What Does Dune's Ending Actually Mean?
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- Опубликовано: 25 май 2022
- In this video we discuss the strange and meta ending of the Dune Saga! Spoilers ahead!
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Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife-chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: “Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.”
Indeed. 🏜
Don't know if your right about the ending but it is a lot more consistent than the sequels claim that they are omnius and erasmus.
Yes! Thank you for making this, I have had this exact argument with a friend before, I feel validated!
"Dune is about the enlightenment and maturity of humanity" -Quinn
🙄 Uhhhhmmmm What???? 🤷♂️
I love your reviews 😍 even your lighting and style.
and am not trying to be controversial but do you think the amount of time you spend on these things makes you assign spiritual meaning to crazy 🤪
The real winners of the Dune Saga were the worms. They ended up smarter, faster, and stronger than ever before by the end of the story, silently manipulating humans with their creation, the spice, throughout the whole series.
Wait that actually makes sense I never thought about it
Plots within plots
Nah real winner is Duncan who gets reborn so many times
@@denver66 considering what triggers his death every tim, i would say that's more of a torture
@@denver66 lmao like actually bro is eternal
I believe finding an old interview of Herbert on Chapterhouse, and I believe he said more or less that he didn’t know if it was the end, but he was perfectly happy if it was.
Not read it yet but I've heard it ends on a cliffhanger.
@@HishamA.N_Comicbroei always thought that it's really only a cliffhanger if you don't view it as the end of the series. If you view it as the end then it's more of an open ended conclusion and the open-ended nature has very meta statements about the idea of storytelling itself, with the characters involved breaking free from the shackles of destiny to such an extent that it's also a metaphor for no longer being bound to an author and being able to make their own future. One of my favorite "open-ended endings"
One of Herbert's friends and business partner said that basically every book after Children of Dune was, essentially, for the paycheck, and designed to be either the final Dune book or the set up for the next one. That isn't to imply Herbert didn’t try his hardest or didn't put in topics and ideas he was genuinely interested in, but that he didn’t have a burning desire to write God Emperor onwards, and it was more, "Hey, I need some repair work done around the house. Time for Dune 5, I guess..."
Sort of glad he did, God emperor is my favourite
Herbert was above all an ecologist. He did insert himself into the Dune story, he was Liet-Kynes. Almost every other story written by him was about ecology, too. And in an ecological system there is no unique solution, it's the self regulatory function of the entire thing that drives and sustains life. I don't think he wanted us to figure it out by ourselves, I believe he thought we have no choice about it regardless. We either figure it out or we don't; and we die.
Wasn't he a journalist?
@@surfthetsunami5596 Yes, but he also experimented with ecological stuff. Self-supporting living, etc.
He did a lot of campaign work for the Republican party
@@corvus8638 what!?
@@surfthetsunami5596
He utterly despised communism too.
Also back then your parties were very different than they are now.
I like how every book in the Dune series, except Heretics, could have been an acceptable ending to the story but did leave strong reasons to continue. Dune obviously works as a stand-alone story, but if Messiah hadn't shown the fallout resulting from Paul's rise to power, Dune wouldn't have had the message Frank intended. Messiah could have been an acceptable end to Paul's story, but we wouldn't have seen anyone take the reins concerning stuff hinted about from Paul's visions. The ends of Children and God Emperor established the Golden Path was on course and would work, but we wouldn't have gotten to see the universe it shaped or humans try to break free finally. Heretics is really the only book that set up plot points that needed to be resolved with another book.
I agree other than Children of Dune. That one felt like a build up to God Emperor of Dune and I do not think would have worked on its own. The Abomination plot line in particular sticks out as lacking without the context on what Leto becomes
@@IapitusMcHeimer Children's ending is not as clean as the endings of Dune, Messiah, and God Emperor, but it is far from a cliffhanger, and still would have worked as a satisfactory ending if nothing had come after. We would have just had to imagine what happened to Leto next instead of learning for certain that he turned into a big worm-man. I think Brian is correct. Heretics is the closest Dune came to a cliffhanger were important plot points were left with no conclusion, and with characters whose immediate fates were not clear. Chapterhouse is open-ended, but in a way that it leaves you wanting to see another story told, not needing to know how the story you are currently being told is going to end.
That’s funny, I actually feel the opposite lol. I’ve always thought book 5 could’ve been a perfect ending for the whole thing.
@@IapitusMcHeimer Well, God Emperor is my favorite, so I'm glad Frank continued after Children. But I think every major question built up from to that point had been answered. For example with the Abomination plot line. We knew both Ghani and Leto's solutions by the end of Children. We knew what a post-Paul Atreides empire would be. We knew it was secure from all threats Messiah and Children had brought up. We saw Leto proceed to take the action his father shrunk away from. The Golden Path had been set in motion. And Leto being who he was, we had good reason to be confident it wouldn't fail. So, I'm just saying while Children left me wanting more (to know what Leto's rule would be like) the series could have ended there.
@@samd2013 Well, Dune/Rakis being destroyed would have been a fitting end in some sense. And it was part of the theme and plot thread of trying to become free of Leto's vision. But there was still the unresolved issue of whether the Honored Matres would overrun the Bene Gesserit and the whole old empire. Sheeana would have been a mostly pointless character. All that time with her and the only payoff is she helps the Bene Gesserit secure a worm. Duncan would have been a mostly pointless character.
When I read Chapterhouse the first time many years ago, I had the same thought exactly...Daniel and Marty were the authors, watching their creation take on a life of it's own. Even with the references to them being "face dancers"...an author is a kind of face dancer in a way, inhabiting other personas, taking on different viewpoints and roles, etc.
