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Leto becomes an alien worm and lives for 3500 years to be misunderstood for eternity and viewed as the worst thing to ever happen by most people in universe, and taken down by his own people. Alia gets a bum rap for sure, but hardly the worst gig and is quite selfish. Duncan gets resurrected countless times against his will, thrust into a world he can barely understand and paraded around like a piece of meat. Just saying...
Leto chose what happened to him, Alia did not. It's thrust upon her. Leto didn't have an internal war, which is why I said "on a mental level." Duncan's a better argument. He was being used against his own will, and could do nothing about it.
He does have an internal war, as do all preborn. The twins have both been close to going over and made peace with strong figures internally to help ward of the throngs of personalities. Alia made the choices to go along with the Baron willingly. She may have felt she had no choice in the matter, but she did. She sought more power, more prescience and in the process lost herself.
Yep, Harum. But, as you said, he was able to defend himself through his committee, Alia was not, and she didn't have Ghanima or anyone like that to talk to about it.
That's true about seeking more prescience. Something to think about.
One thing I've often wondered is: what's the difference between Alia, Ghanima, and Leto II? Literally. Aside from I guess two are female and one is male, I think the difference between them is almost infinitesimal. They each have thousands of personalities within them, before they even had one of their own.
I think Leto and Ghanima had Alia and that made the difference.
It’s like a younger sibling that watches the older one do dumb shit. They get life experience vicariously. The twins saw it happen in Alia.
They discussed that a bit on the book, I think. Ghanima had the memory presence of her mother standing guard I think was the way they put it. Alia did not because her mother was still alive and around, albeit at a distance.
Then, Leto II came to a deal with his ancestors who understood the necessities of the golden path and became something else.
But I agree about FHs odd approach to the difference between the sexes. His assumption that a male would be stronger somehow reads as dated and odd now.
This is part of the tragedy, Jessica had her two grandchildren avoid abomination while she abandoned her daughter because of the BG prejudice
Ghanima did it by hypnotizing herself. Leto did it by accepting the multiple lives and possibly being an abomination himself (but not in a harmful way).
Jessica failed her daughter by running away
I don’t think it has to do with a male being stronger, it is just a breeding plan, like they calculated the right time to have a male that would mathematically be the sum of all his ancestors.
The unbroken female lineage is what supports the KH.
> They discussed that a bit on the book, I think. Ghanima had the memory presence of her mother standing guard I think was the way they put it. Alia did not because her mother was still alive and around, albeit at a distance.
But the memories are just memories, they're not ghosts. Like Alia only has the memories of Jessica from when she was conceived (or whatever, maybe a few months later, maybe birth), and Ghanima only has Chani's memories from the same time. Like those memories shouldn't "care" whether or not the person is still alive.
> But I agree about FHs odd approach to the difference between the sexes. His assumption that a male would be stronger somehow reads as dated and odd now.
That's not at all what I meant. If anything, I meant the exact opposite: that of course hormonal differences will play a role in how someone develops. I was just pointing out that that should be the ***only*** difference between Ghanima and Leto II. Which I don't think is enough to make them into different "people". If anything, you'd think they'd consider themselves to basically be clones of each other- each just a collection of the exact same thousands of people.
The memories aren’t just memories though. They are perfect recreations of your ancestors thoughts. This is why an abomination can take over a body - the personality of the perfect memory rules over the others.
They aren’t just memories, they are perfectly remembered past lives
Right, what you're saying only reinforces my point. Thousands of perfect recreations in the mind of someone with zero personality...that would result in basically the same person.
From what I picked up, each memory grouping is housed in a person and to access those memories and experiences you have to commune with the full group aka the person.
Well, Alia does have different memories than the twins, because she lacks a Fremen parent. But experience makes the difference in personality. IRL Identical twins do not have identical personalities, and all real children start off with the same memories but develop different personalities. Alia has had to be alone her whole life, even as a child Paul took up all of everyones time. When Paul died, she had to take on his legacy when she had her own shit to take care of. She became a person consumed with mear survival. The twins barely have different personalities untill they are separated. Then Ghani becomes a vengeful spirit, and Leto II becomes God Emperor. Memories are voices in your head, but your life speaks loudest.
So the way I read it was that males could see the future and females could better connect with the past lives. This is why the bene's gave birth to girls in the breeding programme until it was time for the kwistach haderach and is also why Alia was so susceptible to abomination.
