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Also, a line of barbed wire would have had the Fremen human charge heaping up and dying in a crush. Then just flamethrower them.

If Frank Herbert wanted to make a point he shouldn’t have straw manned and made Paul’s enemies idiots who let themselves get into a ridiculous situation.

Plus show don’t tell. You don’t see the shields resisting conventional weapons on the film and we see an aweful lot of conventional weapons actually killing them away.

It’s not like the Expanse where real thought went into this and it’s just Flash Gordon Logic. The author obviously wants to make his points and has no interest in asking “well would it really play out like that. Maybe the bad guys could do that.” But no, he clearly liked Lawrence of Arabia film and instead of the guns pointing the wrong way he just removed the guns entirely because the Fremen would have seemed weak if they didn’t do a frontal charge.

Frank Herbert

- Technology is a crutch and the human mind and body is superior. There’s a reason Banzai charges didn’t work mate.

- Drugs give you superpowers. I believe the Boxers also thought Kung Fu meant bullets couldn’t kill them.

- One demagogue can raise a mob of peasants on the frontier and conquer the galaxy because a hard life makes for hard men. Except when your noble warrior gets ignobly trampled to death by a horse, gets tangled in barbed wire, is on a sinking ship before drowning or killed in countless other ways that demonstrate this human self importance is hubris. It’s a romantic notion but it’s an utterly ridiculous one that rejects reason.

- Charismatic leaders are terrible (because the idea of a safe pair of hands and stoic Patriarch isn’t an ideal;Nixon. Or tyrants can’t be boring and uncharismatic; Stalin)

- The Revolution devours its children (except implicitly the ones which brought about American and Liberal Democracy. They don’t count because reasons.)

Again, I am working through the audiobook but a lot of what’s come so far is not filling me with confidence. I don’t think there’s much he can write to convince me of his points as I don’t think he is presenting a reasonable or balanced view.

How often do you set up barbed wire in your parade grounds to defend against an impassable wall?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Plus show don’t tell. You don’t see the shields resisting conventional weapons on the film and we see an aweful lot of conventional weapons actually killing them away.

By this you mean we do see how shields work, in both films, and then we see that shields are not used on arrakis which makes the people who are accustomed to having and using shields more vulnerable as they are trained on the assumption that they will have shields and be fighting against opponents using the same.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
How often do you set up barbed wire in your parade grounds to defend against an impassable wall?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Plus show don’t tell. You don’t see the shields resisting conventional weapons on the film and we see an aweful lot of conventional weapons actually killing them away.

By this you mean we do see how shields work, in both films, and then we see that shields are not used on arrakis which makes the people who are accustomed to having and using shields more vulnerable as they are trained on the assumption that they will have shields and be fighting against opponents using the same.

Because somebody might bypass the clearly not very impenetrable shield? You should have a second layer of defence my Lord. This display is a an unnecessary risk.

We never see the shields work. If they do Dune part 3 and we see ten Harkonans spraying a shielded Fedaykin with guns which does nothing: that is showing us. Gurney mumbling about slow blades is telling.

As much as I love both Dune and Villeneuve, I only like his Dune Part 2.

Well, I really like it. But I don’t love it, and the main reason why is because it’s not an adaptation of the novel Dune.

Rather, it’s an adaptation of Herbert’s reinterpretation of that original novel, which Herbert accomplished by producing a much shorter and much, much less sophisticated sequel. And that sequel is less of a story and more of an editorial in the guise of a fable, the thesis of which is “why my book is really a warning about politico-religious demagoguery rather than whatever you (or I) previously thought.” Even the name of the sequel presents that argument: “DUNE Messiah”.

And these new movies, this trilogy, reflects that revision. Villeneuve doesn’t seem interested in the original novel’s themes of intertwining economy and ecology. The spice is only incidentally present in the films. The Spacing Guild is entirely absent, except as set dressing.

Yeah like I was struck in the early chapters how prominent Choam is and that the Imperium is more like a mega Corp where they’re just Oligarches owning a lot of assets and looking for their cut. The film does have them briefly talk of profits but there’s a lot more “desert power” and implication it’s about politics instead of just wanting to manipulate the share price. Like some discussion remind me of reading the minutes of a small factory instead of this supposedly archaic medieval society.

