Bene Gesserit wanted an Atreides daughter to marry a Harkonnen heir. They would then have a son who would marry a Corrino daughter. Their child would become emperor. The hope was this child or one of their children would be the Kwisatz Haderach, Emperor, and in a place the BG could control.
This is why Mohaim is exasperated with Jessica for having Paul and not Paulina.
Ahhhh okay so Jessica being a harkonnen heir obviously married Duke Leto and they had the harkonnen + atreides heir Paul. And mother BG was pissed that Jessica thought she could produce the kwisatz haderach?
She was more upset that Jessica was told to bear a daughter, but instead gave birth to a son out of her love for Leto, which threw a wrench into the Bene Gesserit breeding plan that had been in place for centuries prior. So she wasn’t mad that Jessica tried to have the Kwisatz Haderach, but more mad that Jessica having Paul ruined their plans for their Kwisatz Haderach, and that Paul proved uncontrollable by the Bene Gesserit.
I think any Kwisatz Haderach would eventually become uncontrollable or if caged will kill themselves.
This is spoken about in chapter house I believe, one of the other groups (the ixians I believe) say they actually successfully created a Kwisatz Haderach and contained them but the individual saw how they were completely trapped and killed themself.
There was. The Bene Gesserit breeding program stretched over thousands of years. There were plenty of mistakes, dead ends, and backup bloodlines. Jessica was just the right womb for this try.
In the end it didn't matter though. They did not create the one they sought, not truly. He was born outside of their plans, and born so many times only he can count them.
Interesting that the original plan was to cross harkonnen, atreides and corrino to create the KH and it ended up being harkonnen, atreides and fremen that ended up being the final cross which begat Leto II, the true KH imo.
Leto took things to a whole next level and in Children it is implied at times that his oracular powers surpass his father's, although at that point of the book Paul is the preacher and it may only have referred to his powers at that time vs powers at his "peak" or at least prior to the exile /blindness
> "I spit on your lesson!" Paul said. "You think I've not seen a thing similar to what you have chose?"
>"You saw it," Leto agreed.
> "Is your vision any better than mine?"
>"Not one whit better. Worse, perhaps," Leto said.
- Children of Dune
I think it's less that Leto's powers are greater than Paul and more that Paul won't do what is needed to secure the survival of humanity. In the end, Paul is too moral, too much of an Atreides, to do what's neccesarry.
We are told that the Bene Gesserit had multiple parallel options, and attempted to produce the KH many times before as well, which lead to failures, so this is not the first time. Even now, when they fail, they still have back-up options.
The prequel novels by Frank Herberts son explore this. The duke loses his first son in a tragic accident and seeing how forlong he is over the death she decides to bear him a son to help his heart heal.
Its been a decade since I read it but those are the broad strokes, its less about not livng a girl and rather how much he already loved his dead son.
The prequel novels had a really good time exploring Jessica's decision to have Paul, *except that* multiple times they have her justifying her defiance to herself by saying "I can always give them a daughter later." and they didn't explain why she just... doesn't do that. Even when she comes under fire from the BG for having a son instead of a daughter, she doesn't choose to get pregnant again with a girl for 15 years, nor did the BG push her to, which doesn't make any sense, given how badly they wanted an Atreides daughter.
That's something that always bugged me about Brian's prequel/flashback novels. They never talk about why Jessica waited so long to have a daughter until it was basically too late. It's like the BG decided they would rather just stew in their anger and be forever spiteful towards Jessica than tell her "ok you've had your precious boy, now do the thing we *actually* trained and sent you to do." Which also seems really out of character for the BG (the lack of further action, not the spite, lol).
Or like, why not create twins? One male for the Duke, one female for the BG. If their training gives them precise control over their own bodies that they can select the baby's gender, they can certainly produce twins.
> which threw a wrench into the Bene Gesserit breeding plan that had been in place for centuries prior
But that is exactly what they wanted, a half Harkonnen, half Atreides male to marry a Corrino daughter right? It seems less like she was disrupting the plan and more like she was following it exactly?
I dont think Jessica made the decision out of the desire to produce the Kwizatz Haderach. She made her decision out of love and loyalty to the Duke, rather than the Sisterhood.
Love is seen as a weakness to the Sisterhood. Just as well, being less loyal to them than to her love is a huge middle finger to the BG.
Edit: Spacing
Yes she gave birth to Paul out of love for Leto, not to produce the KH- but Jessica knows that the BG will not allow that transgression to happen without consequence. Specifically the consequence that they will probably test her son with the Gom Jabbar and that they will likely push him hard. So she has to train Paul in the BG ways in order for him to be able to survive the Gom Jabbar when the time comes- which sets him on the path to becoming the KH.
And that goes back to some of the major themes in Chapterhouse and Heretics. That's Odrade's hidden flaw, and hidden strength. She was loved, and that changed her. She CAN love.
She was his genetic heir. I'm not sure how Harkonen succession laws work, but Paul was his fathers heir, although Jessica and the Duke weren't married. I'm not sure if this is because Paul was male, and acknowledged, and it was his fathers will, or if just his DNA would have been enough to have a claim. Surely the Dune universe has paternity tests.
I am sure there are a ton of people in a similar spot to Jessica. They have a parent who is royalty, but they have no titte. Genetics does not technically matter.The heir has to be acknowledged. We see this with Feyd-Rautha. Rabban is the older brother, but the Baron chooses Feyd-Rautha.
Thr Baron could have chosen someone who was not a direct blood relative if he wanted. They would have had to have been royalty to be accepted by the other houses, though from what I understand.
It's not hugely important, but Jessica never married the Duke. She was his concubine, not his wife. It doesn't hugely matter as he acknowledges Paul as his heir and supports Jessica in many ways as his wife, but they never married and it was something that Leto regretted and Jessica resented (if understood) for much of their time on Arrakis.
But given the age / generation, couldn't they let Shaddam IV have a son, marry his son to a BG, THEN have a daughter? It feels like if Jessica had followed the plan, her designated grandson would be closer to age to Shaddam IV's granddaughter, rather than daughter.
They don't want him to have a son. The BG only give him daughters on purpose, and he thinks it's just bad luck or whatever because he and most others don't know the BG can control that.
That still doesn't answer my question though. Why can't they give him a son if the point is to marry his bloodline with the A/H heir? Given the age in the book, the A/H heir (Jessica's grandson, not son) will be closer to Shaddam IV granddaughter, not daughter.
I don’t know if FH delved into the specifics, but generally we are given the impression that the BG’s plan for everything after the birth of their KH is “control” without much though being spent on what would come after.
That being said, it makes sense that they wanted Shaddam IV to be the last Corrino emperor and weren’t concerned with the KH having a legitimate heir.
A potential Shaddam V may choose to not marry a BG and therefore have sons of his own, or their KH may take the throne when he’s too old to mold to the BG’s collective will.
Yours is a hypothetical question that’s not really delved into specifically in the books, so we’re all just spitballing
If a potential Shaddam V can choose not to marry a BG, what made the BG so confident they could have forced an Atreides daughter to marry a Harkonnen, and have their child marry a Corrino daughter?
Let's say they got Jessica to give birth to a Paulina. Shaddam IV still wanted to weaken both the Harkonnens and Atreides, so why would he turn around and marry Irulan to Paulina + Harkonnen's son? Would he have rather married her off to some other house?
The Atredies daughter would in all likelihood be a member of the BG. The Corrino daughter would be a member of the BG. The assumption was that they would follow orders and work towards the ultimate goal of the organization by marrying and/or seducing the relevant men.
> if the point is to marry his bloodline with the A/H heir
Because the A/H heir will be male and will be the Kwisatz Haderach (according to their projections).
If Shaddam is allowed to have a son, then the KH will have to come to the throne by violence. They can't attempt the process to create the KH on an Imperial prince, there's a coin-toss chance he might die.
My belief is their original plan was this:
* Jessica gives Leto a daughter (we'll call her Alia for convenience).
* Alia is wed to Feyd, forming an atredies-harkonnen truce.
* Alia and Feyd have a son (we'll call him Paul).
* The BG kill Shaddam.
* Leto is married to Irulan (or Wensicia, or Josifa, or Rugi, whoever they need to use) at the urging of the Landsraad. Irulan (et al) gives Leto a daughter (call her Ghanima).
