Dune Messiah - Entry #1

In the very beginning of Dune Messiah, I appreciate Brian Herbert’s added parts of the story as the book opens with Excerpts from the Death Cell Interview with Bronso of IX.  I remember first reading Dune Messiah and wondering who Bronso was.  Not only do we know who Bronso is from Paul of Dune, but it becomes clear why he is an important character in Winds of Dune.

Another story that is now clarified from Paul of Dune concerns the aspirations of the Tleilaxu to create their own Kwisatz Haderach.  Here is an exchange between the conspirators in Dune Messiah which were Edric the Navigator, Scytale the Face Dancer, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, and Princess Irulan:

     “How has Idaho been conditioned?” Irulan asked.

     “Idaho?” Edric asked, looking at the Tleilaxu.  “Do you know of an Idaho, Scytale?”

     "We sold you a creature called Hayt,” Scytale said.

     “Ah, yes – Hayt,” Edric said.  “Why did you sell him to us?”

     “Because we once bred a kwisatz haderach of our own,” Scytale said.

      With a quick movement of her old head, the Reverend Mother looked up at him.  “You didn’t tell us that!” she accused.

     “You didn’t ask,” Scytale said.

     “How did you overcome your kwisatz haderach?” Irulan asked.

     “A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation,” Scytale said.

     “I do not understand,” Edric ventured.

     “He killed himself,” the Reverend Mother growled.

(Dune Messiah, p. 22)

Without the story of Thallo from Paul of Dune, this exchange left me cold.  But now, I can see Thallo, I recall how he knew he wasn’t perfect, and I picture him explaining this to Marie on the day he died.  And although he meant to kill himself along with many others, Marie killed him and saved a full-scale disaster.

As this conversation between the conspirators continues, we get a glimpse in to the Tleilaxu plans for Hayt/Idaho.

How devious she must not guess, Scytale thought.  When this is done, we will possess a kwisatz haderach we can control.  These others will possess nothing.

(Dune Messiah, p. 23)

Not very long after, Paul finds out that the Reverend Mother is in a Guild Heighliner above Arrakis and has her arrested.  I just really liked this exchange between the Qizara and the Mohiam:

     “It came to our attention that you were aboard,” the Qizara said.  “Have you forgotten that you are denied permission to set foot on the holy planet?”

     “I am not on Arrakis,” she said.  “I’m a passenger on a Guild Heighliner in free space.”

     “There is no such thing as free space, Madame.”

(Dune Messiah, p. 85)

The best thing about Dune Messiah is the ghola, Hayt, and the return of Duncan Idaho.  The best scenes are most often with Hayt/Idaho.  The interplay between Hayt and Alia and also between Hayt and Paul are fabulous.  The combination of characteristics the Tleilaxu decided to incorporate in this ghola make for very interesting conversations.  I mean really … a Zensunni Mentat Swordmaster!

The banter between him and Alia is just great.  I can’t repeat all the conversations but there was one fairly on where Alia wanted to know what Hayt had said to Paul.

     “I told him that to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”

     She shook her head.  “That’s … that’s …”

     “A bitter pill,” he said, watching the guards run toward them across the roof, taking up their escort positions.

     “Bitter nonsense!”

     “The greatest palatinate earl and the lowliest stipendiary serf share the same problem.  You cannot hire a mentat or any other intellect to solve it for you.  There is no writ of inquest or calling of witnesses to provide answers.  No servant – or disciple – can dress the wound.  You dress it yourself or continue bleeding for all to see.”

(Dune Messiah, p. 127)

Paul of Dune – Entry #3

“But a normal child she was not. And neither was her new playmate.” (Paul of Dune, p. 544)

This was a comment about Alia and the playmate was Marie, the daughter of Bene Gesserit trained Margot and the ex-emperor’s friend Count Fenring who was also a master assassin.  Marie’s natural father was Feyd Rautha Harkonnen and she was conceived as part of a Bene Gesserit breeding program.  What a pair … Alia and Marie.  Their interplay is downright eerie and quote I just gave, which ended a chapter, sets the appropriately suspenseful stage.

It certainly became clear how important Marie was, at least to the Bene Gesserits, when they sent a delegation of three sisters to Arrakis to speak with Irulan about Alia and Marie’s education and training.  The Bene Gesserits wanted to be in control of their development.  Considering how much Paul loathed the Bene Gesserits, Irulan knew that he would not like this idea and based on what Lady Margot had said, she didn’t think that the Fenrings would want the Bene Gesserit teachers either.  When Paul came and interrupted this conversation, the sisters tried to say they were just there to visit Irulan but Irulan laid out the truth.  I think that this was one of the first times that Paul really saw Irulan’s usefulness as an ally.  When the sisters tried to recover from being exposed, well, here is the way the conversation went … and ended:

“We make no attempt to interfere, Sire,” Genino said.  “We are merely here to offer ---“

Paul cut her off, his expression dangerous.  “You would be wise to consider your words before you speak further.  With my truthsense, I hear your lies as if they are shouts.”

