Dune: The Great Flaw in the Bene Gesserit Plan

The matriarchal order known as the Bene Gesserit sisterhood is one of the most powerful groups to ever exist in the Dune universe. For thousands of years, this organization of selectively bred and highly trained women maneuvers it's through the various political structures which rise and fall throughout the duration of the Dune Saga. As times change, so does the Motivation of the Bene Gesserit, their pragmatism is in fact one of their greatest assets. The Bene Gesserit operated in a block structure. The Mother Superior gave the commands but each sister would only receive the information necessary to the task for which they were assigned. The sisterhood had operated in this fashion for thousands of years and had only made minor alterations to this structure, its effectiveness had been tried and tested.

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[fubaralakbar]

Bene Gesserit: "We will create a god. And then we will make him our puppet."
Damn, people...

[TheMeanMongoose]

I love how Jessica basically threw a plan off the rails that was millennia in the making.

[leroyjenkins]

All the Bene Gesserit’s plans were undone by one small factor they never thought to take into account. That factor was love. Jessica truly loved Duke Leto. He was a good genuinely good and fair man. He treated everyone around him with respect and he cared about people. Because he was a such a decent person, she couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing him. He wanted a son and she gave him one.

[lawrenceburchett]

The greatest flaw in the Bene Gesserit was arrogance, not to have accounted for the random permutaion of the Universe and basic human emotion, good vid Quinn

[justinhowe]

I think it's fair to say that the plan was "flawed" in that they believed they could control the Kwisatz Haderach. Yet basically they were acting under the genetic compulsion to produce the Kwisatz Haderach for the sake of human survival, so ultimately, the plan had to unfold the way it did more or less. They were unconsciously doing what was best for humankind by setting themselves up for failure.

[wetterschneider]

So was the Duke just that damn awesome? In all of history, the BG had never met a man so amazing that he could derail a sister?

[c.w.simpsonproductions]

We’ve seen this in other stories time and time again. Regardless of how brilliant and calculating one be can be, even a genius tactician can be undone when they use others as pawns. Because at their core, people are what they are: unpredictable. They are not static pieces on a board, they are living with their own drive and emotions that influence their actions in countless ways.

[NeoRazgriz]

The flaw in the Bene Gesserit plan wasn’t the “love” that Jessica felt for Duke Leto. But instead the human spirit yearning for freedom. Freedom to choose their fate, their life and their freedom from manipulation. The Bene Gessarit were masters of manipulation; manipulating the emperor to betray House Atrades, manipulating Jessica and Paul to believe that the emperor and Baron Harkonen were the masterminds of their betrayal and downfall. But behind it all was the Bene Gessarit.

[johnbiles]

There's also another big problem with the plan if it had gone off like they planned. The Kwisatch Haderach would have ended up a *Harkonnen*. Either the kid of the Beast or Feyd Rautha. Imagine how that kid would come out. I believe the word is *giant disaster*.

[Langkowski]

The Bene Gesserit also used themselves in the breeding program. They used their own daughters as carriers of the important genes.
And in the first novel the only kind of superhuman memory mentioned is when it is transferred from one Reverent Mother to another through touch. It is only when Paul's son is born in Dune Messiah the reader encounters true genetic memory.

Also, what was Bene Gesserit's plan once they had their Kwisatz Haderach. They didn't want to improve the gene pool of the whole human race (which after all existed on several thousand planets), only enough to produce a single individual.

[robertwinslade]

Quinn out here churning out quality content recently. Only a matter of time until your channel blows up at this rate, especially with DUNE coming out soon.

Also I would be interested in hearing your takes on some more modern sci-fi alongside the classics; are you familiar with The Expanse, The Culture, or Children of Time? Some of my all time favourite sci-fi

[neilmurphy]

"Hope clouds observation" -B.G. axiom. I think you're right saying the B G. failed to comprehend the emotional or biological needs of the pair bond.. even Mohiam had tears on her face after the pain box test in Dune.. they were human afterall not machines despite their training. And as Leto II says all humans make mistakes (Children of Dune miniseries ending).

[patrickday]

I've always wondered why Alia Atreides could connect with a male ancestor? Because why then were they seeking the male version?

[fuferito]

Quinn's very careful, of course, not to reveal his own mission as an agent of the _Missionaria Protectiva._

[GARYBLONDER]

I think the Bene Gesserit rested on a flawed assumption: that some human beings can be trained to become entirely logical and disciplined, and that they as that logical disciplined elite could benevolently guide the human race using the Kwisatz Haderach as a tool. But the primal nature of humanity cannot in reality be fully suppressed and the elite would always therefore always be fatally flawed. In fact the survival of the human race is best guaranteed not by the shepherding of an elite but rather by genetic and geographic diversity, ensuring whatever thereat it faced, there would always be humans able to survive it, and no power could rule all of it. In the Dune saga Leto II foresees the ultimate enemy as prescient thinking machines, and the only way to defeat them was to breed humans with prescient invisibility, the exact opposite of the BeneGesserit breeding objective.

[albertrobles]

The Bene Gesserit never accounted for Atreides RIZZ

Algo recommended this video to me, liked and subbed.

[Rekaert]

Bene Gesserit: "At last, after thousands of years, we're almost ready to create the Kwisatz Haderach!"

Jessica: "Lol."

[mikecourt]

Here is the real plot hole issue with that: the savior they were trying to create would have access to the memories of all their ancestors which means they will know that the BG are trying to control them.

[andrewh]

I always felt that Paul could see the future because he had Mentant training and Bene Gesserit knowledge of all of his past ancestors and so he could logically see almost every type of human reaction in history and then apply that knowledge to humanity as a whole, kind of like Psychohistory from the Foundation series.
The Bene Gesserit breading program just created a man bred from the broadest spectrum of human experience and hoped he'd be able to stand the pressure

[briaryos]

Flaw in the plan: it wasn't failing to control Jessica. It was in expecting Leto to be ok with his daughter marrying/mating a Harkonnen.

Has no one else thought that would be problematic?