Or what I tend to use the quantum physic/multiverse and timelines. Like the Link's multiple timelines. Is the Starwars issue, don't like the new sequels, simple in your own universe timeline only occurred ep1 to 6 then they live happy ever after. Like the new sequels, then in your universe the sequels events happened, multiverse theory allows that. Maybe this can be apply here.
Has anyone stopped to think that the story of dune not ending the way it was "supposed to" is actually perfectly meta for Frank's original intent? "Look at this awesome space adventure! Isn't it cool? Can't you see yourself in this guy? NOPE! your heroes are frauds and you should never trust your leaders!"
That's exactly the way I felt a bout Chapterhouse, that it would be the end of the series and would at the same time suggest that there is no end. Through Duncan Idaho, in this book, mankind faces their creators in the characters of Daniel and Marty, who actually stand for the creators of the book, Frank and Beverly Herbert. OF COURSE these characters would appear to be face dancers, because that's essentially what authors are, taking the shape of the characters that they create while writing the story.
@@christianealshut1123 Doesn't quite square with their appearance in Heretics of Dune. They ask to stop being spied on, but if anything they are spying on their characters. I admit that there is some meta stuff going on, but I dont think its that simple. Daniel and Marty seem real in universe. I think they are face dancers that have absorbed many gods reaching an even higher form of godliness. But they are still using the laws of the universe which is how Duncan can escape their net.
@@BT-oj1bn They are real, and they are Face Dancers, because these are the only terms that Duncan Idaho can see and describe them in. As creators of the Dune universe and all the characters in it, they have to put themselves (figuratively) into the shape and bodies of their characters through whom they speak, and that is, strictly speaking, precisely what a Face Dancer within the Dune universe does - pretend to be someone else than they are. Duncan Idaho may be the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach and he may have gotten a glimpse beyond the fourth wall of the universe of which he is a part, but he is still bound by the concepts of this universe and can only express himself in its terms. He gets a glimpse, yes, but he does not FULLY understand what he sees because he is not part of that other universe.
@@christianealshut1123 ok, but even if you don't buy my analysis what about what they say to each other here Daniel chuckled. "That would've been funny. They have such a hard time accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them." "I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and..." They are talking like they are face dancers. I'm sure these are not things they would say to each other even in Frank's imagination. Unless he was imagining himself as an actual face dancer in his book, which I could totally buy. But then he is an advanced face dancer, not an author.
I think they should have published the notes edited for clarity like Christopher Tolkien did, even if there's only a small book produced from them I think that's preferable to the expanded universe they created which in a lot of ways cheapened the Dune saga in my opinion.
They butchered what should have been one final book in the original series. They made an interesting House trilogy but otherwise their other works are terrible and tortuous.
The thing is at various times they’ve said the notes are 30 pages or just a few pages. I’m guessing the notes were just a very slight outline and if they released them now people would be angry about how little of books 7 and 8 are actually from Frank Herbert
It can’t cheapen the classic series if you don’t read them. Kind of like how, whoever’s making new Star Wars movies is of no interest to me. I’ve got the Despecialized Editions of the only three movies that matter to me in that series. And I’ve got the Dune novels to reread any time I feel like immersing myself in that world again.
@@Activated_Complex that's my opinion too, ignorance is bliss as far as I'm concerned! Everything I've heard/read about the BH & KJA books makes my brain bleed from the amount of nerd rage I feel.
my thought has always been that Daniel and Marty were some highly evolved facedancers that escaped and started doing there own thing. maybe an alliance between them and the machines like how the fish speakers and some bene got together and turned their eyes orange. 🤷♂️ it's just hard to believe the final theme of the dune saga is, "if you have a war with robots, make sure you don't let any escape"
In god emperor, it's implied that the machines will return in a vision he showed Siona. Which I think is fine, but clearly how the series "ends" was absolute trash. They just wanted to connect the "end" to the prequels they had already written. There's no way that's how Frank Herbert was going to end things.
+Duncan, it would've been better had the final books have Marty and Daniel (evolved face dancers) colluding with Omnius and Erasmus (AI machines) and they together be like the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing doom to the humans. Then, also, at the same time, it is revealed that Marty & Daniel and Omnius & Erasmus are having verbal disputes/disagreements and plotting to backstab each other.
@@impcnrd i think it would have been better if marty and daniel had been face dancers that absorbed omnius and erasmus, instead of the other way around
Evolved facedancers fits in with the themes that Herbert laid out. The idea of generations of genetic manipulation and enhancement getting out of control. Its "wild talent" in action and perfectly plays against the Tleilaxu hubris. Also, why would they talk with EACH OTHER as if they are facedancers if they arnt? Why the weird breaking the 4th wall misdirection? That really does not fit into Herberts narrative.
I have a feeling the Brian Herbert books are less "created from Frank Herbert's notes" and more "inspired by some vague notes left behind but mostly Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's material". I'd love to know how Frank Herbert would have ended it.
I suspect we already know how he would have ended it, and it’s the way he did. He admitted once that he deliberately tried to stop each book at a point in its narrative that would not offer a satisfying conclusion. One could accuse him of doing so to keep fans coming back to buy more sequels, but the themes of the series point over and over to the notion that history will never simply run its course (unless that means apocalypse), I can’t imagine a seventh book would have ended on a more conclusive note than the sixth did. Furthermore, I think Frank Herbert just didn’t have the drive and energy to keep going after his wife died, and he must have known his own time was running short. I subscribe to the notion that Marty and Daniel were author stand-ins created to offer valediction to long time fans; it’s kind of lame but I do think it’s the biggest sentimental gesture his personality would have allowed. I believe there are no notes and that Brian Herbert invented them as a marketing ruse.
@@aperson22222 actually if you knew anything about novel writing there are usually massive amounts of notes and outlines authors write out ahead of time the fill in the blanks as the write. They normally write out and structure of the book touching on the major topics almost like a lattice, then as they start writing the meat of the book the fill in story with much more detail.
@@JR-cd1ol Okay? That doesn’t mean he was planning on writing a novel at all. Don’t act like an arrogant smart ass just because you misunderstand what other people are saying.
Well, Frank had left us with "final Duncan" on the no-ship and the advanced face dancers with their tachyon web. Remember, by absorbing consciousnesses from their victims, they have acquired many new skills along the lines of a KH - however they may not actually "slurp" in the part that counts in this battle. Showdown between them of some sort - my guess is the "win" would be caused by one of those face dancers trying to absorb Duncan, whose deep ingrained instincts would kick in and instead of him just having access to the current life and the memories of the original Duncan, he would gain access to all of the knowledge, all of the experience, and all of the sense of "self" that came from all of those lives... a face dancer trying to absorb such a person might actually be sucked in BY them, followed in quick succession by the others - if they weren't all dealt with at that same instant. Kev guessed right that final Duncan was very important; we might guess that Leto had seen that the only way to win at Kralizec was to create such a being - one who lived over and over and always had that same sense of self and duty and honor. Such a person exposed to thousands of lives as that same basic person may be so firm in their sense of self they may laugh off an attack by an opponent able to slurp up most humans, even those with lots of gifts like BG or mentats. That's my personal thought on how Frank would have ended the saga... definitely no soap opera AIs that are supposedly wise beyond compare but act like petulant toddlers (some of the worst writing I've ever forced myself to read in my life).
"I do not comperehnd. I demand you explain this to me immediately" Clearly 9186 is an organism born out of the TH-cam comment algorithm achieving consciousness.
I have never been able to accept BH's and KJA's books as the true ending Frank Herbert intended. And I intensely disliked the Leto II Ghola. I don't think anyone - including the Tleilaxu - would risk the potential of another God Emperor by keeping cells of Leto II. And I really cannot see the Sisterhood allowing that. It's totally inconsistent with everything Frank Herbert established in the original six novels.
I think the true Golden path was not about humanity, it was about the survival of the sandworms. Which is why Leto II merged with them. It got the sandworms out into the universe and broke the monopoly on spice. Having many worlds making spice would mean more for humanity and humanity would then protect the sandworms.
It could very well be both. The sandworms being limited to a single world meant that either there would be a tyrannical monopoly on travel hindering humanity forever, or endless war over the only source of the spice up until artificial means were created, and artificial means can be lost under the right circumstances. Best to ensure both a diaspora of humanity AND sandworms because because without spice, humanity is trapped and easy pickings.
Firstly, If I haven’t said so before, your production value is superb. Secondly, this video was too short. Your thoughts and analysis of Frank Herbert’s intent and Brian Herbert’s direction are fascinating and deserve a much deeper dive. I hope you continue this presentation. Thanks Quinn.
@@dominokos keep in mind he's doing his best to allow us to read between the lines, and not directly provoke that talentless hack KJA. He's almost as bad as a Scientologist - he tolerates no criticism, and of course since his "additions" to Dune are all laughable, there is a LOT of legitimate beef... which he will not tolerate on any level. He's the ultimate thin-skinned loser. If you dare to criticize the "Dune and Friends" books in any way in the main Facebook group, your post gets deleted, flagged as hate speech, or you might just be booted from the group... courtesy of KJA, his wife, or Brian's annoying spoiled daughter who hasn't caught on that daddy can't write fiction to save his life, and it was ALL Kevin (but she insists daddy wrote "a lot"). For some astonishingly bootlicking reason, the admin of the page allowed those three to become admins... hello, conflict of interest?
@@adamlombard3771 You're obviously extremely new here if you ask that. Kevin is notorious for chasing down those people who dare to criticize his "amazing" novels, even though little children can write better without even trying.
And this is why we should never pass the torch to our children like letting them follow the footsteps of our authors/artists to print money from their works. They should carve their own paths.
Hey Quinn, thanks for all you do! I was just struck by a thought, which in retrospect should probably have occurred to me sooner. In Dune, Duncan Idaho is a character we see only briefly, and really stands out for only three reasons. He makes a strong bond with the Fremen, he gets publicly drunk (and runs his mouth off), and ultimately sacrifices his life to save Paul and Jessica from the Sardaukar. He is one of the Atreides inner circle, which implies he has significant uses to the family, but at this point, not exactly in the running for most important man in the universe. In Dune Messiah, he is resurrected by the bene Tleilax as a weapon against Paul. This part of the series is important because of the light it sheds on the powers and goals of the previously undeveloped Tleilaxu, and is an important element of the novel, but only one element among many. In Children of Dune, we see him take a level up in intrigue, as he protects Paul's children by manipulating Stilgar into opposing Alia, albeit at the cost of his own life once again. In Emperor, we discover that the Atreides seem to like having their Duncans around. In terms of importance, Duncan has a series arc of moving from a minor role to becoming one of, if not the, central character by the end. In terms of development, Duncan goes from being a fairly simple, very physical character (his chief skills are fighting and f***ing), to someone who is much more subtle, intellectual, and mystically powerful. Now, that's all just observation. Here's my thought: is this a property of Duncan - is Herbert really saying that Duncan himself is special, or is this a product of Duncan's continuing cycles of death and rebirth? In other words, is Duncan a symbolic representation of the great ignorant mass of common humanity? If Duncan can undergo such a transformation, even if it takes thousands of years and untold incarnations, can the rest of us aspire to a similar transformation in time? To put it another way, was Herbert also a student of the concept of Samsara? Is Duncan Idaho equivalent to Bill Murray in Groundhog Day?
