No worries. On my best day I doubt that I could correctly spell the word from memory. Besides, that's just how we spell it, in our alphabet. You're probably too young to remember Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of Libya from about 1969 to 2011. There was never a consensus on the official, Western, spelling of his name. I suspect that the Tleilaxu suffer from the same problem.
could you do or have you done a video to compare the different eugenist strategies in the saga ? - Bene Gesserit searching for the Kwizats Haderach - the face dancers and Gholas of the Tleilaxu - the golden path of Leto the second what those tell us about how Frank Herbert deal with the stakes of transhumanism or darwinism (i don't know how to moraly juge those different strategies) ? at least aknowledging that all lead to great cataclysms ! ( the rise of the Atreides to the empire : even Paul says that in book 2 ; the destruction of the tleilaxu by honored matress and the rebellion of some face dancers ;; the rise of the honored matress through the golden path : did leto 2 thought it was a fair price for the final project ?). my point is can we use those narrations to find the thoughts of Frank Herbert behind ?
One large problem in the original books with the Facedancers improved abilities to absorb memories and personality is that many of them forgot they were imposters playing a role and started to believe they were the real, original, person they were impersonating.
Something tells me the Facedancers were the inspiration for GRRM's Faceless Men in ASOIAF. Especially when it comes to them acting as spies and assassins taking the appearance of anyone to go undetected.
I believe GRRM has confirmed that he was inspired by Dune in both story elements and worldbuildig, which isn't surprising since Dune is to science fiction and science fantasy what LotR is to fantasy.
@@magiv4205 I have never heard him giving any credit to Frank Harbert whatsoever, but please share a link if you have one. The similarities are obvious to me anyway.
"Dune saga is about the different ways humanity can develop", good insight, I never considered this really. If there is any relationship between the future of humanity and quantum physics or thermodynamics, humanity develops in all possible ways simultaneously!
I have never considered Brian Herbert's work as anything other than fan fiction. Unlike some in his father's epic series, he certainly does not have the ability to call upon his ancestors' memories. I would be convinced to take another look if the writing style was consistent, of the same depth and richness, and without unnecessary contradictions.
I’ve recently tried to give Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson’s works another try - they were far worse than I remembered. Not only are the content and the concepts explored simplistic compared to the original Frank Herbert novels and occasionally contradict facts established the original series, the writing style is abysmal. I couldn’t keep reading.
I think Brian could have done better by his father and his father's fan if he had "given" the notes to several writers and asked them to come up with a finale to his father's work.
I've always thought the Tleilaxu tanks were a further refinement of the idea Herbert originally posited in "Hellstrom's Hive", with the hive's "stumps"; essentially mindless female torsos kept alive for breeding purposes.
@@Unit-3475 Interestingly, the name Hellstrom isn't Herbert's invention. It comes from a pseudo-documentary in the 70's about how insects were destined to rule the world called "The Hellstrom Chronicles". Herbert wrote the book to explore what kind of person would make such a film.
The more I hear about the Brian Herbert's Dune stuff the happier I am that when I first saw it, I noticed KJA's name on the cover and passed on them entirely.
As long as you go in with the mentality that it isn’t Frank Herbert’s Dune and more Star War style fan fiction. Then it’s ok. Since I’ve read a lot of the SW EU; it means I’ve read a lot of KJA. Nu Dune is a lot like that.
@@happydogg312 that's how I feel too. I ache for more... But I don't trust anyone else to tell it. They'd have to be Frank reincarnated to get it right.
@@kyblackman can’t argue that. They started this with a supposed outline and notes written by Frank Herbert. It’s never surfaced and I personally believe it was a sales tactic.
I read all the original frank herbert books, but your content brought me so much closer to the source and to really understanding the depth of it all. Thanks!
I ALSO support the Original Frank Herbert Vision of Face Dancers (versus the Robots) being this simple line of logic if Face dancer A: acquires a personality, and B: acquires a personality. and they 'swap' then A & B both have acquired two personalities. And the rest is simply a linear scaling of personalities into a hive mind which would easily rivaled the B.G. Inherited Memories. Which would be MASSIVE FWIW
@@FromRussiaWithLuv007 I agree. It would have been a great TV show or mini-series 10 years ago, but not in 2021 sadly. If they did it now, they'd just WOKE up the story into a steaming pile of race/gender/sexuality swapped identity politics garbage. I'm hoping it's not too bad with DV's Dune. But with a TV series, they'd really muck it up using it as a "platform for their message."
