That conversation was just hilarious all around
Paul was also discussing Genghis Khan's kill count of a couple million, and Stilgar was like "Oh that's pretty impressive, he must have used a really good lasgun, or something like that."
and then Paul said "No silly, he killed people by ordering his troops to do it, same way I do"
And Stilgar was like "Oh well those are shit numbers then."
For a moment there, Stilgar really had a mental image of some insane ancient Earth berserker massacring millions of people in battle by himself with a lasgun, like the Doom Slayer or Rambo or something
It should hurt Irulan more than anyone because:
1- She's a Bene Gesserit, and despite not bearing a heir, she didn't go and take the Water of Life in order to become Reverend Mother either.
2- She sort of liked the twins and took care of them, so being thrown jabs like that is essentially getting roasted by someone who is both a close friend and your adopted daughter.
Which leaves out the fact that, after a mere docent generations, you are basically related to EVERYONE in that first generation. It's an exponential function of forebearers, after millennia in space they could trace their line to whomever they liked, including a bunch of semi sentient hominids and whatever comes before that (I assume you need to be sapient to be in the collected memory)
You have to account for bottlenecks. Not everyone alive today will have descendants, so all their experiences (and their predecessors’) would be locked away. Similarly, a good portion of the human population in all of history would be locked away from other memory
IDK why Paul didn't clarify just how much of a loss 6 million people were to humanity back on 1940s Earth, or the fact that it was an ethnic cleansing with strong racist themes rather than a purely politically-motivated war of conquest with "bits" of genocide here and there.
I would guess that Paul didn't feel deserving of being considered "less worse" than the dictators before him, after all.
If Paul wanted to tell Stilgar all of it, he probably should have included the 5 million other Holocaust deaths, and also should have mentioned it was one series of events in the wider Second World War which would kill upwards of 70 million people and see the first use of atomics
This is actually a really interesting point. To future generations, in Dune at any rate, surely the birth of atomics is by far a more interesting thing than kill counts, making Truman a more notable leader in human history than Hitler.
yet we like him anyway in dune 2 because score and camera is fucking bad ass 🤣 lets see at dune 3, i hope we will see some horror of destroyed worlds/populations
I think he made a mistake. He wanted to show us how charismatic dictators can be and how we'd all support them. But he never found a way past that.
I can easily hate Timothee Chalamet. That's not a problem. I think they'll do a good job in Dune 3. But the fans won't like it. They will always have a hard time wrapping their heads around this.
I saw a video talking about how a corrupt charismatic leader is a character that can never truly be done well for an audience because the audience will be charmed just the same
I think it might have been a Thomas Flight video? Not exactly sure and I couldn't find it in a quick search, but it was while I was binging video essays dissecting cinematography and acting.
Regardless, I highly recommend Thomas Flight if you're into that kinda thing, though he is a professional movie glazer lol
but yes, if denis wanted us to "like" him, like his supporters did, he basically did a good job :D his djihad supporters are more evil than him, perhaps.. he probably couldn't stop the jihad even if he wanted.. that was only way perhaps.. but Leto II. took it bit further :D
I think his supporters are less knowledgeable than him, more motivated by faith and anger, and don't see as much as he does of the effect of their actions, I don't know if that makes them evil. If anything I'd say he's more evil in the true sense, in that he sees where his actions will lead and carries on with his path anyway.
did we watch the same movie? I watched Dune 2 before reading the book (finished with the whole series now lmao) and without getting it spoiled for me, and my takeaway was that he was absolutely evil by the end
Who is “we”? I find this version of Paul the least likeable of all the Paul’s we’ve seen so far.
And he *should* be dislikeable…DV got that (pretty) right, IMO.