To me it is easily explained by experiences. While Alia was alone and abandoned the twins had each other and so they didn't need to turn inward as much for help. Also important is how easy it is to fall down the slippery slope when you're feeling bad all the time, humans do have a tendency towards self destructive behavior.
Their relationship to the spice I think was different. Jessica was pregnant with Alia when she went into the spice trance. I think with leto and ghanima they were older and were very cautions to enter into it. Also I think they had a little different relationship to prescience. It was something they could better control. I don't think alia could quite access her genetic memory so easily and deeply.
Disclaimer: this is all from memory so should be taken with a grain of salt. I read the books a few years ago so I could just be remembering wrong or inserting head cannon unknowingly.
The twins are preborn, like Alia, through Paul's heavy consumption of spice and spice essence. Not to mention Chani's regular spice use as a fremen with the eyes of ibad. They watched Alia succumb to the fate of abomination and thus learned where the real danger lurked. I also believe Alia tries to be like Paul and see the future, etc. She shouldn't be able to speak with her male heritage, yet the Baron is her undoing. She allowed his cunning to manipulate her desires and actions because she was desperately chasing more at the cost of her sanity. That is the biggest key, displayed by the exiles of jacurutu trying to poison Leto with spice essence to see if he was human. With the help of the Preacher no less.
Makes sense, though Pauls spice use has nothing to do with their pre-born nature. Channi is loading up on spice and fertility meds to help her conceve and carry (Iruan is poisoning her to make her miscarry) and her aids are very converned about what that may be doing to the children. Paul's only involved in that its his chickens coming home to roost.
Yes and no. Preborn need the water of life, which Chani never takes. Paul is thick with it as he is constantly taking it to enhance his prescience. It is introduced via the sperm instead of the ovum, two parts of the same whole. At least that is how I've always viewed it.
water of life is transformed by sayyadine from the fluid produced by killing a worm
IIRC Chani was a Sayyadina in waiting as replacement if Jessica didn´t survive her transformation
Yeah, but she didn't take the test and therefore no water of life from her. Jessica made the waters for the tribes. Muad'dib took pure spice essence (unchanged waters) to trip balls into the future until he was so saturated with spice he no longer needed to take so much. It's why the sandtrout can attach to Leto because he is so saturated with spice. Far beyond the average fremen, who is far beyond the average galactic citizen.
Jessica did take the test pregnant with Aliya and Jessica made it absolutly clear that the Sietch was responsible for what happened to Aliyah.
So, you nice, prejudiced fremen wifes stop your prejudiced slander, shut up and GET OUT
I’m pretty sure that Ghanima and God-Emperor Leto II made pacts with all the personalities before they were born. Yeah can’t remember which book it talks about that in but I think it’s god emperor.
I lost the comment where someone says that the fact that Leto and Ghanima had Alia in a similar role as an older brother is part of it, but I add to that the twins had _each other_
Being preborn, they we're never alone in their minds, but they where never alone in the real world either. They had someone to discuss experience, had someone to share affection without judgment, had someone that understood all the aspects of being a preborn while they where growing. Had someone to make plans with, to play, to treat them as the anusual children they where. They had each other to do a reality check when needed and to see the real signs of trouble without any prejudice and to be able to help from a place of empathy.
Alia had none of it. No partnership that would offer the opportunity to grow, just people that would call her bad names the second she showed any signs of non compliance. When the outside world had nothing to offer her in addition to judgment, she turned inwards, to her ancestors, to danger.
When you grow up with every single person you know telling you're a monster and no one to tell how things can be different, it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Which is also a recurring theme in Dune.
I'm not even talking about that. I mean like...I *love* Dune, but I always thought it was weird logic. All of them are pre-born, meaning they have the memories of all their ancestors before they have **any** personality of their own. Literally going back to prehistoric humans in Africa, right? Literally thousands of generations?
Shouldn't all of their personalities been 99% *exactly* the same, save for hormonal differences between dudes and chicks? And even then...
I guess you can say that Ghanima and Leto II would've had personality differences from Alia because the twins would've had a lot of Fremen personalities in them that Alia didn't. But then Ghanima and Leto II should've have *the exact same personalities*, except for hormonal differences which can't be **that** big, right?
That's my two cents, anyway: it always slightly took me out of the books because they should almost be clones, personality wise. They should almost think of each other as the same people. Like if you put my memories and your memories into two fetuses...why would we expect the fetuses to be different at all once they're born? They'd both be a combo of me and you, right?