Most Excellent Quinn, I would rather speculate about these advanced Face Dancer faction. How many memories do they posses? What technologies, wisdom is in their memory? How far into the past do they remember? And can they Absorb The God Emperor's Future-Memory. Frank was going somewhere with this, it was a powerful storyline, that lay forward into far more complex territory than a conflict between Man & Machine.
3 года назад
Keep them Ideas coming! Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
I can take or leave most of Brian & Kevin's sequels, but the revelation of the third component of the Honored Matres' origins as liberated tanks was so satisfying to read. It's fascinating seeing what sorts of atrocities and "disfigurements of the soul" humanity is willing to put up with at various points in Dune and at what point they say "enough."
Another parallel that suggests Marty and Daniel were intended to be face dancers is that, like Alia, their personalities seem to have been derived from absorbing some essence of other people's lives, making me wonder if they are a kind of bio-tech "abomination."
IDK. I think that's what they were but who knows what they had become. Each race seems to have very different sets of morality. The Tlelexu are nationalists to the extreme. The BG are straight up whiches. Firemen are religious fanatics, etc. Who knows what they saw as right and good? It's not out of the realm of possibility that what Daniel and Marty are from a former race of face changers that came into contact with the omicron consciousness and chose to become something of it. Advanced cybernetics, bionetics, who knows. They seem to have powers that make the God Emperor look like a novice, and he rules the galaxy for 4 centuries based on his power alone. These two seem to be able to interdementianally warp space using mathematical formulas that the greatest scientists can't even grasp. I could see Herbert having a note like that. Doesn't mean he was gonna use it. And it would seem important if you're trying to recreate his work. I think the way they did it is cheesy, but...
This right here. This is why I refuse to even consider reading the sequels. The very premise upon which they were built upon is false and deliberately contradicts the ending of the final book. That's not a sequel, that's just straight up bad fanfiction--retconning stuff just for the sake of writing. Nope. Sorry. I won't.
Hang on a second; I never read past God Emperor, and folks always made it seem like Daniel and Marty were only *implied* to be rogue Face Dancers, and so the robot reveal is okay, but their quotes in this video practically state it outright! What the hell? "Frank's notes" my ass, Brian.
@@cedriceric9730 there is no hint of machine at all in the original texts IMO. Genetic experiments unbounded by thier creators and capable of absorbing everything about anyone they kill until they have become godlike in thier power. Im not sure why machines would play into that at all. Its far more ominuos WITHOUT machine intelligence IMO.
i literally just finished the last book, which ends with that quote in the video. Knowing that the sequels directly contradict this ending made me certain I will never read nor consider those sequels canon.
Yeah, The end of Chapterhouse is pretty clear that Marty and Daniel are Face Dancers of some kind. They still respect Bene Tleilax Masters but also consider themselves to have outgrown them, perhaps to the point where they are now the ones in charge. Frank's notes and writings also indicate that Daniel and Marty also represented Frank and his wife, Bev. Frank was saying that his characters (those who escaped the net) were now beyond his control and that their future was a mystery that might never be solved. Franks notes for Dune 7 might have dealt with identifying the greater enemy that had sent the Honored Matres fleeing back into the old empire. The hints are that their methods were very much biological, hence the Honored Matres desperation to gain Bene Gesserit biological control abilities. That alone hints strongly at a tleilaxu link so Face Dancer descendants might be a reasonable guess. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson subverted all of that completely - a little like they completely subverted the Butlerian Jihad. Having been entrusted with Frank's notes for the possible 7th novel after Chapterhouse - they churned out 20 books, in other words more than triple the actual novels by Frank. There is no way they used Frank's notes for ONE novel as the source material for 20 books.
