Parables of Dune

A comparison Essay connecting The Dune Series to the Parable of the Sower and Talents.  

    Parable of the Talents is a dark, damaging, triggering, wonderful, awe inspiring post apocalyptic dystopian series. There are many beautifully written reviews explaining this masterpiece by the late great Octavia E. Butler.  That's not what this is. 

    This is a discussion of how well Octavia's Parable series works  as a companion  to Frank Herbert's Dune series.   It's my opinion that all nine books work together to tell one, nearly complete story with Parable of the Sower & Talents tying in as precursors to the Dune Series

    Spoilers ahead for all nine books! 

 

    How did I come with this?  Simple answer: I listened to all seven books of Dune on Audible during the 2020 pandemic lockdown.   Then I washed it all down with Parable of the Sower  and Parable of the Talents because I hate myself.  

    I'd heard that Octavia passed away without finishing the series, but upon reaching the end of Parable of the Talents I felt satisfied that 

she'd taken her characters as far as she needed to.  I looked into what more she wanted to say about the Earthseed community and realized that she was, in essence, trying to write the beginning of Dune.  

    At the end of of Parable of the Talents, Lauren Olamin's Earthseed family has finally achieved space travel. They will at "take root among the stars".  

    Octavia's tale ended here, but she intended to write more.  Famously, she suffered from a horrible case of writer's block and was not able to complete the third book in the series, Parable of the Tricker, before her death in 2006. 

    

    In her notes on the third book, Octavia struggled with details of Earthseed's survival in space such as - how would they grow crops, how might the food on another would affect their minds, how the atmosphere of the new planet would affect the bodies of the pilgrims, how leaders would be made, and other such details.

    

    Meanwhile, Frank Herbert's Dune has all these details wrapped around the same themes of leadership as Octavia's world, though Frank never mentioned how humanity branched into space to begin with.  How did these empires take root.  Why had they fled Earth?  Was Earth still around?  

    Octavia wrote "They must evolve or die"And Frank answered with the Xi, Bene Tleilax, and the Bene Gesserit.   He also answered with a God Emperor who could restrict the waves of change just to show humanity how important change is.  

     Throughout Dune there are subtle hints as to the world the human's left behind, but it is never answered why they took so drastic a step as to leave their life support planet to start over elsewhere.  To this Octavia has the answers with a pox, a drug, and war devastated an entire hemisphere. 

Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader!

    Both writers were alive at the same time.  Frank was older and published Dune a series of short stories in science fiction magazines.  It's possible a young Octavia who would have been in high school at that time saw them, read them, and internalized the stories.  However she would not write the parable series for another ten years.   I am not accusing her of playing off his ideas in anyway.  As a student of writing, and writer of sci-fiction it's likely that she read Dune.  She may have inspired by it, as so many of us have been.  But I've found no record of her ever mentioning either the novels nor the writer.   It's possible that Dune was the cause of Butler's writer's block - not wanting to get too close to a well none work with our own ideas is a common woe among writers.  

     Both writers were inspired by the assassination of Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the fall of Nixon in the Watergate scandal.  Both writers were disillusioned, adults wary of the power that charismatic leaders have on the population overall.

images taken from msnbc.com

   The Dune series and the Parable series warn of being carful of such charming leaders who can take the reins of a loyal flock and lead them to slaughter for their own selfish gains.  Frank himself went on record many times and stated plainly  that  charming leaders are the most dangerous types of people.  He creates such a leader in Paul Atreides in Dune, and Messiah of Dune.   The reader cheers for Paul despite his starting a holy war it avenge his father and reclaim his throne.

    "I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health."  One of the most dangerious presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said "Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?" and we wound up in Vietnam.  And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon.  Because he taught us to distrust government and he did it by example." ~ Frank Herbert. 

     Octavia has been credited for predicting the pandemic, and the election of Donald Trump.  Her fictional president Andrew Steele Jarret, even charms the masses with the phrase "Make America Great Again!"  twenty years before Trump ran for office.  

    "Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.  To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.  To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.  To be led by a theif is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen." - Parables of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.

God is Change 

    Both series connect to each other through the theme of human evolution.   Both series feature a drug that changes psychological or mental function.  In Dune it's the legendary Spice Melange that enhances mental function to the point that people can see the future, or think with the swift effeciency of computers.  In Parables it's a drug called Parateco that enhances a persons intelligence. It was used by teachers, and white collar workers who needed to think or focus more clearly.  The drug lead to a common birth defect in user's children called hyperempathy - that is they can feel what other's feel both pleasure and pain.

