Producer’s Commentary: Revisiting the Dune Tarot

Summary

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Gom Jabbar: Producer’s Commentary – Revisiting the Dune Tarot (May 22, 2026)

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This “Producer’s Commentary” episode brings hosts Leo and Abu back to their deep-dive on the Dune Tarot—an in-universe Tarot deck referenced in Dune Messiah and explored in depth in their 28th ever episode (now nearly 250 episodes ago!). Inspired by a teaser for Dune Part Three, which hints at the Tarot’s appearance onscreen, the hosts revisit their old exploration and reflect on the dense world-building, Encyclopedia entries, and literary and film implications of the Dune Tarot.

Purpose:

• To provide behind-the-scenes commentary on their older Dune Tarot episode.
• To reconsider the history, meaning, and implications of the Dune Tarot.
• To discuss changes in their podcasting approach and speculate anew on the Tarot’s possible depiction in forthcoming Dune media.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why the Dune Tarot?

[09:29]

• The Dune Tarot is outstanding world-building: it gives nuance, flavor, and reality to Frank Herbert’s universe, enriching the everyday culture within Paul’s empire.
• It's “a small but significant part of [Dune Messiah] and then almost never mentioned again,” but its ripple effects are vast (Abu).
• The Dune Encyclopedia (a fan-favorite resource) devotes a remarkably detailed entry to the Tarot, building out the suits, major arcana, and their cultural resonance.

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2. The Tarot in Fiction and Reality

[15:55]

• Real-world Tarot: 78 cards (56 Minor Arcana, 22 Major Arcana); minor suits evoke classic playing cards, while major arcana include The Fool, Death, The World, etc.
• The hosts emphasize they're not Tarot experts and invite feedback from knowledgeable listeners ([08:56] "We are not experts on that subject, so we'll be as respectful as we know how" – Leo).

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3. The Dune Tarot: Lore and Structure

Introduced at [19:36]

• Dune Tarot first appears in Dune Messiah:

  "Other histories point out the spies in Wad'dib's household. They make much of the Dune Tarot, which clouded Muad'dib's powers of prophecy." [19:52]

• Symbolizes both the spread of mysticism/fortune-telling and the new culture of prescience in the Atreides Empire.
• The Tarot decks work—though only those with skill can use them to “measurably” access limited prescience.
• Reader’s skill is key:

  “Meaning resides not in the cards, but in the mind of the reader.” [22:31]

Accessibility:

• “Many in high and low positions...had that skill” ([23:05]), yet across an empire of billions, it remains for the select few.

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4. Dune Tarot Deck Details

Deep dive at [25:48]

• Structure and Terminologies:
  • Four suits: Knives, Globes, Staves, Basins
  • In Arrakis culture: Kris-knives, Glowglobes, Wind poles, Dew collectors – showing planetary adaptation ([27:07])
• The Dune Encyclopedia lists and illustrates the major arcana ([27:46]).
• Noteworthy: Most major arcana cards are creative adaptations of real-world cards, imbued with Dune’s spiritual/political themes.

Featured Major Arcana & Their Dune Analogues

• The World → The Universe ([30:14]):

  • Imagery: Two-faced figure symbolizing the Kwisatz Haderach, “bridging space and time and symbolizing the intrusion of the divine into the ordinary.”
  • “That’s so dope...This is the Paul card.” – Leo [31:47]

• The Fool → The Wanderer ([32:37]):

  • A lone silhouette in the desert—imagery reflecting Dune’s warnings about charismatic leaders (“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than to fall into the hands of a hero.” [34:03])

• The Devil → The Great Wyrm ([35:25]):

  • The devil “appears as a tempter,” recontextualized in Dune as the great sandworm; the card “sometimes depicted as Shaitan...Arabic for Satan, right?" – Leo; Abu: "Yeah, for Satan or the devil...specifically in Arabic, it translates quite directly to devil." [36:48]
  • Symbolizes both the deadly lure of spice and the ambivalent Fremen relationship to the worms as both deity and danger.

• The Moon → Al-Lat ([38:53]):

  • Al-Lat: An oppressive sun over a young worm—“encourages the growth of Shai Hulud. But this is the devouring sun, a deadly power. It signifies an approaching trial or growth of the spirit.”
  • Rich Fremen lore: “The harshness of the desert is what made the Fremen so powerful...” [39:53]

• The Hierophant → Ampaloros ([45:26]):

  • Ampaloros: Mythic spaceship, briefly mentioned by Jessica in the novel; symbolizes uniting the spiritual and physical, endless seeking.
  • Leo's enthusiasm: “I’m so close to getting an Impaloros tattoo. I’m so hyped...” [45:39]

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5. The Dune Tarot’s Role in Prescience

[57:05, 59:12]

• Dune Tarot cards, when used by many, actively cloud and limit Paul’s super-prescience.
• Major point in Dune Messiah:

  “The Dune Tarot...clouded Muad’dib’s powers of prophecy.” – [19:52]

• Prescience is “blind to other prescience”—millions using Tarot create “blind spots” (Abu [59:12]).
• Stratagem (“almost a conspiracy theory” [63:54]): Third parties might proliferate Tarot specifically to confound Paul’s omniscience and enable plotting.

“How do you combat someone who can see the future? Create more futures, and now he’s not sure which one he’s in. There you go.” – Leo [65:03]

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6. Rise, Fall, and Cultural Role of the Tarot

[49:20] Timeline discussion

• Roots: Ancient Earth, over 20,000 years old, probably brought by Zensunni wanderers.
• Tarot is a niche tradition until Paul’s reign: “like, you go to Paris and you’re like, I’m gonna buy a beret. Suddenly, you know, tourists visiting Arrakis would be like, well, the cool Fremen thing to do would be to buy one of these prescient decks.” – Leo [51:04]
• Peak: At Messiah, seen everywhere – “red and green packages containing the new Dune Tarot were prominent among the vendor’s wares.” – [52:12]
• Decline: Within a decade, Tarot is a tourist bauble ([55:33]), no longer a focus of power or mystique.

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7. Podcast Reflections and Meta-Commentary

Throughout, Leo and Abu pause to critique and reflect on their earlier style:

• Early episodes were slower to reach the subject:

  “We are so long into this episode...just hearing about everything that isn’t [the Dune Tarot]." – Leo [12:27]

• Later (and current) episodes move all housekeeping, tangents, etc., to the end to “get to the fucking point faster.”
• Enjoyment of early banter, but clear preference for streamlined delivery in hindsight ([13:32] and multiple points).

They also discuss possible improvements to the episode, such as random "card draws" to liven things up ([41:31]), and regret not including deeper research on certain topics (e.g. the pre-Islamic goddess Al-Lat [41:06]).

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8. Notable Quotes and Moments

• On the Tarot’s Lore Impact:

  "It paints this picture of Frank's universe for us. It gives us a glimpse into life in the Atreidian empire..." – Abu [09:44]

• On Worldbuilding:

  “I love that that theme makes its way even into the Dune tarot.” – Abu re: The Wanderer card [34:19]

• On Prescience Blindness:

  "If you are a Guild steersman, or if you are a Kwisatz Haderach...you cannot see each other in your prescient visions." – Abu [59:12]

• Relatable Podcast Humor:

  “He’s got millions of people across his empire, annoyingly trying to knock on the door of prescience and poke their little heads in.” – Abu [62:26]

• On Merch:

  "Dear Warner Brother exec...you want our money? Give us a Dune Tarot deck as merch." – Abu [71:00]

• Self-awareness:

  "That’s Dune in a nutshell...that’s also this podcast in a nutshell." – [65:21]

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9. Speculation on Dune Tarot in Film

[66:09]
Hosts speculate about the inclusion or referencing of Dune Tarot in potential Dune Messiah or Dune Part Three films:

• Both agree even a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment would be meaningful for fans and world-building.

  "I would actually be quite disappointed if the future hypothetical Dune Messiah movie didn’t include at least a brief reference to the Dune Tarot." – Abu [67:05]

• The Tarot’s effect on Paul is a compelling visual device to show limitations of prescience ([67:32]).
• Conclude likely inclusion will be as world-building/set dressing, not central plot ([73:56]).

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Notable Timestamps

• [04:42] – Spoiler warning specifics; episode content boundaries.
• [11:46] – Dune Encyclopedia’s special role and why the hosts love it.
• [25:48] – Break-down of the Tarot deck suits and Arrakis-specific adaptations.
• [30:14] – Deep dive into Dune Tarot’s major arcana, starting with "The Universe."
• [45:26] – The Ampaloros as tarot major arcana; Leo’s extreme fandom.
• [49:20] – Timeline: origins and cultural adoption of the Dune Tarot.
• [57:05]/[59:12] – Tarot's impact on prescience and why Paul hates it.
• [66:09] – Speculation on the Tarot in film adaptations.
• [71:00] – The perennial plea for official Dune Tarot merchandise.

