Book Club: Chapterhouse Dune (Part 3)

Summary

Gom Jabbar: Book Club – Chapterhouse Dune (Part 3)

Podcast: Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Hosts: Abu & Leo (Lore Party Media)
Date: December 26, 2025
Episode Focus: Chapterhouse Dune, chapters 7-9 (Frank Herbert)
Note: All times in MM:SS format

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Episode Overview

In this third Book Club of Chapterhouse Dune, Abu and Leo continue their deep-dive into Frank Herbert's final Dune novel, exploring the intricate maneuvering of the Bene Gesserit, the threats posed by the Honored Matres, and the complex transformations of characters like Shiana, Odrade, Murbella, and Rebecca. The episode unpacks themes of rebellion, surveillance, biomimicry, generational trauma, and the thin line between control and autonomy within organizations. As always, the hosts draw out Herbert’s layered social commentary and encourage critical thinking about institutions of power—both in the Dune universe and our own.

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Chapter Summaries & Key Discussions

Chapter 7: Shiana’s Transformation & Rebellion

[05:17–13:59]

• Shiana’s Glow-Up: The chapter reunites us with Reverend Mother Shiana, now at a Bene Gesserit desert watch station, struggling with molding “black sensei plaz,” a metaphor for her creative and spiritual frustration.
• Bene Gesserit’s Messiah Scheme: Shiana reflects on being groomed as the next religious figure to control the empire via sandworms—drawing on the Leto II mythos. The Sisters plan to use her unique bond with the sandworms as a tool of worship and manipulation.

  “Holy Shiana, the God Emperor, is her thrall. See how the sacred sandworms obey her. Leto has returned.” – [06:54], Abu

• Questioning the Plot: Both hosts debate whether making Shiana a Messiah is truly Odrade’s (or the Bene Gesserit’s) primary plan.

  “I don’t think the Bene Gesserit ever just have one plan in motion. And I think Shiana’s just a secondary, tertiary plan that’s kind of in motion on the side.” – [08:09], Abu

• Resisting the Box: Shiana is rebelling, pushing boundaries, and exploring Honored Matre sexual techniques—a direct act of defiance.

  “Her sexual rebellion is so scary because they are seeing that she is kind of leaning into some of these Honored Matre techniques and they’re going, ooh, maybe that’s not a good thing. Maybe this is the beginning of the fall of the Bene Gesserit.” – [23:50], Leo

• Alliances and Escape: Shiana, Duncan, and Murbella are forming their own secret alliance, even creating a covert sign language, and dreaming of escaping the Sisterhood’s web, knowing there are few places in the universe safe from their reach.
• Shiana’s Agency:

  “I will create my own statement of my life. I will create my own life. Damn the Bene Gesserit. Call it rebellion, call it any other name. The force she felt in her breast could not be denied.” – [11:42], Abu

• Naiveté vs. 5D Chess: Shiana, despite being a Reverend Mother, is still unaware of the full extent of the Sisterhood’s layered manipulations—as Odrade is several moves ahead.

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Chapter 8: Odrade, Balanda, and the Watchdog System

[14:01–26:38]

• Planning the Sisterhood’s Mini-Scattering: Facing annihilation by the Honored Matres, the Bene Gesserit plan a “mini-Scattering,” sending Sisters with sandtrout to unknown destinations—mirroring the Jewish diaspora for protection.

  “This feels oddly resonant considering we just learned...the Jewish people survived all these years [by scattering]. I cannot help but think this is the Bene Gesserit learning from them.” – [15:04], Leo

• Genetic Gambits: Odrade and Balanda discuss the children of Duncan and Murbella (three already!), who may be genetic superhumans—fusing Honored Matre, Duncan Idaho Gola, and Tleilaxu lines.
• Sexual Power & Downfalls: The Sisters ponder whether the same sexual techniques that fell the Matres could threaten the Sisterhood’s integrity via Shiana’s rebellious exploration.
• Axolotl Tanks & Bargaining Chips: Tamalane reports that Tleilaxu Master Scytale likely withheld information about axolotl tanks, keeping his value as a bargaining chip. Odrade, ever pragmatic, is unconcerned—nonviolence and lunch are preferred over torture.
• Lunch as Metaphor: The chapter humorously pivots to Bene Gesserit lunchrooms, as politics and sustenance intermingle.
• Live Chat Section: Briefly, the hosts chat with the live YouTube audience about the material qualities of “plaz” and fan-fiction possibilities about the Scattering.

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Chapter 9: Rebecca, The Rabbi, and Honored Matre Schemes

[28:47–50:20]

• Rebecca Wild’s Ordeal: Rebecca, the Jewish Reverend Mother, kneels at a banquet hosted by the terrifying Great Honored Matre. She’s been physically modified:
  • Replaced Eyes: To hide her spice addiction and Bene Gesserit status.
  • Implant: Regulates spice and sheer dosage for further concealment.
• Flashbacks with the Rabbi:
  • The Rabbi is deeply afraid he has lost Rebecca to the Bene Gesserit, mourning her as both a daughter and a key community member. He’s uneasy that their alliance may have cost them their insularity and safety.

  “If one of your insiders has become an outsider, that puts everybody at risk.” – [35:39], Leo

• Interrogation by the Great Honored Matre: Rebecca is shrewd, feigning ignorance under questioning—while gathering intel for the Sisters. The Great Honored Matre uses her as unwitting bait for a yet-to-be-revealed larger plan.
• Mirrors Between Orders: The Great Honored Matre is depicted as smart and calculated, not just cruel—her cartoonish brutality contains underlying strategy, compared and contrasted with the Bene Gesserit’s covert manipulations.

  “Hilariosly evil...but there are so many problematic ways in which [the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre] are alike.” – [70:35], Abu

• Return to Gamu: Rebecca reunites with the Rabbi, and the tension between institutional loyalty and individual metamorphosis is palpable. The Rabbi insists on communal values, Rebecca pushes for painful honesty about ancestry and atrocity.

  “She’s very direct with him...recognizing that he needs to hear what she knows and how she is changing and evolving.” – [50:10], Abu

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Deep Dive Takeaway: Watchdogs & Paranoia—Control in the Sisterhood

[53:12–79:53]

“We are mutual gadflies. Don’t make that more than it is.”

— Odrade [54:17]

• The Watchdog System: Odrade explains that within the Sisterhood, all are both watcher and watched—internal surveillance is the immune system of the order. It is meant as accountability, not oppression.
• Murbella as the Critical Outsider: She finds the system oppressive, voicing skepticism on behalf of the reader.

  “It sounds oppressive.” – Murbella [55:58]

• Historical/Real-World Parallels: Hosts compare this to authoritarian surveillance: Stasi in East Germany and Scientology’s “sec checks.” Surveillance can devolve into dogma, stagnation, and suppression of individuality, especially if internalized to invisibility.
• Nuances & Gray Areas:
  • Odrade frames it as a system with checks and balances, even against herself as Mother Superior.

    “No one [in the Sisterhood], even Mother Superior, can accumulate too much power.” – [66:06], Abu

  • Without this system, the Sisterhood is vulnerable to schism and corruption—as exemplified by the Honored Matre.
• Contrast with the Honored Matre: Their right-hand-woman (Logno) is cowed by threat, not balance. The Matres' system is overt violence, while the Sisterhood’s is subtler but not less controlling.
• Key Quotes:

  “If you think of any accountability as oppression, that’s kind of a young perspective.” – [56:48], Leo
  “Can [Odrade] recognize an oppressive system when she has been raised within one?” – [73:21], Abu

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• On Rebellion and Agency:

  “I will create my own statement of my life…Damn the Bene Gesserit. Call it rebellion, call it any other name. The force she felt in her breast could not be denied.” — [11:42], Abu (quoting Shiana’s inner monologue)

• On Organizational Blindness:

  “Do you escape the Bene Gesserit grasp, especially in a universe that's under assault by the Honored Matres? Shiana thinks about how there would be nowhere for them to go…” — [10:27], Abu

• On the Rabbi’s Dilemma:

  “If one of your insiders has become an outsider, that puts everybody at risk.” — [35:39], Leo

• On Mirrors Between Orders:

  “Look at how disposable everyone is to the Honored Matre...is it any different for the Bene Gesserit where everyone is a pawn to be manipulated?” — [47:44], Leo

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Spice Morsels: References & Real-World Science

[80:31–96:52]

Gadarene Swine & Religious Imagery

• “Gadarene swine” (Matthew 8:28) is a reference to demon-possessed pigs running into the sea—a metaphor for self-destructive mass behavior, possibly paralleling the Honored Matre’s headlong rush toward annihilation.

  "Gadarene ... involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something." – [84:18], Leo

• Why does a rabbi quote the New Testament? The hosts speculate this may reflect cultural syncretism in the far-future Dune universe.

Biomimicry & Axolotl Tanks

• The Tleilaxu weren’t “creating” artificial wombs—they used human bodies (axolotl tanks) because nature had already solved the problem.
• Real-world examples: airplanes inspired by birds, medical needles by mosquitoes, Tokyo’s subway planned via slime mold simulations, butterfly wings inspiring advanced solar panel design.
• Frank Herbert’s foresight: biomimicry was an emergent scientific trend when he wrote, showing his engagement with cutting-edge science.
• Murbella’s movements described as “insect-like,” an echo of this theme.

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Flowing Into the Next Episode (Assigned Reading)

• Next up: Chapters 10–12 (up to, “You will not be disturbed here. I am refusing permission for anyone else to enter this room.”)
• Mailbag Reminder: Listeners are invited to send questions for future Q&A episodes.

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Tone & Style

• The hosts balance seriousness with humor, moving fluidly from layered literary and political analysis to casual in-jokes and asides (e.g., debates about "plaz," lunch metaphors, “gadflies,” and Bene Gesserit HR policies).
• Listener interaction via live chat injects fresh perspectives and questions.
• The podcast’s pacing allows for both granular close reading and big-picture reflection.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ch. 7 Summary & Shiana’s Rebellion: 05:17–13:59
• Odrade, Balanda, Scattering & Genetic Plots: 14:01–26:38
• Rebecca & The Rabbi with Honored Matre: 28:47–50:20
• Main Takeaway – Watchdog System: 53:12–79:53
• Spice Morsels – Religious & Scientific Deep Dives: 80:31–96:52

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Conclusion

This episode expertly unpacks the intricate threads of Chapterhouse Dune, navigating complex themes like power, institutional paranoia, personal rebellion, and the ethical boundaries of science. Abu and Leo’s sharp analytical lens, combined with warmth and witty candor, make for an essential listen—for Dune die-hards and sci-fi philosophers alike.