I can't speak for Frank Herbert of course but we could already see in God-Emperor that the Tleilaxu were making changes in the Duncans, by the time of Chapterhouse Duncan has gone through so many iterations and alterations/improvements, and let's not forget the memories of around 5000 years worth of lives. So I don't think Duncan started special, apart from the mutual bond with Paul/Leto, he evolved over millenia into this amazing being. Millenia of groundhog days... ;)
Style note: I wanted to read your post but it defeated me. My eyes glazed over. In future, you might consider breaking up the text into paragraphs, one main idea for each paragraph. Then put blank lines between paragraphs. Yes, Retired School Librarian and teacher / MI US
@@davidrhode7019 I think Duncan represents the idea that everyone could become the Kwisatz Haderach if pushed enough, evolved enough, and exposed to enough over enough serial lives. Just like the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, and Spacing Guild are about the maximizing of human potential in three different areas (politics for the first, mathematics for the second, math and physics for the third), I've always seen Duncan as the next step: surpassing human potential. Making superbeings not from 10,000 years of galaxy-wide selective breeding, culminating in a being who could not be sufficiently predicted or understood, as well as all of these other near-KHs such as Feyd Rautha, Count Fenring, and doubtless many others over the long millennia prior to Dune and in the, what, 15,000 years after? Taking a single man, already understood, and seeing what needed to be done to elevate him to this near-Godhood. Why then could the process not be 1) separated from the spice as much as possible (as it was...) thus removing a dangerous, single-point-of-failure dependency...2) shortened, reduced in difficulty, reduced in expense, and made possible without a nearly-immortal demigod like Leto II overseeing the process, or conversely, the KHs and the full BG Reverend Mothers choosing to be immortal, each with the obligation not only to physically procreate, but also to raise 2 other beings to KH/RM status. The intersection, ultimately, of the breeding program KH and the serial incarnation KH. And yes, I think this was all done for human survival over not just 20 or 30,000 years, but for millions across multiple galaxies. Add Siona's invulnerability to prescience to the Mentat and BG powers, and even a spice-independent form of what the Guild Navigators do, and you could have humanity as a collection of nearly immortal, nearly omniscient (in a very limited sense) beings with the memories of their past incarnations, the voice, prana bindu training, truth-sensing, total physiological control, and perhaps even prescience, though it's unclear how that would work in a universe populated with trillions of prescience-immune Bene Haderachs.
If Duncan represent Humanity, than he is doing a great job... Though he sacrifices himself every time, he is an important figure that helps to protect humanity. What is interesting Atriedies should had all died as harkonens were superior in sneak attacks, thus they were stronger. Changing the course of human history was really bad move, humanity become weaker with messiah, they were too dependent on 1 guy.... Shouldering 1 guy with the fate of humanity is too big for human to handle, so his son become a god, or at least partly a god, a being that is beyond imagination.... Also that being is also an alien, as worms are not native creatures... We kind of know that aliens exist, and yet they never seen, even in the future of Latos, but he is preparing nukes for them if they come... And Latos is not certain about the future, he always have to navigate from different timelines... Machines are 2nd biggest threat to humanity, 3rd biggest threat are human themselves... Why Latos is so keen to save humanity trough course of time? What is the meaning of humanity in universe, what it is true purpose, to fill the void with human warmth and population? Or is there no purpose for humanity just to extend infinitely and evolve? And interesting that Latos did not foresee another beings like him, though his purpose was to eliminate Sisterhood doing - creating beings like him in first place... Though as long as sistershood exists, they can recreate... So undoing sisterhoods doing should had ended with sisterhood annihilation... But then again humanity would not had survived this long.... So he kind of conflicts with himself...
@@smitty1647 Encyclopedia is an in-universe book with a lot mistakes, some of which are intentional. The Butlerian Jihad in that book is so brilliant and much better than any of that Cymek shit.
I went to see “Dune” in the theater yesterday (September 28), and all I can say about it is: WOW… The film is simply *SPECTACULARLY GORGEOUS* and it should be seen on the biggest possible screen! I’ll go and give it another look, or two, or more!!!
Im so so so excited oml. I've become the biggest nerd in my freindgroup but I can't wait. I hate going out in theaters for movies that aren't worth it but god I'd go to the biggest most crowded most dirty theatre if I had to for this movie. I cant wait
The movie was spectacular... The attack on Arrakeen had my jaw hanging... Best sfx I have ever seen... It felt like I was there.... IMAX and Dune were made for each other!
I agree on the movie as a whole. But the attack on Arrakeen was my major disapppointment. The ships too big, way too much rockets and fire power, the Sardaukar not disguised as Harkonnen soldiers and too little physical battle. In my view / memory. Opinions?
@@marcelsmit7685 I think the Sardaukar were disguised as Harkonnen soldiers? It's just that Duncan Idaho recognized them because of the way they fought. That's how I understood it.
I first started reading Dune when I was about 11, 12 years old and I've read the series many times since. Way before the seventh and eighth book had come out I had drawn my own conclusions about who the "Enemy" was and what Duncan Idaho's role in this was. To me it was pretty clear that the "Enemy" was the thinking machine empire of old. As for Duncan Idaho, it was also pretty clear that he was some sort of Kwisatz Haderach and there are hints of that notion in the three latter books of the original series as well. The very fact that on the one hand the God-emperor kept asking for more Duncan gholas - which he would then sometimes kill in the most horrifying ways - and that on the other hand the Tleilaxu were more than willing to supply them and even improve them, seems to suggest some form of arms-race between the two parties. One of the Tleilaxu Masters mentions at some point in the series that they themselves managed to produce a Kwisatz Haderach at some point, and that this individual was quite a handful, nearly impossible to control. Does this remind you of anyone? Could it be that it was Leto's plan right from the start to create a ghola Kwisatz Haderach, one who, in principle at least, would not need rely upon the spice, in order to free humanity from its grasp? Could it be that the Tleilaxu, inadvertantly or not, were supplying Leto II with the necessary genetic enhancements to the ghola each and every time, resulting in a second Kwisatz Haderach off their own hands? The "final" Duncan Idaho ghola at the very least seems to suggest that he is the culmination of over three millenia of genetic engeneering. Not only does he have the knowledge and skills of every single Dunan Idaho ghola before him, he seems to have some form of prescience of precognition: he perceives the patterns of the universe as some sort of web and through that web he perceives the forms of Daniel and Marty. He does not know who they are, nor does he know their significance. However, he does know that they are significant.
Amazing perspective, i always had a similar one. Also, on the topic of Daniel and Marty, it always fascinated me that they could clearly perceive Duncan INSIDE the no-ship. Meaning that it seems Leto's grand plan was starting to backfire as now there were greater levels of prescience than Leto ever knew. With Miles being able to locate no-ships, and Duncan's ascension in his abilities, now we see two beings (possible upgraded face dancers, a different form of "thinking machines") surpassing Leto's plan. Almost as if evolution itself was counteracting the Golden Path
I’ve always believed that Brian has been MOSTLY telling the truth about his father’s notes, but kept them a secret (unlike, say, Christopher Tolkien, who shared them freely), because he saw an opportunity to milk them far beyond what his dad intended and further his own career. Unlike humble Christopher, Brian has never come to grips with being better at editing and collaborating then at writing his own material. I think he always had enough material, IF he had been humble like Christopher, to finish the second to last book and then write an extensive appendix, and that’s IT. There’s definitely recognizable bits of his father in them both, but less and less as you go through them. The critical gap is definitely in the transition, perhaps a retcon, to turn the ostensible face dancer leaders into the Machine Lords. THAT was jarring. It suggests that there was a critical gap of detail in the notes regarding the “Final Boss”; just WHAT was their relationship with the exiled machines? What was in it for them? I’m betting that Frank was still wrestling with how to structure this when he died, which in turn left Brain drifting without a paddle on this critical point. We would have forgiven him if he’d just be honest about it. I’ve decided to acknowledge THOSE two as legitimate Canon, and his “Jihad” and “Crusade” books as Appendixes that might have a few legit drops in them, here and there. The rest is CRAP. Forget about them.
I'm still waiting for the Chapterhouse guide. I've listened to the God Emperor of Dune about 5 times now to go to sleep. That's a compliment by the way.
The idea of a Final/Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach (along with most of Brian/Kevin's interpretations of Frank's ideas) are a slap in the face to Frank Herbert's work.
Hunters and Sandworms were absolute trash. Everything about them was horrible. The biggest missed opportunity I thought was that with gholas of Duncan and Leto II there was the potential for a conversation, a reflection on the nature of the Golden Path and the reign of the Good Emperor and Duncan's purpose, that didn't even begin to happen. Probably for the best that something like that wasn't written by these two complete mugs.
I mean... Kevin J. Andersons other work is absolutely fucking brilliant tho. One of my top sci fi writers. But I agree that Hunters and Sandworms felt more like fan fic from somebody who didn't really understand the original work that well
I've always stood by the belief that the best fiction of the collaboration of BH and KJA was claiming they found those "notes and floppy disks." I tried to give the prequels a fair shake when they first came out, but they contradicted outright statements Herbert had made. Also let's not forget that Frank Herbert looked at the Encyclopedia as a curiosity made by a friend and it's not canon either
I've loved Herbert's Dune universe since I first read the books in the 70s. I was devastated to learn of his passing and thought that I'd never learn what happened after the No Ship left Chapterhouse. Like all Dune fans, I was delighted to hear the report of "newly discovered" material that would produce a two novel ending to the epic saga. Anderson may be a decent novelist (I've read some of his Star Wars) but Sandworms & Hunters of Dune are obviously not Herbert's work. Hard as I tried, I couldn't find Herbert anywhere in the manuscripts. I was so disappointed. Although the names were familiar, I didn't recognize any of the characters. So much didn't make sense; pass logical plot progression; cohesive coherence. I haven't read another Brian Herbert title since. To each their own. If you enjoy Brian's extended Dune universe then I'm glad for you. In my opinion the books are opportunistic tools to accumulate wealth, not honor the work of Frank Herbert.
Honestly, with respect to your last sentence: the truth is probably both. The Herbert Frankensteinian abominations are both opportunistic tools to accumulate wealth AND *attempts* to honor Frank Herbert and finish out his Dune saga. BH's tragic flaw is hubris: he is not even close to the genius writer his father was (he's middling at best). Herbert's estate probably should have pulled a Wheel of Time and outsourced the sequel to a talented science fiction writer (this did work with Robert Jordan / Brandon Sanderson) but with BH possibly a significant part of that decision, the keys went to him and we have this flaming bag of poo. And the Encyclopedia should be canon too. ....Or at least, we might as well think of it as canon, because anything BH has written which contradicts it is of inferior quality.
@@dante6985 But does BH actually write any of this? I honestly have no idea. My take is that his name is on the books to 'legitimize' the title, Dune. Anderson is the author; BH is the name drop advertisement campaign. A couple other examples of this 'fraud' perpetrated on readers is 'Tom Clancy' novels written long after his death. You're not getting a Clancy novel, you're getting someone else's work...marketed with Clancy's name...to make $$$. Clive Cussler is another example.
Excellent video. Always felt Omnius and Erasmus were shoehorned into the story to pay off the earlier Herbert/Anderson books. Hunters and Sandworms are well-crafted works, but I can't see Frank ever throwing the Leto II ghola to the worms (literally) like that.
After a few pre-Dune books by Brian, I had a hard time trusting him to finish & expand the saga, with shoulders big enough to handle complex characters and highest stakes. Because as good as a writer he is, his vision of Dune was really too "good guys vs bad dudes", with heroes on one side and villains on the other, "and that's it". Franck Herbert stories spent a lot of time making his baddies (when the term was even pertinent) at least understandable, if not forgivable, because believable and relatable. But I remember the exact moment, more than a decade ago, when Brian lost me : "Rabban kills a sandworm, because he's a bad guy who kills stuff and that makes him laugh, so he just does that for no reason whatsoever, all the time, and that's it, that's all we need to caracterize him, out of any context whatsoever, right ?" As cruel and not particularily bright Rabban was, how this scene was delivered felt so shallow and empty that my ship left the Brian's orbit, and drifted into deep space, to never return, and explore other worlds out there. Under Brian's hand, it felt a lot of deeper meanings and complex aspects of characters' personnalities were lost. And empty vessels do not make for dense and meaningful journeys... But at the end of the day, it's just my opinion too, and I'm not the son of Franck, neither a writer of so many books, so, what do I know and dare judge, I guess.
"I get what you are saying, but also *BLEEP* you." I liked a lot of what Brain and Kevin did. I do agree with you about the Leto II ghola. It never really sat well with me. It would have made more sense for him to live out his life quietly and out of the way. Something the original never had a chance to experience, a normal life.
I actually did not care for Hunters or Sandworms of Dune. Mostly because of the inconsistencies, and Leto II’s Ghola just being wasted like that… Bothered me. That and the Deus Ex Machina repeat conclusion. Personally I think the same idea as you. That particular Ghola would have found a quiet place and stayed out of the way.
The Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson books do not hold a candle to the genius in Frank Herbert's Dune Saga. The original books will always be superior.
