the idea of his mother being a traitor is as
ridiculous a Leto does.
This section, as the opening suggests, is a moment where Paul learns from his father and also
comes to terms with his father’s humanity. In terms of what he will take away from this
exchange, I do think that this particular bit is underestimated:
“Nothing wins a leader more loyalty than an air of bravura.”
Leto is speaking of filmbase, which we can assume are essentially propaganda films. (I feel like
there’s an interesting aside to be made over the fact that Herbert speaks often of films and visual
media, but we get no indication of how these films are presented. Most of what we learn is via
text, making the idea of film media seem almost strange in its prevalence. It also contributes to
the fantasy sheen of the book; higher technology is never spoken of our used in a way that makes
it seem particularly advanced. It’s a clever way to downplay mechanized influence.) But while
he is talking of more practical forms of propaganda, this piece of advice will be invaluable to
Paul in the times ahead. Or as Eddie Izzard helpfully put it in his standup act “Dressed to Kill”:
it’s 70% how you look, 20% how you say it, and 10% what you say. People have to believe that
you’re a leader before they allow you to lead.
I wish that we got more information on precisely what it means to “go renegade” and what
happens to those people. Obviously they run beyond Imperial reach… and then what? They eke
out a life on some horrible planet but at least they don’t have to worry about the politics they left
behind? Do they grab their own navigators or steal ships they plan to pilot themselves and hope
for the best? I do wonder if any of the renegades are enjoying their lives out there.
Paul is distressed over realizing that his father despairs of his future; he essentially knows there
is a high probability that he won’t make it. And in these moments, Paul knows that his father is
human and doesn’t really know how to handle that knowledge. He wants Leto to fight the
incoming darkness when all Leto wants is for Paul to be prepared to run and fight when he’s
gone.
My real question in all of this is why is it so important that Jessica believe he suspects her? He
claims that the Harkonnen cannot know that he’s figured out their play, but letting them think
that he’s going along with everything doesn’t really give him much of an advantage in the long
run. It really seems that it’s just there for sake of the story putting a strain on their relationship, to
make everything more emotional. It never stops the Harkonnens from getting what they want out
of the situation.
***
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my
mother had taught me that the was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-
likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them — my father
and this man in the portrait — both with thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by
cold eyes. “Princess-daughter,” my father said, “I would that you’d been older when it came
time for this man to choose a woman.” my father was 71 at the time and looking no older than
the main the portrait, and I was but 14, yet remember deducing in that instant that my father
secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them
enemies.”
— “In my Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
The ecologist Dr. Kynes is thinking about the people he’s been ordered to betray, the Atreides.
He’s alarmed by how close Paul seems to the legend of the messiah even though he’s not
typically given to believe such things. He meets with Leto and Paul, noting that only the son
seems aware of how to wear the native clothing. He knows that they want the Imperial bases and
that they must have learned about them from Duncan Idaho, thinking to tell Stilgar to kill the
man and send his head to the duke. He’s also not fond of Gurney Halleck, who schooled him in
how to address the duke properly. Kynes insisted on them wearing stillsuits despite the fact that
the duke could have carried plenty of water with them, insisting that one can never plan for
likelihoods on Arrakis. He asks to adjust the suits and the duke acquiesces despite misgivings.
He explains the technology as he tightens the garment. When he moves to Paul, he sees that the
boy has put on the suit expertly with no guidance, adhering to the prophecy about the Mahdi
knowing their ways. Paul recognizes that though the man would not say so outright, he is
Fremen, even if he wasn’t born on Arrakis.
The duke begins to press Kynes on whether or not they are doing as expected in maintaining the
planet. Kynes is cagey and unwilling to say much. The duke asks if along with his ecological
research, he is investigating the spice, telling him that he wants those updates despite what the
Harkonnens might have chosen to ignore. Kynes believes that Arrakis could become an Eden if
everyone would stop caring so much about the spice. He is displeased with the duke’s
propaganda and says so, getting a near scold from Gurney. The duke is not bothered however.
They travel beyond the Shield Wall in a ‘thopter and Paul asks Kynes questions to “register” him
as his mother taught him. Gurney sings them a song, which bemuses Kynes. The duke asks if
anyone has ever walked out of the desert. Kyness tells him that some have from the second zone,
but never the deep desert.
The duke wants to see a worm, and Kynes tell him that he might see one when they check on the
spice mining, as the spice and worms are deeply interconnected. He also informs them that the
shields draw the worms and that the bigger ones can only be completely destroyed with atomics.
The duke wonders why they’ve never tried to wipe the worms out if they guard the spice so
ardently, but Kynes tells him it would be far too expensive given how much ground they cover
on the planet. Paul can sense that Kynes is lying and knows that if the worms and spice are
connected, killing them would destroy the spice.
The duke explains that they’re going to fit all their workers with transmitters to rescue them
when things go wrong. Kynes is not impressed by the plan as Arrakis ruins most equipment and
the gesture is unlikely to work out well. The duke asks what he would do if he were forced
down, and Kynes given him the simplest breakdown he can of how to survive such a situation
and avoid worms so that one might make it out of the desert. They reach the harvester sight, and
Kynes explains how the operation works. As they’re observing, the duke spots wormsign and has
it confirmed by Kynes. They tell the harvesting crew who ask who is responsible for the sighting,
as that person gets a bonus. Gurney advises Kynes to tell them that the duke spotted it and that he
wants the bonus split among the crew.
Kynes knows they will continue working until the last minute because their haul is rich, but the
carryall never shows up to take them away, so Leto starts working out a plan for using their own
ships to cram in a few men apiece. He advises the crew to the plan, but they don’t want to leave
because they’ve got nearly a full load of spice. The duke orders them to do as he commands. He
ditches their shield generators in order to be able to carry more men on their ships. They take
four men onto their ship and lift off, then watch the worm come up from below and swallow the
harvester. As they fly off, they note two men still on the sand; it turns out that the harvester had
more than a full compliment of men, and the duke is angry that he wasn’t told. He wants to send
a ship back for those men, but he’s assured that they’ll be gone by then. Paul recognizes the
truth—that those two extra men were Fremen. He asks what they were doing on the ship.
Kynes is impressed both my Paul’s ability to see through lies and by the duke’s care for his men.
He has to admit that he likes them in spite of himself.
Commentary
Princess Irulan’s window in on her father is the first section of her asides thus far that make her
position in this story more clear. She tells the reader that the Emperor seemed to like Duke Leto
quite a bit, and that his actions toward the family were seemingly out of political necessity. Since
Leto is a pretty level-headed guy, the assumption has to be that he’s so even-keeled that
Shaddam is concerned about Leto taking his seat from him due to popularity. Which, of course,
will prove to be ironic in the extreme, given what goes down, but we’ll get into that later.
The introduction to Kynes is fascinating when you consider his overall importance to the story.
We learn instantly that he’s a proud man who isn’t quite sure about the House Atreides, yet his
opinion on them becomes instantly important to us because he clearly knows what’s what on
Arrakis and has a healthy deference toward the planet and its people. His aversion to using the
duke’s title gives him the air of a man who demands that respect be earned rather than freely
given. And his inclinations about Paul’s abilities despite his internal monologue about not really
believing the Fremen stories give the prophecies more weight—i.e. if Kynes can be convinced
about Paul, perhaps we as readers should be too.
I love the bit where Kynes tells Leto that he prefers the “old term” Planetologist to the “new
term” ecologist. It’s really a perfect example of how our understanding of language is relative to
our time period. (If we want to get super nitpicky about it, none of these people should be
speaking a version of English even remotely close to our own after ten thousand year plus, but
that’s a whole different issue.) After all, the term ecologist is in use now, it’s plenty old. But it
makes sense that once people were spreading out around the universe and spending time on new
worlds, the term “Planetologist” would be created to suggest that pangalactic scale. “Ecologist”
becomes the term again, but Kynes prefers planetologist because he is deeply tied to the planet
he has chosen to study, going so far as to virtually become Fremen.
Comments from a few weeks back already went through the problems with the science behind
the stillsuit design—it doesn’t really work out once it’s broken down. Still, Herbert gets points
from me for making it sound plausible enough to pass on a science fiction level. Though I do
always forget about the part where you have to urinate and defecate in the suit, and how that all
gets recycled as well. Good use of technology, but that must be insanely uncomfortable (and
probably not great for your skin to be in constant contact with all of that bacteria? depending on
how quickly the suit processes waste…). I’m also intrigued by the directions for breathing, many
because I’m always interested in any system that requires you to train your breath that way.
Reminding yourself to breath in one way and out another has a meditative quality to it, but
requires extreme discipline to maintain all the time.
There’s comment Kynes makes about the big worms being nearly impossible to destroy without
the use of atomics. Which, if we assume the definition of atomics to be relatively close to our
own, means that you would need a nuclear explosion to destroy the biggest makers on Arrakis.
Something to keep in mind.
Paul’s prescience and intuition is working full blast throughout this entire section, from his
understanding of how to put on a stillsuit to his immediate realization that killing off the worms
would somehow destroy the spice. It’s actually pretty impressive how so many of the most
important pieces of information that we require in this book are seeded throughout the beginning.
There’s enough revelatory material that Herbert can afford to give certain Big Things away at the
start.
Here is where we finally get extended explanations about conditions on the planet, from
harvesting spice, to the worms, to how one would survive the desert, and how best to wear the
stillsuit. The duke is making very common mistakes at the start of this encounter, typical of
people who are accustomed to power; he keeps trying to assert his own values, systems, and
technology on the environment despite being repeatedly told that these things will not work.
Thankfully he seems to take Kynes’s information a bit more seriously, and begins to understand
that he won’t be capable of enacting all of his plans. There’s the problem of the shields, of
course, and then the duke’s lack of understanding in how the harvest missions works. The idea
that he’ll be able to save workers easily by equipping them with distress signals that won’t break
through in the environment.
But the duke is the first person to spot the wormsign, and also the one who willingly ditches the
shields to make certain that they can rescue all the men from the harvesting mission (aside from
the ones he isn’t told about). There’s his focus on the welfare of the men working rather than
fussing over the equipment and the spice that they’re losing. Leto has qualities that make him a
good leader when he’s in his element. He’s simply stuck at a point where he needs to adapt much
faster than he is perhaps capable of. This is a particular area that Paul and Jessica succeed in as
easy as breathing, Paul most of all—they are infinitely adaptable people. But the duke is still a
likable man, as Kynes is forced to concede.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Seven
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:00pm 16 comments 4 Favorites [+]
This week on the Dune Reread we’re going to insult a banker by telling him stories about a
drowned man, and then confront a member of our household to prove we are powerful and also
not treacherous!
In other words, it’s good to be back!
“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-
making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling
for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a great sense
of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is
all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will
destroy a man.”
Summary
The Atreides are having a party and Duke Leto notes a custom that the Harkonnen instilled
where guests would slop water on the floor after rinsing their hands, then drop a towel on top of
it, and the squeezing would be handed out at the door. He finds the custom demeaning and tells
Mapes instead, while they dine anyone who comes to the door may get a free cup of water.
Mapes isn’t pleased, and Leto realizes that perhaps the custom also involved her charging the
beggars at the door for the squeezing. He assures her that he will have a man posted to make sure
she follows his directions. He takes in the crowd, noting that Jessica is wearing some of his
favorite colors to ever so slightly chastise him for being cold toward her; he summoned Duncan
Idaho back and the man has been watching her on the pretense of guarding her, so that the
charade of his believing in her betrayal remains intact. Paul is talking to some of the younger
guests, aggravated at being made to attend the function.
Leto approaches Jessica’s group where a water-shipper named Lingar Bewt (who did business
with the Harkonnens but was never controlled by them) shows his displeasure at the duke doing
away with the water custom, then questions whether or not they plan to keep the conservatory.
Jessica saves the conversation by explaining that the conservatory will be kept in true for the
people of Arrakis, in hope that the climate will someday support plants of that variety. Leto
advises Bewt to diversify his business, as they plan to make water a less scarce commodity.
Kynes notes that another of Fremen beliefs has been fulfilled—that Jessica shares their desires
for Arrakis. He asks her if she brings “the shortening of the way,” the meaning of Kwisatz
Haderach. Jessica wonders again if it might be Paul. The guests take their seats for dinner, with
Leto continuing to behave coldly toward Jessica. He questions her choice to invite a smuggler to
their proceedings, though Hawat cleared the man; she wants to ingratiate herself in case they
need to bribe the smuggler to get them off the planet if everything goes south.
The duke decides to give a toast and remains standing after his guests are seated. He has Gurney
play a song, the food is served, and still he remains standing. The duke tells his guests the lyrics
of Gurney’s song, toasts again, then slams his cup down on the table so that the water sloshes
over onto the table linen. the others are required to follow suit and seem quite nervous about it.
Kynes empties his own flagon into a container in his jacket. The dinner begins and someone
compliments Jessica on the food and chef. Then the Guild Bank representative asks about the
lost factory crawler, and the duke confirms it, still irritated by the fact that the carryall
disappeared and never arrived to pick up the crawler. Kynes suggests that someone on the
crawler might have been employed by an enemy of the duke to that end. The banker asks Kynes
if he plans to report on it as the Imperial Judge of Change for the transition, though Kynes
declines to answer.
Jessica thinks back to her espionage training and recognizes that the banker is a Harkonnen
agent. She gleans his speech pattern and knows he will change the subject to something trivial
and ominous, and indeed he bring up the birds on Arrakis, who are blood-drinkers. The stillsuit
manufacturer’s daughter feeds him more dialogue to keep him going, so that he can say what he
means to say, but Paul decides to get in the middle of it. He asks if the man was implying that the
birds were cannibals. The banker insists that he didn’t say so and that there’s no reason why they
would be, but Paul points out that it wasn’t a strange question when the greatest competition an
organism usually faces comes from its own kind. Kynes praises him for his understanding. The
banker is upset a Paul’s jibe, and lashes out at Kynes, saying that he heard that the Fremen drink
the blood of their own. Kynes corrects him; all of the water in a Fremen belongs to their tribe.
Once they are gone, they no longer need it.
The banker insults Kynes, saying that he’s lost sense from spending too much time around the
Fremen. Kynes asks if he’s challenging him, and the banker instantly backs off, saying that he
would not want to insult their hosts. Kynes tells him that their hosts are honorable people who
could decide for themselves if they were offended. Jessica notes that Kynes would have killed
the banker instantly, and that the smuggler Tuek was ready to assist him. She asks about the
prevalence of water and Kynes cites the difficulties on Arrakis due to dealing with the Law of
the Minimum. Jessica knows the law, which impresses him, and tells the group that it is possible
to create a cycle on Arrakis where plants can grow and there is enough water for everyone. Best
insists that it’s not possible, that there is not enough water and asks if there is. Kynes suggests
that their might be, but Jessica knows he’s deliberately obfuscating and there is enough.
A trooper comes in with information for the duke. Leto has to leave the table and advises Paul to
take his place. Gurney takes Paul’s seat at the table. The duke tells everyone to wait there while
he sees to the problem, using code words that let Paul and Jessica know that it’s a security
problem. The banker raises a glass and asks Bewt to offer a toast to Paul, a boy who they must
treat as a man. Paul offers a story instead, about a fisherman who drowned on Caladan because
another was standing on his shoulder to reach air. He says that his father commented that this
action was understandable unless it happened in a drawing room… or a dinner table. The banker
is angry and asks if it’s custom for the Atreides to insult their guests, but Jessica turns it around
by suggesting that it’s more telling for the banker to take offense and insist that the story was
directed at him. The smuggler gives a toast instead at Kynes’s subtle go-ahead, making Jessica
realize that Kynes has real power and has chosen to side with Paul.
Gurney asks a question of the stillsuit manufacturer’s daughter, and her perfected reply leads
Jessica to realize that she had been planted there to lure Paul with sex, though he had clearly
already noticed the gambit. The banker apologizes for his actions and Jessica forgives him. She
makes comment that the duke will have to weed out Harkonnen agents on Arrakis during this
transition and eliminate them, and that the laws support this act, which Kynes confirms. She asks
the banker about whether the spice hunters go into the deep desert, and he tells her they do not.
Kynes says there is a rumor about a mother lode of spice in the south, but that it was probably a
story invented for a song. They talk of Fremen going deeper into the desert and finding soaks and
sip-wells (where there is water to be found in the desert), but Jesica senses that he’s lying about
something.
She receives word from the duke, and informs the guests that the matter that called him away
was solved: The carryall was taken by a Harkonnen agent in the crew, but he was captured and
the carryall return. A hidden part of the message also informed her that they were getting a
shipment of lasguns, which worries Jessica—a lasgun destroyed anything in its path unless it was
shielded. But contact between a lasgun and shield resulted in a powerful explosion that killed
both the shielded person and the lasgun operator. She cannot see the reason in it, and worries.
Commentary
This whole party is bonkers complicated politics at their best in this narrative. Nearly every piece
of dialogue has a veiled meaning, nearly everyone at the party is under suspicion for good
reason, and very few people at the table are truly enjoying themselves. They all came with
motivations ulterior and otherwise.
The opening quote from Paul is important because we see this element of sardonicism in him by
the end of the party, something that Leto himself fails to achieve. There’s a clear rise and fall that
we’re witnessing as readers; as Paul gets more astute, more aware, more ready for leadership,
Leto begins to fall apart one small piece at a time. Jessica notes how the party first thinks that
he’s drunk when he starts his toast, how he makes the group uncomfortable, how he keeps
reacting to things that he should keep closer to the vest. What makes it a tragedy is Leto’s
knowledge of this. He’s not addled or blind to his mistakes. He’s resigning himself to inevitable.
He begins to think of how Paul is ready to take his place, how the mere changing of an
exploitative tradition is making him enemies. He notes these observations as “death thoughts.”
He is thinking about the world around him as though he might leave it soon.
Still, he gets in a few good blows here. His choice to spill clean water following his toast was a
deliberate slight against the old tradition of selling their dirty water to the poor after rinsing their
hands. (I love the aside of how Kynes quietly saves his water, absolutely unwilling to follow suit
as a man of the desert.) He gets to send word that they recovered their carryall, and that they got
rid of a couple Harkonnen agents. He does what he can to set the stage for Paul, who is shrewd
but still untested, and quickly winning them allies.
We get another Harkonnen agent in the banker “Soo-Soo,” and sheesh, the casual racism you get
from the elite on Arrakis is just everywhere. No one thinks anything of calling them “scum” on a
regular basis, and the assumption that their ways are backward or outright disgusting is clearly
commonplace and inoffensive to most at this echelon. However, it becomes extra intriguing
when you consider Kynes, who is doing his very best to walk that line and never really give
away the extent to which he’s doing it.
Jessica’s immediate reliance on the crysknife is also a point of note. She keeps the weapon on
her person as Mapes told her to, but what’s more, she actively considers using it all the time. She
takes its importance to heart and never ignores it, effectively making their custom her own with
little fanfare. All the same, she finds it important to consider Kynes’s Fremen-like attitude
toward killing. He doesn’t not find the idea of murder unpleasant or difficult, he simply treats it
as a possibility and a fact of life.
There’s still more discussion around the potential of transforming Arrakis, the possibility that the
planet might have more water on it than anyone realizes, that the planet could be transformed for
more hospitable conditions. I find it more fascinating on a reread because I remember when I
first read the book assuming that this was the endgame. Transform Arrakis into a paradise, the
balance of power shifts, problem solved. But Herbert is seeding this possibility for different
purposes, at least for now. The Law of the Minimum cited by Kynes is a real agricultural
principle also referred to as “Liebig’s Law, which is applied to crop growth. The concept was
that more nutrient soil did not increase crop growth—only by increasing the specific limiting
nutrient in the soil could you get more growth.
We get some foreshadowing with the information on lasguns, but I am deeply curious as to how
a reaction between a shield and a lasgun could produce something more powerful than an atomic
explosion. What would the shield energy have to consist of to even begin making sense of a
reaction like that.
***
“There is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
Summary
Jessica hears a disturbance at 2 AM and wonders if it’s a Harkonnen attack. She checks on her
family, both still where she expects, then hears someone in the Great Hall call for Yueh. She
heads out to find Duncan Idaho being dragged in by two guards, completely wasted. He was
advised by Hawat to take one of the escort women home from the dinner, then came back and
made such a ruckus that the guards dragged him inside to be sure he didn’t make a scene. Jessica
tells Mapes to get him some caffeine as Yueh appears. He tries to get Duncan to drink the coffee
but he won’t. Jessica slaps him and orders him to drink it, but he tells her he won’t take orders
from a Harkonnen spy. Suddenly it all comes clear to Jessica and she orders Hawat brought to
her immediately, telling the guards to put Duncan in a room to sleep it off.
She waits for Hawat and when he arrives asks if he is the Harkonnen agent. He is furious at the
insult, but she points out that he thinks the same of her. Jessica wonders if she should tell him
that she’s pregnant with the duke’s daughter, but decides not to since Leto doesn’t know yet. The
two of them come to a stalemate, as they have no Truthsayer. Jessica asks about the men acting
out due to the spice beer, pointing out that they are having difficulty being uprooted from their
home. She points out that someone has created this suspicion between them expertly according
to the order of their lives around the duke. Hawat wonders with she’s threatening to sow
suspicion about him, but she tells him she won’t. Hawat then asks if she’s questioning his
abilities, to which she replies that he may need to examine his own emotional involvement in the
situation, and consider the possibility that the Harkonnens have planted no traitor and have sown
this discord while they enact a different plan. She also wants to know why in all these years
Hawat has never sought her council or listened to her advice. Hawat refuses her prognosis and
tells her that he knows she is trying to distract him, and that he never trusted the Bene Gesserit
public line, that they live to serve—he has never trusted her at all.
Jessica is angry and retorts that the rumors of Bene Gesserit power are greater than he thinks and
that she could destroy the duke if she truly wanted to. She then tells him that he is the most
attractive Harkonnen target, and when Hawat tries to stand she uses the Voice on him to make
him sit again. With this display of power she proves that she could have forced the duke to marry
and do as she wanted, that she has far more power than Hawat ever suspected. He asks why she
has not destroyed the duke’s enemies for him, but she insists that power is too tricky for that, that
the Bene Gesserit do not want to fall under such suspicion by acting so openly. That they do
exist to serve others. She tells him to do more digging until the suspicion on her can be retracted.
He’s still unsure of her, but knows that he’ll always remember this moment and be in awe of
Jessica.
Commentary
Gotta love a drunken rant. Sure, it’s a genre staple, and a fiction staple overall, but there’s
something weirdly satisfying about reading a character babble while drunk off their face. It’s
also an interesting choice of character, given that we don’t know Duncan all that well—we are
told that he is a good and reliable man, and that is most of what we have to go on when he comes
back in bad shape. Then again, Gurney is too seasoned to make such a rookie mistake and let all
of that spill to Jessica. (I do love the image of Mapes in her bathrobe being all irritated and
rushing off for coffee.)
This is such a fascinating smackdown between Hawat and Jessica. It gives us a much broader
sense of how the Mentats and the Bene Gesserit view one another, along with how difficult it is
for Jessica to keep her abilities secret. She clearly relishes having a brief moment where she gets
to strut her stuff and put Hawat in his place. As she says, she understands him completely, a fact
that he has never had the slightest inkling of despite all the time they’ve spent in the same
household. While suspicion and paranoia clearly get worse for the Atreides clan when they get to
Arrakis, it’s clear that Hawat has always been suspicious of Jessica’s motives… you have to
wonder what might have occurred had these two ever formed a rapport and trusted one another.
In that manner, we see that both Jessica and Hawat are blind to Yueh’s position as the traitor for
reasons that are very personal to them. Jessica views Yueh as a friend and confidante, since his
marriage to a Bene Gesserit gave him a better insight into her abilities and character. Hawat
doesn’t believe it can be Yueh because he puts faith in the incontrovertible strength of Imperial
Conditioning, which makes sense coming from a Mentat.
It’s important to note that Jessica asks Hawat to do something that he’s completely against from
a training standpoint; in order to recognize his potential for error, she asks him to consider his
own emotional involvement in the situation, to engage with those emotions and parse out how
they might have influenced his judgement. Hawat flat out refuses to do so, calling it a diversion
tactic on her part. When it comes to the fight between extreme rationality vs emotionalism, this
really gets to the core of that issue—the idea that focusing on emotional isn’t simply indulgent,
but a distraction from what truly matters. Hawat believes that he is skilled enough for his
emotions not to effect his judgement, but much of what we see from the man so far has
suggested the opposite. The narrative keeps telling us how exhausted he is, how stressed and
bothered. He is in no position to deny his emotional distress, but he does because his training
tells him to and because he is a proud man.
Pride has an interesting place in this story. Certainly not in a biblical sense, but pride as a
personal trait has very different consequences for characters in this tale. In Hawat’s case, his
pride in his work can be perceived as a flaw because he refuses to consider possibilities that
would prove he is out of step. For men like Stilgar and Kynes, pride is a survival mechanism and
a signal to others for demanding respect. There’s an aspect of nobility to their pride, and also to
Leto’s. Paul’s sense of pride still requires tempering because he is young and doesn’t yet have all
the wisdom he needs to back it up.
I keep coming back to the header quote from Paul and then thinking of Hawat’s recollections of
the old duke in this section. It seems to me that the violence referred to in that quote could be in
reference to this, to the inherent violence the old duke possessed that his kin are now paying for.
Hawat thinking of the man as he desperately works to save Leto is the note the section ends on.
The enjoyment he took in violence is nothing positive to look back on now, when the Atreides
line is in danger.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Eight
Emmet Asher-Perrin
The Baron Harkonnen’s plan is coming to fruition this week on the Dune Reread! Which is
horrible. But, you know, necessary to the plot and stuff.
Do you wrestle with dreams?