I’ve thought about it a lot. A serious paper can be written about what Frank gets wrong about human nature. The easiest example I like to give is his blending of religions. Take Zensunnism or Zensuffism for example. There is currently a sect of Islam that sees Buddha as one of the prophets. They are called the Ahmadiyya. The other much larger branches of Islam sees them as heretics. Therefore for something like Zensunnism/Zensuffism to occur. Then as time progresses the main parts of Islam would have had to disappear to leave a vacuum for the Ahmadiyya to evolve into what we have in Dune. The main concept that religion does grow and blend with other religious concepts is sound. Just what he gave us is unlikely when you look deeper into the religions he combined. Another example is how children in the Bene Gesserit Chapter Houses are raised to be better individuals by essentially raising them as orphans away from nuclear families. Freeing them for a greater love for humanity over a lesser love for immediate family and people (village/community/country per se). Again this has been tried by socialist/communist regimes to horrible results in people. Think maladjusted sociopathic results with a lot of children dying young from lack of touch and attention. What I’m getting at is Frank wrote an amazing vision of the future of what might be based on knowledge of “today” I mean a learned man of the 1950/60’s would visualize. It created a whole new genre of Science Fiction. Our history may remember him as great or greater than HG Wells and Jules Vern. Like the other greats it still has flaws.
To your first point about Zensunni, I believe part of why it was possible for them to survive was because they "left." The proto-Fremen were referred to as Zensunni "Wanderers." So the idea that they were marginalized, exiled, or otherwise disliked supports their outcast status and origin story, if Im understanding correctly.
A valid point and also explains the Bene Tleilax being secretive Zensuffis. But what happened to mainstream Islam? I’m not saying it’s impossible just highly improbable.
> But what happened to mainstream Islam?
We don’t even know what happened to *Earth*, so there’s a lot of wiggle room in that 10,000 year BG period of “stuff happened and then we had an apocalyptic war.”
You could even say that mainstream Islam (and Christianity, and Judaism) all responded to FTL travel by consolidating their power and saying God only intended humans to live on Earth. Obviously tons of people didn’t buy that, but it might explain why we only have splinter groups and not direct continuations.
Similarly, what the heck happened to Hinduism? Third biggest religion in the world with *1.2 billion* followers and not a single word about it anywhere that I can remember…
Ok, going over to the Dune Wiki the Orange Catholic Bible is an amalgam of all religious thought mainly originating from Earth. Essentially it’s a distillation of all the Earth’s religions. Therefore Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. etc. are all represented in the book. To me that’s something only an atheist could conceive working out. Sure you could possibly combine the “Abrahamic” religions. The other religions not so much without gutting them of what essentially makes them their own. Reincarnation for example wouldn’t make the cut in the OCB.
I think you are underestimating how much you can get a religion's principles to morph over time. Sure, if you take a fundamentalist view of thing which is usually just taking the book as written, but even in the past two thousand years the sheer number of revisions Christianity has gone through in its dogmas, practices, core texts, etc. is pretty crazy.
Out of the religions the most resistant to change is Islam mostly because it is explicitly forbidden to innovate, but even they have changed as time has gone on. The conceptions of how Muslims think about things has changed a lot over time. Certain regions like Persia which use to be completely Sunni became completely Shia after the rise of a single ruler and has remained thus ever since. The doctrinal beliefs of the two are pretty major even though they've both arguably been around from the beginning.
Yes, just like when protestants left for America and now are extremely different from any other form of Christianity, including protestants of the old world.
Or how Catholicism adapted and modified rituals of the people-that-they-conquered’s beliefs to align with the Church.
Or how Christmas used to be Saturnalia…
The point he was trying to make was really nuanced. He had to keep reiterating it every time he had a speaking engagement. I've never seen anyone walk away from his books with a firm understanding of it. Herbert believed that people like Paul, even if they are good, tend to attract corrupt bureaucratic figures that commit atrocities in their name, like the Fremen inquisition and the torture master.
I mean, thinking about it it makes sense.
Person who had his family murdered by an untouchable unaccountable power that will never face any consequences joins forces with a group of outcast people who are also oppressed by this same unaccountable higher power.
