[00:00:00] Lord Vader, Operation Andor is underway. Excellent. If we release three episodes per week, the Lorehounds will never be able to cover every episode. The Imperial forces will crush the rebellion before it begins. Standby. We're picking up something on our scanners. Echo Squadron reporting in. Delta Squadron on your left. Jango Squadron on your 6. With Imperial forces coming in fast, we're calling all Rebels to join the fight this season.
[00:00:27] Starting after the April 22nd premiere, you'll hear three full breakdowns for each week's episodes of Andor Season 2. Each podcast will be led by one of our squadron leaders, Alicia, David, and John. We'll be bringing in new and familiar voices to fill out the roster. Search for The Lorehounds on any podcast platform to join us in a galaxy far, far away. And don't forget to check out our season pass for even more content like our Holocron bonus pods. It's good news for anyone, except Darth Vader.
[00:01:00] I kind of was more okay with it on the rewatch than I was the initial one. I think also seeing how many people responded positively out there to this show made me... I want more people to love Dune. And even if this didn't do all the things that I hoped for, we know there's a lot of mess behind the scene, and I have much greater hopes for season two.
[00:01:21] Hey everybody, David here.
[00:01:38] And we are finally getting around to our Dune Prophecy season wrap-up podcast featuring Zach and John from the Dune Minute podcast. Their episode of this same recording is already out, so hopefully you've already heard this. If you're not already... If you're a Dune fan and you're not already subscribed to their podcast, please go subscribe to their podcast.
[00:02:07] Those guys are great. They do a great job. And Alicia and I are looking forward to some more fun collabs with them in the future. We are both going to be guesting on the Dune 2 minute-by-minute recaps. We each have some minutes picked out, and we're really excited to record with Zach and John again. But anyway, back to Dune Prophecy. The season wrapped up.
[00:02:37] It was... We were going into the holiday season. We had so many other things going on. And we had a lot of mixed emotions about the show. There was so much to like about the show. And then there were some other things that for each of us in different ways was a little disappointing. And we'll talk about a lot of that in the wrap-up. And so it just kind of got pushed to the side. And well, we finally got around to it. Alicia was like, you know what?
[00:03:04] We should get together with DMP and we should do a wrap-up and we can fold in our feedback. And we were all like, yep, that's a great idea. We've had some time to reflect on it. We've got some great feedback from the community. We would hate for that to go to waste. So we found a free time to record and we got it done. As always, it's a pleasure to talk with those guys and with Alicia. And we're going to talk about a shared favorite amongst all of us, obviously.
[00:03:32] So without much further ado, here is our season wrap. Thank you again to everyone who sent in feedback. We didn't get to everybody's. We tried to consolidate it a little bit for time and for just editing purposes. But thank you all for writing in. Thanks for everyone who was participating in the season. We really appreciated all of that.
[00:03:58] Again, special thanks to Nancy, Hand of the Pod, Keeper of the Chronicles, who did such an amazing job all season long in helping us develop the show guide as well as to collate all of your feedback as it came in. And she is becoming an indispensable part of the Lorehounds community and we adore her much. So if you're on the Discord and you see her, two kids, two dogs, give her a heads up or a thank you
[00:04:26] or a little emoji of some kind or something like that to show your appreciation. But again, thank you everyone. And here is our conversation for the wrap up for Dune Prophecy Season 1. Father, the sleeper has awakened! Zach, John, thanks for being here. Alicia, as always, a pleasure. We're here to talk about Season 1 of Dune Prophecy.
[00:04:54] This is your general spoiler warning for all things Dune, everything, everywhere. We are not going to hold back. So if you are worried at all about that, then maybe slightly avoid it. It's just very hard to unpack or to structure a conversation that doesn't include things. Right. Otherwise, I think, like we started saying here just on mic, we're going to try to be coming in with a balanced critique.
[00:05:21] So being critical without getting the flamethrowers out, there's a lot of diversity of opinion on the show. And something that we've learned as podcasters is negativity doesn't work. Critique works, but not negativity. So I think we're going to really focus on that because we don't want to yuck anybody's yum, right? But we also don't want to be rude about the show necessarily. I've put together a quick outline for us today. So we're going to talk a little bit about season hot takes.
[00:05:49] I've taken a lot of the feedback. Thank you, Nancy M., for all of your help last season. Nancy is our hand of the pod and she helps us do a lot of stuff with our show guides and with our feedback. She's the keeper of the Chronicles now too. Keeper of the Chronicles, I love that. That's a wheel of time term. Perfect. So she put together this great document. I went through and sort of edited it and I've got different people's Discord and email reactions
[00:06:18] and I've edited some for brevity and sort of put them into some different categories for us to be able to have a conversation around because there's so much and obviously we're a little bit distant. So we'll talk a little bit about our season hot takes. We'll talk a little bit about season two and what we're kind of expecting.
[00:06:38] Then we'll do some deconstruction of the season and I roughly broke topics into plot devices and world building as a way to kind of categorize certain things. And what we haven't done is talked about specific characters, but I think we can talk about characters as we go through. So I've got plot devices and then world building.
[00:07:05] And then at the very end, we'll do the picking of the knits and we each get three things where we get to take out our hammer and chisels and really go at the show. But I figured that was kind of be a fun way to contain our upsets about certain little things. But other than that, I think we can get into it really quickly. The overall reflections from the community were really mixed.
[00:07:35] Like there are some people who really liked the show and were into it. And then there's some people who were just very meh about it. Well, I mean, there are also people who want to take out the flamethrowers. Yeah, I don't think we really hided our opinions in our Dune Minute episodes kind of going over everything. But kind of, you know, to your point about sitting on it for a few months and everything, and I recently rewatched it over the last few days.
[00:08:02] You know, there's definitely good stuff and there's definitely stuff that is a little less desirable in terms of the execution. Right. Well, an email from Kim M to start us off. First of all, I appreciate the love and all the time and dedication you put into this. This was directed at Alicia and Nancy and I, but I think we can expand the penumbra to you guys as well. Oh, thank you.
[00:08:29] I would look forward to listening to y'all's coverage every week. I get to listen to Alicia over on Wool Shift Dust as well. So that was obviously written during that time. And great job again, Alicia, on that coverage. It seemed like it was a really good season. It really picked up at the end of the season too. I really enjoyed it. Silo is what he's referring to. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Silo. I was back and forth with Dune this season, but in the end, I'm giving it two thumbs up.
[00:08:56] I have some complaints like the writing for instance, and I agree with most of your opinions about it, Alicia. But other than that, I loved it and I'm looking forward to another season. I don't know if this will reach you in time to go into the podcast, but that's okay. I mostly just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed y'all's content and hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you, Kim M. Thank you, Kim. Kim obviously wrote this before the season. And then we have a good friend of the pod, Jordan M., who also wrote in, salut les lojans.
[00:09:25] I don't know if I'm butchering that French accent there. Heading out for a holiday weekend with the Bell family, a.k.a. the in-laws. Lord, give me lots of spice, please. So this will be uncharacteristically brief. Overall, I would give the show a C. For me, it felt as if the writers were given three different versions of well-written cliff notes and then someone Frankenstein them together to create not quite an abomination, but bordering on it.
[00:09:53] En tout cas, as usual, the show was far more entertaining. Having listened alongside the Lorehounds and as Nancy inspired a reread out for me, I am greatly enjoying these two, so you know, silver linings. Alors, I suffered through a rewatch of the finale, Belle Femme. And I've just one word to sum up the entire season. Convoluted. The writing is all over the place.
[00:10:22] It's so bad, I don't even feel like speculation about theories, lore, etc. Of course, I can always be lazy and listen to the Lorehounds. So those two emails sort of seem to encapsulate a spectrum. But John, did you get a chance to do a rewatch or where are you feeling after your reflection season? Yeah, so my rewatch was kind of all over the place. I think, so we're recording this on a Saturday.
[00:10:52] I watched episode one on Wednesday, episode two on Thursday, and then yesterday, three, four, five, six. So kind of just absorbed all of the back two thirds of the season in one day. Don't know if that was the right way to go about doing it, but you know, here we are.
[00:11:15] I definitely fall more in line with Jordan's perspective on all of this in terms of, you know, the giving the show a C grade, mostly because the writers are unfortunately working with, you know, Brian's interpretation of Dune rather than Frank's. And as we all know. Okay, we're going to talk about this later, but.
[00:11:41] As we all know, you know, Brian is a man with decisions that he's made. So whether you're a Brian purist or a Frank purist, first of all, if you're Brian purist, you're wrong. No, just kidding. I don't think you can be a Brian purist because he doesn't exist without his father. That's nobody denies that. Yeah. Yeah. Literally and figured. Not just creatively. Not just creatively. We'll call it.
[00:12:10] We'll call it a Brian sympathizer then. A Brian. I'm not even apologist or like I would, cause I feel more strongly about that. I would say defender, a Brian defender. I am sure the show does have its moments where it feels kind of kit bashed. And, you know, we, we've talked previously about the writer's strike and we've talked about all these other things in our mid season wrap up. But at the end of the day, like editors still could have gone in and made things a little better. I think. Okay.
[00:12:39] Is that, um, is that where you stand right now? That's where I kind of stand after looking over everything. I think the show definitely leaves some opportunity for growth in the future. Mm-hmm . And I'm optimistic about a season two. Mm-hmm . I think going through the initial feedback and stuff that you sent us, there was one, and I don't remember the individual that mentioned it, but.
[00:13:03] Someone said something to the effect of if this has a rings of power or wheel of time season one to season two glow up, then it has really good potential for future expansion. Right. But I would say the other two started more strongly. Rings of power and wheel of time started in a stronger place, but yes. Can't really speak to either of them. I think rings of power. I watched three episodes and then dipped. Um, but that's for a different conversation.
[00:13:35] Alicia, where were you on the season overall? And you can fold in your season two thoughts if you want at this point. Well, we'll table the, the, uh, Brian Herbert versus the encyclopedia discussion from the moment. That's definitely coming. Cause I know that there are people who want us to have that discussion too. Yeah. We've been, we've been living from the Dune Minute perspective in the encyclopedia. Oh, well aware. Well aware.
[00:14:01] Um, but yeah, no, about this season, I think it just, uh, you know what, seeing other people like on blue sky, there are still people who are rewatching this season and enjoying it. And, um, so I've been revisiting in preparation for this mentally, like what are the things that they're enjoying so much? It's making people love this so much. And definitely, um, the visuals, all, everything about the production design is just fantastic.
[00:14:29] I think there are compelling characters in there. I, of course, can't help, but be bothered that they look like paler shades of the book versions. You know, I still, I, for me, it's always going to come down to the writing and the character development. And unfortunately that was the weakest points of this, of this series.
[00:14:49] So that's always going to like rub me the wrong way, but I have great hopes for next season because I do think that, you know, when you see writing and lore that's so jumbled as we saw this season, it is, you can see the fact that it's been cut apart and put back together. And we know based on the production process that that was absolutely happening.
