^^ >> continued ...
all the posts after support the main idea, that Shaddam thought Leto was a serious threat ...
but, as Seamus points out, what is the balance of the threat of Leto versus the threat of the Houses
discovering the Emperor's Hand in the Harkonnen's total destruction of House Atreides ?
one the one hand: yes, it is just a plot-device, the set-up for the Story Frank wanted to Tell ...
the quote I gave above is about a page or so into the book; right after that is Mohiam's statement
about the Butlerian Jihad; in fact, that could be an interesting discussion - how much basic information
about the "universe" did Frank pass out in the first ten pages or so? what I mean is, how far in do
you have to go, knowing what we all know now as the "facts" of the story, before a(n)(intelligent)
reader would have all the necessary framework to understand what was going on?
I'd also like to point out here that in this, Frank was as clumsy as anybody else
of his caliber;
{
nice caveat, SandRider}[well, thank you, sometimes folks don't fully understand what I'm saying]
{maybe you ought to try a little plainer English ?}[naw, fuck that ... BTW, I think the better word-choice
woulda been "disclaimer" instead of
caveat]{Hmmm ... maybe you're right; but neither seem to be
the exact right-word}[I know, I know ... shit like that happens all the time ...]
"The Great Revolt took away a crutch," she said. "It forced human minds to
develop. Schools were started to train human talents. "
"Bene Gesserit schools?"
She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene
Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure
mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function."
I would think this would have already been covered in Paul's education, and that
Frank could have found a subtler way to inform us about the "ancient schools" ...
maybe it's overlooked on a first-read; I don't know, now ...
because now, after reading this first chapter so many times (I think it's my favorite;
I know I've marveled at how almost-perfect it is, the sheer quantity of things that
are introduced, mostly well-done, with a few rougher patches, like this one) I find
this one little exchange grating - almost like a cliched sci-fi
gush of information...
on the other hand, before that:
"He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman. "Sly little rascal."
"Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman. "Tomorrow you'll
need all your faculties to meet my gom jabbar."
Is a gom jabbar something of Arrakis I must know before we go there? he
wondered.
He mouthed her strange words: Gom jabbar . . . Kwisatz Haderach.
There had been so many things to learn.
Paul sat up, hugged his knees. "What's a gom jabbar?"
Again, the training she had given him exposed her almost invisible
hesitation, a nervous betrayal he felt as fear.
Jessica crossed to the window, flung wide the draperies, stared across the
river orchards toward Mount Syubi. "You'll learn about . . . the gom jabbar soon
enough," she said.
He heard the fear in her voice and wondered at it.
Jessica spoke without turning. "Reverend Mother is waiting in my morning
room. Please hurry."
this was excellent, and how it's done; a strange non-English word, a tension-building,
a secret, a secret laced with fear and apprehension ... and in the overall context, the
gom jabbar would not have been something Paul could have known about; not from
Thufir or Duncan or Yueh ... and I think Jessica would have had little to no reason to
tell him about it at this stage of his training; in fact, altho Mohaim tells Jessica "You
know it must be done.", I've always had the feeling that Jessica believed it could have
been done later, after she had further trained Paul; or possibly, depending on the future
unknowns ... not at all ...
but also, does Paul's age, fifteen, have something to do with it ?
if so, then Jessica might have known that day was coming, and prepared Paul as much as she could;
and here is another example of Frank's set-up, establishing Paul's age by Mohiam's comment on how
small he is ... we are informed by the
appropriate dialog between characters ...
and again :
"If only she 'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!"
without yet fully understanding the Bene Gesserit Breeding Program, we understand right here
the Witches issue
orders to their people regarding the sex of their children, and also, that
Jessica
refused that order ...
and that the Bene Gesserit took this disobedience in stride ...
possibly ... atleast we know the baby boy Jessica birthed wasn't killed right off, nor was Jessica herself ...
because of her status and the baby boy's feudal rights as a Duke's Son, or because the Bene Gesserit
just don't operate like that ? .... or now ... 15 years later, and we soon learn that the gom jabbar is
potentially fatal, and Jessica shows
real fear for her son's life and relief when she re-enters the
room (
My son lives ...), could the entire "human or animal" rationale for the test be subterfuge
to allow
The Emperor's Truthsayer inside the Atreides defenses
and hold a poisoned needle
to the neck of the Ducal Heir ? (and where the fuck was Hawat when all this was discussed ? is that old
bastard even aware Mohiam is
on Caladan ? does he have any idea
who Mohiam is ?)
and so on and so forth ...
so ... have a sorta-idea about how Frank thought and worked, I'm thinking that while he straight-out
tells us atleast
one of the motivations for Shaddam's desire to destroy Leto, I think he held the
general over-all ideas in his mind so deeply that they "creep out" in the dialog, maybe not even in his
conscious intentions ... I also think Frank liked to fuck with people - how many re-reads did it take
for you to catch that :
"The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without separating human
stock from animal stock -- for breeding purposes."
The old woman's words abruptly lost their special sharpness for Paul. He
felt an offense against what his mother called his instinct for rightness. It
wasn't that Reverend Mother lied to him. She obviously believed what she said.
It was something deeper, something tied to his terrible purpose.
was the foreshadowing of the
reason for the Jihad, a breaking of the Bene Gesserit's
hold on human genes, the "mingling" that itself is never directly spelled out, but only implied ?
there is
no way, in the first few pages, to understand the significance of this passage,
unless you are a Top-Notch Intellect with Total and Complete Recall Memory and
Extraordinary
Comprehension to reach back to here, in the midst of all the other themes and ideas flying at you,
and remember,
oh yeah, Paul thought the Breeding Program was Bogus from day One ...
or some shit like that there ...
anyway, I think this topic can be beat to death and re-animated and beat on some more;
for some reason, it catches my attention on several levels ... and will require an assemblage
and analysis of every passage in the first book even remotely related ... and there's alot of
flashback and whatever in Messiah and Children ... Leto II had some opinions, too ...