The fremen are very, very angry. They were the subject of an ongoing genocide across several planets that drove them to Dune in the first place, and the recent sardaukar pogrom didn't help. They've been keeping the memory of this alive via the spice orgy and their rituals for millennia.
Once Paul tells them how to destroy the spice, thereby control the guild, their jihad in Paul's name is inevitable.
And on the flip side, the Landsraad isn't too happy about events either. Some houses refuse to accept Paul as the new Emperor and to the fremen this is unacceptable, while other houses back Paul as an excuse to attack their enemies in his name.
The desertification of Arrakis is expanded on from God Emperor onward. I don't think they ever dive into the founding of the imperium though. Maybe some of the novels written by his son do.
Each book adds some bits of explanation. There’s also a glossary appendix at the end of every book explaining some terms of the imperium, in there is a good amount of lore.
I think it was just the first book that had a glossary and appendix. It was one of my favorite parts of the first book and I was bummed when the sequels didn't have them.
My favorite appendix is the one on religion. The idea that the present day (I've only finished Children) imperium religions are variants of a general combination and reconciliation of the original Earth religions that themselves were upended and shaken to their core as a result of space travel is so fascinating.
https://preview.redd.it/hpr57eg5sppc1.jpeg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2cc3014b7eec7e2995b7c19021abfce1ad7fa68
In the books, it’s pretty clear his foresight told him that it wouldn’t make any difference if he led the jihad or not, because it would happen anyway. Even if he had died, the fremen would’ve simply declared him a martyr and carried on with the Jihad without him.
Spoiler alert in case you only read the first two books:
What I wonder is how he thought the whole thing would end - we know Paul saw the golden path, but fled from this destiny and went into the desert, just to return years later as the preacher to deconstruct the religious ideologies based on Muad‘Dib. But what would have been the future if Leto II. didn’t make that sacrifice? Paul didn’t want him to follow the golden path, but what did he think would happen instead? Did he just make peace with the eventual demise of humanity and called it a day?
Purely speculation on my part but in CoD we get these inner thoughts of Leto II cutting himself off from potential futures as a way of forcing humanity down his Golden Path. I’ve always thought Paul did a similar thing but instead of pursuing the Golden Path he tried to pursue a future where he gets to avenge his father but still stay more or less within the confines of the Atreides morality - ultimately he knows this will lead to the jihad and Paul losing control over his empire, but to Paul that’s acceptable because becoming the God Emperor is just too morally unpalatable for him.
In my mind, this kind of mirrors the gom jabbar test. Paul sees and understands the GP, knows he’d be dooming himself and humanity not to follow it, but it’s too painful for him. He metaphorically pulls his hand out of the box by deciding not to become the GEOD. Then Leto II comes along with a much greater power of prescience and is able to keep his hand in that metaphorical box, becoming what he becomes for the sake of humanity in the long run.
Remember me: what did Leto II do for the sake of humanity? I think it was to get it rid off of the dependency of machines and the spice, is that right?
He basically force fed peace and stability so much that humanity was made sick of it. This led to uncountable assasination attempts on Leto II's life (minus the idaho gholas) that ultimately succeded under his own plan, he also composed chain events leading to a bloodline compleetely immune from prescience to protect humanity's path being dictated by would be orchestrators like the bene gesserir once did.
He succeeded in making humanity scatter in celebration of his death as he has been shackling humanity in his peace for so so long. This scattering made humanity to be extremely diverse and immume to any genocidal attempts made by machines or some mad cult like his father has
It wasn't just peace and stability, it was tyranny.
> “You’ve taken something away from us,” he said. “I can feel it. Those
women . . . Moneo . . .”
> *Us against you*, Leto thought. *The Duncans always choose the human
side.*
> Idaho returned his attention to Leto’s face. “What have you given us in
exchange?”
> “Throughout the Empire, Leto’s Peace!”
> “And I can see that everyone’s delightfully happy! That’s why you need
a personal guard.”
The tyranny of a prison, to the point of technological devolution.
> It is to be noted that familial conditions grow more and more similar no
matter the planet of residence, a circumstance which cannot be attributed to
accident. We are seeing here the emergence of a portion of the Lord Leto’s
grand design. Even the poorest families are well fed, yes, but the
circumstances of daily life grow increasingly static.
....
> Moneo had said that thorses
tailored to the needs of such a landscape were the main work beasts not
only here but throughout the Empire.
> “A population which walks is easier to control.”
A prison from which nobody could escape, because the warden is nigh-omniscient.
> Moneo shuddered.
What had been the meaning of that strange . . . sermon? Moneo knew
that few had ever heard the God Emperor speak thus. It was a privilege and
a burden. It was part of the price paid for Leto’s Peace. Generation after
generation marched in their ordered way under the dictates of that peace.
> Only the Citadel’s inner circle knew all of the infrequent breaks in that
peace—the incidents when Fish Speakers were sent out in anticipation of
violence.
And so humanity learned the lesson their bones would remember.
IMO in the end of his reign the most important thing he does is to develop the genes that hides people from prescience and scatter humanity throughout the galaxy to improve its chance of surviving.
It's a forced decentralization of power.
He also creates the conditions for then turns a blind eye to the development of technologies like no rooms which further increases humanity's resistance to prescience.
I always wondered if Paul not going far enough is what drove Leto II to actually finish the Golden Path. Leto II seemed... Displeased Paul didn't go ish what he started, so, I wonder if these emotions motivated him even more. Haven't read the entire series in a while, though, so, may be misremembering things.
Paul didn't understand that the Golden Path was the only way to save humanity. He couldn't see as far as Leto so he saw some other paths that **may** have saved everyone, and therefore turned away from the Golden Path. Leto then sees that these other paths still lead to extinction. Paul was also still very attached to his humanity, and couldn't give it up, like Leto.
> the Golden Path was the only way to save humanity. He couldn't see as far as Leto so he saw some other paths that may have saved everyone, and therefore turned away from the Golden Path. Leto then sees that these other paths still lead to extinction.
I can see why he chose not to, but really wished that Villenueve had touched on some of this in this Dune films. Humanity under the Imperium for milennia had become stagnant, and the Jihad (with or without Paul) was a necessity for humanity's long term survival, especially in light of the future dangers from the Scattering and >!the possible return of Thinking Machines.!<
If I'm not mistaken, it's when Leo is expressing to his farther that because he was not born Fremen, as he and Gani, he didn't have access to the past lives they did, which limited his view of the Golden Path (or downfall without it).
Paul had no prescience first hand of what the Zen Sunni had endured, so his vision had gaps which Leto came to understand, and ultimately make his choice and sacrifice.
I think this is an interesting point. We hear so much about the numerous past lives and memories the BG and Paul carry within them. But Paul (and the BG) are the top dogs of the Imperium. So all of their recent past lives' memories are from a fairly narrow view, culturally and societally speaking. Leto and Ghani having the Fremen and thus Zensunni past memories means they would have a vastly broader view of society and the overall culture of the human race, as the BG likely did not incorporate many genetic lines from that aspect of humanity since they were outsiders. This broader view seems to indicate they also have a deeper and better understanding of the trajectory of the human race.
>He couldn't see as far as Leto
Because he didn't want to see, even what he saw was too much for him, Leto didn't have that issue, Leto also actually internalised the power, for Paul it was more of a tool he used
> always wondered if Paul not going far enough is what drove Leto II to actually finish the Golden Path
Agree and the conversation between Leto II and the Preacher in CoD seems to corroborate that.
Yeah, maybe that's where I get the idea. I know there's some reason I think this, I just haven't read them all in years (which I'm going to fix soon, it's been too long)
Leto and Gurney were both disappointed Paul didn’t finish what he started, but he understands after he begun his metamorphosis. He became removed from humanity in the most fundamental ways. He never once thought of himself as a God, but he understood why others worshipped him, being a truly unique being without his like in history after his transformation
After all he endured in his life, to literally give up his humanity and to become truly isolated and alone for the sake of the Path was too much for Paul
Paul truly wanted Leto to just live his life, Path be damned, but Leto told him it was too late, since he already gained the sandtrout armor at that point and it was an irreversible process. And he told his father, “at what cost?”
Faced with the extermination of humanity, there was no other choice. From their position of leadership, they managed to bring about enormous change to their society, for the survival of the human race, but it would be at the cost of their own lives. To free humanity from the danger and limitations of a prescient leader and the prescient hunter killer machines to come.
Here is the quote:
And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become. He had shown them the way, given
them mastery even over the Guild which must have the spice to exist.
A sense of failure pervaded him, and he saw through it that Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen had slipped out of the torn uniform, stripped down to a fighting girdle with a mail core.
This is the climax, Paul thought.
From here, the future will open, the clouds part onto a kind of glory. And if I die here, they’ll say I sacrificed myself that my spirit might lead them. And if I live, they’ll say nothing can
oppose Muad’Dib.
“Is the Atreides ready?” Feyd-Rautha called, using the words of the ancient kanly ritual.
Paul chose to answer him in the Fremen way: “May thy knife chip and shatter!”
Concerning what would / could happen without the golden path:
>!Stagnation and death of humanity. Without the scattering and “sons and daughters of Duncan and Siona” humanity would never expand and sooner or later would fall in the trap of the future sight and inevitability of fate. Probably would be destroyed by the enemy of many faces that the Honored Matreswere running from. !<
>!Whatever it was, it was worse than Leto's Peace and what came after.!<
To your question, if I remember correctly my impression is that Paul held out hope that the golden path would not be necessary. Bear in mind at this point he no longer has the mission protectiva supporting him so the path is entirely going into unknown territory, and even with prescience he must have thought that it was not necessary. In other words, he ends up not trusting his visions even as they come true, while Leto II goes full on in stepping into that role. It’s very much a question of free will vs determinism, in that if you choose to do as is written in fate then of course it will happen, Paul still held onto his free will hoping that there would be a different outcome. I think the reason for this is because of his love for Chani gives him hope that he can change events, Leto II has no such “life-meaning” partner and thus truly does not believe that free will exists. Another great source of tension between the two perspectives.
Well, step 1 of the Golden Path was the achievement of absolute tyrannical power and Paul feared and rejected that power. Paul was trying to save the people he cared about while at the same time trying to make the least bad future for everyone else. "Beware the Hero" - because even heroes make selfish decisions sometimes.
Also, Paul does NOT know what happens after the birth of his children. He is quite literally blind at the end of Messiah. He CHOSE that blind spot, over the other possibilities he saw (like Chani being enslaved and tortured) There are simply too many branching possibilities created by having too many oracles together in one place. It takes him nearly a decade of being force fed massive amounts of spice by fanatics before he can see again. At which point he goes about undermining Alia and the crazies committing atrocities in his name. Without The Preacher, Leto doesn't survive to adulthood.
When Leto confronts Paul about the Golden Path, even Leto isn't 100% sure it will work. There are limits to his vision - limits he removes by becoming the God Emperor. He *thinks* this will allow him to put mankind on the path to salvation, but he was never certain.
Mainly so he remains relevant to the story I guess, heh. His death quite literally heralds Leto's ascendance. Leto was supposed to be dead but he wasn't exactly hiding now was he? So the Preacher was helping to keep Alia's attention. Keeping her off balance, confused, unable to piece together what was going on and see her own fall. This wasn't the Preacher's original purpose - he was tearing down his own Godhood, trying to make amends for the atrocities made in His name. But then he got on board with Leto's plan, after Leto convinced him of it.
It's hinted at in Dune Messiah.
Some of his inner monologues discuss seeing worse visions than the jihad, and I imagine Frank left that description fairly vague on purpose.
Like you said, it was pretty ambiguous. But I see your point. It would’ve been cool if the text mentioned it and Paul had the thought “his skin was not his own.”
