Movie prep: A summary of DUNE by Frank Herbert | The book explained

hello and welcome to this video today i'm going to be talking about dune the first dune book in the trilogy because a new dune movie is coming out this year i embarked on a little quest to read the first book and because it's a very different world to what i'm used to i've taken some notes there's a lot of new terminology so if you're not used to reading sci-fi and you would like a step-by-step breakdown of what goes on in the books and we can discuss a little bit afterwards this video is for you as usual i have put the timestamps down in the description and i've used media for this video from both the 1984 version of the movie and the new version just because i thought it was fun to see different versions of the characters and compare anyway let's get started so this book opens in castle caledon this castle is the family home and has been for six generations of the family atreides or the house of atreides jessica who is the duke's concubine is talking to a witch and they're busy discussing jessica's son paul we're told that paul is royalty obviously being son of the duke and we find out that paul might be something called a cuisat's hedorak so paul is just pretending to sleep all throughout this conversation between the witch and his mother but the witch knows that he's awake and she tells him that he's going to meet her gom jabar in the morning we learn that all of this is taking place about a week before the family in the household moved to arakas dune the desert planet so the story goes as follows the enemies of house of atreides the harkonnens had been on arrakis for 80 years holding the planet in a kind of thief in order to mine a spice called melange now the harkonnens were leaving to be replaced by the house of atreides and this was an apparent victory for the duke but this still was very dangerous because a popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful and the duke was indeed very popular among the great houses of the lens rod the lens rod was the body that represented all the great houses during the days of the imperium and it was ruled by the high council end of the scene by the padishah emperor this is the same emperor who grants duke leto of a tradie so paul's father temporary control of the planet's arrakis the next morning paul's mother jessica tells him that the reverent mother is waiting for him and jessica seems rather nervous as if she's hesitant to leave paul alone with the reverend mother because he has to undergo some kind of test eventually she does leave and the reverend mother brings out a green metal cube and tells paul to put his hand into it which he does he feels something cold metal and then prickly and this is where we learn about the mysterious gom jabar also known as the high-handed enemy this was a metacyanide poison needle and the bennett jesser made extensive use of the gomjabar especially when they tested for the humanity of certain individuals in such circumstances the device was placed against the subject's neck and acted as a deterrent for them backing out of the test the gomjaba test would be to determine whether an individual's awareness was stronger than their instincts if their awareness of the gonjaba's presence was strong enough it would override their instincts to withdraw from the test which usually involved great physical pain with his hand in the box paul feels agony as those hand is getting burned but when he's told to remove it it looks fine the reverend mother tells him that just like sifting sand through a screen the benedicerate sift to find humans and she's now excited that he could be quote unquote the one jessica comes back and she's glad to see that paul is alive and he is in fact human we also find out here what the quisat hadarak is this is a man who when he takes a truth sayer something you take to detect falsehood he would be able to look at both feminine and masculine memories and pasts this has never been done before and all men who have tried have died the banerjesserits are a pseudo-religious organization of all women spies nuns scientists and theologians who use genetic experimentation galactic political interference and religious engineering to further their own agenda of ascending the human race with the advent of their chosen one the cuisades had iraq the primary objective of the bernie jesuit was to attain further power and influence and to help direct humanity along a path of insight and stability and the means of reaching this goal was through the quisats hadirak the one who can be in all places at once the triumph of their plan was supposed to occur when the daughter of leo atreides married a son from the harkonnen family but their plans were thrown into turmoil by jessica atreides when she consciously gave birth to a son paula tradies instead of a daughter next we get a glimpse into the house of the harkonnens these are the adversaries of the house of atreides we have baron vladimir harakonen his nephew fayette harkonnen and his mentor peter devries so amentat was a profession or a discipline that was developed as a replacement to the computers and thinking machines and mentats were used extensively by the great houses primarily as political advisors unlike computers mentors were not only human calculators since in addition to immense mathematical skills mentats also possessed the exceptional cognitive abilities of memory and perception baron and peter are talking about the house of atreides and how absurd they think it is that the emperor thinks he's given a ruckus to duke letter of