The voice coming from some made teen not something trained.
Half the sisters being religious zealots when their whole thing is twisting religion for their own goals.
Their need for a computer to organize their breeding program.
Most of that is from the books. The Frank Herbert novels are only a small part of the Canon. I think the series captures the feel of the nonFrank books well.
Frank canon books and the encyclopedia are the canon. Idk if I would call Brian’s leeching canon…
Legally, the Brian Herbert material is canon, since he is responsible for his father’s estate. Psychologically, eh… I largely know what you mean.
However, I don’t have much of a problem with the specific things you mentioned.
The origins of Voice… It had to come from somewhere, and it being discussed by a teenager with freak abilities doesn’t seem that odd to me (given the wider nature of all the crazy stuff that happens within the canon Dune universe). I wish they had fleshed that our in season 1 a bit more though.
The religious aspect seems very believable to me. Any time you get a group of people who believe they have some sort of master plan or divine right together for a common cause you will see a) scisms, and b) fanaticism/zealotry.
On the use of secret and forbidden technology for teaching and planning the blood lines, that makes sense to me within the context. Frank only ever mentioned the back history of the Butlerian Jihad briefly (because it had happened such a long time ago in the context of t his novels). Given that the Prophecy show starts only a few generations after the Jihad, and that mentats still seem to be finding their feet as an order, I can see why they would still be falling back on technology. Plus (SPOILER ALERT!)… It seems like at the end of season 1 that technology gets destroyed, so I’d expect them to be using mentats more in season 2+.