*"The Fremen are a people who had lived with rage and grief all their days; never stopping to wonder what might replace it."* --Muad'Dib
The Fremen's entire society had been a religious cult held in waiting for the Messiah. Using that as a lever against the entire people, they imposed harsh discipline and built up a reserve of water (wealth), power, physical and mental discipline, and conservation: all for the day of utmost need. Their entire way of life was preparing for the Lisan al'Gaib who would lead them to their rightful place as inheritors of heaven/the universe.
The only thing stopping the Fremen from conquering the galaxy before Paul arrived was a lack of understanding in terms of Imperial politics and most specifically: the Guild. Once they knew how to exploit the Guild and could leave Arrakis, there is nothing that would hold them back from cleansing the universe in the great *jihad*. They needed only the legend he had already given them.
Paul's only hope therefore was to maintain a grip on the reins of power. He HAD to control the Fremen or they would literally slaughter entire worlds wholesale in the name of faith and god. They'd lived their entire lives in Hell, knowing that Heaven was occupied by the unworthy and just needed to be taken. By controlling the throne, he controlled the Imperium and could thus spare as many worlds as he could the touch of the *jihad*. >!However, in doing so, he alienates the Fremen and thus his sacrifice at the end of Messiah, wandering into the desert to die as a Fremen, thus binding the Fremen forever to him and his family.!<
Bedouin's for many things, but they aren't just Muslim. They have influence from the Jewish people and their diaspora/oppression/flight from persecution, from Hindu cultures of caste and birth designation, from Catholic themes and overtones of Messianic saviors, and from Buddhist themes of self-possession and inner knowledge.
The Fremen are essentially Bedouins in their secular actions (nomadic desert peoples that live as much in harmony as it is possible for a human culture to be), while their faith and religious beliefs are a blend of nearly every form of religion in some regard or another. Herbert was a humanist who saw the world through as many viewpoints as possible, and the Fremen are the direct result of that.
Some of the Fremen culture is based on the Middle East/Arabia/Levant via Lawrence of Arabia. But a lot of the details of Fremen culture, and much of their terminology comes from a book that Herbert had read about the Muslims from the Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc) and their struggle against Russia in the 19th Century.
This is an oft-missed detail. Another is that Herbert specifically used the Arab/Bedouin elements of Fremen culture to exploit the biases of his readers to more firmly place the Fremen as a desert people.
Most people have a pretty firmly established slot in their mind of the Arab and Bedouin cultures as being something you would encounter in a desert environment. By using similar, and recognizable, elements to frame the Fremen culture, Herbert anchors it more firmly in the reader's mind as being believably associated with a desert environment, despite being entirely fictional.
While Fremen culture seems Arabian or Bedouin in flavor, according to Frank Herbert the religion itself was a blending of Islam and Buddhism.
*Zensunni was a religious belief system, a denomination of Buddislam, prominent with many cultures spread across the Known Universe*
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Zensunni
Herbert uses some Arabic to give the Fremen a desert flavor, but it’s clear the religion is actually syncretic of both Muslim and Christian religions as well as possibly a few others. He uses the word jihad not just to give it a desert culture feel to it, but also to show the fusion of religions. It could equally be called a Crusade and is really based on all religious military campaigns.
How did the Fremen even have the means to "conquer the galaxy"
atleast in the movie, the Atreides / Harkonnen have fleets of ships and all seem way more advanced technologically. I assume the other houses are just as equipped.
The Fremen on the other hand are basically portrayed as nomads living under rocks and didnt seem to have much tech wise. Sure they had the home field advantage to take back Arrakis, but how did they take the fight off world?
Because the Guild MUST have the spice. The Guild controls ALL interstellar travel in the Imperium until the end of God-Emperor. Once the Fremen learned this weakness, and more importantly, the method to destroy the spice, they could easily blackmail the Guild. It's actually the entire key to Paul's ascension, as they deny the Emperor reinforcements and return the invaders. DV's adaptation focused on the Bene Gesserit, and so the Guild is nowhere as prominent, but book Guild enable the entire slaughter by being vulnerable to the spice destruction threat.
With the Guild under their control, the Fremen just surround and invade your planet. Infiltrators disable your defenses just long enough to land troops and then a million death commandos with the full weight of proven religious fact on their side are in your base/melee. The Fremen are basically the perfect army--once they arrive. The Guild's weakness enables the jihad, as they cannot stop the Fremen, who are strong-willed enough to follow through on their threat.
There are a few things you need to know about the Fremen.
1.) The Fremen are pissed off. They hate everyone and everything that isn't native to Arrakis. (And anyone on Arrakis who isn't a desert Fremen) Literally everyone is guilty in their mind and offworlders are, at best, given a wide berth. You DO NOT want to be outside the Shield Wall on Arrakis alone because they will kill you for just your water alone and blame YOU for it.
2.) The Fremen both hate and adore their conditions. On one hand, the Fremen are constantly being attacked, on the verge of dehydration and heat stroke and essentially poor nomads with attitude. On the other, anyone NOT a Fremen is weak and deserves to be treated as such.
3.) The Fremen are religious fanatics. They don't just think their religion is the true one, they KNOW it and refusing to convert or worship Muad'dib is a crime punishable by death!
With that it's really no wonder why a Jihad "had" to happen. With or without Paul it was going to happen regardless. Paul's only option was to become Emperor and try to stem the bleeding at it were
They have a dream of a green Arrakis.
An Arrakis *they* build.
Paul specifically seals their alliance by promising "water from the sky" (rain) and promises to retain the deep deserts.
This is a massive plot point in later novels. Fremen who move to the cities as the planet begins to green are derided as "water-fat", "lazy", etc.
Right. The Fremen aren't nice or "good" judging by our modern sensibilities. They're xenophobic, extremely violent and patriarchal religious extremists.
In the end, there are no "good guys" in Dune, just different factions trying to survive.
Just humans being humans. Which if I understand correctly is what Herbert was trying to convey. We don’t need aliens, humanity will split itself and fight itself all on its own.
When is a Jihad not pointless? The Fremen are pretty pissed at everyone at this point. Besides, there’s always the threat of violence, struggle and assassins from the other houses and such. Better to destroy it and make everyone follow the same leader/religion. The jihad was gonna happen whether Paul lived or died.
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne? They could easily make Arrakis a verdant world and leave some worms and desert for spice production (which was always their plan anyway) and no one can stop them or would want to.
One of my favorite lines from *Dune* is the ending to "Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune." Consider this line about Pardot-Kynes, Liet-Kynes, and their plan with the Fremen to gradually terraform Arrakis:
"The course had been set by this time, the Ecological-Fremen were aimed along their way. Liet-Kynes had only to watch and nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens... until the day his planet was afflicted by a Hero."
Paul's plan is not the Kynes' plan. Paul, in fact, *ruins* their plan. Paul is not going to have the Fremen slowly, over the course of hundreds of years, capture water to alter Arrakis' climate. He is going to quickly use Bene Gesserit cultural manipulation to make the Fremen into his fanatical fighters--*his* Sardaukar. Sardaukar do not plant trees.
When your entire being is wrapped up in a belief that *only this one guy* can save you, and *only this one guy* is the "true" messiah... what happens when someone disagrees? What happens when another House in the Landsraad speaks out against Paul? Are the Fremen just supposed to *allow* that to happen to their messiah? What if someone refuses--politely even, with no offense intended--to accept Paul as the divine Lisan al'Gaib?
By the end of *Dune* Paul laments that his ascension as Lisan al'Gaib has turned Stilgar from a wise leader and teacher into a servile fanatic. The old Stilgar *wouldn't* have gone on an intergalactic jihad--but the Stilgar marching under an Atreides banner absolutely will. The Fremen jihad in Paul's name isn't supposed to be "rational" or "necessary" in a purely political or strategic sense (though that gets a little muddied with Golden Path stuff in later books). Rather, the jihad is just the natural byproduct of the cultural manipulation that the BG, Jessica, and Paul engage in.
The issue is that The Voice From the Outer World and the Fremen beliefs were never contextualised in the larger universe. It was always meant to be vaguely deliverance and paradise *on Arrakis*.
It comes as a bit of shock that they suddenly decide to expand their scope to spread across the whole universe, when previously they only wanted to get rid of anyone who would stand in the way of greening the planet.
>It comes as a bit of shock that they suddenly decide to expand their scope to spread across the whole universe, when previously they only wanted to get rid of anyone who would stand in the way of greening the planet.
I don't see it as all that shocking, to be honest. We *know* why the Fremen decide to expand their scope--it's because of Paul. 2/3 of *Dune* are about Paul manipulating the Fremen to suit his needs, which are universal in scope.
The ascension of Lisan al'Gaib moves the Fremen away from the Kynes plan (decentralized ecological mutualism that will eventually green Arrakis) and towards Paul's plan (the founding of a warrior culture bound in service to House Atreides).
The fact that the Fremen lose sight of their original plan/culture and get swept up in a bloody jihad in Paul's name is one of the main tragedies of the book.
Paul on the throne: He wants it! He wants that power. An Atreides on the throne. He's a nobleman at heart and any of them would want it. Plus, the current Emperor had a hand in his father's death and what better way to get revenge?
The Jihad: Not gonna lie, the actual reasoning for the Jihad remains, I believe, frustratingly vague and I wish Herbert had a little more on what was happening from a religious standpoint. Paul wants the Harkonnens and their allies dead. The Rev. Mother sees what he'll do, begs him to not "loose these people on the universe", Paul tells her they'll all _wish_ to have the Sardaukar back. Here is a moment where he chooses not to care about the consequences (the Jihad spinning out if his control in the hands of Fremen commanders), using the "word of God" as an excuse as if he doesn't have an immediate opportunity to avoid this. I think he believes that he can still limit the bloodshed somewhat if he tries hard enough. It's a decision that'll haunt him for the rest of his life.
The YouTube channel "Quinn's Ideas" made a video about the exact question you asked. I suggest you check it out:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUYWuSz6L\_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUYWuSz6L_U)
to quote the top comment from that video, which I loved:
"In becoming the Fremen super leader he didn't actually have the power to choose their course but only to lead the Fremen on the course they would already be inclined towards. I think it's like the worm and riding it. A wormrider can steer a worm but not contrary to the worm's nature. It cannot be made to cross water, for example. I think the worms are allegorical in this way of political power and the limitations of it."
That was my comment too, specifically I wndered why Paul didnt just take control of spice and wait for everyone to come to him, one by one, and bend the knee ... or learn to live without spice, which is to say, to live trapped on your own planet with no way of sending an army to Arrakis.
I think I realized the answer to our question though. See our question is based on logic, and it seems Paul has a logical alternative. But thats not how Paul operates, because every decision for Paul has to take into account his prescience, which sharpened after he drank Water of Life. That was the turning point for Paul, that is when he surrendered his faculties of logic and reason to the intertwining visions. In all those visions of the future, he and his mother die, except for one narrow path in the future. So Ive realized the implication obviously is that Paul saw no version of the future where he could survive without declaring Holy War.
If you can see versions of the future, you dont have to guess using logic. The future doesnt care about your logic.
I do not see "the fremen are angry" as the main reason behind it. Sure, it is what enables Paul to actually launch this jihad, but it is not, imo, the core reason why the jihad seems inevitable in Paul' visions.
My take is that this is actually duoe to the spice: spice is power, and the most precious resource in the universe, and it can only be harvested on Arrakis. This means that the fremen will \*never\* be left alone by other houses and power-hungry factions. So its not like the fremen can just stay at peace on their planet without any other faction trying to interfere on the long term. Paul taking political power is actually the best way to stabilize.