atreides we come to learn that both the house of huracanan and the house of atreides is after the chome company because this is the key to wealth this company essentially controls all of the economic affairs across the cosmos and many houses depend on the choem profits and an enormous proportion of these depend on melange the cinnamon-like spice baron and pitter outline their strategy to have the fifth in auracus within a year and we find out that the baron not only wants duke leto dead he wants to end his entire family line they admit that the duke letter of atreides is walking into a trap and they intend to plan things so that when the duke becomes aware of a traitor in the house of atreides this suspicion falls on jessica rather than dr yer who is their agent as well back at castle kaladan we learn that jessica desired a boy because the duke paul's father wanted a boy and the reverend mother tells jessica that because of this the bloodlines will be lost forever because the plan was to have the atreides daughter marry a hurricane and heir jessica thought she might give birth to the quisats had iraq but the reverend mother doubts that paul is the koisats had iraq and she calls paul in and asks him about these dreams that he's been having and asks whether he always dreams things that happen afterwards exactly as he's dreamt them and he says yes because his dreams appear to be some kind of premonition he describes in his dreams a girl who has all blue eyes with no white and they're in some place that is hot sheltered by rocks and that they're waiting for something paul later has interactions with three of his father's aides tafir hawat who had been responsible for the house of atreides security for three generations hawat had also been entrusted with the training of paul in the arts of war as well as political and military strategy he also chats with gurney haleck who is the chief officer of duke leto who helps paul master weaponry and paul considers him a friend they kind of spa and practice and helek gives paul notes on his skills then he chats with dr wellington year who is a souq doctor and as we've seen in the previous chapter he is a secret agent of baron vladimir harkonnen we can read year's thoughts in this chapter and we can tell that he feels guilty about betraying paul but he says to himself what's done has done and now he knows that his wife might no longer be hurt by the harakonan he gives paul a special bible contraption because of this guilt and he tells paul to keep this a secret because he knows that if jessica knows that he gave paul something so valuable she might question his motives they also learn here about the fremen they're a tribe that chooses to live outside of the cities of arakas in the wilderness of the desert where they face dangerous sand worms and duke it out amongst themselves and they use trial by combat as their main judicial system and they wear still suits that assist with water retention so they can exist in desert conditions and that water is a precious resource on a rakis and so they have to recycle their body's own moisture as the son of the duke however poor will never be short of water but he will notice the lack of it around him paul is also told that the fremen are quite violent and that he won't be allowed to mingle with them finally we see paul with his father duke letter over tradies and dugletto tells paul that the harakonens have been stockpiling melange the spice for years in order for the spice production to fail and the house of atreides or the duke can be blamed and everybody would be unhappy with the duke they do realize that they're knowingly walking into what appears to be a trap but the duke says that as long as they know where the trap is they can also get a list of their enemies based on finding out who else besides the harkonnens are stockpiling melange the harkonnens are very much disregarded by the fremen and we found out here that the house of atreides is negotiating with the fremen to form some kind of alliance the household finally arrives in iraqis and they live in the government mansion of the old empire and archane which is one of the biggest cities in auracus jessica feels that the palace is quite cold and she's feeling homesick but we later see an interaction with her and the duke she seems a bit intimidated by him but they do seem to love each other we learn that the duke doesn't have a wife that jessica is his concubine but she is his only companion and of course the mother of his heir he hasn't married her because they may still be a chance at an alliance with one of the great houses we also learn that while the fremen haven't agreed to be allies they have agreed to observe the house of atreides and not raid their outlying villagers later jessica meets the housekeeper mapes who reveals a kris knife which could be a gift to jessica should she prove to be the one mapes gives the knife to jessica to keep and tells her that if it's away from her flesh for too long it begins to disintegrate so she needs to keep it close about the kris knife this was a knife whose blade was made from the tooth of a dead sand worm and it was the weapon of choice for the fremen to the fremen the kris knife was sacred and they maintained a lot of traditions around it if it was drawn it couldn't be re-sheathed until it had drawn blood and the blade was not allowed to be seen by those considered to be outsiders by the tribe otherwise they would have to die by it or be cleansed in an elaborate ritual back in paul's room he's getting ready to start exploring the house when he finds a hunter seeker that