#he was always going to kill it as lisan al-gaib

[timotheecontent]

Timothée Chalamet in THE KING (2019) dir. David Michôd

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Something I find interesting when viewing the two recent Dune movies as a whole is that initially, Paul is more than willing to use the prophecy and his visions for his own gain to convince Liet to help them, while Jessica whispers "careful!" at his side, and she later recommends they leave the planet entirely. But Paul decides they'll stay with the Fremen. Even at the beginning of Part 2, Paul is like "fuck yeah let's wage war on the Harkonnen" and Jessica is again counseling caution: "your father didn't believe in revenge." She goes through the Water of Life ceremony not because she wants to help Paul fulfill the prophecy but because she's forced to: do this or die. And even then, the old Reverend Mother had to use the Voice on her to get Jessica to drink.

That all changes when Jessica nearly dies during the ceremony. After that, Paul becomes more wary of embracing the prophecy, and she just throws herself into it. Paul nearly loses his mother (and his unborn sister) to a painful, agonizing poison - mere hours/days after losing his father and all their friends/allies to the Harkonnen slaughter - and decides it's not worth it. Meanwhile, Jessica gets a direct download of memories of millennia of oppression and goes "yeah let's burn everything to the ground."

It's an interesting, quick reversal at the beginning of the second movie, and it's great.

Ooh thank you for this great ask. I can always count on you for smart and thoughtful Jessica takes!

You make a really good observation about their reversal of positions--I had been struggling to figure out how Paul's line about "I must sway the non-believers" fit into his overall arc, but you are absolutely right that this feels like a continuation of how he talks to Liet. We're seeing the first stirrings of that little "maybe I am special" thought that later takes center stage.

For most of Part Two, Paul has several reliable counterweights pulling against that streak of arrogance and high-handedness that he's had from the beginning. Jessica almost dies drinking the Water of Life, which, like you point out, has got to make him think twice about encouraging people to believe in the prophecy. Then, he spends most of the movie surrounded by Chani and her friends and comrades, who seem the most skeptical of the prophecy and also aren't going to give his ego the time of day. And at the same time, he has an opportunity to pour his desire for revenge into collective political action that seems to be making a difference.

It's only when those countervailing forces start collapsing (the people who had started out as his equals are now becoming his followers; the Harkonnens attack Sietch Tabr and other civilian population centers, proving they are far from militarily defeated; Gurney shows up and immediately offers what seems like an easy solution to their problems that only Paul can access) that the little maybe I am special voice starts winning again.

As for Jessica, her journey doesn't get as much focus in the movie but it's also fascinating. She's a great character because she is so fucking smart at navigating power structures from what seems like an unenviable position. Did she have any choice about being sent to Caladan to become Leto's concubine? I am guessing she did not. But she sure figured out how to work that situation to her advantage. It happened that along the way she and Leto came to genuinely love and respect each other. But I'm sure she would still have figured out an angle even if that had not been the case.

In Part Two she starts out in a frankly quite terrifying position: she can undergo this unknown, dangerous ritual or die, and also possibly put Paul's safety at risk by raising doubt about whether he is the Lisan al-Gaib. But after she survives the Water of Life, she is launched into a powerful position in Fremen society and pretty quickly realizes she can use that to both protect Paul and get her revenge on the people who tried to kill her whole family. And unlike Paul, she is much more cognizant of the intergalactic power structures at work and aware that the Harkonnens themselves were a pawn in all this, so her target is the Bene Gesserit and the emperor.

I would have loved more time to explore Jessica's relationship to Fremen society and her POV in general. Because in some ways she becomes as Fremen as it's possible for her to be--she has access to thousands of years of memories of Fremen history and culture and politics; she becomes instantly fluent in the language and she is immersed in Fremen daily life in the sietch. (If there's one single thing I wanted more of, it was daily life in the sietch.) But she's still the same person she was, so she hasn't lost that ability to be ruthless and calculating and see people as forces to be manipulated. In Part One, her love for Paul and Leto provided an interesting counterweight to this that allowed us to see some moments of vulnerability from her (ie. she knows Paul has to undergo the Gom Jabbar test but she's terrified for him while it's happening). In Part Two she is so isolated for most of the movie (away from Paul; surrounded by followers who were never friends; I think we can all agree that talking to your unborn fetus doesn't really count) that we don't get a lot of these more unguarded moments from her. (I would have loved some Jessica/Stilgar action and it seems like the potential was very much set up for that, but I understand why they didn't have time.)

But in general I thought they did a great job of setting up this contradictory tension between Jessica and Paul, where they both want so desperately to protect each other and they both want revenge, but the way they each go about it ends up putting them in direct conflict with each other.

[whotookmynameareuserious]

My friend is my sibling

warning: use of y/n, mentions of poo, killing, angst, it come with Choso.

