Who Are The Bene Tleilax | Dune Lore

[Music] with the first installment of denis villeneuve's highly anticipated two-part adaptation of frank herbert's dune on its way i've been exploring the unique characters and elements that make up this fascinating universe having already covered many of the central figures that will be featured in this film i'd like to explore one of the more fascinating and influential powers that exist in the known universe the bizarre isolationist society known as the benny twailax the setting of dune takes place thousands of years into mankind's future after a great war known as the butlerian jihad which resulted in the banning of machines that were formed in the likeness of a human mind with this restriction humans had to use other methods in order to make advances in the human condition the sisterhood of the bene jesuit dedicated themselves to studying and learning how to gain supreme control and seemingly superhuman mastery over their bodies the navigators of the spacing guild relied heavily on the spice melange which would mutate them and grant them prescience enabling them to see and charge safe paths through space allowing for successful interstellar navigation with the aid of holtzman engines there were also those who were trained to be med hats which were essentially humans that were developed as a replacement to the computers and thinking machines that have been outlawed the benny twailax or the telalaksu as they were more commonly called are a xenophobic society located on the planet twilax these religious zealots are dominated by a strict hierarchy focusing their efforts on genetic manipulation and the pursuit of spiritual elevation through physical refinement with their ultimate goal being the domination of the known universe interestingly their culture and spiritual ideology is highly suggestive of extreme male chauvinism which stands in contrast to the perceived extreme female chauvinism of the sisterhood of the bene jesuit the questionable customs and ethics of the benny tlelax have long been considered repulsive to the other cultures of the known universe and are generally distrusted this is largely because their products though desirable push the moral limits of what is considered acceptable by humanity at large these products typically result from extensive physiological and physical manipulation of human life and the universe of frank herbert's dune exists an organization called the combine o net ober advancer mercantiles or chome for short this corporation largely controls all economic affairs across the universe and relies heavily on the spacing guild for transport the bunny clay locks have been able to ensure their survival through the ability they've acquired to trade through chome in order to supply goods that are in heavy demand such as artificial eyes and synthetic meat replacements which are called slicks some of the most fascinating biological products of the tileaksu come from their axolotl tanks which were living organisms used for their genetic creations it was suspected by the bene jesuit that these axolotl tanks were all that remained of the female slay laksu since no females of their race had ever been seen these tanks are the means by which the benny tlax are able to manufacture two different creations known as golas and face dancers agola is an artificially created human replicated from a dead individual these organisms were created in axolotl tanks and could be reconstructed from as little as one cell from the original being although very similar to a clone there are some key differences one being that a true gola is grown from cells collected from the original human only after it had died this is in contrast to a clone which is grown from cells that are still living and as such do not possess a death memory gollus were created to provide comfort for people from the grief they experienced after the loss of someone close however this relief was limited because the goalless typically did not remember anything from their original lives the tlelaxu had long theorized that it was indeed possible to reawaken agola's original memories through the concept a genetic memory which the bene jesuit's referent mothers had long since been able to access through their spice agony ritual some evidence to support this theory was that golis could experience echoes of their past life namely feelings which were triggered by certain sounds or smells this would be explored further by the benny tlaylax in later books and even involved some of the main characters of frank herbert's first stew novel another creation of the tlalaxu geneticists are called face dancers these were bred for their ability to mimic and take on the physical appearance of other individuals their name is derived from the fact that whenever these beings change shape their faces would appear to dance as the flesh moved while face dancers were neither male nor female they had the ability to take on the physical sex of the individual they were copying this made them a very popular choice to fill a variety of roles inside the imperium including spies and assassins the tlalax can employ a face dancer to replace whoever they want it and some of these imposters acted successfully for many years typically face dancers can mimic individuals to an almost perfect level of precision but the use of these creatures was not infallible one weakness was that they were detectable by adept members of the bene jesuit sisterhood due to a subtle odor emitted by their pheromones another limitation in the use of face dancers was that in certain instances if they had been acting in a certain role for an extended period of time the impostor would become delusional and begin to believe that they were in fact the person they were mimicking when this happened the face dancer would fall completely outside the control of the benny plalax while golas and face dancers did not have any significant involvement in the story of frank herbert's first book another creation of the tilaksu did namely the twisted mentat of house harkonnen pieder de breeze an effeminate psychopathic killer in the employ of house of tradies enemies as previously mentioned men tasks are humans that have been trained at certain schools to mimic computers as such they possess impressive cognitive and analytical abilities twisted mentats like pipe or devries originated from the planet plalax and were largely tailored via genetic engineering to fit the needs of a customer's requirements because of this they varied in body structure emotional and psychological composition normal mental training typically utilized and was able to benefit from an individual's natural characteristics however traelaximentats typically displayed artificially produced characteristics they were also designed to operate outside the ethical framework which normal medtats were trained to work in as such twisted mentats were able to hypothesize strategize and calculate trends free of any ethical restraints or limitations like other products of the bain telelax mentats produced by the tiliksu came to be regarded universally as objects of repugnance since they were so often warped and bizarre in nature however their skills were so in demand that this disdain of their nature did not affect their usage in fact twisted mantas were often trusted with the secrets of the great houses they served in the case of pider de vries had his bizarre disposition affected his reliability it is highly unlikely that he would gain the trust and confidence of the cunning and perceptive beren vladimir harkonnen the benny tlalacs play a larger role in herbert's sequel dune books and so i believe it is doubtful that we'll see or hear about them in vilnav's adaptation however knowing of their workings and their place in herbert's universe certainly can help the viewer or reader more fully understand the reasons why a character like pider exists but i'm curious to know what you think of the benny twailax are there any other organizations or elements of frank herbert's universe you'd like to see covered on this channel let me know in the comments section below i hope you enjoyed this video leave a like if you did and be sure to subscribe for more dune and other sci-fi and fantasy content thank you all so much for your support and as always have a very nerdy day you

Channel: Nerd Cookies

Views: 386,716

Keywords: frank herbert dune, frank herbert, dune 2020, denis villeneuve, dune remake, dune lore, denis villeneuve’s dune, denis villeneuve dune, dune reboot, dune movie explained, bene tleilax, dune axlotl tank, tleilaxu ghola, dune face dancer, dune ghola, tleilaxu face dancer, who are the tleilaxu, bene tleilaxu dune, bene tleilax vs bene gesserit, bene tleilax axolotl tank dune, bene tleilaxu axolotl tank dune, bene tleilaxu eyes, bene tleilax pronunciation

Id: zfGsf45s9TI

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 29 2020