Dune: Prophecy - S01E03 - Sisterhood Above All

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, future editor David here dropping in before we start the episode to let everyone know we had a little technical malfunction. Actually, it was my fault. I didn't catch a setting on my setup before we started to record and so I was recording off the wrong microphone and I've done as much repair work as I want to try without over processing the file.

[00:00:26] So I apologize for the poor audio quality. It was just one of those weird mornings where we were trying to get into sync and everything was not going horribly wrong, but it was a little bit of a jumbly morning. So we missed that. I apologize. And again, I've done as much work as I can to fix it. Hopefully it's repairable. I think I got all the coughs and all the other little bits and pieces out of it.

[00:00:50] But if you stumble across one of those, apologies and thanks again for your patronage. And here we go into the episode.

[00:01:00] Dune Prophecy Podcast. We are the Lorehounds, your guides to the secrets of the sisterhood. I'm David.

[00:01:22] And I'm Alicia and this is our coverage of the HBO series Dune Prophecy Episode 3, Sisterhood Above All.

[00:01:28] In this podcast, we're going to start off with our hot takes and some general analysis before we take a break. Then we'll get into a scene by scene. And then we'll take another break, have a little bit of feedback. And then after the outro section, we'll do any book spoiler discussion.

[00:01:45] And thank you so much again to Nancy, aka Two Kids, Two Dogs on Discord for putting together both this outline and the feedback. If you want to have your thoughts included in the feedback going forward, then please send that to dune at thelorehounds.com and Nancy will be in touch.

[00:02:03] And we invite you to join us on our Discord server. We've got a fun and active community there. Got a great mod team. And we have channels set up for all the different episodes, links in the show notes, as well as the show guide, which I'll talk about in just a moment.

[00:02:18] And if you want early ad-free access and also extra episodes like our second breakfast, where we talk about life and breakfast foods, and our elevensies where we do extra movie reviews, lots of extra Christmas fun coming this month, then please stick around until the end and we'll talk a bit about our Patreon and Supercast talk.

[00:02:39] Alicia, how are you doing? We're in the throes of the holiday season. We've got Silo going, you've got that coverage going. Skeleton crew dropped, and I think it's on fire.

[00:02:50] I'm so bummed that we're too busy to do proper skeleton crew coverage because the first two episodes, I loved them.

[00:02:58] Ton of lore nuggets in the second episode, for sure.

[00:03:03] Just so much fun.

[00:03:05] Yeah, and I love a world where we can have Andor and skeleton crew and Mandalorian, you know what I mean?

[00:03:11] And the Acolyte, although that's much more there.

[00:03:15] Unfortunately, yeah, I would have included Acolyte, but you know, they're too chicken over there.

[00:03:19] No, yeah. That sentries are there.

[00:03:22] Great stuff. And stick around for Lorehound's coverage. We are going to be covering skeleton crew, just not in an episode-to-episode manner.

[00:03:29] Right.

[00:03:30] We're going to do a couple of check-in moments. And I think we were waiting to see how the season started off, too, and it feels like it's strong.

[00:03:37] So that gives us more energy.

[00:03:38] I mean, it's strong, but the problem is I was looking at the schedule, and it's just, you know, it's over the holidays on top of everything else at the same time.

[00:03:45] So I think that's actually the biggest problem.

[00:03:47] And I'm like, I hope there's a really good reason you decided to release this in December, because it's like this, Creature Commandos, the new they're doing with What If, they're doing the new daily release things through December again.

[00:03:59] And I'm like, stop, stop with the December releases.

[00:04:03] We're flooding.

[00:04:04] It's time for Netflix Christmas movies, okay?

[00:04:05] Right, and we have Netflix Christmas movies and our top 10 year-end roundup where you, me, and John go through our top 10, and then we get top threes from our co-host cadre.

[00:04:17] And we even have a subscriber benefit where you can put in your top 10, and we put all those into a database thing, and we do some visual ranking, and that is part of our show.

[00:04:27] And that will come out for everybody on December 25th as a little bonus present for the public listeners as well as subscribers.

[00:04:36] All right, let's get into Dune Prophecy.

[00:04:39] Just a couple of quick admin reminders.

[00:04:41] We've got a mixture of original book content as well as extended universe, so we call OG and XD.

[00:04:49] And then now, I don't know, can we call VU?

[00:04:52] Can we all talk about the Villeneuve universe?

[00:04:54] I mean, I am reluctant to place this as part of that at the moment, but we'll talk about that.

[00:05:02] And then we have a book deep dive spoiler section feedback at the very end of the podcast, so we'll do our outro.

[00:05:14] And anything that we think might spoil the TV show, we'll talk about, you know, that comes from the books.

[00:05:19] We'll talk about that then.

[00:05:21] But anything that's lore or anything that we've seen on screen so far, we'll talk about it.

[00:05:27] And I'll give another spoiler warning before we get into the scene-by-scene about how all that's going to work.

[00:05:33] A couple of things I also want to plug.

[00:05:35] We're going to do a crossover podcast with Zach and John from the Dune Minute podcast, and we should have that out in a day or so.

[00:05:45] We're going to do a mid-season check-in with them.

[00:05:48] I've stumbled across them over on Blue Sky, and we've been having some fun, poking fun at all things Dune as well as Dune Prophecy.

[00:05:58] But they do a really cool project where they take the first Villeneuve movie, and they're planning for the second movie, and they literally go minute by minute.

[00:06:08] So they'll take, you know, minute 47 to minute 48, and then they'll talk about what happened in that one minute.

[00:06:14] And they've got sort of 15, 20-minute podcasts about each minute.

[00:06:18] It's very cool.

[00:06:19] They've been covering Dune Prophecy as well.

[00:06:21] They're doing a really great job.

[00:06:23] I've been listening to their coverage and enjoying it a lot, and so we decided we'll do like a mid-season crossover, you know, check in, how we're feeling, what do we think, and have a little fun.

[00:06:34] So look for that a little bit later this week.

[00:06:37] And then the other thing we really wanted to push forward is the show guide.

[00:06:40] I know the intro is running a little long right now, but remember Nancy and Brian and Alicia and myself, we've been putting a whole bunch of time and resource into an online show guide that has a character guide.

[00:06:55] It's got a timeline.

[00:06:56] It's got a glossary.

[00:06:57] It's got a location guide.

[00:06:58] So if you're into the Dune universe and you're watching the show and you're trying to remember who's who or you want to look up something, we've got you covered.

[00:07:06] It's spoiler free, so it doesn't go into anything that's beyond what we're seeing on the screen.

[00:07:11] And you can find a link for that in the show notes below, or you can pop onto the Discord server and ask anyone there for the link.

[00:07:19] We normally make these subscriber resources, but this time around, we're making it publicly available to everyone.

[00:07:25] So definitely go check that out.

[00:07:27] We're going to be using Nancy's episode recap today as we talk about the episode.

[00:07:31] So, okay, quick episode summary episode titled Sisterhood Above All directed by Richard J. Lewis written for television by Monica Ozu Breen and Jordan Goldwing.

[00:07:43] And it's got a runtime of 64 minutes.

[00:07:45] The episode moves between the past and the present in the present.

[00:07:48] The sisterhood has been banned from the Imperium's palace.

[00:07:51] Members of the sisterhoods still on Seleuza Secundus meet and speculate on who is the key to the reckoning.

[00:07:59] In the past, Valya's family is introduced and family dynamics are put on full display.

[00:08:17] Valya and her brother plot to return the family to the prominent position it deserves, but the result is a disaster for the family.

[00:08:25] Tula takes the place of her brother in seeking revenge on the Entraides.

[00:08:30] Mother Superior Raquel takes Valya under her wing.

[00:08:34] She is not blind to the growing divisions in the sisterhood, decides to take action.

[00:08:40] Alicia, how are you feeling?

[00:08:44] So, okay.

[00:08:47] Well, I found it interesting, first of all, that there's wildly mixed reactions from the public about this episode.

[00:08:53] So, I know some people loved it and said, oh, now the show is finally kicking in.

[00:08:58] And other people were like, oh, this is the episode.

[00:09:00] I'm done.

[00:09:01] I'm done.

[00:09:01] So, I'm in neither of those camps.

[00:09:06] And I just want to, before I get into my overall critique, I just want to emphasize that I love flashbacks.

[00:09:13] And because a lot of people complaining said the flashbacks slowed it down.

[00:09:16] No, I love that.

[00:09:17] I was so looking forward to this episode for that reason.

[00:09:19] I love adaptations when they pass the shippy test.

[00:09:24] Which is, when we talk about, how would you describe the shippy test?

[00:09:27] The medium in the message, do the on-screen changes continue to fulfill the intent of the original author?

[00:09:38] So, you've got to move things around on screen.

[00:09:40] And do those on-screen changes actually fulfill what the author was trying to tell us or share with us about their point of view or the story?

[00:09:48] Right.

[00:09:49] And, yeah, I would say a good example of that is, for example, Silo that's also going on right now.

[00:09:54] Although, I know people are worried about a particular character, but I'm like, everybody take a breath.

[00:09:58] It'll be fine.

[00:10:00] But just in general, I love to like things.

[00:10:04] But I really struggled with this episode.

[00:10:07] I have to ask myself, would I feel differently?

[00:10:11] Would I struggle less if I hadn't read the source material?

[00:10:14] And the answer is maybe.

[00:10:16] I have to admit that's part of it.

[00:10:17] But I don't think so, because what I really am struggling with is not like, there's one character they've eliminated, Anna Carino, that I just don't understand.

[00:10:28] She's so important, central in the Dune lore, and she would make Inez's story so much more interesting.

[00:10:35] So, I don't understand.

[00:10:36] But other than that, like, okay, fine, you got rid of some extra brothers and stuff, okay.

[00:10:41] But what I find is that the way that they're handling the characters who do come from the books, it feels like they're dumbing everything about them down, making them more one-dimensional.

[00:10:51] Okay.

[00:10:52] And so, they're, like, sucking out the character and world-building complexities that make me really enjoy these books.

[00:10:59] So, that's where I'm struggling.

[00:11:00] And I also, I don't see this necessarily at this point as part of Denis Villeneuve's Dune either.

[00:11:08] Interesting.

[00:11:09] Okay.

[00:11:09] As part of his Dune-iverse.

[00:11:10] Like, well, first of all, we'll talk about Kaladin, quote-unquote, using heavy air quotes later.

[00:11:18] But, yeah, I mean, at this point, like, I can't say I'm really trusting the writers to land the plane.

[00:11:24] And that's, so that's, like, the difference with the silo change with that certain character.

[00:11:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:11:29] I trust that they're going to land that plane, even though I am, you know, might make people nervous now.

[00:11:35] At this point, I'm not sure.

[00:11:36] It kind of feels like it's blowing up midair for me.

[00:11:39] But I know the last three episodes are supposed to be the best.

[00:11:42] So, hopefully, they're going to suck me back in.

[00:11:44] And for this episode, I'm going to try to keep it as positive as possible.

[00:11:48] I will point out the issues that troubled me, but also point out what I did like about it.

[00:11:52] And Nancy said she left us a book reader rant at the end.

[00:11:56] So, I'll probably just piggyback on that with my concerns of the book nature.

[00:12:00] Fair enough.

[00:12:01] And what about you?

[00:12:02] Yeah, I'm also in that mixed feeling, emotional feeling.

[00:12:07] There's a great email that we got from friend of the pod, Jordan, that we'll get to in the feedback section.

[00:12:13] But it echoed some similar feelings that I had, which is, like, I caught myself looking at my phone while I was doing my first watch.

[00:12:20] But then, when I was taking apart the Lego pieces of the episode, I was like, oh, that's good.

[00:12:27] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:12:28] Oh, I like how they did that.

[00:12:29] Oh, I don't agree with that, but it's fine.

[00:12:31] You know, like, it's when it's all built together that I'm feeling a little bit meh myself.

[00:12:37] I love the fact that more people are getting into the Dune universe.

[00:12:40] I love the fact that we have more Dune on screen to talk about and build the world.

[00:12:46] But like you said, the world building is really big and really complex.

[00:12:50] That's why we love the books.

[00:12:52] And somehow, the gestalt of this is just not coming together in some way.

[00:12:57] I'm not sure if I'm using that word right in the right sense.

[00:13:00] But just when it's taken as a whole, it's not firing me up as, like, I was really hoping to.

[00:13:08] I laugh about we were joking on the Discord about the is this Denis Villeneuve?

[00:13:13] Does this fit within his story verse?

[00:13:15] And it was like, well, one way it's not is over-exposition in the dialogue that's happening.

[00:13:23] But, you know, we can talk about some specific scenes when we get into it.

[00:13:27] But I couldn't help but be struck that, you know, by this episode, lots of Game of Thrones comps, right?

[00:13:34] We've got a frozen Northland.

[00:13:36] We've got an actor, Bobby, who played Mark Addy, who played Robert Baratheon.

[00:13:43] We had Mrs. Featherington, too.

[00:13:45] Right. Oh, that's right. That's right.

[00:13:46] And who is it? The young man with the leg brace who was Lord Tully.

[00:13:49] Oh, sorry? Lord Tully. He was a Tully, right?

[00:13:53] Yeah.

[00:13:53] Yeah. And then the Atreides Humming Camp really reminded me of when Lannister, oh, what was the father's name in Lannister?

[00:14:02] Tywin?

[00:14:03] What's that? Tywin.

[00:14:04] Tywin?

[00:14:05] Yeah, yeah, Tywin. When Tywin was cleaning the kilt, like, there was just a lot of, and then, of course, you know, sex scene, HBO couldn't pass up another sex scene.

[00:14:12] Well, I have to give a quick shout out to Maury, who's probably listening to this, who said that every podcast, it's sort of like a time to comparison to Game of Thrones.

[00:14:23] We've hit it.

[00:14:24] Yeah, we did. And it's like, I'm trying not to do that, but then they just, it's like, it's just coming, like, right off the screen at me.

[00:14:32] I have one major... Go ahead.

[00:14:33] No, say, castings aside, it didn't for me, but yeah, I can see why.

[00:14:40] Yeah.

[00:14:41] I love Frozen North's story, so...

[00:14:44] One major critique for me is the voice and the origin story for The Voice, and I know that there is, in the XD books, there is the lore of how it comes, so that maybe it's tracking with that.

[00:14:59] But I don't even know if that I agree with that relative to the OG stuff, which we don't have an origin for the story, as far as I can remember, for The Voice.

[00:15:07] But for me, what The Voice represents is a close study of the human condition and understanding psychology and how to manipulate somebody else's psychology through linguistic communication, where this turns out to be kind of a magic power that Valia has.

[00:15:26] Yeah, well, that is, that's definitely a screen thing.

[00:15:29] I mean, it is, Valia's the one who came up with it in the books, but she came, it was like an accidental gradual thing where she noticed, like, oh, oh, interesting, that did something interesting.

[00:15:40] And she just kind of explored it, and yeah, it has the basis.

[00:15:44] It comes from Frank Herbert's notes, so it has the basis you say, you know.

[00:15:47] Okay.

[00:15:48] Yeah, and I don't know where his notes are on the voice background stuff, so that'd be interesting.

[00:15:52] I mean, I have, we don't get to read his notes, but that is, but we know, like, he outlined these, this past for the Harkonnens and all this.

[00:16:02] Okay, all right, interesting.

[00:16:04] Outside of that, there's a lot of central themes that I think are interesting that the show is working with.

[00:16:10] And this is, goes into sort of the Westworld DNA that this show has, because the showrunners and, you know, who they are and what they're kind of dealing with.

[00:16:20] And so, again, it feels all part of that same creative vision that they have.

[00:16:26] So it's like not executing well on the screen, but yet dealing with really interesting things like identity and commitment to cause.

[00:16:35] Is, you know, this idea of commitment versus fanaticism, like where is the line there?

[00:16:40] The idea that, you know, marriage is also a transformation, you know, or commitment is transformation.

[00:16:46] And then, like, when you're married, you're committing to something too, and how that's transformational, you know, and this idea of like, well, I'm a, am I a sister or am I a Harkonnen?

[00:16:57] Am I a Harkonnen sister?

[00:16:59] You know, like, these questions of identity and belonging are really interesting.

[00:17:03] And I love the central tension of Valya and Chula and Valya's struggle as Mother Superior, as well as Harkonnen.

[00:17:12] So, like, all that's cool.

[00:17:14] That's where I feel like they've really thinned it out versus the source material, but we'll talk about that more.

[00:17:19] Yeah, and they're touching on it, right?

[00:17:21] We can see the outlines of all those themes, but then it's like...

[00:17:25] But they make specific decisions to contrast.

[00:17:28] Anyway, sorry, I said...

[00:17:31] So, you know, there's questions of revenge and vengeance.

[00:17:35] How much is enough?

[00:17:36] Is it ever enough?

[00:17:37] Perpetuating the circle, you know, the cycles of violence and harm, choosing hate, like all really interesting questions.

[00:17:44] Free will versus determinism.

[00:17:47] Institutions versus loyalty.

[00:17:49] We've got meta-level trolley problem stuff going on.

[00:17:53] So, like, all of that subsurface stuff is great and lovely.

[00:17:59] And as I take, again, like I said, as I take apart the episode and the Lego pieces, I can see those things and I can enjoy them in the moment.