I always thought of Marty and Daniel as THE most human of all of Dune. You have all these different factions and they either don't breed with other groups, very rarely breed with other groups, or selectively breed with other groups to control the gene pool. Their ability to take on the memories, understanding and personas of everyone allows them to bypass the need to reproduce in order to evolve. They are what would happen if you combined ALL the groups and let it run wild. Take the Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilaxu, The Fish Speakers, The Honored Matres, The Ixians, The Atreides, The Harkonnens, and so on along with Kwisatz Haderach abilities to see down both male and female lines and you have beings with all the knowledge of nearly every human being (baring those who never passed on their genes), every secret, every master plan, every ability in combat, politics, sexuality, all scientific knowledge, and so on. In my opinion that is what the Face Dancers became. That would explain why the fearsome Honored Matres had to run away in terror from such beings.
The ability to gather thousands of personalities and their memories and utilize them at will is much akin to the results of the Reverend Mothers using the Water of Life to acquire their ancestral personalities and wisdom. I wonder if they would eventually acquire their own Kwisatz Haderach
The major theme of Dune is that no one entity should hold absolute power. Before the Butlerian Jihad, Thinking Machines held absolute power, that caused humanity to regress. Paul held absolute power and that led to another Jihad. Leto II had absolute power, but decided that he had to make certain that nobody could have that amount of power again.. The Face Dancers were meant to mirror the Thinking Machine. Tools with no morality that had gained the ability to wield an astronomical amount power over humanity. I think the final book would've been about the Face Dancers displaying absolute tyranny over the Empire with their prescience..
Dammit Quinn I would love a whole series of dune audiobooks read by you. Call Brian Herbert and make that happen, won’t ya? I know you gotta have him on speed dial, right? ;)
What do you mean it comes out nowhere? WHAT~ just because they clearly refer to themselves as Facedancers and explain how they got that way doesn't mean they're not Facedancers (which they are)
I feel like the Face Dancers were mismanaged by Herbert. In Messiah, the face dancer Scytale was a very able character with authority over the other conspirators, even the reverend mother never seemed to have any advantage over him. Then in later novels the Face Dancers were "mules", and described more as just flesh golems, zombie like creatures who had no free will and just did what they were told. Though they preformed well in a given role, that was the extent of it, while Scytale worked more like the assassin in The Day Of The Jackal.
@@kyblackman Scytale is still around in Chapterhouse, is in fact the last Bene Tleilaxu in existence. He carries inside of him in a null-entropy capsule, the entire genetic inheritance of the Tleilaxu.
Scytale was the first to unlock a Ghola's (clone?) memories from a previous life with Duncan Idaho in the pentultimate scene of Dune Messiah. It was known that they were working on the technique, but Scytale was the first to achieve it via a psychic break. Figures he would become the last Tlielaxu Master alive, which begs the question, Were Tlielaxu Masters face dancers?
@@davidconner-shover51 Same culture same people. Like BG, the difference between the "boss" and the poor girls selling their body and soul for the cause. It does not really matters.
The bit with Marty and Daniel not being face dancers seems to directly contradict the text. And the idea of the Bene Geserit freeing some of the Axlotl tank "women" seems to as well. My memory isnt great, but my impression was that the Axlotl tanks were so mutated for the purpose of IVF breeding that they were almost unrecognizable as human females and were both immobile and mentally regressed to the point of being non-thinking biological machines. Essentially animated flesh. So the idea that they would be able to escape that life, let alone harbor anger for the Masters seems very odd to me. It seems like Brian was getting his ideas from looking at fan art of sexy biomechanicals instead of reading the source material.
It's an open secret that there was some bad blood between Brian and Frank. I think its feasible that Brian takes a little joy in ruining Frank's narratives and inserting his own "fan-fiction" rewrites.
I got the same impression. A fresh, new face dancer is merely a tool to be used by a master, and only develops true awareness and independence through an unseen consequence of it's specific function. Why would axolotl tanks be any different?
Sorry to interrupt but isn't Dune the series with so-called 'genetic memory' that is so unrealistic that in the third of the original novels the Baron was able to take over Alia's personality? If that's the case, then why wouldn't 'genetic memory' of being fully human and independent exist in the Axlotl tanks? I mean it's stupid magic and bad writing to have genetic memory work that way but if its going to work that way ("Possession" basically) in this case, then why not? Otherwise, I can only imagine a Reverends Mother or even normal woman finding this secret out and vowing revenge...
