Nothing is impossible -- DUNE Novels Discussion Board

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05/14/25 16:32:05 [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4] ]

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Date Posted: 23:31:36 04/08/03 Tue
Author: DriftMaker
Subject:

Nothing is impossible
In reply to: Veon 's message, "another possibility" on 23:11:44 04/07/03 Mon

I have had thoughts just like that one. Whenever I read anything about how the BG are transforming Chapterhouse, I think of how this might be history repeating itself. Maybe Frank Herbert was trying to portray a message about how life is ultimately cyclical.
A civilization can try all it can to prevent something from happening, but there are repeating mistakes that are seemingly unavoidable. Just as America has repeatedly tried to "liberate" so many other troubled countries and each time has managed to mearly replace one dictator with another. (I don't care if that statement offends people, because it's the truth as I see it, and it's the only example I could think of right now. :)
Since "Dr. Frank" makes so many references to Buddism and Islam, Dune could also be a reference to the Buddistic way of life. I could be wrong on this, but from what I know, two of the main ideas of Buddism are reincarnation and Nirvana. Supposedly an entity is given many tries to succeed in life. Or rather, to become one with the universe. After each life in which one fails, one is reincarnated as a different being or person. This happens until that person reaches full enlightenment.
The most obvious parallel to this in Dune is the idea of the serial lives of Duncan Idaho and that Tleilaxu Master. In Chapterhouse, Duncan mentions the debt he owes to House Atreides:
"She's an Atreides, damn her! She knows what I owe her family. More than one lifetime and the debt never paid!"
This seems to be implying that Duncan has not yet succeded in obtaining full enlightenment, even though he has been given many chances to do so.
I also have an idea that there might be a correlation between the idea of reincarnation and the Dune universe as a whole. What law states that this "period of life"--meaning from the time life began on Earth to the time of Chapterhouse: Dune--is the only one that ever existed? Maybe there have been many similar civilizations which died off long before the time of the Ancient Greeks. Each time the civilization ultimately failed, and the cycle began again.
At the end of the last cycle, the civilization at that time might have done something similar to what the BG are doing with the worms on Chapterhouse. This suggests that the worms have some sort of divine presence, which causes people to want to preserve them.
The Golden Path so often mentioned in Dune could be the way in which humans can finally break the cycle and achieve full enlightenment.

Some of these ideas were just pulled from the greatest depths of my bum, but yet my brain says yes. Please let me know what you think.

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Replies:

the circle -- chairdog, 23:56:32 04/08/03 Tue