[00:18:08] The show, however, continues to look visually great.

[00:18:12] I think the casting of all the young actors was on point.

[00:18:16] Like, I love who they've brought forward because there's a lot of actors that I'm not familiar with.

[00:18:21] The costumes are pretty cool.

[00:18:23] I love those sisterhood dresses.

[00:18:25] Like, I wish I could wear a cape like that.

[00:18:28] I love how they swish and move.

[00:18:29] It's great.

[00:18:30] Yeah, the visuals are great.

[00:18:32] The VFX are great.

[00:18:33] So, all the wrappings, all the candy wrappings are perfect.

[00:18:37] Great packaging.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:38] Great cast.

[00:18:39] Yes.

[00:18:39] So, let's take a quick break.

[00:18:42] And then when we come back, we will get into our full scene-by-scene breakdown.

[00:18:50] And we'll unpack the show a little bit more.

[00:19:03] All right.

[00:19:04] And we're back and we're going to get into our scene-by-scene final spoiler reminder.

[00:19:09] Lore versus plot.

[00:19:10] If it's a plot point that hasn't happened in the first two movies or the first book by Frank Herbert, we will do our best not to spoil it.

[00:19:21] But if it's lore, we'll unpack that and we'll describe what that lore is so that we get that greater understanding.

[00:19:27] We're going to talk about anything that happened from the XD books that's already happened on screen.

[00:19:33] And then any book and other plot spoilers, we'll put at the end after the outro.

[00:19:40] So, it's the very last thing, the caboose.

[00:19:43] And again, Nancy, thank you oh so very much for your support on the show.

[00:19:49] You are doing a stellar job.

[00:19:51] If you don't know, if you're a little bit new to us, Nancy helped us out on Game of the Thrones and Rings of Power, coordinating our feedback.

[00:19:59] This time, she's taking on even extended duties.

[00:20:02] She built the glossary, basically.

[00:20:04] I don't know how many entries are in that thing.

[00:20:06] There's like 30 or 40 entries.

[00:20:08] It is wild.

[00:20:10] She has been taking on the episode recaps, which have been really helpful.

[00:20:15] And we're going to use her episode recaps to organize our outline.

[00:20:20] She's also facilitating our feedback.

[00:20:22] So, if you email dune at thelorehounds.com, Nancy will be at the other end there.

[00:20:27] And she may interact with you a little bit to settle your email into the outline.

[00:20:32] So, Nancy, thank you so much.

[00:20:34] It's just so lovely to have such a great supportive community.

[00:20:37] Right.

[00:21:06] Right.

[00:21:10] And not the sisterhood against the Imperium.

[00:21:14] Thoughts on this opening scene?

[00:21:16] Yeah.

[00:21:17] I think that that's a really good observation about it being her treating it as personal rather than about it being about the sisterhood.

[00:21:25] And that's an important defining characteristic for this character.

[00:21:28] Not a lot of depth in this scene.

[00:21:30] It's really just a tension set up to set some mystery for the episode.

[00:21:34] What is, you know, Valya going to get up to?

[00:21:37] Where are they going?

[00:21:37] Where's their Uber going to take them?

[00:21:39] I did like the way that they used the light from the little air car to use the scene transition to go back to L'Anquivel.

[00:21:49] And I like the statement that she says.

[00:21:52] It's like, oh, you know, maybe a time for a trip home, which we do.

[00:21:55] We go back to L'Anquivel to her home, which is kind of a fun little script note.

[00:22:01] So let's go to L'Anquivel.

[00:22:37] He's going to go to L'Anquivel.

[00:22:42] He's going to go to L'Anquivel.

[00:22:50] And he says, he's going to go to L'Anquivel.

[00:22:54] who was the hero of, well, who wasn't the hero, but who tried to stop a genocide, but

[00:22:59] Vorian stripped their family of that honor based on a lie.

[00:23:03] Valia refuses to accept this injustice, stating that this complacency is a disease.

[00:23:08] If we don't act now, it will infect all of us and all who come after.

[00:23:13] And then outside, Valia confides in Griffin, wondering if she's entitled and greedy as

[00:23:20] her mother has accused.

[00:23:22] Griffin reassures her that she's extraordinary and recounts how Valia once saved his life

[00:23:27] when he fell through the ice using the voice to order him to swim.

[00:23:31] He promises to help Valia track down Vorian Atreides and clear their name.

[00:23:36] There's a lot packed into the scene.

[00:23:38] What are your thoughts and notes?

[00:23:41] I mean, yeah, the cast is great.

[00:23:44] So we already called out, you know, Robert Baratheon and Mrs.

[00:23:50] What's it?

[00:23:51] Featherington.

[00:23:52] Right.

[00:23:53] Dolly Walker, who is also in Rome.

[00:23:56] She was Julia of the...

[00:23:59] Oh, I can't remember now.

[00:24:00] Anyway.

[00:24:01] Yeah.

[00:24:01] Great HBO.

[00:24:02] Yeah.

[00:24:02] This is like some real HBO alumni here.

[00:24:05] Yeah.

[00:24:06] She's been a lot of stuff.

[00:24:07] I love her.

[00:24:07] But yeah.

[00:24:08] So great casting.

[00:24:09] The uncle, from a book perspective, he's, I guess he's mentioned, I don't look him up.

[00:24:15] I guess he's mentioned in Dune Encyclopedia.

[00:24:17] He seems to be, they seem to be bumping him up a couple hundred years.

[00:24:20] Um, they've done some switching around with the family.

[00:24:23] So they did have their father Virgil, but there's, they also had another brother named

[00:24:29] Danfis, who's the one who took over when Griffin died.

[00:24:31] So fine.

[00:24:32] They cut that out.

[00:24:33] Um, they're mixing things around.

[00:24:35] I won't be annoying about that.

[00:24:37] Overall in this entire episode, they have made the dynamics so much more superficial and

[00:24:42] more like, it's just like everybody's mean to Valia.

[00:24:47] And I think it's just way more interesting when it's not like Valia is reacting to everyone

[00:24:52] being mean to her.

[00:24:53] It's, you know, she, where she really thinks she has a moral right.

[00:24:57] I just, yeah, I'm struggling.

[00:24:59] Sorry.

[00:25:00] I can tell.

[00:25:02] There was a great little line that I liked where, uh, the mother says she's a wolf and

[00:25:08] will devour you, which was a nice catch by Nancy to relate that line back to the title

[00:25:12] of the last episode.

[00:25:14] So they're doing some interconnectivity there.

[00:25:17] I'm not sure where I am with the, again, I, I made my concern known a little bit earlier,

[00:25:25] but with the voice backstory.

[00:25:27] And I just felt that the, the voice, the way that Griffin explained that it was a little

[00:25:34] bit too, uh, expository for me.

[00:25:37] Like, Hey, remember that time?

[00:25:38] And it's like, uh, it just was a weird clunky line.

[00:25:42] But I do like the fact that again, it's a moment of crisis, right?

[00:25:46] She's, she loves her brother.

[00:25:48] She's watching him in a, uh, you know, potentially drowned.

[00:25:52] And she reaches down in that crisis moment and discover something new.

[00:25:57] And I think that's, that's a central theme of the sisterhood overall and what Herbert was

[00:26:02] working on with, uh, how the Bene Gesserit operate later on.

[00:26:07] Well, I wish what they had shown between the two of them is like how they were like their

[00:26:12] family overall is just quite complacent with, you know, like, Oh, this is our life in Lancaster.

[00:26:18] Now this is fine.

[00:26:18] You know, we don't need to get involved in the fights of our grandparents and well, and

[00:26:23] I guess that comes through a little bit, but what didn't come through for me is the closeness

[00:26:27] between volume Griffin is because they were conspirators together, not in like a nasty

[00:26:32] way, but just, they had plans and they really threw themselves into how are we going to raise

[00:26:39] the family name again?

[00:26:40] And so they had like a little drop, but they didn't really explain it where Griffin's like

[00:26:45] the Lanzarote accepted my petition, which is like, he went through this whole thing.

[00:26:49] You know, he had to do all this studying and take a test and all this stuff to get, you

[00:26:53] know, to not be just to have their world grouped together with some third party representing

[00:26:59] them, but to be able to represent themselves, um, at the Lanzarote at, you know, the, the

[00:27:05] council of nations.

[00:27:07] Um, and, and, and obviously Valia's part in that was that, uh, going to the sisterhood.

[00:27:13] So she was not sent to the sisterhood.

[00:27:16] I, they're taking away her agency in that regard.

[00:27:18] She was very, she was already there by the time Griffin died.

[00:27:22] You know, she was making her moves, moving up the ladder, getting close to Raquel, you

[00:27:27] know?

[00:27:27] Right.

[00:27:28] Right.

[00:27:28] And this gets into the shipping test stuff, which is like the, the, the moves that they have

[00:27:32] to make to get things on screen.

[00:27:34] But I get the point that, that it, um, it makes the family dynamic a little bit too one

[00:27:41] dimensional rather than three dimensional.

[00:27:43] And like, like, you're trying to do the books to give that real energy of what's going on.

[00:27:50] Why make the change?

[00:27:51] And, and the only answer I can see for a lot of these is like to dumb it down, to make

[00:27:55] it simpler for people.

[00:27:56] Like, uh, people mean to value.

[00:27:59] So value mean back like, well, right, right, right, right.

[00:28:02] Six episodes.

[00:28:03] Right.

[00:28:03] Yeah.

[00:28:04] All of it.

[00:28:04] But they could have spent the time this episode instead of like inventing this uncle or whatever,

[00:28:11] moving them up a couple hundred years, they could have spent the time, um, showing her

[00:28:15] bond with her brother.

[00:28:16] So you understand why it's, it's not just her brother dying.

[00:28:21] It's, it's her co conspirator in their hopes for their future.

[00:28:24] Right.

[00:28:25] Which then gives her energy when he does is killed, uh, you know, to, to get her revenge.

[00:28:30] Yeah.

[00:28:30] Maybe they could have spent a little less time carving up whales and a little bit more time

[00:28:34] with the, uh, the family.

[00:28:35] They put a lot of effort into this.

[00:28:37] I like to see the, the, I thought that was cool to see the fuzzy whales.

[00:28:41] Yeah.

[00:28:42] Yeah.

[00:28:42] But they, they put a lot of energy into that and then it was like, well, let's, let's

[00:28:46] get into relationships.

[00:28:47] For me, it's like the, the dinners where they drop the ball, the meals.

[00:28:51] Yeah.

[00:28:51] Hmm.

[00:28:52] And then of course we get a foreshadowing of them too on the cliff, which, you know,

[00:28:56] she comes back to later when she goes through her agony.

[00:28:59] So I liked that in the dude minute podcast is like your body has, uh, got a few tricks

[00:29:05] up their sleeves and one of them is standing on a cliff and looking pensive.

[00:29:10] Was spot on a spot on analysis.

[00:29:13] An extinguished light.

[00:29:15] The next scene is of Griffin's funeral.

[00:29:17] You leave behind a family forever broken by your loss.

[00:29:20] You are our family's brightest light.

[00:29:22] Says the uncle, as they take him into the crypt.

[00:29:25] Valia tells Tula that Vorian's responsible for the brother's murder.

[00:29:29] Although his involvement's not confirmed.

[00:29:31] Uh, I don't want to mourn.

[00:29:33] I want the Entraides to suffer like we have, but she can't do anything because she's being

[00:29:37] sent to the sisterhood on roll of nine.

[00:29:39] There's only one thing that will help her manage her grief, but our family doesn't have

[00:29:43] the stomach for it.

[00:29:43] Tula tells her an eye for an eye will never be enough.

[00:29:47] Griffin was worth more than that.

[00:29:51] So I really, again, this is where this question of revenge and identity come into play.

[00:29:56] And I think they're doing interesting things with that because when is revenge ever enough?

[00:30:01] When you choose violence, as we see contrasting later with Orin Atreides, you know, he says,

[00:30:07] Hey, you know, that's, that's their beef.

[00:30:10] You know, we're here now and we write our own future.

[00:30:13] And Valia is certainly wanting to write a, uh, a future history that involves retribution

[00:30:20] and revenge.

[00:30:21] And I think that they also cheapen this by, well, they also, I don't think they explained

[00:30:26] well about like what happened with him and how he's dead and how they could possibly play,

[00:30:31] blame Vorian.

[00:30:32] And there's, um, a note that I'll get back to when we go to book spoiler section, but,

[00:30:37] uh, his, his body came back with an, with a note.

[00:30:40] So I don't understand why they didn't include that because that's so important to Valia's

[00:30:45] character development.

[00:30:46] Interesting.

[00:30:47] And also just like the, what makes this situation, this feud between the family so interesting.

[00:30:54] Though I kind of like the way that they cut the scene so that we just jump from, you know,

[00:30:59] them standing on a cliff to, you know, the overhead shot of his body and it's like, you

[00:31:04] know, it's designed that visual is designed to shock us just like the, to, to recreate

[00:31:08] the shock that, uh, Valia probably would have, you know, in the family would have felt because

[00:31:13] Griffin was the best and the brightest of theirs and their, their biggest hope.

[00:31:17] Um, so, and then of course, Vorian disappears again.

[00:31:21] So they're leaving him out there as a future plots, uh, plot mechanic devices.

[00:31:28] So let's jump to Saluza Secundus in the present day, wrong assumptions.

[00:31:34] Rever, Reverend mother Valia meets with other members of the sisterhood.

[00:31:38] She hears the voices of her four mothers in her head, which transitions to the voices of

[00:31:43] the sisters who are actually with her.

[00:31:45] They're speculating about who and what Desmond Hart really is.

[00:31:48] They pledged their loyalty to the Reverend mother who tells them to return to their noble

[00:31:53] houses and counter any further measures to sow distrust.

[00:31:57] She will manage house Carino.

[00:31:59] Sister Michaela brings word from Tula about sister Lila, not surviving the agony, but that

[00:32:05] Raquel did speak through her to warn that the key to the reckoning was one who is twice born

[00:32:12] blood and in spice.

[00:32:14] Valia believes it to be Desmond Hart.

[00:32:17] But as soon as Valia said, I think it's Desmond Hart.

[00:32:20] I was like, Oh no, it's not Desmond Hart.

[00:32:24] Exactly.

[00:32:25] But I think we see at the end of the episode, we watch too much TV.

[00:32:29] We see your tricks.

[00:32:30] That's a total misdirection.

[00:32:33] I mean, it could be Desmond Hart as well, right?

[00:32:35] I mean, they could be, you know, layering the two over the top of each other.

[00:32:39] But this is for me, I agree where the once or twice born once in blood and once in spice

[00:32:49] is Lila, not Desmond.

[00:32:51] That's where I was thinking.

[00:32:52] I mean, clearly at the end of the scene is the end of the episode.

[00:32:54] They're setting that up.

[00:32:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:32:56] I agree.

[00:32:57] So, oh, and I think this, I think I misattributed a line here.

[00:33:00] A trip back home, a trip home is called for is this is where Valia says that line, which

[00:33:06] then sets up for her to visit the park in an embassy, I guess, as well as, you know, getting

[00:33:11] more into the backstory.

[00:33:13] So that's good.

[00:33:14] And also the news of Lila not surviving, that's another intentional misdirection so that we

[00:33:23] have the tension, oh, is she alive?

[00:33:25] Is she dead?

[00:33:25] And then they get to play with our emotions a little bit.

[00:33:29] The sound effects for the other voices I like, they're dropping that in all over the episode.

[00:33:35] Mm-hmm.

[00:33:35] Uh, and I really like how in this, the sound design blends from Valia's other memories into

[00:33:45] the conversation that's happening around her.

[00:33:48] And that it really shows that a reverend mother is never alone.

[00:33:53] Once you have awakened your other memories, those conversations are happening all around

[00:33:58] you.

[00:33:58] And it's really hard to get a peace, a peaceful, quiet moment when you have, you know, all your

[00:34:03] entire genetic ancestry whispering at you in the background.

[00:34:06] But I think they give a good sense of what it's like to have all of those other memories

[00:34:12] with you.

[00:34:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:15] The other thing, and I don't know how you reacted to this.

[00:34:19] This is one thing where I reacted a little bit strongly.

[00:34:22] They use the word Shai Hulud and Maker.

[00:34:26] And I don't know that those are appropriate uses of those titles or those names at this stage

[00:34:33] of things.

[00:34:34] Well, I think that, um, also, I don't know, they need to convince me that, that Natalia

[00:34:41] has some connection with the Fremen, that she would speak this way.

[00:34:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:46] So a little bit of lore, a sandworm, uh, the Fremen also have a couple of names for it.

[00:34:54] One is Maker and another is Shai Hulud.

[00:34:57] The, in short, the Fremen believe that the sandworm is, um, a physical embodiment of the

[00:35:04] one God that, you know, has created and governs the universe.

[00:35:08] And so Shai Hulud is kind of a sacred term.

[00:35:12] It's like saying Yahweh, instead of saying the name of God, we've got this other name

[00:35:17] like, oh, well, we're not going to call the, the, the creator ruler, uh, by their true magical

[00:35:23] name.

[00:35:23] We'll just call him Bob so that we avoid any blasphemy or anything like that.

[00:35:27] So Shai Hulud is, is this, uh, honorific title.