Do you contend with shadows?
So you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles,
Victim of your folly.
—Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from “Songs of Muad’Dib” by the Princes Irulan
Summary
Duke Leto is staring at a mysterious message he received, unable to tell who it came from or
what it means. He has had a report from Hawat on the Mentat’s meeting with Jessica and realizes
that it was a mistake to keep her out of the loop and plans to tell her everything. As he walks in
shadows to find her, he spots a figure on the floor—it’s the smuggler Tuek and he’s dead. Leto
follows the path of whoever killed him toward the generator room. He finds Mapes who has also
been stabbed. She manages to get out a few words before dying, but he’s not sure of their
meaning. He can sense that someone is nearby and goes to activate his shield, but it hit by a dart
gun. He sees Yueh and realizes that the man sabotaged their generators, leaving them wide open
to attack.
Yueh explains that he needs the duke so he can get into the Baron Harkonnen’s presence and ask
after his wife. But he is giving Leto the means for revenge by giving him a poison tooth that can
expel gas and kill the baron. Leto wants to refuse, but Yueh tells him that he mustn’t, and in
return he will see that Paul and Jessica appear dead but are hidden among Harkonnen enemies.
He takes Leto’s ring for Paul and implores him to remember the tooth.
Commentary
Again with the openings to each section being such a clever device. When you first read the
book, you have no idea who Jamis is, but on a reread you can see the connection from one patch
of story to another. This is the moment that Leto is brought down and it is juxtaposed with the
death of Jamis. Obviously these two men don’t have much in common, but there is a thematic
throughline here in the song, the idea of someone’s life being stolen from them in part due to
their own errors.
Herbert looooooves his dramatic irony, and this is one of the places where it shines through the
most. The fact that Leto is about to bring Jessica in on everything that’s going on, that he’s
basically reached the end of his tether where suspicion is concerned, is part of what makes this
more upsetting.
Those antifatigue pills they mention him taking are a thing I want, though. I mean, I know no
one’s effectively figured out how to make something that keeps you up without driving you
crazy (and maybe never will?) but hours in the day. I wants them.
We get a window in on Yueh’s plan finally, but it doesn’t seem that we’re meant to focus on that
so much as the fact that Yueh clearly has clearly done all of this just for the chance to find out
whether or not Wanna is alive. And there’s a good chance she isn’t, and he knows that. Yueh
literally betrays his life, his training, his employers, everything that he is or will ever be known
as, for the chance to look Baron Harkonnen in the eye and find out what happened to his wife.
There are many love stories in this book, but this one—which we hear so little of—is perhaps the
most important of all. It makes it very hard to dislike Yueh, knowing that the lack of closure has
driven him to this.
A brief moment for Mapes who I always love, and always forget dies so soon in the story. I miss
her brusqueness already.
***
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop
psychic muscles.
Summary
Jessica wakes bound and gagged on the floor, remembering that she was knocked out previously.
The baron enters knowing that she is awake because they calculated her dosage of narcotics
precisely; that’s when Jessica realizes that the only person who could have told them that is
Yueh. The Baron Harkonnen tells Jessica that he’s brought in Piter de Vries to prove to the man
that he doesn’t really want her as a prize in all this—he wants power. He offers Piter the Atreides
duchy instead, and Piter takes it. Jessica knows the baron is lying, but de Vries’s Mentat mind
has been so twisted he cannot seem to tell. The baron leaves Jessica in Piter’s hands for the sake
plausible deniability (he will have to answer questions from the Reverend Mother later); he has
no idea what will happen to her. Piter de Vries tells the guards (one of whom is deaf to prevent
Jessica from using the Voice on him) to do as Yueh suggested with them; bring them out into the
desert and let them go for the worms. She is taken with Paul to a ‘thopter and flown away.
The guards there with them are debating about whether or not to rape Jessica, and Paul is
feigning inexperience and helplessness to keep their opinions low as to their abilities. Jessica
knows these men are going to be killed anyway, as the baron won’t want witnesses. One of the
guards goes to Jessica and Paul manages to use the Voice just barely successfully enough to get
the man to remove Jessica’s gag. She then uses the Voice on the guards to get them to think they
are fighting over her. One guard kills the other and Jessica convinces the second one to let Paul
go. As he’s being led outside the ‘thopter, Paul kicks the man hard enough to collapse his heart
and kill him. Jessica scolds him for the risk as he frees her, then tells him that the ship has
Yueh’s mark and he left things for them. They retrieve a bundle from under their seat just as the
Harkonnens find them—they run from the scene.
Commentary
This section is just full of all the possible grossness that we can encounter. Piter de Vries at least
lets go of Jessica for the sake more power (and then the baron makes the point that he’s “giving
up” Paul, which is something about the baron that we’ll get into later), but then we’ve got all the
ugliness with the guards. Thankfully all of these people are easily and quickly dispatched, but it
serves as a reminder for how awful everyone in the Harkonnens’ employ truly is. Whatever
Leto’s failings in handling the situation, he never allows people to be treated so inhumanely. The
Harkonnens don’t even extend themselves to basic respect.
The opening of this section is a harbinger: Paul’s musings on a “science of discontent” where he
claims that people must suffer to develop their psychic muscles is certainly true for him, and this
is where that discontent begins. And as we see in this section, he’s not quite up to the task yet.
His use of the Voice is not perfected, and while he does kill the second guard, he puts himself as
unnecessary risk when Jessica could have handled the man far easier.
The pacing throughout these sections is a bit jagged, but I appreciate how quickly everything
happens. Hostile takeovers of this nature aren’t going to happen over days and weeks; when the
plan is set, everything goes like clockwork. So we don’t waste a lot of time with people being
taken from here to there, and fretting over their future. Even Yueh’s plan within the plan simply
carries off.
***
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife—chopping off what’s incomplete and saying “Now, its
complete because it’s ended here.”
—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Yueh encounters a Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniform (he can tell because the man calls Leto “The
Red Duke,” which only the Emperor does), and suggests that the man be tied up. The Sardaukar
wants to know where the ducal ring is, and Yueh claims that the ducal sometimes sent it with
messages to prove that information truly came from him. He is dismissed and hears people
calling him a traitor from every corner, knowing that this is how history will think of him. He
manages to get to the ‘thopter he knows will carry Jessica and Paul away and slips the ducal ring
and a note into a Fremkit that he left for them.
Commentary
This is a little bit of flashback for reader edification. We find out what Yueh has done to set the
stage for Paul and Jessica’s escape, and also watch his treatment at the hands of the people he
has helped. To be honest, it’s not really necessary, but the back-and-forth from all these separate
viewpoints not only makes the situation feel more desperate, but does us the favor of adding
suspense because we must read through this before finding out what happens to Jessica and Paul.
But most of this is plot machinations, as we’re nearing Book II and about to get into the real
meat of the story. We’ve got one more section of Book I next week, and then we move into the
desert for good.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Nine
Emmet Asher-Perrin
The Dune Reread is about to kill a very important man, then arrive at an awakening of our
psychic abilities! That sounds like fun, right? Well… that’s where you’d be wrong.
***
There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto Atreides died a meteor streaked across the skies
above his ancestral palace on Caladan.
— the Princess Irulan: “Introduction to A Child’s History of Muad’Dib”
Summary
Baron Harkonnen watches his forces trap the Atreides fighters and leave them to die in a cave.
Piter de Vries arrives to tell him that the Sardaukar have captured the duke, and the baron thinks
that he will have to kill Piter very soon—but not before the people of Arrakis are made to hate
him so that Feyd-Rautha can become their savior. He has Yueh brought in, and the man knows
immediately that Wanna is dead. The baron says he will keep his end of the bargain and permit
him to join her, letting Piter kill him as Yueh gasps his last words, claiming that they did not
defeat him. He demands to see Leto, and finds that some of the wind has been taken from his
sails over Yueh’s words. He asks about Paul and Jessica, and Piter is forced to admit that the
men sent to dispose of them were found dead, though it might have been a worm that caused the
problem. One of the duke’s men got away, either Halleck or Idaho in all probability. The baron
asks after Kynes, aggravated that he’s nowhere to be found when he’s supposed to be the
Emperor’s man.
Leto can hear them talking through a veil of drugs and knows that Jessica and Paul are at least
safe. The baron berates Piter for killing Yueh too quickly before they knew everything, noting
the absence of the ducal signet ring. The duke is coming in and out, and remembers the tooth.
When he finally comes to he’s groggy and mesmerized by the baron’s propensity for compulsive
touch. Baron Harkonnen questions him, demanding to know where Jessica and Paul are,
wondering if he sent them to live with the Fremen. He insists that if he doesn’t comply, Piter will
torture him of the information. The duke sees that the baron is about to move away, so he breaks
the tooth and expels the gas. Piter dies, but the baron’s shield combined with the clue of Piter’s
choking helps the baron gets away to safety in time. He appoints a new captain of the guard just
as one of the Emperor’s Sardaukar comes for a report on Leto, as the Emperor wanted to be
certain that he died without pain.
Baron Harkonnen is upset because he knows that the Sardaukar colonel bashar will see the scene
before it’s been cleaned up and realize that he slipped—and that the Emperor will see that as
weakness. He consoles himself with the fact that the Emperor did not find out about the Atreides
raid on their spice stores. He knows that he’ll have to put Rabban in charge now on Arrakis to
get his plan moving again. He tells a nearby guard that he’s hungry again and wants them to
bring a boy to his sleeping chambers that they bought on Gamont, and to drug him so there’s no
struggle. The boy looks like Paul.
Commentary
The baron is like a great vacuum that does nothing but consume, and the narrative here supports
that through exposition and his own thought process. Everyone around him is a “rabbit” while he
is a carnivore. As he watches the battle at the beginning of this section, all of the description
terms are related to consuming; “The guns nibbled at the caves”; “Slowly measured bites of
orange glare”; “The Baron could feel the distant chomping”…. The Baron Harkonnen’s mode of
destruction is by hunting and then absorbing things into his being.
His ever-precise control is given even more credence here, and it makes a great deal of sense
when considering the alternative; the the baron was nothing but a pile of wants, then he could
never achieve power. Instead, he is precisely controlled in all things to an extreme. While
puzzling over Yueh’s threat, the confusion results in a lack of control that causes him to raise his
voice to an inappropriate decibel and even this very slight change is extremely bothersome to
him. Because his indulgences are so over the top, his control must be even more sharp. This is
further played out in his knowledge of the vices of literally every person in his employ. He only
keeps on people he can manipulate, and he knows everyone’s sticking point as a matter of
professionalism.
The description of Leto’s death here is beautifully done. The random surfacing of thoughts, the
confusing and blankness. I’m not sure how that would relate to a poisoning, but if you’ve ever
been knocked out (say with anesthesia for surgery), the sensation is much the same. It’s only odd
in its abruptness, as a character who has been so important up until now dies with very little
fanfare. But then, death is seldom all that grand in reality, so perhaps it’s more appropriate.
The use of descriptors get a bit irritating here because Herbert really sticks it to us in terms of
equating their relative levels of badness with their personal looks and traits. In some cases it can
be clever—such as Leto noting the baron’s roving touch, making the character’s mere presence
seem like an assault. But then there’s the repetition of “effeminate” where Piter is concerned,
thereby equating the idea of an effeminate man with great evil. It sort of makes me glad that he
dies so quickly so we don’t have to keep hearing it over and over.
And then there’s the now explicit mention of the baron going to rape a drugged boy. This is
grotesque on several levels; we have rape, pedophilia, slavery, and then the mention of the boy
looking like Paul. Which gets an extra layer of awful stacked on when we find out just one
section later that Paul is technically his grandson, though he doesn’t yet know it. Here’s the part
where everyone shouts “but the Baron Harkonnen is based on the debauchery of Roman
aristocracy and they practiced pederasty, so it’s totally fine for Herbert to drop this in here!”
Look. When you create a society where you code good and evil very carefully, and evil is
codified by using both homosexuality and pedophilia and linking the two, and there is little-to-no
mention of anyone else in this universe being queer without being evil, I am going to have a
problem. I have the problem in part because queer people are not pedophiles (or evil obviously),
and in part because Paul Atreides’s character is largely based off of T.E. Lawrence—who was
gay. But, of course, Paul is not gay because he’s the main character and the “good guy” for a
certain definition. Both Saying that someone is a product of their time is all well and good, but
it’s still upsetting and disappointing to have one of my favorite books make it clear that the only
place for any form of queerness in this universe is alongside the most heinous brand of evil. It’s
not a great feeling.
EDIT: It has been pointed out in the comments by Crane that T.E. Lawrence was likely asexual,
so my sincere apologies for the inaccurate label. All sources I’ve read labeled him as gay, but
that could have easily been the result of academics without an understanding of LGBTQIA
identities presuming that someone with homoromantic leanings was automatically homosexual–
or presuming that a person who is aromantic and asexual must simply be “hiding their
homosexuality.” Both are incorrect assumptions, of course. I’ll do more research, since I’m now
deeply curious about error.
Moving away from that, I think it’s important to highlight how Baron Harkonnen uses the phrase
“I’m hungry” to refer to all manner of hunger, not just a need for food. This drives home the
concept of his “evilness” being about consumption, tied to how much he can ingest, power
included. And his rate of consumption is constant; he literally flits from hunger to political
machinations (which is about his hunger for power) to hunger again. There is no room for
anything else at all. In some ways it makes the baron seems less than human—he is a great
gaping maw, a black hole for things to fall into.
***
O Seas of Caladan
O people of Duke Leto —
Citadel of Leto fallen,
Fallen forever…
— from “Songs of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul is sitting in the stilltent with his mother, having been rescued from the impending wormsign
by Duncan Idaho. He’s trying to parse out a sudden awakening in his abilities, which seems like
Mentat power only more. Suddenly he can see things far more clearly than his mother, and he
tries to process the grief of his father’s death and finds nothing. Thinking back to Gurney’s
words on mood, he realizes that now it not the time to feel. Jessica is talking of gathering what
Atreides men have escaped, but Paul insists that they must secure their atomics. Jessica realizes
the shift in Paul and finds herself fearing it. He has her turn on the receiver Idaho left them, and
they hear that Sardaukar are running around in Atreides uniform; the Emperor wants the Guild to
be angry with them for destroying their bank, effectively marooning them on Arrakis so that they
can be wiped out.
Paul tells Jessica that they can wait another day for Idaho to return, but they must leave at night
because there’s chance he might have been captured by that point, and they can’t survive without
supplies forever. He has to explain to Jessica that the people who truly control this planet are the
Fremen—they are paying the Guild in spice to keep satellites from keeping careful track of what
goes on on Arrakis, the real reason why weather satellites would have been so expensive. Jessica
is sure he can’t know what yet without being a Mentat, but Paul tells her he will never be that,
that he’s a freak instead. He thinks to himself that he wants to mourn his father, but he’s not sure
that he’ll ever be able to do it.
Jessica examines their Fremkit and the tools within. Paul notes their sophistication, betraying
advancement that they are hiding from outsiders. Paul realizes that this may be the only
convenient chance he has to tell her about Leto’s true suspicions. He tells her that Leto never
believed Hawat, that he loved her, and that his only regret was not making her Duchess. Jessica
cries, and as Paul is still unable to mourn, he fixes his mind on the problems at hand. He feels all
possible futures stretching out before him, all of the people and paths. He thinks of being
accepted by the Guildsman, but knows that his sight extends farther than navigating spaceships.
As he extends his computations and begins to see the finer detail of things, he feels as though
there’s a bomb ticking down inside of him, and proceeds to throw a tantrum (then instinctively
logs the reaction in another part of his mind). Jessica tries to calm him, but he begins asking what
she wanted for him, why she decided to give him this training that has awakened “the sleeper.”
He tells her that he has had a waking dream that she must listen to; he has realized that the spice
gets into everything and that it would kill them to be without it—they will never leave without
taking a part of Arrakis with them. He tells her that spice changes a person, but because of her
training he can see the change instead of leaving it in his subconscious. He tells her that he
knows she’ll give birth to his sister on Arrakis, and that the Bene Gesserit have bought them a
place on this world. How he knows of this and the Missionaria Protectiva is frightening to
Jessica. Paul feels some compassion toward her and tries to explain the view into the future he
has received, where the path is hidden and where he sees more clearly. Jessica realizes that he
has come to terms with mortality and that he is no longer a child at all.
She brings up the Harkonnens and Paul tells her to put those “twisted humans” from her mind.
She tries to tell him not to use the term human without awareness, but he has more information
for her: they are Harkonnens. Jessica tries to insist that they might be from a renegade house, but
Paul tells her that she’s the baron’s own daughter from once dalliance in his youth when he let
himself be seduced. Jessica realizes that she was meant to bear the Kwisatz Haderach had
everything worked out correctly, and that Paul is that. But he insists that he isn’t, that he’s
something that even the Bene Gesserit could not predict. He sees two main paths toward the
future, one where he confronts the baron, another where a religious war begins under Atreides
banners. He does not want to choose that way, but he sees that the only way to remingle all these
genes, to move forward, is jihad.
Jessica asks again if the Fremen will take them in, and Paul confirms it, saying that they will call
him Muad’Dib: “The One Who Points the Way.” And now that he’s laid it all out he finds he can
mourn his father, and begins to cry.
Commentary
And now the “science of discontent” that was mentioned in the opening of a section in last
week’s reread comes to the fore. The stress Paul undergoes in their escape triggers a release of
his abilities, and suddenly he can see many paths, many timelines, many bits of minutiae that
propels him far ahead of his mother’s abilities. Certain themes that will be very important going
forward surface right here: Paul’s disconnect from his humanity, the difficulty in being able to
see many possible futures, the fear that his power inspires in others, the idea of his arrival being
in step with the Kwisatz Haderach yet something more.
I like this perhaps more than the average mythic arc because Paul’s “specialness” is merely
intrinsic to the circumstances of his birth, not something that Herbert pretends he earns through
hard work and sacrifice in the traditional sense. Which is not to say that Paul’s training up to this
point hasn’t been helpful, but more than when Paul finally unlocks his abilities, it’s not his
Special Destiny Time where he learns how to be a hero and accept how great and important he
is—he’s already keyed into the near-full extent these powers, and their blessings are circumspect
at best. Not all protagonists can be awesome people who learn how to use their abilities
responsibly, and feel good about the things they do. Especially not Paul Atreides.
Paul keeps his word to his father and tells his mother than Leto never mistrusted her and wanted
to marry her, and while it is a moving sequence, it’s always fascinating how emotions are set
firmly in the background of this story. Or they’re refocused—part of the interest in this moment
is observing how Paul is incapable of connecting to his own emotions while his mother is in
tears, his sudden instinct to look outside of himself and catalogue his own reactions and outbursts
as part of computation. He claims that this is beyond what an average Mentat would do, which
makes you wonder how precisely that is true.
This is the point where Jessica’s place in the narrative shifts and takes a backseat to Paul’s
coming of age. Her choices are still something that must be heavily scrutinized however, because
they are what has allowed all of these things to come to pass. It is perhaps perfectly summed up
in one of my favorite exchanges of the series:
“You!” he said.
‘I’m here, Paul,” she said. “It’s all right.”
“What have you done to me?” he demanded.
In a burst of clarity, she sensed some of the roots in the question, said: “I gave birth to you.”
The fact that the answer calms Paul down is one of those perfect details. And while Paul does
question her decision to train him in the Bene Gesserit fashion, this ultimate answer is still here:
You cannot blame your mother for giving birth to you any more than she can blame you for
being born. That is always the root of your relationship, regardless of how it grows and changes
over time.
This is also the first time in the book that we see the word jihad if I’m not mistaken, and it comes
in Paul’s awakening to the religious war that is coming on the path he must likely follow. There
are a lot of revelations in this section; the reveal that Jessica is the Baron Harkonnen’s daughter,
that the spice is addictive and you eventually must continue consuming it to live, that the Fremen
are truly in control of Arrakis by keeping eyes off of the planet. They are good reveals for the
end of “Book One” because they leave us with many more questions to start into a new part of
the narrative.
Paul Atreides is no longer a child, and the time of Muad’Dib is on the rise.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Ten
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week we’re going to pilot our way through a sandstorm after winning the loyalty of an
Imperial Planetologist. We’re also going to combine our tribes’ water together.
* * *
BOOK TWO
MUAD’DIB
When my father, the Padishah Emperor, heard of Duke Leto’s death and the manner of it, he
went into such a rage as we had never before seen. He blamed my mother and the compact
forced on him to place a Bene Gesserit on the throne. He blamed the Guild and the evil old
Baron. He blamed everyone in sight, not excepting even me, for he said I was a witch like all the
others. And when I sought to comfort him, saying it was done according to an older law of self-
allegiance, he sneered at me and asked if I thought him a weakling. I saw then that he has been
aroused to this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by what that death implied for all
royalty. As I look back on in, I think there may have been some prescience in my father, too, for
it is certain that his line and Muad’Dib’s shared common ancestry.
—“In My Father’s House,” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul wakes following a storm and takes his first drink of recycled water from his stillsuit. Jessica
is trying to avoid it, but she cannot go back to sleep because her dreams were disturbing. Paul is
thinking about how he has to get to the spice to have any affect on his enemies. Jessica can sense
a hint of bitterness toward her in his voice and thinks that he must hate her a little bit for being
Harkonnen when he was raised to hate them. Paul insists that they have to start moving again,
and uses tools from their Fremkit to punch a hole up through the sand (the tent was buried in the
storm) and get them out. They look out on the landscape and see lasgun fire in the distance; the
Harkonnens are searching for them. As soon as they step out onto the ledge, there are
ornithopters above them.
Commentary
So, this has been brought up more than once in Irulan’s texts, this point that there is common
ancestry between the Atreides line and the Emperor. We’ve talked a bit about the purpose behind
Irulan’s writing and here is one of those places where I wonder at her separation from it, i.e. does
she write about it because it interests her, or does she believe that it’s relevant to her father’s
story? More importantly, does she write about it because it legitimizes her family in some way?
This text in particular is clearly written to impart information on Irulan’s family, and has more of
a memoir sheen about it. Even the title—“In My Father’s House”—conveys that brand of
storytelling. Maybe when I’m done with this book I’ll collect all of the titles of Irulan’s writing
in one place and try to figure out what each text is targeted toward? That sounds like fun.
Jessica is having nightmares, and one explicitly about her mother now that she knows her true
heritage. This section makes a point of discussing two Bene Gesserit who had important
expectations placed on them by the order, both in Jessica’s mother and Irulan’s mother. We don’t
know precisely why the Emperor was forced to bow to Bene Gesserit desire to have one of their
own on the throne, but we can hazard a guess that just as Jessica was told to give Leto no sons,
Irulan’s mother was instructed to do the same.
As Paul is trying to pull everything together and set plans in motion, we spend this brief moment
primarily in Jessica’s head, coming to understand how her view of the world is rapidly changing,
revolving around her children. She also recognizes Paul’s distaste for her after learning that they
are Harkonnen, which she knows comes from the fact that he was raised to hate the house. These
next few sections really center around loyalty; how it is earned, taught, and learned. So it is
relevant that Paul can feel such an anger toward what turns out to be his own heritage with the
Harkonnen family. Not that they don’t deserve the disdain, but the idea that he can extend this
however briefly to his mother by virtue of her connection.
Kinda wish we had a little more explanation around the Fremen tools that allow Paul to tunnel up
through sand after the storm. I can’t quite picture the instruments, and when they’re so essential
to survival, it would be nice to get just a little bit extra. It’s also important to note how Paul
adopts the ways of the Fremen without hesitation, taking water from his stillsuit when he needs
it, while Jessica doesn’t want to admit that they are truly trapped and give into the need.
* * *
My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
“Something cannot emerge from nothing,” he said. This is profound thinking if you understand
how unstable “the truth” can be.
—from “Conversations with Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Thufir Hawat is waiting under a rock outcropping with a Fremen. He had been at a garrison
village when the attack took place, and was astounded to find how many troops came in the
attack. He realizes that he underestimated how much the Baron Harkonnen was willing to spend
against them. He’s still certain that Jessica is the traitor. From the Fremen he learns that Gurney
Halleck is still alive and safe among smugglers. Hawat has only twenty men left and half are
wounded. He asks if the Fremen will help them, but the man insists that it’s time for him to make
a “water decision” about the wounded for the good of their tribe. Hawat does not entirely
understand, but he wants to stays with the Fremen for long enough to enact vengeance on
Jessica. He learns that the duke is dead but Paul’s fate is unknown.
The Fremen wants information about the artillery that the Harkonnen brought, saying that they
wrested one of the weapons from their forces and only lost two men. Hawat is astounded—they
only lost two men at the hands of Sardaukar. It turns out that the didn’t just defeat them, they
captured three of them to be questioned. The Fremen refers to Paul as the Lisan al-Gaib, and says
that Hawat should not worry over him. Hawat explains that he is pledged to the boy’s service,
and when the he confirms that he is pledged to his “water” the Fremen understands what he is
asking for. One of the men dies, and the Fremen asks if he should call his own men and take the
dead to a place for accepting water. Hawat agrees to bond their tribes’ water, and the Fremen
men arrive to take the dead away. Hawat’s men are furious, knowing that the Fremen don’t treat
the dead the same way, but Hawat insists that they still treat them with respect so it makes no
difference. Now that they are bonded, the Fremen agree to outfit them and help. One of Hawat’s
men asks if they are buying help with their comrades water, but Hawat insists that they are
bonding their tribes together.
The Harkonnen approach, and the Fremen advises Hawat’s men to be silent, as there’s no
guarantee that they are the only ones being hunted. A few of the Fremen overtake the Sardaukar
manning the ‘thopter and take control of it. As more troops land, one of the stolen ‘thopters
crashes into a bigger troop carrier purposefully. The Fremen at Hawat’s side calls it a reasonable
exchange for what they received in return. Then more troops arrive and the Fremen is killed
before Hawat is stunned into unconsciousness.
Commentary
“Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.” Huh. Well, that feels
particularly relevant right now.
I love this section so much. It’s such a smart way of introducing the reader to Fremen culture
more clearly while simultaneously moving the plot forward and highlighting the differences
between the Atreides and their new bedfellows. Hawat is bothered by the Fremen tendency for
bluntness and also counts them as naive, which is simultaneously accurate and a
misunderstanding of a people whose needs are far different than his own. It also points us toward
a Mentat weakness that continues to crop up; Mentats are great at computation, but not great at
people. Bene Gesserit are great at people, but don’t always have all the data (or the data is
deliberately kept from them). It takes Hawat a good long while to understand what the Fremen is
telling him in regard to how they treat the wounded and what they do with water and how they
will bond their people together. He was supposed to be on top of this, knowing that Leto was
intent on getting their help—desert power, as he said. But Hawat is having a difficult time
wrapping his mind around the sheer magnitude of the difference between them.
He does notice certain things that are important, such as the Fremen’s pause when he refers to
the sandworm and his clear desire to call it something else. There are clues the Mentat can tap
into, but his computation is somewhat limited by his perception. He is still certain that Jessica is
the traitor. Moreover, he doesn’t really believe that Jessica is a whole person, rather just a tool of
her masters; he thinks to himself “who knows what the Bene Gesserit witch thinks, if you can
call it thinking.” He doesn’t believe that she has a mind of her own at all.
My favorite bit is actually this small exchange and revelation:
“Do you wish to go to the smugglers?” the Fremen asked.
“Is it possible?”
“The way is long.”
“Fremen don’t like to say no,” Idaho had told him once.
Such a key piece of information dropped in a very casual way. A culture that doesn’t set much
store by the word “no.” That has gigantic implications for their philosophy and way of life. It
both speaks to their determination and their refusal to acknowledge obstacles.
Other interesting point: the Fremen notes Hawat’s suspicion of them and says that the Mentat is
wondering if they have the “Byzantine corruption.” My assumption is that this is a direct
reference to the Harkonnens themselves rather than a turn of phrase, which directly correlates the
family with late Rome, specifically the Eastern Roman Empire that was seat of Constantine’s
power. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, as it doesn’t play so much into that late Western Roman
emperor similarities.
* * *
Muad’Dib could, indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think
of sight. You have eyes, yet you cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you
cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad’Dib could not always choose to look across the
mysterious terrain. He tells us, that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of
one work over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us “The vision of
time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.” And always he
fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leeds ever down into
stagnation.”
—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
The ornithopters above Paul and Jessica are being led by Duncan Idaho, and Kynes is with him.
They cover their ‘thopters with cloth that makes them look like sand dunes. Paul asks about the
lasgun fire in the distance the there’s an explosion—Duncan left a shield where the fighting was
going on and turned it up to its highest setting. Duncan is calling Paul “Sire,” and offers him his
shield, but Paul insists that Duncan’s right arm is shield enough. They are taken to a Fremen
hiding place under the sand. Paul realizes that it’s one of the Imperial Ecological Testing sites
that Leto had wanted to use for advance bases. Kynes wonders if helping them is the right move.
Paul says that he would use a site like this to make Arrakis hospitable for human life. The
Fremen call him “Liet.” Kynes begins without using Paul’s title, which Paul corrects.
Paul presents his own plan to Kynes, that he will make it clear what the Harkonnen have done,
courting chaos and war between the Imperium and the Landsraad. He would then offer the
alternative—taking the throne himself to prevent all out war. The Emperor would have to accept
because if the Landsraad is provided with proof that he was involved in Leto’s murder, they
would rise up against him as one, fearing for their own lives. Kynes is aghast, uncertain if he
should side with him, but Paul promises to make Arrakis the paradise that he desires once he’s
on the throne. Kynes rejects the idea of his loyalty being bought, so Paul apologizes and offers
instead his complete loyalty to Kynes and his cause, to willing give his life for him. Kynes is
immediately taken, and Jessica is impressed by Paul’s Atreides-given ability to win loyalty so
effortlessly.
There’s a skirmish suddenly outside, and Paul and Kynes close and bolt the door just after Paul
sees Duncan get cut down by Sardaukar. Kynes directs them to a passage down a bolt hole,
saying that there’s a ‘thopter at the end of the passage and a storm beyond. He advises them to
ride the storm to evade capture, and promises that the Fremen will find them after. Then they go
separate ways and Paul and Jessica find the ‘thopter. Paul is suddenly hesitant, realizing that he
had not seen this path in any of his prescience visions. He recognizes his mistake in relying too
much on his new ability and resolves never to do it again. He takes the controls of the ‘thopter
and heads out into he storm with Harkonnen forces on their tail. The storm is raging and Jessica
is scared for their lives. Paul knows they have to ride it out as Kynes said. He recites the litany
against fear.
Commentary
The core of this section deals primarily with how Paul wins the loyalty of Kynes, who we now
know is called Liet by the Fremen. Herbert has clearly put a lot of thought into this, keen to
break down how loyalty to a single man or cause works and why. For Paul Atreides it seems to
be an intersection of brashness, honesty, and abiding loyalty to those who place their faith in
him. He doesn’t pull his punches in his conversation, but as Kynes notes, he acknowledges when
he makes a faux pas and apologizes.
But in the end, it’s his loyalty given in return that gives him allies. Herbert aligns Paul more with
an Alexander the Great in this moment, the popular image of a conqueror who fights alongside
his loyal troops, asking no more of them than he is willing to give himself. This manner of
alignment can win someone loyalties that can far outstrip an enemy. The Emperor has the
Sardaukar, brainwashed and trained to his purposes. But the real loyalty that Paul is already
learning to command? That can reorder the universe.
Jessica is currently taking a backseat, watching how Paul handles situations and mostly
chastising in her head when she doesn’t agree with how he’s going about things. As she’s
normally a pretty proactive person, I’d actually put a lot of this down to her grief; the choice to
recenter on her children and trust Paul to steer them straight is a manner of coping that people
who have lost someone might recognize all too well. She is uncertain of the future, but she’s
determined to follow through with her son and come out the other side. Since he’s adamant about
taking charge, she lets him and spends more of her time feeling her way through things.
The opening section here gives more explanation for how Paul’s future sight works, and we see
it bottom out for him here when he suddenly realizes that he relied too heavily on it. While it
doesn’t always work perfectly in the narrative, this particular explanation does a good job at
accounting for a main character who has incredible prescience without making him all-knowing
(which is actually pretty tough and often doesn’t carry off). Paul learns here that he cannot spend
every moment looking to this ability to guide his actions.
This section ends with the Litany Against Fear, pointedly being the first time we’ve come back
to it since the start of the book. It is now when this litany becomes its own method of survival,
something to hang onto in times of turmoil, it’s religious aspect suddenly pushed to the fore like
a prayer.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Eleven
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Feb 7, 2017 12:00pm 19 comments 3 Favorites [+]
This week we’re going to take a harrowing trek through the desert, nearly drown in some sand,
and sing a man to his death. Just your typically perilous Tuesday.
***
What do you despise? By this you are truly known.
Summary
The Baron Harkonnen’s new guard captain, Nefud, comes in to give report that Paul and Jessica
were seen heading into a intense sandstorm and are certainly dead. The baron doesn’t believe it
for a moment, but asks for details on their operation. Nefud confirms that Kynes was helping
them, so the baron wants him killed. Kynes is being guarded by Sardaukar, so they will have to
take under under the pretense of the questioning and then make his death look like an accident.
Nefud also confirms that they have captured Thufir Hawat and that Hawat believes that Jessica
betrayed them. This works to the baron’s advantage; he tells Nefud to bring both Hawat and
Kynes and tell the Sardaukar that he wishes to play the two off one another to get information.
He then tells Nefud that they will slip Hawat residual poison that he’ll never know about, then
keep him alive by putting the antidote in his food and drink. He wants to woo Hawat over to their
side by proving that the Harkonnens are better suited to his abilities and will provide him with
better information and resources.
The baron believes now that all the Atreides are dead, and sees a clear line to a Harkonnen being
Emperor. Not himself or Rabban, but he thinks perhaps Feyd-Rautha. Rabban enters to speak
with him, and is surprised to be handed back the planet, thinking that it was going to Piter. When
the baron admits that Piter is dead, Rabban presumes that his uncle had simply grown tired of the
man, which aggravates the baron. He explains how essential it is not to dispose of assets without
consideration. Rabban asks if the Emperor knows that the baron suborned a Suk doctor with
Imperial conditioning, and the baron explains that the Emperor will be informed by his men, but
he will produce a report stating Yueh’s conditioning had been faked so that no one suspects his
true abilities. He then tells Rabban that he plans not to keep him under a tight leash this time, and
that his only directive is to squeeze the planet dry for profit; this whole operation was their
undertaking and the expense was worth decades of spice mining on Arrakis.
Rabban is pleased with his new reign, but the baron wants to assure him that he understands
nothing of the larger plan. Rabban insists that he has underestimated the Fremen, however, and
tells his uncle that he had a report indicating that a band of Fremen wiped out Sardaukar. The
baron does not believe it, thinks that they were Atreides men dressed as Fremen. Rabban tells
him that the Sardaukar think otherwise and have started a pogrom to wipe out the Fremen. This
suits the baron just fine, as he’s more worried about the Houses Minor in the cities and towns of
Arrakis who might try to inform others of what they’ve done. He advises Rabban to hold a
hostage from each of these houses. Rabban wonders at exterminating an entire population, but
the baron wants him to subdue the people of Arrakis, not murder them all. Rabban asks about
Kynes, but the baron reminds him that he’s addicted to spice and cannot leave the world—and
that he’ll be dead by nightfall anyhow. He advises Rabban to replenish his personal spice stores
for selling first, as they lost a great deal in the duke’s raid. Then the baron dismisses Rabban and
thinks of how his tyranny will make the population bow to Feyd-Rautha instantly.
Commentary
This section is set up deliberately to show where the Baron is shrewd and where his hubris
interferes with his abilities. He’s so pleased with himself, so self-congratulatory for seeing things
that men like Nefud and Rabban do not that he misses the most important factor in succeeding
with his plan.
In fact, the Baron’s key mistake boils down to a disregard for people who exist completely
outside the class and stations that he holds in such regard. He cares about the Houses Minor, the
Sardaukar, the Emperor, but the Fremen are beneath his notice. It’s fair to say that he barely
considers them to be people at all. In addition, he holds his own intellect in such high regard that
he never bothers to consider that someone from the Atreides household, like Paul, might
outmatch him.
And this is how the flow of his own scheme works against him. If Paul had developed his
abilities earlier, then the Baron would have undoubtedly heard tell of it. But it was precisely his
plot—getting the Atreides put in charge of Arrakis, coming after the entire family—that put Paul
under the needed stress to trigger his abilities. Baron Harkonnen is entirely the instrument of his
own undoing, but the irony is enjoyable because it’s so complex.
The Harkonnen concept of loyalty is meant to stand in stark contrast to the Atreides. The Baron
makes certain that Rabban can see his shield when he walks in; he doesn’t trust anyone from his
own family in the slightest. What’s more, he is certain that Hawat can be won over to their side,
failing to understand the depth of loyalty that Leto (and soon Paul) command, which will be very
important before the final act of the story. But since Herbert doesn’t set much store by ultimate
Good and Evil—the Harkonnens are a horrific group, but the Atreides are protagonists, not
perfect saviors—this is more of a lesson in how smart leaders inspire loyalty while others have it
under unreliable pretenses. The baron thinks himself above everyone because he knows their
sticking points, how to buy them off. But that’s only as good as money, and it means that
everyone you use is always vulnerable to being bought or converted.
In all other matters the baron does know how to manipulate with considerable ease. The idea of
letting Rabban be a monster so that the population is ready to be awed by Fyed is a clever one
that plays on the savior mythos that Paul will attune himself to in order to win Arrakis. The only
difference is that Paul’s myth is basically genuine. Which is something that the baron couldn’t
have known because he is missing a window into the Bene Gesserit sphere. (As are basically all
the men in this story.)
***
At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.
—from “A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul finally turns them into a storm vortex and it spits them out into the night. Four hours of
piloting has led them out of it, and Paul tells Jessica that he will land near rocks and she is to run
for them the instant they touch down; a worm is sure to come and it will destroy all evidence of
their survival when it takes the craft. The left wing breaks before they can properly land, but they
vacate the craft swiftly and run for the rocks. They barely make it to them before a worm arrives
and swallows the ‘thopter whole. Paul realizes that it’s bigger than a Guild ship. Jessica is tired
but they have to keep moving under cover of night when it’s cool. Paul saw this way for them in
a vision, but notices that it’s different—Duncan had been alive when he’d first seen it. They head
deep into the desert.
Eventually they come upon kilometers of open desert and stop to eat. Paul advises his mother to
drink all the water from her stillsuit, as the best way to store water is in the body. They know that
they might encounter a worm in the open desert and try to think best how to avoid it. Jessica
notes that she’s become oddly formal with Paul because she’s afraid of him and his abilities and
what he might tell her. Paul thinks that they could plant the thumper in their kit and then make it
across the desert while the sound occupied nearby worms, provided that they moved less
rhythmically. He fears the worms, but knows somewhere deep down that he shouldn’t. He slides
down into a fissure, but when Jessica follows she is buried in a landslide. Paul remains calm to
search for her, knowing that she’ll suspend her functions and give him time to dig her out. He
gets to her, and drags her away as the sandslope completely collapses.
He says the word to bring her out of bindu suspension, but tells her it might have been better to
leave her there—he lost their pack with all the supplies. Jessica insists that Paul can reason this
out, and he comes up with a plan, combining the acid in the power pack of his paracompass with
spice to create a foam that can hold the sand at bay while they tunnel down. They eventually find
the pack and get it free with some tricky maneuvering. Paul sets up the tent for the night then
uses his binoculars and spot some vegetation growing. Jessica thinks it could be a botanical
testing station, but Paul thinks they’re close to Fremen. Jessica is less pleased by that idea,
though Paul insists that Kynes promised their help. Another worm surfaces, large and
commanding. Jessica tells Paul that they have to review the musculature of the hand, to help Paul
control his body after the panic he showed today. Though initially irritated, he acquiesces.
Commentary
This is the first time that we see Paul work through considerable problems using his gifts without
having a grasp on the future. We get a feel for his learning curve, but it’s abundantly clear that
he’s not quite up to scratch. He doesn’t make many errors, but the ones that he does make are
born of panic and cost them valuable time and resources. In the words of Vader “The Force is
with you, young Skywalker… but you are not a Jedi yet.” And we’re given a key clue as to how
far off Paul’s visions can truly be; when he first saw this journey, he saw Duncan with them.
Now Duncan is gone. So there are no guarantees, no matter how carefully Paul sticks to this path
laid before him.
I’m trying to remember if I thought that Paul and Jessica were going about their trek incorrectly
the first time I read the book, and I’m fairly certain that I did. The narrative has been good about
lacing exchanges with the Fremen with just enough mystery that it’s clear we’re missing part of
the story, and the errors that Paul and Jessica make are due to a lack of that knowledge. Paul
almost hits on it when he thinks of the worms, remembering the hooks in his pack and knowing
that he should think of them with respect.
All sense of foreshadowing aside, I love this section. I love the mental gymnastics it takes Paul
to get through it, and I love that Jessica has to remind him what he’s capable of, I love the
references to muscle suspension. I also love the brief reprieve of Jessica and Paul actually
laughing, which might be the first time anyone in this book has actually laughed, aside from
Gurney and the baron? It’s one of the few times, and the sudden mode lift is much appreciated.
The words “prana” and “bindu” are part of the Chakobsa language, which within Herbert’s
universe is reference to a language that is derived from an ancient Bhotani dialect, particularly
their hunting language (according to the Dune Encyclopedia). Bindu means muscle, prana means
nerve. So when Jessica asks Paul to review these things with her, she is taking quite specifically
about nerve and muscle control. Fun aside: chakobsa was also a real secret language that was
used by Chechen princes and knights in the medieval era.
The reference to silence at the start of the section extends itself to all manner of metaphors, but it
is also relevant that Jessica notes how moving through the desert leaves a person inclined to
speak only when they need to. The desert dictates actions, movement, rhythm. All of these
denote a spiritual aspect to the their journey, something that is beyond their total understanding
and commands that they give themselves over entirely to the landscape. I would argue that for
Herbert, this is the true religious experience. Not what the Bene Gesserit plant on each world, not
the mantras and various texts for differing religions. It’s a person’s relationship to the ecology of
a world, their participation in it. In some ways, he’s more effective at seeding this idea than other
writers of his ilk. Tolkien was big on describing nature and connecting people to a sense of the
land as a living thing, but Herbert really connects people to the land as a means of describing
their hardship, their toughness, their development. More than once in the section, Jessica thinks
of Caladan, her recollection of its water now something approaching spiritual enlightenment. She
recognizes its beauty, its preciousness.
Conversely, the desert is about precision. Knowing each type of sand, shale, gravel. Knowing
when to travel, how much water to drink, where to camp. The desert demands your
concentration, your respect—like shai hulud.
***
We came from Caladan — a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on
Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind — we could see the actuality all
around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving paradise in
this life — we went soft, we lost our edge.
—from “Muad’Dib: Conversations” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Gurney Halleck has been saved from the slaughter of the Harkonnen forces by Staban Tuek—
Esmar Tuek’s son. The man tells Gurney that he is welcome to work off the debt to them
alongside his men, but he is not permitted to act in open revenge against the Harkonnens. They
must do that work covertly to make certain that they don’t anger the Guild. He informs Gurney
that the duke’s body has been seen, and that Paul and Jessica are likely dead, and that Rabban
has charge of the planet once again. This angers Gurney as Rabban is responsible for the deaths
of his family and his scar. Tuek says that he will help Gurney and his men earn heir passage off
Arrakis, but Gurney releases his men from him and is determined to stay for revenge, either with
him or the Fremen. Tuek tells Gurney that the Fremen way of life is likely not for him.
Gurney thinks he might rather live with those who are so adept at killing Harkonnens, but Tuek
tells him that they are being hunted by the Harkonnen fighting forces. Gurney insists that they
could be Sardaukar, but Tuek dismisses that as rumor. Gurney is troubled by this choice before
him, but still opts to stay with Tuek. Tuek asks that he try to convince his men to stay. Gurney
says he will consider that later, and goes to see his men. They are tending to their wounded, and
one of them will not get the medicine he needs to survive, so he has requested that Gurney sing
his favorite song to ease his passing. Gurney is given his baliset and plays, and that man dies as
he finishes the song.
Commentary
We can see that puzzle pieces are being laid in every time we reencounter one of the duke’s men.
Knowing where Gurney and Hawat are is important, we’re meant to make note of it, to see
where they are and what they intend to stand for in the coming fight. And again we have another
example of the loyalty of Atreides men—Gurney refuses to leave, and though he wants to give
his men the chance to escape this place, it seems unlikely from the start that they have any
intention of abandoning him. Leto commanded loyalty, and Gurney commands it on his behalf,
even when he doesn’t mean to.
We are also being reminded constantly of that fact that everyone in duke’s employ still believes
that Jessica is the one who betrayed them. Which is mostly just important for future plot reasons,
but also getting to be a bit funny when you get down o how deeply convinced all of them are,
and how they refuse to question the thought. (It actually makes me wonder how many of them
didn’t like Jessica? Or if they simply didn’t know her at all.)
I think it is also important to note that though Tuek’s son is not Fremen and has no interest in
their doings, all the people of Arrakis are exceedingly pragmatic. He has no interest in an
immediate revenge that might get him killed. Instead, he plans to bide his time and wait for the
perfect opportunity to get back at the Harkonnens. He extends this philosophy to Gurney, who
desperately needs to hear it before he gets himself killed for nothing. In that manner, the Atreides
need Arrakis; not simply for its resources and its harsh lessons, but to learn from its people.
There is a stern logic to all the people who occupy this planet because they know that the world
does not bend for them. And the Atreides and their allies, who are accustomed to demanding and
having those demands met, must learn the patience to be a truly effective force.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Twelve
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week we’re going to have an encounter with drum sand, take a peek at a pre-spice mass (up
close), and make friends with the Fremen. Sort of.
***
Family life of the Royal Creche is difficult for many people to understand, but I shall try to give
you a capsule view of it. My father had only one real friend, I think. That was Count Hasimir
Fenring, the genetic-eunuch and one of the deadliest fighters in the Imperium. The Count, a
dapper and ugly little man, brought a new slave-concubine to my father one day and I was
dispatched by my mother to spy on the proceedings. All of us spied on my father as a manner of
self-protection. One of the slave-concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit—Guild
agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were constant and
oppressive in their similarity. We became adept, my mother and sisters and I, at avoiding subtle
instruments of death. It may seem a dreadful thing to say, but I’m not at all sure my father was
innocent in these attempts. A Royal Family is not like other families. Here was a new slave-
concubine, then, red-haired like my father, willowy and graceful. She had a dancer’s muscles,
and her training obviously had included neuro-enticement. My father looked at her for a long
time as she postured unclothed before him. Finally he said: “She is too beautiful. We will save
her as a gift.” You have no idea how much consternation this restraint created in the Royal
Creche. Subtlety and self-control were, after all, the most deadly threats to us all.
—“In my Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica awakens to find Paul already awake. He tells her that he enjoys the quiet of this place and
she thinks of how her Bene Gesserit training made a point of highlighting how a mind responded
to stress either positively or negatively. She is having trouble being as positive as Paul and tries
to shake her darker thoughts. Paul sets a fuse for the thumper and they start walking across the
desert in a strange uneven rhythm to hide their passage. They end up accidentally hitting drum
sand on their way and are forced to run to the rocks. A worm comes out of the sand and writhes
at the entrance to the rocks, but then another thumper sounds and it leaves. Paul thinks perhaps
other Fremen have called it, though he cannot quite put his finger on why.
They follow the marker poles further up the rock until they reach a beautiful basin with some
plant life. Then they spot some hopping mice, and one is snatched up by a hawk. Jessica thinks it
was important that they saw that. Then they hear Fremen voices and one of them is suggesting
that they take the water of the intruders. Jessica worries what will become of them, unshielded
and alone.
Commentary
According to the Dune Encyclopedia, drum sand is a term used only on Arrakis, and occurs
when the sand produces a musical sound and rhythmic beat after being impacted. There are four
conditions necessary to this phenomenon: (1) sand grain of equal size that (2) must be bonded,
with (3) uniform packing density, and (4) bedrock beneath that runs parallel to the sand’s
surface. I dunno, I just really like the idea of it. It’s a unique little detail that seems like it could
be real and adds a touch of other-wordly intrigue.
Jessica’s grief is continued from the previous sections, and she finds it difficult to see the
brighter side of their isolation on Arrakis. That veil lifts from her soon, the instant she has reason
to fight for their lives. But for now she’s stuck on the idea that their chance of survival is slim at
best. Paul is focusing on the positive aspect of how remote their lives will be. There will be
plenty of solitude, time for him to think and develop his sight.
Rhythm is central to life on Arrakis. The beat of the thumper, the off-kilter rhythm of their own
steps to sound like wildlife, the hop of the desert mice. It gives a steady undercurrent of stability
to the place as well as offering a marker for how well Paul and his mother are adapting. When
they’re on rhythm they’re doing well, when they’re off they’re in danger.
The theme of subtlety and self-control being a dangerous weapon is really the point here, and as
Irulan brings up these characteristics in her father, so too are we meant to make note of how
essential it will be for Paul and Jessica on Arrakis. This is another very pointed jab at the Baron
Harkonnen, who may be clever in his plots, but has no measure of self-control whatsoever. He
makes his plans, orders others to do his bidding, then does exactly as he pleases. While he may
not have the same pressure points as the poor saps that he uses, this lack of self-control is one of
his most exploitable weak points.
When Jessica sees the mouse carried away by the hawk, she thinks it was important for them to
see that. They get briefly caught up in the beauty of the basin and are quickly reminded of death,
of the need to be on guard. And then their lives are immediately threatened following the
reminder, so yeah, good job nature.
***
This Fremen religious adaptation, then, is the source of what we now recognize as “The Pillars
of the Universe,” who Qizara Tafwid are among us all with signs and proofs ad prophecy. They
bring us the Arrakeen mystical fusion whose profound beauty is typified by the stirring music
built on the old forms, but stamped with the new awakening. Who has not heard and been deeply
moved by “The Old Man’s Hymn”?
I drove my feet through a desert