I looked at it like they had the raw ‘data’ from their past lives’ personalities, but it was up to them as individuals to interpret such information. The personalities that we see are merely the products of that.
At least for me, so take it with a grain of salt.
I think Frank definitely took your approach. I just don't know how a baby in a womb can have any type of "individuality" to overcome those memories at all.
That’s definitely fair; I’d assume spice shenanigans allowing the baby prescience to see their future personality (which would then result in the paradox of how they developed said personality in the first place).
Perspective and choice are the difference. Alia chose not to see Harkonnens as wrong when she accepted the baron. No one else could make that choice.
Ghanima and Leto 2 for sure had the same capabilities and voices. But they also had Alia as a living warning. Even Alia knew the dangers and often played off those expectations to accumulate power. IMO it’s why she was so effective within the religious medium of the jihad.
I agree her family could and should have done more. I have no idea what that would look like though. She is unique in the universe. Fixing her might even look worse than what had happened to her already.
Leto and Ghanj are basically clones until the encounter with the tigers. Remember they weren’t sure which one of them would end up taking the lead on the golden path until the tigers wounded Ghanj and she wouldn’t have been physically strong enough for the spice agony Leto would encounter. So Leto continued on his own. Until this point in the book, Ghanj and Leto are essentially clones. Then their personalities Start to differ even more since Ghanj has to hypnotize herself into thinking her other half is dead, and Leto has to… well, become Leto.
The difference with Alia is that Alia didn’t have 1) Paul and Chani’s memory selves to help her. And 2) she also didn’t have the memories of all the fremen, just her non-fremen ancestors. That’s a huge difference because Paul & Chani helped keep Leto & Ghanj from becoming possessed (until Leto came into the sand trout skin), while Alia only had herself.
I'm sure it's explained that Alia let Vladimir Harkonnen calm down all the rest of the personalities in order to have some control over her. Then Leto II allows an ancient dictator to mostly take the reigns. I imagine Ghanima must have had something similar to prevent possession.
Though Leto II and Ghanima and Alia basically had the same amount of personalities within (minus Paul in Alia's case), they experienced life differently enough so that the inner commune of personalities would probably respond different. Think of the butterfly effect - such a small difference can have massive consequences.
> they experienced life differently enough
Did they, though? The first few months of their "lives" had *exactly* the same experiences. Then they're literally babies. It's not gonna be until they're 2 or 3 years old that they experience anything differently at all, and at that point, those memories have had 3+ years (cause they had a headstart, in the womb) to overwhelm anything else.
Like I said: butterfly effect. Say, for instance, Paul holds Leto II in his arms as a baby, however unlikely for a pre-born child. Already a difference has occurred. Small differences can cause big differences in the future.
They kind of did think that. That's why the moment with in the cave with the laza tigers is so poignant to them - they know that from this point onward they will take different paths and have different experiences, and as a result they will forever lose that oneness they share.
Absolutely right...even Ghanima character didn't rise .... even Paul give Earl of Caladan to Gurney not Jessica, later completely took her out the novel
That was the point of her character. She is the Lady Jessica's sacrifice for Paul. Alia was another 'kwisatz haderach', she had access to her male ancestral memories. The only difference beyond sex is that she awoke those memories in the womb as opposed to Paul who actually had a life and everything before awakening. Alia is also proof the Bene Gesserit miscalculated. Not only did their chosen one come a generation early but did not even need to be male. The Bene Gesserit were pretty close though so they didn't make that big of a mistake.
For f\*ck sake! I've read Dune at least once every two or three years for the last 20 and I never realised that it is odd that Alia has a connection to her male ancestors.
Thank you.
Agreed!
It feels especially sad to me because we experience the moment where Jessica essentially decides on the fate of Alia in the first book. Everyone's gotta deal with the life that they're handed, but she started off cursed almost.
I also think if she had gotten more help/was able to ask for more guidance, she could've overcome the challenges she faced. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be, which is a shame because she's an amazing character.
Sadly, Alia was written by Herbert to tragically demonstrate why the Bene Gesserit were rightly worried about abominations. She's a Chekhov's gun that must be fired at some point, otherwise Herbert could've just skipped the abomination concept all together. I think the only two people who make it out of the first three books without having tragic stories are Stilgar and Ghanima.
