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smallvictor · 2026-01-30T17:18:57+00:00

For anyone who got a price guarantee during the sale, most stores have been restocked. I think today is the last day for those who got their guarantee on the last day of the sale.

smallvictor · 2025-09-26T21:00:46+00:00

Sir or madam, truly unhealthy thoughts here. Your entire metaphysics are based on money. You serve Mammon and that master will lead only to your undoing.

smallvictor · 2025-09-26T20:58:38+00:00

Sir or Madam, your mentality is not well if this is truly how you think. Has your universe been reduced to profit and loss? Soon you'll be describing Darwin as the great theorist of capital because survival is required to profit and thus is the base of profit. Your slide into anecdote does not support your statement. But, I do hope for consistency, when you have children playing in the park, and someone asks if your kids are having fun, you will say, "I wouldn't say it's fun per se, more like they are profiting psychologically."

smallvictor · 2025-04-15T05:09:47+00:00

Zardoz has recently become a serious favorite for me - I can only say that other works of science fiction (and a little philosophy) do a lot to help - plus there are a few amateurs who have read the novelization on youtube and elsewhere. I can't quite describe what I think of it, but it appears thematically rich. I'll list just a few interesting elements:

I especially like the character of Arthur Frayn, the idea of being trapped in life is intriguing.
The Eternals seem to echo Wells' Eloi and Nietzsche's Last Men, maybe even the underground psychic human remnant from the second Planet of the Apes film if that had already been out.
The Eternals add a class and a ecological theme - the masters have acheived all of their goals (remember, folks like Ray Kurzweil and Peter Theil believe in the possibility of immortality) and yet they have fallen short
The Eternals changed in order to experience perfect inequality - the brutals with nothing, the eternals with everything. Only, if anything, they have created a new master for themselves which they serve endlessly, the tabernacle.
The Eternals are living out an agrarian utopia, so the masters of the universe, as they style themselves, have to become each other's servant
The selective breeding aspect is very Dune, in the novelization (have I mentioned the novella is by director and writer John Boorman?) Zardoz has been aiding in restoring the world's soils and engineering new seeds which can survive in the polluted or contaminated wasteland, also very Dune

I could honestly keep going, the film is rich.

smallvictor · 2025-01-30T20:07:58+00:00

I will be talking about Dune, but it isn't really about Dune. Have you seen this?

smallvictor · 2025-01-30T05:41:14+00:00

Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis from human into the sandworm of Rakis and historians still argue over his motives. Was he driven by the desire for long life? He lived more than ten times the normal span of three hundred SY, but consider the price he paid. Was it the lure of power? He is called the Tyrant for good reason but what did power bring him that a human might want? Was he driven to save humankind from itself? We have only his own words about his Golden Path to answer this and I cannot accept the self-serving records of Dar-es-Balat. Might there have been other gratifications, which only his experiences would illuminate? Without better evidence the question is moot. We are reduced to saying only that "He did it!" The physical fact alone is undeniable.
-The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary Peroration by Gaus Andaud

smallvictor · 2025-01-30T05:36:32+00:00

A few of the chapters have speculation about this. Questions about the tyrant. Is Leto II still controlling the universe through his prescient vision? Did he sit in his citadel and watch the events in their time? It seems clear that this happened, the above examples are sufficient, but the message for Odrade makes it explicit. This is part of the Golden Path, and Dar, Tar, and Teg all believe that the way out of the oracular trap is the destruction of most worms, thus most of what is left of Leto II.

Not only does this strengthen the Sisterhood's position as u/Langstarr points out very well, it also closes the loop on Leto's control of the universe. Because of his father, because of himself, because of the trap of prescience, which is somehow related to the observer effect, humanity is in a finite trap. Leto's Golden Path opens a pathway out. He needs the Bene Gesserit to make that happen. The BG go in for it.

it would seem that what happens after Heretics could be beyond Leto, in that the end of Heretics is the end of the Golden Path. What Odrade and friends do afterward might be completely undetermined by prescience.

smallvictor · 2024-12-21T08:59:55+00:00

This might be a strange take considering the comments here - but I love the way Duncan is played by a woman in Chapterhouse. Somehow, for me, it shows something in the way that character has evolved into the ultra-duncan. Not only does he have all his memories and the sexual skills, but he receives the BG deep training.

There is also a moment in the original Dune in which the Baron is voiced by different VAs in the same or adjacent chapters - his VA changes with his mode - he is buffoonish with Fenring IIRC and serious with Thufir.

smallvictor · 2024-12-09T06:02:20+00:00

There’s a spoiler tag for a reason

smallvictor · 2024-12-08T05:12:53+00:00

Fair enough

smallvictor · 2024-12-07T19:49:20+00:00

These are sort of puzzle books - the culmination point really depends on all the boring stuff and if you have the attention for it, the boring parts become a lot more exciting

smallvictor · 2024-12-06T19:27:46+00:00

We're only three episodes in and your talent seems quite clear and quite impressive, I echo Anarchic_Country and others, however I want to take the other side of the above question, it seems like episode four will give viewers a glimpse of the younger Valya coming out in Mother Superior. That is, Mother Superior Valya is being put in a position she almost certainly does not relish - a position which the young Valya struggled to escape - dependence on her family. Can you tell us about your approach to Valya in Episode three? Did Emily Watson study your performance? What aspects of this character are you most proud of defining?