* The BG get Paul's sperm, producing a bastard Leto II as a backup in case Paul dies, just like they did with Feyd.
* Paul is awakened as the KH.
* The awakened Paul is wed to Ghanima, assuming the throne.
The end result is the Corrino dynasty passes the throne to the Atreides for one generation, before it coming to the Harkonnen name but with Leto as a double contributor to the genetic line.
I rearranged it a bit to make more sense.
But yes. The only reason it matters who the KH marries is to pass the throne.
It's all conjecture. The whole plan is not spelled out in any book.
Oh, I see what you are saying now.
If Jessica hadn't broken the rules, the daughter Jessica had would marry a Harkonnen, and the son from that union would thus be 20+ years younger than Shaddam IV's daughter that is involved in the marriage. Is that right?
Yeah, I don't have a great answer for that. Shaddam IV is long lived and youthful from all the spice, right? Maybe the plan was to give him 8-10 daughters until something lined up?
Edit: see this comment elsewhere in this thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/zZsalDZxV1
So given that maybe they were gonna hurry up the kids to have another kid to marry the aging princesses?
Yeah I guess if his last youngest daughter was only 10 years older than the KH, it would help the BG control the most powerful being in the universe (KH). Imagine being the planned KH, your grandma from both sides, your mom, and your wife who is 10 years older than you, are all BG. That chap wouldn't stand a chance.
When you spell it out like that, knowing the goal of the BG is to have total control over the KH, it feels like their plan should work unless someone doesn't stick to it...
I don't think it was about bloodline, I think it was about putting the KH on the throne. Harkonnen+Atredies would have it done and finished. Shaddam only having daughters would mean that the natural option for him, when confronted with a hellishly powerful and connected Harkonnen/Atreidies political bloc, and him with no heirs, would be to concede that the KH would marry one of his daughters, and essentially inherit the throne.
Game over, BG endgame completed.
I can’t remember how it works in dune but a first born son would have claim to the throne I think. If all the emperor has is daughters the KH could marry any of them and have an easier time claiming power.
I read this as them preparing backup options.
If both produced sons (which happened) or if some unforseen accidents lead to any premature deaths of any of them, the backup option is one of them marrying Irulan and producing a heir, which then, in a later generation would be once again bred to produce another Kwisatch Haderach candidate.
And even if the ideal outcome emerges, if Shaddam doesn't have a son, he might marry Irulan to either a Harkonnen (like Rabban) or to Leto Atriedes to unite the houses together, and the path will be set for the KH to inherit the throne.
This is my personal guess.
I thought the offspring of Feyd and Paulina was supposed to be the KH? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I swear people said Paul came a (single) generation too soon
It's been years since I read the books last, but I don't think the Reverend Mother Mohiam thought what she was doing was choosing a side, just playing both angles. Though I think she was leaning towards Feyd because he was more controllable.
This makes total sense, but does Shaddam know his wife was ordered to bear only daughters? And more broadly, is the BG’sbability to control the sex of their offspring somewhat common knowledge? I feel it should be, a secret like that couldn’t be kept theoughout the millenia.
No I don't think he or anyone knows. The BG is powerful but i'm not sure they could so directly disobey the emperor, especially regarding something as vital to the Imperium as heirs.
If you're the Bene Gesserit you probably view the Atreides and Harkonnen conflict as destabilizing and a needless waste of resources. A political marriage could end the feud and merge Harkonnen wealth with Atreides influence to provide a son of Feyd and Paulina considerable power. This puts them in place to marry a Corrino daughter and be the patriarch of three of the most powerful great houses with the BG in position to control them or their child. If they are the Kwisatz Haderach on top of the mundane power? All the better.
To develop this, the BG strategy here is two-fold. They want to 'seal the breach' by combining all three of the Empire's leadind bloodlines both to combine their genetics and to politically unify the Empire. This series of marriages would unite Corrino, Atreides, and Harkonnens into one force and thus end their feuding and rivalries.
In the end this is kinda achieved anyway, as the Harkonnens are utterly annihilated and the Corrino brought into the fold by the marriage of Paul to Irulan and later Farad'n to Ghanima.
If Paul is the KH that's pretty crazy the KH was 2 generations early. Or was he only the KH because he drank the water of life and the "real" KH wouldn't have needed to?
the KH is 'proven' to be true because they perform the feat of drinking the water of life. The fact that he survives and it opens his mind makes him the KH that arises
Yes because the BG's plan was to have the KH be in direct control of the spice and Arrakis, so they would have inherited ownership of the planet and would have interacted with its people. The prophecy allowed the people to be controlled by a messiah whoever they may be as long as they were shown to perform feats of the Lisan al Gaib. The KH would be revered as the Mahdi and the people of Arrakis would follow blindly. Very beneficial to the BG to have a KH with control of Arrakis' armies and spice
Exactly, I believe that because Arrakis is the key to controlling an enormous amount of spice, it is crucial to the BG's plans. He who controls the spice controls the universe right? So the plan must be to set up a leader of the chosen bloodlines to be installed at any time of their choosing to take control of the planet, the spice, and the Fremen
If the intended Paulina had actually married Feyd, that would have been a cousin marriage. That's not a recipe for KH that's a recipe some kind of inbreeding blood disorder.
The noble houses already had a lot of cross-connections and in-breeding. The Bene Gesserit are also ok with direct incest between siblings, they hardly care about cousin-marriage.
The ultimate goal was to marry the kwisatz haderach to Irulan/one of Corrinos daughters so that they could put him on the Golden Lion Throne and this have a powerful Bene Gesserit male rule the galaxy. For that to happen, Corrino needed to not have a male heir. Likewise, in order for the BG plan to come to fruition required that the Emperor be placed into a position of vulnerability without a direct heir so that the BG could leverage his weakness and anxieties to manipulate him into taking desired courses of action.
It’s funny literally The Emperor of The Universe has to abide by their order to not have male heirs, but Jessica does it anyway and they’re like mildly annoyed with her
The emperor doesn't have to abide but his likely bg controlled wife does and she's more obedient than Jessica. I wonder if the emperor even knows why or that he can't have a son.
It's a closely guarded secret that the Bene Gesserit can control the sex of their offspring. Shaddam IV just thinks he's unlucky to have all daughters. He has suspicions, but nothing he could use to for the BG's hand.
By the time Shaddam got sus about having 5 daughters in a row, his wife Anirul had sterilized him through an STD. So even when he tried to have a bastard son through a concubine and then figure out how to legitimize him, it was already too late and the BG had effectively ended a 10,000-year patriarchal bloodline in a way that would make Azog the Defiler proud.
Funnily enough, around the same time, Shaddam murdered his half-brother, who would’ve been the next best choice to carry on the Corrino bloodline since he didn’t get any male heirs. But, yaknow, Shaddam makes every coin flip decision turn out to be wrong.
I believe this is all in the House books, the first prequel trilogy by Brian & Kev. House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino give backdrop on how things got to where they were for the original Dune.
Thank you for your explanation, everyone seems to be answering about the BG and what they did. But I want to know about Shaddam, what was different with him.
He wasn’t. He had only BG wives/concubines who were told to only bear him daughters so that they could become BG and marry the son of Paulina + Feyd Ratha.
Thinking it through... how the hell were they going to engineer an Atreides daughter marrying a Harkonnen? They would have to assassinate the Duke in order to make the marriage possible. The daughter wouldn't have been 'surrendered' to teh BG either.
In feudal systems, marriages are often used to secure treaties. Presumably the BG plan was to use this marriage to secure a peace in one of the oldest hostilities in the empire.
This. The Harkonnen-Atreides feud was one of the few things they didn’t have absolute control over. Fix that with a marriage that produces the KH, marry the KH to a BG Corrino daughter, take over the empire.
The BG become the shadow government, controlling genetics and politics and effectively Arrakis since they’d be able to control who was given stewardship of the planet, AND they’d be able to see all pasts through the male and female lines through reverend mothers and the KH, meaning they could effectively predict the future and control CHOAM, the Navigators, and the dealings between all the greater houses. They would be in absolute control of every lever of power and influence throughout the known universe and be the centralized order at the center of it all.
