#dune commentary

[beyondthecosmicvoid]

Star Wars was and still is heavily influenced by Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Frank Herbert's Dune. Like the latter, it feels like going through a Greek tragedy or something historical. And it's intentional. Dune takes places in a long, long time from now in far, far way, but it feels like something that has happened a long time ago. Hence why Star Wars blatantly starts as a story that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far way. Yet both feel so familiar and close.

Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace You can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.

[lucimiir]

I don’t know guys I was told Dune Messiah would be boring but so far I’m having a BLAST. Teenage Alia is iconic, half the scenes are Chani and Irulan snipping at each other while Alia chills and instigates. There’s a pompous fishman floating in orange liquid and a resurrected hot guy who’s there to seduce people apparently. Paul is just moping in a corner. This is great.

[shipcestuous]

I decided to go back and read your Paul/Jessica commentaries again, and I thought that you'd be interested in hearing these things.

Jessica is Paul's concubine through weird legal fuckery and property rights. Jessica was purchased from the Bene Gesserit school by Leto's father (Paulus Atreides) for Leto when they were teenagers. From the day that the Old Duke bought Jessica for Leto, Jessica became property of the Ducal Household. Yes, she is Paul's mother. But, legally, Jessica is Paul's property after Leto's death. That's a big part of the book and why Jessica defers to Paul and allows Paul to dictate a lot of the things that are happening once the House of Atreides falls. Jessica is the bound concubine for life to the Duke of House Atreides - no matter who he is.

So, technically, from a legal standpoint, Jessica is actually Paul's concubine, which would be a classic Bene Gesserit move (Bene Gesserit sisters will marry and breed with their own sons if ordered to preserve or strengthen traits in House bloodlines.)

Another thing I wanted to mention was pertaining to the Dune movie draft with canon Paul/Jessica (which was actually the first draft for Ridley Scott's attempt before the Lynch movie)– here's what its writer (Rudolph Wurlitzer) had to say about it:

“I took what I always felt to be a latent but very strong Oedipal attraction between Paul and the Lady Jessica, his mother, one step further. I injected a lovemaking sequence between these two. I meant that act as a supreme defiance of certain boundaries, which might make Paul even more heroic—in the sense that he willingly, but lovingly, broke a taboo.”

Lastly, I don't know if you've heard this before, but at least three more scenes between them (including two training sequences that you can find stills of) were removed from Part One because test audiences and executives had gained the impression that they were in a secret relationship and thought that they had too much sexual tension (hence the deletion of the aforementioned scenes) together, and that Jessica was pregnant with Paul's child, not Leto’s. This was also because of Rebecca Ferguson's choice to play Jessica as very closed off and reserved when dealing with Paul, which, when combined with the aforementioned factors, had the effect of giving their interactions a sexual and romantically intimate subtext (and also due to runtime!) The scene where they change into their stillsuits was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what they cut out. It's wild that because Rebecca Ferguson can't play maternal at all (which is actually quite fitting for Jessica,) test audiences and execs really thought that Part One was a secret love story between Paul and Jessica...

This ask was delicious, like a giant slice of fresh chocolate cake, the kind with chocolate shavings on top.

I had heard some of these things but I thought they were just rumors. It sounds like they're a bit (a lot) more confirmed than I had realized.

I had absolutely no idea that Jessica was considered property or that she passed to Paul upon Leto's death. The Bene Gesserit powerful/powerless dichotomy is really fascinating.

That Rudolph Wurlitzer quote is insane.

might make Paul even more heroic

Heroic, lmao. I like the way this guy thinks. Pour one out for this version that was never made, and also for the scenes that were cut from 2021, so steamy they convinced test audiences and executives that Jessica was carrying Paul's child.

And raise one up to Rebecca Ferguson. I toast to you, madam.

[josephinekhawaja]

Pruwet Richese

RIP, you little shit. You were a surprisingly good kid and to me at least had a lot of story potential.

I assumed with all the talk of Princess Inez taking 10 years to study with the Bene Gesseret, and literally marrying a 9-year-old at the onset of it, we would be relying upon a time jump to some kind of Padmé Naberrie and Anakin Skywalker situation just with more of an enemies-to-lovers angle. (Or, just an enemies angle — I am all for an imperial couple at war with themselves in a sexy manner.) But alas, not gonna be going in that direction. I should have figured with how much the show is clearly shipping her with Kieran. And while going into the film adaptation I was prepared to ship Paul Atreides x Princess Irulan on principle of feeling bad for her in her one-sided marriage (my Theodore Laurence x Amy March anti-shipping dropped it immediately though with the Florence Pugh casting, the triggers😅😂🤣🥲) and a Corino fated to be with an Atreides would have really hooked me, I am just kind of meh so far to their CW sex appeal.

