/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.441813]

Anything I should know before I start this?

[Anonymous No.441821]

Not really
Go start it

[Anonymous No.441822]

It's a bit dry.

[Anonymous No.441824]

Eh, I think it's one you can jump right into.

That said, there's a whoooole bunch of background stuff mentioned but never really in explained in the first book. If you are totally lost, google terms.(i.e Bulterian Jihad)

[Anonymous No.441826]

>>441822

>dry

[Anonymous No.441829]

>>441822
badumpshh

[Anonymous No.441830]

You must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
You will face my fear.
You will permit it to pass over you and through you.
And when it has gone past you will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only you will remain.

[Anonymous No.441832]

>>441813
>FUCK YOU NIGGA, I CAN SEE THROUGH TIME! PUSSY N' SPICE, PUSSY N' SPICE! BRDRDRDRDRAP BRDRDRDRDAP BRDRDRDRDAP!

-From The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib
by the Princess Irulan

[Anonymous No.441836]

You must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
You will face your fear.
You will permit it to pass over you and through you.
And when it has gone past you will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only you will remain.

[onionring !IBdmWfSrrg No.441939]

don't take the metaphysics of it seriously. it's mostly for style and maybe lolplot.

[Friday !!igiZdSM8WVW No.441946]

[onionring !IBdmWfSrrg No.441951]

there is a severe lacking of cox's irulan on the interwebs. a pity.

[Anonymous No.441964]

>>441939

Except the ecology. Everything else is complete bullshit, but the ecology is pretty hard science.

[Anonymous No.441966]

>>441812
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[Anonymous No.441978]

>>441812
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[Anonymous No.441986]

>>441964
No, it's not
The ecology of the worms is impossible
The planet has no other fauna and flora we now about except for the Muad'dib, no exposed water for any significant period and no predator/prey interaction. The fremen must survive by eating sand and dried rat

[Anonymous No.441997]

>>441939
I think you should take the metaphysics very seriously. Beats the fuck out of christifag

[Anonymous No.442000]

>>441951

Dig mah mad braid skillz.

[Anonymous No.442007]

>>441997
that's not saying much. im just saying that the metaphysics in dune serves multiple purposes, so don't be turned off when it doesn't make sense scientifically.

[Cookie Monster !!pRHeBKGvjY5 No.442010]

>>441822

Beat me to it.

Um, yeah, the book should provide sufficent knowledge for you to get through the book. Get right on to it.

[Anonymous No.442036]

>>441986

Brian never did look into that little bit of Daddy's universe, did he?

He raped it six ways to Sunday, but the REALLY COOL stuff that Daddy hinted at in God Emperor, Heretics and Chapterhouse weren't even touched on.

The Golden Path was ULTRASPICE! And fighting giant robots.

[Anonymous No.442044]

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen Cat knows where its at.

[Anonymous No.442055]

>>442036

The Golden Path was always about the Thinking Machines. You criticize Brian's books only because they weren't written by Frank.

[Anonymous No.442067]

>>442055

I criticize Brian Herbert's books because THEY SUCK.

And if you like them, you suck.

[Anonymous No.442072]

>>441986

It has plenty of flora/fauna. Birds, mice, insects,

>no other fauna and flora
>bats, mice, hawks, eagles, terrapins, hares, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, bushes, grasses vines all mentioned in the books

[Anonymous No.442079]

>>442067

They're good, as long as you don't try and hold up to the standards of the original. You're just asspained because you want more Frank, and you can't have it.

He's dead, brah. Deal.

[Anonymous No.442082]

book was shallow on metaphysics and worms mysticism

[Anonymous No.442090]

Brian's books are just different. Not as good as the original imo but I enjoyed them in their own way.

Comparing the two for me is like comparing Timmothy Zahn and Kevin J Anderson's presentations of the Star Wars extended universe. I liked both but wouldn't want to read them back to back.

[Anonymous No.442097]

i was thinking about reading this but knowing a lot about the fandom and the whole dune universe i thought i might be getting into a bit much
was i wrong?
if so ill definitely give it a read

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442099]

>>442055

The Golden Path was about more than that.

The Ixians would have, without the Lord Leto's Peace, have created autonomous Hunter-Seekers which were designed to "find organic life and reduce it to its inorganic matter."

I have my copy of God Emperor right here, and am reading it.

