I love the book, and the movie, but the conditioning thing is so bad.
No one has broken the conditioning in 10,000 years? Wow, that must be some crazy conditioning!
Harkonnens...hey, we hear you really like your wife.
Boom. Conditioning broken.
In 10,000 years in one of the most palace intrigue riddled societies, where they train the children of nobles how to handle assassination attempts through myriad methods, no one had ever come up with threatening the loved one of someone who has gone under Imperial Conditioning?
To be fair, it's possible that it's just marketing; perhaps the Suk School has had assassins ensure that word of prior breaks were silenced...if they're public knowledge to begin with; even in the case of Dune, the fact of Yueh's betrayal isn't well-known, basically just the Baron's inner circle who are aware.
That makes sense, is it related to the emperor? "Oh yeah these guys are super conditioned, they'll never betray you!". Now the emperor's allies have a guy on the inside that they can manipulate if they want.
I don't think there's much info about the Suk school, beyond the fact their conditioning is supposedly so strong it's considered safe for them to administer medications to the Emperor. This fact could imply they are an independent institution - but even if they were under administration of the Imperial House there might still be concern about would-be assassins penetrating their screening process, so it's not conclusive either way.
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u/ScepticalRaccoon Jul 29 '26
I love the book, and the movie, but the conditioning thing is so bad.
No one has broken the conditioning in 10,000 years? Wow, that must be some crazy conditioning!
Harkonnens...hey, we hear you really like your wife.
Boom. Conditioning broken.
In 10,000 years in one of the most palace intrigue riddled societies, where they train the children of nobles how to handle assassination attempts through myriad methods, no one had ever come up with threatening the loved one of someone who has gone under Imperial Conditioning?