DUNE w/ Thomas777: Ep. 491

don't worry too much, but we need a refresher. That stuff gets grim after whatever fifteen odd episodes that we've done, and so one I thought this would be fun, a way for Thomas and I to do something more relaxing, just to hang out. But also I think that these books and these movies are important to a lot of people. I say in the episode, and I think this is true, that this is a lot of people's first real book.

You know what you get as a teenager as you kind of move from kids books to something real, something for adults. And like a lot of fiction in that genre, it's easy to read, it's fun, it's exciting, but there's a lot to it deep underneath it. I think what's so captivating about Frank Herbert's work is that it is truly alien while still being human. Now, when I say alien, you know, there aren't a lot of like little Green

men or anything like that. But to say, the world of Doune is one completely and totally out side of our moral horizon as classical ethics, Revenge is not a moral failing, not something that motivates a spiteful sort of Freudian, sexually obsessed villain. It's a normal part of politics of power, how men interact. This is also a political novel, very obviously. It is concerned with dynastic succession, right, the fate of an empire, even the course of that empire. And that's

what makes it particularly interesting as a starting point. You see that, and you see men acting differently from how you are told they act in high school civics class. This isn't exactly schoolhouse rock, It's nature read of tooth and claw, It's nasty business, full of assassinations, double crossing. And now, don't get me wrong, this isn't the kind of overly dark fiction you'll get from something like George R. R. Martin, the idea that no one is special, everyone is just

a brute with the different layers of self delusion. Paul is, our main character, is a demigod. He is more than human. He is at once a mass murderer, worse than Hitler or Stalin or Genghis Khan, and also the man to regenerate a moribund, ossified, decadent civilization, to turn it around,

to bring it out of a cultural slump. These books are drenched in cyclical history, the idea that whether it's a man, a bloodline, a country, although that term sort of loses meaning, there is a rise driven by hard men and used to privation with a strong sense of in group preference, a flowering, and then an eventional decline.

We see, even in this far future human nature. Herbert understood human nature and also understood human culture, how humans create culture and what makes those cultures exist throughout time. This is not the hopeful spacefaring socialism of Star Trek. It's basically the Holy Roman Empire in space. Now that's a dramatic oversimplification, but it is much more human, much more real than the kind of trash you see at the box office. And look, I realize, okay, fair enough,

Denis Villeneuve did do too movies about it. They are more coming out, But you understand what I mean when I say that genuinely a fascinating universe. Primarily in this conversation, we've hit the movies, both the Villeneuve and also the David Lunch film, which is a little bit odd, but you know, I still enjoy it, as well as the kind of main books. But really, this story is fundamentally about a great man and the process by which a great man goes from being a human to something divine. Now,

in this case it is literal. Of course, he gains powers past the remit of mortal man. But this is something we've seen happened throughout history. Napoleon is both a literal man his bones are somewhere, and also he's more than that. He's sort of this aggrigor, this creature created out of millions of different impressions, all blended into one Hitler is another David Irving equipped there are two Hitlers, the historical and the popular. This is something that has

happened over and over and over again. The only difference here is we're watching it in real time, watching a man go from a scion of a noble house to a god emperor, the one man leading the entire human species. And that's something it's very controversial idea. It's a very, I mean to be honest, sort of an intoxicating idea, and for this reason the progressive types have always been uncomfortable with done one. It is a book about races

and peoples, about civilizations. Well, it is also one where the historical process, the flow of history, providence, one might say, is very real and active. Sure are their economic concerns, Sure there are trends and forces, but there's something deeper, more atavistic, we might say, the base of events. I mentioned earlier in this monologue that this is the profoundly a liberal book. Both our heroes and villains are no slaves to progressive morality. Our main character kills in cold blood,

he feels no guilt for doing so. He takes many wives, He smashes social taboos around the acceptable. I guess you could say limits of violence. Our villains are certainly worse, you know, bizarre it is, say sexual. I guess you would call them industrialist warlords. I don't know, pick your terminology there. But there is no point at which anyone in this turns to the camera and says, well, this