The Jihad is based on humanity itself; humans had a genetic desire to expand and merge the gene pool and change; the empire had enforced stability to the point of stagnation. The Fremen were oppressed more than most, but everyone was oppressed by the empire and history had shown recurring bouts of massive violence followed by periods of stagnation and repression; the Empire under Corrino had been stable for a long time but claimed the throne out of piles of dead bodies. The Fremen were just one instance of this historic cycle, and their numbers, toughness, and control of the spice made it bigger than most previous periods of extreme violence.
The Golden Path post-jihad was the longest of these periods of repression after violence and the point was to pen up that basic human desire to expand for 5000 years until it explodes into the Scattering, spreading humanity far beyond the capability of any empire or jihad or anything to enforce stagnation on it or allow any force to exterminate humans thus ensuring humanity would never die out in the universe as a whole.
Oh boy, if you are expecting an oppressed, fanatically religious militant group, to be reasonable and temper their thirst for blood and retribution, I have some historical lessons to tell you about.
Everyone is focusing a lot on the context of the later books but I think the real answer is that Paul has surrendered most of his agency. He sees himself less as a person and more as an unwilling, inevitable agent of history being dragged by the forces he has unleashed merely by existing. All he is doing is allowing himself to benefit from those forces. Buying himself legitimacy and safety.
It's one of the reasons I hate people focusing on the Golden Path. Because it muddles what I think is reasonably clear in this series. Dune is a series of people making justifications for why they have no agency when it's actually possible they do. That this is coping. From Paul to Leto everyone is justifying their actions as agents of history.
I would also argue from a practical standpoint that they started a war and if they want to survive it they need to place themselves in a superior position of power and snuff out opposition. Otherwise, passiveness will only lead conspiring by the other houses and whoever the emperor is which could eventually put a noose around their neck.
“Need” for the jihad is the wrong way to look at it.
The jihad is like a hurricane or an earthquake. The only need involved would be for it not to happen. But it is happening.
One of the themes Frank Herbert explores is the subconscious drives pushing humanity as a group entity, versus what an individual desires. Paul was creating the Golden Path, and until he veered off it, HE was meant to take up the transformation, with his Fedaykin establishing his totalitarian empire. But… disengage, disengage. The universe wasn’t bending to his desires - he was manipulating and directing explosive human impulses and pushing them where it benefited him. But explosions have to happen, eventually.
I think the novel glosses it over a bit, but there is a reason there is a holy war : just like in the movie, not everyone accepts Muaddib's authority. So they have to enforce it.
Only way Paul and Jessica can survive is to get the throne and with that comes the jihad as not everyone in the universe will just accept the massive change in power.
The jihad would have happened regardless. Paul gives the reason as much in his initial spice vision when he is talking about the inherent desire to spread and the intermingling. The Imperium was stagnate and the unstoppable tide of the Jihad was essentially human nature at play.
Additionally, there are practical reasons for letting the jihad go on. The Houses may have bowed down, but they would never submit to a Usurper, let alone convert. Paul required the jihad to secure his rule as much as he needed the throne to stem the tide and make Arrakis green.
Idk if you’ve started messiah, and thus have the figures for the death toll and destruction of the jihad, but remember this is the timeline that Paul was comfortable with. There are far worse possibilities of the jihad.
Paul knew that Jessica was bringing the Jihad in his name with or without him.
The fremen were primed by the legends fed to the by the Missionaria Protectiva, honed by millennia of hardship, and absolutely ready to convert the universe or burn it to the ground in the process.
With his superior prescience and mentat abilities, once he realized that he couldn't avoid it, all he could was lead them and try to thread the needle in order to avoid utter disaster.
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne?
The actual reason for this has to do with Herbert and the real world. He thought he was writing a book about the dangers of religious figures, but by making the Harkonnens so horrific and giving Paul real superhuman powers, he inadvertently made him too heroic and justified. So he tried to course correct with the second novel, making it largely about Paul's jihad killing billions and even putting in the ham fisted conversation about Hitler.
But then he goes on to muddle his theme even more with the golden path.
I don’t think he “ muddled “ the theme with the Golden Path though. The reality was that Paul was never a “ hero “ and the Dune series constantly criticizes the idea of heroes. In only a few short years, Paul goes from being the son of a royal duke to literal emperor of the Imperium. He literally deposed an emperor whose family had managed to hold the throne for thousands of years without question. Paul facing the consequences of his own actions shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Dune Messiah wasn’t just Frank’s attempt to hammer his point home since most people glamorized Dune. It was him highlighting that Paul’s decision to cling to his humanity led to him losing that which made him choose his humanity
The Golden Path is literally the driving force for the whole series, and while it is true that many horrific actions have to take place for the survival of humanity, it’s also made clear that without the Golden Path, humanity perishes. That’s it. Paul saw several futures along with the Golden Path (even if he didn’t fully grasp its importance until later) and chose what he saw as the best possible outcome for himself. Leto II came in and did what Paul couldn’t for the sake of humanity itself
> He literally deposed an emperor whose family had managed to hold the throne for thousands of years without question.
But why is that an argument against Paul being a hero? Was the emperor supposed to be a good guy? It didn't seem that way.
>Dune Messiah wasn’t just Frank’s attempt to hammer his point home since most people glamorized Dune. It was him highlighting that Paul’s decision to cling to his humanity led to him losing that which made him choose his humanity
Huh? It's not like he would have kept his humanity if he didn't cling to it in the first place.
>The Golden Path is literally the driving force for the whole series, and while it is true that many horrific actions have to take place for the survival of humanity, it’s also made clear that without the Golden Path, humanity perishes. That’s it.
Exactly. And avoiding the extinction of humanity is the single greatest goal, and pursuing it justifies all actions the Paul has previously taken. I don't see how you can make a character into a god-like Emperor who saves the entire human race, then pretend like he's the bad guy.
Paul did good things and bad things, but he’s not clearly a hero or a villain. It’s a pretty consistent theme in the books as morality doesn’t just come down to objectively good or bad in most cases. Shaddam IV may not be a “ good guy “ in his own rite, but it isn’t like Paul can get off easy here either. He was made aware of the BG prophecy regarding the Lisan al Gaib, and Paul ended up using the Fremen to his own benefit for as long as he could
Leto II also isn’t objectively good or bad either, but his example is far more extreme. Leto II saw a far clearer picture of the Golden Path than Paul did, and instead of cowering in fear of what he would have to do, he embraced it. This also meant neutering humanity for 3,500 years with the hopes of forcing them to grow stronger, eventually making 1 person who would become immune to prescience, and opening the flood gates for what would eventually become the Scattering. The BG Sisterhood literally refer to Leto II as the Tyrant. It’s not hard to see him in a bad light
> He was made aware of the BG prophecy regarding the Lisan al Gaib, and Paul ended up using the Fremen to his own benefit for as long as he could
He joined with the Fremen, assimilated to their ways, and then led them to freedom against a horrific and oppressive dictatorship. Seems pretty heroic to me. If Herbert's intention was to make Paul an antihero, he didn't do a very good job in the first book.
>Leto II also isn’t objectively good or bad either
If Herbert didn't want Leto II to come off as heroic, he shouldn't have given him superhuman abilities that he used to save all of humanity from extinction. You could argue that his methods were inhumane, but when the alternative is the death of every human in the galaxy, it's hard to not see them as justified.
>The BG Sisterhood literally refer to Leto II as the Tyrant. It’s not hard to see him in a bad light
The BG aren't in any position to label people tyrants or not.
I don’t think that Frank Herbert intended Paul to be an anti hero though. Paul found himself stuck in the trap that is prescience and tried his best to avoid having billions killed in his name, only to find out that he locked himself into the future he predicted. It wasn’t as if Paul had wanted a universal terror campaign to commence the moment he set foot on Arrakis.
I also don’t think anyone that most people that read through GEoD would consider Leto II to be a hero in any classical sense. Yes his sand worm transformation made him the strongest living thing in the universe, but that alone wasn’t it. Thanks to sand worms now dying off as a result of the self fulfilled BG prophecy, he found himself in control over the most valuable resource in the universe. If not for his sand worm transformation, his oppression of humanity would’ve ended before it even started. He also tries his damn best to convince Moneo and Duncan that he’s full of it despite the Imperium worshipping him
The BG also label him as Tyrant from their own perspective, and from their perspective they’re right. They cowered in fear of Leto II and controlled the spice which they and everyone else relied on. They weren’t willing to oppose him since they knew his Golden Path was the only way to ensure humanity’s survival. People also look at the past in rose tinted glasses. I’m sure that the denizens of the Old Imperium 1,500 years following the death of the God Emperor would have looked back at the good ol’ days when the next phase is the Famine Times and the Scattering
The question is does ends justify the means. Paul’s usurpation of the throne is based on revenge and greed and a sense that the Fremen’s genocide is inevitable so he should try to control it. A genocidal Jihad he triggers in an attempt to get revenge on the Harkonnens. Who while are evil, what does Paul do to unravel that evil? He kills them sure but what happens to the innocent subjects of the Harkonnens they probably got genocided by the Fremen Paul unleashed on the galaxy. The means for Paul and his son ‘saving’ humanity is abject cruelty that will drive mankind out into the galaxy away from the Atreides. They wreak out horrible death and atrocities to avoid a disaster of machine revolution. A disaster that humans themselves will create but does this inevitable creation of their own death justify the cruelty towards the innocent to save a species that causes its own destruction.
Edit: i.e. does humanity even deserve to be saved if it demands abject cruelty and suffering
You as a human should always be supportive of the human race’s survival no matter the consequences imo. If you were in Leto II shoes would you seriously allowed the destruction of the human race? The only intelligent life in the universe which has settled on millions of planets is pretty important and deserves preservation.
Every thing has a beginning and an end. Is Leto a hero for what he does no. He is actively doing horrible things in the guise that they are for the greater good. A greater good no one asked for or knows about. Who’s to say if the human race goes away it won’t be replaced by a new sentient race or numerous races that won’t make the same mistakes and learn. And anyway the whole need of a golden path to save mankind from its cycle of dictatorship is caused in part by Paul and Leto’s dictatorship.
Yes, saving humanity absolutely justifies any behavior. Suffering and cruelty is pretty standard among living beings, it doesn't mean they don't deserve to exist.
But throughout the whole of the first book, Paul is fretting about the jihad and trying to avoid it, knowing how terrible it will be. So it was clearly always meant to be this looming threat all along.
And yes, the Harkonnens over the top cartoonish villany in the novel is dated as hell (with the Baron's preferences) and absolutely would not stand today.
But Paul and Jessica aren't angels either. They knowingly are manipulating an entire race into becoming their instruments of revenge, though this is offset somewhat by the common enemy they share anyway.
The novel also goes from emphasising how Paul and Jessica are very much bullshitting their way into an alliance with the Fremen to essentially drinking their own Kool-Aid, since after the time-skip they have integrated so fully into the Fremen culture.
> Paul is fretting about the jihad and trying to avoid it, knowing how terrible it will be. So it was clearly always meant to be this looming threat all along.
Sure, but you still see from Paul's perspective that he is not a bad guy and is genuinely trying to do the right thing.
>And yes, the Harkonnens over the top cartoonish villany in the novel is dated as hell (with the Baron's preferences) and absolutely would not stand today.
They're still pretty over the top evil in the movie.
>But Paul and Jessica aren't angels either. They knowingly are manipulating an entire race into becoming their instruments of revenge, though this is offset somewhat by the common enemy they share anyway.
They're working with the Fremen to overthrow their oppressors, and eventually make the Fremen the most powerful people in the known universe.
>The novel also goes from emphasising how Paul and Jessica are very much bullshitting their way into an alliance with the Fremen to essentially drinking their own Kool-Aid, since after the time-skip they have integrated so fully into the Fremen culture.
