Dune Part 1 - Fear Is the Mind Killer

We read the first few chapters of Dune and unpack the Gom Jabbar, the Bene Gesserit’s quiet influence, and the politics that make the empire feel both ancient and futuristic. We discuss Harkonnen schemes, weigh fate versus free will, and share why rereading sharpens every scene.

• why Dune earns “landmark sci‑fi” status
• how the Gom Jabbar defines “human” in Herbert’s world
• what the Litany Against Fear teaches about control
• Bene Gesserit aims, breeding program, and the Voice
• Butlerian Jihad, Mentats, Guild, and the power map
• Harkonnen plotting, Sardaukar cover, and decadence
• kanly, honor codes, and bending the rules
• dreams, terrible purpose, and destiny versus choice
• Jessica’s training of Paul and Missionaria Protectiva
• why first reads feel dense and rereads reward patience

You can find us probably on X slash Twitter, or you can always message us directly through through the podcast or our email, and we'll have those links in the show notes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Brothers Reading Books podcast. I am Michael Kentris, and I am Will Kentritz. And today we are starting with our first book, which I'm very excited about, uh Dune. So, Will, this was your suggestion. So, why Dune?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

So, kind of how we discussed in the very first episode, there are some books that kind of are these landstone pieces of fiction that kind of shape the way that a lot of other authors kind of compose their works, just in terms of, you know, style or themes or just general kind of ideas that they might take away from it. And so, despite how popular this is, this is actually one book that I've never personally read. And it's been on my to be read list for a few years at least. And so when you first proposed this, I was like, oh, this would be a great opportunity to actually get around to reading this and talking about it with you.

Landmark Sci‑Fi And Cultural Threads

How We’ll Read: Spoiler‑Light Plan

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah. When you told me you hadn't read this book, I was surprised, honestly. So I've read Dune twice, once back in high school, and then once again when the movie came out a few years ago. Yeah, it's uh it's definitely very interesting. It is, as you say, right, it's kind of one of these like landmark uh sci-fi books written back in, I think it was 1965, and uh has a lot of uh different kind of mythological hints and echoes. It's it's one of these like sci-fi books that's kind of like set in a far future. So it it almost makes you think like, like, is this like the descendants of Earth? You know, where where Earth becomes kind of like a semi-mythical past, and you get to do a lot of uh playing around with like merging of cultures and twisting of philosophical concepts and things like that. So it's it's very interesting, I think, from that perspective, and I think you do see a lot of that in sci-fi writers kind of down the road. Although, I mean, to be honest, a lot of fiction, right? Uh I always forget who to attribute the quote to, but it's like, you know, good artists borrow, great artists steal. So I definitely think it's uh kind of falling into that appropriate stealing genre as far as taking these things, integrating some various earth cultures and putting a new spin on them to tell a new story, which, you know, new stories, same as old stories, like kind of the the monomyth, if you will, where there are just so many stories that are reiterated in different settings throughout history. So there is no original story. Right. So anyway, so yes, as we talked about kind of in our first episode, that some books, you know, neither of us will have read, some of us some of these one of us will have read, uh, some maybe we've read a long time ago. So I think this is a good example of for both of us, you know, reading something new as well as revisiting something from our past. And I think you said this also previously, right? You can't step into the same river twice. So every time you read a book again at a different stage of your life, it hopefully will give you something new uh and insightful about your condition because the book doesn't change, but perhaps you and your interpretation of it do. So I think that's uh this is a book with a lot of meat to it, and I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, same, same. So, you know, we're still establishing kind of our format. So what we're trying for now is kind of taking it chunk by chunk. And so we're just gonna do a few chapters today and kind of dig into a little bit of the characters and the settings and maybe break down uh like many sci-fi novels, there are a lot of neologisms in these books that are just kind of thrown at you. Some are explained, some less so, and kind of talk about what uh what is explained. So we're gonna try and limit ourselves uh so that anyone reading along with us won't get any spoilers beyond what we are seeing in these chapters that we're talking about today. So we're gonna try and do our best to be a spoiler-free podcast as far as the current book that we are discussing, even though this book is 60-ish years old. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So, Will, do you wanna start us off with kind of uh the opening chapter there and what your your perceptions of it were?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Absolutely. So in the very first chapter, we're introduced to Paul Atreides, the Lady Jessica, the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit. And they're doing a lot of discussing specifically the Lady Jessica and Reverend Mother about Paul. And so it seems like uh this is something that initially I was kind of like, what are they talking about? That the Lady Jessica had broken some sort of rule or commandment instituted by the Bene Desseret to yield a son versus a daughter. So already we're kind of getting an idea, like, okay, so the Bene Dresseret have some sort of special ability beyond what you know we would consider to be normal in our day and age. And so in addition to that, they're also talking about the fact that they're going to be leaving their ancestral home. The Atreides are going to be leaving Kaladin. Initially, I didn't know if Kaladin was just the name of the castle or the planet, but as I kept reading, it turns out it's both. Which I thought was kind of interesting. So I'd be like, somebody was a steward over Earth. They're like, yes, Castle Earth.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Right. It's like New York, New York City, right? It's kind of like Castle Kaladin or something like that. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Uh so those kind of like my first first thoughts there. But uh Yeah, they're they're they're talking about basically testing Paul to make sure, like, okay, is he suitable to be kept alive, more or less, is kind of the interpretation that I was getting.