Also, somebody mentioned before about how it’s silly to imagine a scenario in which the Emperor uses violence to take control of the Imperium and Arrakis directly. This is what Paul does. He takes a gun and points it at the spice; at which point the megacorp and all this supposedly subtle politics goes away. So it’s not out of nowhere to suggest the Emperor just do what the protagonist did since were shown it is possible to do that.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Yeah like I was struck in the early chapters how prominent Choam is and that the Imperium is more like a mega Corp where they’re just Oligarches owning a lot of assets and looking for their cut. The film does have them briefly talk of profits but there’s a lot more “desert power” and implication it’s about politics instead of just wanting to manipulate the share price. Like some discussion remind me of reading the minutes of a small factory instead of this supposedly archaic medieval society.

Also, somebody mentioned before about how it’s silly to imagine a scenario in which the Emperor uses violence to take control of the Imperium and Arrakis directly. This is what Paul does. He takes a gun and points it at the spice; at which point the megacorp and all this supposedly subtle politics goes away. So it’s not out of nowhere to suggest the Emperor just do what the protagonist did since were shown it is possible to do that.

The main difference is that the Emperor WANTS to keep his Empire. His entire political, economic and social structure that upholds him (and all the Great Houses and humanity at large) relies heavily upon the transportation that the Navigators Guild and Spice allows. Basically they need the structure to be maintained.

On the other hand the Fremen do not care at all about anything outside of Arrakis. They do not care one bit if Spice Production and export ends; in fact they'd be rather happy if everyone just went away and left them alone. That's why Paul can whip them up into such a powerful force and do things the other factions cannot; because he really can make that gambling roll of the whole stack of cards falling down.


The Emperor, or any other Great House, just can't do that. They cannot risk everything falling apart around them. Yes they want more power and will use warfare to enable that, but they don't actually want the entire status quo to be destroyed. They just want to shuffle around who is on top at any one time and gain the greatest wealth and influence for themselves. It's all internal politics.
The Fremen are external to that and because they are they have the ability to seriously mess with it and change the status quo.

Notice how the Emperor can't just declare war and destroy the Atredies and their army and political power that they had. He simply enables the Harkonans to do it for him with some aid in secret. Heck the Emperor doesn't even have the ability to sanction the Atredies into submission. He has to move them into a more vulnerable position on Arrakis and allow the Harkonans to do the dirty work and even then its basically only possible because they can do it all quickly without causing a huge interruption in spice production. Afterwards the Harkonans also have to sell out huge spice reserves and mine harder to recoup their massive investment in the war.



Another thought - don't think of the Emperor sitting there with the whole army behind him. He's a feudal king with an army; however each of the lords (great houses) also have their own armies behind them. Each one of which can rise to be greater (numerically) than the Emperor's. It's not like a modern country where the ruling power has the entire army at their command; this is a system where each House has their own force and the Emperor is just one Great House that rose to the top and maintained that position.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
We never see the shields work.

Yes we do, we see Feyd using one and its effect.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Plus show don’t tell. You don’t see the shields resisting conventional weapons on the film and we see an aweful lot of conventional weapons actually killing them away.

So you didn't pay attention to either this film or the previous one at all then? Got it.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The shields are definitely a source of plotholes regarding ranged weapons and combat in general. If lasgun+shields really equals a nuclear detonation, then those small micro-drones should be outfitted with small lasers and used as suicide bombs. The user of the drone would be well outside the blast radius of a personal shield's detonation so they could simply use the drone to destroy anybody foolish enough to use shields with at least moderately limited collateral damage.

That is not the case. When the little needle seeker drone went after Paul and he avoided it the first thing they say is the controller must be close by. They found the guy hidden in the wall down the hallway. The range is not great on those things. And those explosions can be HUGE. They describe it as being anything from a detonation that kills 5-10 people to a detonation that wipes out both opposing forces on a battlefield. Then throw in that it looks like the atomics. If Harokonans leave and then a little drone outfitted with a laser nukes Paul and the entire building every great house, the navigators, CHOAM, and the Emperor would be forced to wipe the Harkonans from existence.

Fair enough on the range of the drones, but I still find it hard to believe that you couldn't fix that. And a detonation that kills 5-10 people seems to be the perfect size for a cheap suicide drone to take out shield users so I think my point still stands. It doesn't seem particularly hard in the Dune-iverse to get someone to do a suicide attack either so who cares if the operator dies?

