Analysis of Dune - The Teachers and the Traitor

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Once again I took a while to finish this post, but I'm working on reducing publication times, please bear with me 🙏. In this second entry of my series of analyses of "Dune", I'll summarize and study the three last chapters that take place in Caladan, featuring Paul and almost all of his teachers, including the traitor Yueh, as well as his father. These meetings focus on their perspectives regarding the many perils that the Atreides will face on Arrakis. If you missed the previous entry comprising chapters I to III, check it out before reading this one.

Chapter IV

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The first of Paul's teachers that we meet is Thufir Hawat, Mentat Assassin of the Atreides. Hawat is a very old man who's served the House for three generations. He's mistrustful of everything and stresses caution even in Atreides headquarters, so he's annoyed when he finds Paul studying maps and texts in the training room while sitting with his back to the door, which Paul quickly acknowledges without being told, adding that he'd heard Hawat approach and that he'd know the difference between his step and a ruse. Here we see an important aspect of the Mentat's temper: he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself and he doesn't like the "witch" Lady Jessica or the Bene Gesserit as a whole. He's also prone to self-pity, comparing himself with the battered practice dummy. He doesn't realize that Paul is observing him closely and marks his melancholy, probing him to see if the source is the departure from Caladan.

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Paul asks Hawat about the sandstorms on Arrakis, deadly phenomena that can cover a massive extension of territory, destroying metal and bone with winds of over 700 km/h. Since inhabited planets often have weather control (satellite surveillance,) Paul wants to know why Arrakis doesn't and Hawat replies that the Spacing Guild, the organization that regulates such technology, charges an impossible fortune for that. Finally, Paul asks whether he's seen the Fremen and Hawat thinks his mind is just darting aimlessly, but this line of inquiry isn't random at all, as we'll see later; here the Mentat shows his prejudice, talking about their smell in closed spaces and claiming that there's almost no difference between them and the rest of the the inhabitants of Dune. The only important pieces of information that he offers concerns Fremen numbers, which he deems far greater than the Imperium assumes, and the stillsuits that they use to reclaim their body's water, but Paul thinks of it as moisture, a much subtler concept. Although Hawat, in his arrogance, assumes that he's responsible for teaching Paul the dangers of Dune, the youngster's much more aware of the necessities of his future home than he thinks, in great part because of Reverend Mother Mohiam's insights on the planet's life and the necessity for good government, which he shares with Hawat, realizing that the Truthsayer put some sort of block in him which he slowly recovers from. Hawat's spite for the Bene Gesserit and other of his biases reemerge in this conversation, and he assumes that Paul's behavior is due to fear rather than the evidence of Mohiam's skill. Before he departs, Paul cautions him to not turn his back to any doors and he smiles, taking it as a joke of sorts, but Paul is in fact warning him about the dangers of judgment because he's already seen his teacher's weaknesses.

Mentats can calculate probabilities and identify patterns with enormous speed and accuracy depending on the information that they have. The most effective Mentats can extract correct conclusions from seemingly non-existent connections with very little data, provided they remain open to accept the information they receive. A Mentat's capabilities can be significantly impaired by biases and personal opinions.

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As Hawat leaves, Paul ponders on the meaning of the Now, thus beginning his journey into the exploration of Time. Then he's joined in the training room by Gurney Halleck, an ugly man with a scar across his jaw made with inkvine, a creeping plant native to Giedi Prime and often used by Harkonnen slavemasters to punish their charges, in his case, Glossu Rabban, one of the Baron's nephews. He arrives loaded with weapons and asks Paul what barbs he sank into Hawat to make him so worried, while panning the room and recognizing the Mentat's coded signs that prove it has been cleared of danger for the ducal heir. Halleck is one of the deadliest fighters in the Universe but also a renowned troubadour skilled in the use of the nine-string baliset, a musical instrument said to descend from the ancient zither, which he also carries with him along with the rapiers, bodkins and kindjals for practice; therefore, he's regularly singing or pulling quotes for every occasion, often with a sad undertone.

The Holtzmann Shield is a force field that protects from direct blows by instantly repelling projectiles or weapons that move beyond a certain speed. Shields can be generated in any size or shape to surround individuals, ships or buildings, muffling external sounds and allowing a limited capacity of oxygen within depending on its size. While shield design permits for slow replenishment of oxygen, intense combat such as the one between Paul and Halleck can deplete oxygen levels. Warriors usually wear their shield generators in a belt around the waist and condition themselves to reduce the speed of their attacks in order to penetrate the barrier.

