The Complete History of the Fremen | Dune Explained
The Understory
44,332 views
Nobody ever conquered the Fremen. There is no battle you can point to, no surrender, no last stand. And yet by the end of Frank Herbert's six novels they are gone, reduced to museum staff selling plastic knives to strangers in the dark.
This is the complete history of the Fremen as Frank Herbert actually wrote it. Where they came from, what was done to them along the way, what every faction wanted out of them, and what was left of them five thousand years later on a world they never saw.
We cover the Zensunni schism and the migration worlds, the mourning ceremony for the slave raids, Jessica's Water of Life vision, the water accounting system and the thirty-three liters that were once a man named Jamis, the hidden hoards under the sietches, Pardot Kynes and the five-hundred-year timeline, the Missionaria Protectiva, the Jihad, the water-soft generation in Children of Dune, the Museum Fremen of God Emperor, the burning of Rakis, and one pair of hands on a world called Chapterhouse.
Every claim here is sourced to Frank Herbert's original six novels. No Brian Herbert or Kevin J. Anderson expanded universe material.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 A plastic crysknife
02:42 Nobody conquered the Fremen
02:51 The name: Fremen, Misr, the free tribes
04:06 The Zensunni schism, 1381 B.G.
04:46 Poritrin, the soft planet
05:33 Bela Tegeuse and the mourning ceremony
06:43 Rossak and Harmonthep
07:33 Jessica's Water of Life vision
08:56 Water as an accounting system
10:49 The hoard under the sietch
12:51 Terraforming a planet with your family
13:13 Appendix I: Pardot Kynes and Uliet
15:15 Patience learned from men with whips
15:58 The Missionaria Protectiva got there first
17:33 Eighty years of Harkonnens, then the Jihad
19:01 Children of Dune: Stilgar and the friendly desert
20:19 The blind Fremen and the water-soft times
21:41 The river where the Shield Wall used to be
23:03 God Emperor: the Museum Fremen
23:45 False Sietch
24:47 Back to the plastic knife
25:13 Heretics: Rakis, Sheeana, Shaitan
26:33 Wormriding as forbidden history
27:10 The burning of Rakis
28:11 Chapterhouse: hands against the glare
29:16 Every plan worked
30:31 They didn't lose the desert. They spent it.
20 Comments
I've always thought that it's a great tragedy that the Fremen actually experienced their dream coming true (through Paul becoming Emperor and controlling the necessary resources) and it ended up destroying them. There's such a huge difference in skill and dignity between the wild Fremen of Paul's time and the museum Fremen of Leto II. I often wonder if Pardek Kynes' plan for changing Arrakis would have been kinder to/better for the Fremen because they could have adjusted their culture in keeping with the slower planetary changes 🤔
And, yeah... lotta Old Testament in Dune. It's pretty explicit in God Emperor that Harum, the ancestor with whom Leto II merges in his 'super spice agony' in Children, was an early Pharoah.
--Shannon
"We are the people of Misr" [Misr means Egypt (The people of Egypt) - The people of people makes no sense].
The Fremen Reverend Mother says "Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba." This means Nilotic, The Nile (of the Arab world).
The dialect they use: Sabah al Kuhar (comes from Sabah al khair, used specifically in Egypt and the Levant).
The nickname Batigh which was used in Children of Dune by a Fremen means Watermelon in Egyptian Arabic and even goes back to Ancient Egypt.
You can also add The God Emperor's choice of a pharaonic model as evidence too.
The Complete History of the Fremen | Dune Explained
The Understory
44,332 views
Nobody ever conquered the Fremen. There is no battle you can point to, no surrender, no last stand. And yet by the end of Frank Herbert's six novels they are gone, reduced to museum staff selling plastic knives to strangers in the dark.
This is the complete history of the Fremen as Frank Herbert actually wrote it. Where they came from, what was done to them along the way, what every faction wanted out of them, and what was left of them five thousand years later on a world they never saw.
We cover the Zensunni schism and the migration worlds, the mourning ceremony for the slave raids, Jessica's Water of Life vision, the water accounting system and the thirty-three liters that were once a man named Jamis, the hidden hoards under the sietches, Pardot Kynes and the five-hundred-year timeline, the Missionaria Protectiva, the Jihad, the water-soft generation in Children of Dune, the Museum Fremen of God Emperor, the burning of Rakis, and one pair of hands on a world called Chapterhouse.
Every claim here is sourced to Frank Herbert's original six novels. No Brian Herbert or Kevin J. Anderson expanded universe material.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 A plastic crysknife
02:42 Nobody conquered the Fremen
02:51 The name: Fremen, Misr, the free tribes
04:06 The Zensunni schism, 1381 B.G.
04:46 Poritrin, the soft planet
05:33 Bela Tegeuse and the mourning ceremony
06:43 Rossak and Harmonthep
07:33 Jessica's Water of Life vision
08:56 Water as an accounting system
10:49 The hoard under the sietch
12:51 Terraforming a planet with your family
13:13 Appendix I: Pardot Kynes and Uliet
15:15 Patience learned from men with whips
15:58 The Missionaria Protectiva got there first
17:33 Eighty years of Harkonnens, then the Jihad
19:01 Children of Dune: Stilgar and the friendly desert
20:19 The blind Fremen and the water-soft times
21:41 The river where the Shield Wall used to be
23:03 God Emperor: the Museum Fremen
23:45 False Sietch
24:47 Back to the plastic knife
25:13 Heretics: Rakis, Sheeana, Shaitan
26:33 Wormriding as forbidden history
27:10 The burning of Rakis
28:11 Chapterhouse: hands against the glare
29:16 Every plan worked
30:31 They didn't lose the desert. They spent it.