The Gom Jabbar And The Human Test

The Litany Against Fear Unpacked

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So a couple things. I'm gonna get get into the weeds a little bit if you're if you're up for some uh etymological speculation. So our main character, right, Paul Atreides. So first of all, Atreides, right? This is kind of this the patronymic of two of the main characters from Homer's Iliad. So Agamemnon and Menelaus are the sons of Atreus and are often referred to as the Atreides. So we're already getting, right, this kind of borrowed mythological nomenclature from right, even our own remote past, and we say how many thousands of years in the future this is supposed to be. So it has this mythological character. And then we kind of have Paul, if we want to, right, if we want to really read into the depths of this, right? So from kind of the New Testament in the Bible, Paul is kind of the apostle to the Gentiles, right? So he kind of is converting the Roman Empire to Christianity throughout his lifetime. So you get someone who is a messenger of sorts, which is kind of what apostle roughly means someone who's sent forth. And so we get these kinds of two things juxtaposed, because if folks are familiar with the Iliad, they know that Agamemnon in particular was known as a very flawed king, you know, um very haughty and proud, and a lot of that leads to some of the central conflicts in that story, and then his brother Menelaus, and these are the kings of Mycenae and Sparta, respectively. But Menelaus was the one who was married to Helen, who Paris abducted and led to the entire Trojan War. So you have these kind of two very flawed individuals who are essentially the Atreides. So is that intentional, or is that uh, you know, I would say it's probably more than just kind of a um a superficial cosmetic choice. So I always think that's that's kind of interesting. And then obviously uh Paul's father, Duke Leto, which again, right, is another kind of mythological name. Although kind of interestingly, Leto is is a female in ancient Greek mythology. So kind of a little bit different on that front. But but I'm already right, there's already like hints, breadcrumbs being dropped about the potential weightiness of this character in terms of events, which I mean, this is a fictional story, and obviously they're not going to be telling boring stories if they if they can help it. Absolutely. So I think that's kind of an interesting start as far as as that goes. And then kind of similar, the Reverend Reverend Mother herself, her name is uh Gaius Helen Mohium. So again, right, you kind of get these different backgrounds kind of mixed together, obviously Gaius being like very Roman-esque as far as some of the names. And then Jessica, not not quite as uh mythological sounding as the other names we've had so far. But I just thought kind of very interesting. And then also, right, all right, we get one of these opening scenes where some a character awakens with Paul, and we get all these observations about him, right? That he's like, you know, he's astute, he's sharp, he's crafty. Right? So they're painting a very detailed picture of kind of his mental state, and then they also comment on his his smallness, the the uh the Reverend Mother does, the crone, quote unquote, saying that uh yeah, that they're they make lots of observations about his his cleverness in the initial observations that Lady Jessica and the Reverend Mother have of him, which again, right, they're they're establishing this character, I think, and this is supposed to set us up because nothing is worse than kind of having a like Deus Ex Machina where you have someone who just like happens to do the right thing. And they kind of expand as we go on the reasons for his cleverness and some of his abilities as we go.

Fate Versus Free Will

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I agree a hundred percent. Someone not familiar with uh at least not as intimately with the Iliad, it is kind of interesting getting this sort of not necessarily hidden, but extra level of symbolism or otherwise potentially hinting at things to come. I know in addition to that, obviously each of these chapters has kind of this opening paragraph that is taken from either an in-world book or some other piece of text. And it seems like not only do we kind of get hints of what's to come there, but sometimes it just straight up spells what's going to happen. And I I do think that's kind of interesting to have kind of all of these all of these pieces of information more or less telling you how things are going to go before you've gotten there. Which to go even further on that, obviously, I'm not sure. Is it mentioned specifically here in this chapter? Paul talks about how he has these prophetic dreams that he remembers in vivid detail. And so that's that does seem to be kind of uh another power of the Bene Jezeret. So it is very interesting having all this information not necessarily handed to you, but it's almost like you know it's going to happen before it happens. And I don't know if that's done to help us kind of empathize a little more with Paul in some of these dreams that he's having, or if it's potentially a case of, you know, free will versus destiny. It's it's something that as in this first read-through is just kind of having me thinking about these sort of things.

Harkonnen Plotting And Imperial Power

SPEAKER_00 11:51

No, that's uh that's a great point. I love that you brought up the at the beginning of each chapter, there are these these excerpts from uh this biography essentially about the the life of the Mu'adib, who we do not know anything about Muadib just yet. And it is, right? It kind of tells about like kind of the the after-events in in various aspects. And so it really enhances the versatilitude, right? Kind of that realness of the world, which is a nice little thing, right? Um I know a lot of authors will will do this, where you kind of insert, like, oh, there were there's an ancient prophecy, or there's an ancient text, or uh we, you know, and there's other uh ways that this can be done as well, whether the character is finding it in the story, or you have these little excerpts that kind of has introductory pieces, or sometimes there'll be like entire chapter breaks in other books, things like that. And you kind of get this alternative perspective for a brief moment, and it kind of gives it more of a realistic touch, like this is a dry academic text, talking about the events of your, you know, fantastic adventure. And uh it's it's very, I think, a very well-done technique, if used appropriately, in as far as like adding a lot of details, when you're trying to maintain perhaps a more limited perspective from a narratorial side of things, but you want your reader to have a little more information here and there. How can I introduce this without kind of like you like we were saying before we started recording, kind of beating them over the head with a uh info dump. And so it's nice to sprinkle these little breadcrumbs in there about uh what may be coming down the pipeline. And then you can also use that to like introduce perhaps ways that there might be discordance between your protagonist's perspective and the kind of the post post-event uh historical narrative as far as you know, the unreliable narrator trope or things like that. So there's different ways that you can play that out. And uh to be honest, I don't recall exactly which way they use that in this story. So I'll be re-remembering as we go along. But yeah, so I think I think it's very interesting, and I want to kind of go off of your free will versus fate thing. And so this is again, right? I as as Will knows, a lot of my other reading journey at this point in time is in the classics at the moment. And so the the Iliad and the Odyssey kind of are thought a lot of in terms of free will versus destiny, right? Everyone has these prophecies about um, you know, will the son be greater than the father? Uh, will he overthrow him? Um, are you destined to die in a certain way? Are there certain acts that you are bound by fate to do? And uh and it is a lot of of that juxta that kind of uh push and pull between those two ideas to and right this is kind of like an eternal question for humankind is to what extent do we have free will, as opposed to kind of being in a deterministic setting? And so if you have dreams that come true on a consistent basis, is it because they're faded, or is it because that you have perception of events as they are occurring and are able to make accurate predictions in your subconscious? I don't know. That kind of gets into like more of the like mind versus um like knowing mind versus subconscious mind. But I don't know. I think it's all very interesting and it's always fun to speculate. A lot of times authors kind of leave you in the dark as to which they are saying it is, which I think is good because it's sometimes it's good not to have all your questions answered, I think. It leaves a little more space for imagination.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Absolutely. No, it keeps you wanting to keep reading, keep finding out how has this turned out.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So So we got these observations of of Paul, and we find out that Paul has to go through a test. And this is kind of, I would say, one of the most famous scenes in the book. And it just happens right out of the gate, you know? And we get some of these uh these new words here. So I don't know. Will do you want to kind of set the set the scene for this next bit?

