Meta-Review - Analysis and Thoughts

Ah, hello again. I have just finished reading God Emperor of Dune through a second time. (I plan on a third read lol, but later).       The reason why I want to do another discussion about the book is I'm glad to have read it again, firstly -- and I would like to dive a little deeper on the true enigma of the book now, secondly.       Of course, I speak of asshole Duncan. The Idaho. I wrote Duncan off originally as just the Universe's biggest fucking hypocrite -- in hindsight, I felt it was unfair, to Frank Herbert -- and after the second read through... Yeah, fuck Duncan. I just understand him a little better now.       I reread my first Articles about Leto, and they actually hold up, to my surprise. I had an inkling I was gassing up Leto just a tad too much, but no, everything I said is supported in the book. The only clarification I want to make is about Leto's ability to winkle 'no-people' or Siona-descendants out.       I somewhat conflated Leto's ability to deduce 'invisiblanks' with ordinary people using technology to hide. To be honest -- especially after a second reading -- the difference is functionally minor, but I do want to be as accurate as possible.       Basically, Siona is the only true Blank/no-person in all of God Emperor. She cannot be perceived by any prescience in the book, including Leto's. He can, however, see her footprints in the sand beside him after the test in the Sareer.       That plot point is more important than I gave it credit last time. Which is, specifically, Leto explicitly tells Siona, and later Moneo, that imperceptibility is useless to a cunning predator/hunter. They need to be able to hide the tracks as well.       In the book, it's even drawn attention to by the fact Leto uses prescience to see if she survives. He knows she does even though he cannot see her because of the above footprints in the sand, but it also sets up point two that I conflated.       Within the same vision, Leto sees past her nothingness to a gap opened by his counterattack against the Ixians. He knows immediately that normals are inside perfected cloaking-technology at that moment.       Siona proudly declares she saw what he saw (referring to the fact she is invisible to him) but before he can chide her gently that he saw her tracks, Leto gets drenched in rain.       Getting to that second reason. Siona (and her descendants) have genetic invisibility. Leto knew that would basically be eugenics, so he did -- through means of implicit reprieve -- allow the Ixians to iterate on cloaking tech for non-Sionans.       This is what I was referring to when I spoke of 'Leto perceiving the blankness in the Universe so acutely' before. It is shown within the chapters following Siona that Leto immediately gathers confirmation of suspicion. He knew they had cloaking tech as soon as he met Hwi Noree. Leto could not see her past, yet he could see her in prescience.       In the moment that the Ixians machines break, Leto basically peers inside akin to looking through a window of a camouflaged-house to see Malky within.       So what is my point about clarifying these things?       Explicitly, within the book itself, it shows the weakness of both routes. Sionans can be betrayed by their motions. Think of it like Harry Potter and the cloak of invisibility. Does fuck all to a predator animal.       While on the other hand, ordinary humans using cloaking tech are only protected if the damn thing works right. Damaged? Well, get fucked, the oracles can see you now. Just like moving with a ghillie suit as someone watches.       It just so happens in both cases, the teacher is the most profound oracle in all of Dune. His lessons matter.       Now, about the Duncan hate. While he is still a hypocritical piece of human detritus, I can at least begrudgingly see his perspective. See, the wiki attributes Duncan's rebellion as being almost-monolithically the love for Hwi Noree.       I disagree, that simplifies it far too much. Duncan, through arguments with Moneo, and also during his climb of the Sareer girdle wall -- is equally, and just as potently, motivated by his time as a slave to Harkonnens.       Kind of a bigger plot point to his character than the fandom seems to give credit to. He explicitly has to 'purify' his mind of Hwi by thinking of escaping Harkonnen slave masters in rock climbing.       He sees Leto as being far worse than Baron Vladimir. Says so in the book. Something along the lines of 'at least the Baron was a tyrant on one world, Leto tyrannizes the Universe!'       So why do I still hate Duncan?       Because despite the above, he immediately backtracks and it is about Hwi. lol, got you.       It is heavily implied he knocked her up, which is why he murders Nayla out of immediate revenge when Hwi dies alongside Leto.       I hate Duncan for three other reasons.       One, he literally in the book has a moment where he thinks to himself 'oh, Moneo thinks he can lure me to his office by using Hwi? Ha, I'm Duncan Idaho and I'm no simp.' Literally the next sentence is him going to the office because Moneo used Hwi. Fucking bitch (and I do mean Duncan.)       Two, he constantly bitch wails about how is no breeder for Leto, and then within the book has sex at least twice, one of those is cuckolding -- and by objective fact goes on to breed a new race of people (the Sionans) and, yes, there's more; fucks Murbella. All creampies by the way. Like, yeah, cool. Fucking chad impregnating all the women. I get it. Fucking Frank Herbert self-insert ass shit.       Three, his character is fucking flat. How so? The character plot of the final two books of the series is him being a ghola for 5000 years. Eventually, he gains the ability to see all of the accumulated lives of those 5000 years, and he goes on to use that power to save the Bene...       Who the fuck am I kidding. Duncan becomes a fucking deadbeat piece of shit who does nothing but creampie Murbella and smoke Melange in the basement of the no-ship.       Also, another tangent. Almost all the characters in the final two books are flat as fuck. There is literally no character development in them. Duncan literally gains the experience of 5000 years of Imperial life and knowledge, and fucking reverts to some caveman animal.       Sheeana also does fucking nothing except be a one trick pony saving the sandworms.       Odrade. Guess what? Fucking nothing.       Heretics and Chapterhouse are saved by Teg, Taraza, and Scytale. Literally the entire rest of the cast save the antagonists are the most flat, useless fucking bunch of people in the Duniverse.       You wanna know why I don't add in a bunch of fucking characters I clearly don't care about? Or write when I clearly lost passion about the minutiae of the story? That's fucking why.       Do not get me started on Brian Herbert.