Everything you ever wanted to know about Face Dancers*

[SandChigger]

You already have, cupcake:

I originally thought that Thinking Machines were machines that had human brains. That would be a lot more interesting than... well...

[Redstar]

I always found the Face Dancers to be one of my favorite aspects of the Dune universe. I actually worked on several stories dealing with hermaphroditic soldiers/terrorists, and messiahs for no better reason than they intrigue me. (Note my discussion on an intersexed KH, )

The best part of how FH wrote the series is he gave everything attention. Duncan was a one-off character; he's now in every book. The Tleilaxu are an integral, but vague part of the conspiracy in DM, but they fuck up the universe just as much as the BG do after enough time. Everything got it's chance to impact the universe with enough time. That's some good writing.

So, on-topic, I think that whole ninja-actor thing is the closest real-life parallel we can find for the FD concept. I doubt it was the inspiration, but it's a cool trivia piece.

[SandChigger]

(What play is it? Do you remember the title?)

[Redstar]

I don't recall the title of the play, but here's an article discussing ninjas that goes into that particular origin: The Illuminated Lantern: Ninja

With all of these stories of the ninja being written, it was only a matter of time before they appeared on the Kabuki theater stage. And then, the actors had a dilemma -- how does one portray a ninja? And more importantly, what kind of costume should be used?

Sometimes, they wore garb not dissimilar to any other samurai when playing a ninja on stage. But the ninjas reputation as masters of stealth and invisibility suggested a costume to the actors. Because there already were people on stage, in many performances (especially of the Bunraku or puppet theater), who were supposed to be invisible. They were the kurogo, or stage-hands.

The stage-hands, to indicate to the audience that they were not meant to be seen and should be ignored, wore black from top to bottom. And here, at last, we have the famous ninja uniform -- those black pajamas that seem to provide little protection from weapons, little cover in pitch darkness, and foolishly advertise to the entire world who you are. It makes little sense for an outfit such as this to be used in the real world, but in the conventions of Kabuki theater, it was the perfect costume. And to this day, every ninja movie, no matter how authentic they attempt to be, includes the Kabuki stage-hand's costume as an unquestioned and vital part of ninja outerwear.

[SandChigger]

Thanks!