#harkonnen typical culture

[gortash-did-nothing-wrong]

Parental Negotiations

Feyd x reader

Pregnancy, canon typical violence suggested, etc. Feyd is Lowkey his own warning.

Feyd's brown wrinkled as he narrowed his eyes. "None?"

I tensed, anticipating a fight. Feyd had the energy to argue all day if he cared enough about the topic, and for better or worse our future children were an important topic to him. But at seven months pregnant, I had no desire to do such a feat. Once upon a time I would have loved to have verbally sparred with him over the course of several hours, riling him up until he was ready to throw me into our bed. None of that sounded appealing these days. I'd rather the two of us spend our evening quietly, holding each other, watching some documentary or education text until I fell asleep. Is this how old people felt?

Feyd and I were both barely in our early twenties, but this pregnancy feels like it had aged me in an unexpected way. Or maybe I was just tired. That could be it.

I sighed, sitting down on the couch that took up a large space in my living quarters. Feyd had his own rooms of course, but he spent most of his time in mine. It would be smothering if I didn't like him so much. "I don't want to use a wet nurse when the baby is born. I want to feed my child from my own breast. And I don't really want to use nursemaids either, I'd prefer to raise my own child."

Feyd was quiet for a moment, his eyes staring me down like he was trying to determine just how serious I was about this issue. When he did speak, his raspy voice was gentler than usual. "You're the Na Baroness. You'll be the Baroness one day. You have obligations beyond being a wife and mother."

"I know, and I'm not going to neglect those duties. I think I'll take one or two months to rest with the baby, and after that, I'll see how much I can get done with them on my hip." I explained. "I'm open to using a part time nursemaid, sparingly. So I can have someone hold the baby while I shower, and other such needs."

"And if you can't manage to meet your duties with our child strapped to your chest?" Feyd pressed calmly.

"Then I'll be open to using a nursemaid. Sparingly, of course." I said firmly. "Some weight could be lifted if you assisted me, you know. I don't expect you to drop everything to help me, but watching them for a few hours while I get my duties done would help a lot."

Feyd looked bewildered. "When am I supposed to find the time to do that?!"

I chuckled. "You could strap him to your chest while you do your morning run." I suggested.

"What's wrong with using the nursemaid?" Feyd probed again. "They'll be properly vetted I assure you. And the royal guard will never be far."

"Listen, I know most nobles think that seeing their child once a day for afternoon tea is being an involved parent, but I disagree." I said firmly. "I'm not going to carry this baby for nine months, go through hours of labor, love them more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and then just hand him off to a stranger to raise. I want to be the one to teach him to talk, and walk, and play with him. I know the sleepless nights when he's sick or having a tantrum will be difficult at best, but I want those hard times. I want… I want to actually be a mother."

Feyd's eyes glazed over, my words still registering as he remembered something. Some far off memory that I would likely never be privy to. He hadn't ever spoken much about either of his parents, but he avoided the topic of his mother like a snake avoiding a hawk. Perhaps there was some dusty memory in the corners of his mind of a mother that soothed his fevers, kissed his scraped up knees, and sang his nightmares away with lullabies.

"Alright." He said, a firmness in his voice that assured dependableness and security. "No wet nurses. And I'll only have two nursemaids hired, both part time."

Two nursemaids was a great improvement over the seven that the Baron had told you to expect. Seven nursemaids to attend to the future of House Harkonnen. And three wetnurses. How much could one baby eat? Perhaps the Baron expected Feyd's child to have an appetite to match his.

I smiled, leaning over and kissing Feyd's cheek. "Thank you, love. This means a lot to me."

"If you neglect your duties, I won't be able to prevent more nursemaids being hired." Feyd warned. "And if you're unable to care for our child sufficiently, I will insist on the nursemaids stepping in more."

"I understand." I said gently, resting a hand on his arm. "I just want… when our child wakes up from a nightmare, I want them to call out for me, not a nanny."

Feyd's eyes softened. He rested his hand on my belly, rubbing little circles over where our baby rested inside me. "I will never truly understand motherhood, or your desire for it. But this is important for you, so it's important to me. And… I do admit to wanting something similar."

"You do?" I asked, surprised.

"When I was a boy, I used to go to my combat instructors when I had an injury or needed advice." Feyd explains. "I was wondering the other day about which instructors I should pick for my child, and I realized… I wanted to be the one to teach them. I wanted to be the one to bandage his cuts, and correct his stance. Not some retired general I select to train him for me."

I leaned into Feyd, gasping a little as our baby moved inside me, kicking right where Feyd's hand rested. "Oh! Ugh… they're getting stronger. That one hurt a bit."

Feyd chuckled, rubbing the little outline of our baby's foot. "A strong kick. Good, they'll need that."

"I think you'll be a good father." I said, images of Feyd instructing our child, a toddler in my fantasy, on how to throw their first punch. "Just remember, little hearts need a soft touch, not just a firm hand."

Feyd's lips pressed against my forehead as our child gave another kick. Lighter this time, thankfully. "I'll try to remember that."

[deepsuns]

rambling headcanons (part 1?)

feyd-rautha centric / house harkonnen

literally just my personal thoughts while writing out my feyd-rautha fanfic. feel free to use my ideas with credit if you like ❤️ enjoy my ridiculously large extrapolation of Dune material that sounds like insanity

• the marks painted on feyd-rautha's skin are rectangles, or purposefully/artfully changed rectangles. rectangles are relative to the number four, which in some cultures references "death". i would equate it, in relation to the harkonnens, as being from Slavic mythology - the god Svetovid has four heads and is a god of abundance/war (in which the harkonnens are engaged in kanly with house atreides, making it a good metaphor for fanfics). additionally, the rectangle is the metaphor used upon anything meant for use in life: here, in the arena, feyd-rautha is being prepared for "use" by the Baron to display himself during his birthday and appease the masses. with the rectangles painted upon his chest signifying the number four, feyd-rautha is being prepared to bring death in abundance for house harkonnen. with svetovid having four heads, i would also suspect these heads are the following: the Baron, feyd-rautha, lady jessica, and paul, each to represent an aspect of house harkonnen unconsciously.

• touch is a sacred thing. intimacy (true intimacy, that is, such as vulnerability/affection/tenderness) is a sacred thing. the harkonnens do not indulge in casual touch, but the Baron blasphemes this aspect of his house practice by doing so casually towards feyd-rautha (and so have those before him). the servants do not touch feyd-rautha at all during the preparation hall scene, and are wearing gloves to apply the ink/paste. in addition, feyd-rautha is careful not to truly touch anyone outside of canon typical violence. also, there is a heavy chance of poison being present on skin as well.

• house harkonnen is a house that admires power and strength. by that thought, we can assume that margot fenring's remark in the books ("here is one that will not let himself go to fat") internally as she regards feyd-rautha, insinuates that the baron has willingly let himself go to fat after his illness but is still respected due to his wealth and power. by comparison, feyd-rautha is the perfect visual of an heir and everything that the baron is not and he does his best to mold him into a different shape.

• feyd-rautha engages in mithridatism, or the self administration of lethal poisons in non-lethal amounts. it would not be out of the realm of possibility that assassination attempts happen often in regards to house harkonnen, and poison is the most subtle way to do so, whether it is by skin on skin contact, proximity, through food or drink, or simply touching an object.

• in house harkonnen, masochism/sadomasochism would be a heavy coping method, alongside extreme versions of hypersexuality. such a violent and dangerous house is doomed to have those who cannot stomach it or are majorly human, and manipulates their tastes in childhood to that of the extremes rather than normality.

[psycheetamore]

Preparing for a Giedi Prime Party - Kinktober

Nr 1 / 3 of my little contribution to @lady-phasma's guidance for Kinktober/Fangtober for day 3 (ejaculation)

Tags: MDNI, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen Is His Own Warning, explicit smut, Feyd-Rautha is phyiscially imposing, teasing, vaginal everything (f in v, t in v, p in v), oral (f receiving), multiple orgasms, power dynamics, domination (m), implied non-consensual drug use, dubious consent, spoilers, and of course: ejaculation - the author regrets nothing

Summary: Feyd-Rautha has been enraptured by the fearless Fremen leader (f) while fighting on Arrakis. After she decided not to kill him, he has managed to capture her as he decided to make her his. After some initial struggles on both sides (as he understands she will never truly become his if he forces her), she is starting to be more comfortable in his presence, and is rising in Giedi Prime ranks. He is set on unlocking parts of her she did not know existed, and showing her everything (... this is as suggestive as you can interpret it - see the tags) his planet has to offer. This section shows part of their journey (again: meant in the most suggestive way possible - tags).

Word count: 2.1k

Based on chapter 17 of Choosing to Follow Destiny, Pre-Party Excitement:

After she came back from yet another day studying, she found a gift in her chambers: a beautifully crafted box, covered with dark leather, holding a pair of well-balanced daggers. Brown handles with beige veins to her surprise, almost as if he knew.

They fit her hands perfectly. It contained a handwritten note: “Dearest, I promised to have you experience all that Giedi Prime has to offer. Tonight, you are invited to attend a small get-together as my esteemed guest. You will receive appropriate attire. Please ensure you take this gift wherever you go, as I trust you will keep yourself well. FR”

After she read the note, trolleys were brought in by her servant girls bringing the attire mentioned.

One of her servants explained that the small get-together referred to, was actually an annual fête organised by the na-Baron. With only in-crowd present, invites were heavily coveted and a token of benevolence from leadership bestowed upon one. As dictated by Harkonnen culture, also this fête would erupt into pandemonium, a drug laced orgy that claimed lives every year. The girls have not witnessed it before, and spoke based on gossip only. It was stressed that receiving an invite, and especially as the guest of the na-Baron himself, was a special honour. This was the one party to attend, organised by the Harkonnen playboy himself.

She considered that this was perhaps one of the parties mentioned during a seemingly boring meeting she was dragged into.

The other servant offered her a piece of candy, explaining it was tradition to eat this before attending the event. With thoughts of caution, she ate it.

[…]

The attire consisted of a black overlay skirt to be hanged on her hips, a white see through wrapped blouse consisting of two parts starting from her neck and to be wrapped over her breasts, leaving her mid-rift exposed, an a-symmetrical harness to hold her new daggers to her sides, a fire red silk cape that touched the ground, closed black heels with straps to cover the calve, a broad black leather choker with a metal ring at the front, two wrist and two ankle bands identical to the choker, an eye covering mask made of black feathers and black lace underwear. Not the typical outfit she was used to, and she could only imagine what he was planning.

The girls started working on her hair. The typical low braid was removed. Her flowy black hair was put in a tight high bun and braided.

