Dune - Entry #9

So more on the Dune appendices ...

Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes is an interesting report on the Bene Gesserit and Guild roles during the "Arrakis Affair" but little of it is expanded on in the books by Brian Herbert and little foreshadows the distant future.  However, the report references the confluence of paths to the future and the difficulty the Guild Navigators were having seeing into the future.  The tension between Paul Muad'Dib and the Guild has a lot to do with their prescient visions and the affect that each has on the other.  Another interesting point in the report is in the last paragraph where reference is made to the inefficient behavior of the Bene Gesserit and their handling of the whole affair starting with the testing of young Paul Atreides by Reverend Mother Mohiam.  In Paul of Dune, there will be passages indicating that several important Bene Gesserit sisters identified the failure of the sisterhood to manage the Kwisatz Haderach program properly.  Those include Princess Irulan, Lady Jessica, and Lady Margot Fenring.  We don't hear these three question the sisterhood in Dune so it is interesting when these three very important characters express their discontent.

Appendix IV: The Almanack en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses) provides short bios on some of the most important characters in Dune.  Here there are multiple examples of storylines that Frank Herbert had thought of and that Brian Herbert expanded on in his prequels.  Storylines referred to here, in Frank Herbert's book first published in 1965, include the banishment of Abulurd Harkonnen after the Battle of Corrin and Glossu Rabban's father denouncing the Harkonnen name.

Appendix V: Terminology of the Imperium provides the definition for many terms created by Frank Herbert and used in the Dune saga.  For example, "cone of silence" is defined and I am still stunned at this phrase that showed up a year later in TV episodes of Get Smart.  "Great Convention" is defined here as the rules that help maintain the power balance between the Guild, the Landsraad, and the Emperor.  The definition points out that all convention rules begin with "The forms must be obeyed ..." (Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition, p. 503) This line along with the phrase "kanly", also defined in the appendix, call to my mind the movie "Pirates of the Carribbean"!

"Great Mother" is defined as the feminine principle of space or Mother Space.  There is maybe only one time that there is an allusion to the Great Mother within Dune.  So the only reason one can fathom to have included it in the appendix to Dune, is because Frank Herbert had outlined who Norma Cenva was and what she would become. She is the Great Mother.

The breadth and depth of these definitions, and in fact all the appendices, is a testament to the genius of Frank Herbert.