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Paul likes Halleck best among all his father's retainers and they share a carefree, playful interaction peppered with mock taunts and jokes. In that spirit, he takes one of the swords, activates his personal shield and makes a move against Halleck which he easily sidesteps, cautioning him that, although his attack was good, he ended up wide open for a knife. The boy acknowledges the mistake, saying that he's in no mood to fight, but this only angers the teacher, who replies that fighting is a necessity and has nothing to do with mood, before activating his own shield and attacking so viciously that Paul doubts his intention for an instant. After an intense exchange, Paul finally manages to threaten Gurney's jugular, only to find Gurney's knife almost touched his groin. Gurney dissolves the tension with a smile because he was merely making a point and would've even left a scar if necessary. He tells an ashamed Paul that he'd love to play around as they used to, but Arrakis and the Harkonnens are deadly. Then they begin the training proper, using the dummy which Halleck operates through a console to perform actual parries and counters, noting that Paul has developed his own moves unlike anything he's been taught by him or Duncan Idaho, his other combat teacher.

Throughout the end of the chapter we see the grim cynicism and the pain in Gurney Halleck, who remembers his young sister killed in a Harkonnen pleasure house and laments that Paul has to lose his innocence and gain the awareness of his mortality so young. Both Hawat and Halleck are men who have seen too much violence and live mostly in the past, in the fear of what's to come, moved almost solely by their bond to the Atreides and therefore, although they can see how capable Paul is, they think of him still as a child and can't possibly imagine the level of information that he handles.

Chapter V

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After the training with Halleck, Paul gets a massage and is still lying on the table when he sees Dr. Wellington Yueh approach. Through his detailed observation, we get a description of the man that will betray his family: thin like a stick figure, with a slightly crumpled uniform, long black hair tied with the ring of the Suk School, drooping mustache and a diamond mark on his forehead indicating his Imperial Conditioning which, as we know from the Baron Harkonnen, is already broken at this point. He moves with stiff deliberation, no doubt carefully controlling his actions in order to conceal his intentions. He first tells Paul that they don't have time for regular lessons, that he's arranged for him to study during the trip to Arrakis about the terranic lifeforms on the planet (coming from Earth) and that the Duke Leto will arrive soon, which makes Paul excited as he hasn't seen his father for a while.

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Paul asks Yueh about the Fremen and the Arrakeen population at large, and catches him drumming his fingers nervously on the table for a moment. Yueh explains that Dune inhabitants are divided between the people of graben, sink and pan who live in villages and cities, and the Fremen who are specialized desert dwellers. There's some intermarriage between the two groups with Fremen as preferred partners by both men and women. He adds that the Fremen's most interesting external feature are their blue-on-blue eyes caused by spice saturation, and they're extremely brave fighters, with women and children as fierce as the men and very distrustful of outsiders. Paul immediately realizes the potential of gaining them as allies. Then they discuss the sandworms, which Yueh says can be as large as 400 meters in length and likely much larger, and finally touch briefly on the possibility of making Arrakis habitable.

Despite its name, the Orange Catholic Bible isn't only concerned with Catholicism as we know it but is actually the product of a long, grueling and often violent effort of condensing the beliefs and philosophies of many religions into a single book. This is scarcely mentioned in the original saga and is only developed in the prequels.

Before leaving, Yueh shows Paul a very old and tiny Orange Catholic Bible, noting the boy's caution in not reaching for it at once even though it's a gift. The book's pages are made of paper so thin that it can't be touched directly, so it has a mechanism with electrostatic charges that open the book and turn the pages as needed, with a lens to magnify the letters for proper reading. He asks Paul to read a specific passage he's marked but Paul finds another marked by his wife instead that reflects on the reach of human senses and the invisible world, a reference to Paul's developing capacity to see the future. Yueh is shaken by that "coincidence" and scarcely brushes it off. He quickly recovers and tells Paul that the book will be an interesting and profound read, but Paul has already felt the stirring of his terrible purpose while reading that passage. He accepts the gift and asks Yueh if he can give him anything in return, but this only increases the doctor's guilt for the betrayal he must carry out to ensure, in his mind, that his wife no longer suffers in Harkonnen hands. He too thinks of Paul as a child and doesn't suspect his acumen.

