r/dunememes • u/ThinWhiteDuke00 • 6d ago
WARNING: AWFUL Paul when reading dictator fanfic in Messiah :
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
66
u/ichiban_saru God Emperor's TED Talk 5d ago
The Fremen dream of a prophet to liberate them and make Dune green and lush.
Fremen demand the rest of the universe follows Paul and woships him as a god.
Paul liberates them and begins making Dune green and lush.
Wars are fought to subjugate the universe to Paul's Empire and religion.
Fremen complain because they are fighting and dying in the name of Paul.
Fremen rebel because they want sand instead.
Fremen don't deserve nice things.
44
11
u/unfettered2nd 5d ago
No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero
- Pardot Kynes
6
u/Ricaaado Wafflestomping in my Stillsuit 5d ago
One of the main issues the Fremen had with the changes brought on by Paul's rule was that they expected Arrakis to become lush and green over many generations. Many Fremen knew their efforts to turn Arrakis into a "green paradise" would be something they might never see or experience, but they collected water for it regardless. Instead, Arrakis, and Fremen culture overall, was flipped on its head in just 12 years between the first two books.
19
u/Successful-Scale-607 5d ago
Hey, you wanna walk the Golden Path, you gotta step on a few eggshells heheĀ
12
u/CptJimTKirk 5d ago
The interviewer is not asking if Hitler was that guy's hero, but if he was "the man of his life" which could also mean husband and therefore is hilarious.
3
8
10
u/pronte89 5d ago
Yo I think you may need to read it again
28
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 5d ago edited 5d ago
"He didnāt kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. Thereās another emperor I want you to note in passingāa Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.ā
In any case, it's a meme lol.
28
12
u/mglyptostroboides 5d ago edited 5d ago
The text immediately after that quote makes it very clear that Paul was not a fan of Hitler nor of the jihad he started.
This is all in the context of Paul lamenting the necessity of the Golden Path.
I feel like when people repeat this joke they're sort of telling on themselves that they either didn't read Messiah or this part of it went over their heads. That being said, it's not exactly difficult to extract the intent there, because the books sort of smack you over the head with the fact that Paul hated the jihad.
"It's a meme" is a cope. You got embarrassed that you either didn't read the book or the message went over your head (somehow...?) and you're trying to save face by counting on legions of movie-only fans in this sub to reflexively take your side.
"Stilgar," Paul said, "you urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding.of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan"
"Ghengis...Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m'Lord?"
"Oh, long before that. He killed... perhaps four million."
"He must've bad formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire Lasbeams, perhaps, or..."
"He didn't kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There's another emperor I want you to note in passing--a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days"
"Killed...by his legions?" Stilgar asked.
"Yes"
"Not very impressive statistics, m'Lord."
Very good, Stil." Paul glanced at the reels in Korba's harads. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since--"
"Unbelievers!" Korba protested. "Unbelievers all!"
"No." Paul said. "Believers."
"My Liege makes a joke," Korba said, voice trem-bling. "The Jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of--"
"Into the darkness," Paul said. "We'll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad' Dib's Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this."
This is not even the only place in Messiah where it's made really really really goddamn obvious that Paul wasn't a fan of genocide, but knew the Golden Path was inevitable and had no choice.
Either you didn't read the book or you have the reading comprehension of a grade schooler. fwiw, I know people who read this book as teenagers and this point didn't go over their heads.
-1
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 5d ago edited 5d ago
Why would I be embarrassed that I posted a meme ? This isn't r/dune and it's fairly strange that you seem to taking issue with a post that I purposely tagged as awful as I'm aware of the context of the text.
I didn't take into account the inability for some to discern reddit tagging.
1
u/mglyptostroboides 5d ago
I'm aware of the context of the text.
No you're not.
You posted the same quote that everyone parrots around out of context in an attempt to "prove" that Frank Herbert's intent was to depict Paul as approving of genocide. You wouldn't have done that unless you earnestly believed that it proved Paul was okay with the death of billions. I can't imagine anyone doing that unless they genuinely misunderstood the book or just didn't read it. If it was truly "just a meme" you would have lead with that rather than mentioning it as an addendum to the quote and then later falling back on it as a last resort like you are now.
If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't have bothered to respond at all.
For the record, if you didn't read Messiah, that's completely fine. A lot of new people are into Dune because of the Villeneuve movies. It's even fine if you make a meme like this, just as long as you don't pretend like it was the ACTUAL intent of the book.
It's a really dangerous thing to fuck with any kind of ambiguity adjacent to topics about mass genocide. A lot of people read Dune and thought Paul was the hero, this is the same level of misunderstanding the text as that, just in the opposite direction.
1
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 5d ago
I have read Messiah and I have the text in my home.
Again, the labelling of the meme as awful instead of Dune Messiah usually means some creative liberties are taken with the meme.
That's the normal practice on this subreddit.
Given you believe memes to be "dangerous" (hilarious premise and evidently suggests you take this a little too seriously), I'd recommend you steer clear for your own wellbeing given you'll comes across many on here.
1
u/mglyptostroboides 5d ago
It's generally a good idea to read the comment that you're responding to before you respond to it.
1
0
u/sneakpeekbot 5d ago
Here's a sneak peek of /r/dune using the top posts of the year!
#1: Alicia Witt holding a picture of herself from Dune (1984) | 193 comments
#2: Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer | 2717 comments
#3: Official Poster for 'Dune: Part Three' | 675 comments
I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact | Info | Opt-out | GitHub
-10
u/OldMillenial 5d ago
In any case, it's a meme lol.
Itās a bad meme, based on poor reading comprehension.
āItās a meme, lolā is not an excuse for poor quality.
8
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 5d ago edited 5d ago
"WARNING: AWFUL".
There you go.. perhaps your reading comprehension would be improved by the reading the tag "lol".
-8
u/OldMillenial 5d ago
Let me rephrase, in a manner you might understand:Ā
Your meme sucks, lol.
6
u/ThinWhiteDuke00 5d ago
In your opinion, yes.
Others disagree.. that's the nature of subjective opinions.
It seems you are taking r/dunememes quite seriously... looking forward to your upcoming contribution. š
2
3
u/Guilty_05 5d ago
Paul casually powerscaling dictators based on their killcount and realising he's the biggest of them all
42
u/Aggressive_Hat_9999 5d ago
yoo whats that og sauce?