@göksu gün alioğlu I agree with everything you are saying, but I do not think that Leto II "started" the Golden Path; he just brought humanity back on track. There always WAS a Golden Path, the path of evolution that humanity had to take in order to survive; they just did get side-tracked at certain points, and there were steps that were important for the Golden Path (such as the Butlerian Jihad, which did away with humanity relying too much on "thinking machines" and letting their mental faculties go to waste und giving up their freedom to machines) and people who played an important role within it (such as the Bene Gesserits with their breeding program;, they were useful as a school of mental training but their problem was that they ended up wanting power and control for their own sake, they never were content with just being a means to an end).
He"s not narrating the books, he's giving you a TL;DR version. Which is cool, but not the same as reading the book. Don't let the cliffs notes be your only experience of these books.. read them.
Dude I love how you were able to capture all the meanings of the Golden Path in the older videos. It is a shame that BH took some cuestionable choices in the following books. I liked that he was able to tackle Duncan pivotal role in the Kralizec at least
I just still dont understand how characters who are clearly described as highly evolved Facedancers, who have that as motivation for their actions, and which is a throughline right back to Messiah, could possibly then be revealed as actually being ancient thinking machines. That one plot point alone makes zero sense to me. If that was intentional misdirection by those characters for OUR benefit, why do it at all? Why break the 4th wall to give US misdirection? That just makes no sense to me within Herberts original narrative. The idea that Facedancers would become "wild talents" themselves much like the Atreides line makes perfect sense in the narrative. Ancient thinking machines who plant misdirection in the narrative is just too weird.
the sad but very simple reality is that KJA started typing before even bothering to reread (or skim) the 6 official novels in the series. It was a world famous cliffhanger we talked about all the time on newsgroups and web sites, long before the lie about "the notes" happened. What we can understand from this is that neither Brian nor Kevin even remembered that Chapterhouse ended with such a famous cliffhanger. That's so telling it's funny. Also, they admitted finding Frank's boxes of character and faction dossiers (the real notes) after having written the House trilogy. They put the cart ahead of the horse and painted themselves into a corner through sheer laziness. Nothing else explains that abomination.
@@chouseification I honestly didnt enjoy the last two books that much and Im not even sure I would have liked Herbert's real ending judging by the way those books kind of flailed around with extraneous material. That said, the reprise of all of the major characters as clone babies sounds like the worst of 90s TV writing and not at all something I ever want to read.
@@patreekotime4578 yeah it was major cringe, and the funny part is that KJA probably thought he was doing fan service by having the old crowd show up. Nope, not at all. :D
@@chouseification fan service is lazy writing. The idea that some of these characters would show up as ghoulas in the future is certainly alluded to in Chapterhouse, but even there it made me cringe because I felt like Herbert was writing himself into a bad corner by changing all of the rules of cloning at the last minute. Like I said, I probably would not have enjoyed Herberts ending anyway. For my money, a good character is one that moves the story. When you have characters who can be erased and the story doesnt change, then those are just fluff. And the last two books had VERY FEW characters that actually moved the story and way too much fluff.
Frank Herbert wasn't always consistent with his own material; I think he was more interested in making each book interesting by itself as long as it fit the overarching themes of the series, than he was in letting himself be constrained by canon. That being said, Frank's inconsistencies I think were a lot subtler than Brian and Kevin's. Disappointing, but it also wouldn't surprise me if their thinking really did run along the lines of "Well, Dad made lasguns purple in one book and red in another, so why can't Daniel and Marty be AIs instead of Face Dancers?" Yeah, I didn't like it when Clarke did that to 3001, either. It's the author's IP to do with as he sees fit, but as a reader I'd like to know how tightly I should be hanging on to old material when I pick up a new book.
One of the first things I would look for after the creation of inter-dimensional travel would be a world where Frank Herbert lived to finish Dune. For me, his death in our reality is a similar level of tragedy as the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
Leto II as God emperor can't be cloned. Right? Leto II before his transformation into his God Emperor state was human. Post transformation, Leto II would turn into a chimera with a sandworm. Their genomes aren't merged, their cells interact together but their cellular nuclei remain separate
@@whattheactualfk9190 yes, for the most part. However, considering Leto II is the first instance of such an attempted endosymbiosis, I suspect that both of their genomes are totally intact and therefore if you clone an entire organism from a single cell, which one is cloned depends on which nuclei you're using. But Leto II as God Emperor doesn't entirely fit into the endosymbiosis model because the God Emperor chimera is made from two complex multicellular organisms whereas endosymbiosis in the real world is between a multicellular organism and a single cell organism (broadly speaking).
@@maxmercer1931 If one organism was taken over at the genetic level by another or even merged stopping normal protein production and phenotypic expression etc, it would have resulted in (cell) death for said organism or both organisms by definition, so that wouldn't have happened. It was still Leto albeit with new worm 'instincts' that sometimes could dominate. So you're entirely correct..... Still, 'sci fi'. And Herbert was really quite vague as to how this was all possible and would work as it is fairly 'out there' and fantastical (rather than hard sci fi) as a story development anyway...
@@maxmercer1931 Yes, but when Leto is killed by falling into River Idaho abd disintegrates into a multitude of sandtrout, each fo these would carry a mixture of his genes and those of the worm. But I think the entity formed of Leto and the worm still comprised two different entities, with Leto depending more on the worm than vice versa. But didn't it also say that as soon as this process started with Leto II, he also stopped maturing and physically remained a 9-year-old boy forever? At any rate, I am always puzzled by all the fanart depicting Leto as the worm and giving him the face of a mature and even an old man - he should still have the face of a prepubescent boy, as he never entered puberty.
Who knows, cellular memory including memory stretching back for generations was total nonsense but a huge part of the Dune Universe. Leto II mused that his brain was no longer a vulnerability but mutated to spread throughout his body. His mutated human body remained on the riverbank after the sandtrout were released for DNA collection. One can assume the human DNA with some sort of cellular memory consistent with canon persisted. Leto could not reproduce, that doesn't mean his cellular DNA was destroyed.
I am not sure if it is just me being an older science fiction reader, and reader of what is now older science fiction, but I always found that so many of the works of authors I always found so fascinating and works I can go back to as I approach (very rapidly) my 50's are works that never truly ended, but ask me just to go back into them again and again, each time for story, language, ideas, nuances of character, description of landscapes. Sometimes, there is no need for these stories to have a satisfying, wrap it in a box, conclusion. I also remember a few english teachers that would skin me alive for such a run on sentence, yet, whatever.
They were pretty enjoyable overall with some bad and some good. The sorceresses were stupid and pointless, Erasmus is the best character in the series with the possible exception of Leto, and humanity rejecting computers then becoming computers was begging for someone to see through the pointlessness
There is controversy surrounding the notes that Brian Herbert and Anderson use. Supposedly the notes were found in a notebook labeled “Dune 7” when a safe deposit box of Frank Herbert’s was found and opened years after his death. Multiple third parties have attested to seeing the notebook, but no one has been allowed to look inside of the notebook, so the assumption is that junior and Anderson took lots of liberties with the notes and justified their actions as being Frank Herbert’s ideas.
My position is, if they say they found his notes, and followed them in planning out their own books, fine. I’m not going to question that, because I don’t need to. The plain and simple fact is that notes are just notes. Having read the plot details of their series, I seriously doubt that the author of the classic Dune novels would have actually gone forward with that storyline, and his epilogue to the series convinced me that, at the time he wrote it, he had no intention of moving forward with a seventh Dune book. But some shelved notes for a possible follow-up? As a writer, I can believe that. I write stuff all the time that I have no serious intention of sharing.
Kevin J. Anderson said in the interview with Preston Jacobs that the notes were messy and incopled and it was supper hard to orient just in drafts of published books.
I find there's a huge difference between the sequels and the prequels. I enjoy the prequels and find some manner of enjoyable rereads, the sequels? I haven't reread them.
My favorite part of Hunters of Dune was when the one woman tried to kill the baby Leto 2 ghola but he half transformed into a worm and stopped her, too bad they hand waved away where the cells came from by saying "it didn't matter". Leto 2 is the most complex character in Dune universe, and I would argue he wasn't treated very well in Sandworms of Dune.
Ya what a dead end that was . I got so excited after that encounter with baby Leto. But it was metal as fuck imagining him riding worms through synchrony wrecking shit lol
Just saw the movie in the cinema on Saturday... had to hold in a piss for the last hour cause didn't want to miss a single moment of what is the Dune I've always wanted to see!
Dude, I really like your videos on Dune. I've been reading and rereading the first 6 for years trying to gain a clearer understanding of Herberts overarching story. You're videos have really helped me out in that. I can't bring myself to read the BH books really. I guess I'm a purist to the core. Thanks for your videos
I've been a fan of Dune since the late 80s, my mother gave me her hard back copies she had from college. In all the years you cover the Dune universe so well and throughly
I am glad to hear some coverage of their work, flawed or not. The truth is, their work is interesting and did spark a lot of thought on my part about where Frank Gherbert would have ended the series and all of the possibilities of that universe of stories. Some of what was in their work was interesting. In the end I think that saga is better off for it even though I regard the post-Chapterhouse Dune stories as akin to informed speculation about where things would have ended up.
Thank you for another very interesting and well presented video. I am glad that organism ?? is back. Your videos are getting more colorful and entertaining and I eagerly await the next one! I agree that in my opinion Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen wrote a very unsatisfying ending for Frank Herbert's excellent saga. I really object to classifying Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune as part of the official canon as I really doubt that Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen wrote the two books based on Frank Herbert's notes. I think that some of the earlier books by the two may have been influenced by notes Frank Herbert left behind but I think anything set after Chapterhouse Dune is entirely from their imagination. As some other people have said in the comments many of the Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen "Dune" novels resemble "fan fiction " more than novels that belong in the "Dune Universe ". Please keep posting your videos as they are well done and informative and interesting.
Very interesting video and helps me understand more my problems with the Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson books. Btw your little skit gave me major Red Dwarf/Farscape vibes lol.
I have a feeling that more people would be into the exspanded universe books if it was written by someone else. Someone with proven experiance on epic fantasy. Someone like Brandon Sanderson perhaps
I agree, if they wanted an arc that spanned eons that had some sort of justification for the predatory and tyranical reign of the God Emperor, it would be a human Leo II ghoula with a Hwi Noree ghola living out theirs days content in their love and more importantly, the ultimate success of The Golden Path.
Ummm...where is the Organism going to get an axlotl tank from... Great episode as always, Quinn! I agree w/ your overall take on the expanded Dune universe. It can be entertaining, but it's not as thought-provoking as Frank's works.
I'd be very surprised to find out that these "notes" even actually existed, especially if there were more than a few pages of brainstorming. I tried to read the Brian and Kevin stuff, but there were just too many things that directly contradicted what was laid out in the original novels, or additions that it would make no sense to never be mentioned again (I seem to remember Paul having an older brother who died or something like that. You're telling me that Leto and Jessica would just be like "Oh well, he's dead, time to never mention or think of him ever again!" Come on.) on top of the fact that they are written like pulp trash. I have nothing against pulp trash per se, I can enjoy it for what it is, but it's just SO different in tone from the originals that it's grating. Edit: I did want to say, great video Quinn!
I'm gonna nitpick. I thought the prequels about Leto were... ok. Better than the other books they made. The idea you are referring to is that Leto had a previous lover before he met Jessica. She also bore him a bastard son and she also was kinda jealous that he refused to marry her or at least make her his official concubine so her kid could be his heir. This previous lover betrayed Leto in her jealousy and her betrayal killed his first son as an infant (she did not plan for the kid to die.) ...I actually thought that worked. It explained why characters like Thufir were so suspicious of Jessica. Because Jessica reminded them of this previous lover who DID betray the Duke. I had no problem with that idea. It was only in the later books that I thought the "new" Dune books got irredeemably bad.
@@Will-tn8kq I actually didn't remember the context at all, I hadn't read them since they came out, I just remember thinking it was absurd. The other thing that sticks out in my memory was wasn't there a House Major who was literally just a bunch of circus clowns? In a different book though I think, but they kind of run together for me now since I haven't read or thought much about them for about 20 years. And to be fair, I seem to remember even kinda liking/not hating the ones set during the Butlerian Jihad. They were still pulpy trash, but separated enough from the originals that I could just enjoy the ride.