Whose mirage fluttered like a host.
Voracious for glory, greedy for danger,
I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab, Watching time level mountains
In its search and its hunger for me.
And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach,
Bolder then the onrushing wolf.
They spread in the tree of my youth.
I heard the flock in my branches.
And was caught on their beaks and claws!
Summary
Liet-Kynes has been left in the desert to die by the Harkonnens. He knows that he is right on top
of a pre-spice mass that is about to explode, but he’s too weak and confused to get away from it
fast enough. As he scrabbles across the sand, already suffering from delirium and heatstroke, he
hears the voice of his father (who was the planetologist before him) lecturing him about the
environment of Arrakis and how it could be changed to a fertile world with water. He suddenly
realizes that another future for Arrakis is possible if the people fall into the hands of a “Hero.”
But he’s too late to stop it; he’s already sent word of his support for Paul Atreides.
The spice mass finally bursts forth from the ground and swallows Kynes before the hawks can
get to him. As he dies, he thinks that his father was wrong, and that the key principles of the
universe are accident and error.
Commentary
I always think that Kynes’s hallucination of his dad is just him talking out loud and thinking it’s
his father until it’s finally revealed that he can’t really make his voice work. I’m not sure which
version of that I like better, really.
We’re getting a lot of environmental information here that clues us into some of the mysteries—
the connection between the worms and the spice, the use for the maker hooks—on Arrakis and
precisely what Kynes was hoping for in terms of making the world a paradise. His father’s words
are a useful bit of exposition disguised in Kynes’s loss of lucidity.
I’ve been thinking a lot of about Kynes and his ties to the Imperium and colonialism and how
this relates to Paul’s journey and maybe how it doesn’t need to. On the one hand, Kynes kind of
serves as a proto-Paul on Arrakis; his father was an off-worlder with ties to the Imperium and his
sandy-haired son grew up among the Fremen and was considered to a man who had “gone
native.” He married a Fremen woman and had a Fremen daughter. This is similar to Paul’s
journey, and knowing that the Fremen had accepted and integrated Kynes into their culture sets
precedent for how they absorb Paul and Jessica into their numbers and combine their water
together.
On the other hand, I’m a little bothered by the fact that Kynes cannot simply be a Fremen who
was trained in the sciences. We’re clearly not meant to believe that a Fremen would never do
such a thing (sure, you can’t leave Arrakis without spice, but we’re led to believe that Kynes has
been off world, so it’s clearly something that could happen), being as militant and set in their
ways as they are. As a result, the means to create this paradise of Arrakis that the Fremen dream
of is only attainable with the help and vision of some sandy-haired guy sent over by the Emperor,
and then eventually his kid. So there’s a colonialist element to it—the reverence that Liet
commands among the tribes plays into that aspect—and then there’s the fact that I can’t help but
wonder if Kynes wouldn’t be a more interesting character if he were Fremen and also a
planetologist. That combination takes the narrative to a more complicated place in my mind.
This is even more interesting when we consider Kynes’ warning to himself all too late, when he
realizes that he may have made a mistake in delivering the world and Fremen aid to Paul. This
later course corrects under Leto II in terms of making Arrakis a lush world, but he’s right in
realizing that a hero with a capital H is not a good thing for the Fremen. Backing a single vision
is a dangerous prospect, especially the vision of someone like Paul, who will adopt the life and
ways of the Fremen but still will always be an Atreides.
Kynes dies reasserting that he belongs to this place, which is an important final thought for a
man who technically does not claim ancestry on Arrakis. It makes the point to the reader at least
that whatever Kynes’ heritage, this place was his home and he lived and died by its laws. And
then there’s his very final thought, a revelation that the universe is ruled by accident and error. It
is an intriguing and perhaps legitimate take on the events of this tale; while every person on the
board has their own plans and schemes and desires, all the truly relevant pieces of this puzzle
have been informed largely by accidents and errors. The Bene Gesserit chose to hand a woman
to Duke Leto who would give him the son he wanted, the Emperor threw in his lot with the
Harkonnens because he feared Leto’s popularity, Jessica got pregnant a second time, the baron
believed that Paul and his mother could survive the sandstorm.
And there will be many more accidents and errors to come.
***
Prophecy and prescience — How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered
questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the “wave form” (as Mauad’Dib
referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy?
What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does
he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decision as a
diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?
—“Private Reflections of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
The Fremen who have Paul and Jessica cornered are being led by Stilgar. It is clear that they
have been advised by Liet not to harm Paul, but Jessica knows that her life is still up for grabs.
Someone named Jamis is giving Stilgar a hard time for letting them live, but Stilgar is intrigued
by Paul, particularly for the fact that Paul does not seem soft to him, even though he has clearly
lived with plenty of water. He is willing to train Paul about their ways, but he believes that
Jessica will be dead weight and does not intend to bring her along. Jessica feints and catches
Stilgar off-guard, getting hold of him. Paul relieves one man of his weapon and scrambles into
the shadows.
When Stilgar realizes that Jessica is a weirding woman and can fight, he changes his tune; he
wants her to stay with them and teach them how to fight as she does. Jessica commands him to
make that clear to his people so they won’t keep trying to kill her. He promises her that he will
keep them safe, and though he cannot vouch for all Fremen, he promises to keep them a secret so
that no one will harm them. One of the Fremen is still hunting Paul—someone named Chani—
and Stilgar berates them for it. He asks Jessica how he can be sure that she will keep her word,
but she tell him that the Bene Gesserit keep their word the same as the Fremen. When they
realize that she is Bene Gesserit, they think of the prophecy, and she asks if they require a sign
from her. Stilgar says there is no time, so she recalls the name of his Sietch and suggests that she
might be tested there, awing them again.
Stilgar berates Paul for being too noisy climbing the rocks and tells him to come down, then is
again impressed to find that he’ll only take Jessica’s orders. Paul comes out from his hiding spot
to see Chani—the girl from his dreams. She scolds him for taking a hardest way up the rocks and
shows him the easier way down. Paul is instantly taken with her. They are given kerchiefs to
identify them as belonging to Sietch Tabr. Stilgar asks for the weapon Paul took from the man he
bested; it is Jamis, and Stilgar insists that he and Chani keep Paul safe and help to teach him. He
also tells Paul that they will give him a new name after his test of reason. Jessica mentions that
Paul was already been tested with the gom jabbar, again impressing them.
Jessica thinks of how the group of Fremen move like a military company, even in their day to
day crossings. She thinks about the root of the word “sietch”: a place to meet in times of danger.
These people are the perfect asset for Paul.
Commentary
A lot of set up occurring here—we have the introduction of Chani, the slight against Jamis,
Stilgar’s interest in Paul, Jessica setting up her place among the Fremen. I always did love that
while Paul does intend to keep his mother safe, Jessica is fully capable of handling the situation
on her own and readily proves her worth to these people. Stilgar gets more points again for being
pragmatic and quick on the uptake—he knows that they need her skills and has no injured pride
over being bested by her. Unlike Jamis.
The opening where Irulan questions how much the prophet shapes the future as opposed to
seeing it is met with what we could argue is the first prominent instance of Paul’s prescience
“coming true.” This is where he meets Chani, a girl he has only ever seen in dreams, and now we
find that she is real. So there is a clear delineation in this at least; we know that Paul didn’t shape
Chani out of the ether, so this part of his prescience was beyond his influence.
Now, getting Chani to fall in love with him… that could certainly count as an instance of the
prophet shaping the future that he sees. It is a good question to continue to engage with as the
narrative goes on. When is Paul becoming bound by his own visions, and when does he shape
the world to suit what he thinks must happen?
Herbert is relatively consistent in how he structures the story to help the reader get a picture of
how Paul’s advancement in these sections. When we’re meant to see how he’s progressing, how
much sharper he has become, we’re usually in his POV. As soon as we’re meant to see his
mistakes, we’re in the POV of other characters who are calling him out or a slightly more distant
omniscient narrator. So we get his internal thought process as he learns more about his powers
and hones them to suit their new situations, and then others note his larger failings. When Paul
does think over his own mistakes, it’s usually a swift thing that denotes a change in the narrative
perspective as someone else takes control of the situation.
But much of this section is focused on Jessica learning precisely how much the Bene Gesserit
Missionaria Protectiva will save her here on this unfamiliar world. She is constantly impressed
by how well their teaching and prophecies have taken root, how well her training and
background works to her advantage. On the one hand, she believes that the Bene Gesserit truly
primed these people for her arrival, but on the other hand that’s hardly surprising coming from a
people who have no extensive knowledge of the Bene Gesserit in the larger galaxy. Would any
of this have worked if a significant number of Fremen ever left Arrakis and learned of the larger
politics at play? We have to assume not, and then consider how the isolation of Arrakis may have
helped to fill the Emperor’s coffers, but ultimately led to the exact environment that allowed for
his usurpation.
There’s another interesting question here about the willingness to believe in actionable prophecy.
There’s a considerable difference between wanting to believe in these legends and actually
taking it as gospel when the possibility arrives. (I’m not saying that other religious people don’t
believe in their prophetic legends, but I do think that your average believer might show a
considerable amount of skepticism before taking a potential savior at their word.) That the
Fremen have ways of testing Jessica to find out if she is the person they are seeking speaks to
just how important these stories have been to their culture, how needed the Lisan al-Gaib is if
they are to ever achieve the future they are seeking as a people.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Thirteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week we’re going to kill someone we barely know in hand-to-hand combat! Yeesh. So…
just an average week on the Dune Reread?
***
The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen”—which is the
self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.
—from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
They head into a cave, waiting until it is night again and they can make for the sietch. Stilgar
shows Jessica where it is, and she observes Fremen hurrying for cover under the harsh light of
the sun. He tells her that they choose their leaders based on who is the strongest. Jessica asks if
she has disturbed their hierarchy by besting him in combat. He tells her that some of them might
wonder that she has not called them out, but that it would be unwise because they would not
follow someone who is not of the desert, even if they won. His group had been delivering their
bribe to Guild to kept Arrakis free of satellite monitoring as Paul had predicted. Jessica asks
what they are doing that must not be seen, and Stilgar tells her that they are slowly changing the
face of Arrakis so that many generation from now there will be water and tall plants and no need
for stillsuits.
Jessica sees a mirage, Fremen robes fluttering on the back of a sandworm far away. Stilgar says
it would be faster to ride home, but that they could not summon a worm into this basin. Jessica
reels from that revelation as he tells her that they should get back before the men think that
they’re dallying together. Jessica remind him that she was a duke’s lady and there’s no room for
that, but then wonders if Stilgar is in need of a wife, and if it would be wise to do so to secure her
position there. She thinks of her unborn daughter, of why she permitted herself to get pregnant.
Stilgar tells her that though she is desirable, his major concern is in keeping peace and balance.
He doesn’t want his men to think that he’s too concerned with pleasure, as many of them are
reaching an unwise age. He doesn’t want the people to expect one of them to call out the other
once Jessica proves her worth to everyone. He notes that there is a potential vacancy with their
own Reverend Mother who is quite old, and talks of the danger of a people descending into a
mob and the need for peace in these times so they could expand their influence.
Jessica admits that she underestimated Stilgar, and he tells her that he would have friendship
from her. She agrees and asks whether he believes that she and Paul are the ones the prophecy
refers to—he tells her he does not know. She realizes that he wants a sign and feels a memory
come upon her, recites a bit of text that the Fremen respond to. Stilgar says that she may become
a Reverend Mother. Paul is eating food that Chani offered him, food that has a greater spice
concentration than he’s ever consumed. He knows that this might trigger prescience in him and
begins to sense it at his mother’s words. In that moment, needing to anchor himself in the
present, Paul learns more about the problem of his sight; it was at once illumination and error,
and even using the ability changed the outcome of what he saw.
And what he sees is this cave as a source of great change, where even the slightest movement
would bring a different outcome. And in many of the scenarios laid out before him, he lies dead
from a knife wound.
Commentary
So, from what I’ve been able to find “spannungsbogen” literally translates to something like “the
tension of the bow,” and is another way of indicating the suspense of something. The roots are
German (as you probably guessed), and using it in this particular context gives it a sort of double
meaning; the Fremen have this quality of being able to wait before they reach out for what they
desire, but under its more literal translation, this is a section of the narrative that spells out
suspense.
This exchange between Jessica and Stilgar heightens the suspense for what is to come. Stilgar
makes it clear that leadership is something that the Fremen fight for, and that it has to be
undertaken by the most capable among them. He has no desire to eventually fight her, so hopes
that perhaps she could be their Sayyadina, and takes the place of the aging Reverend Mother. But
even knowing that the possibility exists for Jessica does not clear Paul of this obligation, if he is
indeed the Lisan al-Gaib. So we have layers of suspense making themselves known.
Jessica thinks of perhaps becoming Stilgar’s wife, though Stilgar claims to have other women
and doesn’t want to seem extravagant by taking up with her. (Not sure if the other women are
bonded mates or just friendly companions, and I’m trying to remember if we ever learn more
about them….) There’s a point where Stilgar mentions that Fremen women are never forced to
have sex, though that implies that this rule only applies to Fremen women and not to others,
which is still awful and forces me to wonder in what situations they would deem that acceptable.
Obviously there is a separation between the city-dwellers and the Fremen, so perhaps that is
where the rule applies? But there was also that point made earlier in the narrative that lots of
Fremen men prefer wives from the towns and cities, which makes the lack of rule where those
women are concerned extra distressing.
Jessica turns her thoughts to her unborn daughter again and thinks of why she allowed herself to
conceive this time around. She’s forced to admit that she simply wanted to, which I always
assumed had to do with the fact that she knew Leto was likely to die soon. Later at the start of
the coming section, Irulan asks whether her own mother or Jessica were the stronger in their
choices to follow or ignore Bene Gesserit orders, and she claims that history has already decided
in favor of Jessica. But while Jessica has considerable strength, it is interesting to consider that
something else brings her out on top—simply the decision to do what she wanted to do, the
greatest wild card of all. Jessica’s strength stems in many ways purely from her belief that her
desires are a good enough reason to do as she wills. She regrets it or worries about it often, but
it’s still a motivating factor that shapes their universe.
Stilgar talks to Jessica about what a good leader does for his people and mentions that leaders
maintain individuals, otherwise the people just become a single-minded mob. It is a fascinating
premise in this closed circuit society that he is a part of. Stilgar is trying to reject groupthink for
the sake of keeping peace among the Fremen, claiming that maintaining the status of
individuality is key to this. And he wants to keep that peace not out of any leanings toward
pacifism, but due to his desire to propagate their agenda, the desire to make Arrakis a green
world full of water and plant life. Stilgar is, in that aspect, perhaps even more goal-oriented than
Liet-Kynes, determined to keep his people together for the good of their ultimate endgame.
Prescience is such a difficult thing to work into a narrative without cutting yourself off at the
knees, and Herbert spends a great deal of time explaining Paul’s gift in the maximum amount of
detail to ensure that it doesn’t overthrow his basic premise. The key is in showing how the ability
can be incorrectly relied upon so that it can’t become a constant crutch for the character. So we
have seen how Paul can lose sight of the future he thinks is coming, and now we have a different
scenario; one where he sees a tapestry of possibilities where every thread spins him out in a
different direction, but many of his actions still ultimately lead to death. Yet another difficulty
that seems reasonable, and creates limitations on what Paul can and cannot do.
***
My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet looked no more that 35 the year he encompassed
the death of Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. He seldom appeared in public
wearing other than a Sardaukar uniform and a Burseg’s black helmet with the Imperial lion in
gold upon its crest. The uniform was an open reminder of where his power lay. He was not
always that blatant, though. When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often
wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man
fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage. You must remember that he was an
emperor, father-head of a dynasty that reacher back into the dimmest history. But we denied him
a legal son. Was this not the most terrible defeat a ruler ever suffered? My mother obeyed her
Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History
already has answered.
—from “In My Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica wakes when it is night and readies herself to move again. She notes that Paul has seemed
strange since before they slept and wonders if it has something to do with the spice diet. Then
she notices that Stilgar is speaking to Jamis, the man who Paul bested, and that Jamis is
demanding combat to test Jessica’s part in their legend, seeking a chance to get at Paul. Jessica
insists that she is her own champion, but that is not their way. Stilgar talks of Jamis’s quickness
to anger, his inability to be a leader in hopes of getting Jamis to attack him instead. Jamis tells
Stilgar of the water they were carrying with them; Stilgar demands to know why they had such
wealth. Jessica explains that she came from a land full of water and did not know their ways of
discipline. Stilgar asks what she means to use this wealth for, and she tells him that she intended
it to save lives, giving it to the tribe so they can replenish.
Stilgar thanks her for the blessing, but Jamis will not be diverted and still demands combat with
Paul. Jessica uses the voice on him to tell him that if he hurts Paul he will hurt him far worse.
Jamis says she’s using a spell on him and invokes silence on her. Stilgar tells her she must not
speak again. A ring is made and Jamis strips down to a loincloth. Chani helps Paul prepare and
hands him a crysknife, whispering advice to him. Paul thinks back on the lessons of his combat
trainers, but realizes that he’s still at a disadvantage with an unfamiliar weapon and his bent
toward shield awareness. Chani has told him Jamis’s abilities and weaknesses, but Paul is afraid
all the same and recites the Litany Against Fear to combat it. They begin their fight and Paul
keeps sidestepping Jamis’s attacks but returning just an instant too late to land his own blows,
due to the shield training. Stilgar thinks he’s toying with Jamis.
Paul manages to draw first blood and asks if Jamis will yield. Stilgar pauses the match the
explain their way to Paul—this manner of challenge is to the death. They start up again, and
Jamis now knows that Paul is a true fighter, and is mired in fear. Jessica knows that makes him
more dangerous and can see that Paul’s prescience is no help to him in this moment. But Paul
was well trained by Duncan Idaho, and he remembers that fear will likely lead to a mistake on
Jamis’s part… and it does. Paul catches him switching his knife hand (as Chani had warned him
that he might do) and catches him in the chest with his blade, killing the man. The Fremen gather
around the body and carry it off.
Jessica wants to be sure that Paul doesn’t think too well of himself and grow used to being a
murderer, so she approaches and asks how it feels to be a killer, making sure that he notes her
disdain. Stilgar is also angry, telling Paul that he had best not play with Stilgar if the challenge
comes to them, the way he played with Jamis. Paul is crestfallen, and Jessica explains that he has
never killed a man with a blade like that before. Paul assures Stilgar that he hadn’t been toying,
he simply hadn’t wanted to murder Jamis. Stilgar sees that this is why Paul asked if he wanted to
yield, and accepts this reasoning. He chooses a tribe name for Paul that noble members of their
sietch may use: Usul, the base of the pillar. Then he asks Paul what name he would like to
choose for himself that they may use out in the open. Paul asks about the jumping mice that they
saw. Stilgar says that they call that mouse muad’dib.
Jessica remembers Paul telling her that they would call him that name, and is afraid of and for
her son at the same time. Paul can see this future stretch out before him, and sees again the
Atreides banned and the pillaging in his name, and he does not want it to come to pass. He asks
not to lose the name his father gave him, and requests that he be called Paul-Muad’Dib, which
Stilgar agrees to. Paul feels relief at having done something different than his prescience
suggested. Stilgar tells him that they are pleased with the name Muad’Dib, as the mouse has
great meaning to them. The band embraces him in turn, calling him Usul. Stilgar has their nose
plugs refitted, and has one of their literjons opened to give water to those who are in great need.
Then he arranges for Jamis’s funeral at sundown.
Commentary
It occurs to me at this point that we learn practically everything we know about Emperor
Shaddam through these accounts from Irulan, and that it is a such a singular way of getting to
know an important character. I’m trying to think of other instances where a character is similarly
introduced in a way that makes them both omnipresent and absent. It’s a bit easier to do this in
film, perhaps, but even then it’s not typically with this level of detail. We know that Emperor
Palpatine exists in the Star Wars trilogy before we meet him up close, but we also don’t know
much about the guy. Herbert gives us all these careful dissections of Shaddam and his manner of
wielding power through his daughter, but our contact with him is minimal. We really do get a
sense of him more as a historical figure, which he could have gleaned from many eras of history,
but has a certain Roman flare about it here. Irulan has a lot of philosophical questions where her
father is concerned, wondering constantly at how and why he became the man he was, and what
external forces pressured him to be that man.
The moment where Stilgar asks Jessica what her intent was in bringing such a wealth of water to
the desert is the point where I think the idea of water waste and water need finally hits home.
Herbert has spent so much of the narrative having his characters recognize the need for water on
Arrakis and how the thought of it is omnipresent. But it isn’t until Stilgar makes a point of their
carrying such wealth, and his suspicion of it that we can finally see the effect that has on a people
and on one’s frame of mind. It is an extravagance or carelessness up until the point when Jessica
deigns to give it over to those who need it. She hadn’t had the chance to think of it as “wealth”
until then.
The fight between Paul and Jamis is an important lesson for Paul as Jamis is said by some to
embody both the best and worst of the Fremen; he is a good and loyal fighter who knows the
ways of the desert, but he is also stubborn and close-minded to what he does not understand or
already know. Paul observes this close hand with the man, and it also provides an extra level of
safety for he and Jessica when their position is precarious by bonding them more heavily to the
tribe following his death.
I can still remember the first time I read the book and came across the point where Paul asks if
he’ll yield and then finds out that the fight is to the death. It’s such a common trope, but it’s well-
handled in this case. The outcome has consequences; Paul cannot get out of the duel once he
finds out that he’ll have to kill, and Jamis’s death is not taken lightly. It makes the revelation
actually worth something, which is typically not the case when it gets trotted out in other tales.
This is one section where I feel like the constant POV shift is a weakness; I’d rather the narrative
stay with Jessica or Paul for the duration of the fight because I think it would make a greater
impact and reads better for action purposes. Probably by staying with Paul? His recollections of
Duncan and Gurney’s advice are a major component to why the fight works on paper.
It’s interesting how Herbert laces Chani’s actions and reactions through this section, before we
properly get to know her. We are seeing her advocate for Paul at Stilgar’s command, but her
advice is still what ultimately saves his life, and she is impressed by his fighting acumen. We are
learning, even with these tiny scraps of information, what we can come to expect of her.
The meditation on violence in this instance will inform our view of it going forward in the
narrative. Jessica’s choice to humble Paul after killing Jamis reminds him of the monstrosity of
murder and reframes his thinking again, reminding him of the jihad he would like to avoid under
the Atreides banner. There’s a juxtaposition at work here between Paul’s desire to prevent killing
and his choice to ally with the Fremen who don’t think much of the act in either good or evil
terms. There is pointedly very little “message” where this is concerned between the two groups.
I’d argue that we are meant to side with Paul as the central figure, but the Fremen’s lack of
concern over death comes from a ready acquaintance with it and a spiritual level of peace with
the nature of life and existence. This will come up later in Paul’s weeping for the dead, but the
lack of firm value judgement on who is “correct” in their thinking ultimately makes the story far
more human.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Fourteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week we’re going to fight in a gladiator arena (and cheat), and attend a funeral.
* * *
God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
—from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
The cave is unsealed for their trek to the sietch and Jamis’s funeral rights have begun with
chanting. Jessica is deeply cognizant of how uncomfortable she is in the stillsuit, and remembers
that Stilgar told her that the suit would become more comfortable once she adjusts to a lower
level of water in her body. She wants to be sure that she warns Paul about the Fremen women—
he must be reminded that one of them might make a suitable concubine, but not a wife. Paul
approaches and explains that they have asked him what is to be done with Jamis’s water; a
person’s water belongs to their tribe, but this is forfeit if they die by combat because the person
who fought them will need to replenish their water due to fighting without stillsuits. Paul doesn’t
want the water, but Jessica tells him that he will take it. Water is more valuable than money here
and Paul should not break with their traditions.
The Stilgar has the friends of Jamis step forward and circle what is left of Jamis. Stilgar tells
them all of a memory where Jamis pulled him to safety, then takes his robe. He takes other items
for Jamis’s woman and guards. He takes his coffee service marker to give to Paul in the ritual
later. He takes the crysknife handle for the funeral plain. In turn, each friend of Jamis shares a
memory of the man and takes a possession of his. Paul realizes that they expect him to do so,
though he cannot see how he can call the man his friend, having taken his life. Jessica stands and
takes a handkerchief from the body, saying that she was a friend of Jamis and his spirit spared
her son. Paul realizes what he must do and takes Jamis’s baliset (it reminds him of Gurney),
saying that Jamis taught him that when you kill you pay for it. He cries and they are astounded
that he gives moisture to the dead. Jessica realizes that in a place where water is so scarce, Paul
has given a sacred gift. The Fremen begin to touch his face.
What is left is Jamis’s water, which Chani blesses and then offers to Paul. He comes forward to
accept the water, each amount of it represented by a different metal ring known as watercounters.
She then tells him that she will teach him how to carry the rings tied together so that they don’t
rattle. In the meantime, Paul asks if she will carry them, and Chani looks to Stilgar. He reminds
her that Paul does not know their ways yet, and asks her to do this for him for now. Paul realizes
that he missed something, and figures out that asking a woman to carry watercounters for you is
a courtship gesture. The group head move further underground to an area where the air is moist
and sealed off. Jessica realizes that there are windtraps there, set up by the Fremen. They empty
the water into a cache where it is carefully measured. There are millions of decaliters there, and
Stilgar tells Jessica that they have thousands of these caches and only a few of them know where
they all are. None of them would take from those caches no matter how in need they were of
water.
They plan to someday use these caches to change the face of Arrakis. To ground the water with
grass and trees, and leave only the desert for the maker and the spice. Jessica sees that this is
Liet’s work, and that the Fremen are perfectionists in the pursuit of these dreams. She knows
they will be useful to Paul. Paul keeps thinking of the coming jihad, though, knowing that even if
he were to die, the thing he senses is coming would continue through his mother and unborn
sister. He plays Jamis’s baliset for the group, an old song of Gurney’s that is romantic. Jessica
wonders why he would play that for Chani, concerned again. Paul thinks that his mother is his
enemy and that he must be wary of her.
Commentary
These points in the narrative are never high on action, but retain a great deal of intrigue to my
mind because all sections where we learn about Fremen customs and planning are relevant and
also beautiful in their own manner. Herbert’s interest in ecology and history are always present
in his writing, but I think his anthropological leanings are equally fascinating. He enjoys
exploring culture from the inside out.
The funeral rites are a unique moment to explore Fremen traditions and beliefs. Like many
funerals around the world, the Fremen share stories about the deceased—though in their case,
they seem to focus on tales where the deceased did something to aid them, tying into the idea
that Fremen exist to serve the good of their tribes. There is no room for aggravation now that
Jamis is gone. He may have been a hothead in life, but his passing is marked with nothing but
respect. Especially from Paul, as the man who took his life.
Then his water is specifically accounted for (though we pointedly do not see how it is done here),
and Paul is given counters as a form of safeguard. The system is genius on a number of fronts,
and while Jessica knows that Kynes is behind the plans to reshape Arrakis, the outline of how
this all works must be Fremen by design; the watercounters, the reservoirs to store the water so
that one is not obligated to carry it everywhere, the precise measurements of a person’s water
and the ability to break a person down to nothing but that substance. These things had to exist
before Kynes and his father arrived and someone had to create them.
I do wonder a bit at how Paul’s prescience comes off to him in moments where he cannot see
clearly. He thinks at first that he can see paths to Gruney Halleck again, and worries if there’s
something he might do that could prevent their meeting again. But then he later wonders if
Gurney is dead. Either this is an error on Herbert’s part, or Gurney is literally occupying the
place of Schrödinger’s Cat in Paul’s mind—he could be dead or alive at this moment, because
Paul cannot be certain of how clear his prescience is at any given time. He thinks on the flow of
time in these particular instances, how it’s sort of like an ocean, but he is in different parts it at
any given moment, sometimes able to see beyond the crest of one wave to another, and
sometimes not.
We get glimmerings of things to come here, particularly Paul’s relationship with Chani, which he
can’t seem to help falling into it already by accidentally asking her to carry the watercounters.
But we also get Paul’s upset toward his mother, who he believes is his enemy in these moments.
He decides this is because she gave birth to him, which seems an unfair assessment until we
consider that this might be his prescience gaining a little insight into another being that Jessica
will give birth to—his sister. So while Paul’s hot and cold feelings toward his mother seem
perhaps unfounded, when you take Alia into account, his distress makes a bit more sense.
* * *
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the
future.
Summary
It is Fyed-Rautha’s birthday and he has killed his 100th slave-gladiator in the arena. The Baron
has made the whole event a holiday on Geidi Prime, and slapped a fresh coat of paint on the
place, giving the people a day of rest. But Count Fenring notes how run-down the planet is. He
waits to meet Feyd with his wife, and the baron presents the boy to him. Feyd doesn’t like the
count at all, thinks the man very adept at saying things in such a manner that they are insulting,
but fall short of a person’s ability to say anything against him. He tells the baron that it’s
impressive that his heir is such a fine looking boy given his stock (but in a slightly politer
fashion, of course). Feyd is taken with his wife and says that he would make a kill in the arena in
her name with her permission. She does not give it, and the baron tells Feyd to leave and gets his
rest before the match.
The count asks to speak with the baron privately and his wife leaves. He directs them to a cone
of silence where no one will hear them and tells the count that the Emperor is not happy with the
way he handled the Sardaukar, and that Rabban is not seeing properly to the Fremen problem.
Baron Harkonnen insists that most of them must be dead because the southern reaches are
uninhabitable, but Count Fenring is adamant that someone on Arrakis (he hesitantly calls them a
smuggler) did a flyover of the area and saw vegetation. The baron does not believe it.
The conversation turns to questions about the baron’s accounting and the fact that the Emperor is
displeased that Paul and Jessica were lost in the takeover. Baron Harkonnen insists that nothing
could be done about it, and they engage in a back-and-forth for leverage. The baron says that he
could reveal the Sardaukar’s part in his plans, but Fending tells him that the Sardaukar would
claim that they acted without orders for the chance to fight the Fremen. The baron takes no issue
with having his books checked; he knows they are in order, and after bearing up under that
scrutiny, any accusation leveled at him afterward would not seem credible once he’d already
been vindicated. He asks why the Emperor wants the Fremen eradicated and Fenring tells him
that the Sardaukar merely want practice killing. The baron suggests that he might want to use
Arrakis as a prison planet to get more money out of it, and the count tells him it would be an
unwise move without the Emperor’s permission.
Fearing asks after Hawat, who was supposed to be dead according to what the baron had told the
Sardaukar. The baron insists that he needed a Mentat and that the man was useful. Count Fenring
tells him to kill the man, but the baron refuses unless he gets sealed orders from the Emperor
himself on that account. Fearing makes it clear that the Emperor is concerned about Baron
Harkonnen’s behavior and is considering charging him with treason. The baron pretends to be
worried and hurt over the words, knowing that if he were ever formally charged, all the Great
Houses would flock to him and he could overtake the throne. They head out to the arena with the
spectators and Fenring makes it clear that he’s come to observe Feyd-Rautha as the Emperor has
not yet sanctioned him as the baron’s successor. The baron is irritated that the Emperor had
promised him free selection in that regard.
Feyd-Rautha enters the arena with his two knives; white for poison, black for purity. He
dedicates the fight to his uncle and thinks of the true plan thought up by Hawat—the black
dagger does have poison. The slave-gladiator in this fight will not be drugged the way the others
always are, and when it’s discovered, all eyes will be on the slavemaster who will be killed so
that Feyd can promote his own man to the position. There is a key word that will immobilize the
man on utterance. The slave turns out to an old Atreides fighter, and Feyd wonders if this was a
plan within a plan on Hawat’s part, but goes into the fight anyway. He has poisoned barbs as
well and entered the arena as the slave challenges him, not usual for his fights. Everyone knows
that the man is not drugged. Feyd buries both barbs in the man despite his clear skill as a fighter.
Feyd attacks the man with the blade that the slave believes carries the poison while tying to get a
hit in the black blade that truly carried the poison. But the man has lashed the barbs to his arms
and uses them to shield himself from the blow. Finally, Feyd manages to scratch him with the
poison blade and revels at how everyone will see this (including his family) and know something
about him—that they will never know which of his hands carries the poison blade. The Atreides
man manages to impale himself on his own dagger before succumbing to the poison and Feyd
finds himself impressed in spite of himself. The baron believes that the plan intended that the
slave undrugged was an attempt to get to him and that Feyd uncovered the corruption of the
slave master. To reward him, he tells the men that Feyd can have the gladiator’s head.
But Feyd does not want it. Instead, he places the man’s knife in his heads and asks that he be
buried with it because he earned it. The baron thinks that he’s insulted the crowd, but Lady
Fenring knows it’s the opposite—the crowd adores him for the gesture. The baron orders a fete
in his name to reward him, knowing that the people are enamored of him tonight. The count and
his lady speak in their code language (the humming they both do in the midst of their sentences
is its own hidden language); now that they’ve seen what the boy is made of, Lady Fenring agrees
that they must preserve this bloodline, and that she will seduce the boy and have his child. The
count wonders how impressive Feyd might have been raised by the Atreides, and laments the
death of Paul. But Lady Fenring tells him a Bene Gesserit saying: that you can never count a
human dead without seeing their body, and even then you can make a mistake.
Commentary
Yeah, that quote at the start of this section. That’s messing me up this week.
Weird aside to begin this section: Herbert makes a point of noting that the hall that Count and
Lady Fenring are standing in isn’t all that large, but that the pillars have been tapered and the
ceiling arched to give the effect of a bigger space. Tricks like this are one of my favorite little
tidbits about architecture and again harkens back to ancient Greece and Rome; the Greeks
perfected that subtle curve to make a space or building look larger, and the Romans were all
about their curved ceiling basilicas. But in the case of the Harkonnens, everything that they have
is tainted with an underlayer of grime and mistreatment. They keep their subjects frightened,
dirty, and overworked—even in a time of celebration it is clear that this is a carefully controlled
state.
Yet again, we run into the baron’s fatal flaw in all of his scheming; he completely refuses to give
any credence or thought to the Fremen, and is sure that Jessica and Paul are dead. The baron is
an overall logical tactician, but he has his limits, places where he cannot conceive of being
wrong. During his conversation with the count, he is far more concerned with whether or not the
Emperor has plans to try and undermine him, which he believes would only strengthen his
position. And to that account, he may have been right had Paul not survived. But it is also deeply
intriguing to consider how the baron functions in regard to how the power comes to their
house—because he’s not intent on gaining all that power and wealth for himself if it doesn’t
happen to come their way for some time. He is doing this so that Feyd can eventually be the
Harkonnen in charge of everything. And he tells Feyd that he shouldn’t be so quick to want
power because he still has much to learn from his uncle (and he’s right), but the point is that the
survival and rise of the Harkonnen line is what matters to him. He doesn’t care if he dies before
he gets to see the fruit of all his plans.
Extending the Romanesque feel of Harkonnen rule, we get gladiator games, a favorite pastime of
the Romans. And, of course, many Roman gladiators were slaves or criminals sent to die in the
arena. (Although I’ve never come across an account of them being drugged, so that just makes
Feyd-Rautha extra specially awful.) We learn that Hawat is helping Feyd independently of the
baron, and that he is clearly hoping to get rid of the man by backing the nephew, sowing
suspicion so that the baron doubts his own staff and raising his paranoia.
As Count Fenring notes that they are observing Feyd to learn about him on the Emperor’s behalf
(and Lady Fenring is doing the same on behalf of the Bene Gesserit), we are also observing Feyd
more closely than the narrative has ever allowed us. And he is pure ambition and cunning. Like,
he’d be one of those kids who barely had the Sorting Hat touch his head before it shouted
“Slytherin!” More importantly, he has no compassion for anyone and no inclination to anything
but power. Still, he has enough intelligence to note when a “softer hand” will elevate him in the
public eye. It’s an odd moment where the baron forgets what he has been training Feyd for; he
presumes that the crowd will be angry with him for refusing the gladiator’s head, but Feyd
knows exactly how to play the scene, insisting that the man be buried “respectfully.” (Still extra
bemusing considering the conniving way he was murdered, but I’m sure that if you live around
the Harkonnens, any gesture at all amounts to kindness.)
I have a weird liking for Count and Lady Fenring, I think maybe because of their secret
language. The fact that they use the odd hums in their conversations to relay information back
and forth is one of my favorite bits in the whole novel. While I wouldn’t trust the duo in a pinch,
they are intriguing in their dual goals as a married Mentat and Bene Gesserit. They work together
expertly, and it’s fun to observe how they manipulate others with so little effort. Which is really
just an odd way of noticing that when so many characters in a book are so expertly manipulative,
it’s easy to latch on to the characters who embody these traits, but are slightly less awful than,
say, Baron Harkonnen.
The more you learn about the Bene Gesserit breeding program, on the other hand, the more
disgusting it gets. Really just from the top down. So while the Fenring’s are fun from a certain
standpoint, as soon as Lady Fenring brings up seducing Feyd, my brain just nopes right outta
there. Ugh.
And then we end on an old Bene Gesserit saying, which also happens to be a saying for anyone
who enjoys fiction: you can never count someone dead until you see the body, and even then,
something can always come up. She knows it. We know it. We also know that Paul and Jessica
are alive anyhow, but the irony is still funny.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Fifteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Mar 7, 2017 12:00pm 10 comments 5 Favorites [+]
This week we’re going to gain two sons and then imbibe poison to change it into not-poison so
that we can hand it out as a drug to all our new desert friends. Don’t worry, it’s not as dire as it
sounds. Okay, it kind of is.
***
Muad’Dib tells us in “A Time of Reflection” that his first collisions with Arrakeen necessities
were the true beginnings of his education. He learned then how to pole the sand for its weather,
learned the language of the wind’s needles stinging his skin, learned how the nose can buzz with
sand-itch and how to gather his body’s precious moisture around him to guard it and preserve it.
As his eyes assumed the blue of the Ibad, he learned the Chakobsa way.
—Stilgar’s preface to “Muad’Dib, the Man” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
As they make their way to the sietch, Chani chastises Paul for not having his hood all the way
down on his forehead and wasting moisture. They are instructed to stop in case Chani’s outburst
attracted attention, and she is utterly silent from that point on. When they reach the sietch she
leaves Paul’s side and one of the other Fremen makes reference to the news and says “poor
Chani.” Paul is assaulted by the smell of the place, but his mother is quick to compliment it and
cues Paul to accept it readily. Paul hears that Liet has died and finally makes the connection; Liet
is Kynes’s Fremen name and Chani is his daughter.
There is a cry and then Paul is led to meet Harah, Jamis’s woman. She cannot believe that a child
could have bested Jamis and insists it was an accident. Stilgar informs her that Paul’s mother
knows the weirding way and that they should not challenge the outcome. Harah thinks of the
Lisan al-Gaib, and Paul sees that the legend has helped them again. Stilgar tells Paul that he must
decide to accept her as woman or servant. Harah tells him that she is young, and Paul asks if he
may change his mind if he accepts her as servant. Stilgar explains that Paul has one year to
change his mind or she is free to choose another. He can also release her now from any
obligation. Either way he is responsible for her for a year and will always be partly responsible
for Jamis’s sons. Paul says that he will accept Harah as a servant, which irritates her.
Paul can see that the troop is growing impatient, so he uses the weirding voice on Harah and
instructs her to take him to Jamis’s quarters which are now his. She worries that he’ll cast her out
when he year is done, but he promises that she’ll always have a place with him. Paul asks if she
hates him, but she says that Stilgar told her of how he gave water to the dead and was a friend of
Jamis. She says that she will mourn when it is time. The tribe plans to move on soon as they are
being pursued by Sardaukar, but they are still making dew collectors to be certain that plants will
survive while they’re gone. Paul asks how the dew collectors work, and she explains their
construction, though she is shocked that he doesn’t know. Paul notices that as they makes their
way through the sietch, people are staring at him. Harah tells him that people are having a hard
time believing that he bested Jamis.
They walk by a classroom and Paul is surprised that they are still teaching knowing that they
must soon leave. Harah tells him that the teaching of Liet cannot be left off. Then they arrive at
his new quarters—yali— and Paul hesitates, feeling a pull toward the Fremen way life that
concerns him. He goes inside and rejects Harah’s help getting off his stillsuit, but accepts her
offer of food. She comments on the strangeness of his eyes, as they are not blue like a Fremen’s.
Paul dismisses her to get the food and finds his mind wandering to Chani who has just lost her
father just as he has. He thinks again of the place that his mother and his sister have on this path
he’s taking. He also notes that though he can smell many poisons within the sietch, there is no
poison snooper anywhere. Then Jamis’s sons return with hands on the hilts of their crysknives,
and Paul recalls that they children of the Fremen are said to fight as the adults do.
Commentary
Again we are looking at Fremen customs, the Fremen way of life, observing two particular facets
that we will need to understand as it pertains to Paul’s current situation; we are learning about
their efficiency as a people, and we are learning about their social structure, particularly as it
pertains to family units. We find out that Paul is now responsible for Jamis’s family, and
although he can decide to let Harah out of that arrangement at the end of the year, Jamis’s
children are always bound to him. It’s a practical system in terms of the longevity of the group;
for survival, all children must have guardians. The Fremen make certain of this by having clearly
defined rules about how the family unit is created and maintained.
This system does seem to ultimately favor the man overall; my assumption is that, should Paul
make the choice to release Harah after a year, she would have had difficulty surviving without
another partner. (In addition, it seems that if a woman’s partner is killed and the victor decides to
take her on as his woman rather than his servant, she is obligated to that arrangement and would
be frowned upon for neglecting it. And either way she ends up beholden to a man that she might
not wish to be bound to.) A Fremen woman in this situation has rights, but she is still dependent
upon male action to determine her life course. Conversely, the system they have prevents
Harah’s children from being effectively orphaned, and Paul must take care of them. Harah is also
free to speak her mind on the subject, even if Fremen society does not permit too much deviation
from the standard arrangements.
This particular universe puts a keen divide on the concepts of romance and necessity where
longterm companionship is concerned. For the Fremen, what matters most is survival. This is not
to say that romance has no place in their society, only that they have more pressing concerns
about being bonded to one another for the sake of maintaining homes, lineage, health. While this
is not exactly the same as the arrangement between Duke Leto and Jessica, we are circling
similar themes—the importance of love juxtaposed with the importance of carefully considered
partnerships for the sake of advancement and protection (or to political ends as we see with
Count and Lady Fenring). The outside world sees the Fremen as largely barbaric, but while their
rules are different, the social structures boil down to the same basic outlines.
We are also looking at how terrifyingly efficient they are as a people, and not just where their
fighters are concerned. They are aware that they’re going to have to move in short order, but they
keep working all the way down to the wire to maintain the sietch and their equipment, and
educate their children. Paul is drawn in by that efficiency; while the narrative constantly points
out what an incredible asset the Fremen will be to Paul, here is a place where we can take note of
how and why Fremen culture is appealing to a person with Paul’s level of discipline and power.
It is little wonder that he falls so easily in step with them when all of his training aligns with their
way of life exactly.
I really do love that the end of this particular section leaves us in a bit of suspense, as though we
should be worried that Jamis’s sons might try to kill their new adoptive dad. (Their new adoptive
dad who isn’t actually old enough to be the father of either of them, so more like a really cool
older brother? But their dad in more of a legal sense.) The tension isn’t meant to be long-lasting,
just to drive home the point of how dangerous all of the Fremen can be, and it sort of makes it
funny in retrospect.
***
The hands move, the lips move —