While she started to remove her clothes to settle in this new outfit, Feyd-Rautha entered the room. He was already dressed in his outfit for the night.

He wore clothing made of a thin, flowy and black fabric, covering his entire body. A wide shirt that was tucked into high wasted trousers, that seemed to be tied together by a broad belt of the same material also holding his ceremonial daggers. The broadness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist were accentuated. Through the tailoring of the shirt, that was tied together with hidden buttons, it gave the impression that he was even broader than he was. The neck being covered with the fabric tightly tied, nearly up to where the head started. The legs of the pants were wide, while consisting of overlaying parts - they could be mistaken for a skirt. His pants were tucked into black boots. A cape was attached to his shoulders, laced with red fabric on the inside to complement her cape.

After she had taken this sight in, she taunted: “the girls you allocated to me can help me get dressed”, knowing that Feyd-Rautha came in to either witness or participate, and would not remove himself from her room anytime soon.

He smirked and set himself on her couch, making himself comfortable. He raised his finger in the slightest way and pointed to the doors. Within seconds they were gone. “I don't see them here, pet. And someone needs to help you” he said with an intense voice.

She thought he probably expected her to refuse his offer, or try get him out of the room. She wouldn't be giving him that pleasure. As sense of playfulness took hold of her.

She walked over to him, sat on the couch next to him, held her arms up high and said with a high-pitched voice, pouting lips and doe eyes: “please be so kind to remove my breast band, lord Harkonnen. I cannot do this without help.” Although it took him off-guard, he obliged to the mocking request with a muted moan he couldn't prevent from escaping, placing his hands on her hips and gliding them along her flanks to the height of the band. He moved his hands to her back, smelling her scent, pushing his fingers under the band and having them flow over her skin to her breasts. While cupping her breasts, he released his thumbs from under the band and shifted it over her head while having his mouth helping her nipples acclimatise to the newer colder surroundings. His hands slid the band over her arms, holding them straight up while his mouth travelled to her neck.

With her band removed, and noticing how he indulged her in her mocking play, she stood up to stand between his legs, turned around and asked with the same voice and eyes, while looking over her shoulder: “oh, lord Harkonnen, I need your help again. Can you please help me take off my panties? I can’t do this by myself”, while having difficulty in containing her laughter. Despite the wideness of his clothing, his bulge couldn't be hidden anymore. “Woman, you will be my death” he responded with a deep sound, as he grabbed her hips, pushed her to step forwards, fell on his knees and tore this last piece of wardrobe covering her modesty down as far as possible using his teeth. He pushed her to lean over the nearby cabinet, spread her legs as far as possible considering the still present undergarment, and started tasting the source of sweetness to which he had found himself addicted.

This wasn’t entirely how she thought this would have played out, but it was pleasing all the same. Soon, tasting became slurping, as her body decided to prepare her for what it desired to come. She pushed herself towards him as far as her balance allowed her, removing one leg from her underwear to give him better access. The positioning on the cabinet and his support of her legs allowed her to indulge fully. His long tongue entering her repeatedly caused a new sensation, bringing her to newfound heights.

He couldn’t just have his mouth experience the pleasures presented to him. He stood up behind her, while pressing on the small of her back to keep her bend over. Before he could enter, something broader was required. As he uncovered himself, he pushed his fingers in her. As his longing needed to come to an end, it did not take long before she was taking three of his digits. He removed them a few times, to moisture himself. There was only so much this man could watch passively. Once he felt that she was ready to receive him, he removed his wet fingers and pushed himself in her cautiously, noticing she went to stand on her tiptoes to welcome him.

He heard her gasp. They always do. Even if prepared, even if they have encountered him more than once, no-one ever got fully adapted to take the volume of his presence from the very first entry. While her gasp was replaced with moans, and she became more accommodating to him, he started to thrust into her, holding her hips to exert more force in the process.

Considering this must be a dream again, as this was completely out of character for her, she decided to see how it would play out if she would vocalise her inner thoughts: “lord Harkonnen, you are peerless. My god” while throwing her arm back, and driving her nails in in whatever pale flesh she could grab.

“Don’t refer to me as lord while I fuck you. Use my name. You know better” he said punishing, pushing her legs further apart and pushing his fingers deeper into her flesh.

“Whatever pleases you, lord Harkonnen” she responded playfully, as if she was drunk. He responded less playfully, pulling her deeper onto him and grabbing her throat with one hand: “I don’t like to repeat myself, pet” he growled near her ear. She was contemplating yet another sassy response, but his continuous thrusts prevented her from responding in any other way than moaning in his ear. She wanted to have her upper body fall on the commode, but could not as he continued to hold her. In that position she could not do anything else than come again, completely under his spell.

After he felt that she had road out that wave, he removed himself, turned her around and picked her up to put her on the cabinet. As she sat before him with her legs wide open, placing a finger in her mouth and covering herself with her other hand – more to recover than anything else, he tried prying his trousers off. “Don’t do that. Don’t block my view darling” he growled, as he wouldn’t have this appetising sight be taken from him.

But she did not listen. His clothing wasn’t coming off quick enough and he needed to enforce his ignored instruction. No other options was left than to use his hand to push hers away and allow his fingers to explore the environment that had grown even moister since they deserted this dessert. With his other hand he continued to struggle until his pants lay on his feet.

Entering her again, he needily moaned: “you feel so good, your pussy fits so well over my cock, it longs to hold me” as he let one of his hands wander over the sight in front of him of him entering her, thrusting in her, burying himself in her. Seeing himself claiming her, a deadly woman, reduced to a girl, his girl. Feeling himself while his fingers touched where their bodies merged, it was breath-taking. Feeling her quiver around him and pulled apart repeatedly at his touch, it was intoxicating. He knew how to render her helpless, the power he had over her was addictive. He grabbed one of her hands and had her experience the this feeling he knew was new to her. He slid in and out of her with very low speed so she could observe how he was making her his, one push at the time. She spread her legs wider to welcome him deeper, in anticipation if what was to come. Her hair getting undone, breathing rapid and narrow as he felt by touching her chest, there was no need for her to repeat that message. He felt she was ready to die for yet another time.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His face spoke volumes of the emotions running through him. His jaws clenching together. Eyes rapidly searching. Greed, possession, aggressiveness. His body spoke of passion, a distorted form of gentleness and consideration. Seeing him labouring hard above her, autonomously within his own world, sweat forming on his pale bold body, his blue yet dark eyes, his composure, his clothed physic that exemplified a perfect as a triangle a male torso could achieve to be. His knowledge of the ways of the female body. He was trained in everything. He was allowing her to get to learn her body in ways she never expected were possible. “Fucking hell... Feyd-R...” as her head crashed to back to take in another wave.

He decided this was an excellent moment to join her in her high, to reward her for doing, or at least trying to do, what he had demanded from her. He spilled himself deep in her during his last and deepest push.

+++

After a long moment to recollect themselves, Feyd-Rautha removed himself from her. She wanted to stand up, but he prevented her. While walking away to collect her clothes, he informed her: “I truly came here to help you dress, despite your distractions.” While she was still sitting on the low cupboard, he fitted her new panties designated for the party. Only after these were in place, he helped her back on her feet again and kissed her earlobe: “I want you to smell me the entire night. I want you to feel me the entire night, think about me. I want to smell myself the entire night. That I claimed you, you delicious creature.”

She knew that this was how he showed his affection, in his very own peculiar way.

[leam1983]

Lisan al-Ghaib

The Hellsite has a thing against White Savior narratives, and for good reason. The idea that general-purpose Natives have some elixir for mindfulness, mental health or even sociopolitical stability is nothing new. It's as tokenistic as you think if you take it at face value, but I think the more classic examples in the genre like Dances With Wolves or, God forbid, Avatar (a revised copy of the previous title, in many ways) tend to focus on something that's a smidge more positive - namely in that the Other - not the Noble Savage, so much as someone with an entirely external perspective - has the power to help us progress. A very debatable posture.

In effect, the classic examples in the genre contend that it's not really about "saving the Natives" or even becoming their saviour, but rather about the unformed or troubled protagonist finding themselves thanks to the Natives' input. I've always thought that Wolves' Sioux never needed Dunbar, Dunbar needed them. The Na'vi never needed Jake Sully, some other member of the People would've eventually filled in the blanks and become Toruk Makto. Instead, Jake Sully needed the Na'vi to fix himself. There's nothing magical there, despite the First Nations spiritualism that mostly coats the genre, ripped out of its context and sort of propped up the same way mindfulness is now pulled out of its own context and served up to the masses, as if living with a little anxiety or stress were somehow a symptom for something more insidious. The world forgot Herbert's object lesson, and suggested that for some people, especially damaged goods, the only way to find purpose is to subsume yourself in another culture. You emerge as the saviour, kill the monster, and fulfill your role in the story.

Taking up someone else's problems to fix yourself isn't an actual solution; I think any two-bit psychologist could tell you that. Even if Dunbar and Sully emerge whole and healed from their own tales, they're behavioural abnormalities. Power doesn't allow you to stay humble. Power corrupts.

Ask Shaddad. Ask the Bene Gesserit. Ask the Harkonnens, who never saw their end coming.

Back when Frank Herbert first wrote Dune, Eastern mysticism was taking off much in the same way we're seeing meditation and yoga. He pulled an interesting bait-and-switch in showing us a protagonist who seemed set to go from a mostly nameless aristocrat to your typical conquering hero - but he realized that some faiths can be noxious. Some currents can twist the mind. After all, Paul Atreides' own story addresses the fact that he comes to align with fundamentalists, and does so willingly.

In many ways, George Lucas tried to play the same melody with Anakin Skywalker being set up as the Force's hero, only for the will of the Galaxy to be made manifest through his son, instead. The problem is, unlike Herbert, Lucas lacks subtlety. The danger of messianic thinking more or less deserves a dream-state vignette on Dagobah, where Luke beheads Vader and sees his own face in the depths of his father's mask. Herbert, in comparison, makes those fears concrete. Paul was on shaky ground the moment he embraced the moniker of Muad'Dib, and slipped into something I might as well call psychosis, after drinking the Waters of Life.

Chani lost the man she fell in love with. Paul Atreides lost himself.

White Savior narratives aren't meant to be seen as the Civilized Man saving the day. They're meant to be seen as an outsider protagonist needing an external point of view to face the abyss, more or less.

