Chapter 22


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Freakzilla
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Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

O Seas of Caladan,
O people of Duke Leto--
Citadel of Leto fallen,
Fallen forever . . .

-from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

Paul and Jessica huddle in the stiltent and clothes from the Fremkit Yueh had left in the thopter, in the place where Duncan Idaho had hid them. Paul feels that his perception has been raised to a higher level, partly by his mentat training, partly something else. He recognized it was Duncan who piloted the thopter that swooped down on them before his mother, and he figured out Yueh's part in all this before her too. Paul is distressed that he doesn't feel anything about the death of his father. He decides he will mourn latter, when there's time. He realizes that his hightened awareness is only at it's begining, it is growing, and he feels a pervasion of his "terrible purpose" and wonders if this is what it is to be the Kwisats Haderach. They worry that Duncan may not get through to Kynes. Jessica suggest that they need to find whatever Atreides men have escaped and gather them. Paul says they will rely only on themselves, their first priority must be to recover the family atomics before the Harkonnens find them. Jessica sees them only as a chance at renegade anonimity. Jessica senses that Paul's mind has advanced beyond hers. She knows her part in training him but is fearfull of him anyway. Jessica thinks of the unborn daughter in her womb, she conceived it out of instinct, not obedience. A daughter wouldn't have saved the Duke anyway. Paul tells her to try the communications receiver from the pack again. As she searches across the bands they hear bits of Atreides Battle Language. The Sardaukar disguised as Atreides have sacked the Guild Bank in Carthage. With the Guild against them, they're stuck on Arrakis. They can hear the obvious tone of victory in the Harkonnen battle language, even though they can't decipher it. Paul shakes the Fremkit hearing the two literjons of water gurgle. Without a stilsuit, a man sitting in the shade requires five literjons a day to maintain body weight. It will be dawn soon, they will wait through the day for Idaho but they can't afford to wait another night. They will have to assume Idaho captured. Paul goes through the manual for the Fremkit and realizes that they must utilize desert power. Paul says that he has computed that the Fremen are who really controls Arrakis and are bribing the Guild not to install weather satellites. She says he's not a mentat yet but he says he's something else, a freak. Paul decides that now is the time to deliver his father's message of trust to Jessica. Jessica sobs and Paul is still mystified that he can't yet grieve and perceives this as a terrible flaw. Paul begins to have a prescient vision of their future. He clings to this new level of awareness. He can see all the paths available to them. The sensation slips away and only took a heartbeat, but he maintains awareness of a path for them to follow. Paul throws a tantrum and blames his mother for all of this. He accuses her of wanting a male Bene Gesserit, not a son. He tells her that her training and the spice have awakened the sleeper within him. He tells her he knows about the daughter she carries, that they will find sanctuary with the Fremen, a way prepared by the Missionaria Protectiva. He reveals they carry Harkonnen blood in their veins, Jessica is the Baron's own daughter. Paul says the Bene Gesserit were reaching for him but he's ahead of his time and they don't know it. Jessica realizes he is the Kwisatz Haderach and must get word out. He tells her they won't find out until it's too late. He denies he's the KH, he's something more, a seed. He is filled with his terrible purpose. He had seen two main branchings in time ahead of him. On one he meets the Baron Harkonnen, that way is more disgusting to him than anything he can imagine. On the other path is is more obscured revealing only peaks of a violent warrior religion under the Atreides banner with a few of his father's men, drunk on spice liquor. He realizes that is the path the Bene Gesserit want and doesn't want to go that way. He realizes his terrible purpose is race consciousness. He tells his mother they will find sanctuary with the Fremen and they will call him Muad'dib. Finally, he finds grief for the loss of his father.

This is the end of Book One.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Frybread »

Now, as far as I can understand, the "sleeper" is a part of Paul's mind that sounds like a suped-up Mentat ability. For instance:

"Paul sensed the hyperalertness of his mind reading her reactions, computing on minutiae."

and

"He felt unable to stop this inflow of data or the cold precision with which each new item was added to his knowledge and the computation was centered in his awareness. It was Mentat power and more."

So, basically, the "sleeper who has awakened" was a part of Paul's mind (like the subconcious mind) that can perform super-Mentat abilities without the need to enter a trance-like state? Is this correct or am I off?
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Frybread »

Frybread wrote:Now, as far as I can understand, the "sleeper" is a part of Paul's mind that sounds like a suped-up Mentat ability. For instance:

"Paul sensed the hyperalertness of his mind reading her reactions, computing on minutiae."

and

"He felt unable to stop this inflow of data or the cold precision with which each new item was added to his knowledge and the computation was centered in his awareness. It was Mentat power and more."