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Memorable Sign-off:

“Whoever controls the podcast controls the universe. We’ll see you on the Golden Path.” – [99:12]

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Contact / Further Discussion:

• Email: [e-mail]
• Next Book Club: Chapters 10-12—join the conversation!

Transcript

[A]

Sexual addiction. That aspect of Gom Jabbar episodes created disturbing ripples in the podcasting industry especially. Oh, especially among the books category. Very suggestive. And most of the other shows on Spotify knew Abu and Leo, alone among them, practiced some of these techniques in defiance of a general fear this could weaken them. Our sexual addiction only makes us stronger. You fools.

[B]

You fools.

[A]

You fools.

[B]

That's how our retention numbers are so high.

[A]

It's an interesting dimension to our Patreon subscription, but you know it's there.

[B]

Get at us. Call your daddy, or whatever it's called. Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name's Abu.

[A]

My name is Leo.

[B]

And folks, we are back once again to continue our deep dive read through of Chapter House Dune, the last book in the Dune saga by Frank Herbert.

[A]

So good. So good.

[B]

Now, of course, before we dive into the pages today and the assigned reading, let's take care of some housekeeping and make shout out Mapes proud.

[A]

And as always, this kicks off with a spoiler warning. And as always, the spoiler warning hasn't changed. This is a book club episode. We are not going to be talking about anything past the pages assigned so far. So if you're caught up with today's episode and the assigned reading from today's episode, you are good to go. But this does mean we're talking about all of Frank's previous books leading up to Dune Chapter House.

[B]

That's right. And of course, up top, a huge shout out to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons, Daniel Dion, Seth Reddin Greer, Brad Hutchins, and Kevin Mohenram. Yes, folks, I'd installed calm eyes in your homes so that I could just watch you and maybe pick up on some of that generosity. Get a sense of how truly big your hearts are.

[A]

Yeah, I'd be watching you all the time. Yeah. In fact, who's to say we are day and night, day and night. Infrared to see at the nighttime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Just think about it. Consider it.

[A]

Just don't examine your lamps too closely these days. All right. Yeah, maybe that's too real. We're kidding. We're kidding. Maybe. Are we? Who's to say? Also, our thank you extends to all of our patrons at every level. Seriously, the support that you all provide makes what we do possible. And it means the World to us.

[B]

That's right. And look, if you, like me, have subscription fatigue, if you're out there canceling subscriptions left and right, we get it. If you don't have the means to become a monthly patron supporter at the moment, that's a. Okay. Check out the buy me a coffee link in the show notes below. That's a great place where you can send us a one time tip to say thank you. All of that goes a long way toward making this show.

[A]

Now today's episode. Y' all know the game plan. We assigned some chapters. Hopefully you read them. Either way, we're going to be talking about them. We're going to summarize them quickly. We're going to get into a takeaway and then we've got some yummy today. Very chunky spice morsels. Hope that sounds good to you because we're going to get to that right after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. When we're back, we're talking about chapter seven. Kraft Mac and cheese is the best thing ever. It's even better than pop music. You look just as natural enjoying us at age 13 as you do 55. Kraft Mac and cheese. Best thing ever. This episode is brought to you by Casamigos Tequila. What do you bring to a holiday party? Simple. A bottle of Casamigos. Because nothing gets the party started like a Casamigos margarita.

[B]

Which isn't just for summer.

[A]

In fact, it's the perfect pour all year round. Casamigos is the gift that always feels right. Because anything goes with my Casamigos.

[B]

Please drink responsibly.

[A]

Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila, 40% Alcoh by volume.

[B]

Welcome back, folks. Let's start, as always with these book clubs with a summary of today's assigned reading. That's chapters seven, eight and nine. Let's talk about our first chapter today. So in this short first chapter today, chapter number seven, we are finally reunited with now Reverend Mother Shiana.

[A]

Oh, shit. What a glow up. All right.

[B]

What a glow up. She's been busy these last few years. Certainly Shiana at the moment is posted at a desert watch station where when we join her, she's currently having a pretty difficult time molding some black sensei plaz.

[A]

We're told same.

[B]

Her goal is to like mold this black plaz into a particular creation. Something she feels deep inside her but can't quite quite grasp. And she's frustrated. Ultimately, she gives up. You know, she kind of like crushes the plaz back into a blob. And she's like, fuck, I can't figure this out. We've all been there. If you're a creative person, if you've done pottery or anything, you know this feeling. So after giving up on this plaz sculpture, she then kind of looks out the window and begins to reflect on her time with the Bene Gesserit. And she thinks about how she is a part of these larger Bene Gesserit plants. She is a part of their Missionaria Protectiva. And their goal is, ultimately, we learn to bring forth a worm. Remember, they're kind of cultivating worms on Chapter House at the moment. And to use Shiana and her very unique ability to speak to and control the worms, to turn her into a religious deity, a subject of worship across the Empire as a means of control. Holy Shiana, the God Emperor, is her thrall. See how the sacred sandworms obey her. Leto has returned. End quote. That's fascinating. This plan, of course, we saw the seeds of it back in heretics, right? This was part of what Taraza and Odrade and the Bene Gesserit were scheming in that last book. Here, Shiana lays it out for us pretty clearly. This has been the plan with Shiana and Duncan all along.

[A]

So I have a question. This is just a. Do you think that is actually Odrade's plan?

[B]

I think it is one of Odrade's backup plans. Yeah.

[A]

I agree. I do not think this is her primary plan. I think, if anything, I think this is like, a need to know subset of, like, we'll let that continue. Because I also really get the impression that, like, I don't even think Taraza is trying to recreate the way that Shiana is going, oh, look, they're, like, building up all of this pressure around a Messiah and I'm going to be the figurehead. That doesn't sound like something Taraza would have had as, like, Plan A. And so this is also very interesting to me because we're seeing how little Shiana is aware even now that she is a Reverend Mother. It still doesn't seem like she's fully aware of what is in store for her or what plans there are for her among the kind of higher ups. I don't know. Just a thought.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great point. I completely agree. I don't see this as the plan A that O'Drade is cooking up in this book. I don't think the Bene Gesserit ever just have one plan. In motion. And I think Shianna is just a secondary tertiary plan that's kind of in motion on the side as well.

[A]

Yeah, true.

[B]

Well, regardless of how critical this plan is to the overall schemes, Shianna wants no fucking part of it. We learn from her thoughts here that she has begun to rebel. She's pushing back against this box that the Bene Gesserit have placed her in, these plots that they've intertwined her in. And we learn that, for example, she has engaged in several sexual encounters that are considered outrageous even by Benny Jezer standards.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

An order that is notably quite open about sex and control.

[A]

Yeah. Having sex with the lights on. Whoa.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

Oh my. Can we say that?

[B]

Can we say that on the Internet?

[A]

I think we're shadow banned now.

[B]

Yeah, I think we're going to get like shadow band. Spotify is going to kick us off. Sex with the lights on. Jesus. Of course. I think actually in a later chapter in eight or nine maybe, we learn that these outrageous acts that she's practicing is what she has learned from Merbella. She is practicing some of the honored madre's sexual techniques, which is, you know, really toeing the line of what the Bene Gesserit allow. But Shiana's doing it as a form of rebellion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now it's at this point that Shanna's thoughts turn toward Duncan Idaho. The Gola, remember him? And it's revealed to us that she has formed somewhat of an alliance with Duncan. They've created their own secret hand gesture language to communicate with each other. And ultimately it seems like they are scheming alongside Marbella to escape somehow. Question mark. This doesn't seem super well thought out, but basically, basically they want out. They want to get out of whatever these Bene Gesserit plots are. But of course, the unanswered massive question that's lingering is how do you do that?

[A]

Right?

[B]

How do you escape the Bene Gesserit grasp, especially in a universe that's under assault by the honored madres? Shiana thinks about how there would be nowhere for them to go, where in the universe would accept them as simple refugees. Knowing who they are and knowing what they can do, they almost have no choice but to be wrapped up in these universe shaking plots. Yeah. We also learn from her thoughts here as the chapter wraps up that Shanna harbors some confused feelings about Duncan and Mirbella. She has some sort of affection toward Duncan, but is actually kind of relieved that the Bene Gesserit original plan of her and Duncan mating hasn't gone through because Mirbella has been the monkey wrench in the picture. So she's, you know, her feelings are mixed about all of this. But one thing that's pretty clear through all of this is she's really inspired by how rebellious Duncan and Mirebella seem to be, how they're constantly pushing back against the sisterhood. And I loved this thought, this concluding thought at the end of this chapter that Shianna has, quote, I will create my own statement of my life. I will create my own life. Damn the Bene Gesserit. Call it rebellion, call it any other name. The force she felt in her breast could not be denied. End quote.

[A]

Hell, yeah. Oh, that's great. I also wanted to shout out here as we kind of wrap up this chapter, along the same lines as, like, I don't think her as the figurehead of a new. A new Kwisatz Haderach style program is actually the Bene Gesserit plan. And yet it kind of seems like she thinks it is. She's kind of talking about that's what they have in plan. For me, I got a real sense in this chapter. Even though Shiana is now a Reverend Mother, I still see some naivety in how she understands the order and how she understands the people above her. In particular, o', Draid, she thinks earlier in the chapter, quote, yes, Darwee o', Draid, your former student, has become a rebel against you. End quote. Oh, shit. Oh, Draid probably hates rebels, doesn't she? No. O' Draid is one of the most heretical people in the Bene Gesserit. She has Ocean Child, Sea Child, whatever it's called. Sea Child. She has that, like, rebellion as part of her core identity. So the idea of Shiana wielding this and thinking that as if it's some crazy checkmate against her tyrannical boss, I think betrays how little she understands. Oh, trade.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But also, maybe that's by design. Maybe Odrade is keeping her in the dark, allowing her to think this is what is going to happen as a means of then pivoting at some point as like a 5D chess move. Right? But we are seeing someone with that veil still pulled over their eyes, even as they are now an awakened Reverend Mother.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great point, and I think you're spot on. I think Darwi O' Draid is the only reverend mother out here playing 5D chess. Everyone else is still playing 3 or 4D. And in fact, I think she has probably kept Sea Child and her inner rebellion secret from Everyone. We only know it as the reader because we're in her head so much. I doubt any other sister knows it. Indeed, including Shianna.

[A]

God, Odrade is such a good character.

[B]

So good.

