Dune == Lawrence of Arabia?

Edit for Mixolyde and anyone else: There are spoilers here about both the movie Lawrence of Arabia, which you really should get around to seeing, and the book Dune. Well, to be fair, I'm only spoiling and referring to the first book, but others bring in info from later ones.
On with the real post!

So, I started rereading Dune last night, and though it's been a while since I either read it or saw the movie, I recall the general storyline. It's also been a while since I saw the movie Lawrence of Arabia, but it is one of my all-time favorites, so I also remember most of that storyline, too.

And within the first 10 pages of Dune, I was struck by a thought and wondered if anyone else agreed or could shed light on the subject...
Dune is, essentially, Lawrence of Arabia, but extrapolated for inter-planetary geography.

LoA: bastard son of royalty?(Not sure on this one)
PA: technically bastard son of Duke Leto, much is made of his parents not being married, or rather, it is touched on quite a bit.

LoA: early on, exhibits his mastery over pain by slowly extinguishing a match and offers a quip "Of course it hurts, the trick is in not minding that it hurts."
PA: early on he submits to the test gom jabbar in which his hand is put through extreme pain and he must master the animal instict for flight and exhibit his mastery over his instincts.

LoA: is assigned to go to Arabia as a liaison between the Army and the native Arabs in an attempt to bend them to the will of the Army.
PA: similar situation, House Atraides being the analog of the Army.

LoA: "goes native" and becomes as the Bedouin natives, then rebelling both against the Army and the British Empire, leads the Arabs to independence
PA: "goes native" and becomes as the Fremen natives, then rebelling both against House Atraides and the Empire, leads the Fremen to independence

LoA: Learns to ride a camel
PA: Learns to ride a worm
(Yeah, this one's small, but it's interesting to me just how small of a parallel can be drawn, and how many.)

LoA: Given a new name, El Orens, by the natives
PA: Give a new name, Muad'Dib, by the natives(which is actually a prophesied name, but still.)

LoA: fulfilled various prophecies, none of the specifics I can recall at the moment. I vaguely recall one about him writing his own destiny.
PA: fulfilled various prophecies planted by the Bene Gesserit, and in effect, writing his own destiny.

British Army = House Atraides?
British Empire = the Emperor/Empire
Turks? = House Harkonnen
Various Arab tribes = Landsraad (Edit, woops, this is wrong. The Fremen are the Arabs. The Landsraad would be more along the lines of the various allies of the British Empire)

So, anyone familiar with both tales? Anyone know of older myths/archetypes that are close enough that we could safely say both LoA and Dune were retellings of them rather than Dune being a retelling of LoA in space?

Not sure why I noticed the patterns, or even why I picked up Dune last night. But I did, so now you get to help me deal with it.

I think there''s a rather blatant parallel between the Dune saga and the Oil/Middle East conflict. Basically the underlying theme that if the spice wasnt found only on Arrakis, no one would give a shit about it.
But I don''t know enough of the details about LoA to speak intelligently on that comparison. I think I''ve seen the movie twice and I''ve never read a biography.

I''ve never read a biography.

Me either, which is the only reason I limited my parallels to the movie. I keep meaning to, and now that I''ve found this pattern, I''ll probably be motivated to follow Dune immediately with a T.E. Lawrence bio.

Wow, Ducki - that''s some nice analysis. I had not thought of things that way, but those are some pretty striking parallels.

Can''t say I agree, really. It would be cool though.

LoA: bastard son of royalty?(Not sure on this one)
PA: technically bastard son of Duke Leto, much is made of his parents not being married, or rather, it is touched on quite a bit.

Lawrence''s parents were not married, but neither were they royalty or anybody prominent. Paul Atreides was the result of Jessica disobeying the breeding program and choosing to bear a male instead of a female. So she produces the Kwisatz Haderach a generation early, and the wrong sex, leading to all sorts of issues in the following books, and resulting in the effective neutering of all of the major families and power blocs by the time of Leto II, whose ""Golden Path"" is a rejection of the purpose the breeding program was aiming for.

