A question about an obscure line in the movie 'Dune'

Cafe Society
1

The recent discussion of the 1984 sci-fi masterpiece ‘Dune’ has made me think of a totally unimportant line from the movie that has always puzzled me, though not to the extent that I’ve lost any sleep over it, you understand.

Anyway: immediately after evading the flying-syringe thing (hunter?) in his room on Arrakis, Paul (Kyle Maclachlan) meets the housekeeper (Linda Hunt). She says the following:

“I am the Shadout Mapes, the housekeeper. I must cleanse the way between us.”

The question: when she says ‘cleanse the way between us’, does she mean that she must establish a rapport with Paul, or is she saying she needs to mop the floor?

2

I hate it when they do this kind of thing in films. The line doesn’t make any sense, in the books it’s addressed to Lady Jessica, not Paul.

3

Can I hijack this with an equally obscure question from the book?

When Paul and his Ma are first rescued by the Fremen, one of the Fremen notes that they are carrying (IIRC) 4 litres of water and the leader comments that this is unimaginable wealth. Then, almost in the next paragraph, Paul kills a Fremen challenger and is told that the winners of such challenges get to keep all of the loser’s water. He is also informed that Fremen men challenge one another regularly for leadership, for wives etc.
But the human body contain ~40 litres of water. So there should be a fairly large number of Fremen men with far more “wealth” than the paltry few litres that they were carrying.

Was this ever explained, or did I miss something?

4

And IIRC she was referring to cleansing the way between the Fremen as a people and Jessica, rather than between two individuals. Made much more sense that way.

5

damn, cat ate my response …

Well she is the maid =)

The fremen have a lot of rituals about all sorts of things, and she is sort of ritually sorting out their relationships to make sure that they are in a specific relationship. If there is a ritual uncleanliness, it needs to be dealt with.

6

IIRC, the water of their body doesn’t belong to them but to the tribe. On death, it is re-claimed.

7

As to the quote, I took that to mean (in the movie, which is an entirely different context than the novel) that she now owed him a life-debt, since the hunter-seeker would have killed her if Paul hadn’t caught it.

As to the water thing, the water from the body of a sietch member belongs to the sietch, except for the estimated water that the victor expended in the fight (since the Fremen duel without the stillsuits, they lose more water in a duel than normal, and the water-rings are compensation for that loss).

8

As I remember it, Paul was given water rings for around 33 liters (plus some drachms), so it sounds like he got Jamis’ whole amount, not just an estimate of sweat losses during the fight. But the water that’s being held for the irrigation of Arrakis isn’t usable by the tribe - remember when they entered the catchbasin, Stilgar said a Fremen dying of thirst wouldn’t touch that water?

Stilgar was upset/shocked because 4 liters is an unimaginable amount of water to just carry around the desert. Plus there were Fremen in the group (remember, they were far from the sietch) who had fallen below their minimum required water, and would be in bad trouble by nightfall, and thought Paul & Jessica were heartlessly withholding it from them.

9

My take has always been that Lynch was like, “Hoot! What a ridiculous line!” And included it just to add to the bewilderingness of the whole situation. It establishes Hunt’s character as a source of “huh?” which is very important element in the overall film experience.

10

hammos1 said:

Italics added for emphasis. You have answered your own question. She walked into the room, drew the attention of the hunter seeker, and it was going to strike and kill her, but Paul caught it. Thus, she owed him a life debt.

If I recall correctly, Mapes hadn’t exactly been cordial to the Atreides up to this point, so “cleansing the way” was a poetic/metaphoric/religious way of saying making apologies and making peace, resolving the blood debt.

11

In the novel, her purpose for even being in the new Atreides household was to test Jessica and Paul for the Fremen. “Shadout” is an honorific title, and Jessica recognized its significance (it means “well-dipper”) and basically brought Mapes over to their cause (the Fremen at that point were pretty much neutral in the Atreides/Harkonnen feud), which enabled she and Paul to escape when the attack actually came.

Jessica had impressed Mapes enough at their first meeting that Mapes gave her a crysknife, which was close to unthinkable. Outsiders not only were not GIVEN crysknives, they were not even supposed to be allowed to see one and live.

12

But in the book, the whole Jessica/Mapes started because of the Messiah legend that the Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva had planted with the Fremen. Mapes was impressed by Jessica - but Jessica was just reciting the lines she memorized back in “How to Win Friends and Influence Primitive People” class.

13

Well, like Paul said, the whole point to the Bene Gesserit was politics. They Missionaria Protectiva planted the legend there for situations like that. It allowed Jessica to get a foothold with the Fremen right from the start. Mapes had already accepted Jessica and had given her the crysknife when she had her meeting with Paul. So, I don’t think that had anything to do with what she said.
As for the cleansing of the way with Paul, I always assumed it was because he saved her life so she needed to pay him back. I seem to recall her saying something about not liking having the water debt. So, she told him about the traitor to pay back the debt (or cleanse the way). She didn’t intend to go there to tell him about the traitor. She went there to get him to send him to his father.