If you're an optimist, the protagonist is thankful for the wisdom he's received and plays his part, not for prophecy or for Ego - but for basic care and consideration. Consider Shogun's Blackthorne, by the end of the series. He wasn't one to calculate his next move - he's clearly a man of passion. Japan gave him something to hold onto - and then squeezed around him like a vice made up of niceties and political manoeuvring. Yoshii Toranaga, on the other hand, is the chess player. Blackthorne's fate is the grimmest of the brighter ends of the White Savior genre. He didn't save anyone or anything; he merely proved useful.

If you're a pessimist, you turn to Dune or to any of your local Fire-and-Brimstone preachers.

Considering, when I hear the Hellsite dismiss Dune as just another story written by a White guy about some other White guy saving some vaguely Middle-Eastern-coded people; that tells me a lot of armchair critics haven't picked up the books or watched the movies.

If anything, Dune's very premise gives reason to those of you who decry Colonialist rhetoric. Dune isn't just a seminal science-fiction classic; it's also a warning about what happens when faith goes haywire, and of what happens when the balance of power tips in the worst direction possible.

[the-celluloid-correspondent]

Dune Part Two Review

Following the mythic journey of Paul Atraides as he units with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between love and fate, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

Every era witnesses a defining narrative that will shape the cultural landscape. In the 1970s/80s it was Star Wars, in the 2000s it was The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Presently, Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic, Dune, is setting itself up to define this generation. Part One laid down the groundwork and now, Part Two cements its status as a transcendent force, solidifying its role in shaping the ethos of this generation. Dune Part Two stands as a rare science fiction war epic that comes only once in a lifetime. 

Dune Part Two picks up right where Part One left off, with Paul and his mother, Jessica, being taken in by the Fremen after House Atraides was massacred by House Harkonnen. While adjusting to their new home, members of the Fremen begin to believe that Paul is the “Lisan-Al-Gaib”, the Fremen messiah who would lead them to freedom. Paul becomes torn as he begins to realize if he becomes their messiah, it will lead to a bloody intergalactic holy war. 

Dune Part Two is a triumphed tribute to Frank Herber’s Dune. After setting the table in Dune Part One, Denis Villeneuve serves a visual spectacle that fully immerses you into this world of science fiction and fantasy.  The action pieces are nothing short of spectacular. From Fremen guerilla warfare to gladiatorial combat and epic worm battles, the audience will be on the edge of their seats from the ferocity of the battles. It is a spectacular blockbuster but with the finesse and flair from auteur Denis Villeneuve. This finesse is further seen in the film's cinematography from Greg Fraiser as he elevates his Oscar-winning cinematography seen in Part One to the next level. Fraiser experiments with color pallets and lenses as we shift to different settings. The homeworld of the Harkonnen was unlike anything I have seen before in film, as it is a world devoid of color under its black sun. Then juxtaposed to the calming brown and blue hues of Dune, it creates a unique visual harmony. Then when paired with immersive sound design, beautiful visual effects, and a killer score by Hans Zimmer, the audience is transported to this fantastical world. 

However, Dune Part Two is more than just a visual special. Writers Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts lead the audience into a not-so-typically Chosen One story.  Religious fanaticism and the corruption of absolute power, take center stage as the audience is forced to question the motives of an outsider using an implanted prophecy for his own gains. It is a stunning cautionary tale of self-proclaimed Messiahs. Paul’s transcendence, guided by his mother, from a sheltered teenager into an all-powerful messiah-like figure is unsettling and horrifying. 

However, despite this praise, Duen Part Two does have a small hiccup. There are at least twenty minutes worth of footage that is missing from the film. This missing footage appears to be mostly from the final act, as the ending was very rushed and lacking essential pieces to make it feel whole. It felt like Denis was afraid to make this film over 3-hours long and decided that the final act was where the chopping block was. The film's pacing was perfect for a film over 3 hours but sadly decided to rush it at the end. 

With that stated, Dune Part Two is still a superb film with some excellent performances. Timothee Chalamet's transformation from a privileged sheltered teenager, into an all-powerful Messiah is terrifying. His whole persona changes dramatically as he makes this character transition. Even though he has some moments where is not as intimidating as the film acts like he is, his transformation is undeniably horrifying. Zendaya is the voice of reason with her character of Chani as she is torn between her love for Paul and her people. Her horror of seeing the manipulation of religion to her people was perfect and I would have loved to have seen more of that side of her character rather than just love interest. Rebecca Ferguson transitions into an incredibly creepy role as a soothsayer moving the chess pieces from the shadows. While Javier Bardem brings surprising comedic relief as this blind believer. However, the real standout performance in Dune Part Two belongs to Austin Butler as psychotic Feyd-Rautha. Butler finds a horrifying intensity to his character's emotional void that is a stand out amongst a very stacked cast. He provides a fascinating foil to Chalamet’s Paul Atradies. 

In the grand tapestry of science fiction cinema, Dune Part Two stands as an unparalleled masterpiece. Denis Villeneuve’s visionary direction, coupled with a stellar ensemble cast, has brought Frank Herbert’s epic saga to life. It is worthy of the IMAX silver screen and if you are not seeing this in a theater, you are doing yourself a massive disservice. Now please bring on Dune: Messiah. 

My Rating: A

[aion-rsa]

Dune Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for the Dune book and probably the movie. You’ve been warned.

The first trailer for Denis Villeneueve’s Dune is here and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. Showcasing a spectacular all star cast, truly epic visuals, and a surprising Pink Floyd song choice, this looks like a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s legendary sci-fi novel.

Well…half of it, at least. Y’see, Warner Bros. and Villeneueve have (wisely) opted to split the book into two films. So everything you see in this trailer is roughly from the first half (or less) of the story.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is…

Pretty spectacular, right? Now, let’s dive in…but before I start, a note about spoilers.

Look, if it’s in the marketing material, it isn’t a spoiler. And it’s tough to truly spoil a book that is almost 60 years old, especially when David Lynch adapted this back in 1984, in a version that has been widely seen and is inexplicably beloved. Nevertheless, I’m keeping this spoiler light, and trying not to allude to stuff in the latter half of the book, although you can draw some pretty strong conclusions from what’s shown in the trailer.

My own analysis here is mixed in with quotes from the cast, taken from a Q&A that was moderated by Stephen Colbert.

Paul Atreides

That’s Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the protagonist, if not the actual “hero” of Dune, inasmuch as this story has any actual heroes. He’s only 15 years old, leaving his comfortable existence on his home planet, because his family has just won the contract to mine the most valuable commodity in the galaxy, the spice Melange, on the planet Arrakis.

And yes, as you expect, there is more to him than there might seem to be at first. We wrote more about Paul here.

Chani

Zendaya is Chani, a Fremen of the planet Arrakis. Some of Paul’s narration in this trailer seems to be based around prophetic dreams he has had of eventually meeting Chani on Arrakis.

“I think upon their first meeting, she doesn’t … She’s tough,” Zendaya said in a cast Q&A. “She’s a warrior. She’s native to this planet. This is all she knows. And so, this kind of other kid coming in, she’s not really feeling it. And that’s to the Fremen culture, that they have strong culture and bond within and amongst each other…she obviously doesn’t know about these visions and things. And he knows her, she doesn’t know him. And there’s these moments that … don’t want to give anything away, but these moments where she sees something in him that is obviously an indicator of what is to come.”

We have more on Zendaya’s role in the film here.

Speaking of dreaming, here’s Paul in his bedroom back on his home planet of Caladan in the Atreides ancestral home, Castle Caladan. Based on the book, this scene takes place shortly before the Atreides family departs for Arrakis.

For an even more fun detail from the book, the headboard of Paul’s bed is exactly as it’s described in Herbert’s novel.

Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam

This is the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (played by Charlotte Rampling). She reports directly to the Emperor, but was also the teacher of Paul’s mother, the Lady Jessica.

Fans of David Lynch’s film may remember the key role she played in determining that young Paul had an extraordinary destiny, and that scene plays out throughout this trailer.

Notably…

“What’s in the box?”

“Pain.”

This box literally causes pain, but with no physical damage. What’s happening here is the Reverend Mother has summoned Paul to see if he has some of the Bene Gesserit physical/mental control powers. When Paul’s hand is placed in the box, nerves are stimulated causing pain.

In the book the level of pain is described as if the flesh is being seared from his bones, although no actual damage is done.

The Gom Jabbar

Ah, but what’s a test without consequences, right? To make sure that Paul takes this little test seriously, the Reverend Mother holds this nasty little device to his neck.

It’s called a gom jabbar, described in the book’s “Terminology of the Imperium” appendix as “the high-handed enemy; that specific poison needle tipped with meta-cyanide used by Bene Gesserit proctors in the death-alternative test of human awareness.

In other words, if Paul pulls his hand out of the box of pain (please, no Grateful Dead jokes), he’ll be pricked with this extremely poisonous needle and die an agonizing actual death.

Shields

So you know how in Star Wars and Star Trek ships have shields and deflector screens? In the world of Dune, you get personal energy shields!

According to the “Terminology of the Imperium” these defensive shields “will permit entry only to objects moving at slow speeds (depending on setting, this speed ranges from six to nine centimetres per second).”

In other words, no guns or projectile weapons work with someone wearing a shield, making the art of personal combat that much more important in this universe…

…hence Paul training with blades here. And his instructor?

Gurney Halleck

That would be Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), who is responsible for teaching Paul how to use weapons and defend himself. And kick his ass when necessary.

“Gurney is the war-master,” Josh Brolin said. “He’s also kind of a parent of sorts, where Duke Leto is obviously busy, extremely busy, in what he’s doing. And he’s taken a real liking to this kid, and I think he has a real soft spot. So Gurney Halleck is like a great dichotomist character, because he’s this great kind of brave-heart warrior, but at the same time, has a love of poetry and kind of heart, and there’s a softness to him…It was fun to play.”

Duke Leto Atreides

Paul’s father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) appears to be taking one last look at his home planet of Caladan before departing for Arrakis.

“He’s a father, and he’s got all the qualities of, I think, what the epitome of what a father should be,” Isaac told Colbert. “He’s noble … and under incredible pressure to save his family, save his house, but to adapt to this new existential threat situation, which is moving to this strange planet, and being forced to, and being able to see that there could be a trap, that it could be … there’s a lot of things at work, and yet, trying to live up to those bigger ideals, which is sensitivity and empathy and love and order, and trying to give that and show that to his son, knowing that he’s not going to be there forever, in the hopes that they can use this dark, strange situation to their advantage.”

The Planet Caladan

This is the surface of planet Caladan, the lush, watery planet that the Atreides family leaves for um…dryer pastures on Arrakis.

Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson)

This is the Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), the Duke’s concubine and the mother of Paul Atreides. Don’t mistake her for a passive observer, though. She’s a Bene Gesserit, which makes her something like a combination of a psychic badass and a superspy. She’s absolutely central to the story.