LoA: early on, exhibits his mastery over pain by slowly extinguishing a match and offers a quip ""Of course it hurts, the trick is in not minding that it hurts.""
PA: early on he submits to the test gom jabbar in which his hand is put through extreme pain and he must master the animal instict for flight and exhibit his mastery over his instincts.

Lawrence is saying here that persistence and endurance are as valuable as anything else when facing impossible tasks, I believe. The Gom Jabbar test is used to see if the candidate is ""human""; that is, can they maintain their objective analysis of a situation under extreme physical and mental stress. With the training given any Bene Gesserit, if this were not true, they would be capable of tremendous acts of barbarity, and the BG were worried that a male could not actually learn the methods correctly. The Gom Jabbar to a degree validates Jessica''s decision, and the breeding program is re-jiggered to attempt to sideline Paul and his line. This failed.

LoA: is assigned to go to Arabia as a liaison between the Army and the native Arabs in an attempt to bend them to the will of the Army.
PA: similar situation, House Atraides being the analog of the Army.

House Atreides is given Dune as a slap to the Harkonnens and to prevent both of them from gaining too much power and challenging Corrino. The Harkonnens lost their source of spice for stockpiling, as well as much face; the Atreides were given a financial millstone and as keepers of Dune were subject to intense scrutiny and basically under the emperor''s thumb. Corrino expected that it was only a matter of time before they could discredit Atreides and essentially break them entirely. With Atreides popular in the Landsraad, Corrino uses Harkonnens as a catspaw (and indeed plans to destroy them via allowing Beast Rabban to over-reach). That plan causes Paul to flee.

LoA: ""goes native"" and becomes as the Bedouin natives, then rebelling both against the Army and the British Empire, leads the Arabs to independence
PA: ""goes native"" and becomes as the Fremen natives, then rebelling both against House Atraides and the Empire, leads the Fremen to independence

The Arabs were fighting the Turks, and Lawrence was assigned to help them as a sort of liaison. As his successes gained notice, he became part of the British strategy, as opposed to a covert operative. He basically picks a tribe which fits his needs, and pushes them to move against the Turks, letting them organize his support and turning them loose on his targets. He goes native in his practices, but not his loyalties.

Paul Atreides flees into the desert as the Emperor and the Harkonnens collude together to kill him. His nascent knowledge of his family''s past guides him into a test which slots him into a role established by the BG as the Fremen Savior prophesied in the religion created to support the breeding program and other goals of the BG. At that point, he realizes that he must master what''s going on inside him and become an independent actor; the Fremen are in the same need and he is a natural leader from their perspective. But he is determined not to follow the BG ordained path that was laid out for him. His big problem is that he can see no path that is successful with him in it, so he must create a situation where he can remove himself. Luckily, the arrival of his sister and her son and daughter help set this up.

The riding is an acculteration for both of them. But Lawrence can already ride horses; it''s a tactical decision to go with camels. Paul has to be a Fremen accepted before he can become a candidate for leader. Different focus.

Lawrence''s name in Arabic is just a phonetic rendering - ""El Orens"". Muad''Dib is the Fremen equivalent of Jesus Christ, Saladdin and Louis XIV rolled into one.

Not sure about Lawrence''s prophesies.

Dune is far more complicated than a simple historical retelling. The question of what the eventual nature of human society will be, and how we avoid perpetual tyranny and war and suffering, seems central the Dune books. The argument is made that we have a small instinctual knowledge of our past as a species that drives our unconscious in certain directions that repeat the same general mistakes over and over throughout the generations, and that we have failed to notice this, but rather enshrine the past as a perpetual standard to be reached for. By imbuing Paul and his descendants with perfect knowledge of their family histories back to the Greeks, Herbert is arguing that even knowing the past completely will not show us where we need to go in the future. And then they can see the future, too!

So overall, Herbert seems to make the point that we should not seek certainty or understanding through analysis of the past or manipulation of the future, but rather through acceptance of chaos and the use of loyalty and honorable ideals and religion to shape a society that will not end up destroying itself, causing widespread misery in the process. Very Jungian, to me. No real parallels in Lawrence.

