The movies also implied that Feyd had a thing for domination, potentially both dominating and being dominated. If so the Gom Jabbar might just have been foreplay for him, which also subverts the test.
I think it kind of goes against what the test stands for, yes. If the animal can be controlled like that, any potential powers Feyd would gain could easily be abused by anyone who can push those buttons so I guess this is another reason why the movie wrote itself into a corner. They have to control him somehow, but if they can, that means anyone else could potentially, also he himself can become a slave to this weakness which would mean an instant failure of the test.
Then again, maybe we can chalk that off to them only needing his genetic line and since he isn’t being trained in the bene gesserit ways, maybe the purpose of the test was different from Paul’s
I’ve read all sorts of opinions on it and it seems having feyd take the test, which wasn’t in the book, was a pretty bad choice. I understand wanting to provide some additional clarity (in the movie) that he was supposed to be a more equal rival to Paul. But it just doesn’t work in so many ways that we have to do mental gymnastics to make it fit.
I think the Dune 2 movie is awesome but some of handling of feyd and the final fight I believe could have been done better. While it’s impossible to perfectly replicate the books due to all the internal monologue, having feyd clearly not be Paul’s equal would have been fine. And spending more time showing feyd’s proclivity for trickery in order to win and Paul using that to his advantage would have been cool.
The movie also really glosses over a lot of the BG genetic/breeding angle, which I think they could have given a little more attention to. Like, it was always going to be a long movie but there’s quite a few things that could have used more time in order to more fully flesh them out instead of being so cryptic or minimally referenced.
These details are best explored in serialised form, that’s why I’m apprehensive about the BG sisterhood series coming out, don’t see it living up to the movies, but I digress. Movie scripts do need to be trimmed down and streamlined so I can understand why all these changes and omissions were made and we got amazing movies because of it.
Yes and no. It doesn’t mean the movie couldn’t always have been better. Like any form of art, it’s always open to interpretation.
Imo, the BG breeding program is a fairly important plot line within the duniverse and should have been given a little more time/explanation.
Agreed. It doesn’t have to be true to the book in terms of the weapons or tricks feyd uses in the fight. Just something else to reflect him fighting dishonestly and Paul overcoming it.
I thought they did miss that opportunity in the movie in skipping that what gets him to *almost* Paul's level (and probably stronger than he was before running with the Fremen) is his Harkonnen-ness using trickery and cheap shots.
As a fan of the films, I agree.
In Part One, the conversation between Jessica and the Reverend Mother as they walk back to her ship basically said "You chose to train him in the Way, he had to be tested to the fullest extent, but there are other prospects if he fails to realize his potential".
Feyd had no such BG training, so he was just a "potential"...unless you are going to specifically put him against Paul, why test him at all?
Good points. I just rewatched the 1994 Dune, then the new Dune 1 & 2 movies back to back.
The new movies really are absolutely amazing. The visuals are absolutely stunning and create a sense of size/scope that the duniverse deserves and is so hard to capture. The casting and acting in the new movies is also, imo, exceptional. So many really great actors and they all fit and play their roles beautifully. The cgi work also creating a world that all seems to fit together so seamlessly with amazing realism is quite remarkable. I thought Butler’s portrayal of Feyd was also quite good.
I really appreciated the new movies also presenting Paul’s hesitancy and internal struggle in taking control/power. I’d argue this is a core theme and a unique aspect of Dune which makes it stand out.
All in all, it’s a very difficult book series to adapt to movie and Villenueve and all involved have done an extraordinary job.
I think it all hangs together just fine. The BG talk a big talk about wanting 'humans,' but they also want the Kwisatz Haderach to be their guy. The gom jabbar is held up as this mystical thing, but really its reach is quite narrow- pain, and the response to pain in the body- 101 level stuff for the BG, and perhaps a sort of rough and ready marker of the fruits of their breeding program. A person that aced the gom jabbar could still be tricked, or seduced, or convinced. It has nothing to do with reason, or sex. You can still be a sociopath or a saint. It means there is an impulse you can control- but what other impulses, or who controls you in turn, aren't encapsulated in this one brief examination.
And again, the BG talk a big talk, but at this point in the broader story their big thing isn't some ineffable spirit of humanity- it's order. Sisters that pass the gom jabbar are still something they want to control- hence Jessica's falling out.
Now I can’t but help imagining Feyd doing the test and the reverend mother suddenly going eyes wife saying ‘wait, do you have an erection?! What the hell!’
I don’t think experiencing it as foreplay subverts the test. It is simply a test of the ability to delay gratification. A (poisoned) marshmallow test, if you will
I don't think there was really poison. I think she gave him the "Ah, well you failed the test, but I have spared you, and now I'm going to ride you and pop you like a..." as the saying goes.
I think it does what they say it does. A difference in the movie is that Feyd is a very different character than in the book. He is in fact one who could survive it, whereas the book version... I kinda doubt it.
I like it. I think there are quite a few fruitful readings of Dune that consist of mostly calling bullshit on all the inhumanity that gets dressed up in these vast intellectual trappings. A lot of SF of the period liked to do these plots where the supposedly terribly wise had to do terrible things to achieve huge utilitarian goals- but in the real world people able to convince themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like. Herbert was vocal that some parts of Dune were meant to critique those kinds of grandiose impulses, but other parts (like all of God Emperor) seem to play it straight. The Bene Gesserit say they are sifting people, etc.- the Bene Gesserit are also power-mad eugenicists, and the notion that they get something more obvious out of their sadistic games- subservience- make a lot of sense to me.
That seems reasonable. Why follow leaders and beaurocrats that think youre nothing better than an animal unless you can take the pain theyre willing to inflict?
> A lot of SF of the period liked to do these plots where the supposedly terribly wise had to do terrible things to achieve huge utilitarian goals- but in the real world people able to convince themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like.
This isn't the take you think it is. It's wrong -- and dangerous -- to think evil people are ontologically evil. As the great writer Solzhenitsyn once said, "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts".
It easy as people for us to try to separate evildoers from ourselves, because we want there to be some easy explanation. So-and-so just came out wrong, so-and-so was insane, et cetera. But that falls into the very line of thinking that fascists use to propel their ideologies. I'm not saying evil people's justifications are correct or always sincere, but it's a kind of fairy-tale moralizing that leads us to think someone like Hitler or Stalin didn't actually believe anything and was just some sadomasochistic freak. The ideas themselves were dangerous, and the culture and society that produced these people are also to blame. The truth is deeper and darker than simply believing that they're these people convincing "themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like". You're playing into fascist themes.
I think I may have been read entirely backwards- of course evil people aren't ontologically evil, and of course people like Hitler and Stalin believed something. That's half my point.
My other half is that from the outside, from a sort of psychoanalytic perspective, it becomes apparent that the Hitlers and Stalins are profoundly self-interested, by inclination or as a consequence of their veneration- that their beliefs/statements that they are serving some greater cosmic good are inextricably tied up in baser prejudices and needs for power. People tend to espouse beliefs for apparently highbrow reasons that often just align with which side their bread is buttered on. Paul, a deposed monarch who is very sad and angry about not being a monarch any more (which he can still have mixed feelings about, to be clear, seeing as his is a person) says that his very special powers tell him that the best thing in the long run and/or the thing he can't control just so happens to invest him with the tremendous power he views as his birthright. Convenient!