“She’s [Leto’s] dearest partner in greatness, but she has her own weird, Bene Gesserit, prophet, spy thing going on,” Isaac said. “And I think he kind of doesn’t really get too much into what that’s all about. He understands she has this specific role to play. And then he’s got a son that might be the messiah, so there’s a lot going on there.”

“She’s the engine of the family,” he continued. “She’s the engine of the events that happen, and it’s a long game that’s being played, over millennia, and she’s part of that…she’s in a very interesting place too, because she understands that there’s a much greater mission to accomplish, and yet, she also loves her family and wants to protect them in any way she can. So it is. They’re a family in an insane amount of pressure and a lot of conflict. But I think at the core of that, it’s an intense love that they have for each other.”

Timothee Chalamet also sings the praises of both the character and the actress.

“There is no Dune without Lady Jessica,” Chalamet said. “And without giving anything away, although the book has been out for decades, anybody can read it, they … Lady Jessica ignores the order of the Bene Gesserit. She’s supposed to have a girl, and she has a boy instead. And that’s one of the triggering events of Dune.”

The Planet Arrakis

Arrakis, the titular Dune of the film, is quite a change from Caladan, isn’t it? It’s a planet of great strategic importance, with an incredibly valuable natural resource, that powerful factions are willing to go to war over.

So, you know, nothing political about this at all.

Thufir Hawat

I’m pretty sure that’s Stephen McKinley Henderson as Atreides family Mentat (and Master of Assassins) Thufir Hawat visible between Paul and Gurney here.

Duncan Idaho

Meet Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), swordmaster of the Atreides and one of the most trusted lieutenants of Duke Leto. Duncan was sent ahead to Arrakis which is why he’s so pleased to see everyone here.

Momoa described his character with his typical aplomb as “basically the greatest fighter in the fucking world,” before adding, “he just would do anything to protect Paul…and looks up to all these guys.”

The “these guys” in question are the Fremen, the fierce natives of Arrakis who the charming Idaho is trying to make into allies for the Atreides.

Stilgar

Stilgar (Javier Bardem) is a powerful Fremen leader and potential ally of the Atreides as they acclimate to Arrakis.

“Stilgar is the head chief of the people that live deep in the desert of planet Arrakis, which is also known as Dune,” Bardem said. “He’s a leader, and he’s a fighter. He has a lot of ethics and morals, and he’s taken by the message that the messiah, Paul Atreides, is bringing with him…They are kind of protecting their environment and their planet…So there’s a lot of ethics and morality and also environmental thinking in their ways, which I think is brilliant in the book and in the movie.”

The Harkonnen Homeworld

I’m not completely certain, but I’m pretty sure this is Giedi Prime, the homeworld of House Harkonnen.

Beast Rabban

That’s Dave Bautista as “Beast” Glossu Rabban, the nephew of the film’s nasty villain, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He doesn’t look particularly healthy, does he?

“I grew up a massive WWE fan, and I’d never met Bautista… let alone Bautista, the real human,” Timothee Chalamet said. “And his excitement being there, having already worked with Denis [on Blade Runner 2049]. And when you see an actor that’s already worked with a director and is more humbled than ever and is more excited to be there than ever…just kind of set the bar on these kind of movies.”

Anyway, speaking of the Harkonnens…

Baron Harkonnen

This might be a completely unrecognizable (and disgusting) Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

“I will say that my secret weapon for that was Stellan Skarsgård, because you put Stellan with the way we designed the Baron and we shoot him,” Villeneuve said. “People will understand right away what his position regarding the Atreides and what is the difference of moral values between the Atreides and the Harkonnens.”

If the above shot is any indication, he ain’t kidding.

I’m not totally sure what we’re looking at here, but the most likely explanation is Harkonnen soldiers.

Liet Kynes

Sharon Duncan-Brewster is Liet Kynes, an ecologist studying Arrakis. In the book and Lynch film, Kynes was a male character, but that has been swapped here.

“Denis was adamant that we just concentrate on what Kynes represents and thematically, the sense of … he’s an integral role,’ Duncan-Brewster said. “He connects all the dots. He connects the Harkonnens, he connects House of Atreides, he connects the Fremen, planet Arrakis, the sand-worms. This is somebody who understands … and moves in between each and every one, seemingly with one agenda. But however, as things go, we start to understand that there is more gameplay-ing or survival or preservation for the good of certain people or individuals or beings.”

Dr. Yueh

This is Dr. Wellington Yueh (Chang Chen), a doctor who works for the Atreides. The black diamond tattoo on his forehead identifies him as a member of the Suk School, the greatest doctors in the known universe.

Spice Harvester

There’s a great scene in the book (and in the Lynch film) where a spice harvester gets swallowed by a sandworm and, well…here it is.

Ornithopters

These weird dragonfly like vehicles you’re seeing here are Ornithopters. They’re man made aircraft that flap their wings like birds.

Sandworms

And there it is, Shai-Halud, the notorious and iconic sandworm of Arrakis. These things can be 400 meters long, are essentially immortal, and unless another sandworm kills them or they drown in water (which isn’t exactly in great supply on Arrakis), they aren’t going anywhere.

The “Terminology of the Imperium” gives an ominous indicator of how powerful these are, with “most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm action.”

Dune is currently scheduled to open on Dec. 18.

Did you spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Dune Trailer Breakdown and Analysis appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2FqPSyz

[fluxofthemouth]

☯️- how does my muse feel about faith systems that are not their own? Are they intolerant or welcoming?

ohh that's a really interesting question!

As a 'twisted' Mentat, Piter's training was designed to maximize objectivity, even at the expense of intuition for ethics. I'd say he has a pretty typical scientific atheist/agnostic view, that religion is a powerful phenomenon among humans that can influence societies and cultures in strong ways, & should be taken seriously as a social phenomenon, but isn't grounded in evidence and shouldn't be considered part of reality. As a tool of the Empire, and more directly as a tool of House Harkonnen, it's in the best interests of the people he works for that he doesn't ever pick up a personal creed that would challenge workplace productivity as his highest calling. So I'm assuming there's some level of subtle or not so subtle conditioning against it at work as well.

That being said, Piter does follow his Mentat training 'religiously' and has huge chunks of his personal identity tied up in that. Everything good or comfortable about his life comes out of his efficacy, and comfort and material reward is what he lives for. He's completely accepted it as the path for his life that he's going to dehumanize himself and hurt people in exchange for a big pile of shiny bullshit during his time 'on earth' and then someday, he'll die.

So when it comes to literal religions that aren't his own literal religion (atheism/agnosticism), he's anywhere from totally uninterested to charmed and curious. Google will give you search results for any religion out there with impartiality and a customer service attitude, and he approximates that kind of computer function very skillfully.

When it comes to bumping up against strongly held creeds that aren't his own strongly held creed ('twisted' Mentat training), he can tolerate that other people don't follow his creed just fine, but he'll only form opinions and make decisions in the language of his own creed. Like, it's not the slightest bit shocking or surprising that another person is nice to people bc they value not hurting peoples' feelings, and sure, they should continue to do that if that's working for them. But the moment they turn to him like, "Hey you're heartless, you suck," he's a thousand percent not interested in even thinking about taking "heartlessness" seriously as something to base decisions on. He can accept that other creeds exist, he just might not be very easy to have a conversation with. This makes him deeply unlikely to be swayed by religious bigotry, on the plus side.

He's not a real computer, he's Just Some Guy caught up in a highly elaborate lie that acting like one is his highest calling & that that's the only way to be valuable to anybody or earn his survival. So there's real humanity in there that has the potential to shake things up in all kinds of ways, all of that could be wrong too lol.

[teenageread]

Review: Dune

Synopsis:

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

Plot:

Arrakis is a desert planet. The only reason it is noteworthy is for the giant worms living within its sandy surface. But Arrakis  is the only source of melange. Melange is a spice that can enhance mental abilities, extend life, and be critical for space travel. Thus, Arrakis is a planet many Houses would want to own. This is why Duke Leto of the House of Atreides left Caladan to be the governor of Arrakis, bringing his concubine Jessica and their son Paul. Paul suspected an attack from their rivals, the Harkonnens; thus, their arrival to Arrakis quickly turned into preparing for an attack and enlisting the help of Arrakis's native population: The Fremen. The Fremen were impressed by Jessica being a Bene Gesserit (a school for witches), and Paul. He was a Mentat (human calculator with exceptional cognitive abilities). He saw them be leaders to lead them to a paradise life on Arrakis. Paul and Jessica escaped and lived with the Fremen when the attack happened, as they were presumed dead by the House of Atreides. As a religious prophet, Paul earns his place within the Fremen and leads them against the Harkonnens. Throughout this great adventure, Paul grows into the man he is meant to be, finds love, finds power; Paul plans to bring the Fremen into a new age, no matter who he has to kill to get there.   

Thoughts:

What a world Frank Herbert built in this novel. Divided into three parts but no chapters, Herbert takes you on the adventure of a lifetime as they dive into this complex world they created around the planet Arrakis and our boy Paul. First of all, it is a lot. At almost seven hundred pages, Herbert spends a long time building the world and its characters, which is time well spent. Focusing on our main character Paul (Duke Leto and Jessica's son) whose powers make him a strong leader and worthy opponent. Starting off young at fifteen, you meet Paul as a quiet but typical fifteen-year-old boy. Still, Herbert emphasizes him as the "chosen one" character, giving Paul a heavy burden to carry throughout the story. Unlike others in his role, Paul accepts it, knowing he is exceptional and uses his confidence in battle, even when it is against his mother's wishes. The story follows mainly Paul through third-person narration; however, other characters like Jessica, Leto, and Baron Harkonnen also. The idolization of the story comes from its theme, with a focus on ecology, given the planet Arrakis is a desert wasteland with water being seen as gold to the people and its focus on religion and power. Dune was one of the first sci-fi novels to address religion and made it such a power player within the story. As many see the separation of state and church (like in today's world), Herbert saw it playing a stronger role. Thus, the world they created with dukes and barons and the Fremen saw Paul as a prophet. With such depth to the story, it is believable to know why this book sets the standards for sci-fi stories, as Herbert creates an entire world and one with culture and religion so intertwined in the characters' lives, it seems believable. This book is not an easy read, especially for those who do not usually read sci-fi books. Where this story does not have aliens, lasers, or Darth Vader, this classic is worth reading to appreciate the sci-fi genre, learn a little about humans' reliance on the environment, and a teeny tiny bit about family and love.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[ciathyzareposts]

Controlling the Spice, Part 1: Dune on Page and Screen

Frank Herbert in 1982.