(RIP also Kasha Jinjo…this show already be killing off my faves! At least I still have Tula so far, but damn.)

Anyway, while I expect lesbian ships to flourish on this show as is their right, I think Valya Harkonnen and Desmond Hart should fuck nasty at some point. They are clearly on a collision course towards one another, and a man who can cook people from the inside or across literal space with the woman who honed The Voice…come on. Give us that face-off.

[biblioflyer]

Bad Dune Takes are the Mind Killer

I'm going to type up some more robust thoughts on Dune part 2, but I've seen some subtle bad ideas circulating that are drawn from shallow readings of either the films or the books or both.

First off, anyone who swallows the Bene Gesserit propaganda about their eugenics program needs to be pushed back on. They are NOT sorting humans from animals. The function of the Gom Jabar test (I will look up the proper spelling later and edit it in), doesn't even really seem to have anything to do with the metaphysics of the setting so much as its testing for self discipline. This is something that is nature AND nurture.

The dirty truth of the matter is that no one is a true Tabula Rasa, we do inherit some tendencies genetically, but barring a serious developmental disorder, those are tendencies. Tendencies can be ameliorated, if not even outright disappear in the noise of lived experience and explicit education.

If Feyd Ruatha can pass the Gom Jabar, you know its not actually testing for merit, its testing for a specific set of traits that the Bene Gesserit find useful.

Those traits are part of the ingredients they are seeking for the Kwisatch Haderach (yes, I know, I'll edit it later) but here's the kicker!

Major book spoilers ahead

While this is probably not exclusively the Bene Gesserit's fault, all of these secret societies, all of this obsession with bloodlines, and perfection is a time bomb. Paul is not a white savior. Paul is a labradoodle. He is an incredible endgame of generations of effort but he's a symptom of a broader problem that he himself vaguely glimpses and his son, Leto II, sees in all its terrible truth: the Bene Gesserit and their ilk are reserving autonomy for themselves, perhaps even at the genetic level, and trying to breed complacency into "the commons." The ones they regard as "animals" unfit for and incapable of self direction. People who are only fit to be ruled.

Sound familiar?

Its feudalistic "divine right of kings" merged with eugenics.

AKA fascism.

Paul and Leto II become despicable tyrants and authorial fiat would seem to indicate they are trapped by a sort of accelerationist framing of the problem. The end result of the millennia of power brokering in the background by all of these secretive societies and open monarchism is a humanity that is doomed. One way or another, it will be snuffed out. Whether by a total war, plague, or collapse of civilization.

This is why I say that the Bene Gesserit endgame is labradoodles. Pretty? Yes. Companionable? Sure. But like many, many, many designer breeds very, very lacking in genetic diversity.

This is what selective breeding gets you. Its why Leto II foresees the need to provoke a "Great Scattering." To ensure humanity exists in so many places, in so many different genetic and cultural forms that it cannot be subjugated by even the most charismatic and supernaturally powerful tyrant - not even by himself - and incapable of being extinguished by any plague or natural disaster. Because consolidation into too narrow and tight of a socio-cultural-political footprint means when (not if) that civilization screws up epically, it brings everyone down with it.

So if Roddenberry believed in the end of history, as expressed by the Federation: a society that is not incapable of error but IS capable of introspection and correction in the wake of error such that it is extremely unlikely to collapse from its own errors and contradictions. Then Herbert seems to be positing that history has no end. It will be one damn thing after another for all time and his implicit solution is that we desperately need diversity: genetic diversity and cultural diversity otherwise a self anointed superior sect of schemers and intriguers will get us all killed in the end by making us docile and homogeneous in order to make us more useful: to them.

Herbert also is suggesting that events like the Fremen Jihad is a likely bit of blowback from such consolidation. That human beings (the very same the Bene Gesserit regard as animals) naturally crave autonomy, dignity, and the essentials of life and if you press these things, the result will be a socio-political nuclear explosion.

