Dune Part 6 - Pain, Prophecy, and the Path Forward

We trace the fall of House Atreides in Book One’s closing stretch as we follow the interweaving stories of Paul and Jessica, Yueh and Leto, and the looming Harkonnen presence.


Email us at brothersreadingbooks@gmail.com, find us on X at @BrothersReading, and visit brothersreadingbooks.com

Transcript

Welcome Back & Setup

Michael Kentris 0:04

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Brothers Reading Books podcast. As always, we are your hosts. I'm Michael Kentris, and I'm joined as always by my delightful brother, Will Kentris. How are you doing today, Will? I'm doing pretty well. How about you, Mike? You know, I'm good. It's a Saturday morning. Took the chickens out. Yeah, things are doing okay. Nothing too burning on the backlog, so that's always a nice feeling. How about yourself? Absolutely. Fantastic. The house has recently been deep clean, so it's nice not having kind of like tumbleweeds of cat hair kind of sailing across the floor. No, it's it's very nice. It's very clean. I know typically it's more associated with spring, but this is when we got around to it in the middle of summer. That's alright. You know, as we'll talk about later, there is a season for all things. So today we are continuing our deep read on Dune. And as always, uh this is a not, this is not a spoiler-free podcast. So there are spoilers a plenty, spoilers constantly and all the time. And that is going to be our continuous MO as we go through these series, I believe. So do you want to give kind of like again the the high overview on what we're covering today before we get into the nitty-gritty? Absolutely. We had discussed this a little beforehand, so we might be doing a quiet a not quite longer, a little bit longer than usual just to wrap up this first book of Dune, rather than, you know, leave the audience a potential cliffhanger. So in chapter 19, uh, we kind of covered the abduction of Lady Jessica and Paul. So this is right after, you know, we've just talked about Duke Leto being paralyzed and kind of uh inoculated to uh Dr. Yui's plans for potentially assassinating the Baron. And then we have a brief point of view from Yui, kind of with the immediate aftermath of the Harkinans overrunning the complex, and then we have the long-anticipated kind of confrontation between the Duke and the Baron, and then wrap up book one with a in-depth conversation between Lady Jessica and Paul about what their next steps are going to be as they kind of evade the Harkonens. Yes. And that will bring us to the end of book one. You know, I will say that uh not having chapter numbers has been uh somewhat challenging because we're using different uh different editions of the book. So our page numbers don't match up. So it's a nice to have a firm reference point that is written out. So I for one, I found a perhaps unnaturally high degree of satisfaction with that. Absolutely. Honestly, I saw what I do is I have an annotated version that I kind of am leafing through on a tablet. And so I had mislabeled one of the chapters earlier as I was reading through. I was like, wait, I why there's not 24 chapters. Yeah, there's 23. Right. So I definitely missed uh missed one earlier, and that led to some uh you know behind the scenes uh conversation to clarify. Absolutely. So let's start with uh with our abductions here. So we start out with the lady Jessica, and again, I always and I shouldn't say always, but I almost always enjoy these quotes from the Princess Arulin. So we have one here. There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. And I mean that's kind of reminiscent of some things to me, as of excuse me. That kind of cycle of, you know, hard times create strong men, strong time strong men create good times, good times create weak men. Yes. It kind of puts me in mind of that, that we need to understand like what's the right amount of discomfort to create strength, essentially. And, you know, actually there is a term for this in science. They're called hormetic stressors, which is a thing like exercise, right? It's good for us, you know, long-term. In the moment it can be painful, and many people do not like it, but uh it's good for our long-term health and so on. And similarly, I think we can say that there are ways of perhaps hardening up our psychic or mental muscles as well, which I think are much less well understood, obviously. Right. No, even in the universe of Dune, where you know they've only had these two schools, right? The mentats and the Benetesseret, who have any sort of training in this kind of forget about the guildsmen. That's true, the guildsmen, I'm sorry. We don't know much about them, really. Yeah. So yes. All right, so take us off, we'll set the scene. Absolutely. So, like you said, we kind of start off with Lady Jessica here, who awakens randomly in the dark, and she has really no memory of where she is or what's going on, but recollects that in the middle of the night, after she had gone to bed, she had been drugged. I don't know if necessarily used chloroform in this universe, but some sort of, you know, cinematic allegory to that where, you know, she she has had something pressed over her mouth and she was like incapacitated and then bound. And then more specifically, gagged as well, since they're very much aware of her Ben a Jesserit training in the voice. Right. So I do think that there's a lot of as we go into these chapters, there's a lot more of this very descriptive and I think kind of in a way beautiful language that uh is used to describe things here. Just certain things, right? So, like, for instance, something wet and pungent slapped against her face. And then one gasp, one indrawn breath, uh sensing the narcotic in the wetness, consciousness had receded, sinking her into a black bin of terror. How simple it was to subdue the Benny Jesseret, all it took was treachery. Hawat was right. So again, right, this kind of longer, flowing, kind of inner description of an inner sensation, and then like these kind of short, punchy sentences. It's very, I think, very good in terms of rhythmic flow. It really makes you feel like this kind of disorganized jumble of thoughts, like you kind of have these like wander like if everyone's ever come out of anesthesia or you know, uh perhaps had a little bit too much to drink and they're kind of coming out of it a little bit. You know, your thoughts are a little disorganized, and then you like have these like little fractal moments of clarity mixed into the kind of stream of consciousness. So I think it does a really good job of emulating that kind of feeling. And it is interesting the kind of verbiage that he uses, a black bin of terror. I I did find that kind of interesting as far as just, you know, as a bin, is it kind of referring to like a box? Like, are we just kind of like having like a sort of closed-off view of kind of what she is seeing, you know, like that pinpointed pinhole kind of view? That was yeah. Or is that more the UK usage where there's uh you know garbage? Sure. I don't know. But uh but yeah, so anyway, right, she she as always falls back on her BG training and uh marshals the inner calmness, so she she's kind of you know starts taking stock of her situation, you know, she's like aware, like I'm tied up, I'm gagged, and then she starts uh observing you know things around her essentially. Right? She realizes she's not in her room, they've taken her someplace else, but even kind of during this sort of forced calmness that she's instilling on herself, she's kind of still kind of in a near panic thinking about both Paul and the Duke. So I did find that, you know, you know the the emotion is overpowering the logic here. Or trying to at least. And I think this is uh this next little bit here, right? So she wakes up and we hear this, again, this baso voice. And every time we hear baso voice, we we already know it's the baron, even before they say it's the baron. So there is I think there is a nice utility to this kind of repetitive descriptors, almost like how you would see like like uh epithets used in like classical literature and things like that. But uh you know, he knows she's awake and he said the drug was timed. We knew to the minute when you'd be coming out of it. And then she's thinking they'd have to know my exact weight, metabolism, and then she's like, ew. So I think this is a nice insight, right? Because they always talk about like the observation of minutiae as part of like the Bene Gesserit training. It's one of those things, kind of like the, I believe, I think it's an Arthur C. Clark quote, right? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, a kind of idea, where they occasionally will pull back the curtain as far as like like all of the the observations that a character, mostly you know, our mentat or bene Gesserit characters, are making to lead them to a conclusion. Otherwise, it's kind of like instead of going ABC, you're going from A to C. And then sometimes you as the reader may be left wondering how exactly did they bridge the link, but occasionally they give us these little breadcrumbs to say like, yes, there is in fact a logic to it, even though it's not always explicit. Right. No, that it is nice kind of getting it behind the scenes of like, okay, that's how it works. So it's it's very much like you said, just of We are not and sometimes it's not just A to C, it's A to G. And it's like, well, wait, how what what are the steps within steps within steps that we were taking to kind of make these mental gymnastical leaps that kind of lead us to these conclusions? So it's very nice. And again, here she also she does it's Yui who must have been the trader, but she even now is still wondering how that is possible. Right. And I don't think she reconciles that fact really at all, even though she's she's look trying to constantly work backwards from this conclusion, like how could it have been him? Right. And yeah, we don't really get that until quite a bit later in this uh in this segment. So the Baron's, you know, kind of, as you said, towering over her, gloating uh to an extent. And then uh Peter, the assassin mentat, comes in, and I just love these descriptions where he just says, like, you know, as you say, Baron, you know, he's just like, you know, replying to the Baron's comments. And she's never heard such a chill voice to one with the Ben A. Jesserit training, the voice screamed killer. And uh, she sees him smile, and the Baron could not read that smile. He did not have the training, uh, saying, like, how did he not like run away from this man? Mm-hmm. Essentially, uh it's uh it's very nice as far as the description here. Like it the unsettlingness of the character is is well described. And also just as they're initially describing him, she uses all these kind of things that I think are kind of interesting to describe him. Like specifically, his flesh was too well firmed with water, so I don't know how long they've been on a rack is at this point, but I I would assume minimum a few weeks. Again, I I don't know, but it seems like this kind of importance of water in general has already kind of like saturated into the way she evaluates people. Pun intended. And then something else I thought was kind of interesting is repeatedly they kind of refer to Peter as being effeminate. So I don't know if that's supposed to kind of like contrast with yeah, this kind of cold killer uh veneer that he has on. I shouldn't even say veneer, he is a killer, but this this kind of like vision that he puts forward to kind of intimidate his enemies, allies sometimes. Right. Yeah, like is is this part of the mask? Is this part of his true nature? Very hard-to-read character. Yes. And then so the Baron and Peter kind of have a little back and forth here because as we'll recollect back to, I think it was chapter two, part of the agreement between the Peter, Peter and the Baron was that he would ultimately get the Lady Jessica as his reward for helping with this endeavor. And the Baron's kind of like, I don't think you actually want the Lady Jessica. And ultimately, you know, this ends up being kind of a scheme of the Barons, which I'm sure Peter completely sees through because, you know, they're both liars and killers. But uh ultimately he gives Peter the choice of either taking the Lady Jessica and being exiled from the Imperium, or basically it being the acting duke of Atreides on Arrakis to rule in uh the Baron's stead. And he chooses quickly. He does. Yes, because I like this though. You know, it it implies there's a certain cunning to the Baron himself, where it's like, you know, you you think you want the Lady Jessica because she was a duke's woman and was a symbol of his power, but what you actually want is power itself, and I will give you that power. Which, again, right, if you kind of do a deeper read on it, like if you are given power, it can be taken away also. So do you really have it? So you could even say, is his mentat reasoning intact as far as this particular decision process goes? And I think there's there's enough going on here that you could say, like, you know, it's it's not. And there's this line from Lady Jessica's inner monologue, how could the Baron have made such an animal out of a mentat? Which I thought was it it has so many layers to it, right? Because there's obviously the just the common usage of like, oh, you know, that person is an animal, right? They're, you know, they're instinct-driven, they're they don't follow the rules of civilization. Um and then there's also the kind of the Benegesseret, you know, human versus animal uh dichotomy. So initially P is kind of suspect at this deal that is being offered, and the Baron kind of was like, I don't joke. Remember, I had to give up the boy, uh, because again, he wanted initially, he was concerned about that assassination attempt succeeding on Paul, that, you know, ultimately he wanted to do something with Paul, which I do believe is alluded to at the end of this chapter. But uh he basically learned from Yui that Paul had been trapped in the Benegesseret way, so you know, too deadly, can't risk it, he's gotta go. So they have two guards, one of whom is completely deaf, so he can't be affected by the voice, to kind of carry them off into the desert in a Thopter to let the worms deal with them. And I did think that was particularly interesting how even now they're kind of like trying to have some sort of deniability, lack of culpability in the deaths of Paul and Lady Jessica because they're kind of concerned about a truthsayer, specifically the Reverend Mother, it sounds like learning the truth from them about what happened. Yes. Yeah. So that you can say, like, oh, did you kill, you know, Jessica and Paul? No, no, the worms did. It was a you know, the Thopter landed somewhere it shouldn't have. So Right. It's it's very much that wheel of time, I Sedai truth, where you know you bend your words to be like, yes, that is not a lie, but it's not what you're looking for either. Right. So we kind of get them, you know, carried off by these uh kind of rough men, if you will, into the Thopter, and we get some back and forth between these guys. We we get some of their names, but sometimes they're just called things like Scarface.