    Hyperempaths play a big role in the Parable series.  The main protagonist, Lauren Olamina is one.  Through her perceptions that we witness many terrible painful acts as she feels them, including the deaths of people she kills in self-defense.   In her notes for Parable of the Trickster, Octavia wonders what will become of the hyperempaths once they encounter the foods of other worlds.  

    Foods such as spice melange for example?  What might something like spice do to an already highly wired nervous system capable to feeling the pain of others?  What else might they observe?  Over time and with training would they not learn to control their empathy, to read others from a distance, or control every muscles of their own bodies independently?  How many ways might they evolve after generations of? 

Learn from the Past

    These two book series could even be read, not just as companions to each other, but as continuations of the same story.  Frank's highly evolved humans, ergo the Xi, Tlilaxu, and of course, the Bene Gesserit, are all the descendants of Octavia's hyperempaths.  The human colonies from Ocatvia's unwritten novel, Parable of the Trixster, where aided in their evolution by the food or maybe the very "dust" of the new worlds they discovered.  They lost contact with Earth and eventually any desire to return there - though through art, history, and enhanced memory they are still connected to it.  Millions of years into their new history the Empires of Dune are formed, wars are fought and life goes on.  Humanity survived by evolving.  

 Sometime after that Leto II is bred into the Kwisatz Haderach - that is born able to see both the memories of both his matriarchal and patriarchal memories.  He can see both his ancestral past, and the
future of humanity with terrifying clarity.  He lives whole other lives
in his dreams just escape his reality, and learn from past lives.  He knows that something coming that will wipe out all of humanity. Because of this knowledge he also knows that he alone can prepare man kind for it.  Using lessons of his past he chooses to take the Golden Path.

    What lesson from his past does he see?  The very same lesson that Lauren Olamina learns after surviving the complete destruction of the community she built for her people.  

   After Acorn is captured by Christian America  the Earthseed
community is held hostage.  They are blessed by the God of Change, by the foolishness of their captors and a shift in the weather.  They manage to free themselves, then they burn Acorn to the ground. They gather what they can in supplies and affection and run.  When her people ask her what they should do next Lauren tells them:

     "Today or tomorrow, we must separate.  We must leave here in small groups." After some protest she goes on to say: 

    "Earthseed continues.  But Acorn is dead.  There are too many f us.  We would be too easy to spot, too easy to recapture or kill".  pg. 259 ch 15 Parable of the Talents.

    

    The Earthseed verse that heads this chapter reads as follows:

We have lived before.

We will live gain.

We will be silk,

Stone, Mind,

Star.

We will be scattered,

Gathered,

Molded,

Probed.

We il live and we will serve life.

We will shpe God

And God will shape us

Again,

Always again,

Forever

     

    

    

    In order to survive they had to scatter, because the group together is too easily traced and destroyed. Her people took what she had taught them and they went their separate ways.  Each person continued to spread her message of hope, education, and acceptance of change, as well as her vision that their destiny was to take root among the stars.   

      Leto II perceives the same lesson from looking back into his own history.   He realizes that this is the solution for his current problem.  He knows that in order for humanity to survive what is coming they must also scatter, just as the people of Acorn did.  But not just the few people who will listen to him.  He needs all of humanity to spread out as far as possible. They must move with the swiftness and alertness of prey animals dodging a predator.  And they must learn to distrust their leaders in the process. 

    As result in God Emperor Dune, Leto II has become that predator. He is called The Tyrant - a man in the shape of a giant worm feared, and respected.   He has taken over the known universe and restricts space travel to nearly everyone.  He forces humanity to sit still for centuries.  This breeds hatred and defiance.  Their attempts at his life, and attempts at escape, but they are stopped by Letto II's Fishspeaker warriors - who as it turns out, also have a valuable part to play in the Gold Path.   

    When Letto finally dies humanity  indeed scatter.  As Letto wanted they look back at their past to avoid making the same mistake in their leadership in the future.  Just as Earthseed did several millennia pryer they spread out thus making themselves harder to reach, govern, or kill.   This also teaches the Bene Gesserit the dangers of their breeding program - they no longer attempt to create a Kwisatz Haderach.  In fact they make sure to avoid one for fear they might accidentally create another tyrant like Letto II.    