is very wrong, or you can't do this. There's no moralizing in this at all, even in this extremely hierarchical world. There's a chapter that stands out to me. This is not something mentioned in Thomas and I's conversation, but something that I wish I had, is this idea of who

is human. This is a world of eugenics, a world of genetic manipulation, and there are within the human species, or I guess you could say the human conglomerate, multiple distinct lines, human computers, prescients, people who can look into the future. And even in the noble lines, the rulers, the politicians, their succession is heavily managed by the benajesret this bizarre conglomeration of female witches in Geneticists, and there's a scene very early where Paul Treedees, the main character,

is forced to go through a travail. He has to reach his hand into the gom jabbar, the box of pain, to prove if he is quote unquote human. He must voluntarily submit himself to unimaginable pain, and if he flinches, if he removes his hand, he will be killed instantly like that snuffed out. And that's its own sort of controversial idea in Doom, the idea that simply having twenty three chromosomes does not make you human, does not make you a man per se. That is something you achieve,

that is a special category. Now, that's an idea you see throughout the Hermetic texts, ancient Egyptian wisdom and others. They would have said, you know, there's only a certain amount of people that are insult which you know, as a Christian I don't believe literally, But the idea that most many are in PCs are animals. This is an idea you see in Do Now. You can take it or leave it. But that's credibly provocative idea, just one of many contained in this book. Now Paul, of course

he's able to do it. He's able to resist his animal instincts, to slave it to his will. And through this iron will we see him become not simply human but more than human, two separate instances in the first book at least, where he goes through this death and rebirth to become something more so. Look, there are shades of Joseph Campbell in this there are shades of the hero with a Thousand payss, but Paula Tredes doune to tell the place to start at the end. I recommend

this book one to anyone. If you hadn't read it, you should watch the movies. They're good as well. The books are really something special. I like the Expanded Universe as well. Dune Messiah weird, weird book, but worth your time. Some more great intrigue. But I think primarily if this is something you enjoy, look out for those young men who are capable of grappling with complicated ideas, who're capable of interacting with something challenging. And this is a sugar pill, right,

It's not too bad. It's a ramp. You know, you're not jumping straight into Heidegger at sixteen, but it'll get you there. It'll get you thinking outside of simply the sort of swashbuckling Ya novels, although now I say it Ya novels are probably much more than just adventure stories. They're pretty sinister conversation for another day, of course. But yeah, I can't recommend this enough, So without further ado, let

me welcome Thomas seven seven seven talk about Dune. But before we get into that, I should have done this before, I said, without further ado. But you know what, you guys know by now, these monologues are not always perfectly scripted. Let me list out our sponsors so you can find the show anywhere Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. If you want the episodes early in ad free through me a few bucks a month on Patreon, Substack, or come road that supports this project.

knows his stuff. He's offering a great product, the kind of programming the support you need to meet your physical fitness goals, and also look man like he's been supporting me for years now, which probably says more about his wisdom than my podcasting, but check it out anyway, here's Thomas. All right, Thomas, welcome back to the jay Bird and show how you doing man.

a lot of guys. I think for many people it functions as the bridge between reading books for children and books for adults. A lot of kids get it in that kind of you know, twelve to sixteen age range. You know they're reading they're obviously interesting ideas, and normally some older man in your life hands you a dog eared copy of doing so what happened to me, it's what happened to a lot of other people. And Dune

is incredibly fascinating for a number of reasons. One, it's sci fi, it's readable, it's something you can hand to a child. There's a lot of depth to it. And in much the same way that gene Wolf or other kind of science fiction writers that I particularly enjoy, this isn't the kind of serialized space adventures. This is a profoundly different, sort of illiberal far future. This is not Star Trek. It's sort of the Mayor of Engians in space,

if you will, the Holy Roman Empire. And look, there's been a number of films recently we're going to talk about that that I think both Thomas and I have different takes on than the one you will get normally on kind of right wing Twitter. But without further ado commas, i'll kick it over to you.