unknown 15:46

Yeah.

Sardaukar Presence And Control

Michael Kentris 15:46

It's like, why don't we kill them here? Too messy, the first one said, unless you want to strangle them. Right? It's just like very like this very casual killer kind of conversation. Like this isn't their first rodeo. And also part of their concern is like if they're going to be questioned by a true say as well, if they were to kill them. And they're like, you're never gonna run into one of those old witches. Don't even worry about that. And so yeah, they go ahead with the original intent of yeah, carrying them to the Thopter to dump them in the desert. But uh then we get a transition from Lady Jessica then to Paul. And initially, Lady Jessica is like concerned because Paul is not gagged in this scenario, unlike the Lady Jessica. So they are not aware that you know he does have some training in the voice, he's able to do it to some extent. But she's concerned that he's gonna try it and not realize that one of the guards is actually deaf. But it seems like Paul immediately caught that. Yeah. So, right, we know his powers of observation are also quite honed. So they they start noticing things in the Thopter, right? Like one of the, like you said, his bonds were rope, uh, Lady Jessica's wear this crimscull fiber, which I believe is some sort of invention for this universe where the more you struggle, the more it tightens, kind of thing. And uh then Paul notices that one of the straps is almost cut through, and so that uh one sudden jerk will snap it. So, and he starts wondering, or she starts wondering rather, that uh someone has been sabotaging or perhaps setting up this thhopter, and she wonders who. Right. No, it it is uh kind of announced to the reader that there's a specific Thopter that they're supposed to use, and there's a specific location that they're supposed to go to, both of which are told or informed to them by Yui. So again, we we've learned previously when he was kind of doing his thing to Duke Leto that he was going to quote unquote save the Lady Jessica and Paul. So this can be interpreted as, you know, his his way of trying to help them forward. Right. Kind of an atonement or something of that nature. Or a deal, I believe is how he phrased it. Right. Yeah, his bargain. Yes. So Paul decides he's gonna try and use the voice. And this is happening around the same time that we get some rather gross conversation from the the two guys, you know, talking about how pretty Lady Jessica is, and it's like sure would be ashamed to let her go to waste, you know, never had no highborn lady. So yeah. Uh at that point in time, you know, Paul basically goes for it and uh tells him to remove her gag. Then, you know, what's the Seago, I think was the the non-deaf one, if I remember correct. That's correct, yeah. You know, he lets it loose and uh basically they say Oh, Lady Jessica then starts using her voice and you know, she's kind of like, Oh, there's no need to fight, and then uh basically like the one kills the other, and then you know, the the one who's alive still is like basically going to kill Paul still. And so she's like, Well well, hold on, wouldn't you rather uh you know I'd be more corrupt cooperative? And so as he's about to throw Paul into the desert, uh he kicks him like in the solar plexus or something like that. Kicks him like straight into his heart, yeah, through his sternum or something. Yeah. Terrible force over the liver through the diaphragm to crush the right ventricle of the man's heart. That's a that's a heck of a kick. That's a heck of a kick. Uh over the liver. It's over the liver. I was thinking about it anatomically here. Over the liver and through the woods. I suppose possible. There had to have been some broken ribs there.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