In 1965, two works changed the face of genre publishing forever. Ace Books that year came out with an unauthorized paperback edition of an obscure decade-old fantasy trilogy called The Lord of the Rings, written by a pipe-smoking old Oxford don named J.R.R. Tolkien, and promptly sold hundreds of thousands of copies of it. And the very same year, Chilton Books, a house better known for its line of auto-repair manuals than for its fiction, became the publisher of last resort for Frank Herbert’s epic science-fiction novel Dune. While Dune‘s raw sales weren’t initially quite so impressive as those of The Lord of the Rings, it was recognized immediately by science-fiction connoisseurs as the major work it was, winning its year’s Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel (the latter award alongside Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal).

It may be that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can to a large extent judge the importance of The Lord of the Rings and Dune by their thickness. Genre novels had traditionally been slim things, coming in at well under 300 pocket-sized mass-market-paperback pages. These two novels, by contrast, were big, sprawling works. The writing on their pages as well was heavier than the typical pulpy tale of adventure. Tolkien’s and Herbert’s novels felt utterly disconnected from trends or commercial considerations, redolent of myth and legend — sometimes, as plenty of critics haven’t hesitated to point out over the years, rather ponderously so. At a stroke, they changed readers’ and publishers’ perception of what a fantasy or science-fiction novel could be, and the world of genre publishing has never looked back.

In the years since 1965, almost as much has been written of Dune as The Lord of the Rings. Still, it’s new to us. And so, given that it suddenly became a very important name in computer games circa 1992, we should take the time now to look at what it is and where it came from.

At the time of Dune‘s publication, Frank Herbert was a 45-year-old newspaperman who had been dabbling in science fiction — his previous output had included one short novel and a couple of dozen short stories — since the early 1950s. He had first been inspired to write Dune by, appropriately enough, sand dunes. Eight years before the novel’s eventual publication, the San Francisco Examiner, the newspaper for which he wrote, sent him to Florence, Oregon, to write about government efforts to control the troublesomely shifting sand dunes just outside of town. It didn’t sound like the most exciting topic in the world, and, indeed, he never managed to turn it into an acceptable article. Yet he found the dunes themselves weirdly fascinating:

I had far too much for an article and far too much for a short story. So I didn’t know really what I had—but I had an enormous amount of data and avenues shooting off at all angles to get more… I finally saw that I had something enormously interesting going for me about the ecology of deserts, and it was, for a science-fiction writer anyway, an easy step from that to think: what if I had an entire planet that was desert?

The other great spark that led to Dune wasn’t a physical environment, nor for that matter a physical anything. It was a fascination with the messiah complex that has been with us through all of human history, even though it has seldom, Herbert believed, led us to much good. Somehow this theme just seemed to fit with a desert landscape; think of the Biblical Moses and the Exodus.

I had this theory that superheroes were disastrous for humans, that even if you postulated an infallible hero, the things this hero set in motion fell eventually into the hands of fallible mortals. What better way to destroy a civilization, society, or race than to set people into the wild oscillations which follow their turning over their judgment and decision-making faculties to a superhero?

Herbert worked on the novel off and on for years. Much of his time was spent in pure world-building — or, perhaps better said in this case, galaxy-building — creating a whole far-future history of humanity among the stars that would inform and enrich any specific stories he chose to set there; in this sense once again, his work is comparable to that of J.R.R. Tolkien, that most legendary of all builders of fantastic worlds. But his actual story mostly took place on the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, the source of an invaluable “spice” known as melange, which confers upon humans improved health, longer life, and even paranormal prescience, while also allowing some of them to “fold space,” thus becoming the key to interstellar travel. As the novel’s most popular and apt marketing tagline would put it, “He who controls the spice controls the universe!” The spice has made this inhospitable world, where water is so scarce that people kill one another over the merest trickle of the stuff, whose deserts are roamed by gigantic carnivorous sandworms, the most valuable piece of real estate in the galaxy.

The novel centers on a war between two great trading houses, House Atreides and House Harkonnen, for control of the planet. The politics involved, not to mention the many military and espionage stratagems they employ against one another, are far too complex to describe here, but suffice to say that Herbert’s messiah figure emerges in the form of the young Paul Atreides, who wins over the nomadic Fremen who have long lived on Arrakis and leads them to victory against the ruthless Harkonnen.

Dune draws heavily from any number of terrestrial sources — from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, from the more mystical end of Zen Buddhism, from the history of the Ottoman Empire and the myths and cultures of the Arab world. Nevertheless, the whole novel has an almost aggressively off-putting otherness about it. Herbert writes like a native of his novel’s time and place would, throwing strange jargon around with abandon and doing little to clarify the big-picture politics of the galaxy. And he shows no interest whatsoever in explaining that foremost obsession of so many other science-fiction writers, the technology and hardware that underpin his story. Like helicopters and diving suits to a writer of novels set in our own time and place, “ornithopters” and “stillsuits,” not to mention interstellar space travel, simply are to Dune‘s narrator. Meanwhile some of the bedrock philosophical concepts that presumably — hopefully! — unite most of Dune‘s readership — such ideas as fundamental human rights and democracy — don’t seem to exist at all in Herbert’s universe.

This wind of Otherness blowing through its pages makes Dune a famously difficult book to get started with. Those first 50 or 60 pages seem determined to slough off as many readers as possible. Unless you’re much smarter than I am, you’ll need to read Dune at least twice to come to anything like a full understanding of it. All of this has made it an extremely polarizing novel. Some readers love it with a passion; some, like yours truly here, find it easier to admire than to love; some, probably the majority, wind up shrugging their shoulders and walking away.

In light of this, and in light of the way that it broke every contemporary convention of genre fiction, beginning but by no means ending with its length, it’s not surprising that Frank Herbert found Dune to be a hard sell to publishers. The tropes were familiar enough in the abstract — a galaxy-spanning empire, interstellar war, a plucky young hero — but the novel, what with its lofty, affectedly formal prose, just didn’t read like science fiction was supposed to. Whilst allowing what amounted to a rough draft of the novel to appear in the magazine Analog Science Fiction in intermittent installments between December 1963 and May 1965, Herbert struggled to find an outlet for it in book form. The manuscript was finally accepted by Chilton only after being rejected by over twenty other publishers.

Dune in the first Chilton edition.

Those other publishers would all come to regret their decision. Dune took some time to gain traction with readers outside science fiction’s intelligentsia; Herbert didn’t make enough money from his fiction to quit his day job until 1969. But the oil embargoes of the 1970s gave this novel that was marked by such Otherness an odd sort of social immediacy, winning it many readers outside the still fairly insular community of written science fiction, making it a trendy book to have read or at least to say you had read. For many, it now read almost like a parable; it wasn’t hard to draw parallels between Arrakis’s spice and our own planet’s oil, nor between the Fremen of Arrakis and the cultures native to our own planet’s great oil-rich deserts. As critic Gwyneth Jones puts it, Dune is, among other things, a depiction of “scarcity, and the kind of human culture that scarcity produces.” It was embraced by many in the environmentalist movement, who read it it as a cautionary tale perfect for an era in which we earthbound humans were being forced to confront the reality that our planet’s resources are not infinite.

So, Dune eventually sold a staggering 12 million copies, becoming by most accounts the best-selling work of genre science fiction in history. And so we arrive at one final parallel to The Lord of the Rings: that of a book that was anything but an easy read in the conventional sense nevertheless selling in quantities to rival any beach-and-airport time-waster ever written. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose was famously described at the height of its 1980s popularity as a book that everyone owned and almost no one had ever managed to get all the way through. Dune may very well be the closest equivalent in genre fiction.

Herbert wrote five sequels to Dune, none of which are as commonly read or as highly regarded among critics as the first novel.1 One might say, however, that the second and third novels at least — Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976) — are actually necessary to appreciate Herbert’s original conception of the work in its entirety. He had always conceived of Dune as an epic tragedy in the Shakespearean sense, but reading the first book alone can obscure this fact. That book is, as the science-fiction scholar Damien Broderick puts it, typical pulp science fiction in at least one sense: it satisfies “an adolescent craving for an imaginary world in which heroes triumph by a preternatural blend of bravery, genius, and sci.” It’s only in the second and third books that Paul Atreides, the messiah figure, begins to fail, thus illustrating how a messiah can, as Herbert says, “destroy a civilization, society, or race.” That said, it would be the first novel alone with which almost all media adaptations would concern themselves, so it will also monopolize our attention in these articles.

Dune‘s success was such that it inevitably attracted the interest of the film industry. In 1972, the British producer Arthur P. Jacobs, the man behind the hugely successful Planet of the Apes films, acquired the rights to the series, but he had the misfortune to die the following year, before his plans had gotten beyond the storyboarding phase.

Yet Dune‘s trendiness only continued to grow, and interest in turning it into a film remained high among people who wouldn’t have been caught dead with any other science-fiction novel. In 1974, the rights passed from Jacob’s estate to Alejandro Jodorowsky, a transgressive Chilean director who claimed to once have raped one of his actresses in the name his Art. Manifesting an alarming obsession with the act, he now planned to do the same to Frank Herbert:

It was my Dune. When you make a picture, you must not respect the novel. It’s like you get married, no? You go with the wife, white, the woman is white. You take the woman, if you respect the woman, you will never have child. You need to open the costume and to… to rape the bride. And then you will have your picture. I was raping Frank Herbert, raping, like this! But with love, with love.

The would-be rape victim could only look on in disbelief: “He had so many personal, emotional axes to grind. I used to kid him, ‘Well, I know what your problem is, Alejandro. There is no way to horsewhip the pope in this story.’”

Jodorowsky planned to fill the cast and crew of the film, which would bear an estimated price tag of no less than $15 million, with flotsam washed up from the more dissipated end of the celebrity pool: Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, Charlotte Rampling, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Alain Delon. But, even in this heyday of Porno Chic, no one was willing to entrust such an erratic personality with such a budget, and the project fizzled out after Jodorwsky had blown through $2 million on scripts, concept art, and the drugs that were needed to fuel it all.

In the meantime, the possibilities for cinematic science fiction were being remade by a little film called Star Wars. Indeed, said film bears the clear stamp of Dune, especially in its first act, which takes place on a desert planet where water is the most precious commodity of all. And certainly the general dirty, lived-in look of Star Wars, so distinct from the antiseptic futures of most science fiction, owes much to Dune.