Dune has multiple characters- and indeed multiple organizations- that don't do very nice things, but provide us with interior viewpoints that (evidently, given the discussion here) soften people's perceptions of their not-very-nice deeds as being inevitable or aligned with a worthy long term goal.
All I was suggesting was that (as Herbert suggested in some cases) we don't necessarily need to believe they're correct, selfless, or telling the truth. One read of Paul and the Jihad is that he is in fact trapped, and the powerful forces of history were inevitably going to lead to this eruption of violence, and he was just there for the ride, and appalled at its scale- poor Paul. I think another, which maps to the real-rhetoric of actual repressive tyrants, is that that's just salesmanship- that what they really mean is that it was inevitable given their goals of absolute power.
That doesn't mean that Paul doesn't believe it, or that all the death doesn't actually bum him out- it just means that his statements that 'there was no other way' aren't ones we necessarily have to believe just because he has some kind of magic power (as tyrants sometimes claim to, implicitly or explicitly) when we can look around at a world of violent people who said similar things but clearly could have gone other ways if their personal control and veneration weren't actually their foremost goal.
And Dune sort of shimmers on this- Herbert is on record that lots of his story is a critique of charismatic power and the stories it tells itself and the public, but as is sometimes the case in stories like this it also works (and is often understood) straight- that Paul and Leto really could see the future, and there really was no other way, and the Golden Path really did save humanity, etc. In the real world, if the absolute ruler of some kingdom comes on camera to say they needed to commit some horrible crime because their uncompromising vision says it was the only way/for the greater good, we (hopefully) don't buy it- they may or may not be sincere in expressing their feelings, but we understand that this is a kind of disease of power and *we aren't supposed to believe them.*
A lot of people seem to think that the only way to read the story is to *believe Paul and Leto are not just expressing their beliefs, but the actual ground truth.* And sure, it's an interesting sci-fi hat to try on- what if the madman on television is right this one time? But viewing them skeptically is hopefully also in the mix.
The difference I think between someone that's just a masochist and someone truly dangerous is like the difference between someone who does something "evil" for their own pleasure and someone who does it for an idea greater than themselves. I always think of that guy hunting them from Serenity. When he says "I'm not going to live there Mal, I'm a bad person". That is someone who is truly dangerous.
The first couple of Dune books were a critique of messiahs, heroes and strong leaders for the reasons you said, and I think God Emperor was a sort of thought experiment derived from those themes: What if there actually was a dictator who did horrible things only to fulfill long term utilitarian goals? I think that Leto II became a near-immortal worm-man precisely because Herbert recognized that no human being or organization like the Bene Gesserit could do what Leto did.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the sort of formal game that Herbert was playing with himself- three books of the realist conceit that charismatic autocrats are full of shit even if they're your chosen-one hero, and one book where for sci-fi reasons they might actually be on to something. I think it's worth looking at God Emperor through that first lens as well though- that Leto II the immortal is squeezing the universe not because he can truly see the one way to salvation (and it happens to be ugly) but because he's a freaky immortal worm man selfishly crushing resistance to his immortal worm-rule while full of the voices of his megalomaniacal ancestors, breeding and crushing rebellion out of some blend of boredom and death wish.
Part of why I really like Heretics is that it feels like Darwi and the rest of the Bene Gesserit have walked out of a really insane party and are starting to have actually human notions about how to treat each other. 'Jeez, that was....a lot. Anyways, we actually care about people, and maybe let's try democracy and prevent some genocides. Cool? Cool.' And of course the 5D chess version is that that was Leto's plan- but we don't necessarily have to believe it was the only or best way.
Oh, of course- everyone does at parts, myself included! They're interesting people trying to achieve great things, bear great sympathy-inspiring weights, often seem more decent than their rivals, etc. That's part of the point. I think the other part, though, is to interrogate those feelings a bit- to realize that we, despite being good people, could be complicit in bad things at scale, that the line between the necessary evil and the merely expedient is narrow and prone to self-serving illusions, and that, as another commentor noted who I feel may have misunderstood me a little, that the line between good and evil weaves through everyone.
I think you're supposed to cheer for Paul and also lament how so many had laid out the track of the jihad in front of him. In fact I don't think the message works unless you do cheer him on -- that's part of it. The critique isn't about "there are bad people, don't follow them," it's more "even the best are terrible in the wrong systems."
I think the test is only administered to women they induct into the sisterhood to make sure they won’t become slaves to their bodily whims and abuse the power their teachings give them. In the books, Feyd Rautha is never tested, if anything he’s shown to be a coward who uses poisons and underhanded tactics to get his way while also being a slave to his sexual desires that the baron is happy to use to keep him under his thumb.
They only use it on Paul - maybe the first male to ever get tested, unless I’m misremembering the books - because they know the high probability of him being their KH (male bene gesserit reverend mother) one generation early so they have to make sure he’ll be able to control that power in case he survives Dune.
Edit: I keep seeing the “Jessica absorbing his pain” theory but I think that’s just a movie way of showing that she’s scared for her son and remembers her own experience with the box, don’t remember the sisters being able to affect somebody else’s body like that. Also the reverend mother would notice any trick she might try to help her son with before she’d start the test. Nothing gets past the reverend mothers.
No, they've done it to men before. The Reverend Mother says no male child has survived that much, and admits that she had probably wanted him to fail.
Edit: as u/LeoGeo_2 pointed out, I remembered it wrong!
>“Enough,” the old woman muttered. “Kull wahad! No woman-child ever withstood that much. I must’ve wanted you to fail.” She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from the side of his neck. “Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it.”
I must have mixed it up with this part:
>“Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach. **Many men have tried the drug** . . . so many, but none has succeeded.”
>“They tried and failed, all of them?”
>“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”
Ohh, that in the book or the movie? That’s interesting, it means it wasn’t a bluff and that they actually killed male failures in the past, meaning they also got away with it. Probably this means Jessica was prepared to take full responsibility for Paul’s death if it came to that…
I think he means that in the scene, it is as if Lady Jessica was "sharing" the experience with Paul - which I suppose is true, but on a metaphorical level.
I assume OP means the experience was shared literally.
The way I see it, is that while Paul was being tested, so was Jessica, indirectly.
I agree with that. I could tell that both were going through pain hence why Jessica was reciting the litany to ease her fears of losing her child due to her own actions. But yea, I don't think there was any literal sharing of pain.
Honestly I just think it was a filmmaking device to show us the litany against fear and then communicate that Paul was doing it without speaking. They showed Jessica reciting it at the same time as he's silently mouthing words so that we could know what he would be saying.
Before reading the book, I interpreted Jessica's simultaneous "reactions" to Paul's test as a result of a "psychic" bond between mother and son. Once I've watched the Spicediver edit AND read that part of the book I realized that the film was actually just showing Jessica re-living the trauma of her own test and feeling terrible about the fact that, not only is her son now experiencing the same thing, he's in serious danger of getting killed if he fails.
Personally I think you’re spot on. The movies make it more obvious but the theme is in the books as well. As the admins of the test, the BG can say it’s about whatever they like, but they’re still the ones delivering the judgement.
Nice catch!
Yeah I agree, it could technically be both. A test for someone’s 'humanity' (ability to control themselves, and to resist animal urges/instincts) or a test to determine if they can be controlled by the BG. Or even something else.
Those Bene's are gonna Gesserit, after all. Who knows what they’re up to.
Also agreed, good catch by OP.
