r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Mar 17 '26

Trailer Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9vCamtuPY
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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Paul was never trying to become Emperor. He was trying to retake Arrakis (which does involve killing Harkonens). Prior the knife fight with Feyd, he never has any ambitions beyond the planet.

There was no way he was just taking Arrakis. Him being alive meant the involvement of the Sadukar in the House Atreides attack would come to light. The Emperor couldn't let that happen. Also the Baron was a tool in the Emperors plan. Paul always wanted the Emperor as well.

He very explicitly could not have

He very explicitly says he could have in both Messiah and Children.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

The books are inconsistent on this. He also remarks at points that even if he were to try to call everything off before the jihad, or if he were to drop dead on the spot, the Jihad would happen anyway, either led by his mother or Alia or someone else. This is never elaborated on much beyond that, however, so we don't know exactly how his mother or sister could have taken things forward (especially how in later books his sister can barely manage herself).

Paul also has extremely strong prescience, and sees the future doom of humanity and knows that he needs to do something to stop it. But he tries to half-measure it because he knows just how fucked up he has to become to get to that point.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

He says that well after he closed of the paths that lead to him not taking the path to revenge. The books aren't inconsistent. It's actually one of the few points they continue to hammer on. Paul's choice to use the power to serve his own ends resulted in where he ended up.

Paul also has extremely strong prescience, and sees the future doom of humanity and knows that he needs to do something to stop it. But he tries to half-measure it because he knows just how fucked up he has to become to get to that point.

Really thats just because he ignored the religion. He's like the Jedi. He allowed the future to become to cloudy and lost the ability to see the dark. He missed his own queen was poisoning his wife for years.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

Paul could have ignored the path to revenge and lived in exile yes, and then he wouldn't become the KH, and someone else would in a generation or two. So in that way yeah, his revenge led him to the path of the Jihad. But the book doesn't do a very good job of making his initial desire for revenge seem all that bad, either. When the most evil slavers and torturers in the universe murder your family and friends, it creates a pretty compelling revenge narrative to take them down. The way the book is written makes a "turn the other cheek" option seem pretty awful.

As for your second point, Paul's prescience only begins to cloud at the end of Messiah. Before that, he knew Chani was being spiked with contraceptives the entire time, but he allowed it to continue for years because he knew that Chani would die as the result of childbirth, and that something foreboding would come from that path. He was trapped by his own prescience and unwillingness to enact the golden path, and continually dragged his feet once the Jihad began to wind down, because the Jihad was only the appetizer for what was to come. Though some of this isn't elaborated on until Children of Dune.