Spice, Mentats, And Decadence

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Sure, absolutely. So, yes, Paul was sleeping, and but not really sleeping, and the Reverend Mother and Lady Jessica are kind of talking about how he he needs to be tested. And so they notice he's not asleep, and that's where Michael mentioned that they refer to him as being sly and cutting, pretending to be asleep. And then more or less Lady Jessica tells Paul that he will be going through a test administered by the lady mother. And he keeps asking, like, what is this test? And Lady Jessica kind of refuses to elaborate more. Just you will you will know. You will you will learn and you will know. This is, I believe, the next day when he actually meets with her. And this is when Lady Jessica kind of gives additional information to Paul about who the old crone is with the glittering eyes, and tells her that she was her teacher back when she was a member of the Bene Gesserit, and that she is now currently the Emperor's truthsayer. And then one of one of these neologisms that he mentions is this Gom Jabbar. I don't know if that's again how it's actually pronounced. I mean, I'm sure people do know. I don't know. But yes, it sounds like that would be part of the test, at least that is administered by the Reverend Mother.

Politics Of Guild, Landsraad, And Empire

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yes. So so this is, yeah, I I always love this scene, and I'll be honest, uh, before I was rereading this, I always thought the Gom Jabber, I'm such a such an American pronunciation, Gom jabbar, the Gom jabber. I always thought it was the box in the test. And I forgot, it is actually this poisoned needle that the Reverend Mother is holding at his neck. So the outline of this test, and I just love the language used in this scene, is just excellent. Like, what is the purpose of the test? To determine if you are human, as opposed to being an animal, right, which is explained later on. And so she talks about how like it's a very animal thing to, when stuck in a trap, to chew off your own limb to escape, whereas a human will you know play dead essentially and wait for the trapper to come and then reverse the trap. So I thought that was very excellent. But to describe this a little bit here, so we have a box that they describe as a green metal cube about 15 centimeters on a side, with one side open, quote, black and oddly frightening, no light penetrated that open blackness, end quote. And so and then she describes this the gom jabber, the high-handed enemy, a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. The gom jabber, it kills only animals, which like just has this like heavy threat. And that's what the test is, right? To determine if you are an animal, right? So she says you may be human. That's the reason why they're doing this test. And then if you withdraw your hand from the box, you die. This is the only rule. Keep your hand in the box and live. Withdraw it and die. So I think this is just uh a very like there's just a s a sparseness of language that makes it so intense. So you get these very heavy philosophical concepts weighted in there with this very implicit threat against a young man uh who's been woken up in the middle of the night to go through this test with his life on the line, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah. And shortly after, when he is about to perform this test, he we hear that Bene Gesserit uh write, chant, however you want to call it. Yes. It's like I must not fear, fears the mind killer, which you know, you went to someone who's only seen doing in the movies and whatnot. It's very popular, very well known.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Right. I think everyone knows the first two. Sentences, but I want to read the rest of that paragraph there because it is, right? It's definitely got uh some philosophical overtones of stoicism, I think. But as you said, right, I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear, I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. So again, right, it's it is, I don't know if you had any thoughts. Like to me, it has these echoes of the very stoic philosophy as far as I can't affect that. I will remain. I can only control what I can control.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

No, absolutely. It does have like a certain level of prayer almost to it, where it's like, when it's gone, I will turn the inner eye and see its path, or the fear is gone, there'll be nothing. Only I will remain.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Right. And I mean that's kind of implied by the fact that they call it a litany. In a lot of religions, they'll have mantras, litanies, uh, things like that. Um, in the in the Orthodox Church, there's the they call it the prayer of one thought, right? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And so it's kind of the same thing, right, where you are kind of repeating this singular thought to the exclusion of any other intrusive thoughts. And um, you know, different different cultures have different versions of these kinds of things. So it's it's interesting that he has created within this world something like this, which is kind of a a universal religious practice to to many extents, as far as I'm aware. And I love this immediately after that, Paul asks the Reverend Mother what's in the box, and she just replies with one word pain. Pain. Yes. So the way they describe this, it's uh it's very fascinating uh to me, right? It's if you wanted to talk about the the actual test itself, well.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

So I believe it's explained afterwards that more or less what she is doing is manipulating the nerves in his hand to cause immense pain, but he describes it as it burns. He like is it's going on. He is expecting to more or less retrieve a hand that has burned away to bone and nothing remains. But obviously, towards towards the end when he finally is able to pull it out, he has passed the test, he learns that it wasn't I shouldn't say it wasn't real, pain was real, but that more or less exactly is what the Reverend Mother said is pain. Pain was in the box. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, and then she talks about the purpose, and we get a little more information kind of about the Benegessera as far as we sift people to find humans, and that pain is the axis of the test, but the test is to observe crisis and observation. And so they're they're looking for certain characteristics in these people, and they're using pain to kind of bring out those attributes. So it's uh it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, I I agree. It's very much kind of like that forge in the crucible type of thing where we want to make sure that the individuals who go on to and this seems to be kind of the underlying purpose of the Benedesseret is to ensure that a certain set of genes gets passed down through the generations. And so making sure that Paul is of suitable stock to do so is is definitely part of kind of what this test is indicative of. It seems like this is something that happens with all Benedicera members, if I have to assume.

