← Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Mailbag: Tolkien vs Herbert, Jewish Amtal, and Is Dune Actually Fantasy?
01:51:44
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- [00:00]
A
Enter the hall worm. Dhamma has received your messages and we will be answering them forthwith. We will be. Don't ignore the sex sounds that will answer your questions.
- [00:29]
B
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.
- [00:44]
A
My name is Leo.
- [00:45]
B
And Leo, we're going to be pausing our book club as we like to do.
- [00:50]
A
Yeah.
- [00:51]
B
To take everything in for a moment and to answer questions from our listeners as they read along with us on our journey through Chapter House, the final book by Frank Herbert.
- [01:02]
A
Indeed. Well, let's take care of our housekeeping before we get into the questions that you all asked us. And as usual, today's episode will contain no spoilers beyond the pages and books we've covered thus far. So at this point, that's all of Frank's books except the last and up to the chapter we've assigned. So. So if you've heard all of our book club episodes so far, you are safe to listen today.
- [01:28]
B
That's right. And of course, up top, a huge shout out to our Quezads Haderach level patrons, Daniel Dion, Seth Redding Greer Brad Hutchins, Kevin Mahonram and Roger Young.
- [01:41]
A
Damn.
- [01:43]
B
No questions from any of them though. But, you know, no judgment.
- [01:47]
A
Nope. Incredibly generous, not at all inquisitive. They're like, hey, you've got our gratitude and we have no questions for you. This is fine. That's right.
- [01:57]
B
That's right. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. But our gratitude and our thank yous also extend beyond our Kwezads Haderach level patrons to all of our patrons, actually at every level, who truly build the foundation upon which this show runs. Upon which we pay our bills and pay our team and get this thing done week in and week out. So we thank you so much.
- [02:19]
A
Yo facts for sure. And hey, if you are not currently in a place to be a supporter on Patreon, don't forget there is a one time tip link in the show notes so you can check that out. You can kind of buy us a spice coffee, as it were. And it's another great way to show your appreciation and every little bit helps because again, we are really a scrappy operation here and helps keep the lights on. Throughout this recording. You might notice the light to my left flickering. That's what I'm talking about. Well, okay, game plan for today's episode. Today is a mailbag episode. So we have your questions and a few that we've pulled from the depths of the Internet, as well as a couple of observations people have shared with us and we're here to respond to them. So we're going to be starting the episode focusing on Chapter House, Dune, the book that we're currently working through. Then we're going to expand our view a little bit more to like, broadly Dune as a. As a. As an ip.
- [03:19]
B
That's right.
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A
And finally, we will wrap up on a couple of off topic, fun questions.
- [03:25]
B
That's right.
- [03:26]
A
Which kind of implies that the on topic questions are not fun, which is not the case. Everything's fun. It's all.
- [03:31]
B
We're all having fun.
- [03:32]
A
We're all having fun. You're after the doors are locked, you're not allowed to leave. But before we get into it, before you check to see if the doors are actually locked, we're gonna take a quick break. Don't go anywhere you can't. Doors are locked. We'll be right back with your questions right after this.
- [03:51]
B
We heard you.
- [03:52]
A
Nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the hot honey snack wrap.
- [04:01]
B
Now you've really won.
- [04:03]
A
Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.
- [04:08]
B
Welcome back, folks. Hope you're not too scared that the doors are locked. Let's do it. Let's jump into this mailbag episode. Let's start today.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah.
- [04:17]
B
With our first question. This one came from the horrible, dark and scary place known as Reddit.
- [04:24]
A
Love it. Great place.
- [04:25]
B
From Reddit. User lastartist. Last artist asked quote, is Chapter House the same planet as Wallach 9? I'm not a huge fan of the same planets being reused. I understand and do appreciate Gamu being a reformed Giedi prime, but. But it makes the universe of Dune a tad bit smaller when we're six books in and only really have like six planets of importance in the Imperium. End quote.
- [04:54]
A
Man, what a good question. Also, because I read this, it was in the script, I was like, is Chapter House the same as well? Oh my God, is it?
- [05:03]
B
Right?
- [05:04]
A
And there's like a real moment of.
- [05:05]
B
Like had like a double take moment as well where I was like, is it?
- [05:09]
A
And the answer is no, it's not. But it's a great point because again, there are times when it is worth repeating that these planets are the same or are not the same.
- [05:19]
B
Yeah, definitely. So there's two pieces of evidence. We came with receipts, folks. This Chapter House planet, where o' Drade and Belanda and all of our lovely characters are, is not the same planet as Wallach 9 from the previous books. And there's two supporting facts here that make this pretty much lock and key. Pretty clear. Supporting fact number one is, is that Chapter House, the planet, is referenced by Odrade and others throughout Heretics and in Chapterhouse as their home base for the last, like 1500 ish years. So based on that timeline alone, it seems like this is a planet that the Sisterhood relocated to after the fall of the God Emperor, because, remember, there's a huge time gap between the fourth book and the fifth book. And so this is probably a planet kind of connecting dots here and assuming things, but this is probably a planet the Sisterhood created as a home base as a result of the scattering and the famine times and the disruption in the Imperium caused by Leto II's death around 1500 years ago. Evidence number two, this one pretty much seals the deal.
- [06:29]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [06:30]
B
A little bit later in the book, this is not a huge spoiler. I'm going to share a quote totally out of context, but a little bit further in the book than where we are now in the book club. Great. Honored Madre Dama makes reference, actually direct reference to the destruction and or capture of, literally, Wallach 9, among other notable planets that you may recognize. She fell into a semi reverie, still alert to the sounds behind her, but relishing the evidence of new victories that had been displayed to her this morning. She liked to roll the names of captive planets silently on her tongue. Wallach, Cronin, Rionel, Ekaz, Bella, Tegus, Gamu, Gamont. Nishe. End quote.
- [07:20]
A
Yeah, Gamont. Rolling across the tongue leaves a taste for sure. I think it's worth noting that, like, Chapter House is a term that the Bene Gesserit used to refer to their headquarter planet and that will be given to different planets throughout the cosmos. Wallach 9 may have been Chapter House at one point, but now Chapter House is a different planet and we're only referring to it as Chapter House. So I think that's worth noting as well.
- [07:49]
B
Absolutely.
- [07:49]
A
But yeah, it's a great question. It's definitely had me checking my own certainty. I was like, oh, they're different. Wait, why do I think that? Oh, no. So super glad you found these receipts.
- [08:01]
B
And beyond that, I also wanted to just very quickly comment on Last Artist's criticism that sequels can often shrink their universes when they begin to cling to popular characters or locations and stop taking risks or creative leaps where. Which I, for one, fully agree with. You know, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but Star wars is a property that is extremely guilty of this, especially since the Disney era. And I understand the feeling that six books into the Dune universe, you might be going, why the fuck am I still on Giddy Prime?
- [08:44]
A
Yeah.
- [08:45]
B
But I do want to push back on the criticism from Last Artists a little bit. I do think that when we get into Heretics, by book number five, Frank is taking some huge leaps. He is dramatically shifting the perspective of the entire story away from the Atreides to the Bene Gesserit in order that has been shrouded in mystery to us, the reader, for four books now, which I think is a dramatic leap of faith. And also, I mean, literally, Arrakis gets blown up at the end of Heretics, So if that's not leaving a popular planet behind, I don't know what is.
- [09:21]
A
Yeah.
- [09:22]
B
So, you know, I agree that, like, geographically, we're still within the Imperium. Yes. We're still sort of hovering the same handful of planets we've been hearing about for six books now. But I think when it comes to the storytelling and world building, Frank is genuinely not holding back and truly going out on a limb in some cases. And that's what makes these latter books pretty exciting. That in some ways, they are nothing like the first couple of books.
- [09:50]
A
Yeah, I agree on both accounts. We've talked about how Mohiam as Jessica's mother is just a bad choice overall. And again, it's kind of iffy on where that falls. Exactly. Because, again, Taniti and Eris is Jessica's mother, and that seems to be a different person and not Mohim and whatever. But I also agree that Frank does use it to great effect, like saying, hey, you all know Paul Atreides, hero from the first book. Well, what, he's actually Space Hitler. You know, like, he. He does a good job. And to your point about, like, yeah, there are still Atreides in Heretics. We have a dread Atreides, but we are reexamining. What is it? What does it mean to be Atreides this far down the line? What is the baggage that comes with it? And it's. It's a meaningful carrying forward of the name and the family rather than just like, oh, it turns out she's a Skywalker. And it's like, well, that comes with all of the things that it Comes with. I'll also point out that, like, I think if Frank is building the world the way that the history books have been written, you look at, like, Western history books, and it's just full of Spain, England, now the United States, Germany, these, like, big country names. And how often are you seeing, like, Belarus in the history textbooks as, like a big character? And I think that's another thing to keep in mind is, like, it kind of makes sense that if you are basing the planets around the, like, great houses, the houses Major, you have those same planets are still active because, yeah, they are the most influential, most affluent, most. They are going to be the ones. Also, we're dealing with the universe that has only so many habitable planets. And anyway, great call out, Great question and agreed on the criticism. And we think that for what it's worth, Frank dodges it a little bit or at least uses it to good effect at times.
- [11:43]
B
Yeah, I agree. I think Frank's doing a good job.
- [11:46]
A
Well, speaking of familiar planets, we have a question from patron named Planet Ecast. Spectacular segue there.
- [11:54]
B
This patron's been captured by the honored matre, based on this quote we just read just recently.
- [11:58]
A
My God. You doing okay? Are you okay? Is your. You're a retired athletic sex mommy treating you well? I hope so. Keep the futars out. Well, Ekaz asks, how are Shiana and Duncan communicating? We know they have a sign language, I think, but how are they interacting and scheming? She's in the desert and he's on the no ship. There doesn't appear to be any video communication. And even if there were, the Sisterhood would notice something. Yeah, so they're not. They're not on, like, FaceTimes. She's like, Ah, the reception sucks out here at the desert. He's like, I'm getting every word.
- [12:37]
B
Duncan, you're on mute. You're on.
- [12:38]
A
You're on. You're muted.
- [12:39]
B
I mean, it doesn't matter where we're hand signing, but you're still on mute.
- [12:43]
A
It's suspicious as fuck if we're on mute and still having a conversation. That's crazy. No, it's a great question. And because we also haven't yet gotten to a chapter where Shiana and Duncan are. We don't see them interacting yet.
- [12:56]
B
Yeah, right.
- [12:57]
A
We are missing some of these data points, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. And the first thing to keep in mind is something that keeps catching me off guard as we read the book. We've spanned about a decade on this planet. Like they have been on the planet for a fucking minute. And it's really easy to forget that. So between the first chapter and where we are right now, as we've paused, it's about 10 years. So it's a safe assumption to say, although Shiana, many of her chapters have been on the edge of the desert, that doesn't mean she's always there. And there are plenty of times where she's maybe coming back to the headquarters, maybe she's coming back to the no Ship, maybe she's still got her roller bag on the no ship that she comes back to like, you know, swap out garments or whatever. That for sure they've had time for her to come back to the no ship and meet him face to face. Now, given how important Shanna is to the sisterhood at large, it's also pretty reasonable to say, hey, she's a piece of Odrade's plans, whatever they are. Odrade probably is going to give her access to basically anything that could help her develop, including perhaps one of the most important characters in all of Dune. It's like, hey, he's the main character, you should interact with him sometimes. So not weird to imagine that that is the case.
- [14:13]
B
Yeah.
