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We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies, and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and TV.My name's Abu.My name is Leo.And folks...
Welcome to episode three of our Heretics of Dune book club series!
Oh my gosh.I'm glad we didn't stop at part two.
Yeah.That would be so incredibly weird.Part of me wanted to after that chapter five, after that Tleilaxu chapter, I was like, maybe I'm out.Maybe, maybe I'm done with this book club.
Maybe I'm done with Dune.
But alas, we're back.We're here.And we're continuing our deep dive into the pages of Frank Herbert's fifth novel. in the Dune Saga.Now, before we get into it, as usual, let's knock out a quick bit of housekeeping, starting with our spoiler warning.
Folks, you know this one.Today's episode will contain no spoilers beyond the pages and books that we have covered thus far.So as long as you've done the reading, you're good to go. Indeed you are.
And of course, a huge, huge shout out, a massive honored matre reflexive kick size shout out to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons, Rob Silver, Daniel Dion, Roman Caballo, Jonathan Lambert, and of course, C.R.Spruill.
Gentlemen, I imagine if I hit you with a poison dart, you too would reflexively kick out and shatter my thigh bone and leave me screaming in agony.That's right.Because that's how good you are.You're just that good.I would expect nothing less.
Yeah.Your reflexes are fast. That was almost a physical bit on a podcast medium, which makes no sense, but it's fine.Our thank you, of course, extends to all of our patrons and all of our listeners.
Seriously, without the support of our patrons, we would not be able to keep this podcast going.So thank you.Thank you a million billion times, a mega trillion times.Thank you.
Thank you so much. Okay, housekeeping out of the way.Y'all know the drill for these book club episodes.We will begin with a summary of today's chapters.
Then we'll dive deep into a couple of takeaways before finally wrapping up by chomping down on some yummy spice morsels.But before we get into all of that, let's take a quick breather.Don't go anywhere, folks.
When we come back, we're diving right back into Heretics of Dune.
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Welcome back, everybody.Hope you survived your interview with that honored matre.Let's start off with the first assigned chapter for today's book club episode, chapter seven.And I'm starting to sense a pattern, Abu.Yeah.
This book seems to be either two people talking or a flashback. And that's fine.We're still at the beginning of the book.But this is a flashback chapter.So yes, we are in the sort of early life of Miles Teg.
He's kind of daydreaming back about his youth.And there's this particular dinner event that he remembers that involved a Tleilaxu scheme that his parents helped the Bene Gesserit thwart.And in this memory,
We see his mother, Lady Janet, and she clearly is like running the family.She's clearly the head honcho.She's the one in charge.It's very cool to see this woman who, of course, we know was responsible for the earliest years of Teg's life.
But it's also remarkable how much mutual respect and love there is between her and her husband, which is so interesting considering the vast conversations we've seen in this book already about love and the danger of love.
There's like love and respect between them.So it's there, but it's maybe not being succumbed to as a weakness.I don't know, might be more to say about that later. Ultimately, this dinner is dominated by a conversation.
The father is a chome trader, and he is finalizing a Pongy rice trade deal with some free traders who are actually, the mother is detected, Tleilaxu agents.They are operating on behalf of planet Tleilax.
And she, Miles Teg's mother and Miles, go to observe this transaction.And basically, his dad has to like stall, fill the space with meaningless chatter, as she has time to kind of figure out what they actually want.
Because clearly, they're not in here just looking for some rice.Yeah, they're looking for something else. Now this is Teg's first encounter with the Tleilaxu, and he learns quite a bit.
For instance, his mother tells him that the newest face dancers can actually absorb some of their victims' memories with a simple touch, which is crazy.That's wild. Holy shit, indeed.
Yeah, she says, in just a few moments, one of those face dancers could convince everyone that they are your father, except for me, basically.It's a startling moment, for sure.
Now, she also tells Miles that while the face dancers are sterile, the Bene Gesserit have attempted to breed with the masters, and the offspring were described as weird or strange.
And the female offspring that the Bene Gesserit bore were not able to be probed with other memory.So I don't know if they're being born with, like, firewalls.They're just, they've got blockers built in.
Yeah, it's not clear what the definition of strange offspring here is.Janet does not go into detail. But regardless of that, we're led to assume, and Miles is told here, that it didn't work out.
That breeding with a Tleilaxu doesn't provide the results that the Bene Gesserit are looking for.Right, right.
Now, Miles, perceptive as always, it's a seven-year-old, crazy mint hat capabilities already showing, he asks about female Tleilaxu.He's like, well, surely there are lady Tleilaxu people, right?
And his mother tells him no one outside of the core planets has ever reported seeing one.Ever.That's suspicious.But they definitely exist.So the Bene Gesserit know that they exist, but no one off planet has ever seen one.
Now I'll just take a moment here to say this confused me a little bit because like they are saying they've seen them, they know that they exist, but no one's ever reported seeing them off planet.
So I guess this means that a Bene Gesserit got to a Tleilaxu planet and reported from that planet about seeing one or something like that.
I don't know.Yeah, it's unclear.
Yeah, it's unclear.You know, maybe it isn't The case that the Bene Gesserit have infiltrated all the way to Bandalong the capital city, but right the Tleilaxu are a multi-system That's true group.You know, they have many planets so
I suspect the Bene Gesserit do have spies among, like, traders and, you know, the Tulalaks who still participate in commerce and trade and thus have to have, like, trading ports and allow Co-Windas into their worlds to some extent.
And so I imagine the Bene Gesserit are able to gather data, at least through those paths.
Yeah, I also would not put it past the Bene Gesserit to like capture someone and torture them.Granted, I don't even know what kind of torture you could do to a face dancer in order to extract information.
But if anyone's going to find out what that torture looks like, it's going to be the Bene Gesserit.
So anyway, they found out, they figured it out, they got the data somehow.
Now, there's some more interesting details here about face dancers in the Toylaxu that Janet tells Teg, but we're going to dig into those a little bit more in the takeaways, so stay tuned for that.
Moving forward a little bit in the timeline, Teg, when he's I think just shy of 13 years old, is sent off to an advanced school where it's confirmed, yeah, this dude's a fucking Mentat.He's got crazy Mentat capabilities and potential for his age.
And just as the Bene Gesserit had planned and hoped for, his sort of full potentials coming into view as like a master mentat soldier mind, basically. At that school, Miles was taught all about his Atreides ancestry.
Of course, he looks one for one like Duke Leto Atreides, so he's got to be strong with the Atreides bloodline.And we find out, kind of shockingly, that he was given various doses of melange.
I read this as he was put into a spice agony, like he was put into a spice trance.
Yeah, that's fair.I don't think it was quite to the extent that maybe Leto was like truly put into a near-death coma experience, because I don't think... Tag exhibits those present abilities anyway, so there's no reason to push him that far.
That's true.But I think you're correct.Like he was given various levels of spice and probably induced some level of agony.I just don't know that he went as far as a Revered Mother or Leto II or Paul did.
Yeah.So he didn't get to like lethal, poisonous levels.Right.
Yeah, I think that's probably the most accurate but he had enough spice to actually start having some visions Nothing prescient, but it was like this opening of his mind and he said his awareness expanded exactly exactly and All of that is very cool.
He does not have prescient abilities though, right?
Now after his mother's death, he found a note.
So basically, the Bene Gesserit had corresponded with his mother, Lady Janet, and they had confirmed with her via these like written notes on Redulian crystal paper, that he was the warrior Mentat that they were hoping to achieve.
And rather than, I don't know, deface or disarm the love he had for his mother, it kind of just transferred that love and loyalty directly to the Bene Gesserit, because he saw how much his mother was working with the Bene Gesserit toward the Bene Gesserit goals and everything like that.
So this really kind of cements Miles' tag as he is for the Bene Gesserit till death does him part from them.
Yeah, there was an interesting line in there about how the love and respect and admiration that he held for his mother was thus transferred after her death and after he learned the truth of his role as the warrior Mentat Bashar for the Bene Gesserit.
that was transferred to the sisterhood.So it didn't diminish his loyalty, it in fact just, as planned, redirected it from his mother to the sisterhood at large.
Yeah.Very interesting.And I feel like the subtext here with the Bene Gesserit view on love is interesting. Like clearly this is all very calculated.His love for his mother and then the Bene Gesserit is not an accident.
They want him to be in love because they know it's a binding force that will give them this incredible tool forever.Right.Now the final pages of the chapter recount the days and weeks after Tag accepted the job to train Duncan.
He's like, all right, I'll train that kid, whatever.And we get to see his first interview with Shuang Yu. which is wild.Oh God, it's been so long since we've talked about Shuang Yu.Shuang Yu, typical ice cold trucker self.Shuang Yu.
That's right.That's right.The ping.