And, the water…Jessica and Paul were too new to the desert life to realize the importance of the 4 liters they carried. To them, it was just water. To the others, it was life. Stilgar realized they didn’t understand the importance yet. They readily agreed to give it for the good of the company and they were to be paid back.

When the Fremen fighters fight without their stillsuits, they lose a lot of of the bodies water. These are people who lose less than a thimblefull of water a day, despite living in a desert. I lost more than that this afternoon, in my own house, just cutting vegetables. So, in the hot desert, without a stillsuit, and while fighting, they’re sure to lose way too much of the water. So, the victor gets the water from the loser to make up for what he/she lost during the fight. It makes sense. For us, not having such strict water laws, it may seem like a lot. To them, it was a very big deal.

Oh and Blake: Paul and Jessica may have had 40+ liters of water in their body but the Fremen certainly didn’t. More than once, the book mentioned the Atreides being “water-fat”. The fremen were withered and leathery looking, because they didn’t have as much water in their bodies. So to them, yeah 4 liters is a lot. To me, 4 liters is nothing. I probably drink over a gallon of water a day. No Fremen would ever do that.

14

Page 68

"Before I do your bidding, manling, " Mapes said, "I must cleanse the way between us. You’ve put a water burden on me that I"m not sure I care to support. But we Fremen pay our debts - be they black debts or white debts. And it’s known to us that you’ve a traitor in your midst.
So, he saved her (water). Now she owes him a water debt. So, she tells him about the traitor. Now the way is clear and she can go on with her life without worrying about his water.

15

Page 299:

Jamis speaking…

“The ones who carried their pack say there’s literjons of water in it. Literjons!”

skip a bit to the conversation between Stilgar and Jessica…

S: “Is this true?” Is there water in your pack?"

j: “Yes”

s: “Literjons of it?”

j: “Two literjons.” (not 4)

s: “What was intended with this wealth?”

j: Wealth? she thought.

skip a bit more…

s: “Did you know there’re those among us who’ve lost from their catch -pockets by accient and will be in sore trouble before we reach Tabr this night?”

j: “How could I know?” Jessica shook her head. “If they’re in need, give them water from our pack.”
skip a bit til the funeral…

page 300-301

“Combat water belongs to the winner,” Chani said. “It’s because you have to fight in the open without stillsuits. The winner has to get his water back that he loses while fighting.”

“I don’t want his water,” Paul muttered…

“It’s…water,” Chani said.

So, even now, Paul still doesn’t fully understand the differences in water importance between him and his mother and the Fremen. He has to be told to take it by Jessica.

Raise hands, all those who think I need to get a life? :smack:

16

I feel the need to be even more geeky here.
The cleansing of the way quote wasn’t unimportant.

To Paul, the hunter-seeker wanted him. It went for her because she moved. He used the opportunity to catch it, thereby saving both of their lives. To him, the matter was over. Mapes didn’t seem particularly bothered by how close she had just come to dying. Fremen are not afraid of dying. But, she was bothered by the fact that he had saved her life, putting the debt on her.

That comment in the book shows very early on that the Fremen are honorable. She was determined to pay back the life (water) debt. She also makes sure he knows that they pay back ALL debts. This was his first encounter with a Fremen and he learns very early on that it’s good to be on their good side, and BAD to be on their bad side.

Up to that point, all references to water had been the discussions between the Atreides and their people. They talked about how important it was on Arrakis but they always said it wouldn’t be a problem for the Atreides.

I think that exchange helped to make the water problem on Arrakis more real to Paul.

Water was important enough to her that she was willing to give up a valuable piece of information (not that the knowledge did them any good in the end). Where people in our world would have tried to sell that information for money, she did it to get rid of the water burden.

Additionally, thanks to the Missionaria Protectiva planting their propaganda, Mapes is already associating Jessica and Paul with their ledgends and knows perfectly well that Paul could be the Kwisatz Haderach, which means that he and his water could very well be more important than anyone knows. It’s bad enough having a water debt on your head. But, when it’s the water of someone your whole race has been waiting for for thousands of years, it could be an unbearable burden.

It still takes Paul a while to really understand the importance of water, shown when he initially refuses Jamis’ water. You’d think that mere minutes after this exchange, walking into the wet-planet conservatory would have had more of an impact on him. But, it helped to plant the seed.

For Jessica, she and Mapes had the discussion about the cry of the water sellers and the wasting of the body’s water when Jessica cut Mapes with the crysknife. She even noted the ultrafast coagulation of the blood - something in the Fremen evolution to help from water loss due to bleeding.

So, they both had a water talk with Mapes, the first Fremen they both meet.

It also helps for the reader. Soon after this exchange, Paul and Jessica are trapped out in the desert. The transition from the talk about the water debt immediately to the conservatory shows the reader, in very stark contrast, that there is a huge difference between what Paul and Jessica are used to, and what they have to look forward to. Paul and Jessica are both interested by the conservatory but their reactions are more, oh - cool, plants. A Fremen probably would have gone into a holy frenzy.

17

I was mis-remembering it, getting confused with her testing of Jessica and the gift of the crysknife.