- [14:13]
A
I also wanted to point out that I think because they came to the planet together, I think the broader Bene Gesserit would probably be pretty interested in getting them together to see if she elicits any new or interesting behavior from Duncan. This like deeply important character, both of them are very important to the Bene Gesserit. And with comm eyes everywhere, I can imagine Balanda and the other council members being like, yeah, let's, let's let them meet. So long as we can record everything and get more data out of this completely.
- [14:45]
B
And if you'll recall, in Heretics, like, the original plan was for Duncan and Shiana to be paired together. Right, right. That was like part of Taraza's plan that never ended up happening. And so I think it is a safe assumption for us to make that sometime in the last 10 years that these characters have been spending on this planet, on Chapter House, Shiana and Duncan have had face to face meetings. And so that is where they've presumably begun their scheming and developed a secret signing language to each other to undermine the sisterhood. That 10 year gap really catches you off guard because it is just like one chapter and you miss it.
- [15:27]
A
Every other fucking page I'm caught off guard. And it's a great point that like they there is probably Also an active plan D or plan E where they are like, yeah, maybe we can still get him to mate with Shiana, because Shiana's got important genes. She can control sandworms. Sure would be nice for her to give a child to the Bene Gesserit. With all of Duncan's superpowers and buffs, I imagine they are also kind of like, hoping that whatever lock Duncan and Merbella have on each other loosens for an afternoon so that he can get away and be like, ah, she's pretty hot too, I guess.
- [16:01]
B
Tamalain keeps setting up meet Cutes for Duncan and Shiana to happen. You know, she's coming up with all these, like, Netflix holiday movie meet cute.
- [16:11]
A
Moments, but they're all, like, generationally, like, out of sync with the young generation because she's super old. So it's always like, oh, a love letter with a heart. Duncan's like, what the fuck? It's handwritten by Quill. I don't speak that language.
- [16:24]
B
It's also signed no cap. I don't know what that means.
- [16:29]
A
Hello, fellow child. That's not how we talk to each other. That's so weird.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah. A great question, though, ECAs. Thank you for submitting that one. Because it's true. So far in the book, we have yet to witness a moment of these two characters actually speaking face to face. Okay, moving on. Next up, we have a question from listener Nate Hyde. Nate asks, quote, I know we've only just met the Space Jews, but it seems to me that within the context of the Dune universe, something like complete coverage would be presented very negatively. It seems to me that the hiding, conflict avoidance associated with complete cover is the opposite of amtal, and as such, I would have expected the Space Jews to be portrayed more negatively. Shouldn't the Bene Gesserit be disgusted by this and the rot to which such a closed social system would generate? End quote.
- [17:30]
A
Yeah, really great question, Nate. I think, you know, this is such a long conversation to be had about the Hidden Jews coming up in this last book of Frank Herbert's. Definitely one of the more confounding choices that he made. And one of the first questions we would ask him if we. If we could grab him for an afternoon chat. Yeah, we are absolutely going to be doing a dedicated episode about the Hidden Juice after we finish the book club and we have the full perspective of Dune chapter House. But for today, we just wanted to quickly address your specific questions and comments.
- [18:06]
B
That's right. And I think a useful place to begin for us is to refresh ourselves on the definition of amtal, because it's been a bit. So, according to the terminology of the Imperium, that glossary of terms at the end of the first book written by Frank Herbert, Amtal is defined as, quote, a common rule on primitive worlds under which something is tested to determine its limits or defects, and, quote, pushing something to the breaking point and just beyond to see whether it survives or breaks. That is Amtal in essence. And from the first book, we know that this is a Fremen concept that is based on their culture of survival in the deep desert, that harsh lifestyle that the Fremen have lived for generations on Dune, if you'll recall, the first time we actually even hear the word amtal is from Jamis, when he invokes the rule of Amtal to challenge Paul Atreides to that fateful duel. Yeah, so this is something I would actually push back on in regards to Nate's question. I actually don't think that Amtal is necessarily a Bene Gesserit worldview. I don't think they look at the universe or their plans through that same lens in the way that the Fremen sort of looked at life. Amtal, push this thing to the brink. Is it worthy of survival or will it break? I don't think that's how the Bene Gesserit operate, at least not entirely as an organization. And so I don't think it's a idea that they would apply to a group like the Hidden Jews that we meet in this book. That having been said, I do think there's a larger conversation to be had. And you could make the argument that the idea of complete cover does feel like a stagnant way to live. Right. It does feel, in some ways opposed to the big ideas and themes in this whole series about embracing chaos, embracing the new, changing, evolving, not becoming stagnant. And still, complete cover seems to imply that the Hidden Jews have stuck to their ways for over 10,000 years and have thus survived to reappear here in the sixth book. That is a huge conversation, certainly something we'll revisit in a full episode. But I do understand Nate's criticism. I don't know that it applies to the Bene Gesserit worldview, but I do think, thematically, there is an argument to be made about some potential thematic contradictions here.
- [20:49]
A
Yeah, I think it's also worth noting, like, when we're talking about how it's presented according to the book, Frank does have very strong beliefs about stagnation, as this ultimate threat to humanity and to individuals and to whatever. But something to keep in mind, the complete cover of the Juice has worked. They've outlived so many cultures and so many fucking religions, and so they are there. They have succeeded in a way that no one else has. And so the resiliency, the fact that Frank painted a universe where tens of thousands of years from now, Jewish people will be alive and well is like, that is part of the story, undeniably. Like they are there.
- [21:31]
B
Correct. Yep.
- [21:32]
A
Another piece of this is, we don't know yet because we haven't finished the book. We don't know they might not be a part of the solution that humanity needs to move forward. So where Frank might be condemning their stagnation implicitly, because they are not trying to find a new solution that's going to save blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, sure, that's fair. But I think that's true for almost every faction in Dune that's fallen into these kind of dogmatic ways, which the Bene Gesserit are also super fucking guilty of, even as they kind of thump their Bibles and say, we know that we're doing the right thing. So I think the way that the Jews are represented in the book is a deeply complex issue, and that's why we're going to dedicate a whole episode to it. I have sought out Jewish voices on both sides of the conversation. Some who say this is literally anti Semitic, and some that say this gave me hope for the future of Judaism. It's like it's a spectrum of takes. And. And we're going to do our best to represent that when we get to that conversation. But I think to your question, Nate, the. The fact that amtal is such a prominent concept as we followed characters who are Fremen and are applying this Fremen principle to the universe, I don't think that it necessarily casts it in a judgmental or negative light just because they don't necessarily do the same thing, because, again, neither too, does so many of the institutions in the universe. So just wanted to put that out there.
- [23:03]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, to that point, like the Jewish people, the Bene Gesserit also have survived for tens of thousands of years in this universe by operating in the shadows. Right. By committing to a certain dogma, to a certain set of rules. So they too have their own dogma. They too have their own rot at their core, that we are only now here in Heretics and Chapter House, beginning to recognize through characters like Taraza and o' Draid and tag our quote unquote heretics. Right. These are the characters that are beginning to push back on some of this rot that clearly has seeped its way deeply into the sisterhood.
- [23:43]
A
Yeah.
- [23:44]
B
And so I think it is interesting that here in these latter books is also when we're introduced to another secret organization that has also survived just as long as the Bene Gesserit has, using similar techniques.
- [23:57]
A
Man, we could probably talk about that two, three hours.
- [24:01]
B
Yeah. Damn, Nate, you temptress. You motherfucking temptress. You're like, y' all want to do that? Do that Hidden Jews episode now today?
- [24:10]
A
Or showing a bit of ankle, Nate? Damn.
- [24:17]
B
Well, hopefully we addressed some of Nate's thoughts there. Definitely. As we're making clear, we're putting a pin in a lot of other more complex and nuanced conversations about the Hidden Jews. Again, as we've promised many times now, we will return to these conversations once we have finished the book and have a fuller picture of the Hidden Jews place in the Dune universe.
- [24:38]
A
Indeed. Well, up next, we have a keen observation, a meticulous little moment called out by Ryan Fust. Ryan writes in Heretics, there's a line in one of the early chapters that talks about an ornithopter landing and smelling of spent thopter fuel. In my opinion, this means one of two things. One, since heretics is 5,000 years after dune, could technology have simply evolved to the point where they don't need the muscles anymore? With the Ixian and Tleilaxu inventions being more accepted by this point, I. I could see them switching over to a mechanical engine rather than a biological one. Two, the thopters have always been mechanically driven, but it was never officially established until Frank wrote that down in Heretics contradicting the encyclopedia. I know this is a ridiculous detail to obsess over, but I'm certain that I turned to the right place for this sort of thing. Please let me know what you guys think, end quote. We think you came to the exact right fucking place.
- [25:44]
B
You're at the right door.
- [25:45]
A
God damn. We are all about the one line call outs.
- [25:50]
B
I love it. What a great catch from Ryan. Honestly, I didn't notice this one line at all about the thopters. So I'm glad that Ryan pulled it and emailed us about it. And I actually, you know, I don't have much to add here. I actually think the two theories that Ryan has put forward about how to explain this thopter fuel line from Heretics totally makes sense to me. And in fact, if I had to pick between the two of them, I kind of lean a little bit more toward theory number one. I like to think that it is just an evolution of ornithopter technology over thousands of years, which we've seen happen to much of the technology in the Dune universe. We've seen, for example, groups like the Tleilaxu or the Ixians evolve their tech. Certainly thanks to pressure by the God Emperor and. And the Iron Fisted Iron Flippered whatever control he had on the Spice. These organizations have had to do things like create their own artificial melange, you know, finally crack that code that now exists here in books 5 and 6. Guild Navigators are a thing of the past because we have things like no ships and mechanical drives and pseudo computers that can drive the highliners. And so we are seeing technology evolve and change from the way we knew it in the early Dune books. And I like to imagine ornithopters aren't exempt from that. Maybe at one point they were heart muscles, and now they just aren't. Technology as evolved beyond that. And I think in a larger sense, now that we're in books five and six, it does feel to me personally more and more like the Butlerian prohibitions and the jihad is like so long ago now.
- [27:44]
A
Yeah.
- [27:45]
B
That these rules are just kind of like openly ignored suggestions now rather than hard and fast rules that are actually enforced by anybody.
- [27:55]
A
Yeah, I agree. I, you know, I think the. The heart muscles have always been kind of a. One of those stretchy bits of canonicity where, like, we really like the idea. It's really fun and out there and crazy. But, like, I just did a quick search in Dune. There's multiple mentions. At one point, Leto is flying, hovering. The ornithopter dilly dallying. Halleck says you waste fuel here. Siren. Exactly. Okay, what is that? Later in the Fremen, there, there's a plate. There are fabrics and rugs to make fuel cells to charge. Okay, so there are fuel cells that charge. Maybe these are food for the heart mollusks. I don't know. I think at a certain point it is. I like the pattern of, like, we had an organic driven thing and then figured out a mechanical replacement for that. You know, maybe you slap the. The year 10,395 model Ornithopter, and you go, you can.
- [28:55]
B
You.
- [28:55]
A
This one's got nine heart mollusks. Power in the engine, it's so sick.
- [28:59]
B
And you go, fit so many heart mollusks.
- [29:01]
A
So many fucking heart mollusks in the trunk of this baby. And again, it's like you talk about horsepower in your Ford, it's like, there aren't horses inside the Fords, folks. That's just a reference to where they came from. So it's. I like the idea of, like, biological to mechanical. Again, super debatable if the biological was ever involved because. Yeah, again, very true there. As we even talked about it in so many episodes ago, there was some big questions that we didn't have answers to. So I. I think. I think what I would like to say is my personal headcanon is that heart mollusks were involved in some models of ornithopters.