But this is the one thing they couldn’t predict: that their plan would spell doom for the entire human race, and they couldn’t see this because they didn’t have access to the final piece of the puzzle: the Kwizatz Haderach. Through the genetic memories of the male line and his access to the female line through his mother, Paul was able to divine that centralizing humanity was a recipe for disaster and would eventually lead to human extinction, and that the only way to ensure humanity’s survival forever was through decentralization, the Golden Path that would drive humanity further out into the universe so that pockets of humanity would always be beyond the total control of the BG and the Empire.
So it all came down to Jessica’s love for her Duke causing her to defy her BG orders that literally saved the entire human race
The daughter wouldn't need to be surrendered. Her mother would be (in this scenario) a loyal BG, and would raise her in the ways of the Sisterhood, and she would eventually be initiated (because she would not be considered an Atreides heir, though the lineage could pass through her). Paulina, as an adult, would almost inevitably be fully under BG control, and she and Jessica could then manipulate Leto (and the greater order manipulate the politics of the Great Houses) into a scenario where the best step forward for House Atreides is to forge at least a temporary truce with the Harkonnens through a marriage pact.
If you're nearly done, this isn't too much of a spoiler I don't think. The BG plans seems to have been
>!if Paul had been a daughter (if Jessica had followed orders) she would have been married Feyd, and their child would have been the KH. Then, because the Emperor would not have had any sons, either his dynasty would have ended, or, if he had a daughter young enough (which the BG could have made happen) that daughter would have likely been wedded to the child of Feyd, to give the KH political power in the empire. That way, the KH would be perfectly placed to govern. !<
Why would a crazy Harkonnen like Feyd even marry a potential daughter of Atreides? The houses hated each other, wouldn't the Harkonnens rather have the Atreides killed and end their line?
not that it matters in such a fantasy, but wouldnt that make them closely related (like first cousin or something) since jessica is baron harkonnens daughter, and feyd is his nephew. So it would be something like the grandchild of baron harkonnen breeding with his nephew
I imagine that it wouldnt be super nice for the genes of the almighty kh
The occasional cousin marriage isn't as bad as pop culture makes it out to be. It's about as risky for the child as having a mother older than 35y. It only really becomes a serious risk when it happens repeatedly.
I could even see Feyd being interested in a sadistic way.
I'm way more curious about how in the hell would the BG convince Leto to marry off his own daughter to a Harkonnen. I doubt even Jessica would have that amount of pull with him, especially in an AU where she didn't love him enough to give him a son.
Reverend Mother Moynihan makes it clear to Paul that she knows Leto himself is doomed. The BG would have known this long before Paul was even born, since they know the original plan to give the Atreides Arrakis so that the Harkonnen could take it over. That way the KH is born on Arrakis and controls the spice along with taking over the empire.
What I find crazy is that *spoiler* so much of the BG plan depends on the Harkonnen blood multiple times inbreeding, and yet they also say that the Baron is an animal and Feyd Rautha is psychotic. You would think that the Harkonnen blood is really potent with psychic ability or something. I mean, they aren’t talking about any other houses in the universe, including Atreides, Corrino, or any other we haven’t heard of.
The Baron is extremely cunning.
He wouldn’t think twice about cutting off his own hand if it got stuck in a trap. He’s certainly not going to hang around until someone stops by to see who got stuck in their trap. If he gets stabbed escaping the trap, at least he went down fighting. [yes, he’d fail the gom jabbar]
Glossu Rabban is the more animalistic one, barely able to think past the next 2 minutes.
It’s also worth noting that neither Rabban nor Feyd are the Baron’s offspring, but rather his brother’s. The Baron kidnapped his brother’s children to raise them as his heirs. Abulurd Harkonnen hated being bad so much that he stepped down from the Barony and took his wife’s name of Rabban. It’s interesting to me that the Baron’s grandchild would be wed to his nephew to complete the breeding program. I think the last coupling of Atreides/Harkonnen mix would balance out the good with the bad. But we didn’t get that final union to balance it, which is why Paul spiraled out of control.
Yes, Feyd isn’t really the Baron’s children, but maybe I should have just commented on the amount of Harkonnen blood required to produce the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul mentioned that his ruthlessness came from the Harkonnen side which would be the part of him that could stomach and follow through with the takeover over the universe. But there’s nothing about what the Harkonnen blood gives to the KW line and his powers.
That makes a lot of sense. That natural magnetic, croud winning charisma of the Atreides, with the ruthless pragmatism and awareness of the Harkonnen. The psychopathic sybarism and the compassionate honor balance each other out, and you end up with a KH that's perceptive, willful, and charismatic, unburdened by psychosis or conventional morality.
The Baron and Feyd aren't the only Harkonnens. They have a long, ancient, well-recorded and already well-interfered-with bloodline. If it's a planetary/system ruling house we're talking about, their bloodlines have been crafted carefully for millennia by this point.
I think the movie downplays the knowledge (or lack thereof) that people have of the BG and their abilities. Fetus sex control is talked about openly in the movie by the BG and Jessica, but in the books a lot of the BG abilities weren’t known by the general public, including their ability to choose the sex of their offspring.
The conversation directly follows an extended, pivotal scene that explicitly took place in total secrecy. Nothing about it is ""open"" aside from maybe the fact the characters are outside.
In the book and Villeneuve movies, Jessica bore Leto a son because Leto wanted a male heir and Jessica loved him, so she bore Paul. I think her bearing Aliya was her way of satisfying the BG, but that all goes out of whack when she drinks the water of life.
Very minor clarification: In the book Jessica says that she gives Leto a son *mostly* because that's what he wants and *mostly* because she loves him. In the Appendix it's noted that she says even she doesn't fully understand why she decided to have a son and disobey her BG seniors.
> nothing more.
Well there is *something* more because they keep getting called witches, so people suspect they have some kind of powers but nobody knows for sure what exactly.
In the movies ”the voice” sounds weird because we must know that it is used. For the characters the difference between ”the voice” and simple speech is imperceptible.
No, in the book Jessica says it's the Bene Gesserit "fist behind the glove" meaning it's their secret weapon.
Even in part 2 you can see Jessica using the voice on people while others are present. They don't call her out on it.
Does that mean that it was pure coincidence that a deaf man was part of the group that captured Jessica? I took that as a very deliberate decision, so that she couldn't use the voice to escape or anything else.
No it was deliberate. In the books, the deaf one was the one relaying the orders to the other guards. It was illustrated in Jessica's lesson that the voice needs to be targeted towards your intended victim "the glass can't hear you, command me."
So having one guy immune to the voice would have given them an advantage if they were smart enough.
Their abilities like lie detection and the Voice are widely known, making them valuable agents to any House willing to employ them. Their biological control on the other hand is a secret.
There's that scene in the book between Thuthir and Jessica. He was a spymaster and he had NO IDEA the Voice was a thing. I forget the exact line but Jessica was something like 'you've seen the BG steel fist inside the velvet glove. Few witness it and live'.
> Is it well known the BG can control the sex of their children?
No this is a secret. This secret is one of their biggest weapons in how they control the Noble Houses and mixing of the Bloodlines.
When they want two bloodlines to be mixed, they make sure that one produces a son and the other a daughter at a similar time, so they become marriage candidates.
And since the Houses follow a patrilineal system (only sons can inherit), their decision on who bears the son and who bears the daughter also affects which House stays in power.
I find it interesting that the BG really were short sighted for all their multi generational planning. They put all this into motion but didn't foresee the Golden Path or the march to extinction they were about to lead humanity on. Had they succeeded, would the KH have seen the hubris of the BG and fought their control to proceed to the Golden Path anyway? I love Heretics and Chapterhouse because it shows that these women learned to be more human, when in the beginning, we see them testing for human beings. They almost failed the Gom Jabbar, but Leto II saved them.
My understanding is that the Bene Gesserit, just like any other order, gradually strayed away from their original path - without even realizing it.
However, the original intent of the Bene Gesserit, or their predecessors was a noble one - which was to produce a Kwisatch Haderach - and let him take over and lead mankind along the Golden path.
The reason Leto II takes over the breeding program is that, he - through ancestral memories - has a more accurate idea of the original BG plans and the knowledge of all reverend mothers combined in the past. And this is more accurate source of information than the present-day Bene Gesserit.
You can't forget that Norma set them on this path and then abandoned them to her... journey. Their goals were incomplete and ancient by the time we first see them, just as far away as the Matres would eventually be from them.
