Appendix III


Moderators: Omphalos, Freakzilla, ᴶᵛᵀᴬ

Post Reply
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Appendix III

Post by Freakzilla »

Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes

This is a document prepared by Jessica's people immediately after the events in Dune.

She says the Bene Gesserit get more credit than they deserve due to their breeding program, not only that, they don't understand their own role in it. Their limited access to Paul is no excuse, they have overcome larger obstacles before.

There were breeding for a super-mentat with prescience and had been watching Duke Leto's bloodline for over a thousand years, the Harkonnens for over two thousand. Jessica should have been a willing tool. She was ordered to produce a daughter who would have been inbred with Feyd-Rautha with a high probability of producing the Kwisatz Haderach, but she defied her orders and bore a son. This alone should have alerted the Sisterhood but there were even bigger signs they ignored:

1. Paul showed signs of prescience as a child.
2. He surmounted more agony durring his Gom Jabbar test than anyone on record and Reverend Mother Mohiam didn't note that in her report.
3. Upon his family's move to Arrakis he was hailed as a prophet and the diet there was rich in spice.
4. Immediatly after the Harkonnen/Sardaukar attack a new religious leader appeared among the Fremen.
5. The Guild told the Bene Gesserit that they saw trouble on the horizon

Of all this, Jessica concludes that the Bene Gesserit's lack of action was due to an even higher plan.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Laphtiya
Posts: 215
Joined: 29 Aug 2008 11:57
Location: In an outpost, on the edge of space!

Post by Laphtiya »

That or the Bene Gesserit breeding programme was not the highest plan they had in motion. Something greater had their attention, perhaps it actually suited them to let events happen naturally. Or they simply believed that Paul was not the KH and they were looking at other alternatives. I do not think that there was some one ABOVE the Bene Gesserit, perhaps the Mother Superior at the time Decided that the Paul was dead and they breeding programme had been set back decades.

But who truly knows?
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

Or maybe the Bene Gesserit WANTED Paul and Jessica dead. :wink:
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
SadisticCynic
Posts: 2053
Joined: 07 Apr 2009 09:28
Location: In Time or in Space?

Re: The last paragraph in the Appendix III of Dune

Post by SadisticCynic »

I haven't thought in depth about this but I reckon this is possibly a reference to the human species organism - the many parts acting as a whole. Later depictions of the Bene Gesserit imply that missing details like this is completely unlike them. Could it be that the growing subconscious need for upheaval mentioned near the end of Dune blinded them to these facts?

I certainly don't think this necessarily justifies a godlike being in control of the Duniverse; from Frank's other works, this seems more likely to be what he had in mind.
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: The last paragraph in the Appendix III of Dune

Post by Freakzilla »

What powers at that time were higher than the Bene Gesserit?

The Emperor
The Landsraad
CHOAM
The Spacing Guild
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Schu
Posts: 757
Joined: 18 Dec 2008 00:51
Location: Adelaide, Aussie

Re: The last paragraph in the Appendix III of Dune

Post by Schu »

SadisticCynic wrote:I haven't thought in depth about this but I reckon this is possibly a reference to the human species organism - the many parts acting as a whole. Later depictions of the Bene Gesserit imply that missing details like this is completely unlike them. Could it be that the growing subconscious need for upheaval mentioned near the end of Dune blinded them to these facts?

I certainly don't think this necessarily justifies a godlike being in control of the Duniverse; from Frank's other works, this seems more likely to be what he had in mind.
This is the closest to my opinion, I think. There are similar ideas in 'the Eyes of Heisenberg' too, I think it was a bit of a theme for him - for that matter, the dosadi experiment does too, and a few others.

Mohiam, deep down, knew that Paul was at least a pretty high chance of a Kwizatz. I think FH was pointing at the idea that she in some way stopped herself from realising it consciously so that the world could have a wild KH (specifically one with the resources (fremen, spice, toughness etc.) that Dune has to offer, instead of trying to control him, because on some level she knew that's what the world needed. Other ideas I've had: she (from now on, "she" means "some vaguely unconscious part of PM Mohiam) wanted Paul to die on Dune, or she knew the BG would never be able to control him anyway.

