#which is just like the Mentats in Dune

[stvlti]

hold on I'm trying to draw parallels between Paul Atreides and Rose Wilson (Ravager/Deathstroke's daughter)

[keefechambers]

drop the rabban/piter ship manifesto Please

okay okay okay okay okay all right here we go

point the first: dave bautista and david dastmalchian are hot and therefore we are fully justified in wanting to smash them together like ken dolls

point the second: the 2021 scenes

rabban and piter never interact on page in the original books but denis made the choice to have them in scenes together because narratively they kind of fit as opposite sides of the spectrum of house harkonnen and that is fun. their canonical film scene having the vibe of "this fucking guy" on both of their parts fits the characters and belies a necessary amount of shared history, which is interesting.

plus, things that were deleted: bautista describes a scene where rabban is essentially trying to intimidate piter (i'd guess after their sauna scene with vlad). dastmalchian says there was a short scene of piter and rabban together where he's torturing a prisoner. this is probably the same scene. torturing a prisoner in proximity is basically a date for a mentat i think.

the choice to extend their screentime (even if for the pragmatic reason of not having to cast feyd until he'd have more than a minute of screentime and because denis loves his daves) creates a dynamic that is really cool! the slavering, entitled, shrieking manchild of house harkonnen and the coolly sadistic mentat? it's very hot to think about.

(please see this fanart for a summation of that Vibe)

point the third: narrative functions.

isn't it hot when foils kiss?

within the realm of dune, not speaking to the prequels/graphic novels, just the first book, rabban and piter essentially function as the top tier of baron harkonnen's operation - they are equal opposites, like real actual narrative foils. piter is a mentat and assassin and therefore serves a more subtle, back-end function while rabban is front-facing; he's the older of the nephews, he's a count and he's been ruling arrakis for a while.

the baron literally has an evil plan that involves taking back arrakis, installing piter as the ruler and then killing him and putting feyd in his place. when piter dies, he just does the same plan but with rabban. he treats them as interchangeable despite how different they are. they're at the top of vlad's list of "guys everyone fucking hates" together!

piter is also power-hungry. it makes sense that he'd see the most susceptible to manipulation harkonnen as an appealing target to sink his claws into. piter would absolutely treat rabban like a meat shield against the baron and, conversely, i think rabban would try to use piter to figure out how to keep his uncle happy. neither would succeed, but they would absolutely get wrapped up in each other trying.

additionally, they can't kill each other. neither of them have that boundary with anyone else, and could murderfuck their way through giedi prime, arrakis and lankiveil and the baron probably wouldn't care. but piter can't kill his boss's nephew, even the stupid one, and rabban can't damage his uncle's property. so even if they did hate each other, they would kind of be trapped in this state of flux where they couldn't do anything about it, anyway, so why not just fuck about it?

plus, with piter being a spice addict and rabban nominally in control of arrakis, there's a certain amount of poetry in the idea of piter being attracted to the source of his vices.

i conclude the manifesto with this excerpt from the novel:

like the baron thinks rabban is afraid of him but he's actually angry at him? come on.

[warrior-messiah]

“It’s coming. I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner in my father’s name. Fanatical legions worshiping at the shrine of my father’s skull. A war in my name. Everyone is shouting my name.”

⤷ Paul Muad’Dib Atreides. Duke of Arrakis. Lisan al-Gaib.

Paul Atreides was born with two formidable birthrights: the noble lineage of his father, the Duke, and the occultist legacy of the Bene Gesserit, a fanatical religious sisterhood, through his mother. From his early childhood, he was groomed to wield power and was trained not just as a Mentat for his analytical intellect and intuition, but also in the mysterious ways of the Bene Gesserit, whose bloodline manipulation and intense training granted him extraordinary abilities. He not only possesses the art of prescience, which grants him glimpses into the future—a power that both empowers and burdens him—but also wields The Voice, the ability to persuade and command someone with an order.

Now, on the desert planet Arrakis, he seeks vengeance for the brutal massacre on his family and uses the Fremen, the planet’s indigenous people who believe him to be their prophesied messiah, to wage his war against the Imperium. As the prophet Lisan al-Gaib, he leads the Fremen with an iron fist and leaves the rest of the known universe in fear and terror of him and his millions of fundamentalist followers.

“He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, truthless, less than a god, more than a man.”

(OOC: Paul’s portrayal is primarily based on the two latest movie adaptations by Denis Villeneuve, but also on Frank Herbert’s novels Dune & Dune Messiah. // 21+, mdni, english preferred, muse =/= mun ‼️ I do not support or celebrate Paul as a white savior. Dune works as a critique toward western exploitation, colonialism and white saviorism, which will be reflected through my portrayal of Paul as well)

[machinesonix]

Dune 2 is out, and as a huge fan of the franchise I am in a semiferal state of hyperfixated fervor. I’ve been reading the book again as a coping mechanism, but it has been sort of difficult finding a social outlet for it. See, there is a lot of fascinating worldbuilding that isn’t in the movies and a lot of messianic philosophy that isn’t quite summed up by ‘well actually it turns out Duncan is the real Space Jesus.’ My wonderful girlfriend suggested this metablogging thing might be a better way to get my fix than stopping strangers on the street with a passion for science fiction easily mistakable for radical Islamic fundamentalism so HERE WE GO

One thing that kinda blows my mind reading through Dune is how both movies have given us radically different portrayals of Baron Harkonnen and how both of them are totally believable in the context of the original text. If you’re not familiar, the new sexy Dune gives us this raspy Kingpin type Baron that wades around in a bunch of unsettling fluids with this villainous gravitas like a fascist hippopotamus. In David Lynch’s 1984 Dune we are still dealing with a caricature of obese evil, but he’s just so goddamn jolly about it. He’s giggling and spitting and cavorting around in antigravity while Games Workshop writers take note about how everyone loves his boils. These depictions are so opposite to each other that seeing them both in the text is giving me this weird double vision.

I think the reason is this beautiful context we don’t really see in either version of the film, and that is the psychopath mentat Pieter DeVries serving absolute cunt with his exposition. It’s a worldbuilding thing. The Baron has a 15 year old Feyd-Rautha watching his uncle to learn a thing or two about statecraft. Pieter is a twisted mentat, which is like a human computer with an OS optimized for human rights violations and he is just having none of the Baron’s shit. He flaunts his expensive drug addiction, offers to dance, and repeatedly reminds the Baron that he was too stupid to have come up with this Snidely Whiplash shit by himself. Pieter correctly reasons that the Baron will have him dead as soon as he has outlived his usefulness and that his attitude isn’t going to be much of a determining factor. For now he is very confident that he remains useful.