Prophetic Dreams And Terrible Purpose

SPEAKER_00 23:49

And it was interesting. At some point during this tableau, they had said that we don't usually administer this test to boys, right? With the implication, right, we had heard that they usually bear girl children. So Lady Jessica has already had a boy child, and we get several recriminations from the Reverend Mother against her for this, implying that perhaps the the Ben A Gesseret have some ability to determine the sex of their children prior to giving birth, and then also that we don't usually do this test to boy children as well. So kind of a rare event for a rare occurrence. So we're already getting this intimation that something's happening. And then we get the first incidence of this name, the Quisatz Hatterak, or Hatterac, however you care to pronounce it, which is not explained yet, but one of the next lines there that I liked or nearby is that um, quote, Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. So you get this kind of weightiness to this term, even though we don't know what it means just yet. And again, right, some of these uh, you know, the uh the author pulling from these different cultures. So we get different words that have kind of different kind of linguistic backgrounds, right? We've got a little bit of Greek, we've got a little bit of Roman, uh, we've got some perhaps Arabic, and we are seeing kind of this mixing up of these various things in different permutations. So it's it's kind of interesting to trace these things back a little bit as far as we're able to, and seeing where things go to.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, I know. In another chapter, that that phrase definitely jumped out at me because it uh it happens again later. This terrible purpose. Right, it does happen. Yeah. It's definitely it sounds very almost Shakespearean. Like uh in I know I've read a lot of Macbeth lately, and it it definitely sounds like you know, something about when Macbeth is conspiring with his wife to to kill Duncan.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Right. And like uh, you know, it to my ear, kind of what you were mentioning earlier, Caladan. I don't know if it's supposed to be a riff off of like Caliban or not. I don't know. We don't get too much of Caladan uh in the story overall, at least not in these first few chapters. And so I can't say if that's just like a linguistic similarity or anything more than that, but right, it's just like you said, it kind of uh I think they describe the planet as like wet and lots of lakes and green growing things. So maybe it does have some echoes of kind of the uh Scottish Isles, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Potentially, absolutely. I I do know, again, later in another chapter, I don't think this is a spoiler of any sort, but the with Dune kind of not having any water, there there is kind of this uh sort of emphasis on the fact that Calad caladin, Caladan, however again, who knows, does have like an excess of water in abundance. And so, you know, being aware of like the moisture in your mouth or the water that you're drinking or the rain falling from the sky, it's like these are things that will not be present in the future. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So after Paul passes this test, we get some more exposition about what it is that the the banned guesserit do and kind of why they're doing it. I mean, to a limited extent, you know, I'm sure there's some obfuscation here. But we get uh we get some little pieces here as far as what they are hoping to accomplish and kind of the methods for doing it, why they're doing it. Uh they talk about the the thinking machines.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Um and again, right? And I think this is kind of apropos in our age of AI development, right here. Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free, but that only permitted the other men with machines to enslave them. You know, that's feels a little prophetic uh these days. That was you know, again written sixty years ago.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Right. If this was if this is written nowadays, it'd be a little too on the nose.

First‑Read Impressions And Reread Value

SPEAKER_00 27:49

It would be, wouldn't it? And then uh there's this nice quote, and we get again, right, a little reference to some piece of literature. Um so Paul states, uh, Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind, right out of the Butlerian jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible, she said. But what the OC Bible should have said is, Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind. And she So we get right with the Orange Catholic Bible, the Butlerian jihad. Uh so we get all of these like what sounds like a huge historical event, some sort of, you know, a religious text. And then she mentions mentats next, which we don't necessarily have a full explanation for, but we we learn that these are, you know, sort of trained people as far as like their cognitive abilities. And then she kind of goes on next to kind of the surviving schools that came out of the Butlerian jihad after getting rid of the thinking machines. And that was the Bene Jesseret and the Spacing Guild, which we don't know much about yet. And their thought is that they emphasize almost pure mathematics, but the Bene Jesseret are focused on politics. Right?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

That's that's an interesting take to kind of have these as she describes them, these two primary human mind developed schools is mathematics and politics, which I guess to an extent does make sense. There's, you know, the pure abstraction of numbers versus kind of this interhuman relationship development, you know, at a scale in mass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Right. And it's like kind of different, like you said, different poles of a of a spectrum. And so you wind up with, you know, sometimes it's possible to over overcorrect in any particular direction, and so you wind up with this kind of uh siloing of human ability and kind of shifts your perspective, perhaps to an unhealthy extent, which I think they intimate at a little bit at different points here. So that kind of finishes up our first chapter, and we get a sudden scene shift here. So I don't know. I've been talking a lot, Will. Do you want to take this one?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I think one of well, before we jump from chapter one, one other thing I wanted to mention also is I don't I don't think we've mentioned this yet, the Benedicer, in addition to the dreams that we talked about, they also have this ability called the voice, which they can use to kind of command people to do things. And the Rethered Mother does this too, Paul, on a few occasions to kind of force him to adhere to her will. So just to again kind of reiterate that. They have superdeveloped minds that are able to kind of force manipulate.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah, they they reference that uh truth saying. So yeah, we get all these hints at these abilities. We don't know the full extent of them, but to the average reader, they you know have a supernatural cast to them. Yes.