And Tag is like, damn, this trucker, this star of season four, Ice Road Truckers, really disagrees with Terraza and her missions with the golem.He also sees why Terraza warned him to watch out for Xuanyu.
Do not trust her with the safety of that kid.And once again, as the chapter ends, we see that Teg is wrapped up fully, pulled right out of entirement, right back into the whirlwind of Benning Jezeroit's scheming and plotting and plans within plans.
He's fully ripped from his farm. And his easy life with his daughter.Yeah.Back into the absolute tornado shit storm.That is the Benny Jesserit long tail plans that he's dealt with his whole life.So he's back in the old saddle here.Yeah.
Right next to that.That's right.All right.Let's talk about chapter eight.This is a huge one because in chapter eight we get our very first encounter with these dangerous and mysterious honored matres that everybody's talking about.
Our guy Woff, recall him, master of masters, is on a no-ship having a secret meeting with an honored matre.
Can I just say, pretty sick that the Mahdi, the Abdul, is like out here doing like, meeting with people. Yeah.Respectable.He could be sending a ambassador of sorts, but he isn't.
He could send, you know, the guy who's like close to his Gola, the one of the guys is like nearing his age or whatever.Right.Send him.Like, that's pretty wild.That wife is like, no, I'll do it.Pretty good.
Yeah, I mean it speaks to how, one, dangerous this is, and two, how top secret this is.Yeah.Like, this meeting feels like a need-to-know situation, and the only person that needs to know is the master of masters.True, yeah, yeah.
So I think it just speaks to the very
Defcon one top-secret nature of this situation the stakes are high the stakes are high and the meeting is incredibly tense I mean this whole chapter is just layers and layers of Verbal jiu-jitsu happening from both sides from the honored matre and from WAF as well We're more in WAF's head so we kind of understand what's going on there, but much like WAF We don't know what's going on inside the honored matre's head
and thus have to interpret and read in between many, many lines here.We are going to explore a bit more about what we learn about the Honored Matres in this first encounter with them later in the takeaways.
So for now, in the summary, let's just breeze through the broad beats of this chapter.So at the start of the chapter, Woff is incredibly nervous going into the meeting.He's extremely on edge.He's worried that this is where he's going to fucking die.
And he truly fears meeting this Honored Maitre, even though he knows he has to.And even though it sounds like he's done basically everything he can to prepare.
Now, the meeting itself begins with a lot of talking in circles about logic and the infinite universe.
And there are moments where Woth questions who these Honored Maitre are and what they believe in and how much they actually know about Bene Gesserit plans or the Tleilaxu religion.They're saying some things that sound sort of Zenzuni, but then they
aren't.And there's a lot of back and forth interpretation happening here.And Woff, frankly, kind of pivots a lot back and forth between confusion, anger, and fear.Right.In regards to this honored mantra.
It really is.There's some whiplash there where he's like, Oh, she's such a disappointment.I guess I'll have to kill her.Right.The next sentence, he's like, Fuck I'm gonna die.I'm gonna die.I'm gonna die.
Exactly.Exactly.Yeah, I mean WAF is extremely on edge and I think it's a very effective writing Yeah, because we the reader are also like very on edge at any point from paragraph to paragraph We truly don't know what the fuck could happen next.
Yeah, and WAF obviously feels the same way too.It's really well written chapter Yeah, it's fun
Now as the meeting continues, it becomes clear to Woff that the Honored Matres are desperate for information, and the Tleilaxu appear to be their only source of obtaining this information.
They're so desperate that at one point in the meeting, the Honored Matre even just sort of tries to seduce Woff.She's like, I could give you some things if you know what I mean.
Like, you've got no idea the pleasure I could give you.
The pleasures I could provide.
I'm reading the book like, uh-huh, go on.Right, exactly.I'm sold.Waff, you sold?I'm sold.
Waff not sold.Waff immediately shuts that shit down because he knows he has informants returned to Leilaxu from the scattering and other informants.
He knows that sexual techniques used to enslave men and populaces are a hallmark of the Honored Mantres.This is something that's like part of their MO.It's something they've done since returning from the scattering.
And it's something that he is very fearful of and knows to be wary of.
You end up in bed with one of them.You've basically lost.
It's like that Dua Lipa song, right?If you're under him, you'll never get over him.
Oh, wow.That's pretty good.
I love Dua Lipa.Dua Lipa is great.Yeah.I don't listen to enough of her music.She's great, though.
Yeah. So returning to the meeting here, Woff basically deduces, he's connecting the dots all throughout this meeting, and he realizes that the Honored Matres are looking for ways to track no ships or nullify their invisibility.
And they haven't found it yet.And maybe the Tleilaxu can provide information that'll help them toward that goal.There's also lots of questions about the Duncan Gola and Shiana on Rakis.
So it's clear that the Honored Matres also have spies or informants or something within the Bene Gesserit ranks.And they want to be informed on what's going on there as well.They're looking for information.They want to be in the know.
Yeah.I'll also say, we talked about this when we were writing the script, I misunderstood.He lies to her and says the Gola is part of the Bene Gesserit's plan to nullify no ship invisibility.
He lies about that but earlier in the chapter.He does Mention that the Bene Gesserit are looking for a way to nullify no ship invisibility, right?
It's not clear how they're looking for that and why it might just be kind of like a if it can be done We're vulnerable and we need to know if we're vulnerable right feels very Bene Gesserit Nevertheless, like that is something that the honored matre accepts at face value.
She's like Yeah, that makes sense.Duncan, Idaho, Gola, Shiana on Rackus.That's going to work out.Maybe.I don't know if that math math's at all.
Yeah, I don't think we as the reader know enough to know how effective Woff's lie there was, or whether he just kind of threw that out as a red herring.To continue to throw this honored mantra off the scent of something, you know?
Yeah, I don't think we know enough of what's happening in this chapter quite yet. It probably takes a couple of rereads to truly understand the depth.
So as the meeting wraps up, it's clear, abundantly clear, to both Woff and us as the reader, that one of the Honored Matre's greatest weaknesses is their arrogance. This honored matre is so stuck up throughout this whole conversation.
And so Woff decides to kind of play into it, you know, be the obedient little dwarfish little man who's going to listen to the tall, athletic, sexually powerful woman dominating him.You know, he really leans into that.
He even at one point makes like this really elfish little face, you know.
And he ultimately agrees to follow the Honored Matre's quote-unquote command to him to take two young Honored Matre's back to Bandalong to breed with them and so that these two young ones can basically spy for the Honored Matre's.
Which is an absolutely ridiculous ask.What? Can you imagine going to a negotiating table and being like, these two spies, you got to take with you.I need them spying on you.
Okay, great.Take them to the White House.Show them around.Give them all of the information.Right.They're going to sleep with you.Nuclear codes.Give them a copy.Yes.Big red button.Show them where it is.And you get nothing from it.Oh, you get to live.
Exactly.That's basically the offer.
That's the quote unquote negotiation.This honored mantra is offering to Woff. You know, he plays along, he says, fine, I'll do it.OK, if you say so.And the chapter then immediately takes a turn and ends on an explosive note.
Because when these two young honored maatres who are supposed to spy on the Tleilaxu enter, Woff realizes one of them is already one of his own fucking face dancers. Crazy.
And this tells him everything he needs to know.He's like, oh, fuck these honored matres.We've already infiltrated, baby.So he leaps into action.
He has a secret hidden dart thrower thing in his sleeve that he uses to quickly kill the elder honored matre that he was negotiating with and one of the young non-face dancer honored matres that entered the room, leaving the one face dancer one alive, of course.
Nearly getting his own fucking shin shattered in the process too, we'll talk about that later. Now, the chapter ends as other face dancers enter this room too.They quickly take the memories and the look of the dead honored matres in the room.
It's really interesting, there's a throwaway comment that they sort of like disintegrate the bodies, like dissolve into ash or something.
And they hide the ashes away.
They put it in a bag, put the bag in their cloak.I'm like, ew.Ew, what?What are you gonna do with that?
For us, smoke it later. Yeah, fascinating how these face-to-answer transformations work, these face-to-answer 2.0s.
But ultimately, Chapter 8 ends as Woff gives his orders to destroy this no-ship and kill everyone on board because the Honored Matres must never know that this meeting took place.
Kill everyone and continue to infiltrate and do your job, reporting to me on the Honored Matres.I was picturing Woff like,
Someone's like, what's in that pipe?And he's like, my enemies.
Good lord.What a flex.No wonder the Master of Masters isn't challenged.That's right.Again, I just want to take one minute to appreciate the chaos of that moment, right?Where he
flips up, releases the two darts, throws himself to the side, gets kicked in the thigh, he's thrown across the room by the force of it, but the dart that kills the old Honored Matre enters through her mouth and hits the back of her throat?