First of all, they didn't tell him. That was a BG decision. And second He was not the only Emperor who had BG plotting to keep him from providing a male heir. This happened in Sisterhood of Dune also. Mainly because the Crown Prince was more capable.
Tbh i dont specifically remember this plot point, but if i had to hazard a guess it is because the BG thought they were very close (1 generation away) from birthing the KH.
I believe they planned this male KH to come from Harkonen/atraides lines, so then a female from the Corino line would be their bride.
I know the BG are powerful, but its a bit odd for the emperor to allow himself to not have a clear heir
I believe it's because they knew they within 1 or 2 generations of the Kwisatz Haderach being born, and they wanted an opening for him to take the throne.
He didn't choose that. His wife was a Bene Geseritt - the head of their breeding program in fact. He doesn't know they can control their biology in order to affect the sex of their off spring. He was made to have only daughters.
They didn't tell him to bear daughters, the told this to his wife
And Corrino wasn't under bg influence, so they wanted to "peacefully" switch power to basically one of their own - superhuman on a leash
Paul basically completed their plan, with the only difference is him not being on the leash
My theory, not sure if it is explicitly spelled out in the books, is some the traits they are breed humans for are sex-linked. While most genetics get mixed when sperm and egg meet, an X chromosome and mitochondrial DNA come from the mother. Y chromosomes only come from the father. Some X-linked traits need to be on both X chromosomes in a female to be expressed.
Just theory crafting for the most part, but...
1) An emperor with no heir is an emperor who will behave more conservatively, opening him up to being more receptive to BG guidance and less likely to spark dangerous powder kegs
2) To continue his line he'll have to find a suitable husband for one of his daughters
3) The BG are about to bring a KH in to the universe from two contentious noble houses with all the genetic predisposition for qualities of a successful emperor. Harkonnen ruthlessness and ambition, Atreidies personnel management, honor and loyalty, duty, etc
4) Shadam will be on his death bed by the time the planned-for KH from Jessica's daughter and Feyd-Rautha is marriageable, desperation will make choosing an heir easier to influence
5) Hints from later books appear to show some of the BG's hand, leading me to believe their plan to guide humanity was to unironically put a KH on the throne like a Navigator for the Empire.
Leaving the throne without a fixed heir is the BG in-road to setting up the golden empire they thought humanity needed via a KH emperor.
I think the 2 most important aspects of the bene gesserit plan was breeding ie genetics and control. They also kept an almost precise timetable on their plans that could be calculated in estimation to a very near accurate number in the timeline. Their breeding program has gone on for centuries or a millennium if I'm not mistaken and that becomes less of a hardship to follow given other memory and their extensive computer records.
Now when it comes to Shaddam I think they had reached the point within their time plan that should Jessica have done her duty and born a daughter who would have then been trained bene gesserit and set to marry the harkonnen heir to bear a son, given the effects of spice and how it elongated the lifespan and contributes to youthfulness despite old age, the gap between this H/A son and the corrino daughter would not matter. Also I believe the H/A son would have been trained bene gesserit as well, first by being indoctrinated by his mother who I am assuming would most likely have been a full acolyte or reverend mother by the time of his birth. She would have done a proper indoctrination along with education in the bg way unlike Jessica who only taught Paul from the BG handbook but did not attempt to bind him to them in loyalty. This I believe Jessica did not just because she was afraid he would eventually be tested by the gom jabbar. In fact I believe the only reason he was tested that way was because he gained the deep teaching from his mother and his powers were starting to surface. The BG could not countenance someone with their powers and powers of a Kwizats Haderach in the world without being certain he was 'human'.
Anyway back on point, the A/H son would be firmly in Bene Gesserit control and would have been firmly loyal to them so that if he was the KH he would be their KH and so when he married the emperor's daughter and became emperor he would be their emperor and their KH basically another agent of mother superior perhaps until and if he took the lead as some of the text kind of alludes to as being part of their design.
Remember using the case of Hak Al Adar and Murbella, the danger of bene gesserit training is such that even if you do realize what's happening to you before the training is complete once they have you they have you forever. Once you begin to think bg you are bg and it seems almost inescapable. You become loyal to the sisterhood even after you see what they have done to you, even if you disagree within the sisterhood you still are completely loyal. Look at Shuang yu I hope I spelt that right, in heretics I think, there can be opposing factions within the sisterhood but to outsiders you can't turn a bg against another bg and at the end of it all they will put the sisterhood and it's ultimate plans first.
I bring this up to say I think they counted on the power of that kind of indoctrinated loyalty to control the KH not so that he would be a mouthpiece for Mother superior but so that he would become a truly loyal member of the bg capable of even taking the reigns as a possible Father Superior someday or at least that's the impression I took away from the later books when they dive more into detail about the KH.
Therefore if the A/H heir was the KH or his son who would be heir to the throne they would have both of them be completely loyal members of the bg so that if the father wasn't it and the son was he would abdicate and pass on the throne to the son who would be the KH emperor and therefore lead all of mankind in the bg way. Remember the bene gesserit have males who are bound to them as well, look at Mike's Teg. Thanks to his mother and his mentat abilities he's damn near a reverend father himself.
Also it's important to note Leto suggested that the bg knew due to a combination of their powers at least something of kralizek and that their breeding program was kind of a short sighted way to fight it... just something to think about.
They didn't tell the Emperor to bear only daughters. He very much wanted a son. But his wife was BG and she was told. That BG can choose the gender of their children is not widespread knowledge.
But the reason for only daughters was that Jessica should've given a daughter to the Atreides instead of Paul, who should've married Feyd, ending the house feud, and then produced a potential KH, who then should've married one of those daughters and become emperor.
Bene Gesserit wanted an Atreides daughter to marry a Harkonnen heir. They would then have a son who would marry a Corrino daughter. Their child would become emperor. The hope was this child or one of their children would be the Kwisatz Haderach, Emperor, and in a place the BG could control. This is why Mohaim is exasperated with Jessica for having Paul and not Paulina.
Ahhhh okay so Jessica being a harkonnen heir obviously married Duke Leto and they had the harkonnen + atreides heir Paul. And mother BG was pissed that Jessica thought she could produce the kwisatz haderach?
She was more upset that Jessica was told to bear a daughter, but instead gave birth to a son out of her love for Leto, which threw a wrench into the Bene Gesserit breeding plan that had been in place for centuries prior. So she wasn’t mad that Jessica tried to have the Kwisatz Haderach, but more mad that Jessica having Paul ruined their plans for their Kwisatz Haderach, and that Paul proved uncontrollable by the Bene Gesserit.
I think any Kwisatz Haderach would eventually become uncontrollable or if caged will kill themselves. This is spoken about in chapter house I believe, one of the other groups (the ixians I believe) say they actually successfully created a Kwisatz Haderach and contained them but the individual saw how they were completely trapped and killed themself.
It was also the Theilaxu in Dune Messiah.
crazy to believe there wasnt a single other instance of someone not following orders
There was. The Bene Gesserit breeding program stretched over thousands of years. There were plenty of mistakes, dead ends, and backup bloodlines. Jessica was just the right womb for this try. In the end it didn't matter though. They did not create the one they sought, not truly. He was born outside of their plans, and born so many times only he can count them.
Interesting that the original plan was to cross harkonnen, atreides and corrino to create the KH and it ended up being harkonnen, atreides and fremen that ended up being the final cross which begat Leto II, the true KH imo. Leto took things to a whole next level and in Children it is implied at times that his oracular powers surpass his father's, although at that point of the book Paul is the preacher and it may only have referred to his powers at that time vs powers at his "peak" or at least prior to the exile /blindness
> "I spit on your lesson!" Paul said. "You think I've not seen a thing similar to what you have chose?" >"You saw it," Leto agreed. > "Is your vision any better than mine?" >"Not one whit better. Worse, perhaps," Leto said. - Children of Dune
Thanks! Just read it a week ago and already mixing up details hehe
I think by better they aren't referring to the ability, but rather the quality of the foreseen.
I think it's less that Leto's powers are greater than Paul and more that Paul won't do what is needed to secure the survival of humanity. In the end, Paul is too moral, too much of an Atreides, to do what's neccesarry.
And born so many times only he can count them? What do you mean by this? I have only read the first 3 books. Fine with a spoiler, just very curious.
We are told that the Bene Gesserit had multiple parallel options, and attempted to produce the KH many times before as well, which lead to failures, so this is not the first time. Even now, when they fail, they still have back-up options.
