The God Emperor, Arafel, and the Ixians | Dune: Prophecy Episode 1 Review

0:00 Before we even get to all of the minute details, I'm gonna start this off by saying that this show gets points from me for being the very first and only adaptation of anything Dune related so far to directly reference the god Emperor. Hi guys, it's Quinn here. If you appreciate my content, consider hitting the like button.

0:47 It's the best way to get the YouTube algorithm to notice this channel. If you want to do more to support this channel, consider checking out the Patreon link in the description. When I heard them say the tyrant, and when I heard them say Arafel, I got very excited. So they get tremendous points from me just on that simple fact alone.

1:10 Now, if you don't understand what any of that means, don't worry, I'll explain it later. If you're already here, then I'm assuming that you don't care about some spoilers. I'm not gonna completely spoil some of the books, some of the later books for everybody, but I am gonna talk about some of the details of what happens in some of those books, so that I can discuss what I think is being referenced in this show.

1:35 And there's a lot that I think is being referenced subtly, and I have some theories about a lot of things that we're going to get into. First off, this show starts off with two very interesting quotes. Victory is celebrated in the light, but one in the darkness. And what holds more truth, history or prophecy?

1:57 Two very dunish quotes. And we also, in the opening monologue by Valia Harkonin, we get her saying something like, Perhaps the history involving the Butler and Jihad between these figures called Vorian Atreides and Xavier Harkonnen is not exactly like what we've been told historically. This is a reference to something that happens in the Machine trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J.

2:21 Anderson. It's really in the weeds. We won't get into that right now, but it's related to the origins of the feud between House Atreides and House Harkonen. Alright. So the first ten minutes of this show or so, first ten to fifteen minutes, I would say, are, interestingly enough, like the entire Benny Jezret plot line from the Brian Herbert Sisterhood of Dune trilogy that includes Mintats of Dune and Navigators of Dune.

2:48 It's like that, but on fast forward. So basically, the first 15 minutes are a stripped down version of Brian Herbert's books, and then we skip all the way past that and are 30 years later, which I definitely agree with this choice. To not sit within the period depicted in Brian Herbert's books, and to skip over that entirely and do something totally different, so that we can focus more on the lore created by Frank Herbert and not be tied to what happens in the Brian Herbert books.

3:17 We can keep some of the more interesting aspects of those books, which they did, and they show those in the beginning. That's essentially what happens in the book with Mother Raquela being the first reverend mother of the Bini Gesserit and starting the breathing program. Like in the book, Valia was one of her favorites.

3:35 She ultimately leaves the sisterhood to be co-ran by her granddaughter Dortea, and Valia, and then Valia uses the voice to get Dorteia to kill herself. That is basically what happens in the book, but kind of on fast forward, and they don't really mention an aspect in the book where they're trying to figure out how to create more Reverend Mothers, so that's still an open question as to whether or not Valia right now is the only Reverend Mother, or whether or not they have more Reverend Mothers at this point.

4:01 It's not exactly clear to me. Now I should be clear that I did hear that there are going to be some flashback scenes back to that 30 years before time period. So I think we can expect some scenes that might fill in some of the blinks, but I'm very happy that the main storyline is set outside of that.

4:19 In the show, there is also something that is extremely interesting that happens that they add that's not in the Brian Herbert books that I would like to talk about, and that is the mention of Tiran Arafel. Now, this is a deep cut for Dune fans. This is a very deep cut, and this is a multifaceted reference that is related to the death of the God Emperor in Book 4 and his very last words, which are Do not fear the Ixians.

4:55 They can make the machines, but they cannot create Arafel. Now this is a very easy to misreference. Arafel is a Hebrew word that means fog. It basically represents the things about God that are unknowable, the obscured nature of God. But specifically in Dune, it is the cloud darkness of holy judgment.

5:21 And this, in fact, points us to a very specific biblical uh quote. And we've talked about this on the channel before. Here's the entire quote The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of isles be glad thereof, clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.

5:45 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about, his lightnings enlightened the world, the earth saw and trembled, the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.

6:05 Confounded be all that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols, worship him all ye gods. And when I saw this episode of the show, and I remembered this Bible reference, and I remembered what Leto said on his deathbed, it all kind of started to click into place, and I started to figure out some of the things that they were doing.

6:29 In the book God Emperor of Dune, when Leto says the Ixians can create the machines, but they cannot create Aurafal, what he is saying is the Ixians can make a machine, a very powerful machine, a very intelligent machine, perhaps even one that is prescient, but they cannot create God. They cannot create a being that will be the ultimate judge for humanity that will seek out and destroy all of humans.

6:51 That is what he is saying. He's saying that I have protected you with the creation of Siona and the No Gene. I know that's very in the weeds for those of you that have not read the books. I have an entire giant series, go check it out. But that is essentially what's going on here. They're making reference to this.