[A]

Well, chapter eight, our next chapter. We join Odrade and b'. Landa. You'll never guess what they're doing. They're talking. They're talking in a meeting in Odrade's office. Could not have. Could not have guessed. I know. Now, a lot of this chapter is delivered through Audrey's inner thoughts. So we're going to touch on some of her musings and sort of the important things to note from this chapter. And right now, the most important task at hand is planning for the Sisterhood to scatter across the universe. They are performing right now their own mini scattering where they are selecting members to basically go off to literally destinations unknown. Nobody can know where they are going so that the Benny Jesus will survive no matter what. This is like an ultimate, you know, this is Plan E or Plan F on the list. Things are going badly. This is how badly they are evacuating, basically.

[B]

Yeah, basically.

[A]

I did want to point out this feels. We didn't get the direct comparison within this chapter, but this feels oddly resonant considering we just learned a couple chapters ago that this is also how the Jewish people survived all of these years. They performed their own mini scattering very early on. And as the Bene Gesserit have said, they suspect there are planets, entire populated planets, of people who are just like these Jewish communities out on that planet that no one else has been to. And that is how they are as part of their complete cover, how they have guaranteed their survival this long. I cannot help but think this is the Bene Gesserit learning from the Jewish people going, yeah, we see that it has worked for them. Maybe that's something we can do at some point. And now this is them doing that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I thought was very interesting.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good call.

[A]

Out now. It does feel resonant, Right. Considering the proximity of learning about the Jewish people in their own kind of mini scattering.

[B]

But, yeah, absolutely.

[A]

In any case, oh Trade is worrying that the sisters, they're sending out into the scattering their own little personal scattering. She's worried that they'll never return. That there is this sort of like unforeseen bad thing that can happen to Reverend Mothers when they are so removed from the kind of proximity to other members of the order.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Something akin to what happened possibly to the Honored Matre and how the Honored Matre came to be. Uh. Oh. Mirbela has hinted that the honored Matre are a result of scattered Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit from thousands of years. So they've kind of like, wow. These orders have sort of mixed wow again. We know that the Bene Gesserit don't have spice out in the scattering. So without spice, they may lose their other memory, they lose that continuity, they lose that noble purpose. And then what happens to all of that capability when exposed to whatever's out in the scattering? Right now, this is a little bit of a different situation, because every single Reverend Mother who's going out into this new Diaspora scattering of Bene Gesserit assets is bringing a Sandworm with them or they're bringing a Sandtrout with them. We now know that they are somewhat successfully seeding Chapterhouse with the Sandtrout in a way that is creating a desert environment where they expect to one day see Sandworms, so they can recreate that on other planets out in the galaxy. So we also might be seeing right now the very first time that Sandworms en masse are being exported to other parts of the galaxy, along with their kind of Bene Gesserit, you know, Overseers, basically.

[B]

Yeah. My gentle pushback on that would be, we haven't had success yet. Shianna says in Chapter Seven, no sandblow.

[A]

No.

[B]

No spice melange yet at all. There's a desert out there, and we haven't spotted a worm yet. But we're hoping there somewhere, and we're hoping it'll eventually show up. So this still feels like a very big gamble to me.

[A]

It does.

[B]

As far as, let's take Sandworms out there and hope it works. We haven't actually gotten it to work here on Chapter House, but let's hope so. I think this is a. This still feel. This doesn't feel like a surefire thing.

[A]

It doesn't at all. You're absolutely right. I do think that we don't know what the failed attempts of transplanting Sandworms to other planets looked like in the past. I. Something about the way that Frank handles this makes me think that this is maybe the first time we're seeing a proper transformation of a planet into a desert planet. Because so often, like Leto reflects that people in the past, when they tried to take worms, they tried to take worms, full worms, onto planets that were already desert planets, and then it didn't work. Yeah. And we also know that Arrakis started as a lush, green planet that then was made into the planet that it is today. So I think that they have achieved something that has not been achieved before. But you're also right that that does not mean that they have worms. So I think that they are gambling that, okay, we see the desert forming, we see that the desert is growing, so eventually there will be worms, probably, because otherwise why is the desert growing? But nevertheless, they don't know. And that's where the Campbell is. You're absolutely right.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Now all of this also is to say the. The theory that the Bene Gesserit who went off into the scattering, who never came back, by the way, not a single Bene Gesserit member ever came back from the scattering. This theory that they all became Otto Matre is seeming to have more and more ground. And Odrade at this point fully suspects that this is true. Quote, if they had ever been Bene Gesserit, they now were a terrible distortion, blindly suicidal. End quote.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nevertheless, Balanda still in the room, if you can believe it. She's been here the whole time. She asks about Duncan Idaho. She's like, hey, Duncan and Murbella, by the way. They've been fucking like just so much. And as a result, they have had children. They have had three children already.

[B]

Whoa. Yeah.

[A]

And again, I am blown away. I forgot how much time is encompassed in this book, because again, you're thinking, so that's at least multiple years, three, four years at least, you know?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, the Miles teggola is like 9 or 10. So we're talking like a decade between end of heretics and where we are now in Chapter House.

[A]

Yeah. And this whole time they've just been. Merbella and Duncan have just been having kids. Fucking just fucking the whole time. It's crazy. Now the breeding mistresses are overjoyed. They're like, hey, Mirbella, we're not sure yet if she. We. If we can really bring her onto our team. But we've got these kids. And the kids might have the benefits of whatever genetics have happened out in the scattering. They might have the benefits of having an honored Matre mother and a Duncan Idaho Gola who the Benny Tleilax have with. So this might be. These children might be just absolute superhumans.

[B]

Yeah. What a cocktail of genetics.

[A]

I mean, listen, kind of nepotism on a genetic scale. Right? Like what a. What an inheritance. Yeah. Now, Belanda has been super obsessed with their relationship and especially in Duncan's abilities to sexually bind someone like the honored Matre are able to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's Funny too, this relationship that they have, Duncan and Mirbella, it is kind of a love hate relationship. Like, they are clearly bound to one another, but they're also always like, Mirbela's constantly being like, I could kill you right now, but I'm not going to love you, babe. Don't make me kill you. I could, but I'm not going to. It's very. It's very hot and cold. It's very stressful reading about it. Secondhand anxiety, for sure.

[B]

But also, Duncan, hilariously, is so confident.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's like, of the sexual binding that he's completely unafraid. He doesn't even flinch when she tries to scare him. Right? Yeah.

[A]

Which is like, kill me, babe. Oh, my God, his little smile. She goes to, like, nearly decapitate him with her foot and he's like, yeah, I know you're not going to. And I'm like, oh, he's so hot. Oh, that's so successfully hot damn. Yeah. Yeah. Unbothered King. And it's clear that Mirbella, in all of this, although she is bound to him and will not decapitate him, though she very much could. She is clearly frustrated that he so successfully bonded her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With basically the Onern Matre tricks. Right?

[B]

Yeah. A taste of her own medicine.

[A]

Yeah. And Belanda sees that medicine being exchanged back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Hence children. And she's like, that's what. Yeah. Just, just, just constantly, that medicine, you know, and she's basically admitting that it's. There is a deep temptation to having that kind of power over people and having that ability. And this also comes up in a conversation with Odrade and Belanda, talking about, like, maybe that's what fell. The Bene Gesserit who were out in the scattering. You know, you remove them enough from other memory and stuff like that. Maybe you see that kind of control and that power and you go, yeah, I want that. I want that control, I want that power.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Balanda is adamant we must not fall to that temptation because again, maybe this is how we turn to being like the honor matre.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Also, this is why Shiana's rebellion, her sexual rebellion is so scary because they are seeing that she is kind of leaning into some of these onor Matre techniques and they're going, ooh, maybe, maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe this is the beginning of the fall of the Bene Gesserit. We don't know. This has never happened before.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Now, really, what this Room needs is a third Reverend Mother to partake in the conversation. So Tom Elaine enters. Tom Elaine's like, it's me, I' and basically informs the other two that she has been inspecting the Bene Gesserit Axolotl tanks. So the. The volunteer Bene Gesserit members who have become these abominable pieces of technology. And she believes that the lone Tleilaxu master, Scytale, has withheld information from them. So the last remaining Tleilaxu who gave them the blueprints to make these tanks, quote, unquote, make, has withheld important information from them, but they are not sure what that information is. The soup doctors they have on staff have inspected the Golas that have come out of the tanks. They haven't seen anything wrong with them. But of course, o' draid is as unbothered as always and goes, of course he's withheld stuff from us. He has to have bargaining chips. You know, like, that's just the nature of. He's keeping his life, you know, worth keeping alive, like. Yeah, I get it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so they're basically all.

[B]

They're.

[A]

They're kind of powerless in this situation. They're like, we just have to keep an eye out for this kind of thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, Blonda, of course, doesn't like that idea. Blonda's like, oh, come on, can't we torture him? Can't we, like, fucking take his fingers off one at a time, please? Tom, Elaine and Odrade are like, jesus, Belanda, are you salivating? What is happening right now? But Odrade's like, no, listen, we can't do that. Let's eat lunch. This is so funny.

[B]

I'm hungry.

[A]

I'm hungry. Let's get lunch. They're like, we should. We do. We have time? And she's like, let's eat, you know, so good. I love this. She's the kind of boss I want, for sure. And that's basically where the chapter ends. Oh. Draid is reflecting on a chat she had with Mirbella about the idea of watchdogs and the kind of function of watchdogs within the Bene Gesserit. This very core idea in the Bene Gesserit. And we're going to talk about that in our takeaway. So don't go anywhere. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. But that is where the chapter wraps up, where Odrade is back in her thoughts as they're delivering the steaming hot, delicious food fresh from the kitchens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The Chapter House chefs. Yeah, Michelin star, as it turns out.

[B]

Actually, the only way to live have an in house Michelin star chef. That's the dream. All right, before we move on to chapter nine and wrap up our chapter summaries, I want to call out a couple of quick comments from the live chat because we are recording this live on YouTube for patrons. Just. Just some fun ones here that I wanted to very quickly call out. Pilot Pig says in the chat that I had a very hard time visualizing the plaz. Is it like clay or. Play doh. I always thought plaz was clear, solid material. And then John Curtis in the chat replies, I see it as multiple volcanic glass, like obsidian. So that's also how I saw it. How did you visualize it, Leo?

[A]

Yeah, about the same. Kind of like a black, black, like hard material, but that can be molded, like black Play doh. Kind of like she's doing black clay. Like clay sculpting, like on a potter's wheel or something, you know?

