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If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 14 May 2014 21:34
by beigewyng
In the book House Corrino and in Dune the original novel, the Bene Gesserit were mad because Jessica had had a son to help Leto get over the loss of Victor, and Mohiam was like, if you had had a daughter, she could have been wed to the Harkonnen heir and sealed the rift between the two houses. In House Harkonnen, Mohiam had disguised herself as a Buddislamic monk and helped Abulurd and Emmi conceive Feyd for the express purpose of having a younger male Harkonnen to wed to Jessica's daughter. But I wonder, would that had happened even if Jessica had had a daughter when she was supposed to? Because she had Alia way too late. But I can't imagine Duke Leto allowing his daughter to wed, as Gurney put it, a Harkonnen "animal" or would the Bene Gesserits have taken the daughter to Wallach IX and trained her to marry Feyd? But this is a man who valued people over politics, so I can't imagine that he would allow his child to marry someone liable to kill her. And the Baron wouldn't have wanted it, either. He wanted Feyd to marry Irulan. So I wonder, did Jessica put off having a daughter that long so the Bene Gesserit couldn't try to take her? Because she could have simply manipulated her body to have a daughter right after Paul if she had wanted to. I always wondered why she didn't just have Paul for the Duke and then a daughter right after. I mean I know the Bene Gesserit wanted her to have only daughters to eliminate the feud between the two houses because 1. they would become one house, and 2. there would be no Atreides heir to rival a Harkonnen one, but still, if she had wanted to , Jessica could have done it. But would the Duke have allowed it? Would he have had a say? Would the Baron allow it and what would happen to an Atreides girl that married Feyd? I think the Harkonnens would still have killed them off. Then the daughter once she had them an heir. But then, I also can't imagine the Baron wanting to mix Harkonnen blood with Atreides blood.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 15 May 2014 00:38
by D Pope
"An Atreides daughter could've been wed to a Harkonnen
heir and sealed the breach. You've hopelessly complicated
matters. We may lose both bloodlines now."


You argue that the breach Mohiam wants to seal is the rift between
two great houses. It's possible, but I think she may have meant sealing
some genetic trait the breeding program called for. This early in the
Dune books, human husbandry was the clear BG priority. Mohiam says
as much to Paul, 'a thread of continuity in human affairs... by separating
animal from human stock for breeding purposes.' You do make some
good points, with Feyd married to 'Paulette' House Harkonnen might
simply have annexed House Atreides and, I agree, Duke Leto may have
had reservations.

That said, had Jessica followed instructions, I expect she would've given
birth in BG care without the Duke knowing- perhaps a scenario similar to
her own birth. Letos interest in Jessica would likely have been different
if he'd known her lineage. So yeah, Paulette would very likely have been
trained and tailored for Feyd, got pregnant, and snuck back to the BG to
deliver. She may even have had to do so a few times. Meanwhile, Leto &
Vlad keep trying to kill each other as House Atreides line dwindles. There
are threads here that discuss a BG plan to put the KH on the throne, it's
not my favorite theory.

There's an aspect to your question that's always bugged me. Paul was fifteen
years old when all this started and in his whole life it never seemed to have
dawned on the BG that Jessicas daughter count was a little low.


Be advised; when considering a question about Dune, it's best to try to
forget nuDune. A question like yours is difficult enough (good question,
mind you) without it being complicated by the mistakes brian & kevin
have published.

Examples-
RM Helen Gaius Mohiam is not Jessicas mother.
(Jessica out of Naruda Tandis- or something like that)

Jessica was purchased for the Duke by people she called, "His buyers"

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 15 May 2014 20:36
by beigewyng
Awwww, I liked the preludes. They enhanced and explained the backgrounds of all the characters and how they got to where they were in Dune. But the problem is that given his experience with the Bene Gesserit, I don't think the Baron would've allowed Feyd to marry one and have her in their keep. But, do you think maybe that was the intended purpose of Alia?

