Tell me of the Waters of your Homeland Rand al'Thor

[bladeof5winds]

Ok, so I was at work and talking to a friend about books we like to read. Now, WOT is defiantly my favorite fantasy series. However, I like to read a lot of stuff. Infact, I basically like RJ's conan stuff more than the orginals. However, this friend and I were talking. He is exicted about "Sandhunters of Dune" comming out. We got to thinking about it and there are a TON of similiarties between Herbert's world and Jordan's.

 

Lets start with the simple

 

Bene Gesserit -> Aes Sedai: From the nature of there name on down, these two groups have frightening similarties. All female, possessors of the only "magic" around, and both groups are supposed to be wating for, and protecting against male users of that power. (The Aes Sedai do await the return of the dragon, and especially after "God Emperor" the Bene Gesserit are tasked with preventing more "Kwisat Haderiach's" from forming.) Even consider their oaths. The bene gesserit as the primary holders of the orange catholic bible are charged "never make or allow to make a machine in the image of a man" and the aes sedai call to "never make a weapon with which one man can kill another" come from the same heritage. The thinking machines almost wiped out everybody in dune, and in Wheel it was weapons of the one power that allowed the war to be waged on the destructive scale it was. The similarties in action between both groups are uncanny.

 

The Fremen -> The Aiel: Ok, lets see both are a desert people, and you could say that because of that of course there traditions are going to appear similar. However, the cultural similarties with things like stieches and aiel homes, the clannish nature, the warrior societies, remember that the fremen prove to be better warriors than the sadukar, and I would say that we can see a parrallel between that and the when the aiel have fought the other peoples around them. Paul goes to there secret city to learn he his their messiah and Rand goes to the Aiel secret city to learn he is their messaih. Speaking of that..

 

Rand -> Paul: They have more similarties between them than just that of protagonists, or even "god-like" heroes. They both are the wielders of unparralled power, they both have destiny shoved on them, They both are overly tall nordic people, they are both masters at the main armed combat method of hte day (sword/knife respectively), they both create an entirely new world/universal order, they were both bred/born for their purpose. Rand is a reincarnated version of an ancient hero, and in Dune forced reincarnation and "genetic memory" are a key part of the story.

 

There are others

Spacing Guild -> Sea Folk

The Honored Matres -> Seanchan

The Dark Lord -> Omious (cursory at best, but he does fill the same role)

Face Dancers -> Graymen

 

Now, I love WOT, but has anybody elsed kind of noticed this....

[Kadere]

totally, even wikipedia points this out.

[Werthead]

Well, the Dark One cannot be based on Omnius as Omnius only appears in the horrific Legends of Dune series (for which KJA should be banned from writing anything ever again - shudder), which by my reckoning did not commence publication until 12 years after The Eye of the World came out. The Dark One is actually much closer to Morgoth (from Tolkien's Middle-earth, the true Dark Lord to whom even Saruon was just a lieutenant).

 

But yes, the first thing I thought whilst reading Wheel of Time was, "Hey, this is an awful lot like Dune," especially The Shadow Rising. I'm not saying RJ consciously stole any ideas from Dune, merely that the story was unfolding at that time in a similar manner with some similar story ideas. I am worried about some of these ideas re-converging at the end of the series, such as Rand rather than dying disappearing to become a beggar (this happens to Paul in the second and third Dune books), or the Aiel becoming Rand's shock troopers who bring order to the world after his death.

 

One major difference is language. In terms of prose, Herbert is light-years ahead of Jordan, able to create deft wordplay in a manner Jordan has not been able to do to date. This is no criticism of Jordan - WoT would not have been as accessible and thus as popular if it had not been written in such an 'easy' style - merely that Herbert's language is more ambitious and thus more rewarding.

 

I would suggest reading R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing Trilogy, which he acknowledges was heavily inspired by Dune, particularly in terms of the language and the approach to philosophy he employs, although there is only one real storyline similarity (the shapeshifting 'skin-spies' employed by the Consult, who indeed resmeble the Tleilaxu face-dancers).