[00:35:32] And apparently, uh, according to the internets, the, in Arabic, Shai Hulud translate in, in

[00:35:39] translates into thing of eternity or thing of immortality.

[00:35:45] So it's sort of saying thing of, uh, of a state Hulud, uh, eternity or immortality.

[00:35:51] So it is a thing that is a being that is beyond sort of time and space.

[00:35:56] And then maker has to do with the relationship between the sandworm and spice and water.

[00:36:02] We won't get into that too much because it is a little bit complex because Herbert was

[00:36:07] actually one of the major themes of the original books was ecology.

[00:36:11] And, uh, he has a really complex ecological structure for how all of that stuff works.

[00:36:17] So for one of the sisters to use Shai Hulud and maker, those are Fremen words, not that they

[00:36:24] couldn't use them, but that they're out of context.

[00:36:28] They're, they're not an appropriate use of the title for somebody who's not Fremen and

[00:36:34] not on, on Dune at the moment.

[00:36:36] I don't know.

[00:36:37] It just, it seemed very weird to me.

[00:36:39] So, and it's clear that the showrunners and the writers have studied the material, but

[00:36:46] do they understand the material?

[00:36:47] That's where I'm, I think, struggling a little bit.

[00:36:49] They're, they're clearly have done their research.

[00:36:52] So, all right, let's go to Tula's agony on walk nine present day.

[00:36:58] We returned to the room where sister Lila's agony was performed and learned that she's

[00:37:02] not dead.

[00:37:03] No sister has ever returned from the state that child is in says sister Avila, Avila.

[00:37:08] We must let her go.

[00:37:10] But Tula says she will do what needs to be done when she chooses.

[00:37:14] Tula begins to weep and soothes herself with a cup of spice tea on the floor.

[00:37:20] She finds the whale's tooth that Lila dropped.

[00:37:23] Right.

[00:37:23] What did you make of this scene?

[00:37:25] Yeah.

[00:37:25] I mean, no surprises.

[00:37:27] I guess, I guess that's the thing is like, I wish they had spent this time on, you know,

[00:37:34] this was, this seems so obvious to me, but maybe this is, this show is just not geared

[00:37:39] toward someone who watches television as intensely as I do.

[00:37:44] Yeah.

[00:37:44] I just feel like this is not, maybe not geared toward people who lean in as much as I do when

[00:37:51] watching.

[00:37:51] And so they are kind of, they're like, did you get it?

[00:37:54] Did you get it?

[00:37:55] She's not dead.

[00:37:55] We tricked you.

[00:37:56] Ha ha.

[00:37:56] And I'm like, a little too tricksy for their own good.

[00:37:59] Right.

[00:38:00] Again, we're using the sound effects of the whispers, the other voices so that we get that

[00:38:05] transition.

[00:38:06] I do want spice tea.

[00:38:07] I want spice everything diet.

[00:38:08] I would definitely have blue and blue eyes if I lived in this world.

[00:38:12] And spice is a, is a geriatric as well.

[00:38:15] It promotes health and extends life.

[00:38:19] I don't know if we ever get specificity on how long it can extend your life, but beyond

[00:38:25] a hundred years, certainly.

[00:38:27] And I'm not sure if it's like a couple hundred years, if it's like 150, but it definitely,

[00:38:33] it's like drinking really good coffee that is also like a nutritional supplement.

[00:38:37] Yeah.

[00:38:38] Sort of, you know, makes you strong.

[00:38:41] I like this line.

[00:38:42] We must channel our energy in the service of the future.

[00:38:46] And so that really, again, is going into what the sisterhood's mission is and this question

[00:38:51] of identity and what you're willing to sacrifice to achieve that mission.

[00:38:55] And that gets into this question of the ultimate trolley problem, right?

[00:39:00] What are the sisterhood's methods in the short term concurrent with their long-term message

[00:39:07] or their long-term objective, which is species survival and what they have to do that might

[00:39:14] be in the darkness to achieve something for the, for the greater good.

[00:39:19] The, the, did you notice the swirling spice tea has all those little flecks in it?

[00:39:26] Yeah.

[00:39:27] Yeah.

[00:39:27] Yeah.

[00:39:28] I always, I mean, someone says in one of the books that spice tastes like cinnamon, but then

[00:39:32] they clarify elsewhere that it's kind of, you know, it can vary, but I do always imagine

[00:39:37] it as a sort of like Moroccan spice melange, like what you'd put in a tagine or something.

[00:39:42] And then at the end of this episode, we see when Tula fits a canister of spice gas, I guess

[00:39:50] we see those embers floating around in there.

[00:39:52] And then obviously in episode one, we had the embers of the fire floating up as well as

[00:39:57] sort of the star scene with the blue eyes, you know, coming from outer space.

[00:40:02] So all of that stuff is building a visual language for what spice, so we can identify spice when

[00:40:08] we see it on screen.

[00:40:09] And I have to compliment a visual thing that they did with the Rosak poison is in, um, in

[00:40:16] the books, the Rosak poison, it's a pill basically.

[00:40:20] So this is much more visual with the whole eyedropper thing with the blue, you know?

[00:40:24] Right.

[00:40:25] And it's interesting that they made it blue.

[00:40:28] And I don't know how that's what they're thinking was in terms of constructing the visual

[00:40:32] language, because obviously the water of life is blue, the spice water of life, which

[00:40:37] is made when, uh, you drowned a baby sandworm.

[00:40:40] Um, and that's the big poison that, uh, ultimately we're going to see is the, uh, thing that Tula

[00:40:47] probably discovers that it's, it's spice and, and, uh, the concentration of, of that into a

[00:40:55] tool that can unlock the other memories in a better way, I guess, in a, in a way that increases

[00:41:01] their survival rate.

[00:41:06] Yeah.

[00:41:06] Yeah.

[00:41:09] Yeah.

[00:41:10] I'm very throaty this morning.

[00:41:13] Right.

[00:41:14] Uh, any other notes on the Rosak poison versus spice by chance?

[00:41:18] I didn't really.

[00:41:19] No, just, uh, it's, I think it's cool.

[00:41:21] They made it more visual, whatever this eye motif that's going on throughout the show, I

[00:41:24] guess it's to tie it back to those eyes we see in the sky.

[00:41:27] So I'm curious if that is going to come to, you know, um, if, if there's going to be something

[00:41:35] in the finale that calls all these eye motifs together somehow.

[00:41:39] Right.

[00:41:40] Right.

[00:41:40] And we got some feedback from Marilyn about that as well.

[00:41:43] The, the big eye motif.

[00:41:44] There's also, uh, I noticed this several times when, uh, Tula and this goes into the tunnels

[00:41:51] behind her in that room, there's a couple of, uh, bright lights that look like those two,

[00:41:56] uh, blue eyes as well.

[00:41:58] So I talked about that in episode one, they're, they're seating that around, uh, which is interesting.

[00:42:04] I mean, I think visually they're nailing it.

[00:42:07] Right.

[00:42:07] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:42:08] Visually.

[00:42:08] It's gorgeous.

[00:42:10] Right.

[00:42:10] Spreading the bait.

[00:42:11] Caladan, the past Caladan question mark.

[00:42:13] I think it's Caladan.

[00:42:14] I heard on the official podcast that they referred to as Caladan.

[00:42:17] It is.

[00:42:18] We'll talk about it.

[00:42:20] Tula arrives with Ori at his family's hunting camp on the lush planet Caladan, feeling nervous

[00:42:24] about being accepted.

[00:42:26] Ori reassures her mentioning they meet in a market.

[00:42:29] Tula hints that she has few family members left for Ori to meet.

[00:42:34] At a table with, uh, some dead weasel like animals.

[00:42:38] Tula asks a boy named Albert to help prepare bait to catch a rare sleucid bull.

[00:42:44] She removes a small sack from the carcass, explaining that it contains deadly toxins.

[00:42:54] It's going to be a busy episode to edit.

[00:42:57] Okay.

[00:42:59] Worried voices interrupt them.

[00:43:01] Ori's horse jet has broken its leg as others move, or as Ori moves to kill the horse.

[00:43:06] Tula fills a syringe with the toxin and injects it into the animal, which dies almost instantly,

[00:43:12] proving the poison's potency.

[00:43:15] So lots of setup here.

[00:43:17] And yeah, the question of Caladan, I noticed that, you know, a lot of times they tell us

[00:43:22] where we're going, but this time they intentionally didn't tell us so that they could use the reveal

[00:43:27] later of when the guys are on the fire, you know, uh, chanting the, the Atreides name.

[00:43:32] Right.

[00:43:33] And so maybe that's why they made it not look like Caladan.

[00:43:36] Although like, yeah, I, I, obviously if you've read the books, that's not a reveal at all.

[00:43:41] That it's, I, I, I have to wonder, did you, were you surprised that it was the Atreides?

[00:43:48] Uh, they got me.

[00:43:50] Okay.

[00:43:50] I felt like as soon as I saw them, I was like, Atreides!

[00:43:54] Tula!

[00:43:56] Yeah, I guess I wasn't ready for Tula to, uh, to, to do, you know, to commit mass murder.

[00:44:03] No, I, okay.

[00:44:04] So I knew that that, well, not mass murder.

[00:44:06] That's a change.

[00:44:06] I, I feel like that they, they made her kill more Atreides at once rather than just like slitting the throat of, of Ori and one other family member.

[00:44:16] Um, and I guess that's to sort of like ramp up like, oh, how do, how are we going to condense centuries of Harkonnen and Atreides feuding into a couple key events?

[00:44:26] So, okay.

[00:44:26] I get that.

[00:44:27] Um, but let's talk about Caladan for a moment.

[00:44:32] So you have a note in here.

[00:44:34] You can see the ocean far up when the camera rises up.

[00:44:37] I don't know if you or Nancy put that in, but.

[00:44:39] That was me.

[00:44:39] Cause I was, when I was doing the rewatch, I was like, you know, okay, Caladan question mark.

[00:44:43] And it's like, oh, here's the ocean way over there.

[00:44:46] But it's like really hard to see.

[00:44:47] But I just want to point out that Romania has coastline.

[00:44:51] It has the, that's where they filmed in Romania.

[00:44:53] So it has coastlines.

[00:44:54] It has lakes, a small coastline, but it exists.

[00:44:57] There are lakes that they shouldn't have to, you shouldn't have to hunt for water on the horizon of Caladan.

[00:45:02] And this is one of the reasons where I'm like, is this the same Caladan?

[00:45:06] Cause Villeneuve just blew it out of the water.

[00:45:11] Portraying Caladan on screen.

[00:45:13] And then this was just like, well, what's this?

[00:45:15] Cause it looks more like a different Atreides planet called Keplar.

[00:45:19] It looks exactly like it would be Keplar, but I think they don't, they're never going to mention Keplar probably in this.

[00:45:25] I don't think that they, they probably eliminated that whole side of the family, which I kind of get, but that's like overall, I'm just getting like this feeling where they're like, oh, this site's, they said they had trouble finding an interesting site in Romania.

[00:45:40] And it feels like they're like, this site's good enough.

[00:45:43] And I, I just watching this episode, I kept thinking like, is this why Villeneuve left the project?

[00:45:49] Right.

[00:45:50] Sorry.

[00:45:53] So, um, a couple of questioning notes too, that we both have here, you know, they certainly foreshadow the horse when they are coming down the hill for, for the break in the leg later.

[00:46:06] But, uh, I think we have a, uh, uh, electric Bukaloo shout out here that you want to give relative to horses breaking their legs.

[00:46:14] Yeah.

[00:46:15] Uh, I was recently on an episode of electric Bukaloo.

[00:46:18] We were talking about two Tyrion, uh, chapters from a clash of Kings.

[00:46:23] And I went because of that, um, there is a horse that breaks his leg and Tyrion has to do a mercy kill.

[00:46:29] And, um, I went into a deep dive of why they, uh, why you have to kill a horse that breaks his legs.

[00:46:36] And it's, as they say, you know, horses live on their feet and they can't heal unless they're standing up.

[00:46:41] But then of course they can't, they have so much weight on these spindly little legs.

[00:46:45] Um, but I don't know if I agree with, they said, she said, well, what about putting it in a suspenser sling?

[00:46:51] And they're like, well, he, it would just kick itself to death.

[00:46:54] I'm like, I don't know, maybe.

[00:46:55] Um, but also did she want to set up a situation where like, would she have stayed to care for the horse if she was killing everybody?

[00:47:02] Right.

[00:47:04] But anyway,

[00:47:05] Yeah.

[00:47:05] And that gave us a, a good, um, uh, you know, in terms of plot devices, they were showing us the poison and the syringe and sort of, sort of tension wise.

[00:47:16] Again, just really big, obvious clues.

[00:47:19] If you're paying attention, you know, you can see what they're, what they're setting up.

[00:47:24] That's going to come later.

[00:47:25] We did get a sugar wire, uh, reference though, which I thought was interesting.

[00:47:30] And sugar wire is something that's in the OG books.

[00:47:32] I'm not sure how much it is in the XD stuff, but it was a kind of a metallic extrusion from a vine.

[00:47:39] And that was only grown on Seleucus Secundus.

[00:47:42] And it's used by the Sadhu car as a, like a Garrett, uh, weapon, but it can also be used.

[00:47:48] You can actually write on it and use it to transmit, you know, like a secret coded messages and things like that.

[00:47:53] It's a really, really super useful, um, product that is used in a lot of applications and referenced, uh, quite a number of times.

[00:48:02] And the OG books.

[00:48:04] So cool little lore thing.

[00:48:06] Uh, what else do we got here?

[00:48:08] Oh yeah.

[00:48:09] With the poison sack.

[00:48:10] I thought it was a little bit, um, she seemed very adept and knew exactly the anatomy and the poison sack.

[00:48:17] And if this hunt only happens every once in a while, she knew a lot for being there.

[00:48:23] And I don't know if they did a good job of setting up the fact that like, did she prep for this?

[00:48:27] Yeah.

[00:48:28] So I, I, at first I was like, what the hell about the same thing too?

[00:48:31] But then I thought about it and like, she must've studied and, and prepared for this.

[00:48:36] But then, so in the books, this, this version of this story definitely happens.

[00:48:41] Um, but I guess, I think it's at the end of sisterhood.

[00:48:44] Um, but anyway, she says that she is from Caladan and she's like an orphan from a couple of villages over.

[00:48:52] That's why there's no family to meet.

[00:48:54] Right.

[00:48:54] Um, so yeah, uh, this is, um, I guess it does make sense that she would have prepped though, regardless, but then, you know, she's giving herself away.

[00:49:06] It shouldn't, isn't that suspicious?

[00:49:08] Yeah.

[00:49:08] She's not pretending to be from there.

[00:49:10] Right.

[00:49:10] So we got a little hand wavy little jazz hands here to make this fit.

[00:49:14] They, they do do a good job.

[00:49:16] I think overall of, of, uh, showing, uh, her and Ori in love.

[00:49:22] And I, I bought the onscreen chemistry.

[00:49:25] Uh, we certainly got some more abs of steel from Ori.

[00:49:28] I mean, HBO, you know, you can't pass up a good ab scene, but, um, yeah.

[00:49:35] So I think that, you know, on the second watch, it was interesting to see their dynamic and their relationship, knowing what, uh, Tula is going to get up to.

[00:49:43] Because I was clueless, uh, going into this.

[00:49:45] They caught me.

[00:49:46] Yeah.

[00:49:46] No, I think the tragedy is that she really was in love with him, but she chose her sister, you know?

[00:49:52] Right.

[00:49:53] Yeah.

[00:49:53] Yeah.

[00:49:53] Yeah.

[00:49:54] Yeah.

[00:49:54] We'll get to that scene more.

[00:49:56] So we get a mention of a Seleucin bull and that they're hunting Seleucin bulls.

[00:50:00] Yeah.

[00:50:00] Why are those on Caladan?

[00:50:02] But sorry.

[00:50:03] Well, they moved them around.

[00:50:04] They, they, they were like, oh, this is fun to hunt.

[00:50:06] So let's bring them over to our planet and drop them in here.

[00:50:08] So that's, I think that's canon.

[00:50:10] Yeah.

[00:50:10] I think that's canon.

[00:50:11] I think, I think Seleucin bulls were introduced to Caladan from Seleucin secondus.

[00:50:23] Okay.

[00:50:24] Okay.

[00:50:24] They were.

[00:50:25] Yeah.

[00:50:25] And multiple, you know, these like crazy eyes and two separate brains, which is why they're so hard to kill.

[00:50:31] And this is, we get a reference to this in both the OG books and in the first movie, a Seleucin bull killed Paul Atreides' grandfather while he was out hunting it.

[00:50:46] And so that sets up a thing with Paul's father and for him and this whole question of, of legacy and stuff.

[00:50:52] But yeah, we get a cool interpretation of it.

[00:50:57] It looks like a regular bull when they threw some weird horn things on the back.

[00:51:01] If you look at the still frames from it.

[00:51:02] So, but again, cool lore, little, little lore nods.

[00:51:07] Right.

[00:51:07] Back on Wallach 9 in the past, loyalties.

[00:51:12] Young Valia attends class with sister Dorothea as teacher.

[00:51:16] Valia questions the lessons and we see that there's tension between the two.

[00:51:21] Valia questions the concept of truth, which she says cannot be corrupted by the Imperium, perhaps in reaction to her belief that Vorian uses lies as a tool, or used lies as a tool to disgrace her family.