Leto's Golden Path was to make sure that no matter what happened, no one could ever again do what he and his father did. The Siona Gene, which shields the bearer from prescience, combined with the explosive population growth of the Scattering, provided that there were
a) too many humans for one person to ever control via prescience again
b) people who couldn't be seen via prescience, and therefore could not be locked into a prophet's future
and
c) Made damn sure that no one would ever want another God Emperor.

Among other things.

Also: Marty and Daniel were Face Dancers, they said so themselves. They were stand-ins for Frank and Beverly. There would be no 7th book, because Beverly was dead.

Not only is Brian Herbert fucking his father's corpse by making those shitty, shitty fan fictions of his and KJA's, but he's also pissing on his father's love of his mother.

[Anonymous No.442103]

>>442090
Does Brian actually write any of the prequels? I guess I'm jaded. I just assumed he agreed to put the Herbert name on the cover and got a slice of the pie in return and that was the end of his involvement.

[Anonymous No.442105]

this thing on?

[Anonymous No.442118]

>>442103

They worked on it together.

>>442099

That all may be true but it a set up for a new confrontation with the Thinking Machines from the very beginning. If you can't see that, well... I don't even know where to start.

[Anonymous No.442122]

the spice must flow

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442124]

>>442118

Wow. You on KJA's payroll? Or just a member of the "Kevin J. Anderson Special Forces"?

[Anonymous No.442131]

>>442072
before or after Liet Kynes started messing up the ecosystem? not to mention Leto II's terraforming

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442134]

>>442131

There was plenty of wildlife on Dune, all of it desert adapted. Vultures and Mice spring to mind, and there was the creosote bush. Frank Herbert was way, way big into ecology. Way. Big.

I have heard it argued that all of Dune is Suprise Ecology, much like The Principia Discordia is Suprise Zen.

[Anonymous No.442142]

>>442134
and his son's books are Surprise Buttsecks

[Anonymous No.442151]

you are about to read the greatest book of all time

also, don't be impatient- the world is dense, but deep as fuck in a good way

[Anonymous No.442162]

>>442151
Dune is the only book I have ever contemplated stealing from my high school's library
I regret not doing it

[onionring !IBdmWfSrrg No.442171]

>>442082
well, the mysticism is more stylized politics in the later books. it did turn me off, but it is not useless nonsense.
the early books have less mysticism and such, so read those if the metaphysics is a problem

[Anonymous No.442181]

>>442079

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are some of the absolute worst hacks in science fiction today, I'm sorry you apparently lack the portions of your brain necessary to come to the conclusion everyone else has already reached: they're terrible.

[Anonymous No.442184]

i read herberts series when i was in junior high

had no fucking clue but was interested enough to finish the whole thing

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442483]

In Re: The Butlerian Jihad:

From God Emperor of Dune (Ace Books, June 1987):

"[Hwi Noree] makes me recall the Butlerian Jihad in a poignant way. She is the antithesis of all that's mechanical and non-human. How odd it is, Moneo, that the Ixians, of all people, should produce this one person who so perfectly embodies those qualities which I hold most dear."

"I do not understand your reference to the Butlerian Jihad, Lord. Machines that think have no place in..."

"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our neccessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed." (p263)

Here we see Leto speaking to his Majordomo, Moneo (Latin: I remind, advise, warn; teach; admonish; foretell, presage), about the Butlerian Jihad. We note Moneo referencing "Machines that think."

Humans had created machines to "usurp our sense of beauty, our neccessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments." I use Pandora to listen to music. Pandora would be a violation of the prohibitions of the Butlerian Jihad. Thinking Machine/Machines that Think need not mean AI in the sense of a sentient intelligence. It can also mean any device that makes redundant the human thought processes.

During Siona's testing on the Sareer:

"What's the purpose of those Journals?"

"An Ixian machine records them. They are to be found on a faraway day. They will make people think."

"An Ixian machine? You defy the Jihad!"

"There's a lesson in that, too. What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking -- there's the real danger. Look at how long you walked across this desert without thinking about your face mask."

"You could have warned me!"

"And increased your dependency."(p346)

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442490]

The problem of which Leto speaks is one we can readily see around us: How many of us rely on Smart Phones and PDAs to manage our time? Use GPS navigation to get around? Use a voicemail system? All these things would be proscribed by the Butlerian Jihad. These things do the work of a human mind, and leave us diminished, because we no longer exercise the capacity, and will lose it. How many people under 30 do you think can read a map that you'd buy in a gas station? Use a card catalog? Work out a square root by hand?