The idea of their characters escaping from that really brings to mind what I've heard from a lot of writers. It's not the case for everybody, but for a lot of writers they find that their characters take on a life of their own and they find their characters do things they don't expect and they are unable to keep control of them. Personally I haven't had that experience, but I envy writers who are able to fully realize their work to the point that characters can take on their own life like that.
yeah I just read it for the first time and those two gave me 4th wall breaking vibes, them being Herbert and his wife who most likely contributed to the saga if only by listening to Herbert's thoughts and ideas.
Actually I thought they were perhaps the aliens that we were always searching for.
"Show me the ending of Dune."
(shows Samdworms of Dune)
"The real ending of Dune."
(shows the end of the David Lynch film)
"The REAL real ending of Dune."
(shows Chapterhouse: Dune)
"...Perfection."
I really never thought of the ending this way. It’s like Herbert gave his characters their freedom from even his control to live independently.
Herbert's son and another man with him made two more books after Chaperhouse: Dune. I'm pretty sure they are canon and have a definitive ending.
@@Outcast227 No, Herbert's son never wrote any sequels or prequels. I refuse to accept that he did!
Frank Herbert was the God Emperor all along
@@hartmutholzgraefeBrian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson wrote a trashy trilogy of pulp sci-fi books using the names of a few of Frank Herbert's characters, then a trilogy of badly-written pulp sci-fi 'evil robot' monster novels, then a couple of sequels to those trilogies using the names of some more of Frank's characters. They never wrote any prequels or sequels to Dune.
@@DomH75 I know, I made the mistake to read those. So now I pretend this never happened, same as The Matrix or Highlander never had any sequels
Herbert, when working as a political speechwriter, was known to have utilized his own unique "concentric circle" method; which allowed him to write in a manner by which his speeches could be lengthened or shortened for specific time constraints at the discretion of the political candidates he was writing for. This meant, that however one presented Herbert's speeches, whether choosing to cut it short, or to recite it in full, the speech remained, by design, complete. I like to think his Dune series was written informed by such an ethos as well, especially if we choose, as you have here, to see the collected saga as made complete by the symbolic reading of his life as the author to have written it. Great video as usual!
do you have any pointer to this kind of stuff? Examples maybe? This sounds interesting
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p The Last Podcast on the Left Network did a series of podcasts on the Dune books called "LPN Deep Dives: Dune"; episode 9 focused on Herbert's life story which may have mentioned his writing style as well. That might be of interest to ya.
@@pacmanfantastic nice, I'll have a look : )
@@pacmanfantastic also, love the use of ";"
Interesting. Perhaps that'y why it always seemed to me, umm, arbitrary, episodic, without overreaching vision.
I have a similar conception of this "true" ending to Dune. It's about people. Not technology. Not spice and prescience. If anything, the paradox of the kwisatz haderact is that by knowing the future, one avoids humanity's extinction by creating conditions in which a future kwisatz haderact could never exist. I agree that most other sci-fi writers have a different idea of an ideal society - often it's a bit Hegelian/Marxist and consequently dialectical and deterministic. Herbert has an antideterministic ending.
Good stories, especially SciFi, are always about people and never about technology. A good SciFi story must still work if the SciFi trappings are removed.
I actually read Chapterhouse before any other Dune book. I picked it up at the library before a family trip. It was wild trying to piece together what was going on from the context. I also got the white album by the Beatles at the same time, and Reverend Mother Superior Darwi Odrade is forever linked in my mind with Dear Prudence.
Thats a rad memory. I love those little tidbits from childhood. We get something out of context and it just makes so much sense in our own story. Thanks for sharing dude!
I’m still young. I’m 24. And this comment is a good reminder for me appreciate every moment because you never know what you’ll look back on fondly. I know that’s unrelated to dune, I just had to say it.
That's a killer association to have.
You've permanently altered my relationship with that song. Thank you
haaa ordrade... Don't forget she like apple
I've generally interpreted the ending of Chapterhouse as the author's realization that the story itself has gone beyond his reach, either from its blossoming into other media or his sense of mortality (or both).
.
" " . . . the story itself has
gone beyond his reach . . . " " .
.
A very humbling stance for
- an author to assume .
Possibly . . . the choice that
Mr. Herbert made . . . indeed .
.
probably, but he did want one more book. i thnk it would have ended with some sort of battle between duncan and the witches vs the face dancers.
@@meesalikeumaybe it was set up for another book. I imagine it'd be exactly what you describe. They'd fight the face dancers to free themselves from their grip into a true Scattering.
Maybe Frank Herbert knew his time was short and allowed Duncan to free himself and the rest earlier. I believe this 7th book would have taken place had Duncan not achieved that.
I read Chapterhouse about 30 years ago, personally completing the epic saga. When Marty and Daniel appeared in the story at the end, it was quite abrupt with absolutely nothing hinting or leading to their strange appearance. It was very clear to me right away that it was indeed Frank Herbert and Bev "peeking through the net" at the characters they created. It was so powerful, profound and yes, quite meta that they would introduce themselves through the characters of Marty and Daniel to end the story on this sweet note. All signs point to this. It really can't be denied. Think about it, would advanced face-dancers really be pruning flowers in a garden (in human earth-era aprons)? Hell no - it's completely out of context and they have no purpose to do that in the context of this far-off advanced future. It's Frank and Bev at the very end of Frank's life, saying goodbye to his greatest literary achievement in life in a dramatic farewell. Frank may have had plans for a 7th book, but he knew his time was short, hence the reason for the abrupt, yet creative character appearance of Marty and Daniel. I give Frank Herbert the greatest salute any reader can deliver to an author for this crowning achievement and incredibly creative way he introduced himself personally to all his readers - with a unique and fabulous "goodbye." Quinn - thank you so much for your passionate work exposing new readers to the world of Dune!