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Memorable Moments

• Rob Schmob bit:
  “Even if it’s Joe Schmo’s incredibly talented cousin Rob Schmob, it’s, you know, still very few people…” – Leo [23:16]
• Impala rose Tattoo Hype:
  “I’m so close to getting an Impaloros tattoo.” – Leo [45:39]
• Recurring Merch Pleas:
  “Just a bag of sand. That’d be the best merch.” – Leo [71:51]

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Final Reflections

• The episode is both a celebration of Dune’s worldbuilding minutiae and a window into the evolution of Gom Jabbar as a podcast.
• The hosts’ self-critical and playful commentary punctuates the earnest research and deep affection for the universe.
• The Dune Tarot serves as a vehicle for exploring Dune’s themes of power, prescience, fate, and how cultures mythologize both the past and the uncertain future.
• Both hosts maintain that even minor details—a Tarot deck, a named ship, a new superstition—can communicate the scope, richness, and humanity of Herbert’s enduring universe.

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For listeners, this episode is a deep, thoughtful, and sometimes goofy journey from meta-reflection to lore investigation, full of lore gems and podcasting wisdom.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, characters and philosophies 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 Leo.

[B]

And my name's Abu. That was pretty good for trying to do it off of memory. We don't have a script in front of us.

[A]

Wait, okay, I pulled it up. Welcome to Ganjo. You're iconic.

[B]

I think you flipped some of the

[A]

things, listed them in a random order. We'll be exploring. Oh, characters. Who knows philosophies. Sure, why not? Yes.

[B]

One of those things. All of those things.

[A]

All of the above. Hello and welcome back to a producer commentary. And today we're doing one that is very near and dear to my heart. The Dune Tarot. I'm so fucking excited.

[B]

Yeah, honestly, I'm excited to learn about the Dune Tarot because I forgot we ever did this episode. I forgot everything there is to know about the Dune Tarot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And notably, we picked this episode for this month's producer commentary because it seems like part three is going to include the Dune Tarot. There was like a little 30 second, 15 second TV spot that had a bit of extra footage that wasn't in the teaser trailer. And there's a very quick blink and you'll miss it. Shot of somebody laying cards down, which we must assume is the Dune Tarot.

[A]

Yeah, it's not Dune. Go fish. It's not Dune. Fucking Nazi or whatever. Yeah, it's gotta be Tarot. And I'm so stinking stoked. I am obsessed with Dune. And again, going back, I proposed this episode because the encyclopedia entry on the Dune Tarot is out of control. So I'm really excited to re listen to this. It's been a long time. I have forgotten 90% of it. I remember Ampaloros is one of the major arcana. But yeah, dude, if we get like proper Dune Tarot works in the Dune universe lore, confirmation from Denis Villeneuve, major victory in my book. I'm going to be so stoked.

[B]

That would be very cool. Okay, for context, this is our 28th episode of Gom Jabbar that we ever produced.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And to put that on a timeline, currently in 2026, we're in the like almost 300th episode territory somewhere around there. So this was about 250 episodes ago that we made this Dune Tarot episode. So I'm excited to travel back through time and give it a listen and

[A]

as one last reminder before we do again, we are doing these commentary episodes to buy ourselves a bit of extra bandwidth because we have a very exciting project that we were working very, very hard on. Literally seconds before recording, Abu is showing me some shit that I cannot wait to make public. But we will wait.

[B]

We have to wait.

[C]

We are using.

[B]

Not done yet.

[A]

It's not done yet. But we are using this extra bandwidth toward that project. So we appreciate your understanding, and together, I think we're all ready to enjoy this blast from the past episode.

[B]

Okay, let's hit play and let's dive in uncertainty.

[C]

And together, we'll lay out our cards for a fleeting glimpse of what the future holds.

[D]

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.

[C]

My name's Leo.

[D]

And Leo.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

We are getting mystical.

[C]

Ooh, I'm excited. We're talking about the Dune Tarot. You saw the title?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

You know what you clicked on? We're talking about the Dune Tarot, which is an in universe deck of Tarot cards featured in Tune Messiah.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

What the heck?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So cool.

[D]

Today's a fun one. It's definitely a lot of world building, a lot of extended lore.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But we love doing these types of episodes, so we wanted to dedicate an entire episode to the Dune Tarot. But before we get ahead of ourselves and dive headfirst into the lore.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Spoiler warning has to come first, always. Like we said, the Dune Tarot is mentioned in Dune Messiah. So that means that today's episode will have spoilers for the first Dune novel and light spoilers for Dune Messiah. So if you are someone who's highly sensitive to spoilers or you haven't made it through the first and second book yet, we highly recommend you read those two books before listening to this episode. If you have read the first book and you're fine with sort of light and vague spoilers for the second one, then carry on.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, we're gonna keep it pretty about the deck and not so much about the plot of the book. Right, but you're exactly right. I mean, again, this is after mostly the events of the first book, so be warned. And listen, folks, if you haven't read the first book, I feel like. I feel like there's a really good resource there for. I don't know, it's the tip of my tongue. It's a. Oh, yeah, our book club.

[D]

It's us.

[C]

It's us. Have you heard of Gom Jabbar, the podcast? We have a book club. Yes. Yeah.

[D]

A reminder that we are reading through the entirety of the first novel in preparation for the upcoming film. And by the time this episode will go out, we will be halfway through the first book already.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So now's your time to pick up the book and catch up and read along with us and enjoy our Deep Dive Lore Heavy Book Club episodes. Which, by the way, are also spoiler free. So they're perfect if you're a first

[C]

time reader and just think the sooner you read all of the Dune books, the sooner you kind of unlock all of our spoiler heavy episodes. Yeah, it's like an achievement in a video game. It's great. Earn those perks. And whether it's about the book club or it's about these sort of Deep Dive episodes, we love hearing from you kind of no matter what you have

[A]

to say to us.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, maybe that's too open.

[D]

I don't know. We got an email today where someone sent us bat facts.

[A]

Oh my God.

[D]

Because we made a joke about bats.

[C]

We got bat facts.

[D]

We got bat facts.

[C]

Did they tell us if we need to be spitting in their mouths?

[D]

There was some good speculation in there. I'll show you the email later.

[C]

Okay. Can't wait. What's that email address? Abu? Where should they send us emails?

[D]

It's an easy one. Leo. Gomjabbarpodcastmail.com.

[C]

oh, that makes no sense.

[B]

Right? It's almost too easy.

[D]

That's the best place to hit us up with.

[B]

I'm gonna pause right there just to say I have like a goofy ass grin on my face listening to this right now. This banter is really cute. We're having fun.

[A]

Yeah, we're having a lot of fun. I sound sick. I sound like to my ear. And I listen to a lot of myself. Cause of voice acting and podcast production and stuff. But I'm like, man, I'm really sinking into some of those depths, like frequently. And it's fun. Yeah, that's neither here nor there. I agree. The banter's top tier.

[B]

No, I'm noticing the audio too. And again, this is so early on. I'm sure this is well before I had gotten good at actually mixing and cleaning up audio. And so I was probably just like slapping this into some sort of template and hoping it sounded good and calling it a day.

[A]

I think I was still cause for transparency. I used to record in a booth. Like I would set up my booth and I would record in the booth and that was sweaty, sweaty work. And because our episodes are like two, three hours of raw audio, it's so much work these days. The last few years I've recorded basically at my desk and I just kind of noise treat the whole room. That's so much more comfortable and better. But I do wonder, maybe that's why these early episodes have such crisp, crunchy audio.

[B]

Yeah, maybe.

[A]

I gotta go back to closet recording.

[B]

Okay, let's get back to it. This fun banter with your episode ideas

[D]

just to say hello to tell us about an episode you recently listened to all of those and more, including bad facts. Gomjabarpodcastmail.com that's the place for it, folks.

[C]

I'll also preemptively Today's About Tarot cards. I would love to hear feedback from people who know a lot about tarot cards about today's episode in particular. We are not experts on that subject, so we'll be as respectful as we know how to be. And I'm sure we might misstep here and there. Don't mean to at all, but we'd love to hear from you. Omjabbarpodcmail.com if you know all about Tarot cards. But why this topic? Like, why are we talking about Dune Tarot? The Dune Tarot, yeah.

[D]

Well, first of all, it's incredible world building. Right?

[A]

Right.

[D]

The Dune Tarot is mentioned in Dune Messiah. It's a small but significant part of that book and then almost never mentioned again in future books.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Right.

