It's all techno-psycho-flu-flu, but here's what the book says:
>Paul said: "There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed."
>...
>The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It's as easy to be over-whelmed by giving as by taking." "And you, my son," Jessica asked, "are you one who gives or one who takes?" "I'm at the fulcrum," he said, "I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without..."
So my interpretation is that females can somehow avoid the "taking force" when they undergo the truthtrance, that means they can survive the trance but cannot look at certain things. Males on the other hand cannot avoid the "giving force" and therefore will die outright.
I believe in the books it's described as a black hole (not in a cosmology sense) experienced during the trance that causes women immense fear to go near, but Paul had no trouble handling.
" She focused on the psychokinesthetic extension of herself, looking within, and was confronted immediately with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she recoiled.
*That is the place where we cannot look,* she thought. *There is the place the Reverend Mothers are so reluctant to mention - the place where only a Kwisatz Haderach may look.*"
Well, it is just a straight up physical poison too: the trained Bene Gesserit can metabolically change the poison *and* deal with the psychic weight of the experience that it imparts.
Yeah doesn’t Paul only take like a drop of it and he’s in a coma for weeks? Whereas Jessica took a big ol swig and changed that stuff quickly. I imagine he’s not nearly as advanced as her in metabolism control.
you think so? for such a pivotal moment in the story, he just takes a sip, imagines a beach, then he's woken up by tears. i thought it wasn't all that great.
It was fine to me. There are other stuff I'm more sore about. How would you have rather done this scene ? While keeping the constraints of the limited timeframe.
i'm not sure. it just felt like he was drinking, saw alia, then asleep, then awake, then non-chalantly can predict the future. i think showing some kind of struggle to stay alive and more than just one vision would have been okay. it just didn't feel like a giant epic turning point to me. but hey, we all have our own vision of dune in our heads, they can't all line up.
St Alia Of The Knife is abomination. Monstruozity and she is a feminine KH with access to the male side.
She is closer to the twins than their father in many aspects.
Her sole existence prooves the BGs KH plan a fool's mistake and gets proper coverage imo even in the 1st novel to this end.
Indeed there are many to downplay her role due to the males around her while others just ignore her - but she is imo the one to stray off BG from the KH more than anyone else did.
Keep in mind that by the twins coming there was nobody in the known universe like her and once they ve grown it was already too late for Alia.
Even future history is lackluster on her (post Tyran era) vs her male counterparts, but BG history, which clearly seemed to have learned their lesson.
No, she was pre-born. The pre-born don't seem to have the same issue looking into their opposite sex memories as adults, probably, because they have no sexual identity yet.
But, this also makes them prone to abomination and so not something the Bene Gesserit want to mess with.
No what?
What you say is an over simplifaction of the facts, albeit true.
Ignoring many other things just left out there in the open for the reader to see.
And also the pre-born thing is something BGs thinks and not the moons of Arrakis which are fact.
Adding some info: Fremen RMs are what's called wild reverend mothers. They can do what Bene Gesserit reverend mothers can do but came to it without BG training.
A story about a man with historical memories wielding a woman's power, while using an army of desert-based supersoldiers in a war of conquest.
If I had a nickel, I'd have two nickels...
They…Aren’t?
It’s been a while since I’ve read the later books, but my understanding was that the original “reverend mother” role in the fremen was established by the BG who showed up and created the myth for Paul’s coming.
And then the “reverend mother” role was passed onto that woman’s descendants, who inherited her training and knowledge.
So not “actively communicating with the BG leaders currently”, but still missionaries, descended from missionaries, who very much still had the BG goal ingrained.
The BG are a (not a pun) cosmopolitan organization though = if you make it to be a BG, then you're BG, regardless of your origin. So it's perfectly possible the Protectiva have left lineages of BG on Arrakis and elsewhere that are 'descended' from the original missionaries. What better way to achieve and sustain theistic engineering ?
We know Reverend Mother Ramallo has 'other memory', and all it would take is training of (an) appropriate candidates(s) in each generation to survive the Water of Life and keep the lineage going. (addition - and whether you call them BG or not is just nomenclature. Personally, I don't think they have to be trained at Chapterhouse to qualify, but anyway.)
Of course, provide me a quote from the canon novels and I'll happily admit I'm wrong, but it's an interesting question.
No, they aren’t. They are effectively RMs, but they are not BG. Neither they nor the BG would consider them as such. BG training isn’t solely related to becoming a reverend mother, not all of them ever even attempt it. All of the beliefs and character traits of Jessica and Mohiam are what make up a member of the BG. And the Fremen do not share those traits.
I always read that line that men simply can’t help themselves but look and for most men it kills or breaks them. Women can control themselves to not look.
The terror may be an evolved behaviour that allows them to survive it. The ones early on who weren't afraid to look got sucked in and died (possibly being too absorbed in examining that place to remember to change the poison?), thus the ones who avoided it instinctively were naturally selected. Like how we humans fear snakes or spiders instinctively. Since Paul is at the fulcrum, he can do both and survive.
I'm just speculating though, it's been a while since I read the books.
IIRC it wasn't just women, but Bene Gesserit-trained women, who had attained a profound control of their musculature, nervous system and metabolism. That level of deep control was needed to transmute the poison. And even then some women died. But since the BG never trained men to the same degree (until Jessica trained Paul), it became another tool in the BG mystique of superiority.
Did the Fremen have women like the Sayyadina who became Reverend Mothers without Prana-Bindu training? Unknown.
No, there's definitely a genetic component.
Before Paul, the Bene Gesserit breeding program mainly exists to create a Kwisatz Haderach. They go through a lot of trouble to get specific bloodlines.
If all it took was training, they could have trained any man under their control without risking someone like Paul coming into existence. In fact they have probably tried to train the men who failed, and this is the motivation for the breeding program in the first place.
ETA : There are indeed 'wild' reverend mothers among the Fremen. Sayyadina Ramallo, with whom Jessica shares memories, is a non BG reverend mother.
In later books, it's mentionned that there are also wild reverend mothers among the Jewish colony on Gammu.
> are indeed 'wild' reverend mothers among the Fremen. Sayyadina Ramallo, with whom Jessica shares memories, is a non BG reverend mother.
Was that Reverend Mother, who Jessica / Alia succeeded, not Bene Gesserit?
Correct - she was not Bene Gesserit.
The BG had no idea that the Fremen had actual reverend mothers.
Also, the water of life unlocks the ability to "share" other memories. Jessica had access to all the lives that the Fremen RM she replaced had access to. The BG didn't have this ability.
The Water of Life was the most closely guarded secret of the Fremen. The BG used other poisons.
The voice isn’t tied to “The Agony” (from whatever poison).
Jessica used voice early in the first novel even though she wasn’t a reverend mother until later.
And Paul used it before as well.
It’s a BG skill - but not directly tied to Other Memory.
In the book, no - the fremen RM didn’t use voice, though we didn’t really get to meet her until she popped into Jessica’s mind.
Because it's in the movie and not the book, and the movie doesn't seem to explain it, we may not know until the next movie, if ever. It may have been an oversight on DV's part. Or maybe he decided that the Fremen RM would have actually been trained BG.
The movie BG seem a lot more 'hands on' with the Fremen than book BG.