    Many will point out that Lauren's daughter Larkin did not share her vision, and never went into space.  Therefore, Letto II could not have seen this wisdom from Lauren's ancestor memories.  This is true.  Lauren only one had one daughter, and she was stolen away from her.  Lauren doesn't get to the stars.   However, she was teacher-and she touched many young lives during her life.   There was one boy in particular that the story follows pretty closely. 

     Justin Gilchrist grew up with Lauren as his teacher, leader, and
friend.  He and the other children called her 'Shaper'.  He was taken away when Christian America attacked their home, but he escaped the family they put him with.  At eleven years old he knew who his real family was fought to find them again. .  She told him what happened to Acorn, their home.

    "Acorn really is gone," I said.  When we finally broke free, we burned what was left of it."

    "You burned it?

    "Yes.  We couldn't stay there.  We would have been caught and collared again or killed.  So we took what we could carry, and we burned the rest.  Why should they be able to steal it and use it?  We burned it!" - Parable of the Talents. p 274. Ch 15

 

       Later Justin Gilchrist is apart of the first mission to space. 

    

    "I was not on any of the shuttles, of course.  Neither was uncle Marc, and neither of us has children.  But Justin Gilchrist was on a ship. He shouldn't have been at his age, of course, but he was." - Parable of the Talents; p 387 Epilogue.  

 

Photo by Helena Lopes

    Larkin goes on to list several other families who made the trip, but Justin is my favorite for being a an ancestor to the Atreides line.  We follow him from an orphaned baby in Parable of the Sower, all the way to manhood.  He's mentioned by name in the final paragraph of the story.  He fought his way from an abusive family back to those he knew and loved, and if he had children, he would have passed on that hardened bloodline, and long with his noble teachings.  And who better to become a king of a planet than the decendant of on of the original Earthseed settlers?   

  As the Kwisatz Haderach, Letto II would be the first of his ancestors to reach all the way back, and witness the teachings of Lauren Oya Olamina in Justin Gilchrist's memories.  He would have learned the lessons she'd taught as Earthseed Shaper, and passed them along.   Many of Letto's speeches echo's Lauren's writings - most notably about choosing good leaders.    

    But that's Letto's patriarchal line.  His maternal would still be completely mysterious.  I do wonder how Octavia E. Butler might written the Bene Gesserit if given the chance.  Can you imagine?

Conclusion

    Reading both series together gives a complete account of one human history and the extraordinary lengths that can be achieved when humanity is brought together under a common goal and good leadership.  Both stories. show the hell that can be created from bad leadership.  The messages of both series are the same:  

We must be adaptable.  

We must change the shape of our thinking as the world changes around us. 

We must be diverse.

We must be wonderers. 

We must embrace change

We must be wary of our leaders, and willing to fight them when they fight us.

    Though both stories were written by different authors at different times and places in their personal lives, isn't it fun to imagine that somehow, thorough cosmic magic, the continuation to Octavia Butler's series was written almost thirty years before she set pen to paper?  

     Neither Frank nor Octavia finished their series.  Both passed away before reaching the endings they wanted in their stories.    

   Octavia's ending leaves us looking up at the stars wondering what will come.

    Franks story begins with us so far in the future that the original Earth seems completely unconnected.  Together, however, they tell one complete story - one jumping off where the other ends.  

    But what will become of humanity now?  This new predator is man made.  It lurked in every book.     The face-dancers have evolved through the sins of slavery, something Letto could not have prevented for it has gone on since Lauren's time and continued even lightyears away form the home planet.  The Atreides line is completely burned out by this point.

    Now the face-dancers are sentient, self-affirming, and free.  The enslaved never forget their enslavement, they never forgive their bondage.  Now they hunt The Masters. For what purpose we may never know.

 Who will write the next chapter in this saga?

Or perhaps it is already written.   

END

If you know of a book that pulls these series further down the rabbit hole, please let me know!  I'd love to see how it all ends.  

    If you enjoy these wacky-deep dives, or have another comparison to offer please mention it in the comments.  

You can learn more about me on my page pbyeary.com, or linked to me on twitter at PB@JellyPhish

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you on the next page! 

    

I actually thought Parable of the Sower would be fun -  you know because Bloodchild was fun. I don't know why I thought this. I'd already read "Lilith's Brood" and "Fledging" - nether of which should taken lightly.  And yet, I thought perhaps Parable would more fun than

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half a Yellow Sun" or "Americana" both which I'd listened to right after Dune, again thinking they would be light reading after such a long novel series.  Did I mention that I hate myself? 

 

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