- [29:41]
B
Right.
- [29:42]
A
And that every ornithopter had some sort of mixed method propulsion. So even if you had a heart ornithopter, a heart, you know, you're like running a hybrid, like a Prius.
- [29:53]
B
Yeah.
- [29:53]
A
And you're like, we got a steep hill to go up. Let's. Let's turn on the after jets. Let's get up that hill, and then we can go back to gliding on our, like, organic engine. I think that is probably the most likely just on a sense, like, balancing the evidence that we have.
- [30:10]
B
Yeah, that's my. That's my head cannon as well.
- [30:13]
A
Yeah. I think that leaves room for, like, the fuel and the smell and the mechanical, but it also allows for those early models to be really fucking wacky and weird.
- [30:21]
B
Yeah. You know, it's just such a fun idea. I don't want to let the mollusks. Mollusks go.
- [30:25]
A
You know, you don't. They're hard. They're right there. They're, you know, they're big.
- [30:29]
B
They've captured my heart, certainly.
- [30:31]
A
Yeah. They're so thick. They're so juicy.
- [30:33]
B
Hello. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Ryan, for sharing that observation with us and catching that line in Heretics. It's just a single throwaway line. I went back and fact checked, you know, I was like, is Ryan lying to us?
- [30:47]
A
Yeah.
- [30:48]
B
Ryan is not lying to us. This line does exist in Heretics. So thank you so much for your email and for calling out this tiny little detail, and welcome to the club that loves to obsess over tiny little details and throwaway lines. You're in the right place. All right, so that wraps up the first section of today's Mailbag. The questions that were focused on Heretics and Chapter House, these latter books that we're currently covering on the book club. Let's take a break. But, folks, don't go anywhere because when we come back. We're going to widen our view and answer some of your lovely questions about the wider Dune universe and talk about the rest of this IP that we love so much. So hang tight. We'll be right back. We'll see you in a minute with some more mailbag questions.
- [31:33]
A
This episode is brought to you by State Farm.
- [31:36]
B
Listening to this podcast Smart move.
- [31:39]
A
Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle.
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B
Home and auto bundling.
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A
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.
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B
Availability, amount of discounts, and savings and.
- [32:00]
A
Eligibility vary by state. Welcome back everybody. Oh, I hope you enjoyed your break. Up next, we have one from patron Rudy. And Rudy asks, how does local government actually work in the Dune universe? I'm curious how Herbert imagined justice and order functioning on the ground in such a feudal planet spanning empire. We know the Emperor and the Landsraad handle the grand politics of the Imperium, and each great house rules its planet as a fiefdom, like House Atreides with Arrakis. But what about the day to day governance? A duke like Leto can't possibly settle every civil dispute or local issue himself. Are there judges, magistrates or administrators running things at the city or regional level? Do planets have any kind of internal bureaucracy or does everything just flow down the noble hierarchy and at a bigger scale? Is there any kind of imperial constitution or shared legal framework that all houses must follow? Or does each world simply govern how its ruling family sees fit? End quote.
- [33:13]
B
Wow.
- [33:14]
A
And such begins the next 16 hours of our conversation as we break down every little piece. Man, Rudy, oh, what a good question. Yeah, we here at Gom Jabbar having spent five years, six years talking about Dune, we love where your head's at. This is the kind of thing that we really nerd out about.
- [33:33]
B
This is good shit. I like where Rudy's head Hot shit, Rudy.
- [33:36]
A
You're serving up some hot shit.
- [33:37]
B
I also like that Rudy has followed the long held Gam Jabbar tradition of sneaking in like four questions into one question.
- [33:44]
A
If I had to ask one question, here's my one and six follow ups.
- [33:50]
B
I love it.
- [33:51]
A
So to to address your question partially, Rudy, we're going to take a look at some examples that might help clear things up a little bit. I will caveat all of this by saying there is a lot of information to parse through a lot of it is from the Dune Encyclopedia. There is a Dune Encyclopedia article called Imperial Administration, which is a little bit about what you're talking about. And it's an insane article. I mean, we could probably do two episodes about that alone. But what I'll also say is, broadly, this is the sort of thing that would probably take to give you a truly comprehensive answer. Probably would have taken 10, 15 hours worth of like, research and picking through the books. So we probably missed things. Do not hesitate to send us an email if you find some little detail somewhere. We will very happily amend our statements. So let us know, let us know what we missed. But with that Imperium sized caveat out of the way, let's look at some examples.
- [34:47]
B
Yes, let's dive in. So let's start by looking at the universe before Paul came in and fucked everything up, basically.
- [34:54]
A
Right. I think after that, rules are out the window.
- [34:57]
B
Yes.
- [34:58]
A
New Imperium and then Leto takes over.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah. Then there's a God emperor for 3,500 years. Like so much stuff gets blown up once the tradies are in power that we're just going to look at the Corrino timeline at the moment. And during the Karina rule, during, you know, the 10,000 ish rule of house Corrino, at the top, we had, of course, the Emperor. Right. And this was whatever house currently sat on the Golden Lion Throne. And if you look at the long history of the Imperium, there's a timeline in the encyclopedia. For the most part, outside of like a couple of one off hiccups, the house on the throne was the Corrinos. Yeah, they ruled for nearly 10,000 straight years, which is a pretty incredible feat.
- [35:44]
A
I think they're also, even the ones who are not by name. Corrino are like Corino by marriage.
- [35:49]
B
And it's like others who married and ended up on the throne temporarily.
- [35:53]
A
Shameful. Get them out of here. What are they doing here? Not. Not Carino Ill.
- [35:59]
B
So that's the top of the pile. That's the top of the pyramid. The Emperor and the Emperor's House in charge. Beneath that, in the bureaucracy, you then have your House's major.
- [36:11]
A
Right?
- [36:12]
B
You have people like Duke Leto. Ever heard of them? You have people like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen who are in charge of these major houses, these major power players within the Imperial political system. And these are the folks we hear about that have titles like Baron, Count, Duke, and these are the folks who usually are ruling either one entire planet or in some cases multiple planets.
- [36:40]
A
Right.
- [36:40]
B
Have different levels of authority over multiple planets.
- [36:43]
A
Right.
- [36:45]
B
Now we agree with Rudy that Duke Leto, the head of a House Major, is probably not dealing with like city level administration stuff. Right? Where do we put the new stop sign? We printed a new. We 3D printed a new stop sign. Duke, where do we.
- [37:00]
A
Holy shit. Later. Outside. He has opinions. Oh, my God.
- [37:05]
B
That is probably not happening. Right Late. Got other bigger things to worry about than where to place the latest stop sign or whatever. So responsibilities like that are delegated. Those regional responsibilities are delegated down. And so when we move down the ladder below these Houses Major, below people like Duke Leto and the Baron Vladimir, we have, of course, the Houses Minor. Yeah, the House is Minor. Get a number of mentions throughout the books as well. And the terminology of the Imperium actually defines these Houses Minor and as, quote, a planet bound entrepreneur. Class, end quote.
- [37:45]
A
That's huge. Because I make the mistake frequently internally of thinking as House Houses Major being like the big players and then Houses Minor being the same thing, but not as. As influential. That is not the case. Houses Minor are planet bound and are controlling regions. Yes, I think there are a couple of Houses Minor that do control a planet, but it's like a planet within a system governed by a House Major.
- [38:12]
B
Exactly.
- [38:12]
A
It is actually a subdivision, it is a subsidiary, and they are almost always directly adhering to a House Major as, like, you are the governing body that we report to.
- [38:24]
B
Yes, exactly. That's a great point, Leo, that delineation is important. And in fact, a quote from Dune reinforces this idea by describing a House Minor, for example, as someone who, quote, controlled the interior trade of Arrakis. End quote. So that's like an example, the type of responsibilities a House miner might have within this bureaucratic system.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah, so we're talking about Arrakis, key planet of the Imperium, under fief, partial to Baron Harkonnen for many years, for 75 years or whatever. But even the internal trade of that planet and the local disputes and criminal justice system and whatever they've got going on, being handled by not even House Harkonnen. This is Alphabet and Google. Right. You've got the different levels of decision making and the different board of executives and the different, you know, it's kind of crazy to think about. And I think that's also where, at the dinner banquet where Leito and Jessica are hosting all of these officiaries, many of them are probably House Minor Lords and ladies who are themselves the ones who are making like, handling court issues and stuff like that. And that's why they're invited to the palace to meet with the now head of the planet.
- [39:40]
B
Right. Their new boss, effectively. Right. Like really nothing for them has changed. They're going to continue to manage what they've always managed and have their own little bubbles of power and responsibility. But now they got to go get dinner with the new head honcho. Right?
- [39:57]
A
Yeah.
- [39:58]
B
Vlad is gone and now this guy named Leito is here. We gotta go get dinner with him.
- [40:02]
A
There's another on site fucking meeting. I gotta travel for work. They're not even expensing. I don't know if they're going into.
- [40:07]
B
The office this week for an all hands meeting. And I hate it. Like I'm going to a dinner banquet, you know, it's boring. This actually I would say is why we love the dinner banquet so much. It is such an important scene in the first book for just understanding this universe.
- [40:22]
A
Yeah.
- [40:23]
B
So much is jam packed into that scene. Such a good chapter.
- [40:26]
A
Yeah. And I'll also say that like brought more broadly as I was like thinking about it, but also doing some, some targeted word searches and just trying to like check my knowledge.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah.
- [40:37]
A
It is worth noting that there are multiple references in addition to the Houses Minor. Right. So the Houses Minor are still political entities. There are also then like career politicians and career roles that exist for like governors. And there are planetary governors that are mentioned multiple times. In fact, Gurney Halleck is made the planetary governor of I think Caladan, maybe Arrakis.
- [41:02]
B
Right, right, right.
- [41:03]
A
Someone has made the planetary governor of her. I can't. Fuck it. And maybe a Stilgar, I don't know. Point is there are planetary governors, but then there are also regional governors. So even within Houses Major and Houses Minor, there they are delegating officials to handle local rule and the sort of like regional disputes that might pop up. So again I will reference the Imperial Administration entry. And the Dune Encyclopedia is fucking bonkers if you want to get into the nitty. It's like talking about, you know, financial disputes versus legal disputes and which goes to which. And it's this like crazy breakdown. This is a quote that somewhat addresses this from that entry. Quote, provincial governors combined in their persons the military, judicial, financial and administrative authority of the province. Since no individual could hope to master all these aspects of responsibility, governors were provided with secretaries whose expertise lay in each of these categories. These secretaries presided over large offices of civil servants who dealt only with issues in their area of competence, end quote.
- [42:12]
B
Yep.
- [42:13]
A
Just in that paragraph we have the provincial governor who's already like multiple steps down the hierarchical order who then has a secretary of judicial, like a judicial secretary, who then themselves has a, quote, large office of civil servants. So this is nitty gritty, boring bullshit.
- [42:34]
B
And I love it.
- [42:35]
A
And I love it. It's my favorite part of fucking universes.
- [42:40]
B
Fear is the mind killer. Get that out of here. Tell me more about the secretaries.
- [42:44]
A
Who's filing the paperwork? Do they have stationary? I want to know. Redoulian stationary. Sick. What's their logo?
- [42:53]
B
Local government.