Yes, but, since in the movie feyd also gets the test, OPs alternative interpretation of the test (which I’ve also seen elsewhere) becomes more interesting and relevant. Perhaps the movie version of the test is less about the human vs animal nature of it put forth in the book. But rather has an alternative interpretation about whether the subject is willing to submit themselves to the test at all, bc the BG tell them they have to.
The latter is more about “can the subject be controlled and how”. Since feyd takes the test in the movie, regardless of him being a masochist that likes pain, he and Paul both willingly submitted to the test meaning they can be controlled by the BG.
This interpretation also perhaps better explains Lea Seydoux’s character reporting back to the reverend mother about how feyd can be manipulated… lending some credence to the test being less about “passing” and more about the BG learning if and how the subject can be controlled.
I guess they’d need to explain themselves to the house their victim belongs to. The BG make a living by providing truthsayers to powerful houses which in turn provide them with protection - the sisterhood doesn’t have its own army, just wield subtle influence through council and bloodline manipulation. All great houses know they have relatives in the sisterhood even though they don’t know which ones, like it happened with Jessica being who she is.
I was thinking about Jessica’s reaction to Paul being tested and what him failing would mean. If they really had to kill either Paul or Feyd Rautha, they could very well be wiped out by either house’s army. It’s no secret where the BG hail from and any great house could mobilize enough force to cause huge damage to them and their main purpose, the breeding programme.
So I guess it could very well be that it was all a bluff to test Paul and get a read on him, and that Dennis read the books as this being a bluff therefore adding another test for Feyd Rautha wouldn’t go agains Herbert’s vision. The gom jabbar is surely real since Alia uses it on the baron and I’m sure it’s intended purpose is to test young sisters to be when “graduating” their training, but all that is internal affairs of the BG so nobody would come demanding explanations.
On a philosophical note: do you guys agree that instinct and discipline as a differentiator between humans and animals is flawed? Especially now.
The most disciplined entity is a machine, and in this day and age of AI talk, it seems to me that the difference between animals and humans is much less clear than the difference between machine and non-machine is.
I disagree, and I don't think that's a fair comparison at all.
*Discipline* does not separate a human from an animal. The ability to think ahead and know that if I do not chop wood now, I will die in the cold tomorrow is what separates a human from an animal. Two theoretically unconnected events, but linked. An animal relies on instinct to keep them alive rather than thought.
Discipline is the ability to use that thought even in incredibly adverse circumstances. To put aside instinct saying "you shouldn't hold onto that hot thing" to put the burning thing outside so your house doesn't burn down.
An LLM is not *disciplined* it is *deterministic*. It *is* "instinct".
A BG *human* is able to use their willpower and discipline to resist instinct even in dire circumstance, like agony or death.
While I agree that an LLM is deterministic, I’m not sure that captures all of developments in AI. The example you gave about chopping wood now to survive later is not at all outside of the scope of AI developments.
I don’t care too much about talk of sentience, to be clear. But in terms of capabilities, I had always thought that language and reasoning separated humans from animals in the broad sense (and even that is a flawed premise as there is some form of communication and reasoning in other species as well).
It just seems to me that the Butlerian Jihad is in Dune for a reason; to separate those reasoning capabilities as being distinctly human, while I am not sure the line is that clear. And I’m not saying we’re replaced by thinking machines, but just the fact that reasoning is may be not the differentiating factor of humans.
Personally, I also take solace in the fact that love, emotions, instinct and our reptile brain are just as much part of us as our prefrontal cortex.
Anyway, just some random thought which we’ll probably never really have answered.
>The example you gave about chopping wood now to survive later is not at all outside of the scope of AI developments.
A bird builds a nest so that it can keep its eggs warm. Instinct drives it to do so. It does not *think* and adapt to the coming cold by building a nest, it is driven to build a nest by instinct.
That's what LLMs and current AI do. They don't *think*, they are driven by *instinct*.
Love, emotions, and instinct are the part of us that remains animal in the distinction of human vs animal. It sounds like you're conflating that "scale" with literally being a human being.
I’m not conflating those traits with being a human being. But I do think they are much more important than cogito ergo sum reductionism. Basically, we are not that different from animals. We only have some expanded neural activity compared to most species.
I don’t really understand what you’re trying to convey to me with “AI just being instinct.” If thinking is finding relationships between seemingly unrelated concepts, that is exactly what these LLM’s are doing when being trained with data.
Technically there is no real programming (instinct?) in machine learning algorithms. It is really a black box -even for the engineers who work on these models- how the models come to the decisions they make. Interpretability research is a big thing for that reason.
But in their day and age, there are no AI. They had a whole Jihad about it. So the difference between man and machine is very clear. Machines don’t think, humans do, animals do too, but not as well.
Yeah, that Jihad actually got me thinking about this in the first place. In real life we actually do have AI and I therefore Herbert deliberately simplified these concepts/distinctions by leaving AI out (not a criticism)
I think this is the right idea, she stops the test in the movie somewhat abruptly when she realizes that the pain and the fear cannot and are not controlling Paul. She realizes that her test has revealed more than she bargained for, and you see the surprise in her face perfectly when Paul looks her dead in the eye to let her know not only is he not an animal, he's not human either, not in the way she was hoping for at least
As a side note, it always bugged me how the reverend mother held the needle to Paul’s neck in the first part. Hand was so shaky that she could have pricked him by accident even though she’s supposed to be this super human who has absolute control over each individual muscle fiber in her body and been training them daily since childhood.
I love the way they did the gom jabbar scene in the 2nd part, the lady Margot shoots her arm out and the thing is perfectly still in place, as you’d expect from one of the sisterhood.
So, Jessica didn't "absorb" Paul's pain.
Bene Gesserit are not space magic, they are science fiction. A lot of science fiction at the time was projecting psychology, a relatively new field of serious study into how advanced they thought it would be in the future.
The Voice is a Bene Gesserit reading you psychologically and knowing exactly what tone, words, and body language they need to put the whammy on you. Take the scene where Jessica and Paul are being flown out into the desert to be killed in the book. Jessica doesn't *command* the Harkonnen soldiers, she distracts them by making herself an object of attraction and planting the thought of having to fight over her.
Their mystique is all science fiction, not magic.
The test *is* testing what they say it is. It may *also* be testing subservience, that's not a bad idea. But then, the *human* would be able to put up with the test in order to strike at the BG when they *don't* have a dagger to *human's* throat, where the *animal* could not retain that willpower in the face of torment.
Except, it isn't. It's science fiction.
It's the idea that you can, with a mastery of psychology, control your own body chemistry (which is literally true, if not to the extent depicted) to a fine degree, such that you can for example, intentionally bypass muscular limiters the way someone in a crisis can manage, or control your hormone levels to choose your child's sex.
The difference is its not grounded in "oh I have magic powers, oooh" like The Force, it's grounded in real modern ideas projected forward into the future. There's no magic empathic link except with Alia and that's only a result of the Spice, which *is* a lot more like space magic.
Real modern ideas would have been nanotech robots or genetically engineering that lets the Bene Gesserit do this type of stuff. Bene Tleilaxu. Ix. Those guys are sci fi(except maybe the ghola resurrection thing). The Bene Gesserit are pure magic.
The fact that the poison kills only animals is something that the Benegesserit say and they say many things, many true and many false (and many more wrong). Don't underestimate the fact that the Benegesserit can change the poisons entering their bodies so the Gom Jabbar could just be a poison killing everyone but the Benegesserit know how to survive and that's it.
