Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

http://www.dunenovels.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2826

I was confused at first as to wither this contest was the smack down of the 6-year olds writing the posts or the fictional characters mentioned in the title...

Ender Wiggin, No Contest.

1. Original Author's creation.
2. His skills are built of his own accord.
3. He's the main character of his series.
4. Has human emotions and struggles.

Marie Fenring.

1. Completely artificial. Manufactured. Deus Ex Machina (see crappy).
2. Has no human qualities. Actually, has no qualities, period. Unless you count Voyeur and Bitch.
3. We are told she is awesome. We don't believe it. We are shown she is awesome by her surviving things normal six-year olds could not. Like killing 12 elite troops in a dark room. (um, I could survive that.)
4. Her super-powers include not being stung by scorpions and living in a universe so super-stupid that Imperial Guards ignore the fact that she's a trained assassin because she's a six year old wittle girl. The fact that the Emperor's sister is a hyper-intelligent prana-bindu master at age Zero does not seem to enter into this equation.
5. Apparently assassins have feelings too. Except when they really feel them, but are faking them. Like when a guy trains his daughter to be an assassin, puts her in harms way, cries when she dies, but was just faking it so he could stab the emperor. Except he really misses her. She was a great tool/weapon/daughter. Poor Marie.

Aww. so even with all her ultra-training, Marie still loses. Cause she's a shitty invention, a waste of what could have been an interesting character, created to assuage a hack writer's super-weapon fetish.

Ender is a super-weapon. But he's a fleshed out weapon with feelings, who's used without his knowledge to wipe an entire civilization out.

Marie gets a super-hero film montage, blows her load, and disappears. At least her 'daddy' cried, and put her death to good use.


Disclaimer: The author of this post hopes Marie comes back as a ghola in Winds of Dune, and dies another pointless hopeless, painful death. In fact, I hope she becomes as ghola-fied as Duncan, because only tens of thousands of pointless deaths could make this character worth existing.

Disclaimer to my Disclaimer: I in no way suggest or support violence against minors. Only stupid fucking characters that make people dumber.

Excellent and entertaining post, Amp.

Hey, on-topic but tangential question:

Someone on Dumbnovels wrote: In the book, I was sort of bummed that Alia wasn't as bad-arse as Marie Fenring turned out to be, even though she ended up dispatching her via the Jewel Handled Knife.

Is the same same knife that was the source of Paul's genetic material in Dune7? If so, that thing really gets around.

HBJ

Everyone in KJA's duniverse uses the same knife.

supposedly its the knife that give's alia the name "of the knife".

I was rather under the impression she got that name slaying Sardaukar in the battle of the plain of Arrakeen, because thats what fremen children should do. You know, something Dune-y like that.

Also, I'm considering re-reading that passage, because iirc Paul was shielded. Which means Fenring's stab would have to be fast enough to catch him totally off-guard, yet slow enough to pierce the shield.


Oh wait, my bad, its an Ultra-knife tempered in Fatherly rage and Awesome Munchkin Blood.

Freakzilla wrote:Everyone in KJA's duniverse uses the same knife.

Mostly because they're all the same character.

Well, to be fair, Kevvie has two characters: there's "good guy" and then there's "bad guy." That second one, lately, is also known as "dark guy." Everything is very, very "dark" lately over in Dune-land.

ooo maybe he can wrangle the publisher into calling it Dark Winds of Dune.


Oh yeah, I forgot something else. The Imperial Guards are Fremen. Fremen, who are used to children being skilled with weapons.

So basically KJA wants us to believe that Fremen Imperial Guards, in charge of the Personal Protection of their Messiah, think that there is nothing amiss when the daughter of the Universe's Master Assassin dives under the table and crawls along underneath it towards the Emperor.

Yeah, she's Just Playing. How Cute.

I'm sorry, did I mention that Marie Fenring is my least favorite of all of KJA's abominations of Dune?

I'm sorry to rant but when I get worked up about it...

They actually created a throw-away character riddled with that many problems? They seem to create so many characters that do nothing but die, right after doing something that would have made their book completely contradictory. So instead of being just bad writers, they're bad writers.

The problem with Marie is that she's literally a living six-year old superweapon. It's like when we used to be kids, and one kid says bang! your dead, and the other one says, no I have invisible super armor that deflects bullets. Except KJA wants us to feel that way about Dune.

Marie is unstoppably KJA-boner-inducing awesome. Sure she dies, but you reasonably expect that Kevin James "Superweapon" Anderson isn't going to bring her uber-ass back? Its her or Normacle, one of them will show up in Winds and probably Sands and Worms of Dune.






I wonder if Kev calls his little man "Superweapon". He's gonna dock his "Sun Crusher" in Becca's "Dockin Bay".




Or is Becca the "Sun Crusher"?
(I'm sorry Kev, I keep promising myself I'll bash your work and not your homelife. So I do apologize for that, for now.)

OH GOD JUST STOP WITH THE DOCKING ALREADY!!!

Don't forget the completely nonsensical references to Petite Marie being some kind of KH ... even though she hasn't the ... "equipment" for it.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. KJA understands nothing about Dune.

"Ground Control to KJA"



"Marie is a female KH!

"So...you mean she is a Bene Gesserit?"

"No she's a KH!"

"Yeah, you mean she's Bene Gesserit."

"No, she's like awesomer than that. She was trained by the best Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre's, plus her dad was a failed KH."

"Her dad was Feyd-Rautha. He wasn't failed anything. He lost a knife fight and had a perverted Uncle. If that makes someone a KH, then we'd have them all over the place."

"Yeah but her Adopted dad was Fenring and he was practically a KH!"

"When you play Jeopardy, The Home Game, You lose before anyone gets past the $200 questions, don't you..."

