Dune Messiah – Entry #3

The unfolding of the conspiracy in the last third of this book represents some complicated writing and story plot.  The role that each character plays in Paul’s vision is so complex yet Paul can see every step as if it were a story he had written himself.  The roles of Alia, Hayt/Duncan, and Stilgar are laid out for the story to be laid on in this book as well as the following books.

Prior to the “trial” of Korba for his part in the conspiracy, Alia reread a letter from lady Jessica to herself warning her of the imperial government that Paul and Alia had created.

     “You produce a deadly paradox,” Jessica had written.  “Government cannot be religious and self-assertive at the same time.  Religious experience needs a spontaneity which laws inevitably suppress.  And you cannot govern without laws.  Your laws eventually must replace morality, replace conscience, replace even the religion by which you think to govern.  Sacred ritual must spring from praise and holy yearnings which hammer out a significant morality.  Government, on the other hand, is a cultural organism particularly attractive to doubts, questions and contentions.  I see the day coming when ceremony must take the place of faith and symbolism replaces morality.”

(Dune Messiah, p. 215)

Heavy stuff.  This is immediately followed by the “trial” of Korba that is exquisitely played by Paul, Stilgar, and Alia … a formidable team.  The trial is so tense and suspenseful, you’d think you were reading a script for a suspenseful trial scene in a blockbuster movie.  Here are a couple of snippets from the scene played out starting on page 217 and ending on page 224.

     The voice of this intrusion was known to all of them – Muad’dib.  Paul came through the doorway from the hall, pressed through the guard ranks and crossed to Alia’s side.  Chani, accompanying him, remained on the sidelines.

     “M’Lord,” Stilgar said, refulsing to look at Paul’s face.

     Paul aimed his empty sockets at the gallery, then down to Korba.  “What, Korba – no words of praise?”

     Muttering could be heard in the gallery.  It grew louder, isolated words and phrases audible: ‘ … law for the blind … Fremen way .. in the desert … who breaks …”

     “Who says I’m blind?” Paul demanded.  He faced the gallery.

…

     “I don’t need eyes to see you,” Paul said.  And he began describing Korba, every movement, every twitch, every alarmed and pleading look at the gallery.

     Desperation grew in Korba.

     Watching him, Alia saw he might break any second.  Someone in the gallery must realize how near he was to breaking, she thought.  Who?  She studied the faces of the Naibs, noting small betrayals in the masked faces … anger, fears, uncertainties … guilts.

(Dune Messiah, p. 218-220)

The tension is building.  Duncan is soon be reborn.

Dune Messiah – Entry #2

I recall reading Dune Messiah in the past and now I see that I have a better feel for and understanding of the conspirators and the conspiracy to kill Emperor Paul Muad’Dib.  Here are two quotes from a meeting between two of the conspirators, the shape-shifter Scytale and the guildsman Edric, about half way through the book.

    “One would not look twice at some of the figures I have been today,” Scytale said.

     The chameleon thinks a change of shape will hide him from anything, Edric thought with rare insight.  And he wondered if his presence in the conspiracy truly hid them from all oracular powers.  The Emperor’s sister, now …

(Dune Messiah, p. 156)

And then a little later in the conversation …

     “You forget, Guildsman, that we once made a kwisatz haderach.  This is a being filled by the spectacle of Time.  It is a form of existence which cannot be threatened without enclosing yourself in the identical threat.  Muad’dib knows we would attack his Chani.  We must move faster than we have.  You must get to the ghola, prod him as I have instructed.”

(Dune Messiah, p. 160)

It is true.  Paul knew they would seek to destroy him through Chani or at the minimum, his legacy.  These were some long term planners involved in the conspiracy and they knew that it would be quicker to end the Empire if Paul did not have children … or if he did, that it happened under their control.  Similarly true for Alia.  So the original plan of trying to get Paul to father a child with Irulan was aimed at getting a child they could control, but Paul wanted none of that which precipitated that approach of giving Chani a hidden contraceptive drug.  And Paul saw all of this.

     Paul kissed her cheek.  “No, my Sihaya.  You’ll kill no one.”  And he thought: Irulan prolonged your life, beloved.  For you, the time of birth is the time of death.

(Dune Messiah, p. 163)

And the conspiracy continues to unfold but the conspirators cannot control everything, especially not Paul and his visions.  A little later, Scytale appears before the Emperor as Lichna, the daughter of one of his Fremen fighters, someone Paul knew from Sietch Tabr.  Lichna’s message is that he and Chani must come to Lichna’s father so he can speak privately about a plot against the Emperor’s life amongst the Fremen.  Paul sees through the disguise right away but knows also how he must play out the situation to give Chani the chance to birth their children.  The whole conversation between the Face Dancer and the Emperor is fascinating as Scytale tries to figure out if Paul has figured out that he is an impostor and Paul tries to play the conversation to  not let on but still to get at the end he desires.  Here is a little piece:

     “My enemies fed her a subtle poison,” Paul said.  “It will be a difficult birth.  Her health will not permit her to accompany me now.”

     Before Scytale could still them, strange emotions passed over the girl-features: frustration, anger.  Scytale was reminded that every victim must have a way of escape – even such a one as Muad’dib.  The conspiracy had not failed, though.  This Atreides remained in the net.  He was a creature who had developed firmly into one pattern.  He’d destroy himself before changing into the opposite of that pattern.  That had been the way with the Tleilaxu kwisatz haderach.  It’d be the way with this one.  And then … the ghola.

(Dune Messiah, p. 175)

I think I will finish up this entry with a quote from Alia.  It is during a temple service and Paul is in the audience waiting to be brought, supposedly, to Otheym but he knows that will not be the case.  Something happens there in the temple.  He realizes that Alia had visionary powers as he does and may even see the same paths as he does.  So here is the quote which a response by Alia to a question from a supplicant about if her son has died in battle:

“Nothing is lost.  Everything returns later, but you may not recognize the changed form that returns.”

(Dune Messiah, p. 186)

This … this … could be the tagline for the entire saga.