In the wake of Star Wars, Dino De Laurentiis, one of the great impresarios of post-war Italian cinema, acquired the rights to Dune from Jodorowsky’s would-be backers. He secured a tentative agreement with Ridley Scott, who was just finishing his breakthrough film Alien, to direct the picture. Rudy Wurlitzer, screenwriter of the classic western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, wrote three drafts of a script, but the financing necessary to begin production proved hard to secure. Thus in 1981 the cinematic rights to Dune, which Herbert had sold away for a span of nine years to Arthur P. Jacobs back in 1972, finally reverted to the author after their extended but fruitless world tour.

Yet De Laurentiis remained passionate about his Dune film — so much so that he immediately entered into negotiation with Herbert to reacquire the rights. Having watched various filmmakers come close to doing unspeakable things to his creation over the previous decade — even Wurlitzer’s recent script reportedly added an incest plot line involving Paul Atreides and his mother — Herbert insisted that he must at least be given the role of “advisor” to any future film. De Laurentiis agreed to this.

He was so eager to make a deal because Dune had suddenly looked to be back on, for real this time, just as the rights were expiring. His daughter, Raffealla De Laurentiis, had taken on the Dune film as something of a passion project of her own. She was riding high with a brand of blockbuster-oriented, action-heavy fare that was quite different from the films of her father’s generation. She was already in the midst of producing Conan the Barbarian, starring a buff if nearly inarticulate former bodybuilding champion named Arnold Schwarzenegger; it would become a major hit, launching Schwarzenegger’s career as Hollywood’s go-to action hero over the next couple of decades. But the Dune project would be a different sort of beast, a sort of synthesis of father and daughter’s priorities: a big-budget film with an art-film sensibility. For Ridley Scott had by this time moved on to other projects, and Dino and Raffealla De Laurentiis had a surprising new candidate in mind to direct their Dune.

David Lynch and Frank Herbert. Interviewers were constantly surprised at how normal Lynch looked and acted in person, in contrast to his bizarre films. Starlog magazine, for example, wrote of his “sculptured hair [and] jutting boyish features,” saying he was “extremely polite and well-mannered, the antithesis of enigma. Not a hint of phobic neurosis or deep-seated sexual maladjustment.”

David Lynch was already a beloved director of the art-film circuit, although his output to date had consisted of just two low-budget black-and-white movies: Eraserhead (1977), a surrealistic riot of a horror film, and The Elephant Man (1980), a mournful tragedy of prejudice and isolation. He would seem to stand about as far removed from the family-friendly fare of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s new Hollywood as it was possible to get. And yet that mainstream of filmmakers saw something — something having to do with his talent for striking, kinetic visuals — in the 36-year-old director. In fact, Lucas actually asked him whether he would be interested in directing the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, whereupon Lynch rather peremptorily turned the offer down, saying he wasn’t interested in making sequels to other people’s films. But when Dino De Laurentiis approached him about Dune he was more receptive. Lynch:

Dino’s office called me and asked if I had ever read Dune. I thought they said “June.” I never read either one of ’em! But once I got the book, it’s like when you hear a new word. And I started hearing it more often. Then, I began finding out that friends of mine had already read it and freaked out over it. It took me a long time to read. Actually, my wife forced me to read it. I wasn’t that keen on it at first, especially the first 60 pages. But the more I read, the more I liked. Because Dune has so many things that I like, I said, “This is a book that can be made into a film.”

Lynch joined screenwriters Eric Bergen and Christopher De Vore for a week at Frank Herbert’s country farmhouse, where they hammered out a script which ran to a hopelessly overlong 200 pages. As the locale would indicate, Herbert was involved in the creative process, but kept a certain distance from the details: “This is a translation job. I wouldn’t presume to be the person who should translate Dune from English to French; my French is execrable. It’s the same with a movie; you go to the person who speaks ‘movie.’”

The script was rewritten again and again in the months that followed, the later drafts by Lynch alone. (He would be given sole credit as the screenwriter of the finished film.) In the process, it slimmed down to a still-ambitious 135 pages. And with that, and with the De Laurentiis father and daughter having lined up a positively astronomical amount of financing from Universal Pictures, who were desperate for a big science-fiction franchise of their own to rival 20th Century Fox’s Star Wars and Paramount’s Star Trek, a real Dune film finally got well and truly underway.

Raffealla De Laurentiis and Frank Herbert with the actors Kyle MacLachlan and Francesca Annis on the set of Dune, 1983.

Rehearsals and pre-production began in the Sonora Desert outside of Mexico City in October of 1982; actual shooting started the following March, and dragged on over many more months. In the lead role of Paul Atreides, Lynch had cast a 25-year-old Shakespearean-trained stage actor named Kyle MacLachlan, who had never acted before a camera in his life. Nor, at six feet tall and 155 pounds, was he built much like an action hero. But he was trained in martial arts, and he gave it his all over a long and difficult shoot.

Joining him were a number of recognizable character actors, such as the intimidating Swede Max von Sydow, cast in the role of the Fremen leader Kynes, and the villain specialist Kenneth McMillan, all but buried under 200 pounds of fake silicon flesh as the disgustingly evil — or evilly disgusting — Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Patrick Stewart, later to become famous in the role of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played Paul’s martial mentor Gurney Halleck. In a bit of stunt casting, Sting of the rock band the Police, deemed “biggest band in the world” by any number of contemporary critics, took the role of one of the supporting cast of villains — a role which would, naturally, be blown out of all proportion by the movie’s promoters. To a person, everyone involved with the shoot remembers it as being uncomfortable at best. “I was taxed on almost every level as a human being,” says MacLachlan. “Mexico City is not one of the most pleasant spots in the world to be.” The one thing they all mention is the food poisoning; almost everyone among cast and crew got it at one time or another, and some lived with it for the entirety of the months on end they spent in Mexico.

Universal Pictures had given David Lynch, this young director who was used to shooting on a shoestring budget, an effective blank check in the hope that it would yield the next George Lucas and/or the next Star Wars. Lynch didn’t hesitate to spend their money, building some eighty separate sets and shooting hundreds of hours of footage. Even in Mexico, where the peso was cheap, it added up. Universal would later claim an official budget of $40 million, but rumblings inside Hollywood had it that the real total was more like $50 million. Either figure was more than immense enough to secure Dune the title of most expensive Universal film ever. (For comparison’s sake, consider that the contemporary big-budget blockbusters Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom cost approximately $40 million and $30 million respectively.)

The shoot had been difficult enough in itself, but the film first began to show the telltale signs of a doomed production only in the editing phase, as Lynch tried to corral his reams of footage into a finished product. He clashed repeatedly with Raffealla De Laurentiis and Universal, both of whom made it clear that they expected a relatively “clean,” PG-rated film with a coherent narrative through line for their money. Such qualities weren’t, of course, what David Lynch was known for. But the director had failed to secure final-cut rights to the film, and he was repeatedly overridden. Finally, he all but removed himself from the process altogether, and Raffealla De Laurentiis herself cobbled together much of the finished film, going so far as to shoot her own last-minute bridging scenes whilst layering clumsy voice-overs and internal monologues over the top, all in a (failed) effort to make the labyrinthine plot comprehensible to a casual audience. Meanwhile Universal continued to spew forth a fountain of hype about “Star Wars for adults” and “the end of the pulp era of science-fiction movies,” whilst continuing to plaster Sting, looking fetching in his black leather, across their “Coming Attractions” posters and trailers as if he was the star. Dune was set for a fall.

And, indeed, the finished product, which arrived in theaters in December of 1984, provided a rare opportunity for every corner of movie fandom and criticism to unite in hatred. The professional critics, most of whom had never read the book, found the film, even with all the additional expository voice-overs, as incomprehensible as Raffealla De Laurentiis had always feared they would. Fans of the novel had the opposite problem, bemoaning the plot simplification and the liberties taken with the story, complaining about the way that all of the thematic texture had been lost in favor of Lynchian weirdness for weirdness’s sake. And the all-important general audience, for their part, stayed away in droves, making Dune one of the more notorious flops in cinematic history. Just like that, Universal Pictures’s dream of a Star Wars franchise of their own went up in smoke.

Whatever else you can say about it, David Lynch’s Dune is often visually striking.

Seen today, free of the hype and the resultant backlash, the film isn’t as bad as many remember it; many of its scenes are striking in that inimitable Lynchian way. But it doesn’t hang together at all as a holistic experience, and its best parts are often those that have the least to do with its source material. Many over the years have suspected that there’s a good film hidden somewhere in all that footage Lynch shot, if it could only be freed from the strictures of the two-hour running time demanded by Universal; Lynch’s own first rough cut, they point out, was reportedly at least twice that long. Yet various attempts to rejigger the material — including a 1988 version for television that ballooned the running time to more than three hours — haven’t yielded results that feel all that much more holistically satisfying than the original theatrical cut. The film remains what it was from the first, a strange hybrid stranded in a no-man’s land between an art film and a conventional blockbuster, not really working as either. At bottom, the film reflects a hopeless mismatch between its director and its source material. What happens when you ask a brilliant director with very little interest in plot to film a novel famous for its intricate plot? You get a movie like David Lynch’s Dune. Perhaps the kindest thing one can say about it is that it is, unlike so many of Hollywood’s other more misbegotten projects, an interesting failure.

Lynch disowned the film almost immediately. He’s generally refused to talk about it at all in interviews since 1984, beyond dismissing it as a “sell-out” on his part. The one positive aspect of the film which even he will admit to is that it brought Kyle MacLachlan to his attention. The latter starred in Lynch’s next film as well, the low-budget psychological-horror picture Blue Velvet (1986), which rehabilitated its director’s critical reputation at a stroke at the same time that it marked the definitive end of his brief flirtation with mainstream sensibilities. MacLachlan would go on to find his most iconic role as the weirdly impassive FBI agent Dale Cooper in Lynch’s supremely weird television series Twin Peaks.

The Dino de Laurentiis Corporation had invested everything they had and then some in their Dune film. They went bankrupt in the aftermath of its failure — but, in typical corporate fashion, a phoenix known as the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group soon emerged from the ashes. Just to show there were no hard feelings, one of the reincarnated production company’s first films was David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.

Surprisingly in light of the many readers who complained so vociferously about the liberties the Dune film took with his novel, Frank Herbert himself never disowned it, speaking of it quite warmly right up until his death. But sadly, that event came much earlier than anyone had reckoned it would: he died in 1986 at age 65, the victim of a sudden blood clot in his lung that struck just after he had undergone surgery for prostrate cancer.

Dune did come to television screens in 2000, in a rather workmanlike miniseries adaptation that was more comprehensible and far more faithful to the novel than Lynch’s film, but which lacked the budget, the acting talent, or the directorial flare to rival its predecessor as an artistic statement. Today, almost half a century after Arthur P. Jacobs first began to inquire about the film rights, the definitive cinematic Dune has yet to be made.