I don't know if Herbert was an accelerationist. But it doesn't really matter because this leads me to the second bad take:

The Jihad and the Golden Path are not good, actually. Authorial Fiat dictate that they are necessary because authorial fiat dictates that human civilization in Dune has become so consolidated and bent to the whims of shadowy schemers that any attempt to wrest control away and return it to "normal" people, if indeed that is even possible given the technologies and superhumans running around, will result in such disorder and chaos that it be, functionally, genocide even if it is not genocide in intent.

The Jihad itself is also a consequence of the Great Man relying on people who only see a sliver of the overall project and interpret it through their own prism. That prism being one of anger, resentment, and a desire to see others conform to their worldview in order to ensure they are never again under anyone's boot.

Authorial fiat dictates that by the time Paul is born, there's no way back. No way to unwind all of this mess. The systems and structures are too complex, too interdependent. The Bene Gesserit, the Face Dancers, and everyone else I'm forgetting have too many contingency plans to fall back on. Not even a psychic can pull the Jenga pieces of civilization out delicately enough to restack them without the whole thing coming apart, not if he has to rely on millions of people with an axe to grind against the civilization he's trying to reform, a civilization that spent millennia trying to subjugate the Fremen or drive them into extinction.

But I maintain accelerationism is bad. You're not psychic. I'm not psychic. There's no Kwisatch Haderach lurking in the background to see what comes next. If you burn it all down, there might be a flourishing of dignity and freedom on the other side or it might be extinction because some other "cabal" will just take over and do the same things only meaner and dumber.

So if not accelerationism then what?

Federationism.

Introspection always. Seeking reform and equity before the power structures get too entrenched that gambling on a Great Scattering following in the wake of genocidal messiahs start seems like a good idea.

I'm not dunking on Dune to build a motte and bailey around Star Trek. I love Dune, but people tend to fixate on icky parts and call them good, when the whole point was don't let society get so bad you need to cross your fingers and hope the God Emperor is secretly an enlightened genocidal tyrant who is waiting for you to get restive enough to strike him down as part of some harebrained scheme to generate so much historical trauma it inoculates humanity against tyranny for all time.

Which of course, is a false premise. Herbert may or may not have known this in the mid-20th century, but we live in a world where 5-6 generations later, everything we were supposed to learn from and never repeat about tyranny, fascism, eugenics, and being disinterested in how and why there came to be fighters in difficult to pronounce faraway lands who seem to be rather upset with us, is now a thing that has to be taught and can be disputed and debated.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Maybe I'll Show You the Way is finished! I'm really happy with how it turned out, even though (and also because) I knew the ending would be rough.

I procrastinated on writing the last chapter for a long time (this is a great time to write almost 12k of a whole other fic) but I have a very busy September ahead and I knew if I didn't finish it before the end of August I would not finish it at all. And I really wanted to see this one to the end.

From pretty early on in planning the fic, I knew that it was going to be canon compliant, which meant there would not be a happy ending. And I also knew that I wanted to end the story before Paul drinks the Water of Life. And, well, the major canon event that happens right before that is the attack on Sietch Tabr. So at a certain point I was like fuck. That's the last chapter of the fic.

I knew I wanted to expand it from what's in the finished film, which is actually very little for such a major turning point in the story. (We know from the art book that there was additional material filmed that was not included in the final cut, and I have both Reasonable Thoughts and rampant speculations as to why, but what remains is about a 9-minute section of the movie that I spent a lot of time watching and listening to in 5- to 30-second bursts. This was actually one of the hardest chapters to blend with canon because there is not enough of it to hit all the emotional beats I wanted to.)

But then I was writing and I was like. Oh this is the whole chapter huh. Oh this is 7k huh. Oh this is a major and really intense setpiece that just keeps growing more and more scenes and some of them are pretty graphic. And at a certain point I was like goddamn is this too devastating? (To which the angst gremlin that lives in my brain was like no!!!! it is the exact right amount of devastating!!!!) But also, like, on a thematic level...if the fic is about centering Chani's point of view and Chani is watching her home be destroyed, then we have to be there with her. We gotta be willing to go in there. Being willing to stay with the Fremen characters while the bad things are happening is like, what the fic is about. We the audience are engaging in the same act of solidarity that Paul is undertaking. I'm with you no matter what happens. He is physically right beside her for almost the entire chapter (which I didn't plan in advance but it fits), walking through this nightmare landscape together with her. And we are there with them as well.