Not many, I'd wager.

Back to the Jihad...

Moneo brought a tiny memocorder from his pocket, a dull black Ixian artifact whose existance crowded the proscriptions of the Bulterian Jihad. ... Moneo finished his note taking. ... Leto's gaze locked on Moneo's fingers scrabbling over the tiny recorder, seeing there a dissolution.(p267)

A PDA is close enough to being machinum non gratum that during the Jihad itself it would be likely to be smashed. This machine is not some AI overlord, but on subjugating humanity. It is merely a machine that does the work of a human mind -- it remembers things so that we do not.

I forget which book it is in, maybe Heretics or Chapterhouse, where one of the characters states that the Jihad was a battle between "People with machines and those without, who would be slaves to those with the machines."

There were no thinking machines. There were simply those with machines that gave them the ability to subjugate others. Things like Google would be right out. Datamining, and all the various ways technology has created to keep tabs on us -- these are things that the Butlerian Jihad would have also been directed against.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.442493]

Remember, too, that, according to the original six books, the Bene Gesserit, the Suk School, and the Mentat Schools were all outgrowths of the Butlerian Jihad -- without machines which could detect truth to a high degree of precision, Truthsayers were needed. Mentats were created to fill the vacuum left by the loss of data aggregation machines, they themselves becoming human Googles, among much else (as the Mentat is a generalist -- there's an epigraph in Chapterhouse about it.) Without advanced medical machines capable of treating and diagnosing a person (which we are very nearly at -- just look at robotic surgery), Suks were needed. One could say that Suks were created exactly opposite of those machines, as Suks are supposed to be renowned for their bedside manner -- their humanity and compassion towards those they treat.

Butlerian Jihad != OH GOD BIG SCARY TERMINATORS

[Anonymous No.442686]

>>442055
>>442055
Brian and kevin cannot right for shit. There additions to the Dune series were far and away the worst of the series. The. Fucking. Worst.

>>442090
>>442090
Kevin's starwars novels is a mere fanfic compared to Timothy Zahn

[Anonymous No.443142]

I read Dune in two days.

Underwhelming.

[Anonymous No.443320]

>>442493

I have enjoyed reading your analysis.

On the other side of the page... by book 6, Herbert was as successful as he would get in his lifetime. Authors with a large body of work who get that successful, particularly science fiction authors, are usually considered "un-editable", meaning that their manuscripts get a light proofreading before production and little else.

(At the same time, the editors at Ace had a prodigy in the form of "Neuromancer" on their hands. First novels require a lot of work.)

If there ever was a book that needed a stronger, FRIENDLIER editorial hand, it was "Chapterhouse Dune".

John Campbell (original magazine editor of "Dune" wouldn't have let Herbert get away with that book.

[Anonymous No.445581]

Just picked up a early edition of Dune today, circa 1972. One of my favorite all time novels.

How should I celebrate?

[Anonymous No.445633]

>>443142
I sucked your cock.

Tiny.

[Anonymous No.445659]

>>445581
if you're not lying, sell that thing

thousands of dollars on ebay
not even kidding

[Anonymous No.445694]

>>441824
>>442010
>>442055
>>442079
>>442090
>>442118
Holy fucking shit are you guys insane.
A-Grade denial right there.
>>442181
Has got it pretty much right.
The Prequels is shit in its purest literary form.

[Anonymous No.445903]

>>445659

Early edition, not first.

First editions came out in 68 I think.

[Anonymous No.446027]

>>445903


'65, Chilton Pub. (they did auto manuals), but it was serialized in Astounding before that

[Anonymous No.446038]

>>441813
Do not ever read the machine crusade. It's a depressing shitstorm of gore and dismay.

[Anonymous No.446057]

>>446038

that book is the embodiment of everything science fiction has come to represent

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.447484]

Let's discuss the Butlerian Jihad. Not the shitty ass fanfiction by BH and KJA. The actual event.

Go.

[Anonymous No.447493]

Dune was great, but the post-scattering period went through some really weird shit, like the Bene Gesserit giving a handjob to a little boy just to reawaken his past memories. I think Frank Herbert went a little nuts towards the end.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.447504]

>>447493

It happens to them all. Of course, one could argue that he was merely carrying the Bene Gesserit out to their logical conclusion -- they use people. They also don't have what you and I would call ethics.