Ideas gush from his words,
And his eyes devour!
He is an island of Selfdom.
—description from “A Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica waits in the latest chamber of the sietch, seeing that there are 5000 souls already among
them and more pouring in. She waits for the Reverend Mother, and Paul enters flanked by
Jamis’s sons. Stilgar jokes that they take the guarding of him very seriously. Jessica knows she
must keep her mind on the upcoming task at hand, however; she is about the risk the life of
herself and her daughter, but she must do it to secure their place among the Fremen. Paul does
not know what is about to transpire, but Stilgar silences him before he can ask further. Chang is
dressed in green for mourning, but Jamis’s sons have not because they accepted him as their
guardian.
Chani heads up a litter of women carrying the Reverend Mother. The ancient woman speaks to
Jessica, then Stilgar tells the sietch—now 20,000 heads strong—that they are heading into the
deep desert, but that their Reverend Mother cannot make the journey. Jessica is to perform the
rite to become their new Reverend Mother. If Jessica fails, Chani is to be consecrated as
Sayyadina to prevent them from losing their holy woman altogether. Chang will fulfill the
menial task in the Ceremony of the Seed to test Jessica. Water bearers bring forth sacks of water
that are poison, undrinkable. they call it the Water of Life, and Chani says that if Jessica is a
Reverend Mother this water will open the universe to her. Jessica is to drink it, and she goes
forward with the task, uncertain as to what the water actually is. She realizes that it is a drug, but
not any that she had experienced in the Bene Gesserit training. She realizes that time is frozen,
and that this moment of suspended time exists to save her life.
In this suspended moment she sees the dark place where the Bene Gesserit cannot look, where
only the Kwisatz Haderach may linger. Then she searches through her own body for danger, and
finds it in the drug she took. She can see this drug down to its molecules now. Then the Old
Reverend Mother comes and sits with her and she finds they come to a mutual awareness. She
sees the Reverend Mother as the woman sees herself, a young spirited girl, and she is there to
guide Jessica through the rest of the process—but she stops when she realizes that Jessica is
pregnant. The water will change them both, so Jessica must calm her child. The Reverend
Mother says that this would have killed as male and tells Jessica soothe the fetus. Jessica
manages this with pure emotional contact, then is made to accept the Reverend Mother’s
memory of her life and all the lives that proceeded hers in this chain. She is not certain that this
won’t drive Jessica’s daughter mad, but she dies as she hands these experiences.
Jessica is a Reverend Mother now. It is not the way it would be done in a Bene Gesserit school,
but the outcome is the same. She apologizes for what she has done to her daughter and gets a
vague reassurance in reply. Then Jessica looks to the poison and realizes that she has the ability
to change its structure to render it harmless. But she is not meant to undo the drug, only to make
it safe for the people to partake in. She knows the words to say from her previous lifetime, and
tells everyone that she has met Reverend Mother Ramallo, that she is gone but remains. There
will be an orgy following everyone’s high, but what is left of the Reverend Mother tells Jessica
to give them their party so that they have the ability to know one another before she fades away
into Jessica’s conscience.
As she learns from the Reverend Mother’s experiences, she finds that the Fremen are an older
culture than she expected and sees where they came from. Then she learns that the Water of Life
is dying breath of a sandworm, the Maker. They killed it by drowning it. Paul goes to his mother
to ask if she’s alright, and then to ask if he can drink the water as he’s being told by the others to
do so. Jessica realizes that Paul’s prescience has its limits for him to ask such a question. She
tells everyone that the water is safe, it has been changed. Stilgar says that now they know she
“cannot be false,” before the drug takes hold of her.
Paul tries to discern more about the drug, but can only parse out aspects of it, realizing that the
true challenge of prescience is to see the past in the future rather than in the present moment. He
does not want to drink the drug, knowing that it will launch him deep into his visions of pure
time, but he must or he delays the rite. Paul notes Chani’s armband of mourning, and she tells
him that she can grieve for her father even in the happiness of the drug, and that they have both
lost their fathers to the Harkonnens. She leads him away, and as the drug takes hold, Paul tells
her that he knows her, admits what he has seen in the future. She is frightened, sensing
something in him, that his presence makes everyone else sees his visions—that’s why she led
him away from he crowd. He asks her what she sees and she tells him that she sees their child,
and wonders how she can know his features so well. Paul realizes that the Fremen have some
talent for prescience, but they suppress it because it’s frightening.
Chani is frightened, so he holds her and tell her not to fear while his vision of the future unwinds
before him. He can see Feyd there and the Guild and the Imperium, he can see that he is the
center of this storm, and he can see a moment where he and Chani have peace in the sietch
between times of violence. He cries and Chani asks who he gives water for. He tells her it is for
those who have no died yet, and she says he must let them have their time of life. He realizes that
she’s right, and then she tells him that what she saw in his vision was comforting—the two of
them giving love to one another during the quiet between storms. Paul asks Chani to stay with
him, and she says that she will, always.
Commentary
We jump from one suspense to another—from Paul’s new adoptive kids to Jessica about to go
through with a ritual that sounds incredibly dangerous. And the delay here marks deliberate
departure from what the story has been giving us because we don’t shift POV to see how Jessica
arrives here, what she’s been told or how the decision was made to begin with all of this
immediately. Because the use of direct suspense is rare in this story, even the smallest amount is
pretty darned effective. It’s an interesting lesson in contrasts.
I really love that the Fremen color for mourning is green. Not just as a color that’s in deep
opposition to the the muted shades of the desert, but given the fact that green is typically the
color associated with life and flora. Their mourning color isn’t a representation of absence, it’s a
reminder life.
We follow the ritual at the same time as Jessica, so we learn its intricacies with her. While Paul’s
journey is marked by his prescience, his need to know what’s coming and how he is developing
his abilities to that end, we are discovering Jessica’s journey along with her. In some ways, her
path is more interesting than Paul’s because it is harder to see where it goes. She only gets
glimmers of what the future might bring, and more interestingly, she’s always more important
than she seems to anticipate. Paul is constantly looking to the future to see what it might bring,
but Jessica’s training is so deeply embedded that her responses are practically instinctual. The
story has different points of intrigue when it settles around her.
We are getting hints of just how different Jessica’s daughter will be as a result of this rite and
ritual, and it’s an important set up for the final section of the story. Jessica’s fascinating penchant
for putting undue burdens on her children without intending to serves as something of a
commentary on parenting in general it seems; no matter how carefully one teaches and guards
their children, in the end, so many forces beyond one’s control are responsible for shaping them.
In Jessica’s case, there are generations of Bene Gesserit breeding behind her—the choices she
makes mean that she winds up mother to the Kwisatz Haderach instead of grandmother (if we
believe the the program would have worked regardless), but the deviation is one of her primary
causes for doubt. Yet none of these stresses ever stop Jessica when her survival and Paul’s are on
the line, and it seems that this is part of what makes her exceptional.
The idea of race memory here is beautifully depicted as Jessica is suddenly opened to a wealth of
information and briefly holds the entirety of another person in her being, learning from her
experiences and all the ones before it. We get a lot of interesting information here, including
important background on the Fremen. And then there is perhaps the most important revelation of
all: the worm is killed of create the Water of Life. And it’s killed by drowning.
Paul’s thoughts about time in this section are appropriately loopy, turning back in on themselves
as he comes to understand that there is a difference between filtering one’s discovery of the past
through the lens of the future or the present. It occurs to me that Herbert would have actually
benefited from constructing some more complicated language tenses for views of time if he’d
really wanted to have fun with it. (My partner talks about this often when referring to Doctor
Who, that Time Lords would need so many different verb tenses to indicate where they were in
time. I presume that someone with prescience would require similar language constructions.)
Perhaps the most important revelation is the understanding that the Fremen have an innate
tendency toward precognition, but that they avoid it out of fear. When they are all enhanced by
the drug, they see together and are less frightened by the experience, but it prompts many
questions both large and small, even ones so simple as could this be part of the reason why the
Fremen are such good fighters? This could contribute to so many aspects of their society that
they don’t even account for.
The relationship between Paul and Chani is a simple one, but the key difference it possesses is
why it is simple; they fall in love because they know they will fall in love. It means the romance
lacks any kind of tension in your average will-they-won’t-they sense (which is horrifically
overused in fiction anyhow), but also makes it incredibly sweet. And there’s an extra layer of
sorrow stacked on top of it because Paul’s prescience about the situation means that they both are
struggling to grow into their adult selves in the moment. There must be something incredibly
strange about trying to fit into an adult relationship emotionally simply because you are aware of
what your future holds with another person. Regardless, they are a couple of kids who are both
powerful and wise for their age, who have both suffered a terrible loss, so it’s hardly surprising
that they quickly take comfort in one another.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Sixteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
How many dunes would a dune buggy bug, if a dune buggy could bug dunes? Find out this week
on the Dune Reread!
Er, sorry. We’re into the third section of the book! Everyone is lining up into their final
positions…. Let’s do this.
BOOK THREE: The Prophet

