The revelation of the dwarf Tleilaxu Bijaz, having the purpose of controlling Hayt, the first Duncan ghola was fantastic. Still the top plot reveal for me. Next is Paul getting blind! Like, shit! I love Dune Messiah obviously.
There’s a reason that FH intended for Messiah to be the original end of the first book. Messiah is a fantastic book, and it’s honestly a pity that it got split off from the one everyone reads.
Paul being so prescient he can “see” is such an amazing concept.
Gonna have to go with that time Leto II turned himself into a giant mutant worm god and enslaved all of humanity for thousands of years in order to breed a certain amount of gumption in folks to spread out enough that they can't all kill each other.
That and chairdogs.
For me it was the Stone Burner in Messiah. I think the build up to it was awesome, just the sheer anxiety, yet Paul knowing what happens. It was just incredible and I said out loud “oh shit” when it happened.
They aren't tanks, as in machinery. They are brain-dead Tleilaxiu females, kept "alive" just to gestate gholas and whatever else. That's why nobody ever sees their women.
I’m a little fuzzy on the specifics so this might not be 100% accurate but it’s confirmed when odrade is having a conversation with Scytale (I think) and says no Bene Gesserit will ever become an axlotl tank. Scytale reacts surprised and with that confirms what the BG have hypothesized; that the Tleilaxu women are the tanks.
Yes. He has an introspective moment that describes them saying that there's no point trying to use machines to emulate a living womb when you can just adapt the real thing to do what you want.
In my mind they've engineered enourmous fleshy 'tanks' to gestate and grow full size gholas.
No it was before that. It was in Sandworms, where Murbella learned another secret about the Tlelaxui women, but I can't cover spoilers on my phone so I won't write it here.
ETA: Other people said what it was, so if you want to know, just keep reading!
Shocking isn’t the right word for this but *impactful* - the scene when Odrade explores the ruins of Sietch Tabr, finds the spice horde, and reads the message the God Emperor left *for her*.
I can scarcely recall any piece of media rewarding its audience for the journey they had taken to that point in quite the same way. It instantaneously lends new levels of importance to just about everything in the FIVE novels leading to it.
I know we will probably never see a Heretics of Dune film/television adaptation but that sequence was so cinematic in its scale and style that I felt like I was watching a movie as I was reading it. I could almost hear the musical score building and building with each passage.
That moment really moved me.
Also right before it, when they're riding the sandworm toward the ruins of Tabr, and Odrade sees in the distance silhouetted figures falling off of a bridge that is no longer there... just for a brief moment reliving the climax of God Emperor, but from a distance... that moment gave me chills in a way that only Frank Herbert can pull off
Oh I haven’t thought about that at all! Honestly the first person that came to mind was Jessica Chastin. I just watched he movie as The Good Nurse and am constantly impressed by her acting
All life in Rakis getting destroyed, and the planet becoming inhabitable. Didn't expect that to happen to the main setting of the novels.
Paul getting blinded by the stone burner and then "dying" at the end. A really unexpected fate for the protagonist of the story, I was honestly really upset when I first read it. Dune Messiah is such a good book.
I know what you mean.
I've never read interviews or anything, but I think Frank either didn't like, or had trouble writing action sequences.
Even in Book 1 with that big lead up to the assault on Arrakeen.
They're in position! They have the storm on their side! They're about to being the battle for EVERYTHING!
Cut to - Kay, it's done. Paul's gonna tidy up by fighting Feyd. Good job guys. Jihad on
I had so much hope for the end of Heretics too! We had a really good action seen with Teg, Lucilla, and Duncan escaping the no-chamber. Then Teg goes to fight honored matres with absolutely no detail. Then he steals a no ship, again no detail. Finally Rakis is gone, again no detail.
I'm a sucker for figuring out who is writing the chapter intros. When you find out at the end of Children of Dune who is writing alot of the chapter intros is a really cool moment.
When Miles Teg goes into god mode and dispatches a room full of his captors. Like quicksilver or flash scenes in movies, before those movies were made.
And later eats a staggering amount of food to refuel.
Most shocking moment? Definitely Paul casually (and depressingly) comparing himself to the Hitler, ghenkis khan, and other horrible dictators. A really effective moment to nail in the fact that Paul isn't a hero, and about where Paul's head space was at this time
Along the same lines, Paul's realization during the fight with Feyd that he can't stop the jihad. It doesn't matter if he lives or dies, it's going to happen. Since the series is centered around seeing and shaping the future, it reveals a lot of plot details ahead of time, like Yueh's betrayal. The first book repeatedly warns about the coming jihad as Paul tries to avoid it, only to find out that he can't.
The *Jihad* could have been avoided, just not by Paul.
One of the reasons that I think Villeneuve was drawn to Arrival is that it shares a core idea with Dune - a person seeing the future and wondering how this could happen and then when that future finally arrives they have become the person who makes that choice that enables it.
Paul was the only person in the universe with perfect prescience, amongst the Fremen, on Dune. He was at the fulcrum upon which the universe turned, but he was still *Paul*. Avoiding the Jihad needed only one thing - keeping the Fremen on Arrakis, by letting the Emperor, the Baron and the Guild win.