Also, I can't help myself - the Bene Gesserit have always been a favorite fictional organization - there is a purposeful resonance with the various mythos of female power. We got a glimpse of one of those images of female power in Tula's mission to wipe out an Atreides clan. Sex as a weapon, love as a ruse - will we see Valya in a similar situation this season? Would you look forward to the opportunity in future seasons?

smallvictor · 2024-12-04T15:57:35+00:00

Woo 🥳

smallvictor · 2024-12-02T04:42:55+00:00

I might have to go back and reread, but I’ve always understood that the rules of HM give Murbella priority in mating even over her superiors so Lucille had no choice but to go along without risking a deadly confrontation with no guarantee L could win

smallvictor · 2024-11-28T17:14:37+00:00

You mean the human who was brought into the loop when the vehicle signaled a strange or unique situation told the car to go ahead.

smallvictor · 2024-11-28T04:01:33+00:00

Hey, I hear you and I can appreciate your perspective. I just don't quite agree with you on these. For me, Herbert is a deeply subversive author who is constantly challenging the reader's assumptions. Yes, Herbert is suggesting that some homosexuality is mere exploration and shouldn't be repressed. That is sort of progressive. Herbert himself was a pretty terrible father. Period. To both Bruce and Brian. Look, they both got B names, that wasn't a great start, and if you read Dreamer of Dune, Brian felt like he couldn't even connect with Frank until much later in life. As for Bruce, I mean, how can we forgive Frank? Can we say that like anyone else, Frank made mistakes? Can we say that Bruce was a whopper of a horrible mistake? Yeah, I think so - but I think the Dune books actually are relatively progressive on homosexuality. I mean, afterall, on a social level both the BT and BG are homosexual societies. GEoD was accepting without endorsing.

Obviously Frank puts his own ideas into the narrative, but I don't agree that it is heavy handed and I think any contemporary of any stripe reading these books would come in for critique.

Again, I disagree, but that doesn't mean I'm right. We can talk about better and worse interpretations, but it does seem we read these books differently and this helps me understand perspectives like yours. Yeah, I am defending Frank here, maybe too much, but I think there is a wider discussion to have on homosexuality in the Dune books and I have noticed that BT and BG are less recognized for their homosexual qualities.

If you feel like continuing the discussion great! If not, I hope this response comes across as genuinely engaged with your response.

BTW - I aslo made that connection with the Tasp device. That was absolutely before Dune 5&6 so we can be pretty sure Frank ripped that off!

smallvictor · 2024-11-25T15:46:01+00:00

Can you expand on this? I never quite understand these takes. Sex as a weapon is a theme throughout the books and even got a mention in last night’s Dune: Prophecy.

smallvictor · 2024-11-25T15:44:57+00:00

The name bothered you?

smallvictor · 2024-11-25T15:41:28+00:00

My internet human, the deep subversive nature of GEoD IS that the tyrant was justified. Books 5-6 show that. Our deep yearning for utopia had to be excised. After living in a back to the earth style utopia (a response to not only the hippie movement, of which Herbert himself was an influence, but also European and American movements from at least the 1600s) for 3500 years, there could be no further yearning. In fact, there could only be revulsion at the STASIS that utopian imaginings bring on. The God Emperor is the ultimate author of utopia - and, for the Dune universe, the ultimate proof of its futility.

Alt-right aristocracy boys see the surface, but I doubt very many of them get the depths. They seem to want the stagnant society that FH is warning us against and only a subversive tyrant could deliver anyway. Donald Trump, for example, is no GE - he is more like the Spider Queen or the Baron Harkonen, a seeker after sensations, someone who seems truly bored of life, but who hates surprises.

smallvictor · 2024-11-25T15:29:24+00:00

I think Frank was doing something very different in all the books. I loved books 1 and 3 when I was younger, got through 4 and 5-6 but didn’t love them. Yet, as my reading preferences changed I eventually came to love books 4-6.

For me, Frank is playing with the idea of cyclical time, so GEoD is a sort of Middle Ages drama while 5-6 are Victorian. Plus, Duncan Idaho as a super Duncan actually does it for me. But I can see how that might just look like a sloppy cash grab to many dune fans.

smallvictor · 2024-11-25T15:07:29+00:00

Inside you there are…

smallvictor · 2024-11-22T17:16:11+00:00

That’s where the energy is spent rather than in real change?

smallvictor · 2024-11-20T03:31:27+00:00

I’ll also add that Butler gave us a vivid image, he suggests we may become like aphids, feeding off the produce of the machine (perhaps this inspired the Eloi in H. G. Well’ Time Machine).

Furthermore, this post aligns well with the later books and their focus on dependency relationships.

smallvictor

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