“Wake up” Paul Atreides said. “Y/N, wake the hell up! I AM PAUL MUAD’DIB ATREDIES.”

“Boy shut the hell up. Like damn. You are still my brother, I don’t see you as no God.” I say. It’s not easy being the sister of Paul Atreides. He gets on my nerves. Always screaming. Like when does he shut the hell up?

“Y/N, I’m gonna make you smell my sh!t. You know I never take this suit off”

“Why do you even need me right now?.” I say, being disgusted by the overwhelming stench of sh!t im imagining I would smell if he took his suit off.

“Choso is here. He wants to see you. Something about ‘Yujis Arrival.’ Don’t know why he’s stressing over some other fools arrival. I’m the Lisan Al Gaib.”

“Boy shut the hell up.” I throw a pillow at him and run away to choso. “Hey Cho”

“You have to help me Y/N, Yuji is going crazy.” Choso said.

“What’s he’s doing?” I say.

“He’s talking about his arrival.”

“Like my brother doing saying he’s the ‘Lisan Al Gaib’ ?”

“No he’s just saying ‘I have arrived’ like a corny bitch.”

“What??”

“I have arrived.” Yuuji says walking in the room.

My eyebrows furrow and I turn to Choso. My brother, Paul, comes downstairs.

“Hey no person here messes with Y/N. I’m the Lisan Al Gaib, Y/N is my friend. You’ll get killed.” Paul says.

“That is right brother, you are my friend” I say sarcastically.

“BOY SHUT THE HELL UP!!” Feyd Rautha pops in the room with his bald head and knives and murders us all except Paul. But him Paul have a thing going on that is awkward so he just leaves without doing anything, Leaving Paul sad and seeking revenge and some freaks.

[firespirited]

300 pages into the Dune re-read (Internet archive. Other options surprisingly costly or too far away)

Movie vs book notes under the cut

The hunter seeker was only in the film to show Paul's abilities, in the book it's part 1 of a 2 part plot to have Jessica distrust Thwufir and vice versa (a courrier with a fake self destructing msg that contains the fragment "duke betrayed by his beloved") and the duke be be distressed at having to pretend he distrusts Jessica. House H wants them distracted. It shows more cunning, a lot more of the chess type thinking involved in ruling and notably in the film the baron has promised not to murder Paul (to their credit: they do put that convo later so it takes effect later).

Piter was not a tweaker like I remembered (Brad Dourif's take made an impression) but leers and grins when everyone is somber and engages in constant inappropriate banter with the Baron (anyone present thinks he's going to get himself killed). He's the one to kill Yueh and basically gets turned on by it.

Movie adaptation to make the Baron less verbose and prompt to action does cut down on an awful lot of monologuing to get straight to the point but misses how he uses language to assess weaknesses and manipulate: Herbert wanted to make a point about 'the voice' as a weapon as used by BG but also by the baron and leto in manipulation and propaganda.

The lack of machinations within machinations do flatten both Leto and the Baron to be less layered in their strategies.

The party establishes that colonisation isn't just about that one resource like oil but the industries that support it and profit too: from water salesmen to brothels for workers to knockoff stillsuits for the workers. Local resources are all taken over and run by colonizers who curry favour with the current house in power.

The party is also where we see the duke practically drunk on anger and his own callousness. We also get to see Paul and Jessica practice people reading and careful questioning.

Paul realises he's a Harkonnen in that first night in the tent, tells his mother and says the "we'll be Harkonnens to survive" thing. That revelation leads to a sort of resignation to scheming whatever the cost like it's in their blood so it is what it is.

I feel this has a very different tone to the movie where we see Jessica decide to use the fremen before she knows she's H and Paul decides to reject all blood fate until he knows his lineage at the water of life ceremony.

Paul sees two paths in the tent: one where he says hello grandfather to the baron and one of bloody jihad under the atreides banner. In the film we got hello grandfather *and* an attack on the landsraad warships by the fanatics. Villeneuve may be going for a third new path. As I said before I'm interested whether it's a new path where for example he becomes worm god or the BG implanted religion and the inate religiosity and violence of this universe does not allow them to see other paths.

I've always felt that Paul should have at least considered subverting the prophecies and his blood rights as a fuck you to being bred and trained for a purpose. Lisan al gaib means voice from the outer world, there's no reason he can't be a voice by being ambassador for the Fremen as an entity or house of their own. At this point he's still in shock but by the time he's spent time with the fremen, there's no reason he shouldn't consider that a guild/bene/house of its own especially given the extreme value of spice to this universe. I wanted the fact that royal ruling, submission to higher powers is so ingrained in him (and his lineage) that he rejects that possibility should be part of the tragedy of Paul (it is in the revelations of Leto2-worm who plans to break and breed out this trait of humanity)

Marketing Jessica as giving her more warrior priestess moments was unnecessary, she's this badass in the og text.

Bardem was robbed of Stilgar's colourful insults lol.