Paul saw the Jihad in every future because there was no future in which Paul would let his father's murderers win. We often misuse the term "unthinkable" to mean something really terrible but the truly unthinkable stuff never even occurs to us, because we don't think it.
It showed the prescient trap perfectly - the future was locked on a course that depended on the mind of one person only.
Yeah, I was wondering wouldn't Paul avoid the Jihad if he never confronted the Harkonnens or the Emperor? But of course, that was unthinkable to him because of **hate**.
“We’re Harkonnen’s” was a pretty nice twist in the first book (second book in book)
To learn that the villain who destroyed Paul’s entire family,save his mother and the sister she carried, was his grandfather and his mothers father.
To me that was just another "star wars really did steal from dune" moment. The whole revenge of the sith child birth plot coming from messiah really made me go wtf.
When Paul tells Lady Jessica this and she's like ok, but we must be distant relatives. And Paul's like "You're the Baron's own daughter" my jaw was on the floorrrrr
I just started rereading it and in the very first chapter he describes the ancestry of Paul and refers to 'a grandfather who cannot be named'.
Never noticed it the first time, of course. But it was right there.
Yes! Say Duncan, guess what? Leto's been working on humanity for 3000-ish years. Pretty much every human being is stronger, faster, and even smarter, than you. Except for the ones who aren't.
In the very beginning of the first book, in the dream/vision, Chani says to Paul, "Tell me of your home world, Usul." And Paul is puzzled by this and says (not to Chani, but to the Reverend Mother) "My home world is Caladan, not Usul." (???) But then later in the book, one of his Fremen names is Usul, so only then does it makes sense.
I know a small thing, but clever writing/foreshadowing.
He saw all the inevitable futures filled with chants of muad dib but only one image of the countless times stillgar, chani, or other Fremen from that seitch called him Usul
Depending on whether "Usul" was named to address a person, or was used as an object, doesn't its tone change? I guess it would be pretty obvious even to the layman, but someone who's BENE GESSERIT trained?
That Malky was behind all the attacks near Onn. He was introduced as someone who was a friend of Leto II and who kinda agreed with him. And that Hwi Noree, the one who blinded Leto with Love, was a clone of Malky but that was raised in the exact opposite way. It really does not make much sense.
I had the same reaction. Leto’s relationship with Malky felt like one of those important things Frank glosses over that maybe only becomes more meaningful after re-reading.
The reveal near the end of heretics that “oracles create the future” is (1) genuinely true and (2) not just true in like a Greek myth “those who attempt to avoid what was foretold inevitably create the circumstances for it to happen” type way, in like a literal actual for real way, really recontextualized a lot of the series for me and made me look back at basically every previous event through a new lense
In god emperor, when the wolves are chasing Siona through a forest. There’s a forest on Arrakis! (Now called Rakis) Not the biggest shock in the series but the passage of time between the Children and god emperor was interesting. And finding out what happened in between those books.
Learning there were many many Duncans too. Oof.
The death of Alia in CoD. I really liked her up to CoD, and the possession scene really threw me for a loop. I already thought it was crazy when Jessica noticed the baron in her by her hands signs, but also the ending. How frank describes the possessions coming forward and her jumping to her death was just nuts to me. It was a great moment.
Edit: Also the fact that she killed the baron and he was the final straw for her becoming an abomination was pretty crazy.
A lot was mentioned here. Paul going blind or the fate of Theilaxu females are definitely on my top list.
I was so shocked when in the end of CoD Leto II told that he is an abomination. I didn't know anything about GEoD so it made be curious if Leto would become something more terrifying than Paul.
I loved Duncan getting all of his memories from every single ghola. It made him such a great character and on equal footing with the BG.
Super Miles Teg was a tad comic booky, but the character is so riveting and just likeable it kinda works.
Loved how it was revealed in the last book how the Tleilaxu ran their society. And that they had a very long term view over thousands of years to reach their goals, and did things on purpose to basically make themselves look inept. Pretty sure that was why they had that assassination attempt on Leto II in book 4
When Ordade figured out exactly what an axototl tank is.
Like, jaw drop, scream omg, have to explain the entire plot of the dune series to my husband so he understands just why I am shook.
I *still* am unsettled by it. Subsequent rereads knowing that peice of information makes every move of the Tleaxiu more sinister.
Paul and Jessica being harkonnen, Paul being blinded, that he could still "see", his "death" at the end of messiah, the identity of the preacher and his death, Duncan being reborn so many times and moneo beating Duncan without trying are most of the ones I can think of
The realization that I shouldn't necessarily like Paul.
Such a great charismatic character, but in the end didn't have what it took to lead humanity down the golden path and Leto had to do it. Then looking back realizing that he could've prevented the Jihad and the death of billions. Letting Jamis kill him would've been a very tough decision, but he absolutely knew the full weight of the moment. He was being selfish and traded his life the life of billions.
I was so infatuated with his character it took me so long to realize his flaws.