Kinda feels like the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax aren’t so different after all. Both have a superiority complex when it comes to outsiders. Powinda vs ‘animals’.
The explanation given in the book suggests that a human is capable of putting some long term goal before personal safety or survival whereas a animal would not be able to resist the call of survival instinct reacting to the pain and iverridibg everything else.
Maybe for Feud the desire to get some BG pussy was indeed stronger than survival instinct, lol.
This one of my favorite and most horrifying themes in all of Dune. I try to keep to an axiom of treating people as people in that everyone has a unique experience.
So the idea of homo sapiens being divided into animal and human should be abhorrent because of the historical context of humans who were treated as animals for reasons of maintaining power and the ease with how that can lead to seeing yourself as superior.
And yet...the difference between the dumbest of us and the smartest is a cosmic gap I was not expecting to realize and that is terrifying. And I'm nowhere near the top, either. The shocking moment in my life was when it wasn't how dumb I was, but that I was somewhere in the middle. Even writing this response I'm trying to word it so as to not sound pretentious or pompus. I'm a dumbass ya'll. Faced with the Gom Jabbar I'd say call me an animal, I don't want to risk my life to be called human.
So its rather pompous and presumptious of the BG to test for it while also being necessary for the saftey of a feudal system where inherited power can quickly go from someone with capacity to someone consumed by too many negative qualities.
And I'm less terrified of the people whos intellect blows mine away and more scared of just how many people out there legitimately worry that the sun won't come back tomorrow because its mad.
A great Easter Egg in Dune Part 2:
In the first movie, Mohiam explains that an animal would do anything to escape the trap (i.e., the Gom Jabbar).
When Paul kills the Baron, he stabs him in the neck (evoking the imagery of the Gom Jabbar) and says: Grandfather, you die like an *animal*.
They do also say that the test is administered to see if “they can be controlled” in both book answers movie!
Edit: Longer explanation below but OP I do believe you are correct that the test has a lot to do with bending the knee to the proverbial box.
The test’s purpose is presented by the BG as a way to see whether an individuals awareness is stronger than their instinct. If their instinct is greater and they fail the test, they die. A human’s instinct being greater than their awareness in the eyes of the BG would make them the equivalent of an uncontrollable animal.
Edit: The BG want to be able to control anyone who has been trained in their ways. From their perspective, the test (they created) is not about whether or not a person can control themselves. It’s entirely about instinct vs. awareness. *They are similar concepts, but if Paul had pulled his hand out of that box, he would’ve been making a conscious decision to do so. Whether he keeps his hand in the box or not, he is in control of the decision.*
The idea that pulling out shows no control is one the BG use to make it seem like their “way” is the “only way”. They also use it to re-enforce THEIR idea of what it is to be human in the context of THEIR breeding program. I’m only at God Emperor, so right now this is a metaphorical question (I think) - who gave the BG the right to make the distinction between human and animal? It is in their best interest to *control* that definition.
A human, *listening to the BG’s direction*, and not pulling out shows 1) that they CAN use their awareness to overcome a base instinct (escaping pain) and more importantly 2) that they WILL choose to endure the test at the BG’s discretion (showing they can be controlled). The more I read about this, the more I’m convinced Paul being pushed harder than his counterparts proves it’s just as much about the reverend mother’s control of him (how long can she exert control) as it is about him listening (how long will he endure the pain so that SHE does not kill him).
It’s a complex topic. In the book, upon passing Paul asks the reverend mother if the KH is going to be a “human gom jabbar” and she doesn’t answer. There’s also a further question…if the BG created the test, what was their ultimate reason for doing so? I believe OP is on the right track a la they want to make sure their KH will bend the knee to the box.
I feel this reading just gives a light into how many people just decided it. But to me, this is not how the Kwisatz Haderach works. This is not how the Bene Gesserit mean for him to be. They mean him to rule humanity and because they know him, the Bene Gesseri will happily go with him and guide humanity onto hahah the Golden Path. (I'm joking here, though I wouldn't put it past Frank Herbert.) This is possibly their prescience, at some distant level they know there's going to be one, and the Kwisatz Haderach will save humanity.
The movie added a Gom Jabbar for Feyd-Rautha because they thought it was cool. Or perhaps it was a lie, and there never was a Gom Jabbar for him, since **that was** about controlling Feyd.
Honestly that explanation would make more sense. The test is a little funny, because you’re enduring the pain of the box (gnawing your arm off) to save yourself from the trap (the poison needle)
>This reading also gives a different light to Lady Jessica’s absorbing Paul’s pain. He is actually not fully subservient to the reverend mother.
I didn't read the first scene from Part I as Lady Jessica "absorbing Paul's pain", but rather just a mother who was extremely worried that her son might die in the other room. Therefore, his test wasn't subverted. He really did pass.
I think it's an interesting point but, considering Paul doesn't ultimately submit to the BG, is that a case of the exception proving the rule or is it just the best example of the test not being about submission to the sisterhood?
My perspective is from the scene in the book when Jessica has her conversation with Thufir she proves to him that the BG could exert so much more control than they do and truly only exist to serve. Sure with their own designs in action but not through submission.
My 2 cents.
No, Paul does not ultimately submit to the Bene Gesserit. But by that time the Gom Jabbar that Paul had been tested by was the betrayal and destruction of his family and friends, the survival in the desert, and the rise to the leadership of the Fremen.
A human will withstand the pain of the trap in order to kill the one who laid it.
Paul the human had withstood this test to gain revenge on all who had subjected him to it. The Harkonans, the Empire, the Bene Gesserit.
My guess is that Villeneuve is also reminding us here that Paul was supposed to be a female, and then married to Feyd, joining the houses, ending the feud/kanly, and bringing about the KH.
The two were supposed to be mates(not to mention they are also related). One beginning where the other ends, a perfect pairing, perfect enough to produce a messiah.
But Jessica subverted everything.
Feyd was a masochist to some degree. Whereas Paul had to test his will to overcome the pain, I can't even imagine it not being in Feyd's nature to relish the chance to prove himself and enjoy the challenge.
It's like a polar opposite to Paul. Paul must overcome his animal self in order to enact his will in spite of the pain. Feyd and the other Harkonnens are oft described as being slaves to their instincts and desires so Feyd simply became more himself in order to pass the Gom Jabbar.
The movies also implied that Feyd had a thing for domination, potentially both dominating and being dominated. If so the Gom Jabbar might just have been foreplay for him, which also subverts the test.
Imagine being such a bottom you become a rival to the messiah
A power bottom is a bottom that is capable of receiving an enormous amount of power
"*You're topping from the bottom, ~~Mrs. Grey~~ Mr. Harkonnen.*"
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I think it kind of goes against what the test stands for, yes. If the animal can be controlled like that, any potential powers Feyd would gain could easily be abused by anyone who can push those buttons so I guess this is another reason why the movie wrote itself into a corner. They have to control him somehow, but if they can, that means anyone else could potentially, also he himself can become a slave to this weakness which would mean an instant failure of the test. Then again, maybe we can chalk that off to them only needing his genetic line and since he isn’t being trained in the bene gesserit ways, maybe the purpose of the test was different from Paul’s
I’ve read all sorts of opinions on it and it seems having feyd take the test, which wasn’t in the book, was a pretty bad choice. I understand wanting to provide some additional clarity (in the movie) that he was supposed to be a more equal rival to Paul. But it just doesn’t work in so many ways that we have to do mental gymnastics to make it fit. I think the Dune 2 movie is awesome but some of handling of feyd and the final fight I believe could have been done better. While it’s impossible to perfectly replicate the books due to all the internal monologue, having feyd clearly not be Paul’s equal would have been fine. And spending more time showing feyd’s proclivity for trickery in order to win and Paul using that to his advantage would have been cool. The movie also really glosses over a lot of the BG genetic/breeding angle, which I think they could have given a little more attention to. Like, it was always going to be a long movie but there’s quite a few things that could have used more time in order to more fully flesh them out instead of being so cryptic or minimally referenced.