So eventually Feyd is like ‘Uncle, I’m just watching you argue, I could be playing GameBoy right now’ because GameBoy is what Feyd-Rautha calls the guy with needles for teeth that he hunts through the steam tunnels. And the Baron goes ‘Ah, but you are learning something. See, one of the great things we lost during the robot jihad were Excel spreadsheets that weren’t little bitches.’ And that’s where it gets me. I can’t tell if this is an impatient mastermind flexing his general obesity or a plague-clown who invited his sassy laptop in to make everyone watch his sick burn. Maybe those aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe it’s not that weird and it’s just David Lynch brain poison leaving its indeliable mark. 

Mostly I think it’s a profound tragedy that we don’t have an on screen adaptation of Pieter DeVries going full fucking Starscream. Like yeah, we see some animosity but we as an audience have been robbed of seeing a dude who can do orbital physics calculations in his head acting like he just figured out nothing actually happens when mom finishes counting down from ten. As a millenial STEM graduate, I feel a deep sense of empathy for this human calculator vocalizing to his employer that he hopes his home burns down. 

[mareastrorum]

This took a while to write up. Here’s something about Dune and Villanueve’s adaptation. I felt I really needed to chew on it before posting.

This is by no means a full thesis, just putting down some thoughts on Chani and Paul. I’m trying to minimize my use of story-specific terminology so that people who aren’t as familiar with that can still follow along.

Of course, massive spoilers below.

For those that have only seen Villanueve’s films, they are an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the first book in a series. You’ll find an incredible number of critiques and reviews of them online, as well as other adaptations. All of the adaptations have cut at least one part of the main plot, for varying reasons. Note that I said main plot. Cutting side plots is absolutely expected given that the first book is a behemoth, but each adaptation also cut part of the actual main plot line. That isn’t something unique to Villanueve’s films.

Some book background: Dune is a very thoughtful exploration of imperialism and ecology, particularly how certain patterns are reflections of each other. Most of the story takes place on Arrakis, a desert planet and sole source of melange, colloquially called “spice.” Spice is a mind-enhancing drug that is necessary for navigators to manage intergalactic travel at high speed—so it is the backbone of the intergalactic empire that plants aristocratic families on the desert planet of Arrakis to harvest the spice, which of course involves the oppression of the native Fremen that see the worms as religiously sacred. The atrisocrats use varying combinations of violence, diplomacy, and religion to oppose the Fremen at the same time that they appropriate Fremen knowledge of how to survive the incredibly harsh clime of Arrakis.

The key problem is that Arrakis as a habitat cannot change without endangering the sand worms that provide the spice. Terraforming to shrink the deserts where they live puts them in danger because water (the rarest resource on Arrakis) is fatal to the worms. Liet-Kynes (an ecologist from the Empire and half-blooded Fremen) persuaded Fremen leaders that it would be possible to terraform the planet gradually over dozens of generations and eventually create pockets of safe and habitable land for the Fremen without taking too much from the sand worms. The Atreides family learned this from Liet-Kynes before he died, and Paul eventually sets this plan in motion when he becomes Emperor. That plan was what won over the Fremen to his side. He had an actual plot to get them what they wanted, a path to become Emperor so he would have the power needed to make it happen, and intent to do this in a way to safeguard Fremen culture in the face of imperial exploitation by making the Fremen the dominant culture of the Empire. At least, that’s the story he sold them and himself.

Dune Part 1 did not have that facet. Liet-Kynes did not teach that to Paul and Jessica before dying. In fact, Liet-Kynes’s most lampshading scene of dying in the desert while despondently hoping that the Fremen would “beware of heroes” was cut entirely from the film. Now, that is a small deviation, and I can understand that Villanueve would have cut it for his style anyway. He doesn’t like telling—he favors showing in film. That is perfectly fair. Having a character lay out “this is my plan” and telling the audience blatantly “Paul is a hero and that is not a good thing” just wasn’t going to happen anyway, regardless of whether it was part of the plot. So when Part 1 came out, I didn’t take that as a decision to deviate from the actual plot of the book. I figured Villanueve would introduce these things otherwise, and it would make sense to come from Stilgar or another Fremen leader. Not that big a deal.

(Note: I’m not getting into a lot of the other omissions, such as the missing scenes, Gurney’s paranoia that Jessica had betrayed the Atreides, Paul’s mentat training, Jamis’s funeral, etc. I could literally write a book about everything that was left out, and honestly, it’s just more reason to read Dune.)

For Part 2, the biggest difference in is that Chani is a true believer in the prophecies that Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib, the messiah that would lead the Fremen to paradise. In the film, Chani is not merely a skeptic—she is a nonbeliever. As a result of this change, rather than support Paul, bear his first child, and agree to become his concubine (eventually bearing the twins that feature in the next two books), Chani of the films instead does not have his first son, disputes Paul’s claims, and leaves on her own rather than support his war. Additionally, although it’s not facially relevant, Chani is also the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial ecologist, and so is a mixed blood Fremen (though she is accepted without issue by the Fremen). Instead, in the film, Chani has no connection to Liet-Kynes.

This is a drastic change in plot. I genuinely do not know how that will be remedied so that Chani will bear the twins that eventually rule the universe and lead the empire down the prophecied Golden Path in later books.

Why is that a big deal?

To start, there is a significant change in symbols used between the book and film in this respect. I cannot overstate the importance of Chani as a symbol in Dune. In the books, Chani is a stand in for the Fremen and their culture, particularly that culture in current day. She is the daughter of Liet-Kynes because the current Fremen cultural goal is to bring about that dream of a terraformed Arrakis where they do not need to live so desperately. That is inseparable from the effects of the Empire; her father is an ecologist because that is the Imperial influence that the Fremen were willing to accept and integrate into their own lives. Paul genuinely loves Chani, is protective of her, wants her to thrive, and eventually wants to become the person of the prophecy she believes in. He wants to be the hero she expects of him, without losing his identity as her partner.