Chapter VI

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The last person we meet before leaving Caladan forever is the Duke Leto himself, a tall, lightly tanned man with a powerful sense of presence and an austere attitude evident in his simple working uniform and his much-worn shield belt. He's exhausted from all the preparations and concealing it to keep the morale of his family and troops, knowing that the situation will only get worse once they're on Arrakis. When Paul asks about the danger of the move, he almost falls into the pattern of brushing the subject aside, but reminds himself that he can't keep that from his son and answers honestly. Paul mentions what Hawat told him about the Fremen but in truth, he wants to tell Leto about Reverend Mother Mohiam, yet once again encounters the restriction she imposed on him and starts making a visible effort to break it. Leto notices Paul's distress and replies that Hawat is good at seeing the main openings (reinforcing the insight about the doors) but that there are other elements such as the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles (CHOAM), the economic behemoth of the Imperium. Leto explains that, since Arrakis is the only source of spice, by giving this fief to the Atreides, the Emperor would be forced to also give them a CHOAM dictatorship, a boost to their political clout.

Paul finally manages to break through Mohiam's restriction and asks his father whether she warned him. Leto downplays her warnings, saying that they actually come from Jessica and merely show her love for them. Paul continues his inquiry on Mohiam's information, and once again Leto speaks to him frankly, saying that CHOAM trades anything the Guild will transport and no product is as important as spice. Paul correctly surmises that anything that could reduce spice production would benefit the Houses that have been stockpiling spice while harming the rest, and Leto's satisfied by his penetrating understanding. He reveals that the Harkonnens have been stockpiling spice for two decades and now that he's the legitimate ruler of Arrakis, he'd be to blame if something diminished production. Leto's a popular leader in the Landsraad but they'd still look the other way where profits were concerned, so the Atreides are open to any attack short of an open breach of the Great Convention with the use of atomic weapons, from the Harkonnens and a few Houses that have also been stockpiling spice but most importantly, from the Padishah Emperor himself.

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As Piter and the Baron had suspected, he's aware of the Emperor's intentions to lend military support to the Harkonnens by sending his Sardaukar and Paul asks how the Fremen can help them against these elite fighters. The Duke mentions Salusa Secundus, the Emperor's prison planet, a tremendously hostile environment which he suggests could be the training ground for hardy, powerful warriors, adding that Arrakis can be just as terrible, thus making the Fremen at least as capable as the Sardaukar in combat. Leto says that he's already sent Duncan Idaho, a ruthless but truthful man, to negotiate with them in the hopes that they'd judge all Atreides by him. They briefly touch on Gurney's romanticism and the necessities of combat while the rain they won't see again falls outside.

Paul then asks about the size of the Guild Heighliner that will take them to Arrakis the following day and Leto replies that all of the Atreides frigates will occupy merely a small corner of the ship, and that they must remain in their ships during transit as price for Guild security, which not even Harkonnens would dare breach to attack them, highlighting how powerful the Guild is in the Universe because of their monopoly on space travel. Then he tells Paul that he has the potential to become a Mentat and Paul realizes this was the reason for all the training he's received since childhood, asking him if he'd be willing to continue the training, which Paul quickly agrees to do. Leto smiles proudly but Paul sees a visage of his skull in that smile and once again feels his terrible purpose stirring in his expanding awareness.

We see in this chapter the love that the Duke Leto has for his son, respecting him as a peer who must be aware of the entire truth of their situation rather than an adolescent who must be protected, in stark contrast with how the Baron Harkonnen treats his nephew. In general, we also see how thoroughly and efficiently Paul has been trained by his own mother and father and the retainers of his House, uniquely preparing him for the challenges ahead but also instilling in him something else beyond their expectations or understanding.

References from the Future

The topic of facing doors refers to the capacity to see avenues of action and their consequences, a trait common in both Mentats and Bene Gesserit, which Paul-Muad'Dib and his son Leto II will take to a whole new level by exploring their memories in full and also the many possibilities of the future. In later novels, this ability will be exhibited by other characters descending from this lineage.

Halleck's mention of the barbs will repeat itself in other moments, especially concerning the hooks that the Fremen use to ride on sandworms. Another element I'd like to highlight is the comparison between shields and stillsuits: the former protect the users while also diminishing their senses, especially smell and hearing, and carrying a limited supply of oxygen, while the latter, as we'll soon see, almost perfectly recycle the body's moisture, thus constituting much better tools for survival.

It's unclear whether the Duke Leto had some insight of the future, but his actions later on seem to indicate that, although frightened for his family and with his vision clouded by hopes, he was at least partially aware of his fate and sacrificed himself in order to secure their survival, a trend that Paul and Leto II would also follow. We can see here how the story slowly starts to explore the topic of Consciousness through various perspectives that will get richer as we proceed.

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