Cousin Greg: Oh, it’s um, I think it’s called melange? Ultimately, I guess, the goal is to open your eyes to the Golden Path, but I guess my thought is, I think Abomination can also be a concern there?
Tom Wambsgams: You know, you can’t just take my love and…and bank it. And then take it with you to the love market and see if you want to invest in me. But it’s good to know that we — we don’t have an unbalanced love portfolio. And history, you know, I think history is gonna call us wives.
Kendall: [Reciting the Litany Against Fear while leaning his forehead against a bathroom mirror, eyes closed]
Roman: This company is just dune buggies and hate speech. I don’t think the Litany Against Fear is meant for like, sandworm management.
Shiv: There’s a Bene Gesserit saying.
Roman: So do you guys just have a saying for everything? Just like…a peppy stun-gun set to quip, with a ra-ra-sisterhood branding thing that works with the quotes on coffee mug set?
Greg: Oh, the Fremen? Absolutely. So for starters, and as you know, the Fremen are, much like us, humans. But unlike us, they consider the planet Arrakis their home. So that’s the first — that’s a key distinction. And they also — in terms of that quality the ancients called, I guess they called it spannungsbogen, which in basic terms is just the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching to grasp. That thing. So that’s pretty key about the Fremen.
Kendall: The Duke wanted me to ask if there’s any way through this. An asset swap. Or something else. An arrangement that leaves you happy and him in control? That’s the move. Where do we find it?
Sandy: Well — as you know — our position is — my position is — control the Spice, control the universe. Encompass your doom. Seed betrayal in your very house, with a traitor worth more than ten legions of Sardaukar.
Kendall: Sure. Okay. Obviously our public line will be that we’re considering that, but it doesn’t matter what you seed, because it’ll never clear the Spacing Guild, which means you’re due to start bleeding cash. He’ll start bleeding cash too, but he doesn’t care about that part. It will never end. That’s the important part. And maybe it’ll kill him, but if it doesn’t — if you don’t kill him, he will aim to kill you. And if that takes going bankrupt, or going to jail, okay. He will beat you on Arrakis and if that doesn’t work he will send people around. Send men to kill your pets and your mentats and fuck your wives and it will never be over.
Sandy: Good. Well, let’s move ahead with that process then, shall we?
Greg: What’s, uh, what’s in the box?
Tom: Well, right now, just your hand.
Greg: Hah. Yeah. Okay.
Tom: What’s really cool is what’s not in the box.
Greg: I don’t know that I’m completely comfortable with this, just because — I actually haven’t eaten yet today, because normally I make sure to stop for an egg wrap on my way in but there was construction starting this week —
Tom: What’s not in the box is the gom jabbar. That’s right next to your neck. You see that metal? Don’t turn to look at it. Look at it without moving your head. Needle with a drop of poison at the tip. Just one.
Greg: I do feel like, if I’m being completely honest, that I’m not enjoying this together, like, at all.
Tom: There’s something else in the box. Do you want to know what that is? Don’t move!
Greg: Again, just in the interest of transparency, I actually don’t — I don’t think I should probably know what’s —
Tom: Pain.
Greg: That does, that does make sense, because actually it does burn, and I — I’m feeling, I would describe it as a burning sensation? It is definitely mounting, heat-wise, on top of the heat, and I actually, I think the skin, oh wow, it’s definitely, I’m definitely getting notes of pain here, and I don’t really want to die because of the gom jabbar, but I’m also really not liking this pain.
Tom: It’s empty. Look.
Greg: Oh, it’s — oh, wow. Okay. Okay.
Tom: You should have seen your face. Did you really think I was going to burn your hand off? Our test is crisis and observation. You hate us a little, huh? It’s all for a terrible purpose. Terrible purpose is its own necessity. Many have tried and none have succeeded.
Greg: Oh, yeah? So they all, um, failed? Did I fail?
Tom: They all died. [Laughs]
Shiv: I mean, I’ve made my peace gesture. The forms of kanly — I would say they have been obeyed.
Kendall: I’m like a person, okay, whose hands were kept numb. Without sensation from the first moment of awareness, until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say, “Look! I have no hands!”
Greg: Right.
Kendall: But the people all around me say: “What are hands?”
Greg: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Logan: I blame myself. I spoiled you. And now you’re fucked. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re a hothouse flower with damp hands, that you’re nothing. You’re curdled cream. You have no water discipline. I wouldn’t even take your water. Your knife was chipped and shattered before you unsheathed it. Maybe you should write a book or collect sports cars or something. But for the world? Nah. I’m sorry. You’re not made for it. Manners of a rabbit. I wouldn’t put your blood on my knife.
Kendall: [Breathes shakily]
There are, in fact, Bene Gesserit coffee mugs:
https://society6.com/product/bene-gesserit-litany-against-fear_mug
That *does* frighten me.