7:08 Now, what's happening here is that we're being shown that the Beni Jezeret and Leto were trying to protect mankind from the same thing. But the Beni Jesseret were just a little bit misguided. That's why in book four we see Leto take over the Beni Jezeret breeding program. He takes it from them at the end of book three, and it's his breeding program.

7:30 In book four, he mentions that the Beni Jezeret, out of all those in the universe, are the most like him. They were almost right, but not quite. He needed to be there to like kind of guide the wheels and put it back on track because he saw Arafel as well. He saw the quote-unquote seeking machines. This gets me to my other point.

7:53 In the Bible quote that I just read, we see the line: a fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies. That's exactly what we see in this episode. We see Desmond Hart, and he's got the quote unquote magical power to burn people alive. This doesn't strike me as a magical power at all. This is Dune.

8:16 It's not magic, it's some kind of technology. And if my gut is right, it is Ixian technology. The Ixians have always been known to push the bounds of the But Larian jihad. They have an interest in more lax laws where machines are concerned. And then there's the undeniable religious aspect to this, of course.

8:40 In Dune, there are many different religions, religions that grow from older religions. A lot of it is based in what they call the Orange Catholic Bible, which is obviously some kind of deep future shoot-off of Christianity, and religions and beliefs continue to grow and change in the Dune universe because we're dealing with thousands of years passing.

9:01 It is not uncommon for religious groups in the Dune universe like the Tlelaxu to use forms of technology for religious purposes. That being said, whatever technology this is, likely Ixian technology, symbolically to Desmond Hart, it represents the fire that goeth before his Lord, whatever God he worships.

9:24 Take a look at the rest of this Bible quote with me. Confounded be all that serve graven images that boast themselves of idol, worship him all ye gods. Who do we see staring at a graven image? At multiple times we see the Mother Superior Valya staring at the graven image of Raquela. Confounded be all that serve graven images that boast themselves of idols.

9:51 Valya's sole existence, her sole purpose is to serve the will and to preserve the vision of Raquela. Raquela's literal graven image features prominently almost as though it's religious iconography. But Benny Jezeret. What we're dealing with here is Desmond Hart is a fanatic serving some religious purpose.

10:16 This fireburning technology is mechanical, that's why he mentions earlier to the Emperor that perhaps they outlawed machines too soon. And another reason that I'm so gung-ho on this being Ixian technology is because, in my opinion, in the original Dune saga, I know that in the Brian Herbert Dune books they do something different, and we'll get into that, but in my opinion, in the original Dune saga, Leto foresaw an Ixian machine that got out of hand and became prescient, became too powerful, and destroyed the entire human race.

10:53 And that was what he was trying to prepare humankind for. And if you look at the specific quote in God Emperor of Dune, where his creation, Siona, is being given the vision that he had countless times before, it says, no ancestral presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her forever and afterward the clear sights and sounds and smell.

11:14 The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape. All the while the mechanical movement approached nearer and nearer, louder and louder. Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere. So, whereas in the Brian Herbert books, we have the very literal omnis, AI entity coming from outer space to seek revenge on all of humanity.

11:43 I think that in the original Dune saga, what Frank Herbert was really going for was something that humans created getting out of hand and just destroying us because of our own hubris, because we weren't diverse enough and we weren't protected enough and we weren't spread out enough into the universe.

12:01 That was the whole point of the scattering later on. That was the whole point of Siona's no-gene. Um it was meant to be scattered throughout the galaxy that so that something like this, something that was prescient, that had the potential to seek out all of humanity, if we remained in the same place and if we were all the same, could no longer do it.

12:19 It could no longer be Arafel. It could take out a lot of us, it could wipe out this entire solar system, it could take out a lot of us, but it couldn't take out all of us, and that was the point. That is what Leto was trying to prepare us for and protect us from. Leto II said that the Ixsians can no longer create Arafel.

12:37 He marks the Ixians as the threat that lead to the coming of Arafel, leads to the end of the human universe. As to what the show is going to do at this point in time, it's vague at this point. It could go either way. We do get shots of deep outer space and mechanical lights turning on and what sounds like a mechanical voice speaking.

13:00 That could very well be Omnius, or it could be a reference to some other form of technology. Alright, so as I said, we mainly skip over the Brian Herbert stuff. We see the death of Raquela, we see Valley and Dorothea taking over and the sisterhood kind of being split. We get a really nice Dune Orange Catholic Bible quote, Thou Shalt Not Disfigure the Soul, which has always been one of my favorites.

13:29 If you flip to the back of Dune and you look at the Religion of Dune, you'll find that quote. Um, and that was really cool that they included that. Um, so I enjoyed that. Uh the opening sequence was was good, and they skipped 30 years, and now we've got all new material. I don't know where it's going.