@@remo27 You're not the only one to notice the suspicious telepathy-and-fortune-telling-but-totally-realistic-and-thuper-thientific-you-guys-honest powers that some of Frank's characters have. 😉 But again, this is something that has been bred into the Bene Gesserit and Kwizats Haderachs over eons. Introducing fish eater bloodlines into their millenia-long eugenics program might be one thing, but if axolotl tanks are as we've interpreted here, it might be a bit more tricksy. For one thing, could you introduce axolotl tank genes into a bloodline without Tleilaxu-style genetic manipulation? Can axolotl tanks 'breed' in the usual human fashion, or does it require a lot of esoteric and mechanical Tleilaxu procedures? Would the Bene Gesserit even contemplate using those 'dirty Tleilaxu' methods over their own ingrained 'studbook' ways?
@@remo27 Because Alia has been woken in a unique way , that is only possible for a being like her, while Axolotl tanks have literally been striped away of any humanity and sentient capability to the point of being flesh machines. The idea of a group of rouge or lost Benne Gesserit "rescuing" the Axolotl tanks and reverse engineering back to humans is just too far fetched, I don't see the Benne Geserit going all "sorority" about beings that arent even human anymore.
Taraza didn't knew for sure, nobody knew for sure, until she probed The Tleilaxu Ambassador (forgot his name) and he bought the bait and confirmed her guess with his reaction. Also, face dancers tidbit about whistling for those who didn't read the books-it was a safety feature imprinted into all of face dancers by their masters, a secret means of controlling face dancers and giving absolute orders to them. New gen face dancers could brake away from the imprinting, making it ineffective. So every time a captured Master would see those two, he'd whistle at them, trying to place them under his control, only to get," really, dude," reaction out of them. At the time of reading it, I've found it hilarious, considering all the seriousness and doom&gloom tone the entire series had.
Hey Quinn, do you think there is enough material and interest to do a video on the religion that sprang up around Paul after he rose to prominence within the Fremen and after he took power over the imperium?
I guess, never having read the post Frank Herbert _Dune_ stuff, that I never realized there was doubt about Daniel and Marty being FaceDancers. It's been a while since I read Frank's stuff, but I remember the realization hitting me about who they were. I don't think I'd like Brian's stuff if it contradicts what his father wrote.
It seemed pretty fundamental to their role in the story that Chapterhouse was building to. Im upset we will never know what he really intended for the finale.
@@colinpee Brian Herbert says they based the sequels off of extensive notes that his father had left in a safe deposit box. There would be no reason for him to lie about that. In that regard we would have to consider them canon.
@@mooahhdeeb yeah I felt kinda empty when I finished it knowing it was the end of his saga. I've read a few of his sons books they are ok I'm reluctant to finish his version of the series notes or not he's not his father
The discrepancy between Chapter House's characterization of the 2 and what I've heard the "sequels" present, is why I haven't been interested in reading the sequels at all... It's like they fundamentally don't understand what's going on, so how could the stories be considered a true continuation? (just like the discrepancy between the machines and the machine's masters, in the machine crusades being changed like it was... just doesn't fit again... a fundamental misunderstanding at the very core of the basis for the stories, and I can't believe that these stories were based off the original author's notes.
They say that it was based off of the original author's notes, but we don't see an actual proof of the "so called notes". Like, seeing the actual copies of it themselves. Some say that this whole "we found the notes thing" could be something that the KJA and BH made up. Also, KJA and BH do admit in some interview that Omnius and Erasmus (from their Butlerian Jihad books) are of their own creation. Not something that the original Dune author created.
Even if the notes existed it's pretty clear that the final book distorted the story to an enormous degree in order to fit in the "prequels" Honestly speaking having the saga ending with tired trope of the fight against the super evil AI is a total let down
@@thegoodwin Treat the story of the found notes the same way you’d treat the disclaimer “based on a true story” at the start of a movie. Or the even better cop-out, “Inspired by true events.”
Another more subtle problem with Face Dancers was that they became so adept at mimicking the personality of the original person that they began to think and act exactly as the original would have done, so they were no longer under the control of the Tleilaxu masters who made them.
