On worms, Dune, spice and wriggling
A love letter to worms // A review of the best and worst Dunes
The answer to the question "Would you still love your girlfriend if she was a worm?" is not one that can be stated as a clear yes or no. If anything, the question deserves the follow up, "What kind of worm?" because the worm identity (Phylum: annelida) encompasses both earthworms, who are literal superheroes of planetary ecosystems, and ringworms, who God's specialized little torture instruments to experience pain and bleeding discharge. Leeches are somewhere in the middle.
So if I loved someone because I could see them embodying the magnificent wonders of an earthworm, I would probably love them regardless. But if they became a parasite of the worst order, I would have to reconsider, not merely for my own safety, but for besmirching the honorable name of worm-kind. It bears mentioning that the word “worm” derives from (Old Germanic) wyrm, which was used as a descriptor for many mythological serpents, dragons and anything that could have been long, limbless, wriggly and possibly dangerous. Wyrms were symbols of renewal and completion, the complete circle of life meets death meets life again. Kind of like Ouroubouros, the infinite wyrm that eats itself.
Worm mythology has also been brought to the mainstream by Denis Villeneuve in his adaptation of the Dune series by Frank Herbert in 2021. The massive sandworms of Dune are the source of the galactic fuel that the empire uses (“spice”), which makes Dune a very strategic planet to control. Obviously, the plot is loosely based on the Middle Eastern Oil hegemony, and the stories borrow heavily from representations of Islamic culture, including a futuristic Jihad. However, a real turning point in this colonization story is that the governing authorities (who are external to Dune) learn from the symbiotic relationship that the locals have with the sandworms, and instead of exploiting the creatures and the planet, learn to work with it.
[Source: some genius on Dune Twitter]
Before I continue, let me also present my final and authoritative ranking of the Dune series from best to worst:
Dune 5: Heretics of Dune (1984)
Dune 1: Dune (1965)
Dune 3: Children of Dune (1976)
Dune 2: Dune Messiah (1965)
Dune 4: God Emperor of Dune (1981)
I am not ranking Dune 6 here as the data shows odd-numbered Dunes tend to skew better than even-numbered ones, and also because Frank Herbert died half-way through writing Dune 6, so it had to be finished by his son and another writer-friend of the son. This isn’t even including the approximately 27 other novels that contextualize these in a broader story arc. I did not have time to read them all.
We are going to discuss my least favorite (Dune 4) and my most favorite (Dune 5). To the best of my ability, there are no spoilers, but also Dune 4 is a waste of your time so I included the spoiler in a footnote.1
Dune 4: God Emperor of Dune (1981)
Dune 4 is what would happen if the Twilight series happened in this fictional universe. Leto Atreides is a tyrannical God Emperor who has been ruling for 400 yrs? 200yrs? a super long time. He achieves this scale of power by using his telepathy skills (some flavor of genetic alteration, spirituality and magic) to merge his human self with a sandworm, essentially becoming a demigod.
But this lonely little worm boy/man/god with all of his power is tired of wriggling around his empty bed, and wishes he had someone in his life to secretly send roses to and like, idk, feed him a lettuce leaf or something. He is lonely and bored as most authoritarian entities are, I guess?
Then, an overwhelmingly normal human girl catches his eye. She is a member of the custodian staff who maintain the castle, sweep floors or whatever it means to be a servant to a Worm Emperor. Anyway, this ruthless powerful demigod of a worm-man becomes a weak teenage boy-noodle with a crush on literally an anonymous nobody. Now, Leto became half-worm mutant when he was in his teens and it's clear that whatever he knows of human courtship has been heavily influenced since that time. He is sending her roses, and spending a lot of time posturing about, sighing about and saying existential nonsense that only a 16-yr-old could find "deep".
[Paperback cover of Dune 4 before/after. Sources: Berkeley Books, some genius on Twitter]
Would I still love my ultimate worm god boyfriend who is possibly controlling thousands of planets through his main economy of spice and conducting a religious Jihad in the name of his messianic father? Probably not.
The only thing that saves this novel is that the political enemies of the Worm Emperor try to buy the girl's favor so that someone else can govern after 200+ years.
Dune 5: Heretics of Dune (1984)
Dune 5 is my favorite because no worms were harmed in the making of this novel. Also, it merges my two favorite forms of opera: soap opera AND space opera. Spice spice, baby.
Dune 5 is also a refreshing palate cleanser of the series (you can read it independently of the series) because all of its events are happening a few centuries after Dune 4. Nothing much happened in Dune 4 besides Worm Boy catching feelings (see footnote for spoiler). The end of his reign causes the massive empire to splinter, and several civil wars and technological advancements later, there are new faction states trying to lay claim to new forms of power.
Dune 5 has insane plot twists and incredible political intrigue, and most importantly, it has sex warriors. They're a group of telepathic women who can sense their opponents sexual needs and use that to manipulate important political and strategic levers. These women are called the Honored Madres (a foil to the Bene-Gesserit and their telepathic manipulation). What they lack in strategy and planning, they more than compensate with femme-fatale sex appeal and havoc. In short:
Other significant plot developments occur but these Madres very quickly become the vigilante scourge of the galaxy, and their story is continued in Dune 6.
Dune 5 is also accidentally funny. For example, the Bene-Gesserit have been using sexual manipulation across the entire galaxy to facilitate political marriages and spawn heirs that serve their cross-generational, cross-empire goals. Therefore, the Bene-Gesserit are also capable of using their sexuality as a weapon, even as they cry hypocrisy that the Madres are using it to cause violence in the galaxy.
Anyway, we find out that the main target of one of these sexually-manipulative Bene-Gesserit agents is a 16 year old boy, and she's not succeeding. She's frustrated, angry and sexually frustrated because a 16 year old boy isn't liking her back. AND THE PLOT TWIST is was not that he was queer or uninterested, but rather that an Honored Madre got to him before she did. Classic.
Like Ouroborous, we started with worms and we should end with worms, so I would like to present a stupid little nursery rhyme that I was…taught? I have no idea WHY I was taught this or why I remember it so well after these many years, but I wish to close with this poetic masterpiece:
Nobody loves me, nobody cares.
I'm going to the garden to eat some worms.
Big, fat, jiggly worms,
Thin, round, wriggly worms,
I'm going to the garden to eat some worms.
I would also be remiss if I did not call out Heidi Klum’s Halloween costume.
Editor’s note: To the best of my knowledge, I have not and continue to not intentionally consume worms.
Dune 4 ends in the most corny way possible. Apparently, the God Emperor can be dissolved by water? (How did his political enemies not know this?) The girl is standing on the other side of a rickety bridge constructed over a river. She asks her God Emperor Boyfriend to join her there haha because she’s so flirty. Worm/Boy/God tries to get on the bridge, which collapses. Aaaaa. He dissolves. His empire dissolves shortly after.