There’s some additional books which takes places after Chapterhouse, which would explain the advanced face-dancers origins and the face-dancers pruning a garden.
Well said!
You're forgetting tho that the face dancers were beginning to lose themselves in the characters they were playing. They observed with the high priest, so it's feasible that the tleilaxu (or whatever) achieved an almost atreides like ability to carry on their past life memories, while acquiring new bodies, sort of tying all the lives together. For me the people at the end were the final form of all the factions, but I also like to think it was frank and Bev. I think it's both :)
@@infested4494 they're not frank Herberts though
@@zaal08 I know. That's why I said additional. Even if those books made sense, they ultimately aren't Frank Herberts.
I feel like the second book is the one that really gives the biggest foreshadowing of a major plot twist coming with the worms and the ultimate purpose of the spice visions. When the old fremen warrior cleanses himself of the spice in waters of a foreign planet and immediately sees his peoples actions in a different light. I even believe Paul would have been redeemed as he turned away from worms plot whereas many think Leto was heroic for seeing it through, ‘to benefit humanity’ in many ways he was just a pawn of the worms. A big moral seems to be realizing when you’re being manipulated and controlled vs expressing free will. Whether by an authoritarian or a drug. It also helps explain why Paul didn’t want any of those involved in the plot killed as he realized they had more free will than many in his worm manipulated empire.
You're making a good point there - humanity had used the Spice to further their development, to make safe interstellar travel possible, but by the time the story of Dune starts, they have become as dependent on the Spice as they once were on the "thinking machines", causing stagnation on a social level. Just as much, now, Spice caused society as a whole to stagnate, .lodged in mindless power structures. But anyway I do think that Leto II was the one to put humanity back on the Golden Path; the drift is very strongly that Paul was close to realizing the truth but fell shy of the final step, of making the ultimate sacrifice that was necessary. Leto finally paid that sacrifice when he got killed,, giving birth to a new kind of sandworm that would no longer be enslaved to the needs of the humans who exploited their spice. Leto was never a pawn of the worms, but he did realize that the worms were a pawn and that he had to stop that in order to secure the Golden Path (including true free will) for humanity. By freeing the worms, he made sure that humanity was free also.
I see the final chapter with Daniel and Marty as the perfect ending to the saga, no additional story needed. The Golden Path was the way to escape the limits of humanity’s potential within the constraints of a prescient being who could manipulate and control outcomes. By escaping, Duncan and crew broke free and achieved that final, ultimate goal and fulfilled the intent that defined Leto II’s life work. The freedom to make one’s own future without external prescient influence. In essence, the fulfillment of all that went before.
I'll go a step further and say Frank Herbert was never unintentionally vague, he seemed to thrive on the unsaid while still extremely descriptive, like an artist using shadows
It's like old Japanese paintings, the negative space that's not used is what makes them what they are.
Reminds me of Lovecraft in that sense. So many advanced and archaic terms in long passages trying to describe the undescribeable.
This is an interesting interpretation of Chapterhouse. I do like it. The idea of inserting himself in an ever present way and setting his creation free to complete itself in the minds of each individual reader. I *do* enjoy what his son and Anderson fleshed out beyond that as well, but keeping all of this as separate paths branching out from Frank's singular Golden Path brings so much volume.
Can’t agree about the books Brian Herbert wrote. They are an abomination.
@@foodfairy4546 nothing wrong with that. For my part, I devoured them because I was starved for fresh Dune material, although there's a lot I would've changed in them.
Heh, you're better off writing your own Dune books and scratching off the barcode, than reading Brian Herbert's sad attempts at a continuation.
Brian's additions actively make the original stuff worse if you take them as part of the story. It undermines the idea of machine thinking by saying that, no, it wasn't some kind of social upheaval, it was just terrible matrix fanfiction.
The caveat here is we don't know what the ending actually was. Herbert knew he had very limited time left and basically starting the ending in the 6th book would give enough closure to leave things in a *tenuously* hopeful state, much like things were when he died, especially given his view of social politics.
Just more proof his wife had nothing to do with books. Otherwise she would have wrote one.
@@OakInch she can be essential to the process without being able to write a full book independently
@@jimlarsen9908 Is her name on any of the books? I'm not the biggest Dune nerd but this is the first reference I've heard of her involvement.
@@royalrexford
In Chapter House...or at least the copy I have he as a love letter to her where he does credit her with the title of the book. She also had cancer and was dying at the time of writing.
@@OakInch You're being incredibly obtuse. Spouses can be intimately involved in the lives of eachother, so much so that they talk about their work and bounce ideas off one another. I would have no trouble at all imagining Frank telling her he was writing that a Duncan character would say this and that....and his wife could say "wouldn't he also be thinking this....which might make him do this other thing?" and Frank could say yes, that makes sense, I'll go write that tomorrow. You don't have to insist that your name goes on the cover of the book to be involved.
"I still think you let them get away." - for a long time, since the second or third reading ca. 1990s, I've wondered, suspected whether this is Herbert projecting a self-accusation through Marty (Beverly: predeceased publication of CH:D by two years or so). "You're giving up on this, aren't you?" Regardless, the ending is appropriate, a paradoxically final ellipses ...
I love this idea.
I actually spend a lot of time thinking about Dune's evolving invisibility to prescience, and how we are all currently laid bare by technological tracking. I think about it a lot.
me too man
That's a great analogy
It reminds me of the ending of _The Truman Show_ ... it ends just as Truman is about to meet Sylvia. We, the viewers, are desperate to see what happens next. But no - as soon as Truman exits the door and leaves the view of the The Truman Show cameras, that's it. We don't get to see what happens to him next. Show's over!
Of course, in _The Truman Show_ we are fully aware of what the deal is, so it only takes us seconds to digest what the movie makers have done here, and how our own role as viewers fits in with the artistic message being conveyed.
