DUNE: For Want of Little Makers

[Jace, Extat]

"The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger."

But by all means, indulge away at my dispensation.  And so shall the fruits of your hearts become mine, better suited to the needs of humankind than the princeps of those whose needing orbits the lessons of the long consigned,  their darknening irredeemed within world's bounding. And yours yet borne by the shadow of a soul unkempt to divining light.

[Jace, Extat]

Umm, y'all know I was just joshin' with the OP right? I suddenly feel like Jeb! Bush. 

Please post.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

You don't want the hearts fruits? That's a relief.

I'm trying to think of a pithy Dune quote but brain no workie.

[SpaceChampion]

Herbert called Paul an anti-hero, but I think he's in error, from my perspective 50 years later when these concepts are more delineated.  The proper term for him is anti-villain.  An anti-hero is a reluctant hero.  Paul knew his actions would result in jihad, and wanted to teach humanity how fucked up starting a genocidal war-mongering religion is.  So Paul became a reluctant villain, and saw his goal fulfilled by his son thousands of years later.

This is the only anti-villain story I'm familiar with.  Are there others?

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

Herbert called Paul an anti-hero, but I think he's in error, from my perspective 50 years later when these concepts are more delineated.  The proper term for him is anti-villain.  An anti-hero is a reluctant hero.  Paul knew his actions would result in jihad, and wanted to teach humanity how fucked up starting a genocidal war-mongering religion is.  So Paul became a reluctant villain, and saw his goal fulfilled by his son thousands of years later.

This is the only anti-villain story I'm familiar with.  Are there others?

Fifty years of lesser interpretations and needless qualifying to dilute the power of the term. I think anti-hero is precisely accurate. Paul operates exactly on a heroic trajectory but everything he precipitates, and his motivations for doing so, is the opposite of a peaceful ending . Accept that Han Solo is not an anti-hero and the term once again has gravity.

The Worm is an anti-villain, if anyone. Imo. A monster presented as savior pretty much throughout. Buttressed by the way he wants to rewrite history through the stolen journals. He wants to make himself the hero through sustained villainy. Pretty fun! 

[Werthead]

17 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Herbert called Paul an anti-hero, but I think he's in error, from my perspective 50 years later when these concepts are more delineated.  The proper term for him is anti-villain.  An anti-hero is a reluctant hero.  Paul knew his actions would result in jihad, and wanted to teach humanity how fucked up starting a genocidal war-mongering religion is.  So Paul became a reluctant villain, and saw his goal fulfilled by his son thousands of years later.

This is the only anti-villain story I'm familiar with.  Are there others?

Paul didn't want to teach humanity anything like that at all. He believed that the Golden Path was the sole route to the long-term survival of the human race. He just couldn't quite to commit to it, and after the initial 61 billion deaths in the jihad he rebelled against his destiny and refused to follow through. It fell to Leto II to do what he could not. This also made Leto II's job easier, since the initial bloodletting he had to deal with was nothing like Paul's, so although far more humans died over his multimillennial lifespan, he doesn't seem to have ever encountered a single conflict or campaign as bloody as Paul had to deal with.

The question of whether extending the existence of the human race by a few millennia or tens of millennia was worth the bloodletting is the question that Herbert leaves up to the reader to answer.

[Vaughn]

On 10/26/2020 at 4:24 PM, Jace, Basilissa said:

The Worm is an anti-villain, if anyone. Imo. A monster presented as savior pretty much throughout. Buttressed by the way he wants to rewrite history through the stolen journals. He wants to make himself the hero through sustained villainy. Pretty fun! 

Also Jordan doesn't have as many rings without him on the team.

[Rhom]

57 minutes ago, Vaughn said:

Also Jordan doesn't have as many rings without him on the team.

That took me a minute to get the joke.  

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Rhom said:

That took me a minute to get the joke.  

Me too, but then I burst out laughing like a psycho while taking out the garbage twenty minutes ago.

[red snow]

I think the one year delay is probably wise in the given climate. I suspect it still hurts the chances of the second half of the film ever being made but maybe the prequel show will still occur air prior to the movie release and be so good it drives people into the cinema. I just think the show is going to have to be excellent now for there to be much hope of this being a success. Villeneuve directing the pilot should certainly help though.

[Jace, Extat]

8 hours ago, red snow said:

I think the one year delay is probably wise in the given climate. I suspect it still hurts the chances of the second half of the film ever being made but maybe the prequel show will still occur air prior to the movie release and be so good it drives people into the cinema. I just think the show is going to have to be excellent now for there to be much hope of this being a success. Villeneuve directing the pilot should certainly help though.

I'm very wary of this Bene Gesserit spinoff business. It smacks of Brian Herbert's proclivities, but perhaps they're doing a post-tyrant thing? Young ghola Idaho could be fun. Meanwhile Sheeana on Rakis is a much better product than that endless "you were born a girl" show Amazon is so desperate to make me watch. I get the impression they're going for a cheap Birds of Prey kinda thing, though, and it'll come off feeling like Robert Jordan rather than Frank Herbert. Which... yikes!

I mean I'll give it a try of course, but I judge swiftly and without affection.

[Vaughn]

9 hours ago, red snow said:

I think the one year delay is probably wise in the given climate. I suspect it still hurts the chances of the second half of the film ever being made but maybe the prequel show will still occur air prior to the movie release and be so good it drives people into the cinema. I just think the show is going to have to be excellent now for there to be much hope of this being a success. Villeneuve directing the pilot should certainly help though.

It kind of depends on where the first movie ends. There is a huge time game in the novel anyway. With this kind of huge movie, I would think that the primary cast have contracts that obligate them to come back for a second one and all the (limited) PR that was started seemed very positive in terms of the cast view of the project/director, etc... So in the end it comes down to box office - if this makes a ton of money, we'll get the second one.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 hours ago, red snow said:

I think the one year delay is probably wise in the given climate. I suspect it still hurts the chances of the second half of the film ever being made but maybe the prequel show will still occur air prior to the movie release and be so good it drives people into the cinema. I just think the show is going to have to be excellent now for there to be much hope of this being a success. Villeneuve directing the pilot should certainly help though.

There is no “prequel” in the Dune canon.  None.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

There is no “prequel” in the Dune canon.  None.

"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere." from Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries by the Princess Irulan

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere." from Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries by the Princess Irulan

If they weren’t going to use the Kevin J Anderson/Brian Herbert excrement as source material I might agree.  Their crap is the worst kind of fan fiction.  It uses the universe while missing by miles the tone and spirit of the original story.  

[Jace, Extat]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If they weren’t going to use the Kevin J Anderson/Brian Herbert excrement as source material I might agree.  Their crap is the worst kind of fan fiction.  It uses the universe while missing by miles the tone and spirit of the original story.  

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing. (I was trying to fit the quote into a repudiation of useless prequels. Star Wars prequels=creative choice, Rogue One=abomination) I remember when I first looked into the Herbert/Anderson books. 

Sandworms of Dune

Hunters of Dune

The Butlarian Jihad 

House Atraides 

House Corrino 

House Harkonnen 

To name a few.

Ummmm... what happened to progressing the history of the universe? I recall wondering. I've never read any of them. Reliable sources have advised against it, and the titles really are revealing. It's all trying to lean on stuff you already know because the authors don't know what to do with the real narrative. Disgraceful. The God Emperor's golden path has been lost, I'm afraid.

[SpaceChampion]

Dune will come out on HBO Max simultaneously with its theatrical release.

 

[Vaughn]

I loved the first book, enjoyed the second book and read the next two a few times. I never gave Heretics or Chapterhouse a go and from the summaries I've read, they don't sound good. What do people *on here* think of them?

[Jace, Extat]

Much less meandering and pro-totalitarian than God Emperor of Dune, but Frank had some ideas on the radical feminists and their perversions of sex. 

The kids gotta come home sometime, though, and I enjoyed them.

[Vaughn]

Yeah, there seem to be a lot of militant feminists running amok from the wiki summaries. Ghola Idaho never really interested me that much either so that's another drawback. I think at a very basic level, I don't buy that after 3500 years anything (other than than the near immortal being in the center) would last. So the idea that the BG and Tlexitian (sp?) are still active is absurd. Like if we had Old Kingdom Egyptian kings or Zhou dynasty emperors as world players today.

It's a funny thing, fantasy/scifi - immortal worm-human hybrid, sure. Reincarnated clone, sure. Organzations made up of and run by humans lasting 3500, impossible! I guess I can suspend my disbelief in stuff of real fantasy but not my beliefs about what human nature is.