The Duke, The Tooth, The Poison

Michael Kentris 19:42

Anyway, Jessica says, Oh, that was a stupid risk. I could have I could have handled him. And he's like, you know, the opportunity was there. So like Paul is not apologetic for his actions whatsoever. Yes. And so again, they're in the Thopter, and another thing that Lady's just Gnosis is that Yui's house sign is scrolled on the ceiling of the cabin. Again, kind of reinforcing that Yui 1 was the traitor, but now is also somehow, some reason, helping them. So there's a bundle under the pilot seat, so it's got some supplies in there that they'll end up taking. Paul initially is wondering if it's like a bomb. And she's like, no, I don't think that is going to be the case. Yeah. So one one other little note here that I particularly enjoyed is as they're kind of heading out of the softer, she notices the uh one pilot's feet close to her face, feeling dampness on the bundle as she removed it, realizing the dampness was the pilot's blood. Waste of moisture, she thought, knowing that this was Erachim thinking. Yeah. And I like that this last little bit here, Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife, chopping off what is incomplete and saying, now it's complete because it has ended here. Yeah. So I just like these little illustrations of kind of the cultural background for the characters, because it does, I think, lend clues as to why people might make decisions that they do in the future that might seem alien or kind of inscrutable to us if we if we don't keep that in mind. Yes. So they do see another Thopter, and basically Lane Josico's like, Paul, run, it's the Harkonens. And that's that's where we leave them at the end of that chapter. Yes. Out of the frying pan into the fire. As they say. Into the deep desert. No, not yet. Not yet. So we get a shift back. So back to the castle, and we are back with the Baron here. And he is dealing with the Sardakar, a uh a captain, or what are they called? A Bashar captain, something like that. Something like that. So one of the the Emperor's own. And uh I just, yeah, you get a lot of descriptors of this guy, and uh some of these lines, there's a casual air of brutality about him. It's uh right, there's there's definitely a certain what's the word I want to use? I don't want to say swagger, but I guess I suppose a bearing, if you will, to the Sartakar. And yeah, you kind of get this like this confidence, this brutality, right? Because who's going to go against them, essentially? Absolutely. No, it is nice because you know, they've been alluded to several times throughout this book so far as being this uh elite force. So yeah, this is our first kind of exposure to them as far as like an actual visual. Uh obviously, and how previously they were part of the invading force, but yeah, yeah, they're just yeah, a casual air brutality about them, a sense of toughness and poise that sent a shiver through Yui. So just bad bad dudes, bad guys. Yes. So yeah, he was sent here to kind of check on basically the Duke, right? Because he is, what do they say, like the cousin of the emperor. Yes. So there's certain certain forms that are to be observed, you know, etcetera, etc., which we get more later. He uh cuts out the Red Hawk insignia from Leto's uniform as a souvenir, and then they're this comes up several times, they're looking for the ducal signet ring, which we know was given to Paul by Yui. Yes. But um but nobody else knows where it is, and everyone just kind of assumes that he had sent it away, or uh he comes up with a lie that was sent away for some message or something. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Initially Yui is very kind of taken aback by it because he realizes that if they were to use a true say or bring one in to ask him about it, then they'll immediately know kind of his hand in saving Paul and Jessica. So that is that is the reasonable and safe lie that he comes up with on the spot there. And it seems to appease them, at least for right now. So yeah, the Sardacar is there to bring the Duke to the Baron, because again, the Baron wants to gloat and do his evil villain monologuing in front of the Duke. But you know, just do all the usual and kind of over-the-top evil things that people like the Baron do. And uh initially they're like, Do we need to tie him up? And Yui's like, no, he should be kind of unconscious for a few hours at least. And uh this is actually so yeah, we kind of this is actually before the Baron is met with Lady Jessica, because this is still he kind of asks asks, like, okay, when will the boy and the woman awaken? It's like in about 10 minutes. So kind of like looking into what Yui was doing to help prepare and safeguard Jessica and Paul. And we get this this inner monologue about uh being remembered as a traitor, right? Which is I think is a pretty universal expression, right? There's plenty of traitors who are known through history, you know, like Judas, Brutus, I'm sure I'm forgetting Benedict Arnold and American history. So uh so plenty of people who are famously, notoriously remembered as traitors, regardless of whatever else they may have done in their lives. So so becoming a traitor certainly is a hard decision to make. It's definitely valid as well, because as we kind of recollect on our initial introduction to Yui in that chapter, the Princess Arulin literally, I believe, has him as Yui the Traitor. So, you know, his his fears are very real. They're and they do occur. That is that is how he is remembered. True. So, you know, I don't know. I took note of this that the um the palms along the road had been fired to illuminate the house. Black smoke from the flammables used to ignite the trees poured upward through orange flames. Right? We had all this conversation about these uh these uh palm fig trees earlier and the the value and the cost that uh is required to maintain them, and then the kind of the way that people look at them, right? Some with anger, some with hope, and here they are ablaze. So again, I think it's just an interesting thing that we kind of see this this perhaps symbol of hope now in flames and destroyed. If nothing else, it speaks to the casual disregard that the Harkonans kind of afford everything. You know, everything is expendable. So that definitely is kind of the Baron's attitude towards men in general. So to kind of see them equated with the lives of men based on how much water they consume, I think is a very valid kind of uh contrast or kind of view of how, yeah, the Harcanans will likely rule this planet. Yes, with a a heavy hand, I believe. A heavy hand and brass knuckles. Um so yeah, we get a little bit of uh, you know, spy craft sort of things, right? So we get the so we're kind of back in time a little bit. So he's putting the the Frem kit, which I assume is some sort of portmanteau of Freeman kit in in the Thopter. So and he's putting the cignet there and so on and so forth. So so he's basically trying to do at least this much good for what that's worth. Right, yeah. This because like you said, this is kind of him doing the initial preparations to the Thopter as he's waiting to see the Baron. So he puts the ducal signet where Paul will find it, and then also it sounds like he has previously arranged with Duncan, Idaho, to meet up with a location that he specified to find the Lady Jessica and Paul. So he's kind of hoping that, you know, it all goes according to plan so that yeah, he can save Paul and Jessica from his act of carnage. Yes. Alright, next chapter. I like this. We get a little bit of um war description here. Explosive artillery. Who would have thought of using this in the age of shields? So so it sounds like the the Baron had brought back this quote unquote ancient technology, which we are currently currently in use in wars uh in our time and uh has been using these to whittle down the uh the Duke's men where they were holed up in some caves. Yes. Yeah, so kind of not having to use atomics or anything that might leave potential traces because you know the shields have been taken down, so they're able to take out these men in a cruelly efficient manner that will leave basically no trace of their wrongdoing, which again seems to be the Baron's foremost concern is making sure that they, again, cannot be tied directly to what has gone on here. And then yeah, we just get I literally in in my PDF here, I have the Baron being evil, is the annotation in the margins. So Yeah, yeah, he's he's basically monologuing internally. Yes. He's like, Yes, go ahead, go ahead. A pity to waste such fighting men as the Dukes, he thought. He smiled more broadly, laughing at himself, pity should be cruel. Which, you know, it's like kind of the opposite of pity, right? So I mean, I think you kind of see this in multiple times, in multiple scenes when the Baron is described is this inversion of something that should be good being made into something that is ugly and evil, which you know, it's it it's almost like over the top in in how evil he is. Mm-hmm. He's not a very nuanced character in that. There's no gray there. No, not really. Uh I mean maybe we get a little bit like occasionally these these moments, but uh but overall his actions are pretty reprehensible. So now we move on to, as you said, kind of the big scene with the the Baron and the Duke. So the the Sartakar and Peter and his guard captain, Umon Kudu, scissor line of draw muscles, chin like a boot toe. I assume that means squared off. Yes. More or less. A man to be trusted because the captain's vices were known, right? Which again implies that the baron doesn't trust anyone unless he can control him in some fashion.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yes.