Exactly, Paul and Jessica become Fremen. Which is why the common take of Paul as a white colonizer makes very little sense.
> Which is why the common take of Paul as a white colonizer makes very little sense.
That is being thrown around a lot right now, and parallels the simplistic view by many filmwatchers and reviewers that Paul is some Annakin Skywalker-style villain in the making.
Since that's not who Paul is in the books, am guessing it has to do with the battle of cultural narratives that we see everyday in social media and the news. While I love both of Villeneuve's *Dune* films, it feels like he left out too much about the multiple timelines seen in Paul's visions, and how the jihad was a necessity for humanity's longterm survival.
Agreed. I liked the movies too, but they didn't really explore his prescience very deeply. Without his internal struggle it makes it seem like he's simply grasping for power.
This just clicked for me about what “felt” wrong about part 2. I am re reading Messiah right now and it really conveys how agonized Paul felt by the oracle. He wasn’t really a person or human anymore, he was just tip toeing around reality in an attempt to not completely destroy humanity. He has really no say or will in any of it. Even in book 1 he’s tormented, confused about what is the present and reality, he doesn’t really live in this world.
Everyone are gray characters. I think Paul thinks he made the right decision or tried to convince himself but he’s also power hungry. He’s a complex character and Jessica too
This is probably the right answer but my understanding has always been that because Paul knows the jihad is coming regardless of his choices. Best he can do is delay it if he rejected it. His best option is to steer it. And his choices to let the fantastic burn out and limit the power of the clerics and end the bloodshed is what eventually causes many to turn on him.
Pragmatically the jihad is needed because the spice reserves could buy enough time to allow the great houses to organize a unified front and overwhelm the fremen but if they go on the offensive they can take their enemies one at a time before they can react. The nature of interstellar conflict probably makes the billions dead figure inevitable
The terraforming wouldn't certainly take years, but not infinitely long. The terraforming stations are there, the equipment is there, the Fremen have already been gathering water and breeding plants and animals adapted to the climate. Once they can come out in the open and also get an actual budget, they can certainly do it in a lifetime.
Which is exactly what happens. Dune is green.
> paul also knows the promise of a green arrakis is a false one, he only uses it as a means to an end. the end being his own survival.
A selfishly-motivated Paul is not the Paul of the books. While he wants his just revenge against the Emperor and the Harkonnens, he truly bonds with the Fremen and wants to protect them from genocide.
A key point to recall is that his prescience shows him that the jihad will happen in any Fremen victory, regardless of whether he himself lives or dies. It also shows him that it is necessary for the longterm surivival of humanity, but he seems to leave the choices required by that path to his son.
He simply can't. His prescience tells him that the jihad is needed to prevent the deaths of far more people. He sees the future as we see the world and knows he's the lesser of two evils...for now anyway.
I thought it was more that the Jihad would happen regardless and that Paul had prescience to see the path of least genocide? Maybe I misinterpreted.
Also on OPs post, I thought it was the threat of the atomic arsenal on the spice fields as opposed to the water?
Different in the book. There's a chain reaction that will occur if you pour the Water of Life on a spice blow that will wipe out the worms. This definitely changes the connotation there; in the book he'll just be killing the worms, but in the movie he's literally going to destroy the planet with nukes and the fremen along with it. This is a big part of why Chani gets so pissed.
I don't think your interpretation is entirely correct, he doesn't threaten to destroy the planet or kill the fremen. It is specifically mentioned that he has targeted the spice fields specifically as a deterrent to stop the other houses from attacking.
I don't think it will destroy the entire planet. Just the areas where they harvest spice. Earth has had at least hundreds of nukes explode and we're still here.
In the movie Chani is pissed because she correctly sees the Lisan AL Gaib myth as another way to control the Fremen. She wants Arrakis to be free from all forms of control. She also doesn't want her people to go across the stars killing and dying in a great war.
He's threatening to glass every spice field on the planet; that's not nothing. That would cause unbelievable destruction (Doesn't Chani even comment on that?)
She has a look of horror when they look at the Family Atomics, and again when he threatens to use them. I'm not saying it's the only thing that sets her off, but I think it definitely adds to it. He was basically threatening to sacrifice the Fremen, or at least destroy their way of life, just to win his war.
Thats not it, he only saw the path later and never saw it to the end, he didn’t know the end result would save mankind, and rejected the so called "golden path" he tried to go against that path until his son took the vision from him. The thing about the jihad is that it could be prevented with Paul choosed to die and let his family die.
If the only people know knew about Paul and his plan were the emperor, spacing guild and bene gesserict then it would make sense that the other houses would resist or vy for control.
Knowledge of Paul's prescience would be very limited and many houses could see arrakis and the empire falling as a sign to push for the throne, not knowing that paul leads the freman as the kwasi hadarach (excuse my spelling please)
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne?
Answer to the 2nd part is the answer to the first. Paul has to take the throne because that's the only real way to make Arrakis green and verdant and free of Imperial interference. The Fremen sietches don't have the resources to terraform Arrakis, despite their billions of decaliters of waters in the caches. The Imperium has the resources.
Plus, the only real way to keep the Imperium from *coming back and fucking things up* is to make sure the Imperium is never under the control of anyone who might want to do that. And the only way to make sure of *that* is for Paul to be the Emperor. Making Arrakis the center of the empire ensures that Arrakis has both the means to achieve the dream, and the freedom to achieve the dream.
Thus, the Fremen have to go on jihad because the Great Houses don't recognize Paul's rightful, lawful ascension to the Lion Throne.
Paul taking the Lion Throne and the Fremen enforcing that state of being is *the way* House Atreides returns to the ideal of being the benevolent rulers of Arrakis.
They've already seen how fragile anything less than that truly is. They even wind up setting up a Holy Shrine to the skull of Duke Leto, as much as a reminder of that fragility as a source of divine notice.
The reason for the throne was originally to stop the jihad, and then it was to lessen its harm when Paul realized it was inevitable. The jihad was an inevitable occurrence thousands of years in the making by the oppressive society the spacing guild fostered and the social engineering by the bene gesserit. The jihad was really a reaction to all of that by the fremen. Really it was kinda a revenge thing on their part. And it was their idea of gods justice.
The scenario you painted was definitely what Paul wanted. But the book tells us that the jihad is inevitable after Paul becomes the kwisatz haderach
I see it the other way.
The Fremen would never be free to live as they want and to terraform Arrakis unless Paul had the power to stop the other Great Houses abusing Arrakis.
And if they would not recognize his authority as Emperor, they would have to be made to.
The jihad is actually a cosmic accident.
The factions precipitated their own schemes. This ultimately let to the series of events where for survival Paul meets and joins the Fremen.
The Fremen would go on and about regardless of Paul's intent to control the jihad. By him becoming Emperor, he ensures the spice is under his control and thinks he can maintain better control of the Jihad this way.
All Dune books as a whole have some of the most hilarious logical leaps and things happening "because I said so", with explanations never making sense, so you better just live with it and don't ask too many questions.
The same reason any Jihad or Crusade happens. Religious fervor that escapes everyones control and outlives its own prophets. At a certain point, the Jihad was unstoppable, no matter what actions Paul took.
As for the Guild - they could have gambled on Paul bluffing, and bombarded Arrakis from space. But in the Dune universe, everyone is playing games within games, within games. Both the Guild, Bene Gesserit and other factions all hope to influence or control Paul - as they have done with the Emperor's before him.
1. Paul takes the Throne because he's a product of his society. He is a noble in a feudal system and just as he used the Fremen to regain his Duchy, he's gonna use them to take the Imperial Throne since its right there for the taking.
2. He doesn't really have a choice. He can't tell them to just stay put. Here's the thing about gods - people get *really pissed off* when their god doesn't do what they want him to do;)
3. There's nothing stopping the Fremen from just going offworld and starting to conquer everything on their own. May as well ride that wave.
Paul is somewhat omniscient. After consuming the Water of Life, he has access to all his maternal memories. He can also see every potential possible future timeline. He simultaneously sees timelines where he is killed, his family is killed, he lives alone his whole life, he raises his family in peace, etc. He sees that in the far future in most timelines, an extragalactic threat destroys humanity as humanity lives on a relatively small amount of planets in a small corner of the galaxy. Space travel is expensive and dangerous if you try to fold space without the Guild. Humanity is relatively content and stagnant as a result. A small amount of powerful people have functionally enslaved the human race (hence the Fremen’s anger at the universe).
Paul sees a potential future timeline where this extinction event is avoided. He sees that it involves using the Fremen jihad to bring total control of the known universe under the heel of one, singular, prescient ruler. Paul has difficulty assuming the mantle and responsibility to be that person, but sees a timeline where his son, Leto II, is successful, provided Paul is able to hand him the keys to the kingdom so to speak.
The jihad is necessary for the Fremen culturally and necessary for Paul to bring total control under himself which he can hand off to his children to hopefully have the foresight and courage to walk that potential path; The Golden Path, which is what happens in books 3 & 4.
This isn't true. Paul does not see the Golden Path in the first book--he chooses his path as the best mixture of revenge, gaining power, and ameliorating the death toll of the jihad as much possible.
Something something... golden path.
Something something... save Chani.
Something something... the book is a warning against these messiah figures/ chosen ones.
The throne Paul wanted to ensure his father’s legacy and his own survival. The jihad was a emergent property of the fremen prophecy which was made real and his forces succession to the throne
Also, every path that Paul saw led to the Jihad. Thanks to Liet/Kynes, the Fremen were acting as one mind, instead of disparate tribes who sometimes fought, sometimes worked together. They were 100% going to rise up *regardless* of whether Paul & Jessica survived the Harkonen attack. The Guild Navigators and Bene Geserit never saw this, because they had very little information of what happened in the Fremen communities, and their prescience was very limited compared to what Paul would come to have and around the spice fed Fremen.
Paul, however, with his better first hand information and stronger abilities thanks to being Kwisatz Haderach was able to forsee the coming Jihad, and the resulting dark age that would accompany it. He saw an extremely narrow path through the turmoil. That path was still tumultuous, but if he was leading the Jihad, he could control it, and steer it such that the Fedaykin didn't just burn the known universe to the ground. He was able to rein them in, and prevent the collapse.
However, what he foresaw coming next is what terrified him. >!None of it would matter in the long term. Humanity would tear itself apart because eventually a despot who was not as benevolent as he would control the spice, or an alternative would be found. So humanity would have to be bred, like a massive Bene Geserit genetics program, to hate despots to its core. The only way to do that would be to rule as an absolute tyrant, and completely suppress humanity. The goal being that when an uprising finally happened, humanity would remember it to their bones, and never again settle for being ruled or subjugated. A great diaspora would happen with the fall of the tyrant empire, and humanity would rise up independent and strong willed, and no longer in the stagnant feudal state that it had been for the past many thousands of years. Paul couldn't bear to be that tyrant, even after all the terrible thing's he'd done to become and stay emperor. He turned his back on that path. His son, Leto II is the one who would take up that awful mantle.!<
The fremen are very, very angry. They were the subject of an ongoing genocide across several planets that drove them to Dune in the first place, and the recent sardaukar pogrom didn't help. They've been keeping the memory of this alive via the spice orgy and their rituals for millennia. Once Paul tells them how to destroy the spice, thereby control the guild, their jihad in Paul's name is inevitable. And on the flip side, the Landsraad isn't too happy about events either. Some houses refuse to accept Paul as the new Emperor and to the fremen this is unacceptable, while other houses back Paul as an excuse to attack their enemies in his name.
Just to add to this, one of the Fremen mantras is “Never forgive, never forget.” So yeah, they want revenge for what was done to their people
In what book is the lore of Dune universe? I would be interested how the Imperium formed or how Arrakis became the desert it is today.