comes out from behind the headboard this is a tool used by assassins that almost kills him and mapes who's at the door to tell him that his father has called for him he is the target however and he knows that someone nearby must be controlling it but he manages to catch it in time the housekeeper mapes tells them that there is a traitor in their midst at the same time jessica finds a wet plant conservatory filled with plants and in it a friendly letter from the wife of count fenring lady margaret fenring count fenring had been the governor of arakas during the handover period between the house of huracanan and house atreides jessica senses that she too is bene jesuit so there must be a secret message as well and she searches for it and finds it written on a leaf and it reads as follows your son and the duke are in immediate danger a bedroom has been designed to attract your son the h loaded it with death traps to be discovered leaving one that may escape detection i do not know the exact nature of the menace but it has something to do with a bed the threat to the duke involves defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant the h plan to give you as a gift to a minion to the best of my knowledge this conservatory is safe forgive that i cannot tell more my sources are few as my count is not in the pay of the age in haste mf paul eventually goes to his mother in the wet plan conservatory and they share these events with each other one of hawat's deputies comes in and tells paul and jessica that they found the controller of the hunter seeker console that he appeared to be an araki native and that he had been put into the cellar more than a month before and he had been awaiting their arrival later duke letter is fuming over the attempt on a son's life when hawaii tells them that they've also taken a letter from a harkonnen courier and the note was meant to be for an agent named pardee the note reads that letter will never suspect and when the blow falls on him from a beloved hand its source alone should be enough to destroy him the note was under the baron's own seal which has been authenticated after duke leto opens up to hawat hawat suspects that jessica is the traitor and he would like to have her surveil but the duke isn't happy about this he does eventually agreed but we find out later when he tells paul that him having jessica savelled was actually a setup and that he wants harkonnen to believe that he believes that jessica is the traitor hawat also tells leto about the freman prophecy which goes as follows a prophecy or a leader will come to them a child of a bene to lead them to freedom they believe that paul is this leader in this next chapter we also learn about the sand worm which was the native life form of the planet arrakis and lived in the vast deserts and sand dunes that stretched across the surface of the planet sand worms live beneath the sand and they were attracted to rhythmic vibrations on the surface they would breach in pursuit of origin of such vibrations this was an effort to defend their territory of which they were highly protective so to see a sand worm and to live to tell about it was extremely rare the duke is walking through the house when he discovers that one of the smugglers has been killed and mate the housekeeper has been stabbed and she dies as well though not before telling letto that the god has been killed as well suddenly europe appears and stabs him with a drug that paralyzes him and obviously yer is now exposed as the traitor but he also tells the duke that he wants the baron dead and that he will replace the duke's tooth with one that when bitten hard into emits a poisonous deadly gas he should do this when he's close enough to the baron yere tells the duke that for this he'll ensure that jessica and paul are safe meanwhile jessica and paul are being held hostage bound by the baron and his men the planets are leave both of them in the desert and have them consumed by sand worms and they're transported out in a thupta but they eventually managed to escape back at the house we find out that the baron obviously did not keep his word to yer that he would spare you his wife and for good measure he orders peter to kill you the duke is finally brought into the baron he's half conscious but he somehow figures out that jessica and paul have escaped the harkonnen he then bites into his tooth and the poisonous gas is let out and everybody in the room dies but the baron manages to escape in the nick of time it appears now that the harkonnens are victorious back in hiding in the desert paul is having a difficult time because he's becoming aware of these kind of powers that he has he can see into the future he can see things and he knows things that there's no way that he could know he's upset by this he feels as though he's a monster or a freak and he lashes out at his mom jessica at some point telling her that she didn't want a son she wanted a quisats hadira she wanted a male bennet jesserit he also tells jessica that he knows that she's pregnant with her sister and obviously he only knows this because he sees things that others can't see or know they decide to stay with the fremen and then comes the big plot twist paul tells jessica that they are actually harkonnens you're the baron's own daughter he says the baron sampled many pleasures in his youth and once permitted himself to be seduced but it was for the genetic purposes of the bene jesuit by one of you jessica thinks that paul must be the cuiser tatarak but he tells it to put that out of her mind that he's something completely unexpected they