Questions: how did the BG intend to control "their" KH? Jessica didn't give her son any lasting loyalty to the BG, merely training from them. Would Alia, had she been born earlier and not been pre-born, and had she done the dirty with Feyd, have done any differently? How could the BG have controlled a KH that, by definition, is superior to them? Or did they merely want to see that it could be done? Did they want to loose a KH upon the world. When people in the later books curse Jessica for her mistakes, do they really think that a properly BG-influenced KH wouldn't have done the same thing, and also needed their own version of the Tyrant to fix things?
User avatar
SadisticCynic
Posts: 2053
Joined: 07 Apr 2009 09:28
Location: In Time or in Space?

Re: Appendix III

Post by SadisticCynic »

Perhaps the instilled loyalty was all that would have been needed, good catch with Jessica not giving that to Paul. I never thought about that before.

Some of this links to the discussion in the Bene Gesserit Forum, I still wonder what their overall purpose was. What could they have done with such a powerful man and as you rightly ask Schu, how could they control him?

It seems unlikely to me that the species organism would have any greater reach than what we have already described so thinking about it motivating the Bene Gesserit doesn't work for me. It reeks of determinism and also results in us looking at causality backwards.

I wonder if it was simply an achievement to have a male go through what is later known as the 'Agony'. After all, they are missing both a male perspective and the memories of their male ancestors. Perhaps they hoped for this to become a more regular occurance - male Bene Gesserits that is, not Kwisatz Haderachs.

Paul describes himself as a fulcrum, and that is presumably why he is so powerful. Perhaps once the fulcrum had been found, a way to get to its other side would become apparent.

All speculation, but fun nonetheless. :)
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Appendix III

Post by Freakzilla »

I think the Banker's Daughter, at the dinner party, was BG and intended to seduce an become impregnated by Paul, who later was suposed to die in the desert with Jessica. RM Mohiam manipulated the Emperor into giving Duke Leto Arrakis. Lady Margot had the seed from the Harkonnen line. Breeding program intact...
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Leto
Posts: 78
Joined: 29 Mar 2008 12:54
Location: Here and there
Contact:

Re: Appendix III

Post by Leto »

Dune Encylopedia wrote:Paul was trained secretly in both "weirding" and Mentat skills. He was habitued, in other words, to extrapoling the probable behavior of individuals from minute revelations. [..]
Furthermore, because of his Mentat training, he could calculate probabilities involving large quanta of interdependant variables. In both heredity and environment, then, Paul Atreides was suited to be a Kwisatz Haderach. But there was no reason that he had to be. If he had stayed on Caladan, for instance, he probably would not have encountered the spice drug that triggered full awareness of his latent prescience.
If wishes were fishes, we would all cast nets
Gurney Halleck
Image
Image
KJA ? Keep Just Away?
Filo
User avatar
Apjak
Posts: 519
Joined: 30 Jun 2008 12:06
Location: Kansas City

Re:

Post by Apjak »

Freakzilla wrote:Or maybe the Bene Gesserit WANTED Paul and Jessica dead. :wink:
"Hope clouds observation." -FH

You could say that his future Kwisatz Haderach~ness also clouded certain observations/objectivity from the BG and or Guild Navs.
I don't think the author should make the reader do that much work - Kevin J. Anderson
We think we've updated 'Dune' for a modern readership without dumbing it down.- Brian Herbert
There’s an unwritten compact between you and the reader. If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned money(energy) for your book, you owe that person some entertainment and as much more as you can give. - Frank Herbert
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Re:

Post by Freakzilla »

Apjak wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Or maybe the Bene Gesserit WANTED Paul and Jessica dead. :wink:
"Hope clouds observation." -FH

You could say that his future Kwisatz Haderach~ness also clouded certain observations/objectivity from the BG and or Guild Navs.
Good Point.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Appendix III

Post by Freakzilla »

Cleaned
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
Post Reply