There is, however, one other sort of screen on which Dune has undeniably left a profound mark: not the movie or even the television screen, but the monitor screen. It’s in that direction that we’ll turn our attention next time.

(Sources: the books The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn and Frank Herbert by Timothy O’Reilly; Starlog of January 1983, May 1984, October 1984, November 1984, December 1984, February 1985, and June 1986; Enter of December 1984; the online articles “Jodorowsky’s Dune Didn’t Get Made for a Reason… and We Should All Be Grateful For That” and “David Lynch’s Dune is What You Get When You Build a Science Fictional World With No Interest in Science Fiction” by Emily Asher-Perrin.)

As for the flood of more recent Dune novels, written by Frank Herbert’s son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, previously a prolific author of X-Files and Star Wars novels and other low-hanging fruit of the literary landscape: stay far, far away. ↩

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/controlling-the-spice-part-1-dune-on-page-and-screen/

[gortash-did-nothing-wrong]

A Type Of Love

Minors Do Not Interact

Feyd x reader

Just a little idea of what Feyd would be like during an arranged marriage and once his wife got pregnant.

Warnings: cannibalism, canon typical violence, typical Harkonnen culture, Feyd is his own warning

His mother once told him, at five years old as he sat in her lap, watching the sun set over the horison, "Don't love anyone but your children. Anyone you love will be used against you, limit you, and make you lesser."

Feyd had looked at his mother, curious. "Well, shouldn't I not love my children then?"

His mother chuckled, kissing the top of his head. "I'm afraid that's not an option for people like us, son. I'm afraid you will have no choice whether or not you love your child."

Feyd didn't realize at the time that the reason his mother took great pains to raise him to be so fundamentally different from other Harkonnens was to ensure that when he sired the chosen one, he wouldn't smother him in his crib. The deep sense of honor his uncle couldn't break him of, even as he was forced to kill his mother, was all a tactic by centuries of Bene Gesserit plotting to ensure their messiah figure was safe.

Feyd took his mother's lessons to heart, even when his memories of her tore at what little heart he had left. When he was assigned a wife by his uncle, he made sure he didn't get attached to her. He did his required duty, visiting her twice a week in her quarters until she fell pregnant. Once she informed him she was with child, he stopped visiting her. He spent his free time with his concubines, the only women he let himself be fond of. Even then, the fondness was that one would have for a pet, not a lover. They were content with that arrangement, as he did spoil them beyond reasonable limits.

His wife seemed to be content with him ignoring her. Yet even without his help, she managed to weasel her way into his uncle's council. She had somehow made an ally of Rabban, giving him advice on everything from women, to dealing with Fremen.

He tolerated it… until she started showing. Once her stomach swelled with his child, he could stand it no longer. He forbid her from speaking to Rabban. He basically confined her to her quarters, and when she complained about feeling imprisoned, he took her hand and lovingly walked her down to the slave pits. He held her still, forcing her to look upon the miserable wretches in the cells. "Still feel imprisoned, my wife? Or have you found a new fondness for your grand room?"

She stiffly nodded, tears silently flowing down her face. He feasted on them, lapping at her face until the tears stopped flowing. She clung to his arm the whole walk back to her rooms, and something foreign and wholly unwelcome began to take root in his wretched heart. Fondness.

As her stomach grew, so to did his new emotions. He found himself unable to stay away from her, spending his nights in her room more often than not. He insisted she dine with him for every meal, and began pressuring her to try a new type of meat. He teased her with the idea of eating the flesh of his kills, assuring her that any heir of his would only grow stronger from it.

She looked sick anytime he brought it up, but to her credit didn't flinch when he snapped one day, killing a slave in front of her and slicing his gut open. "Pick your preference, my wife. Liver? Lung? A chunk of thigh?"

His wife met his gaze, her voice firm and strong when she answered. "The heart."

He carved it out himself, handing it off to a trembling servant who brought it back some time later, perfectly roasted and seasoned.

He stared, his eyes fixed to her face as she calmly cut into the flesh he had provided for her, and delicately raised her fork to her lips. The thin cut of meat passed over her lips and her eyes fluttered shut as she tasted it. She took a liking to it, if her fast eating was anything to go by. Soon her plate was clean, and Feyd felt nearly feral with desire as she delicately dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

Her eyes were warm and soft with adoration as she looked at his cold blue eyes. "Thank you, my husband."

The deeply rooted fondness he had been unable to rip out began blossoming into something far more dangerous. May the stars comfort his mother's weary soul, because it seemed he wouldn't be able to obey her lessons.

[psycheetamore]

Choosing to follow destiny

Chapter 2 - In over your head

Pre notes with this chapter: As I like my men strong, I also like my women strong. What better way of becoming strong then to endure adversity? First published on AO3

Tags: MDNI, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen Is His Own Warning, the typical Feyd tags (smut, violance, non-con/rape etc), imaginary suicide, see for full tags: chapter 1 - the author regrets nothing

Word count: 1.8k

Link to previous chapter

+++

Arrakis is an unforgiving place. Every living thing was trying to survive on the planet and protect their own position. In addition to the Fremen, who sought to rid the planet from the Harkonnen through continuous attacks, smugglers were on a never-ending endeavour to harvest spice themselves, and weather conditions required constant maintenance to materials. To make matters even more challenging, the worms constantly removed a significant part of material and workers that required replenishing.

The na-Baron's response was to slaughter his leadership.

He increased pressure on the Fremen in a manner never seen before. As he was facing difficulties finding Fremen outside of Arrakeen, he introduced limitations to the Fremen living in Arrakeen. Going in and out of the city started to be secured through several check points. Daily raids on houses and shops were taking place. Gatherings were prohibited and culturally important activities were banned. City dwellers were being contained on the mere reason that Harkonnen guards felt they could perhaps be part of the Fremen resistance.

The liveliness in the city died.

This approach backfired, as these city people were the people enabling spice production and refinement. These people were now increasingly fleeing the city. Rabban's irrational behaviour started to cause a decline in spice production.

+++

This decline was inversely proportional to the rise of the name of Yaina.

Yaina looked at Bakyi, then shifted her eyes to her other fighters. They differed in age, ranging from 15 to 35 with Bakyi being a considerable old exception. Despite their age differences, all rivalled each other in courage. They had no less grooves in their faces than Yaina. The fights had taken their toll on their bodies, but their eyes sparkled. They knew why they were putting themselves at the line every day again.

There were multiple groups of Fremen resisting against the Harkonnen. This was organised quite autonomously, as the Fremen were not a people to be led through hierarchy.

No groups were as successful as Yaina’s though, with 49 spice harvesters and 13 ornithopters being destroyed. The members of this group were held in high esteem, seen as some of the most fearless warriors out there. Slowly but surely some of the Fremen started to refer to Yaina as Sadus, the Fremen word for holy judge. The judge that would bring justice upon the Harkonnen. Not an endearment exclusively used for one person, but it was hardly ever given. A badge of honour. A name Yaina did not yet dare to speak. It felt too early. In her view she had not yet achieved enough to earn it. Bakyi knew of her inclination. Bakyi disagreed. But he could not convince Yaina.

Yaina's soldiers were riled up, with their hands clenched they were clearly eager to move. The moisture tubes from their stillsuits were plugged in, their weapons were sharpened and attached to their gear. The fighters were equipped with mines, shields and lasguns. No traces of their presence in the cave were left. This was practice, to prevent the Harkonnen oppressors from learning their ways and the caves they preferred. The only thing left to do was cover their faces and go.

Yaina shouted: “We will win or we will die. Whatever the outcome, we will always remain free.” Her squad slapped their open hands on their stillsuits and the safe haven was left. Despite it still being in the dusk of the day, the warriors could still see endless glowing dunes. A curtain of sparkles was resting on top of the dunes: spice was flowing in the air. It was a serene sight, with the moon rising from beyond the horizon. A sight they died for to protect.

Through his binoculars Bakyi could see the dust spitting up from a spice harvester in the distance. The trajectory of these crawlers was known. It always followed the same route. By the end of the day the harvester would be transported to Arrakeen's spice depot to be emptied and serviced. At dawn it would be flown back to the next dune slack in this very part of the dunes. It is in that dune slack that Yaina, Bakyi and the others would lay in a subsurface hiding, to strike when the moment was there. Not a lot of fighters were up for this; it required extreme body and mind control. The slightest movement could give away the positions of all people underground.

Finding the right spots to dig used to be difficult and risky. In the past it went wrong quite often, with warriors being instantly killed by the weight of the crawler dropped from the helicopters. Absolute psychological control was needed, to prevent any sounds escaping a dying fighter, which would jeopardise the entire group.

Yaina and Bakyi studied how harvesters were positioned since the Harkonnen took rein again. They noticed the starting point and the path that crawlers would follow in a dune slack were always the same. The first location was chosen on the basis where the light from the star Canopus would hit the dune slack. The less light hit the machine, the less energy was needed to cool this device, allowing it to be refuelled with a lower frequency and reducing costs. The crawler would then follow the line of the dune providing shade, and turn around at the end of that dune, to resume its path in the opposite direction. Its distance from the starting point of the ridge of dune was always the same: a few meters to allow the Harkonnen guards walk next to the machine.

Yaina and Bakyi decided the path the machine would follow and instructed where each of the group members were to dig themselves in, somewhere along the anticipated path. Without any discussion or doubt the fighters started to dig. They trusted Yaina with their lives.

Bakyi couldn't help but tell Yaina: “If the Harkonnen don't change their ways, it will not take long before we have wiped out their entire stock of harvesters.” Yaina chuckled and responded “Bakyi, I love you, but please don't jinx us. We need all the help we can get.” Bakyi knew of Yaina's superstitions: “Deep down you also know this cannot go on like this forever. But I have faith in you Yaina. You are a master in adaptation. Whatever the Harkonnen will throw at us; you will lead us to adapt and overcome. I have learned that much about you.” Yaina gave solemn stare at Bakyi: “Dig you old bastard”. Bakyi smiled and digged.

Bakyi had known Yaina since she joined the Fremen. He vouched for her when they found her, having barely outrun a worm to reach the rock formation where he resided for the night. Despite a few days of deprivation and years of malnourishment, he saw a boy that was sturdy little thing. First, he took Yaina under his wings, only to see the tables turned after several years. Yaina had proven to have a cunning view and no fear. Given his age it was also only natural that he allowed someone from the younger generation to step up. Yaina was his protégé, equal to a child.

Yaina came to see Bakyi as a father figure. His face had the typical Fremen features and was heavily tanned. His hair was grey and thinning. Sitting at a bonfire he would tell the most amazing stories from past generations. He was warm and comforting. She trusted him with her life and more.