[00:15:10] So I have highest of hopes for a season where that's not happening, where they just, you know, they say they are in the writer's room with the books right now. And, um, they don't have, you know, uh, what a rotating door of, of show runners coming in and out and things like that. So let's just, yeah, I'm like, okay, let them cook. And I hope everyone gives them a space to do something cohesive. Right. Zach. Zach.
[00:15:38] So during this rewatch over the last week, uh, I found myself enjoying it a lot more than the, than the first time I saw it. You know, the first time we were watching this, it was kind of in a, a hectic standpoint, uh, because we were watching and then writing notes and then recording like all within the span of 24 hours. So you guys were learning around your episodes really quick. I was really impressed. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was a lot of late nights editing.
[00:16:05] Um, we've all played Alicia and I've been there for sure. So we're definitely with you on that. But this, this last week, uh, afforded me the opportunity to kind of take off my podcaster hat and just watch it as a fan really. Um, and I, I, I enjoyed it a lot more this, uh, this time.
[00:16:25] Um, the same, same complaints that I had about, you know, the, the story being convoluted and the, the, the, the, there, there being some, uh, some rushed decisions, uh, within the, um, within the writing. They, they, those still existed, but they bothered me a lot less. I feel like this time. Mm-hmm . So I enjoyed it. And I, I cannot speak highly enough about the acting. Uh, the acting was just re was, is really, really good.
[00:16:51] And given the material that they were working with, the, the cast was just phenomenal. Um, it's a beautiful show. I don't, I don't think anyone else can deny that it is a gorgeous, gorgeous show. Mm-hmm . So those are two really big things that has going for it. Writing can be adjusted, you know, that's hopefully, you know, I'm going to knock on wood here, but I, in, in season two, we get a little bit more of a cohesive story, but I, I'm optimistic about it. Right.
[00:17:19] I did not get a chance to rewatch a pretty hectic week. And I, uh, had mixed emotions about rewatching because we've got a lot going on, uh, not only at Lorehounds, but life in general. And I was like, Oh, do I, do I really want to try to force myself to watch this or not? But then listening to all of you with your reflections, I'm like, Oh, maybe, maybe I could, you know, slip in it.
[00:17:46] Maybe a first and last episode kind of thing like that and, and double check myself with a little bit of distance and time. And I think that's. I want to say that I did not rewatch intentionally and that allowed me to have this rosier perspective. Right. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend watching, um, binge watch two thirds of the season in an afternoon. Got it. Fair enough. I think for me, I do remember that it was visually great.
[00:18:14] And then there's a lot of great actors doing a lot of great work, costuming and a bunch of other production stuff was, was pretty cool. The, what little CGI stuff that they had in there. I remember always seemed well, but then I just got stuck on some of the lore bits and those seem to be more outsized, you know, kind of like a pebble in my shoe. Right. It's very small, but yet it is, um, uh, coloring my perspective, uh, overall.
[00:18:38] So, uh, a couple of notes about season two, we got a lot of comments as well. And I pulled a couple of, uh, of emails and discord messages. There was a lot of feedback about the season length and the complexity of the story and the, you know, the writing process.
[00:19:00] Abby, who's the cohost of the silo book club with you, Alicia said the timing of the announcing, uh, season two tells us what we predicted after watching episode five. There is no way they will wrap up all the dangling story threads in a satisfying manner. Don't worry, audience. We will continue good news to have more Dune to watch, but please write it better for Lisa. Also on discord said, uh, fascinated to see where the show goes next season.
[00:19:29] I want to see more about Harrow's crystal ball and airs. Yeah. Hadrak wrote in an email, love that, that handle. I came to the lore hounds because of the positive atmosphere and genuine excitement about the last rings of power season fleeing from a podcast that went pure hate watch and nitpicking on the show. So it kind of breaks my heart to see you setting up yourself and the audience to dislike Dune prophecy more and more each episode.
[00:19:59] I think it's a hard task to look at lore and make inescapable book comparisons while also still suspending your disbelief in order to be immersed in the story. Once you overlook the text of the TV show with the expectations based on the books, it's hard to take a step back and not to look into the abyss that is canon. I can't recommend Mike Rognetta's essay. Canon is an abyss enough.
[00:20:29] Please Google it. Having watched the last episode of the first season, I'm still very happy with the overall story. I enjoyed every bit of it. I look forward to seeing more. Yes, there are differences to the Dune I read and no story is perfect, but I feel grateful to be able to enjoy the book, the movie and the series for what they are.
[00:20:51] Oddly enough, I particularly enjoyed the dramaturgy of how information was revealed gradually in particular, which seems to be what most people had issues with. So there's a great conversation always with book adaptations and on screen adaptations. And I know something that's, that's something, Alicia, that you and I talked a lot about coming into this.
[00:21:15] And there's this whole question of, you know, the characters and the characterizations and what is canon. And obviously with the Dune universe, we have the encyclopedia and Brian. And, and I know you have some pretty nuanced thoughts about adaptations in general, but then in this specific adaptation. Well, it's not about the adaptation aspects at all. It's just on its own, it is a, the writing is a complete mess.
[00:21:43] And, you know, I gave all the excuses for how it got to there, but at the end of the day, it's not about the differences from the book. It's about just looking at it on its own. If I had never read the books, the writing is a mess. Mm-hmm. And that's always going to be the thing that bothers me the most. So. Right, right. Yeah. I'm sorry if I got too negative for some people. There are other people who are, you know, in blue sky and stuff like, oh, you were totally right. Or you didn't go nearly far enough. So.
[00:22:11] That's how you know you're in the middle is when you're getting it from both sides. Yeah. So, but I just wanted to make it clear that it's not, you know, I'll use the books as a comparison. Like I definitely in the discussion of Valia's characters, like, well, here's why I think it worked in the books and why I don't think it worked here. And it's not about the change. I'm not, you know, someone who's precious about source material. Okay. As long as there is internal consistency.
[00:22:38] And, you know, as long as there just needs to be a point for why things are done. And, and often in this season of television, it felt like the point was we got to just get it done and get it on TV. Yeah. Zach, do you have thoughts, what you're looking forward for in a season two? Like, what are your, some of your hopes and wishes for the show? Um, well, first more than six episodes in a season.
[00:23:05] I think that would be a pretty, pretty nice kind of fleshing out some of these big, the big questions we were left at or left with at the end. You know, who is that shadowy figure that was looking over Desmond's operation? That would be kind of interesting to, to know more about that. Mm-hmm . Um, interested to see what the heck, uh, the princess and Valia and Kiran do on Arrakis. But I mean, those are all things that we'll, we'll likely explore in season two.
[00:23:33] Um, from a production standpoint, I I'm just going to have to say the same that we've already kind of been talking about is, you know, more cohesive writing. That's that really is the, the biggest ask that I have out of a season two. I have no problem suspending disbelief and, and separating myself from source material, uh, for, for adaptations for things. But you know, like Alicia said, as long as there's internal consistencies, I think we're, we're going to be good. I think that's a really good point that you can do what you want in the world.
[00:24:02] Just make it make sense within the world that you've constructed. Right. Right. Zach, do you have, um, thoughts on that? John, sorry. One of my biggest issues and I, and I definitely brought this up and this is more about like the writing and the pacing of the show than like the. Encyclopedia versus Brian thing. One thing that really threw me off, especially on the rewatch is just the constant back and forth and back and forth across, you know, two different planets.
[00:24:31] Now we're going to be going back and forth across at least three different planets and man, if they can just break up the episodes into larger chunks of what's going on. I think, I don't remember which episode I want to say it was episode five where Raquel is quote unquote back.
[00:24:58] And there's a moment where we have her and Tula talking for about two minutes. And then we bounce back to Salucia Secundus for two minutes. And then we go right back to the conversation that Raquel and Tula are having that constant whiplash that we see in season one really throws you out of it.
[00:25:19] So one thing that I hope to see with season two is more or more cohesive storytelling in terms of, hey, let's stick with these characters for more than three minutes at a time. And then let's go to these other characters for, you know, about the same amount of time rather than all these quick jumps. Would you lay that at the feet of the six episode season that they constructed? I don't know where the blame falls.
[00:25:49] Um, I don't want to put it on one specific person. I mean, yes, it could be writing. It could be editing. It could be production. It could be the studio. I mean, who knows, right? Unless you're in those four walls where the conversations are happening, you, we can only speculate so much. I hope that's feedback that has been brought up and, you know, at least was heard whether or not it's actually.
[00:26:17] You know, understood is a different story. And we won't see that until season two comes out. But, um, the whiplash of bouncing all over the place does kind of throw you out of watching the show. I think. Alicia, in an ideal world, and obviously it's an impossible question to answer in with some accuracy, but what would be, what would feel right for you for a season number of episodes in a season for season two?
[00:26:46] Uh, you know, I, I'm the type of person. I don't want to ever prescribe a number of episodes. It's just for what the story needs. Um, I think the problem with the low number of episodes in this first season is that they try to cram way too much story in six episodes and they should have just, uh, jettisoned a couple storylines. Like, like the whole Theodosia thing, you know, just save that for the next season because you clearly didn't have time to properly address it in this one. Yeah.
[00:27:16] Yeah. My counterpoint to the Theodosia thing. And I think, I don't remember if we talked about this in just the Dune Minute or if this was something that I saw on another creator's, um, you know, video or something. If it would, if it was another creator, it would have been Quinn's videos. Mm-hmm. He does that. I'm sure you guys have seen him. You can't do a, you can't do a Dune search without running in across.
[00:27:46] I actually don't, I'm not familiar. Oh. He's, he's got a big YouTube channel and he does a lot of work on a number of properties and Dune specifically. Yeah. I think he's an internet expert, uh, as it were. He's, he's actually working on like this history of sci-fi as a whole, like huge YouTube project and everything. Wow. But I think it was him and Alt Shift X and a couple other people were talking on a podcast and one of them mentioned something about how the show might be just,
[00:28:16] using Theodosia as a way to introduce face dancers to people that don't know them. Oh, for sure. So that way they don't have to like spend a lot of time on that concept for Messiah. Well, okay. But Villeneuve wouldn't, he would never, um, and he should not assume that everyone is watching a show. So he's gonna. And I agree. And I agree with that entirely.
[00:28:38] And I think Denise implementation could, and probably will be way better anyways, because there was some weird TV CGI stuff with the face dancing that we had in the show. So, but if HBO and, you know, Warner see this as a way to, you know, kind of introduce some ideas ahead of the movie, then that might be why they had that whole thing with Theodosia. It's a possibility.
[00:29:06] Zach, do you have any ideal thoughts on, uh, a season length or what, what are you looking for in a structure of season two from like a formatting standpoint? Um, uh, once again, in the Alicia camp, I don't, I'm not going to say any kind of like specific number, as long as the story can fit within. I do feel like six was, uh, an executive decision versus a story writing decision, um, for the first season.