With Chapterhouse Dune, it's not so straightforward. Is the "net" actually the books, or an abstraction of the writing process? The ever running theme of Dune is the danger of allowing everyone to be seen by any one prescient being. And yet, this entire universe is indeed entirely caught inside this "net" of a single writer. Is there no possible escape from this "net"?
I guess the message is that we have to at least try. Maybe it is futile to try and walk out the door of the Holodeck ... we just wink out of existence, pointlessly, as we cross the threshold. But we must try.
Your theory is sufficiently meta that i think Frank would have appreciated it.
My idea isn't very meta. I think Daniel and Marty are advanced face dancers, who having absorbed enough personas have become kwisatz haderachs themselves, or via technology can emulate such powers. In Herbert's work, we often see multiple paths leading to the same ability. Various ways to awaken a ghola, various ways to safely bridge space, make spice, avoid abomination, etc. Its even hinted that there are multiple ways to make a kwisatz haderach. So its within reason that Daniel and Marty could be supreme beings. As antagonists in the story, I believe they were following the golden path, knowingly or not. The Honored Matres were experiencing their own scattering and in effect revitalizing both the people of the scattering, and the old empire. In the later books we get to see the paper chase in action, constant stirring and the endless outward push of humanity
P.S. Chapterhouse: Dune is my favorite in the series
Need to read them again, you seem to have misunderstood them,Daniel and Marty supreme being please
I like your theory and it makes sense. Are Daniel and Marty the threat that the Honored Matres were fleeing from? I haven't read Chapterhouse yet book 4 God Emperor was really hard to make it through probably my least favorite so far. It is too bad Frank didn't live longer to let us know that is the final ending he was looking for. I feel George RR Martin is headed for the same fate of an unfinished story.
@@bartsullivan4866 Thanks. Are Daniel and Marty the threat that the Honored Matres were fleeing from? I think so, but that's just conjecture on my part. I should have made that clear in my original post. It's suggested in the novel that there's a connection. Futars were engineered by Bene Tleilax of the Scattering to hunt the Honored Matres, but ultimately failed in destroying them. The books mention that there's a special relationship between the advanced facedancers and the Futars. The Bene Tleilax are experts at gene editing. We also know that the Honored Matres are fleeing a biological weapon created in the Scattering. Daniel and Marty are at the very least an offshoot of the Bene Tleilax, so they'd have access to gene editing. I think the biological weapon is another attempt at wiping out the Honored Matres, by the advanced facedancers
God Emperor is a bit of a slog, I agree. It gets better in the last two novels, in my opinion. I wish he had had the time to finish the series too. Closure would have been nice
@@tannisbhee7444 you bring up several great points. Even in Quinns summary he mentions the Matres unleashed a bloodless invisible bio weapon against the bennegesiit and we are led to believe that the Matres were fleeing from some kind of Gola army of face dancers. Duncan being able too see some kind of net which is the trap and being shocked Daniel and Marty could communicate and hear him speak. Quinn really does a great Job in this way laying it out for the reader to understand. You can kind of see what Leto was trying to warn the others about a species that could detect preciance and wipe out the whole race. I also think of the bene Tleilex making the facedancers too perfect where they themselves would be self aware and take no commands or orders the terminator theory. Finally the cyborg half man half machine the navigator will that lead to another future jihad or war against man made machines thou shall not man a man out of his likenesses. Lots to contemplate. Thank you for the comment I will have to buy Heretics and Chapterhouse.
That was always along the lines of what I expected, after having read Frank's novels but before Brian's sequels came out. I expected it would turn out that Danial and Marty were some kind of transhuman monster sort of thing, something that took the worst bits of the sort of biological horrors that the Tleilax's genetic manipulation was capable of, that had at some point crossed the ultimate taboo and produced thinking machines in some distant corner of the universe. Throughout Dune, the ban on thinking machines was always kind of there in the background, but the why was never really explored that much. When I first read the last two books, it really felt to me that it was building up to something that was going to give us a reason *why*, but we never quite got there.
I didn't expect them to *be* thinking machines, nor did I expect them to be some kind of totally ancient machines to boot, and frankly I think that angle was kind of dumb. But part of the problem here is that you're never going to make a good finale to Dune that reaches the peaks that the story took. Heck, I've met a number of people who outright didn't like Chapterhouse, let alone Hunters and Sandworms. Putting myself in Brian and Kevin's shoes, I could suggest what I think would have made for a better finale, maybe some people would like it, and maybe others wouldn't, but I doubt anything I could produce would live up to peoples expectations, even with Frank Herberts notes. That kind of a task is something I just can't imagine anyone succeeding in.
Your channel have been instrumental in making me pick up the dune books again. And i finally got to the end of Chapterhouse. I didn't want to overanalyze the ending but it was endearing it felt appropriate even though i couldn't articulate it as elegantly as you just did.
Thank you again for this journey.
I also love your other content (Lovecraft, Three body series...)
When I first read Chapterhouse: Dune, I had an inkling that the Enemy that popped up ever so often and that the Honoured Matres would be running from could be either of two things: the Enemy was either the old thinking machines or some new threat that Frank Herbert would have written about in a future Dune book had he lived to write it. There are hints here and there in the books that the Enemy is supposed to be the former, but every now and then there is also indication that the Enemy is some unknown force that the people from the Scattering fear above all else. Most of what we are given are just hints and other scraps of information. The Honoured Matres stole their Planetkillers from the Enemy. The Enemy employs cat-like humanoids and beings who control them (who for some reason I have always thought of as Facedancers), etc. etc. Those scraps of information do, however, not preclude the Enemy from being either of them.