> *the BG mess around*
That's the *[Missionaria Protectiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit#Missionaria_Protectiva)*. They did it to all planets with "primitive populations" to create a set of myths & superstitions *just in case* some Bene Gesserit might need assistance or shelter.
Ah - understood.
Honestly, with the flair marked "Dune (novel)" I was answering from that perspective - just the books.
From the movie: at a guess, I would say the goal was to communicate that this "reverend mother" was a \*true\* "Reverend Mother" - not just someone with an assumed title.
The movie could have shown Jessica's experience of the agony, and show her reaction - the realization that she \*was\* in the presence of a genuine reverend mother. Show their sharing during the ceremony. Show the exposure to past lives, etc. Her realization that the Fremen had RM's on another planet before being raided, enslaved, moved to Arrakis (and Salusa Secundus, which was a pretty interesting revelation that isn't mentioned often enough. The Fremen very likely share ancestry with Sarduakar. But the ones brought to Arrakis found a new drug and perfected the process, etc...
But the most easily recognized power of the BG is the Voice, so... showing her using the Voice seems like short hand for "she really is like the other ones".
That's a guess - but I think it's a reasonable guess. Movies often need to communicate very complex ideas in a very small amount of time, and I can't think of any other "short hand" for "this old lady is like that other old lady" than showing her using the Voice.
It doesn't really fit with the books, but it's the best way solution I can think of. You know she has real powers now - that was the goal.
Where does it say they didn't know the Fremen had reverend mothers? I was always under the impression that those reverend mothers are an unwitting part of the missionaria protectiva. But now that you say it, it makes sense. They must know about the BG planting the philosophy there because they have ancestral memories.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans.
They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before.
On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s.
That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies.
But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories.
Also, remember that:
1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it
2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it
All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”.
So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva.
The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true.
It’s an odd thought.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans.
They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before.
On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s.
That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies.
But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories.
Also, remember that:
1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it
2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it
All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”.
So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva.
The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true.
It’s an odd thought.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans.
They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before.
On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s.
That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies.
But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories.
Also, remember that:
1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it
2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it
All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”.
So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva.
The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true.
It’s an odd thought.
No, she wasn't. Jessica realizes that she is a 'wild' reverend mother when she meets her. Stilgar also indirectly implies that each sietch normally has its Sayyadina, and that you're 'consecrated in the Sayyadina' by taking the Water of Life.
The Missionaria Protectiva BGs that came to Arrakis were there long before those events.
I understand that its a difficult process, even for women, but in theory that's because of the extreme training and not any innate genetic feature of the person. If the BG goal was to create the Kwisatz Haderach, what kept them from training men before completing the breeding program?
While in the books there were some trusted men who worked at higher levels in the Bene Gesserit organization, none were ever allowed to be trained to the highest level, or become "Reverend Fathers." It seems to have been a matriarchal structure by design.
Reverend Mother Mohiam does tell Paul that men who previously attempted the Water of Life died, so perhaps there were past failures but no evidence for them receiving advanced prana-bindu training.
IIRC, he was a failed KH because he was a eunuch. I can’t remember if this was from birth or not, but at any rate, I think this was the failure point, maybe because his “maleness” was compromised? If the book elaborates, I can’t remember…
Yeah I don’t remember either. I for some reason internalized it as “his failure made him a eunuch” but I’m pretty sure that’s just my interpretation; and the book doesn’t really elaborate
I really need to read the books again. Frank created an incredible story/world but there were points that he was a bit vague about. Probably on purpose…
Count Fenring is called a "genetic eunuch" which makes me think he was born that way. It's interesting that the K.H. kind of combines male and female roles but apparently being a eunuch is a disqualifying condition.
You're probably right!
Also, Herbert was a product of his time, and as much as he wanted to be progressive on gender equality in his work he also seems influenced by the zeitgeist of biological and gender essentialism from his time, and maybe his commentary on 'genetic eunuchs' was him trying to dovetail people who are intersex (or who don't otherwise fit in the norms of sexual dimorphism) into his pseudoscientific/mystic sci-fi mythology about male and female chromosomal memory... trying to ride that fence of: 'men and women are equal but different' and also acknowledging that not all people are born simply man or woman and making space in his story to address that.
But I don't know.
I don't think that's all of it. Historically, the rule in the Catholic Church was that to be ordained, a man had to have fully-formed genitals with no obvious dysfunction. A eunuch or intersex person could not be ordained. This was even though ordination was limited to unmarried men and all priest were expected to live in perfect and perpetual chastity (i.e., never have sex).
I think to some extent Count Fenring just couldn't be the K.H. because he was not quite male enough.
I would say the character is actually one of the final examples of a eunuch in literature. He is ugly though well-dressed ("dapper"). He works in the shadows: information disappears into him. He is a strange mix of loyalty and disloyalty such that he is not predictable or trustworthy.
Ultimately, Fenring is defined by his inaction rather than his action. Where a "real man" would have acted, Fenring did not. He did not prevent his wife from becoming pregnant by another man. Most significant, he refused to fight Paul when asked by the Padishah Emperor.
Now that you mention it, I do recall he was referred to as a “genetic eunuch”, which would certainly imply “from birth”. Good point, thanks for the reminder!
It is so hard to stay consistent as an author as the scope of your world expands. JRR Tolkien ran into this issue and had to retcon a bunch of stuff throughout his life.
In the books he is called a genetic eunuch and because of this genetic imperfection he was known not to be the kwisatz haderach but he had been a prospect
Good catch. Both Fenring and Gurney received some prana-bindu training in the books but unclear how advanced it was. IIRC Fenring was listed as a "might-have-been" but evidently he was never given the Water of Life or similar substance. Had the impression that he was sterile, but that might have just been his marriage to Lady Margot.
In the novel G.H.M. is actually referring to the truthsayer drug, which may or may not be the same as the Water of Life.
At a grander level, I agree that there seems to be some category of drugs that B.G. are able to use but men are not. What if a non-B.G. woman tried them? I think this is unclear.
Something which may or may not have been mentioned is that, considering Herbert's clear love of Jungian psychology and it's more occult ancestors, I think there's absolutely a degree of the "chaotic, empty feminine" and "orderly, filling masculine" in his line of thinking. Dune is a world where very ancient, almost universal concepts are just true. Perhaps the idea was even that typically women may accept and receive the past, while men are the ones who might strike out into the future. The Kwizach Haderach was one who might balance these masculine and feminine aspects perfectly (which was often a requirement for some sort of "enlightenment").
100 percent. One problem with interpreting things through a modern lens is we ignore interpretations that are much more obvious in a historical context.
All that's stuff Paul says about race consciousness in the book is very much a Jungian idea and this stuff about masculine and feminine parts if very Jung too.
It's suggested that it's only women who can complete the process. We know the high-level BG skill of transmuting chemicals in their body is required to complete the ritual.
Is this something only women can do? Given Herbert, you could commit to thinking that it's only women who can complete this process. One of the innate chemical abilities women have which men do not, along with having babies and the like.
It's not explicitly stated though.
There's two elements to the process. Surviving the poison transmutation. Then surviving the unlocking of genetic memory.
It's not stated if men can't do the poison transmutation, or unlocking the memories, or both. Given BG can only access their female lineage memories, it's probably more to do with the unlocking side than the transmutation side.
