"Emerald" <elfmailwithoutspam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message news:
> In article
> "Tony" <tony@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> How impressed are we supposed to be with Stilgar?
>>
>> In Dune Messiah, one paragraph suggests that he is a wise and shrewd
>> individual:
>>
>> "As I love you both, I must speak," Stilgar said, a profound dignity in
>> his
>> tone. "I did not become a chieftain among the Fremen by being blind to
>> what
>> moves men and women together. One needs no mysterious powers for
this."
>>
>> However, in another paragraph he comes across as unimpressive:
>>
>> "Alia studied Stilgar, sensing the savage sideshow of ideas taking
place
>> in
>> his mind. He hung on a rack of enchantment. Magic! Magic! To
glimpse
>> the
>> future was to steal terrifying fire from a sacred flame."
>
> My take on this, Tony, is that Stilgar is ****trayed a hugely impressive
> "normal" person, in that he seems a couple of standard deviations above
> the mean in intelligence, insightfulness, fairness, leader****p skills,
> maybe physical prowess--normal attributes. The second paragraph you
> cite contrasts him with Alia, a person whose "supernormal" attributes
> separate her from those who have not reaped the changes produced by
> surviving the spice trance. I think that showing Stilgar as a primative
> in comparison to Alia, in respect to their aptitudes and attitudes
> regarding prescience, is a clever way of driving home this qualitative
> difference. Consequently, it speaks to me more of Alia than of Stilgar.
>
You raise some interesting points. But let me ask you a question that
might
help clarify some issues. Do you think Stilgar could have beat Paul if he
choose to fight him soon after Paul defeated Jamis?
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