Spot the Dune junky.

"Robear" wrote:

Muad''Dib is the Fremen equivalent of Jesus Christ, Saladdin and Louis XIV rolled into one. :-)

That''d be Mahdi, not Muad''Dib.

I bow to your superior reading comprehension skills Robear! Since you are so knowlegable about Dune, maybe you can answer something for me. What was Leto II''s Golden Path, exactly? The way I understood it, he had this 10,000 year Pax all figured out where he controlled the rationing of spice, and he occasionally killed an Idaho Ghola (the point of which, I never understood), but somewhere in that book as he began to wax philosophical for the 935th time, I became hopelessly lost. And after reading your post, I think my understanding of the series was superficial, at best. Can you shed any light on it?

According to IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/), Lawrence of Arabia came out in 1962.

According to Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_H...), Dune came out in 1965. However, Frank Herbet began researching and writing Dune circa 1959.

I''m not sure when the book for LoA came out - certainly before the movie. The possibility absolutely exists that Herbert knew of the book and was influenced by it (and the movie) previous to the completion of Dune.

Robear eloquently stated some l33t Dune knowledge, I second that.

Certainly epics in their own right, I think the parallels are there but not very deep.

So she produces the Kwisatz Haderach a generation early, and the wrong sex

WRONG! Hehe, sorry, I''m also a bit of a Dune nut, so I feel the need to correct a fellow Dune fan on this particularly big oversight. The KH is SUPPOSED to be male. That''s the whole point. He is supposed to be a male version of the reverend mother''s... like Jessica becomes, etc...

Paul''s name was actually not prophecized either... as a general side note. The uproar or murmers among the Fremen when Paul chooses his name, is that it''s very SIMILAR to the word that means Messiah (Mahdi).

But, I do so love the comparison with Dune and the Middle East... mostly because, it''s entire true. If our main means of transportation didn''t come from there, no one would give a shit and the region wouldn''t be worth anything on the global scale. Time for SOLAR POWER! WOOOOOOOO!

The only problem I see with Ducki''s comparison is that Paul comes back to fight the empire... but he''s not fighting House Atreides (for obvious reasons like they''re not around anymore) so if you were to compare Lawrence''s struggles against the British Army to Dune, it''d have to be to House Harkonen.

And yes, Robear, before you start, I know, my spelling of all things Dune is horrible.

"buzzvang" wrote:

I bow to your superior reading comprehension skills Robear! Since you are so knowlegable about Dune, maybe you can answer something for me. What was Leto II''s Golden Path, exactly? The way I understood it, he had this 10,000 year Pax all figured out where he controlled the rationing of spice, and he occasionally killed an Idaho Ghola (the point of which, I never understood), but somewhere in that book as he began to wax philosophical for the 935th time, I became hopelessly lost. And after reading your post, I think my understanding of the series was superficial, at best. Can you shed any light on it?

Leto II (wasn''t he technically the THIRD, actually?) and his Golden Path is something, to this day, I still don''t FULLY understand... but... this is what I''ve picked up from reading the third book a few times.

The Golden Path is the rejection of Paul''s legacy. Paul and Alia work by seeing the future they want, and then plotting to make it so. Leto II describes this as being trapped by the future, and claims he wants a world of surprises. Best as I can figure, the Golden Path is trying to create a world in which no one can see the future, etc... (which he does by allowing spice production to drop to near zero levels looooooong into the future).

Leto II (wasn''t he technically the THIRD, actually?) and his Golden Path is something, to this day, I still don''t FULLY understand... but... this is what I''ve picked up from reading the third book a few times.

The Golden Path is the rejection of Paul''s legacy. Paul and Alia work by seeing the future they want, and then plotting to make it so. Leto II describes this as being trapped by the future, and claims he wants a world of surprises. Best as I can figure, the Golden Path is trying to create a world in which no one can see the future, etc... (which he does by allowing spice production to drop to near zero levels looooooong into the future).

I have no idea what you guys are talking about there... are you going beyond Dune?
I''m purely talking about the book titled Dune, nothing after. Mostly because, I''ve never read anything but the original.