[00:29:31] Um, which stinks because, you know, I I'm, I'm sure the writers wanted to fit so much more, uh, or, you know, at least spread the story out over a lot, uh, a lot more episodes. But, um, yeah, it's, as long as it, it, it fits. Um, you know, I, I'm not saying they should go like full, uh, TNG, uh, Star Trek with 23 episodes. How many did the sci-fi have? Uh, the mini series. Yeah.
[00:29:59] So that was, I think nine in total, but no, maybe six in total. Uh, but they were like an hour and a half to two hours long each. Wow. Okay. So that's a lot of content. I still haven't, uh, I got to track down a copy. I know there's some out there. I'll, I'll get to it. Days. I have a Blu-ray that I can mail you. Oh, that'd be sweet. All right. Let's talk off air. Anyway, Zach. You know, it's, it's all going to depend on what, what kind of story they're trying, they're trying to tell.
[00:30:26] Um, this first season was, um, naturally a lot of world building and, uh, and just backstory. And that stuff is so dense. That stuff is, is hard to, that stuff is hard to sell in, in a normal season, uh, length of, you know, eight to 10 to 12 episodes. But, um, it, when you constrict it down to six, it, I think there was no way around the convolutedness that we got. Yeah.
[00:30:53] It definitely feels like there was so much source material that they were trying to create a, a container, a vessel to, to get a bunch of key elements out. But yeah, with the writer's strike, obviously we know, and, and I think this production, I don't want to say it was troubled, but from what we were reading in the press was they changed actors. They changed showrunners.
[00:31:22] They changed writers. Villeneuve was attached and then he detached. And, uh, you know, it's still legendary, which is that I believe Villeneuve's production company. So there, there seemed to be a lot of, um, it took a lot to get this on screen. And so I could certainly appreciate the fact that it was not an easy production just to get going. Yeah.
[00:31:47] And, and I think I'm, I'm with a lot of people in, you know, no Dune is not good. So, you know, anything Dune, not anything, but, you know, almost anything on screen, like, you know, as long as. All pizza is good pizza. That's it. I like that. I don't know. I've had some real shitty pizza before. I'll be honest with you. Still good pizza. John, you just got to leave it out on the kitchen counter overnight and then the next morning it'll be totally fine. Or put hot sauce on it.
[00:32:16] Or my cats will just eat it. So let's switch gears a little bit and start deconstructing the season. And I broke these into two categories, plot devices in world building. And there's a couple of choices that I made that could be argued with.
[00:32:42] So, you know, feel free to, to sort of push back or maybe throw an element or two that I might've missed. Again, I was just sort of working off of our feedback document to try to pull up what people were responding to. So in plot devices, I sort of listed these in alphabetical order. And these are things that had a direct impact on the plot or the story.
[00:33:04] And so I'm thinking of the cone of silence, the fear virus, the imprinting, other memories and the deadpool that we had. And spice and the voice. So I guess we can just sort of go down through. And again, we're not looking at nitpicking, but we're kind of deconstructing and understanding the context of what they've done and trying to bridge that gap of canon versus, you know, what we saw on, on screen.
[00:33:33] And John, I know you're a big Cone of Silence fan. So do you have any thoughts on, on the, in the use of the Cone of Silence this season? I think the ratio of Glow Globe to Cone of Silence is off and there should have been more Glow Globes. Okay. But, you know, that's... I did not add that on my list. If I got to rank my favorite things in Dune, Glow Globes are up there. No, I... Did I have it wrong? Is it Zach who likes the Cone of Silence more? I am a, I'm a Cone of Silence fan.
[00:34:03] Oh, I love it. I'm sorry, I whiffed that. It's okay. Zach's the Cone of Silence guy. I'm the Glow Globe. You're the Glow Globe guy. Glow Globe guy. But you know what? I can't take stuff. I love a Cone of Silence. Thank you, Holtzman. No, I think it seemed very convenient, but as some of your viewers may have brought up in some of the feedback, they seem to forget that it exists in certain situations. And that just kind of throws you out of it a little bit.
[00:34:31] But that's also from kind of a nitpicky perspective. Cincinnati Joe wrote an email saying, after emphasizing the Cone of Silence throughout the series, how does Valia not use it when plotting to kill the Emperor? Yeah, my thoughts on that is like they were in their condo, right? So maybe they viewed that as a safe space to talk openly. One of my problems was they were never, they were always visible when they were using the Cone of Silence. So I was like, well, they're not using this properly in the first place.
[00:35:01] And Bene Gesserit, I think that would be like a 101 level Bene Gesserit course is lip reading, right? Especially if you're training to be a truesaer. So it doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe that's why they're doing it. They're like, all right, everyone train off of your sisters. I can't help but feel like that's one of those devices too, that we saw it in the movies. And so now we need to see it on the television show to create that interstitial connectivity.
[00:35:28] I love a good cone of silence and they need to use them more. Yeah, but use them in your private chambers, you know, double down. Let's talk about our next topic, the fear virus.
[00:35:41] Rocky Zim on Discord said, for anyone who has read Star Wars High Republic content, what Desmond does with the fear reminds me of the nameless and how they feed off of force users and their fear. My guess is Desmond is able to sense what a person's fear is and then intensify it until it consumes and kills them.
[00:36:09] Or he has to be close to the person to be able to sense their fear, like a brainwave or something. Then he focuses on it and makes the fear so bad the person is consumed, triggers the stress response from the amygdala and overloads the brain and body. It takes a toll on Desmond. He seems like he has a harder time using the sense each time he kills someone.
[00:36:34] He did it during the night meeting and he had wounds from it and finally got a new uniform. God, that's, I need to add that to my list of nitpicks, the uniform. Anyway, you see the Sook doctor Nazir, who is also a sister, in containment trying to regulate herself with her hand to control her breathing. She's able to fight it off for a bit, but then it becomes too much and she dies.
[00:36:59] Later in the episode, Tula helps Valya fight off the fear by holding her and talking to her. It keeps Valya grounded and in the present moment, not consumed by or stuck in the nightmare with Griffin. Alicia, you want to tell us a little bit about the High Republic content? Yeah, I mean, it's so in the High Republic, there is, this is in the latter two phases chronologically,
[00:37:24] especially there is these creatures called the Nameless that kind of look like Cthulhu dogs, you know? And what they do is they feed off of force-sensitive people, Jedi, you know? And they eat the force, but they kind of, yeah, they just, they fill you in a similar way. They fill you with fear and then feed off of that and then you're dust in the wind, you know? Mm-hmm. So Flamboyant Gatekeeper says, I don't have a problem with the nanovirus.
[00:37:53] I think I have an explanation. Kasha came into contact with Desmond before leaving Wallach 9, thus getting infected. When she arrives on Wallach 9, she's patient zero for the virus. Desmond activates the virus at Kasha to spread fear among the sisters. The virus attaches itself to the optical nerve, causing all affected to see the same thing once they have percolated enough. Their training is what made them see it in the first place. That tracks for me.
[00:38:19] The virus being activated by fear also tracks for me because fear is self-replicating. When you fight fear and lose, you get, you'll get more afraid and the effect gets stronger. I'm pretty sure there's a basis for something like that in nature. Fear is a symptom of strychnine poisoning, for example. John, do you have any thoughts about the fear virus? Up until actually reading this feedback, I thought it was just too convenient that everyone had it.
[00:38:45] But I can see where the seeing of what happens to Kasha spreading the fear amongst the rest of the sisters and everything idea can definitely take some root in terms of the convenience of spreading it. It still leaves me with questions. Of course, the show leaves us with a lot of questions.
[00:39:08] But the whole point that they make where Jen is the only one that is not receiving these nightmares or anything at all. Tula receives them privately at first and then she admits to receiving them in episode five or six, I think.
[00:39:24] So, you know, wanting to get some more information about what Jen's whole deal is in terms of not being afraid, I think is going to be important for season two and kind of further combating this virus. Because Valia was able to combat it, but only with the help of Tula, who was literally holding her in her arms, keeping her in check.
[00:39:48] Alicia, do you have any thoughts about the fear virus as a plot device or in the meta context for it? As a plot device, I think like everything else, it was imperfectly realized. But my biggest thing is I expected them to at least get to the litany of fear. And I think this is part of the same problem where they clearly had to chop down on their content this season. And it didn't feel like that came to a satisfying conclusion.
[00:40:13] So we're still waiting for something that's, that's one of my problems with the first season, I think, is there are certain things that are obvious to us, you know, like that these sisters become the Bene Gesserit, the litany of fear, things like that. And then it's like, well, just at least give us the obvious things so we can move on and be excited about the unknown. I like that, right? Go through, check off a bunch of boxes, everybody's satisfied. And then we can actually start to break new story ground, right? And to get going. Zach?
[00:40:42] I don't have a problem with the fear virus as a plot device. You know, it is something that moves the story along. And thankfully, they provided an answer to it instead of just like space magic at the end. We were all really nervous about space magic. Yeah. There are certain plot holes that I don't think have been resolved yet. Like how did Kasha get activated like way after the fact of coming into contact with Desmond?
[00:41:11] I don't think we ever got an explanation for that part of it because it seems like every other use of the activation is in direct proximity to Desmond. Right. So that was kind of a glaring hole for me. But just on its surface, no, I'm fine with that. I will have more to say about it in the nitpick section, but just as a general plot device, I'm okay with it. John, do you have any theories on the background technology for the fear virus?
[00:41:39] I think there might be some extended universe stuff sort of in the Brian lore. Does anybody know? I mean, I think it's safe to say there's some Tleilaxu bullshit going on for sure. Because, I mean, if there's any group that can also look at the genetic possibilities of an individual that is not the Bene Gesserit and it's not – we're 10,000 years before Paul Atreides.
[00:42:08] Because there's either some Tleilaxu bullshit or some Ixian shit that's going on, but my money's on Tleilax. Canonically, how close were the Ixians and the Bene Gesserit? Did they – I mean, I know the Bene Gesserit are a little bit xenophobic, right?
[00:42:28] And we never really in the Frank Herbert books, I can't recall that he ever goes deep into Ixian culture or life. It's a theme in the later books, the later of the core six. And I have to admit, I'm fuzzy on the exact details there, but it's not in the first three. It's something that happens, you know, towards heretics and chapter house. I think that's a better suited question for someone like Dune Navigator Martin.
[00:42:58] On Blue Sky? Yeah. His knowledge of Dune just far surpasses, I think, anyone's. Guy's a fucking legend. Does he podcast at all? Have you talked to him much? No. He doesn't podcast. Interesting. But he posts often. So we have the Ixians on the tech side and the Tleilaxu – I always struggle with them – on the genetic side.
[00:43:20] So, I mean, as far as I can recall, they have not really interacted in the original Dune lore. And so I think that was one of the things I was most excited about with this show is like you could do something interesting if you have these two team up. And then obviously at some point it goes horribly awry and they are no longer allies later. But millennia to get there. Right. Let's talk a little bit about imprinting. Hal 9000 on the Discord said,
[00:43:50] Another theme in this episode was imprinting. We saw it with Francesca, the emperor, but it was mirrored in Tula and her baby. Once imprinted, you can't hurt me was true in both situations. Valya also appeared to be imprinted with her brother and would do anything to save him. The imprinting stuff, if I remember, in the original books doesn't come in until later. Is it in the back half? Is it the latter three that we get introduced to that topic?