Alternately, if shields are so effective against even melee weapons such that "The slow knife penetrates the shield" is quite literally true, then melee should genuinely be useless with their technology level. Simply giving everybody chainmail armor would make melee combat a frustratingly futile thing. You swing hard enough to get through armor, the shield stops you. You swing slow enough to get through the shield, the armor stops you. So you'd be left wrestling on the ground trying to slowly drive ice-picks through each other. And that is only if you kept the armor medieval, let alone actually went for some power armor with sci-fi alloys which realistically should be impenetrable to some low speed jabs. And it really doesn't seem like their melee weapons are anything particularly special, they don't have power weapons or anything like that.

The "slow knife" isn't THAT slow. It's a particular speed that is drilled into everyone.

It would still be too slow to deal with sci-fi or even real historical armor. Any amount of punch pulling to bypass a shield is going to make trying to get through real armor useless. It will literally devolve to wrestling with opponents trying to force your little icepick through any gaps, gaps which probably don't exist thanks to sci-fi technology and materials applied to the armor.

Heck, bladed weapons in general can't get through even moderately well-made armor no matter how hard you swing it. Only way to get through armor with a bladed weapon is to apply a lot of force through the point of your sword, and a lot of force means the shield is going to stop it. Or you don't use a bladed weapon at all, but a blunt weapon is likewise going to be stopped by the shield.

Frankly, the shields in Dune are poorly thought out from a mechanical perspective and the effects it has on the story.

Well don't forget the Atreides are armored, at least when they first deploy to Arrakis. We never really get to see that armor in action, presumably because the entire Atreides garrison was asleep when the Harkonnens showed up and they don't have time to suit up.

Presumably though, as was the case in real life, that armor comes at the cost of mobility, and leaves the combatants more vulnerable to strikes at exposed joints and unarmored fleshy bits. The fully armored knight of medieval europe was hardly invulnerable, and it often wasn't high speed blows that killed them.

There is a line in the books that goes something like “lasguns were clunky and expensive, so the Atreides preferred to rely on their shields and their wits.” I think it’s mentioned a few times that lasguns are temperamental and difficult to maintain. And it definitely states a couple of times that lasgun-shield interactions are unpredictable; it might be a nuclear explosion that wipes out an entire battlefield or it might just be a fizzle that does nothing. So even if you were willing to use suicide drones, they might not do what you intended them too, which is not a great basis for tactical planning.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
We never see the shields work.

Yes we do, we see Feyd using one and its effect.

If he wanted to stop being stabbed by a knife he could wear plate armour. It’s not very impressive and does not communicate the sort of god tier cheat code people claim it is. Plus, first film a shell goes clean through a shield into an Atreides troop transport. Not sure why they bothered wasting money animating something that has no relevance to the plot of story. There’s a lot of scenes where those shields do not work and these are money shot scenes.

We are not shown the shields make you immune to an artillery shell landing next to you and that it would prevent you being propelled into the air like a balloon. We are not shown people tanking 50 cal bullets like Kryptonians. That has to be shown otherwise it’s just fans rationalising away plot holes. If the shields generated total inertia then why does any force work on them at all? For example somebody said burying somebody under a building wouldn’t kill them. Not sure how being slowly crushed into paste isn’t slowed by the thing resisting it. Why would it stop fire if a person can still breathe.

Again, it’s just dumb and they aside from a special effect people die it’s not used. You can’t establish something’s effect by its absence.

Bro does not want Dune to be Dune or sci-fi.

 Gert wrote:
Bro does not want Dune to be Dune or sci-fi.

So you’re saying the shields are set dressing? Its mentioned in the book so we’ll put it in.

I think, at the time he was writing it wasn’t as accepted a trope in sci fi that people can just fight in close combat because it’s space fantasy. So like in Foundation he felt he had to provide some hand wave justification instead of leaning on the audience trope.

Plus the shields in Dune run counter to how most other shields work. Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo where it’s a defence but shoot it enough and it goes down. Having an absolute handwave to all damage apart from a slow knife is very specific and very jarring in the context of more modern sci fi.

It’s also odd to introduce something and then mark it by its absence.

Sometimes you just have to roll with a setting and open up to the story being told.

Dune requires all combat to be resolved by personal knife fights in order for the “harsh climes make harsh men” trope to matter, or for Bene Gesserit self-mastery to impress as it does. It’s all about the power of the human being. Air strikes on armored divisions don’t really tell that story.