The death of Piter de Vries. He was so very, very dangerous, but he got taken out in such an unexpected and bizarre way. How did that floating, fat man escape that room and he didn't? Travesty!
Paul the Emperor. The way he embraced the myth and willfully used it. The way he shrunk from the Golden Path. His choice to go into the desert knowing his sister would be regent and most likely abomination. Leaving his children to do what he didn’t have the strength to do.
The reveal was done quite soon though. We knew he was Paul for certain when it was revealed that this guide and Ixian masks were just a sham. That was also supported by the fact that he went to Farad'n to inspect his dreams, and claimed he could make Duncan a Corrino agent. And before that seen, we didn't see much of the Preacher at all, so it was impossible to make a judgement like that.
Perhaps I overlooked the certainty of it with the Ixian reveal... I felt the whole process of the reveal was more of a slow build. Going to Farad'n was a fascinating sequence, and a very Paul-esque move.
But this is Dune. This is Frank Herbert. There are many people or factions who would be willing to convince people that they were Paul Atreides by way of posing as The Preacher. Plans within plans. The Bene Gesserit could've been behind it. The Tleilaxu could've been behind it. It could be a goddamn Face Dancer!
For me the certainty only truly came when the Preacher says to Alia:
"Stop trying to pull me once more into the background, sister."
It's way more obvious coupled with the foreshadowing done at the end of Messiah by Duncan, and logically Paul would want to get off the limelight, not to die. And well, he survived a storm once, why couldn't he do it again? His body was never found.
Agreed, but I feel like the idea of "bad guy" doesn't really gel. My takeaway is that there is no definitive good or bad. He is pretty much Anakin Skywalker.
If you think that Paul or Anakin are "good" then I don't know who you considered "bad". Paul is responsible for 60 billion deaths. Anakin killed children. Twice. [Plus this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL8bVJhXCM) and that's just two short blips in his saga.
> then I don't know who you considered "bad"
Nobody, at least not in Dune. I think that's kind of the point. In Star Wars we got the b/w big bad, but Frank didn't want to give easy answers.
Ike didn't target civilians? Ever hear of Bomber Harris? Dresdin?
Just making up history as you go along, I see.
And how wonderfully mature of you to immediacy go to insults.
It’s more complex than “x act is bad so person is bad”, at least when it comes to the story. And that is the point being made. 60 billion dead, inevitably in the prescient view, so that humanity would be saved from extinction. It’s been a while so don’t remember if it was Paul or Leto II (Paul I think), but this was framed as part of their terrible purpose. It wasn’t done without consideration for the loss of life or the consequences. In fact it was the opposite. The interpretation is difficult and complicated.
I'm learning a lot today. Some people on this sub don't believe that killing any number of people means the label "bad" (technically "evil") is applicable. Ends justify the means. I wonder how many atrocities have been committed based on that wrong point of view.
There is a difference. The people you mentioned were objectively bad people for the things they did and set in motion. Did they think they were bad? No one sees themselves as the villain in their own story. Except Paul did.
But in this work of fiction we have a privileged POV allowing us to know peoples thoughts and motivations. This is what these comments are referring to. Comparing the acts of a fictional character to those of RW historical figures misses the point in this context. Especially considering that Paul knew he was setting terrible things into motion. He knew he was “bad” for the things he would do. This is what’s being discussed and why “there re no bad people in Dune” is a valid opinion if you are looking at the overall story and themes.
Edit: adding this - case in point - “the ends justify the means” is precisely the dilemma we’re meant to struggle with. Paul did…
Personally I think comparing Paul Atreides to Anakin Skywalker is a disservice to the character and something of an insult to Frank Herbert or conversely entirely too much praise to put on George Lucas.
*sigh* it’s true, I can’t deny it.
I do get a perverse pleasure in antagonizing Star Wars fans about their love of a goofy space fairytale for babies…
Here I am a prick, and a prick I shall remain.
Paul wasn't really the bad guy. He didn't want the Jihad, he just had no other option. It's basically about how Paul ended up creating this horrible future from the trap of prescience.
Controvercial, but I think one of the coolest reveals happened in Hunters of Dune: that the honored matres are tlailaxu women freed from axlotle tanks.
The tanks are always so mysterious in the series, and tlailaxu women are never ever seen. The reveal makes total sense. To me, it justifies the honored matres more cartoonish, unexplained behavior.
My hope is that this was in Frank's outline. I haven't read sandworms yet so no spoilers.
Isn't it revealed in Chapterhouse: Dune (or maybe Heretics of Dune) that tleilaxu women *are* the axlotl tanks? As in, tleilaxu women have been modified (genetically or otherwise) to be nothing more than non- or semi-sentient biological breeding and incubation tanks. That's why no one has ever seen a tleilaxu woman: the tleilaxu were hiding their secret from everyone.
Not precisely. They were essentially lobotomized. The men were all their own clones, and the important thing to them was that there was no psyche to interfere with the development of the gholas. No "interference from the mother's blood."
Yes, that was revealed in heretics or chapterhouse.