What a fucking shot or this lady's just open mouth the whole time just very like jaw fully extended That's a good point.Oh my goodness.
She's like think of the pleasure I can give you and then just sits there with her mouth wide open The second one is caught in the eye This dude's fucking good.Yeah.
I also am underestimating this little dude.He, in a split second, I mean, just imagine going to the bar and like falling backward out of your stool, throwing two darts, bullseye, both different parts of the room.So fucking cool.
This is truly a badass moment for Woff.That's undeniable.
Oh, I also love like the other face dancer, the face dancer who's like already transformed, doesn't need commands, just sees him do the darts and just immediately chops the one next to them in the throat to keep them from like screaming out.Yeah.
Yeah.They're just like, send it.Yeah.All right.Master's working.Oh, yeah.
Incredible stuff.So good.This scene speaks highly to the effectiveness of the telelaxu We've all perhaps been underestimating them for thousands of years.
Yeah, and now it's time to be fucking afraid of them Yeah, and again that the weapons he used have never been seen off-planet This is someone leaving Cupertino with like the iPhone 19.
You can't even fucking imagine what he's got in his sleep What a fun chapter.
Alright, our final chapter today.Chapter 9 returns us to Rakis, and we rejoin Shiana as she's sort of acclimating to being on a pedestal for all of these priests.
Now while most of the priesthood is in awe of Shiana and clearly her abilities that she's proved a couple of times now, there are a small group of people led by a fellow named Dromund who are questioning her holiness, but I also saw it just as like
asking too many questions, period.Like, I didn't get a sense that he's explicitly saying she's a con artist, but he's like, why is she reading so many books?That doesn't seem very holy.
You know, he's asking those sorts of questions, which leads to, of course, a little bit of a rift forming.
Now years are passing at this point.This is after the Bene Gesserit was alerted of Shiana's existence.So we know Terraza got that report and she's keeping an eye on her.Over years, Shiana is in the care of these priests.
And she's being kind of studied by people, although she's kind of just like playing with people and like doing kid shit.And everyone's going, wow, it's so amazing how present she is.This is a lesson from God.
You know, I see clearly some people reading too much into just like the day to day stuff she's doing.
And Dramund is out here being so fucking obnoxious, He suggests Shiana is a modern day version of the name Siona.And of course, Siona, historically hugely significant, the one who killed Leto too.
But as the Rackus priesthood saw, she's the one that created the God in many bodies transition in Leto's Godhood, right?Leto was God before, then she helped him in his final metamorphosis to back to the sandworms and the divided God.
So she's like a catalyst in this religious thing.The first time I read this book, I was like, one for one.Siona historically became Shiana.But now I'm like, is this this drama and fan fiction?Like, it feels a little bit like it could be, right?
Now he's also taken to, this is kind of like you and me with Dune stuff.He's kind of just taken to spouting fun facts about like the history books for us.It's of course just Dune, like, Oh, did you know?
But for Shiana, he's going, let me tell you all about this one thing that Siona did.And everyone's like, we don't care.We didn't ask.
We were having a good conversation about, you know, our families and stuff, and you're just barging in and being an asshole.So no one likes him. In fact, no one likes him so much that High Priest Tuic tells... What does he tell?
He just tells an assistant, right?Yeah, I think so.Yeah.Random person.He's like, hey, can you take Dramund out into the desert and deliver him into the mouth of God?
You translate him into the mouth of God.
In other words, fucking murk him. kill him with a sandworm.He is annoying.Yeah, pretty incredible.
But nevertheless, even though drama and who initially gave the order to Hey, everybody, let's study Shiana, even though he's out of the picture, all of the other people still studied Shiana.
And they spent years just watching her every move and trying to make some sense of how she has this power.
And of course, most of it is like meaningless.Shiana is just like a kid living her life and learning, you know, she, she had finally has access to things like books and dictionaries and friends and comfort, you know, a bed to sleep on.Yeah.And.
Of course, no one wants to anger God by not giving Shianna everything and anything she desires and asks for.
Of course, yeah.I think it's mentioned, and I get the impression she is looking for answers because she understands, yeah, she does have this unique relationship to the sandworm.
Like, she herself has seen her ability to send them away that no one else can do. So she's looking for answers, but she says she doesn't think that the answers are out in the sand.
She thinks the answers are going to be somewhere else, like in a book or something.Yeah.So that is part of her investigation.Totally.
The other thing she mentions is she does not tell them that she is from a little village that was eaten by a sandworm.She does not tell them about her real relationship to the worms as a sort of antagonistic.
They killed everyone that I care about thing.She's keeping that close to her chest because it's between her and God. So there is a bit of the kind of religious and belief system within her as well, which is interesting to see.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Now, the Bene Gesserit, of course, as I mentioned over years, are keeping track of her, keeping tabs, but at a distance.They are watching her and trying not to get in the way too much.
And they are much more excited about her than even the Rackus priests are.Because the priests are still kind of trying to figure out, like, what do we do with this holy child?We don't even know.
The Bene Gesserit, on the other hand, we get a quote from Terazza's messages to her Rackus sisters, quote, the generations of preparation have become the years of refinement.We will move only at the proper moment.
There is no longer any doubt that this child is the one. End quote.Huge.Huge.Crazy.Neo.Neo.The one.I also, I found it really interesting.This might be something for more of a takeaway or a morsel, but I'll say it now.I found it interesting.
At one point, Shiana mentions that she can smell the fear of the priests as they're hovering over her, and that she can do that because she's a desert child, a child of the desert. Which of course in the time of Paul would be a Fremen.
Someone who is of the desert and has to live on this edge of alive or dead and your instincts are what keep you alive.
But it's been redefined now because the Fremen have taken a place in history and they're part of Paul's legacy and they're part of the Atreides legacy.Now the Rackus priesthood who sort of like laid claim to god-emperor Leto to Atreides.
She is now just a child of the desert. And that was interesting to me.I was like, oh, interesting.
There is always going to be people on the periphery, people who are outsiders from those in power, who are living via Amtal, who are living via this, like, life and death dependency on their own senses and their own responses to things.
That was interesting.The second thing with this quote in particular really jumped out at me, Look at how excited Terraza is about this wild element that's come out of the desert, this quality of Shiana.
And we don't get any sense that the Bene Gesserit had anything to do with Shiana's parents or the worm or any of what happened with Shiana.Shiana just appears to be something that's emerged from the desert.
Now, flashback to how concerned the Bene Gesserit was about Chani mating with Paul and then having kids.Introducing those wild, uncontrolled genes.Right.It was like, this is a tragedy, right?Irulan was poisoning
the love of Paul's life to prevent them from having kids because the Bene Gesserit saw it as such a threat that this wild gene mixture would ruin their planning.
But of course that wild gene mixture ended up being one of the most powerful beings ever to have lived. So now we see the Bene Gesserit seeing these people of the desert as like, maybe that's what it takes.
Maybe there's this like balance of we're not totally involved, but we're ready to leap into action the second this stuff happens. Because if they've been waiting for someone like Shiana, this child is the one.
This is also why they've had people like Teg fucking hanging out on a planet for 300 years.This is why they've had people like 12 Duncan Golas.They're just hoping that a kid emerges from the people of the desert.
with that wild gene, it's so interesting to see the unspoken difference in how the Bene Gesserit are treating these wild genes thousands of years later, possibly because of the lessons they learned from, I don't know, the first three Dune books.
Right.That's a great point.There is a line in there, this final quote that we read, generations of preparation have become years of refinement, That line does make me wonder what generations of preparation.Is she talking specifically about Shiana?
Or is she just talking like we, the Bene Gesserit, have been preparing and training for whatever circumstances might come so that we may take advantage of them?
We talked in the previous episode about how the Bene Gesserit are always planning, and that's how they achieve their success, right?Success is just the right timing, meeting the right preparation.
I think you make a good point that they certainly are more open to the idea of this random chance happening out in the desert that's outside of their control, but I think they have been preparing for this eventuality to some extent for a while now, and thus they've been able to spring into action with the Dunkin' Golas and getting Teg out of retirement and all of that, you know?
The chessboard has certainly been in place and maybe they've just been waiting for the right pieces to appear.
Yeah, I like what you said also because I'm hearing in that we don't know how far Bene Gesserit planning extends at this moment.
It's very easy to see Terraza and the people on Gamu and the sisters who are in Rakis but not doing anything yet directly.We don't know.It's possible, for instance, and this is something I hadn't considered until I was listening to you just now.
It's possible, for instance, that the Bene Gesserit intentionally created the dynamic of
Or they encouraged along the dynamic of the Rackus priesthood being this kind of predatory force for the people who live out in the desert to increase the likelihood of this happening.
So we don't know how directly involved they are in Shiana being Shiana.Right.And I don't remember.So we'll have to find out.