[Anonymous No.448387]

i am still wondering what the Bene Gesserit were going to do with their Kwisatz Haderach once they'd bred him.

"yay. we've got one guy who can access Other Memory. Now what?"

"... dunno, lol."

[Anonymous No.448399]

>>448387

I think they were going to try to change humanity so it would survive and branch out into space instead of nuking the fuck out of all habitable worlds. They just weren't quite ready yet, other parts of their plan (probably a way to dominate him) weren't in place and then Paul came along and fucked their shit up. And then Leto II fucked it to death. Even though he basically did with his Golden Path what they were hoping to do, he did it better and they weren't in control, so they got all butthurt about him.

[Anonymous No.448404]

>>448399
"Paul.. you are the Kwisatz Haderach. It is the destiny... no, it is the DUTY of the Lisan Al-gaib to father the new humanity. By yourself. Get out there and start fucking."

[Anonymous No.448419]

>>448404

Holy shit is that a Minbari?

[Anonymous No.448423]

>>448419

she's a bene gesserit... watch the movie, it's awesome

[Anonymous No.448440]

>>448423
so awesome the director had his name taken off it...

[Anonymous No.448445]

To OP: Might want to take a look at similarities between fremen culture and contemporary Middle East. If I'd make a wild guess, I'd say they're Palestinians, or close enough. Anyways, there is a mountain of things that fit. The whole Irak war... it's almost surreal.

[Anonymous No.448448]

>>448445
so a American with magical powers is going to join them?

[Anonymous No.448450]

>>448445
Even the fucking eyes...

[Anonymous No.448455]

>>448450
>peterotoole.jpg
>middle east
wat

[Anonymous No.448465]

>>448455
>peterotoole.jpg
>The file is actually labelled "peter-otoole-LAWRENCE-OF-ARABIA
>Emphasis on ARABIA.

[Anonymous No.448470]

>>448445
they seem more Afghan to me

[Anonymous No.448478]

>>448450
This is better. But yeah, eyes too...

>>448448
You mean a Chinese, right? I'd say who the Americans look like in this, but don't want to start a flame..

[Anonymous No.448484]

>>448470
True, in the Dune present they do. I was thinking of their beginnings... religious persecuted people with little inclination for war. But they could just as easy be Jews or Iraqui or...

[Anonymous No.448495]

>>448478
well remember that one character that is really fat...

[Anonymous No.448557]

The middle east was a very common subject among SF at the time. And from what I recall Dune had a theme of Middle-Eastern oil and what not. There's a ton of other unrelated to it stuff too. (Fremen are pretty close Palestinian analogues though)

[Anonymous No.448563]

>>448557
Dune is frickin' rife with various Islamic traditions.
Strangely enough he is often incredibly accurate in using them as well.

[Anonymous No.448564]

>>441811
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[Anonymous No.448588]

>>448563
fremen = taliban

uh.. no, Peg.

[Anonymous No.448593]

>Palestinians
Possibly but i'd wager on the idea that Arrakis is actually a phonetic variation on "Iraq".

[Anonymous No.448598]

>watch movie before reading the book
>keep picturing a giant talking vagina

[Anonymous No.449046]

>>448563

And here lies one of the fundamental flaws of the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson Dune books.

They have completely de-Arabicized the Dune Universe.

Nowhere is this more evident than in their interpretation of the Butlerian Jihad as a war against giant robots.

On a smaller scale, the fictional Zensunni fatwa against thinking machines is not dissimilar to the classic Islamic fatwa against representational art and all that prohibition has engendered.

To me, this Arabicized world view colored all of Frank Herbert's unwritten back story. And it was highly desirable.

[Anonymous No.449332]

>>445659

They're listed for thousands of dollars on eBay, but no one seems to be buying them, as several of the first edition signed copies on there have been up for over a year.

[Anonymous No.449342]

>>449046
and

>50% of the book is erotica. the other 50% is hack paperback writing

[Anonymous No.449611]

>>448598
haha

[onionring !IBdmWfSrrg No.449632]

the arab thing is not really an arab reference, it includes jews as well. any wandering community under duress and has to rely on its absolute will and discipline would fit the freeman bloodline.

the problem with the machine books is that it turned the central theme from a social and political one into a generic lolwefightrobots sci fi cliche.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.449639]

>>449046

This. Frank Herbert put a great deal of thought into what he was writing. He did this thing, this thing that I wish KJA and BH knew the meaning of: research.