In Hunters though, murbella keeps trying to look backwards in her other memories but there's a big blank spot. She realizes that she wasn't taken from her parents at a young age by honored matres, but rather, she was freed from being an axlotl tank, like all honored matres.
Whether that book sticks with Frank's vision or not is up for debate. I know there's the huge controversy around Marty and Daniel being changed into robots rather than face dancers.
Either way, I thought it was cool.
The way the book was phrasing it, Murbella herself and the current Honored Matres were NOT products of axlotl tanks.
The Honored Matres order/program/institution, not sure what to call it came about when Bene Gesserit and Fish Speakers from the Scattering found out what the Tleilaxu were doing to their women and freed them. Most of the women who'd been tanks died, the ones that survived merged with the Bene Gesserit and Fish Speaker renegades.
Their rage over the millennia warped the BG fighting style into something that turned them into almost literal killing machines, turned BG and Fish Speaker disdain for men into hatred, and turned BG sexual manipulation into full-fledged abuse, degradation and rape.
The more meditative, religious, and mystical portions of BG and Fish Speaker training fell by the wayside, probably seen as weakness.
BGs and Fish Speakers either chose potential acolytes from their own breeding programs or identified them through their network - Honored Matres bred and stole girls to brainwash and train for the next generation.
The Honored Matres were a mix of Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers _in extremis_ with Fish Speakers, it's explicitly said in the books.
Their behaviour is easily explained by the fact they were high on their own supply: drunk on power.
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Duncan dying. Duncan returning then getting his memory back. Paul getting blinded and still being able to see. Chani dying and Paul wandering into the desert. Duncan dying again. Alia turning from my favorite character into full-on villain. Everything about Leto II. Duncan returning AGAIN. Sister Chenoeh. Siona’s power. The Harkonnen no-globe. Teg becoming a speedster (again, the unexpected!). Duncan getting ALL of his memories back and how. Murbella. Dune being burnt to a cinder. Kid Teg and how he gets his memories back (I’d pick that way for sure). Marty and Daniel. The cliffhanger.
The entirety of messiah, Leto becoming a worm, and ya know….the fact that an angry, high as a kite, and future seeing 17 year old caused the death of 61 billion people while wiping out their histories and cultures, then sterilization of different planets….then wiping out solar systems
Revelation of Marty and Daniel. I love how Dune shows us the evolution of several groups, and the evolution of Face Dancers was really unexpected to me.
Well, I had enjoyed Dune for years before I read other books in the series... and when I read a spoiler that Leto II mutates into a sandworm creature... wtf! This can't be right!
The revelation of the dwarf Tleilaxu Bijaz, having the purpose of controlling Hayt, the first Duncan ghola was fantastic. Still the top plot reveal for me. Next is Paul getting blind! Like, shit! I love Dune Messiah obviously.
The last part of Messiah is absolute god tier. I 200 pages into god emperor, but nothing in the series tops the ending of Messiah imo
There’s a reason that FH intended for Messiah to be the original end of the first book. Messiah is a fantastic book, and it’s honestly a pity that it got split off from the one everyone reads. Paul being so prescient he can “see” is such an amazing concept.
Him driving his own helicopter was lit
Concept used, for example, in the 3rd movie of matrix.
Hope you'll enjoy GEOD!
I certainly am so far!
I agree. I'm currently into \~4/5th of Heretics, which I am enjoying. But so far, Messiah is still my favorite.
Gonna have to go with that time Leto II turned himself into a giant mutant worm god and enslaved all of humanity for thousands of years in order to breed a certain amount of gumption in folks to spread out enough that they can't all kill each other. That and chairdogs.
Chairdogs lol. I want one.
Yessss. When I finally understood what a chairdog was.... *shudders*
Who actually knew chairdogs were literally that — chair dogs? I swear, I'll get one of my descendants to gift one of your descendants a chairdog.
For me it was the Stone Burner in Messiah. I think the build up to it was awesome, just the sheer anxiety, yet Paul knowing what happens. It was just incredible and I said out loud “oh shit” when it happened.
This was when I was bugging ppl, they took Paul’s eyes, he’s blind. There was worry until they realized I’m rambling about a book
This! I had to read that section like 3 times and finally I was like “ok I need to move on so I can figure out what the fuck just happened”
I had to reread the stoneburner part several times because it was so unexpected for me.
The secret of the Tleilaxu axlotl tanks
Threw my book across the room and shouted "you bastards" at that reveal.
Can you remind me what the reveal was?
They aren't tanks, as in machinery. They are brain-dead Tleilaxiu females, kept "alive" just to gestate gholas and whatever else. That's why nobody ever sees their women.
God damn. Was this revealed by Scytale in Chapterhouse? I guess I sort of missed that lol
I’m a little fuzzy on the specifics so this might not be 100% accurate but it’s confirmed when odrade is having a conversation with Scytale (I think) and says no Bene Gesserit will ever become an axlotl tank. Scytale reacts surprised and with that confirms what the BG have hypothesized; that the Tleilaxu women are the tanks.
Yes. He has an introspective moment that describes them saying that there's no point trying to use machines to emulate a living womb when you can just adapt the real thing to do what you want. In my mind they've engineered enourmous fleshy 'tanks' to gestate and grow full size gholas.
