Dune: Prophecy comes on the heels of the Dune duology of films finally bringing much of author Frank Herbert’s vision to the big screen. Dune was always a novel that was more about the politics, destiny, and their effect on people and the new adaptations from director Denis Villeneuve were able to get that across stunningly. They introduced new fans to the universe of Dune, but the movies’ style – relying on visuals more than exposition for world building – only gave glimpses of what made Herbert’s novels so special. Dune: Prophecy is going to cues from the movies, but has a different focus – that of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood.
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The Bene Gesserit sisterhood was extremely important to Herbert’s Dune novels and would become one of the focuses of the stories as the books progressed through thousands of years of human history. The Dune films showcased Lady Jessica Atreides, who was a member of the sisterhood, but didn’t really go much into what made the sisterhood so important to the Imperium or what their abilities were. With Dune: Prophecy‘s upcoming premiere, a primer on who the Bene Gesserit are and what they can do can help fans of the films wondering why they deserve their own show.
The Bene Gesserit Were A Cornerstone Of The Imperium
In the books, the Bene Gesserit were often called “witches” but had a very important place in the Imperial court. The origins of the Bene Gesserit stem back to the Butlerian Jihad, the seminal event of the Dune universe. The Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against thinking machines, which was characterized in Herbert’s novels as mankind throwing off the shackles of machines that had taken their destiny away from them. Later novels by Herbert’s son Brian and co-author Kevin J. Anderson made the Jihad more of a typical sci-fi war against machines, but the conflict was still the catalyst for the Bene Gesserit, with the sisterhood coalescing during the conflict and became a power in the resulting Imperium as the years went by. The Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit became a common sight at court and among the Great and Minor Houses.
Much like the Navigators of the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit realized the power of the spice melange and began to use it in their rituals, allowing them to unlock powers that most humans could never access. These abilities made them a part of the fabric of human society, and they spread throughout the Imperium, secretly guiding the bloodlines of humanity in order to create the Kwisatz Haderach. The Kwisatz Haderach is a male Reverend Mother and by the time of Dune, they were one generation away from creating this powerful being. Jessica Atreides was to give Lord Leto Atreides a daughter and that daughter was to be married with Feyd-Rautha, creating the Kwisatz Haderach. However, Jessica fell in love with Leto and gave him son, Paul, who would become the Kwisatz Haderach. This would put Paul on the road of destiny and change the future of the universe completely. All of this was made possible by the power of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood.
The Bene Gesserit spread throughout the universe and set up the Missionaria Protectiva, taking the religions of multiple worlds and changing them. This was meant to allow a trapped Bene Gesserit to go to ground on a world and have a way to influence the masses to help her. This played a huge role in the conflict on Arrakis, as the Bene Gesserit had gone among the Fremen at some point in the past and tailored their religion to the sisterhood’s liking. This is what allowed Jessica and Paul to become such important parts of Fremen society.
The Powers Of Bene Gesserit
The spice melange gave humans many powers they otherwise wouldn’t have, as long as it was taken in massive enough quantities. Guild Navigators became something more – some would say less – than human, using the prescience that the spice gave them to navigate ships. The Bene Gesserit used spice as well, which allowed them to live longer than non-spice users, and to access Other Memories. This allowed the Bene Gesserit to absorb the memories of everyone in their matrilineal line, as well as share memories between them, giving them access to untold millennia of experience. This was achieved through the spice agony, the last ritual needed to become a Reverend Mother, an overdose of spice that could only be survived by mastering other Bene Gesserit abilities. Many Reverend Mothers learned to become “Truthsayers”, which allowed them to tell whether people were telling the truth to them, making them indispensable to the royal Houses of the Imperium.
The Bene Gesserit trained their powers to the utmost extent, using the prana-bindu discipline. This allowed them perfect control of their bodies in every way. This gave them near superhuman strength and speed, the power to control their pain receptors, speed up or slow down their heart rates and breathing, enhanced their senses to a superhuman degree, and control all of the functions of their organs. This made them fierce warriors, and the Bene Gesserit became just as feared for their martial abilities as anything else. They were able to control the chemicals that were put into their bodies, modifying them with a thought – this is how they survived the spice agony – and could even basically choose the sex of their children by choosing which sperm would fertilize their eggs. As important as their spice given abilities were, it was their physical abilities, which took years to master, that made so formidable.
Their most familiar power to fans of the Dune movies is the Voice. The Voice allowed them to control the minds of others just by speaking to them. They did this by modulating the tones of their voice using their prana-bindu disciplines. The Voice was the Bene Gesserit’s most subtle weapon, allowing them to control anyone they needed to.
The Bene Gesserit Made The Events Of The Dune Movies Possible
The genetics manipulations of the Bene Gesserit and the way they played with the powerful of the Imperium made them one of the driving forces of human society. Their access to Other Memory allowed them to plan in ways that few others did – this quasi-immortality allowed the Bene Gesserit to move on a scale that even the Spacing Guild with their prescience couldn’t match. The Bene Gesserit’s actions – as well as Jessica Atreides’ rejection of their plan and her training of her son Paul in the ways of the sisterhood – made all of the events of Dune and Dune: Part Two possible. Paul’s destiny as the Kwisatz Haderach and future conqueror of the Imperium was only possible because of Bene Gesserit training and their Missionaria Protectiva.
Dune: Prophecy‘s focus on the Bene Gesserit should shed even more light on who they are in the Dune movie universe. It’ll be interesting to see how much the show establishes; Dune and Dune: Part Two kept most of its world-building in the background and focused on visual storytelling. However, with a focus as interesting as the Bene Gesserit, it would be a shame if Dune: Prophecy didn’t get into the woods of the Bene Gesserit, showing their power and prestige in a way that the movies didn’t.
