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Chapter 08

Posted: 12 Feb 2008 21:27
by Freakzilla
The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demigoddess whose special charge is to
protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to
their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seek her out with demands that she
restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of antimentat. She
feeds on that proof that the "analytic" has limits. She represents ultimate
tension. She is the virgin-harlot -- witty, vulgar, cruel, as destructive in her
whims as a coriolis storm.

-St. Alia of the Knife as taken from The Irulan Report

Alia looks down on the pilgrams and venders scornfully from her Fane. She wonders who is feeding the Dune Tarot into the Arrakeen market at this particular time and decides to find out. She misses the Dessert, her sense of the past stirred up by the introduction of the ghola. She returns to her private chambers and strips down to nothing but a crystknife in a thong around her neck and takes a bath. She sees a shadow figure of a man in her future but can't identify him. She thinks that maybe if she strains the limits of her prescience she might be able to. She starts feeling horny then jumps from the bath to adjoining training room and activates a fencing prism. She takes the fencing prism to a dangerously high skill level until Paul turns it off with a thrown knife. Paul notices how she is becoming a woman. He starts to tell her why they've come but Stilgar is with him and makes note of how Alia badly needs a man and there will be trouble if it doesn't happen soon. This causes Alia to loose her Bene Gesserit self-control, which astounds and angers her. Paul tells him he will discuss it later with Alia privately. Paul tells Alia that he suspects that the Guild is about to try to capture a worm and take it from Arrakis, Alia notes that they must have Fremen accomplices. Paul is bothered by the fact that he has not been able to 'see' the world they intent to attempt to recreate the spice cycle on and Alia says it is because they've hid it with the powers of a Navigator, which shocks Stilgar with their admission of weakness. They all know that they will be unsuccessful even if they do capture a worm, without sand plankton and sandtrout. Stilgar asks if they cannot see the Guild at its work, then Paul and Alia explain to Stilgar the limits of their prescience.

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 29 Oct 2011 12:33
by Demerzel
I enjoyed the fencing prisms in this chapter. Interesting idea.

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 09 Apr 2012 13:09
by Freakzilla
Revised

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 01:10
by Kronz
"I suppose you never tried for more than seven!" she said, anger returning. His attentive posture began to annoy her.

"Just once," Paul said. "Gurney Halleck caught me on ten. My punishment was sufficiently embarrassing that I won't tell you what he did. And speaking of embarrassment... "
was the bit Paul mentions ever referred to in Dune (or, god forbid, a prequel/interquel)? I feel stupid since I just re-read Dune but this was giving me major deja vu and it's not showing up as I flip through Dune to find it. was it maybe in the movie? I read Dune and DM quickly back-to-back years ago and maybe just remembered Alia's scene as having been Paul testing the fencing dummy.

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 06:17
by Serkanner
Kronz wrote:
"I suppose you never tried for more than seven!" she said, anger returning. His attentive posture began to annoy her.

"Just once," Paul said. "Gurney Halleck caught me on ten. My punishment was sufficiently embarrassing that I won't tell you what he did. And speaking of embarrassment... "
was the bit Paul mentions ever referred to in Dune (or, god forbid, a prequel/interquel)? I feel stupid since I just re-read Dune but this was giving me major deja vu and it's not showing up as I flip through Dune to find it. was it maybe in the movie? I read Dune and DM quickly back-to-back years ago and maybe just remembered Alia's scene as having been Paul testing the fencing dummy.
It isn't mentioned in Dune. Whether it is mentioned in one of the Atrocities I do not know. I have read only few of them and in those (House and Legends) it isn't mentioned either

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 07:16
by Freakzilla
Not that I recall.

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 21 Aug 2013 11:07
by Naïve mind
Kronz wrote:was the bit Paul mentions ever referred to in Dune (or, god forbid, a prequel/interquel)?
I can just about imagine that. Gurney Halleck buys a Corellian DairyCat for Paul to care for, so that he can learn some responsibility. But the house rules of the Bene Gesserit boarding school forbid pets, so Paul spends half a book trying to hide the animal from his roommates, Feyd-Rautha and Hermione Granger. The plot thickens when it turns out that the DairyCat is actually a Tleilaxu creation engineered to assassinate Professor Mohiam.

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 21 Oct 2013 03:57
by inhuien
diediedie :twisted:

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 27 Aug 2014 01:07
by georgiedenbro
I find it curious that Stilgar, through only his lifetime of studying people, is able to identify immediately that Alia needs a mate, while neither Paul nor Alia, who possess countless lifetimes of wisdom, can't see the simple fact of it right away. In Paul's case we might suggest that "but it's his sister!" could be an ok argument for him having a blind spot in her case. Plus he might also rely too much on prescience at times, and in her case his inability to see her with prescience (as she is an oracle) might be another blind spot.

But for Alia, herself, what's her excuse for being caught so blind sighted by her own drives that she would begin acting impulsively and brazenly? Perhaps this lack of wisdom might be a first indication that she's having a problem with her OM (in addition to the muddying of her prescience) and is beginning to free-wheel?

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 27 Aug 2014 04:14
by Serkanner
georgiedenbro wrote:I find it curious that Stilgar, through only his lifetime of studying people, is able to identify immediately that Alia needs a mate, while neither Paul nor Alia, who possess countless lifetimes of wisdom, can't see the simple fact of it right away.
I think that is precisely the reason why they don't see it. Alia is an ancient being in a teenager/young woman body. She forgets the basic needs of a young body because she is already so "old".

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 18 Mar 2023 18:49
by the rev
It's a sexy chapter, maybe the sexiest that Frank ever wrote? Including all his works, not just the Dune series? He's kind of a prude, doesn't include much erotica in his writing. Especially compared to other writers. Kevy J Anderson for instance. 'He grasped at her bulky cream white thigh, his bulbous erection, hard as a diamond, rubbing against her waiting vagina...'

Re: Chapter 08

Posted: 18 Apr 2023 11:10
by Freakzilla
The last two books he makes up for it.