Aftermath: New Guard, Old Fears

In The Still Tent: Gear And Signals

Paul’s Awakening And Cold Logic

Michael Kentris 30:26

Alright, we know Peter is addicted to spice, uh, this guy is addicted to I think it was told us in an earlier chapter, some other kind of stimulant, I believe it was. Probably. Yeah. I I know there's another guard who gets brought up later that they specifically mention the drug, but yeah, I can't recall what it is for Uman. Then we get Yui coming in, stiff and stringy, and uh basically says, I've I've given uh my half of the bargain, my lord, and he spat the words out, what was I to do in return? And he's like, You remember quite well. So there's this back and forth. He had seen the subtle betrayers and the Baron's manner. Juana was indeed dead, gone far beyond their reach. And you know, again, right? It's this kind of like over-the-top supervillain evil kind of stuff here. Like, you promised to deliver my Juana from her agony, and it's like, oh yes, now I remember. So I did. That was my promise. That was how he bent the imperial conditioning. Well the baroness. I told her I'd feared from the agony and permitted join her, so be it. He waved a hand at Peter, and then uh basically Peter stabs him. And he and he uh falls, falls over like in Oak Tree. So join her, the Baron spat. And then we get like a Yui's death gasp here. You think you defeated me, you think I did not know what I bought for my wana. He toppled, no bending or softening, like a tree falling. So join her, the baron repeated, but his words were like a weak echo. Right, yeah. He very much wants to come off with this like very strong, very powerful figure, but his kind of little quips and evil monologuing don't necessarily sound or at least have the effect that they that he's hoping for. So he kind of yeah, shows a crack in his facade in that capacity. And to kind of contrast that effect, he's kind of filled with this sense of foreboding from Yui's last words. Like, what did he mean? So that's how like he's he's just wondering what Yui could be alluding to here. Which I also I think is a little funny. I consider this to be like Yui, you know, going out with like a middle finger. He's like, You think I didn't know you're gonna betray me? Like Right, right. The guy was that dumb to believe you. So I found that to be kind of slightly comical to take on that interpretation as well, where you know. Yeah, and I like that line. I could never bring myself to trust a traitor, not even a traitor I created. Which, you know, again, right, this is very true. And this is, I think, something that we see in the Baron's behaviors over and over again. Uh that people are expendable and replaceable. You know, people don't matter necessarily to the largest a large extent. And then again, he's still having this seed of doubt that you replant a what had that old fool of a doctor meant. You think you defeated me, what had he meant? So it kind of keeps having this thought going over and over, which does sour this whole kind of final confrontation that he's been looking forward to with the Duke. Yes. Yeah, and you mentioned this before we're recording, so go ahead, uh describe this next little entrance here. With the with the Duke himself or The Duke himself. So yeah, so the Duke's gets brought in and, you know, his uniform, like we said before, uh had been torn. The signet's been sheared off. He's looking really bad. Uh he's even got kind of this glaze insane look going on in his eyes. Right. And again, uh this this is the moment that the Baron's been looking forward to, and he says, Well and he hesitate, drawing a deep breath. He knew he had spoken too loudly. The long moment, long envisioned, had lost some of its savor. Damn that cursed doctor for all eternity. Right. So yeah, we get this very I don't know. It's a it's an odd scene, I I guess I would say. No, I agree. Right. So he's like he's upset that the Duke is drunk or drugged, I should say. And then we get this other bit, right? So it's uh it's it's well done how that you know we kind of had the scene with Jessica and the Baron, then Jessica and Paul, and then kind of the end of that thing with their encounter with the two Harkinin soldiers, and then we're kind of like this scene has been kind of a from that point where the Baron parted ways with Jessica up to that end. So there is like a nice flow, temporally speaking. And so we we find out that the men who were sent to do the job have been found. He's like, Does everything satisfactory? It's like they're dead, my lord, and he's like, of course they are. Uh because that was the intention, right? Right. Uh to kill the witnesses. So uh they were dead when they were found, my lord. It's like, what? So uh so now he's now he's angry. But uh there was a worm sign, so uh it's possible there was an accident. It's like we do not deal in possibilities, Peter. What are the missing Thopter? Does that suggest anything to my mentat? So again, right, I always contrast like the way that Peter makes observations with the way that like like Thufer or Lady Jessica makes observations, and he just seems not as sharp as far as his his clarity of thinking, which I guess makes sense for you know someone with a drug addiction. Absolutely. But um But yeah, so they they think that it was a clean silent killing. Uh and they're saying like Hawat or Halleck or maybe Idaho, any top lieutenant. So again, to this kind of gives us a little insight as well that if they think that these people are on the run, that means they haven't been captured, which plays into kind of the inner monologue of what we get from the Duke in a moment, and then also what uh Lady Jessica and Paul are kind of thinking when we come back around to them. And then real quick before we go past it too far. So, yeah, that line, we do not deal in possibilities, Peter. It just makes me think of that one line from Dr. Kines a few chapters ago, where you never talk of likelihood on Arrakis, you speak only of possibilities. So again, it's very much kind of contrasting. The Harkinans are not really of Arrakis, they they don't belong there. Right. Interesting. Yeah, oh that's a it's an interesting contrast. So again, right, we get this like the Baron asks his Where's the Signet Ring? Uh and the Baron says, You killed the doctor too soon, you should have warned me. Uh so basically he's blaming Peter for his decision. So we get this thought like a sine wave in Leo's mind. Paul and Jessica have escaped. Something else in his memory, a bargain. He could almost remember it. The tooth. Remember the tooth. Remember the tooth. So he's starting to come back around a little bit. His memories are coming back a little bit so far. Right. Yeah, he's still kind of drugged up, but at the very least some thoughts are being kind of coalescing and piecing together what he's actually hearing. Right. So Yeah, alright, we get this description, and I always enjoy you know, some people might find it repetitive, but we get descriptions of characters from different viewpoints. Uh Leto saw the table quite clearly, a gross fat man on the other side of the table, a meal remains of a meal in front of him. So, right, again, like this decadent kind of figure, as far as like, you know, he's wasteful, he indulges in all of his appetites, etc. And so the Peter notices that the Duke is finally starting to come around. And a silky voice, that one. That was Peter. So I see Peter. A rumbling baso, the Baron. Right, right, right. Gotta make sure we keep our descriptors consistent so we don't confuse the audience. And I thought it was interesting. They they describe the Baron's hands in uh a lot of detail during this scene. Compulsive touchings, edge of a plate, the handle of a spoon, a finger tracing the fold of a jowl. Leto watched the moving hand, fascinated by it. Yes. So again, kind of similar to with Lady Jessica, where he knows that she's conscious and he's like, don't even pretend. He kind of does the same thing here. He's like, You can hear me, Duke Leto. I know you can hear me. We want to know from you where to find your concubine and the child you sired on her. And again, this kind of reassures Leto of like, oh, thank goodness they don't have them. They don't know where they are. And it's funny because the Baron, you know, is kind of trying to keep on pressing on this question. This is not a child's game we play, which, you know, very, very obvious, you know, the Duke's been drugged and beaten, and you know, all of his staff more or less has been slain. It's just, of course, it's not a child's game, Baron. But he also, the Baron kind of expresses this lack of wanting to actually harm the Duke. And I do think ultimately this comes more from a sense of self-preservation because ultimately he cares more about royalty being hurt than the Duke himself. Yes. And, you know, it it's very much, you know, if they see one royal person being hurt, then they'll know the rest of us are flesh and blood. Yeah, no, I I agree with that assessment entirely. And I thought this was a strange description. Leto grew conscious of a frog sound, the bird muling of someone's agony. So again, right, obviously a frog sound, there are no frogs on Arrakis. I I imagine due to it being a desert. But I'm not sure how to juxtapose a a frog sound with a mewling sound, like what is like a frog kitten. But I mean they I know that mewing was used to describe when the shout-out Mapes was was injured just before she died. Kinda makes me think of maybe like a bullfrog doing that like something like that. I guess, but I don't know, it's not mewling to me. It's not. I don't know. It's weird. I don't know I don't know what to make of it. Uh maybe that's the point, is that it's supposed to be like jarring and discordant. But I I have a tar hard time uh kind of mentally generating that sound. Yes, that's fair. If uh if you're listening and you know what uh bird frog sounds like, send us a link. But yeah, like I think we caught one of your men. Uh they tell they tell us who it is. It's one of your men disguised as a freeman. The eyes were the giveaway. And I like this. He he refers to him as Cher Cousin uh occasionally, right? Again, I don't know if they're using French as kind of like a stand-in for decadence, you know, ever. Which I guess is something that is used in popular culture occasionally, kind of the whole like Louis the what was it, fourteenth, I think. Is that right? Sixteenth? One of them. Fourteenth or six. But uh but yeah, sure like dear cousin, right? So it's kind of like this uh affectionate term that is used in a very unaffectionate way. Right. Right. So again, usus more or less trying to press um on potential interrogation as far as like tell us where they went. And Leto basically doesn't really say anything during this whole exchange because he's still kind of out of it. But he's thinking to himself, even if they did interrogate me, they wouldn't find anything because I don't know anything. He's not been made aware of any of plans. Like he's very much been caught unaware by this whole thing. Yui was really the only one who had any knowledge as to what happened or what is going to kind of take place here. And he's already killed. So again, we've cleaned up this loose set. Right, right. So yeah, right. He starts threatening him with torture, and it's like Peter doesn't have all his usual tools, uh, but I'm sure he could improvise. And uh right, we just get like, ugh, Peter, gross. You know, improvisation is sometimes the best. It's like hot tallow on the back, perhaps, or on the eyelids, uh, perhaps on other portions of the body. It goes on a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yes.

Michael Kentris 42:28

He says isn't uh there's a sort of beauty in the pattern of pus white blisters, eh, Baron? And exquisite, the Baron says. His voice sounded sour. I just like he's like like exquisite. I don't know. Again, right? It's just one of these things where like he's created this creature that uh is kind of repulsive, even even to him, who is himself quite repulsive, both from a moral standpoint and uh you know, to an extent in these descriptions, like a physical standpoint as well. Yes. No, he he tolerates Peter as long as he's useful, which even towards the beginning of either this chapter or the prior one, he's starting to realize that point is coming to an end. So he's he's very much in the mind that I'm kind of done with this guy. Like we're almost done with this plan, I can get rid of him, and then we can kind of continue with what we want to do. Yeah. So um so basically, like they have this conversation about torture, and then you know, Leto recalls Gurney Halleck, and of course Leto recalled a thing Gurney Halleck had said once, seeing a picture of the baron. And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, and upon his head's the name of blasphemy. And uh so this is uh, you know, I I a little slow on the pickup, but uh, you know, they've been using the King James uh Bible for the quotes here, and so there's a bit in the middle there between that, you know, where there's an ellipsis between sea and upon his heads, and uh with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on his horns and blasphemous names on his heads. Uh I think that was partially ESV. But uh essentially they're describing the Antichrist uh in this particular passage. This is from the book of Revelations. Uh you know, he's given authority from the dragon, which is Satan, right? So so this is kind of an Antichrist figure. So Gurney Halleck's basically in a very poetic and fanciful way calling uh the Baron the Antichrist. Uh and again, so yeah, the Baron just keeps kind of cajoling him. You know, my dear Leto, you'll tell us in the end where they are, there's a level of pain that'll buy you. And he kind of has this thought where, you know, he kind of just derides the Duke, like he thinks, you know, the Duke is better than he actually is. And so he's like, observe this price person who denies he's for hire, the Baron said. And then, yeah, see him there, this man who believes he can't be bought. See him detained there by a million shares of himself, sold in dribbles every second of his life. If you took him up now and shook him, he'd rattle inside. Empty, sold out. What difference how he dies now? I thought this was a fascinating passage. What are your thoughts on it? No, absolutely. Again, uh like I I don't think the Baron has any uh kind of he he is not deluded into thinking he is a good person. And so he kind of envisions that pretty much everybody is self-serving to some end. I mean, obviously, you know, he's got a lot of men in his employee who he deliberately knows like how to either blackmail or control or manipulate them in some capacity through their vices or what have you. And he's kind of seeing this d again. I don't know, you know, if they've ever actually met in person before, but you know, they've met in person now. And there's all this kind of fantastical rumors about, you know, the greatness of the Duke, and he's trying to kind of dress him down, at least to himself, that surely this man is just a man like the rest of us. It's kind of the way that I took it. So I I might have a slightly different view. So I I like this million shares of himself sold in dribbles, and I kind of think of that like in terms of like duty, obligation, loyalty, right, the things that are owed to others in in society, right? And it's this it's again, it's contrasting, right? The the Baron views these as negatives, right? The the lack of freedom, quote unquote, whereas like the proper and right ordered of society is more represented by the Duke, in as much as like he like classic like noblesse oblige, where he has the duty and his honor holds him to these obligations, uh whereas the Baron has no such compunction.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yes. Yeah.