[D]

But what it does do is it paints this picture of Frank's universe for us. It gives us a glimpse into life in the Atradian empire by the time Dune Messiah rolls around. And it's such a wonderful small nugget that helps flesh out this world that Frank is creating. Something that Frank is so good at in the Dune saga. Just building this world in a way that's not obvious and explicit.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So that sort of lore is always so fun to dive deep into and explore. In addition to that, with our book club episodes with some movie planning we have coming up. Leo, you and I are busy making stuff for this podcast, so we wanted to try sort of a lighter, less heavy topic this time around, considering we recently covered the entire Golden Path, which was.

[B]

That was a lot of work.

[C]

Also, I think try is the key word there because despite the fact that this week was supposed to be like a lighter episode. This script is 11 pages long.

[D]

Hello.

[C]

Giddy up. What up? Time to fasten your seatbelts, folks.

[B]

Yeah, we couldn't help ourselves. We had to geek out. This was supposed to be a light,

[D]

easy script, and it's 11 pages, so here we go.

[C]

But it's also right there. I mean, you said it perfectly. It's world building. And it's world building also that you could very easily miss if you only read Frank's books.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

Because the encyclopedia has this incredible section on the Dune Tarot. And very clearly, the people who wrote the Dune Encyclopedia back in the 80s put some love and care into this. And I think it really builds out not only the universe, but also develops some ideas that Frank introduced in the Dune series in new and interesting ways that, again, are totally harmonious with Frank's writings. Which is part of why we here at GOM Jabbar love the Dune Encyclopedia so much, because it does seem sort of compatible.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And frankly, looking back on episodes that we've done over the last year or two, we've done episodes on the OC Bible and the Azar book. We talked about Paul's prescience.

[A]

Right.

[C]

We talked about the Fremen, their kind of arc, their rise to power and decline. And we even talked about, as you pointed out in a very long episode, we talked about the Golden Path. And the Dune Tarot kinda relates to all of those topics. And it really shocked me how much there is to talk about and how many little interconnecting bits there are.

[D]

Yeah, definitely. Okay, so let's get into it.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

First and foremost, what is the Dune Tarot? We already sort of explained it. But in brief, the Dune Tarot.

[A]

All right, pause. I so appreciate the point at which you said in our, like, lifespan as a podcast that we need to get to the fucking point faster. The fact that we are so long into this episode and I'm listening to myself going, oh, yeah, name seven other episodes. Yeah, the list isn't comprehensive enough. Dude, come on, keep talking. We have, like.

[C]

I don't.

[A]

What's the time marker? How. How long are we in this episode?

[B]

The time marker we're currently at is 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

[A]

That's 7 minutes of Mount Doom tarot. What are we doing?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I think you coined the term strafing. Or you used the term strafing.

[C]

My God. Yeah, I am glad. Like, we moved.

[A]

We made a very intentional decision. We made a very intentional decision to

[C]

move all of our, like, a lot

[A]

of our housekeeping that isn't pertinent for the episode toward the end of the episode. I think that's so much better.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I'm really feeling it on some of these early episodes where it's like, God damn, if I wanted to hear about the Dune Tarot, I'd be so bored at this point because I'm just hearing about everything that isn't that. Of course I'm making the problem worse now on my commentary on my episode.

[B]

But still, right now we're dragging it out even further, folks. We're going to push this to the 10 minute mark before any of us hear about the Dune Tarot.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And this is a tension I feel basically every single episode we ever record over our like 300 episode career of Gom Jabbar. I literally feel this every week where I sit there and I'm mad at myself that we're taking too long to get to the point and so I make aggressive cuts to get us there faster. But yes, you're totally right. We made intentional edits and tweaks to our script formats to just like push a bunch of wasting time to the end of the episode or push Housekeeping around and to really make it so that like, within the first three to five minutes maximum.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

We're done and we're fully into the main topic of the episode. We're done with like, welcome stuff, banter, housekeeping, that sort of thing. Yeah, for me, like the cutoff, in my mind, the hard cutoff is always like five minutes. If you've wasted five minutes of people's time and they haven't heard about the

[D]

thing, they clicked play on.

[B]

Yeah, you fucked up.

[A]

Yeah, agreed. Hard. Agreed.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Anyway, let's get back to it.

[D]

It feels like in a minute now

[B]

we're going to get into the actual Dune Tarot.

[A]

Can't wait.

[B]

Here we go.

[D]

Tarot deck in the Dune universe.

[C]

Okay, cool. You know, thanks, guys.

[D]

You know, that was a great TL Dr. Version of our episode.

[B]

You could stop.

[C]

Right, so we'll see you on the.

[D]

No, we're obviously kidding. We have like 10 more pages to go.

[C]

Wait, we have like eight.

[A]

Eight pages.

[D]

Oh, right, right.

[C]

Whatever.

[A]

It's fine.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Okay, so let's dig deeper into that. A tarot deck that exists in the Dune universe. That's already a really interesting sentence. Right, but there's so much more to it before we talk about the actual deck that exists in Frank's fictional universe. The fictional deck that exists in the fictional universe.

[A]

Right.

[D]

We figured it would be smart to maybe set the scene and contextualize for those of us who may not know.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And honestly, this research was important for us as well.

[C]

Totally.

[D]

We wanted to talk about actual tarot decks and tarot cards and sort of broadly set the scene and explain and contextualize what they are in real life so that we can then talk about them in the fictional Dune universe.

[C]

And, you know, we are not experts in this.

[D]

No.

[C]

So this is going to be very broad, very general. And to demonstrate how broad and general it's going to be, the first thing we're going to put down there is a dictionary definition.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

Tarot expert Webster gives us a definition here. Tarot decks are one of a special pack of cards now used mainly for fortune telling, consisting of 78 cards, four suits of 14 cards each, the minor arcana, and 22 other cards, the Major Arcana. End quote. So, yeah, there's a lot of parentheses in that definition. Three parentheses, to be clear, contained as well. Like, there are brackets within brackets, plans within plans, if you would.

[B]

Definitions within definitions.

[C]

The Baron Harkonnen would love this definition.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So there are four suits. And this kind of, to me, sounds familiar, Right? This is like playing cards. We've got, you know, hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades. The four suits of a standard tarot deck are wands, sometimes called batons, coins, sometimes called pentacles.

[B]

Fun.

[C]

And that's with a p. Pentacles and cups and swords, Sometimes called cups and swords. They don't have other names. Anyway, the last thing that I wanted to say about the definition that we just got through, you know, it mentions those 22 other cards, the Major Arcana. The 22 Major Arcana are kind of what I picture as someone who doesn't really know a lot about tarot cards. These are what I picture when someone says Tarot deck. These are the sort of unique face cards that you probably have seen before. You know, the fool, death, the world, you know.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

They're the face cards of tarot decks. Also, shout out to anybody who watched that, like, somewhat disappointing JoJo's Bizarre Adventure season, which I. All major Arcana themed stands.

[B]

Anyway, so much I will not accept

[D]

JoJo slander on this podcast.

[C]

Listen, that season's not great. First few are good. That one's weird. Gets better, I hear. Whatever.

[D]

And that is about all we are qualified to say about actual tarot decks and tarot cards.

[C]

Probably more. Probably more.

[D]

Probably more than what we're qualified to say.

[B]

But we did a little bit of research so we at least feel comfortable

[D]

quoting Merriam Webster at you guys.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And you're totally spot on that. When I think of tarot cards or tarot readings or whatever, I think of someone drawing from a deck and the fool or Death or the World or one of those major arcana cards coming up. I didn't actually know about the Minor Arcana cards. Is it minor?

[C]

Yeah, Minor Arcana. And I frankly, having done all this research, still can't really picture them.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Whenever you search Tarot decks, so much of what comes up in the search results are the major arcana, so. Right, 100%.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. But that's important context, I think, for any of our listeners who, like us,

[B]

are not super familiar with the world of tarot cards.

[A]

Right.

[D]

But let's move on to the Dune Tarot, the fictional tarot card set that exists and is first mentioned in Dune Messiah.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And interestingly enough, in Dune Messiah, we hear about the Dune Tarot pretty early on.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Like within the first few chapters, we get this quote. Other histories point out the spies in Wad'dib's household. They make much of the Dune Tarot, which clouded Muad'dib's powers of prophecy. End quote.

[C]

Hints of things to come.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, like, clearly these Dune Tarot cards affect Paul's prescient abilities, and we're gonna get much deeper into that later on because that is so fascinating and tells us so much about Paul's powers and the Dune Tarot and their place in his empire.

[A]

Right.

[D]

But by the time of Dune Messiah, it's clear that Paul Muad'dib becoming the emperor and having these cool prescient abilities not only make him a messianic figure, a prophet of some sorts, but also makes the idea of prescience and looking into the future cool and hip and radical.

[C]

It's trending.

