Weird Passage in Children of Dune

[MrFlibble]

A strange passage attrected my attention while re-reading CoD. This is when Duncan thinks about Twisted Mentats and recounts the fate of Piter de Vries:

Twisted mentats? The Tleilaxu persisted in this hoax, obviously. As a mentat himself, Idaho knew the fragile insecurity of Tleilaxu twisting. Great Houses which bought such mentats hoped to control them absolutely. Impossible! Even Piter de Vries, who'd served the Harkonnens in their assault on House Atreides, had maintained his own essential dignity, accepting death rather than surrender his inner core of selfdom at the end.

What could this possibly refer to?

[Dunenewt]

Not quite sure which specific event, but I think the point being made is that Piter always believed he was not controlled by the Baron.

[SandChigger]

He did talk back to the Baron quite a bit, and the Baron threatened to get rid of him.

His actual death, though, was an accident (too close to Leto when he crushed the gas-tooth), not something he actively chose or really "accepted".

Interesting and odd.

(I'll check tonight in <i>The Road to Dune</i> to see if any of the cut chapters shed any light. :) )

[Dunenewt]

Only thing I could think of, is that Piter knew the Baron was going to kill him eventually, so he accepted death, rather than trying to move away from the poison gas.

[MrFlibble]

It occurred to me that the circumstances of Piter's death could have remained obscure to Duncan and the others. Jessica was the last Atreides to see Piter alive, and she sensed that the Baron was going to kill him sometime soon, although his plan to use Piter as a "bad cop" in order to sway the people of Arrakis in Feyd's favor was unknown to Jessica, naturally. And I think when Piter perished, the Baron had the whole incident covered up (to avoid being disgraced by the whole situation of barely escaping death - BTW, I don't remember if he could successfully hide that from a Sardaukar observer), and naturally the others would think he just "tired of Piter", as was the initial thought of Rabban.

Only thing I could think of, is that Piter knew the Baron was going to kill him eventually, so he accepted death, rather than trying to move away from the poison gas.

I doubt this, because everything happened very fast, and he probably did not even realize what got him. The Baron survived partly because he had his shield turned on, and because he instinctively rushed out of the room after he saw Piter dying.

[SandChigger]

On pp.324-325 of <i>The Road to Dune</i> there are eight paragraphs of conversation under the title "Baron Harkonnen & Piter de Vries". Piter relates how he saw his mother fall to her death from a window when he was five, observes that "The person falling is already dead," and that "the instant of toppling" when another "can push or rescue the person about to fall" is what matters, when one can control the other's destiny. The Baron wonders if Piter is going to oppose him, asks whether there has been some change in Leto's destiny. Piter assures him that Leto is "already falling."

Not particularly relevant, I'm afraid.

It was my impression as well that the gas worked too quickly for Piter to know what was happening.

(My, my, is this another example of Frank Herbert's fallible humanity?! ;) )

[Mahdi]

On pp.324-325 of <i>The Road to Dune</i> there are eight paragraphs of conversation under the title "Baron Harkonnen & Piter de Vries". Piter relates how he saw his mother fall to her death from a window when he was five, observes that "The person falling is already dead," and that "the instant of toppling" when another "can push or rescue the person about to fall" is what matters, when one can control the other's destiny. The Baron wonders if Piter is going to oppose him, asks whether there has been some change in Leto's destiny. Piter assures him that Leto is "already falling."

Not particularly relevant, I'm afraid.

It was my impression as well that the gas worked too quickly for Piter to know what was happening.

(My, my, is this another example of Frank Herbert's fallible humanity?! ;) )

More interesting to me is how after all their claiming that they never made a continuity error in their books and everything they wrote is correct, this bit from Road to Dune has Piter remembering an event when he was 5.  How can that be when, according to KJA and BH, the Piter from Dune is a ghola?  ;)

[SandChigger]

(Schu over on Jacurutu has pointed this out recently there and on DN as well. And been "freakbanned" on DN. ::) )

In the introduction to that section of the book, they specifically state that unpublished materials like the deleted chapters from <i>Dune</i> and <i>Messiah</i> should not be considered canon.

But then they turn around and justify their inclusion in <i>House Harkonnen</i> of material purportedly written by FH for the Lynch movie project (the "Jessica meets Leto" stuff) solely on the basis of its having actually been written by FH and its being "dramatic".

Take note, wannabe hacks: yes, you <b>can</b> have your cake and eat it, too! :D

[Mahdi]

(Schu over on Jacurutu has pointed this out recently there and on DN as well. And been "freakbanned" on DN. ::) )

In the introduction to that section of the book, they specifically state that unpublished materials like the deleted chapters from <i>Dune</i> and <i>Messiah</i> should not be considered canon.

But then they turn around and justify their inclusion in <i>House Harkonnen</i> of material purportedly written by FH for the Lynch movie project (the "Jessica meets Leto" stuff) solely on the basis of its having actually been written by FH and its being "dramatic".

Take note, wannabe hacks: yes, you <b>can</b> have your cake and eat it, too! :D

If I remember correctly the reason Frank Herbert's script was never used as in any film was because it was absolutely horrid and he had no clue how to write for film.  You're telling me that parts of House Harkonnen were taken from a script so terrible they didn't make it into Jodorowski or Lynch's Dune?