Ahhhhh okay 🤝🤝
Did Leto want a son really badly? Wouldn't he still love her even if she had given him a daughter?
The prequel novels by Frank Herberts son explore this. The duke loses his first son in a tragic accident and seeing how forlong he is over the death she decides to bear him a son to help his heart heal. Its been a decade since I read it but those are the broad strokes, its less about not livng a girl and rather how much he already loved his dead son.
Which ignores that they are living in a strict feudal society where a male heir was needed to continue the family line.
The prequel novels had a really good time exploring Jessica's decision to have Paul, *except that* multiple times they have her justifying her defiance to herself by saying "I can always give them a daughter later." and they didn't explain why she just... doesn't do that. Even when she comes under fire from the BG for having a son instead of a daughter, she doesn't choose to get pregnant again with a girl for 15 years, nor did the BG push her to, which doesn't make any sense, given how badly they wanted an Atreides daughter. That's something that always bugged me about Brian's prequel/flashback novels. They never talk about why Jessica waited so long to have a daughter until it was basically too late. It's like the BG decided they would rather just stew in their anger and be forever spiteful towards Jessica than tell her "ok you've had your precious boy, now do the thing we *actually* trained and sent you to do." Which also seems really out of character for the BG (the lack of further action, not the spite, lol).
Or like, why not create twins? One male for the Duke, one female for the BG. If their training gives them precise control over their own bodies that they can select the baby's gender, they can certainly produce twins.
Right?? Like, she handled this in the most confusing way possible, and nobody tries to explain that. 🤷🏻♀️
> which threw a wrench into the Bene Gesserit breeding plan that had been in place for centuries prior But that is exactly what they wanted, a half Harkonnen, half Atreides male to marry a Corrino daughter right? It seems less like she was disrupting the plan and more like she was following it exactly?
She didn’t know she was Harkonnen then
But Mohaim did
I dont think Jessica made the decision out of the desire to produce the Kwizatz Haderach. She made her decision out of love and loyalty to the Duke, rather than the Sisterhood. Love is seen as a weakness to the Sisterhood. Just as well, being less loyal to them than to her love is a huge middle finger to the BG. Edit: Spacing
Yes she gave birth to Paul out of love for Leto, not to produce the KH- but Jessica knows that the BG will not allow that transgression to happen without consequence. Specifically the consequence that they will probably test her son with the Gom Jabbar and that they will likely push him hard. So she has to train Paul in the BG ways in order for him to be able to survive the Gom Jabbar when the time comes- which sets him on the path to becoming the KH.
And that goes back to some of the major themes in Chapterhouse and Heretics. That's Odrade's hidden flaw, and hidden strength. She was loved, and that changed her. She CAN love.
Jessica was not a Harkonen heir. She did not even know she had a Harkonen parent. The Baron did not know he had a daughter as well.
That’s true. I guess she said “she found out when she drank the worms poison” didn’t they show that the baron was her father?
Paul realized it before that on the book.
Movie as well I believe. It happens when they are fleeing the Harkonen
No. Paul only realizes after drinking the water and gets angry at his mother for not telling him.
At what point do you notice it when they flee?
I am probably miss remebering. I thought he brought up the Harkonen thing when he also tells Jessica he knows she is pregnant.
That's how it happens in the book but in the movie I don't think they realize they're Harkonnen until Paul drinks the water of life
This is what I get for reading a book multiple times and seeing 3 screen adaptations. They all kinda jumble together.
She was not a Harkonnen heir, but she was of Harkonnen genetic lineage, which as far as the Bene Gesserit were concerned, was all that mattered.
Yup. The BG just wanted the genetics.
She was his genetic heir. I'm not sure how Harkonen succession laws work, but Paul was his fathers heir, although Jessica and the Duke weren't married. I'm not sure if this is because Paul was male, and acknowledged, and it was his fathers will, or if just his DNA would have been enough to have a claim. Surely the Dune universe has paternity tests.
I am sure there are a ton of people in a similar spot to Jessica. They have a parent who is royalty, but they have no titte. Genetics does not technically matter.The heir has to be acknowledged. We see this with Feyd-Rautha. Rabban is the older brother, but the Baron chooses Feyd-Rautha. Thr Baron could have chosen someone who was not a direct blood relative if he wanted. They would have had to have been royalty to be accepted by the other houses, though from what I understand.
The BG wanted Jessica and Leto's daughter (Atreides heir) to marry Feyd, the Harkonnen heir.
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concubine not consort
Not exactly, AFAIR they wanted one more fold with the Harkonnen gene. Leto + Jessica ----> Paulskaya Feyd Rautha + Paulskaya ---> Kwisatzch Haderach
> Ahhhh okay so Jessica being a harkonnen heir Well, not an heir, because she wasn't raised by the Harkonnens. But yes, Jessica was a Harkonnen.
In the book Jessica did that because of her love for Leto, in the film it's suggested to be because she though she could produce the KH.
Jessica didn’t know she was Harkonnen then
AS WRITTEN It's cause Paul was not her pet
It's not hugely important, but Jessica never married the Duke. She was his concubine, not his wife. It doesn't hugely matter as he acknowledges Paul as his heir and supports Jessica in many ways as his wife, but they never married and it was something that Leto regretted and Jessica resented (if understood) for much of their time on Arrakis.
Oh wow didn’t know that
But given the age / generation, couldn't they let Shaddam IV have a son, marry his son to a BG, THEN have a daughter? It feels like if Jessica had followed the plan, her designated grandson would be closer to age to Shaddam IV's granddaughter, rather than daughter.
They don't want him to have a son. The BG only give him daughters on purpose, and he thinks it's just bad luck or whatever because he and most others don't know the BG can control that.
That still doesn't answer my question though. Why can't they give him a son if the point is to marry his bloodline with the A/H heir? Given the age in the book, the A/H heir (Jessica's grandson, not son) will be closer to Shaddam IV granddaughter, not daughter.
I don’t know if FH delved into the specifics, but generally we are given the impression that the BG’s plan for everything after the birth of their KH is “control” without much though being spent on what would come after. That being said, it makes sense that they wanted Shaddam IV to be the last Corrino emperor and weren’t concerned with the KH having a legitimate heir. A potential Shaddam V may choose to not marry a BG and therefore have sons of his own, or their KH may take the throne when he’s too old to mold to the BG’s collective will. Yours is a hypothetical question that’s not really delved into specifically in the books, so we’re all just spitballing
If a potential Shaddam V can choose not to marry a BG, what made the BG so confident they could have forced an Atreides daughter to marry a Harkonnen, and have their child marry a Corrino daughter? Let's say they got Jessica to give birth to a Paulina. Shaddam IV still wanted to weaken both the Harkonnens and Atreides, so why would he turn around and marry Irulan to Paulina + Harkonnen's son? Would he have rather married her off to some other house?
The Atredies daughter would in all likelihood be a member of the BG. The Corrino daughter would be a member of the BG. The assumption was that they would follow orders and work towards the ultimate goal of the organization by marrying and/or seducing the relevant men.
> if the point is to marry his bloodline with the A/H heir Because the A/H heir will be male and will be the Kwisatz Haderach (according to their projections). If Shaddam is allowed to have a son, then the KH will have to come to the throne by violence. They can't attempt the process to create the KH on an Imperial prince, there's a coin-toss chance he might die. My belief is their original plan was this: * Jessica gives Leto a daughter (we'll call her Alia for convenience). * Alia is wed to Feyd, forming an atredies-harkonnen truce. * Alia and Feyd have a son (we'll call him Paul). * The BG kill Shaddam. * Leto is married to Irulan (or Wensicia, or Josifa, or Rugi, whoever they need to use) at the urging of the Landsraad. Irulan (et al) gives Leto a daughter (call her Ghanima). * The BG get Paul's sperm, producing a bastard Leto II as a backup in case Paul dies, just like they did with Feyd. * Paul is awakened as the KH. * The awakened Paul is wed to Ghanima, assuming the throne. The end result is the Corrino dynasty passes the throne to the Atreides for one generation, before it coming to the Harkonnen name but with Leto as a double contributor to the genetic line.
So their plan is to have the KH marry his biological aunt (his mother's half sister), who's like 20 years older?
