Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

I've been thinking a lot about Duncan, especially his role in the Golden Path. I've been reading some of the posts here and there is some disagreement about how much Leto saw beyond his own lifetime. I realize there is a passage where Leto says he does not look much into the future beyond seeing if the Golden Path still shines on, but that does not preclude the vast information he could infer from casual glimpses, even without being able to see Siona-ascendants. Surely he knew many of the things that would happen, as he set many actions in motion.

What exactly did Leto plan for Duncan Idaho? Did he know Duncan would be able to regain ALL of his lives' memories?

Obviously, Leto used Duncan heavily in his breeding program. Despite Duncan's prostestations that he would not be Leto's "damned stud," he did in fact participate many times.
Why?

It has been suggested here that Leto merely used Duncan, an "older model," as a control and a dampener against the KH gene. Surely there was more?

What is Duncan best known for in combat? His improvisation. Why, of all the Duncans, did Leto approve of the one who helped kill him the most?

Because that Duncan surprised him:
1. Stripping off his uniform when Leto's entourage was attacked by Face Dancers under the guise of Duncan.
2. Duncan's lament about the "magic" Leto has stolen from the Duncans by taking them out of their natural era.
3. The Duncan of GEoD disobeyed Leto re: Hwi, although perhaps this was predictable, it was out of character.
4. Not sure quite how or why, but this particular Duncan inspired Moneo to try to save his life when he never had before.

One of my favorite parts of the entire series is Leto's audience with the Rev. Mothers Lukeysal and Anteac. ("Waste not, want not" makes me LOL every time I read it.) When Duncan interrupts at the end, Leto gives precise detail on how to defend/attack, and Duncan wonders why Leto even needs him.

With the presence of the Bene Gesserit, Leto cannot serve up his usual line of BS about the Paul/Leto I within desiring his companionship.

"M'lord, why do you need me?" Idaho asked.
"For your strength and loyalty.
Idaho shook his head. "But..."
"You obey," Leto said, and he noted the way these words were being absorbed by the Reverend Mothers. Truth, only truth, for they are Truthsayers.

Maybe I am making too much of this, but to me it suggests that Leto had ulterior motives he did not want revealed to the Bene Gesserits (or his journals!) and that he placed GREAT importance on the serial reincarnations of Duncan.

What is the ultimate result of the Duncan-Siona line? There are many, many humans who can elude the prescience of Navigators, yes. But the payoff is in Teg Miles, in Sheeana.

Teg:
Always does the unexpected.
Sheeana:
The Bene Gesserit with the artist's soul, the Dune waif who dances the language of Siaynoq/the Divided God, who will create the new.

more thoughts later...

I don't think Leto liked to use his prescience and believe him when he says he looked into the future minimally.

Not only was Duncan a control in the breeding program (not so much to solidify advances but to eliminate mutation, as much was hinted at by Moneo) but he has many desireable qualities, some of which have been pointed out, that Leto thought was "Atreides".

He was also a measuring stick from the past for Leto to evaluate progress.

Maybe he was the only guy Leto could get to do Siona?

Also of note:

Duncan/Hayt displays remarkable abilities in CoD.

It has been mentioned before but Duncan experiences a near-prescient moment. Think of all of the amazingly talented people in CoD: Jessica, Gurney, Alia, Farad'n, Stilgar. Leto and Ghani are operating on another plane, and truly, only Duncan seems to be playing the same game, on their level. Everyone else is compromised/manipulated by other forces.

There are many parallels between Leto and Duncan in CoD:

1. Both Duncan and Leto have confrontations with the Lady Jessica in which they play her like Gurney strumming the ol' baliset. In both cases, Jessica, a full Reverend Mother, is bewildered at how easily Leto/Duncan get emotional responses from her. Of course, Leto is preborn, whereas Duncan is merely a mentat ghola. But contrast the performances of both vs. Jessica's confrontation with Thufir Hawat in Dune (Jessica clearly has the upper hand).
2. Similarly, both easily manipulate the wise Stilgar.
3. While signs of Alia's possession are clearly readable to those initiated in BG observation of minutiae, Duncan comes to the same conclusion independently.
4. Duncan sacrifices his life for the Atreides; Leto sacrifices his humanity.

Freakzilla wrote:I don't think Leto liked to use his prescience and believe him when he says he looked into the future minimally.

I agree, but certainly he could foresee the consequences of his own actions without using prescience. Obviously, he could predict the Scattering and the Famine Times. He knew what the breakthroughs in Ixian and Tleilaxu technology would do. He knew that the people of the distant future would refer to his revenant sandworms as Shaitan. Is it mere coincidence that Sheeana's worm dance and the HM sexual techniques were rooted in Siaynoq?

Duncan's most important function was that he could remember Leto as a human, remember him as someone before he became the tyrannical God-Emperor. Perhaps though, he could make a resonable guess, not being able to see Siona's future, that Duncan would have right stuff to become her breeding partner.

baudib wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:I don't think Leto liked to use his prescience and believe him when he says he looked into the future minimally.

I agree, but certainly he could foresee the consequences of his own actions without using prescience. Obviously, he could predict the Scattering and the Famine Times. He knew what the breakthroughs in Ixian and Tleilaxu technology would do.