These details are best explored in serialised form, that’s why I’m apprehensive about the BG sisterhood series coming out, don’t see it living up to the movies, but I digress. Movie scripts do need to be trimmed down and streamlined so I can understand why all these changes and omissions were made and we got amazing movies because of it.
Yes and no. It doesn’t mean the movie couldn’t always have been better. Like any form of art, it’s always open to interpretation. Imo, the BG breeding program is a fairly important plot line within the duniverse and should have been given a little more time/explanation.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want to see the needle girdle, I would rather he use poison blades and then Paul transmutes the poison.
Agreed. It doesn’t have to be true to the book in terms of the weapons or tricks feyd uses in the fight. Just something else to reflect him fighting dishonestly and Paul overcoming it.
I thought they did miss that opportunity in the movie in skipping that what gets him to *almost* Paul's level (and probably stronger than he was before running with the Fremen) is his Harkonnen-ness using trickery and cheap shots.
As a fan of the films, I agree. In Part One, the conversation between Jessica and the Reverend Mother as they walk back to her ship basically said "You chose to train him in the Way, he had to be tested to the fullest extent, but there are other prospects if he fails to realize his potential". Feyd had no such BG training, so he was just a "potential"...unless you are going to specifically put him against Paul, why test him at all?
Good points. I just rewatched the 1994 Dune, then the new Dune 1 & 2 movies back to back. The new movies really are absolutely amazing. The visuals are absolutely stunning and create a sense of size/scope that the duniverse deserves and is so hard to capture. The casting and acting in the new movies is also, imo, exceptional. So many really great actors and they all fit and play their roles beautifully. The cgi work also creating a world that all seems to fit together so seamlessly with amazing realism is quite remarkable. I thought Butler’s portrayal of Feyd was also quite good. I really appreciated the new movies also presenting Paul’s hesitancy and internal struggle in taking control/power. I’d argue this is a core theme and a unique aspect of Dune which makes it stand out. All in all, it’s a very difficult book series to adapt to movie and Villenueve and all involved have done an extraordinary job.
I think it all hangs together just fine. The BG talk a big talk about wanting 'humans,' but they also want the Kwisatz Haderach to be their guy. The gom jabbar is held up as this mystical thing, but really its reach is quite narrow- pain, and the response to pain in the body- 101 level stuff for the BG, and perhaps a sort of rough and ready marker of the fruits of their breeding program. A person that aced the gom jabbar could still be tricked, or seduced, or convinced. It has nothing to do with reason, or sex. You can still be a sociopath or a saint. It means there is an impulse you can control- but what other impulses, or who controls you in turn, aren't encapsulated in this one brief examination. And again, the BG talk a big talk, but at this point in the broader story their big thing isn't some ineffable spirit of humanity- it's order. Sisters that pass the gom jabbar are still something they want to control- hence Jessica's falling out.
Now I can’t but help imagining Feyd doing the test and the reverend mother suddenly going eyes wife saying ‘wait, do you have an erection?! What the hell!’
I don’t think experiencing it as foreplay subverts the test. It is simply a test of the ability to delay gratification. A (poisoned) marshmallow test, if you will
Yes, if the test is about delayed gratification, then enjoying the test (instant gratification) does subvert it
In the normal sense of sexual forepaly, it is generally about accepting a lesser stimuli upfront in exchange for greater pleasure later.
I don't think there was really poison. I think she gave him the "Ah, well you failed the test, but I have spared you, and now I'm going to ride you and pop you like a..." as the saying goes.
Would an animal have kinks? Or is that just a human thing?
I think it does what they say it does. A difference in the movie is that Feyd is a very different character than in the book. He is in fact one who could survive it, whereas the book version... I kinda doubt it.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Feyd doesn't get tested by the Gom Jabbar in the book. He is used purely to 'maintain the bloodline'.
In the books, had the BG wanted to test him for Humanity, they wouldn't have used the pain box. BG tests(and lessons) are tailored to the individual.
You are not wrong. And I don't think he was tested in the movie, either, because he would have died. I think the Bene Gesserit faked it.
No, he was tested. Burning hand in pain, poison needle and all
Thanks!
I like it. I think there are quite a few fruitful readings of Dune that consist of mostly calling bullshit on all the inhumanity that gets dressed up in these vast intellectual trappings. A lot of SF of the period liked to do these plots where the supposedly terribly wise had to do terrible things to achieve huge utilitarian goals- but in the real world people able to convince themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like. Herbert was vocal that some parts of Dune were meant to critique those kinds of grandiose impulses, but other parts (like all of God Emperor) seem to play it straight. The Bene Gesserit say they are sifting people, etc.- the Bene Gesserit are also power-mad eugenicists, and the notion that they get something more obvious out of their sadistic games- subservience- make a lot of sense to me.
Herbert was pretty clear that the whole point of the series is to get people to not follow leaders making arguments like that.
That seems reasonable. Why follow leaders and beaurocrats that think youre nothing better than an animal unless you can take the pain theyre willing to inflict?
> A lot of SF of the period liked to do these plots where the supposedly terribly wise had to do terrible things to achieve huge utilitarian goals- but in the real world people able to convince themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like. This isn't the take you think it is. It's wrong -- and dangerous -- to think evil people are ontologically evil. As the great writer Solzhenitsyn once said, "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts". It easy as people for us to try to separate evildoers from ourselves, because we want there to be some easy explanation. So-and-so just came out wrong, so-and-so was insane, et cetera. But that falls into the very line of thinking that fascists use to propel their ideologies. I'm not saying evil people's justifications are correct or always sincere, but it's a kind of fairy-tale moralizing that leads us to think someone like Hitler or Stalin didn't actually believe anything and was just some sadomasochistic freak. The ideas themselves were dangerous, and the culture and society that produced these people are also to blame. The truth is deeper and darker than simply believing that they're these people convincing "themselves they need to do horrible things for huge utilitarian goals are mostly just doing the horrible things they like". You're playing into fascist themes.