agree then to stay with a fremen and paul says that the freeman will call him mua dip the one who points the way in book two we get to see what life is like in arakin now that the harkanans are in power and desperately trying to keep it during the 100th slave gladiator games and arakin the count and lady enring who are still there note that there is this illusion that things are going well there's the sense of fearful perfection the servants are being military trained there's extremely high security the guards are regularly being deployed and have to fight they also see that outside of the fresh paint and the banners from buildings there are piles of rubbish on the sides of the road we see that the baron is paying a very high price for having taken arakin from the house of atreides hawaii also by the way gets captured by the harkonnens and it appears that he is now the baron's mentat the count and lady fenring plot to have lady fenring seduce the baron's nephew for yet and they express their sorrow at the deaths of atreides but they say that they need to preserve the bloodline and so lady fenrin plans to get pregnant by fiat and they will flee arakin everyone assumes that jessica and paul are dead but there is an uncertainty the baron would prefer to see their dead bodies but he's told that because they got lost in a sandstorm it's likely that their bones won't even ever be found back in the desert jessica and paul are moving through and they realize that the harkonnens are destroying everything in their path trying to find any atreides but eventually they do join the fremen paul finally meets charney the girl from his dream and she kind of shows him the fremen way they get close and eventually she tells him that paul makes her see things and that she sees that she's holding a child their child and they kind of pledge that they will stay together with the reverent mother of the fremen being old and dying they feel that jessica might be the perfect choice to replace her so jessica takes this drug it's a toxic liquid that comes from a young sand worm and she becomes the new reverent mother of the fremen book three the prophet takes place two years later and in the private apartment of the baron we learned that he knows that the fremen have a new prophet that they're called mua deep he finds us quite quaint but he doesn't know that this is paul obviously and we do also learn that the fremen are actually getting stronger and more formidable under his leadership we also find out that the emperor who initially gave iraqis to duke leto turned on the house of atreides because duke leto's army was becoming almost as good as that of the sardikar military which is the military belonging to the emperor currently the planet of arrakis is being ruled by rabban harkonnen fied's older brother and the plan according to the baron was to have rabun rule the planet in fear and terror for a long time and then eventually when he would install fiat the people would welcome him as some kind of hero in the desert chany and paul have a son who is eventually killed as an infant by the empress sardica military we know also that paul's sister alia so jessica's daughter is somewhat different people are nervous about her they feel she's an abomination because she's a toddler however she speaks really well and she understands things and talks about things that only adults could possibly know at this point paul is framing he has the same blue eyes as the fremen and he refers to the fremen as us eventually they accept him as their official leader and they decide to take on the fight for the rule of varakas paul and the freeman all descend on iraq is under the cover of a storm and they conquer the harkonnens and the emperor's military paul demands that the emperor give him his rightful place as the ruler of arrakis he also asks that he be married to the emperor's daughter irulun he eventually agrees to paul's terms and yeah so this is pretty much a very high level summary there's so much more that happens this book has everything mythology espionage dynastic family feuds bloodline drama romance adventure boy king teen angst which i think timothy chalamet will do really well with and as someone who doesn't read sci-fi i enjoyed it even though i had to make some notes on the side it was a little long at 400 pages but you do get really immersed in the universe so i felt that that was necessary learning more about the fremen that they were actually very sophisticated and have mastered riding the sand worms i found that really interesting i hated the bene jesserot and their strange breeding program it was culty and as creepy as i'm sure frank herbert intended it to be i enjoyed paul's development from early in the books you're aware that he is a leader by the way that he thinks speaks and the way he carries himself but it was nice to see that develop over the books anyway that's it for this video please consider giving it a like if you enjoyed this or subscribe if you enjoy this kind of content thank you for watching

Channel: Internet rando

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Keywords: the great dune trilogy book, the great dune trilogy, the dune trilogy, dune by frank herbert, Dune explained, timothee chalamet, oscar isaac, paul atreides, science fiction, sci fi movies, sci fi books, denis villeneuve, dune lore, frank herbert, Zendaya dune, zendaya, oscar isaac dune, timothee chalamet dune, sci fi, ultimate guide, bene gesserit, dune review, dune book, dune book review, frank herbert dune

Id: drb7Q0brv3s

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021