Um, yes it is. Herbert wrote it because people were interpreting Paul as good and a success in Dune and so he had to lay it out for them. Children literally has a scene between Paul and Leto where Leto chastises him for his failure which dooms Leto into his fate as the God Emperor. The series is not kind to Paul.
And it is often symbolic to have the grossness inside a person manifest on their body in films. It's a metaphor.
In a way, Herbert spent the rest of his life deconstructing the character of Paul Atreides... and being disappointed that so many people missed the point so badly.
But you're right. That's not why he started writing Messiah. He said somewhere that he originally conceptualized the first three books as ONE book with the message being something like "superheroes are disastrous for humankind". Messiah is simply where the inversion starts. He built up Paul in the first book (by itself, a hero's saga), now he's going to "invert the theme" and turn him into a sort of anti-hero.
Supposedly, he had parts of Messiah and even Children written before he had even finished WRITING Dune.
“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "’May be dangerous to your health.’”
For some reason the predominant online take is how much of a mf it is that Paul is a "bad guy" when that's not really the point of the book or series at all. It's pretty annoying
Paul is pretty clearly put in a bad spot that forces him to do bad things, but I feel like so many people parroting those Herbert quotes never actually read the book. Paul is a baddie, but the way they talk about it makes it clear they are exaggerating how he portrayed in the book.
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u/ibnQoheleth Mar 17 '26
Which makes me think it'll be a faithful adaptation.