However, Chani does not represent all Fremen. Stilgar, Chani’s uncle, represented the old guard of Fremen that rigidly held to their old laws and ways of living. Paul and Jessica were not given any leniency; they had to prove themselves to become Fremen, and his support was clearly conditional upon that. As a result, to gain the Fremen’s respect and move them towards their common goals, Paul and Jessica assimilated into the Fremen culture, and then Paul systematically destroyed his rivals—which is the Freman way—taking the remainder under his banner to fight the Harkonnen. Paul finally broke from that tradition when he chose to let Stilgar live, convincing the old guard that it was better to cut down their enemies rather than each other for deviating from tradition. Chani stood by Paul the entire way, learning how fight Harkonnen from both Paul and Jessica, learned to use the Voice from Jessica, and became Paul’s most staunch supporter and connection to all other Fremen. Every aspect of Chani’s identity and her choices feed into the narrative that the Fremen had expectations of Paul, he willingly rose to the challenge, and they loved each other fiercely.

But near the end of the first book, Paul sent Chani and their firstborn son to a hopefully safe location that was then attacked by the Harkonnen. Paul did not know if either had survived at the time it was reported. Rather than rush to find them, Paul struggled with the decision and ultimately continued the fight against the Harkonnen. This was to tell the reader that Paul’s love didn’t save them, that he was not going to save the Fremen, and he was going to continue his bloodshed. This had already happened, and was going to happen again. Luckily, Chani survived, they mourn their son, and she agrees to be his concubine so that he could marry Princess Irulan and become Emperor. Everyone knew at that moment that Paul had no love for the princess and the marriage was purely political. Princess Irulan resented this until the end of the next book, when she reveals that she also came to love Paul, and she was jealous of Chani. But Paul did not love Irulan the way he loved Chani. It’s again a reflection that Paul truly loved the Fremen culture and saw the Empire only as a means to an end: achieving the Fremen’s goal of creating paradise on Arrakis. Dune ends with that affirmation.

In the film, that is no longer the case. Chani was not a symbol of Fremen support because she set out alone. Most of the Fremen supported Paul. She didn’t believe in Paul or the prophecies when most did. She didn’t have his firstborn and it remains to be seen if the twins will exist. Rather than Paul making a decision that shows he will destroy the Fremen culture, Chani makes a decision to reject him. This changes the dynamics involved in the story, and I genuinely don’t know if it will be handled well.

The next books continue the story years after Paul becomes Emperor. In Dune: Messiah, Paul wrestles with the duties of Emperor while attempting to preserve the Fremen culture (to keep Chani and their unborn children alive) and fulfilling his roles as prophet and leader. At the same time, he is beset by assassination, rebellion, and usurpation attempts. At the end of Messiah, Chani dies while birthing twins, the worms are beginning to die off, Paul loses hope in his plan, and then he walks off into the desert expecting to die because he does not want to become the Emperor he foresees necessary to continue this plan. He realized he has changed the Fremen forever, not for the better, and he thinks the best thing he can do is exile himself. Paul didn’t save anyone he cared about, and when faced with the decision to try to salvage the future in front of him, he walked away. Paul is a failure. The point is that he fails in the book titled Messiah.

The books were an ongoing warning that no matter your good intentions, no matter the support and love and resources involved, to introduce an outsider whose power depends upon a limited resource into the place of origin will eventually destroy any other aspects of it, even if that power was intended to preserve. Whether it’s imperialistic appropriation of a culture and its religion, or terraforming to change land optimal for a religiously and economically significant animal into something comfortable for another species, the thing you love will die.

You cannot save a habitat by introducing an invasive species. You cannot save a unique species by destroying its habitat. You cannot save a culture by using it to conquer others. You cannot appropriate a culture and keep it just like it was before you commandeered it. You will wind up with something else, and eventually the only remnants of the thing you loved will be memories reenacted by people so separated from the original that they won’t even know or care why they’re doing it (as shown in Messiah and God Emperor).

The entire point of the Dune series is that “white saviors” don’t actually exist. They’re “heroes” until time reveals that they’re not. They are merely conquerors with the delusion that they are saving the thing they sacrificed in order to attain power.

Chani’s rejection in Dune Part 2 erodes that. Someone who didn’t read the book is going to wonder, “what if she had stayed and persuaded him?” “What if Chani was the Lisan al-Gaib?” “What if an actual Freman had taken over the Empire instead of Paul?” Then the audience thinks, ah, of course, Paul made mistakes and that’s why he’s going to fail. If only he hadn’t been so blinded by ambition, everything would have been fine. If only he hadn’t needed to be the leader, if he had let Stilgar do it, if he had let Chani do it, etc. In other words, if the white savior had just done it the right way, it would have worked.

But that isn’t the point of Dune. To become the leader of an Empire requires that level of ambition. Stilgar submitted to Paul because he saw that Paul’s ability to engage with both the common folk and the extremists among the Fremen was absolutely necessary to defeat the Harkonnen, and Stilgar chose that over any other priority. Chani supported Paul because she loved him and genuinely believed he would lead her people to better times, because all she knew was desperation and oppression. There was ruthless calculation and devotional love in equal measure, but the cost of success as a hero seeking to lead an empire is that the thing you loved will die. The Fremen had already changed into the bloodthirsty, fanatical army before Paul ever saw the Emperor face to face. Paul’s son died and Chani went missing because Herbert was telling us that the future Paul and Chani both wanted was already dead before he laid siege to Arrakeen, before he became Emperor, before he started a war to solidify the Freman’s domination of humankind. The reason that everything in Dune eventually works in Paul’s favor is because even with perfect conditions, he failed. There is no world in which he would have succeeded.

You can’t eat a cake and have it too. Empires eat. Heroes, no matter how much love they have in their hearts, no matter who they fight for, no matter how much their supporters/victims wanted it too, cannot use an empire to save anything. The very nature of imperial power is to consume. Love doesn’t make a “white savior” any less imperialistic than a tyrant bent on conquest.

Is the next film going to get us to that point? I don’t think it will. I think it’s going to be yet another adaptation trying to tell a different message because Herbert’s message isn’t very palatable to a mass audience. We don’t want to hear that love doesn’t win in this circumstance. It’s a horrifying message, but it’s one that’s true when telling the story of imperial and ecological exploitation of cultures and rare resources.

That isn’t to say that the films wouldn’t be a good story on their own. It’s just not the story of the books, and I’m one of those people that actually likes the books.

There’s a lot of ways Chani’s new story could go, and I’m watching it like I’m observing someone setting up a dare devil leap. Villanueve is an incredibly skilled storyteller, but this is something no one’s done before, a lot of things can go wrong, and if he doesn’t stick the landing, it’s gonna be pretty gross no matter how the crash happens. I want him to succeed. I’m still gonna watch the next film. I’m just well aware that this is probably going to end in a watered down, generic “Paul failed because he wasn’t Fremen” sentiment rather than “Empires rely upon exploitation and destruction, at the expense of everything else.”

It’s still fucking amazing eye candy, and I’ll probably watch it again.

[zoominlumen]

I finished Dune so I decided to watch the 1984 version and rewatch the new ones.

1984 Dune:

Terrible casting from top to bottom (ESPECIALLY Patrick Stewart as Gurney absolutely unforgivable, Duncan Idaho is just a little guy, Leto is German I think, Chani, Yueh, Kines...)

Way too many liberties taken with story

Everything is mispronounced (imo)

Not a single person of color, because white people are famously known for thriving in burning hot deserts

The Mentats all have big eyebrows... to identify them?

What the hell is a weirding module?

The Har-kone-nens are redheads, the Bene Gesserit are bald for some reason

Milking a cat??? For the antidote to Thufir's poison. Thufir is not shown at the end so what was the point of including that?

The Fremen are literally just walking/running in the desert

They do actually ride the worms into battle, and Alia is present and spectacularly creepy but what is this bullshit with the Fremen using the voice/words to make their projectiles more powerful?

Baron floats away and gets eaten by a worm...

Worms: 7/10

Grasp on the themes of the book: 3/10

2021-2024 Dune:

Pretty good casting (includes POC)

Basically stuck to the book but made some pretty unforgivable cuts in part 2

Basically no Thufir Hawat, no Alia, no Leto Jr.

Better Harkonnens

Better design from top to bottom except the worms

Worms: 6/10

Grasp on the themes of the book: 4/10

Overall neither conveys the main themes of the book very well. It's just typical dystopian sci-fi with a white* savior, which is a shame. All my favorite things about the book are absent, most notably how cool Jessica is, how Leto is clever and loving and you are made to like him and to believe he might be able to slip out of the noose tightening around his neck, then you realize he was always doomed. The manipulations that went into creating this 'chosen one' are completely neutered.

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

Generic brainstorm

Star Wars, but Jedi and Sith are mech pilots.

Pirates of the Carribean, but with Dishonored vibe of tech.

Half-Life, but Gordon Freeman has psionic powers he gained during the resonance cascade, which acted as his superhero backstory (and I know this defeats the whole "regular guy being the protagonist" and "human spirit strength" stuff but come on, bear with me).

Dune, but the mentats are replaced by actual allowed robots, either androids Detroit: Become Human or skeletons from Kenshi.

A post-apocalypse caused by worldwide memory loss. War ensued in confusion, shit hit the fan, and decades pass as people try to recollect what the world once was and how to live now.

Warhammer 40.000, but only fantasy; No technology at all. Except for Adeptus Mechanicus and the Necrons. They got steampunk/soulpunk stuff going on. Otherwise, no firearms and vehicles of war at all.

The worlds of Egyptian and Norse mythologies collide, resulting in a strange landscape sprawling from the viking settlements to the pyramids down south, as well as various marriages between the deities of both pantheons, one way or another, together with troubles this brings.

Naruto, but make it Wu Xia.

Transformers, but rather than robots they are just a human-like alien race, basically Animorphs with alt-shapes being various beasts.

How To Train Your Dragon, but set in Eastern Asia.

Mad Max, but throw in a zombie outbreak in there too.

[daxwormzz]

Who’s Piter? (Full disclosure, I’m entirely prepared for rambling, I’ve just never heard of this)

HIIIIIIII OKAY SO. Basically. Piter de Vries is this guy from hit 1960s scifi novel Dune by Frank Herbert. He’s the right-hand to the main villain, The Baron Harkonnen. He’s only in the first half of the first book, and some of the bad prequel novels.

Piter’s whole thing is that he’s a Mentat, a human trained to essentially function like a supercomputer and be crazy good at calculating shit. (Because “thinking machines” have been outlawed in the world of Dune, so no computers!) but also he’s specifically this thing called a TWISTED MENTAT, which means he’s a computer who’s evil and has no moral compass. It’s up to interpretation what exactly caused this— there’s sorta two theories with equal amounts of evidence. One: this one evil organization purposefully fucks up Mentats to MAKE them essentially lose faith in morality and humanity as a whole. Like reeeeaaally fucks them up. And two: they’re actually just born like that. Like the mentat was already predisposed to “evil” behavior and that one organization just exploits that and employs them.

I sorta think it was a mix of that for Piter, I think he was born with obvious signs of brain illness and that was exploited and exacerbated by whatever he was put through. I think if he wasn’t “twisted” he probably would’ve grown up to he just some kinda strange asshole, rather than one of the most wretched guys you’ll ever meet.

That being said, the actual gist of Piter’s personality and description is this: eccentric and snarky conniving guy who LOVES to torture. He’s also shown to be very power-hungry, and subtly obsessed with control and death as a whole. And also poisons. He has a passion for poison-making. As a mentat, he’s also an assassin of sorts, cause turns out they’re pretty good at that. He’s described as having a terrifying “silky” voice, so kind of like if a snake was a guy. He’s also described as followed: a short “effeminate” man with frizzy hair, probably wears platform boots, blue-within-blue eyes, and red-stained lips. (“It was like a mask grimace over those eyes like holes”, to quote the book directly.) his eyes and mouth are an important detail, because those come from all the DRUGS he takes. Like so many. He’s specifically takes Spice, the most important substance in Dune basically. That’s what makes his eyes that weird blue! So he’s like… unnerving-pretty. Weird looking but pretty in the way a very toxic sea creature is. Do NOT touch. Sometimes he refers to himself in the third person and he sounds like the Miette cat post.

BUUUUT YEAH so like, weird guy amiright? I’m prone to loving evil right hand man characters, I’ll be for real. But what really got me crazy about his character is how he’s treated in the story by various characters. Sure, he’s a bad awful guy and all that- but he is also CONSTANTLY dehumanized. Specifically by his “employer”, The Baron. Who is a whole other can of worms. There’s even a whole scene where the baron puts Piter on “display” and refers to him as “it”. The baron also explicitly exploits Piter’s drug addiction to get him to comply and stay “loyal”, which is particularly scary I think, because spice withdrawal is incredibly deadly.

Piter and the Baron have some of the most bonkers banter in the entire book. It’s comedically evil in every way. You can tell they HATE each other but it’s hidden under so many layers of scheming and posturing. Piter would take the barony if he could 💪💪💪😔😔😔 Piter is also THE guy who comes up with the entire coup against the main character’s noble house that sparks the main events of the entire book??? Like he states directly that it was HIM. On like page 21 of the book. And this is not talked about much. None of his movie versions really get to the “meat” of his character, especially the newest Dune films. He’s very glossed-over, honestly. Which is a shame because as you can tell, I find him fascinating!

I think…. I’m done now… thank you for coming to my Piter talk… I hope this is enlightening 💚

[argrash]

You, even since finishing I have been thinking a lot about Pasqal and Amarnat. And I feel like he has been able to capture a part of the admech that I feel like needs more emphasis. so here comes a giant, probably incoherent and possibly somewhat pretentious rant.

There is something about Pasqal pulling a fucking Cawl, and turning himself into something inhuman, something more than human, simply by adding more humanity into himself. I don't know. I think it is because since I have read Dune, I find myself looking at the admech from the same perspective as the Tleilaxu from Dune. Who are clearly their inspiration. This transhumanist, secretive group of people, who have done everything to lose all their regular humanity. In general in Dune there is this theme of humans losing their humanity by becoming "more". Sometimes for the better, often for the worse for the people they influence. Mentats lose their humanity and see the world around them as a giant pool of data from which calculations and derivations are made, the Bene Gesserit become teachers of humanity, but therefore suppress their own humanity in the process. Paul loses his humanity as Kwisatz Haderach in order to become the Emperor and allow for the Jihad to happen. And Leto II (the second) shows that the one thing that stopped Paul from fully embracing the Golden Path was actually his last shred of humanity, by attaching himself to Chani.

With Pasqal and particularly with Amarnat I feel like it was the first time I really started seeing that part back. With how he combines multiple humans, and clearly, after becoming Amarnat, he is less human than he was before. He knows more, understands more of the world around him, but it came at the cost of losing a big part of his humanity. He joins the consciousness of 7 techpriests, each with their own qualities together to become something greater even than simply the sum of those 7. This combined with all the Buddhist speaking (Cycles being disconnected, suggesting a kind of Nirvana being reached as Amarnat). It truly feels like Amarnat has become for me the true techpriest. Becoming simultaneously more and less than human in a single action.

I think it also shows what, in the larger GW narrative, is missing for me with the admech as a whole. Right now they have just become the people who hand out the macguffins for the imperium whenever they need one, but a stronger focus needs to lie on this weird, secretive theological side, this strong philosophical difference with the larger Imperium, and quite frankly, all other factions in warhammer. It is why I genuinely hope that we get a new named character for the Admech which is some kind of religious messianic figure, who stands in absolute opposition to Cawl.

Rogue trader feels like a game which really looked at the roots of what Warhammer was built upon, and really tried to ingrain itself in those roots again, which I think is a major part of why the game is so good and all the flavour and factions feel so on point. I genuinely hope that the people at GW look at rogue trader again, and take some inspiration and return a bit more to their inspirations again, particularly their roots in Dune, which would be the best time to do it with the new Dune movies

[cactus-chowder]

NOT CORRUPT

A full image description is under the cut.

Image description: a 5 panel comic I drew about Piter de Vries and the Harkonnen faction from Dune. The Baron wants to formalize an agreement, but he can't find his signet ring.

Panel 1: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is sitting at his desk and addressing someone in front of him. He looks tired, and like he's being condescending.

Vladimir says, "...You Bene Gesserit sisters all think that my esteemed Great House, and anything the Empire touches, is a hopeless pit of corruption that would swallow up mankind without your guiding hands. I'm not wrong, am I? But I can be fair, even in the face of insulting presumptions. See: I want you to feel confident about my commitment. I've drafted up the agreement in writing, which I'll sign with my signet ring..."

Piter is standing at attention behind Vladimir. He suddenly looks startled and nervous.

Panel 2: Piter hastily spits the Baron's signet ring into his hand. There's a sound effect description for a Yoshi noise. It seems he had been meaning to use it for his own purposes. Meanwhile, Vladimir is looking at his hand, saying, "Oh... I must not have put it on yet today..."

Panel 3: Piter is smiling and looking at nothing, still nervous, as he cutely sets the ring on Vladimir's desk. Nothing to see here! Vladimir is looking in a desk drawer now. He says, "...It's usually in my drawer when I'm not wearing it..."

Panel 4: Piter is furiously looking at nothing and smiling. He's relieved that he succeeded at not being caught. Vladimir has just noticed the ring on the desk. He says, "Ah! It was on my desk."

Panel 5: Two Bene Gesserit women are watching this whole scene play out. One of them, a young woman, looks deeply concerned and is motioning to her companion like she's about to say something. The other, an elderly woman, is calmly keeping up the act of faking a smile, though she's clearly unimpressed by what she's seen. The elderly woman gestures back reassuringly, signaling that they won't comment on what they just saw.

While they're silently working this out, Vladimir is still talking in the background. He's saying, "And by the way, what witchcraft have you worked on my Mentat? He is usually so talkative, about everything and nothing, it's very bothersome. Unprofessional! But he hasn't said anything for the past..."

[azspot]

You know who liked to overthink things? Frank Herbert, the author of Dune. His books have often been described as impossible to adapt because there’s just way too much of them: too much plot, but also much too much explanation of the plot. Villeneuve shows us how to adapt Dune: You cut most of it, especially the explanations. How else are you going to turn a sprawling 800-page novel—to say nothing of the endless appendices and legacy sequels—into a couple hundred pages of double-spaced screenplay? The first third of the novel is dominated by the machinations of the Harkonnen and Atreides Mentats, and the proximate cause of the fall of House Atreides is a delicately seeded suspicion of Paul’s mother’s loyalty, which masks the existence of the real traitor. None of that is in the films. The Guild Navigators are gone. CHOAM is gone. Fenring is gone. The famous banquet scene is cut. Princess Irulan’s narrative role is barely gestured at, and Alia doesn’t even get born. Endless discussions of ecology and politics and economics are cut. To put it bluntly, Villeneuve cuts almost all of the things Herbert was thinking about when he wrote Dune. Frank Herbert wrote a novel of ideas, for which the story was just vehicle and scaffolding and the means to that end. Villeneuve gave us the beautiful box they came in.

Dune 2: What the movie is doing with Frank Herbert’s books is grim indeed.

[timbourinedrake]

the brain worms kicked in and now I have a fully formed Dune au...

Ramblings (and Dune spoilers I guess??) under the cut

OK SO

The Waynes = The Atreides. Bruce is obviously gonna be the Duke, with Alfred as his Mentat. Talia is his wife and part of the Bene Gesserit, and together they have Damian, who is raised as heir. Dick, Jason and Tim are Bruce's adopted sons but as they're not related by blood, they are not considered heirs by the other houses (cus of the mating index and all that jazz). Jason=Duncan Idaho, Dick=Gurney Halleck and Tim=Hawat (he and Alfred share Hawats role in the story). (they fit these roles stupidly well if you think about it too hard).

The Waynes get sent to Arrakis Krypton to replace the Al Ghuls. Kryptonians take the place of Fremans, and Clark is Liet and imperial planetologist (therefore making Jon=Chani)

The same basic politics and plot beats happen, leaving Bruce, Clark and (temporarily) Jason dead, Dick on the run, separated from a pregnant Talia and Damian, who are also on the run, and Tim and Alfred being poisoned and used as Ra's mentat.

Also just to note in this au, Ra's actually does suspect that Talia is his daughter and that's why he's so interested in Damian, whilst Talia is fully aware of her lineage and tells Damian. Ra's sucks in this but he's at least not a pedo like the Baron is

The rest of Dune plays out as is, with Damian becoming the Muad'dib, Talia becoming the Sayyadina and giving birth to Athanasia, who looks just like a mini Bruce and has her freaky powers, and they eventually take down the Al Ghuls.

Ngl I would just leave it there instead of following the rest of the Dune books because 1. I can't think of who could suitably fit the Padishah Emperor and co. and 2. I just want them to be a happy family at the end and not having Damian become the messiah and start a holy war.

which is. kinda defeating the point of Dunes message. but at the same time this is a batman au and it doesn't have to be that deep because i said so :p

[calocera]

Btw since I’m talking about dune here are things I DIDNT like about the 2021 movie since I talk abt it positively a lot:

I dislike the worm design, I wish it was like the 1984 design or older concept art

I wish they had included more of thufirs role (like where did he go?? He just vanished?) esp the traitor plot line. It was cut down a lot which I get, but I do feel like it could have been stretched more ESP since it gives the earlier portion of the story a mystery thriller vibe before stuff goes down. ITS ALSO IMPORTANT because him and Jessica have the confrontation that really shows Jessica’s power and training.

Same as with thufir, I wish they had included more of piter, he is so fun and fucked up but he basically had nothing to do or say in the movie he just stood around

They should have included a more by-the-book version of dr yuehs monologue when he poisons the duke, it’s such a good scene and they made it go by super fast

Lady jessicas atrium not being shown :(

Not really bringing up Paul’s mentat training, not very important but I think it adds needed context to his intelligence level

I get not wanting to include all the inbreeding stuff but it IS plot important idk

THE THING THAT BUGGED ME SO MUCH: they never showed lady Jessica having to draw blood with the crysknife given to her by mapes. It makes it a weird plot inconsistency because basically right before that they talked about how once the blade is drawn it has to draw blood, then that immediately doesnt happen. That scene is also pretty important for Jessica’s whole thing :/

[titleleaf]

more on BG Sister Matilda and the Dune Encyclopedia

The Dune Encyclopedia is put together like a collection of different in-universe articles and commentaries, and the result is really interesting if sometimes very frustrating. This kind of meta storytelling approach allowed the contributors to address some of the inadvertent inconsistencies and unexplored elements of the novels' worldbuilding but also to get a little silly with it. The entry on the mandatory SFF fuck-planet Gamont is so freaking weird that I have to share it with my fellow Duneposters -- we're given a passage from the diary of a humble Bene Gesserit laundress as she records the curious customs and peculiar folk songs she encounters there and we get the flavor of the place through her stubbornly innocent POV. This interlude was written by J.R.M. aka Julia Reed; the text that follows is Reed's, while all transcription errors are mine.

[content note: the cultural insensitivity in this is a little different than usual for Dune -- some of the themed areas on Gamont relate to Orientalist and racist fantasies around sexual enslavement drawn from our own Earth history, handled with all the flippancy of a horny Disney theme park. Also the canonicity of this is... dubious.]

****

Sabhaasdii, nAudrim 28:

Cold and windy again today, but the laundry-room is always warm. Lots of sisters complain about Wallach's weather, but not me. My job is a blessing.

Shannisdii, nAudrim 29:

Entertainment tonight. A very special dinner in honor of His Grace, Duke Philippos from Gallatin and his wife — a great lady, you could tell. After supper in the Great Hall, his musicians played and our choir sang. And that was very nice, but then I almost died! His Grace introduced his mentat — a fine-looking man, but tunic not well pressed — and asked him to very kindly favor us with a demonstration. Well, the mentat looked right at me and asked me what I did, so I told him I was the head laundress. Then he wrote something down on a piece of paper, and asked me to ask him any question that I wanted. Well, I don't know why, but the first thing popped into my head, and I said, "How many stars are in the Lyre Nebula?" Then he passed the note to Reverend Mother and asked her to read it out, and she did — it said "The number of stars in the Lyre Nebula is" — and then some big number. Well, that didn't go over too well. I mean, there was some polite applause, but mentats, after all!

Jehansdii, nAudrim 30:

I think I figured it out, what the mentat did. When I went to work this morning, I picked up the soap box and right on the back there's this big ad for a contest "Name the Stars". And it said, how many stars in the Lyre Nebula, and if you fill it out, you win a prize if you're right. And then I remembered that the mentat asked me what I did first, before anything, I still have his paper for a souvenir. I ought to send it in. Serve him right.

Phyllisdii, neSheustim 15:

I won!!! I can't believe it!!! The mentat was right and I won a Two-Week, All- Expense Paid Trip to Gamont, Planet of Pleasure, wherever that is.