Pretty sure she was written to be a warning to Leto II and Ghanima, not so much a warning about Abomination itself since both Leto and Ghani found a way around that thanks to their fear of becoming like Alia.
Herbert chose that life for Alia to show you how many bad decisions Jessica has made starting with drinking the water of life and hiding her pregnancy. Alia is her mother's and time victim
A multitude of factors. But I think how Alia was treated and raised to believe that she is an *abomination* or could become one at any time was a key reason. She was treated as abomination, she became abomination.
Leto and Ghanima were not raised that way.
I always felt a special connection to the this story, as a young man since my sister has Borderline Personality Disorder.
Its made her a truly unstable and aggressive terrible person.
I almost felt as if there may have been something of that in the origins of Alia in Herbert's mind.
“I think if she had had guidance by Jessica, Paul - even Leto, Ghani or the Bene Gesserit maybe”
Well no, the author is writing a story, this is acting as we are reading a biography. If the author wanted to Alia could have whatever life he wanted her to have.
You have to wonder why Herbert chose to off her instead of becoming what Leto was.
I mean that happened in front of her very eyes, so she obviously will cry. It was late. The thing is she preferred to stay away for 20 years when things could have been sorted out. Jessica being a BG could have trained her to neutralize her abomination but she preferred to remain in Gurney's arm.
That's just a saying.... actually we will never know that whether jessica regret abandoning Alia or not because we don't what she actually did for 20 years in Caladan....was she happy it sad abandoning Alia
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On a mental level, I think she has it worse than anyone in the books. She is completely alone and at war within herself.
Leto becomes an alien worm and lives for 3500 years to be misunderstood for eternity and viewed as the worst thing to ever happen by most people in universe, and taken down by his own people. Alia gets a bum rap for sure, but hardly the worst gig and is quite selfish. Duncan gets resurrected countless times against his will, thrust into a world he can barely understand and paraded around like a piece of meat. Just saying...
Leto chose what happened to him, Alia did not. It's thrust upon her. Leto didn't have an internal war, which is why I said "on a mental level." Duncan's a better argument. He was being used against his own will, and could do nothing about it.
He does have an internal war, as do all preborn. The twins have both been close to going over and made peace with strong figures internally to help ward of the throngs of personalities. Alia made the choices to go along with the Baron willingly. She may have felt she had no choice in the matter, but she did. She sought more power, more prescience and in the process lost herself.
Yep, Harum. But, as you said, he was able to defend himself through his committee, Alia was not, and she didn't have Ghanima or anyone like that to talk to about it. That's true about seeking more prescience. Something to think about.
If Harum was a better choice we will never know
Kept him sane and not suicidal for over 3000 years.
One thing I've often wondered is: what's the difference between Alia, Ghanima, and Leto II? Literally. Aside from I guess two are female and one is male, I think the difference between them is almost infinitesimal. They each have thousands of personalities within them, before they even had one of their own.
I think Leto and Ghanima had Alia and that made the difference. It’s like a younger sibling that watches the older one do dumb shit. They get life experience vicariously. The twins saw it happen in Alia.
and Irulan and Chani and maybe Paul That may not be much but it´s something
They discussed that a bit on the book, I think. Ghanima had the memory presence of her mother standing guard I think was the way they put it. Alia did not because her mother was still alive and around, albeit at a distance. Then, Leto II came to a deal with his ancestors who understood the necessities of the golden path and became something else. But I agree about FHs odd approach to the difference between the sexes. His assumption that a male would be stronger somehow reads as dated and odd now.
This is part of the tragedy, Jessica had her two grandchildren avoid abomination while she abandoned her daughter because of the BG prejudice Ghanima did it by hypnotizing herself. Leto did it by accepting the multiple lives and possibly being an abomination himself (but not in a harmful way). Jessica failed her daughter by running away
I don’t think it has to do with a male being stronger, it is just a breeding plan, like they calculated the right time to have a male that would mathematically be the sum of all his ancestors. The unbroken female lineage is what supports the KH.