No woman, no man, no child ever was deeply intimate with my father. The closest anyone ever
came to casual camaraderie with the Padishah Emperor was the relationship offered by Count
Hasimir Fenring, a companion from childhood. The measure of Count Fenring’s friendship may
be seen first in a positive thing: he allayed the Landsraad’s suspicions after the Arrakis affair. It
cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other gifts as
well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. The second major evidence of the Count’s
friendship was negative: He refused to kill a man even though it was within his capabilities and
my father commanded it. I will related this presently.
—“Count Fenring: A Profile” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
It has been two years since the Harkonnen coup against Duke Leto Atreides. The baron heads
into the rooms of his captain of the guard because he has slacked on his duty; he was supposed to
inform the baron if Feyd ever went to the slave quarters and check all of the boy slaves sent to
the baron for anything lethal on their person. Feyd quickly enters Nefud’s quarters as well,
having his own network of spies to keep an eye on his uncle. He also shows his hand when the
baron asks for men to clean the body out of his quarters, and Feyd nods to two of the guards who
instantly do his bidding. Feyd claims to have been in the slave quarters playing chess with the
slavemaster. The baron tells Nefud to take some men and go kill the slavemaster under the thin
guise of claiming that they should not have such bad chess players in their employ. He also tells
Nefud to kill Feyd’s two guards.
He asks Feyd to accompany him to his chambers, and lets the boy worry over whether or not he
plans to kill him as they walk. The baron brings up a new religious leader that the Fremen on
Arrakis have adopted—his name is Muad’Dib, which means “the Mouse.” He figures that letting
them have their religion is fine, as it will keep them occupied. They reach the baron’s chambers
and he asks why Feyd did not kill him himself. Feyd says that the baron taught him to keep his
hands clean so that a Truthsayer cannot know he had a hand in the murder when questioned
about it. Feyd asks why his uncle never bought his own Bene Gesserit. The baron insists that he
does not trust them at all, and then insists that they’re getting off the subject. He brings up Feyd’s
fight with the slave-gladiator, the one that got the old slavemaster killed. Feyd realizes that the
baron knows what happened, so he admits it was a sham.
The baron then insists on striking a bargain. He doesn’t want to waste Feyd, but the young man
must stop foolish attempts on his life and recognize the baron’s value in his rise to power. The
baron promises to step aside once Feyd is ready and retire to an advisory position. In the
meantime he means to send Thufir Hawat to keep an eye on him. (It was Hawat who warned him
about the needle in the slave’s thigh, preventing him from falling victim to this plan). Feyd
agrees to the plan, wondering over Hawat’s seeming switch in loyalties; he wonders if the man is
playing them against one another. The baron admits that he is not worried over Hawat, that the
man believes that he can best the baron at any time, and because he believes that he is easy to
direct—against the Emperor. Feyd cannot believe that Hawat would help them in that way, but
the baron explains that Hawat only cares for revenge against the man. Then he tells Feyd to kill
all the women in the pleasure wing to prove that they are back on the same footing again—Feyd
agrees, knowing that some day he will not need the old man anymore.
Commentary
I think this might be one of my favorite versions of “let me relay a jump in time to you.” It’s not
original, as the device goes, but I like it because you would suspect this fast-forward to come
through Paul, as the main character and the person who is apt to change the most. Instead we’re
back with the Harkonnens going, yeah, they’re the same as they ever were. Still plotting and
trying to kill each other.
So there’s music that goes with the drug semuta, and while I’m sure that this is actually more
complex in terms of arranging sounds that play along with the substance and its effect on the
brain, I can’t help thinking that this is basically their version of drop-acid-and-listen-to-Dark-
Side-of-the-Moon.
Here we see an example of the way the Baron’s penchant for using others by exploiting their
weak spots is actually prone to mishap; Nefud is so addicted to the drug that he basically
neglects his duties in keeping the baron alive. The baron is so paranoid about having strings to
tug people with that he often neglects how those strings might affect their judgement. And he
thinks that’s okay because he’d prefer to be the cleverest guy in the room. It’s an impossible
level of control to maintain and the cracks are showing, here.
Always loved the detail of calling a game known as pyramid chess “cheops.” (That’s the
Hellenized version of the name of the pharaoh who perfected pyramid construction.) Also
perpetually amused by SFF’s tendency to create new games by taking an old game and adding a
new dimension to it (à la Trek’s 3D chess).
Also, my kingdom for this exchange:

Get to the point you old fool! Feyd-Rautha thought.
“You think of me as an old fool,” the Baron said. “I must dissuade you of that.”
Eh-hehhehheh.
There’s a thing that gets a little muddied here for me. The baron takes Feyd back to his chambers
to talk and the kid sees signs of a struggle between the baron and the slave assassin he sent. He
wonders how the baron could have overpowered the slave and the baron tells him he would keep
some of his methods secret. We find out the baron was tipped off by Hawat, and he later tells
Feyd that he trusts Hawat to keep an eye on him. So was the struggle faked? Or did he go
through the motions for the sake of showing Feyd? It’s kind of unclear here.
I feel as though there’s an interesting game going on with the Harkonnens. Most writers will
know about the “kick the dog” device (i.e., you show that a character is bad by having them kick
a dog or something similar to both indicate evil and make it clear that the audience shouldn’t feel
empathy for the character), but here it’s like an ongoing play at this idea where Herbert just
keeps upping the ante. Kick two dogs. Now drown some puppies. Commit canine genocide. He
just keeps flipping the switch. So when the baron tells Feyd to kill all their female slaves, it’s
horrific—but it’s not surprising. It’s just another step in the Don’t Forget the Harkonnens are
Evil Incarnate journey. And I think it’s effective, or at least it was when the book was first
published. Now that “grimdark” is a entire fantasy genre, part of me wonders if it really works
the same way anymore. The first time I read this book, what the baron did was shocking. Now
one of the biggest HBO series of all time is based on a fantasy epic that deals in this kind of
misery in every episode.
* * *
Deep in the human unconsciousness is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense.
But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
—from “The Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
The baron demands that Hawat give him an explanation for a warning that he asked to be sent to
Rabban. Hawat muses to the baron on Salusa Secundus, the Emperor’s prison planet and the
conditions on that world that trains his Sardaukar. He points out that he knows why the Emperor
turned on Duke Leto—because his fighting force was superb, close to that of the Sardaukar, and
Arrakis would have provided him with even better recruits to expand his army: the Fremen. The
baron insists that only a handful of those Fremen must remain. His nephew and the Sardaukar
have killed tens of thousands. But Hawat believes that the number is far greater than anyone
suspects. Based on what he was told by Duncan Idaho, Hawat believes that there are around ten
million Fremen, and that Rabban has only whittled away at some weaker links.
The baron realizes that Hawat is suggesting that they potentially recruit the Fremen to their
cause, and has ideas on how to do it. It’s then that the baron remembers the conversation with
had with Fenring those years back about maybe using Arrakis the way the Emperor used Salusa
Secundus. That was an unfortunate tip of the hand; Hawat knows the the Emperor will have spies
all over the planet for that, watching their every move. Knowing this, there are only two
options—they must either wipe out the Fremen completely, or the baron must abandon Rabban,
make it clear that he’s disappointed with him and set very specific spice quotas for the man to
meet. Then he can keep his hands clean while Rabban drives the population harder and creates
the prison planet effect that they’re going for. If he sets the quota higher every year, it will be
easy to eventually go and take over the operations when Rabban fails. The baron admits that he’s
tiring of the game, and Hawat realizes that Feyd is intended to succeed in all this. He says the
plan will work well with Feyd’s usurpation.
Hawat is dismissed and thinks of the information being passed to him by Gurney Halleck. There
are many unknowns about Arrakis, the first being the new religion that’s cropped up. Gurney has
noted that the fighting style of the Fremen has elements reminiscent of Duncan Idaho and even
Hawat himself. The Mentat wonders if perhaps Idaho survived, but doesn’t dream that Paul
might have, still believing the baron’s line that Jessica was the traitor in their midst.
Commentary
This is the point where I start to feel bad for Thufir Hawat. Not only is he stuck with the
Harkonnens (with only rage to sustain him), but at this point he’s operating a few steps behind
where he needs to be. He has calculated a great deal, but there’s so much he can’t know. We do
learn from this that he’s in contact with Gurney (I wonder how they renewed that
communication), and that he’s keeping tabs on Paul’s religious movement. Still, it seems as
though the opening commentary of this segment is directed at him; Hawat wants his world to
make sense, but there are things he cannot grasp from where he sits. He still holds onto the idea
that Jessica is a traitor, and he is blinded by his own desire for revenge.
His observation on how much the baron speaks in comparison to Leto is borne out further in the
following section where Paul thinks on advice that his father gave him—to give as few orders as
possible because once you gave on order on any given topic, you always had to give orders on
that topic. This is actually some pretty solid advice; no one likes a micromanager, and the baron
is the Uber Lord of micromanagement. He says too much, he arranges too much, and therefore
spends all his time trying to stop people from thwarting his carefully laid plans. He tells Hawat
that he’s growing tired of the whole game, but he has no one to blame but himself.
There is one item here that interests me in terms of dealing with the different fighting forces.
Hawat tells the baron that the reason why the Imperium went in with them on deposing Leto was
due to fear over Atreides military might, which was set to grow and become just as effective as
the Sardaukar. Now, this seems an odd thing to assert, seeing as the Sardaukar are meant to be
the best due to the unfathomable conditions they are forced to survive on the Salusa Secundus.
The Atreides forces are impressive because they are unflaggingly loyal, but they haven’t
undergone that manner of environmental conditioning. Their training is rigorous, but it’s not
cruel. Now, Hawat believed that the Fremen could have been leveraged toward use in Leto’s
army and provided that little extra kick that the Sardaukar provided, yet the real commentary
here is that environment alone is not enough. If Leto was near to having such a fighting force
without the environmental factors on Caladan, then it was their loyalty to him that created this
situation.
Environment and extreme loyalty. Which brings us back to Arrakis
* * *
There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace
— those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the
turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote
bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society,
seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the
finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such
perfection, all things more toward death.
—from “The Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul is in the middle of one of his spice-fueled visions, trying to discern where he actually is in
time and what has already passed. He thinks of Chani, secreted away in one of the new sietch
strongholds with their son, and wonders if that is in the future or the present. He believes it is the
present, and that his mother and sister went with her. He also remembers going to claim the
water of their dead in a raid and finding his father’s bones, enshrining his father’s skull in a
Fremen rock. Then he remembers Harah intruding on him to tell him that there had been a fight
in the sietch corridor, that Chani had killed someone. He had gone to find out what happened and
learned that Chani had killed someone who came to challenge Paul to combat. He is upset with
her, but she makes light of it, insisting that the man hadn’t been worthy. Then under her breath,
she points out that dispatching the man herself would get around to others, meaning fewer
challenges.
Paul worries about getting lost in this metaphysical space where limitations are absent, knowing
that the lack of anchors to the present make it easier to lose his way. He remembers having a
conversation with his mother, who warned him abut combining religion and politics, who was
worried over how he never stopped indoctrinating and encouraging this path. Paul had insisted
that she had taught him much the same. This argument happened the same day that his son’s
circumcision ceremony took place; Jessica had not condoned Paul’s bond with Chani, but once
she had given birth to an Atreides child, she had let go of that prejudice. She had told Paul that
she worried he thought her an unnatural mother, that he judged how she was with his sister. Paul
had told her that he understood, and Jessica admitted that she loved Chani and accepted her.
Remembering this grounds Paul and pulls him back into the present. He is in a stilltent set up by
Chain. He hears a baliset play and thinks of Gurney, who he knows is alive—but he cannot act
on this knowledge yet out of fear that it will lead the Harkonnens to him. Paul remembers now
that he is in the desert to mount a maker and become a full Fremen. Chani hears him move and
tells him to get more rest. Her duty is that of Sayyadina who watches this rite, but she cannot
completely disconnect from being Paul’s woman either. Paul says that another should have seen
to this task, but she tells him that she would rather be with him than wait to find out how the rite
goes.
Paul knows he must do this in order to be truly respected among the Fremen. Chani asks him
about the waters of his birth world to distract him, but Paul wants to know about their son and
the sietch they are headed to. She won’t say much about it, and when he asks why, she admits
that it’s very lonely there without the men. They work all the time to create what is needed, and
the only bright spot is spending time with the children. Paul asks how his sister is doing, if she is
accepted among them; Chani says they should discuss that another time. Paul insists and Chani
tells him that the women are unnerved by Alia because she knows things a toddler should not
know. They tried to have Jessica exorcize the demon in her daughter, but Jessica quoted law
back at them and embarrassed the lot. She tried to explain how Alia had been changed in the
womb, but they would not hear her after that. Paul knows that there will be trouble with Alia in
the future.
The Fremen are moving to break down their tents and get ready without any direction, and Paul
is reminded of something his father had told him: to give as few orders as possible because once
you gave an order on something, you had to keep giving orders on it. Paul knows this is one
place where the future has many possibilities. He could die here. Stilgar approaches and Chani
takes her role as Sayyadina to record this event for their chronicles. He and Stilgar recite the
appropriate words, then Stilgar tells him not to do anything fancy, to be simple about it and get
this done. He receives his hooks from a squad leader of his Fedaykin and a thumper from Stilgar.
He goes to the dune he was directed to, plants the thumper, thinks of how the process works.
When you hooked a maker and opened a flap of its ring segment to the air, the maker rolled to
prevent sand from getting into it and would not dive below the surface. If he passes this test, then
Paul can make the journey to the southern sietch to rest and be among the women and children
who are hidden away from the pogroms. He thinks on the advice given to him by Stilgar and
Chani, then sees the worm approaching, bigger than any he has ever witnessed or heard of. He
goes out to meet it.
Commentary
A lot has changed since the last time we saw Paul, and Herbert deliberately floods us with these
revelations in his visionary capacity, leaving us to question where Paul currently is in time.
Eventually it evens out, but we get a lot of memory directed toward catching us up—his mother
coming to accept Chani and his son, the men who are coming to challenge him, the finding of
Duke Leto’s bones. Then we come to the present with Paul meeting his most important challenge
yet, the rite of passage that will make him a full Fremen, normally a test granted to children at
the age of twelve. (Wouldn’t that be extra hard if you were that much shorter? Sheesh.)
I am curious about Jessica thinking that Paul finds her an “unnatural” mother, mostly because
I’m not sure what she means by unnatural in the first place. She doesn’t say “you think I’m a bad
mother,” which is more the sort of thing you would expect in that context. Unnatural because of
how she’s trained them? Because of the choices she has made as their mother? It doesn’t seem
likely that she refers only to Alia, though she does mention how she is with the girl as reason for
Paul to think wrongly of her. Then we learn more about Alia and the women of the south sietch
finding her frightening, asking for an exorcism. We’re told straight off that Alia is going to cause
trouble, even just by virtue of Paul’s visions telling him so.
Paul and Chani’s relationship has clearly blossomed in the past two years, and they have a
relationship that bears a resemblance to Leto and Jessica’s, but seems far more intimate and
trusting. And that tells you a lot about how we’re meant to feel about their relationship,
particularly knowing that they are so young and have only been together for a couple of years.
This is a strong bond. We’re not lingering over the specifics of their union, but we can see
plainly that it is a good one and that they are good for one another. We’re supposed to be rooting
for those crazy kids. (And kids isn’t really accurate for either of them. They’ve both been
through enough in their lives to makes them adults ten times over, and it shows in their
conversation.)
And now we finally learn what Herbert has been hinting at for hundreds of pages: how to hook a
sandworm and ride it through the desert. We get just enough information to make it seem
plausible (the idea that the worm wouldn’t want to dive back under the sand to prevent itself
from getting sand in its skin is a great touch), and we finally get explanation for the hooks and
thumpers we’ve been seeing ever since Paula and Jessica made their way among the Fremen. Of
course the one that Paul is about to snag is the biggest he’s ever seen.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Seventeen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Kids are weird. Especially, you know, when they’re not kids and they’ve actually been awakened
to consciousness in their mother’s womb. Yeah. Kids are weird, you know?
***
“Control the coinage and the courts—let the rabble have the rest.” Thus the Padishah Emperor
advises you. And he tells you: “If you want profits, you must rule.” There is truth in these words,
but I ask myself: “Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?”
—Muad’Dib’s Secret Message to the Landsraad from “Arrakis Awakening” by the

Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica knows that Paul is doing his sand rider test, though everyone had tried to hide it from her.
She sits in the sietch between classes, thinking how this place will always make her feel like an
outsider, even if she is safe there. She is given a cup of coffee as part of a birthing celebration
taking place, and regards this society that allows her to accept an anonymous gift without worry
over being poisoned or being intruded upon by the person who sent it. It was no coincidence that
Jessica thought of the coffee and it appeared, the Fremen have a sort of joined understanding that
comes from the spice. Harah enters followed by Alia; it would seem that the child upset
everyone by watching the birth of the new infant. The Fremen expect their children to get all
their crying out in the sietch, so that they don’t make noise when crossings are needed. Alia
touched the baby and he instantly stopped crying.
Jessica wonders what has Harah upset, and she explains that the other women gossip about her
and think she might be a demon. Harah knows that Alia is not, but she has been listening and
perceives danger for Paul’s plan to unite the tribes that Alia adds to. Harah has helped to take
care of Alia since birth, and she understands what is different about her. She and Alia believe it
is time for Harah to go out and explain the truth about Alia so that people understand her better.
Alia says that she knows she’s a freak but Harah insists that she not say so. She asks Alia to tell
her what it was like coming into being, and Alia describes her awakening to consciousness. They
are interrupted by a ritual for remembering the dead.
One of Stilgar’s wives, Tharthar, comes in with news; it’s said that Paul is going to be a
sandrider by nightfall, and the men are saying that Paul must call out Stilgar and take control of
the tribes or he’s afraid. Alia says she will go and talk to everyone, make it clear that it’s not
what they want. Jessica asks Harah to go with her, but Harah insists that Tharthar will look after
the girl, as they are soon to share the same man. Jessica assumes Harah is merely worried for her
future husband, but she explains that she actually pities Chani because Jessica does not think she
is a legitimate wife for Paul. She also points out that Chani herself would be Jessica’s ally in that
thought, as she wants what is best for him.
Commentary
While the warrior piece of Fremen culture drives this narrative, these are the pieces that intrigue
me the most. The interplay of latent precognition as a societal bond is fascinating, and watching
how the Fremen women interact with one another is far more nuanced and interesting to me.
Jessica notes that the coffee is given to her without an expectation for her to entertain the person
who offered it, that while she is a little feared, she is brought the gift out of love and respect. (On
a humorous note, Fremen society is basically an introvert’s paradise, where interaction is not
obligated, and thankfulness and generosity are understood without awkward phonecalls and twee
cards. It sounds so nice.)
What we learn from this is how a family has grown up around Paul and Jessica. This is later
expanded on in Paul’s talk with Stilgar, but the bonds are more complex here with Harah’s love
for Alia, though Paul has never treated her like a companion. In fact, it could be argued that
Harah assumes a more traditional motherly rule toward Alia, as the girl and Jessica are linked in
a way that transcends typical parent-child bonds. Harah is the one who scolds Alia for calling
herself a freak, just as she is the one who wants to help the Fremen understand her. Harah is the
one who knows that Alia’s teasing (calling her ghanima, which is an interesting first appearance
for a name of such import later in the series) is not malicious and dismisses it. She has taken a
guardianship role that is very reminiscent of a parent.
This is our true introduction to Alia, and it is clear that were meant to sympathize with her
struggles. It is only noteworthy because Herbert could have easily gone the other way on Alia; he
could have made her a creepy bad seed type kid and she still would have been interesting and
worth our attention. But it’s clear that we’re meant to consider what life has been like from
Alia’s perspective and appreciate the difficulty of a being that has never truly had a childhood.
And then we a get a setup for what will be an important through line to the end of the book; that
Chani is willing to step back and allow Paul to form whatever kind of alliance is needed, even if
that means that she will not be his legal wife. I have a few thoughts about why specifically this is
a theme central to the story, but I think we need to get further along to really take it apart,
particularly once Irulan is on the scene.
***
You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This power struggle
permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this
pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably must face that ultimate internal question: to
succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing
themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic.
—from “Muad’Dib: The Religious Issues” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Paul hooks the worm and it turns as it’s supposed to. The other Fremen climb onto the worm,
and Stilgar comes forward to berate Paul for not calling a second, noting the drumsand to his left.
He asks Paul where he is going to take them, and Paul says he wants to go south. Stilgar believes
that this means that Paul is planning to call him out and suggests raiding nearby instead, but Paul
is adamant on going to see his family. He also does not plan to call out Stilgar if he can help it,
which he tries to make clear, reminding Stilgar of his pledge to the man. Stilgar is chastised, but
admits that while he knows Usul, he does not know Muad’Dib or the Lisan al-Gaib. Paul realizes
that the worm he has hooked is stronger than any in legend, and will carry them twice as far.
Paul understands that Stilgar has still not managed to consider any way different from the
Fremen way. As he killed the friend he succeeded to become naib of his sietch, so he imagines
Paul must. Eventually, they have ridden the worm far enough that it’s time to stop for the night.
They also note a thopter, but they’re sure that they won’t be able to see the people on top of the
worm from that distance. Paul dismounts after everyone else, and hides until the thopter is gone.
It is unmarked, which means that it’s probably a smuggler vessel—but it’s very deep in the
desert for them to be flying. Knowing that they might go deeper into the desert to avoid
Harkonnen patrols, Paul suggests that they set a spice trap for the men to warn the smugglers
against pushing further into the desert.
Commentary
The opening section directly correlates with the interplay between Paul and Stilgar here. There is
action going on, of course, and we finally get a sense of how the Fremen ride the worm together,
how the others board and how they work in sync. We find out that the trip to the southern
reaches is a ten day ride, which makes me wonder about the speed of the worms and the actual
planetary dimensions of Arrakis.
Then there is the talk between Stilgar and Paul, who are in an odd game of tug for different rules.
Stilgar is a good teacher still, and berates Paul for not appointing a secondary rider to take over
in case the drumsand had proved fatal. In this way, Stilgar recognizes the one aspect of Paul that
is not Fremen and never will be; he will always think of himself as slightly separate from the
tribe. The Fremen have encouraged this with their talk of the Lisan al-Gaib, but I think that Paul
is unlikely to let go of it regardless. He dies not want to break from his heritage as an Atreides,
and his “terrible purpose” is ever-present in his mind.
In addition, Paul has no direct belief in the Fremen religion. He understands the need to respect,
both out of survival necessity and a real appreciation of what their culture engenders in its
people. But he is not interested in killing Stilgar to adhere to a tradition that will cost him more
in the long run. What we don’t know from this particular section is how Stilgar feels about it. We
know he doesn’t want the combat to take place and that he has sadness over the combat he had to
engage in to become naib. We know that he is unhappy that he had to kill a mentor and friend.
But it’s also possible that Stilgar is concerned over Paul calling him out because he does not
believe that he is truly ready.
Stilgar’s inability to understand Paul makes a perfect case for why Paul should leave him in
charge of his sietch, however—if he has such difficulty divining Paul’s motivations, then the rest
of the Fremen are sure to be more perplexed. And it is Stilgar’s ability to separate it the aspects
of Paul—what is Muad’Dib and what is Usul—that makes their relationship invaluable.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Eighteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
This week we might get murdered by an old family friend… or that old family friend might play
us a pretty song! It really could go either way, though. You know how it is.
***
When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of
yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.
—from Muad’Dib: “The Ninety-nine Wonders of the Universe” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Gurney thinks he has found spice mass, and has his harvester and crew head out to check. They
confirm that sighting and set about beginning their harvest, though Gurney knows they are far
out in Fremen territory and risking a great deal. He has been bothered by how the Fremen fight
of late, even more skilled than before. As they begin their harvest, rockets are fired and a fight
begins. One of their men is eyeing Gurney, a trained fighter. But he tells him to sheathe his knife
and calls him by name. When he pulls back his hood, Gurney briefly thinks it is the ghost of the
Duke, but then knows it must be Paul though he barely believes it. Paul tells him to call his men
off.
Gurney can see that Paul has changed much, that he doesn’t look like any Atreides before him.
He realizes that this is the reason why the Fremen’s tactics have been even more improved, and
that Paul has no plans to apologize for letting him think that he was dead all this time. He tells
Paul that he wishes he had told him he was alive, but understands that people would have
wondered where he’d got off to. Paul asks where his men stand, and Gurney tells him that
they’re smugglers interested in profits while flashing an old hand signal to Paul to make it clear
that they could not all be trusted. He meets Stilgar, who says that he hears Paul is Gurney’s
Duke, prompting him to note how this changes things. He tells his men not to struggle at being
disarmed, as Paul is the rightful Duke of Arrakis. He points out that Duke Leto would have been
more concerned over the men he hadn’t saved, but Paul insists this could not be helped as they
were worried for things that these men should not see.
One of these things in the Fremen mounting a sandworm, which Gurney sees presently. Paul
reminds him of what his father said about desert power, and that they are that power. Gurney
notes that Paul talks of himself as one of the Fremen. He asks after Rabban, and Gurney tells him
that they say that they’re defending themselves in the villages, but that means they’re
immobilized while the Fremen go where they will. Paul points out that he learned that tactic
from Gurney, and ask if he will enlist with him again. Gurney tells him that he never left his
service, only did what he had to when thinking Paul dead, which leads to an embarrassed silence.
He introduces Gurney to Chani when the wind kicks up and the Fremen are a flurry of activity.
They open the rocks to their hiding places, and Gurney learns that these places are common. Paul
asks about the men he doesn’t trust, and Gurney admits that they are off-worlders who he
suspects might be well-disguised Sardaukar.
Gurney hears one of the Fremen call Paul by name and realizes that he is the Muad’Dib people
have been speaking of. He has heard stories of Maud’Dib and all the death surrounding him and
wonders what has become of Paul. Gurney and another Fremen approach, warning them to get
underground for a storm, and they have a bundle containing Gurney’s baliset; Stilgar thought he
would want it back. Gurney notes tension and figures that Stilgar is displeased and coming into
contact with someone who knew Paul before he joined them. Paul says he would have them be
friends and the two men exchange polite greeting and shake hands. They head down below, but
before they have time to talk a fight breaks out between the Fremen and some of Gurney’s
men—men who fight like Sardaukar. Paul stops the fighting before all of them can be killed and
asks who would dare to come after the ruling Duke of Arrakis. The Sardaukar are upset and
unsure, but Paul knows it was there idea to venture this deep into he desert for spice on orders
from the Emperor to find out what was happening. He tells them to submit, and one of them tries
to pull his knife, but the Captain kills him. Paul takes the Captain and his comrade as prisoners
for the time being.
Korba, the Fremen who did not think to search them for hidden weapons, is distraught at having
failed Paul. Paul insists that the failure was his own and warns him of other things to check for
on potential Sardaukar. Paul then says that he wants the prisoners released. Gurney thinks that is
madness, but Paul knows that the Emperor has no sway over him; they control the spice because
the spice is everything and they have the ability to destroy it. He then turns to Stilgar and hands
him a Sardaukar knife. He asks him why he left the battle to hide Chani away, and Stilgar admits
that he did it for Paul’s sake. Paul asks if he could truly fight with him, try to kill him, if he
would deprive Paul his right arm, deprive the tribe of his wisdom. When Stilgar insists that it is
the way, Paul points out that he has changed the way already, when he didn’t kill Paul and his
mother that night they met.
Paul tells Chani that he was wrong and they cannot go to the south; he has to stay where the fight
is. He tells Chani to collect his mother and tell her that she must convince the young men of the
tribe to accept him as leader without calling out Stilgar. She is to stay in the southern sietch
where she can be safe, though the thought does not make her happy. Gurney does not hear
anything beyond the mention of Jessica, who he had not thought alive. He plans to kill her first
chance he gets.
Commentary
This is section is a sort of humorous fake-out that always made me chuckle; we realize quite
quickly that the men that Paul is planning to descend upon who are going after spice are led by
Gurney… but Paul doesn’t know that! Oh no! Tragedy is upon us! And the narration milks it
too—we get two sets of paragraphs that address Gurney’s unease over the Fremen’s cunning and
abilities in battle, which essentially say the same thing two times in a row. Just building that
tension, making us freak out that Paul might accidentally kill Gurney, especially as he’d been
afraid long ago that he might do something to cause his death. But then, nevermind! Paul saw it
was Gurney well ahead of time, everything is fine, we’re cool.
As the opening section dictates, these passages are very might bound up in where Paul, Usul, and
Muad’Dib intersect and the ways in which they are different men. We already know that Stilgar
has the measure of it, but knowing that Gurney sees a difference so immediately is meant to clue
us in as well. Paul Atreides must be a duke, but Muad’Dib must be a legend. And what just Paul
(or even Usul, an adopted Fremen) might want is barely even up for consideration.
I think Herbert is asking very specific questions of his reader at this point; we’re meant to
entertain the difficulty in separating oneself out from the freight train of history. We’re meant to
ask how we might view our single existence in a place of extreme power and influence. Paul’s
prescience is really just another version of the oracles that were once present mythology and
ancient religion, the holy figures who have had visions from God —the question remains as to
whether various leaders believed their own stories or took the opinions of religious oracles into
consideration, but the general population certainly did. What Paul is going through is no different
from anything that history has shown us, it merely casts it under a clever fictional gauze. What
Herbert is asking us to do is to consider the cost, and understand how people are elevated into
more than people. That Paul is aware of the lie of it, the performance of it, is a reminder of what
really turns these wheels.
Also savvy to the true big picture are men like Stilgar. He looks out for Chani because he worries
for Paul, he wants to observe the laws of his people and allow Paul to call him out, but he
worries what they will do without him. He is the one who reminds Gurney that Paul is his duke
because he knows that is the final aim, that Paul has no interest or need to become a naib. Stilgar
clearly is bothered by the duality —he told Paul previously that he understands Usul well, but
not the Lisan al-Gaib—but he plans to follow Paul’s lead regardless because he’s basically the
only game in town at this point.
We get a few key reveals here, particularly that however the spice is made, the Fremen have the
ability to destroy it. I have to applaud the incredibly through plotting of this book because it is
tighter than practically everything out there and it’s doled in lovely bits and pieces. It does make
me wonder how quickly readers pull it together on their own, and that probably has a little to do
with age and experience. I was pretty young when I first read Dune, each reveal was a gasp and
the final act was astounding. It’s probably why the book has stuck with me so hard.
Then there is Paul’s words to Stilgar, which are meant to instill purpose and loyalty between
them, but are actually quite moving. He seems to have surpassed Leto in his ability to gain the
fealty of others, and it’s hard argue the point when his way of making that clear is to say “losing
you would be akin to maiming myself pointlessly. You are a part of my whole being that I
cannot do without.” Yeah. It’s smart and its affecting. Of course Stilgar agrees.
And then we have a little cliffhanger here in the form of Gurney realizing that Jessica is alive and
must be done away with. So we have serious momentum driving us onward.
***
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
—“The Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Jessica is now with Paul and enjoyed her journey from the southern sietch, though she is irritated
that Paul won’t let them use the captured ornithopters yet. Jessica knows that Gurney is there and
wonders why Paul doesn’t tell her the surprise yet. She finds him surrounded by devotees and
worries for him, as a man of either station or as a prophet. She hands him his message detailing
the fact that Rabban has been left without resources on Arrakis. The young men expect Paul then
call out Stilgar, and Paul asks if they thinks him stupid. He tells them that ways change, but the
crowd insists that they will decide what can change. Paul says they will have their say, but first
he must have his. He asks who truly rules this tribe, as it does not seem that anyone can claim
they do alone. He asks if they would smash their knives before a battle, and points out that no
one could best him in combat. He asks if they truly want to rid their world of Harkonnens and
change their planet.
Paul tells them of the message he has about Rabban, then takes out his father’s ring, the one he
swore he would never wear until he was ready to rule the world of his fief. He tells the that he
has no desire to leave every tribe without a leader just to prove his point. Instead, he takes
Stilgar’s knife and recites the right binding Stilgar to him as his Duke. Then he tells the fighters
that Stilgar commands in his name. The crowd seems to take this the way he intended, all ready
to fight for him and follow Stilgar. Paul leaves and Jessica knows he means to bring Gurney to
see her. She stares at the coffee service he inherited from Jamis and wonders what place Chani
can have in all of this. Jessica knows that Paul must be wed to another Great House to solidify
his power, perhaps even the Imperial Family.
Gurney comes in and instantly has her under the knife. Jessica realizes that he means to kill her,
and that he will be a hard man to stop, well-trained as he is. Paul enters and takes in the situation.
Gurney insists that Jessica not speak, and explains that she is the one who betrayed Leto, but
Paul cuts him off. He tells Gurney that they knows for certain is was Yueh, that he knows his
father trusted his mother, and that if Gurney harms her he will kill him, even though loves him.
He points out the error in his father’s judgement, that he knew about love, but misunderstood
hate; he thought that anyone who hated the Harkonnens could never betray them, and he was
wrong. He tells Gurney that he has heard his mother cry at night for Leto, and that he learned
from this how deep the love his parents shared was. Jessica realizes how much it is costing Paul
to say this all outloud. She asks that Gurney release her, and when she does, she apologizes for
having used Paul in the past due to her training. She tells him to defy convention and marry
Chani if it is what he wants.
Gurney is horrified and demands that Paul kill him for his mistake. When he won’t, Gurney
demands that Jessica do it. She asks him why he thinks that Atreides must kill those they love,
and tells him that in trying to do this thing for Leto, he honors him all the same. She reminds him
that she loved listening to him play the baliset, and he offers to play on his new one. Paul must
leave them to it; he knows that he must go drown a little maker to produce the water of life—and
find out once and for all if he’s the kwisatz haderach.
Commentary
Sorry, it’s just that there’s a bit at the start of this section where Paul is explaining that they can’t
use the ornithopters yet until they have everything ready to move, and the phrase he employs is
“saved for the day of maximum effort,” so now I keep thinking that Deadpool read Dune and
that’s totally why he says “maximum effort” and it tickles me. New headcanon.
Here Paul reiterates what he said to Stilgar in the previous section to a larger group, and the
speech is clever, measured and precise to have maximum impact. Of course, it’s not enough to
be the final say, but Paul is laying the groundwork for the kind of power structure he wants to see
in the future. He brings up the ring of his father and assumes the mantle of dukedom rather than
naib, knowing that being the Lisan al-Gaib protects him in this decision. Can you say divine right
of kings? Paul is literally framing his heritage as an Atreides here as the thing that makes him fit
to rule. And he’s already built up his own mythology well enough that it goes largely
unchallenged. Then he exits and tells his mother to meet him in his rooms.
What follows is another one of my favorite sections in the whole book.
Just when you feel like Dune is getting too “big picture” and leaving out important character
work, we get a section like this. There has been so little commentary on Leto’s death that it’s
easy to forget his impact, even when we’re constantly reminded of him—Gurney noting how
Paul looks like him, Paul’s son being named after him, the collection of his bones hidden away.
But emotionally, this moment in time makes perfect sense; of course the only way that Paul is
capable of talking about this is when the belief that his mother was the traitor all along is finally
brought the fore. And with people like these, who do nothing but carry their grudges and seek
revenge, it was inevitable that this would come back.
And while I know part of Jessica’s true strength comes from her ability to view situations outside
of herself, part of me kind of wishes that she had scared Gurney just a little for putting her
through that. Jessica has been doubted at every turn, by practically everyone, and the idea of
being endlessly suspected of betraying the person you loved more than anyone in this universe is
not a burden she should constantly have to bear. I just kind of want her to get some petty revenge
in. Because being a Bene Gesserit is literally the only reason any of these men had to suspect her
of anything, and the rest of them could have been counted as plenty suspicious if it weren’t for
this overarching paranoia about that one group of scary powerful ladies.
Thankfully, Paul is there to finally give his mother the credit she deserves for the work she has
been doing since their escape, and to make it clear that someone has been witness to her pain.
While Jessica is thinking only of what it costs Paul to admit that, I’m more pleased that he finally
gives Jessica something that she has needed for a few years now—acknowledgment that her grief
is real and it matters. They’ve both been so bound up in creating this legend around themselves
that they clearly haven’t had much time for human connection and one-on-one consideration.
They haven’t had time to be family to one another, and this incident provides it.
Which is precisely why Jessica lets go of her concern over Paul’s position in the future and
finally gives her blessing for him to marry Chani. In that moment where they both allow
themselves to be human, to be family, she recognizes that Paul is close to being as unhappy as
she was, and she wants better for him. She wants him to be with the one he loves.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Nineteen
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Apr 4, 2017 12:35pm 30 comments 5 Favorites [+]
This week we’re going to wake up from a three week coma and let the Emperor know we’re
alive and kicking! Also, we’re the Kwisatz Haderach. You know, the super special person.
***
And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul Muad’Dib lay alone in the
Cave of Bird beneath the kiss hanging of an inner cell. And he lay as one dead, caught up in the
revelation of the Water of Life, his being translated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison
that gives life. Thus was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead and
alive.
—“Collected Legends of Arrakis” by the Princess Irulan
Summary
Chani takes a moment to walk alone near the Cave of Birds, having just been sent for and
brought back after she’d gone to the south on Paul’s insistence. A Fedaykin lieutenant named
Otheym finds her and insists that she leave the open—Harkonnen patrols are desperate and some
of them are entering the region. She is brought to Jessica who tries to make niceties, not sure
how to broach the news of what Paul has done. They exchange these formalities for some time
before Jessica finally admits that she was the one who sent for her under Paul’s name, and that
she needs help in reviving Paul. Jessica believes he has been poisoned by a Harkonnen agent
somehow, and does not know why she decided to send for Chani, only that she had to. Jessica
also thinks to herself that Chani would have made a good Bene Gesserit.
She brings Chani to see Paul, laid out on a storeroom floor, looking dead. Jessica informs her
that he appears dead, but he is not, and this appearance has led some of the Fremen to believe
that she is allowing her bond as his mother to cloud her judgement, that they should take his
water. Only a few know what has happened, but he has been that way for three weeks now. The
Fedaykin believe that he is in a sacred trance to marshal his power for battle. Chani can smell
spice on Paul and wonders if it is an allergy, but Jessica says those tests were negative. Chani
asks if they have makers with them, and Jessica confirms it, saying that each battle needs a
blessing. Chani knows that Paul does not partake of the spice drug, and asks for the unchanged
Water from a maker.
Jessica returns with the poison water, and Chani holds it before Paul, who finally moves. When
she touches some of the water to his lip, he takes a long breath. Chani tells Jessica to change a
small amount of the water, but before she can, Paul awakens. Jessica realizes that he drank the
poison water, and he admits that he did, just a drop. He thinks that he has only been out for
seconds and has to be told it is weeks. Then he drinks more of the water, sense shares with
Jessica and demands that he show her the place where the Reverend Mothers cannot look. Jessica
doesn’t want to, but Paul is too powerful and she finds that place and shows him. Paul goes to
that place but Jessica’s mind rebels against and blanks it out. When they break their connection,
Jessica is suddenly tired. And she knows for certain that Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach.
Paul insists that each person is made up of ancient forces that give and take. For each gender, one
of these forces is more innate, and observing the other alters them completely, makes them
something different than human. But Paul is the fulcrum, unable to give without taking or take
without giving. Otheym is listening behind a curtain and rushes away to tell others, spreading the
word of the unquestionable Lisan al-Gaib. In his vision, Paul saw the now: the Emperor, Baron
Harkonnen, Thufir Hawat, and all the Houses are there waiting for permission to land, to raid the
planet. The only thing that stops them is the Guild, who will strand anyone who lands without
their go-ahead. The Guild looks for Paul because they know he has their secret—they are nothing
without spice.
Paul tells his mother to change some Water into the Water of Life and plant it above a pre-spice
mass. If these two things collide, it will begin a chain reaction that will destroy makers and spice
permanently. They have control of the spice because they have the means to destroy it. Now they
must play this thing out.
Commentary
The book very rapidly has to shore up this relationship between Jessica and Chani, and while I
love that it’s present, I really wish that more attention had been paid to it. In fact, I’m coming to
realize that the third part of this book (for how long it is as a novel) is far too short. The story is
succinct and smartly told, but there are so many things that deserve attention, and deeper
consideration. I might even argue that Children of Dune and Dune Messiah are necessary
continuations to complete so many thoughts and relationships that we miss out on here.
Nowhere is this more glaring to me than where Jessica and Chani are concerned. While we get
glimpses of it here with Jessica noting their many similarities in situation, and recognizing that
Chani has the makings of a Bene Gesserit, both of these women are interesting and intricate
enough as people that they deserve more time and attention in the narrative. And unfortunately
Paul’s awakening only throws that into sharp relief.
So, this is the explanation he gives as a framing device for this power:
“There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds
little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it’s almost
impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man.
For a woman, the situation is reversed.”
Man, I had forgotten that that’s how it was put.
And the whole point is supposed to be that Paul can look into both of those sides, both of those
forces, and that’s where his power comes from. And I have two very explicit problems with this
breakdown: first, women are “givers” and men are “takers.” Yeah, f*ck that noise. This plays
heavily into that insistence that women are naturally nurturing and men are not, which is
insulting to both genders and also just plain untrue. There are plenty of women who are not
nurturing or giving. There are plenty of men who are. Also, the concept of a “taking” force is
less simple in a breakdown, so what precisely does it mean? How are men “taking”? The concept
of taking is active rather than passive, which is the easiest distinction to make, but it’s still poorly
explained and has worrisome connotations, to say the least.
My second problem comes from a gendered issue with Paul. The fact that only a man can
adequately balance these male and female aspects is rubbish, and I believe that Jessica or Chani
could be the sort of person who could do that as well, for that matter. But that’s not how the Bene
Gesserit breakdown of the Kwisatz Haderach legend works! everyone says. Yeah, I don’t care.
That’s bad worldbuilding, as far as I’m concerned. So this power is wielded by women overall
with “race memory” and what-have-you, but there’s one place they cannot look, and that has to
be a place only a guy can reach. Why? Why couldn’t it just be a very special woman? If Bene
Gesserit breeding programs are a part of this to begin with, you could literally just decide that
they had to combine genetic lines to create the right woman for the job. (Of course, this isn’t
even getting into the breeding aspect of this, which is equally unsavory no matter how you cut it,
and could easily be approached in a creepy eugenics kind of mind set.)
But on top of it—if your hero is this necessary combination of the masculine and feminine, you
could have had a very interesting interplay where Paul is or somehow becomes genderfluid or
agender as a result of this awakening, and that would be fascinating. I’m so sad that the narrative
never thinks to go there because it would create such a unique aspect to Paul’s journey and his
role in this mythic overturn. And no, saying that this was written in a different time makes no
difference to me as an excuse whatsoever: science fiction and fantasy are genres about making
things up. If you can have a story about a special class of guys who are human computers and a
special class of women who have precognitive abilities and a breeding program that weaves into
the fabric of their society at every level, you can have a genderfluid protagonist—it’s not even a
leap. During New Wave SF in the 70s, we had a proverbial deluge of authors who played with
ideas around gender and gender roles, so this wasn’t decades from cultural consciousness either.
And I just wish Dune had done it.
Outside of this quibble, we get a lot of very important information that leads us into the final act.
We learn that everyone is essentially poised over Arrakis and ready to get this battle rolling. And
we learn what Paul meant by being able to control the spice by being able to destroy it: turns out,
the changed Water of Life coming into contact with the makers will result in a chain react and
kills the worms and destroys the spice. Which is kinda deus ex machina-y, but at least sounds
plausible? So we continue.
***
And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the universe with the wheel poised to spin.