[D]

It's trending.

[C]

Prescience is trending on intergalactic Twitter now that the emperor is a prescient demigod.

[D]

Yeah. So it really is when Paul rises to power that the Dune Tarot, this deck of cards also rise to popularity. This is sort of their peak of popularity. It coincides with Paul becoming emperor.

[C]

Now, whether or not you kind of personally prescribe to the effectiveness of real world tarot decks of, you know, parting the veils of time, you know, predicting future calamities or future, you know, boons, the Dune Tarot decks actually worked like they. They legit. Measurably worked.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

At least a little bit. I mean, they're not this Isn't your one stop shop for prescient mastery? You can't just do it.

[D]

Big asterisk there.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Your everyday Joe Schmoe on the Arrakeen streets.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Can't use a dune tar to pierce the veil of the future in whatever minimal way it takes a skilled person to do so. Joe Schmoe on the street is not using a Dune Tarot effectively, though.

[C]

He wants to, although.

[D]

He wants to, Lord.

[A]

He wants to.

[D]

Right. Remember, it's the hot new thing. Like Paul Atreides is an influencer, man. He's like, he's making it cool to look into the future. So now everybody wants to try it in the encyclopedia and it actually gives us a sense of the skill that is necessary to use the Dune Tarot effectively. There's a great quote. The skill of the reader came into play too. As Elegar Luna Chiraki says, meaning resides not in the cards, but in the mind of the reader. The cards provide only a focus and a symbology for the channeling of the energy, for the clearing of the vision, for the opening of the eyes of the seeker. End quote.

[C]

That's cool.

[D]

Now, the encyclopedia isn't super clear about how many people could use the Dune Tarot effectively, but there is a small quote that tells us that, quote, there were many in high and low positions in the trading empire who had that skill. End quote.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So that's not exactly a number of people.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Many, many people in the empire could do that.

[C]

I mean, a reminder that the Atreidean empire is hundreds of billions of people.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So even if it's cream of the crop, you know, sorry, Joe Schmo. Even if it's Joe Schmo's incredibly talented cousin Rob Schmob, it's, you know, it's still very few people in the grand scheme of things. But I think that just is a representation of the scale.

[B]

I'm just going to pause to give credit where credit is due. Rob Schmab is a great bit and I'm sad we've never revisited it.

[A]

Sometimes brilliance happens to you and it's not something you bring to the table, but it's something you find at the table waiting for you, arms open.

[B]

Truly. Well, you found it here. Hats off to you.

[A]

I mean, Rob. Rob Schmob found me.

[B]

Back to it.

[C]

Of Dune that we often forget.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, billions of people. Tens of billions of people. 1% is still. I'm not gonna do the math. Hundreds of thousands, millions. I don't know.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Significant.

[D]

How about that 1% is still enough people to tamper with with Paul's prescient abilities to make it annoying for him, which is so, so fascinating. And it, again, the fact that these cards do work and do provide very limited, very small, probably not entirely useful levels of prescience to the people who use them effectively, that tampering with Paul's own extremely powerful and op prescient abilities is really, really interesting. Like, it's clearly an example of scale. Right. There are enough people using like a tiny percentage of prescience at once throughout the galaxy that it's starting to actually bug Paul's uber powerful levels of prescience.

[A]

Right.

[D]

But now that we've sort of set the scene and talked about the Dune Tarot's rise to popularity and its role in the universe and how it's mentioned in Messiah, let's actually get into the cards themselves because, as you mentioned earlier, Leo.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

The creators of the encyclopedia go deep on this.

[C]

Yeah, they do.

[D]

And really, like, almost lovingly craft these cards and the details that go into them. So we want to sort of honestly celebrate that a little bit and celebrate their hard work there. But also it's so interesting and the cards that are mentioned in the encyclopedia are so fascinating. So let's talk about the cards themselves.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So you've just bought yourself a deck of Dune Tarot. You bought it. It's in that green or red packaging, and you, you crack it open. Well, here's what you're gonna find. Like today's Tarot decks, the Dune Tarot has four suits, which makes sense. The suits are pretty similar to what we covered before. The Dune Tarot suits are knives, globes, staves, and basins. So again, relating back to what we said earlier, the swords has become knives, coins has become globes, wands have become staves, and cups have become basins. Now, on Arrakis, you know, galactic heart of the Empire, there are actually specific terminologies used for those suits which are even more culturally specific to Fremen. And of course, the denizens of Arrakis, which is Chris. Knives for knives. Glowglobes love them for globes, Wind poles for staves, which is cool, I guess, and dew collectors for basins.

[D]

I love it.

[C]

Very, very specific to Arrakis. Yeah, I imagine people on Portran are like, what the fuck are dew collectors?

[B]

Right.

[D]

That's smart. You know, you adapt your product for your audience.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

This is why, like, McDonald's in Japan is different from McDonald's in America. Different audiences, folks.

[A]

No kidding. Good point.

[D]

You can't get wasabi fries in America.

[C]

Oh, wish you could, though.

[B]

So good.

[C]

And we'll talk about it in a second. But it's also possible it went the other way around because we'll talk about some of the early origins of the Dune Tarot. But, yeah, it's interesting to see these sort of shifting cultural terminologies and where they kind of sit. Yeah, totally.

[D]

So the encyclopedia continues to go further in detail here, and it actually features some illustrated major arcana cards.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And it lists their full names and their full meanings, and it's all super, super fascinating. And if you want to check those illustrations and details out yourself, you can find those around page 267 in the encyclopedia. Yeah, we highly recommend you take a look. A lot of work was put into that. Clearly, we do want to highlight some of those major arcana because they're so fascinating. And again, it's seemingly real life.

[A]

We get a lot of questions about this, and I feel like listening back now. I understand why you can find copies of the Dune Encyclopedia scanned online. We get people asking, but wait, it's like hundreds of dollars to buy a copy of the Dune Encyclopedia. You're expecting me to just find that page in my copy of the. You can find it online. And I feel like we. Maybe we were trying not to say that explicitly, but at this point, you can just. Yeah, you can find a PDF of the Dune Encyclopedia online. And if you haven't and you're a fan of Dune. Holy shit. Do yourself a favor. It's so much fun.

[D]

Yeah, we've.

[B]

I mean, for this show in particular, you now do own an original copy. You eventually bought one. But back on episode 28, when we're working on this Tarot episode back in the early days, and even up until now, we work off of a digital PDF version that we just found online and downloaded from somewhere because it's searchable. Right. We need to be able to go back and search quotes and search for exact references, and it's very difficult to do that in a paper copy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I mean, finding an original OG like copy that was printed back

[D]

in the day, that is expensive, that

[B]

will run you hundreds of dollars on, like, a resale site somewhere from a collector. But if you're just interested in what it says, that's all over the Internet. You can just download a PDF and

[A]

especially if you haven't taken the time to just like, peruse the entries, they are so much fun. You'll also see where we get half of the stuff that we talk about in this show, which is very fun.

[B]

Okay, back to it.

[D]

I'm intrigued.

[B]

I'm glad we're finally deep into the tarot lore.

[A]

Same.

[D]

I'm learning a lot Major arcana that have been adapted to the Dune universe. So it's fun to sort of draw those parallels between actual tarot cards that we know today and how they were changed in the fictional Dune universe.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. So the first example that we wanted to highlight is in the Dune Tarot the World card, which is the real world Major arcana card numbered 21. So it's like, you know, major arcana 21 is the world has become the universe.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Makes a certain sense. Humans are no longer on one planet.

[D]

Right.

[C]

That's how it works. Now, this reflects some themes we talked about in the OC Bible episode.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

We were talking about how, like, even the Bible had to be rewritten because it was no longer, you know, humans going forth and populating the Earth. It's populating the galaxy, I think, is the wording in the kind of updated. Updated post space travel Bible. But in general, a lot of those old faith and belief systems, including clearly some of these fortune telling or divination practices, had to be updated. Their terms of service had to be updated to kind of feature a wider perspective because humanity's perspective was broadening as we were going star to star. The illustration on the card itself, looking at it, I was like, okay, we've got two faces. That's kind of fun. But the explanation really brings this to a cool level of lore reference. The encyclopedia explains, quote, a figure with two faces represents the Kwisatz Haderach.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Bridging space and time and symbolizes the intrusion of the divine into the ordinary. End quote. That's so dope.

[B]

Yes. Wow.

[C]

I mean, we know that in the Fremen vocabulary because of the Missionaria protectiva, that the shortening of the Way, or the Kwisatz Haderach was part of that mythos. But it is kind of fun to think about. Any non Fremen people buying these Dune tarot decks are like, oh, yeah, this is the Paul card. That's Paul. Paul's got the two faces. Yeah, he's super famous. He's my emperor. I don't know about you, but he's great.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Hashtag my emperor.