So, basically, the "sleeper who has awakened" was a part of Paul's mind (like the subconcious mind) that can perform super-Mentat abilities without the need to enter a trance-like state? Is this correct or am I off?
Here's another quote I found:

"His own lack of grief could still be felt ... that hollow place somewhere seperated from his mind, which went on its steady pace -- dealing with data, evaluating, computing, submitting answers in something like the Mentat way."

Kind of sounds like Paul's "sleeper", his unconcious mind, had come to the surface and was operating alongside his conscious mind.
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Post by Freakzilla »

Paul was bred to be a "super-mentat" but I'm not sure if that is exactly the same as "the sleeper" that he is refering to. I think it's his "noble purpose", whatever he was bred to be, the Kwizats Haderach.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by SadisticCynic »

Paul denies he is the Kwisatz Haderach, yet claims to be something more. What is that 'something more'? Is it the extra talents he has i.e. prescience and large Mentat capabilities?

AmI right in saying that at this point Paul cannot see into his past, into genetic memory; as he uses his prescient memory to identify his Harkonnen ancestry?

By the way, I think I agree on the idea that his 'threshold of awareness' (from D:V) has been lowered dramatically, so that what would normally be analysed at a subconscious level has been raised to a conscious level. Sensory data is always being received by the body, even though we are often unaware of it. The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

I can't answer these questions without spoilers, please ask them again in the latter chapters... if the later chapters don't answer them for you. :wink:

But he does discover his Harkonnen ancestry through his natural prescience.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by SadisticCynic »

:shock: The answers are in later chapters!?!

Damn, I guess its definitely time for this re-read. I've forgotten most of the finer details I used to have at quick recall - plus reading Dune again feels sooo good. :)
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

Revised
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Re: Chapter 22

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Clean
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Re: Chapter 22

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I seem to remember someone here arguing that prescients didn't see the past...

Abruptly, as though he had found a necessary key, Paul's mind climbed
another notch in awareness. He felt himself clinging to this new level,
clutching at a precarious hold and peering about. It was as though he existed
within a globe with avenues radiating away in all directions . . . yet this only
approximated the sensation.
He remembered once seeing a gauze kerchief blowing in the wind and now he
sensed the future as though it twisted across some surface as undulant and
impermanent as that of the windblown kerchief.
He saw people.
He felt the heat and cold of uncounted probabilities.
He knew names and places, experienced emotions without number, reviewed data
of innumerable unexplored crannies. There was time to probe and test and taste,
but no time to shape.
The thing was a spectrum of possibilities from the most remote past to the
most remote future
--from the most probable to the most improbable. He saw his
own death in countless ways. He saw new planets, new cultures.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Omphalos »

We've had conversations about prescience being the ability to see the future, and all past viewing being through OM. That always sounded good to me given the roots of the word prescience (to know before hand). I don't see that this clearly says that prescience is how he is viewing the past. Looks to me as if he is exploring his vision, which is made up of both.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

This is Paul and Jessica in the stiltent immediately after being hid by Idaho after the Harkonnen attack. Paul is for the first time experiencing waking prescient visions.

A few lines after the one I quoted:

He fell silent as memory of that seeing filled him. No prescient dream, no
experience of his life had quite prepared him for the totality with which the
veils had been ripped away to reveal naked time.
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Serkanner »

Paul was (something else than) the Kwisatz Haderach and perhaps that would "explain" his difference from "normal" prescience, like the Guild navigators?
"... the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience."

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

Sandrider: "Keith went to Bobo's for a weekend of drinking, watched some DVDs,
and wrote a Dune Novel."
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Re: Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

Paul sees Guild navigators in this scene and actually explains the difference between him and them allthough I don't really understand it.


People.
People.
He saw them in such swarms they could not be listed, yet his mind catalogued
them.
Even the Guildsmen.
And he thought: The Guild--there' d be a way for us, my strangeness accepted
as a familiar thing of high value, always with an assured supply of the nownecessary
spice.
But the idea of living out his life in the mind-groping-ahead-throughpossible-
futures that guided hurtling spaceships appalled him. It was a way,
though. And in meeting the possible future that contained Guildsmen he
recognized his own strangeness.
I have another kind of sight. I see another kind of terrain: the available
paths.
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
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