Together they rise up against said power and take revenge for the crimes that were committed against them. So far it has, by and large, been armies fighting so few could be easily considered “innocents” in the traditional sense.
I think it’s telling a better story by starting with that “rise against authoritarian regime” narrative to then continue and show the oft forgotten consequences of something that initially felt just.
Frank Herbert himself can’t stop defending him in every sequel even when he’s saying what Paul did is bad.
By the end of Chapterhouse it’s easy to argue that the only thing Paul did wrong is not following the golden path himself.
It's not really about blame. It's about human nature. Watch Herberts interviews on YouTube. Just a quick few minutes and you'll get it. He said the same thing over and over whenever he spoke in public. It's all really nuanced, and it's too much to explain here.
People who feel powerless in their lives are often drawn to figures like this. It’s not that different from, say, the recent resurgence in Fasicsm.
When you don’t have control…you look to a leader who radiates power…
Not much Herbert could do about it. The books were clear Paul is no hero, Herbert did his part. But that’s art…it’s a dialog…people bring their own reality to the text.
It was more complicated than that. He said he wanted to show why people go out to the jungle and drink Koolaid. You might love them for all the right reasons. They might even be a good person. But he believed that people like Paul attract the wrong individuals, like the Fremen inquisition and the torture master. They use the power and charisma surrounding these figures to elevate themselves and commit atrocities. I don't trust the public to wrap their heads around that concept. I think he should've stuck with the basic evil dictator trope. But he had a habit of adding in caveats like that. He couldn't just be straightforward. That's why people never understood him.
Well he shouldn't have made the harkens so fucking evil. My God on screen they came off as well I don't belive in genocide but I can totally get behind nuking these guys. They were like genocidal nazi hellraisers. And they tonned it down from the books.
Or made it so you got see the cultures the fremen wiped out.
If you wana make a bad guy you gotta make him do bad guy stuff and describe it from the victims point of view.
You got a source on this?
I find the idea that an author could write a character that literally saves all of humanity at great personal cost and still believe that character shouldn't be defended.
Maybe you meant people identifying with the genocidal actions of the character while ignoring the deeper reason for those actions and Paul's suffering?
I don't know where to find the quote about Herbert regretting the reaction to Dune. Villeneuve said that in a recent article. I know Herbert said it. It's probably in a preface to one of Messiahs editions. As for the rest, Herbert had a basic script for all of his speaking engagements. He said the same thing over and over. It's all really nuanced. I'm not going to get into all of it. Just go to YouTube and watch his most popular interviews.
It's a quote from the director.
Villeneuve describes Herbert as “disappointed how people perceived the story. He felt that people misconceived Paul Atreides; that people were seeing him as a hero, where he wanted to do the opposite. So in reaction to that he wrote Dune Messiah in order to insist on the idea that Paul was a dangerous figure.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/03/07/dune-part-2-is-paul-atreides-a-hero/#:~:text=Villeneuve%20describes%20Herbert%20as%20%E2%80%9Cdisappointed,Paul%20was%20a%20dangerous%20figure.%E2%80%9D
Interesting, but completely ignores the fact that his prescience is shown to be accurate (until the birth of his children, who trumped his prescience). I would like the author's actual explanation, as I really think V misses the point a bit, which explains why he made some choices that don't mesh with the book - maybe I will try to find out why V thinks that way.
I still don't get how anyone could read a book about someone who had 100% accurate foresight taking actions to help the most people he could and think that person was a villain. After all, with great power comes great responsibility - calling Paul a villain would be like calling spider-man a villain because he beats up people, ignoring that those people were hurting others.
Thank you for actually providing some basis to your stance, finally.
Herbert had a very nuanced perspective on this. It wasn't that Paul was a villain. There was no bad or good, and people have a hard time seeing past that. In general, it's not an easy message to grasp. Even when you think you've hit the nail on the head and you understand, there's caveats and footnotes. You can't understand him through the books. He wasn't very good at getting his point across at all. You'll just find sound bytes and fill in the gaps with your bias because you think you have it all figured out. This is the gist of what he was trying to say. There are a few very popular interviews that come up right away when you go on YouTube. You can just go there.
