Chapterhouse Session VI Questions & Observations

More an observation at how fun and eye opening and intelligent this club has been. I’ve said it before, That you’re like a true teacher because I’m smarter than I was when this club started. watching you continue with it through all your change and upheaval and growth has been inspirational and I am humbly in awe of your talent. ❤️ A thousand thank yous and Letos blessings. 🙏

So I started a new job right when the Final Dune Club began so I'm way behind. I'm definitely going to finish Chapterhouse and read the direct sequel by Brian Herbert. Mostly because I'm a completionist and I also like it when stories go off the rails, from what I've heard it turns into Battlestar Galactica lol. Just wanted to say thanks for all the Dune Clubs, I never would have read these books otherwise and I'm glad I did. I've learned a lot of stuff along the way and my life is way more chill than it was when we started. My final question is... If you never did the first Dune Club how do you think your life would be different? Looking forward to seeing your big baller documentary on Amazon!

The afterword is a beautiful expression of love. Beverly seems like the inspiration for the Bene Gesserit and a truly based human. Love that she would not tolerate a conventional funeral ‘with a preachers sermon and my body on display’. ‘I will not be in that body then, but it deserves more dignity than such a display provides’. We should all hope for a relationship like theirs based on joy, laughter, holding nothing back and lifting each other up - ‘Everything she did strengthened me’. Thanks again for getting us to the end Danika, a lot of changes since the first Dune club ‘…but you get back up and go on with it. Seven times down, eight times up. You CAN balance on strange surfaces’. Well done Mother superior, you can get some rest now, confident you have completed a great piece of work.

Observation : I like how Murbella has Ordrades body retuned to the orchards she loved so much. A death orchard is a great idea, practical and a great symbol of new life from death. I’d like to buried like this. Questions: As the internets foremost authority on Dune, how do you think Dune 7 would have played out? What is the bitter medicine and the of a Sheeana future? A continuation of this story arch with a schism in the sisterhood? Or a large time jump, with an exciting new human future of Worm Handlers and augmented BG honoured matre hybrids? Or do you practice the attitude of the knife, and accept that Frank leaves us with a future filled with ‘interesting patterns’.

Session VI (504-the end) as things enter a new phase, it's sincerely been a pleasure. This isn't the longest by length of observation sets, but you still might want to prune it: (no page reference) One of the better bangers that I -missed- on an earlier section, that I make a promise to myself to keep handy whenever someone objects that I am being too free when a child is present, or their parent is conversely being too strict, is when Duncan is working with unawakened Teg and says to Murbella: "I don't believe in doing violence to curiosity" p.516-517 As Odrade's party interferes with the lobby robos, this opens up a discussion of how throughout sci-fi, menial floor robots don't get no respect. Witness Chewbacca howling at the Mouse Droid so hard that it quails and flees back down the hallway: (link provided below) Chewbacca MSE-6 Mouse Droid aka Death Star Toaster Droid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqNmMH4hsg if you follow that related video search farther on youtube you will find people that have built their own movie-perfect mouse droids, including having them make the beeps they make. after 3-P-O and Pilingitam we have to wonder if another Star Wars reference or not. p.519 "A wayside stop, and it will never be much more unless they completely rebuild." This talk of Junction being eponymously just a transition point.... ...evokes the article in Wikipedia for Breezewood, Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breezewood,_Pennsylvania#/media/File:Breezewood,_Pennsylvania.jpg also referenced in the wikipedia for 'tourist trap' This image makes the rounds on Twitter a lot as a meme. More often looking the opposite direction so that the gas station signs on the right are a pair of Exxon signs rather than Shell signs. p.521 green-robed Honored Matre with the masculine voice: descendant of Nayla's family? This goes with the Fish Speaker origins of the Honored Matres. p.526 "Despite her blatant vanity, Dama was intelligent and self-disciplined." 'Circumlocutions' mentioned again? lolz (no page reference, squeezing this observation in here): the ancient art that most humans adopt, has a name: code-switching there's a wikipedia article for it p.529 "You looked for the ones who could say, 'Yes.' " When I wanted to work in excess of 10hrs overtime/week during the bulk of 2021 into the first half of 2022 (usually 15 but as high as 23 at times), I went directly about four levels above over some heads to procure that. later on 529: Odrade had Dama's dominance pattern registered The last time we we saw this term directly was when Jessica had Stilgar 'registered' (no specific page reference) Just the nagging observation that Dama's suite of rooms is the one area that is -not- cluttered or messy like Murbella's description of an Honored Matre higher-up's area earlier in the book p.549 "Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded." This is confirmed to be a Beverly Herbert quote later on p.608 p.569 "Hakka! I've met her. Did she have that injured left foot when you knew her?" After the joke about the waif from Shuloch, and Namri's riddles in Children of Dune, we are defensive enough reading Frank here to suspect whether Hakka is even a real Honored Matre superior or just a standard riddle that is used as a pass phrase. Or some nicely dovetailed combo where Hakka does at least also exist but the details are made up. p.587 "Frivolity: Bellonda's bete noire." That is the entire Dilbert comic strip right there - the engineer being importuned by the managers or people in parallel business units (like sales) that don't measure up. p.591 "Duncan, either stop feeding our worries or tell us what we should do. You're a Mentat. Function for us." Vladimir to Jessica down to Ghanima to Siona to Sheeana and it persists: Mentats are necessary!