For some reason, I never thought of Daniel and Marty as the persona's of Frank and Beverly Herbert. In my mind they were beings with god-like powers, trying to influence the flow of time and the flow of the universe. They identify themselves as Face Dancers, but also as something more. Take on enough personalities through assimilation and you develop one of your own. Thematically, this is the exact opposite to what happens to the Pre-born, as they in turn are in danger of being overwhelmed by all the voices in their head and should that happen, like it did to Alia, they risk being possessed by a dominant ancestor.
I like the idea though, of Daniel and Marty as the authors inserting themselves into the story. It does not contradict anything I have believed so far and they definitely serve as a good metaphor for them, especially if you consider the fact that a lot of the fictional technology you find in the Dune universe is also found in several of Frank Herbert's other books.
When I first read Dune in the sixties I got the impression that Butlran jihad wasn’t a re war wth the machines aka skynet so much as technocratic society on the lines present China that our lords and masters are now trying To foist onto us with social credits
The enemy was face dancers that broke out from the masters that have gone into the scattering and became extremely advanced (probably because they took on memory of other and unlike the Bene Gesserit didn't have philosophical prejudices about using biological and mechanical technology from those memories). I think is Logno, the servant that kills the old great honored mattress that talk about their enemies of "thousand faces" if not her Murbella talking to the honored mattress why they need the Bene Gesserit. Futtars and the biological super weapons that turn them into vegetables also points to a offshoot of the Tleiaxu.
I'm currently reading Chapterhouse now. I will have to come back and watch this video after I finish. But leaving this comment now to support!
Hardcore , I got to book 4 and then retired . Best of luck and enjoy
If you're finishing Chapterhouse, you're done.
Spoiler alert! The butler did it.😂😂😂😂
Love!
@@sinisterminister6478 The Butlerians you mean
Almost 40 years ago, I was baffled by Chapterhouse Dune and it's themes. Your efforts at explanation feel right, particularly in light of Herbert's various works that place humans in unfamiliar settings and push them to develop beyond human capacities. I enjoyed Chapterhouse, but never re-read it. Now I feel the need to, but do I start (re-start) at that novel, or with the first? Decisions!
Do the audio book which is currently available on RUclips. Do it soon though, as the publishers don't let them stay up long.
@@babsbylow6869 I first read Dune in 1974. Since then I've read the whole series over and over again and again. Chapterhouse is better understood in the context of the previous books.
As tempting as it is to suggest a full series re-read prior to Chapterhouse, I think overall you could start with Heretics and still maintain connection to the themes to get that same interpretation being discussed here.
Please make more videos on the three body problems I love that story and with your narration and pacing it makes it way better PLEASE continue it!!!
Love you Quinn! I get so excited when I see a new video from you. As a Dune lover myself, the way you go deeper into the lore of the universe just makes me want to delve even deeper into the saga.
I like this thematic interpretation of Chapterhouse. I actually thought you were going to talk about Sandworms of Dune. I just finished reading that one and felt that it didn’t exactly line up with what Frank Herbert had set up thematically or plot-wise, but I’ll have to think about it a bit more.
It didn’t - that’s why I don’t count any of Brian’s books as part of the series.
Kevin Anderson is a hack... I ignore all of his contributions to expanded universes (especially Star Wars)...
I had a professor who once said, "The only thing Frank Herbert did wrong was not kill his son before he died." Most Dune fans consider Brian Herbert's books total anathema
I read several of the books by Brian and Kevin, and compared to the feast that is Dune, they are utter pablum, they simply do not compare to Frank's work. Only in it for the money....
I’m glad there was something with Sandworms over nothing.
Mate, I absolutely love your videos. Thanks so much for your hard work, we all appreciate what you do!
I just found your channel and I am loving your videos! I would love to see more on the commonwealth universe or maybe the universe of Ender's game. But whatever you chose, I cant want to see your next video! Thanks!
I am a new viewer and really growing to love this channel. Thanks for all the additional insight on a series that was so formative for my early appreciation of Sci-Fi and reading in general.
Finished reading the first Dune a while back, slowly trodding through the second. Cool to see this is what I'll have in store when I get to the last book.
Hey Man I love you stuff! I never heard of Dune until my brother took me to the movies and had me watch it and it blew my mind, I just now finished Heretics and your videos have just kept growing my interest in the series. Keep up the incredible content and thanks for the effort!!
from not knowing anything of Dune lore and watching the recent movie, Your channel has brought me closer to the universe I had not known about but have been searching for this whole time!
An excellent synopsis of Herbert's last book.
Herbert ,by inserting himself and his wife into the timeline, are showing us that the footprints of Dune are in all of us.
That we must decide what future we will live in.
The end of the story does indeed lay in our hands.
I've never been able to articulate it very well but I've long had the sense that it's as you say here. Herbert may have started out intending to follow up Chapterhouse with yet another book, but by the time he’d finished writing it he knew he was done.
So, intellectually, there was real divide between Frank Herbert and DMX. Herbert isn't gonna give it to you, but X is, in fact, gonna give it to ya.
Lol!!! As soon as he said Herbert wasn't gonna give it to you... Dmx was playing in my head like, X gonna ...
Dude your videos are amazing. Ive watched all the ones you've made about Dune and now I really want to read them for myself.
That point you said about Frank and his wife collaborating reminds me of an author I was fond of through my teens - David Eddings. After he finished the Elenium/Tamuli series, Eddings went back and wrote a pair of prequel/sequel novels that tell the life stories of the two mentor figures of the Belgariad/Mallorean series. Now what your mention of Frank and Beverly is that with the Belgarath novel, Eddings pulled the cover off what he described as an ill-kept secret, that his novels were in fact a collaboration of him and his wife Leigh, with her coming in and insisting on inserting every-day practical details, like when they stop to eat, bathe, sleep, all those functional details, and that novel they shared the byline, as did all following novels until the two of them passed on.