[B]

Yeah, I thought of it more as, like, black volcanic ash. And there was a line about her wearing some sort of glove. And I. In my mind, it was like she had these gloves that maybe had, like, sent out certain types of, like, electromagnetic waves. And the plaz, like, reacted to the waves from her gloves, and she kind of like molded it and shaped it into a statue or something. Kind of a fun visual. Last comment I want to quickly shout out again, John Curtis in the chat. Fan fiction idea, tales of the scattering. Yeah, yeah, I would love that. I would love to hear what the fuck is going on out in the scattering from thoughtful writers out there. And Pilot Pig responds, I honestly think by this point, the scattering is far beyond the Milky Way. And I kind of feel that too, actually. Okay, moving on to chapter nine. In our final chapter from today's reading, we are with Rebecca Wild, Reverend Mother of the Jewish people, you recall, who is currently kneeling in submission at a lunch banquet hosted by the Great Honored Matre and her guests.

[A]

Okay, pause. I feel like this was not part of the plan when. When the rabbi was like, lucilla, we're going to get your information safely off planet. No one's ever going to suspect Rebecca. Now she's in front of the Great Honor Mod. What the fuck? What happened?

[B]

Yeah, I. I legit had to stop and flip my book back and be like, I missed.

[A]

I must have missed Rebecca chapter.

[B]

I skipped a Rebecca chapter by accident. No, I didn't. We're just here in Media Res, and this is where we learn that Rebecca has gone through a number of physical modifications. We learned that she's had her eyes replaced in order to hide her spice addiction so that you can't see the blue within blue and recognize that she has gone through the agony.

[A]

Fucking correct. I fully forgot because I know that they have, like, contact lenses. Right? Like, even back in, like, Win sisia and Faradin, like, yeah. People are hiding contact lenses.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To hide their addiction. Yeah. And this time they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Contact lenses take her eyeballs out and give her new eyeballs. What the fuck?

[B]

Eye stuff creeps me out. And, like, even just reading that makes my eyes hurt.

[A]

And she's like, oh, my eye sockets hurt. And it's like, that's terrible. What an awful detail.

[B]

Okay. That's one modification she's had. Another modification we're told about is that she's actually gotten an implant within her body that steadily pumps metered doses of both spice, melange and sheer.

[A]

Cool. Nice.

[B]

Because she has to hide the spice addiction, and because she can't let her eyes turn blue again before she's done with whatever task and her mission, she has this implant to help her out, to help control the addiction. Yeah. Now, while she is kneeling here, she's basically waiting for the great honored madre and her friends to finish lunch. There's a lot of lunch happening in these chapters. Frank must have been hungry when he was typing these last two chapters.

[A]

He was really hungry.

[B]

He was like, damn, should I get lunch? Maybe I'll finish this chapter. Rebecca is just waiting nervously, obviously, for the great honored matre to finish eating and then turn her attention to Rebecca. And really, the only thing that's keeping her calm and collected in this moment is the presence of her other memories. The other memories that she has obtained from Lucilla from their sharing. They are speaking to her. They are guiding her. They are reassuring her that it's going to be okay. Just keep it together. I found that really touching.

[A]

It was nice. I also want to highlight Eli shares in the chat. The honored Matre would certainly check for contact lenses. That's a great point. That's a great point. So for sure, they are doing what they can to not be detected. We get it. We just don't like that her fucking eyeballs got pulled out and she got new ones. That's crazy.

[B]

It's just. It's just crazy. Now, as Rebecca is kneeling here and waiting for the honor matres to finish their meal, her thoughts flashback to a previous conversation that she had with a rabbi and from this conversation, it's clear to us that the old man is concerned about how things have unfolded and are unfolding. The rabbi fears that Rebecca has been quote, unquote, taken by the Bene Gesserit ever since her sharing with Lucilla. It's clear that he mistrusts the sisterhood. But what's interesting is throughout the chapter, we constantly get references to the ways he has benefited directly from his relationship to the sisterhood. They have shared knowledge and resources and the literal technology that's on his farm.

[A]

Yeah, like the wind turbines.

[B]

The wind turbines has been, thanks to a collaboration with the Bene Gesserit. So he benefits greatly from them. At the same time, he deeply mistrusts them. And it's hinted throughout this conversation, I think, that, in fact, the Jewish people have maybe even survived this long and made it this far because of that early partnership that they established with the Bene Gesserit all those eons ago. This has been a symbiotic relationship for both organizations.

[A]

Right. I have such sympathy. I think I've seen criticisms levied against the rabbi for being kind of like, I don't know. I don't know, too. Just about his behavior in general. But throughout this chapter, especially in this reread, I really got the sense that he's deeply afraid that he effectively traded Rebecca for this kind of ally ship of the Bene Gesserit. Right. Traded a member of his community for people who are not part of his community, which is so against how the Jewish people have survived this long. Right. When we look at complete cover. Yeah. They accept gifts from the Bene Gesserit. Bene Gesserit know their secret and are keeping their secret. But even the Bene Gesserit are not trusting every member of the Bene Gesserit with every secret. So even the Bene Gesserit as a whole organization is not within that innermost trusted circle. They are still outsiders to the beliefs of the Jewish people. So the idea that he's lost this person, he refers to her as daughter at one point. And I was thinking maybe this is literally his biological daughter. But I looked it up, and sometimes rabbis might refer to a disciple or a student or a beloved member of their community as a daughter. Or there's like, a Hebrew word that translates to daughter. But. But regardless, I think it's clear that Rebecca was really important to him. And the idea of, like, losing this person, her. Her personality's gone. Like, this person that he knew who. Who was part of his trusted inner circle is now gone.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is like, that's a real sense of loss. And, like, at what cost? He did this. He brought her to Lucilla. He allowed that thing to happen. He kind of shepherded that exchange. And now you've just lost this person who's an important part of your community. I think that loss is really key to how he behaves. And some of his, like, intellectualizing and some of his posturing. Right. His glasses are as much a part of his outfit and his, like, costume as anything. Like, there's something. Or his uniform, I guess, is what it's referred to. It's. It's. He's such an interesting character, and I. I saw a lot. I was very sympathetic to him. I think this read through, especially when it comes to this perceived loss of Rebecca and what that means for his people. Like, again, yeah, if one of your insiders has become an outsider, that puts everybody at risk. Your entire community is now at risk. And, like, what does that mean? You know?

[B]

Yeah. I personally am going to withhold my thoughts on the Rabbi until we learn more. It feels like I don't know him enough yet to judge his character or even get a sense of what his role is in the story this early on. I do question, for example, why he had Rebecca undergo the agony, because I think it's this chapter where she says, well, I underwent the spice agony because she wanted me to, so this is the end result. Bro, you told me to do this, and here we are. I have other memory now. And so I'm curious what the relationship here will be and what narratively his role will be in the story, because he does seem to be the voice of paranoia and ignorance in a narrative sense, whereas Rebecca is the voice of someone who's more open to change a lot of the thematic ideas that we talk about in these stories. But I also agree that I understand why he's acting like this. Right. It makes sense for him to act like this. He's lost a beloved member of his community. He's endangered himself and his community by getting involved in this plot now to get the Lampadas information back to the sisterhood. So he's afraid. He's, like, acting out of fear here, which totally makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. And I also want to highlight. I mean, I agree we're not far enough into the book to have a full picture of him as a character, but even in this chapter, I love, love, love the moment. I don't think it's in the script, so I'll mention it here. I love the moment when he starts. He starts Saying, it's kind of like us in our script. Sometimes he starts saying, here's an interesting thought you might not have thought of. And then he realizes he has no idea what he's about to say. And he's like, oh, shit, I don't have. So then he says, I'm just gonna speak from the heart. I'm just gonna speak truly, honestly. And what he says is like, I think the Bene Gesserit have kind of lost the plot a little bit. I don't think that they're really. You know. I don't think that they're in line with their own mission statement as much anymore. And I think the tyrant also thought that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm like, I think that's exactly right. I think that's kind of the thesis of heretics and Chapter house. And this rabbi just cuts to that truth as we sort of try to feel out how Frank feels about this character as he's writing him. I get the sense that the rabbi is quite a wise and intelligent character, but he is also wrapped up in his community and his ultimate fear that his people will fall because of decisions he's made and that he has ultimately put people in jeopardy for the sake of this alliance, which has definitely benefited them. But also, they didn't choose to trust the Bene Gesserit. Way back when the Bene Gesserit realized their secret, they were discovered by the Bene Gesserit, who have kept their secrets, but are now leveraging their secrets as a means of bartering, which also feels a little bit icky, you know?

[B]

Yeah. And in fact, I have that full quote right here.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Perhaps they have been too long on the road to Damascus without a blinding flash of illumination. Rebecca. I hear them say they act for the benefit of humankind. Somehow I cannot see this in them. Nor do I believe the tyrant saw it. End quote. That is the rabbi sort of speaking off the cuffs, speaking from the heart. His thoughts and fears about the sisterhood, which I agree are totally valid. They are a valid criticism of that organization.

[A]

Yeah. I think this is also. That line in particular is what really makes him seem like a sympathetic character or a character that, like Frank, is treating sympathetically. The fact that his from the heart thought is something that is so close to what Frank's intention. As the author seems to be addressing the Bene Gesserit's loss of noble purpose, it kind of signaled to me through this chapter to look at the rabbi and try to understand where he's coming from.

[B]

We'll see how the character goes for me, the jury's still out on him, but I'm interested to see how he continues to play a role in the story. Returning to the chapter summary and actually returning to the present moment. We're in the dining hall once again. Great Honored Matre is cleaning up and licking her fingers, Getting all the Juicy Juice off.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I don't know why I'm describing it like this. They're done eating.

[A]

What was the sound she made as she was licking her fingers? Just one more time for the good, you know.

[B]

They're done eating is the point. And it's time for the interrogation. Finally, the Great Honored Ma Trae's attention turns toward Rebecca, and she begins grilling Rebecca about a number of topics, but all generally related to the Bene Gesserit. Clearly. She asks about the Bene Gesserit. She asks about the events on Gamu. In particular, have you heard of Miles Tigg? Do you know what the rumors are? She also asks about Truthsay. You were married to a Truthsayer. Tell us about this ability. What can you tell us? And throughout the interrogation, Rebecca plays woefully ignorant. You know, she's kind of like, oh, you know, I hear the Bene Gesserit play it safe. I hear they're not quite as rich as you are. Great Honored Matre. She kind of plays along in an ignorant way and answers truthfully about some things, right? She says, yeah, I've heard the rumors about Miles Teg. But then also is strategically kind of opaque about other information regarding Truthsayer, the sisterhood. As she is doing this, of course, the sisters in her other memory are analyzing strategically what the Honored Madre is letting slip through this questioning. You know, what do they know? What don't they know? What are they seeking? How can we strategically get an angle here? This is all important information that she can take back to the sisters on Chapter House. In fact, in a moment here at the end of the interrogation, she recognizes, Rebecca recognizes that power hungry people like the Great Honored Madre love to flex their power by doing things that people don't want.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

Oh, you wanted me to eat the apple. Fuck this apple.

