Considering how often people get poisoned in the Dune universe, (they have different names for poison by food or by drink, everyone important carries a personal poison snooper with them) I suspect the Reverend Mother had an escape plan that would have neatly placed blame on the Harkonnens. They probably had a low-level spy or two anyway in the Atreides household (besides Yueh), so she could have neatly used the Voice to through suspicion on them.
And based on the lack of reaction to the hunter-seeker that nearly killed Paul on Arrakis, I don’t think any of the other noble houses would have batted an eye if Paul died on Caladan. Sure, Leto was personally upset by it, but it was just politics as usual in the wider scope of things - assassinating the heir of a rival house you are feuding with is well within the rules of the game.
I thought Brian said he found notes on what happens after Chapterhouse, for a potential book 7, not notes that the prequels were based on. If that’s the case, the prequels and sidequels and pre-pre-prequels were all fanfiction like I said.
And you can say “accessible”, I say “like you sat down at a restaurant in the 7th Arrondissement of Paris where you once had a tasting menu of Pate en croute, crayfish risotto, roasted scallops with orange braised endive, free range pigeon in a puff pastry crust, and regional cheeses, but this time they give you a 3 day old McDonald’s happy meal with flat soda, and the toy is missing.” Both the style and quality of writing are utterly different and inferior when compared to the original.
Again, what Brian -said- was that the prequels/legends novels were based on notes and outlines, left behind by his father as reported at the time of the prequel writing. That the sequels were based on an incomplete manuscript he found much later, but had mentioned seeing his father working on long before he began any of the additional writing. A quote from an archived blog by Anderson:
Frank Herbert wrote a detailed outline for “Dune 7” and he left extensive “Dune 7 notes,” as well as stored boxes of his descriptions, epigraphs, chapters, character backgrounds, historical notes – over a thousand pages worth.
These were books that Frank Herbert intended to write. He actually began work on Dune 7 in 1984, but he died before he could complete the project.
I repeat my earlier point though, it’s not like they’ve shared (to the best of my knowledge) all of this with anyone ELSE, so it could be, as stated made up of whole cloth, or greatly exaggerated. Similar to the claim made in the same blog:
Frank Herbert spent a great deal of time advising his son Brian on how to be a writer, helping him to find a publisher for his novels, offering critiques on his manuscripts. The last book Frank Herbert wrote was a collaboration with Brian, MAN OF TWO WORLDS.
Before he died, Frank Herbert asked Brian to write more DUNE novels with him, particularly to flesh out the Butlerian Jihad story.
So, IF you take Anderson’s posts to be honest, then it is a literal handing down of the torch. Not fan fiction, but a quite literal inheritance. Granted the sheer amount of written material published since though, even in that case, there’s a metric ton of the two new authors work that builds upon the bones that Herbert Pere created, so it’s absolutely fine to judge them as inferior works (I do, and I -like- the prequel/legends novels, not so much the concurrent / sequel works as I mentioned upthread).
And while it tries to address (some of which I’ve mentioned in other Dune related threads) some of the contradictions in the OG books, it opens up TONS of addtional ones as well as making things (IMHO again) far too neatly tied up between the prequels, OG and the conclusion in many ways.
Okay, enough on that side. Barring the owner providing and authenticating the claimed source materials, it’s unprovable. So I had no problems going back and supporting my viewpoint on the OP with just the OG materials.
As for the metaphor of accessible, I agree in part, but feel like you’re taking it to excess. It’s like offering your delicious arrangement from a quality French restaurant, and, well, not McDonald’s, but I’d probably rate Brian and Anderson’s work as Applebee’s / Chili’s level level: workmanlike, inoffensive, largely unoriginal. BUT - if I went to the “average” mid-West American and offered them both meals, they’d likely prefer the Applebees!
I -love- the original works, I do, but have you tried to share them with modern/younger readers? A few will get it, and love it. And a lot will go “who is x? Why do we care? What the hell is going on? Is anything going to happen eventually?” It’s dense, multilayered, with multiple points of view, and that’s just DUNE. Messiah and Children of Dune are in many ways even LESS relateable with even more internal gazing. For newer readers who I manage to get involved in Dune, I often tell them to skip Messiah / Children and go straight to God Emperor, then Heretics and Chapterhouse.
Okay, while not a complete digression, back to the OP. I’m glad @MrDibble was here, they beat me to about 90% of what I would have said regarding the Duke being blamed for trusting Jessica and the BG in the first place, as well as the Spacing Guild having substantially more “upfront” power. After all, if the Guild doesn’t move the spice (along with everything else not produced in system), almost everyone in the Landsraad (most of which are spice addicts) DIES. Their economies die. Anything their systems do not self-support on is impossible to replace.
Heck, the reason why Paul is successful in his coup is not so much the capitulation of the Emperor, but that the Navigators can see that Paul isn’t BLUFFING about his ability (and most probable willingness) to destroy the spice for all time. Killing the Navigators (100% of which are addicts) once their reserves are gone - in the sense of the OP, he is holding the gom jabbar to their necks, and they’re willing to cut off transportation to other armies (and transport Paul’s) to stay alive and maintain a portion of their power in the New Empire.