It's possible that she is just a purely random gene, and to your point, they've just been preparing for the moment we get this flare, this genetic flare above the forest canopy of the human genome, that's when we're going to jump into action.
And we're always going to be prepared for that.Or maybe they even seeded some possibilities within the desert people on Rackus.Who knows?
Right.Who knows?Always hard to untangle the very messy spiderweb that is Benny Jezret plans.I guess we'll have to keep reading the fucking book.
That's right.I guess we can't figure it all out now.Well, I guess we'll have to read whatever chapter 10.
Another really interesting set of chapters.And there's still so much more to talk about folks. Yeah.So here's the thing.We're going to take another breather.We're going to collect ourselves.We're going to reload our hidden dart throwers.
And then we'll be back in just a minute to dive into our takeaways.We'll see you in a bit.
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Welcome back everybody.Hope you enjoyed your break Let's get into our key takeaways, and I'm just good Let's talk about the key takeaways again a borderline physical bit on a podcast no, that's right the best
Nevertheless, our first takeaway today visits what we learn about the Benitoylacs from the perspective of Lady Janet Tegg, the mother of Miles Tegg, in our little flashback chapter.Right.
We wanted to take a moment to look at this partially because very clearly in these first nine chapters of the book, the Bene Tleilax, with their infiltration of other major orders, are clearly a major player on the intergalactic stage.
so too are the Bene Gesserit, as always.And the universe feels very much like the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax, sort of circling one another, not really going for any kind of kill, but both major players on the intergalactic scene.
And this chapter gives us our first deeper look at the Bene Tleilax from the Bene Gesserit perspective, which is all the more interesting because we have that chapter five that introduced us to the Bene Tleilax from the Bene Tleilax perspective.
Right.So we wanted today to look at the facts that Lady Janet provides us and says, hey, these are facts about the Bene Tleilax.
And then we also wanted to look at where are the Bene Gesserit biases here? What is the sort of narrative that we're being fed from her perspective?And what can we kind of glean from that?So sort of separating out the two elements.
For sure. So let's start with facts number one.We mentioned this briefly in the summaries, but lest you've forgotten, the new Face Dancers, Face Dancers 2.0, can absorb the memories of their victims with just a touch.Insane.Which of course helps them
be that much more convincing as replicas of said victim, right?Right, yeah.
This fact alone makes the idea that the Bene Gesserit have infiltrated the highest echelons of the other factions in the Dune universe, as we learned a few chapters ago, that much more horrifying, right?
They don't just have spies that look like Ixians in the Ixian government. They have face dancers in the Ixian government that have the memories of those Ixians.Yeah.
Fully entrenched, fully operating within Ixian high command, for example, but obviously reporting back to Bandalong, reporting back to the masters. That's wild.
It really gives a sense of how dangerous these new face dancers are and how effective the Tleilaxu are in this universe.
Yeah, like you hear a commotion in the other room, you go in to find your friend standing alone, and you go, I know face dancers are a thing, what were we talking about last week?
And they're like, about your favorite sandwich, and you clearly prefer roast beef, even though that's like a gross choice. You're like, oh, okay dang.I'm safe.This is great.
And you miss the fact that he's got a bag full of ash That's right away in his fucking jacket.That's right.By the way.What's all that ash?Oh, it's it's tobacco Smoke it later.
I'm gonna roll it up and smoke it later.Don't worry about it Now, a little detail we wanted to remind you, dear listener, is that face dancers have not always had this ability to absorb the memories of their victims.
And we know this because, for example, think back to Dune Messiah, where Scytale is going around constantly having these meetings and gathering intel and trying to learn more about Muad'Dib and how to get close to him and infiltrate the inner circle.
He has to do so much work. In order to fake being one of the locals on Arrakis at the time and make his way to Muad'Dib's inner circle.Something that a modern face dancer can achieve with a simple touch.
No hours, days, weeks of recon and intelligence gathering required on your victim.You just absorb their memories when you take over their look and body.Wild stuff.And it, again, shows us this like advancement of Beni-Tleilax techniques.
They have not been sitting on their laurels since the Atreides took power these last thousands of years.The Beni-Tleilax, much like the other factions in the Dune universe,
have been pushing the boundaries of their own abilities and their own technology and their own techniques to gain the edge.
Yeah, it occurs to me.So Lady Janet tells Teg, they don't know that we know they can do that.Like the Tleilax don't know that the Bene Gesserit have figured out that they can transfer memories like that.
I don't think the Bene Gesserit have told the rest of the galaxy.Like, Face dancers are a well-known thing.Remember, they were like entertainers for a while.They would be like gestures and they do performances and plays and stuff.
But imagine the sort of additional skepticism and protection that people would put in place if they knew the face dancers could copy memories.
Again, this is a little bit just speculation on my part, but it feels to me as though the Bene Gesserit have figured out this incredible power that the Bene Tleilax have and then are just not telling anyone.
Which is, I get it, you know, play your cards close to your chest, but sure sucks to be any of the other like an Ixian or a spacing guild member or a channel member.It's like, well, fuck, my friend might get killed and replaced, and I'll never know.
Yeah, I think you're spot on, actually, with that. This is something the Bene Gesserit are going to keep very close to their chests until the moment is right to actually utilize it.
And it gives them a huge advantage if the Bene Tleilax think that their face dancers can't be detected or the Bene Gesserit don't know their abilities when they in fact do.And you don't want to give that clear advantage up.
Now one last note about this memory thing that is in fact quite important.Teg asks, oh, so they're reading minds.This is just like magical mind reading.And the answer is no.Telepathy. It's not telepathy, it's not magic, it's not mind reading.
Much like all of the technology that Frank writes about and created in his universe, this is not wizardry, even though it can push the boundaries of that somewhat.
There is some sort of biological or technical way that the face dancers are achieving this ability to transmit memories via touch. Yeah, whatever.
I'm sure it's just some like sci-fi mumbo-jumbo shit that explains how they do that But the fact is still that this is not magic magic does not exist in Frank's universe.It's all grounded in some sort of Made-up sci-fi technology, right?
It's like technical or it's biological.It's something but it's not witchcraft exactly Brian anyway
Now, another thing we learned, another fact we learned here, is that the Beni Tleilax are using tanks to artificially produce spice melange in genuinely staggering amounts.Like, actual crazy amounts. This is the throwaway sentence we get.
Quote, for every milligram of melange produced on Rackus, any Tlalax tanks produced long tons.End quote.
Now I had to look up long tons because I was like, well a ton is 2,000 pounds.How much is a long ton?Is that like a baker's dozen?Like what is this?
Well, a long ton is another word for an imperial ton, and that is 2,240 pounds or 1,016 kilograms for people who believe in fake numbers.Now clearly, when the Benny Tlalecs go to print money, they're not holding back.They do not half-ass anything.
They're like, we're going to make a fucking shit ton of this. Nevertheless, we actually get told that this stack of spice tokens, or whatever that Teg's father receives, is enough to bankrupt someone.
So my understanding is, spice still has quite a bit of value in the universe.Which is interesting to me, because naturally, if the Beni-Tleilax were just willy-nilly producing huge amounts of spice using their tanks,
that would drive the price or the value, the relative value of spice down, right, as supply meets demand. But that has clearly not happened, at least not in a significant way.
So the Bene Tleilax, we can kind of deduce from this, have been careful in how they're utilizing this incredible ability that they have to make spice.They are not ruining the price of it.
They're making sure that the Powendas who are getting it from them are only getting it from them in amounts that will not bring the price of it down.Very interesting.
Yeah. That's fascinating.I mean, the economics is always a little fuzzy in the Dune universe to suss out, but I think you make an excellent point here that the simple fact that someone can still be bankrupted in a Spice transaction
means that it continues to hold its value in a way that's quite impressive.Because again, recall, we're like 5,000 years after Duke Leto told us that a pinch of spice could buy a house on Tupelo.Yeah.A handful of spice.
Yeah.Yeah, exactly.Maybe now a handful of spice buys like a Corvette, but still valuable.Right.
A one bedroom, 500 square foot apartment on Tupelo Bay.
Two feels like real estate.Now that all the landlords bought up the property, you'll actually get a handful of spice every six months.It's brutal.
So very interesting.And the quote actually continues, and we're told that the demand has kept up somewhat with the increased supply.
So again, you're right, the sort of economics are a little fuzzy, but we are told that, quote, use of Melange had grown to fit the new supply, and even the spacing guild bent its knee before this power, end quote.
A good reminder also that as we talk about the use of spice, spice is used as a currency, right?But it's also a consumable.It's something that people are using and eating and it's a geriatric properties and people are living longer.
You know, this isn't like hard gold that you have in your coffers or you don't.It's like some people are having it just to have in their food.
