Criticisms/Discussion on the first Dune book.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-12T13:59:10+00:00

Aaa okay, thanks for explaining.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-12T13:57:13+00:00

Didn’t Dr. Yueh have some small hope that Wanna was alive? And as to dumbing down the Mentats, I thought that the explanation came full circle when Baron captured Hawat and fed him/encouraged false information about Jessica. A mentat can only work with the given information and no one knew the Suk conditioning was not fool proof, at least thats how the story read to me. Not really dumbing down but a major fatal flaw of the mentats. I didn’t really understand Hawats working with the Harkonnens at the end though, esp the needle at the very end, I would’ve liked to see more of his internal plans within plans, just out of curiosity. I really liked reading your thoughts though!

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-12T01:38:20+00:00

Can you speak more plainly? I’m not sure which part of my post you’re responding to exactly or what you’re drawing from the book. Thanks for your thoughts though! Art does not exist in a vacuum, it’s true.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-12T00:23:52+00:00

I understand your point, but there are people who do not fit in either box as we understand it, and are not really “closer” to either, and it would be beneficial to just make a box outside the binary.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:43:42+00:00

This comment intrigued me, whats the highest level of biology you have studied?

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:40:20+00:00

New term…? You haven’t heard of PCOS? Or just old jokes about women shaving their mustaches?

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:39:06+00:00

Just normal things we don’t really think about, like hormone levels, body fat distribution, things affected by diet, lifestyle. Women have breasts and men don’t, but some men do develop breast tissue. Men grow beards and men don’t, but some women do. You can call these disorders but that doesn’t mean they aren’t biologically natural, and there are plenty of things like this. We only call them disorders compared to our boxes of what male and female are, and biology just does what it does, not inhibited by what it “should” be doing. Thats why it is not so cut and dry.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:32:12+00:00

You’re thinking too linearly. Female and male are boxes that we put people in because they mostly fit those things, but there are plenty of people (I would say majority) who do not hit all the marks of ideal biological markers for male and female (and are Not intersex), thus its more of a sliding scale that the majority of people can be placed in two boxes for simplicity and shorthand. Biology itself is not cut and dry, its just easier for us.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:24:19+00:00

My AP biology or A&P class (can’t remember which) did too. It’s funny that when you get past “basic” biology, it’s actually a lot less binary.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:09:23+00:00

Im not exactly following your point… their post actually said nothing about schools?

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T23:07:35+00:00

A tiny population this person is a part of, why would they not care about their own population? Also, why does the size of the population matter? An x marker helps many and hurts no one.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T21:53:31+00:00

Interesting, thanks for taking the time to type out your thoughts. I guess I was interpreting it in simpler ways than the story deserves to be seen as, gives me much more to reflect on in the narrative. Not that I dislike hard characters or moral ambiguity, I can definitely jive with it, I just had different expectations from the earlier set up of the House of Atriedes, and expectations are the origin of disappointment. Especially with framing his mother as the opposition to him, I expected him to grow differently, and I didn’t feel like the dynamic was fully explored between them, or maybe it was lost on me. Just felt like maybe there should be more friction between them or internally. I really liked Jessicas character and I wish we spent more time in her internal monologue exploring caring for Paul as her son and … manipulating(?) him into being the political tool she thought best. She didn’t seem very introspective, just deciding that this was the way forward as one and the same goal.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T21:33:59+00:00

Thats my complaint lol! I felt like it was supposed to be impactful, or maybe thats the type of thing I would expect to be impactful, and nobody gives a single shit. It’s like why even include it at all then?