What’s Next In Our Dune Read

SPEAKER_01 30:50

So yeah, in chapter two, again, we get another kind of excerpt at the beginning of the chapter, hinting at the Mu'adib, which we know little to nothing about at this point, just from what we've had the previous chapter's excerpt, but we jump to the Harkinans, who we are kind of inferring are the kind of I don't know, of antithesis or the rivals of the Atreides.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So I think that's fair to say. They make that pretty clear early on in this conversation here. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

And so, yeah, we're we're in this ostentatious study with this globe that's described as being forged with rare metals and diamonds and all sorts of expensive jewelry. And we have three people that we're kind of following in the room. We have the Baron Vladimir Harkinen. We have Peter Peter. Let's go with Peter. Peter. And then we have, as we learn in a little bit, uh his the Baron's nephew, Fay Rotha, who is described as being like a dark-haired youth at 16 years old, so similar age as Paul, round of face and sullen eyes. So he's he's got a little bit of a pouty, kind of sulking teenager uh kind of veneer that we first attribute to him. And then with the Baron, when we first open the scene, is kind of manipulating this fancy globe, and then he's described as having a fat hand that glitters with rings. And we learn towards the end of this chapter that he's actually a very obese man. He's described as being about 200 kilos, which should be over 400 pounds, and has like I suppose a system of these sus they're called suspensors, but uh, some sort of you know, thrusters that help keep him afloat.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, some sort of like mag lift, anti-grav, something or other, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

And then uh Piter is as we learn again a little bit, I believe a mentat, is that correct? Yeah. Slash master of assassins for the Baron. Right. A slender short man with an effeminate face, and then he has oh yeah, the altered eyes of a mentat, which are all blue. It sounds like you got a blue iris and then a blue sclera, no white. Right, right. And they kind of just hand us their entire scheme for the Atreides on a silver platter about what they're conspiring to do, why the Harkadans and the Atreides are switching control of Arrakis and Kaladin in the first place. Right. Kind of again going back to we have all this information about what is probably to come before it's happened.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Right. As you were kind of saying in all these these character studies of these three people in the conversation, they all have a very kind of sinister cast to them. Absolutely. Right? The Baron has this uh very deep voice and he's laughing as he describes his plans for kind of his goal is to eradicate the line of the Atreides, and so he's you know very pleased with himself for this.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Uh yeah, he and one thing, just to jump in real quick. He specifically wants Duke Leto to know that it's him who's behind this whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Right. Right. So there's a obviously, you know, a bit of pride there, and then we get this description of, you know, like you were saying, all the wealth and opulence around him, coupled with kind of his obesity there, and then the kind of the expressions of Peter and Fad Rotha. We get this kind of decadence here that's kind of very suggestive, again, of kind of this like late empire corrupt political system kind of flavor here. Because we do get a lot of talk about like the political machinations, they talk about these different organizations, the uh what was it, the Landsrach? It's a very German-sounding word.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah, yeah. The other great houses, though.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Right. So it's definitely yeah, Landsrod, I apologize. And so they talk about well, this comes later. But essentially, they talk about their, as you were saying, their plans for this. And obviously, because they they are painting this picture of decadence and corruption, one of the keystones of their plan is betrayal by someone trusted within within the family household of the Duke. And uh it's their their family doctor, which he only gets name mentioned, but we'll so we'll we'll end up probably talking about him later on in a later episode. But but the idea is that you know he's supposed to be incorruptible due to this imperial conditioning. They don't ever really explain what that means or how they pushed on these levers to manipulate him. So again, right, they kind of leave that mystery up in the air for now as to why and how, but uh basically saying that it's something that should be impossible, but they are somehow able to do this, and so they are not only planning to kind of destroy the family and conquer the territory back, but also do it in a in a way that is very underhanded, right? So and then they also mentioned the they're not just using their own military troops, they're also getting these troops that will be disguised as Harkinen troops, but these are actually what they call Sardakar. I don't know if you're pronouncing that one differently, but these are essentially imperial troops from the emperor, and they're supposed to be like fierce fighters, you know, kind of feared across the empire. And so he's getting uh a couple uh, I think battalions of these troops as well to fight with his men. So just kind of tipping the scales even further against Duke Leto here. So there's all these machinations going on that we don't fully understand the why as to them. You know, it's like, why did Duke Leto and Baron Harkinen hate each other? Who knows? There is a letter here at the beginning of the chapter, which I thought was interesting here, and um he basically says the uh the art of Canley still has admirers in the Empire and signs it to Duke Leto of Arrakis, which is kind of like you know, thumbing his nose at Baron Harkonnen, because the Harkonens were controlling Arrakis until it was given to them by the Emperor.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

To even add on to that a little more, he does not sign or yeah, have the uh it just says to what is it, to Baron Harkonen. I don't know if he even says that though. Where is it?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

No, he doesn't address him as an equal.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah, just addresses him as Harkonen. There's no sire, no cousin, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

It's just e even more, yeah, thumbing his nose or thumbing the nose in his face. And again, this is another word we don't necessarily get an explanation for, uh this canly. But uh from context, it kind of implies maybe like a chivalric type of code, perhaps, or some sort of honor system. I don't know if it gets explained later on, but at this point in time we definitely don't have an explanation as to what it means. But but it does imply that amongst the aristocracy, perhaps, there is some sort of code of conduct which the Duke believes that the Baron does not follow, which again, based on the description of this scene so far, would be consistent.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yes. Accurate as far as we can tell. Yeah. So to jump back a little bit to kind of the plan that they have in terms of wiping out the Atreides, we we learn, at least to some extent, the motivations for the Baron. Obviously, he's doing it for money, uh, because ultimately he'll come to be back in control of Arrakis. He's doing it for kind of this intimidation factor, because word would leak to the rest of the other great houses that the Harkinans had been behind the eradication of the Atreides. But kind of to your point, we don't necessarily know why the Imperial House, the Imperial family is doing this at this point in time. So that's definitely something that's kind of leaving you kind of wondering and questioning what is their motivation here.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Yeah. Any other thoughts on this scene? We again, a lot of the details we've kind of touched on to an extent. There's a lot of back and forth, a lot of uh cutting jabs between the uh the Baron, Peter, and Vader Alpha. Uh you know, they're all kind of basically jerks to each other to greater or lesser extents.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yeah, the the Baron and Peter do not like each other, but Peter's very much Yeah, you you have this thought that the Baron has earlier, is like he's almost outlived his usefulness. And Peter, being a mentat, has these heightened mental abilities, is like you probably think. I've almost outlived my usefulness. Right. But wait. I'm still I still know that I have use, so you won't get rid of me just yet.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Right. And so we do get these hints of uh I shouldn't say hints, it's kind of explicit, isn't it? Yeah. Uh where they talk about his his spice habit, essentially. Yes. And this is kind of the first time we we get a little more information about um what spice might do to a person. Uh again, right, we know it enhances cognitive abilities and it comes from Arrakis, and it's very expensive. And that's kind of the extent at the moment. But then we also know that Peter also has other, perhaps predilections that are a little less savory as far as maybe, you know, inflicting pain and torturing people and things like that. So kind of a very very unsavory character. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