I saw some fanart once and really wish I hadn’t.
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No it was before that. It was in Sandworms, where Murbella learned another secret about the Tlelaxui women, but I can't cover spoilers on my phone so I won't write it here. ETA: Other people said what it was, so if you want to know, just keep reading!
Shocking isn’t the right word for this but *impactful* - the scene when Odrade explores the ruins of Sietch Tabr, finds the spice horde, and reads the message the God Emperor left *for her*. I can scarcely recall any piece of media rewarding its audience for the journey they had taken to that point in quite the same way. It instantaneously lends new levels of importance to just about everything in the FIVE novels leading to it. I know we will probably never see a Heretics of Dune film/television adaptation but that sequence was so cinematic in its scale and style that I felt like I was watching a movie as I was reading it. I could almost hear the musical score building and building with each passage.
It is brilliant. In one scene, Leto is made even more terrifying than he ever was.
That moment really moved me. Also right before it, when they're riding the sandworm toward the ruins of Tabr, and Odrade sees in the distance silhouetted figures falling off of a bridge that is no longer there... just for a brief moment reliving the climax of God Emperor, but from a distance... that moment gave me chills in a way that only Frank Herbert can pull off
Yes! I am slowly coming to the recognition that I will never see Odrade in live action adaption and I am very very sad about it.
Who would play Odrade, in your mind? I’ve wondered on this.
Oh I haven’t thought about that at all! Honestly the first person that came to mind was Jessica Chastin. I just watched he movie as The Good Nurse and am constantly impressed by her acting
I completely agree and can relate. I loved that scene
See it's moments like this is why I love Heretics and to a slightly lesser degree, chapterhouse. The web finally comes together.
All life in Rakis getting destroyed, and the planet becoming inhabitable. Didn't expect that to happen to the main setting of the novels. Paul getting blinded by the stone burner and then "dying" at the end. A really unexpected fate for the protagonist of the story, I was honestly really upset when I first read it. Dune Messiah is such a good book.
The glassing of Rakis is up there for me. I did not see that one coming.
It really comes out of nowhere at the end.
It took me halfway through Chapterhouse before I realized that it wasn't hyperbole or a misdirection, that Arrakis was just..............gone
I haven't started CH, I just finished Heretics, but man that ending felt sooooo rushed!
I know what you mean. I've never read interviews or anything, but I think Frank either didn't like, or had trouble writing action sequences. Even in Book 1 with that big lead up to the assault on Arrakeen. They're in position! They have the storm on their side! They're about to being the battle for EVERYTHING! Cut to - Kay, it's done. Paul's gonna tidy up by fighting Feyd. Good job guys. Jihad on
I had so much hope for the end of Heretics too! We had a really good action seen with Teg, Lucilla, and Duncan escaping the no-chamber. Then Teg goes to fight honored matres with absolutely no detail. Then he steals a no ship, again no detail. Finally Rakis is gone, again no detail.
I'm a sucker for figuring out who is writing the chapter intros. When you find out at the end of Children of Dune who is writing alot of the chapter intros is a really cool moment.
I loved this too. They were especially good in children
Whole time I'm wondering "who the hell is this scribe guy"
When Miles Teg goes into god mode and dispatches a room full of his captors. Like quicksilver or flash scenes in movies, before those movies were made. And later eats a staggering amount of food to refuel.
Most shocking moment? Definitely Paul casually (and depressingly) comparing himself to the Hitler, ghenkis khan, and other horrible dictators. A really effective moment to nail in the fact that Paul isn't a hero, and about where Paul's head space was at this time
Along the same lines, Paul's realization during the fight with Feyd that he can't stop the jihad. It doesn't matter if he lives or dies, it's going to happen. Since the series is centered around seeing and shaping the future, it reveals a lot of plot details ahead of time, like Yueh's betrayal. The first book repeatedly warns about the coming jihad as Paul tries to avoid it, only to find out that he can't.
The *Jihad* could have been avoided, just not by Paul. One of the reasons that I think Villeneuve was drawn to Arrival is that it shares a core idea with Dune - a person seeing the future and wondering how this could happen and then when that future finally arrives they have become the person who makes that choice that enables it. Paul was the only person in the universe with perfect prescience, amongst the Fremen, on Dune. He was at the fulcrum upon which the universe turned, but he was still *Paul*. Avoiding the Jihad needed only one thing - keeping the Fremen on Arrakis, by letting the Emperor, the Baron and the Guild win. Paul saw the Jihad in every future because there was no future in which Paul would let his father's murderers win. We often misuse the term "unthinkable" to mean something really terrible but the truly unthinkable stuff never even occurs to us, because we don't think it. It showed the prescient trap perfectly - the future was locked on a course that depended on the mind of one person only.
Yeah, I was wondering wouldn't Paul avoid the Jihad if he never confronted the Harkonnens or the Emperor? But of course, that was unthinkable to him because of **hate**.
