Downton Abbey, anyone?

[Vort]

P.S. I've just been thinking - its a few years since I last read it, but (if I remember rightly) in the original novel version of Dune the only homosexual character is the loathsome Baron Harkonenn - the worst villain! (And no one could ever accuse that of being normalizing!) This was of course in the mid-1960s, but I can't remember if there is any reference to his being gay in the David Lynch movie of 1984. Can anyone remember?

 

The fact is that Dune is probably the just-plain-weirdest science fiction book ever to achieve mass popularity. I'm guessing the sandworms are among the largest embarrassingly phallic symbols in popular literature.

[Guest]

I never thought of the sandworms that way, and I guess now I can't un-think of them that way.

[Vort]

I never thought of the sandworms that way, and I guess now I can't un-think of them that way.

 

In the later sequels, when Paul Atreides' son turns himself into a sandworm, it's made pretty obvious. Actually, the whole "water of life" from a drowning sandworm -- as done by the, um, Fremen -- doesn't leave a lot to the imagination.

[Guest]

Oh for crying out loud. I never read the sequels, and that's. . . okay.

[Jamie123]

I never thought of the sandworms that way, and I guess now I can't un-think of them that way.

 

Ditto. I guess I'm not that phallically minded!  

 

A thread starts with Downton Abbey....and now it's about the symbolism of sand worms! Interesting :)