[00:44:19] Does anyone know? That feels right. I can't point to specific chapters, but that feels right to me. But you can retrospectively apply it to certain interactions that, say, certain Bene Gesserit have with the Harkonnens. So it wasn't spoken of, but then when you look back, you're like, oh, well, yeah, it's always been there.
[00:44:40] It's something that the show is doing, that it's trying to take a lot of far-ranging lore and bring it forward a lot. And it almost feels like, to me, a little bit when Star Wars brings C-3PO and R2-D2 all the way back, as opposed to our first introduction to them in A New Hope.
[00:45:03] And I always have mixed emotions and feelings about doing that kind of stuff, trying to precede lore or connections. And I don't have a problem necessarily with the imprinting thing. It definitely fits in my mind for something that Bene Gesserit would have in their toolkit for things. But I have to think, doesn't Fennering, doesn't Lady Fennering use imprinting in the first Dune book?
[00:45:32] Yeah, I mean, not explicitly, but that's what I'm saying. Okay. And also, you could say the same thing with Jessica's biological parents, that Bene Gesserit were using it, but it just wasn't called that until the later books. Right. Frank didn't actually invent a term for it.
[00:45:48] So, the feedback from Hal, I understand the imprinting thing, but I don't necessarily agree about Tula imprinting with her baby that we now know as Desmond. Mm-hmm.
[00:46:04] Simply just because imprinting as a tool, I think, is more, and I don't know if it's explicitly said, but it's definitely more of a sexual control over a person rather than just like, hey, I'm forming an emotional bond with you kind of control.
[00:46:24] So, I don't see that being like a foresight of, hey, I'm your mother and I love you, even though I'm about to give you up for your own sake. Like, also, here's some imprinting kind of working out. Mm-hmm.
[00:46:41] That said, I don't also see it working with Dahlia and her brother either because, first of all, Dahlia has no training whatsoever, so that timing doesn't work. Um, and secondly, you get into weird incest shit at that point too. Right. Right.
[00:47:02] Yeah, because I think canonically it was always used as a, um, uh, to explicitly female control over male, uh, intellect and, you know, to, to control them, to, to manipulate for, for power reasons.
[00:47:19] Yeah, and you see that obviously most explicitly or entirely explicitly with Francesca and Havico, where Havico like sees her, they have their conversation and he like tries to start making out with her and she's like, yo, I'm not here for that. Mm-hmm. Like, chill out. And in the, in the latter books, obviously with the honored matrons, uh, it's used quite, he uses it as a device quite a lot in his writing. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:47:48] I think the, the two instances that come to mind are one we mentioned with, uh, Margot Fenring and, um, fade. Yep. And then. To secure the genetic line. And to protect herself in the process of doing that. Right. And then one that's, uh, more alluded to than explicitly shown is, um, uh, Gaius Helen Mohaim and, uh, the, the Baron, uh, Vladimir Harkonnen.
[00:48:14] So that, uh, there's, there was a level of, um, imprinting that happened, uh, there. Really? It was at, oh. Yeah. That's what I was referring to with Jessica's parents. Can I, um, throw out a slight feminist gripe about the overall lore in general here? Please. Go for it. Absolutely. It feels like this is, you know, a man being like, you know, bitches be controlling, man. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It kind of rubs me the wrong way in that. Yeah. But I guess that's the advantage is the right plot line overall.
[00:48:44] Right. Yeah. Frank, he was, he had some complex views, I think. I don't know exactly how to always parse what he's talking about. So, but that's a whole other podcast. So, uh, let's talk a little bit about other memories and questions about the dead pool because we did get a lot of feedback of people questioning the draining of the pool and how could you cover up a mass murderer at that scale.
[00:49:10] But then we also had that, that sort of revolves around some of the questions of other memories in groggy one wrote in to say, I'm so confused about Dorotea and Lila remembering her own death. That makes no sense unless her daughter would have been cloned or something from her dead body. And then given birth to Lila, how does she have those memories otherwise?
[00:49:36] Does anyone have a clear through line as to how that whole part of the storyline worked? Not necessarily the, the mass murder, but the other memories aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. So this is something I've thought about quite a lot because it was one thing, you know, and this is one where, um, you can change the lore in the books and all in the Frank Herbert's
[00:50:00] books and Brian Herbert's books, the lore is that you remember up to the time of your own birth, which makes sense because it's like the cellular, cellular memory. Mm-hmm. And then, yeah, maybe later they, they get a chance to unlock beyond that. But that's, yeah, at this point, that's what it should be. Now, I don't mind if they change that for the show. I just want to know that the writers have thought that through and have something internally consistent about how that works.
[00:50:28] And so far they haven't really told us yet, unless anyone thinks that they have. Joel and Zach? Zach. Oh man, I'm, I'm racking my brain. Uh, I, I don't think they have. Yeah. I mean, clearly they show that, um, she's remembering beyond her birth. She's, and she, for some reason she doesn't know who her mother is, which she should as soon as, you know, she has those genetic memories unlocked. Mm-hmm.
[00:50:56] Is there any other memory telling her the information? It seems like, yeah. I mean, cause it should also just be, not that it's like your body captures the spirits of your ancestors, but like, it's a reflection, internal reflection of your ancestry, you know, very in a Carl Jung kind of way. But yeah. Um, I, they just haven't been clear. That's, that's my issue with this. Not that it's changed, but that I just don't know what it is in the show. Zach, did you have a. Yeah.
[00:51:26] I, it's, it's not clear, but it's also, we haven't explicitly been told that Lila's mother is not a part of, you know, her other memory at this point. Um, I mean, this is just, you know, scratching my, my head cannon here, but, uh, the, the fact that Dorothea just takes over, um, is possibly do that. She's just the strongest force there. Maybe the memories of Lila's mother, mother are somewhere in that mix, but we're just,
[00:51:55] we just haven't seen that on screen. Yeah. And Joe H, uh, wrote in with some feedback saying, how did Dorothea know that there were bodies at the bottom of the pool? Awfully handy that you just flip a lever and the pool drains so completely that you can see the old bones at the bottom. That was sorry to, sorry to cut off, but yeah, no, please. That I don't think my eyes could have rolled harder. Is it on your knits list? Yeah. Okay.
[00:52:21] Uh, well, I mean, that's, I would, I would say that's just, you know, putting two and two together in that, in that moment. I mean, that's, she knows, she knows that the, the history of the other sisters that were in her acolytes were, was erased at that point. Um, she knows this is where she was killed and I don't think it's a huge leap to say, well, you know, if something else happened, it would have happened, you know, around here and if it did happen around here, that's a very good place to hide something.
[00:52:50] It definitely felt to me like a good writer's trick. And, and again, you can do these kinds of things. And as long as I'm surprised and delighted, I'm like, I'm fine. And if I don't agree with it, then I'm going to be grumpy about it. And this definitely felt like to me one where I could kind of see the hand of the writer, like, oh my God, the bodies were there all along. Right. You know, that whole sort of, um, uh, uh, pull the, um, pull the, uh, tablecloth out
[00:53:20] and, you know, we're all amazed. Oh my gosh, how did that happen? So, uh, I don't know, Alicia, did you have any opinions about the pool? No, I mean, I think I agree with Zach that it's, it didn't really bother me. Um, I saw other people calling it out like this, but for me, I was just like, yeah, sure. Why not? You know, that, yeah, there was, yeah. Um, there could be something with this whole, how do these past memories work and something? I don't know. I don't know.
[00:53:48] We, since we don't know how it works, we don't know what this version of Dorotea who lives in Lila's head knows. Right. Or yeah. Remembers quote unquote. Well, clearly she remembers her own death because there's a moment where Lila being controlled by Dorotea is walking up and she basically has like an acid flashback to the moment where young value was using the voice on her because we hear young values voice yelling.
[00:54:18] Stop. Lila being controlled by Dorotea stops, does the same turn, does the same look backwards and like has that same like emotional scared face. I think the genetic memory literally is up until the moment of death because we also see the flashback of the perspective of Dorotea lying on the ground with the pool of blood laying out in front of her. Does she even remember past her moment of death?
[00:54:47] Like that's, you know, this is where. No, she doesn't, but like she doesn't die immediately when she stabs herself in the neck either. She has to, I would assume, have a few moments of consciousness left in her before she's just like completely drained of blood. So really weird side question. Anybody watching the pit? No. Oh, no, no. If you're into medical drama shows, it's pretty good.
[00:55:12] And it's, you know, it's obviously with Noah Wiley and I thought it was like, oh, this is just an ER reboot. It's not. It's doing something very different. It's very, very good. I will say that technically put together. I just had to ask because there's a whole bunch of subplot lines in the early part of the season about brain death and people dying and stuff like that. So I have to think that, you know, when does memory processing stop in the brain?
[00:55:43] And, you know, how long until brain death from, say, when you're, you know, dying from a mortal wound? So, yeah, I think maybe there's some wiggle room there. But again, it goes to the question of internal consistency. Like, do the writer, are the writers clear as to what they're doing and then they can play with it? Or is it, you know, are they just trying to force some Lego pieces together that don't really fit quite right?
[00:56:35] Yeah. Spice. How did everyone feel about the use of spice in the show? Alicia, why don't you start us off? Um, I mean, of course, I want spice tea in my cabinet immediately. The lifetime supply, because it's very addicting. Um, I mean, I think they both used it too much and not enough. I just, yeah, I have not overall problems with it.
[00:57:02] I think it's just in general, one thing that they could have been doing better at is sort of flanning the fames of the, um, legend of Arrakis. Other than just, uh, other than just Desmond surviving all of these sandworm stuff shenanigans. And, um, just in general, it's like the spice was really accessible on Seleucus Secundus. And that makes sense, I suppose, because of obviously that's, uh, where it's all being imported through.
[00:57:32] But it just failed to set up the mystique of Arrakis. I don't know. Do you guys, or the Fremen's in general. And I think also things contributed to that. Like the, um, the fact that Natalia just, like, is she, um, an acolyte of, of the Fremen religion? Like why is she, you know, speaking in Fremen religious terms? Um, I, I think it's just one of those things where a lot of words were thrown out, but they weren't pulled together. Mm-hmm.
[00:58:02] Exactly. Like what I just said. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's the, I think the, the use of spice was internally consistent with what we've seen, uh, in, in other, uh, in other works of the Dune universe. Um, it, it was very abundant, which is the part where we kind of get a departure from what we know of spice from the books and the, the earlier movies.