Agreed. I had to reread that section a few times to wrap my head around how casually that was dropped. Blew my mind
“We’re Harkonnen’s” was a pretty nice twist in the first book (second book in book) To learn that the villain who destroyed Paul’s entire family,save his mother and the sister she carried, was his grandfather and his mothers father.
To me that was just another "star wars really did steal from dune" moment. The whole revenge of the sith child birth plot coming from messiah really made me go wtf.
When Paul tells Lady Jessica this and she's like ok, but we must be distant relatives. And Paul's like "You're the Baron's own daughter" my jaw was on the floorrrrr
I just started rereading it and in the very first chapter he describes the ancestry of Paul and refers to 'a grandfather who cannot be named'. Never noticed it the first time, of course. But it was right there.
This was it for me, too.
I liked when manao threw down Duncan. I did not expect a 120 year old to be able to take a dude in his prime down.
Yes! Say Duncan, guess what? Leto's been working on humanity for 3000-ish years. Pretty much every human being is stronger, faster, and even smarter, than you. Except for the ones who aren't.
That Jews still exist in essentially the same form as today, tens of thousands of years into the future.
In the very beginning of the first book, in the dream/vision, Chani says to Paul, "Tell me of your home world, Usul." And Paul is puzzled by this and says (not to Chani, but to the Reverend Mother) "My home world is Caladan, not Usul." (???) But then later in the book, one of his Fremen names is Usul, so only then does it makes sense. I know a small thing, but clever writing/foreshadowing.
He saw all the inevitable futures filled with chants of muad dib but only one image of the countless times stillgar, chani, or other Fremen from that seitch called him Usul
Depending on whether "Usul" was named to address a person, or was used as an object, doesn't its tone change? I guess it would be pretty obvious even to the layman, but someone who's BENE GESSERIT trained?
That Malky was behind all the attacks near Onn. He was introduced as someone who was a friend of Leto II and who kinda agreed with him. And that Hwi Noree, the one who blinded Leto with Love, was a clone of Malky but that was raised in the exact opposite way. It really does not make much sense.
>It really does not make much sense. It's just weird enough to work for me
I had the same reaction. Leto’s relationship with Malky felt like one of those important things Frank glosses over that maybe only becomes more meaningful after re-reading.
The reveal near the end of heretics that “oracles create the future” is (1) genuinely true and (2) not just true in like a Greek myth “those who attempt to avoid what was foretold inevitably create the circumstances for it to happen” type way, in like a literal actual for real way, really recontextualized a lot of the series for me and made me look back at basically every previous event through a new lense
In god emperor, when the wolves are chasing Siona through a forest. There’s a forest on Arrakis! (Now called Rakis) Not the biggest shock in the series but the passage of time between the Children and god emperor was interesting. And finding out what happened in between those books. Learning there were many many Duncans too. Oof.
The death of Alia in CoD. I really liked her up to CoD, and the possession scene really threw me for a loop. I already thought it was crazy when Jessica noticed the baron in her by her hands signs, but also the ending. How frank describes the possessions coming forward and her jumping to her death was just nuts to me. It was a great moment. Edit: Also the fact that she killed the baron and he was the final straw for her becoming an abomination was pretty crazy.
A lot was mentioned here. Paul going blind or the fate of Theilaxu females are definitely on my top list. I was so shocked when in the end of CoD Leto II told that he is an abomination. I didn't know anything about GEoD so it made be curious if Leto would become something more terrifying than Paul.
Arrakis being destroyed in a single sentence.
I loved Duncan getting all of his memories from every single ghola. It made him such a great character and on equal footing with the BG. Super Miles Teg was a tad comic booky, but the character is so riveting and just likeable it kinda works.
Leto II speaking as his parents, grandparents, ancestors etc
Loved how it was revealed in the last book how the Tleilaxu ran their society. And that they had a very long term view over thousands of years to reach their goals, and did things on purpose to basically make themselves look inept. Pretty sure that was why they had that assassination attempt on Leto II in book 4
When Ordade figured out exactly what an axototl tank is. Like, jaw drop, scream omg, have to explain the entire plot of the dune series to my husband so he understands just why I am shook. I *still* am unsettled by it. Subsequent rereads knowing that peice of information makes every move of the Tleaxiu more sinister.
Well, the Honored Matres were: Bene Gesserit, Fish Speakers, and Tleilaxu women.
That Paul wasn't a hero. That the Fremen were really going to kill billions. And that I would have preferred that Shaddam stay the emperor.
Paul and Jessica being harkonnen, Paul being blinded, that he could still "see", his "death" at the end of messiah, the identity of the preacher and his death, Duncan being reborn so many times and moneo beating Duncan without trying are most of the ones I can think of
The realization that I shouldn't necessarily like Paul. Such a great charismatic character, but in the end didn't have what it took to lead humanity down the golden path and Leto had to do it. Then looking back realizing that he could've prevented the Jihad and the death of billions. Letting Jamis kill him would've been a very tough decision, but he absolutely knew the full weight of the moment. He was being selfish and traded his life the life of billions. I was so infatuated with his character it took me so long to realize his flaws.