interesting guy. He was a Spaniard, but he converted to a reform church when he married my aunt and he became a way preacher and he loved done so when I was about eleven years old, Yeah, he turned me on to Doune. And he's like, this is an important book, you know. And Dune is difficult to categorize because it's really neither soft nor hard science fiction. It's it's sort of categorically discreete and but it's it's not the stuff

of fantasy. I mean, I realized it's hallucinogenic oddness and stuff. But I got I got a deeper perspective on Herbert when I read his when I read his material outside of outside of the universe, stuff like the Santa Roga Barrier, and he wrote another book where this virus breaks out where all women become sterile, and uh, basically things go to hell because there's it's it's very different than Children of Men. But I I speculate that the lots are

children of men who was familiar with this book. This book came out in like late fifty or something. Okay, it was like a novel. But you know, symbolic psychology, deep historicism, the architecture of religious belief and historical memory.

You know, that's that that's weighty stuff and and some to somebody like me, I mean, if you're if you're a political theory guy, and your primary sources that you put a premium on in terms of deciphering this kind of phenomenon, it's kind of deep historical phenomenon.

table book, a concept art of Geiger's designs. Which is really interesting though he interpassed the har Conan's It's it's like halfway between some sort of baroque decadence and like Xeno more of body hoards. It's interesting stuff. I don't know, I don't know if it would have worked in a

nineteen seventies film. But jod Rowski also wanted he wanted Salvador Dolly to play a emperor shot him in the fourth and Dolly Dolly wanted something like one hundred thousand dollars for like five minutes of screen time, which it'd be like, which would be like a million dollars today, you know, uh, but uh, you know this this they became more and more nutty in terms of you know, not just budgetary outlegs, but totally out of control concepts

that probably wouldn't be filmable and things. And it probably even if Joey Rowski had an unlimited budget, even if he had all of all of his uh desires met for you know, casting everything else, it probably would have ended up being like looking like the Zaradas or something.

feelings about it. But something Frank Herbert said immediately after the screening was that the optics we were perfect, you know, and even to this day, like, don't get me wrong, I think I think Villa in the view Dune is incredibly well made, and I think the optics are great. But when I think of the hard Coneans, I think of him as being, you know, wearing like leather greatcoats and heaving like red hair, and you know, kind of that anemic look about him.

but they dress in a certain way. These sort of tech monks, right, human you know, computation devices, something as an archetype that would be pulled into you know, things like Warhammer forty thousand as well as others, and then you compare them to you know, the asthetics of you know, even down to the you know, the Benny jesuit, these sort of female coven genetic witches, right, and obviously each one of those, particularly in Villainouves Dude, is it's a

very maximalist look as far as character design. They're dressed extremely elaborately, but they're also clearly representative of different cultures. And sorry, we'll get back to Lynch's Dune, but I do think it's interesting that Villeneuve's Dune is sort of minimalist when it comes to the look of the technology

and the setting. Obviously they're they're beautiful vistas, but it's it's relatively sparse, and the character design and the costuming is turned up to twelve right, incredibly over the top, And I think that that visually works just for readability, right because almost at a single screenshot you can see one who is important and where they're from. But to your point, Lynch is done, it's probably more is more

authentic to Herbert. So anyway, sorry, brief aside there, I'll throw it back to you, Thomas.

assault jet or something. It's because like the Holtzman shield technology, you can't have jetwash or something, you know, like you need you need a self contained propulsion system that's not going to disturb the shield technology that's by these orent opters, you know, and uh, it's uh, well and honestly.

to ground level combat. Well, they interact with a shield, creates a sort of feedback loop, blowing up both devices sort of a nuclear explosion.

tangent that RHS. Stolfie wrote with this former Wehrmacht uh Genola Luytenan called NATO Wonder Attack. And you know, once truthtrategic parody set in and in terms of strategic nuclear forces, suddenly conventional combined arms became primary again.