They're buying it as part of their, their groceries or whatever, versus these quantities that are very, very valuable. There's also an epigraph that mentions the standard length of life in the future is like 300 years.
And of course we know Teg is shy of about 300 years old.So that is very different than the length of life under Lato II, which we know is closer to today.And it's about like, I don't know, a hundred years.
And that goes to say, I think most people in the Imperium have some amount of spice available to them, which is interesting.
Yeah, it seems to have become less of a rarity and something that maybe the top 1%, the top 4% have access to in the universe in a regular capacity.It appears by this point, that line in particular, the use of melange had grown to fit the new supply.
That seems to me like melange is more widely available.Still expensive.Still, you know, not the cheapest spice you're going to get off the spice rack.It's right up there next to oregano.
But there are many, many more people in the galaxy using spice in my estimation than there were in the first couple of books.Totally. Let's move on.Those are some of the facts that we learn from Teg's mother.
Let's talk a bit about the Bene Gesserit bias that Janet also lets slip in some of her descriptions to Miles of these Tleilaxu.As we know, the Bene Tleilax have spent centuries, millennia,
building this reviled image of themselves, and it's clear that the Bene Gesserit basically think of them in that context.Lady Janet doesn't mince any words.She says, quote, you are looking at evil, Miles, end quote.
Yeah, tell us how you really feel.That's pretty explicit.
That's a one-star rating.
One star indeed.And later, when she's describing the face dancers as sterile, she tells Miles that the face dancers have no sense of self at all.And in fact, quote, without a sense of self.They go beyond amorality."End quote.
Which is a wild statement to make about the face dancers.She even continues and makes it clear that the face dancers in particular don't appear to have any sort of ethical code.And in fact, they're basically more machine than men.
She says something along the lines of, they're flesh made into automata.
which is, once again, sort of a very unequivocal statement to make about the Facedancers and the Tleilaxu, and how the Bene Gesserit perceived them.
Yeah, I had to double check the, like, automata, I get the meaning, right?But looking at the definition, it is literally a machine or a mechanical thing made to imitate a human.
That is so close to the machines made in the image of the human mind, you know, Butlerian Jihad edict.Like, that feels so much more intense.
She's choosing her words carefully, and I think Frank is writing her words very, very carefully there as well.
I do wonder about this, though, because this whole, like, we haven't been able to detect an ethical code within them.The mules, the unfertile face dancers, they just follow all of the commands of their masters, even at the point of self-sacrifice.
It's disgusting.It's cold.You know, they're machines.
All of that's so just threaded with disgust and judgment. But we've seen from the Tleilaxu perspective that they are serving God.The masters of masters, the mashiks, they speak the language of God.
The face dancers serve as the like operative arm of the masters.They're out there in the universe getting stuff done for the masters who are doing everything for thousands of years for God.
I get from an outside perspective, seeing that as like, I can't believe they're, yeah, they're more like insects than they are humans, which is like, Jesus, okay.
But from another perspective, isn't that really a commendable faith to have in a God and a religion viewed from the perspective of, no, they believe in their God and they're willing to sacrifice themselves for it.
And yes, there is a clear power difference between the masters and the face dancers. Nevertheless, they are all serving what they believe is God.I am a little surprised to see that the Bene Gesserit have missed that, or seem to have missed that.
Because the Bene Gesserit, in the way that Lady Janet talks about them, are treating it as this weird departure from humanity, this disgusting obscenity of they are no longer even like man, they are no longer like humans.
And yet, the Bene Tleilax we know are fitting into these religious patterns that the Bene Gesserit are like masters of fabricating with their Missionaria Protectiva.It's so weird. that the Bene Gesserit just seem completely blind to that pattern.
Because they're not like, oh, they're self-sacrificial, Teg, because they believe they're doing God's will, and let's talk about how that's a little crazy or whatever.She's not saying that.She's like, well, they're like insects.They're machines.
They're disgusting, you know, they're evil.It's like, good Lord, have you missed all of your own teachings?It feels to me so hypocritical or so blind, you know?
Yeah. I think that's a really excellent point.
I think that gets at a core theme in this book that we touched on a bit in our previous episode too, where we should be skeptical of all sides and all groups in this conflict and what they believe in, because none of them are infallible and none of them have all the answers or all the correct answers.
I think what you're pointing out here really does show a Bene Gesserit blind spot, and I would go so far as to even say that it shows some hypocrisy on their part.
and it's easy to imagine that this is due to millennia and generations of their own sort of arrogance and self-righteousness, you know, their own opinion that they have humanity's best interests at heart and that they have been working toward a singular goal of bettering humanity and only they know how to achieve that.
That might make them blind to other perspectives that to them feel alien, right?To this idea that the face dancers appear to have no ethical code because they just do what they're told and are completely amoral, good and bad, have no meaning to them.
From the Tleilaxi perspective, they do what they're told because it's the word of God.It's the word of masters who speak with the word of God. To them, that is what is right.So they do have a right and wrong.
What is right is the word of God, and the Bene Gesserit are blind to that fact.
And maybe it's because the Tleilaxu have just been that good at hiding their religion that the Bene Gesserit don't even realize that there's some religious undertones here.
Or it's the Bene Gesserit ignoring that fact because of their own biases in how they perceive and view the Bene Tleilax.I think you've made a really poignant observation here that is very much in line with everything in this book.
Lest we forget, this book is literally called Heretics of Dune. And I think that has many layers to it.As we know, Frank loves to do.It's not just about one group that breaks apart from the blah, blah, blah.
Like, I think there are many heretical ideas littered all throughout this book.And every single character has heretical thoughts and perceptions.And it's on us as the reader to observe them and analyze them.
Yeah, like, Uscilla thinking, how does the term heresy even come up with a group like the Bene Gesserit, is such an early thought for Frank to give us.
And I think what it keys us up to do is to re-examine the Bene Gesserit as as much a faith as any of the faiths they've propagated throughout the Imperium, right?
And although it's not going to match one for one because there's sort of like a meta faith that has like an ultimate skepticism and cynicism when it comes to human belief,
it's still clearly we are seeing Lady Janet, a trusted and treasured Bene Gesserit teacher, who's important in delivering the Mentat warrior Miles Tagg to the Bene Gesserit, blah, blah, blah.
Even she is going, here is what we believe about them, completely missing the patterns that they have been responsible for for tens of thousands of years.
It's really fascinating to view it through that lens and to keep reminding ourselves the Bene Gesserit, they have good intentions, right?They're trying to help humanity along, but that is according to what they believe is right.
And the things that they don't understand or the things that they're ignorant to are huge blind spots. and perhaps they've settled into a certain status quo that heretics come along and is that a bad thing?Is that a good thing?
We'll have to see.Yeah, that's a question we should all keep in mind.I think even zooming out and getting a bit meta about it, the Tleilax who are obviously very eastern coded, And the Bene Gesserit are obviously very Western coded.
I mean, the Atreides literally derive from the Greeks.
And this really does speak to the perceptions that Western cultures often have about Eastern cultures.Eastern cultures in particular tend to be more collectivist, tend to be more steeped in their faith.
to some extent, and Western cultures, as we've seen over the past couple of generations, have continued to be less and less religious.
Have continued to sort of view the world through that lens.And so, you know, something like a super religious Eastern culture can feel alien. and can feel so different that it's hard to overlook your own blind spots, you know?
If you're somebody who's only ever grown up in a Western culture, in a Western country, it's hard to recognize that like, well,
some of what you believe is also sort of like preconditioned and based on faiths that maybe you no longer believe in, but are still steeped so deeply in the culture that you can't extricate them from the way things run in the way you perceive the world.
So yeah, I mean, if we want to get deeply philosophical and political and meta about it, I'd certainly read it in that context as well, especially as someone who for my whole life has had one foot in each culture.Right.
I was raised in a deeply religious Pakistani household, and I grew up in a deeply secular Western country in very liberal communities and colleges, and now I live in the fucking liberal bastion of the country, New York City.
I have always kind of been a person torn in two, being dragged toward either of those ideologies.And reading it in this book always makes me think of that.
In much of Frank's writings, just the way he contrasts East and West, and doesn't necessarily say either of them is right or wrong, but certainly points out how both of them can perceive each other in biased, hypocritical, and often incorrect ways.
Yeah, I would also say, because at first I was hesitant, I think I still view the U.S.
as like a pretty Christian nation, and this is as a Buddhist, I've always felt a little uncomfortable with it, mostly because of, I don't know, the direction that some things have taken recently.But recalling that
Frank had like Jesuit aunts and had like a very religious upbringing, but then himself basically broke from religion, it seems like, in his later years.
This is written by a Western person who has become disillusioned a little bit with the organizations of Western religion.So I think you're 100% right with that.My hesitance in saying like, oh yeah, the West is
more of a secular place, only comes from parts of the West, and I'm sure some of our listeners live in states where it still feels perhaps, for instance, they have the Ten Commandments now in their classroom, in their public school, right?