To be honest, I don't know why I'm surprised.  

[MrFlibble]

(Schu over on Jacurutu has pointed this out recently there and on DN as well. And been "freakbanned" on DN. ::) )

Sweet ::)

(My, my, is this another example of Frank Herbert's fallible humanity?! ;) )

Whatever Frank meant by that passage, I think it is rather safe to assume that neither of the characters in Atreides household knew exact details of Piter's fate, so whatever Duncan might think about Piter's decisions is not based on the facts the readers know.

[Anathema]

I remember that passage. I also remember that it made no sense to me at the time.

The most plausible explanations would be that Herbert made a mistake.

But if I remember correctly, Jessica overheard the Baron offering Piter de Vries a choice between

a) Jessica, and being exiled

b) ruling Arrakis

Maybe that's what it's supposed to refer to. Possibly something was cut out of the published versions of Dune or CoD causing it to make little sense.

[SandChigger]

You're telling me that parts of House Harkonnen were taken from a script so terrible they didn't make it into Jodorowski or Lynch's Dune?

That's what I'm telling you. :)

Well, it wasn't from that script written by FH per se. Here is what I was told a couple of years ago, straight from the "source":

Frank wrote the dramatic scene (of Jessica being brought to Castle Caladan and a suspicious Duke Leto putting the knife to her throat) many years after the publication of DUNE.  From my reading of the notes and files, it seems likely that Frank wrote that scene when he was working with David Lynch to flesh out the character background.  Since we assume he knew what he was doing, and since it was a great scene, that is how we depicted it in House Atreides.

What tickles me the most is that The Hack can't even keep the facts of his own crap books straight, let alone those from the originals.

Since there's nothing published that I know of that clears up the passage here, I tend to agree with Anathema that it's either a mistake or something got cut and has either been lost for good or waits among those notes & scraps that KJA has said are too uninteresting to be worth publishing. (Direct statement to Freakzilla at last year's DragonCon, that all the interesting stuff had already been published in The Road to Dune, when asked if they planned on doing another such volume.) I also agree with MrFlibble, that the Atreides probably never knew how Piter died.

[MrFlibble]

those notes & scraps that KJA has said are too uninteresting to be worth publishing. (Direct statement to Freakzilla at last year's DragonCon, that all the interesting stuff had already been published in The Road to Dune, when asked if they planned on doing another such volume.)

That's just the lamest excuse they could ever come up with >:( How annoying.

Any piece of writing, no matter how small and insignificant, is part of a writer's legacy. And certainly KJA's personal opinion about something being "uninteresting" cannot be an adequate measurement of value.

[ErasOmnius]

With regards to the Piter question. Yes, we all have to realize that Frank Herbert made mistakes.

Frank originally probably had Piter die a horrible death at the Baron's hand, but then changed it right before publication, and then did not go back and "catch" the mistake.

Frank was just a human, just like his son, Brian.

[MrFlibble]

With regards to the Piter question. Yes, we all have to realize that Frank Herbert made mistakes.

Frank originally probably had Piter die a horrible death at the Baron's hand, but then changed it right before publication, and then did not go back and "catch" the mistake.

Frank was just a human, just like his son, Brian.

Delightful!

BTW, where do all the speculations about "Frank changed this or that right before publication and did not have time to properly think it out/later forgot about it completely" come from? Do you have any supposting evidence? A letter or note from Frank to the editor perhaps? A comment he made to his friends or relatives? Or is it just what you think could have happened?

[ErasOmnius]

Delightful!

BTW, where do all the speculations about "Frank changed this or that right before publication and did not have time to properly think it out/later forgot about it completely" come from? Do you have any supposting evidence? A letter or note from Frank to the editor perhaps? A comment he made to his friends or relatives? Or is it just what you think could have happened?

Said ...probably, or maybe not. The quote from "Children" seems inconsistent with the sudden, unexpected way that Piter died.

Maybe not, maybe Frank Herbert was just messing with our minds because he wanted us to believe that Duncan would eventually end up to be, 5000 years later, the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach! ha ha

[MrFlibble]

Maybe not, maybe Frank Herbert was just messing with our minds because he wanted us to believe that Duncan would eventually end up to be, 5000 years later, the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach! ha ha

This particular statement makes zero sense to me (except that it is probably a joke). Are you trying to say here that the passage in question is somehow related to the ending of Sandworms? Is it even theoretically possible to explain this?

My point regarding the whole discussion (and all those other instances where you use the "1) Humans make mistakes, 2) Frank Herbert was human, ergo 3) Frank Herbert made mistakes" syllogism) is that it is an incorrect approach to interpreting any text if you start with the assumption that the author of the text made mistakes. Such an assumption must be the very last resort when you have tried every other interpretation of a problematic point, and still don't get a reasonable, consistent result. For example, if you're reading an old manuscript in an ancient language, whenever you encounter a word or phrase you cannot make sense of, it is the last thing to suppose that the author of the manuscript made a mistake, got distracted or forgot what he was writing about. First, you check every other possible explanation assuming the author did not make a mistake, and if nothing works, then you have to admit there is indeed a mistake. Same with any other text, be it literature or not.