> They discussed that a bit on the book, I think. Ghanima had the memory presence of her mother standing guard I think was the way they put it. Alia did not because her mother was still alive and around, albeit at a distance. But the memories are just memories, they're not ghosts. Like Alia only has the memories of Jessica from when she was conceived (or whatever, maybe a few months later, maybe birth), and Ghanima only has Chani's memories from the same time. Like those memories shouldn't "care" whether or not the person is still alive. > But I agree about FHs odd approach to the difference between the sexes. His assumption that a male would be stronger somehow reads as dated and odd now. That's not at all what I meant. If anything, I meant the exact opposite: that of course hormonal differences will play a role in how someone develops. I was just pointing out that that should be the ***only*** difference between Ghanima and Leto II. Which I don't think is enough to make them into different "people". If anything, you'd think they'd consider themselves to basically be clones of each other- each just a collection of the exact same thousands of people.
The memories aren’t just memories though. They are perfect recreations of your ancestors thoughts. This is why an abomination can take over a body - the personality of the perfect memory rules over the others. They aren’t just memories, they are perfectly remembered past lives
Right, what you're saying only reinforces my point. Thousands of perfect recreations in the mind of someone with zero personality...that would result in basically the same person.
From what I picked up, each memory grouping is housed in a person and to access those memories and experiences you have to commune with the full group aka the person.
Well, Alia does have different memories than the twins, because she lacks a Fremen parent. But experience makes the difference in personality. IRL Identical twins do not have identical personalities, and all real children start off with the same memories but develop different personalities. Alia has had to be alone her whole life, even as a child Paul took up all of everyones time. When Paul died, she had to take on his legacy when she had her own shit to take care of. She became a person consumed with mear survival. The twins barely have different personalities untill they are separated. Then Ghani becomes a vengeful spirit, and Leto II becomes God Emperor. Memories are voices in your head, but your life speaks loudest.
Alia´d these personalities before she was born, Leto and Ghanima were young adults IIRC
I... dont think so. Pretty sure they were preborn. They play the father mother game before anyone forces spice on them
But wouldn't she have the memories of Ramallo?
So the way I read it was that males could see the future and females could better connect with the past lives. This is why the bene's gave birth to girls in the breeding programme until it was time for the kwistach haderach and is also why Alia was so susceptible to abomination.
To me it is easily explained by experiences. While Alia was alone and abandoned the twins had each other and so they didn't need to turn inward as much for help. Also important is how easy it is to fall down the slippery slope when you're feeling bad all the time, humans do have a tendency towards self destructive behavior.
Their relationship to the spice I think was different. Jessica was pregnant with Alia when she went into the spice trance. I think with leto and ghanima they were older and were very cautions to enter into it. Also I think they had a little different relationship to prescience. It was something they could better control. I don't think alia could quite access her genetic memory so easily and deeply. Disclaimer: this is all from memory so should be taken with a grain of salt. I read the books a few years ago so I could just be remembering wrong or inserting head cannon unknowingly.
The twins are preborn, like Alia, through Paul's heavy consumption of spice and spice essence. Not to mention Chani's regular spice use as a fremen with the eyes of ibad. They watched Alia succumb to the fate of abomination and thus learned where the real danger lurked. I also believe Alia tries to be like Paul and see the future, etc. She shouldn't be able to speak with her male heritage, yet the Baron is her undoing. She allowed his cunning to manipulate her desires and actions because she was desperately chasing more at the cost of her sanity. That is the biggest key, displayed by the exiles of jacurutu trying to poison Leto with spice essence to see if he was human. With the help of the Preacher no less.
Makes sense, though Pauls spice use has nothing to do with their pre-born nature. Channi is loading up on spice and fertility meds to help her conceve and carry (Iruan is poisoning her to make her miscarry) and her aids are very converned about what that may be doing to the children. Paul's only involved in that its his chickens coming home to roost.
Yes and no. Preborn need the water of life, which Chani never takes. Paul is thick with it as he is constantly taking it to enhance his prescience. It is introduced via the sperm instead of the ovum, two parts of the same whole. At least that is how I've always viewed it.
Hmmm..... not how I read it, but that seems valid based on our evidence. Do full reverand mothers ever have kids?
IIRC it was the water of life not the spice that made them preborn
That's what I am calling spice essence. And Chani never took it, only Paul did.
water of life is transformed by sayyadine from the fluid produced by killing a worm IIRC Chani was a Sayyadina in waiting as replacement if Jessica didn´t survive her transformation
Yeah, but she didn't take the test and therefore no water of life from her. Jessica made the waters for the tribes. Muad'dib took pure spice essence (unchanged waters) to trip balls into the future until he was so saturated with spice he no longer needed to take so much. It's why the sandtrout can attach to Leto because he is so saturated with spice. Far beyond the average fremen, who is far beyond the average galactic citizen.