[bladeof5winds]

I would say that you get to include the newer stuff as "part" of the current dune universe because it is supposedly written with Herbert's "notes" as the primary source for its story.

 

I am not saying that it is coppied, there are enough differences as well. It is just that they have simialr feels. Some of this may have to do with the relationship between fantasy and space opera which is actually closer than space opera and "hard" science fiction.

 

Whats more, herbert took a great deal from the current major religions and other prexisting concepts. So did RJ, and for that matter, Tolkien merely put a bunch of legeneds toghter in order to make middle earth (This was his training, he was extremely well versed in mythology and early literature of a multitude of cultures). So, some of the similarties may be that there are things similar in the basis for their writtings.

 

My only real disagreement on with you is on your analysis of writting style. I always thought that Herbert was a little stilted. Whats more, for how complicated WOT is in terms of politics, number of characters, groups, places, plots, and counter-plots, backstory etc. Dune is the mother of all complicated undecernable storylines. The first Dune (much like Eye of the World) is not so bad in terms of being overly complex, but latter on the stories are much harder to decipher.

 

Now, I do like RJ, and I like Herbert, and Hienlien and Pornell and Niven, and JRR, and many others.

 

I think we see this comming from two directions. I like wheel because I think it is more readable and understandable than Dune, and you think that WOT is not up to the quality of writting of Dune but agree it easier to get into.

[details]

As someone who hasn't spent much time reading the non-Frank Herbert penned Dune books, I suppose I'm not qualified as an expert. But I agree, there are many similarities between Dune and WoT. Maybe that's because there are such compelling stories in them...maybe compelling isn't the right word, maybe "common" is, they've got common themes.

 

When you think about it, both Paul and Rand are Christ-like, or even Arthurian-type figures...a man, or "one of his line," coming back to fulfill his duty to protect the world, yada yada yada. People like the idea of a human being becoming more than a human being...prophecies wouldn't have been such a big hit if that fact weren't true.

 

Also, in this day and age, it's commonplace to romanticize nomadic peoples and/or tribal groups. We recognize that they lead a different life; simpler, mystical and inspiring. I guess if I were a shrink, I'd say we like those kinds of cultures because they seem so much more civil..."uncomplicated" (whether that's true or not, it's something people like to imagine and read about).

 

And with the Bene Gesserit/Aes Sedai comparison, that's like the images of Druids and other mystics that we've lost track of, but continue to fantasize about.

-shrug-

Anyway, yeah...the books are the same, but it's likely more because they have such common ideas and fantasies, not because one was necessarily inspired by the other (although RJ probably read Dune in his lifetime).

[Werthead]

I think this whole story about finding Herbert's notes in a safety deposit box is highly questionable, and sounds a little neat. Until such time as they publish these notes in a book somewhere, I will withold judgement.

 

As for Herbert's writing ability, I was largely talking about Dune itself. Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse were written in a much plainer style, whilst God-Emperor was overwritten to the point of obtuseness. Overall between the two series WoT has a more enjoyable overall storyline, but the imagery in the first Dune by itself is far more powerful and striking.

[demonspawn]

If you go to www.dunenovels.com (the official site run by KJA and BH) there are photographs of the "orignal" 8" floppy discs entitled "Dune 7".

 

Now whether or not they are authentic, well that depends but it does look pretty convincing.

My opinion is that they had them all along but wrote the prequels first to gauge the publics reaction to someone else handling the dune series.

 

And yes there are a lot of similarities between the two series, the first I picked up on was the Bene Geserit (witches) - Aes Sedai (witches) and then Fremen (savages) - Aiel (savages).

Also I thought that both series tended to get a little bit weak in the middle books but picked up again in the latter stages. Dont get me wrong here I still think that WoT and Dune are easily the best series in its own field.