self sufficient, and there is a great war. Another point that comes up is that while not tightly is controlled as artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons or atomics are also highly controlled. This becomes a plot point in the kind of second half of the book. But every noble house has the family Jewels, which are megaton level hydrogen warheads, and because this sort of galactic empire is incredibly dispersed, there are dozens,

if not hundreds, of these rival noble houses. The threat is always and this is what happens to you know, Paul's home is that a sort of loose confederation will be well, you know, will come into existence to chop off, you know, the tallest tulip right to go after someone who is advancing too quickly or seen to be a threat. And in fact, the emperor in and of himself doesn't necessarily have absolute power, but he can form a large

alliance of homes to go after someone causing problems. And particularly the taboo around using nuclear weapons is exactly that you may be able to use nuclear weapons to win the day. But much like you know, the kind of Cold war, once you've taken once you've taken that onto the field of play, well, all of a sudden, every other faction has an interest in destroying you. And it is interesting to and this is what makes the political drama so fascinating is that this is not at all

a party system. It is incredibly dispersed political network of the most ruthless killers in the world, all continually backing, you know, backing one horse and then betraying him at the last minute.

in ways that are comparatively prosaic. You know, people complain about you know, reduced attention spans and diminished command of language and ability to comprehend language and things, you know, and that that doesn't mean I mean all technology is both a benefit and a hazard actually potentially that that doesn't mean technology is bad. But you know, this, this is a real phenomenon. And Herbert Herbert was a very heterodox thinker. You know, people people's supervisial reading people like

Herbert was some really really religious guy. He wasn't He had an interest in philology and Astoricism. He had a lot of respect for Roman Catholicism, he had a lot of respect for Islam. He had a lot of respect

for Zen Buddhism and things. But he had, uh, he considered these things from a perspective of you know, intellectual detachment, and he viewed these things as essential the human development, not just moral and social learning, but he thought that you know, the world's great religions curated a you know, contemplative institutions and things which in turn, you know, advanced

the the races of man, you know. And I think that's an arguable and uh, you know, I one of the uh, one of the things, uh that I think is most notable about done is that there's not really good guys and bad guys. There are Conans are grotesque, particularly to people like us, you know, uh, late modern Westerners, but uh, you know, the the the atreadees aren't. Aren't some uh you know, it's not like they're moral exemplars

or something. Yeah, I mean there's that there are a lot more attraction than the hard conans, But you've got to look at things in terms of deep historical phenomenon and development they're in and the atreadees represent. They're like the vanguards of tradition, you know, and and and the ethos of planet Keltons.

See I'm in the minority. I think God Emperor a Dune is literally a brilliant work, and it puts some people off because it's so strange and so hallucinogenic, and a lot of it's this kind of exposition where it's Herbert talking through uh Lito the Second, the God Emperor worm. But you know, it's profound and like when he's talking to those who don't know, and it got in for a Dune three thousand, five hundred years after the events

of of you know, the first three Dune books. Lito the Second does this immortal human sandworm hybrid and using his prescience, he's put humanity on the golden path to guarantee its survival. But the cost of that is creating a totally stagnant society, like for example, one of the things Leto's done. He's outlawed the professional soldiery. The only people under arms are these are these female constabularies called the fish whisperers, who are these kinds of they're they're

almost kind of like this religious order. And so when the dunkan Idaho Golla, you know, brought back to life endless lye over and over again. When he arrives in this world ledal build, he's like, how can you have women soldiers? And he says, well, precisely because like of outlawed war and like women are the guardians of life, you know. And he's like, look, he's like, you know, if you have a male army in absence of in

absence of war, they'll create one. There's an inherent predation there, which is necessary, but it can also be self defeating, you know. So people superficially read it to some feminist work when really it's the opposite, because Leto's whole point is uh, you know. And then Leedo he sets the stage for his own demise because he realizes that you know, they're there, that that that humanity will continue to stagnate

and perpetuity. And he doesn't allow some the sort of dynamic uh and punctuated, you know, and radical changes to emerge and this kind of agonistic pluralism and struggle to re emerge, you know. So it's it's heavy stuff.

distances instantaneously. So guild navigators, they consume absolutely massive doses of spice, ultimately find themselves immersed in tanks full of spice gas in addition to consuming it orally, and that causes these kinds of horrific mutations, you know that ultimately it they come to look almost like like a fish or something. They lose their humanity literally in the service of in the service of of you know, facilitating interstellar travel.