@@TheRukisama yes, I generally feel the same way. The Dune prequels were pulpy fan-fic that lacked the depth and especially the philosophy of the first ones. I am just nit-picking. The prequel books about Leto the first felt the least bad to me.
How to set yourself up for failure: Read the extended Dune universe expecting Frank's level of writing. You're setting yourself up to be disappointed. They aren't spectacular, obviously, but they aren't burning garbage either. Don't forget, at the end of the day, we live in a capitalist society and I promise you if the DEU wasn't making money (or being good enough so people STILL buy them) they would have stopped writing them ages ago.
It's been a long time since I read "God Emperor" so maybe I'm wrong, but I always got the impression that the reason Leto II made so many Duncan gholas was simply because he liked Duncan.
More so, because Duncan carries a uniqueness to always question whilst being loyal and “testing the limits”. In CH, Bolonda chooses not to kill Duncan because of his “talent” he is able to school the sisters due to awakening his serial memories amongst new talents (seeing the net). However, it took many lives for Duncan to come to such a point. Leto states that his genes are a benchmark in which the new humans are measured by, “he is the old” and also unknown based on what the Tleilax have added ( I have a feelings he represents the “convergence between machine & humans” as he was “not born via a birth canal” ) Considering that Duncan (original) had died prior to Leto’s birth, I would not put his gholas resurrections to Leto liking him, he had Ghani, Harq al ada, and many others to choose from.
@Paul Ridgeway but Leto also positioned him to made over and over again after Paul and himself. It’s is also hinted that Duncan holds an “ideal”. His ability to always question and drive the new, it took many iterations but I think Leto was always aware of this potential. Just like he could implant the message in the caves to the BGs in Heretics of Dune, I think it is more than a simple liking otherwise He Norrie or others would of got remade.
Thank you Quinn for finally covering the final two books. I like the way they ended the saga. That Idaho is the final Kwisatz Haderach makes perfect sense. Leto II was perfecting him over all of those generations. And thanks for not completely trashing the books. No, the writing is not as good, but so what.
There is a simple explanation. Kevin J Anderson and especially Brian Herbert are talentless hacks who tainted the Dune series with their poor quality writing in order to cash in. Their books and Frank's books are miles apart in quality. Yes I'm the millionth person to say so and yes I'm still bitter about it.
Their writer quality is the least of it for me. It's the distorcion of his themes and ideas that is the most criminal. I mean Frank spent the first 3 books showing us why following charismatic leaders was dangerous only to have universe be ruled by a cybor Duncan and Murbella?! Which isn't even possible for them to do because of the Scattering! Also you start Hunters of Dune, completely forgetting the Ixian navigation machines already exist and eliminated the Guild's monol=poly on Space travel?!! It's madness!
I just finished Chapterhouse Dune and although I didn't particularly enjoy the last two books, I'm kind of bummed. It's clear Herbert had more planned and I would have liked to have seen what he had in mind. And although I'm not interested in reading the non Frank Herbet Dune entries, I'd love to see more of them on this channel.
The books his son wrote are ok. Not as good as Frank's but who can compare with original dune? One of the prequels his son wrote was about the humankind uprising against machines. Fairly well done. I think there's a few references to it in originals
Have you tried reading any of Frank Herbert's other books? None of them really measure up to Dune in my opinion, but they are still worthwhile. Several of them are very similar to Dune in theme and setting.
Thanks Quinn - excellent as always. I am just starting the " Lady of Caladan" ! I agree there is a difference between Canon and the expanded universe. But I do enjoy the entertainment value of MORE of the story.
Leto the second is no joke one of the most interesting character in all of science fiction just the fact he had the memories of the human race. Is just baffling and I can't wait to see this new Dune movie just to see how they get to that point.
I have also had a hard time with the newer books in the series. My understanding from Chapter House was that the many lifetimes of memories which Duncan possessed is what gave him his special abilities. And that when Erasmus absorbed his memories was when the true merger of man and machine occured. My opinion
The idea that the Omnius of the final 2 books would spend thousands of years in human form (as Daniel) seems to completely contradict the Omnius of the prequel books (who spent thousands of years as a super computer). By his own computing it would be like a human who spends thousands of years stepping on ants deciding to spend thousands of years as an ant.
That’s because a Tleilaxu scientist whilst creating the first spice substitute made the best face-dancers. They were capable of copying and pasting human memories to perfection. Then they decided to explore the universe or galaxy alone before finding Omnius (he wasn’t fully destroyed as remember an Omnius copy had used probes to colonise unknown parts of the universe or galaxy, and no one knew about it). Omnius incorporated these face dancers and used them to convert human memories into data. He could then use this data to understand humans, so that he’ll be able to defeat them, and now he’s more human. It’s also mentioned the all the AI in the Dune universe had already been programmed to feel emotions, which were deactivated for aeons. Erasmus had discovered some of this when he had a father-son bond to an adopted human. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that in the last 2 books that Omnius is now more human-like.
Some of the ghola kids had interesting arcs and these are among the very few elements of the EU that I actually enjoy. But there’s no way they got Leto’s cells, they’d never have dared to do so, and worst of all, they don’t even do anything with the Leto ghola that could have justified this nonsense.
Glorified fan fiction. They're decent in their own right, but not even a glimmer of Frank's genius comes through. Theyre cool, but still just "fam-fiction" at the end of the day...
@Ulises Leon yes but main plot elements and characters traits wrong from the first. For.instance they have RM Mohiem as Jessica's mother. Don't you think Paul or Jessica would have brought that up? Especially in messiah when they imprison her. In the same set they have her giving Baron Harrkonan diseases. The baron was not diseased (not physically) in the novels. That was a David Lynch idea. It shows they never really read or understood the originl works. It's a cash grab. Just like the left behind series. First few books were alright once you waded though all the misunderstandings of biblical text but then just became the same trash over and over because the books sold.
Much appreciated video I actually enjoyed the last two books and it's so nice to see someone actually talk about them and atleast set up a dialogue about the themes and changes. What I liked about the change is that it showed leto achieving a sense of peace with himself. I believe by leto II at the end of the day was more benetleilax than the rest of his benegeserit leaning family and he inadvertently created a kind of technology with the worm metamorphosis in god emperor. Through the manipulation of the worm genetics by including himself in its life cycle he became an infinite super consciousness norma canvas. Only he lost that connection once he separated. I believe the fusion gave him the greater context of his life in its entirety and helped him find his humanity within the worm ironically. Love your videos man it would be cool to see more stuff for hunters and sandworms so much stuff at least worth talking about that I feel too many people raise their noses at
Well, via his fishspeaker, the Tleilaxu assassinated TGE so they just had to go to his carcass at the bottom of the mountain to get the cells, I suppose.
I write fanfiction, and I'm in a lot of writing groups. We tend to share prompts and ideas, and it's interesting to see how we all start with the same premise and yet each story is unique. No matter how detailed Frank's notes were, Brian still can't see into his mind, so his interpretation of those notes will inevitably be different than the original intentions. So I get why some people don't like his sequels as much, but I'm sure glad he's at least trying, and giving us something :)
The best Dune 7 fanfic I've read thus far is "Dune: Revenant." It's more of a story treatment or a collection of conceptual chapters put together in chronological order. This fanfic nailed Frank Herbert's themes and has a better final battle of humanity vs evolved Tleilaxu people (not face dancers and no AI machines) and a better ending as well.
there is always a chance that the notes discovered didn't exist and they were made up to promote the fiction of cokpleting frank's work, not brian's original. but we will probably never know. - i'm going to leave that typo, yay freud.
Yeah, those are my thoughts, I wonder if those exists at all. My impression is that Brian tried to make a franchise similar to Star Wars. Commercially they could make more money, now that the Brian's book have been on the market for a while, by releasing a new edition of the Dune Encyclopedia WITH Frank's notes as an addendum. I sure would buy that.
The only real solution to the canon/non-canon debate: let's make a ghola of Frank Herbert. Then we will know how the story was meant to end.
What's his memory-restoration trigger? Reading his son's books. The Tleilaxu did use pain and conflict, after all.
🤣🤣🤣
I agree ehehe
Or what I tend to use the quantum physic/multiverse and timelines. Like the Link's multiple timelines. Is the Starwars issue, don't like the new sequels, simple in your own universe timeline only occurred ep1 to 6 then they live happy ever after. Like the new sequels, then in your universe the sequels events happened, multiverse theory allows that. Maybe this can be apply here.
Has anyone stopped to think that the story of dune not ending the way it was "supposed to" is actually perfectly meta for Frank's original intent? "Look at this awesome space adventure! Isn't it cool? Can't you see yourself in this guy? NOPE! your heroes are frauds and you should never trust your leaders!"
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'
That's exactly the way I felt a bout Chapterhouse, that it would be the end of the series and would at the same time suggest that there is no end. Through Duncan Idaho, in this book, mankind faces their creators in the characters of Daniel and Marty, who actually stand for the creators of the book, Frank and Beverly Herbert. OF COURSE these characters would appear to be face dancers, because that's essentially what authors are, taking the shape of the characters that they create while writing the story.
This
@@christianealshut1123 Doesn't quite square with their appearance in Heretics of Dune. They ask to stop being spied on, but if anything they are spying on their characters. I admit that there is some meta stuff going on, but I dont think its that simple. Daniel and Marty seem real in universe. I think they are face dancers that have absorbed many gods reaching an even higher form of godliness. But they are still using the laws of the universe which is how Duncan can escape their net.
@@BT-oj1bn They are real, and they are Face Dancers, because these are the only terms that Duncan Idaho can see and describe them in. As creators of the Dune universe and all the characters in it, they have to put themselves (figuratively) into the shape and bodies of their characters through whom they speak, and that is, strictly speaking, precisely what a Face Dancer within the Dune universe does - pretend to be someone else than they are. Duncan Idaho may be the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach and he may have gotten a glimpse beyond the fourth wall of the universe of which he is a part, but he is still bound by the concepts of this universe and can only express himself in its terms. He gets a glimpse, yes, but he does not FULLY understand what he sees because he is not part of that other universe.
@@christianealshut1123 ok, but even if you don't buy my analysis what about what they say to each other here
Daniel chuckled. "That would've been funny. They have such a hard time accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them."
"I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and..."
They are talking like they are face dancers. I'm sure these are not things they would say to each other even in Frank's imagination. Unless he was imagining himself as an actual face dancer in his book, which I could totally buy. But then he is an advanced face dancer, not an author.
I felt that hunters and sandworms was written less as a continuation of the originals and more of a justification of the prequels.
this.
There are only SIX Dune books. Everything since is exploitation and, more importantly, poorly written trash.
$$$$$
Yep
I think they should have published the notes edited for clarity like Christopher Tolkien did, even if there's only a small book produced from them I think that's preferable to the expanded universe they created which in a lot of ways cheapened the Dune saga in my opinion.
They butchered what should have been one final book in the original series. They made an interesting House trilogy but otherwise their other works are terrible and tortuous.
The thing is at various times they’ve said the notes are 30 pages or just a few pages. I’m guessing the notes were just a very slight outline and if they released them now people would be angry about how little of books 7 and 8 are actually from Frank Herbert
+Brendan Walsh, I agree.
It can’t cheapen the classic series if you don’t read them. Kind of like how, whoever’s making new Star Wars movies is of no interest to me. I’ve got the Despecialized Editions of the only three movies that matter to me in that series. And I’ve got the Dune novels to reread any time I feel like immersing myself in that world again.
@@Activated_Complex that's my opinion too, ignorance is bliss as far as I'm concerned! Everything I've heard/read about the BH & KJA books makes my brain bleed from the amount of nerd rage I feel.
my thought has always been that Daniel and Marty were some highly evolved facedancers that escaped and started doing there own thing. maybe an alliance between them and the machines like how the fish speakers and some bene got together and turned their eyes orange. 🤷♂️
it's just hard to believe the final theme of the dune saga is, "if you have a war with robots, make sure you don't let any escape"
I thought it was that omnius and the butlerians were both extremists and wrong. Humans and machines living together in harmony and all
In god emperor, it's implied that the machines will return in a vision he showed Siona. Which I think is fine, but clearly how the series "ends" was absolute trash. They just wanted to connect the "end" to the prequels they had already written. There's no way that's how Frank Herbert was going to end things.
