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* [[Agony Beam]]/[[Hand in the Hole]]/[[Life or Limb Decision]]: The ritual of the gom jabbar is a test employed by the Bene Gesserit, performed by requiring the examinee to put her hand into a box that causes [[Agony Beam|excruciating pain]] by nerve induction. A poison-coated needle—the gom jabbar itself—is then held to the "victim's" neck with the threat of instant death should she withdraw her hand without permission. The test is whether the person can master her instinctive desire to flee the pain, thus proving her "humanity". Paul Atreides is one of the few males to be administered the test, and his passing of it is seen as a sign of his future role as the [[The Chosen One|Kwisatz Haderach]].
{{quote|"He thought he could feel skin curling black on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained."}}
* [[
** In the original books, it was not that the computers were inherently bad, it was that humanity chose to destroy them because they were making humans lazy and limiting humanity's potential, effectively making them dependent on sentient machines for survival. Computer AI was later demonized.
** In the prequels, Omnius was actually doing what he was programmed to do (the conquest and enslavement of humanity), he just decided to work for himself, and not his Titan masters.
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* [[Blind Seer]]: After Paul loses his sight in an assassination attempt he substitutes his precient memory of the future instead. He literally knows exactly what's going to happen moment to moment and fits his actions seamlessly into that vision. Later, he chooses to "forget" his vision when overcome with grief over Chani's death, and loses it completely when Leto II takes the oracular reins from him in ''Children of Dune''.
* [[Body Horror]]: Leto II in demiworm form, Guild Steersmen mutated by spice, the {{spoiler|Axlotl tanks}}.
* [[Brain In a Jar]]: The prequels have brain-jar villains riding around in [[Humongous Mecha|giant war machines]] ([[Rule of Cool|just because they can]]), who cause the [[Robot War|Butlerian Jihad]] through poor programming of their [[
* [[Break the Cutie]]: A very disturbing example from ''House Harkonnen'' is the prolonged and violent forced prostitution (and eventual [[Kill the Cutie|murder]]) of Gurney Halleck's gentle younger sister Bheth. First she is kidnapped by the Harkonnens for trying to protect her brother. Then they cut out her larynx so she can't do more than scream wordlessly. Next she is subjected to 6 years (starting at age 17) of sadistic rape and torture by a recorded 4620 Harkonnan soldiers. Rabban finally kills her in retribution of Gurney's attempt on his life.
* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]/[[Twincest]]:
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** No need to work it out. It is outright stated that Fremen stink in closed spaces.
* [[Cloning Blues]]: Gholas (clones of the dead), especially the multiple incarnations of Duncan Idaho.
* [[Coca
** A few religions manage to survive intact through the millennia, most notably Judaism.
** There are also Zenshiites in the prequels, a more violent sect than the Zensunnis.
** Also, while the Corrino Imperium appear to have tolerated many religions (after all, what were a bunch of non-violent monks on Lankiveil going to do?), Paul's fanatic followers demand that everyone worship Muad'Dib or die. When the Lankiveilian Zensunni monks refuse to build a giant statue of Muad'Dib, Paul orders them slaughtered and their temple burned to the ground.
** The novel ''Sisterhood of Dune'' reveals that the creation of the Orange Catholic Bible was hardly easy. The ecumenical council did not have the blessing of the Imperium and was just a bunch of scholars who thought they could logically compel fanatics into accepting a unified faith. The millions of people killed shortly after the publishing of the book prove them wrong. The members of the council are almost universally shunned and hunted by the Butlerian fanatics. While Emperor Julius Corrino initially offers them sanctuary in his palace on Salusa Secundus, when the leader of the council is caught [[Too Dumb to Live|sleeping with the Empress]], the entire council is publicly executed.
* [[
* [[Combat Clairvoyance]]: The Kwisatz Haderach has the ability to (among other things) see into the future. Mentats can also see the future by way of "projecting" the possible outcomes of a given choice, but their role is not usually that of a military strategist.
* [[Compelling Voice]]: The Bene Gesserit have the Voice. Jessica uses this in the first novel to facilitate the escape of her and Paul, by making the guards kill each other. The fear of this prompts various defenses, including stationing deaf-mutes as guards for important people and, later, conditioning people to reflexively kill at the first sign of Voice being used. In the original novel, the Bene Gesserit have to study the target of the Voice in order to adjust their pitch accordingly.
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* [[False Reassurance]]: The Baron promises Dr. Yueh that if he betrays the Atreides he would stop torturing his wife and allow him to join her. After Yueh does so, the Baron has him killed, as he had done earlier with his wife, thus carrying out his promise to the letter. Of course, Yueh already knew perfectly well what the Baron would do, he just couldn't bear to live without having it confirmed.
* [[Fantastic Honorifics]]: "na-" is used as a prefix to a rank (for example, na-Baron) to refer to the heir to that rank. It's short for "nascent."
* [[Fantastic Slur]]: After becoming "cymeks", the Titans began to view normal humans as inferior creatures and invented an insulting term for them - "hrethgir". When [[
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: More like [[Culture Chop Suey]].
