As You Know: Literally entire chapters of it. One chapter begins with the villain introducing himself by name to his henchmen — "Is it not a magnificent thing that I, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, do?" — and continues with him explaining his plan to the henchman who helped him to devise it. Justified in that (a) they were recapitulating their plan for the benefit of Feyd-Rautha, whose patience and attention span were equally short; and (b) the Baron himself is a gloriously Large Ham, and arrogant to boot (and one of the few times when he actually admits to having done a mistake solely by his own fault, it's about being overly fond of describing plans when he shouldn't). This trope is also extensively employed in the Anderson/Brian Herbert novels. Higher Understanding Through Drugs: The appendix to Dune lists several "awareness-spectrum narcotics" that increased the user's understanding and mental abilities, including melange (by Guild Navigators), the Fremen "Water of Life" (which affected Paul Atreides and his sister Alia), and the drugs used by Bene Gesserit Truthsayers (who were Living Lie Detectors). Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: The Bene Gesserit arrange marriages for the members of their sisterhood. As I understand it, the final book in the Dune series written by Frank Herbert ends in a cliffhanger. Years later, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson allegedly found some sort of manuscript hidden away by Frank Herbert and based off of information found in the manuscript they wrote two more books to finish off the original series: "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". The Chessmaster: Practically every named character originating from the Imperium and not from Arrakis, to varying degrees. Every single one of whom is Out-Gambitted by Paul, and later Leto II. In the final two novels Erasmus is proven to be rather adept at it as well. He insinuates that he was behind most of the schemes and subtly manipulated half the events of the final few novels.

I’m a huge Dune fan and just re-read Frank Herbert’s six books for the third time through. The franchise is one of my favourites, and reading Dune in high-school for the first time really resonated with me as it’s such a powerful coming of age story. Paul is also broadly similar to Lawrence of Arabia during the Mesopotamian campaign. Like Lawrence but unlike Mohammed, Paul is an outsider to the tribal cultures that he unifies against his enemies, and is a respected scholar of sorts. The Bene Gesserit are manipulating individuals, societies, governments, religions, and bloodlines to produce their Kwisatz Haderach— and then have to start over from scratch when they get one too soon. Wormsign: The Trope Namer. Given the size of the Sand Worms, they're treated in the same way that one would treat a tornado warning. The cymek titans from the prequels, who were philosopher kings and scientists, particularly ones that dealt with robotics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence.

Comic Book adaptations:

Interfaith Smoothie: Due to thousands of years of space migration, various religions and cultures have merged, split, then re-merged again and again. The Fremen are Zensunni, a combination of Sunni Islam and Zen Buddhism. Although most of this occurred naturally, it eventually was pushed this way by an ecumenical council that produced the "Orange Catholic Bible". The title suggests a reunification of Catholicism and Protestantism (the militant, anti-Catholic Protestant Irish Orangists), although it is actually far more ecumenical, incorporating "Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislamic traditions". But when praised for his swordfighting abilities by Paul, Idaho confided that Gurney could best him "six times out of ten." Sandworms of Dune is the second part of the planned seventh book of Frank Herbert's Dune series, along with Hunters of Dune. It is written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, who say that Sandworms is based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert. Sandworms is the second book of the Sequels of Dune. Justified in that Paul and the Fremen were closing down all spice production on Arrakis, and that included the smugglers; it was therefore highly likely their paths would cross. Slavery, sexual or otherwise, is an accepted practice in the Dune universe. Irulan recounts the story of secretly seeing Fenring offer Emperor Shaddam a female sex slave, only for Shaddam to politely refuse. Feyd also has several female sex slaves (but, to be fair, the Baron has male sex slaves as well).

Determinator: Yueh, after getting dead. The poor fellow doesn't stay upright for long, of course, but long enough to go out with some dignity. The Harkonnens (before Abulurd's exile to Lankiveil) also qualify as exceptions. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's half-brother Abulurd II is also unusually docile for a Harkonnen. Industrial World: Giedi Prime is a volcanic world mostly dominated by industrial complexes where most of its population works, although it does maintain tracts of preserved forest — albeit, granted, ones kept chiefly to be farmed for logging.

Universe guide:

Dune, in this context, refers to a series of epic Science Fiction novels by Frank Herbert. It continued after his death by son Brian Herbert. Dune was first published in serialized form in the Science Fiction magazine but rejected twenty times by publishers before finally being published in 1965 by Chilton, a publishing house best known for its DIY auto repair guides. I've read through a couple of Reddit threads and the overall consensus for the original Dune series seems to be that the first book is a masterpiece, the next two are good, and the final three books go in a different direction that isn't for everybody. Dune (2021 film). The first film in a planned duology adapting the first book, directed by Denis Villeneuve. note Villeneuve also hopes to adapt Dune Messiah as a third film. https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/wqb31/how_the_hell_do_i_read_the_dune_series/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=comments_view_all The book begins with the just reached maturity of a serial ghola of Tylwyth Waff having just created a variant of the Rakian sandworm with the ability to live in ocean waters, called a seaworm. The seaworm also produced a strong super-potent variant of melange, dubbed ultraspice. Waff delivered the ultraspice to the Steersman Navigator Edrik, and then Waff departed down to Dune with his own plans. As soon as Waff left, Edrik's heighliner was boarded by a disguised Khrone, who then murdered Edrik, and stole the ultraspice.