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Chapter 15
Posted: 01 Mar 2008 12:30
by Freakzilla
I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is
delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever
thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your
ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage
decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard
to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your
own extinction?
-The Stolen Journals
As Duncan puts on the familiar Atreides uniform for his first day of Fish Speaker command, he tries to shake a nightmare he had of being trampled by fanged, black armored women. Moneo enters to explain Duncan's duties. Duncan asks about his predecesor and Leto's female army. Over breakfast, Moneo explains that without an enemy the male army always turns on it's own population and it has strong homosexual tendancies. When they break out of adolescent homosexual restraints they usually turn to rape. Also, women find it easier to mature due to the pregnancy and birth experience. Moneo reveals that he is Atreides and also a descendant of a previous Duncan Idaho. Duncan has a hard time understanding all of this. Moneo says that Leto believes in chance, that is his god.
Re: Chapter 15
Posted: 17 Jul 2012 11:50
by Freakzilla
No revisions.
Re: Chapter 15
Posted: 13 Aug 2012 17:05
by The Ixian Ambassador
Duncan's nightmare bothered me for a long time. It took me multiple readings of all the books to get the foreshadowing here.
AS HE dressed for his first morning of Fish Speaker command, Idaho tried to
shake off a nightmare. It had awakened him twice and both times he had gone out
on the balcony to stare up at the stars, the dream still roaring in his head.
Women . . . weaponless women in black armor . . . rushing at him with the
hoarse, mindless shouting of a mob . . . waving hands moist with red blood...
and as they swarmed over him, their mouths opened to display terrible fangs!
In that moment, he awoke.
Morning light did little to dispel the effects of the nightmare.
They had provided him with a room in the north tower. The balcony looked out
over a vista of dunes to a distant cliff with what appeared to be a mud-but
village at its base.
Idaho buttoned his tunic as he stared at the scene.
Why does Leto choose only women for his army?
Several comely Fish Speakers had offered to spend the night with their new
commander, but Idaho had rejected them.
It was not like the Atreides to use sex as a persuader!
I see the fanged women foreshadow the FIsh Speakers, or wolves as Leto calls them, turned HM and their violent ways.
Sex as a persuader is how the HM rule. Until Duncan and Sheeana find a way to... break through it. Typical predator and prey making each other stronger tyrant design. Males were the prey of HM until Duncan turned them into prey. Then Sheeana brought the balance back to equal. But both stronger now because of the tyrant's design.
Re: Chapter 15
Posted: 13 Aug 2012 19:22
by SadisticCynic
The Ixian Ambassador wrote:Duncan's nightmare bothered me for a long time. It took me multiple readings of all the books to get the foreshadowing here.
AS HE dressed for his first morning of Fish Speaker command, Idaho tried to
shake off a nightmare. It had awakened him twice and both times he had gone out
on the balcony to stare up at the stars, the dream still roaring in his head.
Women . . . weaponless women in black armor . . . rushing at him with the
hoarse, mindless shouting of a mob . . . waving hands moist with red blood...
and as they swarmed over him, their mouths opened to display terrible fangs!
In that moment, he awoke.
Morning light did little to dispel the effects of the nightmare.
They had provided him with a room in the north tower. The balcony looked out
over a vista of dunes to a distant cliff with what appeared to be a mud-but
village at its base.
Idaho buttoned his tunic as he stared at the scene.
Why does Leto choose only women for his army?
Several comely Fish Speakers had offered to spend the night with their new
commander, but Idaho had rejected them.
It was not like the Atreides to use sex as a persuader!
I see the fanged women foreshadow the FIsh Speakers, or wolves as Leto calls them, turned HM and their violent ways.
Sex as a persuader is how the HM rule. Until Duncan and Sheeana find a way to... break through it. Typical predator and prey making each other stronger tyrant design. Males were the prey of HM until Duncan turned them into prey. Then Sheeana brought the balance back to equal. But both stronger now because of the tyrant's design.
Never understood it like that before.
Re: Chapter 15
Posted: 13 Aug 2012 20:24
by Freakzilla
Please discuss this in the appropriate chapter(s) of Heretics or Chapterhouse: Dune.
Reading Group Usage
Re: Chapter 15
Posted: 25 Aug 2015 15:29
by georgiedenbro
If we're to take this dream seriously as a vision (I'm omit comments about what the vision might mean) then this plays into the idea that Duncan/Hayt had prescient abilities and would help to explain why Paul didn't see him in his visions. The way this passage is written certainly makes it sound like a vision to me. If the original Duncan had a latent prescience perhaps that figured in Leto's choice to use him as a breeder.