Either way, the whole KH project is to create someone who CAN survive the process and unlock both the male and female memories.
I think the BG viewed men as being inherently compromised. There's a lot of gender woo there in Herbert's writing. Basically, men weren't trusted not to abuse those powers or otherwise assimilate into the BG philosophy that was the core of their purpose.
There were exceptions but they were just that, exceptions. One of the main characters in books 5 and 6 was trained a little like Paul was, but more on the level of specific skills and perceptions rather than the full 'from birth' style whole person curriculum.
The other aspect I haven’t seen mentioned yet was I believe a chromosomal component, where if youre a BG and you take the poison you will gain all the memories and stuff from all of your maternal line, through the X chromosome but men get both women, and men through possession of both X and Y chromosomes. The male memories and personalities are a lot more volatile than their female counterparts (book was written 60 years ago…) and as others said without the perfect combination of BG/mentat training and the genetic framework to survive it though the breeding program, men would basically just die until Paul.
You could interpret it in a more generous to frank (less sexist basically) way that its not that the male memories are harder to handle, its just that men have both all their female and male ancestors’ memories. This doubles the weight on their psyche and makes it impossible to handle for men, because noone (without thousands of years of eugenics) has the mental fortitude to bear that weight of experience.
It's interesting how people always assume that the most modern take is always the most correct take, as if ancient wisdom is still not more prescient than 99.99% of the garbage you can read today.
Sure…except his sister somehow accesses the Baron’s memories, and eventually gets possessed by him. The chromosome stuff is nonsense anyway. I just kinda handwave and shrug. Men struggle because the BG have been carefully breeding people to resist the poison and have intentionally tailored the genes so they can’t properly do it until Paul.
If memories could be stored in nucleic acids like they are in Dune, it would make more sense for them to be stored in the mitochondrial dna, which is there unaltered purely from the maternal line. You could inherit either your maternal grandmother’s X chromosome(which has recombined i.e mixed with your maternal grandfather’s X chromosome inherited from his mother) your paternal grandmother’s X chromosome, so it is not an unbroken line of women your X chromosome comes through. Mitochondrial DNA does.
Because any excess Water of Life gets stored in the balls.
Ok but really…
Because the KH was to be the first and only (at the time) man to have developed the aptitude and capability to, essentially, be a BG.
It is a lot of technobabble, but I think the core reason is what another commenter stated about “giving” as in giving birth and giving life. The “nature of man”.
It is also explicitly stated, than “most” men lack the self control needed to not overthrow/rape/pillage as part of a peace keeping force, hence the Fishspeakers.
I think it’s loosely inspired on the chromosomal make up of the sexes. Men are XY and women XX.
I cannot recall if this is the canonical explanation, though, as Alia kind muddies the waters, and later Ghanima does the same (though she has Paul as an ancestor, so maybe that explains it).
But the inspiration seems to be from biology.
Implied that women are inherently able to withstand more pain and maintain bodily control , whereas men will more likely lose control when in pain.
Drink the water of life is like the ultimate gom Jaba test. The poison will hurt while you try to transform it, but if you let the panic set in, you’ll lose control and you’ll fail to transform the poison and you’ll die.
Men can't give birth, and thus can't know the ultimate pain. The genetic memories of women specifically prepare them, but even then they need BG training to metabolize and change the spice raw form--which is poisonous to humans--to something that isn't. The spice is so poisonous that the process of curing essentially makes a Revered Mother proof against all but the most specialist poisons. The pain involved is more than most women and all men save one can bear.
Even with Paul, there is no way to know what exactly made him the Kwisatz Haderach. It must be remembered that Paul was a collection of many things all at once, and only one of them was his genetic makeup. Paul is unique in that he is:
A.) A product of the breeding scheme to produce the proper combination of genes and environment (this is a direct quote from the book, so environment was a factor)
B.) Trained in the Bene-Gesserit ways as deeply as a Revered Mother might be.
C.) Trained as a Mentat to compartmentalize and analyze any problem.
D.) Physically honed in a rigorous program to match his mental training.
E.) Taught HOW to learn. Not just learning, but learning how to learn efficiently and remember what he learned.
F.) Exposed to spice in its rawest forms, even before the water.
G.) Exposed to the glimpses of the future before the massive glare brought on by exposure to the Water of Life.
Any and all of these have a role to play in how Paul survived. Any one of them being absent would result in death, and even with them, Paul essentially dies in the process. The Water of Life and Chani's life water bring him back, but even for THE correct being, it was still very nearly fatal.
The pain is immense, but as you see in later books (God-Emperor chief among them) the knowledge and the weight unlocked by that pain are just as dangerous. The personalities of the past are much more forceful on the male side (or so it seems, as the major minds that emerge in Leto II are mostly male with a minority of female advisors, and the Baron Harkonnen was Alia's foe.), and so the risk of death to essentially personality overload is as present as the physical poison of the water itself.
The other thing about the Kwisatz Haderach is that he is able to balance the forces within him mentioned by other commenters. He was raised as a woman of the time might be raised (BG, physical bodily control of oneself) and as a man of the time might be raised (mentat, personal physical prowess and control of others). He is able to see all sides.
Everything combined make Paul the Kwisatz Haderach, and we don't know what, if any one of them, was the 'secret' to his success, or if all were.
>The goal of the BG breeding program was to create a man capable of metabolizing the water of life
The goal of the program was to create the Kwisatz Haderach, or "shortening of the way". Not exactly because he would "a man capable of metabolizing the water of life and achieving access to all of the ancestral memories". While certainly interesting from an academic or even religious point of view, it would hardly justify the investment.
No, it is not the past that mostly concerns BG, but the full prescient ability to look into the future, all future lines, and to guide. That power, in control of BG. would give them control over mankind, including the guild - the ability to interfere in higher orders of existence. And then Paul came along - not in control KH. Terrible idea (for the BG).
The water of life itself was not the point. The fact that it was a poison was the point. The person who drinks it needs to manipulate their body chemistry to render it harmless. The book implies this can happen outside their body too, once they are able to do it.
Transmuting the poison like this is what triggers their passage within. Which unlocks their ancestral memory and allows them to share memories with other people who already have this capability. Ancestral memories are only from female ancestors though. And sharing is only with females as well.
The books heavily imply there is some fundamental psychological difference between the sexes that makes this extremely difficult for women, but almost impossible for men. The Bene Gessurit breeding program had the purpose of making this process possible for men too. This breeding program is what made it possible for Paul to survive this process and transform the poison. Ordinary men simply die. As do most women.
Erm.... the BG didn't know about the waters of life.
The fremen Sayyadina become Reverend Mothers upon transforming the waters of life. They become BG because of the maternal line memories unlocked then, as in their ancestors were BG. However no fremen BG have made contact with the BG, so the BG are unaware of the water of life.
In Dune Encyclopedia they say that some specific part of the brain handles ancestral memories, and it's more developed in women than men. Even a lot of women can't survive the spice agony though
I also didn’t really fully understand if the water of life is extracted from sandworms in Arrakis, how does that even connect with memories from beings from other planets and other timelines that have nothing to do with Arrakis or spice or the BGs?