So that I can totally understand people not getting that if you're in one of those states today, But just recall that the author was a man from the West who had broken a little bit from traditional religious structures.
So he's really, I think, actively criticizing everything, both and all.Right?
Super interesting.And again, as always, thank you Abu for sharing your perspective as a White Buddhist from California.
I have my perspective which perhaps is interesting, but I think I think your perspective as someone who has more experience with like Islam and being raised Muslim is Very valuable, especially as we learn about like, oh, yeah, the Benitre lacks one for one just literally
Well, look, I'm learning all about Urdu.And it's like, wait, I think I know someone who understands Urdu.
You're going to be like at least 10% fluent in Urdu by the time we complete this book.
I met a dude from Bangladesh the other day and I was like, hey, is the word wekt mean time in Bangla?And he was like, no, it's Samaya or something like that.And I was like, oh shit, that's the same word in Hindi and Pashto.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same in Pashto.And I was like, I know what Pashto is!
All that etymological research you've been up to.
Good Lord.Anyway, so that's our first takeaway, is the Bene Tleilax via the Bene Gesserit.Again, they are evil incarnate, but also the Bene Gesserit are being super judgmental and are clearly blind to their own arrogance and self-righteousness.
Perhaps the Honored Matres' arrogance and self-righteousness begins to make a little bit more sense.It does indeed.You see that segue, dude?What a segue!Because our second takeaway today, Honored Matre, good lord.Oh my goodness.
Player three has joined the game.Indeed, the Honored Matres have shown up and we've seen them and now we've met them.
in WAF's meeting with the Honored Matre, we get our first hints and first little tidbits about this powerful group of women returning from the scattering that clearly everyone's losing their shit over.
So let's talk about it.Let's talk about what we've learned.And gotta say, I don't know about you Abu, I think the fears are well founded.
Yeah, I'm a little bit scared, too.
This woman seems so past formidable.I don't think I would speak if I were in the room with her.I'd be like, I'm just going to play it safe and our if I get into a ball in the corner, will she kill me?I don't think so.
So I will guess what I'm going to do.Play dead, play dead, play dead, play dead, play dead.Let's start with the physical description of this woman.
Quote, she looked like an aged athlete or acrobat, slowed and retired, but still maintaining her muscle tone and some of her skills.Her face was tight skin over a skull with prominent cheekbones.End quote.
Mmm, so yes thin but like wiry sinewy the whole time wife is like Okay, she's she's not like ripped, but she's got clear power in her body that Intimidates me right?
It's giving like former gymnasts gold medalists.
Yeah, exactly.Yeah She's relaxed, but you know, she has a history for sure.
And at the end of the chapter, we actually see her put some of that strength and speed into motion in really a terrifying moment, right?Like she kicks him in the thigh.
He notices, oh, if she had just been a quarter inch off, it would have broken my femur, which could have been like a lethal thing for him. And he realizes, quote, that her reaction had not been mediated by her central nervous system.
As with some insects, attack could be initiated by the required muscle system, end quote. Wow.Fascinating also to see the Tleilaxu just willy nilly referring to people's capabilities like insects.They're like, she's like an insect.
Again, this is like Prana Bindu, right?The other face dancer goes, they've got the abilities of the Bene Gesserit, but they don't have other memory.Okay.Fascinating.So they do have Prana Bindu or as you put in the script here, and I 100% agree.
It's like a Dragon Ball super, the ultra instinct.
Oh, it's that flow state.Not thinking, not reacting.
It's when Goku's able to fight without thinking at all about it.He just lets his muscles move on their own.It's this like higher dimension thinking where he stops thinking and lets his body do the fighting.And it appears the honored mantra.
have a similar ability.It really does feel like Prana Bindu 2.0.It's the evolution of that technique that we know the Bene Gesserit have.Complete control of their muscles.
Absolutely, yeah.And it reminds me a little bit also, I remember hearing, I think it was a TikTok from Hank Green probably,
But there's the somatic reflex, which is the sort of classic example is it's a stimulus from outside and you react to it So like if you touch something hot there's a pullback reflex that contracts your muscles and pulls your hand away from the thing that has caused this pain and
And this is, as I understand it, again, I'm an art major, as I understand it, that happens faster than we would be able to react to it.
So if we went through traditional nerve channels, the pain sensor would go up to our brain, our brain would go, wow, that sucks, let's move our hand.
And then that would refer back to down on down our spine into our muscle groups to say, okay, do this, pull away from that thing. that is too slow and you would end up being bitten by the poisonous thing or burn yourself on that hot surface.
there is a somatic reflex, which is, as I understand it, kind of like hardwired into us, where instead of having to go all the way to the brain, it's a sense that goes straight to the spinal column and then just tells the muscles to act, which is much faster than the delay of perception, because we perceive things in milliseconds.
So it's like that slows everything down if we're waiting for the brain to like perceive stuff.
Now this sounds like the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matre have the ability to kind of tap into that somatic reflex or that ability to move without the sort of like conscious intention to, right?Yeah.That's what it sounds like to me.
The dart comes out of his sleeve and her foot's already kicking out to get him, which is nuts.But that's just how dangerous they are.They could kill someone even as they themselves are being killed.It's incredible.
It's wild.And look, all of these Bene Gesserit Pranabindu comparisons we're making... are valid because Woff is sitting there theorizing about the origins of the honored matres and their connection to the Bene Gesserit.
It's clear to him as well that there appears to be some historical connection here between these two groups.They're way too similar in way too many ways for this all to just be coincidence.And in this chapter, we get his best guess
as to where these honored matres might have come from.He thinks that these honored matres were once wild reverent mothers from the Fremen people on Arrakis, who then went out into the scattering a thousand plus years ago, when Laeto II finally died.
And he thinks, quote, That seed had returned in the form of this orange-eyed huntress.End quote.
That's sort of Woff's prevailing theory at the moment.
That maybe these are wild reverend mothers.Not necessarily Bene Gesserit sisters who went through the schooling and everything.Right.
But wild reverend mothers who had these abilities and learned them and mastered them that went out into the scattering.
I like this theory, but I do want to poke some holes in it.And I want to warn us from taking it at face value. I think there's some skepticism that's warranted here, because remember, this is WoW's theory.
There's inevitably going to be some Tleilaxu bias at play here. And in particular, that bias seems to be directed toward the Fremen.Because we know that during Laetitia's reign, the museum Fremen that we encountered were just a shadow people.
They're out here just cosplaying as the Fremen of old, and they are not at all the people that Paul Atreides met in the first book.
That makes me wonder if these Museum Fremen would even still have Water of Life ceremonies, and whether they'd even have or need Reverend Mothers like Romalo or Jessica anymore.Would Lato even allow that to exist within the Museum Fremen?
And so how would Wild Reverend Mothers go out into the scattering after Leotote died?The timeline seems a little fuzzy to me, so I don't think we should take everything Waaf is saying here at face value.
I don't think we can definitively say this is the origins of the Honored Madre.This is just one theory, and it has some validity, but I think there's still some holes worth poking in it and some questions worth raising.
Yeah, your instinct is right, I think, to be skeptical.The Honored Matre, as Frank wrote them, and as we learn from this chapter, are like intentionally hard to track down, right?They don't have other memories.
So you can't ask an Honored Matre, hey, 800 years ago, how'd you happen, right? And then we're told that the phase sensor says, well, this is a separate cell.And they actually don't track anything.
The only data about where we came from was on the no ship, which was deleted.So there's nothing, there's no trace, there's no breadcrumbs back to where we came from.
The sort of thing that I'm getting through all of this is that like, there's no way of knowing.
Now, I will say another possibility here is not so much that wild Reverend Mothers went out into the scattering, but that someone out in the scattering had a near-death experience.Maybe they ingested a thing on a faraway planet.
Again, you say, well, it happened the first time, right?On the planet Rosic, we had people consume poisonous plants and then become awakened Reverend Mothers, basically.
but it was a very inconsistent experience and it was only when they found the Spice Melange in the Water of Life that the Benitez Art were able to like make it a regular thing.
I wonder if of the mega trillions of people who went out to these distant unfamiliar alien worlds, I wonder if it simply happened that
a woman somewhere, near-death experience, awakened to more nerve control and the ability to disarm poisons, and some very similar parallel, you know, like kind of like covergent evolution, right?
Like two unrelated groups kind of coming up with the same stuff.I wonder if that's another possibility. And although it's unlikely, it's bound to happen if you have mega trillions of people going out to these disparate places.
And then this woman who has all these abilities and can clearly kick ass and everything, they start an order and that order becomes the honored matres, maybe.