Guild, Fremen, And Desert Power

Grief, Prophecy, And Paths

Michael Kentris 46:57

So that's kind of how I I kind of feel it now. Absolutely. Yeah, he's saying, like, you know, what what have all of those duties and bonds of loyalty brought you to now? There's nothing left. So that's that's the way that he's saying it. But again, right, we know this as the reader, the the Baron does not know this, that that even with those bonds of loyalty, while they are not saving the Duke, they are saving his family and his legacy still. So we kind of then cut to the frog sounds in the background, stopped, and this Fremen, not Fremen, but the man who had kind of stuck into the Fremen people who had been caught has died. They did not yield the information they were hoping for. And again, the Baron's very frustrated with it. Another failure, time to quit stalling with this fool Duke Duke. This stupid soft fool who didn't realize how much hell there was so near him, only a nerve's thickness away. And he's like, Alright, all my compunctions about hurting some of royal blooders drifting away. Yes. So yeah, he basically like gets up to leave, and the Duke Lido is kind of reminiscing. Still, it had been good much of this life. And he's kind of remembering sometimes with Paul, laughing with joy, you know, all these other beautiful things, right, from his from his past, both distant and recent. And as he gets up to leave, he saw the Duke draw in a deep breath, jawline stiffen, as the Duke clamped his mouth shut. It's like, how he fears me, the Baron saw it. And so I mean there was fear, right? Shocked by fear that the Baron might escape him, he bit sharply on the capsule tooth, felt it break, opening his mouth, expelling the vapor he could taste as it formed on his tongue. Um he heard a gasp beside his ear, the silky voiced one, Peter. It got him too. So you get this like weird fading away as as the poison does its thing to Duke Lito here. The old toothless mutterings of Hags, kind of a callback there to the sensation that he was having at the dinner, those memories rolling around his head. A man with a boot-toed chin, right? We know that's the guard, toy man falling. Anyway, all this kind of stuff. The day the flesh shapes, and the flesh the day shapes. The thought struck him with a sense of fullness he knew he could never explain. Silence. And then I I love this uh a little bit here. The Baron stood with his back against his private door, his own bolt hole behind the table. He had slammed it on a room full of dead men. He had fled. He fled or survived. Yes. And even now he's wondering, did I breathe it? He asked himself, whatever it was in there, did it get me too? Sounds returned to him. And reason. So just consumed with trying to save himself, very much kind of that animal mentality that had been described to us by uh the Reverend Mother in that first chapter. So so yeah, anyway, the we get this kind of internal monologue from the Baron here about like how, you know, stupid Peter, stupid guard captain, you know, why why'd they let themselves get killed? Blah blah blah. So he's basically crisp, and then he's uh thinking about like oh you know, this is going to make me look weak. Um you know, because he didn't catch it and he was almost caught himself. Right, it's again the this perception that he only really cares about himself and the perception of himself. Yes. So again eventually another guard comes and informs them that everybody in the room is dead, and he's like, Well, let me congratulate you, Nafood, because he actually recognizes his men, which is kind of surprising to me. He's like, You're the new captain of my guard, and I hope you'll take to light heart the lesson to be learned from the fate of your predecessor. So he kind of mentally knows that now this man's vice already is samuta. Samuta? Maybe I was getting him mixed up with the other guard captain. Okay. Different voices. But he's like, I know exactly how I'm gonna control this man, and he notices that as he announces this promotion to Nafood, Nafud knew he'd never again be without his Samuta. So a startical officer comes in, and uh I like this bit here. First he calls all the Harkonens uh carrion eaters and throws them out of his way as he comes towards the the room, and then uh the Baron says they all filled him with unease. They all seem to look like relatives of the Duke, the late Duke. Yes. So it's kind of an interesting observation. Right. And I mean, yeah, it kind of hints at, you know, some sort of lineage there that they potentially have, or just maybe that, you know, the Duke is kind of what is filling uh the Baron's mind at this moment. Yes. Even now that he's dead. Right. So he has just like, you know, there's only one Legion locally, but the Baron didn't fool himself. That one Legion was perfectly capable of turning on the Harkinans and overcoming them. Right, so again, kind of lending credence to these claims that they are very, very effective and forced to be reckoned with. Yes. And kind of, as you said before, you called them carrion air eaters. It's kind of a reoccurring thing that, you know, the Sardacar do not respect the Harkinans or the Baron in any capacity. Like when he addresses him, there's no salute, it's just disdain in his manner, and just is making all these demands of the Barons. Like, your men will not prevent me from seeing you, you will take me to the Duke so that we can discuss his fate. Ultimately, the Baron's just like, I must not lose face before my men. You know, he's he's trying to maintain, yeah, this this image of kind of presence. Right, so so he's forced to admit that the Duke is already dead, and he is able to say he took poison by his own hand, because he's supposed to have a clean death, as per the emperor's orders. So the uh Sardacar is like, take me to his body now, and it's like, oh, he's gonna see the room before it's been cleaned up, and he'll be able to piece together what happened. So anyway, yet they they take him there essentially. Yeah. The Baron keeps trying to put him off, and the Colonel Bashar is like, I'll not be put off. It's like you're not being put off. Right, no, no, no, that's not what's happening at all. But again, like the whole idea is that the Baron, again, is afraid of losing face, of seeing, you know, that obviously the Duke was able to get away with like this last little kind of assassination attempt on the Baron's life, because he was able to kill some of the men who have not been cleared away. And uh by having the Sardaukar become aware of it, the Emperor will become aware of it, and then that will reflect badly on the Baron. He'll recognize it as a sign of weakness. Right. So, yeah, the Baron just like his uh both his internal and external uh discourse at this point in time just makes him sound like vaguely put upon uh with with these, right? It's like, ugh, sighing. He's sighing all the time. Uh I must, you know, I must send for a new mentat to Liliax, or I don't have no idea how to pronounce that. Yeah. But uh I assume it's some mentat plan. He's going to put Rabin over this damnable planet without restraint, which I don't think we've met Rabin before. No, the name is unfamiliar to me. Okay. And then uh he just turns toward the man's like, I'm hungry. I want to be diverted. And the guardsman lowered his eyes, so you know, so it's like even the his own men are like a little disgusted perhaps. But what diversion? Bring me that young fellow we bought on Gamut, the one with the lovely eyes. Drag him well, I don't feel like wrestling. And he's like, Wait, yes, the one with the lovely eyes, one who looks so much like young Paul at Treaties, which again is just you. But uh Yes. Yeah. So again, we kind of get a hint there as to what the Baron wanted Paul for there. Just some. Yeah. He's uh again, a reprehensible character. So I don't know that there is any redeeming qualities to him that we've been shown thus far. No, not that I can name. Alright. So we move into our I think this is the last chapter of book one. I think so, yeah. Yes. And we're back with Paul and the lady Jessica, and they are in the desert in a plastic hut. A still tent. Yes. So they're now dressed in Fremen clothing. They appear to have been able to escape that Thopter that had shown up towards the uh or you know, now that I think about it, was that Thopter potentially Duncan Idaho? It was. I think they say that explicitly later in this chapter. When uh when Paul is describing his new ability. That's true. That's fair. I I just only just now reconciled the the two separate instances. We're weaving the timelines together now.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Right, right. Yes.

Michael Kentris 56:01

So yeah, the traitor doctor had sent him directly into the hands of Duncan Idaho, as you said. So something had happened to his awareness this night. He saw with sharpened clarity every circumstance and occurrence around him. It was mentat power and more. So yeah, we get this change to Paul's abilities, and we get more description of it, and you know, essentially it is causing a fair amount of distress in terms of like this this overflow of information and how to handle it, because you can't turn it off. Mm-hmm. Right. And kind of to that point, so when that Thopter was coming, he's using his Mentat Plus abilities to immediately be aware of Mentat Plus. Exactly. You know, like New Game Plus. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, based on the way that the Thopter was being handled, just the dash of the landing, all of it was like, that's Duncan Idaho, I know immediately who it is. Whereas Lee Jessica was expecting, you know, a las gun in the hands of Harkin and mercenaries. And this is something that kind of pops up frequently throughout here is he's wondering why his mother is so slow on realizing a lot of these things. Whereas to him it's just like an instant of knowing exactly what's happening and what will happen. Right. And yeah, you get multiple instances of this. So this this whole conversation is not entirely, but to a large extent, instances of Paul being frustrated with having to explain things to his mother. Yes. And we get multiple examples of this. You know, they talk about like, oh, you know, there's only one explanation why Yui could have, you know, betrayed us as because you know he hated them, they must have been holding his wife.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

Mm-hmm.

