The Weird Thing about Gholas

0:00 It was Duncan. Alia shuddered. There could only be one answer. This was a Tlelaxu Gola, a being reconstructed from the dead flesh of the original. That original had perished, saving Paul. This could only be a product of the Axolotto tanks. So, with the Dune 3 trailer coming out, lots of people have all sorts of questions about the Tlelaxu and Golas and Face Dancers, and there is a lot of room for discussion here because the way Frank Herbert handles certain fringe elements in the Dune series evolves over the course of the series, and there are certain things that are debatable.

1:25 Like for instance, is the original Dunkin' Idaho Gola that we see in Dune Messiah, even a gola at all. The way golas are handled later in the series, we clearly see that they start off as babies and they have to grow up like regular adults. Leto II brought back Dunkin' Idaho over and over again. The Telelaxu always had one on reserve that was waiting to be awakened.

1:57 The Benny Jezerit brought back several Dunkin' Idaho golas, but what is made clear in Heretics of Dune is that these golas start off as babies and they have to grow into adults. This is also the case with the Miles Teg Gola. There's no indication that the Slelaxu have the ability to accelerate the growth of a human inside the Axolotl tanks.

2:24 Now, in Dune Messiah, what creates a discrepancy is that this is only 12 years after the first book. But we see a fully grown Duncan Idaho in Dune Messiah, fully grown hate with silver tlalaxu eyes. Now this is interesting because you would think if you can regrow an entire human in a tank, then you should be able to regrow eyes.

2:53 But I have a theory about this, which is that this Duncan isn't a gola in the same way that later golas are golas. I think there are actual suggestions in the text that indicate that he is the reanimated corpse of the original Duncan. I'm going to read an excerpt from the opening of Dune Messiah. This is the meeting with Edric and the conspirators against Paul Atreides.

3:25 No. Let us assume that our wise Sartakar commander had Idaho's corpse preserved for the Axolotl tanks. Why not? This corpse held the flesh and nerves of one of the finest swordsmen in history, an advisor to the Atreides, a military genius. What a waste to lose all that training and ability when it might be retrieved as an instructor for the Sardukar.

3:50 The fact that it says having the corpse preserved and that this corpse contains this is interesting phrasing because it implies that the Tlaylaxu got Duncan's entire body. But it's not totally straightforward the way it's written, because then slightly after that, they do refer to it as a bit of flesh.

4:12 Now that could have just been a way of talking about it, just a bit of flesh, like one body, or it could literally mean just a little bit of flesh, like a chunk or a few cells. It's not totally clear, so we have to look at it in context and take in what other passages say. Now, when hate encounters Bajaz, who is another creation of the Tlelaxu, who was also sent there with a specific purpose, Bajaz straight up tells him, You are not Hate.

4:46 You are Duncan Idaho. He says, I was there when they put your dead flesh into the tank, and I was there when they removed it, alive and ready for training. So he basically says, he was there when they put the dead body of Duncan Idaho inside of the tank, and he was there when he came out, and that he was already fully formed, alive, ready for training when they brought him out, which is not the way Golas are described later in the series.

5:17 The later Duncans have to grow up from children. Specifically, the post-God Emperor of Dune Duncans. Now, the book God Emperor of Dune certainly implies that they have some way of preserving them, not consciously awaking them until ready, but there's no indication that they can speed their aging. Now, of course, when it comes to Bajaz telling him that no, you're Dunkin' Idaho, not hate, a part of what Bajaz was doing was trying to awaken his Dunkin' Idaho memories.

5:54 The books never explain totally how this works, but I imagine that it's related to a kind of cellular memory, probably related to genetic memory in some way. Frank Herbert was playing with all of those ideas. But regardless, it's very possible that Bajaz was simply lying here or trying to manipulate Duncan in some way here.

6:16 But what is clear is that later, Duncan, Idaho, does remember leaving the Axolato tink. He remembers being aware. He remembers seeing Saitel, so that implies that he is coming out fully formed, that at least that part of it was true. Again, this implies something different than what we see later in the Dune series.

6:40 Also, I could point out that Axolato is spelled differently in Dune Messiah versus the way it's spelled in the later Dune books. That could be because Frank Herbert likes to play with the fact that words and language evolve over time, or that could be an indication that the technology is different. Now, when we get to God Emperor of Dune, Leto mentions that they are recreating Duncans from the original cells.

7:09 The Tlaylaxu still have the original cells, and that's how they're creating the Duncans. It says the Tlaylaxu had taken cells from his dead flesh, and they had grown a bud in one of their axolotl tanks. That bud had become this body, and a process which made him feel at first an alien in his own flesh.

7:30 So this is a more clear description of the process versus what we get in Dune Messiah, but still it doesn't indicate how fast these Golas are growing. Now, Lata II and the God Emperor is dealing in long-term history. He needs a Duncan maybe like every 50 years or so. So it's nothing for them to grow a Duncan for 30 years before they present it to him, and they might even have multiple Duncans growing at once, which is illegal under his own laws, but he allows it because you know he really likes Duncan and also just in the name of chaos.

8:07 Now we are getting into the realm of speculation here, because the thing is, Frank Herbert never really goes into that much detail on how these things work. But the final thing that goes against the idea of Duncan from Doom Messiah just coming out fully formed from the Axolotl tanks that we know from definitely heretics and chapter house is the fact that the axolotl tanks are the female tlelaxu.

8:40 They are the remnants of the female tlelaxu. So the idea of a fully grown adult human male Dunkin Idaho inside of an axolotl tank, inside of a genetically modified slash mutated woman's womb is a bit of a strange image, and it's less practical than the idea of them coming out much, much younger as babies.

9:05 I think this whole topic is really interesting, and I also think that Frank Herbert purposefully obscured the details surrounding the Tlaylaxu and their technology to make it seem as strange and outside of your grasp as possible. The way Tlaylaxu technology works is not just a mystery to the reader, it's also a mystery to everybody inside of the Dune universe.

9:33 That's why they're valued and despised at the same time. No one really understands their methods, and it's implied that their methods are grotesque, but we rely on the results. The Tlelaxu themselves and golas are one of the most fascinating aspects of the Dune series. What do you guys think about this topic?

9:56 If you have anything to add to anything I've said, or something that you think I've missed, please put it in the comment section below so we can keep the discussions going. Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to watch the video and make sure you like and subscribe for more Quinn's ideas.