As you said, right? He explicitly says that he wants the Lady Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Right, right. But yeah, it's uh it's certainly we don't know what his motivations are beyond just being kind of unpleasant at this point in time. Fay Routha, right, again, kind of being, like you said, the prototypical sullen teenager. Uh, you know, he makes a lot of comments that paint a picture of someone who's very impatient, who isn't necessarily as learned or intelligent as the other people in the room. And you know, the Baron's trying to teach him because he's nominally his heir at this point in time. Yes. So he's trying to, you know, groom him up into uh a potential leader of the Harkinins, I assume, and kind of go from there. But uh yeah, he makes several comments throughout the this conversation here that just make paint him again kind of as a impatient, less than optimally intelligent teenager.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Yes. And so just to recount briefly, Peter does tell us kind of what the plan is. And it's right. You know, first he talks about the likelihood of the Atreides either fleeing or going to Iraq as he's like, and they're not gonna flee. It's very low probability. Right. And then he mentions how they're going to make a feeble attempt to try and assassinate Paul and just to kind of get their guards on edge. They don't they don't actually want to assassinate Paul. The Baron makes that very explicit. Like, he better not die. And Peter's like, there's always a chance, but they should be fine.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

And then they're going to kind of sow dissension amongst the various villages or whatever, sort of kind of domiciles around the place to throw them kind of into confusion, and then eventually we'll strike with, like you said, the disguised imperial troops as Harkinen soldiers. And then there's brief discussion about what if they flee into the desert. And Peter alludes to an ecologist known as Kynes who would be able to stop them, and that's kind of all we get on that front. But I definitely wanted to mention, you know, the Kynes would probably be a character that pops up and will matter.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Any other thoughts on this scene?

SPEAKER_01 43:02

I don't think so. It's it's a good scene. I I enjoyed it a lot.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of foreshadowing here, or at least from their perspective, what they plan to happen. And so when things do start happening on Arrakis, you can kind of look back and see to what extent are their plans being executed as they planned them, and to what extent are the Atreides able to respond appropriately or thwart those plans and or not, as the case may be. Time will tell. Absolutely. So I think it uh it's a good way to to show, not tell, right? So we can get this idea from some from one, you know, our antagonist essentially, one party, about what they're trying to exert on the world, and then we'll be in real time going through those actions with our protagonists, and then kind of seeing where do things line up, where do they diverge. And it will let us know, kind of reflecting back on this conversation, to what extent are our antagonists going to be frustrated or stymied. Because obviously this would be a very short book if the entire family was exterminated. Uh you know, this isn't a George R. R. Martin book. So it's unlikely that an entire line is going to get stamped out uh in the first few chapters. But yeah, so after this conversation, we shift back to a Kaladin in the castle, and we go back to Paul, Lady Jessica, and the Reverend Mother, and we kind of have this conversation that's shifting between the three of them. They're kind of going in and out of a room that's soundproofed, and you're having a conversation at times between two of them, sometimes all three, and it uh it just kind of varies throughout the conversation. But I we get, I think, some, you know, they he manages to keep this from being an info dump, but you get a lot of information as far as the political landscape uh during this conversation, which is again very useful for navigating the motivations of our characters going forward.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Absolutely. So kind of the first thing that we jump on is that there's Paul's ordeal. I don't think we actually learn about what that ordeal is at this point in time. It's alluded to, and then I believe it does jump past it, but Lady Jessica mentions that she herself went through an ordeal of probably the exact same origin a long time ago. And yeah, we jumped to Lady Jessica and the Reverend Mother.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

So I thought this was an interesting little bit from the Reverend Mother here. She talks about uh again, this is more about the power alignment in the Empire. They talk about this um a little bit also in the previous chapters, this the Space Guild, or the Spacer Guild, essentially. And essentially, they have a monopoly on space travel. So going from planet to planet, it's nearly impossible without the use of this organization. And so they they have kind of an oversized level of power given their suspected size. And so it's kind of interesting. Like they talk about this in the Barron's conversation as well, you know, about getting how we're going to, you know, we'll have to have the Space Guild as allies for this mission, because how else are we going to get the troops to the planet, right? Or get an assassin to the planet, you know, or all these kinds of things. So you have to have these kind of secretive alliances, otherwise you can't get from point A to point B, and then nothing's gonna happen. So it's kind of interesting from that perspective. And then they again they talk about this turning its back on most science, which is kind of interesting, right? Everything sounded very fantastical so far as far as science. So it kind of suggests that to a large extent, some of these the current technology that's being utilized might be a lower form than what was present in previous times. So again, kind of maybe suggests a a little bit of a fall from peak civilization, which we kind of have some pseudo-medieval, pseudo-feudal kind of flavors in a lot of the relationships being described so far, right, with a reverend mother, right, kind of suggesting a monastic order and a duke and a baron as main characters here, um, and then obviously an emperor. So we've got this very, I don't know, kind of mixed-up bag of uh like aristocracy, kind of with some pseudo-Christian vibes here. So it's all kind of uh very interesting as far as how they're again painting this picture of these organizations here. But that's kind of my perspective so far.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Absolutely. I know I agree with you 100%. And then kind of going further, so in addition to kind of these noble titles that we see being addressed to everybody, the lady Jessica is described as being a concubine, not the actual Duke's wife or you know, any sort of marriage therein. And you know, that's something that we saw a lot, I feel like, in a you know, East Asian courts where you know an emperor would have multiple women that he would be having relations with and trying to yield an heir. There wasn't necessarily one designated line of like, okay, that is my wife, this is our child, this is where the line is going to be coming from. So, you know, I don't think we see any other concubines with Duke Leto, but there there definitely is a hint that, you know, with other great houses, other lords, that there might be, you know, a number of kind of concubines that they have potential heirs and even more strife internally as they try and get their child to succeed to, you know, the the not the throne, but the seat of the house. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