- [42:57]
A
Oh, my God. Also, I just watched. God, I just watched, like all of the John. I had a 14 hour flight to China. I watched all of the John Wick movies.
- [43:06]
B
Whoa.
- [43:06]
A
And they're great. I'd seen. I'd seen, I think three of them. And I hadn't seen the last one and I hadn't seen seen Ballerina.
- [43:12]
B
Yes.
- [43:13]
A
But along these lines, I'm like, tell me more about the doctors, dude. Tell me about the hotels, the, like, treaties around where you can and can't do business. I'm like, that shit's so good.
- [43:23]
B
Yeah, I love it.
- [43:25]
A
Oh, it's. Maybe this is a sign of getting older, but I'm like, okay, yeah, the flamethrower duel, that's cool. But I do want to know more about the economics of those gold coins. Like, who's smithing them? Are there different ones? Who's on the gold? Oh, I'm so curious.
- [43:40]
B
Right. How do the larger macroeconomic effects of the global economy affect the coin minting process?
- [43:46]
A
Yeah. Are these like NFTs totally separate from the global economy? Or are they, like, they're not part of the blockchain? Clearly you get physical.
- [43:54]
B
You know, clearly we have a type when it comes to world building. And it's this, whatever this is happening.
- [43:59]
A
It'S whatever you've kicked off, Rudy. So thank you.
- [44:06]
B
Wow. So again, this definitely needs to be like its own whole episode, probably. But in our attempts to respond to Rudy's lovely in depth email here, in short, Dune is a universe of plans within plans.
- [44:22]
A
Right.
- [44:22]
B
And it's clear. It's also a universe of delegation within delegation within delegation all the way down.
- [44:30]
A
Yeah.
- [44:33]
B
And so really you have this structure where, like, the emperor is at the top of, like, countless rulers and planets and secretaries and assistants and civil servants and truly, truly. It takes a village to run a galactic empire.
- [44:50]
A
Good thing there are trillions and trillions of villages. One last note we wanted to throw out, because part of your question, Rudy, was also about this, like, shared framework and constitution that every house must follow. Nothing definitive, but I would say we don't Get a sense that there is. It seems like the Emperor is basically making sure that people are paying their taxes and not disobeying the Great Convention. But otherwise you can kind of do whatever the fuck you want.
- [45:21]
B
Right.
- [45:21]
A
It's fine. Pointing case. House Harkonnen. Their whole fucking economy is on the back of slavery. Meanwhile, House Atreides doesn't seem to use slavery. So how do those two Houses, which are effectively the same, how do they have such different economies? If there were some sort of, like, Global memorandum, saying you have to do things this way doesn't seem likely. Yeah, another thing that's worth pointing out, as I was researching this, I actually Googled this was early, like, yesterday. I was like, duke versus Baron. Like, are those even the same type of rule? And they are within the same political system, but Dukes are higher up, Barons are one of the lowest, and Dukes are one of the highest. But I say that Baron Harkonnen is in no way less powerful politically than Leto Atreides. If anything, House Atreides is kind of on a backwater planet. He's popular, he's a threat to the Emperor, but he's not necessarily more influential because he's a duke. I get the impression that every House Major has their own titles and their own traditions and their own, like, all of that shit counts, Visconce. All of that shit varies planet to planet, house to house, and will be carried with that. That House Major wherever they go.
- [46:37]
B
Yeah.
- [46:38]
A
And it's not standardized by any stretch of the imagination.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah. I like to think of it as, like, the House's majority are, like, countries. And, you know, one country's constitution does not apply obviously, to another country's constitution. They maybe operate differently within different rule sets. But I guess, like, think EU right there maybe is, like, general broader guidelines that these countries have agreed to in order to smooth over some of the bumps of working together, like trade and commerce and, you know, judicial proceedings, like how to extradite criminals that maybe escape from my planet to yours. Maybe there are broader agreements at the sort of.
- [47:20]
A
Yeah.
- [47:21]
B
Emperor level. Great. Convention level.
- [47:23]
A
Universal currency. They all use universal currency.
- [47:26]
B
Everybody uses Solari. Right. At some point, someone had to agree to that. Gaelic, the language. So I think the closest parallel on planet Earth we can make right now is probably, like, the View. And then the nations, the states that have agreed to participate in the eu.
- [47:42]
A
That's a great point.
- [47:43]
B
It is interesting to consider what red tape might exist in the Imperium. You know, like, yeah, I got to go through this fucking bureaucratic Process because this Kate court case from forever ago that the Baron Vladimir caused.
- [47:56]
A
I need extra visas to travel to Gamu and I need a VPN when I'm connecting to their Internet. Yeah, so annoying.
- [48:03]
B
Look, I never let my gamma visa expire, though. I'm on top of that shit.
- [48:07]
A
I ruin every chance I get. I renew. Mine's expiring in 10 years still makes me antsy. I'm going to renew for another 20.
- [48:13]
B
It's too close for comfort.
- [48:14]
A
You know, I can't not go to the pleasure district, so. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? It's called mental health.
- [48:20]
B
Great question, Rudy. Thank you so much for letting us geek out about this stuff. Clearly we're very nerdy and excited to talk about these things. And again, this potentially is an idea we're going to keep in our back pocket. An episode we're going to keep in our back pocket. Because certainly there's much more to say here and a lot more fun. Sort of like theory crafting, filling in the lines, but also like a lot of lore to dig into.
- [48:43]
A
Yeah.
- [48:43]
B
All right, let's move on to our next question. This is from patron Len Leak. Len asks, quote, I appreciate Dune being more sci fi than fantasy. That almost everything supernatural in Dune has a scientific explanation appeals to me. I am ignoring books 5 and 6 in this regard. Sure, this seems to have been by design, per Frank Herbert. However, there is one aspect of Dune that I think ignores this sensibility, the transfer of memory from a dying Bene Gesserit mother to another. That is when Jessica drinks the water of life and absorbs the memories of the Fremen. This seems to me to be the sole aspect of Dune and that has no, quote, unquote, scientific or natural explanation. Am I wrong? I would love to be wrong. End quote.
- [49:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. Great question. Yeah.
- [49:40]
B
There's, as usual, a lot to unpack with this question as well. So really appreciate you, Len, writing to us about this. And we on the podcast have talked many times about how fun it is in Dune that there is an in universe and somewhat logical, scientific, ish explanation for some of the, like, magic type abilities we see people do, you know.
- [50:06]
A
Yeah.
- [50:07]
B
We have people like Mentats or the Bene Gesserit or face dancers doing like supernatural, superhuman things.
- [50:16]
A
Yeah.
- [50:16]
B
But there are explanations that we can point to and those explanations based off of the science we currently have today, could be possible. Right. If you sort of extrapolate it out, 20,000 years later, you see Jim Carrey.
- [50:29]
A
Do his Clint Eastwood impression and Then you just say, give him another 20,000 years to practice. He could become fucking.
- [50:37]
B
We're on to you, Jim.
- [50:38]
A
We're on to you, Jim. He's a face dancer. We know it. We called it five years ago. It's still true. Don't turn your back on Jim Carrey. That's all we're saying. We love him to death. He's a national treasure.
- [50:49]
B
He is indeed.
- [50:49]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [50:51]
B
And look, I think Len is also correct in sort of having to ignore Books five and six heretics and Chapter House here in this regard, because. Yeah, like, 5 and 6 is where perhaps we start to really stretch some believability. You know, we literally have, like, superhuman Tag moving faster than the eye can see with his superhuman abilities and also eating the biggest meal ever. The calorie deficit.
- [51:16]
A
It's like Sonic the Hedgehog rule. Like, he has to eat chili dogs to refuel his hyperspeed. And it's like, that's tag. But it's.
- [51:22]
B
Yeah.
- [51:23]
A
There's no. Even the Honored Matres, like, crazy speed is. Is described as this, like, insect, like, responsive movement.
- [51:31]
B
Yes.
- [51:32]
A
And that's cool. That's basically scientific. Tag moving nearly the speed of sound.
- [51:38]
B
Zero explanation.
- [51:40]
A
Because he's really tall. Fucking what do you want from us?
- [51:43]
B
He's really tall and handsome. That's the only thing. Explanation I need. Yes. Like 5 and 6, we start to sort of push the boundaries of that believability that we maybe would have had in the earlier books.
- [51:53]
A
Sure.
- [51:54]
B
But I'm glad you pulled this out, because in a recent chapter that we just covered, there are actually some interesting scientific explanations for things in the past that we've had to sort of hand wave away still truth saying being one of them. So there's this moment where Rebecca is thinking back on her partner Shoal, who is a truthsayer, explaining to Rebecca effectively how truth saying works. And it's not magic. It is not some magical Benny Jeszard ability. Quote. There is no secret Saul had said, it's training and hard work like anything else. You exercise what they call petite perception, the ability to detect very small variations in human reactions. End quote.
- [52:41]
A
Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. Because we kind of had an idea of truth saying, but it was kind of described in those first books as this. Like, her words had a shimmering clarity to them and blah. And it's like, okay, right. That sounds like magic. Sounds like you're a wizard. But to have this character go, this is how you understand if people are lying or not. It's not magic. It's this thing that you practice.
- [53:07]
B
Yeah.
- [53:07]
A
Oh, I love it.
- [53:08]
B
Exactly.
- [53:08]
A
We love that Frank used this idea of, like, what if human capability was really explored?
- [53:16]
B
How far can we push the human brain?
- [53:18]
A
That's really fucking cool, right? What is the end of human potential? We love that. And then we get to the Bene Gesserit thing. I also wanted to really quickly, before we talk, I do want to delineate. There is the Water of Life ceremony. That is the spice essence, and that is the breaking down of the sort of, like, barriers between people and the sharing and the communion. That's one thing. The Bene Gesserit airdropping memories to one another is a different thing.
- [53:44]
B
Totally different thing.
- [53:46]
A
Totally different thing. Coincidentally, same ceremony in this Fremen siege, unrelated technically to the Water of Life. But we see, obviously in this book and in Heretics, we see multiple times, they're like, hey, do you just want to quickly airdrop all of your knowledge and memories to me, just in case?
- [54:02]
B
Right. Taraza, literally bleeding out and dying, airdrops her memories to a Dre, you know?
- [54:06]
A
Yeah.
- [54:07]
B
So. And there is, like, no explanation for how that works.
- [54:10]
A
So I just wanted to delineate that also just wanted to remind everyone we don't have any evidence that Jessica ever had other memory. Like, there are so many fucking things about Benny Jesuit other memory.
- [54:22]
B
It is one of the loosest parts of the Dune series, for sure.
- [54:25]
A
Yeah. So, Len, I want to say the good news is there's a lot of gray area within which we can play that Frank really didn't nail down.
- [54:35]
B
Yeah.
- [54:36]
A
The bad news is it's basically magic because, like, listen, if Frank did have an idea of how they transfer their minds, if they airdrop their minds one to one another, if it was grounded in science, he didn't really leave us that many hints in the books that, like, makes it clear, oh, this is because people do X, Y and Z. But that being said, we did want to pull actually some evidence from Frank's beliefs because we think this actually gives an interesting dimension. You talk about what is scientific or, like, a natural explanation. Well, that's subjective, right? Like, we can agree on what science has deemed, but, like, what is natural? People have got some wild beliefs about that, and we think this might give some perspective. So just for reference, here's some stuff we found.