But the reason why this is necessary is because they cultivate a highly a highly sensitive prescience so they can predict what routes will be safe, so that you know, the ships won't you know, uh, crash into an astronomical body or otherwise you know, not reach their destination owing to navigational errors and a million other possible you know, variables that could lead to destruction of the vessel. But they're a huge that's a huge aspect in universe of

the entire story and framing device and everything else. Because this is what that's the reason why the spice is the most precious commodity because it without it, there there is no there is no interstellar travel. You want to be clear, that there's space travel isn't carried out by conventional propulsion or even by a warp drive as we think of it. You know, it's uh they travel instantaneously by folding space, you know, and that's why that's what's

facilitated uh Man's diaspora throughout the universe. So I'm curious the early sort of teaser stuff about the about the third Dune film, sy Tale is a is a main character in it, so obviously, you know, drawing on Doing Messiah that deals with the conspiracy against Paul Matt Deeb and Doing Messiah is actually my favorite of the Dune books.

But it's the most controversial, you know, it's the shortest, interestingly, and it, i mean, the whole thing is controversy on people view it as a downer because the fate of

Paul at the end. But there's a dialogue between Paul and Stilgar where Wadie notes that his jihad has led to the massacre of sixty one billion human beings across the known universe, which makes him the greatest mass murderer of all time, you know, And he makes the point that Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were viewed as you know, incorrectly viewed as these horrible beastial figures in history, when

in reality they were simply astride the historical process. And you know, the death resultant from or assigned.

to sort of sift through possible realities, is only produced on one planet, the planet Aracus aka Do, and so control of this planet is sort of a white elephant. On one hand, you know, it's an incredible amount of resources, you will become very rich, but also it's a very precarious spot. And this transition is what allows the emperor his sort of elite startocar like I guess you would call it like death squads along with the hearken and

to stamp out right the Atreades line. And in the sort of bigger picture, the reason is that there have been thousands upon thousands of years of benejeserit genetic manipulation to bring about a sort of god king, a Messiah. And the idea is to combine the talents of a benajeserit they have certain psychic abilities with other things to create sort of the perfect female Benajeserit. However, the process

has been messed up for a variety of reasons. You know, a love child is born is Paul and effectively, well, we'd have the right genes, but they're in a man. This is a problem, right, something needs to be done, and so for that and other reasons, right, the Tredees have to go. But Paul, having these latent abilities, is able to sort of combine the abilities of a navigator pressions, the ability to see into the future, with this sort

of bena jeserit we would basically call it mind control. Right, So this is why he is this sort of god king figure. And in the later books, particularly Dune Messiah, you know, you see him now he is truly and totally shed his humanity, at least in large mans. He has become this sort of eggrigor god king, which is

very much the drama of the first book. You see Paul sort of die multiple times first, you know, after the coup, when he you know, becomes a Fremen, which is sort of you can imagine it this kind of like they're like a combination of like Old Testament Jews, the Muja Hadeen, the Druze and I gues see there's like a smattering of like alloy white in there. It's sort of a pastiche of you know, Middle Eastern raiders.

But when he joins them, and this is a motif echoed again, he's sort of he's forced to fight a duel to the death with you know, one of these raiders to sort of secure his plates. And we see several things there. One after he you know, he kills this man. He is rich, he's dying as Paul. He is really no longer the boy heir to this this I guess great house. He becomes a man, he becomes a warrior. But also we see a couple interesting bits

of characterization there. One, Uh, this is not and when I said it's illiberal, I genuinely mean that the world of Doune has a completely different set of values than we, as late moderns, would consider appropriate. So for instance, after he kills this guy, he just takes his wife. That's what happens, right, you you just get that after you kill him, she's not particularly torn up about it, right.

the hearkenin and then the emperor himself to Aracus. To done by disrupting the production of this most valuable resource, which you know, given current things in the strait of hormones, sort of ironic, right, if you control the energy transportation resource, the whole world just stops working. But he becomes the

more deep, the messiah of this race of Fremen. And one of the interesting dynamics, and this has played out particularly in the second Villeneuve film, is that is up for debate if this prophecy is real or if it is synthetic, if it was deliberately injected as a way to control this population, or is Paul actually a god? Is he actually this sort of transcendent figure, you know,

ready to remake the the course of human history. And so he is able to become this sort of god king, resistance leader, and at the very end the climactic moment where you know, he uses atomics, he uses the Fremen to sort of bring the emperor to his knees and marry in another kind of court marriage to the imperial line. He has to fight another duel against the sort of scion of the hearken and line, you know, his opposite kind of genetic not twin, but genetic rival, right, the

other man who could step into his role. And what's so great about this scene in the Villeneuve movie and also in the book, is that we see yet another death, the death of Paul as a human being, where he's forced in order to win, to sort of take a nearly mortal blow and then you know, is able to you know, to kill this rival fate Raltha become the new emperor. So much of the drama of Doone, especially the first book, is there are sort of three different polls.

There is Paul, paul A Tredes, right, the son of this family. Then there is the modeep right, the it's not the grasshopper mouse but something quite close to that, you know, his sort of war name in this tribe. And when he dies and is reborn again, he is the god emperor right. He is both a literal, physical

human man, but he is broken free of temporality. He has the ability to see, you know, reality laid out in front of him, and he becomes the figurehead of this galactic jihad with a body count you know, deep into the billions. And so it's no shock that our guys like this book a lot, right wingers, because you're seeing the great Man, the transcendent mate, and this is

a man who is above normal morality. But also it's kind of understandable why the progressive liberal types have always been uncomfortable with this book, because it is about a man who is greater than everyone else, and not in the kind of like Superman way, but he is a demi god, right, He has become more than simply his biological frame. And this isn't the kind of trends and forces version of human history. It is human will becoming almost divine.

overpriced and hard to find. But just to give you an idea of how deep the the sort of in universe law and world building was and is, this is a literal encyclopedia of alphabetically organized of every aspect and every character that you know features in the in the books.

And but yeah, the the reason why, I mean people too, if you're coming from a capital L liberal perspective, you know, that of kind of whiggish history, or you know, if you're just somebody who's you know, kind of a accepts you know, the sort of like a world society nullody in lieu of you know, historical engagement. Somebody like Herbert Is is not speaking the same language conceptually as you are.

And beyond that, the entire the entire raise on detra of you know, the the established regimesince nineteen thirty three has been a literally end history and eradicate man's ability to live historically or curate a historical memory. And that's a monstrous enterprise for all kinds of reasons. But it

also it just creates a pointless society, you know. And that's these kinds of things where paramount concerned the Herbert above and beyond the questions he raised about technology and the effect that had on human excellence, and you know,

and and and empathy and other things. But you know, the whole the key takeaway, you know, if and then really just somewhat reductionist is you know, Herbert wants his readers to take their life seriously, and you know, the key aspects of a human being to Herbert are things that attach historically, which obviously involves you know, familial lineage and confessional heritage and ethnos and other things. You know, that doesn't mean you should idolatrously worship your race or something.

Herbert wasn't saying that, but you know, once you remove yourself from that, or allow yourself to be removed, or if you're forcibly shorn of these things, you know you not only are you is a kind of you know, social and spiritual violence against the person, rendering them complete and you know, maimed in some basic way, but also you know, people under such conditions really can't assert themselves.

There's a in a Dune and God Emperor Dune Leto takes uh you know, because he's because he's been alive for thousands of years, gets to find a ways to entertain himself, and because he has a god like intellect taken access his ancestral memories and live through the experiences of his ancestors and stuff. But sometimes he'll simply just look around and like watch people and compare them to

like people of the past. So like, you know, thirty five hundred years subsequent from the events of Dune, you notices some guy who's one of stillgars distant uh uh you know, descendants, and the guy's just like a total mope, you know, and in leto count of place. You know, it's amazing how like to him, you know, several hundred years is you know, like the blink of an eye.