But yeah, we see lots of shielded people shoved or thrown around. Even if the shield disperses the momentum over the whole human body, a jackhammer or large caliber firearm would still be a deadly threat, even if the person inside the shield is wearing armor.


As for the Honored Matres fighting the Fremen…

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So you’re saying the shields are set dressing? Its mentioned in the book so we’ll put it in.

I'm saying you've looked at Dune and gone "I don't want any of this". You don't want Dune to be Dune, you want it to be not-Dune.

It’s also odd to introduce something and then mark it by its absence.

Again, pay attention to the film and you'll get why the shields aren't at the final battle. You can't fault the films because you didn't listen or watch.

 Gert wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So you’re saying the shields are set dressing? Its mentioned in the book so we’ll put it in.

I'm saying you've looked at Dune and gone "I don't want any of this". You don't want Dune to be Dune, you want it to be not-Dune.

It’s also odd to introduce something and then mark it by its absence.

Again, pay attention to the film and you'll get why the shields aren't at the final battle. You can't fault the films because you didn't listen or watch.

I’ve looked at Dune and said I don’t like it. I fundamentally disagree with almost every point Frank Herbert makes and he presents a ridiculous case study to back up his conservative ideas. It’s a mark of the quality of the film maker that he made gold out of dated junk. Wouldn’t have went to see film twice otherwise.

I’ve already stated various scenes where the shields don’t work and it’s on you if you ignore them. The critique amounts to “well the shield does work you just don’t see it. Frank was so clever in his world building” But we see the shields fail repeatedly in the film.

1 - In the Battle of Arakeen a shell passes clean through a ships shield.
1A - Harkonan drop ships are shot down by cannons.
2 - Shielded Atreides troops are shown as being knocked down and killed by the firestorm of their ships exploding around them.
2A - Duke Leto has a dart caught in his back which for dramatic tension is made incredibly slow as it punches through the suddenly very resilient shield. Not a gun.
3 - A pike wall of Atreides get killed by Sardaukar taking light swipes on each other. Also, they clearly use spears so all this “bayonets would be useless” is ignoring them using spears.
4 - Duncan lightly swipes a few of the shielded Sardaukar. No slow blades.
5 - The Harkonan decide not to turn on their shields because they’re worried a worm might attack them. So get sniped by the peasant scum. Why? You haven’t shown shields deflect bullets and how is a worm going to get you if you can fly and already fled onto the mountain to escape it. Silly scene. Not been established it protects against guns.
6 - Copter blocks one shot and then the second doesn’t work because “firing interrupts the shield”. Not how it worked in the previous film and just made up to add tension to the scene.
7 - Chani shoots a Harkonan soldier with a missile launcher and he’s sent flying.
8 - Chani missile gets caught in the shield and like with the troop transport buzzed through the shield.
9 - Harvester gets destroyed by lasguns. The thing that attracts worms anyway so has no reason not to put its shields on.
10 - Montage of Paul shooting down shielded copters and harvesters.
11 - Harkonan planes shot down by missiles with the shield effect shown.
12 - Feyd gets protection from a knife. That’s not very impressive.
12 - Boulders crushing Sardaukar from a nuke exploding. Great to see that inertia in action.
13 - ornithopters being one shot by missiles again and the shields offering no protection.
14 - Sardaukar being killed in close combat with light taps and swipes.
15 - Arrakeen planes being shot down in the background as Gurney lightly taps people and they go down (clip with the banner)

Really, in which scene do we a Fedaykin go all Kryptonian and wade through machine gun fire? That’s an aweful lot of this thing not working that we’ve never seen work.

Wheel of Time did the same thing where they established all the characters were god level mages and then came up with every reason under the sun why they couldn’t solve problems with magic. It gets annoying when you introduce a story element only to keep coming up with reasons it isn’t being used.

Surely there's a better place to fight your lonely war against a Hugo and Nebula award-winning book/series and critically acclaimed films.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I’ve looked at Dune and said I don’t like it. I fundamentally disagree with almost every point Frank Herbert makes and he presents a ridiculous case study to back up his conservative ideas. It’s a mark of the quality of the film maker that he made gold out of dated junk. Wouldn’t have went to see film twice otherwise.