- [55:23]
B
Yeah. So here's a quote we want to start with. This is a letter between Frank and his literary agent, Lerton Blasingham, written in January 1964. Quote, ESP is one of my Interests to the extent that I have done considerable reading on it in what I would call the quasi scientific end of the field. And then a little bit later in the letter, Frank continues, quote, I'm what you might refer to as an agnostic where ESP is concerned. A Doubting Thomas, end quote.
- [56:03]
A
Doubting Thomas.
- [56:04]
B
That's a cute dirt phrase. We got to bring that back.
- [56:06]
A
We got to bring that back.
- [56:06]
B
We got to bring Doubting Thomas back.
- [56:08]
A
Yeah. I don't know how my friends named Thomas will feel about that. They're like, oh, the fuck, man. I'm sure about a lot of stuff. And we're like, I don't know.
- [56:15]
B
I don't know. There's a phrase that comes back doubting times.
- [56:19]
A
Kind of seems like you're not sure about things.
- [56:22]
B
So we share this quote obviously because of the ESP of it.
- [56:26]
A
All.
- [56:26]
B
Right. The quasi scientific of it all. This has come up a number of times in our research that we've done. For example, for our interviews with Frank Herbert series. This came up in our conversation recently with Alt Shift X when we talked about our favorite quotes from the Dune universe. We have the impression that Frank likely believed in something beyond what had been scientifically proven in the 60s and 70s and 80s and even what's been proven today.
- [56:55]
A
Right.
- [56:56]
B
Are we saying that he was like a full on, like, sort of like quack who believed in telepathy and ESP and everything? No. And Frank himself doesn't say that. Right. Doubting Thomas. But it's clear that Frank had an interest in these things.
- [57:09]
A
Yeah.
- [57:10]
B
And was exploring these things, clearly doing some reading into them. And so I don't think it's a stretch to say that Frank may have treated ESP capabilities as just another thing that would potentially evolve within humanity over tens of thousands of years in this universe that he was creating.
- [57:30]
A
Yeah, I think that's it. I mean, when we talk about, like him being interviewed by McNelly and him talking about predicting 52 cards in a row.
- [57:38]
B
Right.
- [57:38]
A
That story multiple times.
- [57:39]
B
Yeah.
- [57:40]
A
That story he tells. I think Frank was being very cagey about his beliefs. I want to say Leo Wiggins, his opinion is that Frank, full on fucking believed in like ESP and stuff like that, but was also acknowledging that, like, yeah, there isn't proof of it. I can't declaratively say it. And I think he was conscious of his appearance as like a mushroom, certainly tending organ living, author of Wacky Sci Fi. I think he was doing damage, preemptive damage control, going, I'm a doubt I'm agnostic on the, on the topic. And it's like he said before going back to his ESP journal of like day 700 of trying to move the glass of water, you know?
- [58:24]
B
Yeah. I've been trying to tell Bev how much I love, love her telepathically for years. She's just not responding. She's not picking up on my telepathic signals.
- [58:31]
A
She's leaving them on red. It's so rude. So rude. It's so rude. So I'm like. My opinion is I think Frank did believe in that stuff. And so Len, I would say maybe along those lines, it's the same where Frank's going, hey, look, we have documented cases of humans being great at math and we have documented cases of people doing Vebler and. And we've got some, like, emerging examples of people having some ability to share their minds, to read minds. Maybe you could even give your mind. And I don't think that that's a crazy stretch. I just think what might be dissatisfying is if you don't believe in that stuff at all, if you're like totally hardline ESP's bullshit, that could be a little dissatisfying because you're like, I get hardline mathematics and logic and I get that stuff. I don't get the ESP taken to the nth degree. Yeah. But I think that's where he's coming from and it might not be that different.
- [59:24]
B
Totally.
- [59:24]
A
Maybe he just believes that we have these sort of like seeds in us that will grow over the next 30,000.
- [59:30]
B
Years that science hasn't solved yet. And maybe the Betty Jester have solved it.
- [59:34]
A
Yeah.
- [59:34]
B
20,000 years in the future.
- [59:35]
A
All it takes is selective breeding and the colicker cramps section of the brain. And spice.
- [59:41]
B
Don't call it eugenics.
- [59:42]
A
Don't call it. Don't call it. Don't.
- [59:44]
B
Don't say that word.
- [59:45]
A
We don't say that word around selective breeding. We just don't like certain people. We're trying to get rid of them. Wow.
- [59:56]
B
Now, one last thing I want to say here, and this, at the risk of completely derailing us off into another thing, I just want to say I'd like to gently and lovingly push back on Len just a little bit because I perhaps could argue that Dune is less sci fi than a lot of other sci fi out there and leans quite a bit into some traditional fantasy elements, sort of speaking purely from a literature standpoint. But I think that for now, that's where I'll Leave it. That is a can of sandworms. And perhaps a discussion for another day, but I think it could be argued that Dune is not as sci fi as you might believe.
- [60:38]
A
Well, yeah, sure, yeah, let's table that conversation. Let's robo table that conversation.
- [60:44]
B
Yes, I can sense you ready to disagree with me, but yeah, well, it's.
- [60:48]
A
Because also like, you know, like Crayola, all of the color names that we know are just marketing. It's like, what is sci fi but a place to put the book on the shelf? And ultimately, yeah, yeah, it's an examination of humanity, what he does.
- [60:59]
B
Just like holding it up to something like three body problem. It's like, then we're talking like different ball game. We're not in the same sci fi ball game.
- [61:07]
A
But then you hold it up to well known fantasy things and it's like alternate universe, it's not this universe. And there are these extra powers that people are throwing like lightning bolts at each other and it's like. That's also not happening. So it's not cut and dry.
- [61:21]
B
Right. It's the age old Star wars debate as well, you know, Is Star wars fantasy? Is Star wars sci fi?
- [61:26]
A
Turns out it's just mostly make it.
- [61:28]
B
Enough to make it sci fi.
- [61:29]
A
Holy shit.
- [61:30]
B
Wow.
- [61:31]
A
Although I did start watching Andor and holy shit, what a great.
- [61:35]
B
Andor is one of the best TV shows ever made. Full stop.
- [61:38]
A
So good. It's so good. And it really emphasizes for me how bad most of the rest of Star wars is.
- [61:46]
B
It truly puts the rest of Star wars to shame in a way that is like astonishing.
- [61:49]
A
I also say, I say that somewhat lovingly. Like I really enjoyed even the final Star wars movies, but I'm like, look at what they could have been. Look at how good they could be.
- [61:58]
B
Oh yeah. Tony Gilroy was like, hold my fucking lightsaber.
- [62:03]
A
Hold my. Hold my cantina slop. This is, yeah, my McGlunky.
- [62:10]
B
Well, Len, thank you so much for the great question and for letting us geek out a little bit about ESP and the sci fi of it all.
- [62:19]
A
Yeah. All right, up next, we have a message. Lovely message from patron Anatar. And Anatar writes, quote, Tolkien's and Herbert's imaginary worlds are often compared to one another, but only Tolkien's has become a subject of serious academic study. I have some theories for why this is the case, but I'm wondering what yours are. End quote.
- [62:44]
B
Love it. You know what? Love to pit my favorite universes against each other. Death Match. Yeah, this is actually a great question. And once again, I feel like we're just saying this for every question in today's episode. Once again, this could be like a whole episode onto itself.
- [63:00]
A
Yeah.
- [63:00]
B
And maybe someday it will be. So here maybe is my abridged thoughts. Here's like the chat GPT summary of my thoughts.
- [63:08]
A
I'll also say quickly, I think Dune is studied, especially the first book is studied in some serious academic settings. Not as widely. So I'm just caveating the sort of like, comparison. Yeah, obviously Tolkien takes the cake in being more studied.
- [63:24]
B
Yeah. There is a mountain of Tolkien study and there is a hill of Dune study. Right. There is still study. Yeah. But I wanted to share what I think. This is purely my opinion, based off my own knowledge and my own research. I wanted to share three reasons that I think Lord of the Rings has reached the heights it has when it comes to such serious academic rigor versus Dune. So to break it down, three reasons. Number one, I think sci fi was considered an unserious genre when Dune was published. We've talked about this a lot, right? Pop sci fi and the move away from it. Thanks to Asimov, thanks to, to Frank, thanks to other incredible writers of the 50s, 60s and 70s. And what's kind of sad is like to some extent, you could argue that even today, right, Science fiction is not taken as seriously as other storytelling genres across all mediums, right? Like think back in recent memory to the number of sci fi books or TV shows or movies that get recognition from prestigious awards like the Academy or the Emmys or prestigious writing awards. Like, sci fi is typically not a genre that is being celebrated in the same way that other genres are. And this sort of bias, you could call it this, like, sort of prejudice against sci fi is even worse in academic circles, right? Like maybe some critics have come around, maybe sci fi is taken more seriously. It's given more attention in some corners of the, of the media or the Internet. But academia is still sort of behind the ball in that. And fantasy has also faced similar challenges. But I think fantasy is an older genre. The staples of fantasy go much further back than sci fi. And Tolkien's writing style in particular, the way he built this very complex mythological world based on my research was pretty quickly accepted and celebrated not only by critics, but also by academics of the time. So his work was like, very quickly legitimized by thinkers, you know, capital T thinkers. So that's reason number one.
- [65:37]
A
I'll also point out even Frank in many of his interviews in the 50s, 60s and 70s, was resistant to the idea of sci fi being dragged into the classroom. He was like, God save us if sci fi becomes academic. You know, it's like, this was an attitude. And even some of the authors were like, I don't want that. I like, this is a genre I'm playing within, and I don't want it to become this thing that's, like, picked apart or whatever, you know? So I think it's also worth calling out that, like, some of the people behind the wheel driving the genre were, like, intentionally being okay with being away from it.
- [66:12]
B
Yeah. And that attitude, I think, certainly over the decades, has shifted a little bit. And science fiction, definitely a genre that is examined much more closely today than it was back then. Argument number two that I want to make here is that Tolkien was a prolific writer. My man was writing a lot. And what's important to consider is that he left behind a treasure trove of notes and fleeting thoughts and literally unfinished stories that he started then, like, dropped for a few years and never came back to others that he started picked up again a few years later. There is so much information left behind by Tolkien in regards to Middle Earth, in regards to the universe that he created there. Frank Herbert did not leave as much behind. He did not leave that same kind of treasure trove of writing and thoughts and notes for others to pick up after his death and for others to dig through and compile and reconstruct. As far as we know. You know, as far as the legend goes, there's a floppy disk of Dune 7 notes, the seventh book, and perhaps some written notes and documents in a lockbox that was left after his death.
- [67:36]
A
Yeah.
- [67:37]
B
Tolkien's shit would not have fit in one lockbox to be clear what he left behind. So I think that that's argument number two for why Lord of the Rings has been treated this way academically. There's just so much material to go through. There's much more to give attention to. And then finally, point number three that I want to make here. I think we all see this one coming. The stewardship of Tolkien's estate after his death in 1973 was left in the very capable hands of his son, Christopher Tolkien, who was deeply. I cannot emphasize this enough. My research. I'm pretty Lord of the Rings obsessed, but even my research today was pretty insightful. He was obsessively passionate and protective of his father's work. Like, really did not want. Like, he famously hates the Peter Jackson movies.
- [68:27]
A
Oh, my God. So funny.