[00:51:34] Dorothea tells the class that the following day, the sisters will have their commitment to the sisterhood tested.

[00:51:42] So what is truth?

[00:51:45] Valia thinks that truth is whatever she says it is.

[00:51:50] She's less interested in real truth than she claims to be.

[00:51:55] But yeah, the true sense we've talked about it a lot.

[00:51:57] It's, it's the ability to detect, it's being a human lie detector test, basically.

[00:52:01] Right.

[00:52:03] And I, I think it's interesting though, like you say, what is truth and relative to whom?

[00:52:08] And Valia has a truth and the Atreides, you know, what the Atreides version of the truth and how truth can be manipulated, which is a very relevant current topic in our, in our world with the way that media and social media is working these days and how people utilize that.

[00:52:28] So I find that stuff really interesting.

[00:52:31] And especially the fact that the sisterhood and later the Bene Gesserit are doing something that I, I find really interesting, which is the commodification of truth.

[00:53:14] And we have questions in our own marketplace.

[00:53:16] Like if you look at how modern fishing is done, is this really this species of fish?

[00:53:21] I have no way of knowing.

[00:53:22] So when you have truth as a important part of being able to function as a galactic sized empire or, you know, civilization, truth is important in the sisterhood is doing something I think is really interesting is that they're commodifying truth.

[00:53:42] And they are placing themselves as the ultimate brokers of truth.

[00:53:46] We decide what's true and how to spin and bend these things by placing truth sayers in with the noble houses.

[00:53:53] And I think for me, that was one of the excitements coming into this whole season of how is that, how are they going to handle all of those questions?

[00:54:03] Yeah.

[00:54:04] I'm not happy with how they're handling Dorothea's character.

[00:54:07] I saw you have in the notes that she's a hypocrite until they use the tool, but you say, but Dorothea's assessment of Valia is, is correct.

[00:54:16] But I'm really like, I think that just the, when she starts yelling at her about being a Harkonnen and all you like basically you're trash because of your family, that is so out of, not only out of character, but just out of like Dorothea is a sister.

[00:54:33] Why would she have something against the Harkonnen family?

[00:54:40] Why, yeah.

[00:54:41] Why would she, what would be her beef with them and why would she treat Valia like this?

[00:54:47] I just, and I'm sorry, I keep bringing up the books, but it's, you know, it's just not passing the shippy test for me.

[00:54:53] You know, in the books, she thought Valia was her ally until, you know, a nasty turn at the end, which we saw.

[00:55:01] And I think that this just cheapens it so much to have her be so cruel to Valia.

[00:55:07] And why would she behave that way?

[00:55:08] That's not a sisterhood training, like just to her, Raquel and Valia.

[00:55:13] I'm just really unhappy with the way those three characters were handled this episode for similar reasons.

[00:55:17] Gotcha. And they're really driving Dorothea into the realm of being a religious fanatic as opposed to being a sister.

[00:55:27] So they're, it's almost like they're.

[00:55:29] But that is, that is on point, but yeah.

[00:55:32] They're highlighting it so much.

[00:55:34] But why would that make her mean to the Harkonnens?

[00:55:37] Right, right, right.

[00:55:38] They're pushing that storyline so hard so that it's really obvious on screen as opposed to playing it subtly.

[00:55:43] Right, but how, but why would she be mean to Valia specifically?

[00:55:48] You know, that doesn't fit in with that.

[00:55:49] Well, she sees her as a rival, right?

[00:55:51] She sees her.

[00:55:52] Yeah, so.

[00:55:53] Which doesn't really make sense because she's not really there yet.

[00:55:56] The rival, has the rivalry because Raquelna, Valia doesn't know Raquelna until after they do the, the testing coming up in the, later in the scene.

[00:56:06] So, because she says, I'm sister, you know, I'm mother superior Raquelna.

[00:56:10] They don't know each other.

[00:56:11] Oh, yeah, no, yeah.

[00:56:12] So it doesn't make sense a little bit.

[00:56:13] But I guess my point is more that, so they have the religious, the fanatical aspect of Dorotea.

[00:56:21] And that's actually, they actually stripped away some of that versus the book because she actually goes off and starts in a whole nother sect and stuff.

[00:56:27] Okay.

[00:56:27] But I understand cutting that out.

[00:56:29] But I think that that becomes more interesting when you see that she looks to Valia as a hope of someone who can co-rule the future of this house.

[00:56:39] But they really come to blows or to knifey slices or stabby stabbies over, over the question of this artificial intelligence and using that.

[00:56:49] Right.

[00:56:50] Right.

[00:56:51] As, as a point of divergence rather than.

[00:56:53] Right.

[00:56:54] Gotcha.

[00:56:54] Rather than just being like, oh, well, we all hate Harkonnens, don't we?

[00:56:58] Don't we, mean girls?

[00:57:01] Well, later in the dormitory, Valia is consoled by a young Kasha and Francesca.

[00:57:05] Francesca, we still haven't met yet, right?

[00:57:07] We've only seen a young Francesca.

[00:57:09] Right.

[00:57:10] Francesca explains that Dorotea has been sent as an ambassador to the Butlerians and has returned as a believer in the cause.

[00:57:17] They discuss who might succeed Raquel.

[00:57:19] Valia says that she has planned to be her brother's truth-sayer at the Lonserad until he was murdered.

[00:57:27] So I think here, again, they're playing with the idea of true belief versus fanaticism and highlighting that.

[00:57:36] And then again, we get with Emmeline and the younger four sisters mirroring the older, you know, the past four sisters, this, you know, these questions of belief and commitment to cause.

[00:57:50] They're setting up that whole test that's going to come up here in a second.

[00:57:54] I like the four sisters.

[00:57:55] I just don't understand why one of them's not Anna Carino because I would just make this add so many layers to this story in a rather efficient way.

[00:58:03] And it's so like, well, it's not really a spoiler because she's apparently not in this version of the universe, but the whole dating system comes down to her death at one point.

[00:58:14] So I'm just curious how they're going to handle all of that if they ever address it.

[00:58:19] Right, right.

[00:58:20] There's a good line here that, or no, sorry.

[00:58:24] Valia says that Emmeline reeks of piety.

[00:58:27] And in this scene, Francesca says that about Dorotea.

[00:58:30] Yeah, so there's this whole thing about like, oh, yeah, you drank the Kool-Aid a little too much.

[00:58:36] But of course, then they go stand on the rain and they all have to drink the Kool-Aid, so to speak.

[00:58:39] And also, what's his face?

[00:58:41] Chaviko says something similar about his wife, Natalia, in a previous episode.

[00:58:46] Right, religion is my wife's province.

[00:58:49] But yeah, but then we see that Chaviko, as soon as he thinks that religion can give him power, he drinks the Kool-Aid.

[00:58:55] He's like, oh, is this the Kool-Aid line?

[00:58:57] Yeah, exactly.

[00:58:58] How do I?

[00:58:59] Because he's really scrambling for control, right?

[00:59:01] He's really, he's being pressed beyond his ability to provide leadership and to actually see their way out of this.

[00:59:09] So, right.

[00:59:10] The next day, one by one, the girls pledge to put the sisterhood above all, even above their families.

[00:59:16] Valia is the only one who's not able to make the pledge and is left standing alone.

[00:59:20] You will always be a Harkonnen, says Dorotea, who leaves her out the storm.

[00:59:27] Right.

[00:59:28] So, sort of an ultimate test here of like meditating on the idea of commitment and total focus on that goal or, you know, belief in an institution that exists beyond you.

[00:59:40] And it's, I think it's interesting because, you know, there's few places in our modern life where we commit to things like that.

[00:59:49] Maybe if you sign up for military service or you take some other pledge or oath of public office.

[00:59:56] Yeah.

[00:59:56] Or like CIA maybe.

[00:59:57] Yeah.

[00:59:59] You know, or even just maybe a local town official or law enforcement officer where you are saying, hey, as an individual, my identity is going to be subsumed by this institution, its goals and its objectives.

[01:00:14] Which is kind of weird in our modern context because our, at least in American consumer market, you know, we can't, they're constantly telling us, oh, be an individual.

[01:00:25] Wear these clothes, buy these toys, drive this car.

[01:00:27] And you too can be this individual and commitment to individual as the thing, as opposed to giving your identity and your yourself to another organization or institution to achieve its goals.

[01:00:41] And I guess in some ways, corporate, corporate structures are a little bit like that, even though you're not pledging your allegiance to the corporation.

[01:00:49] Who knows?

[01:00:49] Maybe we will someday.

[01:00:52] In America, you will.

[01:00:53] What's that?

[01:00:54] In America, you will.

[01:00:55] Yes, exactly.

[01:00:56] Well, that's the whole thing is in American culture.

[01:00:59] We're kind of mixed up about some of those identities.

[01:01:02] But again, I think they're playing with some interesting themes here, which is, do you believe in this mission?

[01:01:08] And if you're not sure, take a moment, think about it.

[01:01:13] And can you see your way clearly to that answer?

[01:01:18] And obviously, Valya has trouble with that.

[01:01:22] Later, we see Mother Superior Raquel and some of the other sisters arrive back on Moloch 9.

[01:01:27] Raquel comes to the outcrop and extends her arm to Valya, who turns to face her and says, don't move, using the voice.

[01:01:35] Raquel introduces herself and invites Valya inside, even though she has taken her vow.

[01:01:40] Now, Raquel admits she has never encountered the power of the voice before and asks Valya whether it's happened in the past, whether she's used it.

[01:01:50] Raquel tells Valya that she knows about what happens to Griffin and relates her own story of loss.

[01:01:55] Sometimes our misfortunes are the sails that take us to the shores we are meant to be on.

[01:02:01] You can achieve extraordinary things here, even shape the course of the Imperium, if you decide to stay.

[01:02:07] So, any thoughts on this scene here?

[01:02:10] No, I mean, you know, you already talked about the voice before and we said, you know, it's different in all of the books, both original and XD, how it's used.

[01:02:21] Yeah, I don't know.

[01:02:22] I guess I don't have much to add beyond what you have in your notes already.

[01:02:26] Okay.

[01:02:28] Well, the Dune Minute podcast guys called out a great scene.

[01:02:32] That was a nice little nod visually to Denis Villeneuve when the mother mothers are arriving on Caledon to test Paul.

[01:02:40] That, you know, they've got these sisters coming down on the ship and then walking out into the rain.

[01:02:45] So, that was nice.

[01:02:47] That was some nice eye candy.

[01:02:48] Again, all of the ship CGI stuff is on point.

[01:02:53] So, enjoying that.

[01:02:56] One of the things that this scene made me think about was leadership and what are qualities of leadership.

[01:03:05] And what I think Raquel does here is really interesting because she sees something in Valya that Dorotea can't.

[01:03:13] And sometimes being a leader is seeing in others what they can't see in themselves.

[01:03:21] And then encouraging that and giving that person trust, giving that person agency, giving that person the room to...

[01:03:31] Here's giving them the sight.

[01:03:33] Hey, there's a thing that you could become or that you could be part of.

[01:03:37] And it's here.

[01:03:38] You can see it.

[01:03:39] And then now giving them the room to be able to make that choice for themselves.

[01:03:42] So, I thought Raquel's whole example of that style of leadership was really good, which really contrasts Dorotea, right?

[01:03:52] Who is belief and you follow belief and that's it.

[01:03:57] You read from the pages of the book and you don't, you know, critique or think beyond that much.

[01:04:04] So, and I think we also get here the line crisis survival advancement.

[01:04:10] So, this is a central theme of the original books of Herbert, which is adversity is the key to change.

[01:04:17] That if we don't stay, if we're not right on the edge of what is knowable and unknown, the unknown unknowns, as somebody once famously said, that unless we are staring as a species are staring into that abyss, that is where we stagnate and don't advance.

[01:04:37] And so, this is really boiled down nicely into crisis survival advancement to this phrase that Raquel uses.

[01:04:46] So, right.

[01:04:50] Should we take a quick break?

[01:04:52] And then when we come back, we can take on the rest of the episode?

[01:04:56] Sure.

[01:05:09] We're back.

[01:05:10] All right.

[01:05:11] Let's jump back to Caladan in the past.

[01:05:13] We do what we must.

[01:05:14] As Ori's family celebrates the hunt outside, Tula pauses to watch before joining Ori indoors.

[01:05:22] He proposes marriage and she kisses him in response.

[01:05:25] The scene cuts between their lovemaking and the revelry outside with the chants of Atreides, Atreides around the fire.

[01:05:33] In the morning, Tula reveals to Ori that she's a Harkonnen.

[01:05:37] On phased, he declares their love transcends the longstanding family feud, saying they can write their own future.

[01:05:45] Tula counters that some things, like her brother's death, cannot be changed.

[01:05:51] Noticing the eerie quiet, Ori discovers his entire family is dead.

[01:05:55] Tula stabs him with the toxin, apologizing as she holds him.

[01:05:59] She tells a newly arrived Albert to flee.

[01:06:02] As Tula stands alone, a Seleucid bull appears above on the hilltop or turning away.

[01:06:11] Right.

[01:06:11] So big scene here.

[01:06:13] Like I said before, I was caught by surprise.

[01:06:16] I didn't think that these were a trace.

[01:06:17] I didn't know where we were going with this at all, even though I think in the trailer, they kind of gave it away with the bull and the horse riding stuff.

[01:06:25] Yeah, they did a lot of things well from the adaptation perspective.

[01:06:30] Like they kept the name Tula Veil and as you point out in the notes, it's part of Lankafel, but it's also like she's veiled.

[01:06:36] She's hiding her identity.

[01:06:41] Yeah, I think they sold us well on the love between them.

[01:06:47] So, but then I wasn't completely sold on her going through with the killing him, but maybe that's just because it felt like such a speed run with like the, you know, why she was so invested in her brother's death that she had to kill an entire family.

[01:07:04] Well, I think this goes into, again, this idea of what are you committed to?

[01:07:10] What is it that you're willing to do in service for an idea that exists beyond you?

[01:07:20] And so like with the Harkonnen family name, you know, Tula's willing to not only murder a whole other family, but murder somebody that she's ostensibly in love for, has very, very strong feelings for.

[01:07:35] And so I do like, at least with the Tula character that they're, they've shown us this softer side of her, this one who's caring for Lila, the one who's a little bit maybe more contemplative and less sort of driven in a different way to Valia.

[01:07:54] But yet, you know, she has got this real, you know, dark past.

[01:07:59] She has done something that is really extraordinary that most of us hopefully would have, hopefully that we would have a struggle against this, that this would really be a problem for us to commit.

[01:08:12] And I think she did struggle and, you know, it wasn't easy for her to do, but just shows where, yeah, indeed, where her ultimate commitment was.

[01:08:21] Yeah.

[01:08:21] Yeah.

[01:08:22] And then it also, I thought something that was interesting was the memories, you know, our memories of the dead.

[01:08:28] So this whole thing revolves around Griffin and we get that great line later, Griffin would be proud, you know?

[01:08:34] So what, what, what Tula has, has in mind as a memory of the dead and how she's using that memory of the dead to murder other people.

[01:08:46] Right.

[01:08:47] I think it's a really interesting thing.

[01:08:50] And again, the question of revenge versus vengeance and are they ever enough?

[01:08:57] Right.

[01:08:58] So we have a, I don't know.

[01:08:59] I thought the overlapping sex scene with the revelry outside with the Atreides was pretty good.

[01:09:04] No, that, that works for me.

[01:09:06] I didn't stand out to me at all.

[01:09:07] I didn't even necessarily note that it was quote unquote another, you know, cause people are talking about like every episode, there has to be a sex scene.

[01:09:13] I was like, was there a sex scene?

[01:09:15] Oh yeah, there was, but it just, in this case, it was tastefully done and it, you know, melded in with the story and it made sense.

[01:09:22] And yeah, I have to say they do actually get married and she kills them on their wedding night in the book.

[01:09:27] So I don't, I don't know if one is better or worse than the other, but that is just a difference.

[01:09:33] I like this.

[01:09:33] I think this adaptation works well.

[01:09:36] And yeah, the, you know, the whole thing is, does the sex scene add to anything?

[01:09:39] And I think interweaving it with the revelry outside and then later what we learned, I think it all played really well.

[01:09:46] Like she gave in, she let herself have this night of loving him and then she did her quote unquote duty.

[01:09:52] Right.

[01:09:52] And it was already done by that point because she had given them down the poison.

[01:09:56] I love this line that Ori delivers.

[01:10:00] My love isn't fickle, you know, in the face of hard truths, he's willing to do the thinking and to recognize that we have the opportunity to write our own future.

[01:10:13] And yeah, our families have chosen hate in the past and chosen to keep this feud alive.

[01:10:21] But you and I, in this moment, we can change that.

[01:10:26] And I really thought that that was interesting, at least in terms of the, we're getting a very Harkonnen point of view, which I think is an important right to complex universe story building.

[01:10:37] So we're getting the Harkonnen point of view.

[01:10:39] And so the Atreides are kind of the bad guys, but then with Ori, we see what makes the Atreides so attractive and what makes in the original book in the first movie, why is everyone so loyal to the family name?

[01:10:55] Why are they so loyal to the Duke himself?