Shocking Lineage And Muad’Dib

Closing Thoughts & What’s Next

Michael Kentris 57:50

And it's like, she's only seen it now, and that poorly, Paul thought. And this thought shocked him. Again, because she has always been the more observant one of the two of them until tonight. Yes. And we get this letter from Yui, which, you know, it's it's it's a nice letter as far as like the writing of it. They they call here a Freeman term, but uh when I looked this up, uh Tahadi, and I apologize, I do not speak Arabic, roughly does translate to challenge, uh specifically those who challenge the divine origin of the Quran, and I believe it also refers sometimes to challenges that you are supposed to give yourself as far as like living in accordance with uh different edicts. And then the the al-Burhan is the proof or evidence of something being divine, although it's also, I believe, also a very common uh surname. So, yeah, my ultimate test. So he's like, This is my burden, this is what I'm doing. But again, right, the words that the author has chosen here kind of give it this more weighty feel as far as that goes. And then he kind of wraps it up by saying, by the time you read this, Ducleta will be dead, take consolation from my assurance that he did not die alone, that one we hate above all others died with him. And so Paul, having read this information, uh and known the truth of the words, but had felt no more than another datum to be entered into his mind and used. I love my father, Paul thought, and he knew this for truth. I should mourn him, I should feel something, but he felt nothing, except here's an important fact. Right. And yeah, we kind of get this reiterated several times here that that I should be mourning, I should feel grief, but I feel nothing. And uh that is in and of itself somewhat distressing to him. Which, to be very fair, is makes sense. Uh up until just this evening, he had very much been my dad's the best, don't talk that bad about my dad, and I love my dad, and now it's just like my dad is dead. What are we gonna do now? Right. So we uh we get a return of perhaps your favorite phrase uh In a sense of terrible purpose. That's right. Several times in this chapter. Yes. So it is growing. His terrible purpose is growing now with this new awareness. So and he's kind of wondering, right? We've gotten all these hints and intimations, like, is Paul the the Quissatz Haterach? Um, and he himself is now starting to wonder that. So perhaps so. And so they're kind of talking about what do we do now? You know, if if Duncan doesn't get through to Kynes, and they're kind of going back and forth, and you know, he's he's not our only hope, she said. And it's like such was not my suggestion. She heard the steal in his voice. And so again, right, he he kind of is having this very unfeeling firmness to his speech, which is not typical of their interactions. Absolutely. No, in fact, his like immediate concern is our family atomics. We must get them before the Harkonens can search them out. And already he's trying to think about, you know, how to handle things kind of in the long run with the Harkonans, you know, by being able to use the family atomics as blackmail as a threat to the planet and its spice to, you know, potentially try and get off this planet and escape. Right. Which they kind of quickly abandon that plan, as we'll talk about. But Lozus, uh, Hawat's words, you know, people are the true strength of a great house. And he remembered Hawat's words, parting with people is a sadness, a place is only a place. And uh they think they've caught us between the desert and the Sartakar, and Lady Jessica says they can't go on indefinitely risking exposure of the Emperor's part in this. And Paul's like, Can't they? And she asked, Some of our people are bound to escape, and he's like, Are they? So he's like He's just Mr. Negative. He's just playing that annoying devil's advocate that you have in some conversation. Yeah. She senses mind and leaped ahead of her now that it saw more in some respects than she did. She had helped train the intelligence which did this, but now she found herself fearful of it. Yeah. So it's it's very interesting that we kind of get this, you know, like she is troubled by grief over the Duke, and again we get this kind of back and forth between the two of them. Again, again, a mention of the the Atreides daughter I was ordered to produce, but the Reverend Mother was wrong. A daughter wouldn't have saved my Leto. This child is only life reaching for the future in the midst of death. I conceived out of instinct and not out of obedience. Paul, eyes on the prize, uh tells her to try the communanet receiver again. So they start, uh yeah, in my mind, I imagine like a you know an old uh FMAM radio with the the dial, and they find a voice speaking the Atreat's battle language, no survivors in Carthag, Guildbank has been sacked, another voice says there's Sarakar, watch out for the Sardakar in Atredi's uniforms, a roaring filled the speaker, then silence, implying maybe an explosion. And they kind of are going through the other channels, violence in the Atredi's battle language, fallback, try to regroup, trapped in a cave, and then we get this other Harkonan gibberish, which I assume is their battle language. Yes. And it was obvious to take the tone, Harkinan victory. So, you know, they got two leader johns of water, and uh he looked at the transparent end of the temp I don't like this, the sphincter seal of the tent's entrance. I don't yeah, I don't it's just like I get it, but also hmm. Didn't need to put that there. Yeah, I mean it's it's a choice. So it it does imply a certain tightness to the entrance. Gotta keep this a family show. So anyway, but again, water so they've taken off, right, they're in still suits in the tent, but they're not wearing their masks or those things. So they need to capture the water vapor and keep that from being leaked outside. So I get it. I get I it has to be it has to be watertight still. So I understand. Jessica remembers some lore. Without a still suit, a man sitting in shade on the desert needs five liters of water a day to maintain body weight. So and they talk about like what are we gonna do? And they're kind of going through their gear here in the Frem kit. Paul lifts a seal on the pack, pulls out a tiny micro manual with a glow tab and magnifier. Green and orange letters leaped up at him from the pages, leaderjohns, still tent, energy caps, recaths, sand snork, binoculars, still suit, rep kit, baradae pistol, sink chart, filt plugs, paracompass, maker hooks, thumpers, frem kit, fire pillar, or I guess the fire fremkit is its own thing. So many things for survival on the desert. So we don't know what a lot of these are yet, but I think some of them are explained pretty soon, if I remember correctly. Not in this chapter, so next time. And they talk about desert power again. The Harkinans can't rule this planet without so again, right, we get kind of these these jumps, as you said, from A to G that thankfully Paul spells out for us slow folk. Right. So we've got all the evidence right here in this tent, the tent itself. We know the guild wants a prohibitive price for weather satellites. And she's like, What do weather satellites have to do with it? They couldn't possibly. And he's like, You see it now. Satellites watch the terrain below. There are things in the deep desert that will not bear frequent inspection. You're suggesting the guild itself controls this planet? She was so slow. And he's like, No, the Freemen, they're paying the guild for privacy, pain in a coin freely available to anyone with desert power. Spice. And like this is more than a second approximation answer. It's the straight line computation, depend on it. And she's like, Paul, you're not a mentant yet. And he's like, I'll never be a mentant, I'm something else, a freak. And then so he gets like angry at her. Very uh, and this is like very teenage boy-ish, right? It's like, leave me alone. Um at least that's how it is in my head. But maybe it's maybe it's more manly than that. It's not, it's not. Again, he's he's 16 years old, and he's kind of spiling right now about why, you know, he's not having all the emotions that he's expecting to have, in addition to, you know, this kind of surplus of information and knowledge just barreling through his head. Right. Yes. I like this little bit. She's poking through the the Fremkit manual here, and there's a leaf that says, Ayat and Berhan of life, believe in Alat shall never burn you. Which I had to look up some of this. So from what my cursory research uh shows, very cursory, Alat was a pre-Islamic goddess, uh, mentioned in some writings, like Herodotus as potentially being similar to Aphrodite. Um, there's a lot of back and forth about who she was, where she was worshipped, but it seems that she was invoked for mercy and also by travelers for good weather and protection. So again, right, we just got these little like cultural breadcrumbs here, kind of going back into the distant past, even for us. And again, kind of she has this thought that it reads like the Azar book, she thought, recalling her studies of the great secrets has a manipulator of religions been on Arrakis. So again, more influence of the Benedzeret, likely here on Arrakis. Yes. So, and we get our first, I think, present tense reference to Mu'adib here, the mouse. So I've got something I want to say about the name, but I'm gonna save that for our last mention of Mu'adib. Alright. But uh it's been something I've got this note sitting on my computer here for like weeks now that occurred to me, but I'm gonna I'm gonna save it for the the right moments. But anyway, so uh the trail, the tail pointed north, right? So it's uh probably a navigation constellation, right? Right. So yeah, they have this book that they're kind of referring to, they see it. And this is when Paul kind of has the thought that now is the time to inform his mother of the Duke's message about how he never suspected her, mostly out of logic, because he has the thought that now she has the time for grief. Grief would inconvenience us later. So even now he's kind of calculating the emotional aspect of humans into this piece. So he tells her, Mother, father is dead, but he wanted me to give you this message of anything happened to him, and he feared you might believe he distrusted you. But he wanted you to know he always trusted you completely, always loved you and cherished you. He said he would never have mistrusted himself, and he had but one regret that he had never made you his duchess. So again, she kind of starts crying at this and has the thought, what a stupid waste of bodies water. So again, just that mentality of the importance of water here on the planet, once again kind of showing itself in in the way that she's thinking here. Yes. So yeah, she starts crying, essentially, sobbing. And again, he felt the inability to grieve in himself as a terrible flaw. And then Jessica thinks, a time to get and a time to lose, quoting from the OC Bible, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time for love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace, which right should be pretty familiar to most people, even if you're not necessarily familiar with that Bible. It's also in uh gosh, what is that song? Is it the Age of Aquarius?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

I'm not sure.

Michael Kentris 1:09:16

I think so. But anyway, it's uh again from the the King James. Uh this is Ecclesiastes three, and it starts with uh to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. And you get all these like kind of dichotomies, right? A time to born, time to die, time to kill, time to heal, and so on and so on. So it's it's all of these um kind of opposites juxtaposed with each other. So identifying the time, the season that you are in is is important. And so, well, Jessica's kind of having her moment of grief. Paul's mind has gone on, continuing doing its chilling precision, having a brain blast, so to speak. My god, Jimmy Neutron. Where he had referenced previously that he had had these uh kind of prescient dreams, but now he's having one while awake, and he's seeing all these potential paths, these avenues that will likely kind of lint lead themselves down at some point. So he's just having, again, just this combination of the mentat training with the Banagersaret mystical mental capacity, kind of combined into one new thing that is now manifesting in itself and Paul through. Probably a combination of trauma and then also this exposure to spice on Arrakis. Yes. Yeah, I like the way they described it here. With something more, an edge of mystery, as though his mind dipped into some timeless stratum and sampled the winds of the future. Very poetic sounding.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

Absolutely.