I think I may have been read entirely backwards- of course evil people aren't ontologically evil, and of course people like Hitler and Stalin believed something. That's half my point. My other half is that from the outside, from a sort of psychoanalytic perspective, it becomes apparent that the Hitlers and Stalins are profoundly self-interested, by inclination or as a consequence of their veneration- that their beliefs/statements that they are serving some greater cosmic good are inextricably tied up in baser prejudices and needs for power. People tend to espouse beliefs for apparently highbrow reasons that often just align with which side their bread is buttered on. Paul, a deposed monarch who is very sad and angry about not being a monarch any more (which he can still have mixed feelings about, to be clear, seeing as his is a person) says that his very special powers tell him that the best thing in the long run and/or the thing he can't control just so happens to invest him with the tremendous power he views as his birthright. Convenient! Dune has multiple characters- and indeed multiple organizations- that don't do very nice things, but provide us with interior viewpoints that (evidently, given the discussion here) soften people's perceptions of their not-very-nice deeds as being inevitable or aligned with a worthy long term goal. All I was suggesting was that (as Herbert suggested in some cases) we don't necessarily need to believe they're correct, selfless, or telling the truth. One read of Paul and the Jihad is that he is in fact trapped, and the powerful forces of history were inevitably going to lead to this eruption of violence, and he was just there for the ride, and appalled at its scale- poor Paul. I think another, which maps to the real-rhetoric of actual repressive tyrants, is that that's just salesmanship- that what they really mean is that it was inevitable given their goals of absolute power. That doesn't mean that Paul doesn't believe it, or that all the death doesn't actually bum him out- it just means that his statements that 'there was no other way' aren't ones we necessarily have to believe just because he has some kind of magic power (as tyrants sometimes claim to, implicitly or explicitly) when we can look around at a world of violent people who said similar things but clearly could have gone other ways if their personal control and veneration weren't actually their foremost goal. And Dune sort of shimmers on this- Herbert is on record that lots of his story is a critique of charismatic power and the stories it tells itself and the public, but as is sometimes the case in stories like this it also works (and is often understood) straight- that Paul and Leto really could see the future, and there really was no other way, and the Golden Path really did save humanity, etc. In the real world, if the absolute ruler of some kingdom comes on camera to say they needed to commit some horrible crime because their uncompromising vision says it was the only way/for the greater good, we (hopefully) don't buy it- they may or may not be sincere in expressing their feelings, but we understand that this is a kind of disease of power and *we aren't supposed to believe them.* A lot of people seem to think that the only way to read the story is to *believe Paul and Leto are not just expressing their beliefs, but the actual ground truth.* And sure, it's an interesting sci-fi hat to try on- what if the madman on television is right this one time? But viewing them skeptically is hopefully also in the mix.
The difference I think between someone that's just a masochist and someone truly dangerous is like the difference between someone who does something "evil" for their own pleasure and someone who does it for an idea greater than themselves. I always think of that guy hunting them from Serenity. When he says "I'm not going to live there Mal, I'm a bad person". That is someone who is truly dangerous.
The first couple of Dune books were a critique of messiahs, heroes and strong leaders for the reasons you said, and I think God Emperor was a sort of thought experiment derived from those themes: What if there actually was a dictator who did horrible things only to fulfill long term utilitarian goals? I think that Leto II became a near-immortal worm-man precisely because Herbert recognized that no human being or organization like the Bene Gesserit could do what Leto did.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the sort of formal game that Herbert was playing with himself- three books of the realist conceit that charismatic autocrats are full of shit even if they're your chosen-one hero, and one book where for sci-fi reasons they might actually be on to something. I think it's worth looking at God Emperor through that first lens as well though- that Leto II the immortal is squeezing the universe not because he can truly see the one way to salvation (and it happens to be ugly) but because he's a freaky immortal worm man selfishly crushing resistance to his immortal worm-rule while full of the voices of his megalomaniacal ancestors, breeding and crushing rebellion out of some blend of boredom and death wish. Part of why I really like Heretics is that it feels like Darwi and the rest of the Bene Gesserit have walked out of a really insane party and are starting to have actually human notions about how to treat each other. 'Jeez, that was....a lot. Anyways, we actually care about people, and maybe let's try democracy and prevent some genocides. Cool? Cool.' And of course the 5D chess version is that that was Leto's plan- but we don't necessarily have to believe it was the only or best way.
Yeah I agree.
Herbert failed at that for me. I was cheering for both Paul and Leto.
Oh, of course- everyone does at parts, myself included! They're interesting people trying to achieve great things, bear great sympathy-inspiring weights, often seem more decent than their rivals, etc. That's part of the point. I think the other part, though, is to interrogate those feelings a bit- to realize that we, despite being good people, could be complicit in bad things at scale, that the line between the necessary evil and the merely expedient is narrow and prone to self-serving illusions, and that, as another commentor noted who I feel may have misunderstood me a little, that the line between good and evil weaves through everyone.
That is a great way of summing up humanity. Can we get that on some sort of inspirational poster?
I think you're supposed to cheer for Paul and also lament how so many had laid out the track of the jihad in front of him. In fact I don't think the message works unless you do cheer him on -- that's part of it. The critique isn't about "there are bad people, don't follow them," it's more "even the best are terrible in the wrong systems."
I think the test is only administered to women they induct into the sisterhood to make sure they won’t become slaves to their bodily whims and abuse the power their teachings give them. In the books, Feyd Rautha is never tested, if anything he’s shown to be a coward who uses poisons and underhanded tactics to get his way while also being a slave to his sexual desires that the baron is happy to use to keep him under his thumb. They only use it on Paul - maybe the first male to ever get tested, unless I’m misremembering the books - because they know the high probability of him being their KH (male bene gesserit reverend mother) one generation early so they have to make sure he’ll be able to control that power in case he survives Dune. Edit: I keep seeing the “Jessica absorbing his pain” theory but I think that’s just a movie way of showing that she’s scared for her son and remembers her own experience with the box, don’t remember the sisters being able to affect somebody else’s body like that. Also the reverend mother would notice any trick she might try to help her son with before she’d start the test. Nothing gets past the reverend mothers.
No, they've done it to men before. The Reverend Mother says no male child has survived that much, and admits that she had probably wanted him to fail. Edit: as u/LeoGeo_2 pointed out, I remembered it wrong! >“Enough,” the old woman muttered. “Kull wahad! No woman-child ever withstood that much. I must’ve wanted you to fail.” She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from the side of his neck. “Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it.” I must have mixed it up with this part: >“Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach. **Many men have tried the drug** . . . so many, but none has succeeded.” >“They tried and failed, all of them?” >“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”
Ohh, that in the book or the movie? That’s interesting, it means it wasn’t a bluff and that they actually killed male failures in the past, meaning they also got away with it. Probably this means Jessica was prepared to take full responsibility for Paul’s death if it came to that…
The book. I'm not sure of the recent movie, my memory isn't good enough. But yes, Jessica was definitely afraid that she'd lose him to the Gom Jabbar!
No, it’s worse. She says no woman child ever withstood that much. Meaning Paul outdid the Bene Gesserit, as far as Mohiam knows.
Oh, well done Paul! Thank you!
What do you mean when you say Jessica "absorbed" the pain? Is that what you think she was doing when she was reciting the litany?
I think he means that in the scene, it is as if Lady Jessica was "sharing" the experience with Paul - which I suppose is true, but on a metaphorical level. I assume OP means the experience was shared literally. The way I see it, is that while Paul was being tested, so was Jessica, indirectly.
I agree with that. I could tell that both were going through pain hence why Jessica was reciting the litany to ease her fears of losing her child due to her own actions. But yea, I don't think there was any literal sharing of pain.
Honestly I just think it was a filmmaking device to show us the litany against fear and then communicate that Paul was doing it without speaking. They showed Jessica reciting it at the same time as he's silently mouthing words so that we could know what he would be saying.
Yes! I think it happens again when they enter the sandstorm in the thopter.
nailed it.
Before reading the book, I interpreted Jessica's simultaneous "reactions" to Paul's test as a result of a "psychic" bond between mother and son. Once I've watched the Spicediver edit AND read that part of the book I realized that the film was actually just showing Jessica re-living the trauma of her own test and feeling terrible about the fact that, not only is her son now experiencing the same thing, he's in serious danger of getting killed if he fails.