[C]

My emperor.

[B]

Yeah, I love that.

[D]

Symbolizing the intrusion of the divine into the ordinary.

[C]

Beautiful.

[D]

So cool.

[C]

The poetry is also just lovely throughout these sections.

[D]

Yeah, Incredible. Okay, the next card is the fool, which is the Arcana major card numbered 0, which in the Dune universe, becomes the Wanderer.

[C]

Cool.

[D]

Now, the image on the Wanderer depicts a lone silhouette on a desert plain, and the sun is either rising or setting. It's a little ambiguous. As he travels alone, bindle over his shoulder. Pretty iconic Dune imagery there.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Easy to imagine now from the text description of this card. He walks alone, his bindle with staff over his shoulder. He does not know what the bindle contains, for he does not understand the affliction a hero brings to his planet. End quote.

[C]

Oh, my gosh. That word affliction comes out of left field. Unless you're familiar with the themes of Dune.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. And if you are familiar with the themes of Dune, then you might be familiar with a certain famous quote from a certain daddy kinds.

[C]

Beautiful hair.

[A]

Yep.

[D]

Quote. No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a hero, which is so central to all of the Dune novels. Frank's warnings against charismatic leaders, his warnings against messiahs and the dangers they can bring. And it's so cool to see this arcana card, the Wanderer, explicitly take that theme and turn it into this imagery of this lone wanderer in the desert at sunrise and or sunset, with an empty bindle, not understanding the affliction that a hero can bring to a planet. It's cool that that theme makes its way even into the Dune tarot.

[C]

It's also interesting, you know, a Fremen is often pictured culturally with the sietch.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So you see a lone figure in the desert with a bindle and you go, something went wrong.

[D]

Perhaps you'd even call him a wanderer,

[C]

a fool, or a fool, you may even call him. Well played. Indeed. It is foolish to be out there alone right now. The Devil card is the next card that we're going to highlight here. The this is in Major Arcana in real Life, decks number 15. And in the Dune, Tarot is depicted as Great Wyrm, which man is just a massive peek into the Fremen religion. Now, as someone who's not super familiar with Tarot decks, I think of devil as almost exclusively a bad thing. It's worth mentioning that in modern Tarot decks, it seems as though, from what I was researching, it's not good or bad.

[A]

Right.

[C]

It is a tool of interpretation. So one explanation I found says that the devil appears as a tempter who shows the way to the depths of the human being. End quote. Which evokes money and promising contracts, kind of, etc.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Now, immediately when we're talking about money and promising contracts. I think of spice, I think of the smugglers, I think of spacing guild bribes, right? All of these elements that we encounter during the first Dune book. And I think about the great houses, right, clawing over one another desperately to get to this planet for the wealth of spice, melange and Liet Kynes, son of Daddy Kynes, as he colloquially known as, aka Daddykinds Jr. Talking to Duke Leto Atreides, saying, quote, arrakis could be an Eden if its rulers would look up from grubbing for spice. End quote. Yeah, wonderful to kind of read that spite in his voice for grubbing for spice. Like mindless beasts. We get more depth to this card as we find out that the Great Wyrm card is sometimes depicted as Shaitan, which Abu, you were telling me, is Arabic for Satan, right?

[D]

Yeah, for Satan or the devil. I mean, I was raised Muslim, and shaitan or Shaitan is basically, you know, the word that was used in my household growing up. You know, like, don't be tempted by Shaitaan. Don't be tempted by the devil. Don't be bad. Don't be. You know, like, there's a lot of religious context to that word.

[A]

Right, right.

[D]

And specifically in Arabic, it translates quite directly to devil.

[A]

Wow.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And even without knowing that context, in Dune, you know, we have Dr. Yueh says in the tooth chapter, he says, quote, I made a Shaitan's bargain with the Baron. Yeah, a devil's deal. A devil's bargain. It is, again, a bit of that Arabic language that we see in other parts of Dune utilized to kind of refer to the Great Worm as this character, as this figure right now from the text, the Great Worm, quote, lies curled deep in a cave and guards the pearl of great price, end quote. So that's clearly spice. But spice molage, it is related to this complicated relationship that the Fremen have with Shai Hulud.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Their God, their deity, who also is this bringer of death and this bringer of temptation and this pearl that draws off worlders to their planet, which then gets in their way of, you know, ecological restoration or whatever, there is this God to be worshiped, but also treated with caution. Because, guys, no matter how much you love a dummy, thick, spicy boy from the desert, one of those spice worms shout out to, like, our third episode made that joke.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Anyway, they're dangerous. They're real, real dangerous. So fun to see that duality represented in this major arcana for sure.

[D]

Okay, next card, the moon, which is Major arcana card number 18 in the dune Tarot, in kind of a twist here, becomes the card called Al Lat. The Al Lat card depicts an oppressive sun, challenging and deadly, looming over a young worm, which lies exposed on the hot sand. And the text description for the card says the desert sun encourages the growth of Shai Hulud. But this is the devouring sun, a deadly power. And then the quote continues a little later. It signifies an approaching trial or growth of the spirit. End quote.

[A]

Love it.

[D]

There's so much Fremen imagery here. I mean, Shai Hulud, which is obviously the great worm of the desert.

[A]

Right.

[D]

The sun being something that encourages growth. Right. The harshness of the desert is what made the Fremen people so powerful and so resilient.

[A]

Right.

[D]

But it's also a sun that can be devouring in its deadly power. It is dangerous.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So there's that duality again. And, of course, this idea, this very Fremen idea of trials and overcoming them and challenges in life and using that as a way to grow and to challenge your spirit. That's all tied up into this card, which I love. It's wrapped up so nicely in so much of the lore and culture that we know about Arrakis and about the Fremen.

[C]

I mean, we even talked about Amtal rule.

[A]

Right, Right.

[C]

That idea of testing something to its breaking point and pushing something for that growth.

[A]

So that's.

[C]

Yeah, I love that. That's so cool. Now, finally we have a card that we don't.

[B]

I want to pause here because I have some thoughts so far in the structure of the episode that I'm realizing.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

One, I wish we had. I wish I had done more research into the actual name a lot, because I'm Googling it now on my phone as we're listening, and I'm realizing there's a lot of, like, pre Islamic history related to Allat, who is apparently an Arabian goddess.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Often linked to spring, fertility, prosperity, which is fascinating. And I wonder how that would have tied into the Dune Tarot. So I think a little bit of more. A little bit more research was warranted on my part there for that card. But here's the structural thought, and I think if we were doing this episode now, I would pitch this to you as a fun format.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

What I would want is for us to take the cards and their descriptions from the encyclopedia and put them in an Excel sheet or some sort of, like, random number generator. And then in the episode, while we're recording, we could quote, unquote, draw a card and then have to like describe

[D]

it and talk about it.

[B]

I don't know, I feel like something a little more fun and interactive like that, where we were quote, unquote, drawing the cards in the episode might have been like a fun way to structure the episode and make it a little more energetic. Cause right now it feels a little book reporty. It feels like we're going down a list and talking very academically at you, which I appreciate. I appreciate the research we've put into it. And we could still kind of do a balance of research stuff and more impromptu, draw the card and react live to it. I think that would have helped balance the pace of the episode a bit more.

[A]

Yeah, you know, we are constantly on this knife's edge of we want to do every topic justice and really go into depth about these sometimes one off references to things that we just don't have in the moment. The sort of breadth of knowledge to recognize like you're saying this goddess, this pre Islamic goddess. That's so sick. I wish we had got that beforehand. But I also remember writing this script and we talked about describing every major arcana card and going, this is going to be a three hour episode. And again, this was supposed to be a kind of light, fun, quick episode. So it's just hard to be comprehensive but still keep it moving, keep it fun. I think that's where you and I have gotten more daring in some of our formats. We have. But I also recognize that what we were trying to do, I think we already did a much better job than we. I think if we had initially just done all of the cards that would have been a disservice to the listener.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And at the same time I think we have the same opportunity we always have. I wish we knew more, had more time, had time to read comprehensively about all of this stuff and just know it all in our bones. You know, all of the pre Islamic history and the one off references that Frank made to that book that was written in the 70s that I do have as an epub on my phone, but I still haven't read it, all of that shit. But it's just hard because we're doing weekly episodes and you know, we have to keep it moving.

[B]

Definitely.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Our research windows are honestly never more than two weeks. You know, if we're lucky, we're maybe running a week ahead on production so we have an extra week to maybe do extra research. But script's got to get done, episodes got to get recorded and stuff's got to keep churning every single week to feed the algorithm gods. And so we do the research that we can. I think over the years, we've gotten very good at it. We're very strategic and surgical, and we know, like, don't waste your time going down this rabbit hole. Focus on this. Because this is more relevant to the script and to the discussion. But it is always tempting to go down more rabbit holes. And there's always that lingering feeling that you haven't done enough research that you

[D]

wish you had maybe a couple of

[B]

extra days to explore a different thought that you just have to leave on the cutting room floor for now. Because the recording is tomorrow. That feeling is always there for sure.

