God Emperor of Dune – Entry #5

Every once in a while I find discrepancies and there is one on page 189.  The most recent Duncan Idaho ghola and Siona are talking and Siona asks how Leto was in Duncan’s original life.  Duncan responded with “Which one?” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Siona replied “Yes, I fogot there were two – the grandfather and our Leto.  I mean our Leto, of course” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Duncan’s answer was “He was just a child, that’s all I know” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Now perhaps this is ambiguous enough but the original Duncan Idaho died on the night that young Paul Atreides was first given sanctuary among the Fremen.  The first Duncan Idaho ghola knew the boy child Leto, Paul Atreides’ son, but the gholas do not have the memories of the other gholas.

Over the next fifty pages, I came across so many things to quote that I am not going to comment on them.  I will just store them here to ponder.

Religion suppresses curiosity.  What I do subtracts from the worshipper.  Thus it is that eventually I will do nothing, giving it all back to frightened people who will find themselves on that day alone and forced to act for themselves.

-- The Stolen Journals

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 198)

     Leto had said something about exploding violence.  Even as he watched the women at their silent prayer, Idaho recalled what Leto had said: “Men are susceptible to class fixations.  They create layered societies.  The layered society is an ultimate invitation to violence.  It does not fall apart.  It explodes.”

     “Women never do this?”

     “Not unless they are almost completely male dominated or locked into a male role model.”

     “The sexes can’t be that different!”

     “But they are.  Women make common cause based on their sex, a cause which transcends, class and caste.  That is why I let my women hold the reins.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 206)

     “I have been forming this human society, shaping it for more than three thousand years, opening a door out of adolescence for the entire species, “ Leto had said.

     “Nothing you say explains a female army!”  Idaho had protested.

     “Rape is foreign to women, Duncan.  You ask for a sex-rooted behavioral difference?  There’s one.”

     “Stop changing the subject!”

     “I do not change it.  Rape was always the pay-off in male military conquest.  Males did not have to abandon any of their adolescent fantasies while engaging in rape.”

     Idaho recalled the glowering anger which had come over him at this thrust.

     “My houris tame the males,” Leto said.  “It is domestication, a thing that females know from eons of necessity.”

     Idaho stared wordlessly at Leto’s cowled face.

     “To tame,” Leto said.  “To fit into some orderly survival pattern.  Women learned it at the hands of men; now men learn at the hands of women.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 209)

     Hwi shook the tears from her face.  The Inquisitors of Ix would react with rage against Tleilax.  Would Ix believe her report?  Everyone in her Embassy taken over by Face Dancers!  It was difficult to believe.

     “Everyone?” she asked.

     “The Face Dancers had no reason to leave any of your original people alive.  You would have been next.”

     She shuddered.

     “They delayed, “ he [Leto] said, “because they knew they would have to copy you with a precision to defy my sense.  They are not sure about my abilities.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, pp. 216-217)

     “Think on the price I pay,” he [Leto] said.  “every descendant part of me will carry some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless.”

     She [Hwi] put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.

     “This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 219)

     Leto smiled.  “Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 223)

     “This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom.  But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.” [Leto in conversation with Hwi]

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 238)

To wrap up this entry, one more passage from a conversation between Leto and Hwi.  These conversations are so intense as Leto shares his vision and wisdom in depth because of Hwi’s perception and intelligence.

     “But your Fish Speakers are …”

     “They teach about survival,” he said.

     Her eyes went wide with understanding.  “The survivors.  Of course!”

     “How precious you are,” he said.  “How rare and precious.  Bless the Ixians!”

     “And curse them?

     “That, too.”

     “I did not think I could ever understand about your Fish Speakers,” she said.

     “Not even Moneo sees it,” he said.  “And I despair of the Duncans.”

     “You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it,” she said.

     “And it’s the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living.  Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 239)