Summary
Stilgar and Paul observe the starship lighter and temporary residence of the Emperor and his
legions of Sardaukar next to Arrakeen. Only the city remained in the enemy’s hands, the rest of
the planet cut off from the Harkonnens by the Fremen forces. The Harkonnens and CHOAM
frigates where permitted to land also, but no one else. There is a great storm coming, and
everything has been tied down for the time being. Gurney is grumpy as he always is before a
battle, and he banters with Stilgar. Gurney is still concerned over the use of atomics Paul plans,
but he’s certain that using it against the Shield Wall will be safe, since it won’t be used against
people.
Stilgar is reticent about the city men they’re using for shock troops, not given to trusting them,
but Paul points out that these people have been recently abused by the Sardaukar and are looking
for excuses to act against them. Paul knows that they are remembering that they are part of a
community, and he intends to use that. Their Sardaukar prisoners finally arrive to tell news that
Paul is alive and a great commotion starts. Paul waits to see what flag the Emperor will raise in
response: if he will attempt to make peace by raising the Atreides flag. The Emperor is more
subtle than that and raises the CHOAM Company flag instead. Paul has his people prep to attack
once the storm comes, finding their targets before visibility drops so that they can attack even
during the storm.
They prep for the attack, and then the storm is on them and they blow the Shield Wall. Paul tells
them to leave their equipment behind as they make their way, knowing that men are more
important that equipment. They receive a message as the battle begins, but there’s too much
static. They give Paul what they received of the message, and Paul knows as he reads it that his
son is dead and his sister is captured. He is numb with grief, knowing that everything he touches
only seems to bring death.
Commentary
This is primarily an intro section that leads into the final battle, and it contains a fair share of
politics that are fun to carefully meander through. Paul releases the Sardaukar to the Emperor
and when he finds out that Paul is alive, he decides to raise the CHOAM Company flag. The
Emperor as a figure throughout this book has been fairly mysterious, but we have a basic picture
that this ties into: someone shrewd, calculating, and with no compunction for throwing any else
under the bus provided he maintains power. On the other hand, it would be nice to understand
more about how this mindset works; people with power and wealth always wish to maintain it,
but there’s no question of what’s at stake if they do not.
For people who do not know battle tactic stuffs and terms: this section makes mention of “a
sortie,” which means “an attack made by troops coming out from a position of defense.” I
remember looking that one up as a kid, and being a bit muddled because I already knew the word
as a French verb, so that’s a fun one.
There’s another interesting interplay of gendered terms that I noticed in this particular section. In
most narratives we have a standard “ships and vessels are women” thing, which can be iffy, but
tells you a lot about the perceptions or cultures of certain characters. From the Fremen we can
see the the sandworms are considered male—“Bless the maker, bless his coming and his going.”
But the storm that is approaching Arrakeen is “a great-great-great grandmother of a storm.” So
the god, the maker is male, but nature and its forces are female it would seem. An interesting
delineation.
While the death of little Leto is an uncommon blow because he’s an infant, it’s strange to have a
character death mean so much when it’s a character that we’ve had no contact with at all. We are
meant to feel for Paul because he’s in the central figure of this story, and it’s odd to know that
we’re meant to feel that way while never having been shown any interaction between father and
son, or even mother and son. Leto’s death is there for Paul, but not really for the reader. It is
more there to contextualize his upcoming actions, and to create a strange question about Chani’s
place in this upcoming order that Paul is about to create. It’s there for tension, not because we are
meant to think of baby Leto as a loss.
The use of atomics here confuses me, and I think we’re meant to assume that they are far more
targeted weapons in the future; Paul uses it to blow the shield wall, but that shockwave and
radiation should still kill many people. Presumably, the weapons of the future somehow target
the blast more effectively and prevent a great deal of background radiation from lingering
forever. And then there are the city folk they are planing to use as shock troops, people who have
not been trained like the Fedaykin or even the Fremen… and here we see precisely how cold
Paul is willing to be to achieve his ends. He knows that many of these people will die, but is not
overly concerned because he knows they are newly committed to the cause. This isn’t about Paul
being “good” or “bad” in this context because Dune isn’t about what a sweet guy Paul Atreides
is. It’s about what leaders with “terrible purpose” are willing to do to see their causes through.
Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Twenty
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Tue Apr 11, 2017 12:00pm 26 comments 7 Favorites [+]
One Emperor enters! A different Emperor leaves!
It is the final countdown for Dune! The last section of the book!
***
And Muad’Dib stood before them, and he said: “Though we deem the captive dead, yet does she
live. For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice. And she sees unto the farthest reaches of
possibility. Yea, unto the vale of the unknowable does she see because of me.”
Summary
The Baron Harkonnen waits for the Emperor to enter, as he was summoned for a reason he
knows not. The presence of Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim reveals that this is a very
important meeting. The Emperor asks him where Thufir Hawat is. The baron admits that Hawat
has been gone for five days, that he was meant to land with smugglers and infiltrate the Fremen.
He admits the poison he has been using on Hawat, knowing that the Mentat will die soon either
way. The Emperor is very angry over how much of his time this difficulty has taken up. He asks
if the baron has taken hostages, which he has not—because the Fremen don’t seem to care about
them, treating each hostage as if they were already dead. The Emperor suggests that he has taken
the wrong ones, and the Baron Harkonnen realizes that he must know something.
The Emperor reveals a little girl—the sister of Muad’Dib. Alia is hardly impressed with the
baron, and she says so, seeming unperturbed by the situation. She claims that she allowed herself
to be captured so that she would not have to tell her brother that his son was dead. The Emperor
admits that his light force just barely got away with three prisoners… from the southern reaches
that the baron insisted were impossible to reach. The Emperor believes that Baron Harkonnen
has been lying to him, that he knew of all of this. The Reverend Mother suggests that this is not
the case, which Shaddam can hardly believe, but Alia confirms it, stating that her father was
never in league with the baron and that they have never met before. She reveals herself to be
Duke Leto’s daughter, and the sister to Paul Muad’Dib.
The Emperor commands her to be quiet, but she insists that she will not take his orders and looks
to the Reverend Mother for confirmation. The old woman calls Alia an abomination, saying that
her birth should have been prevented at all costs, but one of their own betrayed them. Alia shows
her how it truly was, and that she played a hand in it as well. The Reverend Mother wants her
killed, but the Emperor wants Alia to communicate with her brother and tell him to surrender for
her life. Alia says she will not, and that her brother is coming presently regardless. There is a
rumble and the Emperor gets word from his men. He says that they will regroup in space, and
that they should give Alia’s body to the storm.
But Alia is not afraid and she backs into the baron’s reach. The baron grabs hold of her on the
Emperor’s behalf and she stabs him with a needle, telling him that he’s met “the Atreides gom
jabbar.” He dies abruptly. The shield wall is breached. Muad’Dib’s forces shoot off the nose of
the Emperor’s ship. The doors open and Alia rushes off to find a knife and kill more of the
enemy. Fremen warriors seem to emerge from the storm and attack. Then sandworms arrive
carrying many more troops. The Sardaukar are briefly awed by the impossible sight before
launching into battle. The Emperor and his people are driven back and sealed against the
onslaught, and he looks to the faces in the room with him. He sees his daughter and the Reverend
Mother, then looks to the Guildsmen. One of them has lost a constant lens, and his true eye such
a deep dark blue that it is nearly black.
The Emperor tells the Reverend Mother that they need a plan, and she agrees. Their plan is
treachery. She tells him to send of Count Fenring.
Commentary
So. However you expected the baron to die when you first read this book, I bet it wasn’t like that.
I do love it, though. I love Alia and her inability to be silenced, and I love her no-nonsense desire
to dispatch her horrid grandfather. It is no surprise to me that she does not make it into the final
section of the book; she is untamable, and would take center stage in Paul’s theater no matter
what anyone wanted. As well she should.
Also, “the Atreides gom jabbar.” Think on that for a moment. If Alia takes up that mantle, then
she is a being who can separate out the animals from the humans, isn’t she? That’s what Gaius
Helen Mohaim said, after all. We don’t get enough time to sit with Alia as a character in this
book, but their must be something especially awkward about being too small, too young, too
fresh for all the experiences that you know. It must be aggravating… but also marvelous to be
able to mess with everyone’s perceptions.
It is interestingly to me that the baron dies before the final act, so to speak. And while it may be a
bit abrupt, I do think the placement is entirely intentional; for all his scheming, Baron Harkonnen
dies after being humbled and belittled by the Emperor, being told that he had was too stupid to
know what was truly going on. He cannot believe that people were living in the southern reaches.
He cannot believe how effective the Fremen are at fighting. He cannot believe that Paul Atreides
is alive, and that he has a sister. It collapses on him all at once, and nothing can truly save him
because he was never worth saving in the first place. He dies an ignoble, quick death, and no one
will remember it. It’s like there’s a code for dispatching the truly terrible villains—it either has to
be a momentous thing, or something small and insignificant. The Baron Harkonnen is more a
Voldemort than a Sauron.
And then we get the image of a true fighting Fremen force, which even awes me as a reader, to
be fair. We sort of get to goggle like that Sardaukar, to learn at the same time as the Emperor
does what it must truly be like to come under the full weight of their wrath. No more options,
except for treachery, of course. And we’re not meant to know what the treachery is, but we can
guess.
This story does love its poisons…
***
He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less
than a god, more that a man. There is no measuring Muad’Dib’s motives by ordinary standards.
In the movement of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treater.
Can you say he did this out of a sense of justie? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now
of the Muad’Dib who ordered battle drums made of his enemies’ skins, the Muad’Dib who
denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: “I am the
Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.”
Summary
They bring Paul to the governor’s mansion that the Atreides occupied when they first came to
Arrakis. Gurney doesn’t like it and thinks a cave would be safer, but Paul insists it’s symbolic,
especially because Rabban had been living there. He asks Gurney and Stilgar to check for any
more Harkonnens or traps. He asks for Chani and his mother to be brought and asks for
Sardaukar to send to the Emperor to give their terms. He is caught up in his sight, seeing only the
jihad through every crack in time. He manages contact with Alia because even she has an ability
with time that he does not. She tells him that she has killed their grandfather. Paul tells Stilgar
that he knows they’ve found that baron’s body, shocking the man.
Paul tells a Sardaukar to bring a message to the Emperor, that he will keep them safe if they
surrender their arms and come to meet him. The man is sent away. Stilgar tells Paul that Chani is
taking a moment to be alone in grief and that Jessica has gone to the weirding room, though he
doesn’t know why. Paul explains that his mother is yearning for Caladan, where water comes
from the sky. Stilgar is awed by this, and in that moment Paul sees his friend become his
worshipper and finds the man lessened. Stilgar tells him that Rabban is also dead, and Paul notes
how the guards are hoping for his notice, that no one knows he plans to take the throne only to
stop the jihad.
Jessica enters, finding that her minds rebels at the memories of this place, as though she had
never lived there at all. She finds no compassion for Paul, noting the change in him. He tells her
that his experiences of so many lives has allowed him to plumb the depths of human cruelty and
kindness both. Jessica says he had denied that he was the Kwisatz Haderach before, but Paul
insists he can no longer deny it. He asks her to stand with him when the Emperor and his
entourage arrive, his future wife among them. Jessica tells him not to make her mistakes, but
Paul sees the princess as a means to an end, and tells his mother that there are no innocents
anymore. She says that he should tell that to Chani, who has just entered the room as well. She is
crying, and Paul can only truly mark their grief through her. He tells her that they will have other
sons, that Usul is the one who promises it.
The Emperor and his people are coming, Gurney has checked them all for throwing weapons.
Paul worries that he might lose Gurney as he has lost Stilgar. Gurney tells him that Fyed is
among them, and a Reverend Mother, and also Thufir Hawat. Gurney explains what he’s been
doing all this time, and that he’d thought it best to lead him to it. Paul sees one version of the
future where Hawat carries a poison needle that the Emperor will command him to use. Paul
marks the people who have approached with the Emperor, and sees Count Fenring—he fears the
man’s face, but he does not know it, nor has he ever seen it in any vision of the future or past. He
asks his mother about him and she tells Paul his identity. Paul realizes that though he has seen
many futures with his death, he has never seen how he dies, and wonders if this man is to be his
killer.
Paul asks that Thufir Hawat stand apart. Hawat apologizes to Jessica knowing that he was wrong
about her betrayal. Paul asks if he is his father’s son, but Hawat claims he is more like his
grandfather. Paul says he will grant Hawat anything he wants for his years of service, including
the chance to strike him dead. Hawat knows that Paul is aware of the treachery from the
Emperor, but he tells Paul that he only wanted to stand before his Duke one last time. Paul
realizes that Hawat can barely stand and rushes to brace him. Hawat tells him that he is pleased
to see him again, then holds the poison needle aloft and taunts the Emperor for believing that he
would ever betray the Atreides. Then he dies, and Paul has his body carried away.
The Emperor tries to tell Paul that he’s done wrong, violating their laws, using atomics. Paul
insists that he only used them on a feature of the desert for the purpose of being able to ask about
some of their activities. He tries to dismiss the Guildsmen, who tell him that they do not take his
orders. Paul says that they will do as he says with no room for negotiation or he will destroy all
spice production on the planet. The Guildsmen realize he is serious, and do as he asks. He tells
the Emperor that he also has no choice in this matter, that even the Reverend Mother is
trembling. Mother Gaius agrees that Paul is the one and that Jessica be forgiven her abominable
daughter for his sake, but Paul insists that she has no call to forgive his mother anything. The
Reverend Mother says that he is human, as she said before. Paul insists that though he was made
of a Bene Gesserit breeding program, he will never do her bidding. She is appalled and demands
that Jessica silence him, but Jessica has no intention of that. Paul tells the woman that he could
kill her with a word, and will let her live out her life knowing she cannot control him.
He looks to Irulan, insisting that they have the power between them to settle this thing. The
Emperor won’t hear of it, but Irulan points out that Paul is indeed worthy to be his son. Chani
asks Paul if he wants her to leave, but he won’t hear of it. The Emperor and the Reverend Mother
are fervently discussing these terms while Gurney approaches Paul to point out Feyd’s presence
and his desire to kill a Harkonnen. Paul asks about whether Feyd is part of the entourage, then
tells the Emperor that Duke Atreides might recognize his company, but Muad’Dib might not.
Feyd-Rautha then invokes kanly, a fight to the death. Gurney and Jessica are against it, but Paul
accepts. Jessica insists that Gurney let Paul be in this mood, and tells him that there is a word
planted in Feyd by the Bene Gesserit that would make his muscles relax if Paul gets in trouble,
but he won’t hear of using it. The Emperor agrees to have Feyd fight on his behalf and Paul
realizes that this is the place where he cannot see the outcome. The jihad will happen no matter
what, but this is where possibility entered and humanity had a chance to rid itself of stagnation.
Feyd is entirely overconfident in this fight, believing Paul to be a yokel to dispatch. Paul calls
him cousin, then remains silent as the fight begins, knowing that Feyd is a talker and grows
uneasy in silence. The Reverend Mother is mortified, knowing that both of them might die in this
attempt, the culmination of the Bene Gesserit breeding program in its entirely, with only Alia
and Feyd’s unknown daughter the only back up if they both fail. Paul gets the measure of Feyd’s
fighting style, then sees that his girdle is hiding a poison dart. He gets knocked by Feyd’s blade,
and realizes that the man is a better fighter than he’d thought. And the blade has a soporific on it,
enough to slow him. Paul knicks him in return with acid. Feyd gets close again and Paul notes
another poison dart near his belt. Feyd pins him to the ground, ready for the kill, and Paul
remembers the word his mother mentioned. He shouts aloud that he will not use it, and the
confusion gives him the upper hand to flip Feyd-Rautha onto his back and drive his knife into the
na-baron’s brain.
Paul stands and look to the Emperor and Count Fenring, He can tell that the Emperor is asking
the Count to do away with him. Paul realizes that the reason he never saw Fenring in any of his
visions is because the Count himself was an almost-Kwisatz-Haderach, prevented only by a flaw
in his genetics, by being a eunuch. The Count declines the command to kill Paul. The Emperor
punches him across the jaw, and Fenring decides to forget this out of friendship.
Paul tells the Emperor that he will rule on Salusa Secundus now, and Paul will receive the
throne. Salusa will become a gentle world, and Arrakis will have water some day, and always
belong to the Fremen. But they will keep enough desert that the spice production can continue.
The Reverend Mother glimpses the jihad coming, tells Paul he cannot unleash the Fremen on the
universe, but Paul begs to differ. The Emperor has no choice but to accept, and Irulan is not
bothered by the deal. Paul asks Jessica to negotiate the terms for him with Chani by her side.
Paul wants the Emperor stripped, all of his CHOAM holdings as dowry. He wants a directorship
for Gurney on Caladan, and power and titles for every living Atreides man. The Fremen are his
and Stilgar will be governor of Arrakis. He asks what Jessica wishes, and she asks to go to
Caladan for some time.
Jessica asks what Chani would like, but she begs for no title. Paul insists that she will never need
one, that Irulan will have no affection from him, nor children. Chani is not sure she believes him,
but Jessica assures her that though Irulan may get the Atreides name, history will call women
like them wives.
Commentary
Practically everything here is symbolic. The location. The people in the Emperor’s entourage.
The costumes everyone wears. It’s Thunderdome now. It’s a very polite gladiatorial ring. Strap
in.
There is a crazy perfect storm of loyalty here, alignment between the Atreides family and the
legend of Muad’Dib. The Fremen are looking to Paul and solidifying his legend in their minds,
and moments where a man meant to kill their beloved leader turns around and essentially flips
the Emperor the bird are going to stick in their minds. Many of the people in this room cannot
distinguish from loyalty to the Lisan al-Gaib and loyalty to the Atreides family, and they are
wildly different things; loyalty born of a belief in a godlike figure and loyalty to a man who won
trust from others through years of building bonds. We see the conflict for people like Gurney and
Jessica, the people who know that whatever Paul is, he is still only a man. The sudden and
frequent comparisons to his grandfather here are not meant as a compliment.
The flip side to this is Paul watching Stilgar morph from friend to believer. Knowing that
someone who you love on an interpersonal level has bought into your myth must be a deeply
disconcerting experience, and it must be that because every believer Paul gains is another person
who no longer sees him as human. I think that’s really the crux of what’s going on here—Paul
doesn’t want to be divorced from his humanity, but more he fulfills his odd destiny, the more
people will forget he was ever a man.
A side note to give Herbert props for not making Paul’s rise to religious figure overly-Jesus like
in its trappings. Western epics practically never fail to do this, and it’s just boring. It’s been done
so many times, and practically never with anything new to add to the concept.
There an abruptness to the ending of Dune that I could never quite get my head around. While I
appreciate Herbert’s ability to wrap up his material quickly and succinctly, it does feel strangely
rushed. That might just be down to writing style at the end of the day; Herbert’s flare for prose is
undeniable, but he’s not particularly florid. There are also so many character present that you run
the risk of swapping POV far too many times and confusing the whole thing. But there’s so
much happening and so quickly, and we never get to see even a hint of the aftermath to these
decisions. It’s an interesting choice, but ultimately feels like being cut off mid-breath. I’ll take
Tolkien’s extra-long denouement any day, just to get a proper sense of closure.
Paul humbles the Guild is short order and then it’s just a matter of the Emperor realizes by bits
and pieces that he has lost and has no choice in the matter. Irulan recognizes it from the
beginning, and I have already loved how nonplussed she is by the entire event. She’s like ‘sure,
I’ll marry that guy, he seems cool’ and keeps trying to get her dad to chill out. At that point, you
have to wish that the book had delved into her arc more, rather than presenting her as a scholar
only. We could use a bit more of her personality her, a bit more insight into her mind.
The Reverend Mother is horrified throughout, but the one thing that really terrifies her is the
thought that Paul and Feyd might both end up dead as the result of kanly, and then the only parts
of their breeding programs left are Alia the abomination and Feyd’s daughter. And while I know
what’s coming for Alia, I feel like there’s an alternate universe version of events where that’s
precisely what happens, and the next story is what happens to those women as they come into
their own… and I’m kind of sad that I never got to read it.
We have the fight with Feyd-Rautha, and while the story does an excellent job of making him an
intricate opponent for Paul, it seems such an odd place to go. The fight is interesting but reads as
unnecessary, a move to make sure that Feyd is out of the way because he’s just a troublesome
guy. If it hadn’t been Paul, it would have been Gurney. He’s not the person who Paul cannot see
(Fenring), so while he makes a good show, he doesn’t have that mysterious veil of threat hanging
about him.
We’ve had a hint that Count Fenring had an important role here from Irulan’s earlier text
indicating that Fenring’s greatest act against her father was refusing to kill a man when he
commanded it. And while I appreciate that cool bit of warning I’m not sure it plays out well here
with that reveal. Fenring is a cool character, but to insist that he is another Kwisatz Haderach
potential? I dunno, the segment is strangely written, and it seems like the suggestion is that being
a eunuch (or the traits that made him correct to be a eunuch, which who the hell knows what they
are) is the reason why he couldn’t be “the One.” Which… like, what? So, he doesn’t have
genitalia and that’s somehow a prerequisite for being the chosen dude? Sorry, I’m just going to
need a little more explanation for that to fly because right now I’m not buying it.
I still do love Fenring’s defiance before his buddy the Emperor, and his instance that he’s fine
with the choice and will overlook his friend decking him. It’s just classy.
So… these final lines are weird, right?
Here’s the thing. There is what was intended, and there is how the text reads. Now, the story of
Dune has done an excellent job of building up this theme between Jessica and Chani both, these
women who love men who cannot marry them out of political necessity. We come back to this
difficulty for them both, time and again. And there is political intrigue to this, and also emotion
as well. The problem is, when the hyper focus on this aspect, this angle, everything else about
these women is sidelined. You have ended your grand epic on the suggestion that while Paul
Atreides can be god-emperor of the universe and exact his perfect revenge, the best that the
women of this story can ever hope for is that history will remember them… as wives.
I mean, without intending to, the book has hyper-focused on one of fiction’s greatest problems.
That women are only what they mean to men. That women have nothing outside of their families
and their husbands. That women do not have their own grand tales and awesome deeds. But it’s
okay. Because even if they can’t marry their beloveds, history knows they were the one who
truly knew him best.
It’s a weird place to end your grand saga, literally focusing on that point. (It’s not ended, I know,
but at the time this was it.) On the other hand, I think that the story ends this way for a reason:
it’s meant to read as a point of happiness is all this carnage. It is how you end the story on an
upswing. We’ve been invested in Chani and Paul for about half the book now, and knowing that
he will not forsake his Sihaya for a fancy princess is meant to be a nice thought that turns our
collective gaze away from the carnage that Paul knows his victory will unleash on the universe.
He and Chani will have more children, and she will always be the woman he adores. And it isn’t
as though Paul disregards her on a higher level; he wants Chani there to negotiate with Jessica
because he knows that she is brilliant and unyielding. But still. This is where we rest our heads,
the story completed. It’s kind of a head tilt for me, emotionally. Like an “awwww” followed by a
“bzuh?”
Either way, the tale is completed and we know that the universe is irrevocably changed. And the
frightening part is that we’re not surely true if it’s for the better. We can end on thoughts of
romance, but at the end of the day, Paul Atreides is full of terrible purpose, and he is releasing an
endless war across the cosmos. He has finally come to accept this, but the reader clearly should
not—Paul’s great power ends certain feuds and old ways, but he will replace it with more
violence, more pain. The only thing celebratory here is the end of stagnation, as he puts it.
Humanity will move forward, and that move will be brutal and full of suffering. It isn’t
surprising that more stories were written because the end of Dune is hardly cut and dry. We have
watched Muad’Dib achieve his goals, and the act was dazzling, but we’re meant to remember the
cost of that victory.
And we are certainly meant to question it.

Dune 1 Summary

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Dune 1 Summary

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune: Dune, Part Four

—from “A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “The Humanity of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Muad’Dib: Family Commentaries” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Muad’Dib: Family Commentaries” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:00pm 18 comments 7 Favorites [+]

—from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

“Nothing wins a leader more loyalty than an air of bravura.”

— “In my Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan

In other words, it’s good to be back!

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

“There is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

Do you wrestle with dreams?

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan

— the Princess Irulan: “Introduction to A Child’s History of Muad’Dib”

— from “Songs of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan

‘I’m here, Paul,” she said. “It’s all right.”

“What have you done to me?” he demanded.

—“In My Father’s House,” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Conversations with Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

My favorite bit is actually this small exchange and revelation:

“Do you wish to go to the smugglers?” the Fremen asked.

“The way is long.”

—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

What do you despise? By this you are truly known.

—from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.

—from “A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Muad’Dib: Conversations” by the Princess Irulan

—“In my Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan

I drove my feet through a desert

—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

And there will be many more accidents and errors to come.

—“Private Reflections of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “In My Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan

God created Arrakis to train the faithful.

—from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—Stilgar’s preface to “Muad’Dib, the Man” by the Princess Irulan

The hands move, the lips move —

—description from “A Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

BOOK THREE: The Prophet

—“Count Fenring: A Profile” by the Princess Irulan

Also, my kingdom for this exchange:

—from “The Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

Environment and extreme loyalty. Which brings us back to Arrakis

—from “The Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

—Muad’Dib’s Secret Message to the Landsraad from “Arrakis Awakening” by the

—“The Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

What follows is another one of my favorite sections in the whole book.

—“Collected Legends of Arrakis” by the Princess Irulan

Man, I had forgotten that that’s how it was put.

And I just wish Dune had done it.

—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

One Emperor enters! A different Emperor leaves!

—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

This story does love its poisons…

—from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan