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DUNE: For Want of Little Makers


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Children of Dune is my favorite. And once you've gone that far you owe it to yourself to pop a few edibles and listen to the God Emperor Leto II's thoughts on being... Well, a God Emperor. It's trippy, yo.

The Golden Path must be followed. It is the only way 

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3 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

Children of Dune is my favorite. And once you've gone that far you owe it to yourself to pop a few edibles and listen to the God Emperor Leto II's thoughts on being... Well, a God Emperor. It's trippy, yo.

The Golden Path must be followed. It is the only way 

The Golden Path makes explicit the danger Herbert saw in the “Savior” scenario.

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20 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Going to see it this week. Finished the book yesterday so I'm fully prepared. I do wonder what you all think of the rest of the series. I have heard conflicting things about the other Dune books, so are they must-reads or did Herbert peak with his first one?

Things take a rather unexpected turn after book 3, but I, personally, very much like the themes and concepts addressed in the final two books.

The real problem is that the series ends with a cliffhanger. If you want to avoid that you can stop after book 4 which also contains an ending of sorts. With book 5 a new story begins.

If you stop after the first book you don't really understand what the character of Paul Atreides is about ... nor whether he is a hero or a monster or a pawn. The first book raises some of the issues that come later, but it is all very subtle and easily overlooked.

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

The sequels are very different but worthwhile. Dune, read straight, can come across as a typical chosen one/white saviour narrative, which Herbert did not intend. However, the full horror of the consequences of the original novel are not made clear until Dune Messiah (which he had partially written to be included in the original Dune as a Part IV, but had to leave it out due to space reasons) and Children of Dune. The original trilogy, which he had planned when he wrote Dune, is a complete thematic and literary experience.

Very much so. If you stop after book 1 then you really don't get what the story is about. And Children of Dune is really necessary to understand how everything is deconstructed again.

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

God-Emperor of Dune is basically a philosophical interrogation of the original trilogy. Like, literally, about 85% of the novel is two people in a room discussing the ethics of the situation, with a bit of action at the start and finish. It's easily the weirdest of the six, which some people hate and some people love (it's the Toll the Hounds/Feast for Crows of the series). Heretics and Chapterhouse are a much more conventional (by Herbert's standards, anyway) action-adventure duology, lacking an ending, because Herbert died before he could finish it or, despite his son's claims, outline it. But still interesting and you can kind of tell where the story is going at the end.

Book 4 really answers the question what some kind of immortal ruler of the universe who is no longer exactly human would actually do. Not that anybody ever asked that question, but it is great fun to read this, especially since it addresses questions on a very large scale - eugenics, the societal/cultural survival of a human civilization having spread through space, etc.

It is even more fun if you read The Dune Encyclopedia directly after book 4, since it was compiled some time after the events in that book and takes a similar approach to the historical figures and concepts it discusses.

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22 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

"There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors."

Unless I'm mistaken Leto is basically the anti-savior whereas Paul was completely caught up in the Bene Gesserit's religious machinations and Fremen fanaticism.

Leto was cruel and pretty much without mercy, but his plan was about preventing that somebody like him ever existed again - and that organizations like the Bene Gesserit would ever again try to control the future of humanity. Leto seemed to think that this kind of thing could lead to humanity becoming extinct.

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1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

Unless I'm mistaken Leto is basically the anti-savior whereas Paul was completely caught up in the Bene Gesserit's religious machinations and Fremen fanaticism.

Leto was cruel and pretty much without mercy, but his plan was about preventing that somebody like him ever existed again - and that organizations like the Bene Gesserit would ever again try to control the future of humanity. Leto seemed to think that this kind of thing could lead to humanity becoming extinct.

Yeah but the personal tragedy for Usul and Chani, for their children and their imperial family as a whole, is that even though Muad'Dib renounced the jihad and the religion of himself he could not stop his son from committing even greater atrocities in his name. To say nothing of the myriad personal tragedies caused by people in his life attempting to prove themselves worthy of their relationship with him. St. Alia and Chani destroy themselves in their rush to prove worth of his legacy, even as he's trying to run from it.

"A royal family is not like other families."

 

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12 hours ago, Werthead said:

The sequels are very different but worthwhile. Dune, read straight, can come across as a typical chosen one/white saviour narrative, which Herbert did not intend.

I only read the first novel of the series, but it needs to be a very stupid and narrow type of person (probably the same kind that think Martin Scorsese's films glamorize the Mafia, for example). Paul's role is very much a poisoned chalice, and is quite clear there will be terrible consequences for it, his victory being very much a hollow one.