[A]

Fuck this app that I'm never going to eat an apple again. Now I win. I win. I hate apples now. Suddenly I like them. A minute ago, look how powerful I am, right?

[B]

I do things that other people do don't want.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, in kind of a brilliant stroke of genius here at the end, Rebecca starts to kind of plead with the Great Honored Madre to Hire her. Give me a job. I would love to work for you. I see all of the wealth and power around you. Let me join you.

[A]

What a great life that would be. Yeah.

[B]

What a great life that would be. Get me off of Gamu. Get me off of the farm.

[A]

Last thing I want is to be sent back to Gamu. Back to the farm alive.

[B]

Never send me back to the farm alive. And of course the great honor Matra is like, bitch, you're going back to the Gamu farm alive.

[A]

Okay, check me.

[B]

I'm never gonna hire you. Yeah, I'm not even hiring right now.

[A]

I don't have the headcount and I will. I keep pleading for HR to open up some spots, but oh, they're so stingy. Yeah, I love the idea of going like, I'm not going to even kill you because now you know how good life could be. So to live is greater punishment. It's like so easily played. Sure, yeah.

[B]

So arrogant.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

Yeah. Against Logno's wishes, by the way. Logno is like, can we torture her? Logno very much is like the belanda of great honored mantra, you know, like.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, why don't we torture her?

[B]

Let's just torture her. And Gray Nodder Matre is like, logna, shut the fuck up. Take her back to Gemmu. Keep her alive. And Rebecca recognizes even this is a strategic move actually from the honored Matre. She's not just an evil cackling villain. This is strategic. She wants to send Rebecca back as bait for a bigger target. What that bigger target is, we don't know yet. But that's great. Adern Madre's play here. And Rebecca recognizes that as well. So she goes back to Camus.

[A]

I really appreciated that because like, yeah, we see Rebecca acknowledges with all of her other memory knowledge as well. This is why the Great Honored Matre, this unremarkable little woman is the great honored Matre. She is a tactician. Even though she's straight up. I think someone pilot pig said in the chat laughed when it said she wiped her hands on the shirt of an attendant. She is almost a comical villain. But she's smart. She is actually smarter than her brutal ways would suggest. Even though she's straight up, like inviting people to one on one chats as she's like fucking in the darkness, she is still a tactician and she is still using her mind very actively. And that's why she is at the top of the power, top of the heap. Right. I really appreciated that because again, it is easy to see the Autonmatre as this like two dimensional cardboard cut out of just like violence and impulse and like sexuality and instinct. But the ones in power are actually quite strategic and that's why they are actually winning the war against the Bene Gesserit.

[B]

Yeah. And actually that is one of my critiques of this chapter and of this book is I do kind of see the Honored Matre as not quite three dimensional villains. We talk a lot about how Frank is so good at playing with the gray area. There's always good and the bad and bad and the good. And no one since probably Baron Harkkon has there been such a clear cut villain in the Dune series. I guess Wencesia as well. She's kind of like a cackling villain. But I find myself hoping, and I felt this in heretics as well, and I'm feeling it now here in Chapter House. I hope we learn more about the Honored Matre. They are such an existential threat that I want them to have more depth. I want to learn more of their motivations, I want to learn more of their inner workings. And I don't want them to just be this hypothetical White Walker that's from Game of Thrones. This. This extinction level White Walker threat. I thought the White Walkers were an incredibly weak part of Game of Thrones. Right. It was actually the politics of the Seven Kingdoms that was the best part of Game of Thrones because everyone was so fleshed out and no one was necessarily a bad guy. And so I felt that reading and rereading this chapter this week, I was like, oh, gosh, great. Honored Mantra. I appreciate that we get the depth of her intelligence, but she is still like kind of hilariously evil.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In a way that starts to get a little bit into caricature territory for me.

[A]

I think the interesting thing, even if so, like, let's say hypothetically, we don't learn any more about them and they remain how they are so far that we've seen. I still think that they are a little bit above White Walker territory of caricature because they are effectively a what if played out about the Bene Gesserit. Yeah. What does it mean that the second you take away other memory, you have things like the Honored Matre coming out of the Bene Gesserit order. How close are the Bene Gesserit to this type of caricature bullshit that you remove one element of their history and suddenly you've got cackling, wiping your hand on the shirts of attendees? I think every Dark moment of the the Honored Matre can be seen juxtaposed against the sort of, like, civility of the Bene Gesserit in a book that is highly critical of both. And the book is saying, look at these two orders and how different they are, but also how shockingly similar they are and how truly the more of a caricature the honor and matre are, the more that is a condemnation of what the Bene Gesserit have become and what the Bene Gesserit do. Again, I think we could have a whole conversation about, look at how fucking disposable everyone is to the Honor Matre. And then you go, is it any different for the Bene Gesserit where everyone is a pawn to be manipulated And.

[B]

Great point.

[A]

Yeah, you're not wiping your hand on the shirt of the attendee, but you've totally stole their autonomy and their ability to choose for themselves and their ability. It's like, I think there's something really poignant there. So even if they remained caricatures, I think there's still a really interesting juxtaposition being had here because the focus of this book is the Bene Gesserit.

[B]

Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, great point. And genuinely, that helps me think of it a little bit differently that your thoughts there, Leo. Genuinely helped me reconsider it, maybe.

[A]

Well, I hadn't had them until you said what you said. So teamwork makes the dream happen. As everyone famously said.

[B]

We're just bouncing the ball back and forth. Okay, let's wrap up this chapter summary just a last little bit. Here to go. Rebecca is back on Gamu. She reunites with the Rabbi, and they basically immediately pick up the argument from earlier. Again, the Rabbi again is debating Rebecca's state of mind. He's actually even more worried now because he's like, wait a second. Remember how I told you I don't trust the Bene Gesserit? You're back here acting like you're way more comfortable with the Bene Gesserit now, like you've really integrated your other memory. That's not what I told you to do. You know, he's becoming more and more nervous that he is losing a beloved member of his community to the Bene Gesserit. And Rebecca is, in this moment, unlike the earlier conversation, in this second conversation, she's very direct with him. She states that she has this connection to countless quote, unquote, unclean ancestors who committed atrocious acts, like we all do, because, again, the victors are the ones that breed, that's what she says. And that's something that we shouldn't shy away from and that we should recognize that is just a part of our ancestry and who we are. And the Rabbi of course thrown off by all of this and doesn't want to get into this. He's worried about what the other memory is teaching Rebecca versus what he has spent probably his lifetime teaching her and raising her within his beliefs. And she is very upfront with him and really cuts to the chase. She recognizes that she's hurting the Rabbi by saying these things, but also recognizing that he needs to hear these things. He needs to hear what she knows and how she is changing and evolving. She's ripping the band aid off. No sugarcoating here. And that's where the chapter ends, with a deeply distraught Rabbi worrying about what has happened to Rebecca and what she is becoming.

[A]

The end of this chapter in relation to. It's fascinating, really interesting to think about.

[B]

Yeah. I mean I saw this as a justification for why the Bene Gesserit operate in such an ends justify the means way. They have other memory. They can see all the atrocities humanity has committed in the past that their own ancestors have committed. And for them, anything they do now may or may not be as bad as that. But if their end goal is to be better, isn't that worth anything? We've already committed so many atrocities. What's a few more? If the end goal is a better humanity, a more peaceful humanity. So this was for me an interesting insight into Bene Gesserit thinking into what happens when you have access to countless memories and how that reshapes your world. It reminds me of the Dr. Manhattan problem where you almost lose touch with humanity because you now see and know too much.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And also why Leto became the God Emperor tyrant that he was. Because again, he did some fucked up atrocities that we didn't dwell on because we skipped over 3,000 years between God Emperor children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune. But like, yeah, he caused billions and billions of deaths. And by shortening humans lifespan, like what, what are the years he's taken from all of humanity? We, we got hints of that, but we didn't really see it. And yet there he is, you know, there he is doing that stuff because he has that wide view. It's. Yeah, it's interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, we have some takeaways to get into if you can believe it. Those were just the summaries, so don't go anywhere. Dear listener, when we're back, we've got some takeaways right after this.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Welcome back folks. Let's now dive into today's takeaway.

[A]

Let's do it.

[B]

We're going to be talking about the idea of the watchdogs that o' Draid brings up with Murbella. So we want to spend some time with this idea of the watchdogs because I think there's some interesting layers here to unpack, layers that tell us more about the inner workings of the sisterhood, but then also are related to some of the larger political themes that Frank is always hitting on in these novels. So I want to spend some time unpacking that together. And to start, I think let's just begin with Odrade's definition of watchdog as she explains it to watchdogs, Odrade said, responding to a question from Merbella, it means we are mutual gadflies don't make that more than it is. We seldom nag. A simple word can be enough.

[A]

That's great. I love that.

[B]

Yeah, I liked that a lot too. And in fact, this inspired me to go Google the word gadfly because I.

[A]

Was like, no idea.

[B]

Talking about the animal. Yeah, just the animal. Or does this have a.

[A]

Also, what is a gadfly? I didn't even know. Yeah, I had to Google it. I was like, what gadfly? Is this a Frank Herbert invention? Like a force or a slig?

[B]

No, a real thing. It turns out a gadfly is a species of fly that bites and annoys livestock. But the word can also be defined as, quote, a person who stimulates or annoys other people, especially by persistent criticism. End quote. And as always with Frank, I think he's using it in both contexts.

[A]

Right? Right.