The original Dune is Sci-Fi at its best: the outlandish technology is not the focus of the story; the focus of the story is how the technology affects the human condition, and what this says about us.

Dune was heavily influenced by Herbert's passion (and I think I can use that word) for ecology, and by dependence upon Oil. The Combine Honnette Ober Advancer Mercantiles is a parallel to OPEC in this regard, and the Spice melange is Petroleum. Hell, in the later books (GEoD, Heretics, Chapterhouse) characters in the books actually make reference to the fact that the spice was used to enable a form of hydraulic despotism, just as petroleum products had been used earlier in human history.

It's also a cautionary tale about dependence and having all your eggs in one basket. Like addicts who only have one dealer they can go to, that dealer can arbitrarily increase prices. Depending so heavily on one resource (the Spice, or Oil) that can be supplied by only the few or the one is just as dangerous; prices can be sent arbitrarily high, and withdrawl can kill more than just people, but entire nations and ways of life.

[Anonymous No.449649]

>implying it had to do with Jews
lolno, Israel's claim aside their presence in the middle-east was very minor up until 1890+ when the Zionist movement started, Aaliyah's never really got them beyond 5% of the population. (only in 1919 when they started making overtures to the Brits regarding the surrounding land did the Arabs start to get violent)
Dune in general was so Islamified it's not even funny to make such claims.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.449661]

>>449632

No. Not the Jews. Specifically not the Jews. Have you read Chapterhouse: Dune?

[Anonymous No.449666]

>>449632

no, not really an arab reference at all, what with the hundreds of arab/islamic references and usage of words in actual arabic. Desert. 'Iraq'-iss. Jihad. Fedaykin (fedayeen). The women screaming out 'la, la, la' when Fremen villages were liquidated (la=no in arabic.)
And multitudes of others.

The arabic references were references to arabs.

[Anonymous No.449677]

http://baheyeldin.com/literature/arabic-and-islamic-themes-in-frank-herberts-dune.html
A shitton of references. Comments are pretty illuminating as well. (explaining some of the mystical concepts or at the least pointing towards what Islamic tradition they belong to)

[Anonymous No.449678]

A Dune thread that isn't just book bashing and actually contains discussion of Frank Herbert's concepts? Yes please!

[Anonymous No.449680]

So I started reading this a little while ago, and am only about forty or fifty pages in right now, but I'm pretty dissapointed so far. There's not much detail or description and is mostly dialogue-centric, with unnecessary vocabulary and a plot that never gets explained at all.

Does this get better at all? Because goddamn this is boring.

[onionring !IBdmWfSrrg No.449684]

>>449661
not in detail. i forgot all the details anyway.

obviously the specific references are arabic, just saying that i don't think it is exclusively a reference to arabs but rather the type of community arabs represent. it is at least a pan-semitic reference.

by jews i mean the old testament jews, a closed community lead by elders with authority in a religious structure.

i don't know anything about herbert's obsession with oil etc, so i am probably wrong with this interpretation.

[Anonymous No.449698]

>>449680
yeah, though I was sucked in by the first few pages. But if it hasnt, then it gets better.

[Anonymous No.449701]

>>449680
Depends. Some would say the first book is the best (though I certainly think it's slow as shit to start with), some would say it gets better the longer you go.
>>449684
Well obviously he was writing about every tribal people in the history of anywhere because the modern-day analogues that where relevant to his oil themes where just not good enough. Nor was the overt Islam references.

[Anonymous No.449704]

>>449684
>>i don't know anything

operative words

[Anonymous No.449716]

I grew up in the Middle East and came to Canada around 6 years ago.

The Arab references and basically the Fremen culture I found quite romantic.

It's a pity how perceptions have changed.

[Anonymous No.449720]

inb4EgyptianPyramidSlaverysimiliesdespitetherebeingnoanthropologicalevidenceofsuch.

[Anonymous No.449734]

>>449716
You'd be surprised I think.
Going by general perception Arabic Islamic Countries are generally seen as quite backwards but when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict far more countries (not counting the US) side with the latter. At least among the public.

[Anonymous No.449753]

Dune is great.
Completely centered around Islam, Oil and such themes.