[01:10:56] And it's because of this kind of thoughtfulness that the Duke has and why he's able to command the loyalty is because he relates to people in this bigger way and he thinks beyond things.

[01:11:12] And it's a kind of a family value that the Atreides, that's why Duncan Idaho, that's why Gurney Halleck serve the family so strongly is because the Duke respects them and understands them and gives them agency at the same time of not, what's the way I want to describe this?

[01:11:33] Anyway, there's a thoughtfulness involved with the Atreides family.

[01:11:36] And so we get that from Ori, which it's then snuffed out.

[01:11:40] But that's the point of why the Atreides are so popular.

[01:11:44] Yeah, and you have a note in here about how families are taught hate based on something that happened in the past and keeping that hate alive as an act of choice.

[01:11:52] And I think what's interesting about the story, the written versions of this story in all forms, at least, is that there are these moments over and over in this feud where one side or another does say, like, let's end it.

[01:12:08] But then the next thing happens and it propels it forward.

[01:12:11] And this is indeed one of those moments.

[01:12:14] I'm going to talk about another specific one that's relevant in the book spoiler section.

[01:12:18] And, you know, to compare it to back to George R.

[01:12:22] Martin's world, at least in House of the Dragons, we've seen that where, you know, these two families just can't stop hurting each other.

[01:12:29] Every time they think that something good can happen, they just, you know, whether by choice or by providence, it needs to happen.

[01:12:36] Yeah, that goes back to the War of the Roses.

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:39] Good point.

[01:12:39] So I just want to point out that Albert, the boy who runs away at the end, he's new.

[01:12:47] He's new.

[01:12:48] They seem to have replaced Ori's brother, Willem, with this Albert character.

[01:12:54] Fine.

[01:12:54] But then there's internet theories now about Albert.

[01:12:57] So one internet theory is that Albert is Kieran, I think, age wise.

[01:13:02] It's more likely that he could be Duncan.

[01:13:05] I mean, sorry, Duncan.

[01:13:06] Why am I saying that?

[01:13:07] He could be Desmond.

[01:13:09] He could be Desmond Hart.

[01:13:10] So this is, I think that that would be interesting.

[01:13:14] All right.

[01:13:14] So the Reddit detectives that are out there doing their detective work.

[01:13:17] I don't know if it's detectiving because it's just like guesswork.

[01:13:22] It's theorycrafting.

[01:13:22] Yeah.

[01:13:24] Right on.

[01:13:25] All right.

[01:13:26] Back on Wallach 9 in the past, the sisterhood is dividing.

[01:13:29] Raquel and Valya discuss the growing demand for two seers as they pass a group of sisters in a Butlerian-inspired prayer.

[01:13:38] Raquel reveals her great work, a genetic library of DNA gathered since the wars to identify optimal pairings and influence future generations.

[01:13:48] Fostering leaders less prone to corruption, she cautions Valya that this relies on forbidden technology.

[01:13:55] In a cone of silence, Valya believes that she may become the next Reverend Mother and demonstrates the voice to her friends.

[01:14:02] Later, Raquel summons Dorotea and Valya, acknowledging their strengths and leadership potential, but warns their hubris is divisive.

[01:14:12] Feeling her rage, Raquel urges them to find a way forward together as Reverend Mothers.

[01:14:17] Valya leaves, unable to endure the agony.

[01:14:20] Well, not even able.

[01:14:21] Yeah, she just avoids the agony.

[01:14:23] Right.

[01:14:23] While Dorotea stays.

[01:14:24] Meeting with Valya later, Raquela deciphers a coded message from Tula, recognizing Valya's unfinished business with House Harkonnen.

[01:14:33] She gives Valya agony serum and instruct her to return to Lonquavelle and come back a Reverend Mother or don't come back at all.

[01:14:43] Okay.

[01:14:44] So one thing that I liked before I get into the other is that they show.

[01:14:50] So, okay, Valya is showing, I'm sorry, Raquela is showing Valya to the room with the AI and she's about to tell her this secret.

[01:14:58] And Raquela, she knows about this clearly.

[01:15:01] You can tell she already knows about this.

[01:15:03] But she doesn't, she doesn't like get Raquela in trouble, you know, or call her out.

[01:15:09] She's just instead leading the prayer group conspicuously right in front of that, you know.

[01:15:16] It's sort of, she's calling her out without doing it publicly.

[01:15:19] And to me, that is more the Benny, or sorry, the sisterhood way.

[01:15:24] Right.

[01:15:24] And for me, from a storytelling plot device, it was clear that we were going to get the AI reveal in this moment.

[01:15:33] Right.

[01:15:33] Because they bring out the line, thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

[01:15:40] Mm-hmm.

[01:15:40] Which they have not brought out.

[01:15:42] I believe this is the first time we actually hear that phrase in total.

[01:15:45] Mm-hmm.

[01:15:45] And that is the chief commandment of the Butlerians.

[01:15:49] It's not that you can't have machines.

[01:15:52] It's that you can't make a machine in the likeness of the human mind.

[01:15:58] And I thought we were going to get a reveal earlier on.

[01:16:00] And of course, then they save it.

[01:16:01] They do, they give us a double reveal, the spice and the AI at the same time.

[01:16:06] So I didn't see those two being combined.

[01:16:08] No.

[01:16:08] In a way.

[01:16:09] So, which I think is good.

[01:16:11] I don't mind.

[01:16:11] No, I, like I said last episode, I love for them to explore new combinations of the different elements of the lore.

[01:16:19] I wonder, you know, does a computer chip or an LLM, do they count in a machine in the likeness of a human mind?

[01:16:27] What's an LLM?

[01:16:28] A large language model, you know, the AI that we're all, you know, using these days, which is everywhere.

[01:16:33] I mean, yes, then the LLM is 100%.

[01:16:36] But a computer chip on its own, I guess it depends what it can do.

[01:16:39] But then again, they are like freaking out about a lizard toy, which is definitely not a human mind.

[01:16:44] Right.

[01:16:45] Yeah.

[01:16:48] So, right.

[01:16:49] So, as Luke has said in another podcast, eugenics curious here.

[01:16:54] So, the sisterhood actively working on manipulating the species through genetic pairings and combinations.

[01:17:03] Uh-huh.

[01:17:04] Yeah.

[01:17:04] And, yeah, this is a space that can get a little uncomfortable in terms of our modern human past and what the Bene Gesserit are about.

[01:17:14] And it gets them in trouble later.

[01:17:16] I won't say too much more about that.

[01:17:18] But they see something, but they miss some other things.

[01:17:22] Right.

[01:17:23] When you try to control things too much.

[01:17:25] Yeah, exactly.

[01:17:26] Or, and then there's like a key missing ingredient later in the latter parts of the Dune books.

[01:17:34] So, right.

[01:17:38] So, the spice or the Rasek poison or the agony, right?

[01:17:41] The agony to awaken other memories.

[01:17:45] Pretty dramatic using the eyedropper and dropping it from like four feet above your eye.

[01:17:50] I think that there's no canon there.

[01:17:52] That's just simply on-screen dramatics with the blueprint.

[01:17:56] Poison.

[01:17:57] I did like how they filmed this whole scene and I loved seeing Dorothea watching Valya leave.

[01:18:03] And she's like, no.

[01:18:04] You know, she tilts her head back as a sign to Raquel to go ahead with it.

[01:18:08] I thought that was really nicely inspired.

[01:18:11] So.

[01:18:12] Yeah.

[01:18:13] So, about the whole agony thing, I hate that they have Raquel pushing them to do this instead of them.

[01:18:21] I think it tells so much more about their characters when they covertly, like Dorothea takes two of the pills in the book and gives one to Valya.

[01:18:30] And Valya, indeed, chickens out on the spot.

[01:18:32] But I cannot imagine Raquel ever in a thousand million years telling Valya, go do it by yourself on your home planet and don't come back.

[01:18:40] I was like, what?

[01:18:42] This is, yeah.

[01:18:43] This is probably the change I was most mad about this because it just doesn't make sense.

[01:18:47] And what does this say about Raquel as a character?

[01:18:50] And I guess they're just trying to make everyone a worse person and more like, so everyone's a villain instead of everyone's shades of gray.

[01:19:00] But yeah, that bothered me.

[01:19:02] I also, I've not really related to this, but a random question about they keep using the cone of silence in public.

[01:19:07] I'm like, that's so suspicious.

[01:19:08] Use the cone of silence somewhere where people can't see you.

[01:19:11] Exactly.

[01:19:13] It is kind of silly to be standing out there in the middle.

[01:19:16] Hey, there's a random cone of silence.

[01:19:18] We just have them scattered throughout.

[01:19:19] And they're slapping each other.

[01:19:21] But don't worry about that.

[01:19:23] Yeah, it's silence.

[01:19:24] It's not visual.

[01:19:25] I can see what's going on here.

[01:19:28] There's better not be any lip readers there.

[01:19:31] Yeah, that's another thing is Betty Jezret can read lips.

[01:19:35] Or sisters can.

[01:19:37] Well, yeah, in the show, they haven't really shown us that.

[01:19:40] But anyway, back to the agony question and saying like, here, go do it yourself in your own time.

[01:19:47] What you were just saying now also made me think like, that's also a little bit canon breaking.

[01:19:54] Because if the failure happens, right?

[01:19:58] So there's two things that happen in the agony.

[01:20:00] One is you have to transmute the poison.

[01:20:02] So it doesn't become a, you know, that you're actually changing your internal biochemistry so that you can neutralize the poison.

[01:20:09] But then the second part of it is, is that you have to survive encountering the other memories.

[01:20:14] And you've got a lot of training to prepare you for that.

[01:20:18] But one of the things that that's worrisome, and we'll see with Lila if she comes out later, is that you can be taken over by an other memory.

[01:20:28] And that is a very dangerous thing.

[01:20:31] And they've sort of hinted at that a little bit.

[01:20:34] So that you don't want a sister to go through this on their own.

[01:20:38] Because if they come out of it, and not themselves, but being taken over by one of these memories, that's a bad thing.

[01:20:44] And they are there to, they have protocols in place to prevent that happening.

[01:20:49] Right.

[01:20:49] So I'll say, um, Valya does do it on, on her own on Lankyvel in the books, but that's her choice.

[01:20:55] You know, she's like, because she's basically saying, oh, I need to, um, take things to the next level now.

[01:21:02] Okay.

[01:21:03] Right.

[01:21:04] Right.

[01:21:04] Well, back in, uh, the past on Lankyvel, um, Valya returns home to find Tula at Griffin's tomb.

[01:21:12] She asks Tula if Ori Atreides is dead.

[01:21:14] Tula responds, they all are.

[01:21:16] Griffin would be proud, says Valya.

[01:21:19] Tula isn't so sure.

[01:21:20] Inside the family are angry that Tula brought Valya home.

[01:21:23] They blame Valya for what happened to the Atreides.

[01:21:25] The uncle Evgeny calls her a hateful girl and asks, did you even think how that massacre will blow back on us?

[01:21:34] You should be thanking Tula.

[01:21:35] Valya responds, she did what none of you could.

[01:21:37] She punished the family who built Griffin.

[01:21:40] As her mother tells Valya, she already cost the family a child, one child.

[01:21:44] Valya uses the voice to quiet her mother and commands her to pick up the knife.

[01:21:49] She can't go through with it.

[01:21:50] And her mother drops the knife.

[01:21:52] Evgeny calls her a sorceress.

[01:21:54] As she walks outside, she takes the syringe from the case and begins the agony.

[01:21:59] She begins to see and hear her foremothers when she hears Tula calling her back.

[01:22:04] Tula tells Valya that she's coming with her to join the sisterhood.

[01:22:07] I lost Griffin.

[01:22:08] I won't lose you.

[01:22:09] She wants the sisterhood to be a fresh start for them.

[01:22:15] Thoughts on this scene?

[01:22:16] Well, I think it's interesting and it says a lot how the parents are blaming Valya and not Tula.

[01:22:23] Even though, you know, Tula is the one who literally did the murdering.

[01:22:28] And yeah, they're right.

[01:22:29] Like it looks, it will blow back on them, especially a whole massacre like that.

[01:22:33] But Tula is the one who actually went through with it.

[01:22:35] So it's interesting that like she seems to escape all culpability with them.

[01:22:41] And that's kind of an insult to Tula that they think so little of her.

[01:22:45] They're like, well, obviously you don't have a mind of your own.

[01:22:51] Yeah.

[01:22:51] And it's the whole, you know, oh, if you're, couldn't you just be like your other sibling,

[01:22:55] which is a hateful thing for a parent to compare their child to another and say,

[01:23:01] you should be like so-and-so.

[01:23:02] It really messes with the family dynamic for sure.

[01:23:07] Yeah.

[01:23:07] Yeah.

[01:23:07] So would Griffin be proud?

[01:23:09] I don't know.

[01:23:10] I kind of come down on that.

[01:23:11] It seems unlikely that he would be proud.

[01:23:14] I will comment about that further in the book spoiler section.

[01:23:17] Okay.

[01:23:20] Because I think they're probably intentionally hiding.

[01:23:23] They're giving us teases about like his death, but they didn't tell us anything about it.

[01:23:28] So I presume they're going to fill in more details later.

[01:23:30] Oh, that's interesting.

[01:23:31] Are we going to get more flashback or are we going to help?

[01:23:32] Oops.

[01:23:33] I don't know.

[01:23:34] Or they at least like explain a little better what happened.

[01:23:37] It's a little dangerous to get more flashback-y unless it's really short stuff.

[01:23:41] Yeah.

[01:23:42] I mean, I don't know and understand why they didn't include it here, but I guess.

[01:23:45] Yeah.

[01:23:46] Interesting.

[01:23:47] So we could have the everybody hates value feeling.

[01:23:49] I don't know.

[01:23:50] Yeah.

[01:23:50] Yeah.

[01:23:50] Which they can later subvert.

[01:23:52] They can flip it around.

[01:23:53] Right.

[01:23:57] So, yeah, on this question of Griffin being proud, one of the things, you know, Valya reconstructs this memory or not memory, but reconstructs based on her memories of Griffin that he would be proud.

[01:24:09] And Tula is using truth, you know, again, this goes to the truth of it.

[01:24:14] What would Griffin really think?

[01:24:16] And she's going, I'm not so sure.

[01:24:18] So they have two different personal interpretations of the past, which I think is really interesting.

[01:24:25] And that goes into something, I think we get it later in the books with the Bene Gesserit, is that the sisterhood overall, what they're trying to do is separate the individual's sense of personal truth from a species-wide level of truth.

[01:24:44] That's why we hide certain things.

[01:24:46] That's why we separate people.

[01:24:47] That's why we do this, you know, secret stuff, is because our personal point of views are going to mess with what needs to be done.

[01:24:54] And so, again, this goes into the ultimate trolley problem that, you know, we got to do this stuff in the darkness so that we can save the species overall in the long run.

[01:25:05] So, Valya is on the verge of murdering her own mother.

[01:25:09] Yeah.

[01:25:10] And this is, so I had to put in the notes, the godfather meme.

[01:25:14] I'm like, what are they doing with Valya's character?

[01:25:17] Look how they're massacred, my girl.

[01:25:20] And I did the hand gesture, don't worry.

[01:25:22] Yeah.

[01:25:23] So, I think this also goes, you know, we mentioned a little bit before, but in an internal to a family, the emotional harm that we can do to ourselves, in some ways, is almost more painful than the external harm that can happen between families.

[01:25:45] So, we have Harkonnens and Atreides feuding here, and that's really hard and horrible.

[01:25:49] But, man, there's something poignant about internal family conflict.

[01:25:54] And as I was writing my notes and thinking about this, all I just came to the conclusion is that, you know, we human beings are really messy.

[01:26:01] Whether we're internal struggles with families or external struggles with things, we are a hot mess as a species.

[01:26:09] Okay, but I have a question, though.

[01:26:11] So, this whole thing about Valya being unwilling to take the oath that she would put sisterhood over her own family, but then she also seems to hate almost everyone in her family and murder her mother and stuff.

[01:26:24] These don't jive together for me.

[01:26:27] These two, like, or is it just the name because it happens to be her last name?

[01:26:32] Like, if she really only cares about herself and maybe Tula, then she can, you know, screw the rest of the Harkonnens and just make a new name for themselves.

[01:26:42] So, what is, yeah, I'm just having trouble squaring the way they're showing these family dynamics at home with, yeah.

[01:26:54] And we never see Valya actually take the oath.

[01:26:57] No, no, I presume she didn't, yeah.

[01:27:00] Yeah, we presume she did, so.

[01:27:02] No, I presume she did not.

[01:27:04] Oh, you presume she did, right, yeah.

[01:27:05] Yeah.

[01:27:06] They kind of just, just like Tula doesn't say, yes, I'll marry you.

[01:27:10] She just kisses him.

[01:27:11] She doesn't answer in the affirmative, but the actions sort of cloud occluded, so.

[01:27:19] Right.

[01:27:20] Moving on.

[01:27:21] Oh, one, two minor screen notes.

[01:27:27] Evgeny calls her a sorceress, which is like a little nod to the sorcerers, sorcerers, sorceresses of Rosic.

[01:27:34] Right.

[01:27:34] Say that 10 times fast.

[01:27:36] And.

[01:27:37] I wonder if they'll talk about what happened to them.