+Duncan, it would've been better had the final books have Marty and Daniel (evolved face dancers) colluding with Omnius and Erasmus (AI machines) and they together be like the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing doom to the humans. Then, also, at the same time, it is revealed that Marty & Daniel and Omnius & Erasmus are having verbal disputes/disagreements and plotting to backstab each other.
@@impcnrd i think it would have been better if marty and daniel had been face dancers that absorbed omnius and erasmus, instead of the other way around
Evolved facedancers fits in with the themes that Herbert laid out. The idea of generations of genetic manipulation and enhancement getting out of control. Its "wild talent" in action and perfectly plays against the Tleilaxu hubris. Also, why would they talk with EACH OTHER as if they are facedancers if they arnt? Why the weird breaking the 4th wall misdirection? That really does not fit into Herberts narrative.
I have a feeling the Brian Herbert books are less "created from Frank Herbert's notes" and more "inspired by some vague notes left behind but mostly Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's material". I'd love to know how Frank Herbert would have ended it.
I suspect we already know how he would have ended it, and it’s the way he did. He admitted once that he deliberately tried to stop each book at a point in its narrative that would not offer a satisfying conclusion. One could accuse him of doing so to keep fans coming back to buy more sequels, but the themes of the series point over and over to the notion that history will never simply run its course (unless that means apocalypse), I can’t imagine a seventh book would have ended on a more conclusive note than the sixth did.
Furthermore, I think Frank Herbert just didn’t have the drive and energy to keep going after his wife died, and he must have known his own time was running short. I subscribe to the notion that Marty and Daniel were author stand-ins created to offer valediction to long time fans; it’s kind of lame but I do think it’s the biggest sentimental gesture his personality would have allowed. I believe there are no notes and that Brian Herbert invented them as a marketing ruse.
@@aperson22222 You pretty much summed it up for me
@@aperson22222 actually if you knew anything about novel writing there are usually massive amounts of notes and outlines authors write out ahead of time the fill in the blanks as the write.
They normally write out and structure of the book touching on the major topics almost like a lattice, then as they start writing the meat of the book the fill in story with much more detail.
@@JR-cd1ol Okay? That doesn’t mean he was planning on writing a novel at all. Don’t act like an arrogant smart ass just because you misunderstand what other people are saying.
Well, Frank had left us with "final Duncan" on the no-ship and the advanced face dancers with their tachyon web. Remember, by absorbing consciousnesses from their victims, they have acquired many new skills along the lines of a KH - however they may not actually "slurp" in the part that counts in this battle.
Showdown between them of some sort - my guess is the "win" would be caused by one of those face dancers trying to absorb Duncan, whose deep ingrained instincts would kick in and instead of him just having access to the current life and the memories of the original Duncan, he would gain access to all of the knowledge, all of the experience, and all of the sense of "self" that came from all of those lives... a face dancer trying to absorb such a person might actually be sucked in BY them, followed in quick succession by the others - if they weren't all dealt with at that same instant.
Kev guessed right that final Duncan was very important; we might guess that Leto had seen that the only way to win at Kralizec was to create such a being - one who lived over and over and always had that same sense of self and duty and honor. Such a person exposed to thousands of lives as that same basic person may be so firm in their sense of self they may laugh off an attack by an opponent able to slurp up most humans, even those with lots of gifts like BG or mentats.
That's my personal thought on how Frank would have ended the saga... definitely no soap opera AIs that are supposedly wise beyond compare but act like petulant toddlers (some of the worst writing I've ever forced myself to read in my life).
"I do not comperehnd. I demand you explain this to me immediately"
Clearly 9186 is an organism born out of the TH-cam comment algorithm achieving consciousness.
I have never been able to accept BH's and KJA's books as the true ending Frank Herbert intended. And I intensely disliked the Leto II Ghola. I don't think anyone - including the Tleilaxu - would risk the potential of another God Emperor by keeping cells of Leto II. And I really cannot see the Sisterhood allowing that. It's totally inconsistent with everything Frank Herbert established in the original six novels.
I think the true Golden path was not about humanity, it was about the survival of the sandworms. Which is why Leto II merged with them. It got the sandworms out into the universe and broke the monopoly on spice. Having many worlds making spice would mean more for humanity and humanity would then protect the sandworms.
@Lawofimprobability Remember they tried with Shahlud and it failed it wasn't till Shatan that they could be taken off world and survive.
It could very well be both. The sandworms being limited to a single world meant that either there would be a tyrannical monopoly on travel hindering humanity forever, or endless war over the only source of the spice up until artificial means were created, and artificial means can be lost under the right circumstances. Best to ensure both a diaspora of humanity AND sandworms because because without spice, humanity is trapped and easy pickings.
That’s a fascinating take, you’re on to something there.
But before Spice long distance travel was already fast and possible, just more dangerous. Sandworms are only crucial because of Leto.
A simbiotic relationship betwen the worm and humanity
Firstly, If I haven’t said so before, your production value is superb. Secondly, this video was too short. Your thoughts and analysis of Frank Herbert’s intent and Brian Herbert’s direction are fascinating and deserve a much deeper dive. I hope you continue this presentation. Thanks Quinn.
I agree. Too short. I feel it ended rather abruptly. Good discussion!
Well said.
@@dominokos keep in mind he's doing his best to allow us to read between the lines, and not directly provoke that talentless hack KJA. He's almost as bad as a Scientologist - he tolerates no criticism, and of course since his "additions" to Dune are all laughable, there is a LOT of legitimate beef... which he will not tolerate on any level. He's the ultimate thin-skinned loser.
If you dare to criticize the "Dune and Friends" books in any way in the main Facebook group, your post gets deleted, flagged as hate speech, or you might just be booted from the group... courtesy of KJA, his wife, or Brian's annoying spoiled daughter who hasn't caught on that daddy can't write fiction to save his life, and it was ALL Kevin (but she insists daddy wrote "a lot"). For some astonishingly bootlicking reason, the admin of the page allowed those three to become admins... hello, conflict of interest?
@@chouseification dude. You ok?
@@adamlombard3771 You're obviously extremely new here if you ask that. Kevin is notorious for chasing down those people who dare to criticize his "amazing" novels, even though little children can write better without even trying.
The glut of gholas of familiar characters is one of the main reasons the Briven J Herberndson books feel like fanfiction.
Yea .. it’s was a bit much
Yeah. It was just an excuse to bring back all the original characters and it felt so cheap and unimaginative.
Totally. They failed miserably.
Here! Have some nostalgia! *throws dead characters at people*
And this is why we should never pass the torch to our children like letting them follow the footsteps of our authors/artists to print money from their works. They should carve their own paths.
Hey Quinn, thanks for all you do!
I was just struck by a thought, which in retrospect should probably have occurred to me sooner. In Dune, Duncan Idaho is a character we see only briefly, and really stands out for only three reasons. He makes a strong bond with the Fremen, he gets publicly drunk (and runs his mouth off), and ultimately sacrifices his life to save Paul and Jessica from the Sardaukar. He is one of the Atreides inner circle, which implies he has significant uses to the family, but at this point, not exactly in the running for most important man in the universe.
In Dune Messiah, he is resurrected by the bene Tleilax as a weapon against Paul. This part of the series is important because of the light it sheds on the powers and goals of the previously undeveloped Tleilaxu, and is an important element of the novel, but only one element among many. In Children of Dune, we see him take a level up in intrigue, as he protects Paul's children by manipulating Stilgar into opposing Alia, albeit at the cost of his own life once again. In Emperor, we discover that the Atreides seem to like having their Duncans around.
In terms of importance, Duncan has a series arc of moving from a minor role to becoming one of, if not the, central character by the end. In terms of development, Duncan goes from being a fairly simple, very physical character (his chief skills are fighting and f***ing), to someone who is much more subtle, intellectual, and mystically powerful. Now, that's all just observation.
Here's my thought: is this a property of Duncan - is Herbert really saying that Duncan himself is special, or is this a product of Duncan's continuing cycles of death and rebirth? In other words, is Duncan a symbolic representation of the great ignorant mass of common humanity? If Duncan can undergo such a transformation, even if it takes thousands of years and untold incarnations, can the rest of us aspire to a similar transformation in time? To put it another way, was Herbert also a student of the concept of Samsara? Is Duncan Idaho equivalent to Bill Murray in Groundhog Day?
I can't speak for Frank Herbert of course but we could already see in God-Emperor that the Tleilaxu were making changes in the Duncans, by the time of Chapterhouse Duncan has gone through so many iterations and alterations/improvements, and let's not forget the memories of around 5000 years worth of lives.
So I don't think Duncan started special, apart from the mutual bond with Paul/Leto, he evolved over millenia into this amazing being.
Millenia of groundhog days... ;)
Style note:
I wanted to read your post but it defeated me. My eyes glazed over.
In future, you might consider breaking up the text into paragraphs, one main idea for each paragraph. Then put blank lines between paragraphs.
Yes, Retired School Librarian and teacher / MI US
@@veramae4098 Fair point. I seldom post on TH-cam, and I wasn't actually sure that a TH-cam reply was formattable. Try it now!
@@davidrhode7019 I think Duncan represents the idea that everyone could become the Kwisatz Haderach if pushed enough, evolved enough, and exposed to enough over enough serial lives. Just like the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, and Spacing Guild are about the maximizing of human potential in three different areas (politics for the first, mathematics for the second, math and physics for the third), I've always seen Duncan as the next step: surpassing human potential. Making superbeings not from 10,000 years of galaxy-wide selective breeding, culminating in a being who could not be sufficiently predicted or understood, as well as all of these other near-KHs such as Feyd Rautha, Count Fenring, and doubtless many others over the long millennia prior to Dune and in the, what, 15,000 years after?
Taking a single man, already understood, and seeing what needed to be done to elevate him to this near-Godhood. Why then could the process not be 1) separated from the spice as much as possible (as it was...) thus removing a dangerous, single-point-of-failure dependency...2) shortened, reduced in difficulty, reduced in expense, and made possible without a nearly-immortal demigod like Leto II overseeing the process, or conversely, the KHs and the full BG Reverend Mothers choosing to be immortal, each with the obligation not only to physically procreate, but also to raise 2 other beings to KH/RM status. The intersection, ultimately, of the breeding program KH and the serial incarnation KH.
And yes, I think this was all done for human survival over not just 20 or 30,000 years, but for millions across multiple galaxies. Add Siona's invulnerability to prescience to the Mentat and BG powers, and even a spice-independent form of what the Guild Navigators do, and you could have humanity as a collection of nearly immortal, nearly omniscient (in a very limited sense) beings with the memories of their past incarnations, the voice, prana bindu training, truth-sensing, total physiological control, and perhaps even prescience, though it's unclear how that would work in a universe populated with trillions of prescience-immune Bene Haderachs.
If Duncan represent Humanity, than he is doing a great job... Though he sacrifices himself every time, he is an important figure that helps to protect humanity. What is interesting Atriedies should had all died as harkonens were superior in sneak attacks, thus they were stronger. Changing the course of human history was really bad move, humanity become weaker with messiah, they were too dependent on 1 guy.... Shouldering 1 guy with the fate of humanity is too big for human to handle, so his son become a god, or at least partly a god, a being that is beyond imagination.... Also that being is also an alien, as worms are not native creatures... We kind of know that aliens exist, and yet they never seen, even in the future of Latos, but he is preparing nukes for them if they come... And Latos is not certain about the future, he always have to navigate from different timelines... Machines are 2nd biggest threat to humanity, 3rd biggest threat are human themselves... Why Latos is so keen to save humanity trough course of time? What is the meaning of humanity in universe, what it is true purpose, to fill the void with human warmth and population? Or is there no purpose for humanity just to extend infinitely and evolve? And interesting that Latos did not foresee another beings like him, though his purpose was to eliminate Sisterhood doing - creating beings like him in first place... Though as long as sistershood exists, they can recreate... So undoing sisterhoods doing should had ended with sisterhood annihilation... But then again humanity would not had survived this long.... So he kind of conflicts with himself...