Again, I think Lucila and Shuang Yu talking about the honored matres as a possible threat, and Lucila going honored matres sounds a lot like Bene Gesserit.I think the connection is, is there to the Bene Gesserit order?Yeah.
But it is interesting to think about these other possibilities of maybe they don't have spice, so they can't do the traditional awakening ceremony that they would have done if they were in or nearby Arrakis.
So how are they awakening their honoured matre acolytes?And this also explains why they don't have other memories, right?
Yeah, it's interesting.I mean, we don't know yet in the book, and Wafs has one theory, you've presented another.I'm sure that Lucila and Xuanyu and the Bene Gesserit have their own theories on where these honored matres have come from.
And it just sort of lends to the fear that all of these groups have of the honored matres, right?If you don't know where these people come from, then they're effectively the boogeyman.
And it makes them that much more mysterious and that much more scary to try and face.If you don't know your enemy, how do you face them?
I think that's what makes the Tleilaxu and the Bene Gesserit and all of the groups in the core Imperium here wary of anyone who comes back from the scattering, because there has been such a disconnect.
And it has been so long that anyone coming back is almost alien, you know. Yeah.It's fascinating to consider.
Now, regardless of what their exact origins are, as you've stated, there does appear to be some sort of Bene Gesserit connection here.
You mentioned it earlier, one of Wav's face dancer informants tells him that the Honored Matres, based on their understanding and the data they've collected so far, are basically what you'd expect from a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, minus the other memories, plus the sex stuff.
And the sex stuff, in fact, seems to be a primary weapon of these honored matres.And they seemingly wield it in an even more effective way than the Bene Gesserit do.Quote, they are sexual masters, his informants had said.
They enslave men by the powers of sex, end quote. Which seemingly, to my understanding, the Bene Gesserit will use sex as maybe a tool of manipulation or control, but ultimately they use it for breeding, right?
To gather genetic data and to birth more sisters and mentat warriors like Teg that fit into their plan.That's primarily what they will use sex for.It seems like
The Honored Matres have taken it one step further and are using sex to fully, I mean, I think enslaved doesn't necessarily mean like it turns the men into like mindless drones, but I think it is something that they use to influence and overpower entire cultures of people maybe.
Yeah, there was an epigraph earlier in the book about the means of waging an assault on a planet, and this being one of the methods that the Anurag Mata use.So yeah, absolutely.
Also, I love that people are like, Frank, hey, buddy, first four books, pretty good, pretty good stuff.The beef swelling, the like horniness, kind of strange, not loving it.
So I'd say for book five, keep the cool sci-fi stuff, keep the futurism stuff, keep the human stuff.Maybe just tone back the sexuality a little bit.And Frank was like, bet, bet.Hold my bottle of lube.I'm going to get to work right now.
They're so good at sex, it enslaves men.Entire populations.
Entire planets.Oh, my God.Oh, it's so sexual.That's true.
Yeah.To be fair, this is one of, I think, the valid critiques for these latter books.It really delves into the weirder, perhaps, corners of Frank's mind.
Yes and no.Listen, I think it gets weird and we'll certainly get through this book and we'll get through Chapter House.I think sexuality is something that Western cultures are really struggling with.And I think Frank was a bit of a weirdo.
But I do want to challenge my own comfort levels when it comes to like talking about sex and sex being not just something you joke about like locker room talk but like something to actually like discuss and analyze as a lever by which people can control one another is a fascinating thing to think about and talk about.
And am I only uncomfortable talking about it because I was raised in the US where like, God fucking forbid you see a lady's nipple.That's the crazy and don't ever talk about it.
You know, the amount to which we treat sex as like a taboo in this culture in the US.It's nuts.So I wonder, too, how much it's like, oh, Frank, leave the sex alone.It's like, why?He didn't leave anything else alone.
He made fucking dogs in the shape of chairs. So, I don't know.I think I'm curious this read-through to challenge my own sort of discomfort.Yeah, beef swelling for a nine-year-old?Weird.I stand by that being really weird, but we'll see.
We'll see what happens in this book.
Yeah, I'm definitely more open to it.I don't think my problem is that the sex exists in this book.The way it's used is, I think, a little over the top and really stretches the bounds of believability.
I don't know.I think you're right when you know.And I think Frank knew that you could be absolutely subjugated by sex.So what I'm saying is I think Beverly Herbert?Oh my god.
Retired, but still possessing some of her skills.
Oh, could be.Could be.Well, moving on from the sex, beyond their physical and sexual prowess, the other thing that's glaringly obvious, and we mentioned this a bit in the summaries too,
During Loft's meeting here, the other thing that's super obvious, of course, is their arrogance.It's just next-level stuff.Like, here's a quote, for example.Quote, "'How dare you keep suggesting a bargain with an honored matre?'she demanded.
"'Know you that we set the price.'"End quote.That's the negotiating energy that this honored matre is coming to this meeting with.Obviously, there's no working with that.
But I do want to say, once again, perhaps this arrogance isn't entirely without merit.We know everyone in this galaxy is afraid of these honored matres.
And Woff genuinely terrified throughout this entire meeting that he's about to fucking get got by this woman.And I think even the honored matre wouldn't come to this meeting and be so bold and so brash
If she truly didn't think that she could back up her words, her bold statements, with equally bold and destructive power.
So I think there is some merit to why they're so arrogant.I mean, people are afraid of them.They're clearly dangerous.And they're walking around acting like they own the place because shit, maybe they are strong enough to own the place.
And the rest of us are just barely holding on in the face of the honored matres.
Listen, they also do have, for someone who just got back to the galaxy, wild amount of information. Like, it is crazy.
Of course the Tleilaxu, of course the Bene Gesserit know all about Duncan and perhaps even about Shianna, but like, how the fuck do y'all know about it?And he says that and she's like, oh, how dare you ask me how I know this?
But also as a reader, I'm like, how do they know this?Jesus, I thought they just got back and they've got all the details.That's crazy.Again, they've clearly got some sophisticated information gathering and
reflexive abilities and crazy sex moves, Gamont fell in a day.Yeah, they're formidable for sure.
Now to wrap up this second takeaway about what we have learned about the Honored Matres thus far, this last important piece of information we gleaned from the chapter is that the location, the home planet of the Honored Matres, is a total mystery.
which throws Woff for a loop.He was hoping he could figure that out, but it's gone forever.
And there's no way to figure it out because this group of honored Matres that is here in the Imperium, returned from the scattering, has totally cut themselves off from the home planet.In fact, we're told they're operating off of Gammu of all places.
Ever fucking heard of it?
I think that's where all of the most important things are.
That's crazy.Clearly.Now I want to know how fucking big Gammu is. The Honored Matres are home based on Gamu, we're told, and we have no idea where they came from.It's just next door to the keep.
Duncan's looking out that little window.
This is just like a neighborly competition happening, clearly.
He's looking out the window.
There's like orange eyed ladies walking around.He's like, do we know them?It is kind of weird.This threw up some question marks for me because I was like,
Wait, why the fuck are the Bene Gesserit training Duncan, who is so critical to their plans, on Gamu then?Why are you risking such an important asset?
Yeah, it is.But also, Waff only finds out that they're based on Gamu by the face dancer who's infiltrated them.She doesn't tell him that.
So I think this is their information gathering and they're also their secrecy and their ability to keep things under wraps. This is also what no-ships allow.We see it in this chapter.Waff goes, this ship should go missing and never come back.
And you'd think that the honored matre would be like, oh shit, one of our elders disappeared.Let's track it down.But this is a no-ship.This is why no-ships are so powerful, no one can track them.No one can trace them.
They're not, they don't show up on any type of radiation.So I think the reality is the honored Matres have a place on Gumu and no one knows about it except for the honored Matres and now the Toi Laks.Wow.
That's crazy.I'll be interested to see how this plays out.
I agree that that's one possibility, but that seems so crazy to me, that the Bene Gesserit would be that ineffective, that literally under their noses is their greatest enemy, the thing they fear so much.
Like, no matter how careful the Honored Maitres might be in the use of no ships or no rooms and covert operations, they are infiltrating this galaxy.
And from our understanding, like taking over entire planets with their fucking sex powers, you can't just like be operating at that scale and not make some sort of blip that the Bene Gesserit of all people would not notice.I mean, we'll see.
Gemu seems to be the hot fucking place where things are going down in this story. And it's wild that we learned that the Honored Matres are home base there as well.
It's pretty crazy.Everyone's in town.This would be definitely the like plot twist right before commercial break or like right before the next episode of the miniseries, you know?Yeah.Oh, yeah.They're on a planet Gamu.Credits.Shit.
I want to know what happens.Yeah, definitely.And that's our second takeaway. That's our second takeaway.So folks, we've got a couple of spice morsels and wrap up for you.Don't go anywhere.