The challenge with an unhappy, bittersweet or tragic ending is to create something that's emotionally satisfying even as you're sobbing your eyeballs out. It is...really hard to measure up to film canon in this regard, which has one of the best tragic endings in recent memory. But I've tried my best, and I think I've said what I set out to say.

[the-technicolor-yawn]

me when the dystopian predicted future books written decades ago are being fulfilled today

[rye-views]

Dune: Part Two (2024) dir. Denis Villeneuve. 7.4/10

I would not recommend this movie to my friends. I would not rewatch this movie.

rip these quick neck slices.

People really hyped up this second movie saying it's better than the first. I personally think they were both whatever. The first one at least lots of beauty in it. This one is just meh. i feel like my emotions towards this movie is getting mixed up with my feelings towards Star Wars. Star Wars is just too good.

Paul is giving Bran Stark vibes. It is interesting to see Austin Butler like this.

Chani, find another.

[drifting-rocket]

Damn people with pink text are weird as fuck am I right guys.

[epochhistorymagazine]

Dune and the History of the Future

'Some of these histories are easier to trace than others. The novel is written as a history of the events within, and like all good history books it contains a glossary for the general reader. In this glossary, Herbert describes Galach, the language of the ruling Imperium, as an ‘Inglo-Slavic’ hybrid. This presumably hints at a peaceful resolution of the Cold War and a coming together of the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the assumption that those two powers would take people to the stars. Such an idea might look, at best, strange to the eyes of the twenty-first-century reader, but it would have been difficult to imagine the eclipse of either state in the mid-1960s.' - Will Garbett

[autismmydearwatson]

JUST SAW DUNE 2 HOLY SHIT

[oscillation-sounds]

'The Jihad of Muad'Dib' - Beyram Bey, 2017

[seaslimes]

Finally have a queue system that works for me. AKA 10 posts across two hours. Good luck to anyone. Hope you like seeing silly stuff on your dashboard.

[shipcestuous]

I remembered your long posts about Paul/Jessica from quite a while ago, and I was wondering: if you've seen Part Two yet, how did it influence your thoughts on the ship? Personally, I feel like it only enhanced what was there in Part One: Paul kind of takes on the role of a husband (husbandson?) for her, he asks her if she's OK like 30 different times after they kill the Harkonnen patrol, they have a moment where they talk through Alia as a proxy like a sparing married couple before she leaves for the South (and act like an expecting husband and wife in general), some scenes with a romantic context between Paul and Chani from the book are given to Paul and Jessica... and by the end, Jessica is his Empress in all but name. By the end, while I really liked Paul and Chani together, Paul and Jessica really superseded them as my #1 Dune ship.

I'm writing for them right now, in fact– would you like a link to the fic when I've finished? It should be up by the end of August or so.

Anon: Can you talk about the paul and jessica moments in the movie dune part two?

I appreciate both of these asks and your interests in my thoughts on Paul and Jessica. I feel at such a disadvantage because I haven't read the books, but I will attempt to share some thoughts anyway on Dune: Part Two.

My response got too long, and I had to post it on Wordpress, so you can find that at this link.

I really enjoyed your commentary @paganmindidnothingwrong, especially about Paul and Jessica sparring like a married couple and I completely agree.

I didn't know that some Paul/Chani moments from the book were given to Paul/Jessica in the movie, I would love to hear more about that.

Thank you so much for these asks!

[mrsjadecurtiss]

i always feel mance and his role going forward is criminally underanalyzed in fandom... not only is he one of the first mentioned characters in the books (name dropped early in the prologue) but he also appears by name(!) in grrm’s super old first outline of the books

[toomanybirdsss]

One of my favourite dumb but funny moments in fantasy/sci-fi books or shows is when everything from the characters, the locations, the houses, to the animals have crazy weird names, like fantasy names that are basically just a bunch of syllables smooshed together, but then one of the main characters or even the main character has the stupidest real life name ever.

My favourite example: the Dune series. All the weirdest names under the sun for everything in that series and then one of the main characters name is Paul. Like why is his name Paul?? (i know there is actual story reasons for it but still) One of the worst white boy names ever imo. His last name is Atreides, and his first name is Paul?? Like we were apparently smart enough up to that point to comprehend all the other weird names but the main character had to be the most recognizable basic name ever. Like come on.

Hilarious and infuriating at the same time.