The mere fact that BH decanonized the Encyclopedia to push out "Ultra Spice" and "Butlerian Jihad: Revolutions" is enough for me to avoid them.
The encyclopedia was canon? So did the sand worms evolve on dune like in the encyclopedia or were they brought there like Frank's novels say?
Frank’s novels reference the Butlerian Jihad, also the battle of corrin and that works were seeded on Arrakis.
the encyclopedia itself contradicts the original novels
Also, frank's novels contradicts frank's novels, there are a lot of inconsistencies througout the books
@@smitty1647 Encyclopedia is an in-universe book with a lot mistakes, some of which are intentional. The Butlerian Jihad in that book is so brilliant and much better than any of that Cymek shit.
I went to see “Dune” in the theater yesterday (September 28), and all I can say about it is: WOW… The film is simply *SPECTACULARLY GORGEOUS* and it should be seen on the biggest possible screen! I’ll go and give it another look, or two, or more!!!
Agree, I went twice!
How did you guys get into a screening?
Went twice! So nice of them to show the movie early in The Netherlands
Im so so so excited oml. I've become the biggest nerd in my freindgroup but I can't wait. I hate going out in theaters for movies that aren't worth it but god I'd go to the biggest most crowded most dirty theatre if I had to for this movie. I cant wait
@@christophercarrigg3775 The film is already screening in the international market - a month before the US release.
When you see how much care he puts into those smaller videos, you know the Ultimate Guide to Chapterhouse is going to be unbelievably dope
The movie was spectacular... The attack on Arrakeen had my jaw hanging... Best sfx I have ever seen... It felt like I was there.... IMAX and Dune were made for each other!
So excited to see it in a couple weeks
I agree on the movie as a whole. But the attack on Arrakeen was my major disapppointment. The ships too big, way too much rockets and fire power, the Sardaukar not disguised as Harkonnen soldiers and too little physical battle. In my view / memory. Opinions?
Stfu know it all
@@marcelsmit7685 I think the Sardaukar were disguised as Harkonnen soldiers? It's just that Duncan Idaho recognized them because of the way they fought. That's how I understood it.
@@matthewtaylordeoppressolib7141 good argument! 👏
this has no business having better quality production than the bbc
I first started reading Dune when I was about 11, 12 years old and I've read the series many times since. Way before the seventh and eighth book had come out I had drawn my own conclusions about who the "Enemy" was and what Duncan Idaho's role in this was.
To me it was pretty clear that the "Enemy" was the thinking machine empire of old. As for Duncan Idaho, it was also pretty clear that he was some sort of Kwisatz Haderach and there are hints of that notion in the three latter books of the original series as well. The very fact that on the one hand the God-emperor kept asking for more Duncan gholas - which he would then sometimes kill in the most horrifying ways - and that on the other hand the Tleilaxu were more than willing to supply them and even improve them, seems to suggest some form of arms-race between the two parties.
One of the Tleilaxu Masters mentions at some point in the series that they themselves managed to produce a Kwisatz Haderach at some point, and that this individual was quite a handful, nearly impossible to control. Does this remind you of anyone? Could it be that it was Leto's plan right from the start to create a ghola Kwisatz Haderach, one who, in principle at least, would not need rely upon the spice, in order to free humanity from its grasp? Could it be that the Tleilaxu, inadvertantly or not, were supplying Leto II with the necessary genetic enhancements to the ghola each and every time, resulting in a second Kwisatz Haderach off their own hands? The "final" Duncan Idaho ghola at the very least seems to suggest that he is the culmination of over three millenia of genetic engeneering. Not only does he have the knowledge and skills of every single Dunan Idaho ghola before him, he seems to have some form of prescience of precognition: he perceives the patterns of the universe as some sort of web and through that web he perceives the forms of Daniel and Marty. He does not know who they are, nor does he know their significance. However, he does know that they are significant.
Amazing perspective, i always had a similar one. Also, on the topic of Daniel and Marty, it always fascinated me that they could clearly perceive Duncan INSIDE the no-ship. Meaning that it seems Leto's grand plan was starting to backfire as now there were greater levels of prescience than Leto ever knew. With Miles being able to locate no-ships, and Duncan's ascension in his abilities, now we see two beings (possible upgraded face dancers, a different form of "thinking machines") surpassing Leto's plan. Almost as if evolution itself was counteracting the Golden Path
I’ve always believed that Brian has been MOSTLY telling the truth about his father’s notes, but kept them a secret (unlike, say, Christopher Tolkien, who shared them freely), because he saw an opportunity to milk them far beyond what his dad intended and further his own career. Unlike humble Christopher, Brian has never come to grips with being better at editing and collaborating then at writing his own material. I think he always had enough material, IF he had been humble like Christopher, to finish the second to last book and then write an extensive appendix, and that’s IT. There’s definitely recognizable bits of his father in them both, but less and less as you go through them. The critical gap is definitely in the transition, perhaps a retcon, to turn the ostensible face dancer leaders into the Machine Lords. THAT was jarring. It suggests that there was a critical gap of detail in the notes regarding the “Final Boss”; just WHAT was their relationship with the exiled machines? What was in it for them?
I’m betting that Frank was still wrestling with how to structure this when he died, which in turn left Brain drifting without a paddle on this critical point. We would have forgiven him if he’d just be honest about it.
I’ve decided to acknowledge THOSE two as legitimate Canon, and his “Jihad” and “Crusade” books as Appendixes that might have a few legit drops in them, here and there. The rest is CRAP. Forget about them.
I'm still waiting for the Chapterhouse guide. I've listened to the God Emperor of Dune about 5 times now to go to sleep. That's a compliment by the way.
your intro music makes me so happy
I noped out of the expanded universe after the first 8 pages of Hunters of Dune. I can't believe BH did this to his father's work.
I've read them to see how far they had gone. It is a shallow of what Frank Herbert wrote.
Yes, the expanded universe's writing style and tone are jarringly different than the original, but they aren't that bad.
Shoutout for Using my Leto II artwork.
The idea of a Final/Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach (along with most of Brian/Kevin's interpretations of Frank's ideas) are a slap in the face to Frank Herbert's work.
Hunters and Sandworms were absolute trash. Everything about them was horrible.
The biggest missed opportunity I thought was that with gholas of Duncan and Leto II there was the potential for a conversation, a reflection on the nature of the Golden Path and the reign of the Good Emperor and Duncan's purpose, that didn't even begin to happen.
Probably for the best that something like that wasn't written by these two complete mugs.
No, it's the ultimate kwisatz haderach, who has shed his physical existence to become pure spirit...
I mean... Kevin J. Andersons other work is absolutely fucking brilliant tho. One of my top sci fi writers. But I agree that Hunters and Sandworms felt more like fan fic from somebody who didn't really understand the original work that well
I've always stood by the belief that the best fiction of the collaboration of BH and KJA was claiming they found those "notes and floppy disks."
I tried to give the prequels a fair shake when they first came out, but they contradicted outright statements Herbert had made. Also let's not forget that Frank Herbert looked at the Encyclopedia as a curiosity made by a friend and it's not canon either
I've loved Herbert's Dune universe since I first read the books in the 70s. I was devastated to learn of his passing and thought that I'd never learn what happened after the No Ship left Chapterhouse. Like all Dune fans, I was delighted to hear the report of "newly discovered" material that would produce a two novel ending to the epic saga. Anderson may be a decent novelist (I've read some of his Star Wars) but Sandworms & Hunters of Dune are obviously not Herbert's work. Hard as I tried, I couldn't find Herbert anywhere in the manuscripts. I was so disappointed. Although the names were familiar, I didn't recognize any of the characters. So much didn't make sense; pass logical plot progression; cohesive coherence. I haven't read another Brian Herbert title since. To each their own. If you enjoy Brian's extended Dune universe then I'm glad for you. In my opinion the books are opportunistic tools to accumulate wealth, not honor the work of Frank Herbert.
Honestly, with respect to your last sentence: the truth is probably both. The Herbert Frankensteinian abominations are both opportunistic tools to accumulate wealth AND *attempts* to honor Frank Herbert and finish out his Dune saga. BH's tragic flaw is hubris: he is not even close to the genius writer his father was (he's middling at best). Herbert's estate probably should have pulled a Wheel of Time and outsourced the sequel to a talented science fiction writer (this did work with Robert Jordan / Brandon Sanderson) but with BH possibly a significant part of that decision, the keys went to him and we have this flaming bag of poo.
And the Encyclopedia should be canon too. ....Or at least, we might as well think of it as canon, because anything BH has written which contradicts it is of inferior quality.
@@dante6985 But does BH actually write any of this? I honestly have no idea. My take is that his name is on the books to 'legitimize' the title, Dune. Anderson is the author; BH is the name drop advertisement campaign. A couple other examples of this 'fraud' perpetrated on readers is 'Tom Clancy' novels written long after his death. You're not getting a Clancy novel, you're getting someone else's work...marketed with Clancy's name...to make $$$. Clive Cussler is another example.
Subscribers who started following this channel after seeing the movie, but haven't read the book are going to be so confused by this.
The most polite way I've ever heard someone calling Brian out on his lies.
Excellent video. Always felt Omnius and Erasmus were shoehorned into the story to pay off the earlier Herbert/Anderson books. Hunters and Sandworms are well-crafted works, but I can't see Frank ever throwing the Leto II ghola to the worms (literally) like that.
You have no idea how much I love that your videos now take place in a holodeck basically, you do you man
Audibly gasped when I saw a video from you that said "1h ago"
good to see more dune vids quinn!
After a few pre-Dune books by Brian, I had a hard time trusting him to finish & expand the saga, with shoulders big enough to handle complex characters and highest stakes.
Because as good as a writer he is, his vision of Dune was really too "good guys vs bad dudes", with heroes on one side and villains on the other, "and that's it".
Franck Herbert stories spent a lot of time making his baddies (when the term was even pertinent) at least understandable, if not forgivable, because believable and relatable.
But I remember the exact moment, more than a decade ago, when Brian lost me : "Rabban kills a sandworm, because he's a bad guy who kills stuff and that makes him laugh, so he just does that for no reason whatsoever, all the time, and that's it, that's all we need to caracterize him, out of any context whatsoever, right ?"
As cruel and not particularily bright Rabban was, how this scene was delivered felt so shallow and empty that my ship left the Brian's orbit, and drifted into deep space, to never return, and explore other worlds out there.
Under Brian's hand, it felt a lot of deeper meanings and complex aspects of characters' personnalities were lost.
And empty vessels do not make for dense and meaningful journeys...
But at the end of the day, it's just my opinion too, and I'm not the son of Franck, neither a writer of so many books, so, what do I know and dare judge, I guess.
I love the originals and I love the expanded cosmos. Color me happy that they exist.
Marty & Daniel being thinking machines instead of face dancers also feels totally out of place
They really run the ghola thing into the ground...
"Ghola-mania" as someone put it.
“Gholas. He’s welcome to them.” - Daniel (who might just be Frank)
To be fair, Chapterhouse did vaguely hint that Scytale was going to create a whole bunch of gholas in Dune 7.
@@thegoodwin Gholapalooza
"I get what you are saying, but also *BLEEP* you."
I liked a lot of what Brain and Kevin did. I do agree with you about the Leto II ghola. It never really sat well with me. It would have made more sense for him to live out his life quietly and out of the way. Something the original never had a chance to experience, a normal life.
9:01 for reference.
I actually did not care for Hunters or Sandworms of Dune. Mostly because of the inconsistencies, and Leto II’s Ghola just being wasted like that… Bothered me. That and the Deus Ex Machina repeat conclusion. Personally I think the same idea as you. That particular Ghola would have found a quiet place and stayed out of the way.
The Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson books do not hold a candle to the genius in Frank Herbert's Dune Saga. The original books will always be superior.
Frank Herbert's son is just MILKING the DUNE franchise (there is ONLY 1 Frank herbert)
I think no matter how smart Anderson is a writer it's impossible to capture the same ideas and concepts as Herbert. It just can't ever be the same
I agree, it is hard to beat the master. But we mere mortals do enjoy expanding the universe. The universe and characters are sooo entertaining.