So I just feel like the mention that Frank collaborated with his wife is a nice thing to know, and nice to know it happened more than once in a successful writer household.
Yours all get a like from me, Quinn. I'm a big sci-fi fan, and your coverage of Dune and Hyperion really brought me in. You got me reading Foundation. Keep doing this, you're the Reading Rainbow for grownups. You're good at this.
One of your best vids yet, Quinn! Good job and thanks for teaching me more about the story we love.
Love this channel man! As always wonderful deep dives that make it easier for me to find interesting sci-fi literature.
As much as it is an "open" ending, I interpret that the members of that ship went to an "unknown universe" for everyone (for Humanity, for Marty and Daniel or for any entity). Not necessarily another dimension, but at a wider time-space distance than a Mentat or thinking machine could conceive.
The first diaspora was just a "rehearsal" of this long-term plan of the Golden Path: Humanity Survival, Grow and Multiply. May the human being continue to exist as long as this universe exists.
Perhaps, all human beings who will perpetuate humanity are in the "Noah's Ark" of the No-ship of Idaho. Perhaps Marty and Daniel wiped out the rest of humanity from the old empire and the remnants from other parts of the universe.
I basically agree but on a smaller scale. If you map out the planets based on what we are told, the Corrino and later Atreides Imperium was basically the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, I think that the first scattering was an expansion through the rest of the galaxy, and perhaps to Andromeda, the second was basically out of our local group, perhaps out of the Lanikea Super Cluster, to another part of the universe.
"Perhaps, all human beings who will perpetuate humanity are in the "Noah's Ark" of the No-ship of Idaho. Perhaps Marty and Daniel wiped out the rest of humanity from the old empire and the remnants from other parts of the universe"
How did you come to that conclusion?
I used to struggle with the official definition of "Big Bang" when I was younger. I have learned recently that since that time, the opinion or theory is not one bang and collapse, then another bang and collapse ... but multiple bangs in to the same universe. Which really sent my mind tumbling. That there could be ... multiple, entire universes out there. Flinging away from each other. Not just galaxies and clusters. And within each galaxy, each entire universe, there are very old things hiding.
@@sveinn it seems like an expanding fractal.
@@lewhensilvar3521 Probably from the face dancers collecting personas.
It's definitely possible, maybe a strong possibility. One thing is for sure, Brian Herbert either misunderstood where his father was going or he deliberately chose to just to his own thing with it.
I don't see that as a given seeing as he and his father were very close in the last years of his life and he would come over to his house to discuss both what he was writing and the current Dune book on a regular basis. Frank I think wanted Brian to continue the series and likely gave him a lot of ideas he had regarding where the story could go.
If I'm not mistaken, I thought I read somewhere Brian found a complete outline of a book 6 locked away and used this for the 2 part book six???
@@JuanDiaz-wn7kq Don't know, but I'm pretty sure he reinvented the whole Butlerian Jihad to be about actual sentient machines, and I don't think Frank Herbert was going in the direction of having them be the problem in the last book.
I've been following all your Dune videos so far, and until now you have basically summed up what I think about the series, its characters and its intent and meaning. However, this time, you've shown me something I hadn't considered so far, and a very valuable insight at that. This fits very well with Herbert's anarchist leanings, and something I wasn't really aware of, namely Beverly Herbert's contributions to the series (which probably needs more attention in wider SciFi circles).
Take my admiration, love and way overdue Patreon subscription!
Quinn, I love your passion for science fiction books. Your videos are well researched and brilliantly thought out.
On my first reading of "Chapter House" I really had the feeling that it was Frank's goodbye wave to the fans. Did anyone else feel that?
No just you
indeed
You inspired me to keep going and finish the whole series. I truly believe it was one of the best decisions i ever made, and your videos were so helpful because it was like having someone else to talk to 🤣
thank you.. . Listening to you at 1.5 speed on RUclips is like drinking 3 cups of coffee! Great ideas and moral backdrop to your work.
I only read the first Dune and the first Three Body Problem, so your spoilers are much appreciated. Life is short (and I'm ancient!) I might read Chapterhouse Dune, based on this fine video though. Good luck, Quinn!
Always excited to watch your videos. Keep up the great work!
Man to me this feels right. I was a bit bummed after finishing chapter house and feeling like I wanted more. I then started thinking about what everyone's future would be like and what Duncan and crew would end up doing and how they would perhaps makes a world of their own.
I really like this interpretation of the real ending of Dune. His son and Brian Anderson wrote an enjoyable story but this hits home.
Fantastic video Quinn. I enjoy your interpretations and descriptions.
Watching your videos inspired me to start the Dune saga again. I always stopped after the first book not knowing what I’m missing. By the way, awesome bookcases. You should do a tour video of your personal library!!!
Interesting theory, personally the way i always thought of the cliffhanger (because i believe there would be book 7) is that Daniel and Marty were some highly advanced creatures/creations that were essentially the ultimate "reaction" to Leto's Golden path. Just as Leto set into motion his grand scheme to save humanity and manipulate the future, Daniel and Marty were the ultimate response against his efforts, sort of a "every action has a consequence" type of thing. My reasoning for this is due to the fact that Daniel and Marty were able to see INSIDE a no-ship, they were able to bypass prescience-blocking genes and tech, which ultimately implies that maybe Leto's ultimate plan is slowly being undone as now there are these new mysterious beings out there who has evolved way past Leto's prescience, and the threat of extinction is now stronger than ever. It's a shame that book 7 never came to be
Just know, when I finally find some time to read the entire Dune series, it will be because of watching your channel. It made me aware that there is so much to unpack that can only be done with the books.