"Irulan wrote it wrong. What Fran..er Irulan meant to say was Marie was an ultra-final KH with a knife and she's right behind you!"

"Ugh, I use my prescient bullets and put you both out of my misery"

"No No you can't do that! Prescience doesn't exist in Dune!"

Oh fuck, now I have to read the heroes series so I can get a hate-boner.

I've read a synopsis of this whole "Marie situation" and I can see a lot of glaring literary shortcomings and character problems.

This is making me want to reread the true series, then that other stuff and do a little analysis to see how bad they truly are.

NO, LUKE! TURN AWAY FROM THE DARK SIDE!



Seriously ... that way lies madness. Or at least massive anger. Trust me.

SandChigger wrote:NO, LUKE! TURN AWAY FROM THE DARK SIDE!



Seriously ... that way lies madness. Or at least massive anger. Trust me.

I'd like to, but I can't bring myself to truly hate something without first understanding it. Besides, it'd give me a great excuse to re-read the true series and write reviews/notes on each.

If you disagree with logic and consistency KJA is an awesome writer.
If you think the plot should stay in the background, KJA is Pretty good.
If you think characters are basically empty mouthpieces for Action!, then KJA is a good read.
If you think that Super-uber unstoppable weapons are the key to success for any Sci-fi book, then KJA is gonna make you his bitch. (I'm surprised he's held off so long on having all his sword-fights with katanas.)
If you think every protagonist should be Superman, and every antagonist is Col. Klink, then KJA is right up your alley.

I imagine paranoid schizophrenics love his work, when they are off their meds.

Ampoliros wrote:(I'm surprised he's held off so long on having all his sword-fights with katanas.)

Light sabers, dude. zzzz-chew! Bwaooo xoooom!

Seems to me like the most Marie could be is a BG with the genetic potential to produce a KH somewhere down the line. And then only because Feyd was her papa.

The idea of a female KH is just nonsense. It's pretty clear from Dune that a male is needed to access male-line Other Memory.

(Correct me if my memory's faulty, someone)

HBJ

Hunchback Jack wrote:Seems to me like the most Marie could be is a BG with the genetic potential to produce a KH somewhere down the line. And then only because Feyd was her papa.

The idea of a female KH is just nonsense. It's pretty clear from Dune that a male is needed to access male-line Other Memory.

(Correct me if my memory's faulty, someone)

HBJ

I believe both males and females can access male OM, but the female BG are at strong risk of abomination so never attempt it. Only a KH is capable of looking into that place without being consumed.

I think the whole point of Margot salvaging Feyd's material was to restart the KH breeding program and just be a few generations off, but this plan was canceled once they realized what Paul and Leto II had done. Considering the BG were seeking power, I don't think they were breeding for the sake of humankind, but with some expected goal. It doesn't seem likely up to the end of CoD that they were seeking anything other than a continued KH program in Margot's/Feyd's union, so of course she'd be a very interesting child. But KH? Never.

Yeah Margot's reasoning (and the BG's) was to preserve the line. Their child would have been trained as BG and at the very least made loyal to the BG if not actually indoctrinated by them.

The idea that Feyd's daughter would be anything more than a carrier belies a total misunderstanding of basic Dune principals.

So it's no surprise that KJA turns her into a kung-fu toddler superweapon.

Ampoliros wrote:So it's no surprise that KJA turns her into a kung-fu toddler superweapon.

The union that produced this daughter was one of the few tidbits that I was disappointed to not see explored by FH himself. I'm even more disappointed that the hacks did it and utterly ruined the potential for a great character/subplot.

I mean, the best route probably would have been presenting her growth into a powerful BG under a highly secret program to produce the new KH, only to make some stunning choice of her own to prevent it or to be spurned by the Sisterhood in the final stages.

Hmm, my fact hit rate is not so great today. I think I should hold off on further Duniverse commentary until I reread the series again.

HBJ

Hunchback Jack wrote:Hmm, my fact hit rate is not so great today. I think I should hold off on further Duniverse commentary until I reread the series again.

I've only read it once through. I need to get crackin'!

Speaking of 'female KHs', I made a few posts over on DN concerning Ghanima. It's never stated whether she's a fraternal or identical (or even half-identical ) twin of Leto II. If she was identical, do you think it would be even remotely possible for her to be a female KH? Or is the difference something inherent in the gender-dimorphism of our brains instead of simply the biochemistry?

Oh. Dear.

Ghanima is a fraternal twin. Has to be. No penis.

Identical twins result from the division into two individuals of a single fertilized egg cell. That's why they have identical DNA and look so much alike.

Fraternal twins result from the release and fertilization of two egg cells. So fraternal twins are just normal siblings that happen to end up sharing the womb at the same time. Their DNA is not identical. That's why you can have male and female fraternals.

Males are takers, females takees. A female who tries to look into the male side of her OM invariably gets taken over. So there can never be a female KH.

Or so Freak will tell you.

Although rare, identical twins can be of the opposite gender due to environmental factors affecting phenotype behavior or the deactivation of certain X chromosomes. Identical twins aren't exactly identical anyways, with a small percentage of "junk" genes that can influence final development.

Not only that, but there is the possibility of half (or semi)-identical twins, which is the result of an egg splitting and both becoming fertilized by two separate sperm. The eggs would have identical DNA, while the two sperm have minute differences between theirs and, if one is XX and the other XY, could result in opposite sex identical twins.

I would think that a breeding program encompassing hundreds of generations for the sole purpose of bringing about the unique capabilities of a KH would make such circumstances more likely. In either case Ghanima would share the DNA it takes to be a KH and be a "true" female KH, or in an extreme and more likely scenario would only be biologically female, but have a neurological makeup somewhere between male and female. That neurological difference could be key.