One Little Question (Which is sure to make me look stupid)

Ehh, examine this for a moment -- no matter how you die, your death will be a bad thing, non? Thus, to claim that there is something wrong with being an Atreides Duke simply because they all died is not logical -- because *everyone* dies somehow (most of us, however, don't live for a gajillion years as a sandtrout thing). Examine their lives -- two of them were very noble men, and the other two changed the face of the universe.
 
But dying young is the thing that was bad about the first two. I'd like my death to be somewhere after my 100th birthday please. And if you consider the expanded lifespan the Spice Melange provides, they died even more to young. (is that a good sentence?)
By those measures however, Leto II had the 'best' life, as he lived some 4000 years (like Blair! :rolleyes: ).
And Duncan Idaho had the worst life according to your standards, because he must've died several hundreds, if not thousands of times. Especially the Duncan in the 4th(?) book would've felt the burden of that, having the memories of all the previous Gholas.
 
Considering the feudal systems in Dune, being any sort of noble wouldn't be too good for your health...

In fact, it doesn't seem like good times were had by many at all from what I remember.
 
Unforgiven: I've never read the Dune books but I doubt that those men died because they were Duke Atreides. More likely it was due to their own personal actions. Secondly by your reasoning it would be a bad thing to be a human. Think of all those humans who die of malnutrition, cancer, war, and whatever other undesirable cause. They make up a significant proportion of the total fatality list.

Also age doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether or not your life is good or not. Consider Alexander the Great. He died when he was in his early 30s. However he also conquered a goodly chunk of southern Asia, affecting considerable social and political change in that region. Consequentially his fame was assured. His personal hero Achilles declared that the short but glorious life was preferable to the long and ignoble life. Therefore although Alexander died earlier then he might have preferred, his life had been full of glory, which assured his everlasting fame. Ergo in respect to his death he had nothing to complain about.
 
Travelling across Asia and all of those battles (and injuries) didn't do Alexander's life expectancy any favours. But I think we should remember that it's only fairly recently that life expectancy has reached the 70-ish point (due to modern medicine and all that).
 
Dak: You're right, life expectancy was much lower then than it is today. However about 450 years later a Roman emperor, by name of Trajan, was campaigning in Alexander's footsteps. After reaching the Persian Gulf he wished that he had Alexander's youth so that he could continue the advance. He was 63 at the time, and died the following year of stroke. Since life expectancies hadn't improved in the interval, this is evidence that Alexander was still considered young when he died, by his near contemporaries.
 
Originally posted by Penguin
Unforgiven: I've never read the Dune books but I doubt that those men died because they were Duke Atreides. More likely it was due to their own personal actions. Secondly by your reasoning it would be a bad thing to be a human. Think of all those humans who die of malnutrition, cancer, war, and whatever other undesirable cause. They make up a significant proportion of the total fatality list.
Click to expand...

Paulus and Leto I were killed because of being Atreides, Paul was killed by his sister.
 
Wedge009: There are many instances of family members bumping off each other for mutual gain. For example the sister of the Roman emperor Commodus actually did try to get him. However he found out and had her and her fellow co-conspirators executed. Not that it really mattered since he was strangled about 12 years later by one of his slaves.
 
Originally posted by Penguin
There are many instances of family members bumping off each other for mutual gain.
Click to expand...
I can understand that in a historical context... but what do you mean by "mutual". Mutual would mean that both the aggressor and the victim would gain... I don't think that's what happened! :)
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
I can understand that in a historical context... but what do you mean by "mutual". Mutual would mean that both the aggressor and the victim would gain... I don't think that's what happened! :)
Click to expand...

Well, she'd get more power and Commodus would get to go to Elysium, a relatively pleasant place ;)

Uhh no. Actually it was just a grammatical error :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top