(Paul of Dune, p. 567)

The book wraps up with the very suspenseful telling of the intimate banquet that included Paul, Chani, Alia, Irulan, Marie, Count and Lady Fenring, Korba, and Stilgar.  The Fenring’s Plan A was for Marie to kill Paul with a “needlewhip dagger” hidden in the dining table then the three of them would escape through passages and gain control of the empire in the supposed power vacuum.  Plan B included the use of the jewel-hilted knife that Shaddam had given to Fenring which was the same knife that Shaddam had given to Feyd-Rautha in the duel between Feyd and Paul after the Battle on the Plains of Arrakeen. Fenring got the knife in the room under the pretense that it was a gift to Paul.  But Plan A failed as Alia reacted quickly to Marie’s attack and killed Marie with the jeweled knife.

 Alia stood up, leaving the Emperor’s blade firmly planted within the twitching body of the treacherous girl.  “You were never my friend.”

Korba looked on in awe, still seated where he had slumped helplessly back into his chair and just starting to recover from the paralytic gas.  As far as Alia could tell, the Fremen had not lifted a finger during the brief but intense battle.  “The knife,” he said in a slurred voice, his lips moving slightly, “St. Alia of the Knife.”

 

Caught in the swirl of events around her, Alia realized that she stood at the threshold of her own legend.

(Paul of Dune, p. 592)

So that is where she got the name.  I had figured it was from when she killed Baron Harkonnen when she was only three years old but apparently not.

I also wanted to talk about this story because of its importance later on in the history of the epic Dune story.  In Plan B, Fenring kills Paul with the jeweled knife.  Hasimer and Margot get the instant to distract Paul when Paul he was already taken aback by the willingness of these parents to sacrifice their daughter for an assassination attempt and then told him that Feyd was her natural father.  In that instant of shock, the Count attacked and plunged the dagger into Paul.  Paul very nearly died from this attack but not for the quick thinking of his beloved Chani to use the Water of Life to induce a coma that would allow the doctors to make repairs and for Paul to save his strength to do the rest.

Before the book ends, we learn that Korba takes this precious knife and preserves it for the archives.  It is important to the rest of history that this occurs as we will learn MUCH later.  Also, we learn that Paul spares the lives of the Fenrings and considers it to be a harsher punishment to banish them to Salusa Secundus to live with the deposed ex-emperor.

 
In the last chapter of the book, Irulan realizes that she feels bound to Paul Muad-Dib.  Not because she was a prize won in battle and not because she was his wife.  She felt bound to record his story … for history.  This role is clearly important in the original Dune books by Frank Herbert and Paul of Dune helps us see how she gets to fill that role.

Paul of Dune - Entry #2

“And you are perfect?”

He lowered his voice, revealing a secret.  “Nothing can be perfect.  It is an insult to the universe.”

(Paul of Dune, p. 380)

This exchange was between little six year old Marie and the would-be Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach Thallo.  Paul of Dune provides the detail about the failed Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach that is mentioned a few times in Dune Messiah.  This story of Thallo and how he died at the hands of Marie fills in an important gap in the Tleilaxu history.

A written “fact” is considered innately more true than spoken gossip or hearsay, but physical documents have no greater claim to accuracy than an anecdote from an actual eye witness.

-GILBERTUS ALBANS

Mentat Discourses on History

(Paul of Dune, p. 451)

Ahh, a reminder of Gilbertus, child raised by the robot machine Erasmus in the time of the Butlerian Jihad.  Gilbertus went on to found the Mentat School.  The importance of mentat training cannot be stressed enough as so many important characters are mentats.  However, this particular passage sheds light on the importance of Irulan’s role to “document” history.  Her writings are taken as truth and Paul understands the power in that.

It is understanding the power of the written word that gets Bronso of Ix into apparent conflict with his old friend, Paul, and later with Alia.  There are quotes from Bronso in Frank Herbert’s books but we really know nothing about him without Brian Herbert’s books beginning with Paul of Dune.  Bronso becomes a historian in his own right to counter the history crafted by Princess Irulan.  Consider this chapter starter:

Just as Leto Atreides was shaped by his father, so it was with young Paul.  A strong sense of honor and justice passed from generation to generation.  This made what eventually happened to Paul an even greater tragedy.  He should have known better.

-BRONSO OF IX, The True History of Muad’Dib

(Paul of Dune, p. 471)

In this part of the book, the War of Assassins that started with House Moritani and House Ecaz but eventually included Harkonnens, Atreides, Vernii, and even Corrinos, is described.  The Moritani Viscount had laid a trap for Shaddam who he correctly presumed would come to Grumman to end the conflict just as he would do later on Arrakis.  Shaddam is really quite predictable.