You know, he's like in such a short time, you know, this this this here lineage can just like deteriorate into in the into nothingness, you know.

those conditions to a share of humanity survival. But he realizes, well, the cost of that was this abject mediocrity, you know, uh, which of course is again why he engineers his own demise to you know, bring back uh, the the capability for continued human evolution and the perfection of the of the uh of the human being and in in biological and physiological as well as intellectual and and and and

spiritual terms. But yeah, this is the kind of stuff that this is the kind of stuff that puts uh that that's at odds with.

of view Dune, the like the Lynch Nune version. I mean, obviously just by virtual of the subject matter, there's there gonna be a doing rendition that is spundidly apolitical or doesn't raise deep questions of identity and you know, the theological contemplation and and things like that. But the emphasies of of of the David Lynch Dune are a lot different than the current iteration, you know.

almost like part of the landscape. I like, the romance between Col maclachlin and Sean Young had real chemistry on screen, unlike that awful mononym goblin who the New Ones. But uh, but you know, other than but you know that that's sort of a conventional romance between a man and a woman in an eighties movie. They don't they don't get deep into the frem and uh way of life and stuff, and you know, they they don't get into the I don't.

I think that there's one time in the Lynch movie that they say the words you had, you know, and that's it. So it's yeah, very much a period piece, when every movie is a period piece to some degree.

This is a desert planet. Water is an extremely tight resource. The Fremen are jealous about guarding this. For instance, after after killing his first Fremen, they suckle the water out of the spot right is returned to the collective because it would be wasteful to let it see back into the desert. But after paul A sents right after he becomes this godlike figure, and the Fremen pour over the galaxy. Well, effectively, the Fremen go to seat, they are no longer desert warriors.

In the same way, and in the plot of Doune Messiah, we see this conspiracy against Paul. This has a lot to do with who will be his heir, you know, will he father a child with you know, the the or the princess that he has married for political reasons, or with his sort of I guess you would say soulmate,

who is a you know, a Fremen. And many of the conspirators are Tremen, are former warriors who are now living in air conditioned departments, effectively, you know, who have who have gotten everything, They've gotten the water, they have access to great riches. Yeah, and yet they were empty, Yes, exactly, And that's that's very much the language used to describe it.

You know, it is exactly that, right, And I think that's a really fascinating aspect because we see exactly that this kind of like hyper kind of like Asibia infused culture, right, a strong in group, out group, a strong understanding of how we are to act, taken out of context and almost instantly reduced to it, as the Internet would say, kind of goy cattle, right, These kind of you know.

ocean and he said I couldn't. He said it was salt water, but I gulped it down anyway and made myself sick and then I vomited. But he said I couldn't conceptualize an ocean. He said, you know, before I left iraq Is, I could imagine a stream or even maybe a small lake, but you know, and then he said everything changed when you know, we looked around the battlefield, you know, and we saw all these bodies that you know,

of our enemies we'd vanquished. And he said, then I saw I saw freeman like frolicking around in an ocean, you know. And he at that point, the Freemen conceptual arise and ceased to exist. And then when Paul at the start of Messiah, he's taken to walking around our a keen dressed as a you know, in in a still suit with a face mask on, so that he can observe sort of the common people and understand what's going on up being recognized as as Paul maud dee Ben.

He sees these freemen families, and a lot of them are still harvesting moisture, even though that's totally pointless because you know, Oras has been terriformed and now there's there's lakes with fish in them and things, you know, and that that's profound too, because they're you know, and again, Herbert wasn't some Ted Kazinski type guy who's like, we gotta we've we've got to eradicate all convenience to is to return some authentic way of life.

of every sort. And you know, to your point when when somebody would die, they'd immediately extract their moisture, you know, quite literally within uh you know, days and weeks and months that that was all over, you know, and and conditions can't adjust.