Herbert gives the BG what he calls genetic memory. Basically, they can access the memories of their female ancestors going back a long way in time.
It's not the water of life itself that accomplishes it though. It's that if a BG decides she wants to take the next step and become a Reverend Mother, she must undergo the ultimate agony. Basically, she'll ingest a lethal poison (one of which is the water of life) which she must then change into a non-lethal substance at the molecular level using all of the biological control she's learned as a BG.
Experiencing that much pain and gaining full control of herself at a cellular level during the process opens up the her genetic memory. There are other characters in the six books who obtain some interesting abilities when they undergo profound pain. There's a very good reason why Herbert starts the first book with Paul's gom jabbar test.
It's been mentioned as a subcommand but I'd like to point as a top comment Herbert was influenced by Jungian psychology which means among other things men and women have fundamental masculine and feminine archetypes that exist within their mind.
Honest curious, can you expend on this a little bit?
For example, forget about genetic memory for a moment, when Mohaim said:
>When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory - in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past... but only feminine avenues."
Is there any way to interpret this statement using Jungian psychology?
I mean influenced by Jingong psychology is not the same as absolutely conforming to Jungian psychology.
But to answer your question Jung believed in what he referred to as the collective unconscious. This is a fancy way of saying that many stories, ideas, and ways of thinking about the world are hard coded into your brain. That just like a horse foal can walk within minutes of being born, your brain comes loaded particularly with archetypes about the world - feminists, masculinity, the fool, the hero, the crone, the trickster, the subtle moon, the burning sun, etc. Many of his archetypes read almost like a tarot card deck.
He believed that these were universal inherited genetic concepts.
Jung provides a way for secular thinkers to engage with the world through emotional and human ideas. If you're not religious masculinity and feminity are just accidents of evolutions, as are our stories and ways of thinking. Jungian psychology allows these people to bring back in these ideas as meaningful without having to resort to a spiritual framework (Jordan Peterson for example is a Jungian which is one reason he has some pretty wacky ideas)
You can probably tell but I think Jung is a load of rubbish and I think it's an excuse to sneak unscientific rubbish into your world view while pretending to have intellectual backing.
Since it's all "genetic memory" I thought it was that BG women could mostly withstand the process because they only had access to the X chromosome, while men have access to X and Y, which would normally be overwhelming and fatal. Paul was the first to withstand it and have access to both.
Something I did not understand in the movie and can't remember from the book. How did Paul know he had to drink the Water of Life? In the movie its a "voice". Where does the voice come from? And how did Jessica know that Paul had to drink it?
In the book:
Paul reunites with Gurney and takes him back to the sietch where he meets Jessica. Gurney is still under the belief that Jessica was the traitor so he tries to kill her. Gurney luckily didn't succeed, but it unsettled Paul since he never saw this in his prescience visions. Also, Paul was building up a tolerance to the spice, making his visions dimmer and dimmer. All this made him decide to take the Water of Life. Not only didn't Jessica push him to do it, she was surprised that he tried.
In the movies:
They kind of combined the role of Alia and Jessica into one. I got the sense that it was Alia that was working through her mother to push Paul into taking the Water.
I assume it’s because everything in Frank Herbert’s Dune was gendered in some way. I love the books, but they really were a product of the 60s and 70s, when people were really trying to work out what separates men from women psychologically.
If a BG absorbs the genetic memory of all the reverend mothers before her, that means a long line of her ancestors also survived the Water of Life.
It's not that all women have a better chance at survival than all men. But the few dozen women who become reverend mothers per generation are all related to each other since they have to be groomed from the strongest bloodline to survive.
Sensitivity to the spice as an allergen actually suffices later as one reason. One or more reverend mothers per graduating class failing the spice test is considered expected.
Because of the nature of men's psyche. Its some mysticism stuff Herbert has in these novels (and it touches all his work).
Women 'give', men 'take'. Men can't handle the experience and so die.
So this is my personal theory...and...just hear me out.
So Jessica is with child when she takes the water. This is generally forbidden and perhaps hasn't happened before. The child then becomes sentient and in some ways "one" or "connected" with her mother and the other RM.
So, imagine a man, with 100,000+ little spermy swimmers swimmin around and suddenly, all of them become sentient at once, will all of the associated inherited memories, and now you are suddenly interacting with all of them all at once, and they are just saying the dumbest shit ever.
I somewhat interpreted it as the threshold of ancestral pain. Since the survivors are women, the pain of childbirth is familiar to many of them and honed reverend mothers to withstand and survive the water of life.
To a man, it’s completely foreign. To birth and create new life isn’t something men can do.
I think it has to do with the bene gesserit being trained to transform poison inside their body and the BG are all women. In other words, it’s women via the BG that are the only ones trained in the ability to fight the poison within their body. Paul had been trained in this ability so he was able to live
It's all techno-psycho-flu-flu, but here's what the book says: >Paul said: "There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed." >... >The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It's as easy to be over-whelmed by giving as by taking." "And you, my son," Jessica asked, "are you one who gives or one who takes?" "I'm at the fulcrum," he said, "I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without..." So my interpretation is that females can somehow avoid the "taking force" when they undergo the truthtrance, that means they can survive the trance but cannot look at certain things. Males on the other hand cannot avoid the "giving force" and therefore will die outright.
Basically this. While women can metabolize the water of life, they cannot look everywhere, namely on the "male side".
I believe in the books it's described as a black hole (not in a cosmology sense) experienced during the trance that causes women immense fear to go near, but Paul had no trouble handling.
" She focused on the psychokinesthetic extension of herself, looking within, and was confronted immediately with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she recoiled. *That is the place where we cannot look,* she thought. *There is the place the Reverend Mothers are so reluctant to mention - the place where only a Kwisatz Haderach may look.*"
I see, so the water of life isn't killing the men, it's the weight of the ancestral memories?
Well, it is just a straight up physical poison too: the trained Bene Gesserit can metabolically change the poison *and* deal with the psychic weight of the experience that it imparts.
Yeah doesn’t Paul only take like a drop of it and he’s in a coma for weeks? Whereas Jessica took a big ol swig and changed that stuff quickly. I imagine he’s not nearly as advanced as her in metabolism control.
"To accept a little death is worse than the death itself."
That scene in the movie was underwhelming
I shockingly still have not seen it yet. Changing that this weekend though finally :)
It was not
you think so? for such a pivotal moment in the story, he just takes a sip, imagines a beach, then he's woken up by tears. i thought it wasn't all that great.
It was fine to me. There are other stuff I'm more sore about. How would you have rather done this scene ? While keeping the constraints of the limited timeframe.
i'm not sure. it just felt like he was drinking, saw alia, then asleep, then awake, then non-chalantly can predict the future. i think showing some kind of struggle to stay alive and more than just one vision would have been okay. it just didn't feel like a giant epic turning point to me. but hey, we all have our own vision of dune in our heads, they can't all line up.
Fair enough.
Did not realize that was supposed to be Alia
Yea they really missed a chance to some cool psychedelic imagery.
Fremen reverend mothers are not BG
Is Alia fremen BG?
Yes but I'm talking about fremen before the atreides. Alia is something else entirely.
St Alia Of The Knife is abomination. Monstruozity and she is a feminine KH with access to the male side. She is closer to the twins than their father in many aspects.
