Criticism #11: Let's never speak of this again!

There's an episode of the Simpsons where we find that Principal Skinner is not in fact Seymour Skinner. He is a slacker who took over Skinner's identity after meeting him in Vietnam and thinking he died. At the end of the episode everyone decides that they like fake Skinner better and vow to "forget this ever happened." The Expanded Dune novels gave me the suspicion that this vow is part of a daily affirmation of House Atreides.

Numerous important life altering and person defining things happen in the Expanded Dune that are, of course, never mentioned in Canon Dune. Reading the books back to back, like I assume they are meant to be read, leads to a shocking discontinuity.

For example: Who knew that...

Leto had a previous son that died at a young age?

Was engaged to a woman that was assassinated when Paul was twelve?

And had a concubine before Jessica that killed herself?

These things wouldn't seem so bizarrely out of place, after all how often would they come up in conversation, except that the authors try to mention them as much as possible in the books that take place between the Canon Dune novels. So reading them through results in something like this:

House Atreides: Stuff

House Harkonnen: Stuff

House Corrino: Stuff

Dune: Stuff goes unmentioned

Paul of Dune: Talk about the stuff again!

Dune Messiah: Shh!! Forget about the stuff!

Winds of Dune: ...aaand now we can talk about it again.

Seriously, what the hell people?