@@robertfrost1683 THERE'S REAL ORANGE JUICE THEN THERE'S THE WATERED DOWN VERSION......
(Doesn't quite quench the thirst now does it ???)
@göksu gün alioğlu I agree with everything you are saying, but I do not think that Leto II "started" the Golden Path; he just brought humanity back on track. There always WAS a Golden Path, the path of evolution that humanity had to take in order to survive; they just did get side-tracked at certain points, and there were steps that were important for the Golden Path (such as the Butlerian Jihad, which did away with humanity relying too much on "thinking machines" and letting their mental faculties go to waste und giving up their freedom to machines) and people who played an important role within it (such as the Bene Gesserits with their breeding program;, they were useful as a school of mental training but their problem was that they ended up wanting power and control for their own sake, they never were content with just being a means to an end).
Quinn you got the best intro music
I have always enjoyed the cliff hanger ending. While it may not have been F. Herbert's intent, it is reflective of humanity's ongoing story.
But it wasn't a cliff hanger ending. The man died. He meant to finish it.
Please, we need Chaperhouse as soon as possible. I am personally addicted to your narration of the books, tried audio book-not the same. HELP!
Agreed👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Hear! Hear!
It's the Spice Withdrawal, my friend. It's been rationed.
All praise Quinn, the Great Narrator (or Orator) of Dune!!
He"s not narrating the books, he's giving you a TL;DR version. Which is cool, but not the same as reading the book. Don't let the cliffs notes be your only experience of these books.. read them.
Dude I love how you were able to capture all the meanings of the Golden Path in the older videos. It is a shame that BH took some cuestionable choices in the following books. I liked that he was able to tackle Duncan pivotal role in the Kralizec at least
I just still dont understand how characters who are clearly described as highly evolved Facedancers, who have that as motivation for their actions, and which is a throughline right back to Messiah, could possibly then be revealed as actually being ancient thinking machines. That one plot point alone makes zero sense to me. If that was intentional misdirection by those characters for OUR benefit, why do it at all? Why break the 4th wall to give US misdirection? That just makes no sense to me within Herberts original narrative. The idea that Facedancers would become "wild talents" themselves much like the Atreides line makes perfect sense in the narrative. Ancient thinking machines who plant misdirection in the narrative is just too weird.
the sad but very simple reality is that KJA started typing before even bothering to reread (or skim) the 6 official novels in the series. It was a world famous cliffhanger we talked about all the time on newsgroups and web sites, long before the lie about "the notes" happened. What we can understand from this is that neither Brian nor Kevin even remembered that Chapterhouse ended with such a famous cliffhanger. That's so telling it's funny.
Also, they admitted finding Frank's boxes of character and faction dossiers (the real notes) after having written the House trilogy. They put the cart ahead of the horse and painted themselves into a corner through sheer laziness. Nothing else explains that abomination.
@@chouseification I honestly didnt enjoy the last two books that much and Im not even sure I would have liked Herbert's real ending judging by the way those books kind of flailed around with extraneous material. That said, the reprise of all of the major characters as clone babies sounds like the worst of 90s TV writing and not at all something I ever want to read.
@@patreekotime4578 yeah it was major cringe, and the funny part is that KJA probably thought he was doing fan service by having the old crowd show up. Nope, not at all. :D
@@chouseification fan service is lazy writing. The idea that some of these characters would show up as ghoulas in the future is certainly alluded to in Chapterhouse, but even there it made me cringe because I felt like Herbert was writing himself into a bad corner by changing all of the rules of cloning at the last minute. Like I said, I probably would not have enjoyed Herberts ending anyway. For my money, a good character is one that moves the story. When you have characters who can be erased and the story doesnt change, then those are just fluff. And the last two books had VERY FEW characters that actually moved the story and way too much fluff.
Frank Herbert wasn't always consistent with his own material; I think he was more interested in making each book interesting by itself as long as it fit the overarching themes of the series, than he was in letting himself be constrained by canon.
That being said, Frank's inconsistencies I think were a lot subtler than Brian and Kevin's. Disappointing, but it also wouldn't surprise me if their thinking really did run along the lines of "Well, Dad made lasguns purple in one book and red in another, so why can't Daniel and Marty be AIs instead of Face Dancers?"
Yeah, I didn't like it when Clarke did that to 3001, either. It's the author's IP to do with as he sees fit, but as a reader I'd like to know how tightly I should be hanging on to old material when I pick up a new book.
Please don't forget your pending video on CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE! Thank you very much! 😊👍
One of the first things I would look for after the creation of inter-dimensional travel would be a world where Frank Herbert lived to finish Dune. For me, his death in our reality is a similar level of tragedy as the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
Leto II as God emperor can't be cloned. Right? Leto II before his transformation into his God Emperor state was human. Post transformation, Leto II would turn into a chimera with a sandworm. Their genomes aren't merged, their cells interact together but their cellular nuclei remain separate
"Endosymbiosis"
@@whattheactualfk9190 yes, for the most part. However, considering Leto II is the first instance of such an attempted endosymbiosis, I suspect that both of their genomes are totally intact and therefore if you clone an entire organism from a single cell, which one is cloned depends on which nuclei you're using. But Leto II as God Emperor doesn't entirely fit into the endosymbiosis model because the God Emperor chimera is made from two complex multicellular organisms whereas endosymbiosis in the real world is between a multicellular organism and a single cell organism (broadly speaking).
@@maxmercer1931
If one organism was taken over at the genetic level by another or even merged stopping normal protein production and phenotypic expression etc, it would have resulted in (cell) death for said organism or both organisms by definition, so that wouldn't have happened.
It was still Leto albeit with new worm 'instincts' that sometimes could dominate.
So you're entirely correct.....
Still, 'sci fi'.
And Herbert was really quite vague as to how this was all possible and would work as it is fairly 'out there' and fantastical (rather than hard sci fi) as a story development anyway...
@@maxmercer1931 Yes, but when Leto is killed by falling into River Idaho abd disintegrates into a multitude of sandtrout, each fo these would carry a mixture of his genes and those of the worm. But I think the entity formed of Leto and the worm still comprised two different entities, with Leto depending more on the worm than vice versa. But didn't it also say that as soon as this process started with Leto II, he also stopped maturing and physically remained a 9-year-old boy forever? At any rate, I am always puzzled by all the fanart depicting Leto as the worm and giving him the face of a mature and even an old man - he should still have the face of a prepubescent boy, as he never entered puberty.
Who knows, cellular memory including memory stretching back for generations was total nonsense but a huge part of the Dune Universe. Leto II mused that his brain was no longer a vulnerability but mutated to spread throughout his body. His mutated human body remained on the riverbank after the sandtrout were released for DNA collection. One can assume the human DNA with some sort of cellular memory consistent with canon persisted. Leto could not reproduce, that doesn't mean his cellular DNA was destroyed.
I am not sure if it is just me being an older science fiction reader, and reader of what is now older science fiction, but I always found that so many of the works of authors I always found so fascinating and works I can go back to as I approach (very rapidly) my 50's are works that never truly ended, but ask me just to go back into them again and again, each time for story, language, ideas, nuances of character, description of landscapes. Sometimes, there is no need for these stories to have a satisfying, wrap it in a box, conclusion.
I also remember a few english teachers that would skin me alive for such a run on sentence, yet, whatever.
RELEASE THE NOTES!
which most likely never existed
They got together and figured they needed a clever excuse to piddle all over Frank's work. "I know - let's say it's what he wanted!"
I'm so glad that I've never read the non-FH books.
Having re-read them yeah... you do not miss anything.
Same, I don't think there's much to be gained from reading them, I'm hoping that the Sisterhood TV series ends up in development hell.
They were pretty enjoyable overall with some bad and some good. The sorceresses were stupid and pointless, Erasmus is the best character in the series with the possible exception of Leto, and humanity rejecting computers then becoming computers was begging for someone to see through the pointlessness
I think after the fh books the story was finished in my mind, like a cliffhanger but without actually continuing it
They weren't that bad - the ones I read.
There is controversy surrounding the notes that Brian Herbert and Anderson use. Supposedly the notes were found in a notebook labeled “Dune 7” when a safe deposit box of Frank Herbert’s was found and opened years after his death. Multiple third parties have attested to seeing the notebook, but no one has been allowed to look inside of the notebook, so the assumption is that junior and Anderson took lots of liberties with the notes and justified their actions as being Frank Herbert’s ideas.
Or it could be just a marketing trick.
My position is, if they say they found his notes, and followed them in planning out their own books, fine. I’m not going to question that, because I don’t need to. The plain and simple fact is that notes are just notes. Having read the plot details of their series, I seriously doubt that the author of the classic Dune novels would have actually gone forward with that storyline, and his epilogue to the series convinced me that, at the time he wrote it, he had no intention of moving forward with a seventh Dune book. But some shelved notes for a possible follow-up? As a writer, I can believe that. I write stuff all the time that I have no serious intention of sharing.
Kevin J. Anderson said in the interview with Preston Jacobs that the notes were messy and incopled and it was supper hard to orient just in drafts of published books.
I refuse to even read them. Seems like a son just humping his father's legacy. No thanks.
I wonder if they were written on golden tablets that could only be read by special golden sunglasses that only they had access to
That floating purple ball and the funny voice over is the best thing about your videos
I doubt very much that Omnius and Erasmus would have even been part of the story if Frank Herbert had written the ending.
Glad to see organism 9186 back. Thought we would have to do a wellness check on him,it's been so long.
I find there's a huge difference between the sequels and the prequels. I enjoy the prequels and find some manner of enjoyable rereads, the sequels? I haven't reread them.
Geeezzz... You have got to be the most geeked out Dune nerd I have ever come across...
And I am SOOOOOOO here for it!!!! Love the content!!!
My favorite part of Hunters of Dune was when the one woman tried to kill the baby Leto 2 ghola but he half transformed into a worm and stopped her, too bad they hand waved away where the cells came from by saying "it didn't matter". Leto 2 is the most complex character in Dune universe, and I would argue he wasn't treated very well in Sandworms of Dune.
Ya what a dead end that was . I got so excited after that encounter with baby Leto. But it was metal as fuck imagining him riding worms through synchrony wrecking shit lol
Yeah I think that conversation and answer would have been good. Too bad they flushed that story arc (and the character) down the toilet.
Quinn, you need to write your own sequels. I think you appreciate Frank Herbert's thought far more than Brian ever did.
Just saw the movie in the cinema on Saturday... had to hold in a piss for the last hour cause didn't want to miss a single moment of what is the Dune I've always wanted to see!
Dude, I really like your videos on Dune. I've been reading and rereading the first 6 for years trying to gain a clearer understanding of Herberts overarching story. You're videos have really helped me out in that. I can't bring myself to read the BH books really. I guess I'm a purist to the core. Thanks for your videos
Hey Quinn! Keep up the good work!
I've been a fan of Dune since the late 80s, my mother gave me her hard back copies she had from college. In all the years you cover the Dune universe so well and throughly
I am glad to hear some coverage of their work, flawed or not. The truth is, their work is interesting and did spark a lot of thought on my part about where Frank Gherbert would have ended the series and all of the possibilities of that universe of stories. Some of what was in their work was interesting. In the end I think that saga is better off for it even though I regard the post-Chapterhouse Dune stories as akin to informed speculation about where things would have ended up.
Thank you for another very interesting and well presented video. I am glad that organism ?? is back.
Your videos are getting more colorful and entertaining and I eagerly await the next one!
I agree that in my opinion Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen wrote a very unsatisfying ending for Frank Herbert's excellent saga. I really object to classifying Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune as part of the official canon as I really doubt that Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen wrote the two books based on Frank Herbert's notes.
I think that some of the earlier books by the two may have been influenced by notes Frank Herbert left behind but I think anything set after Chapterhouse Dune is entirely from their imagination.
As some other people have said in the comments many of the Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersen "Dune" novels resemble "fan fiction " more than novels that belong in the "Dune Universe ".
Please keep posting your videos as they are well done and informative and interesting.
Very interesting video and helps me understand more my problems with the Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson books. Btw your little skit gave me major Red Dwarf/Farscape vibes lol.