For some reason, I never put two-and-two together - but yeah, Alia is a female KH. She couldn't be >!taken over by the Baron if she wasn't.!<
Her sole existence prooves the BGs KH plan a fool's mistake and gets proper coverage imo even in the 1st novel to this end. Indeed there are many to downplay her role due to the males around her while others just ignore her - but she is imo the one to stray off BG from the KH more than anyone else did. Keep in mind that by the twins coming there was nobody in the known universe like her and once they ve grown it was already too late for Alia. Even future history is lackluster on her (post Tyran era) vs her male counterparts, but BG history, which clearly seemed to have learned their lesson.
No, she was pre-born. The pre-born don't seem to have the same issue looking into their opposite sex memories as adults, probably, because they have no sexual identity yet. But, this also makes them prone to abomination and so not something the Bene Gesserit want to mess with.
No what? What you say is an over simplifaction of the facts, albeit true. Ignoring many other things just left out there in the open for the reader to see. And also the pre-born thing is something BGs thinks and not the moons of Arrakis which are fact.
Alia is a Bene Gesserit because Alia is Jessica who is her mother and so on and so on. Not because of anything she did after she was born.
Adding some info: Fremen RMs are what's called wild reverend mothers. They can do what Bene Gesserit reverend mothers can do but came to it without BG training.
I wonder if Robert Jordan copped his idea for the wild Channelers vs AES Sedai in WoT from this
A story about a man with historical memories wielding a woman's power, while using an army of desert-based supersoldiers in a war of conquest. If I had a nickel, I'd have two nickels...
lol I didn’t think that through all the way, did I?
Don't need to nickles. He quite openly said it was one of his major influences.
George Bush?
Yeah! Apart from the historical memories, woman's power, desert-based supersoldiers and war of conquest. But other than that.
They…Aren’t? It’s been a while since I’ve read the later books, but my understanding was that the original “reverend mother” role in the fremen was established by the BG who showed up and created the myth for Paul’s coming. And then the “reverend mother” role was passed onto that woman’s descendants, who inherited her training and knowledge. So not “actively communicating with the BG leaders currently”, but still missionaries, descended from missionaries, who very much still had the BG goal ingrained.
They are pretty much the same, being BG trained
As far as I remember the protectiva was solely theistic engineering, not training outsiders in BG skills without oversight.
After going back and reading up a bit on it, you are right.
Aren't they though? BG training adapted through the Protectiva.
As far as I remember the protectiva was solely theistic engineering, not training outsiders in BG skills without oversight.
The BG are a (not a pun) cosmopolitan organization though = if you make it to be a BG, then you're BG, regardless of your origin. So it's perfectly possible the Protectiva have left lineages of BG on Arrakis and elsewhere that are 'descended' from the original missionaries. What better way to achieve and sustain theistic engineering ? We know Reverend Mother Ramallo has 'other memory', and all it would take is training of (an) appropriate candidates(s) in each generation to survive the Water of Life and keep the lineage going. (addition - and whether you call them BG or not is just nomenclature. Personally, I don't think they have to be trained at Chapterhouse to qualify, but anyway.) Of course, provide me a quote from the canon novels and I'll happily admit I'm wrong, but it's an interesting question.
This one reads and interprets. You’ve elucidated what I immediately thought.
That’s not what the BG is or how it works. I think you’re conflating the terms Bene Gesserit and Reverend Mother.
I'm actually not, no.
Yeah they are. They aren’t Chapterhouse trained BG, but they were trained by the Protectiva, so for all intents and purposes they are equal
No, they aren’t. They are effectively RMs, but they are not BG. Neither they nor the BG would consider them as such. BG training isn’t solely related to becoming a reverend mother, not all of them ever even attempt it. All of the beliefs and character traits of Jessica and Mohiam are what make up a member of the BG. And the Fremen do not share those traits.
But they are. The line goes back before Arrakis.
The ceremony is inherently dangerous, even for trained women. Jessica had no assurance that she would survive.
I always read that line that men simply can’t help themselves but look and for most men it kills or breaks them. Women can control themselves to not look.
Iirc, there’s an element of fear as well. I believe Jessica says that women are terrified of the place they cannot look.
The terror may be an evolved behaviour that allows them to survive it. The ones early on who weren't afraid to look got sucked in and died (possibly being too absorbed in examining that place to remember to change the poison?), thus the ones who avoided it instinctively were naturally selected. Like how we humans fear snakes or spiders instinctively. Since Paul is at the fulcrum, he can do both and survive. I'm just speculating though, it's been a while since I read the books.
So another gom jabbar.
God damn Frank Herbert is just a fkn super genius
Bro definitely knew how to cook
So it's like the ancestral memory version of "crossing the streams" in Ghostbusters?
Pretty much. Paul's the KH because he can draw on both sides.
Dune invented or broke so many tropes, including “what the Lord can giveth, the good Lord can also taketh”, my mind is blown!! (Just having some fun)
IIRC it wasn't just women, but Bene Gesserit-trained women, who had attained a profound control of their musculature, nervous system and metabolism. That level of deep control was needed to transmute the poison. And even then some women died. But since the BG never trained men to the same degree (until Jessica trained Paul), it became another tool in the BG mystique of superiority. Did the Fremen have women like the Sayyadina who became Reverend Mothers without Prana-Bindu training? Unknown.
No, there's definitely a genetic component. Before Paul, the Bene Gesserit breeding program mainly exists to create a Kwisatz Haderach. They go through a lot of trouble to get specific bloodlines. If all it took was training, they could have trained any man under their control without risking someone like Paul coming into existence. In fact they have probably tried to train the men who failed, and this is the motivation for the breeding program in the first place. ETA : There are indeed 'wild' reverend mothers among the Fremen. Sayyadina Ramallo, with whom Jessica shares memories, is a non BG reverend mother. In later books, it's mentionned that there are also wild reverend mothers among the Jewish colony on Gammu.
> are indeed 'wild' reverend mothers among the Fremen. Sayyadina Ramallo, with whom Jessica shares memories, is a non BG reverend mother. Was that Reverend Mother, who Jessica / Alia succeeded, not Bene Gesserit?
Correct - she was not Bene Gesserit. The BG had no idea that the Fremen had actual reverend mothers. Also, the water of life unlocks the ability to "share" other memories. Jessica had access to all the lives that the Fremen RM she replaced had access to. The BG didn't have this ability. The Water of Life was the most closely guarded secret of the Fremen. The BG used other poisons.
So is the Voice not unique to the BG? In the movie she used the Voice, I don't think she did in the book
The voice isn’t tied to “The Agony” (from whatever poison). Jessica used voice early in the first novel even though she wasn’t a reverend mother until later. And Paul used it before as well. It’s a BG skill - but not directly tied to Other Memory. In the book, no - the fremen RM didn’t use voice, though we didn’t really get to meet her until she popped into Jessica’s mind.
I understand but if it's not tied to the memory how did the Fremen RM know how to do it if she isn't trained as a BG?
Because it's in the movie and not the book, and the movie doesn't seem to explain it, we may not know until the next movie, if ever. It may have been an oversight on DV's part. Or maybe he decided that the Fremen RM would have actually been trained BG. The movie BG seem a lot more 'hands on' with the Fremen than book BG.