[01:27:40] Yeah.

[01:27:40] I don't, I don't think they would.

[01:27:42] That would just confuse things a little bit.

[01:27:45] Well, I mean, it would add to the tension between the Carinos and the sisterhood.

[01:27:50] Sure.

[01:27:51] And then one other small little visual thing that I noticed when they're at the tomb, there's a relief on the, you know, there's a carving of the top stone of the tomb.

[01:28:02] That caught my eye and I went back and I looked at the Dune 1 movie with Villeneuve where the Duke is over somebody, his father's tomb, I would assume.

[01:28:12] And they look very similar, but they, but they are actually different.

[01:28:16] Oh, at least from a production design point, people are using again, some of the same visuals that you would expect culturally to be trapped, passed down.

[01:28:27] But that's Harkonnen and Atreides.

[01:28:29] So that's interesting.

[01:28:30] Hmm.

[01:28:31] All right.

[01:28:31] Nevermind then.

[01:28:32] I'm going to set that one aside.

[01:28:34] Let's go to Wallach 9, present day goodbyes.

[01:28:37] Tula invites a group of sisters to say goodbye to Lila.

[01:28:41] While Emmeline says Lila is now with her foremothers, Sister Jen blames Tula.

[01:28:46] Everyone leaves the room and Tula begins to remove several contraptions from the life support material from Lila's face and mouth.

[01:28:55] So, Sister Jen.

[01:28:57] Is she a sister or an acolyte?

[01:28:59] They're acolytes, but they call them sisters.

[01:29:02] So I think they're sisters until they become reverend mothers, regardless of whether they're an acolyte or not.

[01:29:07] I'm unclear on how they're using the nomenclature.

[01:29:09] Okay.

[01:29:09] Yeah.

[01:29:12] Um, yeah.

[01:29:38] You know, what are, what are the sacrifices?

[01:29:40] And it really makes me think of the ending of The Last of Us, which is coming back next year.

[01:29:46] No spoilers for that.

[01:29:47] But there's a question.

[01:29:48] The ending of season one.

[01:29:49] Yeah.

[01:29:49] Yeah, exactly.

[01:29:50] There's a question of, um, a larger question of agency and, and, you know, willingness.

[01:29:57] But, you know, how much did they gaslight Lila?

[01:29:59] Oh, it'll be okay.

[01:30:00] Your other mother's going to be there.

[01:30:02] You know, your real mother's going to be there.

[01:30:03] Maybe, maybe.

[01:30:04] Maybe.

[01:30:05] It sounds like she knew she wouldn't be, but I think, yeah, they're, they, they've got to be hiding something else or else they're just really breaking the law.

[01:30:13] Right.

[01:30:14] I did think too, that there's an interesting Christ-like, um, imagery here and, and function in, you know, sacrificing oneself for, for the potential of resurrection for all.

[01:30:29] Again, you know, uh, individual subsuming the individual's identity for a greater cause or greater good, you know, and there's, there's this whole thing where, you know, Lila eventually ends up down in a tomb to be resurrected.

[01:30:43] But everybody was saying goodbye before the stone was rolled in front of it.

[01:30:47] So, uh, I don't think they were intentionally going for that, but you can't help but, you know, see that, that parallel.

[01:30:54] So, all right.

[01:30:57] Um, yeah, and then obviously I thought that this was going to be where we get the spice reveal, but they really compressed the spice and AI reveal into one thing, which we're going to get to in a second.

[01:31:08] Back on Seleuza Secundus in the present day, Theodosia asks Valya where they're going.

[01:31:14] Instead of answering, she responds, sacrifices must be made, sisterhood above all.

[01:31:20] So she says the words there, um, at least.

[01:31:23] They arrive at the apartment of Harrow Harkonnen.

[01:31:26] We're assuming that this is the Harkonnen mission on, um, uh, yeah, their consulate.

[01:31:30] Yeah, their consulate.

[01:31:32] It appears the family has increased its wealth since we first met them on Lankavelle.

[01:31:37] Uh, and in the apartment is uncle, uncle Evgeny, much older and frailer.

[01:31:42] I never thought I'd live to see the day, he says.

[01:31:46] So this is sort of wrapping the episode back around from the beginning.

[01:31:49] So we get sort of the bookends here and Harrow Harkonnen.

[01:31:54] We're not sure how he's technically related.

[01:31:57] Yeah.

[01:31:57] Whose son is he?

[01:31:58] Because if, if Danfus doesn't exist, fine, that's one brother down.

[01:32:03] Then that leaves.

[01:32:05] Um, yeah, and we know Tula presumably did not have a son.

[01:32:10] Um, and obviously Griffin, Griffin died and didn't have, yeah, he's a bit young to be, he could be.

[01:32:18] Doesn't he say aunt?

[01:32:19] Doesn't he greet her?

[01:32:21] He does say aunt, but it must mean like a looser connection because I don't think it's one of her children.

[01:32:26] Her, she only has two siblings in this version and neither of them have children.

[01:32:30] Hmm.

[01:32:31] Okay.

[01:32:32] Yeah.

[01:32:33] So I don't know.

[01:32:34] Well, maybe it's, it's just like using the term aunt loosely.

[01:32:37] Um, right.

[01:32:40] So, and this also, uh, picks up on some energy too, that was established in the very openings of episode one of the, of the current present day storyline where Valia denies a truth sayer to house Harkonnen or a time.

[01:32:56] But why do they even want one if he's so prejudiced against the sisters or like, why would, you know, especially knowing that it's coming from someone who he doesn't trust.

[01:33:08] Right.

[01:33:09] Reverend, but a truth sayer, you know, I don't think a lot of people suspect that the truth sayers are actually doing double duty.

[01:33:14] Right.

[01:33:14] So it's a tool, right?

[01:33:17] It's like having a lawyer.

[01:33:18] Oh, we need a CPA or we need a lawyer on staff.

[01:33:21] He seems so prejudiced against the sisterhood.

[01:33:23] Why would they want one?

[01:33:25] I guess maybe Harrow asked for it.

[01:33:27] He seems less, uh, he seems more like awkward, you know, looking at the.

[01:33:31] Right.

[01:33:32] Well, yeah.

[01:33:33] But again, I think you can't, you can't overlook the value of a truth sayer because even if you're not dealing with the, you know, big stuff, just doing normal trade negotiations, you need a truth sayer.

[01:33:43] Well, I could see like they could set up and I'm surprised they haven't already, you know, the, the sort of tension between generations of the older generation who's suspicious of the sisterhood and stuff.

[01:33:54] And Harrow who's of the younger generation who wants to be more modern and the modern way is having a truth sayer and all that.

[01:34:00] On Wallach nine in the present day sentience, Trula is preparing something liquid and tells sister Avila that she's taking it to the storeroom.

[01:34:09] She tells, uh, Trula, uh, Avila says to Trula that value would be proud of letting Lila go.

[01:34:16] Trula walks across the courtyard into the tunnels where she comes to a room with Lila in a glass box.

[01:34:22] Kind of hard to get.

[01:34:23] I don't know how she got her down there, but anyway, little jazz hands waving it away.

[01:34:28] Trula installs something that is a tank of spice gas that it looks like.

[01:34:33] And then starts talking to a thinking machine named honor rule.

[01:34:37] She tells the machine to run diagnostics and we hear her say that spice can rejuvenate the mind.

[01:34:43] She still has a chance.

[01:34:44] If you administer the correct dosage on a role, uh, as an AI is able to say that this is an authorized request by Trula,

[01:34:54] but Trula overrides by saying that value is off world and entrusted her with the key.

[01:34:58] I order you to keep this child alive.

[01:35:02] Dun, dun, dun.

[01:35:04] Big reveal.

[01:35:05] So, uh, like I was saying before, I, I knew that this was coming, but I didn't see how that they were going to do it.

[01:35:10] Did it, did it work for you?

[01:35:13] Yeah, no, I thought that this was a, this was a good quote unquote twist.

[01:35:16] Um, I just want to point out that on a rule is Raquel is full name is Raquel Alberto on a rule.

[01:35:23] Yeah.

[01:35:23] And it's also the name of, uh, later in the timeline, 10,000 years later, princess Irulan, the character played by Florence Pugh, her mother's name is on a rule.

[01:35:33] Presumably named after Raquel.

[01:35:35] And as I guess this machine must've also been named after Raquel.

[01:35:39] Interesting.

[01:35:39] Okay.

[01:35:41] So the only thing that I had here really was, uh, additional was that Lila and a tank of, um, spice gas is very reminiscent of the guild navigators.

[01:35:52] Yeah.

[01:35:53] Who are human beings who've taken so much spice that their physical form has begun to change, but it gives them a big brain, literally a galaxy brain.

[01:36:00] And the ability to navigate the complexities of, of space, um, in the books, Herbert never really talks about how this is done.

[01:36:09] But I think in the later books, they talk actually about folding space.

[01:36:12] Uh, I think Herbert just talks about navigating space, but the idea that you got to have this, you have to have limited prescience, uh, to be able to, um, design a course to avoid all of the troubles that you might find in interstellar navigation.

[01:36:29] Yeah.

[01:36:30] But basically, so we talked about how spice addiction is so intense.

[01:36:33] You can never stop once you start, but then these have taken it to the next level where they actually have to live in an atmosphere.

[01:36:39] That's a cloud of spice because they are so deeply addicted.

[01:36:43] So that's why the tank is reminiscent of that.

[01:36:45] And that's also kind of why their bodies start to morph because they're not, they're like atrophying basically.

[01:36:50] They're just living in this spice tank.

[01:36:52] Right.

[01:36:53] Right.

[01:36:54] Right.

[01:36:54] All right.

[01:36:54] Well, that brings us to the end of the episode.

[01:36:58] Uh, let's,

[01:36:59] quickly get into some feedback again, uh, dune at the lorehounds.com or join us on our discord server.

[01:37:09] And, uh, Nancy, our hand of the pod is there collecting and collating and putting this all into a lovely document for us.

[01:37:18] Uh, right.

[01:37:20] So first up is an email from our friend of the pod, Jordan M.

[01:37:24] Do you want to read Jordan's email?

[01:37:26] You're better at a French accent than I am.

[01:37:27] Uh, so Jordan says,

[01:37:29] Salud, les léorands.

[01:37:31] Apologies for the lack of feedback.

[01:37:33] It's been a combo of the busy season and mixed feelings about this show.

[01:37:36] I honestly look forward to your coverage the most to help me balance these feelings.

[01:37:40] Oh, thank you.

[01:37:41] I'm, I hope I didn't go too hard this episode.

[01:37:44] I'll be brief ish in my feedback for once and just say that I am getting a bit of whiplash from feeling very bored at times and slightly lost to having WTF moments.

[01:37:53] Yeah.

[01:37:53] This is, this really sums up my feelings too.

[01:37:56] Yeah.

[01:37:56] Wandering in the episode and, but yeah.

[01:37:58] Yeah.

[01:38:00] Um, after three episodes, I feel as if I am not fully understanding the direction of the show.

[01:38:05] Dune is complex storytelling to be sure, but it delves into the depths of political machinations and philosophical slash religious nuances.

[01:38:12] Whereas this so far has a game of Thrones feel of personal relationship drama that I just don't know.

[01:38:18] Doesn't hit the mark for me.

[01:38:19] Don't get me wrong.

[01:38:20] The acting is phenomenal and the hot guy candy.

[01:38:23] Well appreciated.

[01:38:24] Ha ha.

[01:38:25] But I find myself questioning whether some of the material is truly foundational or merely filler.

[01:38:31] Bon, in any case it's Dune.

[01:38:34] So I'll continue happily watching, but just feeling kind of blah about the show overall so far.

[01:38:39] But typically this means I actually really do enjoy the show and nitpicking as a result.

[01:38:44] Ha ha.

[01:38:44] So take all this with a grain of salt.

[01:38:46] S'il vous plaît.

[01:38:47] Looking forward to what you have to say as always.

[01:38:50] Shout out to the amazing Nancy too.

[01:38:52] Hope you're enjoying the way better book, Nancy.

[01:38:55] Cheers all.

[01:38:56] I had to laugh at the last part.

[01:38:58] Thanks Jordan.

[01:38:59] I am, I think this pretty much sums up where I'm feeling as well.

[01:39:03] I don't know.

[01:39:03] Maybe you're, I think you're.

[01:39:05] I mean the enjoying the way better book part is yeah, obviously what I'm feeling after this episode.

[01:39:09] I, it was like, I was totally on board the first episode, second episode starting to get a little hmm.

[01:39:16] And this one, I'm frustrated with the show, but still holding out hope that, you know, the last three episodes are supposed to be the big bangers of the season.

[01:39:26] So I'm like, all right, bring it, bring it home.

[01:39:29] Let's bring it home.

[01:39:29] And that's something we've talked about before is when we are critical of a show, sometimes we drift into nitpicking everything.

[01:39:40] But I'm noticing that my nitpickiness is less because visually they're delivering on the show.

[01:39:46] The acting, they're delivering on the show, right?

[01:39:48] So there's less there to, to pick at.

[01:39:51] The CGI is flawless, you know.

[01:39:53] Yeah.

[01:39:53] Yeah.

[01:39:54] Costuming.

[01:39:54] But for me, I'm always going to pick most of the writing and that's what's bothering me here.

[01:39:58] So yeah, that's why I'm being grumpy this week.

[01:40:02] Yeah.

[01:40:03] And I was grumpy too, because there's just too much exposition and too much just sort of clunky exposition.

[01:40:08] But Zatoichi on the Discord says much of the episode was predictable, but the execution was still very good.

[01:40:14] Both sisters are really wolves.

[01:40:16] Yeah.

[01:40:16] Indeed.

[01:40:17] Yeah.

[01:40:17] And Aaron Kay says, I've read the first four novels from Dune up until God Emperor, and this show is really hitting for me.

[01:40:25] The intrigue is compelling and the actors are doing great.

[01:40:27] I'm conflicted on Desmond Hart conceptually and if I think he fits and how he fits into the story.

[01:40:34] So far, I like the series, but I can see it going another way for me if they make certain choices.

[01:40:40] So it's really interesting that we're getting this same feedback from the community.

[01:40:45] For some people, the show is really hitting and for other people, not so much.

[01:40:49] Nobody is like out right now, like hating on it.

[01:40:54] Not in our community.

[01:40:55] Yeah.

[01:40:56] Not in our community.

[01:40:56] I mean, you can go out on the internet, you can totally find haters for anything.

[01:40:59] But so far, people are kind of either meh or hey, this is really great.

[01:41:03] And I'm glad people are enjoying it.

[01:41:05] And we want to make sure that our podcast, too, is reflecting that we have critiques, but we're also enjoying it.

[01:41:13] So we want to be careful on that balance a little bit.

[01:41:16] Right.

[01:41:16] Do you want to pick up with Tina on the backstory backlash?

[01:41:21] So I didn't care for this episode, Tina says.

[01:41:23] Almost a full hour of backstory, most of which we already had some idea of.

[01:41:27] This is wild in a six-episode season.

[01:41:29] What did we really learn through this backstory that was important and new information?

[01:41:34] The really important stuff happens in the 15 to 20 minutes of the present timeline.

[01:41:38] Maybe I'm just not getting it, but the show is losing me a bit.

[01:41:41] And yeah, as I said at the beginning, I know lots of people felt this way about this episode.

[01:41:45] That was not my problem at all.

[01:41:47] I was really excited for the backstory.

[01:41:49] And it's just on the execution of the backstory that's my personal issue.

[01:41:53] But yeah, I understand that a lot of people don't like flashbacks.

[01:41:58] I love them.

[01:41:59] And this, again, we're continuing the back and forth of this.

[01:42:04] Chum Baruni says, I got to say, despite the episode being sort of slower for me, it was great to see Robert Baratheon.

[01:42:14] Can't wait to see him and Valya clash in a bit now that she's clearly restored at least some of the wealth to her house and he's benefiting from it.

[01:42:24] Was this season always meant to be six episodes?

[01:42:26] I feel like we're only dipping our toes in the story and the season is already halfway over.

[01:42:31] Let's pause there really quick.

[01:42:34] I don't know what their original intention was, but we know that they changed showrunners.

[01:42:39] Denis Villeneuve was originally attached to direct, write and direct the pilot, I believe.

[01:42:45] Then he detached himself.

[01:42:46] And then we went through at least two other showrunners.

[01:42:49] We had major casting changes.

[01:42:51] So this thing, even that just the mere fact that we're getting anything on show really says something because getting anything made, a television show or a movie is a miracle.

[01:43:02] If you watch at all how these things go through the process through the sausage making machine or the tofu making machine, if you don't eat sausage.

[01:43:13] It's a miracle that anything gets made.

[01:43:15] And so that this got made is it's really wild.

[01:43:18] So I don't know what they had originally planned, but six episodes does feel pretty tight.

[01:43:24] Continuing with Chum Baruni.

[01:43:27] I like this show, but I can already feel how condensed everything is.

[01:43:31] I can't help but feel that if this were a 10 episode season, then I'd be more inclined to spend 35 minutes of a 60 minute episode learning about a single character's backstory.

[01:43:43] That being said, I love the world building in this episode.

[01:43:46] And just like the past two episodes, this show knows how to hook me into being pumped for the next.