I was always impressed with the idea for their religion that the study of genetics was reading the writings of God. They're kind of right, assuming whatever forces caused our creation might be described as a God. Aquinas' described God as something capable of moving other things without having first been moved (the unmoved mover) which was given the seal of approval by the Catholic church (unlike that heretic Galileo thinking the Earth wasn't the center of the universe). It's really a lot like human religion mixed with science, it's such wonderful universe building.
You should learn more about the galileo incident. He went against everyone at the time, and was persecuted for that. The church barely had anything to do with it.
I don't think so. The way they talk to each other, they seem to only absorb memories and personalities, not powers. However, it seems they are the ones who caught each and every BG colonization ship sent out; the others never made it past the "net" perceived by Duncan. So they may have absorbed the memories of hundreds or thousands of Bene Gesserit, including who knows how many reverend mothers. Would this have included all of the ancestral memories they had access to? I would guess not, but it would include all of the memories of them accessing ancestral memories. Even restricted to just that would be formidable. This ties into a theme of Chapterhouse. The Bene Gesserit look down upon the HM for having trapped themselves in a vicious cycle of endless voracious consumption. But it seems that Daniel and Marty have achieved an enlightened higher form of existence through just that - endless voracious consumption.
I find it odd that Marty and Daniel were ret-conned as thinking machines for the Brian Herbert books, given that they explicitly identify themselves as Face Dancers in the quoted passage. All I can think is that BH and Kevin J Anderson wanted to reintroduce the thinking machines as callback to the prequel novels, but couldn't figure out how to fit in both thinking machines and emancipated Face Dancers as antagonists, so they merged them.
I really wish the idea of Daniel and Marty being free facedancers had been more thoroughly explored in whichever cannon. Developing wisdom through multiple personality absorption gives them a similarity, and perhaps parity, with the Bene Geserit and their genetic memories. Wisdom and power derived from the synthesis of many experiences.
The Marty and Daniel are clearly evolved Face Dancers. It fits so well that different groups in Duniverse develop Kwisach Haderach on their own. Paul/Alia, Leto II, Ghola Duncan Idaho, Marty and Daniel. Every one of them have some kind of way to get experiences of other humans be it of their ancestors, of the previous gholas or by touching and taking forms of other humans. And that is so cool idea.
Ghola Idaho wasn't a Kwisach Haderach, he had prescient abilities being a mentat which wasn't uncommon. Prescience wasn't uncommon at all in the Dune universe, all a Kwisach Haderach was, was a Bene Gesserit that had access to the genetic memories of both male and female ancestry.
I particularly like Erasmus a lot. I think the authors did a good job of creating an extremely repulsive figure. But his and Omnius's return was pretty silly.
@@healthmain I share your opinion. it's ok. It's not in the same league as the original saga, but it has fun chapters such as the first battle in the first book. The action scenes remind me a little of the Old Man's War (a very fun book). There are some charismatic characters too, like Aurelius Venport. But yeah, I also think they're unnecessary books.
I never got past "Children of Dune." I get the feeling that the Tleilaxu interpreted the strictures on computers from the Butlerian Jihad by tinkering with what humans are on a genetic level. The rest of the Galactic population mostly tinkered with human potential as we already are.
The goals of the factions were to surpass humanity and create superhumans to dominate the other factions. How they did it was radically different: Ixians: technology and forbidden machine intelligence, Tleilaxu: genetic engineering, Spacing Guild: mutate humans with Spice, and the Bene Gesserit: long-term breeding programs and developing specialized training. The Houses aided the Bene Gesserit by accepting sisters and acolytes as concubines and wives, thus helping the breeding program. The Bene Gesserit women would be highly desirable as they were trained to be elegant and wise and created for their extreme beauty. The Bene Gesserit eventually absorbed the Mentat techniques into their program as the pure Mentat schools were brutally suppressed by the God Emperor.
You should definitely consider picking up again with God Emperor of Dune. It's one of the weirdest and most brilliant books I've ever read, definitely the highlight of the series.