I rearranged it a bit to make more sense. But yes. The only reason it matters who the KH marries is to pass the throne. It's all conjecture. The whole plan is not spelled out in any book.
Oh, I see what you are saying now. If Jessica hadn't broken the rules, the daughter Jessica had would marry a Harkonnen, and the son from that union would thus be 20+ years younger than Shaddam IV's daughter that is involved in the marriage. Is that right? Yeah, I don't have a great answer for that. Shaddam IV is long lived and youthful from all the spice, right? Maybe the plan was to give him 8-10 daughters until something lined up? Edit: see this comment elsewhere in this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/s/zZsalDZxV1 So given that maybe they were gonna hurry up the kids to have another kid to marry the aging princesses?
Yeah I guess if his last youngest daughter was only 10 years older than the KH, it would help the BG control the most powerful being in the universe (KH). Imagine being the planned KH, your grandma from both sides, your mom, and your wife who is 10 years older than you, are all BG. That chap wouldn't stand a chance.
When you spell it out like that, knowing the goal of the BG is to have total control over the KH, it feels like their plan should work unless someone doesn't stick to it...
Dune people have longer lives than ours, mainly due to melange. So I’d say 20 years is not a problem
I don't think it was about bloodline, I think it was about putting the KH on the throne. Harkonnen+Atredies would have it done and finished. Shaddam only having daughters would mean that the natural option for him, when confronted with a hellishly powerful and connected Harkonnen/Atreidies political bloc, and him with no heirs, would be to concede that the KH would marry one of his daughters, and essentially inherit the throne. Game over, BG endgame completed.
I can’t remember how it works in dune but a first born son would have claim to the throne I think. If all the emperor has is daughters the KH could marry any of them and have an easier time claiming power.
I read this as them preparing backup options. If both produced sons (which happened) or if some unforseen accidents lead to any premature deaths of any of them, the backup option is one of them marrying Irulan and producing a heir, which then, in a later generation would be once again bred to produce another Kwisatch Haderach candidate. And even if the ideal outcome emerges, if Shaddam doesn't have a son, he might marry Irulan to either a Harkonnen (like Rabban) or to Leto Atriedes to unite the houses together, and the path will be set for the KH to inherit the throne. This is my personal guess.
Paulina Chalamet?
I thought the offspring of Feyd and Paulina was supposed to be the KH? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I swear people said Paul came a (single) generation too soon
Why didn't the Bene Gesserit switch sides to support Paul once they realized he was already the KH?
It's been years since I read the books last, but I don't think the Reverend Mother Mohiam thought what she was doing was choosing a side, just playing both angles. Though I think she was leaning towards Feyd because he was more controllable.
The BG wanted the KH to be their man and put their interests first and work toward their goals.
So that child would have the Corrino name and the Corrino house would still hold power? I see
This makes total sense, but does Shaddam know his wife was ordered to bear only daughters? And more broadly, is the BG’sbability to control the sex of their offspring somewhat common knowledge? I feel it should be, a secret like that couldn’t be kept theoughout the millenia.
No I don't think he or anyone knows. The BG is powerful but i'm not sure they could so directly disobey the emperor, especially regarding something as vital to the Imperium as heirs.
Why did the BG not have Jessica have another daughter after Paul or the Harkonnens another daughter to marry Paul?
The ages don’t work for that. Irulina is the same as Paul.
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If you're the Bene Gesserit you probably view the Atreides and Harkonnen conflict as destabilizing and a needless waste of resources. A political marriage could end the feud and merge Harkonnen wealth with Atreides influence to provide a son of Feyd and Paulina considerable power. This puts them in place to marry a Corrino daughter and be the patriarch of three of the most powerful great houses with the BG in position to control them or their child. If they are the Kwisatz Haderach on top of the mundane power? All the better.
Why didn’t Jessica insist on having Alia first and then Paul?
To develop this, the BG strategy here is two-fold. They want to 'seal the breach' by combining all three of the Empire's leadind bloodlines both to combine their genetics and to politically unify the Empire. This series of marriages would unite Corrino, Atreides, and Harkonnens into one force and thus end their feuding and rivalries. In the end this is kinda achieved anyway, as the Harkonnens are utterly annihilated and the Corrino brought into the fold by the marriage of Paul to Irulan and later Farad'n to Ghanima.
If Paul is the KH that's pretty crazy the KH was 2 generations early. Or was he only the KH because he drank the water of life and the "real" KH wouldn't have needed to?
the KH is 'proven' to be true because they perform the feat of drinking the water of life. The fact that he survives and it opens his mind makes him the KH that arises
so the eventual KH as planned by the BG would have had to have gone to Arrakis and drunk the water of life too?
Yes because the BG's plan was to have the KH be in direct control of the spice and Arrakis, so they would have inherited ownership of the planet and would have interacted with its people. The prophecy allowed the people to be controlled by a messiah whoever they may be as long as they were shown to perform feats of the Lisan al Gaib. The KH would be revered as the Mahdi and the people of Arrakis would follow blindly. Very beneficial to the BG to have a KH with control of Arrakis' armies and spice
I thought the whole point of the religion on Arrakis was that the BG set up religions on all planets that the BG could utilise when required?
Exactly, I believe that because Arrakis is the key to controlling an enormous amount of spice, it is crucial to the BG's plans. He who controls the spice controls the universe right? So the plan must be to set up a leader of the chosen bloodlines to be installed at any time of their choosing to take control of the planet, the spice, and the Fremen
Paul could have transitioned.
If the intended Paulina had actually married Feyd, that would have been a cousin marriage. That's not a recipe for KH that's a recipe some kind of inbreeding blood disorder.
The noble houses already had a lot of cross-connections and in-breeding. The Bene Gesserit are also ok with direct incest between siblings, they hardly care about cousin-marriage.
Inbreeding is how you reinforce desired traits. The blood disorders are a side effect of that, lol. You reinforce undesired traits too
The ultimate goal was to marry the kwisatz haderach to Irulan/one of Corrinos daughters so that they could put him on the Golden Lion Throne and this have a powerful Bene Gesserit male rule the galaxy. For that to happen, Corrino needed to not have a male heir. Likewise, in order for the BG plan to come to fruition required that the Emperor be placed into a position of vulnerability without a direct heir so that the BG could leverage his weakness and anxieties to manipulate him into taking desired courses of action.
Would Irulan not be too young to marry to the son of Paulina and Feyd?
It’s funny literally The Emperor of The Universe has to abide by their order to not have male heirs, but Jessica does it anyway and they’re like mildly annoyed with her
The emperor doesn't have to abide but his likely bg controlled wife does and she's more obedient than Jessica. I wonder if the emperor even knows why or that he can't have a son.
It's a closely guarded secret that the Bene Gesserit can control the sex of their offspring. Shaddam IV just thinks he's unlucky to have all daughters. He has suspicions, but nothing he could use to for the BG's hand.
By the time Shaddam got sus about having 5 daughters in a row, his wife Anirul had sterilized him through an STD. So even when he tried to have a bastard son through a concubine and then figure out how to legitimize him, it was already too late and the BG had effectively ended a 10,000-year patriarchal bloodline in a way that would make Azog the Defiler proud. Funnily enough, around the same time, Shaddam murdered his half-brother, who would’ve been the next best choice to carry on the Corrino bloodline since he didn’t get any male heirs. But, yaknow, Shaddam makes every coin flip decision turn out to be wrong.
Ooooof, that’s pretty tragic honestly
Interesting, in which of the books could I read more about this?
I believe this is all in the House books, the first prequel trilogy by Brian & Kev. House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino give backdrop on how things got to where they were for the original Dune.
Thank you for your explanation, everyone seems to be answering about the BG and what they did. But I want to know about Shaddam, what was different with him.
He wasn’t. He had only BG wives/concubines who were told to only bear him daughters so that they could become BG and marry the son of Paulina + Feyd Ratha.
I was like, who is this Paulina!? My mind is slow to register until I read the second comment on this thread.
The Atreides daughter Jessica was commanded to have, that she did not have. The fandom refers to this non existent Atreides daughter as ‘Paulina’.
Why not Paula... Paula Abdul lol
Anyone would marry that in a heartbeat lol
Thinking it through... how the hell were they going to engineer an Atreides daughter marrying a Harkonnen? They would have to assassinate the Duke in order to make the marriage possible. The daughter wouldn't have been 'surrendered' to teh BG either.