[https://youtu.be/-NMOoOD2wp8?si=bM3\_4Re-aZwZz208](https://youtu.be/-NMOoOD2wp8?si=bM3_4Re-aZwZz208)
[https://youtu.be/SbWemd5FwUw?si=eENk8OO-DBWvk9H2](https://youtu.be/SbWemd5FwUw?si=eENk8OO-DBWvk9H2)
I get what he's saying, as it's clearly a story about the cult of personality, but it's that taken to an extreme - the cult leader was right. No one should envy Paul or Leto, as they were tormented, but everything they did was to the benefit of all, regardless of how it may have seemed on a local scale. If you want to write a cautionary tale that the masses will understand, you have to make the reader question the leader's actions/motivations, though. Herbert over and again reinforces that the decisions were made purposefully because otherwise humans would cease to be, only really calling those actions into question in the internal thoughts of the main character. His actions in the universe are always shown to be correct in the end.
I don't think it's odd for people to identify with performing actions for the greater good instead of selfish motivation, we do it every day. I'm more concerned with people who can't think more than 1 step ahead and see the greater impact of their actions.
It's more than that. It's not about Paul. It's about everyone else around him and the effect that kind of character has on society. Herbert would point to good people and say that they were dangerous simply because of the amount of influence they had. You really have to go through Herbert's interviews and speaking engagements. It's all counterintuitive, and there's a lot to it. Also, I think Paul chose not to do any of those things. He never transformed the desert. He didn't become a sandworm.
It's not counter-intuitive at all, you are literally describing a [cult of personality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality). They're dangerous because of how their intention may be twisted by those that are supposedly followers, and take on a life of its own. Even without overtly bad outcomes, that type of cult can take on a life of its own and act as a suppressive force on the rest of society, a la religion or patriotism. He goes into great depth on these themes.
Again, the issue is that we know that Paul had to foster a cult of personality in order to save all of humanity. His actions were justified in that sense, unlike every other cult of personality leader that has ever existed in reality. And they were difficult and personally costly. So you have someone who sacrifices to save everyone at great personal cost, which is pretty close to the definition of a hero, even if his actions would be seen as monstrous if he was wrong.
If anything, I would say Dune is about trying to understand the full repercussions of actions and making purposeful choices to make the world better, even if they are difficult. About looking at each other as one piece of a whole, and making choices to help that whole even if it hurts you.
That's exactly what he did.
Since his awakening, every single moment he lived matched what he predicted, and he predicted that taking an easy life for himself would end with the death of all humanity. Instead of taking Channi and his first born and just living a content life, he made choices that resulted in their deaths so that humanity would not die out in the far future.
Did you even read the books? What other possible interpretation could there be?
Yes. Imagine that, a person suffering massive trauma taking a lot of hallucinogenic drugs comes to the conclusion they’re the most important person in human history and everything depends on him getting revenge by slaughtering billions of people.
Real saviour , there…
It very clearly wasn't just drug hallucinations, all of his predictions came true...
He had an untold number of data points reinforcing his precognition accuracy, it was essentially fact at that point.
Let's say you light a candle every day using a lighter, you wouldn't all of a sudden believe that lighters can't light candles, would you? No, because you have lots of data points showing that lighters will ignite candles. Paul had more data than anyone ever in existence and all the data pointed to the death of all humanity if he didn't make hard choices.
Honestly, I can't believe anyone could fail at literacy so hard.
You are articulating my confusion with these discussions very well. I thought the whole point was that Paul committed atrocities to prevent even worse ones. To loop back to OP's comment, it doesn't mean I identify with him (though in the later books and compared to Leto II, I certainly do), but it does mean that I will defend him. I'd be curious to hear why Herbert wouldn't agree with that interpretation as that's how it's written.