Audiobooks are a godsend
@@skateforzero357 if you can use them....for me they become background noise after a bit....I like my books in paper form... lucky I have the whole Dune series ..:)
Very good take on this. I have read all the books but I never quite thought about it this way. Thanks.
Another thoughtful presentation. Thanks for you work. Very engaging.
Please make a Hyperion video on pax, as well as more on three body problem and children of time, especially the latter. Great videos.
IIRC he did leave behind some notes on Dune 7. I think they were found years after his death, in a safe or something. People have speculated that Brian Herbert didn't follow them when he wrote Dune 7 and 8, cause he wanted to take Dune in his own direction and tie it closer to his prequels. Hopefully they release his notes in an unedited form one day.
The notes are a fantasy, conjured up to keep the talentless Brian comfortable.
Brian's books were cash grabs, nothing more.
I think it's a brilliant interpretation. I liked the idea when you brought it up on the podcast, but this video did a good job fleshing it out and trying it in perfectly with the story's themes
Thank you so much for mentioning Le Guin - discussions on her space exploration universe would be so much appreciated! Please?
It’s almost like the Dune Saga is really about the Duncan Idaho ghola
It's cool to see the hardcover copies. I really need to find Heretics and Chapterhouse in hardcover! I've had great luck with finding Messiah, Children, and God Emperor at thrift stores, hope I can continue the streak.
I'm reading Heretics for the first time now. I have old paperback copies of that and CH that are roughly the proportions of hardcovers and have a generally blue background to the cover art.
I love hardcovers! (but they can be pricey)
@@untroubledwaters2137 Thankfully I have a few good thrift stores and used book stores near me and I've found them all for about four dollars each!
Dude, Quinn, your shirts these days are awesome! Love the style
Love your intro music , got a Nice scifi vibe
Quinn, thank you.
This is your most mindblowing ideas video of all times. This is the most profound analysis of Dune I've ever heard.
I've always seen the non-ending of Dune as the logical end of the Golden Path. The path is complete, Paul's vision of humanity's predetermined future has been destroyed by Leto's Golden Path. Humanity no longer has a predetermined future, they are free from prescience, from vision, from predictability. The author frees his characters from his writing, and frees the readers from a written ending. The future becomes unknowable. We have walked the Golden Path.
It's the most extraordinary non-ending imaginable.
Here's my reflection inspired by this video (I hope my English is good enough):
There's a charm in stories which ends in an understated way, the stories which seems unfinished, with many blank spots.
When story leaves reader with lack of full closure, I believe it enhances the feeling of liking the story in general (if reader desires for more, that means he/she enjoyed it!).
A story without decisive conclusion can feed reader's imagination - one can think up the follow-up, actually infinite follow-ups, until it becomes boring! One can leave these ideas themselves, or publish as a fanfiction - the sky is the limit!
That won't work fo every story. I believe I accept the ending of "Dune: Chapterhouse", because it was preceded by a very long saga wthin rich universe; that was an enjoyable ride. The road was satisfying enough.
It's kinda Meta: an unfinished story is like our life. We know we're mortal but we don't when will be our last chapter, or how will it be.
Love this intro and love this lore and thought behind it. I do like that your face in the new video still like that that your alien thing is not here yet
Another great video Quinn! I read the book series nearly 20 years ago & am so glad it's getting the attention it deserves again. Keep up the good work. 👍
Kudos on the theory. I have to be honest that I never saw it this way, probably because Daniel and Marty seem to heavily imply they were some sort of evolved face dancers. Frankly, I'm going to reread Chapterhouse for the 4th or 5th time now because I want to see if I agree or not with your theory. I reread it after the Brian Herbert/Anderson sequels to confirm the thinking machine BS was pulled out of thin air. This new theory might have more merit though.
You're still going to make videos on *Hunters of Dune* and *Sandworms of Dune* though, right? Right?? RIGHT??? 😆 Just kidding! (But seriously though, you will, right?)
What a great channel. Thank you, Quinn!
Anither great video dude 💖💖💖 I feel like quinn has a whole fanfic in his head about the ending of dune and I wish I could read it
So excited for the video on the Three Body Problem Deterrence Era.
Your interpretation lines up with mine when I finished Chapterhouse last week: no sequel is actually needed, our heroes have everything they need to seed a new hospitable world (Lampedas and "the GE seed" even); we are free now think and to continue imagining their genesis story on our own, free from the corrupted influence from HM. Wikipedia says it ends with a cliffhanger or two, but I felt very satisfied nonetheless. And thanks for suggesting Le Guin to an anarchist utopian :)
🏴
I'm still upset that nobody ever calls the setting the Dune-iverse
u have such visually interesting videos, like who knew a stack of books, an led cube, and a laser spinner could look that good
Really good interpretation I always enjoy your content !
I'm fascinated in how similar The Three Body Problem and Dune are in some points:
They discover how a species or civilization can alienate from itself. Be it the Navigators, Face dancers or whatever emerged in the scattering of dune and the big truth that is discovered in the Three body problem a few times.
And they both adress how these players, alienated to each other, fight for power and expansion and how hiding (from detectors in the three body problem or from prescience in dune) is a key element to survival.
I really like this explanation.
There likely could not be a satisfactory ending to a series such as this.
So creating an "unsatisfactory" ending (or what seems to be no ending at all) is appropriate in my opinion.
I also really like the concept of the authors inserting themselves as characters at the end of the book with powers above and beyond all others.
(with the added twist that the rest of the main characters "got away from" the authors and continued on Into the universe (and future).
Very cool.
@@justjoe9070 true that was pretty trippy and appropriate i think
This is a great take! Thank you for taking the time to put this video together, Quinn.
Very insightful thoughts! Thank you. I may have to reread it now!
Quinn, question, if Frank Herbert did have an intention of doing one last book, what do you think it would have happen in that final story, considering only what you know of the first 6 books?