is finished, you know. Uh, I mean that's that's sort of the ongoing ad to be the commons because within the historical process, you know, uh, there there is the only creation is creative destruction. You know, there's there's ways to mitigate that, and that's the responsible thing to do, but there's there's no way to avoid it, you know, nor would that even be desirable, you know. I mean

it's like let nothing change. I mean that that's part of Herbert's point also, I mean that that's just as destructive, you know.

longer vital. It is sort of crashing under its own weight. And that is what makes you know, Paul and his jihad necessary and interesting. Is it is the sort of like cleansing fire which can produce new growth again. And look, some of that, I guess you could say some of that ossification is deliberate and natural, particularly as regards technical matters,

that's tightly controlled. But like the human spirit, if I can speak so kind of poetically or so flippantly, right, like, does not abide stasis in that way, you know, it dies, And that's the sort of high drama of it. You know, we are watching something being reborn in the same way that Paul himself is sort of forced to be killed and reborn multiple times. Other things that I think are

worth mentioning. We the Dark of Doune is sort of captivating, Like it's a it's a really little moment, but very early in the book, Paul survives sort of this an assassination attempt, right, an insect size drone equipped with poison

is sent to kill him. And I'm so glad they brought this into the Villaineuve uh movie, because it's a it's a it's a minor paragraph where after you know Paul has managed to you know, escape this sort of assassination attempt, they tear down the whole place and they find a member of you know, the hearkening secret service who's bricked himself into a wall and killed himself right his He was on a one way human suicide mission to kill Paul, and he just lived in a wall

for months on end, you know, waiting for his opportunity. And uh yeah, I just love that sort of like the disregard for human life in this It almost reminds me of the kind of like tales of like Persian decadence or Chinese emperors, you know, where everything is done by human power and so most people are nothing more than kind of you know, biological machines. It's very, very different from most other science fiction or fantasy settings, and I think part of what makes it so captivating.

kind of like BDSM techno horror like fade. Rautha is flanked constantly by these sort of uh, you know, bald leather clad courtisans, and you know, we see him gauging a like very savage torture basically just as a way to get his rocks off, and it it does a really good job of making him both an extremely villainous character and also, to be honest, setting the sort of setting the scenery, because there really is no mercy in Dune, you know, there's no sense that, oh you know, if

you kill your enemy, you become just as bad as them. The kind of Captain planet bullshit you see in a lot of a lot of you know fiction, because yeah, sure the Harkenans are vile, you know, they are this

kind of you know, degraded house. One of the most famous scenes, of course, is the repeated kind of trips to the coliseum you know, where you see you know, uh a treadees prisoners being killed for sport you know, or or you know, fader out the kind of adopting you know, this kind of ritualized combat and you both see obviously the the murder of I guess, the ritual killing of the captured prisoners, but also the sort of like ring ring masters, you know, the guys that you

know controlling the beasts or the men in Villeneuve's Dune, are these sort of like insane again like BDSM, like leather gladiators, you know, with these like extremely almost sort of medieval looking, you know, hoods and head dresses, all very ritualized.

Harko means bull. So the yeah, I the way I interpret it is like, yeah, the the Colisseum wranglers, they they're supposed to look like bulls.

mated for him and Davries the twisted ment. It like the Reverend Mother's like, look, that fucking thing needs to go, and he's like what.

movies are good. I like Doune Messiah quite a bit. Maybe don't give that one to a twelve year old because it's a little weird. There's a whole bunch of kind of bizarre sex stuff in it. Still really good, just maybe not family friendly, but yeah, highly recommend it. The Lynch film is flawed. It's still very good, but not nearly as watchable. You know, It's something that myself and many others like, but it doesn't have the same mass appeal right for good or ill on that front.

So definitely those are the recommendations Thomas. You've mentioned, of course the encyclopedia. But as we close this out, man, obviously people can check out your stuff on substack. You've been putting up for free a lot of mind phaser. You and Pete were talking not too long ago about how long Season three has been, and I kind of just forgotten about it. You have a lot of recordings up for free on your YouTube as well as your

paid stuff on substack. You and Pete have done a great sort of mini series on Quison right talking about Vietnam. Recommend that and then your new book should be dropping soon at Antelope Pill. Is that correct?