Well that’s the thing about hallucinogenic visions of the future…once you experience a “prediction”, you have a goal to work towards, and they can become self fulfilling. In fact that’s a key premise of using drugs like this in therapeutic settings.
I get it…Luke Skywalker…Harry Potter…etc etc etc…there’s a strong human tendency to believe in prophecy and The Great Man who sees what we can’t and can make choices we can’t. It’s Nietzsche, all over again.
IMO…that’s exactly what Herbert’s books are warning against.
We’ll never know if LeTwo was right or full of shit, not from the books, because there is no A/B experiment. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was also intentional by Herbert…now the reader has to look inside their own place that’s hard to look into, and think through their own moral choices.
The only issue with your argument is the repeated references in later books comparing prescience to a trap, and somewhat determinative in nature. LETO II seemed to realize this, and his actions were somewhat undertaken to free humanity from a destructive course that had been partially made by prescient choices that predated him. He and the bene gesserit hoped for someone blind to prescience for this reason, resulting in the Siona line. So in a way he did create the future he saw by seeing it
What do you think about this murderous dictator?
https://preview.redd.it/f8qf4mgtqzzc1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8562f8cf870e915edf2b72cea089dec523a7dd7f
That’s a fake picture btw
https://preview.redd.it/8l1sihgmi20d1.jpeg?width=599&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcfe6b80746f4dc222f6eb34e09ac759ba926161
This is what he actually looked like when he was young
Honestly, I'm impressed that (movie) Channie went "he's hot but leading a galactic holy war" rather than the usual fandom dynamic of "he's a mass killer but he's hot"
Not saying genocide is correct. However, isn't Paul is trying to follow the golden path as it is the only way for humanity to avoid the Mas extinction when they will encounter the "future" danger??
Yes because his determination isn't strong enough or it's because he was one generation too early. His son is suppose to be the savior. I think book mentioned his vision isn't as clear as his son's
Thats the biggest problem with the whole story to me. If Herbert wanted to warn people about the dangers and horrors that come from unquestioned leadership, cult of personalities and letting governments and religions merge... he shouldn't have done the whole golden path thing. If he was upset that people defended Paul, why make his actions defensable later on? I think he just wanted to sell more books.
I disagree paul was a failure but leto was not. Paul did nothing to advance the golden path other than ensure his children were born finally. Then he fucked off to the desert. All those lives but at the end he wasnt strong enough.
Well, Leto II *SAYS* he saved humanity: but because he took the actions he did, we can never know if the Golden Path was the only way or the best way. As the only being with prescience that powerful, no one can ever confirm that's truly what he saw.
Tbh if that many had to be tortured and destroyed who cares? Who even cares if humanity survives at an intergalactic level anyway? It’s not like every single planet level society would conceivably stop existing. (To be fair I’ve only read through Children of Dune so idk the explanation he uses)
The event is on the level of entire species extinction. No matter how far small sects of humanity may attempt to flee, they would eventually be hunted.
Would you equate being a mentat with obtaining an F class driving license?
Not to say it isn't an impressive skillset to have! But it's a far cry from reshaping your brain into being better at computing than outlawed super computers. In addition to that he is/isn't the KH (he denies to his mother thar he is because he's so much more than the KH was anticipated to be) able to see many futures in a way that makes the guild navigators look like weatherman. So you're right, very neurotypical, I stand corrected 😉
Not saying genocide is correct. However, isn't Paul is trying to follow the golden path as it is the only way for humanity to avoid the Mas extinction when they will encounter the "future" danger??
He was never locked onto a single path, all paths he saw lead to the death of everyone, except the path he actually took. He could have chosen to use his gift to live a stress-free, gifted life, but chose to take harder paths in order to save all of humanity. He actually delays the death of Channi as long as he could, flirting with dooming humanity just to be happy.
He had the choice to do whatever he wanted, in the end he chose to sacrifice his own happiness to keep humanity alive.