Somebody should put a *DUNE SPOILERS* tag somewhere up there. I''ve only read up through the third, and my gf through the fourth.

Pretty much anytime you compare two long epic stories you''re going to find parallels because we all, in general, enjoy the same elements in them. Otherwise they wouldn''t be interesting. I''ve never seen Lawrence, but I''m sure the similarities exist, but aren''t deep or meaningful.

To answer Duck''s question, yes, we''ve moved into book 3, and maybe a little beyond. To be honest, I never read anything past book 3. I tried to start 4 at some point... and honestly, it was just too out there. Take every character I enjoyed and kill them all off except for two who survive in the weirdest way imaginable... and then start off the story? I just didn''t enjoy that enough to keep reading, though maybe I should try again with some of my free time this summer.

What was Leto II''s Golden Path, exactly?

I''m partway through the series, and I appreciate the corrections for the gaps in my memory. It''s complicated stuff to keep track of. I''m happy I got as much right as I did!

I''m still unclear on the Golden Path. Seems to involve essentially reprogramming society through the introduction of a female warrior-priest culture? In addition to the spice stuff and the not seeing the future stuff.

I guess I should have put a spoiler on mine but I just didn''t think of it. Apologies to anyone who is upset by that. But these books are complicated enough that I''m not sure you could actually spoil them.

The first book may parallel pretty closely, I''ve never seen LoA but from your examples I buy it.

Water was meant to be the symbolic version of oil and Opec the guild that controls the spice.

As the series goes on though Leto II becomes the more interesting and tragic figure. The theme changes over the course of the books to become one of ""Don''t Trust Heroes"" and caution on the danger of hero worship.

What was Leto II''s Golden Path, exactly?

The golden path was making the sacrifice to merge with the worm to become a despot over millennia to ensure the human race would continue to exist as a species.

Paul could not come to grips with merging with the worm that''s why he''s considered a failure.

The film Lawrence of Arabia is a fairly sensationalized account of T.E. Lawrence''s advnetures during WW1. He was actually far less sympathetic to the ""arab cause"" than he''s portrayed as being. O''Toole did a fantastic job of portraying the man''s, shall we say, inner confusion, but the film didn''t touch at all on the fact that he was a mascohist and a pederast.

The golden path was making the sacrifice to merge with the worm to become a despot over millennia to ensure the human race would continue to exist as a species.

But why was it necessary? That''s what has always been unclear to me. Granted, it''s been 10 years since I read any of it, so I recall impressions, mostly.

"buzzvang" wrote:
The golden path was making the sacrifice to merge with the worm to become a despot over millennia to ensure the human race would continue to exist as a species.

But why was it necessary? That''s what has always been unclear to me. Granted, it''s been 10 years since I read any of it, so I recall impressions, mostly.

Because the machines are out there and they''re coming back.

The prequels (although not as good writing as FH) have pretty much verified that''s what''s happening when the honored matres are returning to the core worlds and Teg''s and Duncan''s story begins (the last two books are my favorite). There were so many cliffhangers in the last book, but I think the key to ''defeating'' or escaping the machines lies in the integration of the reverend mothers and honored matres ways. Not to mention the nervous system jacked up version of Duncan Idaho.

the film didn''t touch at all on the fact that he was a mascohist and a pederast.

Well, that''s not quite accurate, IMO. Even my indicated parallel with the match was a ""touch"" on that, as were the various bits involving the two orphans he hired to be his servants, Saud and ... dang, the other name escapes me. At any rate, they were touched on, but little more, and unless you knew what the director was hinting at, it is rather unclear.

I do grant that the film is sensationalized, and probably about as fictional as Dune itself.

The copyright dates on the movie and book are interesting, but as the ""tale"" of T.E. Lawrence would have been known before the films release, the parallels still intrigue me.

I''d like to hear from the mythologists out there as to whether there''s anything out there that''s similar, beyond, of course, the basic messianic archetype. Is there a myth or fairy tale somewhere that both of these might be tied to in a more... intimate way?