[Anonymous No.449768]

>>449701
there is no point to be gained trying to pigeon hole a specific "culture", especially when cultures intermingle in real history as well.

the oil theme, or the water theme in dune, should be understood within the whole fremen culture. it is significant because it transformed their lives. however, just as oil is incidental to arabs, take any culture with the same themes as arabs and put them in the same situation would not dull the power of the oil theme.

now, i do not know much about arabs but plenty about jew history, as is typical of an american. yet the cultural references that you guys think are arab specific can be understood within the jewish context as well. that does not seem like a problem. keep in mind i am not claiming them as exclusive jew references

[Anonymous No.449784]

>>449716
I fucking agree dude
Dune makes me want to be a man of the sands

[Anonymous No.449787]

how to read

[Anonymous No.449804]

Is it true that the first book is the only good one?

[Anonymous No.449814]

>>449804
no

the fourth is the best, but they are all fairly decent.

[Anonymous No.449823]

>>449768
Ie. you're actually dumb enough to attempt to call them that, despite there being 0% reason for assuming he's talking about Jews.
OIL MAKING OTHERS INTERESTED IN THEIR AREA, OVERT REFERENCES TO ISLAM, FUCKING ARAB NAMES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE.
This is fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.449833]

After reading the book, I fucking HATED the movie.

I watched around ten minutes in and then I was like, 'Fuck this.'

Who here hated the movie as much?

[Anonymous No.449838]

>>449833
Lynch raped the shit out of it.

[Anonymous No.449840]

>>449833
I read the first Dune book and I thought the David Lynch movie was pretty cool. Sure they made some pretty radical changes, but the film itself was fun to watch.

[Anonymous No.449851]

>>449833
I tried watching that shit today... shit sucks.
I am downloading the syfy tv series, hope its better

[Anonymous No.449861]

>>449851
not really much better

[Anonymous No.449873]

>>449838

I wanted to feel the sheer age of it, the ancient years, the lineages, the old warring families, bitter suffering of millenia and war. But no. Not convincing in the least. Lynch shoulda stuck to his psychological dramas and whatnot.

[Anonymous No.449949]

>>449823
your reaction is disproportionate to the level of disagreement here. the larger political theme is not merely the political experience of the fremen, but the entire tribal culture working in the stream of history.

if you simply must raise a little flag over dune and claim it for a particular identity group, go do that. i on the other hand see no point in the exercise.

[Anonymous No.449957]

>>449949
>i on the other hand see no point in the exercise.
>>449632
>it includes jews as well

[onionring !Rrxa7zePwI No.450008]

>>449957
ok this is just a problem with your reading ability.

im not "claiming it for a particular identity group", eg saying it is an exclusive reference to a particular group. im doing the opposite, expanding the reference to a more general level, above this "arab" "jews" distinction.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450018]

>>449684

In Re: Jews
[spoilers]In Chapterhouse: Dune it is revealed that during the time of the Butlerian Jihad (from shortly before to shortly after), the Jews decided that because of the repeated pogroms against them throughout history, it was best to disappear. By the time of Chapterhouse: Dune there are entire planets where no one but Jews live, their coordinates kept secret through the use of Ixian machines for navigating foldspace instead of Guild Navigators.

The Bene Gesserit are the only people who even remember the Jews, and only a few people in the BG structure know they even exist in the present time. This seems, from what we know in Chapterhouse: Dune, to be limited to the Mother Superior, possibly her council, and, of course, any RM that needs to know for assignments she is given.

The Jews and the BG have a working relationship. The BG, thanks to Other Memory, know well what the Jews have been put through, and do their best to keep safe Jewish populations who live in secret on populated worlds. The example given in the book are the Jews who live on Gammu/Giedi Prime. The BG and the Jews also make demands on each other: From what we see with Lucilla, RMs who are given particularly dangerous assignments may be told about the existence of the Jews, and can fly to them for shelter and sanctuary if need be. At the same time, the Jews make demands on the Sisterhood. For example, the character of the Rabbi, a retired Suk, who lives on Gammu, has wind turbines on his farm which the BG paid for, although it's not mentioned what he did for them in return.[/spoiler]

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450024]

>>450018

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the BG probably provide either drastically reduced cost or free training to Jews, in return for them working for the BG. The BG, despite what else they may be, are fastidious in their treatment of those who have served them well in some fashion or other.

As an example of the training, one of the characters, Rebecca, who undergoes the spice agony (becoming probably the first wild Reverend Mother since the Dune times and the Fremen,) was married to a Truth Sayer who, IIRC, was trained by the BG. Of course, that could just be that they had the best Truth Sayers, and therefore most likely the best schools for Truth Sayers.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450027]

Augh, sorry, fucked this up the first time.

