Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

So after finding the whole miniseries on youtube, and accidentally watching most of it, I decided I'm about due for another reading of the books. Found myself forgetting little bits or remembering them differently, though I'm sure the SciFi series is partially to blame for fucking all that up. It was actually even worse than I recalled.

Anyway, I got kind of hung up on scene in which Paul submits to Kanly, while he already has the universe by its balls, just because Feyd bitched about it. Seems kind of hypocritical of Paul to do away with the Fremen ways of fighting to the death over leadership, but the Landsraad ways of fighting to the death? Oh no, those must be respected. It makes Paul seem overly bloodthirsty. He broke a lot of rules that day, he could at least be consistent on his deathmatch policy.

I guess I always struggled with how revenge-filled Paul seemed by the end of the first book, while knowing full well that it will cause a nasty jihad. Was it shades of the Golden Path? A hint of Leto II-style ruling? And if so, did he realize it?

Paul makes a point of that fact in the final chapters of Dune that not only is he Muad'dib, the Fremen Mahdi, but also a Duke of the Impirium.

He was born and bred an aristocrat and intended to rule, damned right he was vengeful. Nothing Paul could have done would have stopped the Jihad, he chose that path on his first night in the desert in the stiltent with Jessica.

If you're going to re-read the series, please follow along in the Reading Group and comment.

I remember reading an interview with Frank Herbert where he mentioned that he made the ending of Dune intentionally campy, and the duel with Feyd was part of that.

Naïve mind wrote:I remember reading an interview with Frank Herbert where he mentioned that he made the ending of Dune intentionally campy, and the duel with Feyd was part of that.

FH: I controlled the pace, so I have several rhythms built into the story deliberately: one is a long-term rhythm…and we’ll get to the ending of the book in a minute. I…the ending is camp, high camp. Deliberately. And a number of people, interestingly, have seen it. I wanted to say…

WM: I found it sheer action, almost for the sake of action.

FH: Yes.

WM: And overly dramatic, maybe; and, you know, “in the future they will call us wives,” I said yeachch! almost. But you call it high camp. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

FH: Well, I wanted to turn the story around on itself, but in two very specific ways. And obviously you don’t limit the way it turns. If you do that…if you do one way that you know of..

http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Freakzilla wrote:

Naïve mind wrote:I remember reading an interview with Frank Herbert where he mentioned that he made the ending of Dune intentionally campy, and the duel with Feyd was part of that.

FH: I controlled the pace, so I have several rhythms built into the story deliberately: one is a long-term rhythm…and we’ll get to the ending of the book in a minute. I…the ending is camp, high camp. Deliberately. And a number of people, interestingly, have seen it. I wanted to say…

WM: I found it sheer action, almost for the sake of action.

FH: Yes.

WM: And overly dramatic, maybe; and, you know, “in the future they will call us wives,” I said yeachch! almost. But you call it high camp. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

FH: Well, I wanted to turn the story around on itself, but in two very specific ways. And obviously you don’t limit the way it turns. If you do that…if you do one way that you know of..

http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The ending in the miniseries is way campier than the book's version. I prefer the Lynch adaptation of the ending the most, because at least it has Paul being really cold and kickass in his dialogue. I don't think the book's version is at all overly dramatic. Paul is pretty much cool and calm throughout it... Though come to think of it, the structure of it is very melodramatic. The reactions from the Guildsmen who turned out to be Navigators in disguise; the scene where Fenring refused to kill Paul and gets slapped for it; Thufir killing himself with his own poison needle; and Feyd accidentally poisoning himself with the Emperor's blade during the fight. It is melodrama, but not necessarily Flash Gordon grad melodrama. It's more Shakespearean than most dramatic showdowns in sci-fi today. I like that interview except very much, though.

Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

Naïve mind wrote:I remember reading an interview with Frank Herbert where he mentioned that he made the ending of Dune intentionally campy, and the duel with Feyd was part of that.

FH: I controlled the pace, so I have several rhythms built into the story deliberately: one is a long-term rhythm…and we’ll get to the ending of the book in a minute. I…the ending is camp, high camp. Deliberately. And a number of people, interestingly, have seen it. I wanted to say…

WM: I found it sheer action, almost for the sake of action.

FH: Yes.

WM: And overly dramatic, maybe; and, you know, “in the future they will call us wives,” I said yeachch! almost. But you call it high camp. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

FH: Well, I wanted to turn the story around on itself, but in two very specific ways. And obviously you don’t limit the way it turns. If you do that…if you do one way that you know of..

http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The ending in the miniseries is way campier than the book's version. I prefer the Lynch adaptation of the ending the most, because at least it has Paul being really cold and kickass in his dialogue. I don't think the book's version is at all overly dramatic. Paul is pretty much cool and calm throughout it... Though come to think of it, the structure of it is very melodramatic. The reactions from the Guildsmen who turned out to be Navigators in disguise; the scene where Fenring refused to kill Paul and gets slapped for it; Thufir killing himself with his own poison needle;

Thufir died from the lack of the antidote to the Harkonnen poison.

and Feyd accidentally poisoning himself with the Emperor's blade during the fight.

They poisoned each other, Feyd had soporific on his knife and Paul had acid in his crystknife.

This is what I'm talking about. I've forgotten about most of this! Looking forward to getting back into it.

And I will for sure check out the reading group!

Drunken Idaho wrote:I guess I always struggled with how revenge-filled Paul seemed by the end of the first book, while knowing full well that it will cause a nasty jihad. Was it shades of the Golden Path? A hint of Leto II-style ruling? And if so, did he realize it?

Yeah, even on my first reading of Dune, I didn't consider Paul's victory to be a heroic one, precisely because he knew his rise to Emperorhood would result in Jihad. But he did it anyway, for largely selfish reasons. That's also why the beginning of Dune Messiah made sense to me. And why PoD and WoD are unnecessary.

HBJ