We're going to take a quick break, re-reload our dart throwers.We'll be right back right after this.
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Welcome back, folks.Let's wrap up this enormous episode by chomping down on a couple of spice morsels we have prepared for you fresh out of the oven.Starting with an epigraph from today's reading.
So in the chapter with Woff and the Honored Matre, we get a really interesting epigraph at the start, and we wanted to take a second to reflect on it because there are some fascinating implications.
So the epigraph is from an author named Gauss and Dodd, who is reflecting on Latow's impact on history, Latow's journals, and what his motivations might have been.And Gauss says, quote, was he driven to save humankind from itself?
We have only his own words about his golden path to answer this, and I cannot accept the self-serving records of Dar Esbalat.Might there have been other gratifications which only his experiences would illuminate."End quote.Wow.
Wow.So fascinating to see how even Leto's own records have been interpreted all of these millennia later after their discovery.And what's interesting, of course, is that we as the reader
have been a fly on the wall as the Atreides have conducted their affairs in all of these books.We know their intentions.We're literally inside their heads.
We know what they're feeling and thinking and what their motivations and intentions have been throughout the story. The rest of this galaxy does not have that luxury.
This certainly reeks of Bronzo Evicks calling into question Paul Atreides' actions at the start of Messiah.
Here we have Gauss on Dodd calling into question Lato's motivations and literally calling into question Lato's own words, the primary source from the God Emperor himself. Gaston Dowd is like, well, this is kind of, you know, it's biased.
Of course, he wrote it about himself.So I don't know that I can truly fully believe it.
Yeah.Like, I'm not surprised he thought he was doing a good thing. But he's clearly a tyrant, right?Yeah.Back to the fish dancer in chapter five, long pretense creates reality.You're not just a tyrant to save humanity.You were a tyrant.
You were a monster.Yes, absolutely.I mean, I don't know why.
This really did catch me off guard because it's like, I almost expected, because Dar Es Spalat, all of his journals would have revealed that quite a bit of everything that ever happened, happened to Leto's plans and intentions.
But I didn't think about it with that external, hard-to-win-over perspective, like the Bronzovics or like this fella Goss.Like, yeah, it just reads like a pile of propaganda. Yeah, it's self-serving.
It's like, oh, yeah, this is why I did all this shit It's like yeah, of course your manifesto is gonna say that you're amazing and that you saved everyone.Why should we believe you?
It's such a fascinating consideration Right, even if the logic is there as the person on the receiving end of the tyranny You're still kind of like fuck you and your logic and your golden bath You're a tyrant and this manifesto these journals that you've written are
About woe is me and the sacrifices I've made and this and it's just like yeah I'm on the receiving end of your tyranny bitch like I'm not gonna show you any sympathy Yeah, it's a fascinating shift in perspective and honestly something that I totally understand like I never read autobiographies Cuz I'm just like why the fuck would I want to read your own version of your own hero's tale about yourself I'm not interested in this
I mean, autobiographies have their place, as long as you understand the context that this is a person writing about themselves and there's going to be sort of some self-serving bias where you're the hero of your own story in life.Whatever.
It's still valuable.But I totally understand the skepticism here from this Dune historian about Latow and his journals.
Yeah, 100%.I love it.I just love it so much.To see Frank didn't let go of the kind of like Dune messiah perspective shift.It's very cool.
Well, our second morsel is perhaps the most thematically appropriate morsel, which is a rice morsel, which is Pongi rice.Hey, Pongi rice.
Now, in the past, we've talked about the Caledonian Pundi rice, one of the staple foods of the Atreides home world.And today we get a Tleilaxu agent trying to buy up some Pongi rice.
quote, the Beni Tleilax have no need of that much Pongi rice in our sector.They require it for trade.We must find out who really needs the rice, end quote.
And listen, folks, if you thought we wouldn't immediately scour every Dune book to date for the term to see if it's been brought up before, I don't even know what podcast you think you're listening to.Every book I searched through and you know what?
One time.Hongi Rice has come up one other time and it was in the very first Dune book written almost 20 years prior to this one.
In the dinner banquet scene, House Atreides serves, quote, a Caladan sweet, Pongi rice in sauce dulce, end quote.Sounds great.It does actually.Really delicious dish.And We know that, of course, this is a Caledon sweet.This is a rice from Caledon.
This is something they brought to Arrakis.So I was blown away to see the continuity of this rice from Caledon, right?
The homeworld of House Atreides for thousands of years that we know has like the deltas and the rice patties and everything like that. all the way to Lairneus, where Teg and his family live.
So fascinating to see this one strain of rice make its way across the galaxy, and clearly staying with House Atreides for whatever reason.Yeah, it's fun to see.And I'll also point out, to kind of wrap up this morsel, I think it's so fascinating.
And again, the quality of Dune as a sort of timeless human story.
Amid this intergalactic intrigue, the Cheops game being played by the Benny Jezret and Benny Tlalocs, the mega trillions of people out in space, new planets, everything, the chaos, the Honored Matre coming back, we have key moments defined by staple foods like rice as trading goods, you know, bankrupting a trader that's going to be tracked and everything like that.
Dune has always been like a story of humanity and what it means to be human and how human civilizations have evolved.
So it is so fun to see not only in like sex as a controlling lever and religion and all of these other human elements, even just the food that we need to put on our tables as key trading goods, the small details are all there as well, which is I think just so cool.
Yeah. At its heart, it's a story about humanity.Totally.And humans, we love our rice, baby.Fuckin' rice goes so hard.I love rice.It does.Biryani, I would kill for biryani.Alright, one more spice morsel today to wrap up our episode.Haram!
is a word that some folks might not be familiar with.In today's reading, Shiana awakens to find herself surrounded by a bunch of priests, and she sends them away, crying out, quote, they are haram, end quote.
And we're immediately given the translation of that word, quote, it was the gutter word, the lowest term of all for that which was most evil, end quote.That at least is Frank's internal definition within the Dune universe.
But of course the word haram comes from Arabic and Merriam-Webster defines it as something, quote, forbidden by Islamic law, end quote.And again, personally, haram is a word I grew up around my entire life. Oh yeah.
Halal, haram is a very Islamic distinction.What is allowed by Islamic law and religion and what is banned.For example, pork is haram.You cannot eat pork.Alcohol, drinking alcohol, haram, etc, etc.
Obviously, as with all religions, there are interpretations and the line of what is and isn't haram is always fuzzy.But I've certainly grown up with it in my own household.
Yeah.The example I saw was like celebrating Christmas culturally is haram is the example I saw. Uh, sure.Yeah, that's one interpretation.That's the example I saw.I think that's the one they have on Merriam-Webster.
I think my reaction tells everyone what I think of that.Right.What are you talking about?Yeah.Again, what is halal and what is haram is a matter of much debates among Muslims.
So we wanted to quickly throw in this morsel about Haram for folks who may not know.It's something that continues to be in line with much of Frank's writing in the Dune Saga.
A lot of Arabic and Islamic cultural and religious influences make their way into Frank Herbert's universe.And this is yet again, another example.
Well, those are our morsels.Those were our takeaways and our chapter summaries.We got through it all.That's the episode.
For our next episode, make sure you've read through chapter 12, which ends with the sentence, one of the sentence fragment, quote, deadly necessary, period, end quote.
Yeah, that's the sentence.So read through the chapter that ends with that sentence.Should be about three chapters.That's right.
Now, before you go, we want to remind you of a couple of ways to support the show and stay in touch with us, starting with the two best ways to support this podcast.Number one, become a patron.Patreon.com.You get cool benefits, add free episodes.
And of course, you get to hear these book club episodes three months in advance before anyone else gets to.True. The second best way to support the show is to check out our merch store, gomtabarshop.com.
We have some great Dune-themed swag with custom artwork from Leo himself and some great artists that we have collaborated with.So check all of that out.Links are in the show notes as always.
Indeed they are. And also, we love to hear from you.So email us, gamjabarpodcast.gmail.com.That's how you get in contact with us.We want your thoughts.We want your questions, your feedback, your comments.We want pictures of your cute pets.
We want how you would throw darts from your sleeves to kill the threat in front of you.Whatever it is, email us, gamjabarpodcast.gmail.com.We respond. in as little as two calendar years.
That's right.And on a long enough timeline, what even is that, you know?Blink of an eye.Yeah.
I mean, listen, in the face of eternity, two calendar years is immediate.You're welcome.
Right.I know for a fact That later, too, was sitting on some emails for 3,000 years.So be grateful that we get around to yours so quickly.
He's responding 200 years after someone died.It's like, sorry it took me so long.I was busy subjugating planets.
Yes, I do like to eat ice cream.Great question.Thanks for writing and for being a Patreon supporter.
Yep, that's the scale by which we measure.
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