[00:58:28] Um, it's just, it seems to be everywhere and there's no, there's no real mystique around it. Um, and that's the part that I was like, eh, that's the, they're, they're, they're using it correctly, but they're overusing it, uh, in a sense, but it's, it's just, uh, I don't know. Yeah. Just having barrels of it up in the attic and the bar list. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll try to steer clear of nitpicks and I'll just leave it at, I think they used
[00:58:54] it, uh, internally consistent, uh, but it was just a lot of it. It was like, uh, just this, this thing that they could fall back on and say, all right, we have, here's, here's more spice. Everyone loves it. So go for it. So John on, on Seleuze second, we would assume that there's a lot of, uh, nobles and noble households and, you know, obviously the lands rad. So the, the kids of the, of all of these important people, right. You know, they got their club and, you know, they're, they're doing spice.
[00:59:25] Canonically, it was pretty explicit that spice was used by the noble houses as a, as a common thing. So are, were you surprised at the overuse of it or does that track for you given the, the context of what they were building in the story? Cause they weren't down in the, what does she say when they're going in the little, uh, robo taxi, uh, you know, we're going to this place rather than the slummy part of town. So we're, we're diving into my knits.
[00:59:55] Oh, okay. All right. So, but, but, but what I will say, because we recently had a, uh, episode of our, uh, Dune Minute Summer School all about the Spacing Guild. Um, and this is where, you know, some Frank versus Brian versus Encyclopedia stuff comes up. Mm-hmm. So during our, um, summer school episode about the Spacing Guild, the guild really only displayed
[01:00:24] spices like, Hey, it has some geriatric properties where you can live a little bit longer, but that's all we're going to tell you about it. Mm-hmm. And in the show here, we're getting like full on spice is going to open your mind and it's going to make you like fucking think more, but also like it's a party drug. And I think the wider applications of spice in this show versus what it is known for, especially
[01:00:53] this early on in the Imperium kind of throws me out of it a little bit. And to Zach's point with just the abundance of spice, just hanging out in un, like highly unguarded barrels is so just like strange to me as a viewer. Right. But also. When they're really building it up as this thing and then it's like, Oh, here's just a random room with a bunch of barrels in it. Right.
[01:01:22] Like without being nitpicky, it just, it just seemed a little incongruent given the way that they set it up versus how they showed us. When we, when we first started watching the show, we were expecting the drug that they were taking both in cocaine and smoking form was Samuda rather than spice, because that makes more sense as a party drug. Yeah. But do you want to introduce a brand new drug to this universe? Yeah.
[01:01:50] No, it makes more sense to have the spices kind of this like composite. But also when you show it as like blue purple in its snortable form, that is not the orange spice that we know from the movies and we know from the show. So that's good. That's why it kind of like threw me into, Oh, maybe this is Samuda territory. Right. That's what I was thinking. It's the Walter White version of spice. Breaking spice. You're breaking spice. I love it.
[01:02:19] I'm the one who, I'm the one who thumps. Again, it feels like one of those things where, uh, I think it was Jordan's email earlier. It was like, they have, they had a lot of great cliff notes and then they were just sort of cutting and pasting a bunch of stuff. And, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm giving an, I'm making up an excuse. Maybe, maybe they thought they had two drugs and then they just had to edit it down to one for six episodes or something. It's hard to say, but let's talk about even.
[01:02:50] More of a spicy topic, the voice, because I'm sure we all have opinions about the voice, the portrayal, both in the Villeneuve movies, as well as in Dune Prophecy. Marilyn, our favorite Tolkien scholar starts us off listening to the pod episode about episode six and how the voice as represented in the show breaks canon. Is it possible that they're showing an origin that the sisters spent the next 10,000 years
[01:03:16] modifying the voice so that it was no longer a power over method and more a function of physiology that you were speaking of? Zach or John, opinions about the voice without, without getting out the flamethrowers. Yeah. This one was probably the part that took me out of this show the most. And I'll save it for my nitpick section. But I agree that they were showing an origin on, in this series.
[01:03:46] I don't agree with that origin. I think it, you know, it needs to be a development over a longer period of time. But it seems like this is just something that Alia came up with or found the ability to do. And lo and behold, it is one of the linchpins of the series. The 10,000 year gap, modifying it from the very like crude version that we see in the show to the
[01:04:14] more, this is a suggestion and just subtle-ish version that we see in the Villeneuve movies. I think that makes sense. There's, there's a large time gap and that's, that's a long time to refine this. So I think that internally holds up, but it's just the part that, you know, getting to the use of the voice seemed kind of like ham fisted in the show.
[01:04:41] It seems too convenient that Valia was just born with the ability to like, just accidentally discover the voice when her brother falls into the ice. My, you know, if we're talking about headcanon and stuff, my headcanon in all of this is that the sisters realized that there is a way to psychologically manipulate someone outside of sexual imprinting.
[01:05:07] And for like shorter term, you know, quick one-off kind of situations. And then they spend 10,000 years developing and honing these skills rather than it just being found by accident. Not to say that some of the greatest discoveries in our own world haven't been found by accident because they definitely have.
[01:05:28] I mean, pretty sure beer was probably found by accident, but you know, the voice doesn't seem like something that is just pulled out of someone's ass, so to speak. Alicia, where are you with the voice on screen? So I think that this is a three-layered quote-unquote problem. I don't have problems with all the layers, but just to, okay, so first of all, we have
[01:05:53] the whole 10,000 years issue that comes up again and again when we talk about Dune, where I know, David, you know, you have a lot of thoughts on this, especially about how it's not as much of a problem as people think. But it is something where people are just like, how does the world not develop more in 10,000 years? Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good, bad question. It's a question that people definitely, I think it's a worthy area of conversation. Yeah, yeah.
[01:06:23] And I would say, by the way, I've seen episode four of The Wheel of Time, which will come out shortly after this. It is public what it is about, and I'll say that there is a very interesting representation of how things can develop over a few thousand years in this upcoming episode four of season three. But so in Dune, that is what it is. You know, we have this 10,000 year period. And then we have, and I understand that this is something that Zach and John object to, the
[01:06:52] Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson books. They did these prequel novels. And so some things like The Voice, they were like, let's speed it up and show it over a few hundred years so that we can have this action in a containable way. I don't have a problem with that. I understand that people do. And so that is what it is also. And then on top of that, you take what was in these prequel novels and you just strip it
[01:07:19] down to like the most bare thing. And then that's where my problem kicks in with it. Okay. That's what I didn't like about it. But I think it's coming from this layer of like these different issues. How long should it take to develop this, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, my thing with the show is they didn't have time to do things properly and took a lot of shortcuts. And this is one of them. Right. I have not read a lot of the Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson books.
[01:07:48] I think I've only even just read just half of the Sisterhood book. So I'm not really fully able to speak about that. And I really shouldn't have a lot of well-formed opinions about the writing because I don't really have a sample to judge from. So setting that question aside, for me, the problem with the voice on screen, both a little
[01:08:16] bit in the movies and a little bit on the show, is that it undermines one of the most interesting aspects of the Bene Gesserit for me. For me, the idea of this group of people, this institution, this quasi-religion almost in some ways that has a lot of structures of religion without having a – that's another podcast too.
[01:08:45] Anyway, I don't want to go too far down there. The idea that this subtle and not only subtle, but also overt control mechanism is based in psychology as opposed to magic space voice, that for me is one of the cornerstones of the Bene Gesserit.
[01:09:09] And even in the original book, Herbert sets it up so that when Jessica is debating internally whether she should use it on Dufer – it was Dufer, wasn't it? Or was it with – I believe it was. And she does. She uses it on him, right? And Dufer doesn't even have the realization that, whoa, they have this power, right? The biggest example, I think, of what you're getting at is the ornithopter scene when the
[01:09:38] Harkonnen goons are taking them out to the desert. Right. That's – it is presented as much, much more of a subtle power. It's like the power of suggestion versus a overt like, hey, do this. Almost like a Jedi mind trick, maybe. Very similar, yeah. Wonder where they got the idea. I don't know. So, yeah, for me, that's really where – and again, I get it. It's six episodes.
[01:10:04] I get trying to get an adaptation of the voice on screen in a way that makes sense. I'm not a professional writer of stories or anything like this, and so I just wish that they could have figured a different way out while preserving the integrity of the deep learning that the Bene Gesserit undertake in terms of studying human psychology and physiology
[01:10:30] to be able to employ a tool like this as opposed to being just compressed down into magic space voice. Yeah. I mean, I think it was just, again, the shortcuts. But I just hope that – I don't know. I also just – the whole thing with Valia and her brother, which is all tied up into this origin story.
[01:10:53] I hope that they go more into this and give us a bit more subtle and expanded backstory. I just don't know where they would go with that backstory beyond what they've already shown us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, they've kind of buttoned that up. I mean, well, actually, okay, so we're doing full spoilers. Yeah.
[01:11:18] There is – with her whole – you know, they haven't really even started with her whole thing with the Atreides and why, and that is very much tied up with her brother. And that was one thing I was disappointed that they skipped over from the prequel novels is just how exactly her brother died in the prequel novels is very much tied up in this whole Atreides-Harkonnen rift. And her brother actually – I mean, he's an interesting character because he went to kill
[01:11:47] Vorian and he ended up deciding not to and saying, like, let's put this family blood feud to rest. And then someone else killed him. Valia blames him. And the blood feud kicks off worse than ever. Yeah. That is a well of backstory that I hope that we get into in season two. Yeah. Especially given the amount of times that they mentioned Vorian. Like, that was one of the things that surprised me the most. They're like, Vorian Atreides, Vorian Atreides, Vorian Atreides. Nothing.
[01:12:12] And, like, they set up Vorian a lot and having no payout on even acknowledging the, like, physical presence of the guy I think is interesting. So maybe they dive into those flashbacks with the death of Valia's brother in season two. I don't know. Who knows? Right.
[01:12:40] But there's a good story to mine. And they did specifically say they were with the book. So, I mean, I know you guys don't love that. We'll get into that later. But there's a lot of good plot in those books. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about some of the bigger themes or topics that maybe
[01:13:10] got some screen time but weren't necessarily determinative to the plot itself. And in this bucket, I threw the 10,000 years question. I threw the Butlerian Jihad. Faced answers we kind of talked about, but we can also talk a little bit more about the broader implication of the Benetailax. Benetailax. Fremen mythology. Folding space. That, again, is one of those things.
[01:13:37] There's a couple of plot things that happen, but there's a larger question. The litany against fear. And the Sadrachar. So, on the 10,000-year question, Marilyn wrote in to say, perhaps our valiant co-host might address the question of why Frank decided he needed 10,000 years and then another 10,000 year in his world.
[01:14:02] Species evolution doesn't usually occur in a couple of hundred years, or if it does, it's very slight and scarcely noticeable, I think. And then Flamboyant Gatekeeper also added, something I've been struggling a bit with is the Dune 10,000-year-plus civilization. I know it's not unique, but you'd think that they would shuffle houses over such a span of time. Do we know anything about the time pre-Butlerian Jihad?