He didn't predict The Scattering and The Famine Times, he planned them.

He knew that the people of the distant future would refer to his revenant sandworms as Shaitan.

That one was easy.

Is it mere coincidence that Sheeana's worm dance and the HM sexual techniques were rooted in Siaynoq?

Of course not. He used prescience when he had to but not enough to get caught in it's trap like Paul.

Freak:
yeah I agree with everything you say there. Semantics?

In the Dune-iverse, we know that predicting the future = creating the future; "pearls of awareness" and their oracular hold, etc.

There are shades of gray in the foresaw/planned/created spectrum and I suppose we, like Darwi Odrade at the end of HoD, will never really know.

Something to think about: Duncan clearly breeded many times with the Fish Speakers; all of the BG on Chapterhouse have the Siona gene. Duncan can be considered the ancestor of the Latter-Day BG AND the Honored Matres.

The "Nine Daughters of Siona and the Thousand Sons of Idaho".

Duncan was a busy guy.

Apjak wrote:Duncan's most important function was that he could remember Leto as a human, remember him as someone before he became the tyrannical God-Emperor.

Without getting into the Duncan/Hayt/Duncan thing too much, Duncan The First had no memories of Leto the Second.

i though the diference between prediction and intention disappeared
regarding these gifted atreides?

i dont recall reading why frank thought leto giving cell samples of dead duncans back to the tleilax fit anything, let alone the golden path

My theory was that his genetics held the basis of what would be the Siona gene. Would explain why Paul has difficulty seeing him in Messiah, despite Paul having an idea of the rest of the conspiracy even with Edric. Would explain why Leto II kept bringing him back and breeding him into the pool. Would explain why he is stated to have part of the Siona marker in Heretics/Chapterhouse.

JasonJD48 wrote:My theory was that his genetics held the basis of what would be the Siona gene. Would explain why Paul has difficulty seeing him in Messiah, despite Paul having an idea of the rest of the conspiracy even with Edric. Would explain why Leto II kept bringing him back and breeding him into the pool. Would explain why he is stated to have part of the Siona marker in Heretics/Chapterhouse.

I think there's something to this, although I also believe Leto II when he says that he needed Duncan's moral qualities to both keep him in line, and to make sure the 'Atreides honor' trait remained bred into humanity. It's entirely possible that 'Duncan the Moral' is tied into Duncan being chaotic (as per my theory on the subject), since fierce loyalty and devotion are, in a sense, completely irrational and passionate behaviors that defy immediate self-interest or even basic logic.

georgiedenbro wrote:

JasonJD48 wrote:My theory was that his genetics held the basis of what would be the Siona gene. Would explain why Paul has difficulty seeing him in Messiah, despite Paul having an idea of the rest of the conspiracy even with Edric. Would explain why Leto II kept bringing him back and breeding him into the pool. Would explain why he is stated to have part of the Siona marker in Heretics/Chapterhouse.

I think there's something to this, although I also believe Leto II when he says that he needed Duncan's moral qualities to both keep him in line, and to make sure the 'Atreides honor' trait remained bred into humanity. It's entirely possible that 'Duncan the Moral' is tied into Duncan being chaotic (as per my theory on the subject), since fierce loyalty and devotion are, in a sense, completely irrational and passionate behaviors that defy immediate self-interest or even basic logic.

I think you are right about him being truthful when he says that to Duncan, truthful but not the whole story.

CoD had no interaction between Leto and Duncan. It's something that I missed, but surely purposefully done.

I seem to recall twice in CoD Leto saying something about Duncan growing horns. It stands out to me because I never understood what it meant.

I agree that Duncan/Hayt was more than a mere Mentat as demonstrated by his interaction with Jessica. I hadn't considered that he would be the basis for the Siona gene, but it sounds plausible.

Spice Must Flow wrote: I seem to recall twice in CoD Leto saying something about Duncan growing horns. It stands out to me because I never understood what it meant.

Not sure if you mean to say you still don't understand it, but a man having horns is Elizabethan slang for being cuckolded; i.e. Alia was bedding another dude.

Spice Must Flow wrote:CoD had no interaction between Leto and Duncan. It's something that I missed, but surely purposefully done.

Leto was 8 at the beginning of CoD and Duncan was still Alia's husband. Just because the book portrays no interaction it's hard to imagine the two of them never interacting for eight years. In DM Duncan was there for the twins' birth.

The fact that this was Duncan/Hayt and not "original" Duncan remains one of the largest internal inconsistencies.

I agree that Duncan/Hayt was more than a mere Mentat as demonstrated by his interaction with Jessica. I hadn't considered that he would be the basis for the Siona gene, but it sounds plausible.

I'm more inclined to believe that the Atriedes genes were the basis for the Siona gene. Duncan was used to back-breed the KH trait to a more benign level. Moneo was able to sense whether the Golden Path stood or wavered. This was the extent of his prescience; the result of melange overdose during his Test. Same went for Siona. Perhaps it's why she persisted in her plan to kill Leto even after she became aware of the consequences -- she knew the GP would be safe.