Michael Kentris 1:10:50

But uh, so he's like kind of at the center of this globe with like lines or paths leading out in every direction. Uh so, like you said, kind of very uh very mystical, meditative kind of sounding experience. And he he sees people, he sees untold probabilities, spectrum of possibilities from the most remote past to the most remote future. Uh he saw his own death in countless ways, new planets, cultures, people, people, such swarms, even the guildsmen. And so he kind of goes, he talks a little bit about some of these possibilities, like 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 now necessary spice. He finds that possibility appalling, however. And I see another kind of terrain, the available paths. And so as swiftly as it comes, it slips away, and he realized the entire experience had taken the space of a heartbeat. Yet his own personal awareness had been turned over, illuminated in a terrifying way. So yeah, kind of like a weird trip, if you're right. No, again, poor, poor Paul. He's uh having a bunch of things going on right now that he is not handling the best, which, again, to his credit, you know, he's only sixteen. So right. That's not uh to be expected. But yes. He does have kind of, yeah, these more specific paths that he kind of thinks of here that I might be skipping ahead a little bit. It's okay. Well, we get this reference to what you were talking about the training, sharpening of talents, refined pressures of sophisticated disciplines, even exposure to the OC Bible at a critical moment. And lastly, the heavy intake of spice. And uh he's like, I'm a monster, a freak. And he just like s starts screaming no and pounding the ground. And uh obviously this gets his mother's attention now. I also thought it was kind of interesting there as he pounded the floor with his fists, the implaceable part of him recorded this as an interesting emotional datum and fed it into computation. Like Yeah, right? Like literally cannot turn it off.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:50

Yes.

Michael Kentris 1:12:51

So like, what have you done to me? He's like, I gave birth to you. And I like this. It was from instinct as much as her own subtle knowledge, the precisely correct answer to calm him. And he felt her hands focused on the dim outline of her face. Certain gene traces in her facial structure were noted in the new way by his onflowing mind, the clues added to other data, and a final summation answer put forward. Right, it very much feels like like the old like MS DOS kind of screen code rolling down. It's like you know? And yeah, so basically he kind of starts questioning her. Like, did you know what you were doing when you trained me? I hope the thing any parent hopes that you'd be superior, different. It's like different, and she heard the bitterness. It's like you didn't want a son, you wanted a quisatz hadteratch, you wanted a Bened Jesserit. Right. And ultimately, Kyle does think that kind of is the path that he is on, just some of this yeah, mental ability that he is now displaying. But uh Paul's kind of like, no, I'm not the Quisatz Hatteratch, I'm something different, the sleeper. Yeah. He kind of thinks that he is gonna be uh something even more than what the Benegesseret had potentially planned or hoped for. Yes. So yeah, right, it's like it's it's in me. It goes on and on and on and on, and then like she's like, Paul, because you heard this hysteria edging his voice. So as much as like they were initially portraying him as like this emotionless uh you know computing machine person, not quite, right? There's there's still a human element there.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:32

Absolutely.

Michael Kentris 1:14:33

And they talk about the spice. So subtle, so insidious, so irreversible, it won't even kill you unless you stop taking it. We can't leave Arrakis unless we take part of Arrakis with us. And then he kind of explains that. The spice changes anyone who gets this much of it, but thanks to you, I could bring the change to consciousness. I don't get to leave it in the unconsciousness. Unconscious where its disturbance can be blanked out, I can see it. So again, kind of this trigger for what has potentially caused this uh new development in his abilities. Yes. I like that the her body had known the fact long before her mind awakened to it that the spice was addictive. So just an interesting way to describe it. Uh so we live out our lives, she thought on this hell planet prepared for us, if we can evade the Harkinens, there's no doubt of my course, a brood mare preserving an important bloodline for the Bene Gesserit plan. And then Paul says, I must tell you about my waking dream. Now there was fury in his voice. To be sure you accept what I say, I'll tell you first I know you'll bear a daughter, my sister here on Arrakis. Right. So she's taken aback by that because Yes, right. A pang of fear. She know she knew her pregnancy could not show yet, and only her own Bene Gesserit training had allowed her to read the first faint signals. So again, right, I think this is kind of an interesting thing because this is what um like an ancient prophecy they would do. They would, you know, I'll tell you something. In fact, this is gosh, forget which prophet it is, and that's bad on me. But essentially you will tell a prophet, a prophet will make a short-term prophecy, and then that will come to pass so that you know that the next thing that I tell you is true. Right. So it's kind of like demonstrating your bona fides, if you will, that uh that yes, you have this this knowledge. And so this is kind of what he's doing here, right? This is kind of going back to that ancient form. You see it like all through the Old Testament, and then I'm sure in other cultures as well, where people will do something like that essentially. They'll say, like, uh, you know, in in nine months' time, you know, a a a virgin will, you know, give birth to a child, right? For a classic example. But uh yeah, so that's that's kind of the it's a it's a nice little callback there as far as like the way that prophets work in ancient texts. So yeah, that's what he initially leads off to again kind of get the ladies' cut to know that he's not just going crazy that these are here's what's gonna happen, one, something that you already know, and then uh they'll find a home among the Fremen where your missionary productiva has bought us a bolt hole. And even to that, just go like, how does he know about the missionaria productiva? She found it increasingly difficult to do her terror at the overpowering strangeness in Paul. So again, just you know, Paul is kind of becoming like he's worried about something else. Very good. So yeah, he kind of goes on, basically, and she she talks a lot about I should say she starts to feel compassion for him. And I like how they kind of talk about like the different the certainties of the paths in front of them. Some are very broad, like the Central Avenue on Kaladin. Some places I don't see shadowed as though it went behind a hill. And he talks about like the the totality with which the veils have been ripped away to reveal naked time. Right? Like we all have our own, you know, less charitably called maybe perhaps delusions or, you know, illusions, ways that we think about ourselves and about our situations that allow us to bear them better. And uh, you know, this comes across in various works of literature where when you pull those away, it is very painful and discomfitting, and uh can lead to despair if you're not prepared for it. So I think that's uh a little piece of what we're getting here is that um the fact that he is not falling into despair is impressive. Absolutely. Although he does, of course, mention that recalling the experience, he recognizes his own terrible purpose. I did highlight that here, yes. The pressure of his life spreading outward like an expanding bubble, time retreating before it. So Lady Sca kind of realizes that Paul is no longer a child, but also kind of has this expression on his face of kind of like a child that's lived through a disaster. Like, you know, he's he's got this sort of terrible awareness of someone forced to acknowledge his own mortality. Just she can tell that he's kind of like just barely holding it together at this moment. Yes. So they're talking about, you know, it's like she mentions the Harkonens again, and he's like, put those twisted humans out of your mind. And he's like, you shouldn't refer to people as humans without and he's like, don't be so sure where to draw the line. We carry our past with us, and mother mind, there's a thing you don't know and should. We are Harkonens. You know, record scratch. Bump bum bum. So but yeah, basically saying, like, you know, look at your face, look at my hands, a set of my bones if none of that convinces you, but take my word, I've walked the future, looked at a record, seen a place. We are Harkinans, a renegade branch. And she's like like she's trying to find some explanation. He's like, no. Basically, you're the Baron's own daughter. He sampled many pleasures in his youth and once permitted himself to be seduced, but it was for the genetic purposes of the Benegesseret by one of you, right? The way he said you struck her like a slap.

unknown 1:20:00

Slap.

Michael Kentris 1:20:01

Yes. So yes, that this is like she's part of the Bene Jesseret plan, right? Also unwitting, which uh, if we remember correctly, a lot of times the the Bene Jesserate do not know their own heritage for reasons exactly like this. And so this kind of, you know, beyond just the general shock of knowing that she's a daughter of the Baron, uh makes you just kind of question then why were we trying to have a daughter with the Atreides line? It wasn't to end the Atreides Harkin and feud, but to fix some sort of genetic factor in their lines. And she's yeah, struggling to come up with a a reason behind that. And as though he saw inside her mind Paul said they thought they were reaching for me, but I'm not what they were expected, and I've arrived for my time, and they don't know it. And she's like, Great mother, he's the Queas Hatteratch.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:20:55