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 16 May 2014 06:44
by Serkanner
beigewyng wrote:Awwww, I liked the preludes. They enhanced and explained the backgrounds of all the characters and how they got to where they were in Dune. But the problem is that given his experience with the Bene Gesserit, I don't think the Baron would've allowed Feyd to marry one and have her in their keep. But, do you think maybe that was the intended purpose of Alia?
We are Orthodox Herbertarians so you will not find much love here for any of the Atrocities by KJA and Bobo Herbert. We also don't include the content of them in our discussions about Dune. We do have a special section for discussion about them named The prequels/sequels,.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 16 May 2014 07:00
by Freakzilla
In his defense, he did post his question in "Dune Fan Fiction", which is what the prequels and sequels could generously be labled as. :wink:

Moving...

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 16 May 2014 13:19
by Serkanner
Freakzilla wrote:In his defense, he did post his question in "Dune Fan Fiction", which is what the prequels and sequels could generously be labled as. :wink:

Moving...
:lol: I hadn't noticed that.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 16 May 2014 21:36
by D Pope
beigewyng wrote:Awwww, I liked the preludes. They enhanced and explained the backgrounds of all the characters and how they got to where they were in Dune. But the problem is that given his experience with the Bene Gesserit, I don't think the Baron would've allowed Feyd to marry one and have her in their keep. But, do you think maybe that was the intended purpose of Alia?
Glad that you've found some pleasure in nuDune. I disagree
with your description.

Would the Baron have allowed Feyd to marry a BG witch?
I doubt it, not the Dukes daughter and not a BG orphan,
such was never my suggestion.
You did say he wanted Feyd to marry Irulan.

The intended purpose of Alia? Do you mean was she conceived
in line with with BG wishes?
Could be...


You wrote,"...his experience with the Bene Gesserit..."
To what experiences do you refer?

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:31
by beigewyng
The ones from the preludes where she blackmails him into having sex with her and then later he rapes her and she gives him that disease that makes him gain weight uncontrollably.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 17 May 2014 14:01
by Freakzilla
beigewyng wrote:The ones from the preludes where she blackmails him into having sex with her and then later he rapes her and she gives him that disease that makes him gain weight uncontrollably.
This clearly demonstrates the Hack's lack of understanding of the BG and why the Baron was fat.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 18 May 2014 05:13
by Naïve mind
Freakzilla wrote: This clearly demonstrates the Hack's lack of understanding of the BG and why the Baron was fat.
You can't have the baron conceive Jessica while he's fat. That would gross out your readers, after all. Better to introduce a rape/revenge storyline. That's totally appropriate for a book aimed at young adults.

Returning to the question, particularly the way the Baron acts when the Atreides are captured makes me believe that his feud with them is just business. If Feyd were to become emperor, Leto and Paul would be charismatic pretenders to the throne, and his opponents would rally behind them. That's why he "must have the line ended."

This is also why the Emperor is so outraged when he hears that the Atreides have been killed, not exiled; it's as good as a declaration of intent by the Baron.

If Jessica had born Pauline, however, matters would've been different; marrying an Atreides would've strengthened Feyd's claim on the throne. And the Baron would've manipulated Leto to a position where he had no other option.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 04:43
by D Pope
beigewyng wrote:The ones from the preludes where she blackmails him into having sex with her and then later he rapes her and she gives him that disease that makes him gain weight uncontrollably.
:cry:
The Baron disliked the BG because
they're smarter than him
they're richer than him
they're better- at everything- than he is
they're female.

The Baron sampled many pleasures in his youth and once allowed
himself to be seduced by a woman. Hence Jessica. He probably
didn't know she was Bene Gesserit, certainly didn't know he'd sired
a child.

The Baron was fat because he simply didn't care. There's no mention
of disease in any Dune reference to the Baron. That stuff came from
the movie that served as Dune research while kja 'edited' some other
horror. Paul was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there.
Castle Caladan overlooks a river, not an ocean.
Basically, the only thing mcDune has in common with the books by Frank
Herbert are the names. Maliciously neglected details will confuse your
understanding of Dune.
...................................................................................

What do you think? Was Alia conceived as a payoff for the BG? "Look,
Helen, sorry I had a male but hey- here's a girl just like you wanted."
If so, how would the BG have used her to get the KH?
If not, what could Jessicas motivation have been?