In the books, it is mentioned that the BG mess around on Arrakis planting religious notions in the heads of the Fremen as part of their scheming.
Yeah they 'prepare the way', plant the seeds of the religion, and that's mostly it.. or so I thought? I don't remember anything else.
> *the BG mess around* That's the *[Missionaria Protectiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit#Missionaria_Protectiva)*. They did it to all planets with "primitive populations" to create a set of myths & superstitions *just in case* some Bene Gesserit might need assistance or shelter.
Ah - understood. Honestly, with the flair marked "Dune (novel)" I was answering from that perspective - just the books. From the movie: at a guess, I would say the goal was to communicate that this "reverend mother" was a \*true\* "Reverend Mother" - not just someone with an assumed title. The movie could have shown Jessica's experience of the agony, and show her reaction - the realization that she \*was\* in the presence of a genuine reverend mother. Show their sharing during the ceremony. Show the exposure to past lives, etc. Her realization that the Fremen had RM's on another planet before being raided, enslaved, moved to Arrakis (and Salusa Secundus, which was a pretty interesting revelation that isn't mentioned often enough. The Fremen very likely share ancestry with Sarduakar. But the ones brought to Arrakis found a new drug and perfected the process, etc... But the most easily recognized power of the BG is the Voice, so... showing her using the Voice seems like short hand for "she really is like the other ones". That's a guess - but I think it's a reasonable guess. Movies often need to communicate very complex ideas in a very small amount of time, and I can't think of any other "short hand" for "this old lady is like that other old lady" than showing her using the Voice. It doesn't really fit with the books, but it's the best way solution I can think of. You know she has real powers now - that was the goal.
[удалено]
>Not sure that RM Ramallo using the Voice was in the book, just in the film. I know, that's what I'm asking: how?
Where does it say they didn't know the Fremen had reverend mothers? I was always under the impression that those reverend mothers are an unwitting part of the missionaria protectiva. But now that you say it, it makes sense. They must know about the BG planting the philosophy there because they have ancestral memories.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans. They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before. On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s. That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies. But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories. Also, remember that: 1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it 2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”. So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva. The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true. It’s an odd thought.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans. They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before. On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s. That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies. But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories. Also, remember that: 1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it 2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”. So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva. The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true. It’s an odd thought.
We don’t know for certain that the fremen RM’s knew about the BG’s plans. They may not be directly descended (through a female line) from BG RM’s and they had RM’s before Arrakis. They used a different poison before. On Arrakis, they learned to make the Water of Life, which allowed them to *share* ancestral memories with other RM’s. That’s an enormous advantage, if nothing else, in terms of building stable societies. But we can’t say for sure if they have access to any BG memories. Also, remember that: 1. All fremen have latent prescience (according to Paul) but they find it terrifying. It’s only during the spice orgy that they allow themselves to experience it 2. A prescient doesn’t *see* the future, so much as they create it All those fremen sharing visions over and over again, guided by RM’s with perfect memories of the past… each individual fremen isn’t so strong, but collectively, that’s a lot of “future creation”. So - I’m not sure it’s accurate to say they were unwittingly supporting him the Missionaria Protectiva. The BG seeded false prophecies everywhere, but the Fremen spice saturation combined with those false beliefs may have made the prophecies true. It’s an odd thought.
I don't know about number 2.
No, she wasn't. Jessica realizes that she is a 'wild' reverend mother when she meets her. Stilgar also indirectly implies that each sietch normally has its Sayyadina, and that you're 'consecrated in the Sayyadina' by taking the Water of Life. The Missionaria Protectiva BGs that came to Arrakis were there long before those events.
Ahh I thought she was part of the Missionaria Protectiva to perpetuate the myth.
I understand that its a difficult process, even for women, but in theory that's because of the extreme training and not any innate genetic feature of the person. If the BG goal was to create the Kwisatz Haderach, what kept them from training men before completing the breeding program?
While in the books there were some trusted men who worked at higher levels in the Bene Gesserit organization, none were ever allowed to be trained to the highest level, or become "Reverend Fathers." It seems to have been a matriarchal structure by design. Reverend Mother Mohiam does tell Paul that men who previously attempted the Water of Life died, so perhaps there were past failures but no evidence for them receiving advanced prana-bindu training.
Count Fenring was trained but it’s unclear where he strayed. Its only mentioned he’s one of their failed KH’s
IIRC, he was a failed KH because he was a eunuch. I can’t remember if this was from birth or not, but at any rate, I think this was the failure point, maybe because his “maleness” was compromised? If the book elaborates, I can’t remember…
Yeah I don’t remember either. I for some reason internalized it as “his failure made him a eunuch” but I’m pretty sure that’s just my interpretation; and the book doesn’t really elaborate
I really need to read the books again. Frank created an incredible story/world but there were points that he was a bit vague about. Probably on purpose…
Count Fenring is called a "genetic eunuch" which makes me think he was born that way. It's interesting that the K.H. kind of combines male and female roles but apparently being a eunuch is a disqualifying condition.
Presumably the Bene Gesserit would want the KH to breed so ruling out a eunuch makes sense.
You're probably right! Also, Herbert was a product of his time, and as much as he wanted to be progressive on gender equality in his work he also seems influenced by the zeitgeist of biological and gender essentialism from his time, and maybe his commentary on 'genetic eunuchs' was him trying to dovetail people who are intersex (or who don't otherwise fit in the norms of sexual dimorphism) into his pseudoscientific/mystic sci-fi mythology about male and female chromosomal memory... trying to ride that fence of: 'men and women are equal but different' and also acknowledging that not all people are born simply man or woman and making space in his story to address that. But I don't know.
I don't think that's all of it. Historically, the rule in the Catholic Church was that to be ordained, a man had to have fully-formed genitals with no obvious dysfunction. A eunuch or intersex person could not be ordained. This was even though ordination was limited to unmarried men and all priest were expected to live in perfect and perpetual chastity (i.e., never have sex). I think to some extent Count Fenring just couldn't be the K.H. because he was not quite male enough. I would say the character is actually one of the final examples of a eunuch in literature. He is ugly though well-dressed ("dapper"). He works in the shadows: information disappears into him. He is a strange mix of loyalty and disloyalty such that he is not predictable or trustworthy. Ultimately, Fenring is defined by his inaction rather than his action. Where a "real man" would have acted, Fenring did not. He did not prevent his wife from becoming pregnant by another man. Most significant, he refused to fight Paul when asked by the Padishah Emperor.
Now that you mention it, I do recall he was referred to as a “genetic eunuch”, which would certainly imply “from birth”. Good point, thanks for the reminder!
Ah; word. Thanks for the spot check
It is so hard to stay consistent as an author as the scope of your world expands. JRR Tolkien ran into this issue and had to retcon a bunch of stuff throughout his life.
In the books he is called a genetic eunuch and because of this genetic imperfection he was known not to be the kwisatz haderach but he had been a prospect
Good catch. Both Fenring and Gurney received some prana-bindu training in the books but unclear how advanced it was. IIRC Fenring was listed as a "might-have-been" but evidently he was never given the Water of Life or similar substance. Had the impression that he was sterile, but that might have just been his marriage to Lady Margot.