[01:14:29] How have the Atreides and Harkonnen houses been power players? The political landscape has remained largely intact for a very long time. I don't think any culture on Earth has gotten even close to that kind of longevity. Alicia, do you have any perspective on the 10,000-year question specifically? I mean, I think that there are a lot of arguments both ways.
[01:14:55] Ultimately, it comes down to, I'll just say up front, to something I just accept because it's a fundamental part of the world building. Fair enough. It is what it is. But there are arguments both ways. I think Marilyn makes a good argument in favor of it here, which is about that it allows more time for actual evolution. Although, if you think about how much do any of them really evolve and change, the only ones who do are the ones who are pushed with genetic technology.
[01:15:22] So, yeah, I think if I were the one who made up this world, I might have made it more like 1,000 years, maybe two. Fair enough. But still, yeah, you would think that there would be more changes in the houses. This makes sense. But the argument about the fact that things stay so staid is that it is essentially space feudalism.
[01:15:50] And feudalism prevents progress because they're all holding each other in check because there's all these different, not just the houses, but also the other entities, you know, like the space and guilds and the schools and all that. They don't trust each other and they all hold each other in check. I had started to write an article over exploring this question and not really necessarily defense, but maybe a explanation of some of the factors that might be involved.
[01:16:20] And feudalism is definitely a big part of it. The distance over space is another one as well. The geriatric processes that are involved in prolonging noble houses, you know, their lines, even stretching somebody to 100 or a little bit over 100 and still being very quite healthy and hale up until those final years of your life. All sort of are contributing factors.
[01:16:48] I started working on it over the holidays and then when we came back, you know, life just sort of took over. And so it's that article has been lying fallow, but it's one of those intentions that I have one day to finish it. But John and Zach, you guys had talked a bit about communications in your summer school episode on Holtzman.
[01:17:11] And I think that's one of the factors that we have to think about is the ability for an imperium to be able to speak to itself across vast distances, right? You know, if we think about Earth history, the ability for some centralized colonial power, having regular communications with a governor in another place.
[01:17:34] There's a big lag time in communications when you're putting a message on a ship and whether that ship actually makes it there and whatnot. But then the Holtzman thing does change that equation a little bit. Do you want to just throw in a little shameless plug for your summer school episode and maybe talk a little bit about how some of the technology may or may not play a factor in the 10,000 year framework? So I'm going to plug our entire summer school series. Go for it.
[01:18:04] Because it answers all of these questions. Nice. Okay. Or at least addresses them. Yeah, addresses them. I shouldn't say answers. I want to make this abundantly clear. We're just fans. We don't claim to be experts or anything. We just like talking about Dune a lot. That being said, let's start with Holtzman because it all does truly start with Holtzman.
[01:18:33] It all goes back to Holtzman. Right. So humanity in space prior to Ibrahim von Holtzman, and we are sticking with the Encyclopedia Holtzman, not the Brian Holtzman, because the Brian Holtzman is, frankly, just a complete bastardization and destruction of what makes a very compelling Holtzman.
[01:19:03] Ibrahim von Holtzman exists several thousand years before the Spacing Guild is even thought of. And he, for those of your listeners that don't know, is a human being at the start of his life that gets into a really bad accident, basically gets his brain transferred into a computer. That computer then gets put into a ship, which is then sent off in orbit to get away from people to just think.
[01:19:33] Like, this is a super simplified version. If you want more detail, go listen to our Holtzman episode. But basically, he comes back every few thousand years and just gifts knowledge to humanity. First thing about sending communications over Holtzman waves. And then he comes back and he's like, hey, by the way, shields are a thing. Here's how you do it.
[01:19:59] And then he comes back with some more information about travel and how you can potentially go forward with faster than light travel. He doesn't quite get there. That's where the guild kind of comes into play. And then in his last return, he gets nuked by the Butlerians at the end of the Butlerian Jihad.
[01:20:29] He is the last thinking machine to be destroyed. His final theorem never is shared or figured out, unfortunately.
[01:20:43] So you have Holtzman who brings all of these incredibly isolated systems into communication with all of his ideas that he brings back to humanity after his elliptical path of thinking. Then you have the guild, which kind of shows up and figures out, hey, we can move faster than light thanks to spice.
[01:21:10] But we're not going to tell anyone that spice is the actual catalyst. Maybe the bending dredge laid the ground foundational work for the guild to exist. Maybe they didn't. Who knows? Our theory is that they do. We talk about this a lot more in our spacing guild. But I think one thing that is forgotten in this 10,000 year discussion is the existence of Chome. Which is the entire economic backbone of the Imperium.
[01:21:37] So sorry to interject, but just really quick that Chome is an allusion to OPEC, which is the petroleum producing countries. And Herbert was very much writing in the shadow of that, of taking a precious resource like oil and then having a controlling interest like OPEC with Chome and the spice, right?
[01:22:01] So I just wanted to make sure that folks are aware of that real world history that Frank was writing about. Chome, the combine honet over advancer mercantiles. And when I was talking about the powers keeping each other in check, and that's one of the reasons why there's so little progress. As soon as I stopped talking, the next word in my mouth was Chome. But, you know, the conversation already moved on. But of course, yeah, the business interests. John, please.
[01:22:29] And my economic knowledge exists enough to create a budget for myself and to do my taxes every year. However, in our Chome summer school episode, we had Chome director on as a guest who is an actual real world economist who knows way more about the economic implications and everything of, you know, this entire system.
[01:22:56] So I would very strongly recommend your listeners go check that episode out because it's fascinating. The amount of, you know, how long have the Atreides and the Harkonnen houses and other houses major been power players?
[01:23:21] They are and are forced to remain power players because they are and are forced to remain members of Chome. If they falter on that at all, they are completely isolated and cut off from everything and they will just straight up die out. Interesting.
[01:23:42] So they don't have the ability to maintain their Chome directorship or not directorship, but their Chome membership as members of the board per se. That is death for their entire house.
[01:24:03] Because when you have the Spacing Guild being the sole linkage between your world, your planet, and the rest of the planets, if you cut that off, there's no sublight. Realistically, there's no sublight alternative. No, you have to go back to the pre-Holtzman and pre-Guild form of navigation, which is jumping from planet to planet, which takes way too long.
[01:24:28] And you don't have faster than light travel because the Guild has a monopoly on all travel. And that's an interesting thing about the moment in which this particular show, Doom Prophecy, takes place. It is just after the rise of the Spacing Guild. So they're just getting access.
[01:24:49] If you go back 100 years to those prequel books, we have at the beginning of Sisterhood of Doom, the Harkonnens lose an uncle, Griffin and Valia's uncle, because they're using that older form of space travel. So they know all too well how much they need this. Right, right. So I think all this is to say the vast span of years is by design.
[01:25:18] It is from the economic engines and the travel and communications. All of this is to purposely keep that – and I think we've been dancing around this word – that stagnation in place. And that is something that the universe up until later in the story relies on. Mm-hmm.
[01:25:40] And I think that is even a primary driver so that the idea that Frank Herbert is dealing with in the books is that humanity – there is stagnation. And that if we're not leaning into the unknown, then we as a species are going to a trophy.
[01:26:06] And we're going to not be genetically viable going forward in the future. And so I think foundation also deals with some of that. Yeah. And Frank Herbert was definitely writing in the shadow of Isaac Asimov. And so there's some cross themes at play here.
[01:26:26] But the idea that without progress of some kind – and you can define that in a lot of different ways – but that the stagnation is ultimately a self – from a species standpoint is a self-defeating strategy. And for an organism to continue to flourish and persist, it does need to be challenged in some way.
[01:26:51] And it needs to sort of lean into the unknown and face new dangers and new constraints. Does that comport with everybody else's sense of – Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree fully there. Okay. I've long had these thoughts. They've just existed only in my head. And so I'm glad to be validated that other people are like, yeah, no, that's right. Okay, good. Whew. We could probably spend a whole other podcast talking about that.
[01:27:17] But let's keep going a little bit and talk a little bit about the Butlerian Jihad and the face dancers. And of course, the fact that the network didn't like to use the word jihad. Cowards. Right. Thoughts, Zach or John? But they did say Orange Catholic Bible. They did. They did. Yeah. Well, because Bible is not a scary word to white people. Yeah.
[01:27:47] The Butlerian Jihad or the Machine Wars as they like to call it, it kind of plays into my big crack that I'll get into. But it's, I don't know, it feels like a, well, I'll say this. It is a very different version of the story that I had in my head.
[01:28:09] This is one of the first on-screen references that are on-screen depictions of that time in this universe that we've gotten. And it's, you know, I never pictured a literal war against, you know, machines. It was always more of a philosophical or shift in mindset thing. Interesting. Not to say that it wasn't a violent period. It definitely was. Mm-hmm.
[01:28:37] But it's, you know, about a few of the works. It wasn't an externalized enemy that was a robot. It was more. Right. Yeah. Right. Gotcha. Okay. So, I mean, that was an interesting take on it. And, you know, that take comes directly from the Brian Herbert books. Mm-hmm. And not to say it's an incorrect one. It's just not what I was expecting. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, it's, as a plot device, I mean, it does what it needs to do.
[01:29:03] You know, we have the eradication of thinking machines and that instills the fear of using those machines in people. Mm-hmm. And, you know, that serves the story where it needs to. So, from that perspective, I don't have a problem with how they did it. I mean, this is exactly what they needed. But, you know, the overall depiction of it was something that was a little bit different than I had in my head. Right. Alicia, did it comport? I mean, I know you've read a few of the books.
[01:29:32] I can't remember how far up you got. Yeah. No, I mean, it's well past this because the Great Houses trilogy is well past this. Mm-hmm. But, I mean, it got me excited to see that at the start. And then I was a bit disappointed we didn't get back to it. But then at the end, we got another tease. So, I have to say it is one of the things I'm most excited to seeing more of in season two. It does – yeah, there is a literal war in the books.
[01:30:00] But there's also some fantastic characters that come out of it who have a tendency to defy seeming deaths. So, I hope they just bring those characters back. John, do you know canonically if there's any indication – well, not – that's a bad word. Yeah, yeah. We have to discuss canonically. Exactly. I just caught myself. I was going to say, what canon are you talking about here?
[01:30:27] Is there anything in the encyclopedia that talks about the jihad as an external or internal war? Oh, buddy. How long do you want us to go off? No, we've got to keep it live. Shall we just lay out for people who don't know that there are, like, you could argue three different canons. So, there's the original Frank Herbert six books. Like, nobody's going to argue that's canon. Right.
[01:30:55] While he was doing that and the latter part of that, he allowed this encyclopedia to be published where, you know, he was like, well, you know, I'm going to kind of contradict some of this in my latter books. But this is like – we'll say this is like an in-universe encyclopedia written by someone who might not know everything, you know? Mm-hmm.
[01:31:43] The encyclopedia came out in 1984. The Dune franchise, as far as the books and everything are concerned, was not complete as far as Frank's books, was not complete at that point in time. I think Dune – or not Dune – Heretics of Dune came out literally the same year that the encyclopedia did. Mm-hmm.