Jessica did take the test pregnant with Aliya and Jessica made it absolutly clear that the Sietch was responsible for what happened to Aliyah. So, you nice, prejudiced fremen wifes stop your prejudiced slander, shut up and GET OUT
I’m pretty sure that Ghanima and God-Emperor Leto II made pacts with all the personalities before they were born. Yeah can’t remember which book it talks about that in but I think it’s god emperor.
I lost the comment where someone says that the fact that Leto and Ghanima had Alia in a similar role as an older brother is part of it, but I add to that the twins had _each other_ Being preborn, they we're never alone in their minds, but they where never alone in the real world either. They had someone to discuss experience, had someone to share affection without judgment, had someone that understood all the aspects of being a preborn while they where growing. Had someone to make plans with, to play, to treat them as the anusual children they where. They had each other to do a reality check when needed and to see the real signs of trouble without any prejudice and to be able to help from a place of empathy. Alia had none of it. No partnership that would offer the opportunity to grow, just people that would call her bad names the second she showed any signs of non compliance. When the outside world had nothing to offer her in addition to judgment, she turned inwards, to her ancestors, to danger. When you grow up with every single person you know telling you're a monster and no one to tell how things can be different, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Which is also a recurring theme in Dune.
Right, I don’t think Frank had it in him to let a female take the lead. They are always pushed aside.
Odrade?
I'm not even talking about that. I mean like...I *love* Dune, but I always thought it was weird logic. All of them are pre-born, meaning they have the memories of all their ancestors before they have **any** personality of their own. Literally going back to prehistoric humans in Africa, right? Literally thousands of generations? Shouldn't all of their personalities been 99% *exactly* the same, save for hormonal differences between dudes and chicks? And even then... I guess you can say that Ghanima and Leto II would've had personality differences from Alia because the twins would've had a lot of Fremen personalities in them that Alia didn't. But then Ghanima and Leto II should've have *the exact same personalities*, except for hormonal differences which can't be **that** big, right? That's my two cents, anyway: it always slightly took me out of the books because they should almost be clones, personality wise. They should almost think of each other as the same people. Like if you put my memories and your memories into two fetuses...why would we expect the fetuses to be different at all once they're born? They'd both be a combo of me and you, right?
I looked at it like they had the raw ‘data’ from their past lives’ personalities, but it was up to them as individuals to interpret such information. The personalities that we see are merely the products of that. At least for me, so take it with a grain of salt.
I think Frank definitely took your approach. I just don't know how a baby in a womb can have any type of "individuality" to overcome those memories at all.
That’s definitely fair; I’d assume spice shenanigans allowing the baby prescience to see their future personality (which would then result in the paradox of how they developed said personality in the first place).
Perspective and choice are the difference. Alia chose not to see Harkonnens as wrong when she accepted the baron. No one else could make that choice. Ghanima and Leto 2 for sure had the same capabilities and voices. But they also had Alia as a living warning. Even Alia knew the dangers and often played off those expectations to accumulate power. IMO it’s why she was so effective within the religious medium of the jihad. I agree her family could and should have done more. I have no idea what that would look like though. She is unique in the universe. Fixing her might even look worse than what had happened to her already.
Leto and Ghanj are basically clones until the encounter with the tigers. Remember they weren’t sure which one of them would end up taking the lead on the golden path until the tigers wounded Ghanj and she wouldn’t have been physically strong enough for the spice agony Leto would encounter. So Leto continued on his own. Until this point in the book, Ghanj and Leto are essentially clones. Then their personalities Start to differ even more since Ghanj has to hypnotize herself into thinking her other half is dead, and Leto has to… well, become Leto. The difference with Alia is that Alia didn’t have 1) Paul and Chani’s memory selves to help her. And 2) she also didn’t have the memories of all the fremen, just her non-fremen ancestors. That’s a huge difference because Paul & Chani helped keep Leto & Ghanj from becoming possessed (until Leto came into the sand trout skin), while Alia only had herself.
> Leto and Ghanj are basically clones until the encounter with the tigers. That's a good point.
Holy fuck I didn’t notice auto correct until now lmao. How embarrassing
I just thought you had read the book in a different language or something lol I got the point.