13:47 Um, and that's exciting for me. So overall, I like the look of the Benny Jezzeret. They've at large maintained the look and mostly the vibe of the Benny Jezzerit from the Villeneuve stuff. So that was cool to see. I enjoyed seeing the Benny Jezerit uh girls training, so that was interesting. So we see a little bit of perhaps prana bindu training happening, we see a little bit of the truthsayer training occurring, perhaps a little bit of the weirding way, which is the special Bini Jezerit martial arts.

14:22 Um so there's a political situation that the Beni Jesserit are trying to maneuver at this point in history. So we have the union between House Ricci's and House Corino. Now they're saying richies, but I've always said Ricci's. I don't know. It's these are made-up words, so I don't know. I'm just gonna say richies because that's the way I've always said it.

14:46 So the Benny Gesserit are facilitating this union between House Ricci's and House Carino because they are very interested in this union between Pruit Ricci's and Yenez Carino. So they really want this union to happen, and it's based off of the genetic archives, right? So you had they showed uh they showed us that Raquela, the original mother superior, was building this huge genetic archive so that she could create leaders that they could control, and so they're still on this plan.

15:16 But some things are happening to shake stuff up. There is some unrest. For one, the mysterious re-emergence of Desmond Hart, who the Emperor thought had died on Arrakis, and who should have died on Arrakis. It looked like he died during like this Frimin attack. He should be dead. In my opinion, another prediction, I think he is a Gola, and a Gola is of course a Tslelaxu device, a clone of someone that has been killed, someone that's dead, uh, that has been brought back to life, usually with an insidious purpose.

15:55 And it seems like that insidious purpose is to undermine the Bini Jezerit in the eyes of the Emperor and undo what they're doing. We see him throughout the episode weasling his way into the mind of the Emperor and downplaying the Bini Jezerit and making them seem less trustworthy in the eyes of the Emperor.

16:13 So he's definitely got an agenda against the Bini Jezerit, and this is obviously the most evident at the end of the episode when Pruit is burned alive, and at the same time, Mother Kasha is burned alive. Now, he took out two threats at once. So, one, he's undermined the Bini Jezerit breeding program.

16:35 He's killed the match. Two, he's taken out Kasha, who is the main influence over Princess Ynez. And the Bini Jezerit's main influence over the Emperor. And he gave her a look earlier in the episode that some of you might have seen or might not have seen. So he did two things at once. It's not exactly clear how it's working, but my gut tells me that that's Ixian technology, and my gut tells me that he is a Telilaksu Gola.

17:03 So it remains to be seen what the death of Pruitt will mean for the future of this merger between House Reaches and House Karina, which the Emperor was kind of iffy on anyway, so it's kind of like Desmond Hart has forced his hand. Um, but that gets me to one of the cool scenes from the show that I really liked a lot, was when you see the Emperor and you see the Duke Reachies um having kind of a conversation and kind of debating, and the Benny Jezreet are both there watching, and each one of them has a truthsayer.

17:36 But these truthsayers are Benny Jezreet women, so they're not on anybody's side except the sisterhood. So it's really cool that we see them having their little secret conversation while these guys think that they're running things, but really it's the Benijeret who are secretly in power. So they're saying, like, oh, we'll deal with the Duke later.

17:55 He wants a wing in the Karinos castle so that he can basically insist more power over the Lansrad. So they're saying that we'll deal with the Duke later. We just need to make this match happen. So it's just really cool to see that. I really love the scenes in Villeneuve's Dune, and I love the scenes.

18:12 I I'm happy that we're gonna get more scenes in this of just seeing the Benny Gesseret operate like Benny Gesseret and be those that secretly maneuver in the shadows. I really like that aspect of the Benny Gesserit. And like I said, I'm glad that we were able to skip past um what we see depicted in the Brian Herbert stuff and get to the point when the Benny Jesserit act like Benny Gesserit, because I really had no interest in seeing the Benny Gesserit becoming the Benny Jesseret and slowly getting to the place where now they have the Benny Gesserit breeding program and now they're manipulating people.

18:44 I'm glad we just skipped to the point where it's like, yes, they manipulate. Yes, they have a breeding program. So I'm looking forward to seeing more of that depicted in the show. So I enjoyed all the political stuff, um, the Karino stuff, the Richie stuff. I I I like the dynamic between the Emperor and um his wife.

19:04 It seemed like they might have had some love for each other in the past, but no longer. Um, I was getting the vibe a little bit that maybe the Emperor had a thing for his truthsayer Kasha, which will be interesting because it seems like Kasha is dead now, so we'll see um the fallout from this episode and what exactly occurs.