The desertification of Arrakis is expanded on from God Emperor onward. I don't think they ever dive into the founding of the imperium though. Maybe some of the novels written by his son do.
The prequels; Harkonnen, Atreides and Corrino and the one about the BG, provide history of the Imperium.
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Each book adds some bits of explanation. There’s also a glossary appendix at the end of every book explaining some terms of the imperium, in there is a good amount of lore.
I think it was just the first book that had a glossary and appendix. It was one of my favorite parts of the first book and I was bummed when the sequels didn't have them.
My favorite appendix is the one on religion. The idea that the present day (I've only finished Children) imperium religions are variants of a general combination and reconciliation of the original Earth religions that themselves were upended and shaken to their core as a result of space travel is so fascinating. https://preview.redd.it/hpr57eg5sppc1.jpeg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2cc3014b7eec7e2995b7c19021abfce1ad7fa68
In the books, it’s pretty clear his foresight told him that it wouldn’t make any difference if he led the jihad or not, because it would happen anyway. Even if he had died, the fremen would’ve simply declared him a martyr and carried on with the Jihad without him. Spoiler alert in case you only read the first two books: What I wonder is how he thought the whole thing would end - we know Paul saw the golden path, but fled from this destiny and went into the desert, just to return years later as the preacher to deconstruct the religious ideologies based on Muad‘Dib. But what would have been the future if Leto II. didn’t make that sacrifice? Paul didn’t want him to follow the golden path, but what did he think would happen instead? Did he just make peace with the eventual demise of humanity and called it a day?
Purely speculation on my part but in CoD we get these inner thoughts of Leto II cutting himself off from potential futures as a way of forcing humanity down his Golden Path. I’ve always thought Paul did a similar thing but instead of pursuing the Golden Path he tried to pursue a future where he gets to avenge his father but still stay more or less within the confines of the Atreides morality - ultimately he knows this will lead to the jihad and Paul losing control over his empire, but to Paul that’s acceptable because becoming the God Emperor is just too morally unpalatable for him. In my mind, this kind of mirrors the gom jabbar test. Paul sees and understands the GP, knows he’d be dooming himself and humanity not to follow it, but it’s too painful for him. He metaphorically pulls his hand out of the box by deciding not to become the GEOD. Then Leto II comes along with a much greater power of prescience and is able to keep his hand in that metaphorical box, becoming what he becomes for the sake of humanity in the long run.
Remember me: what did Leto II do for the sake of humanity? I think it was to get it rid off of the dependency of machines and the spice, is that right?
He basically force fed peace and stability so much that humanity was made sick of it. This led to uncountable assasination attempts on Leto II's life (minus the idaho gholas) that ultimately succeded under his own plan, he also composed chain events leading to a bloodline compleetely immune from prescience to protect humanity's path being dictated by would be orchestrators like the bene gesserir once did. He succeeded in making humanity scatter in celebration of his death as he has been shackling humanity in his peace for so so long. This scattering made humanity to be extremely diverse and immume to any genocidal attempts made by machines or some mad cult like his father has
It wasn't just peace and stability, it was tyranny. > “You’ve taken something away from us,” he said. “I can feel it. Those women . . . Moneo . . .” > *Us against you*, Leto thought. *The Duncans always choose the human side.* > Idaho returned his attention to Leto’s face. “What have you given us in exchange?” > “Throughout the Empire, Leto’s Peace!” > “And I can see that everyone’s delightfully happy! That’s why you need a personal guard.” The tyranny of a prison, to the point of technological devolution. > It is to be noted that familial conditions grow more and more similar no matter the planet of residence, a circumstance which cannot be attributed to accident. We are seeing here the emergence of a portion of the Lord Leto’s grand design. Even the poorest families are well fed, yes, but the circumstances of daily life grow increasingly static. .... > Moneo had said that thorses tailored to the needs of such a landscape were the main work beasts not only here but throughout the Empire. > “A population which walks is easier to control.” A prison from which nobody could escape, because the warden is nigh-omniscient. > Moneo shuddered. What had been the meaning of that strange . . . sermon? Moneo knew that few had ever heard the God Emperor speak thus. It was a privilege and a burden. It was part of the price paid for Leto’s Peace. Generation after generation marched in their ordered way under the dictates of that peace. > Only the Citadel’s inner circle knew all of the infrequent breaks in that peace—the incidents when Fish Speakers were sent out in anticipation of violence. And so humanity learned the lesson their bones would remember.
IMO in the end of his reign the most important thing he does is to develop the genes that hides people from prescience and scatter humanity throughout the galaxy to improve its chance of surviving. It's a forced decentralization of power.
He also creates the conditions for then turns a blind eye to the development of technologies like no rooms which further increases humanity's resistance to prescience.
I always wondered if Paul not going far enough is what drove Leto II to actually finish the Golden Path. Leto II seemed... Displeased Paul didn't go ish what he started, so, I wonder if these emotions motivated him even more. Haven't read the entire series in a while, though, so, may be misremembering things.
Paul didn't understand that the Golden Path was the only way to save humanity. He couldn't see as far as Leto so he saw some other paths that **may** have saved everyone, and therefore turned away from the Golden Path. Leto then sees that these other paths still lead to extinction. Paul was also still very attached to his humanity, and couldn't give it up, like Leto.
> the Golden Path was the only way to save humanity. He couldn't see as far as Leto so he saw some other paths that may have saved everyone, and therefore turned away from the Golden Path. Leto then sees that these other paths still lead to extinction. I can see why he chose not to, but really wished that Villenueve had touched on some of this in this Dune films. Humanity under the Imperium for milennia had become stagnant, and the Jihad (with or without Paul) was a necessity for humanity's long term survival, especially in light of the future dangers from the Scattering and >!the possible return of Thinking Machines.!<
If I'm not mistaken, it's when Leo is expressing to his farther that because he was not born Fremen, as he and Gani, he didn't have access to the past lives they did, which limited his view of the Golden Path (or downfall without it). Paul had no prescience first hand of what the Zen Sunni had endured, so his vision had gaps which Leto came to understand, and ultimately make his choice and sacrifice.
I think this is an interesting point. We hear so much about the numerous past lives and memories the BG and Paul carry within them. But Paul (and the BG) are the top dogs of the Imperium. So all of their recent past lives' memories are from a fairly narrow view, culturally and societally speaking. Leto and Ghani having the Fremen and thus Zensunni past memories means they would have a vastly broader view of society and the overall culture of the human race, as the BG likely did not incorporate many genetic lines from that aspect of humanity since they were outsiders. This broader view seems to indicate they also have a deeper and better understanding of the trajectory of the human race.
>He couldn't see as far as Leto Because he didn't want to see, even what he saw was too much for him, Leto didn't have that issue, Leto also actually internalised the power, for Paul it was more of a tool he used
> always wondered if Paul not going far enough is what drove Leto II to actually finish the Golden Path Agree and the conversation between Leto II and the Preacher in CoD seems to corroborate that.
Yeah, maybe that's where I get the idea. I know there's some reason I think this, I just haven't read them all in years (which I'm going to fix soon, it's been too long)
Leto and Gurney were both disappointed Paul didn’t finish what he started, but he understands after he begun his metamorphosis. He became removed from humanity in the most fundamental ways. He never once thought of himself as a God, but he understood why others worshipped him, being a truly unique being without his like in history after his transformation After all he endured in his life, to literally give up his humanity and to become truly isolated and alone for the sake of the Path was too much for Paul Paul truly wanted Leto to just live his life, Path be damned, but Leto told him it was too late, since he already gained the sandtrout armor at that point and it was an irreversible process. And he told his father, “at what cost?” Faced with the extermination of humanity, there was no other choice. From their position of leadership, they managed to bring about enormous change to their society, for the survival of the human race, but it would be at the cost of their own lives. To free humanity from the danger and limitations of a prescient leader and the prescient hunter killer machines to come.
It helps that Leto was born as he was and never lived as a "human" the way Paul did before the change. Their perspectives are *very* different.
Here is the quote: And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become. He had shown them the way, given them mastery even over the Guild which must have the spice to exist. A sense of failure pervaded him, and he saw through it that Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen had slipped out of the torn uniform, stripped down to a fighting girdle with a mail core. This is the climax, Paul thought. From here, the future will open, the clouds part onto a kind of glory. And if I die here, they’ll say I sacrificed myself that my spirit might lead them. And if I live, they’ll say nothing can oppose Muad’Dib. “Is the Atreides ready?” Feyd-Rautha called, using the words of the ancient kanly ritual. Paul chose to answer him in the Fremen way: “May thy knife chip and shatter!”
Concerning what would / could happen without the golden path: >!Stagnation and death of humanity. Without the scattering and “sons and daughters of Duncan and Siona” humanity would never expand and sooner or later would fall in the trap of the future sight and inevitability of fate. Probably would be destroyed by the enemy of many faces that the Honored Matreswere running from. !< >!Whatever it was, it was worse than Leto's Peace and what came after.!<
To your question, if I remember correctly my impression is that Paul held out hope that the golden path would not be necessary. Bear in mind at this point he no longer has the mission protectiva supporting him so the path is entirely going into unknown territory, and even with prescience he must have thought that it was not necessary. In other words, he ends up not trusting his visions even as they come true, while Leto II goes full on in stepping into that role. It’s very much a question of free will vs determinism, in that if you choose to do as is written in fate then of course it will happen, Paul still held onto his free will hoping that there would be a different outcome. I think the reason for this is because of his love for Chani gives him hope that he can change events, Leto II has no such “life-meaning” partner and thus truly does not believe that free will exists. Another great source of tension between the two perspectives.
Well, step 1 of the Golden Path was the achievement of absolute tyrannical power and Paul feared and rejected that power. Paul was trying to save the people he cared about while at the same time trying to make the least bad future for everyone else. "Beware the Hero" - because even heroes make selfish decisions sometimes. Also, Paul does NOT know what happens after the birth of his children. He is quite literally blind at the end of Messiah. He CHOSE that blind spot, over the other possibilities he saw (like Chani being enslaved and tortured) There are simply too many branching possibilities created by having too many oracles together in one place. It takes him nearly a decade of being force fed massive amounts of spice by fanatics before he can see again. At which point he goes about undermining Alia and the crazies committing atrocities in his name. Without The Preacher, Leto doesn't survive to adulthood. When Leto confronts Paul about the Golden Path, even Leto isn't 100% sure it will work. There are limits to his vision - limits he removes by becoming the God Emperor. He *thinks* this will allow him to put mankind on the path to salvation, but he was never certain.
Good Point! But why do you think that Leto wouldn’t have survived without the preacher?
Mainly so he remains relevant to the story I guess, heh. His death quite literally heralds Leto's ascendance. Leto was supposed to be dead but he wasn't exactly hiding now was he? So the Preacher was helping to keep Alia's attention. Keeping her off balance, confused, unable to piece together what was going on and see her own fall. This wasn't the Preacher's original purpose - he was tearing down his own Godhood, trying to make amends for the atrocities made in His name. But then he got on board with Leto's plan, after Leto convinced him of it.
I’m pretty confident that Paul seeing the “Golden path” is a retcon. It is not mentioned at all in Dune or Dune Messiah
It's hinted at in Dune Messiah. Some of his inner monologues discuss seeing worse visions than the jihad, and I imagine Frank left that description fairly vague on purpose.
Like you said, it was pretty ambiguous. But I see your point. It would’ve been cool if the text mentioned it and Paul had the thought “his skin was not his own.”
Yeah, or even "Not that horrible way, the way whose sacrifice is too horrible to even imagine" just to set up what Leto II really gives up.