In Re: Jews
In Chapterhouse: Dune it is revealed that during the time of the Butlerian Jihad (from shortly before to shortly after), the Jews decided that because of the repeated pogroms against them throughout history, it was best to disappear. By the time of Chapterhouse: Dune there are entire planets where no one but Jews live, their coordinates kept secret through the use of Ixian machines for navigating foldspace instead of Guild Navigators.

The Bene Gesserit are the only people who even remember the Jews, and only a few people in the BG structure know they even exist in the present time. This seems, from what we know in Chapterhouse: Dune, to be limited to the Mother Superior, possibly her council, and, of course, any RM that needs to know for assignments she is given.

The Jews and the BG have a working relationship. The BG, thanks to Other Memory, know well what the Jews have been put through, and do their best to keep safe Jewish populations who live in secret on populated worlds. The example given in the book are the Jews who live on Gammu/Giedi Prime. The BG and the Jews also make demands on each other: From what we see with Lucilla, RMs who are given particularly dangerous assignments may be told about the existence of the Jews, and can fly to them for shelter and sanctuary if need be. At the same time, the Jews make demands on the Sisterhood. For example, the character of the Rabbi, a retired Suk, who lives on Gammu, has wind turbines on his farm which the BG paid for, although it's not mentioned what he did for them in return.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450032]

>>450027

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the BG probably provide either drastically reduced cost or free training to Jews, in return for them working for the BG. The BG, despite what else they may be, are fastidious in their treatment of those who have served them well in some fashion or other.

As an example of the training, one of the characters, Rebecca, who undergoes the spice agony (becoming probably the first wild Reverend Mother since the Dune times and the Fremen,) was married to a Truth Sayer who, IIRC, was trained by the BG. Of course, that could just be that they had the best Truth Sayers, and therefore most likely the best schools for Truth Sayers.

[Jimmy No.450047]

What is /lit/'s thoughts on the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan?

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450084]

>>450047

This is a Dune thread. If you leave now, you may keep your body's water.

[Anonymous No.450098]

>>450027
well yea i didn't know that. i was about to say though the bene gesserit contribution to the free people post golden path was pretty jewish. their messianism being a perversion of their own hopes, for one. enthralled by will and self discipline, yet being controlled and duped by their blind faith in the KH.

[Trace !!64bewXTdHOo No.450112]

>>450047
Some of the best fantasy ever written

[Anonymous No.450133]

>>450112
I'm a huge fan of the WoT and I have to emphatically disagree with you on that count, sir.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450156]

>>450098

There is no 'post Golden Path.' The Golden Path is humanity's continued existence, never ending, somewhere always human life going on.

As to the Kwisatz Haderach, while the BG claim that Muad'dib was the KH, he himself claimed he was not. I do not believe the BG were trying to create prescience. They themselves stated that they were trying to make a male Reverend Mother, who would have access to both male and female other memory. I am entirely speculating, but I would wager an explanation that could be given for the ability of RMs to only see the female OM is because they have no Y chromosome. A male with the abilities of an RM would have access to both genetic lineages, since it's genetic memory.

I guess they figured that using such a male who could see history from angles they couldn't, and who would share their motivations, they could make more accurate predictions for how to manipulate humanity towards their dream.

And then Leto II came along and did it for them.

[Anonymous No.450427]

>>450156
by post golden path, i mean the humanity that the golden path produced. so, the human ideals that herbert wants to say are of eternal value. there is no ending implied there.

the bg was clearly playing with fire. there is an inherent tension between celebrating self discipline and the power of the will, and trying to control people and read the future, obliterating choice.

[Anonymous No.450473]

>>450156

>I do not believe the BG were trying to create prescience. They themselves stated that they were trying to make a male Reverend Mother, who would have access to both male and female other memory. I am entirely speculating, but I would wager an explanation that could be given for the ability of RMs to only see the female OM is because they have no Y chromosome. A male with the abilities of an RM would have access to both genetic lineages, since it's genetic memory.

It's a cool plot device, but by God Emperor it descends into Lysenkoism of the basest sort.

It's a facet of the Dune series that I try to ignore whenever possible. Prescience is less troublesome.

[Anonymous No.450501]

>>449804

You could read only Dune and be content with Herbert's work.

The others can be fun, but at times they ARE a bit of a stretch.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.450521]

>>450501

Attitude of the Knife, eh?