I have a feeling that more people would be into the exspanded universe books if it was written by someone else. Someone with proven experiance on epic fantasy. Someone like Brandon Sanderson perhaps
We need a Frank Herbert ghola
I agree, if they wanted an arc that spanned eons that had some sort of justification for the predatory and tyranical reign of the God Emperor, it would be a human Leo II ghoula with a Hwi Noree ghola living out theirs days content in their love and more importantly, the ultimate success of The Golden Path.
Jamás creí decir esto... pero suena muy bien. Aun que.. sería raro
I always love it when Quinn makes vids focused around Leto the 2nd
Lol nice! New framing device feels like the 90s
This might be similar to Game of Thrones TV show. They knew the ending but didn`t know how to get to it correctly.
Ummm...where is the Organism going to get an axlotl tank from...
Great episode as always, Quinn!
I agree w/ your overall take on the expanded Dune universe. It can be entertaining, but it's not as thought-provoking as Frank's works.
I started watching your lore videos and now this is the first time I am seeing this cool show in your video. Definitely real talent.
I'd be very surprised to find out that these "notes" even actually existed, especially if there were more than a few pages of brainstorming. I tried to read the Brian and Kevin stuff, but there were just too many things that directly contradicted what was laid out in the original novels, or additions that it would make no sense to never be mentioned again (I seem to remember Paul having an older brother who died or something like that. You're telling me that Leto and Jessica would just be like "Oh well, he's dead, time to never mention or think of him ever again!" Come on.) on top of the fact that they are written like pulp trash. I have nothing against pulp trash per se, I can enjoy it for what it is, but it's just SO different in tone from the originals that it's grating.
Edit: I did want to say, great video Quinn!
I'm gonna nitpick. I thought the prequels about Leto were... ok. Better than the other books they made. The idea you are referring to is that Leto had a previous lover before he met Jessica. She also bore him a bastard son and she also was kinda jealous that he refused to marry her or at least make her his official concubine so her kid could be his heir. This previous lover betrayed Leto in her jealousy and her betrayal killed his first son as an infant (she did not plan for the kid to die.)
...I actually thought that worked. It explained why characters like Thufir were so suspicious of Jessica. Because Jessica reminded them of this previous lover who DID betray the Duke. I had no problem with that idea. It was only in the later books that I thought the "new" Dune books got irredeemably bad.
@@Will-tn8kq I actually didn't remember the context at all, I hadn't read them since they came out, I just remember thinking it was absurd. The other thing that sticks out in my memory was wasn't there a House Major who was literally just a bunch of circus clowns? In a different book though I think, but they kind of run together for me now since I haven't read or thought much about them for about 20 years.
And to be fair, I seem to remember even kinda liking/not hating the ones set during the Butlerian Jihad. They were still pulpy trash, but separated enough from the originals that I could just enjoy the ride.
@@TheRukisama yes, I generally feel the same way. The Dune prequels were pulpy fan-fic that lacked the depth and especially the philosophy of the first ones. I am just nit-picking. The prequel books about Leto the first felt the least bad to me.
I have looked at Dune in such a different light since subscribing to this channel…thanks and have a good day!
We have to settle this problem once and for all. We need to create a Frank Herbert Ghola, so he can finish the series finally...
9:00 Had me LMAO. Great come back.
How to set yourself up for failure: Read the extended Dune universe expecting Frank's level of writing. You're setting yourself up to be disappointed.
They aren't spectacular, obviously, but they aren't burning garbage either. Don't forget, at the end of the day, we live in a capitalist society and I promise you if the DEU wasn't making money (or being good enough so people STILL buy them) they would have stopped writing them ages ago.
Just found this channel after watching dune. This channel is amazing!
Wow I never thought I'd be watching a video about the ghola of Leto II. A very amazing world dune is turning out to be.
I LOVE this production. It's great. Be awesome to keep it up.
It's been a long time since I read "God Emperor" so maybe I'm wrong, but I always got the impression that the reason Leto II made so many Duncan gholas was simply because he liked Duncan.
More so, because Duncan carries a uniqueness to always question whilst being loyal and “testing the limits”. In CH, Bolonda chooses not to kill Duncan because of his “talent” he is able to school the sisters due to awakening his serial memories amongst new talents (seeing the net). However, it took many lives for Duncan to come to such a point. Leto states that his genes are a benchmark in which the new humans are measured by, “he is the old” and also unknown based on what the Tleilax have added ( I have a feelings he represents the “convergence between machine & humans” as he was “not born via a birth canal” ) Considering that Duncan (original) had died prior to Leto’s birth, I would not put his gholas resurrections to Leto liking him, he had Ghani, Harq al ada, and many others to choose from.
@Paul Ridgeway but Leto also positioned him to made over and over again after Paul and himself. It’s is also hinted that Duncan holds an “ideal”. His ability to always question and drive the new, it took many iterations but I think Leto was always aware of this potential. Just like he could implant the message in the caves to the BGs in Heretics of Dune, I think it is more than a simple liking otherwise He Norrie or others would of got remade.
After reading in Hunters of Dune that Omnius was the Big Bad I laughed and returned the book to the library and didn't check out the next book.
That's what Real Fans of Sci-fi do! Quinn lost cool points by even considering that shit written by Herbert's progeny and various hucksters.
Thank you Quinn for finally covering the final two books. I like the way they ended the saga. That Idaho is the final Kwisatz Haderach makes perfect sense. Leto II was perfecting him over all of those generations. And thanks for not completely trashing the books. No, the writing is not as good, but so what.
Damn, thanks for the spoiler on Duncan. xD
The music in background towards end is nice
There is a simple explanation. Kevin J Anderson and especially Brian Herbert are talentless hacks who tainted the Dune series with their poor quality writing in order to cash in. Their books and Frank's books are miles apart in quality. Yes I'm the millionth person to say so and yes I'm still bitter about it.
Their writer quality is the least of it for me. It's the distorcion of his themes and ideas that is the most criminal. I mean Frank spent the first 3 books showing us why following charismatic leaders was dangerous only to have universe be ruled by a cybor Duncan and Murbella?! Which isn't even possible for them to do because of the Scattering! Also you start Hunters of Dune, completely forgetting the Ixian navigation machines already exist and eliminated the Guild's monol=poly on Space travel?!!
It's madness!
@@pedroribeiro7922 Oh sure but by quality I didn't just mean the technical side of writing but the themes themselves as well.
Fun video and THANK you for including art credits on the images.
I just finished Chapterhouse Dune and although I didn't particularly enjoy the last two books, I'm kind of bummed. It's clear Herbert had more planned and I would have liked to have seen what he had in mind.
And although I'm not interested in reading the non Frank Herbet Dune entries, I'd love to see more of them on this channel.
I agree with everything you said
The books his son wrote are ok. Not as good as Frank's but who can compare with original dune? One of the prequels his son wrote was about the humankind uprising against machines. Fairly well done. I think there's a few references to it in originals
Have you tried reading any of Frank Herbert's other books? None of them really measure up to Dune in my opinion, but they are still worthwhile. Several of them are very similar to Dune in theme and setting.
@@tobyvision I've read the one about zombies on the moon station or Mars station. That was good
Thanks Quinn - excellent as always. I am just starting the " Lady of Caladan" ! I agree there is a difference between Canon and the expanded universe. But I do enjoy the entertainment value of MORE of the story.
Leto the second is no joke one of the most interesting character in all of science fiction just the fact he had the memories of the human race. Is just baffling and I can't wait to see this new Dune movie just to see how they get to that point.
God emperor is and always will be my favorite
I have also had a hard time with the newer books in the series.
My understanding from Chapter House was that the many lifetimes of memories which Duncan possessed is what gave him his special abilities. And that when Erasmus absorbed his memories was when the true merger of man and machine occured. My opinion
The idea that the Omnius of the final 2 books would spend thousands of years in human form (as Daniel) seems to completely contradict the Omnius of the prequel books (who spent thousands of years as a super computer). By his own computing it would be like a human who spends thousands of years stepping on ants deciding to spend thousands of years as an ant.
That’s because a Tleilaxu scientist whilst creating the first spice substitute made the best face-dancers. They were capable of copying and pasting human memories to perfection. Then they decided to explore the universe or galaxy alone before finding Omnius (he wasn’t fully destroyed as remember an Omnius copy had used probes to colonise unknown parts of the universe or galaxy, and no one knew about it). Omnius incorporated these face dancers and used them to convert human memories into data. He could then use this data to understand humans, so that he’ll be able to defeat them, and now he’s more human. It’s also mentioned the all the AI in the Dune universe had already been programmed to feel emotions, which were deactivated for aeons. Erasmus had discovered some of this when he had a father-son bond to an adopted human. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that in the last 2 books that Omnius is now more human-like.
Congrats on The Onion giving credit to you and linking your video! I hope the A.V. Club is scouting you!
Some of the ghola kids had interesting arcs and these are among the very few elements of the EU that I actually enjoy. But there’s no way they got Leto’s cells, they’d never have dared to do so, and worst of all, they don’t even do anything with the Leto ghola that could have justified this nonsense.
That and I don’t think it was really necessary to have him in the story.
"Computer, burn, incinerate then flush Brian's books into the vacuum of space."
Glorified fan fiction. They're decent in their own right, but not even a glimmer of Frank's genius comes through. Theyre cool, but still just "fam-fiction" at the end of the day...
Also the dont keep ro the actual first novels.
@@mherndon right. Lots of discrepancies.
No fan would write this badly. No real fan could.
@@friedrudibega6384 good point.
@Ulises Leon yes but main plot elements and characters traits wrong from the first. For.instance they have RM Mohiem as Jessica's mother. Don't you think Paul or Jessica would have brought that up? Especially in messiah when they imprison her. In the same set they have her giving Baron Harrkonan diseases. The baron was not diseased (not physically) in the novels. That was a David Lynch idea. It shows they never really read or understood the originl works. It's a cash grab. Just like the left behind series. First few books were alright once you waded though all the misunderstandings of biblical text but then just became the same trash over and over because the books sold.
Much appreciated video I actually enjoyed the last two books and it's so nice to see someone actually talk about them and atleast set up a dialogue about the themes and changes.
What I liked about the change is that it showed leto achieving a sense of peace with himself.
I believe by leto II at the end of the day was more benetleilax than the rest of his benegeserit leaning family and he inadvertently created a kind of technology with the worm metamorphosis in god emperor. Through the manipulation of the worm genetics by including himself in its life cycle he became an infinite super consciousness norma canvas. Only he lost that connection once he separated. I believe the fusion gave him the greater context of his life in its entirety and helped him find his humanity within the worm ironically.
Love your videos man it would be cool to see more stuff for hunters and sandworms so much stuff at least worth talking about that I feel too many people raise their noses at
Well, via his fishspeaker, the Tleilaxu assassinated TGE so they just had to go to his carcass at the bottom of the mountain to get the cells, I suppose.
I love organism, he’s the best character on this show. I love his whinny voice.
I write fanfiction, and I'm in a lot of writing groups. We tend to share prompts and ideas, and it's interesting to see how we all start with the same premise and yet each story is unique. No matter how detailed Frank's notes were, Brian still can't see into his mind, so his interpretation of those notes will inevitably be different than the original intentions. So I get why some people don't like his sequels as much, but I'm sure glad he's at least trying, and giving us something :)
The best Dune 7 fanfic I've read thus far is "Dune: Revenant." It's more of a story treatment or a collection of conceptual chapters put together in chronological order. This fanfic nailed Frank Herbert's themes and has a better final battle of humanity vs evolved Tleilaxu people (not face dancers and no AI machines) and a better ending as well.
@@thegoodwinWhere can I read this?
I like these videos before I even see the content. The opening music is that good
there is always a chance that the notes discovered didn't exist and they were made up to promote the fiction of cokpleting frank's work, not brian's original. but we will probably never know. - i'm going to leave that typo, yay freud.
Maybe they do exist, but all that's written on them is "write more dune books"
Yeah, those are my thoughts, I wonder if those exists at all. My impression is that Brian tried to make a franchise similar to Star Wars.
Commercially they could make more money, now that the Brian's book have been on the market for a while, by releasing a new edition of the Dune Encyclopedia WITH Frank's notes as an addendum. I sure would buy that.