Frank "Don't trust your government because it will inherently attract those who seek power for their personal gain" Herbert? Frank "Beware the dangers of allowing religion to dictate your freedoms" Herbert? Frank "Opposed to the Vietnam War because it perpetuated the cycle of violence" Herbert?
What are you smoking and can I have some?
This isn't the original Starship Troopers where the author very explicitly wrote a book glorifying "manliness", war and violence. Literally the whole point of Dune is about how power corrupts and about being wary of figures of authority and not blindly accepting their words.


Cool so now you're making stuff up and spinning it to your personal interpretation to justify your incorrect points. There's no discussion here, just you shouting at a cloud.

Nixon said he wanted to end the war as well. Talking about small government is just classic libertarianism. Plenty of right wing writers present themselves as being on the side of the little guy and to distrust people who complain. That’s a hallmark of right wing conservatism.

It’s a point by point of every scene in the film where shields are.

Frank Herbert and his *conservative * ideas???!?

Expert troll. EXPERT troll. You had me convinced you were just dense, but now I get it. Very well played.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Plus, first film a shell goes clean through a shield into an Atreides troop transport. Not sure why they bothered wasting money animating something that has no relevance to the plot of story. There’s a lot of scenes where those shields do not work and these are money shot scenes.

1-The shell slowed down to pass through the shield you numpty. You clearly *did not* pay attention to what DV was trying to SHOW you instead of TELLING you.

Also most of your other examples are of things that aren't shielded or being misinterpreted incorrectly - because you didn't pay attention.

1A-The harkonnen dropships are unshielded once they deploy the air bags and start dropping troops. They are being shot down because they have no shields, they don't have shields because it's too difficult to deploy troops through a shield into a combat drop, because the troops can't use shields while doing so.

2-The atreides troops are being knocked around and killed by fragmentation from the explosions, not the blast. That's why atreides troops right next to the guys getting killed aren't bothered at all by the detonation, because they aren't getting hit by the fragmentation themselves - the blast does nothing to them. Note too that much of the blast is being contained within the shiekds of the atreides ships, whatever is getting through is stuff that was either slow enough to penetrate the shiekd in the first place, or which was sufficiently slowed by the shiekd to make it through them. It's also not entirely clear that they are wearing shields at that point, we aren't shown much of the shield action as they are fighting the Harkonnens in the landing fields, only within the city/palace. The Harkonnens that Gurney dispatches aren't wearing shields, and in general shields are not used in Arrakis due to the worm issues.

2A-The Dart is designed to penetrate shields by slowing down - it is fired from a gun. Again, if you paid attention to what DV was SHOWING you, you'd understand it and wouldn't need to be told.

3/4-The spears are used to push back the harkonnens and/or disarm them more than they are to kill them. Also lol at "light swipes" - all of the sardaukar and Duncan's movements are relatively slow compared to what you would see in literally any other movie.

5-The fact that shields protect against guns is established early in part 1 on Caladan - Paul turns his shield on prior to sparring Gurney and takes two quick swings against his hand which are blocked, then takes a third slow strike which penetrates. You're being SHOWN that fast = no, slow = yes. If a quick strike from a blade can't penetrate a shield, a gun wont either. The fact that every projectile that does pentrate a shield is very directly shown to slow down should also be a big clue. Gurney even delivers the famous "the slow blade penetrates the shield line", what more do you want?

The reason to not use shields on the mountain is because the vibration of the holtzman field will still be felt by the worms through the rock, and thus it will still attract the worms. They may not be able to get to the Harkonnens, but the Harkonnens won't be able to leave the mountain either, unless the worms kill themselves smashing into the rock (seems unlikely) - also keep in mind the worms commonly exceed 500m in length, so they should in theory be able to reach the harkonnens on top by rearing up on their length, assuming they are smart enough to know that the shield is up there. Either way, the worms could easily wait out the Harkonnens, so not exactly a winning strategy.

6-Not sure what you think the issue with the thopter in the previous film is - in the previous one they are only shown firing missiles, not guns, and those missiles are dropped before their motors ignite, presumably to drop through shields - assuming the shiekds are even on, we are quite simply never shown that to be the case.

7-The harkonnen soldier sent flying by chani didn't have a shield.

8-The missile that shot down the thopter was caught inside the shield, as in the thopter brought it's shield up with the missile inside it already. Evidently the dynamics of this situation is a bit different from a projectile striking a shield from outside.

9-Once again, harvesters don't use shields because it sends the worms into a frenzy and attracts many worms to its location in the process, whereas only one will come in normal operation and its only there to feed on what it believes to be food. Period, end of. That's all the reasoning we need. A swarm of angry worms is presumably a different problem from a single hungry one, and that's rationale enough to not bother shielding a harvester.

