Dune: The Tleilaxu Mistake

Everyone ignore the misspelling of Tleilaxu in the opening!

One large problem in the original books with the Facedancers improved abilities to absorb memories and personality is that many of them forgot they were imposters playing a role and started to believe they were the real, original, person they were impersonating.

Something tells me the Facedancers were the inspiration for GRRM's Faceless Men in ASOIAF. Especially when it comes to them acting as spies and assassins taking the appearance of anyone to go undetected.

I always thought of Marty and Daniel as THE most human of all of Dune. You have all these different factions and they either don't breed with other groups, very rarely breed with other groups, or selectively breed with other groups to control the gene pool. Their ability to take on the memories, understanding and personas of everyone allows them to bypass the need to reproduce in order to evolve. They are what would happen if you combined ALL the groups and let it run wild. Take the Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilaxu, The Fish Speakers, The Honored Matres, The Ixians, The Atreides, The Harkonnens, and so on along with Kwisatz Haderach abilities to see down both male and female lines and you have beings with all the knowledge of nearly every human being (baring those who never passed on their genes), every secret, every master plan, every ability in combat, politics, sexuality, all scientific knowledge, and so on. In my opinion that is what the Face Dancers became. That would explain why the fearsome Honored Matres had to run away in terror from such beings.

The excerpt at 5:00 clearly indicates that Daniel and Marty are descendants of Face Dancers. Brian and Kevin are clearly wrong.

I feel like the Face Dancers were mismanaged by Herbert. In Messiah, the face dancer Scytale was a very able character with authority over the other conspirators, even the reverend mother never seemed to have any advantage over him. Then in later novels the Face Dancers were "mules", and described more as just flesh golems, zombie like creatures who had no free will and just did what they were told. Though they preformed well in a given role, that was the extent of it, while Scytale worked more like the assassin in The Day Of The Jackal.

Marty and Daniel as facedancers makes more sense than robots who come out of nowhere.

"Dune saga is about the different ways humanity can develop", good insight, I never considered this really. If there is any relationship between the future of humanity and quantum physics or thermodynamics, humanity develops in all possible ways simultaneously!

The bit with Marty and Daniel not being face dancers seems to directly contradict the text. And the idea of the Bene Geserit freeing some of the Axlotl tank "women" seems to as well. My memory isnt great, but my impression was that the Axlotl tanks were so mutated for the purpose of IVF breeding that they were almost unrecognizable as human females and were both immobile and mentally regressed to the point of being non-thinking biological machines. Essentially animated flesh. So the idea that they would be able to escape that life, let alone harbor anger for the Masters seems very odd to me. It seems like Brian was getting his ideas from looking at fan art of sexy biomechanicals instead of reading the source material.

The derision in your voice when you said, "Brian Herbert" made me laugh out loud. 🤣

I have never considered Brian Herbert's work as anything other than fan fiction. Unlike some in his father's epic series, he certainly does not have the ability to call upon his ancestors' memories. I would be convinced to take another look if the writing style was consistent, of the same depth and richness, and without unnecessary contradictions.

Hang on a second; I never read past God Emperor, and folks always made it seem like Daniel and Marty were only implied to be rogue Face Dancers, and so the robot reveal is okay, but their quotes in this video practically state it outright! What the hell? "Frank's notes" my ass, Brian.

My favorite dude coming back with more Dune. Thank you.

You're on fire lately ! Getting even more hyper for the ultimate guide on chapter house ! your channel is gold

I find it odd that Marty and Daniel were ret-conned as thinking machines for the Brian Herbert books, given that they explicitly identify themselves as Face Dancers in the quoted passage. All I can think is that BH and Kevin J Anderson wanted to reintroduce the thinking machines as callback to the prequel novels, but couldn't figure out how to fit in both thinking machines and emancipated Face Dancers as antagonists, so they merged them.

I really wish the idea of Daniel and Marty being free facedancers had been more thoroughly explored in whichever cannon. Developing wisdom through multiple personality absorption gives them a similarity, and perhaps parity, with the Bene Geserit and their genetic memories. Wisdom and power derived from the synthesis of many experiences.

Another more subtle problem with Face Dancers was that they became so adept at mimicking the personality of the original person that they began to think and act exactly as the original would have done, so they were no longer under the control of the Tleilaxu masters who made them.

The more I hear about the Brian Herbert's Dune stuff the happier I am that when I first saw it, I noticed KJA's name on the cover and passed on them entirely.

I read all the original frank herbert books, but your content brought me so much closer to the source and to really understanding the depth of it all. Thanks!

The Marty and Daniel are clearly evolved Face Dancers. It fits so well that different groups in Duniverse develop Kwisach Haderach on their own. Paul/Alia, Leto II, Ghola Duncan Idaho, Marty and Daniel. Every one of them have some kind of way to get experiences of other humans be it of their ancestors, of the previous gholas or by touching and taking forms of other humans. And that is so cool idea.