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 07:30
by Freakzilla
"You'd rather she learned to love someone more gross and evil than any Baron
Harkonnen ever dreamed of being," Idaho said.
Moneo worked his lips in and out, then: "The Lord Leto has told me about that
evil old man of your time, Duncan. I don't think you understood your enemy."
"He was a fat, monstrous.. ."
"He was a seeker after sensations," Moneo said. "The fat was a side-effect, then
perhaps something to experience for itself because it offended people and he
enjoyed offending."

~God Emperor of Dune

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 07:34
by Freakzilla
Just the idea of a Bene Gesserit, especially a Reverend Mother, being raped is preposterous. They have sex with who they want, when they want, it's what they do. She might have let him think he was raping her when in fact he was being seduced. The idea is just silly though. KJA is just vulgar.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 14:09
by Naïve mind
Freakzilla wrote:Just the idea of a Bene Gesserit, especially a Reverend Mother, being raped is preposterous. They have sex with who they want, when they want, it's what they do. She might have let him think he was raping her when in fact he was being seduced. The idea is just silly though. KJA is just vulgar.
So is the Baron ... to be honest, the act wasn't particularly out of character for him, it's just poorly executed, and pointless in the overall context of the story.

Frank Herbert constructed the Baron to induce specific emotions in his readers; he's grotesquely fat, he's a gay ephebophile. Any one of those qualities would've been enough to prompt involuntary disgust amongst his readers in the 1960s. We are meant to resent the Harkonnen, and cheer for the Atreides, without thinking too much about what both of them represent. Once we get to the third and fourth books, Herbert directs his readers' emotions elsewhere.

No such reasoning underlies the prequels.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 14:21
by Freakzilla
Naïve mind wrote:ephebophile
I learned a new word today! :D

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 16:27
by SadisticCynic
D Pope wrote: What do you think? Was Alia conceived as a payoff for the BG? "Look,
Helen, sorry I had a male but hey- here's a girl just like you wanted."
If so, how would the BG have used her to get the KH?
If not, what could Jessicas motivation have been?
On that first point, I think there is something about Jessica reproducing as a reaction to danger but my memory might be playing tricks on me.

Even so, it wouldn't necessarily answer why she had a girl.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 19 May 2014 18:30
by Freakzilla
SadisticCynic wrote:
D Pope wrote: What do you think? Was Alia conceived as a payoff for the BG? "Look,
Helen, sorry I had a male but hey- here's a girl just like you wanted."
If so, how would the BG have used her to get the KH?
If not, what could Jessicas motivation have been?
On that first point, I think there is something about Jessica reproducing as a reaction to danger but my memory might be playing tricks on me.

Even so, it wouldn't necessarily answer why she had a girl.
This is the way it had to be, Leto, she thought. "A time of love and a time
of grief." She rested her hand on her abdomen, awareness focused on the embryo
there. I have the Atreides daughter I was ordered to produce, but the Reverend
Mother was wrong: a daughter wouldn't have saved my Leto. This child is only
life reaching for the future in the midst of death. I conceived out of instinct
and not out of obedience.

~Dune

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 20 May 2014 02:27
by D Pope
As always, well done Freak!
:D

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 22 May 2014 02:35
by D Pope
Freakzilla wrote:Just the idea of a Bene Gesserit, especially a Reverend Mother, being raped is preposterous. They have sex with who they want, when they want, it's what they do. She might have let him think he was raping her when in fact he was being seduced. The idea is just silly though. KJA is just vulgar.
It's worse than that, he drugs her or does something to induce paralysis
while he makes good on his end. (as if) It's only memorable because it's
so wrong... like Yueh telling him afterward that the only cure is to ask
forgiveness from whomever gave it to him.
:handgestures-thumbdown:

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 25 Aug 2014 12:20
by MuaB'Beep
D Pope wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Just the idea of a Bene Gesserit, especially a Reverend Mother, being raped is preposterous. They have sex with who they want, when they want, it's what they do. She might have let him think he was raping her when in fact he was being seduced. The idea is just silly though. KJA is just vulgar.
It's worse than that, he drugs her or does something to induce paralysis
while he makes good on his end. (as if) It's only memorable because it's
so wrong... like Yueh telling him afterward that the only cure is to ask
forgiveness from whomever gave it to him.
:handgestures-thumbdown:
Actually it was pretty retarded from the side of Vladimir to do something like this against a BG witch. If something went wrong she could just broke his legs and arms, punch his teeth out and rape him. Even so she could squeeze and tear his penis off with her vagina contractions during rape - so he could buy himself another from the Thleilaxu after possibly very amusing conversation. I mean we all known that neither Piter nor his guards could possibly stop a BG Reverend Mother - she would kill them with ease. For me it was even stranger that she was duped so easily leaving somebody so dangerous as Piter behind her back. But we are talking McDune here - the place where nobody thinks straight.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 25 Aug 2014 20:19
by Jodorowsky's Acolyte
MuaB'Beep wrote:Actually it was pretty retarded from the side of Vladimir to do something like this against a BG witch. If something went wrong she could just broke his legs and arms, punch his teeth out and rape him. Even so she could squeeze and tear his penis off with her vagina contractions during rape - so he could buy himself another from the Thleilaxu after possibly very amusing conversation. I mean we all known that neither Piter nor his guards could possibly stop a BG Reverend Mother - she would kill them with ease.
!Aye caramaba! What an imagination you have! :shock: I know that the Weirding Way is lethal, but I never knew that it could be employed to improvise a vagina dentata attack.

I'm kidding. Mohiam never is seen using the Weirding Way in Dune or Dune Messiah, so we don't know which fighting techniques of the Weirding Way she would use. I doubt that Mohiam has any desire to rape the Baron, even to teach him a lesson. Nor is it her style to mangle his whole body up the way you describe. That's more akin to Z-grade NC-17 martial arts grindhouse movie adaptation of Dune, or at least of the Dune prequels. Mohiam way too subtle for that. Her best weapons are the Voice (which can be countered), her Gom Jabaar, and her position with the Emperor. I think her powerful position with the Emperor and her intelligence is enough to counter the Baron. Even if she could batter him and rip off his thingy, I doubt the Emperor would take kindly to that. An action like that would be interpreted as assassination on a member of the Landsraad (no matter how awful he is), and the security of the Bene Gesserit would be smashed by the Emperor. Subtlety is important to the BG's survival.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 07:50
by MuaB'Beep
Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:I'm kidding. Mohiam never is seen using the Weirding Way in Dune or Dune Messiah, so we don't know which fighting techniques of the Weirding Way she would use. I doubt that Mohiam has any desire to rape the Baron, even to teach him a lesson. Nor is it her style to mangle his whole body up the way you describe. That's more akin to Z-grade NC-17 martial arts grindhouse movie adaptation of Dune, or at least of the Dune prequels. Mohiam way too subtle for that. Her best weapons are the Voice (which can be countered), her Gom Jabaar, and her position with the Emperor. I think her powerful position with the Emperor and her intelligence is enough to counter the Baron. Even if she could batter him and rip off his thingy, I doubt the Emperor would take kindly to that. An action like that would be interpreted as assassination on a member of the Landsraad (no matter how awful he is), and the security of the Bene Gesserit would be smashed by the Emperor. Subtlety is important to the BG's survival.
We had similar Z-Grade grindhouse scene in the prequels. What was great about the fact that Jessica was daughter of Vladimir is that this just short fact showed how tricky and powerful BG can be. Tanida Nerus - regardless if it was Mohiam or not, convinced/blackmailed/seduced a pedophiliac homosexual to have sex with her. The genius of Frank Herbert made us work with our imagination to think how would it came to be. Of course JKA and Bobo had to ruin it with the pointless rape scene with everyone more stupid than ever should be.

1. why baron resisted her knowing her high position?
2. why baron raped her knowing the possible horrible consequences?
3. why baron insulted her knowing she will seek possible revenge?
4. why Mohiam came alone to the baron?
5. why Mohiam turned her back to Piter?
6. why Mohiam infected him possibly violating the great convention?

You know what I liked about Dune? That characters are actually smart and some even many times smarter than the reader. In prequels almost everyone is either dumb or simply incompetent - and I hate reading about people dumber than I am.

Re: If Jessica had had a daughter.

Posted: 26 Aug 2014 11:35
by lotek
Apparently bobo and the hack can't write about anything less dumb than they are.
The genius of Frank Herbert made us work with our imagination to think how would it came to be.
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