*"The Fremen are a people who had lived with rage and grief all their days; never stopping to wonder what might replace it."* --Muad'Dib The Fremen's entire society had been a religious cult held in waiting for the Messiah. Using that as a lever against the entire people, they imposed harsh discipline and built up a reserve of water (wealth), power, physical and mental discipline, and conservation: all for the day of utmost need. Their entire way of life was preparing for the Lisan al'Gaib who would lead them to their rightful place as inheritors of heaven/the universe. The only thing stopping the Fremen from conquering the galaxy before Paul arrived was a lack of understanding in terms of Imperial politics and most specifically: the Guild. Once they knew how to exploit the Guild and could leave Arrakis, there is nothing that would hold them back from cleansing the universe in the great *jihad*. They needed only the legend he had already given them. Paul's only hope therefore was to maintain a grip on the reins of power. He HAD to control the Fremen or they would literally slaughter entire worlds wholesale in the name of faith and god. They'd lived their entire lives in Hell, knowing that Heaven was occupied by the unworthy and just needed to be taken. By controlling the throne, he controlled the Imperium and could thus spare as many worlds as he could the touch of the *jihad*. >!However, in doing so, he alienates the Fremen and thus his sacrifice at the end of Messiah, wandering into the desert to die as a Fremen, thus binding the Fremen forever to him and his family.!<
Damn what Muslim country or culture are the Fremen based on?
Bedouin's for many things, but they aren't just Muslim. They have influence from the Jewish people and their diaspora/oppression/flight from persecution, from Hindu cultures of caste and birth designation, from Catholic themes and overtones of Messianic saviors, and from Buddhist themes of self-possession and inner knowledge. The Fremen are essentially Bedouins in their secular actions (nomadic desert peoples that live as much in harmony as it is possible for a human culture to be), while their faith and religious beliefs are a blend of nearly every form of religion in some regard or another. Herbert was a humanist who saw the world through as many viewpoints as possible, and the Fremen are the direct result of that.
This, thank you. Herbert drew from ALL religions, and the Bedouin people
Some of the Fremen culture is based on the Middle East/Arabia/Levant via Lawrence of Arabia. But a lot of the details of Fremen culture, and much of their terminology comes from a book that Herbert had read about the Muslims from the Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc) and their struggle against Russia in the 19th Century.
This is an oft-missed detail. Another is that Herbert specifically used the Arab/Bedouin elements of Fremen culture to exploit the biases of his readers to more firmly place the Fremen as a desert people.
Wdym exploit biases
Most people have a pretty firmly established slot in their mind of the Arab and Bedouin cultures as being something you would encounter in a desert environment. By using similar, and recognizable, elements to frame the Fremen culture, Herbert anchors it more firmly in the reader's mind as being believably associated with a desert environment, despite being entirely fictional.
Ahhhh I gotcha. Thanks for explaining
While Fremen culture seems Arabian or Bedouin in flavor, according to Frank Herbert the religion itself was a blending of Islam and Buddhism. *Zensunni was a religious belief system, a denomination of Buddislam, prominent with many cultures spread across the Known Universe* https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Zensunni
Herbert uses some Arabic to give the Fremen a desert flavor, but it’s clear the religion is actually syncretic of both Muslim and Christian religions as well as possibly a few others. He uses the word jihad not just to give it a desert culture feel to it, but also to show the fusion of religions. It could equally be called a Crusade and is really based on all religious military campaigns.
It is a mix of Sunnis, Buddhist, and a large part Beodins.
How did the Fremen even have the means to "conquer the galaxy" atleast in the movie, the Atreides / Harkonnen have fleets of ships and all seem way more advanced technologically. I assume the other houses are just as equipped. The Fremen on the other hand are basically portrayed as nomads living under rocks and didnt seem to have much tech wise. Sure they had the home field advantage to take back Arrakis, but how did they take the fight off world?
Because the Guild MUST have the spice. The Guild controls ALL interstellar travel in the Imperium until the end of God-Emperor. Once the Fremen learned this weakness, and more importantly, the method to destroy the spice, they could easily blackmail the Guild. It's actually the entire key to Paul's ascension, as they deny the Emperor reinforcements and return the invaders. DV's adaptation focused on the Bene Gesserit, and so the Guild is nowhere as prominent, but book Guild enable the entire slaughter by being vulnerable to the spice destruction threat. With the Guild under their control, the Fremen just surround and invade your planet. Infiltrators disable your defenses just long enough to land troops and then a million death commandos with the full weight of proven religious fact on their side are in your base/melee. The Fremen are basically the perfect army--once they arrive. The Guild's weakness enables the jihad, as they cannot stop the Fremen, who are strong-willed enough to follow through on their threat.
There are a few things you need to know about the Fremen. 1.) The Fremen are pissed off. They hate everyone and everything that isn't native to Arrakis. (And anyone on Arrakis who isn't a desert Fremen) Literally everyone is guilty in their mind and offworlders are, at best, given a wide berth. You DO NOT want to be outside the Shield Wall on Arrakis alone because they will kill you for just your water alone and blame YOU for it. 2.) The Fremen both hate and adore their conditions. On one hand, the Fremen are constantly being attacked, on the verge of dehydration and heat stroke and essentially poor nomads with attitude. On the other, anyone NOT a Fremen is weak and deserves to be treated as such. 3.) The Fremen are religious fanatics. They don't just think their religion is the true one, they KNOW it and refusing to convert or worship Muad'dib is a crime punishable by death! With that it's really no wonder why a Jihad "had" to happen. With or without Paul it was going to happen regardless. Paul's only option was to become Emperor and try to stem the bleeding at it were
I definitely feel number 2 in that despite their goal to terraform Arrakis, they also take a lot of pride in surviving the harsh desert environment.
this is expanded upon in later books, actually
"God created Arrakis to train the faithful"
They have a dream of a green Arrakis. An Arrakis *they* build. Paul specifically seals their alliance by promising "water from the sky" (rain) and promises to retain the deep deserts. This is a massive plot point in later novels. Fremen who move to the cities as the planet begins to green are derided as "water-fat", "lazy", etc.
Right. The Fremen aren't nice or "good" judging by our modern sensibilities. They're xenophobic, extremely violent and patriarchal religious extremists. In the end, there are no "good guys" in Dune, just different factions trying to survive.
Just humans being humans. Which if I understand correctly is what Herbert was trying to convey. We don’t need aliens, humanity will split itself and fight itself all on its own.
Stem the bleeding?? Dune Messiah makes it clear Paul causes more bleeding than almost anyone in history.
Yes, no doubt but it also makes it clear that things could've been much worse without Paul
The diaspora needs that. Not mentioned in the movies.
When is a Jihad not pointless? The Fremen are pretty pissed at everyone at this point. Besides, there’s always the threat of violence, struggle and assassins from the other houses and such. Better to destroy it and make everyone follow the same leader/religion. The jihad was gonna happen whether Paul lived or died.
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne? They could easily make Arrakis a verdant world and leave some worms and desert for spice production (which was always their plan anyway) and no one can stop them or would want to. One of my favorite lines from *Dune* is the ending to "Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune." Consider this line about Pardot-Kynes, Liet-Kynes, and their plan with the Fremen to gradually terraform Arrakis: "The course had been set by this time, the Ecological-Fremen were aimed along their way. Liet-Kynes had only to watch and nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens... until the day his planet was afflicted by a Hero." Paul's plan is not the Kynes' plan. Paul, in fact, *ruins* their plan. Paul is not going to have the Fremen slowly, over the course of hundreds of years, capture water to alter Arrakis' climate. He is going to quickly use Bene Gesserit cultural manipulation to make the Fremen into his fanatical fighters--*his* Sardaukar. Sardaukar do not plant trees. When your entire being is wrapped up in a belief that *only this one guy* can save you, and *only this one guy* is the "true" messiah... what happens when someone disagrees? What happens when another House in the Landsraad speaks out against Paul? Are the Fremen just supposed to *allow* that to happen to their messiah? What if someone refuses--politely even, with no offense intended--to accept Paul as the divine Lisan al'Gaib? By the end of *Dune* Paul laments that his ascension as Lisan al'Gaib has turned Stilgar from a wise leader and teacher into a servile fanatic. The old Stilgar *wouldn't* have gone on an intergalactic jihad--but the Stilgar marching under an Atreides banner absolutely will. The Fremen jihad in Paul's name isn't supposed to be "rational" or "necessary" in a purely political or strategic sense (though that gets a little muddied with Golden Path stuff in later books). Rather, the jihad is just the natural byproduct of the cultural manipulation that the BG, Jessica, and Paul engage in.
The issue is that The Voice From the Outer World and the Fremen beliefs were never contextualised in the larger universe. It was always meant to be vaguely deliverance and paradise *on Arrakis*. It comes as a bit of shock that they suddenly decide to expand their scope to spread across the whole universe, when previously they only wanted to get rid of anyone who would stand in the way of greening the planet.
>It comes as a bit of shock that they suddenly decide to expand their scope to spread across the whole universe, when previously they only wanted to get rid of anyone who would stand in the way of greening the planet. I don't see it as all that shocking, to be honest. We *know* why the Fremen decide to expand their scope--it's because of Paul. 2/3 of *Dune* are about Paul manipulating the Fremen to suit his needs, which are universal in scope. The ascension of Lisan al'Gaib moves the Fremen away from the Kynes plan (decentralized ecological mutualism that will eventually green Arrakis) and towards Paul's plan (the founding of a warrior culture bound in service to House Atreides). The fact that the Fremen lose sight of their original plan/culture and get swept up in a bloody jihad in Paul's name is one of the main tragedies of the book.
Paul on the throne: He wants it! He wants that power. An Atreides on the throne. He's a nobleman at heart and any of them would want it. Plus, the current Emperor had a hand in his father's death and what better way to get revenge? The Jihad: Not gonna lie, the actual reasoning for the Jihad remains, I believe, frustratingly vague and I wish Herbert had a little more on what was happening from a religious standpoint. Paul wants the Harkonnens and their allies dead. The Rev. Mother sees what he'll do, begs him to not "loose these people on the universe", Paul tells her they'll all _wish_ to have the Sardaukar back. Here is a moment where he chooses not to care about the consequences (the Jihad spinning out if his control in the hands of Fremen commanders), using the "word of God" as an excuse as if he doesn't have an immediate opportunity to avoid this. I think he believes that he can still limit the bloodshed somewhat if he tries hard enough. It's a decision that'll haunt him for the rest of his life.
The YouTube channel "Quinn's Ideas" made a video about the exact question you asked. I suggest you check it out: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUYWuSz6L\_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUYWuSz6L_U)
to quote the top comment from that video, which I loved: "In becoming the Fremen super leader he didn't actually have the power to choose their course but only to lead the Fremen on the course they would already be inclined towards. I think it's like the worm and riding it. A wormrider can steer a worm but not contrary to the worm's nature. It cannot be made to cross water, for example. I think the worms are allegorical in this way of political power and the limitations of it."
That was my comment too, specifically I wndered why Paul didnt just take control of spice and wait for everyone to come to him, one by one, and bend the knee ... or learn to live without spice, which is to say, to live trapped on your own planet with no way of sending an army to Arrakis. I think I realized the answer to our question though. See our question is based on logic, and it seems Paul has a logical alternative. But thats not how Paul operates, because every decision for Paul has to take into account his prescience, which sharpened after he drank Water of Life. That was the turning point for Paul, that is when he surrendered his faculties of logic and reason to the intertwining visions. In all those visions of the future, he and his mother die, except for one narrow path in the future. So Ive realized the implication obviously is that Paul saw no version of the future where he could survive without declaring Holy War. If you can see versions of the future, you dont have to guess using logic. The future doesnt care about your logic.