No, good point. Right? And it's gonna kind of just that uh that big mix-up of uh various earth cultures.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

So we kind of shift, you know, Lady Jessica has this conversation with the Reverend Mother, and she reflects a lot on her own training. And uh you get some interesting information here as well. So they they're talking about Arrakis and what kind of work the the Bene Gesserit have been doing there, which is is somewhat vague, but you get this reference to something called the missionaria protectiva. And again, don't get a full explanation of what that is, but some sort of project that uh that the Bene Gesserit are involved in. And we get kind of a different term potentially for the uh oh gosh, I'm gonna say it wrong again. The Switzak Hatteratch. Sorry, I don't have it written down in front of the Quissatz Hatterash. That one's gonna that one's gonna be the bane of my existence as we talk through this book. But they talk about a different phrase that kind of has a similar implication, or perhaps that individual is part of this uh benezerit totality. And again, we don't get an explanation of it, but it just it's all in capital letters. So it has this kind of importance to it. So what is it? What does it mean? Again, this is kind of like a little breadcrumb for us to follow up on as we go through the book. I like this bit, because this was as you were saying earlier, like why does she bear a son? And she talks about you know the because because she loved him and the Reverend Mother says, like, what was your first lesson? Like, like my first lesson, humans must never submit to animals, with the implication that the Duke Leto is not quote unquote human from the Bene Gesserit perspective. Right. So, you know, some implications there. Obviously, he's he's part of one of these bloodlines that the Bene Gesserit are trying to preserve because they had assigned a Bene Gesserit concubine to him. So it does become a bit of a question there as far as, you know, well, what's the significance of that bloodline, right? Because they're they're always talking about these different pathways of future and kind of following all these threads. Um and then we shift a little bit. So now we have a conversation with Paul and the Reverend Mother, and this is with the dreams that you were talking about earlier. And she says, Do you dream often dream of things that happen afterward exactly as you dream them? And he says, Yes. And then he says, I've dreamed about that girl before. Um and so he tells about this dream, and she asks me to tell her about the waters, and I take her hand and I say, I'll tell her a poem, but I have to explain some of the words, like beach and surf and seaweed and seagulls. And he says, I don't remember the name of it, but it's one of Gurney Halleck's tone poems for sad times. And so I thought that was interesting. This is our first mention of uh Gurney Halleck, I believe. Yes. But it you know kind of implies maybe a bit of a music-related character. And you know, it's it's an interesting poem. So again, right, we get this this kind of versumilitude with a tone poem, which I should have looked this up before. I don't know if that is a thing that that exists in any of our cultures. But uh but I'll just recite it here, if that's all right. Absolutely. It's fairly short. I remember salt smoke from a beach fire and shadows under the pines, solid, clean, fixed. Seagulls perch at the tip of land, white upon green, and a wind comes through the pines to sway the shadows. The seagulls spread their wings, lift and fill the sky with screeches, and I hear the wind blowing across our beach and the surf, and I see that our fire has scorched the seaweed. So I thought, uh right, again, right, if we're talking about Arrakis, the desert planet. Again, right, there's some foreshadowing here as far as if he's explaining this to a girl in that world who's never left it, then you know, things like oceans and beaches and such would be something that didn't exist, you know, kind of like the way that people say, Oh, the Eskimo tribes have a dozen words to describe snow or, you know, various other things, like different cultures have different minute subtleties in different words for things that are very common in their environment versus that you might not have a word. Like a lot of ancient cultures didn't have a word for privacy. So because it didn't exist. But it's kind of one of those interesting things as far as again, a little bit of foreshadowing, a little bit of cultural versumilitude. I should have looked up to see if that's an actual poem. I don't know if you know, Will.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

I don't imagine so if it's Gurney Halleck. I yeah, I I can't say for certain, but I mean he's he's introduced in a few chapters. I did read ahead a little bit, but if Paul's attributing it to Gurney Halleck, then maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Oh, let's see here. So they do exist. They're also known as symphonic poems. Okay. Orchestral compositions aiming to evoke a specific mood, atmosphere, or narrative, often inspired by non-musical things like literature, paintings, or natural landscapes. All right, there we go. I should have looked that up previously. It looks like it was a German term initially. Tonigtung. I do not speak German, so do I but um yeah, so again, I think it's just interesting as far as kind of these little pieces there.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

It definitely helps flesh things out a little more, you know, as opposed to just an infant's like, hey, here was something that I recounted in one of these poems, and you know, it's attributed to a character that we're introduced to soon, so we already have kind of an aspect to that character that we may not have without it. Yes. So after that poem, she talks to Paul a little more, kind of wanting him to want to know more about the Quizas Hatarach. And more or less Paul is like, you said that anybody who's tried for that in the past has died, so I'm good. I don't want to, I don't want to do that. Right. But uh she's like, how about a hint? He's like, fine. I do like this. And he said, Hint then, and be damned to me, she smiled wryly very well. And the hint is that which submits rules. And it's just like, that's a hint. It's just right. Ver it seems very appropriate. You know, obviously with Paul, it seems he's kind of wise beyond his years, but at the same time, we do kinda kind of get this brief glimpse of like, that's that's a hint. Just kind of this sarcastic teenager.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah. And again, we get kind of right after that, did she think his mother had taught him nothing at all? And so we keep getting these these hints and intimations, like whether it's the Reverend Mother's internal monologue or Paul's internal monologue, where we see evidence that Lady Jessica has been training him in the ways of the Bene Gesserit, the the ways of observation of minutiae, or you know, things like that. So uh and we get like, you know, you know, Paul's able to tell she's telling the truth during earlier during the the test, right? And so like initially the Reverend Mother is kind of surprised by this, and so we get this obvious the implication here, to me at least, is that training up a boy child in the ways of the Bene Gesserit is not typical.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