[A]

Well, we'll just have to come back to every topic again and we'll just do every episode twice there.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

We'll just rerun Gom Jabbar again and redo every episod.

[A]

Easy. So easy.

[B]

Okay, let's get back to it.

[C]

Actually see the illustration for. But I have to include it because it's incredible. The Hera fan. So this is the fifth major arcana of real world Dex has become in Dune motherfucking Empaloros. Oh, my gosh, guys, I'm so close to getting an Impalaros tattoo. I'm so hyped that this is becoming a theme. It's.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

Fine, let's talk about it from the text.

[D]

Polyrose on one pet and microorganisms on the other. You got your tattoos right there, Leo.

[C]

People are like, what are your tattoos about? And I'm like, I've got this great podcast for you. Listen to. Episodes are three hours long now, so enjoy.

[B]

And you also have to listen to all 30 episodes, or none of this makes sense.

[C]

Just to sense my building enthusiasm for this one spaceship. Anyway, from the text quote, the vehicle unites the physical and spiritual, or unites one's own planet with the regions of Alam Al Mithal. Any highliner could symbolize the soaring spirit, but this particular one suggests the endless nature of the task. End quote.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[C]

It's so good and so weird that this is the case. So in our book club, we talked about it really briefly, and I don't think we could ever justify a full episode on Impalaros. So I'll just say it again. Jessica literally says just the word. And that's the only time in Dune it ever appears. But the fine folks at the Dune Encyclopedia wrote a whole thing about it, and it's wonderful. Basically, it was a limited Range planetary cruiser captained by a crew that caught some sort of, like, space madness disease. And they were convinced that all of humanity was wiped out by aliens, so they have their, like, loaded guns ready to fight aliens completely off course, just near the speed of light, indefinitely. And because of that near light speed travel, they are basically immortal because of time dilation. And I love that. That then becomes the sort of footnote in the Tarot explanation. The time dilation effect of the near light speed travel is part of that symbolism around the endless nature of uniting spirit and physical. Yeah, so cool. And then to remember very briefly, because I love the poetry of this line, Jessica's words, quote, forever seeking, forever prepared, and forever unready. End quote. Which goosebumps, now that I'm in my 30s, resonates. It's like me and snacks. I'm just forever seeking, forever prepared, but somehow forever unread.

[B]

Right.

[D]

So hard to unite the physical and

[B]

spiritual when it comes to Cheetos, man.

[D]

They just don't sit well anymore.

[C]

The physical rejects the spiritual when Cheetos are on the table.

[D]

So those are just some of the major arcana cards that exist in the Dune Tarot. Yeah, obviously the encyclopedia lists all of them because that's apparently just what the encyclopedia does. It goes way too deep on everything, which is incredible.

[B]

And we love it.

[C]

Sounds familiar.

[B]

Exactly. Much like this podcast.

[D]

Yeah, we're gonna take a bit of a breather here.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And we're gonna go on break, but hang around, because right after the break, we're gonna talk about the timeline of the Dune Tarot. And I can't wait to get into this part. Why? Paul fucking hates it. It's messing with his powers.

[C]

It's his least favorite episode of our podcast.

[B]

Exactly.

[D]

So stick around, don't go anywhere. We will be back in just a minute.

[C]

All right, let's talk about the timeline of the Dune tarot and where it may have come from, because, again, the origins here are interesting. There's a lot of possibilities here. Unsurprisingly, the Dune Tarot can be traced back to Earth. Well, go figure.

[D]

You don't say.

[C]

You don't say. From more than 20,000 years prior to Dune, which, of course is before the widespread space travel that humans kind of got used to eventually.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Many in the Dune universe have come to the conclusion that the introduction of the Dune Tarot decks, or the Tarot decks in general, to Planet Arrakis was the Zensunni wanderers, the kind of proto Fremen who brought them from Earth to Portren and Then to the other places they went, I think Belo Tegus and Seleucus Secundus and a couple of those other planets that we talked about in the Fremen episode that I've somewhat forgotten.

[B]

So long ago.

[C]

So long ago.

[D]

It's a little hard to nail down when the Dune Tarot shot up in popularity.

[A]

Right.

[D]

There's not really any specific dates that are given, but we can do a little bit of guesstimating here. Although the Dune tarot decks have been around, like we've said, for 20,000 plus years, it sort of rise into the mainstream. Wasn't until Paul came into power at the end of the first Dune novel.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Now, by the beginning of Messiah, right. A few years later, the decks are way more widespread. Paul, like, by owning the godhead and becoming this messiah for the Fremen people, he also linked this idea of being Fremen and having prescience.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So I think of it like, you go to Paris and you're like, I'm going to buy a beret. You know?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Suddenly, you know, tourists visiting Arrakis would be like, well, the cool Fremen thing to do would be to buy one of these prescient decks.

[B]

Wait, I'm going to pause here for a second. This is years before actually moving to France was on your radar, Right.

[A]

This was before I met my French wife and moved to France. Yeah.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Talk about a peek into the future divining,

[D]

dude.

[B]

Tarot indeed.

[A]

Am I right, man? Yeah, I guess it works, folks. I don't have a beret yet, but yeah.

[B]

Oh, well, okay. Well, you know, get on that. I'm sure there's many of them just lying around. There's not berets just like everywhere.

[A]

I mean, you can't get rid of them. They cling to you like burrs out in the wild.

[B]

Okay, back to it. Right.

[C]

Kind of whether or not they had the skill to use it.

[D]

And look, the decks are available, folks. Yeah, they're everywhere.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

There's a quote at the height of the popularity of these Dune tarot, Alia notes quote, red and green packages containing the new Dune tarot were prominent among the vendors wares. End quote.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

So clearly these are hot commodities now.

[C]

Tourists? Sure. Fremen people. Sure. Even Gaius Helen Moheim uses a Dune Tarot deck in Dune Messiah. And again, we're not going to talk too much about plot, but it is a little bit crazy to see such an incredibly powerful Bene Gesserit, a Reverend Mother using this, like, hip new thing. But clearly the Bene Gesserit are seeing Paul having risen to status as a Kwisatz Haderach and going, that prescience thing looks pretty good.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Wow, we lost control of that thing real quick. Yeah, maybe we should. Maybe we should just dabble a little bit in prescience.

[D]

I can't imagine the shame. All of that having been said though. Taro fever does not stick around forever.

[A]

Right?

[D]

All good things must come to an end. Just like Furbies. The decline is inevitable.

[C]

Yeah, that's such a good example.

[B]

Rip Furbies.

[C]

RIP Furbies. Gone too soon. Or way too late. They were terrified. They were terrifying, scary toys anyway, right?

[B]

I need to clear the record here. I never had a Furby. I don't like Furby. I don't know why I made this joke.

[A]

You just threw out willy nilly our chance of getting sponsored by Furby.

[B]

Does Furby still exist?

[C]

I don't.

[A]

Frankly, not sure. But we got a fucking thing from Lego after this.

[B]

So, like, you know that's true. Who knows? Oh my goodness. Yeah, well, you know, I just need to be honest with our listeners. I don't know why I made this Furby reference in this episode all those years ago.

[A]

Furby's. I've never had a Furby still made and. Whoa, whoa. On June 22, 2023, Hasbro announced the return of the Furby line with over 600 responses. Purple and coral with tie dye, Aurora and gold special editions.

[C]

Move out of here, Labubus.

[A]

Your cursed possessed grandfather is back. Wow.

[B]

Okay, well, I guess the Furbies are back. Maybe as an adult, I will finally own one. We'll see if they ever release a Dune Furby line. I'm all here for it.

[A]

Wow, the Wikipedia has furbish English phrases. We ka ta wi Lou. Tell me a story. Indeed.

[B]

Oh, wow, the prose, so poetic. Okay, anyway, back to the Dune Tarot.

[D]

The Dune Tarot follows that very similar trajectory to many other fads, right? A rise in popularity because of a prominent figure or influencer. And then over the years, that popularity starts to fade. And the Dune Tarot is no different, right? The Dune Tarot loses prominence over time and in later Dune novels barely has a presence.

[C]

You know, only nine years after Dune Messiah ends, which is reminder, most popular, right? Furbies. In every house we get a description of this bustling market, right? This is in Children of Dune we get this description of a bustling market selling kind of bits and baubles, targeting just naive tourists, you know?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And the Dune Tarot is listed among the Wares, which really goes to show you, just nine years later, this is no longer a serious tool of divination. This is just a thing. Yeah, just a cheap toy, like, I

[D]

don't know, they end up to the right of the bits, right behind the baubles. That's sort of their legacy at that point.

