Hunters of Dune

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Compelling Voice: The Bene Gesserit have the Voice. Jessica uses this to facilitate the escape of her and Paul, by making the guards kill each other. The fear of this prompts various defenses, including stationing deaf-mutes as guards for important people and, later, conditioning people to reflexively kill at the first sign of Voice being used. I Am X, Son of Y: Paul NEVER makes anyone forget that, before being Usul of the Fremen, before being Muad'dib, before being the awaited Mahdi, before being the Kwisatz Haderach, he is Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides. In fact, the closest thing Paul has to a berserk button is someone belittling the memory of his father or the Atreides name. Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: The Spice, which is a product of the life cycle of the sandworms of Arrakis and is the most valuable substance in the Known Universe because it can greatly extend human lifespan, provide enhanced mental and physical abilities and even enable the power to see through time and space. Its value is even greater because of prohibitions on artificial intelligence in this setting, which requires that human potential be maximized.

Manchurian Agent: In the first book, the Baron breaks Dr. Yueh of his Suk conditioning, thus allowing him to act as a traitor against his royal charges. The later books elaborate on a barely mentioned act in the first book, where Bene Gesserit condition males through psychosexual techniques (a process called hypno-ligation) to act in a specified way on a given code word. In Heretics and Chapterhouse, the Tleilaxu are capable of delivering gholas custom-programmed to act out any desired behavior on the appropriate trigger. Go Through Me: Played with— after Chani dispatches a would-be challenger to her lover Paul/Muad'Dib, she says that fewer people will try to challenge him if they learn that first they have to go through (and suffer the possible disgrace of being killed by) his woman. A Million Is a Statistic: This is Paul's horror at seeing the future in the first book, which becomes true in the second. There's a scene where he compares himself to Hitler— "He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days... Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions..." Dreaming of Things to Come: Paul has dreams about the future (including later events on Arrakis) before gaining his full prescient ability. So does Leto II.Horse of a Different Color: Fremen climb onto sandworms and steer them with hooks as a means of desert transport. The Bene Gesserit train themselves to alter their blood composition, manipulate others by voice alone, being able to hold their breath for long periods of time, delay aging, neutralize any poison or drug, possibly see the future, and intense martial arts. They only get the future-vision and molecular control from the Spice. Everything else is pure Charles Atlas, with a few hints of selective breeding.

Crazy Cultural Comparison: Handled in a serious manner when Stilgar the Fremen meets with Duke Leto. He spits on the table. As the Duke's men are about to carve Stilgar into lunchmeat, Duncan Idaho tells them to hold, then thanks Stilgar for "the gift of his moisture", spits on the table himself, and explains that doing so is a Fremen gesture of respect (since water is so scarce on Arrakis). I have to commend Brian and Kevin though. Hunters exceeded my expectations. They said it themselves that they wish Frank could have been the one to conclude the series, and that all they could do was try their best based off of Frank’s notes. In an interview at the end of the audiobook they said Frank could say more with a sentence than most could with a chapter, and that really diffused some of my hesitations with the differences between writing styles. None of the characters bat an eyelash at practices such as slavery, concubinage, gladiatorial fights, and institutionalized child abuse (specifically, the Bene Geserit gom jabbar test used on would-be initiates).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. He actually manages a clever bit of political maneuvering, side-stepping the issue when others would have forced his hand, by having the Fremen pledge their loyalty to him not as a tribal leader, but as their Duke (claiming his father's title and right to rule the planet by Imperial law). Heir Club for Men: Duke Leto's concubine Lady Jessica was supposed to have a daughter for the Bene Gesserit, but Leto wanted a son, and she went along with him, although it is not made clear if he wanted a son for reasons of getting an heir or just wanted a son because he wanted a male child. In Jessica's case, it was done for love and ended up saving the universe, so... But when praised for his swordfighting abilities by Paul, Idaho confided that Gurney could best him "six times out of ten." Belief Makes You Stupid: Inverted, Subverted, Justified, and Invoked. All depends on your personal interpretation, and which characters you examine. Frank himself said one of the main themes of the series was putting all your faith into one person and following them blindly. You can follow someone, but to utterly submit to them leads to total destruction.

It's stated that the limit of the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers was that their training to particularly feminine/maternal instincts meant that they couldn't access their male ancestry in their Other Memory. The Kwisatz Haderach was intended to overcome this weakness (as well as having other capabilities), which would require a male trained in Bene Gesserit ways. Note the fact that the Gesserit wanted to have a Kwisatz Haderach, but he ended up coming a generation too early for their plans — and then refusing to go along with them.

Frank Herbert:

Blatant Lies: In the first novel, Stilgar tries to put Jessica at ease by assuring her that Fremen men do not take women by force. However, readers have already been introduced to the Fremen custom of male duel victors inheriting the wives of their vanquished opponents (and everything that implies). The Fremen justify this practice by saying that the victor is assuming the responsibility of caring for his vanquished foe's wife, but the wife is still a spoil of war who doesn't get a say in the matter.