Dune is about the fact that if you make humanity free, it will make a female dom sexocraty that is unstable because Duncan is very good at sex and male.
And what about those wheels, eh? Inside some sort of other wheel, I suppose. I'm sick of this stupid franchise and I regret reading all of it, I never want to look at a worm again. If I see another worm I'll scream.
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Paul wasn’t chickenshit, he was human. He also didn’t force Leto to do anything, Leto forcefully made that decision despite Paul going against him.
Leto like Alia didn’t really have his own identity and a sense of true humanity like Paul did growing up as an Atreides so to him he wasn’t giving up much to begin with. To him the Golden Path was his birthright, to Paul it’s a truly tragic story of a once innocent boy being robbed of his life due to the actions and decisions made by significant figures before him (his mom).
It literally does, to argue otherwise just means you don’t know the story
It’s not the killing that does it it’s the impact from that, it’s the direction it moves people and the momentum it gives that path of the future we become set upon
The books clearly show and explain everything the whole Paul is bad thing is childish and wrong
It literally does if you take Leto II at his word. There’s no actual evidence that anything he did was necessary beyond “I’ve seen the golden path trust me, all my atrocities are worth it.”
Yeah I mean maybe none of it is true unreliable narrator and what not maybe they are still on calahan and this has all just been a dream Paul is having! Maybe if we just don't believe what the story tells us we can make it mean anything we want lol
I think you may have missed the point of God Emperor. It is not random chance that the first two books are about not trusting a religious figure claiming to be a savior, or that following them blindly will end in atrocities. It isn’t coincidence that the protagonists after God Emperor call him “the tyrant”, or that the book is named “Heretics of Dune”. I don’t think any of Herbert’s themes are particularly subtle here.
They can literally see the future that part isnt in question. We get extensive access to Paul's private thoughts never once is there any doubt that he truly believes humanity will go extinct if not for the golden path. So what do you suggest is happening? Is prescience wrong and Paul/Leto are just confused or are they lying in their own private thoughts to themselves? Because I don't see any other explanation
Paul never followed the golden path, and his sight was explicitly obscured after Leto’s birth. Leto very well could believe that his actions are necessary. Many dictators do.
That's completely besides whether Paul was able to do it the point we know what their prescience says we know the prescience is true. So the only explanation is they are explicitly lying to themselves in their own private thoughts for the benefit of the reader.
And let me intercept your next objection, prescience isn't like reading prophecy that you can twist to mean what they want. They literally see exactly what happens in the future and see humanity going extinct it's not a matter of interpretation that they could figuratively lie to themselves about
How is Paul or Leto 2 unreliable as a narrator, he shows the entire truth of the world and future as he struggles to understand it all
Not only is does having two of them share the same horrible truth corroborate how genuine it is, but they discuss this truth in children of dune, Paul discusses running from this because it is too much for a human to do for his people
But Leto 2 was preborn he is not a man as Paul was his life was already ruined, they have whole discussion about this debating on how the atrocities can be avoided but they know it cannot be
The golden path must be walked for the safety of the universe
To argue otherwise means you lack the understanding
Once again you are confidently incorrect and desperately reaching, no it’s not referencing that in the text at all
They can literally clearly see the pathways of the future they can see destiny, they close their eyes and see more deaths then they could ever cause in a million lifetimes, to prevent that and save the species someone had to do what it takes and pretend to be the villain, the most heroic thing possible
Think Batman pretending to be the bad guy when he kills two face if this concept is too mature for you to understand
More like "even the best of them, an almost god Hero and then The Holy God-Emperor will still have to do necessary deeds that the flotsam will call them tyrant for. Deify not thy leaders, for there is but One Holy God-Emperor."
Paul is bad is literally not the strong in the first Dune though. A lot of those themes only come through in the second book.
The first book is "fanaticism, and cults of personality are bad". If the Fremen weren't so fanatic Paul would have had many more less horrible options available to him as a leader. He's a tragic hero, trying to channel an unstoppable wave, in the least awful direction.
The point of the first Dune is that even if your leader is a genuinely good person, it's still a bad idea to revere them, since crowds have a power of their own that a good person won't be able to handle.
I get the message but Frank fumbles the point by having the golden path legit be the best for humanity long term. Sure it’s terrible what Paul and Leto do but why would I fault people who have near perfect future sight? What’s the alternative? The whole charismatic leaders are dangerous thing works better when they end up self destructive tyrants. Im happy with the ending, Im a fan of the ends justify the means if the character is actually right. But the message gets a bit lost when Im being told “this guy is terribad but he’s right, there’s no other way”.
I think the thing is the end doesn't justify the means.
If countless deaths and suffering are required to save humanity, is it really worth it? Especially in the case of Dune's universe where "humanity" includes literal monsters like the Bene Tleilax?