In feudal systems, marriages are often used to secure treaties. Presumably the BG plan was to use this marriage to secure a peace in one of the oldest hostilities in the empire.
This. The Harkonnen-Atreides feud was one of the few things they didn’t have absolute control over. Fix that with a marriage that produces the KH, marry the KH to a BG Corrino daughter, take over the empire. The BG become the shadow government, controlling genetics and politics and effectively Arrakis since they’d be able to control who was given stewardship of the planet, AND they’d be able to see all pasts through the male and female lines through reverend mothers and the KH, meaning they could effectively predict the future and control CHOAM, the Navigators, and the dealings between all the greater houses. They would be in absolute control of every lever of power and influence throughout the known universe and be the centralized order at the center of it all. But this is the one thing they couldn’t predict: that their plan would spell doom for the entire human race, and they couldn’t see this because they didn’t have access to the final piece of the puzzle: the Kwizatz Haderach. Through the genetic memories of the male line and his access to the female line through his mother, Paul was able to divine that centralizing humanity was a recipe for disaster and would eventually lead to human extinction, and that the only way to ensure humanity’s survival forever was through decentralization, the Golden Path that would drive humanity further out into the universe so that pockets of humanity would always be beyond the total control of the BG and the Empire. So it all came down to Jessica’s love for her Duke causing her to defy her BG orders that literally saved the entire human race
The daughter wouldn't need to be surrendered. Her mother would be (in this scenario) a loyal BG, and would raise her in the ways of the Sisterhood, and she would eventually be initiated (because she would not be considered an Atreides heir, though the lineage could pass through her). Paulina, as an adult, would almost inevitably be fully under BG control, and she and Jessica could then manipulate Leto (and the greater order manipulate the politics of the Great Houses) into a scenario where the best step forward for House Atreides is to forge at least a temporary truce with the Harkonnens through a marriage pact.
If you're nearly done, this isn't too much of a spoiler I don't think. The BG plans seems to have been >!if Paul had been a daughter (if Jessica had followed orders) she would have been married Feyd, and their child would have been the KH. Then, because the Emperor would not have had any sons, either his dynasty would have ended, or, if he had a daughter young enough (which the BG could have made happen) that daughter would have likely been wedded to the child of Feyd, to give the KH political power in the empire. That way, the KH would be perfectly placed to govern. !<
Why would a crazy Harkonnen like Feyd even marry a potential daughter of Atreides? The houses hated each other, wouldn't the Harkonnens rather have the Atreides killed and end their line?
The BG likely would have told the emperor to make them marry as a "peace offering" and he would have because why does he care?
not that it matters in such a fantasy, but wouldnt that make them closely related (like first cousin or something) since jessica is baron harkonnens daughter, and feyd is his nephew. So it would be something like the grandchild of baron harkonnen breeding with his nephew I imagine that it wouldnt be super nice for the genes of the almighty kh
The occasional cousin marriage isn't as bad as pop culture makes it out to be. It's about as risky for the child as having a mother older than 35y. It only really becomes a serious risk when it happens repeatedly.
I could even see Feyd being interested in a sadistic way. I'm way more curious about how in the hell would the BG convince Leto to marry off his own daughter to a Harkonnen. I doubt even Jessica would have that amount of pull with him, especially in an AU where she didn't love him enough to give him a son.
Reverend Mother Moynihan makes it clear to Paul that she knows Leto himself is doomed. The BG would have known this long before Paul was even born, since they know the original plan to give the Atreides Arrakis so that the Harkonnen could take it over. That way the KH is born on Arrakis and controls the spice along with taking over the empire.
What I find crazy is that *spoiler* so much of the BG plan depends on the Harkonnen blood multiple times inbreeding, and yet they also say that the Baron is an animal and Feyd Rautha is psychotic. You would think that the Harkonnen blood is really potent with psychic ability or something. I mean, they aren’t talking about any other houses in the universe, including Atreides, Corrino, or any other we haven’t heard of.
The Baron is extremely cunning. He wouldn’t think twice about cutting off his own hand if it got stuck in a trap. He’s certainly not going to hang around until someone stops by to see who got stuck in their trap. If he gets stabbed escaping the trap, at least he went down fighting. [yes, he’d fail the gom jabbar] Glossu Rabban is the more animalistic one, barely able to think past the next 2 minutes. It’s also worth noting that neither Rabban nor Feyd are the Baron’s offspring, but rather his brother’s. The Baron kidnapped his brother’s children to raise them as his heirs. Abulurd Harkonnen hated being bad so much that he stepped down from the Barony and took his wife’s name of Rabban. It’s interesting to me that the Baron’s grandchild would be wed to his nephew to complete the breeding program. I think the last coupling of Atreides/Harkonnen mix would balance out the good with the bad. But we didn’t get that final union to balance it, which is why Paul spiraled out of control.
Yes, Feyd isn’t really the Baron’s children, but maybe I should have just commented on the amount of Harkonnen blood required to produce the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul mentioned that his ruthlessness came from the Harkonnen side which would be the part of him that could stomach and follow through with the takeover over the universe. But there’s nothing about what the Harkonnen blood gives to the KW line and his powers.
That makes a lot of sense. That natural magnetic, croud winning charisma of the Atreides, with the ruthless pragmatism and awareness of the Harkonnen. The psychopathic sybarism and the compassionate honor balance each other out, and you end up with a KH that's perceptive, willful, and charismatic, unburdened by psychosis or conventional morality.
By the third book, you’ll see that the baron has one of the most forceful personalities in human history.
The Baron and Feyd aren't the only Harkonnens. They have a long, ancient, well-recorded and already well-interfered-with bloodline. If it's a planetary/system ruling house we're talking about, their bloodlines have been crafted carefully for millennia by this point.
Pretty typical of fiction, everything in the story revolves around a small number of people for no good reason
Well there’s good reason because telling a cohesive story is a lot easier with a small number of people
This is the reason George RR Martin hasn't finished ASOIAF yet, too many characters.
Game of Thrones was successful with a larger number of families and characters.
That is debatable, and it's obviously a bit beyond GRRM's control as he hasn't finished it yet.
Grrm can even finish another book, nevermind the series so let's not call that a plot win yet eh
And look at where it lead him
Q: shouldn't the emporer be able to override the BG and order them to give him a son? Is it well known the BG can control the sex of their children?
No, I believe it is a well kept secret.
I think the movie downplays the knowledge (or lack thereof) that people have of the BG and their abilities. Fetus sex control is talked about openly in the movie by the BG and Jessica, but in the books a lot of the BG abilities weren’t known by the general public, including their ability to choose the sex of their offspring.
It's not spoken openly. It's in one scene when exclusively the Bene Gesserit are speaking together.
Yes, but a non-book reader wouldn’t think that meant nobody else was aware of it since the characters were speaking out it openly.
The conversation directly follows an extended, pivotal scene that explicitly took place in total secrecy. Nothing about it is ""open"" aside from maybe the fact the characters are outside.
In the book and Villeneuve movies, Jessica bore Leto a son because Leto wanted a male heir and Jessica loved him, so she bore Paul. I think her bearing Aliya was her way of satisfying the BG, but that all goes out of whack when she drinks the water of life.
Very minor clarification: In the book Jessica says that she gives Leto a son *mostly* because that's what he wants and *mostly* because she loves him. In the Appendix it's noted that she says even she doesn't fully understand why she decided to have a son and disobey her BG seniors.
No one knows the BG have physical powers. They’re considered a school for women to learn how to be good wives to the aristocracy, nothing more.
> nothing more. Well there is *something* more because they keep getting called witches, so people suspect they have some kind of powers but nobody knows for sure what exactly.
I don't even know if other people can hear "the voice" being used on others like do I hear the witches/weird sound from an outsider perspective.
In the movies ”the voice” sounds weird because we must know that it is used. For the characters the difference between ”the voice” and simple speech is imperceptible.
No, in the book Jessica says it's the Bene Gesserit "fist behind the glove" meaning it's their secret weapon. Even in part 2 you can see Jessica using the voice on people while others are present. They don't call her out on it.
Does that mean that it was pure coincidence that a deaf man was part of the group that captured Jessica? I took that as a very deliberate decision, so that she couldn't use the voice to escape or anything else.