[C]

Although Arrakis baubles, pretty great, that's what I hear.

[D]

A lot of sand, though.

[C]

Full of sand. That's what they are, a handful of sand. Anyway, that's the timeline of the Dune Tarot. So from the kind of obscure ancient Terran practice to kind of like the hippest fad at the center of the universe, and then like nine years later, they've gone to obscure souvenirs for your trip to Arrakis. Man, what a. What a journey for a single thing to take in such a short period of time.

[D]

Right?

[C]

Ignoring the 20,000 year buildup to the short period of time.

[A]

I said short period of time before

[C]

I thought about it. It's like 26,000 years, but it's fine still.

[D]

But Leo, there's more because there's one huge part of Dune Tarot that we mentioned earlier that we haven't talked about yet. Yes, how they play a role in prescience.

[C]

Ah, Paul loves them.

[D]

Specifically, how they annoy the fuck out of Paul.

[C]

Oh, right. He hates them. They're his least favorite.

[D]

He hates them. So we gotta talk about that. So let's talk about the effect that these Din Taro, at the height of their popularity have on Paul's powers. Because it's so fascinating that they tamper with it. It's so fascinating that this widespread use of very, very minimal amounts of prescience start to affect his major use of prescience.

[C]

I love this so much because it definitely does add a sort of Z dimension to an already very flushed out idea, that idea of prescience. But let's recap a little bit what we know about prescience, because, yeah, you're right, the Dune Tarot fucks with Paul and he hates it. But we kind of need to remember why it would have this effect, because it is actually reasonable. It makes sense. To be clear, prescience isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Like you can accidentally lock in an intergalactic jihad. Oops, whoops. There are deadly nexus blind spots where you're just like, oh, I might get knifed in the next two hours and I have no fucking clue like how to avoid it. Great. Plus false images where you're like, I'm pretty sure Harry Potter had a character named Ron in it, and it's throwing me off. You know, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but if you remember being in a space and you were there with your friend and your friend's not there, that might cause hesitation at a crucial moment.

[A]

And.

[C]

And again, you might get a fucking knife between your ribs. You might get a Kinjol between the ribs.

[A]

Right?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So already prescience is not the omnipowerful or overpowered thing that it's easy to paint it as.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And there's another layer, Right. Because adding to all of that prescience is blind to other prescience.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Which we learned at Dude Messiah.

[A]

Right?

[D]

So if you are a Guild steersman, or if you are a Kwisatz Haderach like BAAL Atreides, you cannot see each other in your prescient visions, right? You become a blind spot to other people who can also tap into prescience. There's a quote from Irulan in Dune Messiah that says it's true. Then our emperor cannot see a steersman. They are mutually blind. End quote.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Now, luckily for Paul, being the first and only Kwisatz heterac of his time, there are not that many super powerful prescient people out there in the universe, right? So, like, his vision is pretty limitless without any gaping holes from other prescient users. There's really just him, a couple of weak ass steersman who only use that prescience to drive highliner ships for the Spacing Guild.

[C]

They also leave a mess. Can you believe it? Mopping up after them is awful. Gross.

[D]

Just juices everywhere. And then of course, there's his younger sister Alia, who is a preborn. That's it. And again, we are talking like he is off the charts midichlorian count of prescience. So really, no one else is competing with him on that level. He's like, he's the Michael Jordan on the field, and no one else is really playing ball at his level, but they're still annoying the fuck out of him. You know, they're tripping him up and

[B]

getting in his way.

[C]

The speed with which you transition from Star wars analogy to sports really leaves me wondering if Michael Jordan's a Jedi. And that's great. I mean, listen, he's got himself, he's got Alia, his younger sister who's on his side, and then the big dumb navigators leaving juicy pools everywhere they go. But wait, folks. Yeah, we've been talking now for nearly an hour, maybe more than an hour.

[A]

We'll see.

[C]

We've been talking about a way that you, Dear Listener, for four easy payments of 1999 Solaris, can have your very own bit of prescience. Oh, what a deal. What a bargain.

[D]

Hell, yeah.

[C]

Also fucking sucks for Paul.

[D]

Yep.

[C]

He hates it.

[A]

It's the worst.

[D]

Right? Because now, in addition to just Alia and the.

[B]

I'm gonna pause here to just say that my eyes are starting to glaze over. We're getting real repetitive with this Tarot blocks Paul's prescience. And I feel like for an episode where we promised we would tell you about the dune tarot, we're talking a lot about, like, prescience and other lore stuff. I wish we had refocused our efforts on the cards themselves.

[A]

Yeah, I understand the impulse to double down on why we're talking about it and why it's so important, but it starts to sound defensive, like we don't believe it's an interesting topic. Without justifying it. I think it would have been good to just focus on the tarot a bit more and let it be just a fun kind of aside.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. Okay, we only have about 8 more minutes left in the episode Alia and

[D]

the Steersman using minor prescience.

[A]

Right.

[D]

He's got millions of people across his empire annoyingly trying to knock on the door of Prescience and poke their little heads in.

[C]

They are literally causing ripples in Paul's prescient visions. It's wild. I mean, this is really. Regardless of the. You know, you might be behind the cards yourself going, I have no idea what these mean, but if you got that little glimpse or glimmer of the future, well, maybe that's enough, you know?

[D]

And again, in a singular instance of someone using a dune tarot card, we could be talking like small scale Prussian annoyance. Right?

[C]

Right.

[D]

Paul could be going to his favorite frozen yogurt place on Arrakis and he's thinking like, yo, I'm gonna get that strawberry sorbet or whatever. My favorite.

[C]

That's so good.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

But lo and behold, there's a massive blind spot in his prescient vision that doesn't tell him if the strawberry sorbet is still there because some other dude got his fortune told and found out he was gonna get the last of the strawberry sorbet.

[A]

Oh, gosh.

[D]

That's like a minor annoyance.

[C]

Tragic. No, minor, annoying, tragic, but minor. Throws off your whole day.

[D]

Throws off your whole day. As the emperor of the known Universe,

[C]

he had a hard day. He needs that sweet. That sweet treat right now.

[D]

Imagine that level of an inconvenience times millions across the entire galaxy. Like we're talking strawberry sorbet gone from every yogurt place in the galaxy. That is the sort of holes that are being poked in his prescient visions.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And what's interesting is there's a theory, almost a conspiracy theory, that the Dune Tarot is actually a nefarious muddying of the prescient waters. On purpose.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Someone may be using the tarot to combat Paul and to inhibit his abilities.

[C]

Fascinating.

[D]

So it's interesting to think that along with Paul just making prescience and mysticism cool again, there could also be a deeper meaning to the Dune tarot and their popularity in that third parties are potentially using it as a tool against an emperor who frankly knows every move you're going to make. Right. Like, it's hard to plot against an emperor if he knows exactly what you're plotting all the time. So what do you do? You limit how much of your plot he can see.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So, you know, there's no confirmation on whether or not the Dune Tarot was used in this way, but there are certainly theories out there.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And listen, like, either way, it was gonna happen. Like they were going to become more popular again. There are these unknown sources, but there were Tarot decks out there. Either way, it seems pretty inevitable that fuzziness would have occurred.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But it is interesting to think about this as like a malicious. How do you combat someone who can see the future, create more futures, and now he's not sure which one he's in? There you go. It's somehow kind of simple.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Also infinitely complex.

[B]

Love it.

[D]

That's Dune in a nutshell.

[C]

Dune in a nutshell.

[D]

That's also this podcast in a nutshell. Because there you have it, folks, an hour or so into this damn conversation, in classic Gom Jabbar fashion, we have now told you way more than you wanted to ever know about a tiny detail mentioned briefly in Frank's novels.

[C]

There's like, one listener who's like, woo, Right? We got there for the one guy

[D]

who's still with us, baby.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

Hell yeah.

[C]

Let's wrap up today's episode, period. Let's wrap it up. But also with a quick little question. Yeah, Abu, if we, God, fingers crossed, get a Dune Messiah film adaptation.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Do you think the Dune Tarot will make it onto the silver screen? Would you want it to? Or do you think that maybe the like core, actual narrative with, like, heroes and villains and like, plot. Do you think that would all be distracted from to have something like that in it?

[B]

I gotta pause right here because I'm too nervous to hear my answer.

[A]

Holy shit.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

Wow. The first instance of us being held accountable for our fucking takes. I'm so excited. Do you remember at all what you said?

[B]

I don't. I didn't even remember that we asked this question at all.

[A]

I didn't either. Oh, no.