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1 hour ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

I only read the first novel of the series, but it needs to be a very stupid and narrow type of person (probably the same kind that think Martin Scorsese's films glamorize the Mafia, for example). Paul's role is very much a poisoned chalice, and is quite clear there will be terrible consequences for it, his victory being very much a hollow one.

I think Herbert layered enough foreboding and foreshadowing in Dune so you get it's not a good thing, but over the decades I have seen tons of people with the take that Dune is basically 1960s Desert Avatar/Dances with Wolves and treated that as both a good and bad thing.

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16 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

Yeah but the personal tragedy for Usul and Chani, for their children and their imperial family as a whole, is that even though Muad'Dib renounced the jihad and the religion of himself he could not stop his son from committing even greater atrocities in his name. To say nothing of the myriad personal tragedies caused by people in his life attempting to prove themselves worthy of their relationship with him. St. Alia and Chani destroy themselves in their rush to prove worth of his legacy, even as he's trying to run from it.

"A royal family is not like other families."

Most of the stuff that happened was done in his name and, presumably, without him ever condemning it.

When we get to Dune Messiah the djihad is already over. The Fremen clerics and priests and inquisitors running the show now do things he clearly doesn't approve, but Paul didn't seem to offer any real resistance to the djihad, nor did he try to figure out a plan to destroy everything he created before he did - which was rather late.

And at that time he did indeed sacrifice/destroy his entire family. How he abandoned Alia is, perhaps, the ugliest thing (she is very stable in Dune Messiah, but the pressure of the regency wears her down), but allowing what happened to Chani is nearly as bad.

How much of a failure Paul actually is can be drawn, I think, from his confrontation with Leto in book 3 when he admits that he actually saw the Golden Path and shied back from it, forcing his son to take on this burden.

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Alia is easily the most tragic figure in the whole Dune saga. I felt for her so much in Children of Dune. 

Yes, she becomes cruel and megalomaniac but she never has had a choice since her birth, unlike Paul and later Leto ll. 

Anyway, I never got this criticism that books 4-6 are weaker. They are different, with a much stronger focus on philosophy and introspective. But that doesn’t make them objectively weaker, just different. The writing, the world building and the expression/formulation of philosophical ideas is IMO much stronger in the latter books. One can feel the wisdom of age in them. I strongly recommend reading Marc Aurels „Meditations“ before book 4. Understanding the true spirit of stoicism really helped me understand Leto ll and the later Bene Gesserit much better. 

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1 hour ago, Arakan said:

Alia is easily the most tragic figure in the whole Dune saga. I felt for her so much in Children of Dune. 

Yes, she becomes cruel and megalomaniac but she never has had a choice since her birth, unlike Paul and later Leto ll. 

Anyway, I never got this criticism that books 4-6 are weaker. They are different, with a much stronger focus on philosophy and introspective. But that doesn’t make them objectively weaker, just different. The writing, the world building and the expression/formulation of philosophical ideas is IMO much stronger in the latter books. One can feel the wisdom of age in them. I strongly recommend reading Marc Aurels „Meditations“ before book 4. Understanding the true spirit of stoicism really helped me understand Leto ll and the later Bene Gesserit much better. 

I’ve never read Marcus Auriellus’ “Meditations”.  That’s a good excuse to give it a whirl.

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25 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’ve never read Marcus Auriellus’ “Meditations”.  That’s a good excuse to give it a whirl.

Do it my friend :). It really opens completely new perspectives on Leto ll. With stoicism it’s not „hard“ to understand logically but you have to „feel“ it. True acceptance is not fatalism or nihilism or indifference or „I don’t give a shit“ attitude. You do care but you still accept the inevitable without losing your personal integrity or dignity. 

Apply this to Leto ll: he knew he became a cruel monster, who will be hated by everyone for millennia, he did know what his inevitable fate was but he still continued the chosen path because he accepted it. He didn’t became indifferent, he still cared for people, had emotions of love, but he accepted the Golden Path like a true stoic. 

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m actually reading Karl Popper’s book The Open Society and It’s Enemies.

He doesn’t like Plato.

Haha yeah, Plato‘s ideas are sometimes quite the tough sell nowadays as his views don’t really align with our liberal democratic feelings. What he basically proposes in his Politeia and the „Rule of the philosophers“ (translated into 21st century understanding) is „get the best and smartest non-psychopathic, non-sociopathic technocrats, with a clear utilitarian common sense, not too greedy, and let them rule with absolute power“. So current Bill Gates is a go, Bezos or Musk not so much. 
Even if such set up could work very efficiently and effectively, we still won’t like it ;)

What would Plato say about Leto ll? On the one hand Leto lost almost all personal morality in his actions (bad), on the other hand he could see the future and he knew such cruelty was the only way to move humanity through the dark times and towards a brighter future. 