My impression of these novels was much more positive than yours - I loved them. But now you make me want to go read Le Conte Du Graal. Aside from Le Morte D'Arthur (which I barely remember now) I have totally neglected written Arthurian legend, and I suddenly want to read that scene with Perceval staring at the drops of blood in context.

Well it's over! I never thought that I would see this day. I feel a profound sense of sadness and gratification... We won't ever know what Frank had in store for our remaining "scattering" characters or our two mystery characters! (Face dancers perhaps?) Murbella what have you gotten yourself into!! Look forward to celebrating and commiserating with the club later today at our final meeting! Thanks so much for leading us through this truly epic journey over the years!

eneve

All hail God Emperor Sheeana! I can only imagine what that would have been like. Bonkers! Haha Thank you so much Danika for guiding us through Arakis. I’ve always wanted to read the Dune series, but without your push, who knows if I would have gotten around to it in my lifetime! Thank you for that push! It’s very fitting for the last book, and last book club, to end with Frank’s dedication to Bev. “Nothing in the sadness at her death is too high a price to pay for the love we shared” Perfect words to send off the Dune Clubs with 🥲 I look forward to the next adventures!

Niko Ketsilis

I remember years ago when you started the first Duneclub, I thought to myself "it would be great if this makes it all the way to Chapterhouse, but that is probably not an option". Turns out we made it. And now it is over, which I find as sad as the ending of the book itself. That first Dune Club box was the first merchandise I ever got from a streamer, and well worth the money. This list will be long, but it is the last chance I will ever have to do this, so... . Observations: . The end of this book really feels like it is hurtling to a destination. One thing that hit me in this last section was Herbert's escalated tendency to work the death notices in in a way that tends to highlight the callousness of it all. Odrade's companions die unobserved. Supreme Honored Matre is quietly reduced to a dead heap lying across the room. Odrade dies in the background of Murbella's quick fight with the supreme matre. People look around and see all the people have dropped dead due to the use of the bloodless weapon. No glory here. Just dead people, players and NPCs both. . P. 570 I don't think this was meant to be a humorous scene, but when a random HM opted to ask Murbella a question, and Murbella thought "bad day to speak up lady", and killed her as a demonstration, it did crack me up. . . P. 575 and onward. It is now apparent that Odrade/Murbella's final plan to defeat the HM is "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, THEN beat 'em". Murbella is confident that BG+ HM = BG. It has been shown before (as far back as Lady Jessica's decision to train Farad'n in BG ways back in the first book) that the BG are VERY good at turning enemies into allies by giving them good information in persuasive ways until the student's will to self decieve just crumbles. Good education is the ultimate weapon. . P.594 "No regrets!" "That's stupid"! Now things are really getting sad. Duncan is now sure that he and Murbella will not make it together, and Duncan has long foreseen that his only option is to effectively abandon everything he has ever known. Earlier in the book, when Odrade was verifying that Murbella did want to be a BG, she hit her with a similar 'no regrets' line, and Murbella's response was similar to Duncan's - there are always regrets. There is a horrible symetry in this since Murbella's decision to undergo the agony and tie herself to the BG is what ensures she cannot be with Duncan. It all seems horribly, fatalistically sad. . P. 598 Alia, Duncan, and (most of all) Murbella. These are the three people I feel saddest for in all the Dune books. "Vanish into Space! Leave me!" - so horribly bereft, especially as she suddenly can see how it all panned out. When Murbella is speculating about using the Axolotl tanks to create a new Duncan I wonder if that is primarily the dispassoionate practicality of a reverand mother responding to a crisis, or a desperate attempt to get her love back. Duncan is certain that the agony severed Murbella's bonds to him but it only broke the involuntary ties created by the HM sexual bonding, the love was still there, and could have worked out. Back on P. 577, Murbella was already planning to get back all of her children with Duncan when she had a chance, contrary to expected reverend mother behavior, And part of Odrade/Murbella's grand plan for the BG was to get them to be more human, including to have a place for love, so the seeds are already there. Maybe if Duncan had trusted her to include her in his plans to flee, she would have left with him after all. Or she could have convinced him to stay. But the risk was so great. Too late for re-write. . . P. 604, the Final Section. (I don't think any book or series has ever ended with me wanting more while knowing I would not get it.) We know the two elders are face dancers. I have read more than once that they represented Frank and Bev as Frank's way of letting go of this story, which is nicely touching. But what sticks with me is that the Tleilaxu's face dancers who went out in the scattering demonstrated the ability to match or surpass the most impressive parts of humanity, being chock full of reverent mothers, mentats, and who knows what else. It was the Tlelaxu parties who went out in the scattering that created the these face dancers, my beloved Futars, and the unimaginable forces that made the (now relatively less terrifying) honored Matres run for the hills. The TLEILAXU were the source of all of this. But for the Original Tleilaxu, the face dancers could never be more than slaves, and any Tlelaxu from the scattering could only be tainted and untrustworthy. If THEY couldn't control it, they couldn't appreciate it. Stubborn, insular little bastards. If they hadn't played so long and so hard at being stupid, they would be running things by now. To me, the Original Tleilaxu and their allowing of their own pretences to destroy their real potential are a primary cautionary tale of this whole thing. . Afterword: I never read afterwords, but I am glad you had us read this one. It took away some of the sting of the ending of the novel. And while I have never been on a honeymoon, a firewatch seems like a perfect place for one. Great view, total privacy. . I wonder why I never hear of anyone else trying that. . Questions: . 1.Did Teg actually successfully conceal his ability to see No-ships from everyone until the end? Impressive. . 2. f you happened to be there, where do you think you would want to be - on the No ship shooting off into the unknown and exciting, terrifying freedom, or helping re-build a new old imperium and BG sisterhood with Murbella. If I had the guts to be honest, I think I would choose the No Ship. I think Sheanna's migration will be refreshing. . Take a breath, I'm done. Danika, thank you again for a great experience in these Dune Clubs.