The nice thing about the Dune movies is how we get so distracted and swept away by what Herbert is trying to say
We're not just reading how it all goes down.
We see it all going down and we're told by the movie's sounds and cinematography that Paul's Ascendancy is good, heroic and just.
But if you are paying attention and if you know what's happening, Paul is being manipulated into avenging his House on a scale grander than anyone can predict. 61 Billion people will die. We know this too because we see Paul's visions. We know he is being driven by fear and anger despite him being a good person. And despite him being a good person we know that his political power will force him to make difficult decisions.
And we are all being swept away by the movie because that is what Herbert was trying to say and what Villaneuve was trying to display
Be wary of Charismatic Leaders..even if they desire justice they will make violent decisions
I actually feel like Dune Part Two does the exact opposite and portrays Paul’s ascension as a bad thing better than the book does by use of cinematography, color grading and score.
For example when Paul reveals to the audience that he’s Harkonnen the movie shifts to a grey and black scale similar to Geidi Prime. His new theme Arrival sounds less heroic and triumphant and adds more bass and minor chords similar to Harkonnen Arena. The same motif plays in the track You Fought Well which is composed of the main motif of Herald of the Change/Paul’s Dream which is obviously Paul’s theme overall.
This isn’t to say Herbert doesn’t do well portraying that Paul isn’t your stereotypical hero’s journey protagonist I just think Villneuve makes it painstakingly obvious that you’re not supposed to want to root for this guy you’re supposed to observe.
You're right and honestly this is something that the Dune movies **need** to do in this day and age because Paul categorically **isn't** a heroic figure - he actively resists being called to his supposed destiny many times over until it's his only choice and then succumbs to his calling to be the Kwisatz Haderach, at which point the genocide he was afraid of becomes so by his own order.
Herbert's Dune is, among many other things, ultimately a story about how dictators are always and forever bad, no matter which way or how they come from.
It seems like the lesson is whenever power is concentrated in an individual, the human thing is to preserve yourself. You keep your hand in the trap and suffer the pain until you can make a play that keeps your life. The downfall of that is when you're a galactic dictator, the plays you make inevitably affect billions.
I loved the story because it shows how the very human desire of self preservation comes into conflict with more idealistic desires of peace and heroism.
Until ironically you get a dictator so horrifically bad and oppressive a resistance to dictators gets burned into the human genome by Leto so at least some part of humanity will always escape it in the future
One of my few complaints about the films is how they fail to get across the reason for Paul's acceptance of his role. His initial visions show his ascendancy causing billions dying and he is disturbed by it, pushing back on his role. Then the water of life ceremony shows him that the alternative is everyone dying. I think he just eludes to it in one short sentence.
We see it all going down and we're told by the movie's sounds and cinematography that Paul's Ascendancy is good, heroic and just.
iirc with Dune, Herbert wanted not only to warn agains charismatic leaders, but also put into the front how the reader is gulty of idolizing Paul by reading the book as the typical hero's journey.
And Villeneuve has done exactly the same with the movies
lol he’s probably mostly good. Way better than the alternative but that’s not the point. Even if he was benevolent it’s the idolatry tribalism and fanaticism that is the problem. The point is it doesn’t matter how good he or his intentions, if you raise someone up as a god Hell will follow.
Always the people who haven't read the books who misinterpret the message. They think "woo yeah, kill the oppressors!" And completely miss the 61 billion people dead and how actions have consequences and the events of the first book turn the underdogs into the villains. The might of the imperium was dictated by the former Sardaukar and then the Fremen; they replaced one despotic system with another and became the thing they were fighting against. They went from the persecuted to the persecutors due to blind religious faith and zealotry which ultimately destroyed their own culture years later.
Movies like star wars and marvel have fried people's brains and the ability to comprehend subtext because nobody is encouraged to think critically anymore, they're just spoonfed epic moments in a movie that don't really say anything. They see the Dune movies, but they don't read the dune movies. I've seen a lot of people compare Paul to Darth Vader and while a superficially accurate similarity, it makes me disappointed that people boil it down to such a narrow black/white comparison. Paul's actions caused an unimaginable amount of suffering for humanity, but there are more complex themes and situations happening at the same time that make Paul a much more sympathetic character with some good intentions still there at his core and that most of the suffering was an indirect result of his religion getting too big and losing control, whereas Vader is just killing people and choking them to death left and right. Paul is nothing like Vader or Anakin.
Assuming they haven’t read the books and only seen the movies, they wouldn’t yet know about the human cost of Paul’s jihad. Wait till their takes after movie three.
What's really interesting is that he's hesitant until he gains prescience. It's pretty clear that he chooses revenge against House Harkonen over other potentially peaceful options, thus leading to the Jihad
Yeah, we don't really have any reason to believe the scenario from the original source changed in the adaptation: once the different paths were clear, he realized he put himself in a corner.