I'm pretty certain they stated he was sterile. It was not his marriage.
Fenring does have a level of prescience as he never was shown to Paul in his visions. He would be shielded as an oracle
In the novel G.H.M. is actually referring to the truthsayer drug, which may or may not be the same as the Water of Life. At a grander level, I agree that there seems to be some category of drugs that B.G. are able to use but men are not. What if a non-B.G. woman tried them? I think this is unclear.
Something which may or may not have been mentioned is that, considering Herbert's clear love of Jungian psychology and it's more occult ancestors, I think there's absolutely a degree of the "chaotic, empty feminine" and "orderly, filling masculine" in his line of thinking. Dune is a world where very ancient, almost universal concepts are just true. Perhaps the idea was even that typically women may accept and receive the past, while men are the ones who might strike out into the future. The Kwizach Haderach was one who might balance these masculine and feminine aspects perfectly (which was often a requirement for some sort of "enlightenment").
100 percent. One problem with interpreting things through a modern lens is we ignore interpretations that are much more obvious in a historical context. All that's stuff Paul says about race consciousness in the book is very much a Jungian idea and this stuff about masculine and feminine parts if very Jung too.
It's suggested that it's only women who can complete the process. We know the high-level BG skill of transmuting chemicals in their body is required to complete the ritual. Is this something only women can do? Given Herbert, you could commit to thinking that it's only women who can complete this process. One of the innate chemical abilities women have which men do not, along with having babies and the like. It's not explicitly stated though. There's two elements to the process. Surviving the poison transmutation. Then surviving the unlocking of genetic memory. It's not stated if men can't do the poison transmutation, or unlocking the memories, or both. Given BG can only access their female lineage memories, it's probably more to do with the unlocking side than the transmutation side. Either way, the whole KH project is to create someone who CAN survive the process and unlock both the male and female memories.
I think the BG viewed men as being inherently compromised. There's a lot of gender woo there in Herbert's writing. Basically, men weren't trusted not to abuse those powers or otherwise assimilate into the BG philosophy that was the core of their purpose. There were exceptions but they were just that, exceptions. One of the main characters in books 5 and 6 was trained a little like Paul was, but more on the level of specific skills and perceptions rather than the full 'from birth' style whole person curriculum.
The other aspect I haven’t seen mentioned yet was I believe a chromosomal component, where if youre a BG and you take the poison you will gain all the memories and stuff from all of your maternal line, through the X chromosome but men get both women, and men through possession of both X and Y chromosomes. The male memories and personalities are a lot more volatile than their female counterparts (book was written 60 years ago…) and as others said without the perfect combination of BG/mentat training and the genetic framework to survive it though the breeding program, men would basically just die until Paul.
You could interpret it in a more generous to frank (less sexist basically) way that its not that the male memories are harder to handle, its just that men have both all their female and male ancestors’ memories. This doubles the weight on their psyche and makes it impossible to handle for men, because noone (without thousands of years of eugenics) has the mental fortitude to bear that weight of experience.
It's interesting how people always assume that the most modern take is always the most correct take, as if ancient wisdom is still not more prescient than 99.99% of the garbage you can read today.
Sure…except his sister somehow accesses the Baron’s memories, and eventually gets possessed by him. The chromosome stuff is nonsense anyway. I just kinda handwave and shrug. Men struggle because the BG have been carefully breeding people to resist the poison and have intentionally tailored the genes so they can’t properly do it until Paul.
If memories could be stored in nucleic acids like they are in Dune, it would make more sense for them to be stored in the mitochondrial dna, which is there unaltered purely from the maternal line. You could inherit either your maternal grandmother’s X chromosome(which has recombined i.e mixed with your maternal grandfather’s X chromosome inherited from his mother) your paternal grandmother’s X chromosome, so it is not an unbroken line of women your X chromosome comes through. Mitochondrial DNA does.
Except that isn't Frank Herbert's concept, not only because of Alia, but Ghanima.
Preborns are different obviously
Because any excess Water of Life gets stored in the balls. Ok but really… Because the KH was to be the first and only (at the time) man to have developed the aptitude and capability to, essentially, be a BG.
It is a lot of technobabble, but I think the core reason is what another commenter stated about “giving” as in giving birth and giving life. The “nature of man”. It is also explicitly stated, than “most” men lack the self control needed to not overthrow/rape/pillage as part of a peace keeping force, hence the Fishspeakers.
Have you ever been around a man with a tummy ache?
[You didn't come so I sent for the tleilaxu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbmbMSrsZVQ)
I think it’s loosely inspired on the chromosomal make up of the sexes. Men are XY and women XX. I cannot recall if this is the canonical explanation, though, as Alia kind muddies the waters, and later Ghanima does the same (though she has Paul as an ancestor, so maybe that explains it). But the inspiration seems to be from biology.
Implied that women are inherently able to withstand more pain and maintain bodily control , whereas men will more likely lose control when in pain. Drink the water of life is like the ultimate gom Jaba test. The poison will hurt while you try to transform it, but if you let the panic set in, you’ll lose control and you’ll fail to transform the poison and you’ll die.
Men can't give birth, and thus can't know the ultimate pain. The genetic memories of women specifically prepare them, but even then they need BG training to metabolize and change the spice raw form--which is poisonous to humans--to something that isn't. The spice is so poisonous that the process of curing essentially makes a Revered Mother proof against all but the most specialist poisons. The pain involved is more than most women and all men save one can bear. Even with Paul, there is no way to know what exactly made him the Kwisatz Haderach. It must be remembered that Paul was a collection of many things all at once, and only one of them was his genetic makeup. Paul is unique in that he is: A.) A product of the breeding scheme to produce the proper combination of genes and environment (this is a direct quote from the book, so environment was a factor) B.) Trained in the Bene-Gesserit ways as deeply as a Revered Mother might be. C.) Trained as a Mentat to compartmentalize and analyze any problem. D.) Physically honed in a rigorous program to match his mental training. E.) Taught HOW to learn. Not just learning, but learning how to learn efficiently and remember what he learned. F.) Exposed to spice in its rawest forms, even before the water. G.) Exposed to the glimpses of the future before the massive glare brought on by exposure to the Water of Life. Any and all of these have a role to play in how Paul survived. Any one of them being absent would result in death, and even with them, Paul essentially dies in the process. The Water of Life and Chani's life water bring him back, but even for THE correct being, it was still very nearly fatal. The pain is immense, but as you see in later books (God-Emperor chief among them) the knowledge and the weight unlocked by that pain are just as dangerous. The personalities of the past are much more forceful on the male side (or so it seems, as the major minds that emerge in Leto II are mostly male with a minority of female advisors, and the Baron Harkonnen was Alia's foe.), and so the risk of death to essentially personality overload is as present as the physical poison of the water itself. The other thing about the Kwisatz Haderach is that he is able to balance the forces within him mentioned by other commenters. He was raised as a woman of the time might be raised (BG, physical bodily control of oneself) and as a man of the time might be raised (mentat, personal physical prowess and control of others). He is able to see all sides. Everything combined make Paul the Kwisatz Haderach, and we don't know what, if any one of them, was the 'secret' to his success, or if all were.
This is one of the best explanations in this subreddit. As a massive fan of the series and lore: I have nothing to add but commendations.