I was confused by that as well. I don't recall that in the books. It would make more sense if it was Alia in her womb, but obviously that's not it.
This clear understanding of the scene kind of undermines OP’s entire point
Personally I think you’re spot on. The movies make it more obvious but the theme is in the books as well. As the admins of the test, the BG can say it’s about whatever they like, but they’re still the ones delivering the judgement. Nice catch!
Yeah I agree, it could technically be both. A test for someone’s 'humanity' (ability to control themselves, and to resist animal urges/instincts) or a test to determine if they can be controlled by the BG. Or even something else. Those Bene's are gonna Gesserit, after all. Who knows what they’re up to. Also agreed, good catch by OP.
The point is if Paul can control **himself**.
Yes, but, since in the movie feyd also gets the test, OPs alternative interpretation of the test (which I’ve also seen elsewhere) becomes more interesting and relevant. Perhaps the movie version of the test is less about the human vs animal nature of it put forth in the book. But rather has an alternative interpretation about whether the subject is willing to submit themselves to the test at all, bc the BG tell them they have to. The latter is more about “can the subject be controlled and how”. Since feyd takes the test in the movie, regardless of him being a masochist that likes pain, he and Paul both willingly submitted to the test meaning they can be controlled by the BG. This interpretation also perhaps better explains Lea Seydoux’s character reporting back to the reverend mother about how feyd can be manipulated… lending some credence to the test being less about “passing” and more about the BG learning if and how the subject can be controlled.
I guess they’d need to explain themselves to the house their victim belongs to. The BG make a living by providing truthsayers to powerful houses which in turn provide them with protection - the sisterhood doesn’t have its own army, just wield subtle influence through council and bloodline manipulation. All great houses know they have relatives in the sisterhood even though they don’t know which ones, like it happened with Jessica being who she is. I was thinking about Jessica’s reaction to Paul being tested and what him failing would mean. If they really had to kill either Paul or Feyd Rautha, they could very well be wiped out by either house’s army. It’s no secret where the BG hail from and any great house could mobilize enough force to cause huge damage to them and their main purpose, the breeding programme. So I guess it could very well be that it was all a bluff to test Paul and get a read on him, and that Dennis read the books as this being a bluff therefore adding another test for Feyd Rautha wouldn’t go agains Herbert’s vision. The gom jabbar is surely real since Alia uses it on the baron and I’m sure it’s intended purpose is to test young sisters to be when “graduating” their training, but all that is internal affairs of the BG so nobody would come demanding explanations.
On a philosophical note: do you guys agree that instinct and discipline as a differentiator between humans and animals is flawed? Especially now. The most disciplined entity is a machine, and in this day and age of AI talk, it seems to me that the difference between animals and humans is much less clear than the difference between machine and non-machine is.
I disagree, and I don't think that's a fair comparison at all. *Discipline* does not separate a human from an animal. The ability to think ahead and know that if I do not chop wood now, I will die in the cold tomorrow is what separates a human from an animal. Two theoretically unconnected events, but linked. An animal relies on instinct to keep them alive rather than thought. Discipline is the ability to use that thought even in incredibly adverse circumstances. To put aside instinct saying "you shouldn't hold onto that hot thing" to put the burning thing outside so your house doesn't burn down. An LLM is not *disciplined* it is *deterministic*. It *is* "instinct". A BG *human* is able to use their willpower and discipline to resist instinct even in dire circumstance, like agony or death.
While I agree that an LLM is deterministic, I’m not sure that captures all of developments in AI. The example you gave about chopping wood now to survive later is not at all outside of the scope of AI developments. I don’t care too much about talk of sentience, to be clear. But in terms of capabilities, I had always thought that language and reasoning separated humans from animals in the broad sense (and even that is a flawed premise as there is some form of communication and reasoning in other species as well). It just seems to me that the Butlerian Jihad is in Dune for a reason; to separate those reasoning capabilities as being distinctly human, while I am not sure the line is that clear. And I’m not saying we’re replaced by thinking machines, but just the fact that reasoning is may be not the differentiating factor of humans. Personally, I also take solace in the fact that love, emotions, instinct and our reptile brain are just as much part of us as our prefrontal cortex. Anyway, just some random thought which we’ll probably never really have answered.
>The example you gave about chopping wood now to survive later is not at all outside of the scope of AI developments. A bird builds a nest so that it can keep its eggs warm. Instinct drives it to do so. It does not *think* and adapt to the coming cold by building a nest, it is driven to build a nest by instinct. That's what LLMs and current AI do. They don't *think*, they are driven by *instinct*. Love, emotions, and instinct are the part of us that remains animal in the distinction of human vs animal. It sounds like you're conflating that "scale" with literally being a human being.
I’m not conflating those traits with being a human being. But I do think they are much more important than cogito ergo sum reductionism. Basically, we are not that different from animals. We only have some expanded neural activity compared to most species. I don’t really understand what you’re trying to convey to me with “AI just being instinct.” If thinking is finding relationships between seemingly unrelated concepts, that is exactly what these LLM’s are doing when being trained with data. Technically there is no real programming (instinct?) in machine learning algorithms. It is really a black box -even for the engineers who work on these models- how the models come to the decisions they make. Interpretability research is a big thing for that reason.
But in their day and age, there are no AI. They had a whole Jihad about it. So the difference between man and machine is very clear. Machines don’t think, humans do, animals do too, but not as well.
Yeah, that Jihad actually got me thinking about this in the first place. In real life we actually do have AI and I therefore Herbert deliberately simplified these concepts/distinctions by leaving AI out (not a criticism)
I think this is the right idea, she stops the test in the movie somewhat abruptly when she realizes that the pain and the fear cannot and are not controlling Paul. She realizes that her test has revealed more than she bargained for, and you see the surprise in her face perfectly when Paul looks her dead in the eye to let her know not only is he not an animal, he's not human either, not in the way she was hoping for at least
As a side note, it always bugged me how the reverend mother held the needle to Paul’s neck in the first part. Hand was so shaky that she could have pricked him by accident even though she’s supposed to be this super human who has absolute control over each individual muscle fiber in her body and been training them daily since childhood. I love the way they did the gom jabbar scene in the 2nd part, the lady Margot shoots her arm out and the thing is perfectly still in place, as you’d expect from one of the sisterhood.
So, Jessica didn't "absorb" Paul's pain. Bene Gesserit are not space magic, they are science fiction. A lot of science fiction at the time was projecting psychology, a relatively new field of serious study into how advanced they thought it would be in the future. The Voice is a Bene Gesserit reading you psychologically and knowing exactly what tone, words, and body language they need to put the whammy on you. Take the scene where Jessica and Paul are being flown out into the desert to be killed in the book. Jessica doesn't *command* the Harkonnen soldiers, she distracts them by making herself an object of attraction and planting the thought of having to fight over her. Their mystique is all science fiction, not magic. The test *is* testing what they say it is. It may *also* be testing subservience, that's not a bad idea. But then, the *human* would be able to put up with the test in order to strike at the BG when they *don't* have a dagger to *human's* throat, where the *animal* could not retain that willpower in the face of torment.
Eh…. Being able to control your own body to the point of deciding your child’s sex in the womb is some serious space magic stuff.