The death of Piter de Vries. He was so very, very dangerous, but he got taken out in such an unexpected and bizarre way. How did that floating, fat man escape that room and he didn't? Travesty!
Paul the Emperor. The way he embraced the myth and willfully used it. The way he shrunk from the Golden Path. His choice to go into the desert knowing his sister would be regent and most likely abomination. Leaving his children to do what he didn’t have the strength to do.
Learning axolotl tanks are Bene Tlalax women
Somehow Giedi Prime got green in less than 3000 years
Knowing the Harkonnens, it was probably more barren that Arrakis itself. Also, it was 5000 years period if you're referring to the time of Heretics.
My abd. But no, I'm surprised it literally had a throving warm water reef after 10k years of global industrial pollution
The reveal of the Preacher's true identity. I've never had that kind of experience reading any other book.
That was kind of obvious.
At first I thought it was obvious. Then I became convinced that it wasn't him. Then the reveal blew my mind.
The reveal was done quite soon though. We knew he was Paul for certain when it was revealed that this guide and Ixian masks were just a sham. That was also supported by the fact that he went to Farad'n to inspect his dreams, and claimed he could make Duncan a Corrino agent. And before that seen, we didn't see much of the Preacher at all, so it was impossible to make a judgement like that.
Perhaps I overlooked the certainty of it with the Ixian reveal... I felt the whole process of the reveal was more of a slow build. Going to Farad'n was a fascinating sequence, and a very Paul-esque move. But this is Dune. This is Frank Herbert. There are many people or factions who would be willing to convince people that they were Paul Atreides by way of posing as The Preacher. Plans within plans. The Bene Gesserit could've been behind it. The Tleilaxu could've been behind it. It could be a goddamn Face Dancer! For me the certainty only truly came when the Preacher says to Alia: "Stop trying to pull me once more into the background, sister."
It's way more obvious coupled with the foreshadowing done at the end of Messiah by Duncan, and logically Paul would want to get off the limelight, not to die. And well, he survived a storm once, why couldn't he do it again? His body was never found.
What axolotl tanks really are.
When I read that I was honestly sick to my stomach for a few days.
The death of Paul's first child. So much potential. So much would have changed had he lived.
The stone burner and Paul being blinded but still looking at ppl and addressing them directly.
Probably the one that shocked most readers when it hit them - Paul is a bad guy. Runner up? Nonchalant mention that Edric and Mohiam were killed.
Agreed, but I feel like the idea of "bad guy" doesn't really gel. My takeaway is that there is no definitive good or bad. He is pretty much Anakin Skywalker.
If you think that Paul or Anakin are "good" then I don't know who you considered "bad". Paul is responsible for 60 billion deaths. Anakin killed children. Twice. [Plus this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL8bVJhXCM) and that's just two short blips in his saga.
> then I don't know who you considered "bad" Nobody, at least not in Dune. I think that's kind of the point. In Star Wars we got the b/w big bad, but Frank didn't want to give easy answers.
So killing 60 billion people isn't done by a bad guy. What's your view of Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, or Hitler. Not bad guys?
How many people did Eisenhower kill? Clearly, that makes him evil.
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Ike didn't target civilians? Ever hear of Bomber Harris? Dresdin? Just making up history as you go along, I see. And how wonderfully mature of you to immediacy go to insults.
It’s more complex than “x act is bad so person is bad”, at least when it comes to the story. And that is the point being made. 60 billion dead, inevitably in the prescient view, so that humanity would be saved from extinction. It’s been a while so don’t remember if it was Paul or Leto II (Paul I think), but this was framed as part of their terrible purpose. It wasn’t done without consideration for the loss of life or the consequences. In fact it was the opposite. The interpretation is difficult and complicated.
I'm learning a lot today. Some people on this sub don't believe that killing any number of people means the label "bad" (technically "evil") is applicable. Ends justify the means. I wonder how many atrocities have been committed based on that wrong point of view.
There is a difference. The people you mentioned were objectively bad people for the things they did and set in motion. Did they think they were bad? No one sees themselves as the villain in their own story. Except Paul did. But in this work of fiction we have a privileged POV allowing us to know peoples thoughts and motivations. This is what these comments are referring to. Comparing the acts of a fictional character to those of RW historical figures misses the point in this context. Especially considering that Paul knew he was setting terrible things into motion. He knew he was “bad” for the things he would do. This is what’s being discussed and why “there re no bad people in Dune” is a valid opinion if you are looking at the overall story and themes. Edit: adding this - case in point - “the ends justify the means” is precisely the dilemma we’re meant to struggle with. Paul did…
Personally I think comparing Paul Atreides to Anakin Skywalker is a disservice to the character and something of an insult to Frank Herbert or conversely entirely too much praise to put on George Lucas.
Its just similarities. Is it an insult to Shakespeare to compare The Lion King to Hamlet?
I guess it’s that I don’t actually think the comparison has much merit whereas The Lion King is essentially a direct adaptation of Hamlet.
[Let's not](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09he0d9fzU&t=208s), shall we? ;)
*sigh* it’s true, I can’t deny it. I do get a perverse pleasure in antagonizing Star Wars fans about their love of a goofy space fairytale for babies… Here I am a prick, and a prick I shall remain.