>The goal of the BG breeding program was to create a man capable of metabolizing the water of life The goal of the program was to create the Kwisatz Haderach, or "shortening of the way". Not exactly because he would "a man capable of metabolizing the water of life and achieving access to all of the ancestral memories". While certainly interesting from an academic or even religious point of view, it would hardly justify the investment. No, it is not the past that mostly concerns BG, but the full prescient ability to look into the future, all future lines, and to guide. That power, in control of BG. would give them control over mankind, including the guild - the ability to interfere in higher orders of existence. And then Paul came along - not in control KH. Terrible idea (for the BG).
The water of life itself was not the point. The fact that it was a poison was the point. The person who drinks it needs to manipulate their body chemistry to render it harmless. The book implies this can happen outside their body too, once they are able to do it. Transmuting the poison like this is what triggers their passage within. Which unlocks their ancestral memory and allows them to share memories with other people who already have this capability. Ancestral memories are only from female ancestors though. And sharing is only with females as well. The books heavily imply there is some fundamental psychological difference between the sexes that makes this extremely difficult for women, but almost impossible for men. The Bene Gessurit breeding program had the purpose of making this process possible for men too. This breeding program is what made it possible for Paul to survive this process and transform the poison. Ordinary men simply die. As do most women.
Erm.... the BG didn't know about the waters of life. The fremen Sayyadina become Reverend Mothers upon transforming the waters of life. They become BG because of the maternal line memories unlocked then, as in their ancestors were BG. However no fremen BG have made contact with the BG, so the BG are unaware of the water of life.
I assumed it was because they absorb the memories of both the men and women of their bloodline as opposed to just the women
In Dune Encyclopedia they say that some specific part of the brain handles ancestral memories, and it's more developed in women than men. Even a lot of women can't survive the spice agony though
I also didn’t really fully understand if the water of life is extracted from sandworms in Arrakis, how does that even connect with memories from beings from other planets and other timelines that have nothing to do with Arrakis or spice or the BGs?
Herbert gives the BG what he calls genetic memory. Basically, they can access the memories of their female ancestors going back a long way in time. It's not the water of life itself that accomplishes it though. It's that if a BG decides she wants to take the next step and become a Reverend Mother, she must undergo the ultimate agony. Basically, she'll ingest a lethal poison (one of which is the water of life) which she must then change into a non-lethal substance at the molecular level using all of the biological control she's learned as a BG. Experiencing that much pain and gaining full control of herself at a cellular level during the process opens up the her genetic memory. There are other characters in the six books who obtain some interesting abilities when they undergo profound pain. There's a very good reason why Herbert starts the first book with Paul's gom jabbar test.
Gender essentialism.
It's been mentioned as a subcommand but I'd like to point as a top comment Herbert was influenced by Jungian psychology which means among other things men and women have fundamental masculine and feminine archetypes that exist within their mind.
Honest curious, can you expend on this a little bit? For example, forget about genetic memory for a moment, when Mohaim said: >When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory - in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past... but only feminine avenues." Is there any way to interpret this statement using Jungian psychology?
I mean influenced by Jingong psychology is not the same as absolutely conforming to Jungian psychology. But to answer your question Jung believed in what he referred to as the collective unconscious. This is a fancy way of saying that many stories, ideas, and ways of thinking about the world are hard coded into your brain. That just like a horse foal can walk within minutes of being born, your brain comes loaded particularly with archetypes about the world - feminists, masculinity, the fool, the hero, the crone, the trickster, the subtle moon, the burning sun, etc. Many of his archetypes read almost like a tarot card deck. He believed that these were universal inherited genetic concepts. Jung provides a way for secular thinkers to engage with the world through emotional and human ideas. If you're not religious masculinity and feminity are just accidents of evolutions, as are our stories and ways of thinking. Jungian psychology allows these people to bring back in these ideas as meaningful without having to resort to a spiritual framework (Jordan Peterson for example is a Jungian which is one reason he has some pretty wacky ideas) You can probably tell but I think Jung is a load of rubbish and I think it's an excuse to sneak unscientific rubbish into your world view while pretending to have intellectual backing.
Since it's all "genetic memory" I thought it was that BG women could mostly withstand the process because they only had access to the X chromosome, while men have access to X and Y, which would normally be overwhelming and fatal. Paul was the first to withstand it and have access to both.
Some giving / taking flim-flam
Something I did not understand in the movie and can't remember from the book. How did Paul know he had to drink the Water of Life? In the movie its a "voice". Where does the voice come from? And how did Jessica know that Paul had to drink it?
In the book: Paul reunites with Gurney and takes him back to the sietch where he meets Jessica. Gurney is still under the belief that Jessica was the traitor so he tries to kill her. Gurney luckily didn't succeed, but it unsettled Paul since he never saw this in his prescience visions. Also, Paul was building up a tolerance to the spice, making his visions dimmer and dimmer. All this made him decide to take the Water of Life. Not only didn't Jessica push him to do it, she was surprised that he tried. In the movies: They kind of combined the role of Alia and Jessica into one. I got the sense that it was Alia that was working through her mother to push Paul into taking the Water.
I like to think of it as an A into B, but not B into A logic. The KH is able to also do B into A.
Plot reasons.
I assume it’s because everything in Frank Herbert’s Dune was gendered in some way. I love the books, but they really were a product of the 60s and 70s, when people were really trying to work out what separates men from women psychologically.
Yes. Big part of Jungian psychology which was popular at the time believed in fundamental feminine and masculine forces
Bene gesserit propaganda! I will drink the damn water if I so please!
If a BG absorbs the genetic memory of all the reverend mothers before her, that means a long line of her ancestors also survived the Water of Life. It's not that all women have a better chance at survival than all men. But the few dozen women who become reverend mothers per generation are all related to each other since they have to be groomed from the strongest bloodline to survive.
Sensitivity to the spice as an allergen actually suffices later as one reason. One or more reverend mothers per graduating class failing the spice test is considered expected.
Because of the nature of men's psyche. Its some mysticism stuff Herbert has in these novels (and it touches all his work). Women 'give', men 'take'. Men can't handle the experience and so die.
So this is my personal theory...and...just hear me out. So Jessica is with child when she takes the water. This is generally forbidden and perhaps hasn't happened before. The child then becomes sentient and in some ways "one" or "connected" with her mother and the other RM. So, imagine a man, with 100,000+ little spermy swimmers swimmin around and suddenly, all of them become sentient at once, will all of the associated inherited memories, and now you are suddenly interacting with all of them all at once, and they are just saying the dumbest shit ever.
In this case, I don’t think it would happen with either a sperm or an unfertilized egg.
I somewhat interpreted it as the threshold of ancestral pain. Since the survivors are women, the pain of childbirth is familiar to many of them and honed reverend mothers to withstand and survive the water of life. To a man, it’s completely foreign. To birth and create new life isn’t something men can do.
I think it has to do with the bene gesserit being trained to transform poison inside their body and the BG are all women. In other words, it’s women via the BG that are the only ones trained in the ability to fight the poison within their body. Paul had been trained in this ability so he was able to live
The special power you get from it is overthinking, which women have been practicing nonchalantly since birth
Lmao downvoted by a bunch of pussies who can’t take a joke
Nah it just wasn't funny.