[01:32:10] Because the God Emperor and everything Leito II does is mentioned in the encyclopedia, but nothing – or maybe a couple, like, notes might have been shared between Frank and the writers of the encyclopedia for Heretics. But, like, none of the chapter house stuff is in the encyclopedia itself.
[01:32:35] So, it's not a complete encyclopedia to Frank's works is what I'm getting at there. So, that's why there's a little bit of confusion about is it, like, truly canon? Is it not? Mm-hmm. There's contradictions and, you know – Right. And he didn't write it. He wrote a foreword to it. Right. The other thing that can kind of be explained away, too, in the encyclopedia – and they're very clever about how they do this – is that it's written – does that correct me if I'm wrong?
[01:33:01] But it's, like, over a thousand years after the death of Leito II. Yeah. And it's just, like, collected, you know, scraps of information compiled into a single book is the way that the encyclopedia describes itself as how it was compiled. So, it's – They give themselves an out kind of at the beginning of saying, hey, we are historians in this universe writing and compiling this information.
[01:33:29] It has its own internal inconsistencies that you have to be aware of. So, it's – take it for what you will, but it does provide a pretty good version of the universe. That being said, it does have Frank's Blessing. So, if it has Frank's Blessing, then to me that says, for the most part, it's still very trustworthy.
[01:33:53] So, about the Butlerian Jihad entry in the encyclopedia, I guess – I mean, right? Maybe I shouldn't open that conversation topic. But is there much of an entry in the encyclopedia? Yeah. There's a good bit in there. And without getting too far into it, I will refer people to our episode on the Butlerian Jihad. Oh, gosh. If only there were a podcast. Yeah, right. Right. The Cliff Notes version is – yes, they go a lot into the Butlerian Jihad.
[01:34:22] It is – it starts off with a wrongful death of a child done by a hospital that was controlled by an AI. And the mother of that child happened to be a Bene Gesserit sister who did not necessarily want the full extent of the Jihad to happen.
[01:34:43] But her views and her story was co-opted by this larger movement to start eradicating the dependencies on AI. That came with a lot of strife. That came with kind of this militaristic campaign that swept over many, many planets. And it culminated, as John said earlier, in the death of Holtzman, the Holtzman ship.
[01:35:13] But it was not a robots are killing humans kind of war. Right. It wasn't a Terminator ripoff. Right. Sure, sure. So that's kind of why I said it was more of a philosophical movement, at least at the beginnings.
[01:35:33] And, yeah, it does go into a good bit of the thought process leading up to and during the Jihad. Very good entries in the Encyclopedia. If anyone has a copy of it or can get their hands on one – I know there are free PDFs of it online – I highly recommend reading it because it is a good version of that story. Again, not going to say it's the correct version, but it is a good version of the story.
[01:36:01] We've already talked a little bit about face dancers. I don't want to get too far into that because we've got a few things that we still want to do and we're pushing time. Gosh, this is going to be a short podcast segment ever. But the idea – I don't think it's just – well, this is one of those ones where it was like it could either fall into the category of plot device, definitely, right? Because we have a face dancer on screen and that plays a part in the plot.
[01:36:30] But it's this larger conversation of face dancers and what many Tilex can do and ultimately do do. So it's one of those that crosses over. Other than on-screen adaptation, is there anything, Alicia, that you have thoughts on in terms of face dancers and what we're seeing in the screen adaptations, both Villeneuve and on this?
[01:36:57] No, I mean, from a lore perspective, as far as what we saw – because we obviously haven't seen it from Villeneuve yet. But from this show, from a lore perspective, no problems with it. It's just – I mean, there's obviously – it begs questions because it seems like she's a sort of prototype. And what is the whole – what was her upbringing? What is the whole background there? So it begs a lot of questions. And I don't mind those being left for the second half.
[01:37:24] I just – my problem was not with her face dancing. My problem was with how the character was used. Just for one example, when she was sent to – and they were trying to get – they were trying to do the jailbreak. And so she was supposed to stay behind instead of the princess to look like the princess. But then immediately she changes into a guard so that she can do a failed attempt to kill Desmond.
[01:37:53] And it just – it's just the sloppy writing. It's not a problem with the lore aspect at all. I just am curious where they're going with it and what the backstory is for her and that whole situation. John? I agree with that entirely. I mean, I feel like they did about as good as you can introducing a face dancer and sticking to what face dancers can and can't do.
[01:38:22] But, yeah, the sudden decision to say, no, forget whatever Valia told me to do. I'm going to just turn into this guard and play dying. But then do a stereotypical Hollywood get you close and whisper and stab you in the gut. But you're going to still be alive. And then you're going to beat me up and knock me unconscious. And then you're going to put me in jail for season two. Like, come on.
[01:38:54] Zach, I don't know about you, but for me, the face dancing part and the voice sort of fall into two things that I had problems with. Not only in terms of bringing face dancers really far forward in story. Yeah. But then also what the Benetilacs are all about, the fact that they are deeply, deeply immersed in the human genome and have worked for a long period of time.
[01:39:22] And I don't know how this comports with the encyclopedia as well as the wider canon, I'll say. But for me, it was always about the depth of research and these deep philosophical roots that the Benetilacs had. As opposed to now, oh, gosh, you're just a random genetic mutation. At least that's the way I was interpreting the story. I have a hard time remembering what explanations they gave us for her. They didn't give us an explanation for her.
[01:39:52] So I think that's got to be season two plot point. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Where did she come from? Is she an accident or is she manufactured? They made it seem like it was intentional. Okay. So she was almost like a prototype, I guess. Okay. I can't remember the exact words they used, but much the same as Alicia. I don't have a problem with the introduction of a face dancer here, other than it seems way early in the timeline for this.
[01:40:21] I think it's a good introduction to something that we hopefully will get into season two with. The character, Theodosia, as we've said before, criminally underused and kind of this like deus ex face dancer plot device that just has the skill and is there to fulfill a need whenever they need that particular skill.
[01:40:49] So I'm very, very optimistic for a lot more of her in season two. The one thing I will hold on to that I liked is that it costs something to shape change. In some other sci-fi properties, shape changers can just sort of do it on a whim and it's very convenient and usable in a lot of situations.
[01:41:14] And at least here, it seemed like it's pretty painful and it's not something that you want to do without having it thought through. So I did appreciate that aspect of it. Yeah, I guess we have a scale. We have the Odo from Deep Space Nine shape changer. 100%, exactly. Which is, you know, just can do it whenever they want to. Anyway, on the other end of the scale, we have Theodosia, who is, you know, it seems like, like you said, very painful. Right, right.
[01:41:39] I think we're going to need to leave a few things on the table today just in the interest of everybody's time and sanity. There's one, though, that I do want to touch base on really quick, which is the litany against fear. Because it was constantly within the realm of the show, but they never went there with it.
[01:42:01] It's one of the world-building things that we all were waiting for and then it never was explored or introduced. And I figured, Alicia, you know, in this sort of checklist of things that the writers were trying to introduce, right? Oh, we got to get this in, we got to get this in. We never got the litany against fear as a thing, right? Right. That just seemed like an easy thing to do for the finale of the first season. Like, okay.
[01:42:28] We've, I mean, they were literally showing us fear as the mind killer and then they just say it. Just say it. Well, and Tula even says parts of it, too. Yeah. To Valya as she's walking Valya through all of this. You know, she says, let it pass over you. And it's like, come on, just fucking get there. We got 10,000 years for them to put all this stuff together. That's why I don't mind Frank, or sorry, Brian Herbert speeding things up.
[01:42:59] And I think the other thing that we left, well, that the show left on the table, too, was the Sauticar, which I had, you know, big internet points on was we were going to see the formation of it, but we didn't. I mean, I think we did. They just didn't use the word. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if they follow the in-universe lore, then I think that there shouldn't, like Seleucus Secundus, shouldn't have that nuclear attack for another couple hundred years, something like that. 2,000. 2,000, sorry. That's a couple hundred years between friends, right?
[01:43:30] It's a couple hundred, couple hundred years. Yeah. All right, let us gather round then to perform the ritual picking of the nits. We each get three, and they need to be specific as to something that was on the screen that we saw,
[01:43:55] so not just general concept, but actual things that really rubbed you wrong on how they executed. John, why don't you start us off? I'll go with one that we haven't already talked about, unless we just want to rehash the ones that we've already talked about from my list here. Well, this is your chance to turn on the valves of your flamethrower and go for it. I think the pool is a dumb place to hide bodies when you have an entire planet to ditch some.
[01:44:23] And the whole thing with not Dorothea, but Dorothea, just knowing where they were right off the rip was dumb and stupid. And I thought that whole sequence was pretty not HBO, but like CW show kind of quality. We did say, put on your ablation suits here. I mean. But John, you're forgetting.
[01:44:53] We get one of the coolest devices in the show from that scene. A crowbar? A crowbar that can open any door. Yeah. Miss me with that shit. That was dumb and lazy writing, and I hated it. I don't like that everyone just also happens to know everything Spice is used for. And, you know, it's a disagreement that I have with Denis Villeneuve's Dune Part 1,
[01:45:21] where at the beginning, they just like straight up spoil Paul's big revelation in the book where the guild needs Spice to navigate. And then Paul uses that as leverage against the guild to be able to go and do his little jihad for fun. And, you know, in the show, they reiterate that the guild needs Spice for travel. And it's like, you're not supposed to fucking know that.
[01:45:48] All the guild has ever told you is that Spice makes you live a little bit longer, and it's really cool. You should, you know, go harvest it and give it to us. That's all the guild in Frank and Encyclopedia canon does up until Paul's revelation as far as external, you know, sharing of what Spice's purposes actually are.
[01:46:24] Hmm.
[01:46:46] That's all the guilds over hundreds, if not thousands of years, because you have to learn how to adapt this tool to psychologically manipulate anyone you want to, so long as your will outpowers theirs.
[01:46:59] Obviously, the voice doesn't work on everyone, but, like, you know, it would make sense for them to figure out a way to kind of have a major tool like this that is built and researched on instead of just, I'm yelling at my brother who fell in the ice. Mm-hmm. That's it. Got it. I have more, but I don't want to piss too many people off. Alicia.
[01:47:26] Okay, so since I already got in my gripes about Valia and Theodosia's characters, I'll say one thing we didn't talk about is I'm still not okay with the way Emperor Haviko ended. First of all, because I don't want to lose Mark Strong, but also I just, I don't know, I just don't know. The whole thing at the end, like, the whole four-way thing with him and his mistress and his wife, and then she started up something with Desmond.
[01:47:54] And, yeah, that whole thing was messy. And I didn't think that that was, he deserved a better end, especially for, I don't know, a big character. Anyway, the other thing is, so in the books, it would be his aunt, his Anna Carino. And then it seemed like in the show they were giving Inez her role. And I'm like, okay, fine. This is one of the things where I'm like, you're changing things from book to screen.