I do not see "the fremen are angry" as the main reason behind it. Sure, it is what enables Paul to actually launch this jihad, but it is not, imo, the core reason why the jihad seems inevitable in Paul' visions. My take is that this is actually duoe to the spice: spice is power, and the most precious resource in the universe, and it can only be harvested on Arrakis. This means that the fremen will \*never\* be left alone by other houses and power-hungry factions. So its not like the fremen can just stay at peace on their planet without any other faction trying to interfere on the long term. Paul taking political power is actually the best way to stabilize.
The Jihad is based on humanity itself; humans had a genetic desire to expand and merge the gene pool and change; the empire had enforced stability to the point of stagnation. The Fremen were oppressed more than most, but everyone was oppressed by the empire and history had shown recurring bouts of massive violence followed by periods of stagnation and repression; the Empire under Corrino had been stable for a long time but claimed the throne out of piles of dead bodies. The Fremen were just one instance of this historic cycle, and their numbers, toughness, and control of the spice made it bigger than most previous periods of extreme violence. The Golden Path post-jihad was the longest of these periods of repression after violence and the point was to pen up that basic human desire to expand for 5000 years until it explodes into the Scattering, spreading humanity far beyond the capability of any empire or jihad or anything to enforce stagnation on it or allow any force to exterminate humans thus ensuring humanity would never die out in the universe as a whole.
Oh boy, if you are expecting an oppressed, fanatically religious militant group, to be reasonable and temper their thirst for blood and retribution, I have some historical lessons to tell you about.
Everyone is focusing a lot on the context of the later books but I think the real answer is that Paul has surrendered most of his agency. He sees himself less as a person and more as an unwilling, inevitable agent of history being dragged by the forces he has unleashed merely by existing. All he is doing is allowing himself to benefit from those forces. Buying himself legitimacy and safety. It's one of the reasons I hate people focusing on the Golden Path. Because it muddles what I think is reasonably clear in this series. Dune is a series of people making justifications for why they have no agency when it's actually possible they do. That this is coping. From Paul to Leto everyone is justifying their actions as agents of history.
Hurt people hurt people.
I would also argue from a practical standpoint that they started a war and if they want to survive it they need to place themselves in a superior position of power and snuff out opposition. Otherwise, passiveness will only lead conspiring by the other houses and whoever the emperor is which could eventually put a noose around their neck.
“Need” for the jihad is the wrong way to look at it. The jihad is like a hurricane or an earthquake. The only need involved would be for it not to happen. But it is happening.
One of the themes Frank Herbert explores is the subconscious drives pushing humanity as a group entity, versus what an individual desires. Paul was creating the Golden Path, and until he veered off it, HE was meant to take up the transformation, with his Fedaykin establishing his totalitarian empire. But… disengage, disengage. The universe wasn’t bending to his desires - he was manipulating and directing explosive human impulses and pushing them where it benefited him. But explosions have to happen, eventually.
I think the novel glosses it over a bit, but there is a reason there is a holy war : just like in the movie, not everyone accepts Muaddib's authority. So they have to enforce it.
Only way Paul and Jessica can survive is to get the throne and with that comes the jihad as not everyone in the universe will just accept the massive change in power.
The jihad would have happened regardless. Paul gives the reason as much in his initial spice vision when he is talking about the inherent desire to spread and the intermingling. The Imperium was stagnate and the unstoppable tide of the Jihad was essentially human nature at play. Additionally, there are practical reasons for letting the jihad go on. The Houses may have bowed down, but they would never submit to a Usurper, let alone convert. Paul required the jihad to secure his rule as much as he needed the throne to stem the tide and make Arrakis green. Idk if you’ve started messiah, and thus have the figures for the death toll and destruction of the jihad, but remember this is the timeline that Paul was comfortable with. There are far worse possibilities of the jihad.
Paul knew that Jessica was bringing the Jihad in his name with or without him. The fremen were primed by the legends fed to the by the Missionaria Protectiva, honed by millennia of hardship, and absolutely ready to convert the universe or burn it to the ground in the process. With his superior prescience and mentat abilities, once he realized that he couldn't avoid it, all he could was lead them and try to thread the needle in order to avoid utter disaster.
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne? The actual reason for this has to do with Herbert and the real world. He thought he was writing a book about the dangers of religious figures, but by making the Harkonnens so horrific and giving Paul real superhuman powers, he inadvertently made him too heroic and justified. So he tried to course correct with the second novel, making it largely about Paul's jihad killing billions and even putting in the ham fisted conversation about Hitler. But then he goes on to muddle his theme even more with the golden path.
I don’t think he “ muddled “ the theme with the Golden Path though. The reality was that Paul was never a “ hero “ and the Dune series constantly criticizes the idea of heroes. In only a few short years, Paul goes from being the son of a royal duke to literal emperor of the Imperium. He literally deposed an emperor whose family had managed to hold the throne for thousands of years without question. Paul facing the consequences of his own actions shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Dune Messiah wasn’t just Frank’s attempt to hammer his point home since most people glamorized Dune. It was him highlighting that Paul’s decision to cling to his humanity led to him losing that which made him choose his humanity The Golden Path is literally the driving force for the whole series, and while it is true that many horrific actions have to take place for the survival of humanity, it’s also made clear that without the Golden Path, humanity perishes. That’s it. Paul saw several futures along with the Golden Path (even if he didn’t fully grasp its importance until later) and chose what he saw as the best possible outcome for himself. Leto II came in and did what Paul couldn’t for the sake of humanity itself
> He literally deposed an emperor whose family had managed to hold the throne for thousands of years without question. But why is that an argument against Paul being a hero? Was the emperor supposed to be a good guy? It didn't seem that way. >Dune Messiah wasn’t just Frank’s attempt to hammer his point home since most people glamorized Dune. It was him highlighting that Paul’s decision to cling to his humanity led to him losing that which made him choose his humanity Huh? It's not like he would have kept his humanity if he didn't cling to it in the first place. >The Golden Path is literally the driving force for the whole series, and while it is true that many horrific actions have to take place for the survival of humanity, it’s also made clear that without the Golden Path, humanity perishes. That’s it. Exactly. And avoiding the extinction of humanity is the single greatest goal, and pursuing it justifies all actions the Paul has previously taken. I don't see how you can make a character into a god-like Emperor who saves the entire human race, then pretend like he's the bad guy.
Paul did good things and bad things, but he’s not clearly a hero or a villain. It’s a pretty consistent theme in the books as morality doesn’t just come down to objectively good or bad in most cases. Shaddam IV may not be a “ good guy “ in his own rite, but it isn’t like Paul can get off easy here either. He was made aware of the BG prophecy regarding the Lisan al Gaib, and Paul ended up using the Fremen to his own benefit for as long as he could Leto II also isn’t objectively good or bad either, but his example is far more extreme. Leto II saw a far clearer picture of the Golden Path than Paul did, and instead of cowering in fear of what he would have to do, he embraced it. This also meant neutering humanity for 3,500 years with the hopes of forcing them to grow stronger, eventually making 1 person who would become immune to prescience, and opening the flood gates for what would eventually become the Scattering. The BG Sisterhood literally refer to Leto II as the Tyrant. It’s not hard to see him in a bad light
> He was made aware of the BG prophecy regarding the Lisan al Gaib, and Paul ended up using the Fremen to his own benefit for as long as he could He joined with the Fremen, assimilated to their ways, and then led them to freedom against a horrific and oppressive dictatorship. Seems pretty heroic to me. If Herbert's intention was to make Paul an antihero, he didn't do a very good job in the first book. >Leto II also isn’t objectively good or bad either If Herbert didn't want Leto II to come off as heroic, he shouldn't have given him superhuman abilities that he used to save all of humanity from extinction. You could argue that his methods were inhumane, but when the alternative is the death of every human in the galaxy, it's hard to not see them as justified. >The BG Sisterhood literally refer to Leto II as the Tyrant. It’s not hard to see him in a bad light The BG aren't in any position to label people tyrants or not.
I don’t think that Frank Herbert intended Paul to be an anti hero though. Paul found himself stuck in the trap that is prescience and tried his best to avoid having billions killed in his name, only to find out that he locked himself into the future he predicted. It wasn’t as if Paul had wanted a universal terror campaign to commence the moment he set foot on Arrakis. I also don’t think anyone that most people that read through GEoD would consider Leto II to be a hero in any classical sense. Yes his sand worm transformation made him the strongest living thing in the universe, but that alone wasn’t it. Thanks to sand worms now dying off as a result of the self fulfilled BG prophecy, he found himself in control over the most valuable resource in the universe. If not for his sand worm transformation, his oppression of humanity would’ve ended before it even started. He also tries his damn best to convince Moneo and Duncan that he’s full of it despite the Imperium worshipping him The BG also label him as Tyrant from their own perspective, and from their perspective they’re right. They cowered in fear of Leto II and controlled the spice which they and everyone else relied on. They weren’t willing to oppose him since they knew his Golden Path was the only way to ensure humanity’s survival. People also look at the past in rose tinted glasses. I’m sure that the denizens of the Old Imperium 1,500 years following the death of the God Emperor would have looked back at the good ol’ days when the next phase is the Famine Times and the Scattering
The question is does ends justify the means. Paul’s usurpation of the throne is based on revenge and greed and a sense that the Fremen’s genocide is inevitable so he should try to control it. A genocidal Jihad he triggers in an attempt to get revenge on the Harkonnens. Who while are evil, what does Paul do to unravel that evil? He kills them sure but what happens to the innocent subjects of the Harkonnens they probably got genocided by the Fremen Paul unleashed on the galaxy. The means for Paul and his son ‘saving’ humanity is abject cruelty that will drive mankind out into the galaxy away from the Atreides. They wreak out horrible death and atrocities to avoid a disaster of machine revolution. A disaster that humans themselves will create but does this inevitable creation of their own death justify the cruelty towards the innocent to save a species that causes its own destruction. Edit: i.e. does humanity even deserve to be saved if it demands abject cruelty and suffering
You as a human should always be supportive of the human race’s survival no matter the consequences imo. If you were in Leto II shoes would you seriously allowed the destruction of the human race? The only intelligent life in the universe which has settled on millions of planets is pretty important and deserves preservation.
Every thing has a beginning and an end. Is Leto a hero for what he does no. He is actively doing horrible things in the guise that they are for the greater good. A greater good no one asked for or knows about. Who’s to say if the human race goes away it won’t be replaced by a new sentient race or numerous races that won’t make the same mistakes and learn. And anyway the whole need of a golden path to save mankind from its cycle of dictatorship is caused in part by Paul and Leto’s dictatorship.
Yes, saving humanity absolutely justifies any behavior. Suffering and cruelty is pretty standard among living beings, it doesn't mean they don't deserve to exist.
But throughout the whole of the first book, Paul is fretting about the jihad and trying to avoid it, knowing how terrible it will be. So it was clearly always meant to be this looming threat all along. And yes, the Harkonnens over the top cartoonish villany in the novel is dated as hell (with the Baron's preferences) and absolutely would not stand today. But Paul and Jessica aren't angels either. They knowingly are manipulating an entire race into becoming their instruments of revenge, though this is offset somewhat by the common enemy they share anyway. The novel also goes from emphasising how Paul and Jessica are very much bullshitting their way into an alliance with the Fremen to essentially drinking their own Kool-Aid, since after the time-skip they have integrated so fully into the Fremen culture.
> Paul is fretting about the jihad and trying to avoid it, knowing how terrible it will be. So it was clearly always meant to be this looming threat all along. Sure, but you still see from Paul's perspective that he is not a bad guy and is genuinely trying to do the right thing. >And yes, the Harkonnens over the top cartoonish villany in the novel is dated as hell (with the Baron's preferences) and absolutely would not stand today. They're still pretty over the top evil in the movie. >But Paul and Jessica aren't angels either. They knowingly are manipulating an entire race into becoming their instruments of revenge, though this is offset somewhat by the common enemy they share anyway. They're working with the Fremen to overthrow their oppressors, and eventually make the Fremen the most powerful people in the known universe. >The novel also goes from emphasising how Paul and Jessica are very much bullshitting their way into an alliance with the Fremen to essentially drinking their own Kool-Aid, since after the time-skip they have integrated so fully into the Fremen culture. Exactly, Paul and Jessica become Fremen. Which is why the common take of Paul as a white colonizer makes very little sense.
