Let me know if you agree with me, or if my interpretation is entirely wrong. (Being a bit of an apologist in my responses, btw, though I don't necessarily have to)
oddball wrote:Isn't it only Duncan Idaho that Frank Herbert brought back? Singular character, boss mod. >_> The false prophets brought back the rest.
Redstar wrote:How did it not make any sense? It was a brilliantly ironic, and ultimately very tragic how Alia succumbed to Possession. Especially since not a single person helped her... Her own mother abandoned her.lexus wrote:He paved the way for those false prophets heresies. Besides, he brought that Harkonnen guy back through the genetic memory bullshit. That just didnt make any sense.I don't believe he was "supposed" to die at all. The first three books, Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune were originally conceived as one large masterwork. A single volume made up of many books, akin to J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Paul coming back was planned from the beginning, so it wasn't like Frank changed his mind or anything.lexus wrote:And he brought Paul Astreides back as well. He clearly was supposed to die at the end of the second book but it turned out he wasnt dead.
Dead people should stay dead, and not mysteriously survive or brought back to life.What sort of things do you think were unexplained, logical fallacies, or major plotholes? I'm a huge fan of the series, and frequent a user board of many people that have been fans since the books came out and now are linguists, book reviewers, and writers in their own right. We haven't seen any of those things in the books past the first.lexus wrote:But thats not the only thing that made me stop like the serie. It just had a lot of unexplained things, logical fallacies, major plotholes and just a lot less interesting actions then the first book.
Redstar wrote:The Baron was Alia's grandfather. The Baron was secretly Jessica's father, so that would make him the grandfather of Paul and Alia. Alia's descent into Possession was a brilliant irony because she killed him in the original, only to become him in the end.lexus wrote:He was her uncle. That means he should not even be in her genetic memory. At least, not his entire personality. That doesnt make sense. How could he be in her genetic memory. I experienced it as a pretty lame way to make her go insane. She might as well gotten high on spice or something, which caused her to get schizophrenia. A much better explanaition, instead of letting distant relatives take over a body.Paul was always meant to be a coward and a weakling. The entire first book he feared the coming Jihad, knowing he could never stop it, only soften it. The Jihad is the beginning of the Golden Path, and because Paul submitted to his humanity and lessened its impact, the Golden Path would have failed. Leto II had to take it in his place because, from the very beginning, even in the first book, Paul feared it too much.lexus wrote:Maybe not, but I personally found it to be quite weak. It broke down the character of Paul. I mean, when they found him he had turned into some kind of weakling and a coward, to afraid to die. It would have been a lot better to let him die back in the second book. Would gave his character so much more strength. Now hes just an ordinary human with visions. A coward. Which totally the opposite of what he was in the first 2 books.
Note in Dune Messiah the Bene Tleilax admitted to having created their own Kwisatz Haderach. What happened to him? He killed himself. As noted by Scytale, "A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation." In the same way, Paul became the opposite of what being an Atreides meant by becoming the Kwisatz Haderach. Prescience trapped him on a path, the GOLDEN Path, that he was unwilling to take. Because of this he became The Preacher, too fearful to practice what he was preaching. So essentially he did die (albeit spiritually), by becoming a broken man. Thematically, that's perfect.I understand perfectly what you mean. Most Orthodox fans agree the first book is the absolute best. I count it as stand-alone, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the rest in the series. Many of us do. None of them contradict the inherent message of the first book, that of never submitting entirely to leaders because of trapping yourself on a path of destiny rather than free-will. The first book was the set-up of a messiah archetype, and not as obviously the set-up of a political figure. The second and third books deconstructed that rise to its natural end, showing what was hinted at throughout the first book and just about blatantly told at the very end.lexus wrote:I loved the first book. Because it had a clear end. It should have stopped there. After that, he was just adding stuff, stuff that didnt make a lot of sense (people being cloned constantly, distant relatives taking over) then giving others superpowers and finally turning a guy in a worm. Come on! How does that even fit in what was told about the whole dune universe in the first book? No wonder those heretics could later add such bullshit to the entire universe. Because really, super aqua spice worms isnt that far away from turning humans into worm god emperors with servants that should have been dead ages ago. The entire series follows a steady line from reasonably possible, nothing to insane to just plain stupid and after that to absolutly retarded.
See my point? They keep adding things that are getting absurder and absurder in every book, constantly making it slightly less realistic, but youll never notice it till youre at the last books and then look back at the first book.
The first three books are a clearly trilogy. No, not even that... They're a single book, divided into three volumes. They're inextricably bound. You can't truly understand the message without reading all three, no matter your feelings on the subject of messiahs and politicians. The final three books can easily be ignored for they stand well enough on their own as a separate trilogy, but the first three just cannot be divided. My opinion, at least.