- [68:29]
B
Because he is so protective of the works, he doesn't think his father's works was ever meant to be adapted to the screen, and he hates that it ever did. And I think even more than that, because I think there are people who are just as passionate about the Dune universe out there. I think the more pointed criticism I have here, clearly, for Brian Herbert is that Christopher Tolkien never once in the 40 years he ran his father's estate before he stepped down, never once wrote his own additions to the Lord of the Rings canon. All he ever did for 40 fucking years was compile and complete and celebrate his father's original writings, his father's notes, his father's unpublished work. And he was very clear if you ever read the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales or any of the other books in the Lord of the Rings canon, Christopher is so clear where his father's writing stops and where his additions and interpretations begin. And he's so delicate about. Because he never wanted there to be confusion on who was writing in this universe and who was the authority on the canon. It was always JRR Tolkien. It was never Christopher Tolkien.
- [69:45]
A
So he didn't, like, write a sequel book where Pippin actually says that. That Mary wrote the first book.
- [69:51]
B
Don't even write.
- [69:54]
A
And then actually, the first book was not actually written by anyone.
- [70:00]
B
No, he never did. And look, obviously I'm like, really? I have, like, a chip on my shoulder about this, because this is exactly what I think Brian did that damaged the Dune universe so much. He sought to write his own editions with his own ideas based off of what few notes may or may not exist. And that has now made the Dune canon incredibly messy.
- [70:22]
A
Yeah.
- [70:22]
B
And I think, to its detriment, Tom.
- [70:25]
A
Bombadil was actually Gandalf the whole time. And you never saw them in the same scene. And that's. What a twist. What a twist. Does it break the universe? Yes, but isn't that fun? Isn't that fun? I listen, snide comments aside, I want to say, even if you love Brian's books, even if you like them, even if you just kind of passively enjoy them wherever you fall, it is undeniable that the fandom is split. It is so undeniable that there are people who are like, fuck Brian Herbert. And then there are those people going, hey, leave him alone. He writes, okay? And that's like, the two sides. And the fact that there are even two sides is really regrettable because if you just imagine a hypothetical alternative universe where Dune was spectacular until 86, and then Frank Herbert passes away, then there's a quiet period, couple of licensed video games come out. 92, 93. And then, holy shit. Some prequel books that everyone's on board with, Everyone loves them. Some sequel books. People love them. They're great. Wouldn't that world be fucking different? Wouldn't we be talking about Dune a lot more as a society if it was this building momentum instead of this fracturing point where like, 60 to 80% of Dune fans are like, don't even look at those books. Those books don't fucking exist. Pretend they don't exist. They suck. They're awful. Like, people write us like we're creating this vitriolic take. We are not. It's.
- [71:54]
B
If anything, we're bandwagoning. This take has been around before we were born, to be clear.
- [72:00]
A
And I like to think that I'm pretty measured because, like, I will talk about the specific things that rubbed me the wrong way in the books that I've read, and people are like, it's based on notes, dog. And I'm like, you're just saying that. You're not basing that on any.
- [72:14]
B
Like, to be clear, Christopher Tolkien had the receipts. He showed his work. He was like, look.
- [72:20]
A
Look at those notes.
- [72:22]
B
My father wrote this. The Silverwillian, what you're reading right now. These are not my words. These are Dad's words. I'm just printing them.
- [72:28]
A
What a fucking concept. I want to see the notes.
- [72:33]
B
Show me the fucking notes.
- [72:34]
A
It's that simple.
- [72:36]
B
How do we subpoena the notes? What government agency do we need to lobby to subpoena the Dune 7 notes?
- [72:43]
A
I mean. Yeah. Oh. So I. I think I just want to extend that olive branch, as I often try to do. Two folks on either side of the divide. Whenever we bash Brian, just imagine this alternative universe where everyone was on board with everything, and that's never the universe again. I'm sure there are Tolkien fans who don't like Christopher's work, but, like, still, it just makes such a difference in the fandom because I also know there are a lot of people who. Who went from reading the first Dune book to going, oh, shit, there are books that happened before this. I'm going to go read House Atreides. And, oh, it's not really for me. And then they didn't read the rest of. Yeah, they didn't read the rest of Frank's work.
- [73:19]
B
Yeah, it's sad. I mean, there's more damage that's been done. And I think, going back to Annatar's original question, this is what feeds into the fact that Tolkien's work has been respected. For so many years and has been the subject of serious academic analysis and other writings. Right. Analysis of Tolkien's writings that have really only added to the fabric of this already truly incredible world that J.R.R. tolkien created. And the reason we have that is because of the Stewart I really give so much credit to Christopher Tolkien for the stewardship.
- [73:54]
A
Yeah.
- [73:55]
B
Of his father's work and legacy in a state after his father passed. And I do think that plays a big part into why Dune is not at at the same level. On top of the other things we talked about, the sci fi of it all and just the the amount of information that was left behind, Frank sadly did not leave behind dozens and dozens and dozens of other Dune stories that he had never gotten around to finishing like Tolkien did would have been so good. Great question though. Thanks for. Thanks for letting us geek out about that Annotar.
- [74:27]
A
Indeed. Well, we are going to take one last quick break. Don't go anywhere. When we're back, we've got some fun Dune kind of off topic wacky crazy questions. Stay tuned. I mixed all those words together. That was great. Big tax changes this year could mean a bigger refund.
- [74:47]
B
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A
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B
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A
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- [75:06]
A
Rest easy.
- [75:07]
B
Jackson Hewitt's got your taxes guaranteed limited time offer for new clients. Participate in locations only details@jacksonhewitt.com welcome back folks. Let's round out today's episode by veering off the golden path just a little bit and getting into some more what if and off topic discussions here just for fun.
- [75:27]
A
Nice.
- [75:28]
B
Let's start with a question from patron C.S. walters.
- [75:34]
A
Sure.
- [75:34]
B
Walters writes, quote, what piece of lore would you like to have seen expanded upon? And from that, how would you expand upon it?
- [75:45]
A
Oh, good lord.
- [75:46]
B
Oh, fun.
- [75:47]
A
Kicks off a six hour conversation. Well, get us started. Abu, what do you. Yeah, yeah. What piece of lore and how would you expand? Wow.
- [75:59]
B
I mean, truly, I don't even know that six hours is enough for me to answer this question. Yeah, this is a fun question because I think about this a lot. I probably think about this too much and I actually personally have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of thoughts on this for the sake of time because we're trying to wrap this Episode up. I'll share just one idea today. Just a couple of quick thoughts. I personally think that the roughly like 9,000 ish year period from the formation of the Spacing Guild and the rise of the Carinos and the formation of the Imperium as we know it in Paul's time up until 10,191. Paul's time. I think that period of time is so fascinating and I think there is endless space to fill that time with stories of politics and intrigue within this Imperium. Right. It is literally an Imperium that is young and new and finding its footing to being an imperium that is 10,000 years old when Paul shows up on the stage. Yeah, so much can happen in that time. So many incredible stories can be told. So to answer Walter's question about how I personally hypothetically would tackle that, my initial idea would be to create something title pending but like something like Tales of the New Imperium or something like that. And this would be a book that covers different significant events along this timeline in that 9,000 year period between the foundation and Paul. And these stories, these like short stories would be interconnected either through characters. Right. You might see like related characters and stories either through movements, one movement might cause another movement in the next story, short story to take place, or simply through just like big ideas and themes, ecology, politics, power, control, all of the big themes we know in Love and Dune are sort of the glue holding these short stories together. I imagine this very much as like a Ted Chang short story collection mashed up with the way the first foundation book kind of jumped through different time periods, but they were all sort of interconnected. Yeah, I imagine it's kind of like that, covering the birth of the Imperium, the birth of the Kirino throne all the way to its fall, the rise and fall of the Kurino Empire or something. So what types of stories specifically would I want to tell in this 9,000 year period? I went through the encyclopedia, I looked at the timelines, I looked at what's canon and what's already established and there's very little established for how much time this is. 9,000 years is a long time. There's like only a couple of significant events that are canon basically. So there's a lot of room to play with some canon events that I would want to touch on. One would be I'd want to tell a short story that is a recollection of the first major rebellion against these new Karinas who've taken the throne.
- [78:59]
A
Hell yeah.
- [79:00]
B
And I would tell this short story through these, like, incomplete scraps of secret communications and, like, personal diary entries of the rebels who ultimately end up losing the rebellion because we know the Karina's rule for 10,000 years.
- [79:15]
A
Also, what a great way to demonstrate the power of the Sardaukar, actually show them shutting shit down.
- [79:21]
B
Yeah, Touch on the Sardaukar. Touch on the idea of rebels, Right? Like, get some themes from, like, Siona Atreides in there about the idea of, like, rebellions and how necessary they are, how they change, how they evolve, how all rebels are bureaucrats. Bring some of those ideas from God Emperor into a short story.
- [79:40]
A
Bit of fan service. Name a character Ku Tag.
- [79:43]
B
Exactly.
- [79:44]
A
Give us what we want.
- [79:46]
B
Yeah. Another short story I'd want to pitch here is I would want to track the Zen Sunni migration, which is a big event that we've talked about on this podcast. This is a canon event that takes place in this time, but I'd want to track the migration through the personal stories of multiple members of a single family. So, like a multi generational story. Maybe have like three or four short stories, and we jump to a different generation in each story that reveals a different part of the migration there. I'd want to really touch on ideas of displacement, you know, displaced peoples, displaced cultures, and also kind of weave in some of my own personal experiences of, like, the immigrant story. Right. Like, what happens when your family's history is lost because of events or displacement or immigration and how that may have affected the Zensuni wanderers who ultimately, ultimately become the Fremen on Arrakis. So I think that would be a couple of stories I'd weave in. This one, I think would just kind of be fun. This one maybe would be a very short one, maybe a little more comedic focused. I'd want to write about the first face dancer who shows up in the Carino Court.
- [80:55]
A
Okay.
- [80:56]
B
Because that happens really early on. I think that would be fun. I think it would be interesting to tell the story from the perspective of the face dancer and kind of explore, like, what a face dancer model v1.0 looked like. Did this face dancer have all the powers? Was it fully subservient? Was there any rebellious inner nature of this face dancer? I don't know.
- [81:16]
A
He's like, behold, I'm the emperor. Everyone's like, if you squint, you can kind of see it. Like, yeah, he's kind of got the. That's an okay six out of ten.
- [81:26]
B
Yeah. Weave in some intrigue here, I think, as well, because he's clearly being sent to the Corrino palace as a spy, but he's being sent as an entertainer. So I think there'd be a lot of fun to play with with the first face dancer in the universe.
- [81:38]
A
I love the idea of him being really bad. That's just so funny to me. It's like, no, we're still figuring out this whole intrigue thing. He's like, I'm the emperor. What are your secrets? Oh, that was too forward. I apologize. Oh, that was. I was joking.
- [81:57]
B
I'm workshopping that one. What are your secrets? What are the nuclear codes? I mean, what.
- [82:01]
A
It's my favorite song. Tell me your secrets. I mean.
- [82:05]
B
Okay, last one. One more. I'd want to include in this collection of stories in the tales of the new Imperium. I recently watched the Penguin, which is a truly incredible show. Everyone needs to watch that.
- [82:16]
A
Yeah.
- [82:17]
B
So I've been inspired. I'd love to tell, like, a mobster style mob family story of a house miner and their epic rise and fall through the illegal drug trade of Elaka and Samuta.
- [82:31]
A
Hell yeah.
- [82:31]
B
Real Italian mobster vibes.
- [82:33]
A
Yeah.
- [82:34]
B
And watch this family's like, come up. Maybe they even reach the heights of a house major. But then, just as they're at their peak, events take a turn and we see the beautiful downfall of a house that could have competed with the Atreides of the world.