...for me Dune, Dune Mesiah and Children of Dune are the weakest books. God Emperor , Heretics and Chapterhouse are AMAZING works of art. But then again, I might be wrong. As I may be, I'm of those who like BH and KJA works on Dune. So take it with a grain of salt. Btw, that first drawing of a tleilaxu, who did it? Was just like I imagined them to be! 💕
@@ppowerman5000 I liked the House prequels but the rest of Brian's and Kevin's works on the saga were to me terribly written. Interesting ideas, badly told. I will say that they were interesting enough that I made it through but I can't reread them, unlike the original saga and the House trilogy.
Quinn I hit the like button before you remind me. Jeez every time with this guy lol. I'm kidding of course but not about the click. I hit that as soon as I hear the 🎶 DO do DO do DO do 🎶 of your intro
This western society of ours. I really feel that we are becoming more and more nihilist/apathic all the time (though we always try to show the opposite). So I would not be surpriced if we are going towards something like Tielaxu at some point in the future.
@@milesteg8627 My thoughts exactly, a totalitarian regime... not to call them out explicitly because I value my head! How many societies today are similar to this?
There is a long standing divide in western science fiction about genetic engineering of humans. Most classic science fiction places modern day humans in far flung circumstances of advanced science. In reality we will grapple with post-human forms long before any form of space habitation. It is very clear that Herbert was on the side of revulsion at genetic engineering and praise of developing the existing mind.
I have to agree that Marty and Daniel were Face Dancers, there is little in my mind about that; so where did Brian Herbert get the Idea that they were Erasmus and Omnius?????
Every time I watch Game of Thrones or read ASOIAF it reminds me more and more of Dune; House Stark= House Atreides House Bolton= House Harkonnen Faceless Men= Face dancers Red priestesses= Bene Gesserit Dragons= Sandworms Dothraki= Fremen Azor Ahai= Mahdi Maesters= Mentats Etc, etc.....the influence is totally there.
@@WonkelDee I picked House Bolton because of all the torture and cruelty they're associated with. Yes, Lannister is a good runner up but I think the Boltons are more evil and comparable to the Harkonnens. Also, the feud between the Boltons and Starks is ancient just like the Harkonnens and Atreides. The Boltons used to wear flayed Starks skins for capes. Pure evil.
@@WonkelDee You're welcome. We all hated Joffrey but he is like a fairy princess compared to Roose Bolton's bastard, Ramsey. Keep watching and you'll see how evil he really is despite his depravity being watered down in the show. Although the Boltons start off as sworn Stark supporters, their hatred of them is still very much alive and then of course there is that house sigil of theirs with the flayed man. They are actually proud of their cruelty.
Agreed. I made a similar scheme. I would add Lannister: House Corrino Tywin: Emperor Wildlings: Fremen Dothraki: Sardaukar Paul Atreides: Jon Snow (similar character journey) Thufir Hawat: Varys Piter de Vries: Petyr Litttlefinger Baelish (similar name, coincidence?)
Its the hubris of humankind all over again. The Thinking Machines came about because we pushed computer AI technology to its max, and Marty and Daniel came about because we pushed genetic technology to the max. Our hubris and failure to learn from our past errors will always lead to a repetition of the same consequences. THATS why Marty and Daniel should have always been Face Dancers and not Omnius and Erasmus. Dune is FULL of these lessons we fail to learn from.
I viewed Daniel and Marty absorbing personalities as similar to the Bene Gesserit unlocking ancestral memories. They could only unlock female memories while the kwisatz haderach could unlock male and female, but still only those of his ancestors. By the time of Chapterhouse Dune the sisters could share their memories with another sister as they died, somewhat upping the game of catch the ancestral line. Then we have face dancers that can absorb any old personality they come in contact with.
More of a science fiction fairytale than TRUE science fiction, the whole ''Dune'' affair really, but it's a nice fairytale of the kind. Better than Star Wars anyway.
I have red all the books from series, but as time goes bye and as i am getting older end also more immersed in reading philosophy, philosophy and history, world of dune that i loved so much , is becoming more and more repulsive and ugly to me, because of all that extrem wiew of the world that wreigher is presenting true books, that is so extremely "liberal", so extremely far left, postmodern, and post human, that is unbelievable.And i wonder about mind behind this work, what inner forces, what "inner demons" pushes to make all of that extreams.