[B]

Basically, Odrade is explaining to Mirbella here that all sisters are trained to both act as watchdogs and be used to constant scrutiny. They are always watching each other and are always aware that they are being watched by their fellow sisters. O' Draid says, quote, we welcome it because it keeps us on our toes. End quote. Okay, interesting. Here's Mirbela's thoughts on it. And I found this contrast very interesting. Merbella is repulsed by this idea of always being monitored. And remember, for the past decade, Ish. Now, Merbella and Duncan have been under constant monitor by the Kami's, by the Sisterhood, because they've been trapped inside the no ship. So Mirbella has firsthand experience with this. And I found this really interesting because so far in the novel, it's becoming clear to me that Mirbella's role in this story is the outsider who's being brought into the Bene Gesserit fold. She is the rebel who's being indoctrinated or brought in to Bene Gesserit dogma. So she is often critical of it. And I think it is important for us as the reader, to take anything Mirbella says quite seriously because it is also the vehicle through which Frank is being critical of the sisterhood, asking us, the reader, to be critical of this organization. So I found Mirbela's response to the idea of watchdogs really fascinating. She sums it up by simply stating it sounds oppressive. End quote.

[A]

Yeah, it's so interesting to think about that pendulum swinging from full surveillance state to the reckless violence and directionless brutality of the Honored Matre. The idea that you have this swing, and that's the spectrum, and we're seeing it on full display here. But I also really, I do want to dwell just for a second on the idea that the idea of accountability is not necessarily oppressive. And if you think of any accountability as oppression, that's kind of a young perspective. Right. The idea that any accountability is like Big Brother's always watching you. And it doesn't have to be black or white. Right. It can be a kind of gray area in between.

[B]

Yeah. And that's really the question here is how do the Bene Gesserit implement their watchdog system? Right. Is it subtle and soft accountability, or is it an oppressive means of control? Because oftentimes internal surveillance systems, like a watchdog System where you have a group of people watch internally each other to keep each other in line can very quickly devolve into very authoritarian systems of control and oppression, whether it's within an organization, within a religion, or, or at a state level. I was doing some quick googling, I was like, what are some famous and notorious internal surveillance systems throughout history? And two examples that came up, for example, in real world history were Scientology used to have, I think, I don't know if they have it currently, this idea of sec checks, but basically these idea of sec checks, basically you'd be like quizzed on your faith to make sure you were still like part of the faith and like, that you were still in line with the teachings and at a state level. Another example that infamously exists is the Ministry for State Security, more commonly known as the Stasi, in East Germany during the Cold War, from, I believe the 50s to 1990, when the wall fell, I think. So those are examples where a secret police from the state or a religion that has internal checks on its members is used in an oppressive and controlling way. These systems will often perpetuate authoritarian manipulation and they will be used to suppress resistance internally within the organization. They foster this environment of paranoia and self policing. We see O'Drade do that even early in this book, right? She's like, the Kamis are watching me, so I can't behave a certain way because the sisters who are monitoring me will then react. That's a form of self policing.

[A]

Or every time she does anything, she's like. And I know that this little emotional outburst will be analyzed and like, you know, picked apart by the many people who are always watching.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. It creates this like, environment of paranoia. Imagine living under that constantly. And I think surveillance systems like this also create these incredibly imbalanced relationships between the members of the organization and the leaders of the organization. Because when you're constantly being surveilled, the leaders know more about you than you know about them. And it is hard to keep people in power accountable when you don't know about them, when you don't know about their decision making or the inner workings of their systems. But it is easy for them to suppress you when they know everything about you all the time, because you're constantly under surveillance. I also think this type of surveillance isn't just like cameras everywhere, right? Like surveillance makes you think like security cameras. I think it becomes incredibly effective and maybe most effective and dangerous when it becomes invisible, right? When it becomes so deeply ingrained within the culture of that group or that state that nobody thinks about it anymore. Right. It is just the status quo that this is how we operate and this is how things are done. Which bringing this back to what o' Draid is saying and thinking of how the Bene Gesserit have classically operated now for thousands of years, it does raise some questionable red flags for me about the sisterhood. It's easy to see how they have become trapped in their dogma and in their ways of thinking. If they've had this watchdog system in place for thousands of years. Sister watching sister. An environment of paranoia, an environment where you are self policing because you know the sister in the room next to you is watching you and you don't want to act out of line or against the plan. You don't want to be a rebel or a heretic.

[A]

Yeah. Especially you can imagine like we've seen the sisterhood under Taraza and now o' Draid who both kind of like encourage people like Schwa Bing. But like you imagine a previous Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Superior might not have been so supportive of heretical thinking. And then it's like a police state and how easily it would be one side of the coin or the other. Also we know, I mean we just took the Bene Gesserit to court in a recent episode. But like we know the Bene Gesserit do fucked up shit. Like I was looking back at Dune when Paul is asking, I think is Paul asking Jessica or maybe it's Paul asking Mohim why Bene Gesserit members don't know who their family is. And this is the quote. We might, for example, have wanted to breed her to a close relative to set up a me. I'm reading an audiobook these days. This is hard quote. We might for example, have wanted to breed her to a close relative to set up a dominant in some genetic trait. End quote. So like the idea of we're not going to tell you who your family is because we might need to preview with your brother. That's kind. That's on, that's uncomfortable. And this is the byproduct of this need to know basis. And every Bene Gesserit only knows a little bit of the puzzle. We understand why, but it doesn't make it any less icky from like a moral standpoint. And I think that's kind of the constant tension here is like we feel a pull against a sense of rightness. But it is how they do it and how they've done it for thousands of years.

[B]

Yeah. And it's interesting to consider how Odre describes it in this conversation. I want to share this next quote because I've laid out sort of the worst case scenario of an internal surveillance system, a watchdog system. Right. Like this is the worst. It can become. It can become the Stasi. The way o' Dre describes the Bene Gesserit watchdog system, though, feels maybe a little different. Quote. We're always mindful of one another. Some of us in positions of power can be authoritarian at times, familiar even, but only to a point, carefully measured for the requirements of the moment. End quote. That, yeah, made me raise my eyebrow quizzically. You know, I was like, hello. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, for listeners. For listeners only. His eyebrows as high as they can go. Incredible. I've never seen your eyebrows so high.

[B]

Wow. I found this really fascinating because again, just a few minutes ago, I laid out the worst case scenario where watchdog systems and surveillance states can perpetuate authoritarian power. O' Draid here seems to be describing a Bene Gesserit method of using it that curbs authoritarian tendencies within their organization, within their leadership.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Using it maybe more like a soft checks and balance system rather than a tool of control.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I found that really interesting.

[A]

Right. And again, I think one of the big differences here is that, like the head of heads, right, like the highest point in power in the universe. O' Draid is under constant surveillance and is constantly marking her behaviors as for those who are technically under her direct report, but they are still holding her accountable for everything she does. And presumably there are things that can be taken, actions that can be taken against her if she's getting out of. Yeah, and that's also where, like, people like Balanda are so important. Even though Belinda is constantly suggesting you pull off people's fingers and torture and. And all sorts of violent shit. It's like that balancing is an important piece of the structure. And why it's not, you know, Stalin making sure everyone under him is being held accountable when no one's holding him accountable. And I think that's like one of the important differences. Right.

[B]

That's a great point. Mother Superior is just as watched as any other sister in the organization, all the way down to the lowliest acolyte freshmen who just got situated in her dorm and is starting class next week. You know, everyone top to bottom, equally under the same watchdog system, which, you're absolutely correct, differentiates it from a more authoritarian system. And I think there are some upsides to this, right. To. To use. To leaning into a Watchdog system like this. I think it can help, for example, the Bene Gesserit root out and avoid corruption within their ranks, which ultimately serves the purpose of preventing schisms within the organization. Because when you think about it, we've been saying this all episode, in some sense, aren't the Honored Matres just an offshoot of sisters who threw caution to the wind out there in the Scattering? They could be in some sense considered a schism, a corrupt schism of the Bene Gesserit, a corrupt branch of sisters, totally, that fell outside the watchdog system and thus could no longer be contained. That's an interesting thing to consider, a positive outcome of this system, I think. Also, it creates redundancies within the sisterhood so that one rogue sister, for example, can't actually bring down an entire plan because there's no one point of failure if there is a leak within the organization. There are a dozen other watchful Sisters within this watchdog system ready to jump in and plug that leak right away. So it creates these redundancies so that one domino can't just make the whole house fall over. And you already touched on this. But I think there's a strong accountability system here for the sisters in power, which I think is what differentiates it from an authoritarian system. No one sister, even the Mother Superior, can accumulate too much power within this organization. Odrade, constantly being watched, constantly watchful of her own actions so as not to alarm or alert the sisters who are always keeping an eye on her. Plus, I greatly appreciate the fact that Odrade has close advisors like Tamerlane and Balanda, who are constantly just pushing back against her. Right. They are not yes men who just agree to everything O'Drade says. They are watchdogs. O'Drade even calls Palanda a watchdog in these chapters today. Their job is to watch the Mother Superior, the most powerful sister, and to question and push against the Mother Superior. That is their role. That's what they've been trained to do. That's what every Sister has been trained to do in their Watchdog system. So there are some notable benefits here. It doesn't exactly play out like a secret police authoritarian state system that is meant simply to oppress the people beneath.

[A]

Well, and also think about how it's juxtaposed against, as you're pointing out, the schism organization, the Honored Matre. Look at Logno Logno as the right hand woman to the great Honored Matre, akin to someone like a Belinda, but instead, when she pushes back, yeah, the Great Honor the great. The great Honored Matre is like, shut the fuck up. I'll kill you. Shut up. You know, and that's. That's Their rapport is this, like, sniveling attendant and her, you know, boss who will kill her if she does anything wrong, compared to Balanda and Odrade who's like, let's eat lunch. And someone like Logno is not someone who's benefiting the Great Automatre and keeping her accountable. Right.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Although to your point from earlier, Frank is also holding up a mirror to the Bene Gesserit. O' Drade does shut Balanda down in this chapter. She says watchdogs can bark too loud. Balanda.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Shut the fuck up.

[A]

Yeah. You've gone too long. You're a gadfly. You've bit me too many times.

[B]

You've bit me too many times. So, again, I think there's so much, like, delicate nuance here to your point from earlier, how the Bene Gesserit and this Honored Matre are such mirror entities, and you can see so many ways they're different.

[A]

So true.

[B]

Yeah. And so many problematic ways in which they are alike.

[A]

Yeah. In spite of how they, like, narratively frame with all of their beautiful words how they.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How they work. And I think as we wrap up, it is interesting to think about this dichotomy of the narrative framing of the Bene Gesserit, but then also the perspective of the outsider. Mirbella, as she, as an honored matre, witnesses these power systems and goes, this seems kind of fucked up, actually, if you ask me. Despite your beautiful words, this kind of feels fucked up. She recognizes. Mirbella recognizes this and calls it out as a system of control designed to keep its individual members in, quote, uncomfortable niche. The idea of, like, yeah, you are the archivist, or you are Balanda, but as soon as you start stepping out of that niche, you're pushed back into it by these systems.