* [[Fantasy Gun Control]]: Firearms exist in large numbers but they have been rendered as secondary weapons due to the prevalence of personal [[Deflector Shields|force shields]]. Force shields can, however, be penetrated by close combat techniques, so those are the dominant means of warfare. Laser weapons are also highly limited since a laser beam hitting a force shield cause both the gun and the shield generator to explode with enormous power. Which means that some uses of shields are only practical because shooting them with lasers is physically equivalent to using nukes.
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* [[Living Lie Detector]]: Bene Gesserit can notice the visual and auditory cues that denote a lying person. Many courts employ Bene Gesserit for this specific purpose, as "Truthsayers". The Kwisatz Haderach takes this power [[Up to Eleven]], as it does all the other BG powers. Leto II can detect a human's emotional state with perfect accuracy by sampling pheromones at 3 parts per billion.
* [[Living Motion Detector]]: Hunter-seekers.
* [[Lonely
* [[Loophole Abuse]]: The Great Convention forbids the use of nuclear weaponry by any Great House. ''On People.'' Paul uses them against an inanimate topological feature... [[Magnificent Bastard|to his immediate tactical benefit.]]
* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: A twofer, actually. Baron Harkonnen is father to Jessica and grandfather to Paul. This becomes a [[Chekhov's Gun]] in ''Children of Dune'', when his genetic memory-self possesses Alia.
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* [[Old Retainer]]: Paul has not one, but three Old Retainers—Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho (though he's not so old), and Thufir Hawat.
* [[Omniscient Morality License]]: Leto II, though framed more like [[Necessarily Evil]].
{{quote|"Remember, we speak now of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a [[Hand Wave|wave of the hand]], saying merely: "I am [[The Chosen One|the Kwisatz Haderach]]. [[Omniscient Morality License|That is reason enough]]."
(the final Irulan quote in the first book) }}
** Considering how much Paul angsted over trying to stop the jihad, it's possible that if he ''did'' say that, he was just being ironic.
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** He's also, somehow, a transexual that crossdresses and is implied to have homosexual encounters.
* [[Rite of Passage]]: The gom jabbar stands out, though is only done on Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach-hopefuls. Better examples exist among the Fremen, such as first hooking a sandworm (at twelve).
* [[Robot War]]: The "Butlerian Jihad," which is referenced in the very first book but wasn't fleshed out in any detail, [[Fanon Discontinuity|certainly not by the prequels]]. Led to a core tenet of civilization: "[[
** Of course it's never made clear (in the original series, which predates widespread computer use in [[Real Life]] anyway) how advanced the computer has to be before it's forbidden, nor really what precisely it is that Mentats do most of the time.
* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: This is an example when the trope is totally justified. Because of shields, the Sardaukar use knives and swords. The Fremen use knives because that's what they have. When the Sardaukar come to Arrakis, they have to turn their shields off. So it's not rocks beating lasers, but more along the lines of your lasers have stopped working, and the locals are better at using rocks than you are.
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* [[Space Jews]] - Literally, as of ''Chapterhouse''. As much as the other major religions have shifted in 20,000 years, there are still people who observe Passover, speak ritual Hebrew, and have a conception of a nation of Israel. They managed to survive by first going into hiding, then pretending to be revivalists.
* [[Space Opera]]: Exactly.
* [[The Spartan Way]]/[[Training
* [[Spear Counterpart]]: The all-male Tleilaxu are eventually revealed to be this to the all-female Bene Gesserit (they also call themselves the Bene Tleilax).
* [[Speculative Fiction]]
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* [[Canon Foreigner]]: House Ordos, mentioned once in the semi-canon Dune Encyclopaedia, was picked by Westwood Studios to become the third faction in their ''Dune'' series of games. In contrast to Atreides being noble and Harkonnen being evil, the Ordos were made mysterious, insidious, and rumoured to experiment with forbidden technology.
* [[Character Tics]]: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in the ''Dune'' miniseries had a distinctive habit of rubbing his right temple when he was frustrated. Later on, Paul Atreides does this himself, demonstrating the family connection between the two. In ''Children of Dune'', we see Alia performing the gesture when she hears the Baron's voice in her head.
* [[
* [[Compelling Voice]]: In the film and the mini-series, the Voice is clearly heard as the [[Voice of the Legion]]. In the film, it can be heard playing over and over in the target's mind, forcing him to comply.
* [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]]: In the 1984 film, Thufir Hawat is required to milk a cat for the antidote to the poison he has been administered by the Harkonnens.
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* [[Psychic Nosebleed]]: The 80s movie version of Dune has a scene in which several Bene Gesserit cry blood when Paul drinks the Water of Life. Although the movie doesn't make it clear, those who read the books will know that {{spoiler|all of them are his relatives}}, and the identity of two of them makes guessing the significance of the third reasonably easy.
* [[Reality Warper]]: Contrary to the books, the Guild Navigators in the '84 Lynch film fold spacetime with their minds.
* [[
* [[Training Montage]]: a short one is used in [[The Movie]] to show Paul Muad'dib training the Fremen to fight against the Harkonnens.
* [[Truer to the Text]]: The 2000 miniseries takes some liberties with Frank Herbert's book, but compared to the 1984 David Lynch movie, its fidelity is nigh-slavish.
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