[01:48:18] You can turn Inez into Anna Carino, but then, and I mean that because of the way she's, like, stuck between the Bene Gesserit. I almost said Aes Sedai. The Bene Gesserit. And the Imperial family. But then, yeah, just go ahead and go all forward and give her that role. So I really want to see Inez step up in depth. Let's say that. Got it. And, yeah, the sex scenes need a lot of work.
[01:48:45] The sex scenes were not, like, some were okay, but some were real bad. Especially that one with, with his face, the princeling and. Right. Yeah. Ugh. Right, and with the Ixian daughter. Right. Yeah. Richese. Richese, yes. Right, she was a Richese, wasn't she? Yeah. Yeah, just because it's HBO doesn't mean people have to have sex in every episode. Right. Or at least, you know, make it, I don't know. Make it good.
[01:49:14] Yeah, don't make it, like, that just felt so icky. The one with, the one with young Tula and Ori Atreides. Oh, that was good, yeah. Like, that one makes more sense, right? You know? It was good and it serves the pot, yeah. Like, I want to marry you. She's like, yeah, definitely. But also, all of your family is rubbing poison that I just gave them all over their bodies. Not to- When you put it like that. It's a total mood killer.
[01:49:41] I do want to say, like, in the middle of all the nitpicking and everything, I want to, like, also just give huge praise to some of the actors and actresses. Yes. Like, obviously, Mark Strong fucking kills every role that he's ever in. But, like, Emma Canning as young Tula. Mm-hmm. I don't think there was a single scene that she was in that I didn't like. Yeah. And to, you know, stay on the Tula train, Olivia Williams also does a fantastic job as Tula as well.
[01:50:11] Yes. Absolutely. I think all of the actors in the show, I don't think there's any actor that I didn't like. It's the writing that I didn't like. Right. So. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think, and I do think it comes down to the writing, too, but I would like to see more complexity from Desmond. Mm-hmm. I think we'll get that now that he knows his mother, but who knows? Anyways, back to the nits. Zach.
[01:50:42] Yeah, I will. Most of my list has already been talked about. Okay. So I will not rehash points that we've already. Yeah. So the thing that I think is the largest overarching net, and this goes back to things we saw on screen, like the voice. You've got to be specific here. I know, I know. I'm trying to make it specific. Okay, got it.
[01:51:06] You can start with a specific example and then widen back out if you want to apply that way. So the volume, you know, finding the voice is a good example of this. The, I don't need necessarily a concrete backstory to every single thing.
[01:51:38] Mm-hmm. To me, it feels somewhat like you don't trust your audience to be able to get there. If they explicitly say, hey, this is the exact origin of this particular point. The voice being one of them. I had another example, but I can't remember it right now. But I think that is something that happens a number of times throughout this series.
[01:52:07] The butt layer in Jihad being another one, being the literal robot war. Mm-hmm. So, you know, trust the audience a little bit more in being able to make these connections. Right. And, you know, don't feel like you need to explicitly spell out every single thing.
[01:52:28] Once you do that, you really pigeonhole yourself into sticking to that, to those rules that you establish, which we've seen doesn't always work. So, yeah, it's a little bit broader of a topic than just something very specific on screen. Yeah, yeah. You were colored. Specific on screen. But that's, all the other things that we've mentioned are also things that I have, you know, specific things that I have nits to pick with. But that is kind of just the general nitpick.
[01:52:56] Well, I will give you all mine really quick. The lack of security for the AI room. Magic crowbar. Come on. Desmond surviving the explosion. Oh, I completely forgot about that. Holy shit. Oh, yeah. Well, hopefully there's an explanation. That's fine. Maybe we'll just move on. I don't know. But then I'm going to smuggle in his uniform. Like, bro, you're at the high court. You're at the center of the center of power.
[01:53:26] And you got this dusty-ass uniform? No. I think that was propaganda. I think he did that on purpose. Ah, yeah. It's like, remember, I am the salt of the earth. I am the man who survived the worm on Arrakis. If I was his emperor, I'd be like, bro, that thing smells. We're burning it. Well, eventually he did, right? He did.
[01:53:46] And then my last one, which we've sort of touched on earlier, was just the extraordinary amount of spice that was just in a backstore room of a bar. Right? I mean, man. Don't forget the very conveniently left Bene Gesserit dress as well. Yes, exactly. Bene Gesserit was pretty good at hiding stuff. And so that was a little bit too easy to find. All right. Well, we could keep on going like that. So let's not. I hope everyone had fun unpacking your notes.
[01:54:15] And again, praise to the actors and praise to the production crew and good wishes for the writers. And we hope you have opportunity and space to be able to really explore this topic that we're all pretty passionate about. What is up with the Dune Minute podcast, guys? You guys have finished summer school or are we still in the middle of it? Where are we at? We just had a bunch of summer school episodes come out in kind of a downtime between season one and season two.
[01:54:46] All of our summer school episodes go way more in depth than we would in a normal minute episode for the Dune Minute on a bunch of different things. In fact, today we just released an episode with a interview with Raul Vega, who is one of the people on Hans Zimmer's music team talking all about writing music for Dune. That's a great kid. It was a wonderful conversation.
[01:55:13] We've also got episodes on Holtzman, the Butlerian Jihad, the history and foundation of the Spacing Guild, Chome and the Economics of Dune, which features Chome Director from Blue Sky for your listeners that are on Blue Sky. We're going to be including this in summer school. And tomorrow we start recording season two of the Dune Minute. Now we're not releasing it immediately, but we're targeting March 31st to start publishing that.
[01:55:43] So we're going back to our daily uploads Monday through Friday of the Dune Minute, five episodes a week, going over Dune Part 2. Great. And what is the runtime of Dune 2? Ooh, I think we clocked it as 158 minutes or something like that that we're going to use. And you guys are going to invite some guests, as I understand. Oh my gosh, yes. Oh my God, look at this guy. It's like he podcasts a lot.
[01:56:14] Yeah, 158 episodes of the Dune Minute for season two. And we already have Alicia's episodes booked. Nice. So we're really looking forward to those. I think those are going to be some really fun minutes. Alicia, do you want to tease? Just to give everybody a little teaser? I'll just say that I made sure to represent for the Rebecca Ferguson fans. Nice. Nice. Well done. Absolutely. Yeah.
[01:56:41] There's definitely some stressica, as we call her, moments in this movie. But the ones that Alicia chose will not be stressed. Right. Right. I'll be more... Because you know my issue with the first film is the characterization of Jessica is the biggest issue. So we picked one where I'm going to be very happy about it. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I have yet to pick mine, but we'll get there.
[01:57:09] Well, David, I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon because we're definitely getting some other guests that we haven't announced yet. Very cool. Into Dune part two as well. Perfect. And people can find you. They could just search for podcasts, the Dune Minute podcast. And what socials can they find you at? Yeah. So we are the Dune Minute on any podcasting platform. You can also find us on Blue Sky. We are at Dune Minute.
[01:57:39] Where you're siech posting along with the rest of them. Yes, of course. Shout out to Atreides Nuts. Yes. We can also just people can email us directly, DuneMinute at gmail.com if they'd like to get in touch. And all of our episodes also go up on YouTube. I know a lot of people, myself included, listen to podcasts and stuff on YouTube rather than podcasting apps. So we've made all of our content available there as well.
[01:58:06] It's all in playlists too, so they can just hit play and let it go and not have to worry about clicking through. Sounds good. Alicia, we are busy with the Lorehounds. You just wrapped up a very full and complete season of Oscar coverage. And prior to that, you had, of course, Silo. And now, what is keeping you busy now? Well, on the Lorehounds feed, we just kicked off Wheel of Time coverage.
[01:58:34] So we had Amazon does that lovely triple drop to start. Thank you so much for that. And podcasters everywhere are not happy. But I think that this will come out around the time of episode four of season three of Wheel of Time. And I kind of teased it earlier that this is going to be one of the episodes for the ages. So very excited for that to come out. Very excited too. John and I are going to record about it tomorrow after this recording. Cool. And then also Daredevil is on.
[01:59:03] And John and I have done an episode for the first week's two-episode drop. And then we're planning to do it about every other week, basically, the two-episode arcs together. But we had to jump on for episode three because it was just such an emotionally impactful episode. So we just put that out as well. I was gathering too that episode one versus subsequent episodes, there's some tonal or I'm not sure where it is, but there's some, it feels like there's some gear changes maybe?
[01:59:31] Well, they did when they were filming it during the writer's strike. They went and looked at it and said, we're actually going to rejigger this whole first season. So they took what they had and then kind of stitched new stuff around it. So it's not really that it's like tonally different, but it is different directors and things like that. And they were just basically trying to tie it back more to the original Netflix series, which was absolutely the right move to do.
[01:59:56] So I guess the caution would be don't judge the series on episode one. Would that be safe to say? No, I think episode one's good. Okay. Episode one is mostly the new directors, by the way. I think overall it's a very solid series. Okay. Yeah, it's just that actually it's episodes two and three that are more the old crew doing it. But it was an actor in there who has since passed away and he plays a really powerful role.
[02:00:26] So I recommend it heartily. Okay. Very good. But it's violent. It's violent. Right. So is Wheel of Time, by the way. Okay. Good to know. And then of course we're also gearing up for our coverage of The Last of Us and then Andor. So we are very – am I missing anything? I can't – No, we'll shift us.
[02:00:46] Luke and I are kicking off our Dune deep dive, including the first episode I'm about to put out with you on it, David, talking about the first section of the book, of the original book. Great. So lots of Dune if you want it, lots of Marvel, and lots of other good stuff. Wheel of Time. Man, just the scope of y'all's catalog is so impressive. We're like a high wire artist. We just don't look down. We just keep walking. Whatever is coming at us, we try to take on.
[02:01:15] Oh, and Spider-Man, The Adventures of Spider-Man, Sean and I are recording immediately after this recording. Wow. And then, of course, not only recording, editing, but then just watching the content that we want to record podcasts about. So, you know, life is full. Great. Well, Zach, John, great to hang out with you guys as always. Absolutely. And we look forward to your Dune 2 coverage. And everyone go check out their semester rules. We look forward to having you on the Dune Minute.
[02:01:44] We're going to bring you into our world of very limited analysis. Oh, then you can go deep. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Alicia, keep up the great work with Wheel of Time. I know you and John are very happy and excited. So everyone go check out those podcasts. And until the next time, thanks, everyone. The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.
[02:02:09] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Between the spice flows of Dune, the galaxy of Star Wars, and the mind-bending mysteries of Severance, you are clearly not afraid of a deep dive.
[02:02:39] So are you ready to take on the Silmarillion? I'm Aaron, friend to the Lorehounds and host of Lore of the Rings, where I guide fans like you to wander the world and works of J.R.R. Tolkien without getting lost in a sea of elvish names. I have a free guide to help you read the Silmarillion, especially if it's your first time. Think of it as your Lembus bread for the journey. So if you're ready to go deeper into Middle-earth,
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