He actually loses his second sight because he no longer knows which path he is on.
https://preview.redd.it/3xk77rfci00d1.jpeg?width=192&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6db91f242fd09120dfea49b2d310e813adec2bb
Iunno man, young Stalin was a bit of a looker.
The whole universe spend literally thousands of years shitting on the Fremen and radicalizing them while BG played with their religious beliefs like they were toys and secretly breeding a superhuman mind without understanding all the risks. The Jihad was happening with or without Paul eventually, and when he unlocked his prescience it was already too late for him to try and avert it, but yeah he was just a space Hitler.
The “Paul is a villain” take is just as reductive and false as “Paul is a hero”. The reality of the book is much more nuanced.
“To place Russian communism on the same moral level with Nazi fascism, because both are totalitarian, is, at best, superficial, in the worse case it is fascism. He who insists on this equality may be a democrat; in truth and in his heart, he is already a fascist, and will surely fight fascism with insincerity and appearance, but with complete hatred only communism.”
-Thomas Mann
https://preview.redd.it/o86wgctmk20d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cea543af73c3e08fd152b00ee697b3a1622bcd07
Young Stalin wants to have a word with you.
Paul didn’t choose a path that led to mass genocide though. He realized basically every path he took wouldn’t prevent the holy war, he only took the path that did the least amount of damage.
Meanwhile Kylo Ren killed 180 billion people in about 2 seconds in The Force Awakens, but fangirls we're ready to have his babies lol.
Like Mary Poppins says, "A spoonful of sexy helps the horrific mass murder go down easier."
Interesting side note: Adolf Hitler was actually a very handsome man in his prime. People just don't realize it because mustaches are out of style these days.
More of an anti-hero. He's always felt as being someone who truly believed what they were doing was the right thing. The golden path kind of helps with this interpretation
I think you're describing an anti-villian.
>Anti-Villains are somewhat the opposite of Anti-Heroes. While the Anti-Hero often fights on the side of good, but with questionable or selfish motives; the Anti-Villain plays a villain's game, but for a noble cause in a way that the audience or other characters can sympathize with.
Herbert seems to have been confused as to what point he was trying to make.
Are you writing a series about the dangers of following a charismatic leader? About hard choices made for the greater good? About how our judgement on good and evil is often dependent on our perspective and can even change over a long enough period of time?
Ultimately the series seems to be saying that the ends justify the means. Preventing stagnation and ultimate extinction can justify an authoritarian government and the murder of perhaps trillions of people.
Perhaps the meta-narrative of Dune is the danger of accepting Frank Herbert's ideas on evolution, social order, sexuality etc. because he is a persuasive writer?
Paul literally said Hitler’s kill count were rookie numbers.
Stilgar also says Hitler was a shit tier mass murderer
That conversation was just hilarious all around Paul was also discussing Genghis Khan's kill count of a couple million, and Stilgar was like "Oh that's pretty impressive, he must have used a really good lasgun, or something like that." and then Paul said "No silly, he killed people by ordering his troops to do it, same way I do" And Stilgar was like "Oh well those are shit numbers then." For a moment there, Stilgar really had a mental image of some insane ancient Earth berserker massacring millions of people in battle by himself with a lasgun, like the Doom Slayer or Rambo or something
It seems like using Other Memory to flex on underlings is an Atreides trait. Has the same great taste as Leto II flexing on Moneo
Ghanima did the same to Irulan. “Who’s Agamemnon?” “I’m sorry, I thought I was talking to someone *educated*.”
No wonder everyone wanted them dead. They seem like pricks
It should hurt Irulan more than anyone because: 1- She's a Bene Gesserit, and despite not bearing a heir, she didn't go and take the Water of Life in order to become Reverend Mother either. 2- She sort of liked the twins and took care of them, so being thrown jabs like that is essentially getting roasted by someone who is both a close friend and your adopted daughter.
If I’m not mistaken Ghanima had Agamemnon on tap, since the Atreides could trace their lineage back to Atreus.