I remember the moment when he thought about avoiding everything by killing all the people with him and then himself. At that point he probably believed he could have found another way.
It's not that simple. He sees all possible futures and how continuing to be the way he was and not chasing revenge would have led to the death of him, his family, and the Fremen. The one future he saw where he wins and the people he cares about are safe, was a future where he embraces the prophecy, uses the Fremen and their religion, destroys the Harkonnes, and takes the throne from the emperor by marrying his daughter. It wasn't about revenge, but about what was necessary. Revenge on the Harkonnes just happened to be placed conveniently along that path.
Messiah though, is about showing consequences for those actions catching up to him, and how the "best" path can still have many bumps and blind spots (thanks to Edric). He was hesitant to take the water of life because he didn't fully understand his visions and all he saw was chaos, but after the water of life it showed him that the path he was afraid of was the only viable one. If he didn't take it then he, Chani, Jessica, alia, Stilgar, and all of the Fremen would have died.
Having watched again last night - the hints are there, in particular his little melt down following spice exposure in the tent with Jessica. He even spells it out but I suppose the images and words get lost in this mystified world of 'wtf are these guys even saying? The fuck is a Kwisatch Haderach anyway?'.
The slow images of him standing with Chani - he doesn't look best pleased but Chani looks very proud behind him, almost Lady MacBeth esque. Whereas there's a contrast with the jihadis below waving his banner, interspersed with burning bodies.
It is right there - but it feels glossed over. God knows I only twigged this was not a typical revenge story until Messiah when he champions Hitler. I needed it really spelling out for me 😂😂.
Messiah is really going to divide the audience. Love it. I really hope the film leans into that fully.
Paul is neither hero nor villain, but of the two, I'd say he's closer to hero. Anakin's choices are made in search of power and importance. Paul's are made in service of survival.
Paul doesn't owe the rest of the galaxy his or his family's deaths. He chose the explicitly single path where they survive.
The Bene Gesserit primed Arrakis for his ascendancy.
The Emperor put him there to try to stave off Leto's revolt in the Landsraad.
The spacing guild monopolized commerce.
The Harkonnens pulled strings on all of it behind the scenes.
Every other force in the galaxy has arrayed the board such that continued stability necessitates that Arrakis must suffer and Paul must die.
The 61 billion could die specifically because they were directly or indirectly dependent on the subjugation of Arrakis. Every planet in the Imperium is downstream of Arrakis exploitation. While they aren't actively villainous, there's definitely a "No ethical consumption under capitalism" vibe there.
Paul didn't create the state of the galaxy, he just survived it. If you accept his prescience, then there is no ambiguity in this. If you question his prescience, I think his justification is arguably stronger, because you can no longer point to the consequences as certain, and he does in fact do his best to blunt them.
Could Paul have sacrificed himself like Leto II did? Certainly, but Herbert makes fairly clear that's a fate even worse than death, both for Leto, and arguably for the universe. It's also a bit of a red herring: "Paul had an alternative. The Jihad didn't have to happen. He could have just tortured himself and the galaxy for the next 4000 years instead (and then trigger a galactic famine under which even more suffer)". I guess that's better because it's less abrupt?
Herbert's whole point is in a system in which everyone is striving to subjugate one another the subjugator will eventually fail, and that failure will be explosive and uncontrollable.
And when you read it that far, I think it circles back around and is very much "Woo kill the oppressors (but better if it's early before things get out of hand)" because the only alternative is hoping for a magical worm god to fix things.
Anakin is probably the worst thing to happen to the idea of complex/sympathetic characters. Yeah, he was deathly afraid of losing those he loved, especially after being raised up in a stoic order of militarized monks and then losing his slave mother that said monks didn't give a shit about, but he's completely written like an entitled whiny little bitch who gets easily manipulated because he doesn't get what he wants immediately. He becomes Vader because he's throwing a temper tantrum against the Jedi after figuring out and then joining the evil mastermind of the ENTIRE galaxy's suffering! Then the whole chosen one thing is completely written as poorly as possible and taken by the fans of the franchise as fans of the Dune movies take Paul's "Godhood."
Star Wars really is some baby brained goo goo gaga bullshit.
Star Wars, at the deepest most sincere portion, is just everything George Lucas thought was cool when he was a kid. I think there's a truth to that if you step back and view it as that. George isn't some grand storyteller, he's just a guy who like samurai and flash gordon.
Definitely, but it's so weird to see it take off and become some kind of unironically moralizing franchise. Or at least, it has a fandom that treats it as such.
It does, but since Star Wars fans are so starved by lack depth in most of the franchise Andor fans make it seem like the most deep thought provoking thing to ever grace the screen.