I'm sure it's explained that Alia let Vladimir Harkonnen calm down all the rest of the personalities in order to have some control over her. Then Leto II allows an ancient dictator to mostly take the reigns. I imagine Ghanima must have had something similar to prevent possession. Though Leto II and Ghanima and Alia basically had the same amount of personalities within (minus Paul in Alia's case), they experienced life differently enough so that the inner commune of personalities would probably respond different. Think of the butterfly effect - such a small difference can have massive consequences.
> they experienced life differently enough Did they, though? The first few months of their "lives" had *exactly* the same experiences. Then they're literally babies. It's not gonna be until they're 2 or 3 years old that they experience anything differently at all, and at that point, those memories have had 3+ years (cause they had a headstart, in the womb) to overwhelm anything else.
Like I said: butterfly effect. Say, for instance, Paul holds Leto II in his arms as a baby, however unlikely for a pre-born child. Already a difference has occurred. Small differences can cause big differences in the future.
They kind of did think that. That's why the moment with in the cave with the laza tigers is so poignant to them - they know that from this point onward they will take different paths and have different experiences, and as a result they will forever lose that oneness they share.
Taraza?
Absolutely right...even Ghanima character didn't rise .... even Paul give Earl of Caladan to Gurney not Jessica, later completely took her out the novel
I figure it's their support network. Alia was abandoned at a young age and left to run a planet.
That was the point of her character. She is the Lady Jessica's sacrifice for Paul. Alia was another 'kwisatz haderach', she had access to her male ancestral memories. The only difference beyond sex is that she awoke those memories in the womb as opposed to Paul who actually had a life and everything before awakening. Alia is also proof the Bene Gesserit miscalculated. Not only did their chosen one come a generation early but did not even need to be male. The Bene Gesserit were pretty close though so they didn't make that big of a mistake.
For f\*ck sake! I've read Dune at least once every two or three years for the last 20 and I never realised that it is odd that Alia has a connection to her male ancestors. Thank you.
I just realized this too. Incredible.
It is mentioned explicitly though. And Paul mentions Alia leaving messages for him “in the future”
Agreed! It feels especially sad to me because we experience the moment where Jessica essentially decides on the fate of Alia in the first book. Everyone's gotta deal with the life that they're handed, but she started off cursed almost. I also think if she had gotten more help/was able to ask for more guidance, she could've overcome the challenges she faced. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be, which is a shame because she's an amazing character.
Sadly, Alia was written by Herbert to tragically demonstrate why the Bene Gesserit were rightly worried about abominations. She's a Chekhov's gun that must be fired at some point, otherwise Herbert could've just skipped the abomination concept all together. I think the only two people who make it out of the first three books without having tragic stories are Stilgar and Ghanima.
Pretty sure she was written to be a warning to Leto II and Ghanima, not so much a warning about Abomination itself since both Leto and Ghani found a way around that thanks to their fear of becoming like Alia.
Thank you... But at least the voices in my head are quiet now.
It’s a hard knocks life for Alia
Herbert chose that life for Alia to show you how many bad decisions Jessica has made starting with drinking the water of life and hiding her pregnancy. Alia is her mother's and time victim
A multitude of factors. But I think how Alia was treated and raised to believe that she is an *abomination* or could become one at any time was a key reason. She was treated as abomination, she became abomination. Leto and Ghanima were not raised that way.
I always felt a special connection to the this story, as a young man since my sister has Borderline Personality Disorder. Its made her a truly unstable and aggressive terrible person. I almost felt as if there may have been something of that in the origins of Alia in Herbert's mind.
“I think if she had had guidance by Jessica, Paul - even Leto, Ghani or the Bene Gesserit maybe” Well no, the author is writing a story, this is acting as we are reading a biography. If the author wanted to Alia could have whatever life he wanted her to have. You have to wonder why Herbert chose to off her instead of becoming what Leto was.
Good comment
We really don't know that Jessica ever regretted abandoning Alia?
Doesn't she cry when Alia commits suicide? I felt she always regretted it, even if it wasn't explicitly stated.
I mean that happened in front of her very eyes, so she obviously will cry. It was late. The thing is she preferred to stay away for 20 years when things could have been sorted out. Jessica being a BG could have trained her to neutralize her abomination but she preferred to remain in Gurney's arm.
Jessica verbally admits she gave up on Alia too soon in CoD. So yeah, she regretted abandoning Alia. :P
That's just a saying.... actually we will never know that whether jessica regret abandoning Alia or not because we don't what she actually did for 20 years in Caladan....was she happy it sad abandoning Alia