- [82:47]
A
It's like Peaky blinders. They attract new enemies, a new caliber of threat and danger. Yeah.
- [82:53]
B
Hell yeah. And I think there's some, like, interesting themes here to touch on. Like, Frank likes to obviously talked a lot about government and societies and what's necessary to run them. And I do think sort of an unspoken rule of societies is crime is also an unavoidable part of society. And I think there are some ideas that I want to touch on here about war on drugs, drug trade, drug abuse, how people take advantage of that, how governments take advantage of that, how it's weaponized and who ultimately suffers. Kind of explore some of those themes, but turn it into like a mobster style story.
- [83:31]
A
Oh, man. Yeah. Some of the. Some of the, like, very real things that have happened with like, weaponizing substance abuse in like, low income neighborhoods and like, using that to keep people down. The distribution of, like, making government sanctioned alaka centers in only the poorest of the Fremen neighborhoods.
- [83:50]
B
There you go, Leo. Now you're cooking. Now you're cooking that Samuta, baby.
- [83:56]
A
No, no. Give us more robot tables and Erasmus. That's so much better.
- [84:03]
B
So, yeah, that would be. That would be my pitch and that's how I would go about it.
- [84:07]
A
Fire.
- [84:07]
B
And, you know, maybe I'm not the best equipped to tell all these stories, but I'd love to collaborate with writers. Like, I actually think instead of going in a comedic direction, maybe my face dancer pitch could be written by a trans writer.
- [84:19]
A
Oh.
- [84:20]
B
Who could maybe touch on the idea of what the existence of a face dancer is when they haven't committed to a singular gender identity and how that that affects their experience within the imperium. I'm not the person who can write that story, but maybe there's a trans writer who'd want to work with me on telling that story. So, you know, I think there'd be a lot of. A lot of room to play with here. And, you know, a nerdy podcaster can dream. Someday.
- [84:45]
A
Maybe someday.
- [84:46]
B
What about you, though? I'd love to hear your ideas and your response to Walter's question here.
- [84:51]
A
Oh, sure, Yeah, I listen. Every one of your ideas is fire. Like, that's great.
- [84:57]
B
Thank you.
- [84:57]
A
I want them all right now, please. For me. I kind of went. There are those, like, the temptation of the big pivotal moments are. Is huge. Like, again, I'm a huge fan of like Impala. I'm a huge fan of the invention of the Holtzman engines and like, not quite understanding that. Give me like an enigma style, you know, like science, crime solving. I saw a great TikTok commentator maybe a couple years ago was saying it's great to have movies like the Martian and movies like Enygma and movies like Sherlock Holmes. That epitomizes the idea of the problem solver who solves problems by being brilliant. So I'd love to have stories like that in the Dune universe. Like, Give us that Norma Sidva solving faster than light travel. Like, give us those stories.
- [85:45]
B
Competency porn. I love it.
- [85:47]
A
Competency porn, dude. Just seeing people being good at stuff. That's hot.
- [85:51]
B
It's hot.
- [85:51]
A
It's so hot.
- [85:53]
B
I'm sweaty.
- [85:54]
A
I'm sweating already thinking about it. But I will say the thing that really dominate, like, if I had to choose one, I would choose. And maybe this is hot in the heels of me watching Andor, but I would really love a flushed out, gritty human story on Arrakis following, you guessed it, smugglers.
- [86:16]
B
Let's fucking go.
- [86:17]
A
I love smugglers. Like, set somewhere between Dune and Dune Messiah. I want to follow characters who like their whole system, the system within which they operate has been fully upturned. The uncreased Jordans have been claimed by a new fucking off world or whatever. But they have bills to pay. They have shit to get done and it doesn't involve them. I don't want to see a named character at any point in this fucking show. I want to see bars, I want to see restaurants. I want to see back alleys. I want to see deals done with not bald Ixians going big boom. I want to see proper, like really well written, grounded human characters in this setting, just living. I want extort the water salesperson for a bit of extra water because you're running low on your supply and you think there's a great big storm like that kind of day to day shit. I want to see it. I want to see the day to day life of the common folk. So that realistically I'm like, I know I'm not gonna be a fucking lord or lady in this universe. I'm gonna be a commoner. Show me their lives. I want to see how much that sucks, you know, akin to Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. I was thinking expanding the idea. So that's my pitch, right? Like following the smugglers. Nice, tight single novel. How about this? Same timeline. Now we're following a banker Again, no named characters. Brand new characters, Brand new world. Make me care. Because they're written well and they're people we care about.
- [87:52]
B
Yeah.
- [87:52]
A
What happened to the bankers in Arrakeen when Paul took over? What happens to that infrastructure? And then how do they. They have to worry about their family? Are they going to be raided by Fremen fanatics who are bloodlusting and just killing indiscriminately? What's happening? I want to hear about that story. I also want to hear about the water sellers. I want to hear about a Fremen who's not off on the jihad. He's got heel spurs or some shit that made him like opt out of the military service. Or show us a really detailed story of a Fremen who's out on the jihad. Never encounters Gertie or Stilgar or Duncan or Paul or fucking anyone. I want to. Just a guy. Just a guy.
- [88:36]
B
Yeah.
- [88:37]
A
Trying to survive. Seeing the. Like we think about. I think it's like Othaim talks about the waters. Seeing the ocean, the baptism, the salt water, drinking it, becoming sick.
- [88:48]
B
Yeah. Imagine.
- [88:49]
A
Give us that whole fucking story. That little passage is so impactful, I think, because it's so grounded in the human experience. I want that. I just want a whole book of that. So give. Give me like six different novels all following the same like two year time period. And. And I'll be. I'll be so happy. And it can just be. Yeah. Anyway, that's.
- [89:11]
B
Yeah. And I love the time period you've picked. I have always, always, always been fascinated by the everyday upheaval that Paul's rise to power would have on the imperium. And that 12 year time gap that we have between book one and two is just. I'm like salivating at the possibilities there. Based on what we know of the Imperium, like we talked about earlier, that bureaucratic structure we laid out earlier and how that just all gets blown up. Who does that affect? How does it affect them? What is Paul's rule? What is the perception of Paul's rise to power for the everyday person on a planet that may or may not be directly affected by that change? That to me is endlessly fascinating. So I love the time period you've chosen here.
- [89:55]
A
Again, I think these stories, they mean something to us because they are in some way relatable. Again, that's just, that's the way storytelling works. And we see little bits of ourselves in these moments and it's like, it's so obvious. But give us the stories about the people and it's like, yeah, you can humanize the lords and the ladies, but why not just tell us the stories of the common folk? Like, I'm curious, I want to know about them.
- [90:17]
B
Yeah.
- [90:18]
A
So, yeah, great pitch, but here's a, here's a non serious one. Give me a slice of life comedy about Clairvoy the bus driver. Best character in goddamn Dune. Love him. How did. Did he have a driving test? Did he audition? What was his. How did he get a permit? When did he move to the planet? Tell me about that movie.
- [90:38]
B
The Clarivy origins.
- [90:39]
A
Give me the Claire V. Everything, just everything about them. I want to know.
- [90:43]
B
Yeah, those are my lovers.
- [90:46]
A
How many humans or non humans? Hey, big universe out there. How many. How many things is Clary fucked?
- [90:54]
B
We need to know. I need that clarity body count to know for sure that body and. Or CPU count, I guess, whatever, you know.
- [91:04]
A
How many chair dogs does he have at home?
- [91:06]
B
What a fun question. I love that. And you know, we do get asked this quite a bit in different ways. People have asked us, you know, what lore stuff speaks to us the most and how we'd want to tackle it. It would be very cool to have the opportunity to tell these stories or to work and partner with people and tell these stories in some way. Yeah, certainly something That I, I hope we can make happen someday if the stars align. But for now, we can pitch them here on this podcast when we get questions from people like Walter.
- [91:35]
A
Yeah, that's great. Well, up next, as a final question, Apu.
- [91:41]
B
Yeah.
- [91:41]
A
This is from John Curtis, the one and only John Body Shots Curtis. John writes, quote, if you could have any writer write an original Dune novel.
- [91:53]
B
Oh my God, who would it be? Wow. This is sort of related to what we just talked about, I suppose. But gosh, I'm going to choose to interpret mostly to limit myself. I'm going to choose to interpret John's question as any writer who is currently alive and active in writing and even to limit myself further, I'm going to try and hone in further on sci fi. I think there's a ton of brilliant writers doing amazing work out there, but we're also seeing some amazing sci fi authors releasing some all time great sci fi books today. And so even, like with my guardrails in place, I had a very difficult time narrowing this down.
- [92:34]
A
Yeah.
- [92:35]
B
In my ideal world, if I were given the keys to the Dune castle, I would be reaching out to lots of different writers and letting them bring their own voice and style to the universe. You know, given the guidelines of stay within the canon, I think you find hidden gems by taking risks. And that means trying to go outside the wheelhouse of what has already been established in an ip, doesn't mean you're always going to hit a home run. Oftentimes you're going to stumble and release a dud. But then you will get something like a Tony Gilroy coming in and literally destroying the rest of the IP by creating something so truly incredible.
- [93:16]
A
Yeah.
- [93:16]
B
That stands like heads and head and shoulders above everything else. And that's because Tony Gilroy, frankly, if you, once you're done watching the show, you should read interviews on how that show came together. It's the most expensive Star wars project ever made. And he was practically given a blank check from Disney and no script notes.
- [93:34]
A
Oh, amazing.
- [93:34]
B
In interviews, Tony Gilroy is like, I'd submit my Andor scripts to the execs and they would just be like, yeah, man, whatever. We trust you. Do it. And like, that is how the magic happened. That is how we got fucking Andor. And because he is like one of the most talented writer directors out there. Anyway, moving on from Andor, to answer this question, here's what I narrowed it down to. I think two writers that I would love to see tell their Dune stories would be Adrian Tchaikovsky and Ann Lecky Both of these authors, I think, have proven track records with creating far, far, far, far future universes that are both familiar to the human universe we know today, but also in many ways completely unrecognizable. And specifically, I'm talking about Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time books, which I loved, and Ann Lecky's Imperial Roche series, which I've read the first one of. Haven't gotten around to the sequel books yet, but the first one was really, really great. I think within these series, actually, both authors have also tackled big themes around politics and ecology and other ideas that I think fit neatly into the world that Frank has created, but also pair nicely with many of the themes that Frank himself explored in the original six books. And I'm confident that both Adrian Tchaikovsky and Ann Leckie could bring their own unique voice and their own unique stories to the Dune universe, something we've never gotten in Dune before, while at the same time staying consistent with the ideas that are at the heart of the story.
- [95:17]
A
Yeah.
- [95:18]
B
That are at the heart of the ip. So those are my pitches. Adrian Tchaikovsky and Lecky. I would love to even just hear what they'd pitch as a story in Set and Dune.
- [95:30]
A
No kidding. Okay. We have our bucket list of people to reach out to.
- [95:34]
B
That's true. What about you? What authors, creators, writers came to mind for you?
- [95:39]
A
Well, I feel. I'll just say I feel so under equipped to answer this question because I feel like the last five or six years I've just been so focused on Dune and then the things that I've read outside of Dune have been very light and like, really not on par. Like I ended up reading the Fourth Wing books and it's like, does that, you know, does Rebecca Yarros really lend herself well to Dune? I don't think so. And it's not nothing personal about her. It's just different. Different style altogether different goals that she's trying to achieve.