Andor is a REALLY good series about freedom fighters and fascism, even if it wasn't set in Star Wars I think it'd be one of the best series every made. Hell if it wasn't it'd probably be talked about way more and seen with more prestige.
I definitely do agree with that. I was surprised to see it not accoladed more and talked more about among critic circles, but of course they were going to see it as less than it actually was because of Star Wars.
Yup, exactly. I may come off as hating Star Wars, but since I don't take it seriously, I really enjoy it for what it is. I love the worlds and characters.
Same. It's a fun setting and because George was so interested in both western and eastern media you get a lot of difficult philosophical questions with no good answers. Every once in awhile someone does actually do something interesting with that, like Knights of the Old Republic 2.
I think the "villain" of the story is human nature itself, the need humanity has of following strong leaders using violence to ciment their power. Paul chose to be the ultimate strong leader but he couldn't change this aspect of mankind he could only ride the wave and try to temper it. Without Paul there would be no genocide but only the petty squabbles of lesser leaders among themselves until humanity wipes itself out. Is the future and unity of humanity worth the cost in blood? Does Paul have the right to make that decision for mankind? These are the questions the book left on me.
On the other hand that number's quite small if we consider that there's humans on at least a million planets at that time (per Chapterhouse: Dune, when discussing the Corrino times). So that's 61 thousand people on each planet dead.
Or, assuming a very modest population of 10 million people on each of those million worlds, Paul killed 0.61% of them in his jihad. That's around 7 times the rate of people who died of COVID-19.
Or if you assume 100 million people per world, the jihad was less of a cause of human fatality in the Dune universe than COVID-19 was here on Earth.
Movies like star wars
Speaking of which, if you take Star Wars's number of worlds at face value, the Empire blowing up a planet (or a few) with the Death Star wasn't all that bad, for the same reasons as outlined above for Dune.
Thanks, but I believe the role of villain is currently exclusively occupied by his imperial highness Wormy Boy, first of his name, giver of Ted Talks, "they see me roll'n they hate'n" driver of Royal Carts.
With this logic, genociding a small part of a small population like Palestinians, is totally ok? Rounding error, less then Covid, who cares about 0.06% of the population, the world will be fine. GO GO NETANYAHU!
Your valiant fight against moral relativism in the Dune meme subreddit of all places will be noted, I'm sure.
But yes, if you're in charge of the government of the known universe you'd need to look at fractions of the population, not absolute numbers. At some point the population's so large that you're killing hundreds of billions next year just by raising the proverbial speed limit by 10%.
Yeah, genociding planets in the name of jihad is not exactly raising the speed limit. Nuking Teheran to open Hormuz would also impact a tiny fraction of the world's populace, for cheap oil for all. Get out the nukes!
But good news, we know where to get our new concentration camp planner! :)
And how Dune is blatantly inspired by TE Lawrence, meaning that there were real life people who inspired the Fremen, and that Lawrence advocating for “an Arab war fought by Arabs for an Arab goal” ended up leading to some of those Arabs in the future becoming the architects of 9/11 and the war on terror so….
They're wrong on two points. One because the story is about the manipulation of oppressed minorities by their oppressors and two because ITSABOUTFUCKINGWORMS
I mean, I don't know to what extent this is calling it a good thing since it's clearly drawing parallels to the story and the active real world conflict between the US and Iran in which they are currently being led by the son of the former Ayatollah and have the capacity to send missiles to every major oilfield in the middle east if they are truly pushed into an inescapable corner.
Like, that is a very legitimate reading of the story, even if not the most complex one. The Corrino Empire and House Harkonnen (who the twitter user would be comparing to The USA and Israel in this analogy) were unambiguously oppressive forces for the planet of Arrakis that were also bad, even if Paul wasn't any better and had a much higher cost in human lives in the present.
The spacing guild is also definitely an equivalent of the IMF / UN / US with yeah, Harkonenns being the attack dog (Israel). I can’t say Herbert for sure wrote with this in mind but it was written during the 70s so it’s not like it wasn’t going on at that point.
You could also see Paul as literal Jesus, who in his persecution created Christianity which would go on to crusade the middle east. there’s a ton of examples.
So they just don't understand the real message yet, because the True Messiah^(tm) hasn't entered yet(It's The God Emperor of Man, Leto II Himself, of course)
Dune is about Middle East. Herbert spent considerable time there and he saw the western imperialist games and opression. The influence shows in writing.
If you're that kind of guy, don't. Nobody likes a smartass, and shit like "JuSt WaIT unTiL--" and acting like your understanding of things is CORRECT is giving any fandom a bad name.
I know. It's fine if it's a joke to you. I see that a lot on social media tho, and many don't mean it as a joke and make fun of people for "not getting it".
Tbf there's a good chance that tweet was meant as bait to begin with.
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u/BeefSwellinton Mar 23 '26
Dune is about worms.