Talk:Daniel and Marty

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[edit] Face Dancers?

Poor Frank... --Anon

Why? --Gryphon Hall 13:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Based on the last chapter of Chapterhouse: Dune it is evident that Daniel and Marty are Face Dancers. It is clearly stated:
'Daniel chuckled. "That would've been funny. They have such a hard time accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them."
"I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and . . ."
'"It's personas we take, Marty."
'"Whatever. The Masters should've known we would gather enough of them one day to make our own decisions about our own future."'
--144.173.6.66 15:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
After re-reading the Daniel and Marty material in Chapterhouse (and adding quotes to the article), it does seem like Herbert was revealing in no uncertain terms that they are Face Dancers; and yet, the fact that it's so blatant makes me think it was misdirection. If you analyze how unsure Duncan is about them as Face Dancers, it makes sense that they are something else entirely. BH and KJA have intimated that they got their own reveal from FH's notes, but it seems like there must be some article out there where someone has asked them about this directly.
There's a humorous saying about psychoanalysis: "sometimes a penis is just a penis". Blatancy doesn't mean indirection. There are some subtle and confusing things in Dune, but what Daniel & Marty are doesn't seem to be one of them; I could as well use your argument by replacing "Daniel & Marty" with "Leto II" and argue that Leto wasn't really turning into a sandworm. --Gwern (contribs) 16:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
In any case, since this is a controversial issue and the "facts" are kind of up for interpretation, I felt that the article should be written in a way that lets the books speak for themselves. In other words, "Here's what Frank Herbert wrote, here is what Hunters of Dune says. Discuss elsewhere." TAnthony 16:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tleilaxu whistling

Regarding the notation on the Chapterhouse quotes:
"Don't see why. Always whistling
<ref>Previously<!-- Can't remember. Was it Chapterhouse or Heretics that revealed this? --> it is revealed that Face Dancers are controlled by Tleilaxu Masters through a secret [[whistle language]]</ref>
at us, always making it necessary to stomp them down. I don't like treating Masters that way and you know it! If it weren't for them . . ."

In Chapterhouse, Scytale sees an opportunity to control/influence the Idaho ghola and thus effect his escape from the Bene Gesserit when he thinks:

Somehow, I must contrive it that Idaho and I meet intimately. There's always the whistling language we impress on every ghola.

I think this may be the first reference to the whistling, but it relates to gholas. And of course as early as Messiah it's revealed that the Tleilaxu control gholas with words and such (Hayt), but ... Anyone else have anything? --TAnthony 05:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, wasn't it implied in the related passages that the whistling language was used for Tleilaxu creations in general? I don't have my books handy, but I do remember thinking that. --Gwern (contribs) 16:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree, yet when I did a search in the text files for "whistl", not much came up (basically, only what I quoted here, and Duncan says that the old couple made a whistle that was painful to his ears). I went all the way back to Messiah. Strange. --TAnthony 16:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
In Heretics of Dune, the Tleilaxu try to use their whistling to control the Face Dancer who had assumed the form of the Priest, Tuek. They were suprised when it didn't work. The whistling, then, seems to be used on all of the Tleilaxu's conscious creations. So, both the fact that Daniel & Marty talk about the Tleilaxu trying to control them through whistling, and when they, in no uncertain terms, inform us that they are Face Dancers, I think it's correct to assume that Frank Herbert planned them to be Face Dancers. Even if the notes recovered by BH and KJA played with the idea of Daniel & Marty being thinking machines, he obviously discarded this idea when writing Chapterhouse. BH and KJA should have carried on from the canon, and not gone back to previous and obsolete material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.173.6.66 (talk • contribs)
Thanks. So it was Heretics after all. --Gwern (contribs) 15:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
The memory plays tricks! Here is the actual passage from Heretics regarding Tuek:
The false Tuek whirled and pointed a finger at Waff: "You! Stay where you are! I will brook no Tleilaxu interference! Your conspiracy is quite clear to me!"
Odrade had been watching Waff as the mimic Tuek spoke. Surprise! The Bene Tleilax Master had never before been addressed thus by one of his minions. What a shock! Rage convulsed his features. Humming sounds like the noises of angry insects came from his mouth, a modulated thing that clearly was some kind of language. The Face Dancers of his entourage froze but the false Tuek merely returned attention to his counselors.
Waff stopped humming. Consternation! His Face Dancer Tuek would not come to heel! He lurched into motion toward the priests. The false Tuek saw it and once more leveled a hand at him, the finger quivering.
It's humming here, but Daniel and Marty say whistling in Chapterhouse, it's all very confusing. TAnthony 18:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I think you might be being a little strict there; humming is pretty close to whistling, and Herbert has made that sort of mistake before. --Gwern (contribs) 19:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It's just very interesting, it seems like people are always referencing whistling with Face Dancers but it doesn't really appear anywhere! The Face Dancer article is a litte more generic about it. TAnthony 19:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
To me there's quite a bit of difference between humming and whistling. It is interesting to note that in Children of Dune, Bijaz hums a phrase to trigger Hayt's secret mission. Dionyseus 04:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


There is no whistling at face dancers that I know of. All though M and D do have a small orb that makes a whistling sound that hurts Duncan's ears (apparently, that orb has disappeared from the new plot lines). But, as you all have pointed out, there is humming, both Bijaz at Hayt, and Waff at Tuek. But Scytale does state quite clearly that gholas are implanted with the susceptibility to the whistling languageTleilax Master B 20:46, 5 April 2007 (UTC)