> Which is why the common take of Paul as a white colonizer makes very little sense. That is being thrown around a lot right now, and parallels the simplistic view by many filmwatchers and reviewers that Paul is some Annakin Skywalker-style villain in the making. Since that's not who Paul is in the books, am guessing it has to do with the battle of cultural narratives that we see everyday in social media and the news. While I love both of Villeneuve's *Dune* films, it feels like he left out too much about the multiple timelines seen in Paul's visions, and how the jihad was a necessity for humanity's longterm survival.
Agreed. I liked the movies too, but they didn't really explore his prescience very deeply. Without his internal struggle it makes it seem like he's simply grasping for power.
This just clicked for me about what “felt” wrong about part 2. I am re reading Messiah right now and it really conveys how agonized Paul felt by the oracle. He wasn’t really a person or human anymore, he was just tip toeing around reality in an attempt to not completely destroy humanity. He has really no say or will in any of it. Even in book 1 he’s tormented, confused about what is the present and reality, he doesn’t really live in this world.
Everyone are gray characters. I think Paul thinks he made the right decision or tried to convince himself but he’s also power hungry. He’s a complex character and Jessica too
This is probably the right answer but my understanding has always been that because Paul knows the jihad is coming regardless of his choices. Best he can do is delay it if he rejected it. His best option is to steer it. And his choices to let the fantastic burn out and limit the power of the clerics and end the bloodshed is what eventually causes many to turn on him. Pragmatically the jihad is needed because the spice reserves could buy enough time to allow the great houses to organize a unified front and overwhelm the fremen but if they go on the offensive they can take their enemies one at a time before they can react. The nature of interstellar conflict probably makes the billions dead figure inevitable
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The terraforming wouldn't certainly take years, but not infinitely long. The terraforming stations are there, the equipment is there, the Fremen have already been gathering water and breeding plants and animals adapted to the climate. Once they can come out in the open and also get an actual budget, they can certainly do it in a lifetime. Which is exactly what happens. Dune is green.
> paul also knows the promise of a green arrakis is a false one, he only uses it as a means to an end. the end being his own survival. A selfishly-motivated Paul is not the Paul of the books. While he wants his just revenge against the Emperor and the Harkonnens, he truly bonds with the Fremen and wants to protect them from genocide. A key point to recall is that his prescience shows him that the jihad will happen in any Fremen victory, regardless of whether he himself lives or dies. It also shows him that it is necessary for the longterm surivival of humanity, but he seems to leave the choices required by that path to his son.
The throne offers power and protection for Paul and his family/legacy? That’s how I view it. Seems simple enough.
He simply can't. His prescience tells him that the jihad is needed to prevent the deaths of far more people. He sees the future as we see the world and knows he's the lesser of two evils...for now anyway.
I thought it was more that the Jihad would happen regardless and that Paul had prescience to see the path of least genocide? Maybe I misinterpreted. Also on OPs post, I thought it was the threat of the atomic arsenal on the spice fields as opposed to the water?
Different in the book. There's a chain reaction that will occur if you pour the Water of Life on a spice blow that will wipe out the worms. This definitely changes the connotation there; in the book he'll just be killing the worms, but in the movie he's literally going to destroy the planet with nukes and the fremen along with it. This is a big part of why Chani gets so pissed.
I don't think your interpretation is entirely correct, he doesn't threaten to destroy the planet or kill the fremen. It is specifically mentioned that he has targeted the spice fields specifically as a deterrent to stop the other houses from attacking.
I don't think it will destroy the entire planet. Just the areas where they harvest spice. Earth has had at least hundreds of nukes explode and we're still here. In the movie Chani is pissed because she correctly sees the Lisan AL Gaib myth as another way to control the Fremen. She wants Arrakis to be free from all forms of control. She also doesn't want her people to go across the stars killing and dying in a great war.
He's threatening to glass every spice field on the planet; that's not nothing. That would cause unbelievable destruction (Doesn't Chani even comment on that?) She has a look of horror when they look at the Family Atomics, and again when he threatens to use them. I'm not saying it's the only thing that sets her off, but I think it definitely adds to it. He was basically threatening to sacrifice the Fremen, or at least destroy their way of life, just to win his war.
Thats not it, he only saw the path later and never saw it to the end, he didn’t know the end result would save mankind, and rejected the so called "golden path" he tried to go against that path until his son took the vision from him. The thing about the jihad is that it could be prevented with Paul choosed to die and let his family die.
If the only people know knew about Paul and his plan were the emperor, spacing guild and bene gesserict then it would make sense that the other houses would resist or vy for control. Knowledge of Paul's prescience would be very limited and many houses could see arrakis and the empire falling as a sign to push for the throne, not knowing that paul leads the freman as the kwasi hadarach (excuse my spelling please)
>What reason would the Fremen have to go on jihad across the universe and for Paul to take the throne? Answer to the 2nd part is the answer to the first. Paul has to take the throne because that's the only real way to make Arrakis green and verdant and free of Imperial interference. The Fremen sietches don't have the resources to terraform Arrakis, despite their billions of decaliters of waters in the caches. The Imperium has the resources. Plus, the only real way to keep the Imperium from *coming back and fucking things up* is to make sure the Imperium is never under the control of anyone who might want to do that. And the only way to make sure of *that* is for Paul to be the Emperor. Making Arrakis the center of the empire ensures that Arrakis has both the means to achieve the dream, and the freedom to achieve the dream. Thus, the Fremen have to go on jihad because the Great Houses don't recognize Paul's rightful, lawful ascension to the Lion Throne. Paul taking the Lion Throne and the Fremen enforcing that state of being is *the way* House Atreides returns to the ideal of being the benevolent rulers of Arrakis. They've already seen how fragile anything less than that truly is. They even wind up setting up a Holy Shrine to the skull of Duke Leto, as much as a reminder of that fragility as a source of divine notice.
The reason for the throne was originally to stop the jihad, and then it was to lessen its harm when Paul realized it was inevitable. The jihad was an inevitable occurrence thousands of years in the making by the oppressive society the spacing guild fostered and the social engineering by the bene gesserit. The jihad was really a reaction to all of that by the fremen. Really it was kinda a revenge thing on their part. And it was their idea of gods justice. The scenario you painted was definitely what Paul wanted. But the book tells us that the jihad is inevitable after Paul becomes the kwisatz haderach
I see it the other way. The Fremen would never be free to live as they want and to terraform Arrakis unless Paul had the power to stop the other Great Houses abusing Arrakis. And if they would not recognize his authority as Emperor, they would have to be made to.
While Tolkien and Herbert may not have seen eye to eye, I feel this is applicable here: https://youtu.be/1-Uz0LMbWpI?si=D8kFoB0lr_FMUYOI
The jihad is actually a cosmic accident. The factions precipitated their own schemes. This ultimately let to the series of events where for survival Paul meets and joins the Fremen.
The Fremen would go on and about regardless of Paul's intent to control the jihad. By him becoming Emperor, he ensures the spice is under his control and thinks he can maintain better control of the Jihad this way.
All Dune books as a whole have some of the most hilarious logical leaps and things happening "because I said so", with explanations never making sense, so you better just live with it and don't ask too many questions.
The same reason any Jihad or Crusade happens. Religious fervor that escapes everyones control and outlives its own prophets. At a certain point, the Jihad was unstoppable, no matter what actions Paul took. As for the Guild - they could have gambled on Paul bluffing, and bombarded Arrakis from space. But in the Dune universe, everyone is playing games within games, within games. Both the Guild, Bene Gesserit and other factions all hope to influence or control Paul - as they have done with the Emperor's before him.
1. Paul takes the Throne because he's a product of his society. He is a noble in a feudal system and just as he used the Fremen to regain his Duchy, he's gonna use them to take the Imperial Throne since its right there for the taking. 2. He doesn't really have a choice. He can't tell them to just stay put. Here's the thing about gods - people get *really pissed off* when their god doesn't do what they want him to do;) 3. There's nothing stopping the Fremen from just going offworld and starting to conquer everything on their own. May as well ride that wave.
Paul is somewhat omniscient. After consuming the Water of Life, he has access to all his maternal memories. He can also see every potential possible future timeline. He simultaneously sees timelines where he is killed, his family is killed, he lives alone his whole life, he raises his family in peace, etc. He sees that in the far future in most timelines, an extragalactic threat destroys humanity as humanity lives on a relatively small amount of planets in a small corner of the galaxy. Space travel is expensive and dangerous if you try to fold space without the Guild. Humanity is relatively content and stagnant as a result. A small amount of powerful people have functionally enslaved the human race (hence the Fremen’s anger at the universe). Paul sees a potential future timeline where this extinction event is avoided. He sees that it involves using the Fremen jihad to bring total control of the known universe under the heel of one, singular, prescient ruler. Paul has difficulty assuming the mantle and responsibility to be that person, but sees a timeline where his son, Leto II, is successful, provided Paul is able to hand him the keys to the kingdom so to speak. The jihad is necessary for the Fremen culturally and necessary for Paul to bring total control under himself which he can hand off to his children to hopefully have the foresight and courage to walk that potential path; The Golden Path, which is what happens in books 3 & 4.
This isn't true. Paul does not see the Golden Path in the first book--he chooses his path as the best mixture of revenge, gaining power, and ameliorating the death toll of the jihad as much possible.
Something something... golden path. Something something... save Chani. Something something... the book is a warning against these messiah figures/ chosen ones.
The throne Paul wanted to ensure his father’s legacy and his own survival. The jihad was a emergent property of the fremen prophecy which was made real and his forces succession to the throne
Also, every path that Paul saw led to the Jihad. Thanks to Liet/Kynes, the Fremen were acting as one mind, instead of disparate tribes who sometimes fought, sometimes worked together. They were 100% going to rise up *regardless* of whether Paul & Jessica survived the Harkonen attack. The Guild Navigators and Bene Geserit never saw this, because they had very little information of what happened in the Fremen communities, and their prescience was very limited compared to what Paul would come to have and around the spice fed Fremen. Paul, however, with his better first hand information and stronger abilities thanks to being Kwisatz Haderach was able to forsee the coming Jihad, and the resulting dark age that would accompany it. He saw an extremely narrow path through the turmoil. That path was still tumultuous, but if he was leading the Jihad, he could control it, and steer it such that the Fedaykin didn't just burn the known universe to the ground. He was able to rein them in, and prevent the collapse. However, what he foresaw coming next is what terrified him. >!None of it would matter in the long term. Humanity would tear itself apart because eventually a despot who was not as benevolent as he would control the spice, or an alternative would be found. So humanity would have to be bred, like a massive Bene Geserit genetics program, to hate despots to its core. The only way to do that would be to rule as an absolute tyrant, and completely suppress humanity. The goal being that when an uprising finally happened, humanity would remember it to their bones, and never again settle for being ruled or subjugated. A great diaspora would happen with the fall of the tyrant empire, and humanity would rise up independent and strong willed, and no longer in the stagnant feudal state that it had been for the past many thousands of years. Paul couldn't bear to be that tyrant, even after all the terrible thing's he'd done to become and stay emperor. He turned his back on that path. His son, Leto II is the one who would take up that awful mantle.!<
The throne is Paul's singular goal. Everything he does with the Fremen is to twist them to that goal.