[01:43:51] Even if I don't love the core content of the actual episode itself.

[01:43:57] Also, I think the actors playing the young versions of Tula and Valia are doing great work.

[01:44:01] Yeah.

[01:44:01] The casting for the young actors has been on point for all the sisters.

[01:44:05] Yeah.

[01:44:06] For all the actors, I think.

[01:44:07] Yeah.

[01:44:07] Yeah.

[01:44:08] Cool.

[01:44:09] You want to get Nancy?

[01:44:10] Yeah.

[01:44:10] The pod is using her executive privilege to.

[01:44:14] She's weighing in.

[01:44:15] She says, as I assemble this feedback, I feel compelled to give episode three's backstory some love.

[01:44:20] To truly understand and appreciate what happens in the present day plot line, we need to know what happened to these characters in their pasts.

[01:44:26] Or what decisions they made when young that led them to where we see them today.

[01:44:32] There are lots of examples in the backstory scenes, but I'll give just two focusing on Valia and Tula.

[01:44:37] Evidence.

[01:44:39] Valia says to her family, this complacency is a disease.

[01:44:42] If we don't act now, it will infect all of us and all who come after us.

[01:44:47] I won't sit by and let it happen.

[01:44:49] There it is.

[01:44:50] In a nutshell, the motivation for everything Valia does stems from her belief that the Atreides need to pay for what they did to the Harkonnens.

[01:44:57] Evidence.

[01:44:58] Tula tells Valia, an eye for an eye will never be enough.

[01:45:01] Griffin was worth far more than that.

[01:45:03] One death in exchange for another is not enough for Tula.

[01:45:06] And in the episode, we see her kill almost the entire Atreides clan, including Ori, who I believe she truly loved.

[01:45:13] And just before she kills him, she says, we do what we must.

[01:45:17] Boom.

[01:45:18] She has to do what must be done.

[01:45:19] And if that includes convincing Lila to undergo the agony and to lie to her about her mother to close the deal, then so be it.

[01:45:27] Hmm.

[01:45:28] Hmm.

[01:45:29] Yeah.

[01:45:29] I mean, I, I, this is why I love flashbacks is, is just in general.

[01:45:33] I agree that, um, I am so much more invested in characters, current choices.

[01:45:39] If I understand where they're coming from, you know, their particular unique experiences that led them to this moment.

[01:45:46] Hmm.

[01:45:47] And I think they're doing a good job showing us that, um, Tula and Valia are the two wolves, right?

[01:45:54] Because we really see them that, as you say, you know, make these hard choices and do some pretty extraordinary stuff to, to get what they want.

[01:46:03] Yeah.

[01:46:05] All right.

[01:46:05] And I just want to point out that there were a couple more people who did also like the backstory, so it's not all.

[01:46:10] Yeah, yeah.

[01:46:11] There's plenty of love for the backstory.

[01:46:12] Absolutely.

[01:46:13] For Elisa, I enjoyed the episode.

[01:46:15] I'm not a Dooney.

[01:46:16] Is that a word?

[01:46:17] The backstory is fascinating.

[01:46:18] Do we think Valia wants to be, um, do we think Valia wants to be Robert Baratheon's truth-sayer?

[01:46:26] Oh, her uncle, um, to make her way back into the Imperium politics?

[01:46:30] No, I don't think it's that simple.

[01:46:31] Um, do we think Dorothea is somehow behind the Lila chaos?

[01:46:37] Yes.

[01:46:38] Uh, I love seeing young Tula having her own agency in a badass way.

[01:46:43] A lot of Greek mythology vibes with the bull hunt.

[01:46:45] Did Tula spike the booze with the poison?

[01:46:48] So kind of working backwards through this, as far as I read it, when she handed, uh, Albert,

[01:46:54] that, um, that pot that he took takes down and the guys are like drinking and smearing it on

[01:47:00] themselves.

[01:47:01] Uh, I think all of the, yeah, the toxin was, it was included in, in that.

[01:47:08] Um, and Dorothea, yes.

[01:47:11] So in the way, without getting into too much breakdown of the other memory stuff, we see

[01:47:17] Dorothea taking control of the situation in the other memories, uh, scenario and maybe even

[01:47:24] organizing the other memories to sort of pile on and take over Lila.

[01:47:29] So, and, and Dorothea was definitely speaking through Lila even, and they were considering,

[01:47:34] well, that's Raquel.

[01:47:36] Hmm.

[01:47:37] Right.

[01:47:37] So, so Dorothea is definitely getting some revenge here through her other memories.

[01:47:42] Any, any thoughts on, on those questions that for Elisa posed?

[01:47:47] No, I think you handled that well.

[01:47:49] Shall I continue with Chumbaruni?

[01:47:51] Please.

[01:47:52] Uh, prophetic problems.

[01:47:53] I think the problems with the prophecies is that they can be easily misread or people

[01:47:58] will bend reality to make it seem like the prophecy is being fulfilled any chance they

[01:48:03] get, especially if it coincides with their own personal goals.

[01:48:06] And yep.

[01:48:07] Yep.

[01:48:08] That's yeah.

[01:48:08] In, in general, um, it's, is it self-fulfilling?

[01:48:13] I think this goes into that whole question that the show is dealing with too, is what is

[01:48:17] truth and being able to, uh, detect truth, construct truth because memory is reconstructive.

[01:48:23] Right.

[01:48:24] Our brains have to send energy back into however our memory is stored.

[01:48:30] And then every time we activate those memories, the, those neurological connections are certain

[01:48:36] neurological connections are strengthened and certain ones are weakened.

[01:48:39] And so we start to shape physically the way that memory is relived in our, in our minds.

[01:48:45] And so how, this is an interesting philosophical question about truth and what is truth and how

[01:48:51] do we interpret truth and how do we live with truth?

[01:48:53] And I think the show is doing really interesting work in that, that whole space.

[01:48:59] Uh, Maureen D, uh, so much for Tula being the good guy in the sister duo.

[01:49:04] I'm also wondering if she may have gotten pregnant before she, uh, offed her lover.

[01:49:10] Yes, indeed.

[01:49:11] Interesting timing on the sex scene.

[01:49:13] Uh, I hadn't thought about that.

[01:49:14] That's a good thought.

[01:49:16] Any, any thoughts on your end?

[01:49:18] Um, I mean, it would be a totally new thing, but sure.

[01:49:23] Why not?

[01:49:24] Well, I'm not enthusiastic about the idea.

[01:49:28] Right.

[01:49:28] And we're playing with Atreides and Harkonnen all the way through this.

[01:49:31] So we see Albert get away, you know?

[01:49:33] Yeah.

[01:49:34] Could she?

[01:49:35] Yeah.

[01:49:35] I feel like the, the Albert getting away thing, that's more of the thread we should be paying

[01:49:39] attention to.

[01:49:39] Uh, yeah, I agree.

[01:49:41] I definitely agree.

[01:49:42] Because if she got pregnant and then went to the.

[01:49:44] Unless she really is Lila's mother.

[01:49:48] Uh-huh.

[01:49:50] Interesting.

[01:49:51] Although, I mean, Lila doesn't look like either of them, so I don't know.

[01:49:54] Oh, she doesn't look at Atreides in that way.

[01:49:56] So.

[01:49:56] No.

[01:49:57] All right.

[01:49:57] Uh, Marilyn, our favorite Tolkien scholar.

[01:49:59] What's up with Jen?

[01:50:00] If she's so obviously disaffected, why do they keep her around?

[01:50:03] I think that's a question we're supposed to be asking.

[01:50:05] Mm-hmm.

[01:50:06] Do you have thoughts on Jen?

[01:50:08] Well, like I said, I'm just, they seem to be calling a lot of attention to her being

[01:50:12] a potential loose cannon.

[01:50:14] And so I'm interested to see what they're setting up with her.

[01:50:17] Right.

[01:50:18] Uh, not done analyzing episode two, says Nancy in the notes here, Lila's lineage.

[01:50:24] Marilyn also says, so I keep trying to make this add up, but I'm not.

[01:50:28] Raquel is the grandmother of Dorothea and Dorothea was the grandmother of Lila, right?

[01:50:36] As far as we know.

[01:50:37] And.

[01:50:37] Right.

[01:50:38] So that means we're missing who Lila's birth mother is, correct?

[01:50:41] And given that Dorothea said Lila's mother did not die giving birth to her, then presumably

[01:50:46] that mother is still around.

[01:50:48] Yes.

[01:50:48] Or Lila's mother was killed by other means.

[01:50:51] If I've missed something, please tell me.

[01:50:52] You've been tracking this other memory stuff a lot better.

[01:50:56] So do you want to.

[01:50:56] No, I mean, yeah, I haven't missed anything.

[01:50:59] Um, according to the lore, but like I said, they're just doing whatever they want with

[01:51:04] the lore.

[01:51:04] But according to the lore, you know, going back to the original books, she should be able

[01:51:09] to see who her mother is regardless because it's just, it's in her DNA and that's what

[01:51:13] she's unlocked.

[01:51:14] Right.

[01:51:14] So I cannot guess where this is going, but you know, maybe they are going to say something

[01:51:21] like Tula's her mom.

[01:51:22] I don't know.

[01:51:23] At this point they could do anything.

[01:51:25] There's something we're missing too.

[01:51:27] I don't know if we should talk about it.

[01:51:30] There's a way to preserve memories in the original books, but you know, maybe we'll kick

[01:51:34] that to the book spoiler section because it does happen later in the, in the latter, latter

[01:51:38] book.

[01:51:38] So yeah, let's avoid that for now.

[01:51:40] Okay.

[01:51:41] Um, Davey Mack, there's something in the way Tula told Lila about her mother that made me

[01:51:47] not trust the story and the line inside the agony that started with she's not here is what

[01:51:53] solidified it for me.

[01:51:55] I think it was Dorotea in the agony who was told Lila, her mother wasn't there.

[01:51:59] Yes.

[01:51:59] I believe that's correct.

[01:52:01] And was like, that's why they told you, that's what they told you to get you to come here.

[01:52:06] Um, yes.

[01:52:07] And that, that's also correct.

[01:52:08] And I think Dorotea showing up was the risk that Valya told Tula that they had to take

[01:52:13] and sending Lila in.

[01:52:15] I think it's also part of the risk of not having all of the training that she needed to manage

[01:52:20] the other memories.

[01:52:22] Right.

[01:52:22] Uh, but if her mother is alive, I have no idea what that means or how it impacts the

[01:52:27] story.

[01:52:28] At least not yet.

[01:52:29] Or maybe it will be part of what turns Lila against the sisterhood.

[01:52:33] If she can make it back.

[01:52:35] Any thoughts or theory crafting around Lila and her mother?

[01:52:39] I mean, not that I haven't already said.

[01:52:41] Okay.

[01:52:41] Yeah.

[01:52:42] I mean, they're definitely are leaving that out there for a big question.

[01:52:45] So let's, let's see what they do.

[01:52:48] Um, which, uh, the final question on this topic was Nancy asked if Lila's mother isn't

[01:52:53] dead, then can she be in the collective memory?

[01:52:56] Which leads to the question, where is she and why did Tula lie to her?

[01:52:58] So I think that sums up the whole, um, mystery.

[01:53:01] It's another mystery that we have besides who Desmond Hart is.

[01:53:05] Mm-hmm.

[01:53:06] All right.

[01:53:07] We've got another comment here from Marilyn about the, uh, agony, analyzing the agony.

[01:53:13] Okay.

[01:53:13] Acolytes and sisters are encouraged to consider going through the agony to become Reverend

[01:53:18] mothers.

[01:53:19] I think the logic is something along the lines of the more ancestors we're in touch with,

[01:53:23] the more experiential wisdom we will have to move forward into this future.

[01:53:28] Mm-hmm.

[01:53:29] As far as I understand, it's perfectly fine for you to be a sister for life and not try

[01:53:33] for Reverend mothers.

[01:53:35] I also really hope that someone was taking down everything that Lila said during the agony.

[01:53:40] Otherwise it would have been pretty worthless.

[01:53:41] Or do the sisters have perfect recall?

[01:53:44] That wouldn't surprise me.

[01:53:45] Are you able to talk to living ancestors through the agony?

[01:53:49] I did wonder if a mother's DNA, mitochondrial, isn't it?

[01:53:53] Mitochondrial?

[01:53:54] Precludes any inheritance from the father's mother's DNA seems a bit harsh to me.

[01:54:00] I certainly loved my, uh, what is this?

[01:54:03] Oh, this is a Finnish word for father's mother.

[01:54:08] Isuati?

[01:54:09] I don't, that was just my best guess.

[01:54:11] Right.

[01:54:11] And she certainly contributed significantly to my background, both culturally and genetically

[01:54:15] and physically.

[01:54:16] I have to imagine that men are involved in the production process at some point, or are

[01:54:20] they doing parthenogenesis or artificial fertilization or something?

[01:54:24] Well, so yeah.

[01:54:26] So you should be able to, um, talk to any one in your matrilineal line, uh, up to the point

[01:54:34] that they gave birth, you know, and that's because that's all stored in your DNA.

[01:54:38] So indeed it's just the mother side because it, you know, it has basically, it's like,

[01:54:42] I guess in that second X chromosome and there is thousands of years later, they might find

[01:54:47] out a way about that, but we're not going to talk about that now.

[01:54:50] And it shouldn't be relevant now.

[01:54:51] Um, but yeah, it should, it shouldn't matter if they're alive or not.

[01:54:56] Uh, and I do think that every implication we've had in most cases, when the sisterhood has children,

[01:55:03] yes, it's, there are men involved, you know, they are, um, either seducing leaders or marrying

[01:55:09] them off to leaders, things like that.

[01:55:11] Uh, or like in the second movie, uh, with, um, Oh, uh, Fennering, Lady Fennering, she says,

[01:55:17] you know, Oh, the, uh, Harkonnen line is secured.

[01:55:22] Right.

[01:55:22] So she's, she's, she, yeah, she took Fyad Rautha on a sexy time nighttime tour, um, of her body.

[01:55:29] Um, but yeah, uh, a do, I do wonder if they're doing something tricksy with Lila's parentage,

[01:55:38] just based on the fact that her mother wasn't there based on the fact that again, they don't,

[01:55:43] they clearly don't care about what happened in the books other than inspiration.

[01:55:47] So take this for what it's worth.

[01:55:49] But Dorothea, I don't think she did not, at least on the page, have a child in the book.

[01:55:54] So someone suggested maybe Lila can, maybe Dorothea knows about her death because DNA material,

[01:56:02] like eggs was taken from her after death and they did something, you know, artificial with

[01:56:07] that.

[01:56:08] That would be an interesting twist and that would explain some of those things that might

[01:56:12] seem lore breaking on the surface.

[01:56:14] So I don't know if they are doing some sort of artificial infertilization, but in general,

[01:56:19] that's not what's going on.

[01:56:20] It's just old fashioned.

[01:56:22] You have sex, you have babies, you know?

[01:56:24] And I, and I think that comes into play in the latter books too, where they, um, uh, a,

[01:56:30] a coupling, uh, between a male and a female is an important part of the human species development

[01:56:37] process as combined with some other characters in the book.

[01:56:41] So I don't want to go into that because that's where fright gets really weird.

[01:56:44] All right.

[01:56:45] Okay.

[01:56:45] I'm, I'm confused about this because what do you mean?

[01:56:49] The many Tilex, right?

[01:56:51] Oh, okay.

[01:56:52] Oh, okay.

[01:56:53] Yeah.

[01:56:53] That's, uh, weird stuff.

[01:56:56] Well, I mean, it's not even, it's weird.

[01:56:58] It's horrifying.

[01:56:59] Yes, it is.

[01:57:00] It really is.

[01:57:01] So if you want to get weird, go get into the last three books of the original series.

[01:57:05] Um, some, a quick, quick point on the being a reverend mother and a sister.

[01:57:12] Yes.

[01:57:12] Reverend mothers are people who have taken the spice and gone through the agony and they're

[01:57:17] different.

[01:57:17] And you can be part of the Bene Gesserit and be a sister.

[01:57:21] You can have training from the sisterhood.

[01:57:23] There's all kinds of other positions that you can apply and to be part of the sisterhood

[01:57:28] without being a reverend mother.

[01:57:31] A reverend mother is somebody who has survived the agony.

[01:57:35] So, uh, I think Marilyn has another comment.

[01:57:38] Do you want to catch her real quick?

[01:57:40] Uh, yes.

[01:57:41] Are all these eye images, the eye of Sauron, it seems to me the Desmond heart is very much

[01:57:46] like Sauron, particularly in his understanding of what people fear and how to control them.

[01:57:51] I'm thinking of his relationship with the emperor, but also what he says to Valia.

[01:57:56] I have seen your greatest fear and it isn't that she wouldn't be heard is that she wouldn't

[01:57:59] be listened to.

[01:58:00] So, I mean, I think they're telling us that Desmond heart is clever, more clever than you

[01:58:06] might expect, given, uh, um, the fact that he still has to wear his dust coat all the,

[01:58:11] you know, he's, he's selling himself short on purpose.

[01:58:14] Right, right.

[01:58:17] All right.

[01:58:18] I think that's going to wrap it up for feedback this time.

[01:58:22] Uh, we have some book spoilers, uh, feedback to talk about after we do our outro.

