Kevin's Watch

I recommend the Berkley 1977 edition.

I don't even know what edition I have.

--A

I have a very old edition that is falling apart.

The SciFi channel's "Children of Dune" miniseries is a worthy effort. It is far better than the Dune movie and miniseries. It has digital graphics instead of painted sets, and interesting characters who can actually act. And it was very true to the books, covering the last two books of the Dune trilogy itself, unfortunately including only the essentials of the story.

Dune Messiah ended on a downer because that is usually the case with the second book of an epic trilogy. Consider the endings of "The Two Towers" and "The Empire Strikes Back," not to mention "The One Tree."

Spoiler

The series gets tiresome when Herbert uses the same tropes over and over again. For example, using loved ones as blackmail, a device which started with Yueh and his wife, continued through Paul on at least two occasions, and ended with Leto II in God Emperor, whose feelings toward Hwi led to his eventual downfall after a 3,000 year reign. You'd think such a simple ploy would be no match for the God Emperor.

Except Leto II knew (must have known) that it was going to happen.

--A

Yeah, that was my thought, too, Av.

Avatar wrote:Except Leto II knew (must have known) that it was going to happen.

--A

Yes, even without prescience. But somehow he was unable to prevent it.

His own downfall was part of his own plan.

Fist and Faith wrote:His own downfall was part of his own plan.

That could be, although it wasn't his plan but his Path. I can't find anything suggesting that the Golden Path required Leto to be assassinated 3000 years into his reign. This is beginning to sound more like Seldon's plan in the Foundation series.

He kept humanity tightly leashed for millennia so that they would disperse explosively when he died.

Fist and Faith wrote:He kept humanity tightly leashed for millennia so that they would disperse explosively when he died.

That's what happened, but was that part of the plan or Path? Did Leto commit suicide by lasgun for the sake of his Path and of humanity?

His path meant creating someone who couldn't be seen by psychics, and a regime that was more oppressive and stagnant than anything before it... so of course when he created the first they'd be the ones to end the latter.

I only know the plot of the other books from wikipedia, but that's what I gather.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:He kept humanity tightly leashed for millennia so that they would disperse explosively when he died.

That's what happened, but was that part of the plan or Path? Did Leto commit suicide by lasgun for the sake of his Path and of humanity?

He knew that the Path at some point would result in his assassination, that eventually one of the Duncan's or one of his Super-Atreides servants [or both] would succeed. But he intentionally kept himself from seeing it/which/when.
IIRC he says a couple times he likes surprises...but I think another factor is as time passes the worm-part gains more reflex control...if he knew for sure, exactly when, the worm-reflex might prevent it from happening.

Murrin wrote:His path meant creating someone who couldn't be seen by psychics, and a regime that was more oppressive and stagnant than anything before it... so of course when he created the first they'd be the ones to end the latter.

I only know the plot of the other books from wikipedia, but that's what I gather.

I read them up to Chapterhouse, but for the most part it was merely "for the sake of doing it." Much like watching the Star Wars prequels. Dune was truly epic, but after that, nothing much of interest happened in the series with the exception of Children of Dune. And every trope that appeared in Dune was thereafter worked to death, until they were reduced to cliches. The best example of that would be the Duncan Idaho gholas. Did every single one of them represent some kind of intentional snare for the Atreides? Let's play that mousetrap theme over, and over, and over again...

But enough ranting, and back to the topic. Leto's reign was oppressive, but not entirely stagnant. It was intended to completely bore every inhabitant of the regime by bringing a stifling eternal peace. Peace and security are that which is desired by every single person. But when they finally attain it, they find that they don't like it. They find this peace and security within social structures such as churches and other institutions. Leto took this to its ultimate extreme, he had to - because his prescience saw within this concept the seeds of mankind's eventual destruction.

I agree that Leto's hold over galactic civilization had to end some time in order for the Path to continue to the next step. I just don't know if his death was necessary or inevitable for this change to come. It didn't make for very good story-telling anyway. Leto died: the end. Yawn. Just another Dune:messiah end trope.

Vraith wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:He kept humanity tightly leashed for millennia so that they would disperse explosively when he died.

That's what happened, but was that part of the plan or Path? Did Leto commit suicide by lasgun for the sake of his Path and of humanity?

He knew that the Path at some point would result in his assassination, that eventually one of the Duncan's or one of his Super-Atreides servants [or both] would succeed. But he intentionally kept himself from seeing it/which/when.
IIRC he says a couple times he likes surprises...but I think another factor is as time passes the worm-part gains more reflex control...if he knew for sure, exactly when, the worm-reflex might prevent it from happening.

That sounds right.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:It didn't make for very good story-telling anyway. Leto died: the end. Yawn.

But that wasn't the end. It was the beginning of the Scattering. Which was the purpose of Leto's tyranny. It's why he held everything so tight. He knew what would happen once everyone was free of his tyranny, humanity would expand wildly, dispersed so far that it could never be wiped out.

Fist and Faith wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:It didn't make for very good story-telling anyway. Leto died: the end. Yawn.

But that wasn't the end. It was the beginning of the Scattering. Which was the purpose of Leto's tyranny. It's why he held everything so tight. He knew what would happen once everyone was free of his tyranny, humanity would expand wildly, dispersed so far that it could never be wiped out.

... and it would resist tyranny like never before. (Just wanted to add.)

wayfriend wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:It didn't make for very good story-telling anyway. Leto died: the end. Yawn.

But that wasn't the end. It was the beginning of the Scattering. Which was the purpose of Leto's tyranny. It's why he held everything so tight. He knew what would happen once everyone was free of his tyranny, humanity would expand wildly, dispersed so far that it could never be wiped out.

... and it would resist tyranny like never before. (Just wanted to add.)

Yes, exactly...and not only tyranny of the usual politics and guns kind, but ALL forms of stagnation/ruts.

Fist and Faith wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:It didn't make for very good story-telling anyway. Leto died: the end. Yawn.

But that wasn't the end. It was the beginning of the Scattering. Which was the purpose of Leto's tyranny. It's why he held everything so tight. He knew what would happen once everyone was free of his tyranny, humanity would expand wildly, dispersed so far that it could never be wiped out.

Or you could say it ended like this, "But what does it mean-arafel?"
"That's the cloud-darkness of holy judgment. It's from an old story. You'll find it all in my journals." And then some post-ludial explanation about the Scattering.

Fist and Faith wrote:His own downfall was part of his own plan.

Exactly. What he was doing was putting humanity into a position where they would survive everything that came after him.

Personally, apart from Dune itself, God Emperor was my favourite.

--A