- [96:07]
B
Yeah.
- [96:07]
A
So I'm really under equipped to answer this question, but I have recently started picking up more outside reading, so hopefully soon I will have a better answer to this question.
- [96:16]
B
I think honestly, you have great answers here.
- [96:18]
A
I tried. So I named the obvious ones right. I named Ted Chang. Although thinking about it for a full novel, I'm not as sure because I like Ted Ching's.
- [96:28]
B
His strengths are short stories.
- [96:29]
A
His short stories are phenomenal. So I would love a short story collection from him, not necessarily a full novel. Andy Weir is great. I love his books. I love. I love his approach. He does lean much Harder sci fi. So I don't know again if that's a good fit. But I like his books. I like his words. Magic Man. He's great.
- [96:46]
B
Yeah.
- [96:47]
A
Also Liu Qi Shen, Lou Xishin, the author of Three Body Problem. Also excellent, great handling of language. All of them tell really deeply human stories within this, like, broader context of really extraordinary, fascinating worlds. If you can write a book like Three Body Problem, you can, you can, you can write a book in Dune easily. But I think going away from sci fi just a little bit because to the earlier question about whether or not it's like even sci fi or fantasy or like, where does it sit? Yeah, I would say John Langan, who wrote a 2016 novel called the Fisherman. So the Fisherman is a sort of like horror thriller story about someone who's recently widowed. His wife passes and dealing with trauma. He starts fishing, but he and a buddy who bond over that trauma end up going fishing together in a place that may or may not be a rift to like an extra dimensional Lovecraftian horror universe. And a whole thing third of the book is like early Dutch, German, European settlers in the, like, New York Hudson Valley. And there is like a Lovecraftian guy pulling some bullshit and it's like, fucking cool.
- [98:06]
B
I also kind of love this is that this is set in New York. I'm kind of a sucker for that.
- [98:10]
A
Yeah, it's kind of sick. It really defied a lot of my expectations of like, what you're allowed to do in writing books. It's almost like a play. First act, second act, third act. It's got the Lovecraftian horror. It's got the horror, the really human pain of losing someone and trying to be okay with it in this incomprehensible tragedy. Very Paul in Dune Messiah coded. And I thought his language was really accessible. It was very fun to read. The pacing was good. I like cosmic horrors. I think those fit within the Dune universe very well. So I think that's like really off the beaten path. But I love it. I think, I think it'd be fun for him to write something like some thing that people barely encounter on some planet during the scattering. You know, something like that. Like, that could be pretty cool.
- [98:53]
B
I mean, imagine the horror stories you could tell about the Tleilaxu. It doesn't have to be about the core Tleilaxu worlds, but they have subsidiary worlds that they spread out to. Imagine the shit going on over there.
- [99:04]
A
Or some like auxiliary Ixian techno, like religion that like, brushes a little too close to something that they get a sense of it and they go, we have to shut this down. And it's the person who decides to shut down the thing that's connecting to some other place. And they're like, I don't know. Our friend Warwick over there was speaking in tongues for the last three days. We gotta kill this program. That could be cool as shit, dude. Like that. So that was something that came to mind again. One of the few like really great novels I've read in the last five, six years. So another idea came to mind and this is again off the beat.
- [99:42]
B
This is a goated choice by the way. I just want to preface this. I saw this in the script and.
- [99:46]
A
I went, leo, what the fuck?
- [99:47]
B
Popping off.
- [99:50]
A
Yeah. So I was like, you know what I really fucking loved recently? That's just like the best and so good and transcends form and media and just makes me want to be a better person and like all these things. Frieren the anime.
- [100:05]
B
Anime Frieren ah, so good.
- [100:08]
A
Not only is it a great animated thing with great voice acting and great audio and great all these things, just the core story and the themes explored and the characters are all so fucking top tier that I was like, okay, let me look this up. It's Kanehito Yamada. So Yamada san wrote frieren the show. If you haven't watched it, dear listener, please do yourself a favor, go watch it. Stick with it past the first 10 episodes. You'll be hooked, I promise. It talks about time. The show is deeply about time. And what does time mean? Finding meaning and living. What does it mean to live life if you don't have memories you formed and connections and people that you've come to know the potential of humanity? What does it mean to be human? And where is the strength in humanity and where's the brilliance in humanity? Especially looking at it from a wide angle of a thousand years. And in all of those ways I think that it really fits within the DNA of Dune.
- [101:04]
B
Yes.
- [101:04]
A
I would fucking love for Yamada san to write a book about some long lived character and their experience within the Dune universe. And like, I think that could be really, really, really cool.
- [101:16]
B
Yeah. And we know we have long lived characters, right? We have a bunch of lash extended.
- [101:20]
A
Lifespan so fucking many of them. It'd be, yeah, think about, okay, maybe there's a little planet somewhere where based on like local religious beliefs, people opt out of life extension stuff and someone's moved there and they have taken and they are still taking spice. And so they live 300 years and they see three generations of people pass by. And what is that? What is that perspective? Give me that. You know, as they reflect on, is life better on this planet or worse? What does it mean to live a third as long but like, to they have all of this joy and this love. I want to see that perspective. Or maybe they say, no, it's just legitimately better to be like, immune to most poisons than to live three times as long. This fucking slaps. Yeah, this is great. Maybe that's the perspective. But I think that could be such a meaningful conversation to have, especially because, yeah, like, modern medicine continues to improve, we continue to solve big problems. We have new problems arising. But as longevity becomes more and more a thing, what does it mean to live more years? Is it good?
- [102:23]
B
Yeah. I think another strength of Frieren and I think a strength of Kanehito Yamada in the storytelling is that Frieren exists within like, dnd. You know, it already sort of exists within an ip.
- [102:38]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [102:39]
B
So Yamato san is already capable of playing with an IP and really toying with it in very interesting and subversive ways that you don't expect. Yeah, I was. I was hooked literally on the first. I don't think you even have to make it to like episode 5, 5 or 10 of this anime. I was hooked on the first episode of Frieren simply because the premise is the DND campaign is over.
- [103:04]
A
Yeah.
- [103:05]
B
Now what? Yeah, that's where the show starts. The campaign is done. We're not watching a DND campaign.
- [103:11]
A
The big bad.
- [103:11]
B
We beat the boss.
- [103:13]
A
Yeah.
- [103:14]
B
And now it's day one after the boss. It's the like, now what? And I was like, holy shit. I thought this was just like a generic D and D show.
- [103:23]
A
Yeah.
- [103:23]
B
Or like a generic fantasy show set within a D and D universe. Countless variations of that exist out there. Right. We've all seen shows like that. This completely flips that on its head in a way that, like, truly hooked me right away. And I think proves that Yamada san is somebody who can take an ip, understand it and its conventions deeply, and then tell you something you've never heard from that IP before.
- [103:47]
A
Yeah.
- [103:48]
B
And I think that would be very cool in the Dune space. Plus, I've been pushing for a Dune anime on this podcast for years now.
- [103:56]
A
That's so true and that's so funny. So we'll have to email Yamato san and see if he's game to write something in Dune. I'm like, hey, do you want to get Sued by Brian. That sounds fun.
- [104:09]
B
Yeah. Great picks. You're selling yourself too short. I think you've chosen some truly talented authors in the sci fi space, but then just great storytellers beyond that too. And I think that's important in order for the IP to evolve and grow and thrive. We can't just stay in our comfort zones.
- [104:27]
A
I'd like to think that that's true. Get some fresh blood on the scene.
- [104:30]
B
Yeah. Well, John, body shots. Curtis, thank you so much for that great question. Hopefully our answers are satisfactory. And we'd love to hear all of yours as well, folks. You're all readers. We know you're all readers in the audience.
- [104:47]
A
Nerds.
- [104:48]
B
You bunch of fucking nerds listening to a Dune podcast. So, yeah, tell us about your favorite authors. I'm sure there's countless that we neither of us has ever read who would also do a great job telling a Dune story. And we'd love to hear about them. Send us your recommendations. All right, well, that wraps it up, Leo. That wraps it up for today's mailbag episode, an extra long one today, but I think there were just a lot of fun questions that we wanted to tackle. And so I think we had some really great conversations today. Thanks to our listeners. Yeah, great questions.
- [105:18]
A
Absolutely. Agreed. Now, this is part of our book club series. So, dear listener, now that you've heard all of these questions and all of these answers, we have some assigned reading for you. Do not. Not read. Definitely read chapter 16, 17 and 18. Or if your book is a slightly different version than ours, this is to the end of the chapter that ends on the quote, the horde of Lampidas venting emotions it had confined for many generations. End quote.
- [105:51]
B
Excited.
- [105:51]
A
Hell yeah. Look at that generational trauma. The horde of Lampidos is like my father never loved me.
- [105:58]
B
You vent those emotions, Horde. You do it, girl.
- [106:00]
A
Vent them. Yeah, do it. You deserve some. Tears are healthy sometimes.
- [106:05]
B
Sometimes. All right, folks, before we let you go, a couple of very quick reminders here at the end. Reminder number one, the best ways to support us. You have a couple of options here. First and foremost, become a patron. Patreon.com jabbar Join our wonderful community. Get access to our discord. Chat with us directly. Join live streams of book club episodes and get early access to future episodes and a bunch of other goodies. All of that for as little as $5 a month. That $5 goes a long way into supporting this show and making sure we can continue to make it. Patreon.com Gom Jabbar is your best way to support the show. The other way to support the show is to check out our merch store gomjabbarshop.com check out some great designs that Leo has come up with that we've slapped onto everything from mugs to hoodies to other stuff. Gamjabarshop.com buy yourself something nice indeed.
- [107:01]
A
Now we also love to hear from you. So if your question didn't make this episode or if you have a new question that our episode inspired or whatever the case, email us gomjabarpodcastmail.com we love to hear from you. Yes, kind of, whatever, just send it to us. Say hi, we are behind in responding, but that is always the case. Do not take it personally. We will respond to you. A lot of the responses I get are holy shit I forgot that I emailed you. And honestly, fair, I am sorry but I appreciate you all so much. So send us emails. We love to get them. And again, if you have questions, they can also be questions. Just about anything. If you have questions about what anime we're watching, if you have questions about our personal lives, what fucking ever, just send us an email. We love to hear them.
- [107:46]
B
Yeah, tell us how your frieren watching journey is going.
- [107:49]
A
Yeah, tell us if you believe in esp. Abu, do you love. Do you believe in esp?
- [107:54]
B
I absolutely do not believe in esp.
- [107:57]
A
I don't either, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. I tend to lean very heavily on like what has been corroborated through independent studies. Yeah, if you have shown me that something's happened twice in the world and two different unrelated institutions have documented, I'll be like, all right, I'll then junior.
- [108:19]
B
Yeah.
- [108:19]
A
But when it's like, hey, a guy did this once. I'm like, all right.
- [108:22]
B
Right, Cool. Right? Yeah, I'm not an ESP believer, but look, I believe in magic. So if it's out there, I'm ready to be disproven.
- [108:34]
A
Hell yeah. Jesus. It's the loudest tummy growl I've ever. Well, friends, there is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the recording. But this podcast is always one step beyond logic. So help spread the word of Muad'dib and leave us a review on Apple podcasts and Spotify. And be sure to check out the other shows on the Lore Party podcast network on loreparty.com youm can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram Lore underscore party. We're also on YouTube. Check us out there thank you so much for listening. And remember, whoever controls the podcast controls the universe. We'll see you on the Golden Path.