Mothersdii. neSheustim 16:

Well I went to 'see Mother Caius today and it was very strange — very strange indeed. Said no. Said Sister Matilda, the trip would be too strenuous for a woman of your years. My years! I said I'm only fifty-seven add I've been doing laundry for forty years, and the the last eight and you can't be all that weak if you can do that. Then I told her just how much wash there was to be toted around. I promised to take Sister Bertha with me, so Mother said we could keep an eye on one another. Then she said something about innocence being the best protection and sent me off.

Glensdii, neSheustim 25:

I've been so busy I've really neglected my diary. A lot to catch up on. First, I'm writing this from Gamont, which is a very odd place. When we got off the ship, there was a wire fence between us and a line marked "Departures," and over on the other side were some Sardaukars of Salvation playing music and handing out pamphlets and passing the tambour. I was going to give them a donation and get some religious reading for the quiet times, but apparently the law allows them only to talk to a person going home, not one coming in. Then we went outside, and people were singing and natives were putting strings of beads around everyone's neck. These beads are to pay for things on Gamont, you just pop one off and use it like money. A very pretty little boy came running over to me and Bertha and said are you from Wallach, Sisters Matilda and Bertha? We said yes and he winked and handed us two brown envelopes. We looked inside and, goodness, the necklaces must have had two hundred beads on them. Later a man said, "Hey, you're Bene Gesserit." And we said that's right, how did you know? He said the B.G.'s always get their beads in plain envelopes. I don't think I'll ever spend all my beads — I mean, how much can one person eat and drink? Maybe souvenirs for the sisters in the laundry.

Twosday, neSheustim 26:

I'm exhausted. I woke up when it was still dark because I could hear someone breathing in bed with me, and I thought "Poor Bertha, she must be homesick," and I said "Now, now, Bertha," and I turned the light on. But no, it wasn't Bertha but a very handsome young man with a mustache. And I said "Young man, get out of my bed immediately!" and I thought, some hotel to make a mistake like that! Well, I guess I woke up Bertha, too, and she screamed because there was a man in her bed, and my young man said, "But I am your guide to the pleasures of Gamont," and I said it was too dark to see anything on Gamont. Then I called the manager and things got straightened out. He said Ahmed and Pol (the boys) would be available in the morning to take us sightseeing. I think this vacation is going to be more of a strain than the spring cleaning wash.

I certainly learned things about Gamont when it got light. I thought it was for vacations, like the seaside on Kestrel where my parents used to take me, and people would build sandcastles and swim and eat ices in the evening.

Gamont is not like that.

The whole place is divided into what they call little worlds. You go inside one and you can pretend you are someone in the past or future and they do all sorts of unusual things. We got in a carriage drawn by a thorse and Ahmed and Pol started to show us the sights.

First we went to Eden. There was a woman dressed up like a snake at the entrance who wanted us to check our clothing and pick a costume from the rack. On the rack marked "Adams'' were all these leaves of all different sizes (but fake ones — cotton), but they were all marked "Extra-Large." There were different brands, too, Fig, Conan, Stud, though what kind of a tree a stud is, I can't say. Well, I certainly wasn't going to get undressed, so we didn't go in Eden.

I asked Ahmed if there wasn't a seashore we could go to, and he said sure, and we drove off again. We came to a world called Nantucket, and decided to have lunch before going to the beech. There was a restaurant called The Flipping Frog. Food all right. There was entertainment, too — a man and a woman sang a very funny (but sometimes puzzling) song. Here's what I remember about the beginning:

First the girl sang,

"Who's that knocking on my door?" "Who's that knocking on my door?" "Who's that knocking on my door?" Said the fair young maiden.

The boy answered,

"D' ye ken me still, I'm Barnacle Bill, O' the 'Rakis Royal Navy. And here I stand, come from 'neath the sand, With the 'Rakis Royal Navy."

So the girl told him to wipe his feet upon the mat, but there must have been a hundred verses, and our food came, and I don't remember the rest. Afterwards we went to the beach. Bertha and I had a good time wading and enjoying the sun. Ahmed and Pol played cards.

Oh, I almost forgot: Gamont has seven days in its week. They're called Funday, Manday, Twosday, Womanday, Threesday, Tryitday, and Satyrday. When the couple was singing, Bertha almost choked, she was laughing so hard and her face got so red. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "When in Gamont, do as the Gamontians do." So I'm dating my diary differently while we're here. It'll be a nice memento.

Womanday, neSheustim 27:

I had a scare today. Went to Harem World and lost Bertha. We put costumes on — pretty things, but sheer, my goodness, you can see right through them. Little sheer pink top. Full, gathered pantaloon thing. Pretty gold belt. Hand wash, I guess, in cold water. But anyway, I think Bertha's getting upset by the excitement or something. I kept my underwear on when I put the costume on, but Bertha didn't. And I started to scold her, but she just gave me that "When on Gamont" business again.

Well, we went into the palace, and it was beautiful, I must say that for it, but a little gaudy — soft music and water splashing in fountains and men and women lolling around in little dark alcoves. Two huge men in turbans took us to reclining harem-chairs, and I guess I went to sleep. When I woke up Bertha was gone. I yelled for Ahmed and Pol and they came running from somewhere pulling their clothes on. I guess they were napping too. So we looked for Bertha through long dark hallways with men in turbans in front of the doors. They wouldn't let me in, so I just called out at each door we came to. Then we came to a door that said "Sultan's Chamber," and it was open, and inside there was Bertha, stark naked, sitting on a big red velvet pouffy cushion thing. I told the boys to shut their eyes and went in. Bertha just kept grinning, and saying, "The Sultan chose me, the Sultan chose me." I got her dressed and the boys helped me take her back to the hotel. I told Pol to stay in the room with her all day tomorrow and make sure she stayed quiet and rested.

Threesday, Jehannesdii, neSheustim 28:

After yesterday's scare and today's shock, I know I'll live forever, because if they didn't kill me, nothing will. There is a Bene Gesserit House on Gamont! Why didn't Mother Caius tell me? I think I know.

Ahmed was driving me in the carriage through the streets, and I was looking at the places — Ol' Plantation, Gay Paree — when I saw a little shop called "Ve Haf Vays" and I told Ahmed to stop. I'd been wanting to get some souvenirs for the sisters at home, and this was a leather-goods store with beautiful belts and boots in the window. Not much of a selection though — everything was black, besides there were too many buckles and straps and things. They even had whips, though why anyone would want to whip a sweet gentle creature like a thorse I don't know. Anyway, there I was in front of the store when I saw the B.G. emblem on the house on the comer. I couldn't believe my eyes. But I was so happy. I went right up to the door and knocked.