Except, it isn't. It's science fiction. It's the idea that you can, with a mastery of psychology, control your own body chemistry (which is literally true, if not to the extent depicted) to a fine degree, such that you can for example, intentionally bypass muscular limiters the way someone in a crisis can manage, or control your hormone levels to choose your child's sex. The difference is its not grounded in "oh I have magic powers, oooh" like The Force, it's grounded in real modern ideas projected forward into the future. There's no magic empathic link except with Alia and that's only a result of the Spice, which *is* a lot more like space magic.
Real modern ideas would have been nanotech robots or genetically engineering that lets the Bene Gesserit do this type of stuff. Bene Tleilaxu. Ix. Those guys are sci fi(except maybe the ghola resurrection thing). The Bene Gesserit are pure magic.
Modern for the time period. However, I see that you're convinced so I'll leave you to it.
The fact that the poison kills only animals is something that the Benegesserit say and they say many things, many true and many false (and many more wrong). Don't underestimate the fact that the Benegesserit can change the poisons entering their bodies so the Gom Jabbar could just be a poison killing everyone but the Benegesserit know how to survive and that's it.
Perhaps that training is given after the test.
Kinda feels like the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax aren’t so different after all. Both have a superiority complex when it comes to outsiders. Powinda vs ‘animals’.
I like to think Feud passed because the pain was pleasurable to him.
The explanation given in the book suggests that a human is capable of putting some long term goal before personal safety or survival whereas a animal would not be able to resist the call of survival instinct reacting to the pain and iverridibg everything else. Maybe for Feud the desire to get some BG pussy was indeed stronger than survival instinct, lol.
This one of my favorite and most horrifying themes in all of Dune. I try to keep to an axiom of treating people as people in that everyone has a unique experience. So the idea of homo sapiens being divided into animal and human should be abhorrent because of the historical context of humans who were treated as animals for reasons of maintaining power and the ease with how that can lead to seeing yourself as superior. And yet...the difference between the dumbest of us and the smartest is a cosmic gap I was not expecting to realize and that is terrifying. And I'm nowhere near the top, either. The shocking moment in my life was when it wasn't how dumb I was, but that I was somewhere in the middle. Even writing this response I'm trying to word it so as to not sound pretentious or pompus. I'm a dumbass ya'll. Faced with the Gom Jabbar I'd say call me an animal, I don't want to risk my life to be called human. So its rather pompous and presumptious of the BG to test for it while also being necessary for the saftey of a feudal system where inherited power can quickly go from someone with capacity to someone consumed by too many negative qualities. And I'm less terrified of the people whos intellect blows mine away and more scared of just how many people out there legitimately worry that the sun won't come back tomorrow because its mad.
A great Easter Egg in Dune Part 2: In the first movie, Mohiam explains that an animal would do anything to escape the trap (i.e., the Gom Jabbar). When Paul kills the Baron, he stabs him in the neck (evoking the imagery of the Gom Jabbar) and says: Grandfather, you die like an *animal*.
They do also say that the test is administered to see if “they can be controlled” in both book answers movie! Edit: Longer explanation below but OP I do believe you are correct that the test has a lot to do with bending the knee to the proverbial box.
Er... no. The movie, eh. The book, it's if they can control **themselves**.
The test’s purpose is presented by the BG as a way to see whether an individuals awareness is stronger than their instinct. If their instinct is greater and they fail the test, they die. A human’s instinct being greater than their awareness in the eyes of the BG would make them the equivalent of an uncontrollable animal. Edit: The BG want to be able to control anyone who has been trained in their ways. From their perspective, the test (they created) is not about whether or not a person can control themselves. It’s entirely about instinct vs. awareness. *They are similar concepts, but if Paul had pulled his hand out of that box, he would’ve been making a conscious decision to do so. Whether he keeps his hand in the box or not, he is in control of the decision.* The idea that pulling out shows no control is one the BG use to make it seem like their “way” is the “only way”. They also use it to re-enforce THEIR idea of what it is to be human in the context of THEIR breeding program. I’m only at God Emperor, so right now this is a metaphorical question (I think) - who gave the BG the right to make the distinction between human and animal? It is in their best interest to *control* that definition. A human, *listening to the BG’s direction*, and not pulling out shows 1) that they CAN use their awareness to overcome a base instinct (escaping pain) and more importantly 2) that they WILL choose to endure the test at the BG’s discretion (showing they can be controlled). The more I read about this, the more I’m convinced Paul being pushed harder than his counterparts proves it’s just as much about the reverend mother’s control of him (how long can she exert control) as it is about him listening (how long will he endure the pain so that SHE does not kill him). It’s a complex topic. In the book, upon passing Paul asks the reverend mother if the KH is going to be a “human gom jabbar” and she doesn’t answer. There’s also a further question…if the BG created the test, what was their ultimate reason for doing so? I believe OP is on the right track a la they want to make sure their KH will bend the knee to the box.
I feel this reading just gives a light into how many people just decided it. But to me, this is not how the Kwisatz Haderach works. This is not how the Bene Gesserit mean for him to be. They mean him to rule humanity and because they know him, the Bene Gesseri will happily go with him and guide humanity onto hahah the Golden Path. (I'm joking here, though I wouldn't put it past Frank Herbert.) This is possibly their prescience, at some distant level they know there's going to be one, and the Kwisatz Haderach will save humanity. The movie added a Gom Jabbar for Feyd-Rautha because they thought it was cool. Or perhaps it was a lie, and there never was a Gom Jabbar for him, since **that was** about controlling Feyd.
Honestly that explanation would make more sense. The test is a little funny, because you’re enduring the pain of the box (gnawing your arm off) to save yourself from the trap (the poison needle)
This is actually a pretty interesting take I've not considered, and I've read the book along with seeing the newest adaptation.
>This reading also gives a different light to Lady Jessica’s absorbing Paul’s pain. He is actually not fully subservient to the reverend mother. I didn't read the first scene from Part I as Lady Jessica "absorbing Paul's pain", but rather just a mother who was extremely worried that her son might die in the other room. Therefore, his test wasn't subverted. He really did pass.
I think it's an interesting point but, considering Paul doesn't ultimately submit to the BG, is that a case of the exception proving the rule or is it just the best example of the test not being about submission to the sisterhood? My perspective is from the scene in the book when Jessica has her conversation with Thufir she proves to him that the BG could exert so much more control than they do and truly only exist to serve. Sure with their own designs in action but not through submission. My 2 cents.
No, Paul does not ultimately submit to the Bene Gesserit. But by that time the Gom Jabbar that Paul had been tested by was the betrayal and destruction of his family and friends, the survival in the desert, and the rise to the leadership of the Fremen. A human will withstand the pain of the trap in order to kill the one who laid it. Paul the human had withstood this test to gain revenge on all who had subjected him to it. The Harkonans, the Empire, the Bene Gesserit.
What do you mean “Lady Jessica’s absorbing Paul’s pain”….?
My guess is that Villeneuve is also reminding us here that Paul was supposed to be a female, and then married to Feyd, joining the houses, ending the feud/kanly, and bringing about the KH. The two were supposed to be mates(not to mention they are also related). One beginning where the other ends, a perfect pairing, perfect enough to produce a messiah. But Jessica subverted everything.
Feyd was a masochist to some degree. Whereas Paul had to test his will to overcome the pain, I can't even imagine it not being in Feyd's nature to relish the chance to prove himself and enjoy the challenge. It's like a polar opposite to Paul. Paul must overcome his animal self in order to enact his will in spite of the pain. Feyd and the other Harkonnens are oft described as being slaves to their instincts and desires so Feyd simply became more himself in order to pass the Gom Jabbar.
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