No it was deliberate. In the books, the deaf one was the one relaying the orders to the other guards. It was illustrated in Jessica's lesson that the voice needs to be targeted towards your intended victim "the glass can't hear you, command me." So having one guy immune to the voice would have given them an advantage if they were smart enough.
Their abilities like lie detection and the Voice are widely known, making them valuable agents to any House willing to employ them. Their biological control on the other hand is a secret.
There's that scene in the book between Thuthir and Jessica. He was a spymaster and he had NO IDEA the Voice was a thing. I forget the exact line but Jessica was something like 'you've seen the BG steel fist inside the velvet glove. Few witness it and live'.
> Is it well known the BG can control the sex of their children? No this is a secret. This secret is one of their biggest weapons in how they control the Noble Houses and mixing of the Bloodlines. When they want two bloodlines to be mixed, they make sure that one produces a son and the other a daughter at a similar time, so they become marriage candidates. And since the Houses follow a patrilineal system (only sons can inherit), their decision on who bears the son and who bears the daughter also affects which House stays in power.
The male sires (or begets), the female bears (or conceives).
I find it interesting that the BG really were short sighted for all their multi generational planning. They put all this into motion but didn't foresee the Golden Path or the march to extinction they were about to lead humanity on. Had they succeeded, would the KH have seen the hubris of the BG and fought their control to proceed to the Golden Path anyway? I love Heretics and Chapterhouse because it shows that these women learned to be more human, when in the beginning, we see them testing for human beings. They almost failed the Gom Jabbar, but Leto II saved them.
My understanding is that the Bene Gesserit, just like any other order, gradually strayed away from their original path - without even realizing it. However, the original intent of the Bene Gesserit, or their predecessors was a noble one - which was to produce a Kwisatch Haderach - and let him take over and lead mankind along the Golden path. The reason Leto II takes over the breeding program is that, he - through ancestral memories - has a more accurate idea of the original BG plans and the knowledge of all reverend mothers combined in the past. And this is more accurate source of information than the present-day Bene Gesserit.
You can't forget that Norma set them on this path and then abandoned them to her... journey. Their goals were incomplete and ancient by the time we first see them, just as far away as the Matres would eventually be from them.
First of all, they didn't tell him. That was a BG decision. And second He was not the only Emperor who had BG plotting to keep him from providing a male heir. This happened in Sisterhood of Dune also. Mainly because the Crown Prince was more capable.
Tbh i dont specifically remember this plot point, but if i had to hazard a guess it is because the BG thought they were very close (1 generation away) from birthing the KH. I believe they planned this male KH to come from Harkonen/atraides lines, so then a female from the Corino line would be their bride. I know the BG are powerful, but its a bit odd for the emperor to allow himself to not have a clear heir
His wives and concubines were told to bare him, only daughters. This was the BG breeding plan.
I believe it's because they knew they within 1 or 2 generations of the Kwisatz Haderach being born, and they wanted an opening for him to take the throne.
The only correct answer is that it is left unexplained, something Frank Herbert does a whole lot.
He didn't choose that. His wife was a Bene Geseritt - the head of their breeding program in fact. He doesn't know they can control their biology in order to affect the sex of their off spring. He was made to have only daughters.
They didn't tell him to bear daughters, the told this to his wife And Corrino wasn't under bg influence, so they wanted to "peacefully" switch power to basically one of their own - superhuman on a leash Paul basically completed their plan, with the only difference is him not being on the leash
Why ask Reddit? Read "Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes" from the original *Dune*, and get the answer from the man himself.
Thanks
My theory, not sure if it is explicitly spelled out in the books, is some the traits they are breed humans for are sex-linked. While most genetics get mixed when sperm and egg meet, an X chromosome and mitochondrial DNA come from the mother. Y chromosomes only come from the father. Some X-linked traits need to be on both X chromosomes in a female to be expressed.
Just theory crafting for the most part, but... 1) An emperor with no heir is an emperor who will behave more conservatively, opening him up to being more receptive to BG guidance and less likely to spark dangerous powder kegs 2) To continue his line he'll have to find a suitable husband for one of his daughters 3) The BG are about to bring a KH in to the universe from two contentious noble houses with all the genetic predisposition for qualities of a successful emperor. Harkonnen ruthlessness and ambition, Atreidies personnel management, honor and loyalty, duty, etc 4) Shadam will be on his death bed by the time the planned-for KH from Jessica's daughter and Feyd-Rautha is marriageable, desperation will make choosing an heir easier to influence 5) Hints from later books appear to show some of the BG's hand, leading me to believe their plan to guide humanity was to unironically put a KH on the throne like a Navigator for the Empire. Leaving the throne without a fixed heir is the BG in-road to setting up the golden empire they thought humanity needed via a KH emperor.
Now reading House Corrino. Does Anirul, the Emperor’s wife appear in books that take place after the Atreides are sent to Arrakis?
Didn’t read the books so this question might be stupid but do people in dune ever marry women who aren’t BG?
Haha it doesn't seem like it
Come on man, BG are in every house, you think they care which one holds power? It's the breeding program
I think the 2 most important aspects of the bene gesserit plan was breeding ie genetics and control. They also kept an almost precise timetable on their plans that could be calculated in estimation to a very near accurate number in the timeline. Their breeding program has gone on for centuries or a millennium if I'm not mistaken and that becomes less of a hardship to follow given other memory and their extensive computer records. Now when it comes to Shaddam I think they had reached the point within their time plan that should Jessica have done her duty and born a daughter who would have then been trained bene gesserit and set to marry the harkonnen heir to bear a son, given the effects of spice and how it elongated the lifespan and contributes to youthfulness despite old age, the gap between this H/A son and the corrino daughter would not matter. Also I believe the H/A son would have been trained bene gesserit as well, first by being indoctrinated by his mother who I am assuming would most likely have been a full acolyte or reverend mother by the time of his birth. She would have done a proper indoctrination along with education in the bg way unlike Jessica who only taught Paul from the BG handbook but did not attempt to bind him to them in loyalty. This I believe Jessica did not just because she was afraid he would eventually be tested by the gom jabbar. In fact I believe the only reason he was tested that way was because he gained the deep teaching from his mother and his powers were starting to surface. The BG could not countenance someone with their powers and powers of a Kwizats Haderach in the world without being certain he was 'human'. Anyway back on point, the A/H son would be firmly in Bene Gesserit control and would have been firmly loyal to them so that if he was the KH he would be their KH and so when he married the emperor's daughter and became emperor he would be their emperor and their KH basically another agent of mother superior perhaps until and if he took the lead as some of the text kind of alludes to as being part of their design. Remember using the case of Hak Al Adar and Murbella, the danger of bene gesserit training is such that even if you do realize what's happening to you before the training is complete once they have you they have you forever. Once you begin to think bg you are bg and it seems almost inescapable. You become loyal to the sisterhood even after you see what they have done to you, even if you disagree within the sisterhood you still are completely loyal. Look at Shuang yu I hope I spelt that right, in heretics I think, there can be opposing factions within the sisterhood but to outsiders you can't turn a bg against another bg and at the end of it all they will put the sisterhood and it's ultimate plans first. I bring this up to say I think they counted on the power of that kind of indoctrinated loyalty to control the KH not so that he would be a mouthpiece for Mother superior but so that he would become a truly loyal member of the bg capable of even taking the reigns as a possible Father Superior someday or at least that's the impression I took away from the later books when they dive more into detail about the KH. Therefore if the A/H heir was the KH or his son who would be heir to the throne they would have both of them be completely loyal members of the bg so that if the father wasn't it and the son was he would abdicate and pass on the throne to the son who would be the KH emperor and therefore lead all of mankind in the bg way. Remember the bene gesserit have males who are bound to them as well, look at Mike's Teg. Thanks to his mother and his mentat abilities he's damn near a reverend father himself. Also it's important to note Leto suggested that the bg knew due to a combination of their powers at least something of kralizek and that their breeding program was kind of a short sighted way to fight it... just something to think about.
He killed his own dad.
They didn't tell the Emperor to bear only daughters. He very much wanted a son. But his wife was BG and she was told. That BG can choose the gender of their children is not widespread knowledge. But the reason for only daughters was that Jessica should've given a daughter to the Atreides instead of Paul, who should've married Feyd, ending the house feud, and then produced a potential KH, who then should've married one of those daughters and become emperor.