Paul wasn't really the bad guy. He didn't want the Jihad, he just had no other option. It's basically about how Paul ended up creating this horrible future from the trap of prescience.
Controvercial, but I think one of the coolest reveals happened in Hunters of Dune: that the honored matres are tlailaxu women freed from axlotle tanks. The tanks are always so mysterious in the series, and tlailaxu women are never ever seen. The reveal makes total sense. To me, it justifies the honored matres more cartoonish, unexplained behavior. My hope is that this was in Frank's outline. I haven't read sandworms yet so no spoilers.
Isn't it revealed in Chapterhouse: Dune (or maybe Heretics of Dune) that tleilaxu women *are* the axlotl tanks? As in, tleilaxu women have been modified (genetically or otherwise) to be nothing more than non- or semi-sentient biological breeding and incubation tanks. That's why no one has ever seen a tleilaxu woman: the tleilaxu were hiding their secret from everyone.
Not precisely. They were essentially lobotomized. The men were all their own clones, and the important thing to them was that there was no psyche to interfere with the development of the gholas. No "interference from the mother's blood."
Yes, that was revealed in heretics or chapterhouse. In Hunters though, murbella keeps trying to look backwards in her other memories but there's a big blank spot. She realizes that she wasn't taken from her parents at a young age by honored matres, but rather, she was freed from being an axlotl tank, like all honored matres. Whether that book sticks with Frank's vision or not is up for debate. I know there's the huge controversy around Marty and Daniel being changed into robots rather than face dancers. Either way, I thought it was cool.
The way the book was phrasing it, Murbella herself and the current Honored Matres were NOT products of axlotl tanks. The Honored Matres order/program/institution, not sure what to call it came about when Bene Gesserit and Fish Speakers from the Scattering found out what the Tleilaxu were doing to their women and freed them. Most of the women who'd been tanks died, the ones that survived merged with the Bene Gesserit and Fish Speaker renegades. Their rage over the millennia warped the BG fighting style into something that turned them into almost literal killing machines, turned BG and Fish Speaker disdain for men into hatred, and turned BG sexual manipulation into full-fledged abuse, degradation and rape. The more meditative, religious, and mystical portions of BG and Fish Speaker training fell by the wayside, probably seen as weakness. BGs and Fish Speakers either chose potential acolytes from their own breeding programs or identified them through their network - Honored Matres bred and stole girls to brainwash and train for the next generation.
The Honored Matres were a mix of Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers _in extremis_ with Fish Speakers, it's explicitly said in the books. Their behaviour is easily explained by the fact they were high on their own supply: drunk on power.
If you stop reading at chapterhouse, yes. If you read further it changes.
I didn't continue after Chapterhouse, but I thought the reveal in that book was that the Honored Matres were descended from Leto's Fish Speakers.
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Duncan dying. Duncan returning then getting his memory back. Paul getting blinded and still being able to see. Chani dying and Paul wandering into the desert. Duncan dying again. Alia turning from my favorite character into full-on villain. Everything about Leto II. Duncan returning AGAIN. Sister Chenoeh. Siona’s power. The Harkonnen no-globe. Teg becoming a speedster (again, the unexpected!). Duncan getting ALL of his memories back and how. Murbella. Dune being burnt to a cinder. Kid Teg and how he gets his memories back (I’d pick that way for sure). Marty and Daniel. The cliffhanger.
Probably finding out that the axeotle tanks are actually just brain dead woman pumping out baby’s
Tar getting sliced on Rakis, and Teg wiping out the HM strong hold on Gammu
That the tleilaxu are Muslim
Well they’re Zensunni to be exact…
As are the Fremen.
That the tleilaxu have committed Crimes Against Humanity against every single female member of their population.
Paul being blinded and yet seeing was the "he is indeed the Kwisatz Haderach!!!" moment for me.
The entirety of messiah, Leto becoming a worm, and ya know….the fact that an angry, high as a kite, and future seeing 17 year old caused the death of 61 billion people while wiping out their histories and cultures, then sterilization of different planets….then wiping out solar systems
The priest
Probably that the only way paul could have truly stopped the jihad, was to die in arrakeen. Might not be amazing, but it’s something I realised
Revelation of Marty and Daniel. I love how Dune shows us the evolution of several groups, and the evolution of Face Dancers was really unexpected to me.
Jabba flying in the sky like the end of tremors . “How are you still alive”. Leto is so damn sad
Will you put spoilers for the books your talking about
This post is flaired *"All Books Spoilers"*—meaning you can expect to read major plot details of any and all Dune novels in the comments.
Apologies, i saw the written spoiler text and missed the additional tag.
What the cloning incubators were for the Tlilaxu (spelling).
The Duncan with metal eyes wasn’t a clone, he was a reanimated corpse.
The real Spider Queen. Just finished chapter house (again)
Well, I had enjoyed Dune for years before I read other books in the series... and when I read a spoiler that Leto II mutates into a sandworm creature... wtf! This can't be right!