+++

The na-Baron's large frame leaned over the dashboard that was in the middle of the control room. The dashboard reflected the locations where spice harvesters were dropped that morning. During the previous day he lost 10 crawlers and about 100 crew members. He was not concerned about the crew, as there were plenty where they came from. But harvesters were more difficult and costly to come by. Yesterday he lost nearly 1% of the total number of harvesters he had. Some to worms, some to Fremen. Yesterday was a very bad day. He felt pressure to increase spice production, but also to decrease costs.

One of the people managing the dashboard saw Rabban getting worried and worked up. He was only recently put in this position, but knew of the challenges. His colleagues saw him looking to Rabban and looked away. They know what would happen. There was no good advice to be given to Rabban, as he would take everything as a personal attack.

What the people surrounding the dashboard did not know was that Rabban also felt extreme pressure to live up to the expectations voiced by the Baron. Rabban feared that if he would not be able to do so, his increasingly ambitious younger brother Feyd-Rautha would step up to take his place. He noticed how the Baron favoured his younger sibling. Rabban did not desire all of these favours, but he also did not want to have his younger brother receive them – that too was a personal attack in his view. And now, with him gone from Giedi Prime, there was too much distance to allow him to prevent more favours flowing towards Feyd-Rautha.

One of the workers looked at Rabban: “Lord na-Baron, we have been losing more crawlers than we can supplement.” Rabban stared back with a tilted head and sightly opened mouth, as the worker continued: “May I propose that we...” He took the head of the man before he could finish his sentence, and smashed it into the dashboard. He smashed and smashed and smashed until there was too little tissue left for his hand to hold. The na-Baron turned red, with the veins in his neck almost bursting through his skin. The dashboard crackled, being bashed and seeping with blood. He looked around the room and saw everybody staring at the dashboard. He released a growl and pointed at a servant nearby. The finger was re-directed at the body, instructing the servant to clean up the body, have the dashboard repaired and provide a replacement for the dead worker.

While walking around the control room, Rabban bruised the shoulder of each person standing next to the dashboard by squeezing them while he walked past. During his walk he spoke: “If this is how you want to end your life, I dare you to speak up against me and question me. I dare you to lose more harvesters. Maybe I am treating you too nicely. Maybe you need to start feeling how important it is that you do your work well.”

Rabban took another look around the room and saw a group of shaking men. He let out another growl, distraught that his uncle decided to send such worthless people, and left the room.

+++

Link to next chapter

Post notes with this chapter: A first hint of Feyd-Rautha. The next chapter will start laying out the red carpet for his introduction.

[psycheetamore]

Choosing to follow destiny

Chapter 7 – To improve is to change

Pre notes with this chapter: Planets are starting to collide. Takes a bit of time though, fortunately. First published on AO3

Tags: MDNI, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen Is His Own Warning, the typical Feyd tags (smut, violance, non-con/rape etc), imaginary suicide, see for full tags: chapter 1 - the author regrets nothing

Word count: 1.7k

Link to previous chapter

+++

Feyd-Rautha was not one to delay the execution of tasks. Before even boarding the space lighters, he had instructed his men on their next actions. The damages done to the city of Arrakeen started to be repaired upon arrival. Banners and posters were placed around the city, in which the news was presented of the arrival of a new lord: the lord na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. The posters listed the measures that were effective immediately: all limitations imposed by the previous na-Baron were repealed, safety measures were rescinded, and wages were increased. The posters mentioned that the lord na-Baron felt strongly about protecting Fremen culture and habits, and would be looking to establish a durable relationship with the Fremen living outside of the city.

Yaina and Paul's fighters planted in the city would soon relay to their leaders that the initial signs were promising. City dwellers were starting to embrace the new lord, who felt comfortable enough to stroll alone through Arrakeen. Strolls during which he would reach out to people to talk and listen to their complaints, prank with their children and purchase from their shops.

Feyd-Rautha decided to be his charming self, winning hearts and minds. For the time being his acts of aggression were exclusively reserved for the former na-Baron.

Paul refused to believe any of it. He knew what Harkonnen were capable of.

Spice production went up again. Maintenance programs were increased, as was the level of protection for the harvesters. Feyd-Rautha instructed the control room to continuously change the routes taken by the crawlers, and showed them how to keep track and learn of ambushes by Fremen warriors.

Since he landed on Arrakis, the number of attacks against spice production facilities and lost materials reduced. The nature of the strikes also changed: they moved more inland and became less risky.

Complaints from the emperor were no longer received.

The Baron was pleased. Feyd-Rautha was pleased.

+++

Feyd-Rautha felt confident. He always was confident, but now especially. He felt like had achieved his greatest accomplishment yet. All the training he endured since he moved to Giedi Prime had prepared him for this. He had clearly managed to reduce the fierceness of the Fremen resistance, before he even started to squash uprisings. The threats surrounding him here seemed to be less than on his home-planet.

One night, with the notion that he had started to tame Arrakis, he walked back from the control room to his chambers. Knowing the boobytraps the Harkonnen laid in the palace before hand it over to Leto Atreides, he had ensured every centimetre of the palace was scrutinised and protected.

He closed the doors to his chambers behind him and walked towards the couch to relax. The na-Baron felt a presence in the room. Whether it was a different temperature, a different smell, movement he heard, he did not know and he did not care. But before he could draw his daggers and bring himself to safety, he felt a calloused hand covering his mouth and a knife drawn against this throat.

A male voice spoke: “Your guards are incapacitated so no-one will hear you. Your safety alarms have been disabled so you cannot alert anyone. We outnumber you in this very room so you cannot escape.”

Feyd-Rautha huffed.

“We are just here to talk. And you will appreciate that we could not just ask for an audience with you.”

Feyd-Rautha understood he was dealing with Fremen leadership. This provided new opportunities. To get to know his opponents, to get to know their desires and weaknesses, to be able to perhaps broker a deal or otherwise be better positioned to beat them. The voice speaking to him did not sound old, but it sounded powerful.

“We cannot take any chances on you, so we will tie you down. Bring your arms to your back.”

He did as he was told and felt a second pair of hands roughly grabbing his wrists. Rope was securely attached to these joints, after which he was pushed down on the sofa. With the knife still at his throat he felt the hands bind his ankles as well.

While hands were pushing on his legs, he felt a third pair of hands roam his body to dislocate his weapons. These hands were smaller and had a gentler touch. He noticed the hands paused shortly after they started. As if they were startled. He was used to having hands explore his physic, but never had he encountered something like this. A level of vulnerability he inflicted on others, without ever having undergone it himself. He knew what these hands would feel. The weapons they would find. The bodily shapes the cold hands would touch while they combed every centimetre of his frame.

He tried to move his head to see the people around him, but hit the knife immediately. He would need to have patience.

His ego was bruised, but it pleased him that they came prepared and appreciated he could be a threat.

After his weapons were removed, the person holding his legs down pushed him on his knees on the floor, and moved to stand behind him. The person holding the knife asked him: “Do we have an agreement?” The new lord understood what he meant: do you promise to stay put, to accept the predicament you are in, to talk with us.

The na-Baron nodded.

He felt the hand and knife that were still resting on his body move away. Their owner took a chair and sat in front of him. The person that collected his weapons took another chair and sat near Feyd-Rautha's right hand side.

He took a deep breath and said with a hoarse voice: “To what do I owe the pleasure to host my new distinguished guests? I would have liked to offer you something to drink, but unfortunately I am indisposed.”

The person in front of him spoke: “We know what you are, Harkonnen. We know what you are capable of. We wanted you now know that we can cause harm to you too.”

Feyd-Rautha looked at the person speaking. His face was covered, only showing his eyes. Although his room was barely lit, there was enough light to see eyes covered in a blue mist caused by years of exposure to spice. He wore a stillsuit, covered in cloths. He was fairly tall, while his body looked slender. He then shifted his glance to the person on his right. That person wore the same clothes, was shorter and even more slender. However, their almond shaped eyes only held a hint of blue within a sea of black. He tried to look at the person behind him, who quickly grabbed his head and prevented in from turning any further.

“I am giving you one warning. Stop all spice production. Otherwise, these gentlemen and their friends will hunt you down and destroy you.”

On that note, the person that spoke stood up. He was followed by the others and left through the window. From the silhouette and posture of his uninvited guests, he could distinguish that the person speaking was quite young and the person who stood behind him was quite old. It was more difficult to pinpoint the third person. That person was light footed, made less sounds, moved with more grace. He was not sure.

+++

After their visit, Paul was furious. He should have been the one living in that palace. It belonged to him. Feyd-Rautha did not deserve to be in charge of Arrakis. After his father and comrades were massacred at that very place, he had vowed to destroy the Harkonnen and the Great House of Corrino. It hurt him to be back here, after all these years. But he could not show Yaina and Bakyi how he felt, if he wanted to have their support. He needed their support to be able to obtain the crown himself.

After their visit, Yaina asked Paul why he did not discuss any more achievable terms. He should know that the empire cannot run without spice. The demand put forward now would never be followed. She looked at Bakyi, who simply shrugged. Paul just responded vaguely that he wanted to learn how Feyd-Rautha would respond to this test. As part of negotiations with people like the Harkonnen, he explained, one needs to start at an extreme. Surely Feyd-Rautha would come back with a counterproposal. The new na-Baron now knew he was up against a worthy adversary.

If she would not have known better, she would have thought Paul wanted to invite even harder struggles. For the time being she accepted the response she got. After those thoughts left her mind, there was room to think about the musk she smelled. She was not sure whether she also noticed a hint of citrus, as she did not have enough time to make full observations. She relived every bulge of muscles she felt on his body. The soft warm skin that would involuntarily contract acknowledging her touch. His breathing was controlled, countering his brisk heartbeat.

She heard the description that the lord na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was physically imposing. This description did not do him any justice. He was imposing even when rendered harmless and kneeling in front of her. She failed to find the words that would provide a true description if he was not bound and threatened, before she could fall asleep.

After their visit, Feyd-Rautha would recall the encounter. They were more familiar with the palace than him. The level of protection was not adequate. They posed a demand they realised he could never keep, so they must be playing another game. He also remembered the vulnerability. The hands that slowly explored him, while also disarming him. It was a new experience. It enticed him. It excited him, mentally and physically. He wondered whether his assailants noticed that during their observations. Perhaps they even felt his blossoming groin, as their frisk was well performed. He craved for more.

For now, he would get his slaves to enable him to relive this feeling.

+++

Link to next chapter

Post notes with this chapter: making squealing noises doing my proofreading. That does mean that I am more looking at content than at typo's – sorrynotsorry.