So there's you know, Paul is unique in in many ways as far as this specific order is concerned. You know, first being a male and then being trained in the ways of the the Bene Gesserit.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

And then this is something I alluded to earlier, but so she kind of goes further with that hint, the willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows, a wall against the wind. This is the willow's purpose. Paul stared at her. She said, purpose, and he felt the word buffet him, re-infecting him with terrible purpose. So again, we have this continuing hinting at what might be kind of his his I don't know if destiny again is the right word, but things to come at the very least.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Right. And uh yeah, earlier in this conversation, right, we get uh again, right, kind of this like esoteric language where he accuses the Re Reverend Mother of putting a stamp of strangeness on me. Yes. Which again, right, you kind of think of like, you know, like strangeness, like weird kind of like U-E-I-R-D or W-Y-R-D. Kind of again, this prophecy fate aspect of things. So it definitely has that kind of flavor of a prophecy, essentially. So I guess that's part of the thing about prophecy is that not all prophecies are true. And that's that's kind of the the line that we're straddling, I think, at this point in time, because they also talk about you know his father, and it's like, what are we gonna do to save him? And basically they say if we had anything we could do, we would, but we don't. Right. And so they're he accuses them of talking as if the Duke's already dead. And you again, right, this kind of heavy foreshadowing, right? We just had a plot to basically end his line, and now this other group is also talking about like so it kind of intimates, do they know about this plot? I mean, most likely they you know, they're a political organization that's existed for who knows how long. So it would be strange if they had no hints as to potential traps, line and wait. So you kind of get these like wheels within wheels, like, you know, we know they're gonna try and, you know, burn us, but we're gonna try and block it, and you know, it was kind of back and forth, you know, you know, the the knife in the shadows, as it were. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Trying to think three steps ahead of their three steps ahead.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

So that kind of takes us to the end of the third chapter. But what's your what's your initial impression of someone reading this for the first time?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

I really like it. Uh I could definitely see it being a little overwhelming. I know we had talked about, you know, a fire hose and information, which isn't necessar I mean, there there definitely is a lot of these new legends, these specific terms that get introduced with little to no context that can make it hard for somebody who's not used to this sort of style to get past. But I I do think it's very much one of those things that as you keep reading, it'll keep making more and more sense. Like, for example, in that first chapter, they mentioned the ballasset, I think it is. And like, is this a real instrument or is this a fake instrument? And it sounds like it is a fake instrument, but it shows up later. And I was like, oh, okay, now I know a little more about what that is. So this this might be one of those stories that benefits a lot from reading it more than once as you can go in with that additional context afterwards and know exactly what's happening as it's happening without kind of this deluge information kind of bombarding your senses.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Right. Like once you're not struggling through the vocabulary, uh like what does that mean? What does that mean? Is this foreshadowing something? What is the moving deep? Right. So so that it definitely is one of those things, and you can Kind of like many great works, usually benefits from multiple rereadings. So, like we talked about at the beginning, this is my third read of this. And even for me, reading through it again, I was just like, oh yeah. Like that I remember that now. Like that does, you know, you are getting some intimations of things to come. So I'm I'm having to couch my speech to avoid spoiling things too much as we go. But but it's definitely like triggering off some memories for me as far as like, oh yeah, that this this does have some significance here and there. And uh it's a different perspective. Because again, right, when I first read it in high school, I was just like, because this was written in the 60s, it's got that kind of sixties sci-fi kind of language, and at times it almost has kind of a dreamy quality to the writing, which you know is intentional, I believe. So you kind of get this like haziness to it, to the pictures almost, right? Like not in a you know negative way, but like almost like there's a surrealism to some of the scenes, right? And uh with repetit repeated readings, I think that mist clears a little bit, if I may continue my analogy, and it it brings things into a little bit sharper focus. And I'll be honest, this I'm not someone who rereads books a lot. I probably should do it more often, but but it's definitely been interesting so far. So I'm looking forward to continuing through the rest of this book. And I'll be honest, for for anyone listening, I have not read any of these subsequent books in the Dune series, despite having read this book a couple times previously. I've I've tried to tackle Dune Messiah once or twice, but again, I kind of run into the same thing where I'm just like, oh, I'm too tired to really apply myself mentally to this, because it is it is a book that sometimes requires a little bit of mental effort, which is usually the sign of, well, either a very well-written book or a very poorly written book. But uh I think this one falls into the well-written category. Sure. But um I'm looking forward to continuing on here, kind of doing more more analysis. I would say to anyone listening, shoot us a message if there's something we missed, something you disagree with, other thoughts, interpretations, you know, send us a message. Uh, you can find us probably on x slash twitter, or you can always message us directly through through the podcast or our email, and we'll have those links in the show notes. Thank you so much. Well, and yeah. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

I agree 100% with what you were saying. I as someone who has not read this two times already, I'm enjoying it and I'm looking forward to cutting through the rest of it with you and getting getting a little more information because yeah, there's definitely pieces that I did not catch that you did specifically around the etymology of their names. So kind of getting a further layer of that information was very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Well, is it real? Is it coincidence? Who knows? I don't know. Right? Well, so when we're back next time, we'll be continuing through the next several chapters of Dune, and we'll talk to y'all next time. Talk to you later. Bye.