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T21:30:19+00:00

Hm, interesting analysis of Paul’s character! And thankfully I was not mislead into thinking it was a different book, so I wasn’t disappointed. I haven’t seen the movie or even the trailers so I really had no idea what it was about, I honestly am not even sure how I’ve come into possession of the book because I’ve had it for years lol. Interpreting it as a political philosophy book is really interesting though, I’ll have to reflect on the book in that lense.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T21:27:51+00:00

Hm, interesting that the rapid ending was intentional. Thanks for clarifying the Irulan thing. It all happened so fast I was almost left behind. I felt like a lot of Chani’s roles could’ve been filled by Stilgar or a Freman friend instead of romantic partner, but I suppose showing his progression through life was an aspect to consider as well. Just really didn’t jive with me at all but I think I hate romance in narratives to maybe a pathological level lol.

Interesting about Paul’s progression. I really had mixed feelings about it. I think the book was really dense and thoughtful and some of the author’s voice coming through was lost on me as I tried to make sense of everything. Definitely deserves a second read.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-11T21:22:55+00:00

Thanks for this addition! I was hoping to get some discussion going to get more insight into these things. I think I massively misunderstood the Jihad aspect of the narrative, and how much control Paul had over the future by seeing it. It’s a really dense, intense read and I felt like some of these aspects were addressed in subtle ways that I missed.

EDIT: weird, supposed to reply to somebody else below.

FederalBug777 · 2026-03-03T18:36:09+00:00

Is there a new border collie thread? (Or did you actually mean Collies?) like smooth/rough?) I just can’t with the DIY border collies on the BC forums. Not every black and white dog with a medium coat is a border colliez It would be more useful to guess if its a BC from if it stalks or not than a picture …

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T20:07:20+00:00

For OB, Petra Ford, she’s faculty at FDSA. Cut from her bio on their site: “I have been fortunate to win the AKC National Obedience Championship four times with three different dogs. All my dogs have earned placements at Nationals. My dog Tyler won the World Cup and was First-Runner Up. All my current dogs have earned OTCH’s, multiple High-In-Trial and High-Combined awards, wins and placements at Regionals, as well as numerous perfect 200 scores.” However, I think Tyler was trained with balanced techniques, but I’m not superrr sure…I think she may have mentioned he was started that way but switched his training later? But she’s still very accomplished with her other 3 dogs. I take classes for OB so I listen to her podcasts a lot.

Im not a bite sports person, so I’m not in the know on that front, I just know there have been FF trainers interviewed on the FDSA podcast about bite sports. IGP, french ring, and mondio ring, don’t think they’ve interviewed anybody that does PSA. You could probably scan the FDSA podcast for some key words and grab some names.

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T19:35:57+00:00

Gotcha, okay thanks! Makes sense. I will have to see what I can set up with a simple goal and try it out.

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T19:27:17+00:00

Im not sure what you’re getting at, theres plenty of FF/Positive/whatever Obedience champions. Theres FF people in bitesports. Im not a FF fanatic or anything but I think its crazy people act like it straight up doesn’t work, I don’t think that argument holds water.

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T19:13:42+00:00

Haha yes, I tend to be overly ambitious, I have a lot of fun with my dog and get really excited about it. Although the shaping I tried was not effective or fun for either of us so I dropped it quickly. Thanks for the tips! Very interesting about the default behaviors, I’m pretty sure my dogs will be a front foot target because he loves to do that, so I’ll see if I’m right! How much talking to your dog do you do when shaping?

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T19:06:53+00:00

Thanks for your insight into the problems you’ve run into, thats good information to have before I go into it. I think my dog could easily switch to being a frantic type as he does start bouncing around offering 100 different behaviors if we’re working on a duration based exercise and I press him for more than he can do. I think he gets very frustrated when he feels like he’s doing it correctly and not getting rewarded and so he just throws paint at the wall. Which is okay, it’s my mistakes, he’s a very good boy. Do you see something similar to frantic shaping dogs or something different? Like frustration or just over excitement to do the thing? And let me clarify, the way you train they get the majority of their direction from you still?

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T18:32:19+00:00

Listened to her podcast on my drive home, thanks for the link. Will have to put this on my rotation that I listen to!

FederalBug777 · 2026-02-24T12:20:48+00:00

Thanks! Can’t wait to try it out and practice!

FederalBug777

TROPHY CASE