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Stuck in Prequel Quicksand
Dune: Prophecy’s derivativeness is both its greatest flaw and its most defining characteristic.
The Bene Gesserit become essential to the universe in the shadow of that rebellion, but rather than depict how thoroughly this revolution changed reality for the remaining humans, Dune: Prophecy settles for a more Game of Thrones-lite approach, where all disputes are really about surface-level politics (with some supernatural sandworm-related stuff as window dressing) and every so often there’s a sex scene to spice things up. Her endgame motivations are shadowy and unclear in the series’s first four episodes, but each installment alludes to her reasons for undermining Emperor Corrino (Mark Strong, mostly just looking befuddled) through conversations with her biological sister Tula (Olivia Williams), also a Reverend Mother who is more directly involved in teaching the Bene Gesserit acolytes than Valya — and more soft-hearted, too. When she finds her father dining with Desmond and snottily complains, “So we’re having breakfast with killers now?”, as if her family’s rule over the Imperium hasn’t resulted in the deaths of countless people, it’s impossible to tell whether Ynez is supposed to look like someone daring to speak truth to power or a delusional hypocrite.
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