[01:58:30] And I don't know if you have any specific, um, uh, other, uh, book spoiler plot stuff.

[01:58:37] We could talk a little bit about, uh, some of the weirdness in the latter books and talk

[01:58:42] maybe a little bit about, uh, other memory, a little bit more lore of other memories, but

[01:58:47] I'm not sure if we have, um,

[01:58:48] um, yeah, I put a couple of notes for us at the end based on what I'm saying.

[01:58:52] So stick around after the outro, uh, really quick.

[01:58:55] What's coming up in other programming notes.

[01:58:58] You've got silo going on in your feed.

[01:59:01] Again, that's a separate feed.

[01:59:02] You need to go subscribe.

[01:59:03] We'll shift dust.

[01:59:04] Yep.

[01:59:05] And how's it going?

[01:59:06] How's the season going?

[01:59:07] Yeah, so far.

[01:59:08] Um, it's, yeah, it's going well.

[01:59:10] There's, as we're recording up to episode three is out.

[01:59:13] Luke and I have watched through episode five.

[01:59:15] And I think personally, I think every episode gets better than the last.

[01:59:20] Oh, that's great.

[01:59:21] Okay.

[01:59:22] Uh, I'm looking forward to, uh, um, catching up.

[01:59:26] I think I'm behind.

[01:59:27] Am I behind one episode?

[01:59:29] I'm not sure.

[01:59:29] But, uh, yeah, I've been enjoying the season so far.

[01:59:32] Skeleton crew where it looks like on our schedule, we've got an episode one and two recap.

[01:59:37] And I think Marilyn and John are going to be covering that.

[01:59:40] Mm-hmm.

[01:59:40] Uh, we have a special one-shot project where I talk about Star Trek, the motion picture,

[01:59:46] the original 1979 movie with Ian from the captain's pod.

[01:59:51] Uh, that will be dropping on the seventh, which is the same day that the movie itself

[01:59:55] came out back in 1979.

[01:59:58] We have, uh, some Christmas nonsense coming up here.

[02:00:04] Um, we have, what are you guys doing?

[02:00:07] The Christmas prints, the Christmas switch.

[02:00:09] Right.

[02:00:10] Christmas prints and princess switch are going to be, um, they're going to be subscriber

[02:00:15] only episodes.

[02:00:16] Okay.

[02:00:16] Um, public feed you and Anna Claus are joining us for, uh, two other Netflix movies.

[02:00:22] What is it?

[02:00:23] Um, our little secret and hot frosty.

[02:00:25] We had to add hot frosty.

[02:00:28] I've watched both.

[02:00:29] Okay.

[02:00:30] I'll never get the, those time that those minutes back in my life.

[02:00:33] I have, I haven't watched them yet, but I've watched all the other ones we talk about.

[02:00:36] And I also want to shout out that on the wool shift dust feed, we are doing a deep dive series

[02:00:42] into a Christmas carol.

[02:00:44] Oh, okay.

[02:00:45] Fun.

[02:00:46] Uh, so there'll be, yeah, I think this week there'll be, um, there's a short intro episode

[02:00:51] Luke and I recorded that'll talk about exactly what we're covering.

[02:00:54] Got it.

[02:00:55] Uh, it looks like we also have a pachinko part.

[02:00:57] We're going to finally finish pachinko.

[02:00:59] Well, I don't know.

[02:01:00] Are we, or is it going to be, cause I'm looking at how much we have left.

[02:01:03] We need to, we need to, we need to.

[02:01:06] And then you've also got wicked coming up as well, right?

[02:01:08] Yeah.

[02:01:09] Yeah.

[02:01:09] That'll be, yeah.

[02:01:10] Um, we're recording that on Friday the 13th, so it'll be out after that.

[02:01:15] And, um, we also have again, uh, to shout out our, uh, our pals over at the dune minute

[02:01:21] podcast.

[02:01:22] We're going to do a crossover podcast with them.

[02:01:23] We're recording that tonight relative to the, when we're recording this and we're going

[02:01:28] to do just a mid season check-in.

[02:01:30] Those guys do an amazing job.

[02:01:32] They take, they're taking the, the, the first two movies, uh, by Villeneuve and breaking

[02:01:38] them down minute by literal minute by minute, but they talk about a lot of lore and, uh,

[02:01:43] they really know they're, they're doing stuff.

[02:01:45] So we're, we're excited to have a chat with them.

[02:01:49] All right.

[02:01:49] Do you want to run us through our outro real quick?

[02:01:52] I've got some lo-fi music for you.

[02:01:55] Uh, if you are ready.

[02:01:56] Okay.

[02:01:57] There you go.

[02:01:58] All right.

[02:01:59] Thank you first to our discord server boosters.

[02:02:01] And we invite everyone who's listening to join us in our discord conversations.

[02:02:07] Uh, that link is in the show notes.

[02:02:08] And we have lots of fun bells and whistles.

[02:02:11] Thanks to Aaron K.

[02:02:12] Tiller, the thriller, Dork of the ninjas, Doove 71, Athena Adjalea, Tina Q, Lestu, Nancy M,

[02:02:18] Ghost of Perdition, and Richard W.

[02:02:20] And thank you most especially to our lore masters.

[02:02:23] And we, we are so grateful to our listeners.

[02:02:25] We're so grateful to the lore hound subscribers, but the lore masters are the top tier who get

[02:02:30] a shout out every episode.

[02:02:32] So, Martian, Michael G, Michelle E, Brian P, SC, Peter OH, Tina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Doove 71,

[02:02:40] Brian 8063, Rhetoric H, Sarah L, Garrett C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andre B,

[02:02:47] Kuang Yu, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex B, Aaron T, Sub Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Mothership 61,

[02:02:54] Narls, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben V, Scott F, Stephen N, and always

[02:03:02] last, Audrey up.

[02:03:05] Thanks, everyone.

[02:03:05] We will see you on episode three.

[02:03:08] Book spoilers right after the outro.

[02:03:12] This is your last chance.

[02:03:14] We'll talk to you in a second.

[02:03:16] The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds.

[02:03:19] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[02:03:26] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[02:03:31] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any

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[02:03:37] Thanks for listening.

[02:03:39] All right, Alicia, let's get into some of the spoilers.

[02:03:43] We have some weird things to talk about.

[02:03:44] You've got a couple.

[02:03:46] We've got a couple of feedback pieces as well.

[02:03:49] We each have a couple of notes.

[02:03:51] So let's start off with Marilyn by email.

[02:03:54] Hello, Lorehounds.

[02:03:55] I've been turning something over in my mind.

[02:03:58] When Hart describes his experiences to the emperor, he says something to the effect of,

[02:04:02] I prayed to have no fear and my prayer was answered.

[02:04:05] Now, this sounds an awful lot like the Bene Gesserit to me, and it made me wonder, do we

[02:04:12] know when they developed their famous mantra, fear is the mind killer?

[02:04:16] Do they already have it now in the sisterhood?

[02:04:18] If so, why are there so many sisters showing lots of fear looking at you, Kasha, though I

[02:04:23] certainly don't blame you for it?

[02:04:24] Do we think they might have learned it from whoever Hart learned it from, or is it possible

[02:04:28] that they learned it from Hart himself?

[02:04:31] If this is a whole bunch of watch and find out, I'm content.

[02:04:35] And if you think it's too spoilery, even if it has nothing to do with their current plots,

[02:04:41] but comes from the book lore, that's fine too.

[02:04:44] Hart is obviously the most mysterious character they've given us so far, though I'm quite certain

[02:04:48] that any one of the people we know is carrying at least one deep dark secret.

[02:04:53] It's that kind of show after all.

[02:04:56] Looking forward to the next installment once I've watched episode two myself.

[02:05:00] All the best, Marilyn.

[02:05:01] So do you have any lore origins for the Litany Against Fear?

[02:05:06] Yeah.

[02:05:06] So first of all, it's not just the Bene Gesserit that it's confined to.

[02:05:11] And during the Butlerian Jihad, which is again the war against the machines that takes place

[02:05:15] like a hundred years before what we're seeing in this show.

[02:05:19] There was a litany, a version of it that was used.

[02:05:23] It says, I have no fear for the fear.

[02:05:24] For fear is the little death that kills me over and over.

[02:05:27] Without fear, I die but once.

[02:05:29] So that certainly there, yeah, there is this concept around.

[02:05:34] And actually it dates back even before that to our times.

[02:05:39] Well, not even our times to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

[02:05:42] It says, cowards die many times before their deaths.

[02:05:45] The valiance never taste of death but once.

[02:05:47] Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear,

[02:05:53] seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.

[02:05:59] I think Frank was very much a student of history.

[02:06:05] And he mined not only Western European literature,

[02:06:09] but he tried to look around as much as he could at the time that he wrote

[02:06:12] at other cultures and other influences.

[02:06:15] And I think he also was a student of Shakespeare.

[02:06:19] You know, I haven't studied Frank Herbert himself that much,

[02:06:21] but I remember hearing somewhere of a reference that he did pull a lot from that as well,

[02:06:27] at least in broad inspiration, if not in specific instances like this one.

[02:06:33] Yeah.

[02:06:33] But I mean, I agree with Marilyn that I think they were being a bit sloppy

[02:06:39] about the characterization of the sisterhood in this show.

[02:06:41] That's what I've been harping on all episodes, so I'll stop.

[02:06:46] We have, well, we had a comment from Brian about Vorian,

[02:06:50] and we have another comment from David Max S.

[02:06:53] A bit disappointed with the lack of the Desmond heart in this episode,

[02:06:58] and as the sisterhood of Dune reader disappointed in the lack of settings

[02:07:03] and other plot points from the flashback that are changed,

[02:07:06] but I get it for the sake of the story purposes.

[02:07:08] I was hoping for a glimpse of Vorian Atreides as well.

[02:07:12] Seems a heart-heavy episode is coming up next time.

[02:07:14] So, yeah, a lot of drops of Vorian and Abilard harken in,

[02:07:20] so going back deep into the histories here.

[02:07:22] Any insights on Vorian or Abilard?

[02:07:26] I mean, not that we've shared.

[02:07:28] Well, okay, here's one.

[02:07:30] Is that the – so, I mean, I talked about this previously,

[02:07:35] but just to bring it up again.

[02:07:36] So, the conflict between them, it dates from this Battle of Korin,

[02:07:40] and basically Vorian was – he had a plan to win the battle,

[02:07:45] but it involved – it was going to involve killing a bunch of people

[02:07:48] who had been taken as slaves,

[02:07:50] and Abilard thought that that was an unacceptable loss to take.

[02:07:55] And so he ended up sabotaging that,

[02:07:57] and that ended up making the battle way harder,

[02:07:59] so many more people died.

[02:08:01] And so, for that reason, Abilard was branded a traitor,

[02:08:04] and Vorian actually – they wanted – so, a bunch of people wanted to kill Abilard.

[02:08:11] And Vorian's like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[02:08:13] Let's actually – let's say he was a coward and give him exile instead.

[02:08:19] So, Vorian was the one who suggested exile,

[02:08:22] but he suggested it as a kinder alternative.

[02:08:26] But it ends up, of course, following the family for generations to come.

[02:08:30] Yeah.

[02:08:31] So, I guess that's my –

[02:08:33] And, yeah, they get exiled to a really crappy planet.

[02:08:37] Sure.

[02:08:38] Yeah.

[02:08:38] Which takes them a long time.

[02:08:40] And what – Gidi Prime is their planet in the books later on,

[02:08:44] so I don't know how they go from Lankavelle to Gidi Prime

[02:08:47] or what their transition looks like going from whale fur merchants

[02:08:53] to, you know, overseers of spice.

[02:08:56] Yeah, we see them climbing in –

[02:09:00] they have a consulate now at Seleucus Secundus.

[02:09:04] They have – they can represent themselves in the Lanzarod

[02:09:07] rather than being in some grouping of lesser planets.

[02:09:13] Minor nobles.

[02:09:14] Right.

[02:09:14] Yeah.

[02:09:14] Yeah.

[02:09:15] So, I think it's – it is a – it'll be interesting to see how they have

[02:09:21] Valia, what she does, if anything, to the Harkonnen household

[02:09:27] to help set them up for that later rise to power.

[02:09:33] So, we'll see.

[02:09:35] You've got a note here.

[02:09:37] So, there was the – Griffin would be proud, and we agreed that no, he wouldn't.

[02:09:42] But just specifically, I alluded to this earlier in the episode,

[02:09:47] but when Griffin – so, there came a final confrontation between Griffin

[02:09:53] and Vorian, and indeed, Griffin went somewhere to kill Vorian,

[02:09:57] and they fought.

[02:09:57] But then they spoke, and Griffin was actually the one – he was like,

[02:10:01] I want to put this feud between our families aside because I think it hurts us all.

[02:10:06] And they had made up – and then somebody else came,

[02:10:10] and like a third party came along and killed Griffin for different reasons.

[02:10:14] And so, when Griffin's body was sent back to Lankafell,

[02:10:18] it was sent back with a note saying he died a hero for defending Vorian Atreides.

[02:10:25] And Valia's like, bullshit, that's – you know, that's a –

[02:10:28] I don't believe that story, and that's not the truth.

[02:10:31] And so, I just think it would have been more interesting if they included that element of it.

[02:10:37] But, yeah, I do think that in the end, this is a story about Valia thinking she knows the truth

[02:10:42] when she's really painting her own truth.

[02:10:46] Right, right.

[02:10:47] Yeah.

[02:10:48] And you said something – I made a note about a way to preserve money –

[02:10:52] I'm sorry, memories in the OG books.

[02:10:55] Yeah, and my – you know, it's been a while since I've read the last three.

[02:10:58] And I think this is in the last three.

[02:11:01] There's a way that sisters can transfer memories between each other.

[02:11:05] So, if a sister is dying – and I think we see this in the second movie as well a little bit,

[02:11:11] when Jessica gets brought before the Reverend Mother for the Fremen.

[02:11:15] But something through – this is the one area of magic that's a little jazz handy,

[02:11:20] where basically two Reverend Mothers can sort of touch heads and transfer the memories.

[02:11:26] Hmm.

[02:11:27] And we see this play out, I believe – is it in Chapter House?

[02:11:32] Or it might be.

[02:11:33] I can't remember.

[02:11:34] Yeah.

[02:11:34] I think this is something that's not available to them at this point in the timeline.

[02:11:38] Correct.

[02:11:38] Right.

[02:11:39] This is definitely some spice stuff, and this is, you know, very much down the road.

[02:11:42] But basically, if a Reverend Mother is about to die or is going into a situation where they could die,

[02:11:52] they can meet up with another Reverend Mother, basically touch four heads,

[02:11:57] and then the one who's going to be in peril or about to die can transfer all of her –

[02:12:03] copy all of her data over to the other Reverend Mother.

[02:12:05] And I don't think we ever get an explanation for how it's done.

[02:12:08] It's just done.

[02:12:09] Mm-hmm.

[02:12:10] And this goes very much into – there's a whole subplot of Reverend Mothers who –

[02:12:16] and a community, a Jewish community, and Reverend Mothers who are Jewish,

[02:12:20] and preserving that lineage.

[02:12:23] So there's some interesting thing that goes on there.

[02:12:27] And then also, I believe it's in the latter books,

[02:12:32] is with the Benetilax and the Axolotl tanks, which are basically human incubators,

[02:12:37] these mothers' wounds, and they can produce everything.

[02:12:42] They can produce people.

[02:12:44] Right.

[02:12:44] So it's the female Benetilax.

[02:12:46] Like somebody noticed at some point, like, where are the women?

[02:12:48] Yeah.

[02:12:49] Right.

[02:12:49] And then face dancers and gholas and all of this stuff.

[02:12:54] But I think, to me, what was kind of important, which Frank Herbert was dealing with,

[02:13:00] and then he puts into the Bene Gesserit, is you need a male form and a female form

[02:13:09] to come together in that moment to actually have that fertilization process to actually –

[02:13:18] it's not create a soul, but there's something in that process that they can't figure out how to recreate.

[02:13:24] And so, in some ways.

[02:13:26] And then this whole thing of what the Bene Gesserit are missing and what Leto is trying to teach them,

[02:13:30] or the god emperor is trying to teach them, is love.

[02:13:32] Like, you need the component of love to be involved in the creation and then the rearing of children.

[02:13:42] And that's something that's missing from the Bene Tilex cultures, I think.

[02:13:47] At least, again, these are fuzzy memories.

[02:13:48] I mean, they kill their women and turn them into incubators.

[02:13:51] Yeah, exactly.

[02:13:51] It's just not a culture of love.

[02:13:53] It's weird.

[02:13:54] It's just horrifying.

[02:13:55] It's not even – I like weird.

[02:13:57] It's horrifying.

[02:13:57] I mean, I'm not saying like that – like I said about these latter books in some other podcasts we did

[02:14:04] is that I like the ideas from them more than I like sitting with them.

[02:14:10] So that's why I am less likely to reread those, although I will soon.

[02:14:16] Right.

[02:14:17] Okay.

[02:14:18] Well, I think we're good for here.

[02:14:20] We'll see where we go with episode four and then look for the crossover pod with the Dune Minute podcast, guys.

[02:14:26] Thanks, Alicia.

[02:14:27] We'll talk to you on the next one.

[02:14:30] All right.

[02:14:30] Thank you.