[B]

Right. Right. The watchdogs are onto you.

[A]

The watchdogs. The gadflies bite you. Meanwhile, o' Draid recognizes the benefits she's framing. This is why we do it this way. We are keeping our organization healthy with this immune system designed to identify and address internal problems before they become fatal. And look how successful we have been.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think, kind of wrapping up, I would say we see starting in heretics that this has perhaps erred on the side of conservatism for too long. They have been too careful, shutting down too many things, and it has kept them from evolving, and it has Kept them from being true to their kind of North Star and their noble purpose, perhaps, as the rabbi in the reading today suggests, quote, without a blinding flash of illumination. End quote. Right. They have lost the plot in serving humanity's best interests. But now that they are facing the honored matre and they have the outsider like Mirbella giving her commentary, I think we are seeing them facing this existential threat. We are seeing the great pattern of Amtal applied to the Bene Gesserit order as a whole, bringing it to its breaking point in a way that it never has before. What are the true colors? Let's get rid of the beautiful words. What is the actual nature of the Bene Gesserit as it stands today and the criticisms that Mirbela is levying against it? Perhaps they are truer than Odrade, Balanda, and Tamerlane would want them to be. Maybe her criticisms hit closer to home than they would prefer. They're like, no, no, no, we're good. We're good. It's like, maybe, maybe not as much as you think.

[B]

Yeah, I agree, and I think that's beautifully put. Leo, I think you're absolutely spot on. I find myself leaning a little more Team Merbella here because I find myself questioning how much Odrade can recognize an oppressive system when she has been raised within one. You know, if every sister has been maybe, brainwashed as too aggressive of a term, but let's just say brainwashed to think that the watchdog system is beneficial. As o' Draid kind of lays out here, for Mirbella, it's impossible then, for her to see it as oppressive because she's been trained to only think of the watchdog system in one way. For her, it is part of the duty of being a sister is you participate in this system. And I think it takes someone like Murbella to be like, nah, I don't like the sound of that. Yeah, can't that go really wrong? Can't you fall too deeply into your own dogma? Can't you become too oppressive and stagnant? Doesn't that limit agency both internally and externally for your sisters? It takes a character like Merbella to come in and question that, I think, to shake someone out of that brainwashing. And so I think you're right. Like, I. I think o', Draid, Belanda, Tamerlane would hear these critiques from Marbella and go, hmm, I thought we were good, but now I'm starting to question things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that is at the core of this story. That is the transformation that the Bene Gesserit has been undergoing probably since Taraza, since Heretics of Dune, since Taraza's leadership, pushing toward that heretical thinking to shake up the way the Bene Gesserit has operated for millennia. And we're seeing that addressed quite directly through characters like Marbella and Duncan and even Shiana.

[A]

Yeah. And I wonder, maybe that's also why Odrade is being so open with Murbella, telling her things about the organization. Maybe she's using Mirbella as an outside sounding board, as a heretic herself. Maybe she's going, hey, here's our system. What do you think about that? And Mirbella goes, oh, I think it's oppressive. And she goes, okay, yeah, fair, but here's why we do it. And Mirabella's like, no, I don't know. Still. Still feels icky to me. And o' Draid's like, all right, maybe it's icky. Hey, who knows, you know, I don't know for sure, but it does. O' Draid feels like the sort of person, Balanda, maybe even Tomalaine, seem like the sort who really believe in the Bene Gesserit. Like, stop. You know, full, full, full hilt. So. But. But I think o' Draid is someone who might even disclose more than Balanda would want her to, to Merbella in order to get a sense of, are we still on our noble path? Or.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or perhaps was the tyrant correct? And perhaps, you know, she's got sea child. She is, again, at the core of her being, she is a heretic. So she is, you know, maybe.

[B]

Maybe that's absolutely right. I think Odrade is special in that way, in a way that Balanda and Tamlain are not. I think Shiana is maybe intentionally being nurtured by Ohrade to be a rebel. And I think even in this conversation with Nobella, this is kind of beyond the watchdog conversation. But they start talking about love at the end of that chapter, and Odrade thinks there's hope yet for Mirbella. She still has love for Duncan, and she doesn't want to give up that love. That is a heretical thought for the Mother Superior to have, and yet she has it. So I think you're absolutely right. Odrade is using these rebels around her as sounding boards as she is slowly reshaping herself and ultimately reshaping the sisterhood from the inside out, from the top.

[A]

Down, now that she's Mother Superior that whole conversation. So there's no love among the Bene Gesserit. How sad her tone. There was hope for Murbella yet.

[B]

There was hope for Murbella yet.

[A]

That is a thought that o' Dre has the.

[B]

She's a rebel, baby.

[A]

She's a rebel. And even she says love occurs. But my sisters treat them as aberrations again. Separating herself from her sister.

[B]

My sisters.

[A]

Right.

[B]

We. We treat that. She didn't say we.

[A]

So. And then Rubella. So what I feel for Duncan is aberration. O' Draid and sisters will try to treat it again. Will successfully eradicate it.

[B]

They will.

[A]

They will.

[B]

The old sisterhood will. My new sisterhood is going to be different.

[A]

And to Mirbella's credit, again, I always look for this where Frank is giving people the truth as a means of, like, his token of approval. Odrade says love is considered a sign of rot in Sisters. Again, I don't consider it that, but it is considered generally. And Rubella's response. I see signs of rot in you.

[B]

Because Sea child love.

[A]

Because Sea child or inner love that.

[B]

Odrade has been hiding. We talked about it last episode and this is.

[A]

And I think this is Frank signing to us. Mirbella is not just picking holes where holes need not be picked. She is seeing clearly elements of these characters and she is seeing the organization with some clarity because she sees signs of love in Odrade where perhaps others are fully blind to it because they believe in the Bene Gesserit. Whatever. Conditioning.

[B]

It's so. Yeah. Oh, it's so good.

[A]

So much.

[B]

So subtle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. These are the kind of layers that honestly totally went over my head when I first read this book.

[A]

Same.

[B]

And it's really. Now that we're looking at it so deeply now that we're looking at it after years of understanding of the previous books. Right. Because this is Frank, to some extent, pushing back on his own ideas from the first three books. Right. Like, this is Frank's own ideas evolving about the sisterhood and their role in politics. And it's really fascinating stuff in a meta context when you consider it as Frank's writing career as he's growing and exploring these big ideas that he's always grappled with in these stories.

[A]

I love it. Meanwhile, people who read the books too quickly are like, but where are the laws of tigers and the battles? It's like, there's a lot of subtlety going on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

Yeah. And again, you have to almost read it line by line by line because it's so dense.

[A]

It's a good thing we're doing this book club.

[B]

That's what we're here for. All right, folks, that's our very, very dense takeaway. Super fun to chat with you about that, Leo. I think we both had some real time revelations sitting right here talking about it that weren't even in our script. Always fun to do that. So let's take another quick break, though. Let's compose ourselves and let's find an assistant that we can wipe our hands on because we have some spice morsels on our plate coming up next. We ordered lunch, baby. Hope you're hungry.

[A]

They're juicy.

[B]

They're juicy. We'll see you in a minute, folks.

[A]

That's what it's going to sound like. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Welcome back, everybody. Hope you're ready for a couple of really big, chunky, juicy spice morsels. I could have held back. I did not. Let's talk about our first spice morsel. And this is Gadarene swine, I think is how you say it now in today's reading, the rabbi thinks the following about the women in Rebecca's other memory. Quote, they were not Gadarene swine to be driven into the sea and their diabolism. Diabolism with them. I don't know that word. End quote. Now this reference went over my head. I was like, gadarene swine.

[B]

Mine too.

[A]

Don't know her. Who's she? Does she go to the school? I don't think so. So I looked into it because I wanted to learn more. And as always, Frank was not pulling punches with his references. And in this is using some very heavy religious imagery in this line that we absolutely missed on our first read through of the book. And I wanted to highlight it because I think it can give us all a bit of depth. Also very interesting to think about how it reflects on the honor matre. So now this reference actually goes to the New Testament, Matthew 8, 28. And here is the full quote, actually. So this is what the Gadarene swine is referencing. Quote, when he arrived, he is Jesus. When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes two demon possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. Kind of honored madre like, what do you want with us, son of God? They shouted, have you come here to torture us? Before the appointed time, some distance from them, a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, if you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs. He said to them, go. So they came out and went into the pigs and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Classic. You know, you just shout go at a pack of pigs and they all drown themselves full of demons. Classic. If you're the son of God, that happens every. Is it Tuesday? It sounds like a Tuesday to me. Now this, the men tending the pigs suddenly were out a job because all their pigs just drowned themselves. They ran to town. They reported this. This became one of the many miracles that Jesus performed and is sometimes referred to as the miracle of the Gadarene swine. Now, also as a side note, this is also the origin of the English adjective gadarene. I didn't even know this was an adjective, but you can use it to, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, refer to, quote, involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something, end quote. You can say it was a Gadarene period of that town or that populace, which, by the way, holy shit. The Honored Matre. The Honored Matre are very gadarene. They are literally leading to humanity's extinction through what they're doing in the Imperium, right?

[B]

Head headlong into a potentially disastrous rush.

[A]

That is them. One for one. And so as the Rabbi, so we go back to Dune, right? The Rabbi understands these millions of other memories, these lives now residing within Rebecca. And he remarks, although they are not Jewish, they are not part of their trusted inner circle. They are not demons to be exorcised into animals and killed. They are, they are civil. They are, they are allies on some level. They are trusted to some degree. And again, how much they differ from the demons that violent. You know, those two demon possessed men are so like the Honored Matre. They are not like the Honored Matre who are this existential threat and very much should be driven out and killed, right? And besides, even were Rebecca say to fall to abomination, or even were she to become violent or whatever, he doesn't himself possess the ability to exercise these demons and kill them. Quote, and I am not another Jesus, end quote. An interesting look at the way that the Rabbi is Processing all of this stuff that's happening. And again, Gadarene swine. What a crazy line to just drop and then not explore at all, considering all this imagery. Also, as was brought up earlier in the live chat, Eli was pointing out, why would a rabbi reference the New Testament like that? Which is another interesting question. Because again, where the Jewish holy texts end and the Christian New Testament begins, there's a divide there. I don't know a ton about it. I'm Buddhist, so people write into us. Email us your explanations. Maybe this is how Judaism has evolved over the tens of thousands of years. It started considering some of the New Testament as pieces of stock literature to learn and to understand. We've already seen Zen, Sufi combinations of Sufism and Zen Buddhism and Christianity. The Orange Catholic Bible is itself an amalgam of many different faiths. Maybe Judaism has changed as well. I don't know. So all of this is very interesting and was totally missed by me on my first read through. So now you too know, dear listener, about the Gadarene swine and how interesting that is. Juxtaposing again, the Bene Gesserit. Not Gadarene swine. And the honored matre Gadarene swine for their violence, their headlong rush into self destruction.