10-None of what was shot down in the montage was shielded, much of them were destroyed by lasers. You seem to assume everything is shielded, that is not the case.

11- It's a slow missile (you can watch it slowly advance on the target thopter when it's fired), also the rhopter is firing on them. Presumably it's a similar situation to what we saw with Chani earlier in terms of timing, as we never see the red-shift as the missile tries to hit it. The other two chapters glow blue, presumably from fragmentation, but aren't damaged and continue flying.

12-they weren't shielded

13-see 11.

14-again, lol

15-the only thopters I recall in these scenes were ones being shot down as they try to lift off, no shields.

Because Frank Herbert is a conservative.

Examples of shields not working is examples of showing they do work? Yeah they don’t work.

What we are shown in Paul’s training session is a piece of fencing gear to protect him from sword blows. If they wanted to demonstrate the thing was bulletproof he would have shot him or a training dummy with the thing on.Denis isn’t trying to prove it’s bulletproof because he never shows the thing resisting bullets.

If they can make a missile slow enough it can pierce the shield then they should all be using rocket launchers. Y’all saying the things totally immune to projectile weapons and now moving the goal post.

Also it takes seconds to turn a shield on so they should be activating them when they’re in life or death situations. Such as a harvester being shot at. Or if they’re already fighting giant worms.

You see the shield effect on the copters in the Sardaukar battle. The worms are already in a killing frenzy so there’s no reason for the Sardaukar not to turn their shields on and they should be armed with guns.

The Emperor goes to Arrakis because he is challenged by Paul with his army of Fremen.So he knows there’s going to be a fight with unshielded opponents so he should be doing prep before going in.

They are not slow blades.


Plus, the Wheel of Time point is apt. I can’t stand introducing a major piece of world building to then ignore it or come up with reason after reason it can’t be used or it doesn’t work. It gets really eye rolling as you read book after book where they don’t do the thing they’re supposed to be able to do. So why bother having that be a thing?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Because Frank Herbert is a conservative.

Prove it.

You are exhausting.

The manner in which shields function are clearly demonstrated throughout the films.

You're shifting goalposts with this nonsense about fencing gear.

Specialized projectiles designed to penetrate shields by slowing down doesn't mean it's a weapon worth using in every situation. I explained it previously, a weapon moving too slowly to be blocked by a shield is a weapon that's often only useful against static targets. Anything else is going to be moving too fast for it to usually be effective. A normal gun probably isn't going to be able to shoot a bullet with all the necessary internal gizmos to make that work. Rocket Launchers are pretty capable weapons in the modern day, moreso than a rifle - yet not everyone is running around with one, for good reason.

The sardaukar can't use their shield because the coriolis storm is overloading them. That's literally explained in the film, it's why Paul timed things the way he dud, to Rob them of it. On that note, it may also explain why the thopters are being shot down during the battle - the shields are failing because the storm. The Sardaukar aren't armed with guns because those aren't standard issue because on every other planet in the Known Universe they are pretty much useless.

The Emperor goes to Arrakis to bring the Baron to heel. He's not there to fight Paul, and if Paul tries to strike at him his Sardaukar force should have been more than enough to overpower the believed maximum strength of the Fremen. That there are millions if them and they have all joined together in an army of religious fanatics is not something he's aware of.

They are slow blades, 6-9cm/s is the threshold, that's about right for what's shown on screen.

 Gert wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Because Frank Herbert is a conservative.

Prove it.

- He’s suspicious of big government. This implies an idealised image of individualistic Americana. That’s a conservative point.

- His vilification of the Fremen is a clear reference to Nassers Arab Nationalism who like Paul sought to unite the Arab world when the book was written. Socialist leaning enemies of the United States. There is a lot of othering in the book. So the bad we see isn’t calling out the evils in his own society but a case of “don't become like the foreigners.”. By making the world so strange you have to really reach to compare it to the United States. This isn’t like Helldivers or the Boys where the satire is inward looking. It’s a call to preserve what makes America this civic nation of free men et etc.

- He was hostile towards JFK and claimed Nixon was unfairly called out. He claimed JFK was never opposed people thought he was the charismatic leader; this ignores an awful lot of criticism JFK took. A lot of it due to seeking to reverse Jim Crow laws or his Catholic heritage. Much of which centered on the idea his religion would interfere with his politics as he would be loyal to the Pope and America had traditionally seen itself as a Protestant country. Casts his anti religious stance in a bad light. Plus it’s in very bad taste and a blatant lie to characterise JFK as having never been criticised.