The Sophists wouldn’t have a problem with Leto and Socrates/Platon hated the Sophists but still: he could see the future and it was the only way. 

Difficult, difficult…

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When I first read God Emperor I was still a teenager, maybe 15 or 16. And as all teenagers I had a very strong sense of right and wrong, almost black or white. And as a teenager I HATED Leto, I HATED his idea of a Golden Path or the idea alone that he could be right. I not only wanted him to fail but I wanted his Golden Path to be a big stupid, idiotic fraud…That book gave me no moral satisfaction at all, to say the least. 

Though after growing up a bit and experiencing that everything in the world is just shades of grey, I read the series again and yeah I suffered quite the cognitive dissonance. I still wanted Leto to be wrong but I could at last see his point and given that he could see the future, I could accept his position. I will never root for him (and still hope he is wrong) but at least I now understand where he was coming from. 

I think that’s the thing with books 4-6. To really appreciate what Frank Herbert had accomplished with them, you need to be of the right age, enough real life experience, enough (philosophical) knowledge or understanding. For a teenager it’s almost impossible to really appreciate those books. You might be a supersmart and knowledgeable teen but you still have the arrogance of youth and the lack of real life experience. And nothing beats that ;)

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I don’t think any of the “Precients” in Herbert’s works could truely “see the future”.  I think they were mentats with access to more data than any other mentats in history.  As such they could make very accurate predictions, or, they could use that data to control others so well they could force history down the path they wanted it to travel.

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11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don’t think any of the “Precients” in Herbert’s works could truely “see the future”.  I think they were mentats with access to more data than any other mentats in history.  As such they could make very accurate predictions, or, they could use that data to control others so well they could force history down the path they wanted it to travel.

But this would be a huge difference. Even if you could predict the future with 99% accuracy it’s still just a prediction, a model calculation, albeit so good that it makes almost no practical differences. Compare to Asimov‘s Psychohistory. 

To see the future though means „certainty“ and „inevitability“, i.e. if you do A, B will follow, always and forever. 

This is quite the difference, maybe small but huge at the same time, and would change how Paul and Leto must be evaluated. 

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@Ser Scot A Ellison

Scot, to drive my point home, what huge ethical and philosophical difference it makes if one predicts the future with let’s say 99% accuracy (which in practical terms basically means certainty) or if one sees the future with 100% certainty, I give you following thought experiment:

You see with 100% certainty (absolute certainty like 1=1) that all your loved ones die, and after that (and only after that) you will play the lottery and with 100 million USD. There is no other option, no way to save your loved ones. After reading Marc Aurel and becoming a stoic you might as well accept that fate and play the lottery, win 100 million USD and do some good with the money.

Now change 100% certainty with 99%. In practical matters the difference doesn’t matter but you will do hell and accept that fate and play the lottery. You will try and save your loved ones, no matter how small the chance, how irrelevant the chance, at least you will try.

Huuuuge difference. 

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Got to see it last night and posted my thoughts in the watched thread

Just now, Veltigar said:

Saw Dune last night. It was alright and I hope it makes a ton of money so Villeneuve gets to do ever more ambitious projects, but I wasn't very impressed by it. Definitely surprised by how much love it gets from critics. The best thing about the film by far are the visuals, while there are definitely problems with the story.

Firstly, there is a whole lot of telling and not a lot of showing going on. Secondly, certain problems I had with the original novel are further exacerbated by translating the story to the silver screen.

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e.g. The Fremen being portrayed as ace fighters able to eliminate Sardaukar (which in and of itself is a stretch that either of those forces could be superb given how shitty their life circumstances are) but then their best fighter is easily bested by the Lady Jessica. It's not very consistent with each of these people's prowess. 

I'm not sure whether I'd see a second film in theatre, even though I hope it gets greenlit. 

To further add to the above, I was also greatly disappointed by the Baron in the film; He's such a good villain in the earlier stages of the novel but in the film I felt nothing. I wish Orson Welles could be resurrected to take on the mantle, just as Jodorowsky had planned. There are several characters who definitely lost out in this adaptation (Kynes, Dr. Yueh).

I guess it was in some ways to faithful an adaptation to really be its own thing.

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