[B]

Yeah, Great morsel. I was. I found myself wondering what the heck that meant every time I read this chapter. I was like, leo's got this. He'll look it up.

[A]

He'll do the deep dive. By the way, looked up. I was like, can people explain? Explain what this passage in the Bible means? It terrible, terrible decision. There were so many explanations. I am not cut out for comparative religion.

[B]

All right, let's talk about morsel number two and clean up our plate here, folks. Morsel number two, biomimicry. So we've talked a lot on this podcast about how awful the toy lacks. Who are those sons of bitches?

[A]

Terrible, awful, Disgusting.

[B]

And in today's reading, we actually are given even more ammunition. Yeah. To hurl at them. Yeah. Because we're given some more information and a new angle on their absolutely unforgivable technology. Axolotl tanks. Yeah. Here's the passage. Quote, the Tleilaxu solution was direct use. The original nature already had worked it out over eons. All the Benny Tleilaks need do was add their own control system, their own way of replicating information stored in the cell. End quote.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're not going to create a mechanical womb. We are going to literally use people to birth Golas evolution.

[A]

Figured all that out. Experiments yeah.

[B]

Right. Why try to do what biology has already accomplished over eons?

[A]

Yeah. And you go, basic fucking morals. And they're like, don't know her. I don't know that word. I've never learned it.

[B]

Let's bring this back around to the field of biomimicry or the idea of biomimicry. It's in the word. Basically. It's this idea that humans look to nature for solutions to complex problems. Right. A lot of our technology is based off of what we have learned and seen in nature around us and what nature does every single day. And so you did some incredible research here. You dove into some examples of biometric that we can point toward.

[A]

It's cool.

[B]

So there's some obvious ones, right? Human flight.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Birds fly. We created giant metal birds.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's a pretty clear one.

[A]

Huge. Yeah.

[B]

There's also some recent research about medical needles being inspired by mosquitoes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How do mosquitoes penetrate your skin and drop a little bit of whatever. Whatever inside your. Underneath your skin? They use a needle. So why we should also use a very thin needle to do that.

[A]

Yeah. I saw literally the measurements comparing like mosquito pro bisci or probis probosities or whatever they are compared to medical needles. And it's still crazy. I mean, needles have gotten a lot thinner over the last 30 years, but people are still looking to the insect kingdom to go. How can we make it better? It's fascinating.

[B]

How can we make it so cool? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Nature has spent eons figuring this out. We just need to copy it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You then of course went deeper because two simple examples was. Is never enough for Leo Wiggins.

[A]

Yeah. Boring.

[B]

So here's some deep cut examples, folks, of biomimicry technology that humans have created based off of what we see in nature that you may not know of. So first up, you found that Atsushi Taro at Hokkaido University proposed and demonstrated the viability of using slime mold.

[A]

Insane.

[B]

To plan city infrastructure and rail systems.

[A]

Incredible. So cool.

[B]

How wild is that? Is that based off of the way the slime mold grows and the way it expands and using that as a template for how a city might grow.

[A]

And expand, they put the favorite food of the slime mold in the places of the city centers. And within a very short time period, it recreated the modern Tokyo subway system layout on its own.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And this is a layout system that has been perfected by like or like made better by humans over hundreds of years. And the idea is we need to create new infrastructure. We can use this as a system. Now, granted, he took it and then he refined it with computer models, and then he made it even better to take into consideration other factors and stuff. But it is able to provide the first template very quickly and it's super rad. Yeah. Atsushi Tero. Very, very cool work. Wow.

[B]

Okay, I'm looking at this next bullet point, Leo, and I'm going to let you take this one because there's a lot of words in here that I do not know. And I'm assuming you looked them up in your research.

[A]

Yeah, we can tag team this morsel because this is again, a chunky boy. So this is research out of the California Institute of Technology. I'm going to butcher this dude's name. Radwanol Siddique, something like that. Was looking at the wings of black butterflies in that they absorb and, and take advantage of a lot of sunlight and a lot more than can be reasonably explained by how thin they are. And so they under, under photo magnification were realizing that they contain nanostructures. They included little holes that allowed it to refract light and actually absorb up to something like 60 or 70% more sunlight than just a flat structure. So the idea being you could create thin photovoltaic or photo like solar cells that absorb 60, 70, 80% more sunlight by studying the structure, the nanostructure of butterfly wings.

[B]

Of butterfly wings.

[A]

Fucking so cool. And that was back in 2017.

[B]

Yeah. And how that could vastly improve, for example, solar panel technology. Right, Solar energy.

[A]

Yeah. By looking at butterflies. What the fuck? That's so cool.

[B]

Incredible. Well, you also, I appreciated that you did this for our script here. You looked up the term biomimicry and its origins, and it's actually quite recent. This is a relatively recent idea and term. It was coined in the 1950s by Otto Schmidt and it was really given its own life by Janine Benyus, who wrote about it in her 1997 book, Biomimicry Innovation Inspired by Nature, which specifically.

[A]

I wanted to look into, because the question is always, hey, how much of this was already well documented by the time Frank was researching and writing these books? As he talks about the Benny Tleilax perfecting what nature had already created, or not perfecting, but like, I don't know, twisting disgustingly what nature had already created?

[B]

Those are the words.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not perfecting, to be very clear. Don't like it. Point is this term, this idea, Otto had used it in the 50s. So by the 60s, the 70s and 80s, it was something that was out there. So it's very likely Frank was drawing a little bit from that bleeding edge scientific field that was developing. Not that humans haven't been doing it for thousands of years, but just.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, humans have been doing this forever, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of even basic tools humans use is because we watched nature around us do it. Yeah. And we copied it. Fascinating stuff. Okay, let's bring this morsel home and bring it back to Dune. So bringing biomimicry all the way back around, it's pretty clear that the Benny Tleilax have leaned into this idea of biomimicry. Right. The human womb already does the function of what we need it to do. Let's just recreate that in our axolotl tanks and actually, let's just use the womb itself. Why try to do eons of work and create our own womb. Now the Bene Gesserit are doing this. The Bene Gesserit have their own axolotl tanks, and they're pretty well equipped to do it as well, because they understand their bodies more than perhaps anyone else in this imperium prana bindu, the ability to control their metabolism. The Bene Gesserit are very in touch with their bodies and thus are primed to be able to also have axolotl tanks, but also to appreciate how absolutely fucked up it is that the Tleilaxu did what they did. Yeah, it's horrendous stuff. And there's a quote here about Mirbela's human inhuman speed. And it's really interesting the way it's described because it kind of hints at this idea of biomimicry. Mirbella moved with no resort to her central cortex. Insect like an attack triggered by nerves at the point of muscle ignition. End quote.

[A]

Insect like.

[B]

There it is again. Insect like this idea of humans being inspired by the nature around them and implementing it in their technology for better and worse.

[A]

Yeah, there it is. Biomimicry. So what do you think, Abu? Do you think Frank is predicting that we're going to go the way of axolotl tanks as a civilization?

[B]

No, I think he's just recognizing humans have done this forever, and it's something that we will continue to do as we discover and learn more about our. About the world around us.

[A]

It's also very like Andrew Ryan in, like, Bioshock. Just like if you take away all morality and ethics, it's like, what does science do? And it's like, well, the Tleilax point in case. Well, that Is those are our morsels. Big, big old morsels for you today. As always, dear listener, now that we've covered those, here is your assigned reading for next week's episode or the next episode. Make sure you have read chapters 10 through 12 in the paperback version or up to the line if your version is a different edition than ours. Quote, you will not be disturbed here. I am refusing permission for anyone else to enter this room, end quote.

[B]

As an introvert. That's the dream.

[A]

Yeah, that's my love language. Won't be disturbed here.

[B]

Don't walk into my room.

[A]

It's great.

[B]

Headphones. Noise canceling. Headphones on.

[A]

On. Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

[B]

All right, folks, that's it for today's book club episode. Thank you so much for joining us on this very windy journey, but I think we got a lot out there. This was a dense episode and this continues to be a very dense book. Before we let you go, though, as always, we have a couple of reminders for you on how to support the show and keep in touch with us. The two best ways to support the show are to one, become a patron. Patreon.com jabbar AD Free episodes, early access to book clubs, invitations to the live recordings of these episodes, all of that and more on patreon.com and of course, the second best way is to check out our merch store, gamjibarshop.com, take a look at some of the dune themed swag we have on that store. Buy yourself something nice. Buy a loved one something nice. All of that helps make the show possible.

[A]

Indeed.

[B]

So be sure to check out those links in the show notes below.

[A]

Indeed. And hey, we love to hear from you. So email us gomjabbarpodcastmail.com Send us your thoughts, your questions, your observations from this chapter. Ask. Do you think it's interesting that Gadarene Swine is a New Testament reference from a rabbi? I'm curious. I don't know any of this stuff. I'm Buddhist. So let us know. Send us your thoughts. Send us your questions, your comments, your feedback, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your concerns, and of course, pictures of your cute pets. We love all of it. We respond in one to seven business years. And we love to hear from you, so don't hesitate. Send us an email goblintoparpodcastmail.com that's right.

[B]

And don't forget that during these book club runs, we have mailbag episodes on the schedule.

[A]

True, very true.

[B]

The earlier you get those questions in.

[A]

Oh Great call out.

[B]

The more time we have to research them and include them in those mailbags. So get them in now.

[A]

Get them in now. We'll address them and then we'll wipe our hands on your shirt. No, we won't. Yeah, well, I don't know. Gadflies. Stop biting us. Do you.

[B]

Do you feel like you're being watched, Leo?

[A]

Always. I mean, I have like six com eyes on this one. I don't know who's watching them, but came with the applause. Well, friends, there is no real ending. It's just. Just the place where you stop the recording. But this podcast is always one step beyond logic. So help spread the word of Muadib and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And be sure to check out the other shows on the Lore Party podcast at work on lorparty.com you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Lore Underscore Party. We're also on YouTube. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, whoever controls the podcast controls the universe. First, we'll see you on the golden path. And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people.

[B]

Customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us.

[A]

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