Chapterhouse is not the last book in the Dune Saga. There is another book started by Frank and finished by his son using his notes that expands on it. I read it over a decade ago.
I found this interpretation of the ending of Chapter House Dune quite compelling. More so then Frank’s son, who went on to write more Dune novels, but I always felt ‘Hollywoodized” the series, adding unnecessary killer robots, and losing the inner turmoil of humanity.
I noticed on the shelves you had the Dune Encyclopedia just a book away from Brian Herbert’s prequel. I truly believe that the Dune Encyclopedia had the true story of the Butlerian Jihad, and the books Brian created with his writing partner was nothing like what Frank envisioned. If I’m right, it goes a long way in reinforcing your interpretation of the entire series.
It would be an interesting video for you to do a comparison of the two visions of the Butlerian Jihad, which for the original books was this monumental event, yet shrouded in mystery for the readers.
Brian and Kevin's books are more like fan-fiction set in the Dune universe.
The Dune Encyclopedia was authorized by Frank Herbert in the preface as canon, although he reserved the right to fiddle with the details. It showcases a truly epic future history which Brian was incapable of grasping.
Thanks for the review. Hope to read Chapterhouse one day.
Well thought out and said. I will have to reread Chapterhouse again as it has been many years since I delved into the Dune series.
So, could Daniel and Marty be the “Great Evil” or whatever Leto II predicted? If they were so technologically advanced and wanted to control people, could they have been it? At the end of the story the people you said who were lost control or could have been the culmination of the scattering maybe?
A reasonable question, but no, I don't think so. Daniel and Marty were benign 'good guys'. They were the culmination of a process that was started by the scattering, with the evolution of face dancers into a much larger group of entities. They wanted to rescue and nurture Duncans group, but weren't able to. This is good, because they were an example of the old Empire of Man trying to control humanity, which was specifically what Leto II was trying to stop. Duncan broke free from the old human concept to embrace the new galactic human race. The real 'evil' is actually mentioned in passing by Leto in GEOD when he mentions some sort of machines designed to utterly destroy life that may be designed by either the Tlilaxu or the Ixians, probably also a reference to the utter indiference shown by beurocratic thinking from the time of the Butlerian Jihad when computers and computer-controlled machines tormented humanity.
YES MORE DUNE VIDEOS! You do God's work!
Amen brother
You mean Shai-Hulud's work :)
What's the ost at 0:53?
@@Gomjibar hold it to my neck why don't you!?
Really good breakdowns. Good Job!
This is a wonderful summary. You series has encouraged to reread the first six books again probably more than once. Thanks Guy
Year 2047, "A Dream of Spring" comes out with a hefty 1276 page count, each of 84 chapters containing only four words: "You figure it out..."
...a month later comes a Brandon Sanderson version he's been stashing in the drawer for two decades ;)
i hate this so much
@@untroubledwaters2137 sorry for the PTSD ;)
100% agree. Haven’t been able to Sri rereading or thinking about the Dune saga since I first finished it in 2019. I love how multiple threads survive including the invisible one Leto Ii saw and didn’t see sewn through the Golden Path.
❤❤Gonna have to rewatch your stellar video again
I really enjoyed the whole series. And although I was left wanting to know what happened after chapterhouse, I find the end to be cool ending on a "what will happen" part.
People tend to dismiss the last 2 books of the series, but man I think they're great. Heretics brought back the vibe from the first book and chapterhouse was a great continuation of the story.
Chapterhouse is not the last book in the Dune Saga. There is another book started by Frank and finished by his son using his notes that expands on it. I read it over a decade ago.
@@deadheart1579 it's the last dune book for me. I'm not into the idea that Herbert's son continued his father's work. I know the basis of his conclusion. Don't belive it's what his father was setting up. Not discouraging anyone from reading it, but for me it ends with chapterhouse.
Thank you articulating what I felt back then when I read it back then when it came out. I learned since recently that the message is "being comfortable with unknown", nay delight in it with pious awe towards the dignity of being reflected in human being
This is such a beautiful interpretation! You made my day, Quinn!
BTW, GRRM has no intention of completing ASOIAF, because, in his case, he doesn't have the capability of finishing it
Wow your knowledge of another human being you've never met is surely impressive. How long have you been able to read other people's minds in order to parse if they have a certain capability or not? It's especially impressive since GRRM has confidently displayed his prowess as an author many times in the past. Can you teach me your wizard powers?
@@untroubledwaters2137 I would never teach simps any powers. GRRM has had 11+ years to finish TWoW... And in his update post earlier this year, he threw shade at ASOIAF fans for expressing doubt that he will ever finish his magnum opus. GRRM deserves every ounce of contempt former fans are sending his way
@@maxmercer1931 LMAO, did you just say Simp? Wow dude, why don't you throw in a cowubunga and a hang ten, too.
Dude, what a l0s3r! "Simp"... The fact you don't even know what it means makes your trolling attempt even more p@th3t1c.....
I haven't laughed so hard in ages, I gotta show my fiance this....
LOL. ... Simp..... Radical, dude!!
Next thing your going to tell us to ClEaN OuR RoOm, LobsterBoy.
I think the end might make more sense as readers age. I can imagine what it must be like looking at declining health of himself and his partner at a time when their creation is still young and vibrant, with infinite possibilities. I might be a little angry, cynical, and even whimsical about the irony of it all. Their creations got away from them.
I think you're right, Dune has the power like a chill night wind to throw into stark relief the distance between you and the you you were when you first looked into the future with Paul. I'm sure the authors felt it themselves.
Quinn, I love your ongoing exploration of Chapterhouse and the mysteries that it carries....my favorite book.
I really enjoy your videos.
I thought the same about the couple at the end of chapter house. It makes sense to me too.