A little old sister opened the door, but she seemed surprised to see me — she said "They usually send younger ones." Then she shook her head and said "No accounting for taste" and led me into the parlor. And all over the walls of the parlor were these pictures of women. Well, I won't try to describe them, but let me tell you I recognized some. There was that nice young (and smart) Helen Mohiam, and it's beyond me why she would let them take a picture of her sun-bathing.

The head of the house (I will not call her Mother) came in, her face all painted and her eyelashes all long and black with some stuff on them. She says, "You're not one of my girls. Who are you?"

"No," I said, "I'm Sister Matilda, the head laundress from Wallach come to see your house. Who are you?”

And she said, "I'm the Procuratrix. Are you a lay sister?"

"Certainly not. I am a regularly professed sister and have been for forty years. And what, I'd like to know, is a lay sister?"

She said, "Oh, think of it as a little joke." And then she began the most garbled and incredible story I've ever heard. It seems there are three kinds of sisters — the regular ones that live in the chapter houses, and some that go into the world and marry and have families — well, I knew that — but then there are others, the lay sisters (some joke!), whose job is to infiltrate the Great Houses and let the sisterhood know what's going on.

"Aren't the women sent to the courts regular sisters?" I asked.

"Well, they are," she said, "in a manner of speaking. You know."

"No, I don't," I said.

"Well, put it this way," she said, "they serve as concubines and sometimes even wives. They come here to Gamont to learn the best ways of pleasing themselves and their royal lovers."

Maxine (that was her name) wanted to give me some brandy, but I'd never drink anything in that place. I went back to the carriage and straight to the hotel. Bertha was gone again, but I thought, she's on her own this time. I packed my things. And Bertha came back with Pol, and I said "I'm leaving." But she said, "We have so many beads left." "Do as you please," I said, "but tomorrow I'm going."

Tryitday Phyllisdii Matilda's Day, neSheustim 29:

When I checked out this morning, I just sat in the lobby. I didn't know where to go — I don't care about Eden or The Ol' Plantation or Harem World, but I don't want to go back to Wallach either. I'm not young, I know, but I'm not stupid, and I'm not sneaky, either. There are things I can do, and do well, and that ought to be enough for anybody. I won't use other people because I wouldn't want them to use me, and I won’t be a part of anything that does. I know what my duty is — I need to tell the Emperor just what's going on here — then it's his problem and I wash my hands of the matter. Pol and Ahmed are here — they flipped a coin (they said it's a local custom) and Ahmed is my guide today. So this diary goes in an envelope for the Imperial Mail. I'll have Ahmed take it there, then I'm going to take my bags and go ask for a job at one of the other places I saw. With my experience I know there’ll be something for me to do at "Suds and Bubbles."

*

[autumnbrambleagain]

so i saw the first of the new dune movies, and, i gotta say,

removing the internal monologuing kind of takes a LOT out from what the books had. this is a story about people whose interiority doesn't match the exterior and not representing that you miss on a lot of the actual plot. you miss on the weird way jessica sees people which gives you a ton of information on what a bene gesserit actually is and you get very little actually speaking about how paul is a mentat and how that affects his internal ontology and removing that as a plotline really loses a lot of impact when he realizes he's been steered towards being the kiwsatz haderach

also you can really, REALLY tell when a line is from the book or made for the movie

because the lines from the movie sound like they were written and spoken by everyday people in 2020 and the lines from the book all have this specific tone and context and their diction are so completely different it's like suddenly paul is a modern day teenager and then he snaps back to being a duke's son in the year 10,000 and nothing was done to blend the two modes so people just switch between speaking in this very specific kind of feudal culture and then into modern vernacular which suggests the actual context of the politics and culture that's being portrayed is something the film adaptors didn't understand

i get the removal of so many characters no one can fit dune into one movie and even with everyone gone they only got halfway through the first book

it's WEIRD how all dune adaptations are so visually stunning when the book puts so little effort into describing clothing and architecture, like, you'd think dune the book would be a feast for the mind's eye but from the way the book is written everyone is basically just wearing 1800s military uniforms at the MOST.

acting was really good, great music, great visuals, as a stand alone movie pretty good. as a gestalt nothing spectacular but some spectacular in the bits and pieces that make it up

[seldomkeep]

Dune is Jungian

Okay, I'm sure this has been done to death already. But there's no harm in travelling across old ground, and this stuff should be interesting to RWBY fans.

Dune's main character is Paul Atreides. Ultimately, the first book is about his journey through the unconscious. Here are some of the steps:

Paul's father (Duke Leto) organizes "Mentat" training for him. Mentats were are an attempt to recreate the abilities of computers and "thinking machines": they are skilled in memorizing information, organizing data, finding evidence for certain ideas, etc. This training can be understood as mastery of the conscious mind.

Paul's mother (Lady Jessica) gave him "Bene-Gesserit" training. The Bene Gesserit are a secretive Jesuit matriarchal order that trains its members to have superhuman powers. To give an example, "The Voice" is this method by which Bene Gesserit could control others, by registering what exact sounds can control the person in question, and then emitting the right sounds with a command. This is a form of mastery of the unconscious.

The unconscious mind is huge, compared to the conscious mind. So the drug melange (which also seems to serve as an allegory for oil) is also used to enhance Bene-Gesserit powers. Paul's use of melange enhances his powers greatly, to the point he becomes prescient. He can fully tap into and utilize his unconscious, and thus utilize the understanding of all his ancestors.

Melange itself is by-product of the life cycle of sandworms: sandworms are themselves allegories for the cycle of life, the tail impregnating the head. The "water of life" is another indirect product of the sandworm, water being a symbol of the unconscious. Paul's journey is one of individuation, at the end of which he becomes fully prescient (omniscient???) due to the complete mastery of his mind. Paul lives up the prophecy put in place by the Bene-Gesserit, and becomes a messianic christ-like figure. The cost of this archetype (and not just Paul's individuation) was the billions of lives snuffed out across the galaxy, for his holy war.

Definitely some shades of Paul in Ruby.

@cindemption