19:22 Another interesting note um that some people might miss was the presence of House Carino on Seleucia Secundus. Seleuza Secundus, in I guess, the current Doom timeline, in the Paul Atreides Doom timeline, by that point in time, is a prison planet where the Sardakar are trained. So it's a very harsh, brutal planet.

19:44 You see in this show that it's very lush and green. Well, this was before it was abused and destroyed. Dune has always had this kind of ecological message that yes, through human activity we can destroy planets and we can change planets. So yeah, that's the point I think of showing Seleucus Kondas. It used to be the seat of House Carino until they moved to Caitane, which is another paradise world.

20:09 But at first it was, it was it was nice. It became a prison planet, it became a place similar to Arrakis where they could train, you know, soldiers in a harsh environment. So that was interesting to see as well. Another thing that I thought was very interesting in this show was the use of prescient visions.

20:25 Now, it's not clear when prescience came into being amongst humans, but it is related to the Bini Jesseret's way of training themselves. It is related to their breeding program, so it is not a stretch that certain Bene Jesseret would have prescient abilities. We got um Raquelus Prescient Vision at the beginning of the show, and we also get Casha also having a prescient vision, which was very interesting.

20:49 She kind of sees herself as the center of this eye, and she sees a giant sandworm come and it swallows the Princess Inez. She says, This is your fault, and I think she's not saying it directly to Casha, she means the Bini Jezreet, and so everyone is swallowed by the sandworm, and that could have a lot of potential meanings.

21:06 I mean it's it's a it's a point, it's pointing towards the fact that they're going in the wrong direction. You know, things like the meaning of the rotten pomegranate with the maggots in it, after seeing the pomegranate scene earlier, obviously refer to the fact that this union between House Reaches and House Carino is not the right direction, and it will only lead to perhaps death.

21:27 It will bear rotten fruit, I think. Um, so it makes sense that prescience would emerge amongst some binnyzerits. Of course, the most refined version of prescience that we ever see in the show, excuse me, the books, is Lato II's Prescience. So obviously there are degrees of prescience. There's the prescience that Guild Navigators have, there's the prescience that Odrede has, you know, like her subtle like little talent.

21:51 It's not quite there. Um, so there's the prescience that different people have to varying degrees, so that makes sense to me. I also have some interesting thoughts about the overall aesthetic of the show. So I think that Wallace 9, the homework the home of the Benny Gesserit right now, kind of looks more like the Villeneuve stuff.

22:11 And that is interesting to me because it feels like that over the course of the next 10,000 years, as the Benny Gesserit become more and more influential, maybe their style takes over and becomes more dominant in the universe, and that's why we get the more brutalist, uh, minimalist aesthetic by the time of Paul the Trades.

22:34 I think that is a cool way to think about it as well, because the Benny Jesserit look more or less like they do in Villeneuve's Dune, but everything else looks a bit different. So I think that's an interesting way to think about it, and I wonder if the creators of the show did this intentionally. I hope so.

22:52 So overall, I did enjoy the show a lot, but there were some things that I did not like as much. For one, I don't think we needed a nightclub scene in a Dune show. I feel like nightclub scenes, bar scenes in sci-fi stuff is way too overdone. It's very generic. I I sighed when I saw it. I don't mind like the weird drug stuff because even the David Lynch Dune had like weird drug stuff.

23:17 Like Dune is all about weird future drugs. That's fine. But I really don't want like a stupid generic nightclub scene that kind of took me out of it. I'm not gonna lie, that could have been left on the cutting room floor. I want weirder things. This is the Dune universe. I get that it's 10,000 years ago, but we don't need a bar scene in Dune ever.

23:36 Please don't show it again. But you know, overall I really enjoyed the show, but I think it still remains to be seen as to whether or not the full season is going to have a satisfying arc. Because while I think the first episode is pretty solid, it does set up a lot of mysteries that are going to need to be satisfyingly addressed by the end of I think this first season.

24:00 What I can say is I appreciate the show for what it's trying to do. I appreciate them for including some more obscure references to things that happen later in the Dune series, and I hope that we get a glimpse of the God Emperor by the end of this show. I hope that someone has a vision of him and that we see some depiction of him, and I hope that it doesn't suck.

24:22 At this point, I'm optimistic about the show, and I hope it's good and successful because this show being good and successful gives me more hope for maybe, you know, like a God Emperor of Doom show on HBO in the future, or like a Children of Dune uh TV show on HBO in the future. So if this show is a hit and it's well received, then we might be in for a lot more Doom content in the future, and that definitely excites me.

24:48 Tomorrow I'll be doing a live stream to go into more detail, breaking down the episode, figuring out more of the book references, and just getting into the nitty gritty of all the things. So be on the lookout for that tomorrow, and thank you so much for watching, guys. Peace.