Dune/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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* In Heretics, it says that a "failed Reverend Mother", Geasa, took care of ghola-Idaho. If you fail, you die... so?
** Continuity error probably. Frank made them occasionally. Think of her as more of a failed Sister.
*** Failing to become a Sister means failing to pass the gom jabbar test, which ''is'' fatal.
** Perhaps Failed RM = Wasn't allowed to take the Spice Agony. Not "Tried and Died", but "Your tests show you'd never survive."
** Canon. One of the Reverend Mothers (Darwi Odrade), recounted that during her training, the Night Watchwoman (don't remember her official position) was prevented from taking the agony due to heart problems, which also kept her awake at night.
** Also remember that 'tried and died' was referring to prior Kwisatz Haderach candidates who tried and failed to undergo the Agony, something a non-Kwisatz Haderach male is genetically incapable of doing. A failed female candidate could be saved simply by having someone else give her some already 'changed' spice liquor (remember that the ''entire Fremen sietch'' takes that stuff once the Reverend Mother has catalyzed it for them, and they're fine), and as the Agony is supervised by a group of Reverend Mothers there's any number of other people in the room who could provide some.
** Hasimir Fenring was a 'failed Kwisatz Haderach,' but his Bene Gesserit wife didn't rush to kill him or anything. Failure to pass the test of humanity carried the gom jabbar, but failure to live up to an ideal is just a fact of life.
* Stillsuits supposedly function by letting your sweat evaporate, then immediately distilling the vapors so the moisture isn't lost. But how can such a self-contained system provide for adequate heat loss, which is what the body sweats to achieve in the first place? They're described as form-fitting, with no fins or other heat-radiating accouterments.
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**** That explanation does not work after the end of the first book.
***** That's where the map is, isn't it?
**Maybe there just isn't enough people to warrant the placing of two regions that, in the end, will be separated by the almost intravesable equator. If you aren't going to run into overpopulation issues soon, it's best to just keep cities close to where you are already established. It's said in the book that there's more or less at least ten million people. That's less than most countries here on Earth.
* This pisses me off about the entire series: how the books go on constantly about little minutiae in plans and movements, and then second book was nothing but a guy angsting over his wife and deciding whether or not to fuck his sister. Why, in a series entailing very dramatic events, did all the focus go on a bunch of angsty aristocrats?
** Did you even bother to read the book, or go any further than ''Messiah''?
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** Considering that Mentats are supposed to be [[The Chessmaster|the Chessmasters]] due to their highly advanced ability to compute outcomes of events based on variables and facts available, pretty much proves that he's either holding the [[Idiot Ball]] on this particular issue, or that he's just a failure as a Mentat. (Because the ''spice smuggler'' Tuek figures things out based on ''much less'' knowledge, and Hawit is [[Too Dumb to Live|stupid enough to be openly manipulated by the Harkonnens.]] I have no idea why this guy is so prized for his Mentat abilities when he's a ''FUCKING IDIOT!'' The only possible reason why he's so stupid about this is that he's so prejudiced against the Bene Gesserit that he can't see how supremely stupid he is actually being, and if he's that easily affected by prejudice then he's a waste as a Mentat anyway. And exposure to the spice is supposed to ''improve'' mental capacity, not hinder it. Hence, the most probable reason for Hawat siding with the Harkonnens? He's a prejudiced idiot who can't see two moves in front of his face (I'm still fuming over the fact that he dismissed Yeuh out of hand as the traitor... yes, because obviously the Imperial Conditioning can't be broken by a conflict of morals (because training to apply complete moral values based on ''saving people's lives'' ISN'T what the entire thing is based on, obviously). Hawit didn't even do a background check to find out ''his wife was a fucking bene gesserit held prisoner by the Harkonnens'' (he is completely stunned by this fact when JESSICA tells him). Furthermore he acts so goddamn surprised that Leto has been betrayed and killed when ''everyone and THEIR MOTHER knew Arrakis was a trap in the first place'' and he didn't have safeguards in place to deal with that (Yeuh just walked into the fucking shield room and deactivated it that easily...)). [[Berserk Button|Thufir Hawat, YOU FAIL!]]
*** Mentats aren't quite super-duper geniuses; they're intelligent humans with a very tightly defined set of mental skills useful to the Imperium. Hawat gets sidelined because the Harkonnens make a dedicated effort to play to his weaknesses. And he isn't the only one not to suspect Yueh on account of his conditioning; it's implied that the Emperor will destroy the Harkonnens out of hand if he finds out they've suborned the only trusted medical school in the universe.
*** Also, the shield room ''was'' guarded. Yueh had killed the guard. We can forgive the dude pulling night watch on the generator room for being caught by surprise when a man ''everyone knows is mentally brainlocked to be absolutely incapable of physical violence'' suddenly pulls out a weapon and stabs him.
** You're forgetting the Feyd vs Vladimir subplot. Hawat clearly despised the Harkonnens, and there is mention that he was still being secreted messages by Gurney (about the Fremen tactics). He played Feyd against the Baron, and visa-versa, turning them against each other, trying to bring the House down. See: Slave Boy assassination attempt.
*** Exactly. I asked the question about Thufirs angle in the first place, the reason I'm wondering is: after he proposes to the Baron to make Arrakis a Prison Planet just like Salusa Secundus, Thufir asks himself if his victory over the Harkonnen will be as complete as the victory over the Atreides had been. So how did he want to do it? I now suspect that he wanted to raise the Emperors anger against the Harkonnen, just as the Emperor did not want to let the Atreides Army get as good as his own Sardaukar.
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