So I wrote some partial notes as I don’t have the book with me. Hopefully it will be not too incoherent. Page 512: “how dare you” Teg to Murbella, probably the last in the series. Apparently Frank couldn’t dare to write it one more time. He stopped saying “swallowed in a dry throat” along the way too… Odrade ‘s acolytes are killed offscreen, nothing like unceremonious offscreen death for semi-important characters. Spider Queen is small, betrayed by Logno (Iago parallel? I’m sure there’s probably another literary betrayer with a more similar name somwhere) poisoned like a loser… Another unceremonious death. Maybe that inspired the death of Snoke in Star Wars whichever sequel episode it was. Sequel inspires uninspired sequel… Before I forget: Dortujla sounds like “dors-tu-je là?” “do i sleep there?” in a Québec French lower class grammar. The name also sounds like French mangled by Wayne Gretzky mocked in satire show for its dumb slogan (if you have it, believe it hard)… anyway, it’s a weird tangent, but it just illustrates how bad Frank can be at coming up with decent sounding names. Page 558:: quote ozymandias, did this come out before or after Watchmen? The honored matre testing with questions about injured legs: this is a dumb way to go unless the info is something the other person would absolutely remember. the side of a leg injury is easily forgettable, this is like cops trying to get you to contradict yourself in interogation to get a convinction, it doesn’t get to the truth. Of course, that’s the point, they never cared about the truth, but I guess all honored matres are bastards. As we get towards the end, once again we get more vaudeville shonen anime one shots, one after the other, so many NPCs to just die in one punch/kick , and for some of the big names to just drop similarly… I don’t care for one-shot kills manga/anime, it bothers me more in prose because there is no cool ass illustration to make it worth it. There was “revenge is for children and the r word”, that would not fly today… We get a cliffhanger… the faces are weird ass facedancers(?) that are reminescent of the overpowered couple in that TNG episode (well, the old man, his wife is just a projection of his dead wife). Sheeana, Duncan and co escape to the middle of nowhere… It’s underwhelming. Nine centuries later, Perceval staring at drops of blood in the snow, reminding him of his gf Blanchefleur, remains the greatest cliffhanger of all time. As influential as Dune has been, it’s not going to eclipse arthurian legend anytime soon, after all, Le Conte du Graal is the original unfinished story that people read wanting more. Chrétien de Troyes (pronounced Kray ti “end w/o the d” de trwa) did it first, and did it best. Still, beyond the Bryan Herbert sequels and the aforementioned Snoke death, what other influences from the latter Dune books do you see in media today? Finally, thanks for another successful Dune Club, I enjoyed it and I appreciate you making me read stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise. Looking forward to whatever you have next, be it documentaries, watch alongs and potential future book clubs. ❤️🐛🪱🏜

PJ B