He keeps doing this thing. Like you're thinking I'm the Queas Hatteratch. Put that out of your mind. I'm something unexpected. Right. And so this is, yeah, right? He kind of does this several times in a row. Yes. And uh I like this. We get uh a phrase here. The Freemen have a saying they credit to Shahulud, Old Father Eternity. They say, be prepared to appreciate what you meet. And I think is this this is the first time we get the phrase Shai Hulud, isn't it, or is it the second? It might be the second one. I I do believe uh it's referred to with the uh Chris knife as well. That's right. Which again, I couldn't remember if we had talked about it, but it roughly translates as like the eternal thing, which we kind of get here as like old father eternity. So yeah, just an interesting like part of the perspective of the Freeman nomenclature here. And then again, he kind of has this sort of glimpse into the future, or at least very at least the reminiscing of where, yes, mother mine, among the Fremen, you'll acquire the blue eyes and a callus beside your lovely nose from the filter tube to your still suit, and you'll bear my sister, Saint Alia of the Knife. So just all these things that he has seen that will come to pass. Yes. It's like you couldn't possibly know you won't believe it until you see it, and he thinks I'm a seed. And he saw how fertile was the ground into which he had fallen, and with this realization the terrible purpose bold underlined, had filled him, creeping through the empty place within, threatening to choke him with grief. So before we get to the next part here, again, is this intentional? Is it not? I feel like it's too on the nose to not be at least somewhat intentionable, where it's referring to one of the parables from the New Testament about the seed that falls in the good ground. Right, for those who aren't familiar, I should have looked up the verse before we started recording, but essentially you get uh you know seeds that fall by the road and they're eaten up by the birds, seeds that fall among the thorns and they're choked out by the thorns, and seeds that fall uh in the dry ground and they grow up, but when the hot heat of the day comes upon, they wither and die, and then there are the seeds who fall into the good ground, yielding things, you know, many times over essentially. And obviously this is uh in the New Testament about talking about faith, but obviously here we're not quite that metaphysical about it. So we get a little bit of what he's talking about as we talk through these two possibilities. One where he confronts the evil old baron and say, Hello, grandfather, and that path sickens him, and then the other path with a warrior religion and a fire spreading across the universe with the Adri Atreides green and black banner flying at the head of fanatic legions drunk on spice liquor. And he's got several of his father's men with him, Gurney Halleck, a few others, all marked by the hawk symbol from the shrine of his father's skull. A lot of imagery there. Right. I find it interesting that uh the banner is green and black, considering that, you know, I feel like red had been associated with the hawk up until this point. So I'm not sure if that's always been the case, that those were the official colors, and they just use red with the hawk specifically, but that was one particular that had me kind of raise an eyebrow. But but no, I agree overall. And also one of the other things is like Gurney Halleck and a few of his father's men, it's like Gurney's not dead. Good. Right. Gurney's out there somewhere with his ballasset or whatever it's called, strumming his songs. Yeah. I enjoy his uh his mannerisms. So I like this. He remains silent, thinking like the seed he was. Thinking I mean, sure, why not? Thinking with the race consciousness he'd at first experienced as terrible purpose. So we get a little more explanation about the terrible purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Yes.

Michael Kentris 1:24:49

And he's like he's also talking in his mind, like, I can't go that way, that's what the old witches of your schools really want. It's like they were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this, the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path, jihad. Surely I cannot choose that way, he thought. But he saw again in his mind's eye the shrine of his father's skull and the violence with the green and black banner waving in its midst. And then Jessica, right, like it's almost like we're having two different conversations going on right now. There's like the internal monologue that Paul is having, and then there is the conversation he's actually having with his mother. Um and she's like, Then the Freeman will give us sanctuary, and he's like, Yes, that's one of the ways. They'll call me Mu'adib, the one who points the way, probably referencing the the tail that points to the north. That's what they'll call me. And he closes his eyes thinking, Now my father, I can mourn you, and felt the tears coursing down his cheeks. So that kind of led to the really once he's chosen a path. Yes. So I wonder if this is like a thinking form that until you act on it, uh kind of runs wild. Right, some sort of analysis paralysis, perhaps, where you know he's perhaps got all these decisions before him, and again, all of them seem equally abhorrent, but he's kind of led to this one where, you know, it's kind of guaranteed to give him and his mother kind of safety. Yeah. So this is a thought that I've had for for several weeks as we've been going through these, but I wanted to bring it up when we finally got to the point where Paul is called Muad Deep, uh, because it seemed inappropriate before that. So something that has been bothering me since like our our first episode on Dune is that, you know, Leto in classical mythology is a female figure, right? Uh Leto is the mother of Apollo and um Artemis. And so what what does that have to do with, you know, Paul in any way? You know, what because it's it's too specific of a name to kind of be uh haphazardly chosen, at least I would think so. So so here's my theory, and you can tell me if if I'm if I'm reaching uh too much for this. Sure. So Muad Deep, right, uh the one who points the way, we know it is a mouse constellation now. So Apollo is the son of Leto in classical mythology. Now in the Iliad, Apollo has several different names, one of which is Smyntius, and Smytheus is a basically a term for a rodent, because Apollo also had some attributes as well as being a god of healing, also of being a god of being able to cause plague. So you start to wonder, like, well, Smithus, Apollo, kind of a mouse like epithet, uh due to, you know, because rodents in the you know, in old and present day spread disease uh in some situations. So so it makes you wonder, is it Leto because of this kind of mouse association? I don't know. I mean, we can certainly read more into that as far as like, you know, we got this uh picture of you know a spreading war, like again, kind of spreading like a disease. That's probably a bit bit too far in terms of uh reading into the weeds there. But anyway, what do you think? Is that uh has it got any legs to it? No, no, I I I do I do think there's plenty of parallels to see there to think that it's only coincidence. I d I don't know anything about his sister, Saint Alia of the Knife, but the knife kind of makes me think that there is some aspect of like hunting or at least some sort of physical prowess, which I think could reasonably be kind of drawn also as a parallel with uh Artemis being also, you know, daughter of Leto. Leto. Yeah. The the only thing that kind of makes me question it is why is the Duke named Leto instead of Lady Jessica? You know? There doesn't seem to be, at least to us, again, if you know, if the audience, if you have more insight into this, let us know. But I would think the names would be reversed under normal circumstances. Yes. I don't know. Was that done just for you know to make it a little less clear intentionally? Was there other significance to it? I do not know. Did Leto just sound more masculine because it ends in an O sound? So anyway, let us know what you think That was that was my my one big thing where it just like it struck me all of a sudden it's like oh Mu'adib, Mouse, Smithius, Apollo? Apollo is related to Leto. I don't know. Because it was always bothering me. Like, why why would they give Duke Leto a uh a feminine deity's name? So I don't know. But uh so here we are, end of book one.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:51

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:29:51

What are your thoughts, Will? It's great. It's funny because I know I had mentioned previously that I was curious to see kind of what we were going to have happen now that we were off the rails of this like initial pieces of plot that had been laid out in chapter two. But it's kind of ironic because now we kind of have had some additional steps set out for us in this prescient dream that Paul has had. So again, we're not necessarily like going completely unknown into the desert, but we have like kind of a new promise of what to expect, of what's to come. That's a good observation. Yeah, because we we kind of had this roadmap for for the whole of book one, which has been to a large extent fulfilled, and now we get a whole new one. Yes. With with these new abilities that uh Paul has unlocked. So yeah, it's gonna be another question of how accurate is his prophecying. We know some of the results, but we don't necessarily know, as you said in one of our previous episodes, how that will be accomplished. So there still is a lot of things to learn and see. So it'll be interesting to see how things progress. Yeah. Well so obviously you've read this a few times now. How's how does it hold up? What are your thoughts and on it? You know, i the first book definitely like you know what's going to happen, and you read it again, and you're like, maybe this time, you know, something will change. So I I think we've all read books like that where you know like there's this mounting tension, and even though you know what's going to happen, you can't help but uh hope that when you read the story this time, something's going to be different. It's not. Uh but uh yeah, you uh you know you have a little bit of regret for for the Duke, obviously, as far as you know his his untimely end, but but you still have hope for the other characters that they've they've escaped and uh will hopefully meet up again and keep the good fight going. So it's been a lot of good world building, a lot of good character development, and even over just the first third of the book, we've seen significant changes in our our main character, Paul. And also, I don't know if they would be character development or just more explication of the character of like Lady Jessica. So the other characters obviously I don't think have had much of an arc, you know, the Baron's still evil, Peter's dead. So I'm sure we'll get more characters like uh Faye Routha from again chapter two. Um they mentioned him in this last little bit here about having him come around to Arrakis with the Baron. So I'm sure some characters will be coming around and there'll be some new ones in introduced, especially as we go out to meet the Freeman. Lots of things to come, and then we've got, again, that huge list of uh desert survival tools. Yes. And I think a lot of it is going to be like, you know, the next chapter or the next book is called Muaddib. So I assume we're going to be learning lots about life in the desert and how to survive there, and so there'll be a lot of cultural development of the Freeman as a society. So I'm looking forward to that and kind of you know plumbing the depths of the mystery of the you know the deep desert.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:12

Absolutely.

Michael Kentris 1:33:13

See if Paul's suspicions are correct. Power. Desert power. It's the way to go. Well, any final thoughts? Anything else to mention at this point? I don't think so. It's been a good read. Looking forward to continuing it. Yeah, yeah. We next time we'll be back with book the beginning of book two, Muaddeeb. And uh thank you all for joining us. It's been fun so far. I hope you're enjoying this. And as always, you know, you can always drop us a line, you know, send us an email at brothersreadingbooks at gmail.com, or you can find us on X at BrothersReading, and then uh we will probably have a website up uh by the time this is coming out, brothersreadingbooks.com. Is that right, Will? I believe so, yes. All right. So thank you always, and we'll talk to you all next time.