[B]

Oh, no. I'm so nervous to hear what I said. I have a feeling I know what I said. Okay, here we go.

[D]

I mean, we laugh, but I think the Dune Tarot is actually pretty critical to the plot of Dune Messiah. And I won't get into detail because we want to be light on the spoilers here for Dune Messiah, right? But I think it's pretty tangential to the events that unfold in that book. And I would actually be quite disappointed if the future hypothetical Dune Messiah movie didn't include at least a brief reference to the Dune Tarot. Like, we don't need even someone saying the words Dune Tarot, right? But, like, you know, give us a shot through a marketplace where we see someone buying a pack of cards or we see a fortune teller using the Dune Tarot for somebody in a marketplace like that, I think is an important concept. Again, speaking to world building, speaking to how this humble little deck of cards is connected to so many other themes and plot lines in the Dune books. I think it would be a mistake to not include the Dune Tarot in a Messiah movie. Even in a minor, minor sense. I think they play a critical role in, and particularly in the way the Tarot affects Paul's preshing abilities. That's important. I think it would be up to that movie to really show us ways in which Paul's incredible powers fall short. And the Dune Tarot is one very, very stark way in which Paul is not completely omniscient and does not know everything there is to know.

[C]

That's a great point. Woo.

[A]

Dude, a 10 out of 10 killing it.

[B]

I love my answer. I stand by every word that I spoke all those years ago.

[A]

Wow. Calling it, wow, pretty good.

[B]

Look, I was sitting over here nervous that my, like, cut everything instinct was going to also lead to me saying, no, cut the Dune terror from the movie. But I think, like, what I my

[D]

take all those years ago, I completely agree with.

[B]

I think showing it in a way and using it as a device to complicate and further world build around the idea of prescience to the audience is such a great way to use it and I'm glad that we got a glimpse of it in the movie. It's going to be there in some way, shape or form.

[A]

Oh, gosh.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Are you nervous about your answer? How do you think you.

[A]

I'm generally an optimist about these things and I feel like even if I said I don't think it's going to make it, I think I will say that it's important and that I won it.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think that's what you're going to say. Let's hear your answer.

[C]

You know, I didn't even think about if we get a sense of what Paul's prescience looks like in these Denis Villeneuve films. Seeing that same prescient vision muddied would be such an interesting visual storytelling element. And of course we have the scene with Mohaim using the cards, but I could also see them like, you know, retconning that or changing that to be just her talking with Irulan or whatever. I'm hopeful. I think you're right. I think they are closer to the heart of Dune Messiah than they might initially, you know, appear. I think in my initial research for this, there was a lot of seeing articles online where people are going, what? There are tarot decks in Dune, which people don't often do regarding central themes and central artifacts. But guys, I just want. I just want an official. I don't know, I want an Impala rose card.

[B]

I just, I was just going to say give us the Impala rose card

[C]

or a figurine, a toy, I don't know, something. Yeah, I want to spend money on Impala's.

[D]

Look, dear Warner Brother exec, who we know is listening to this every episode. Yeah, you want our money? Give us a Dune Tarot deck as merch.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh my God.

[D]

I would buy one for myself and one for all members of my family.

[C]

Amazing. And you know what? Even better, make them work at telling the future. I don't know that I'm in the 1%, but I don't know that I'm not.

[D]

Right.

[B]

That would be so cool.

[C]

I would just use it for super mundane things. I'd be like, is there going to be an episode of My Hero Academia this weekend? And then I would consult the cards and then if it works, I'd be like, woo, I was right.

[A]

Let's go.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[D]

So, you know, this is a great marketing opportunity for the folks at Warner Brothers. It's the Star wars strategy of sell the toys, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Take a loss on the movie and make a billion fucking dollars on the merch. Give us the Dune Tarot. I would love it.

[C]

Just a bag of sand. That'd be the best merch.

[D]

Oh, my gosh.

[C]

If they sold an official bag of sand merchandise, I'd buy it.

[D]

If it was just a sack of sand that said sand from Arrakis. Yeah, I'd buy it.

[C]

Yeah. Vaguely cinnamon smelling. Yeah. 100%.

[A]

All right. Wow.

[C]

Well, friends, there is. Wow.

[B]

That after music went pretty long there.

[A]

It did, man. Okay. All around solid episode. I think we could do it better today.

[B]

Great.

[A]

But very fun that we kind of speculated about what the movie would look like and now we're literally. It's breathing down our necks coming out later this year. That's so exciting. And I mean, there was so little we knew at that time because, you know, we knew the movie was coming, but we didn't know if Messiah would ever get adapted. We didn't know about the popcorn bucket. The infamous Dune popcorn bucket. We still haven't gotten a sack of Arrakis sand, but, you know, it's possible. Possible for Messiah.

[B]

Yeah. That same Warner Brothers exec, if you're still listening all these years later. Yeah, I stand by everything I said. I'd buy a sack of sand with Dune branding on it and I would buy the Dune Tarot card multiple times over.

[A]

Same.

[B]

I do suspect we'll get a Dune Tarot merch drop around the movie or after the movie once they show it on screen.

[A]

That'd be so sick. So here's the question. Do you think we are going to see people actually playing the Dune Tarot, like actually dealing the cards? Or is it just going to be a cutaway scene? Like, is it just going to be a background detail? Because, you know, Patrice is a madman with background details and set design. Or do you think it's going to be more of like a plot element?

[B]

I think it'll be world building and set dressing. I could see it very much being used as like sort of a scene transition. Right. We cut from one scene to the next scene where we see somebody put a card down on the table. Cut to wide shot and they start having a conversation about something totally different, ignoring the cards on the table.

[D]

I could see it like that.

[B]

I don't think that it'll be used in like a direct plot device way. I don't think Irulan is going to turn to Mohaim and say, should we

[D]

use the Tarot cards to block his prescience.

[A]

No. You don't think so?

[B]

That feels a little too niche as far as lore and world building goes. But I think as far as just the texture of the film and little nods to the lore that we are big fans of, I think we'll at least get that much. What about you? Do you think it's going to be like a critical plot device? Ex machina?

[A]

Yeah, I think they're actually going to frame the entire movie as a reading of the Dune Tarot. You know, each card is placed, we get a cutaway scene that has to do with that.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

No, I suspect you're right again. I think we'll probably. It would make sense to me in a sequence. I think Villeneuve, maybe. I would like to imagine that he heard the feedback that Arrakis felt uninhabited. Uninhabited in the first movies. So I'm hopeful that in this movie we get more of the, like, market and the bustling crowds and the people. You know, we've seen those shots of Scytale walking among a small crowd of people. I would love more civilian life seeing more of that on Arrakis. And I think that the Dune Tarot could fit well within that series of shots. But that is probably going to be it. Even someone saying maybe a throwaway line. Oof, that'd be interesting. Yeah. Do we think someone's going to say Dune Tarot?

[D]

I think so.

[B]

I think someone might say the Tarot in passing. There might be a throwaway line in reference to the Tarot, but I don't think it'll become like a central plot point. Wow. What a fun coincidence for us to revisit the Dune Tarot episode and for in that episode, for us to be talking about the movie that we're now talking about here in 2026, all these years later. Very cool.

[A]

Very, very cool. Yeah.

[B]

Well, that was fun, folks. We hope you enjoyed that little blast from the past as we revisited one of our old episodes from the Vault. This has been pretty fun to go back through and listen to episodes we haven't touched in literal years. And it's also been nice to kind of pat ourselves on the back and go, yeah, we were doing a good job back then. We're doing a little bit of a better job today. And we've been working really hard at this thing and it's good. And I'm still proud of everything we've done for this show.

[A]

Yeah, agreed. I think, you know, again, not to belabor the point, but we were working hard in Those days, we were still kind of finding ourselves. But I do think that we did the topic justice and at the end of the day, you know, proud of the work we put into it.

[B]

That's right. All right, folks, thank you so much for hanging out and listening to this episode with us. As always, we'll continue to do more producer commentary episodes once a month for the rest of the year. The goal again, is to use these easier, low lift episodes to buy us some bandwidth and production time so that we can continue chipping away at Project Reanalogue, which is our secret new project that we've been working on for the past couple of months. We've been teasing it out to our patrons and it will be ready for showtime and ready for the world eventually when it's done. So there's still a lot of work to do on that, and we'll share more in the coming months when it's ready to share.

[A]

And as a reminder, if you want to be involved, just make sure that you're at the Fremen Nabe or higher on Patreon. We have a Discord Channel specifically for those people. And we are actually ramping up some of the peeks that we're giving into this process. So very exciting time. And that support means the world to us as we sort of take on this exciting new chapter in our work.

[B]

That's right. All right, folks, thanks so much. We'll catch you in the next episode.