Ahira's Hangar

That line always gives me a chill...when Kynes looks at Jessica and asks her, "Do you bring the shortening of the way?"

Of course, I believe that he meant the shortening of the way to his dream of an Arrakeen paradise, especially as he asked it immediately after she claimed that that was their dream too.

What was the BG dream? Power? Not quite...control? A new type of human? I wonder.

--A ____________________________________

A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>

The Bene Gesserit were hoping for, "The perfect man, with perfect memory who would give perfect predictability."

Perfect Predictability.

Spoilers for everything after Dune

Spoilers

Spoilers

Spoilers

Spoilers

Spoilers

First, Kwisatz Haderach means lots of things. It can be used to describe any being with a 'pure essence.' Paul, Leto II, Malky, Hwi Noree, and the Last Duncan Idaho are all Kwisatz Haderachs under this definition (the one the Tleilaxu give when Facedancer Scytale says, "We once bred our own Kwisatz Haderach." A Kwisatz Haderach, under this definition, then, is a being that will destroy itself (commit suicide, directly or indirectly), before it will allow itself to become the opposite of what it believes, values, and holds dear.

Secondly, a Kwisatz Haderach can mean a Male Reverend Mother, a male with access to other memory in the way a Bene Gesserit can, but with access to the male side ( and argueably not the female side, depending on how you want to interperet things.) This is half of what the BG were searching for. Depending on whether you want to interperet the 'Male Reverend Mother' label as a Male with access to Male Other Memory, or a Male with Access to Female Other Memory, or a Male with Access to Both, under two of those three definitions, they failed. Before Children of Dune, one could assume that ONLY a Male Reverend Mother/Kwisatz Haderach could access Male other Memory, and this was due to the fact that only men get the Y chromosome, which is passed on 'through the male line.' If this is true, due to the way genetics work, and following with the Male Only Other Memory Theory, a Kwisatz Haderach would have drastically less other memory than a reverend mother -- Just the Male side, passed along the Male Line. A Female Reverend Mother has the entire other memory of every female ancestor on her mother's side.

Thirdly, a Kwisatz Haderach can mean someone who can see the future, or, more appropriately, all possibile futures, and, since seeing the future causes the seer to choose from all possible futures one in particular, and then cause that one to come into being, since apparently, once you realise the quantum mechanical function of the mind ( that you really don't have free will,) you lose your free will, and can only proceed along a single path. This is what the BG were looking for.

Had their Kwisatz Haderach not arrived early, they would have been able to careful, meticulous, school and raise and condition him, so that his ideals would have been BG ideals -- like Miles Teg (who at one point notes to himself that he likes the Sisterhood because they share his Morals/Ideals -- the very morals/ideals that the Sisterhood itself instilled in him. For what Paul would have been like as the Sisterhood's ideal KH, just think about what Teg did after the T-Probe, and how he carried out Taraza's plan: He was unable to change the course of his actions, because he was Taraza's Bashar, and had to follow Taraza's orders.)

So if Paul had been brought up by the BG, he would have created the world the BG wanted, lived a hundred/plus years, then died out, leaving the BG with their 'Perfect World,' and without the meddling of a Seer. That was the perfect predictablity.

Fascinating post.

Did the "Seer" see all possible futures? Or only one future...? I remember Paul seeking to change the future he saw...to prevent it from coming about...I can't remember if he succeeded...No...the Jihad happened. (If I remember what he was trying to change anyway...)

--A

But, if he can see them all, still only one happens. So how can seeing something make it happen? (The seer creating the future.)

Now, if you said that seeing it made it possible for it to happen, I think I'd agree more.

--A

See, I disagree with that. It wasn't that the prescient were denied their free will...they chose to follow a certain path out of their knowledge of the consequences.

--A

Why not? You saying that Paul was physically unable to not be at the same place as the stone-cutter?

--A

OK, maybe from his own perspective. But it wasn't abandoning, it was excercising free will. He was free to follow whichever path he wanted. He chose, by virtue of training and inclination, to walk a certain one. If you can choose, then its free will.

--A