- The books primary focus is fear of heroes and to encourage suspicion of people wanting change or to improve things. Paul says he will free the Fremen who seem like an oppressed people and it turns into a totalitarian nightmare of blood. Same as Burkes commentary on the Terror of the French Revolution. This very much is a Burkean notion that upsetting the natural order of society is unnatural and will bring about catastrophe. The people most likely to want to advocate for change are figures on the left and not those wanting things to stay as they are. He certainly isn’t calling for change.

- Vladimir Harkonan??? Hmmm. Better dead than red.

So from that, yeah this is a Cold Warrior writing a conservative work in the style of Edmund Burke.

Plus he was related to McCarthy.

Also it’s the 60s Civil Rights era and he’s talking about the dangers of charismatic leaders and their followings. Well come on, he’s not talking about the American right here. “Nixons back!” 😄

Vladimir Harkonnen isn't a fear of communists.

He's a homophobic stereotype.

Any explanation which refers to the book(s) is a moot point when I didn't go to the cinema to read the book.

If it makes total sense that nobody knows what's happening in the south because the Fremen are bribing the navigators, then that should have been in the film in some form (although the smuggling of spice then raises more questions around orbital security...)

I’d like to see specific quotes by him on JFK and Richard Nixon because I suspect you are misrepresenting his famous quote about how JFK was dangerous because he was charismatic and Nixon was valuable because he demonstrated so blatantly why we should be suspicious of those in power.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’d like to see specific quotes by him on JFK and Richard Nixon because I suspect you are misrepresenting his famous quote about how JFK was dangerous because he was charismatic and Nixon was valuable because he demonstrated so blatantly why we should be suspicious of those in power.

It’s a video on YouTube. Looked all over, can’t find the one. Had a look and I think this is the quote.

“HERBERT: There is definitely an implicit warning, in a lot of my work, against big government . . . and especially against charismatic leaders. After all, such people-well-intentioned or not-are human beings who will make human mistakes. And what happens when someone is able to make mistakes for 200 million people? The errors get pretty damned BIG!
For that reason, I think that John Kennedy was one of the most dangerous presidents this country ever had. People didn't question him. And whenever citizens are willing to give unreined power to a charismatic leader, such as Kennedy, they tend to end up creating a kind of demigod . . . or a leader who covers up mistakes—instead of admitting them—and makes matters worse instead of better. Now Richard Nixon, on the other hand, did us all a favor.

- You feel that Kennedy was dangerous and Nixon was good for the country?

HERBERT: Yes, Nixon taught us one hell of a lesson, and I thank him for it. He made us distrust government leaders. We didn't mistrust Kennedy the way we did Nixon, although we probably had just as good reason to do so. But Nixon's downfall was due to the fact that he wasn't charismatic. He had to be sold just like Wheaties, and people were disappointed when they opened the box.“


He frames it as Nixon was caught and then goes on to say that JFK was given the benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t. He really really wasn’t. So he is disavowing Nixon post watergate but he effectively says JFK was as much a rogue as Nixon but he got a pass because he was charismatic. Which ignores an aweful of criticism around JFK. Plus, I think most people hear charismatic leaders are bad and assume he is talking about somebody else. Even the interviewer is a little taken aback by Frank Herbert implying no difference between Nixon and JFK. JFK was absolutely no Saint but Nixon did some monstrous things which should never be talked of in the same manner.

I think he’s wrong. Nixon very consciously appealed to this patrician image, always talked about Eisenhower implying he was his protege and presented himself as the safe pair of hands. That IS an act and is a form of manipulation. It’s just in Frank Herbert’s world view that isn’t being charismatic and so he leaves you blind to the Stalins and Robespierre of this world. Most tyrants aren’t actually charismatic they just obtain the mechanisms of power.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sometimes you just have to roll with a setting and open up to the story being told.

Yeah. Dune is one of those settings you need to consciously turn a blind eye towards its faults and just focus on the story itself.

It will inherently annoy us nerds who love to discuss the minutia of a settings technology, magic, etc... due to its problems in that department. Dune was written to convey a message, not give enjoyment in its internally consistent immersion, to its reader.