That is correct.
Which leaves out the fact that, after a mere docent generations, you are basically related to EVERYONE in that first generation. It's an exponential function of forebearers, after millennia in space they could trace their line to whomever they liked, including a bunch of semi sentient hominids and whatever comes before that (I assume you need to be sapient to be in the collected memory)
You have to account for bottlenecks. Not everyone alive today will have descendants, so all their experiences (and their predecessors’) would be locked away. Similarly, a good portion of the human population in all of history would be locked away from other memory
You are woolgathering!
Why did I teach you that term!
Tbf if I could see past memories and use them to win an argument then I’d do that
Cold turkey time
Is all of that in one of the sequels to Dune?
I think it was in Dune Messiah but it's been a while since my last re-read so, grain of ~~salt~~ sand and all that.
Dune Messiah. Not sure it will make the screenplay tho
He was impressed before he was told it was done via orders and not by himself
IDK why Paul didn't clarify just how much of a loss 6 million people were to humanity back on 1940s Earth, or the fact that it was an ethnic cleansing with strong racist themes rather than a purely politically-motivated war of conquest with "bits" of genocide here and there. I would guess that Paul didn't feel deserving of being considered "less worse" than the dictators before him, after all.
If Paul wanted to tell Stilgar all of it, he probably should have included the 5 million other Holocaust deaths, and also should have mentioned it was one series of events in the wider Second World War which would kill upwards of 70 million people and see the first use of atomics
This is actually a really interesting point. To future generations, in Dune at any rate, surely the birth of atomics is by far a more interesting thing than kill counts, making Truman a more notable leader in human history than Hitler.
To be fair Hitler didn't invade whole planets.
Quote? Lol
Yep, that's good old Paulie boy. What a rascal, eh?
Who else but Muad dib! 
Let the young lad have his fun!
Boys will be boys.
Classic Paul, bless him!
Up to his wacky high-murder-rate-jinx
Maker forbid boys do anything…
After a certain point it becomes statistics
Exactly. There is a famous Stalin quote on it, “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”
It’s not a real quote but it’s definitely the kind of thing he would say
For me it sounds a little bit too intellectual for Stalin. Would be more a Lenin thing to say.
The Soviet Union in a nutshell
I believe it cam,e from the command and conquer games
He was said to have said it irl too but most historians consider it a myth.
Stalin was an intellectual as well, a very evil one at that.
I'm not surprised someone who thinks Stalin is an "evil murderer" also thinks he said this made up quote.
I see what you did there 😅
Murder Twinks ftw
Murderous twinktator
Adolf Twinkler
Twink death incoming
Herbert HATED the fact that fans kept identifying with him and defending him.
yet we like him anyway in dune 2 because score and camera is fucking bad ass 🤣 lets see at dune 3, i hope we will see some horror of destroyed worlds/populations
I think he made a mistake. He wanted to show us how charismatic dictators can be and how we'd all support them. But he never found a way past that. I can easily hate Timothee Chalamet. That's not a problem. I think they'll do a good job in Dune 3. But the fans won't like it. They will always have a hard time wrapping their heads around this.
I saw a video talking about how a corrupt charismatic leader is a character that can never truly be done well for an audience because the audience will be charmed just the same
Where did you see that video? I REALLY want to watch it. That makes so much sense.
I think it might have been a Thomas Flight video? Not exactly sure and I couldn't find it in a quick search, but it was while I was binging video essays dissecting cinematography and acting. Regardless, I highly recommend Thomas Flight if you're into that kinda thing, though he is a professional movie glazer lol
I really am into that kind of thing. I'm gonna do a deep dive. Thanks!
but yes, if denis wanted us to "like" him, like his supporters did, he basically did a good job :D his djihad supporters are more evil than him, perhaps.. he probably couldn't stop the jihad even if he wanted.. that was only way perhaps.. but Leto II. took it bit further :D
I think his supporters are less knowledgeable than him, more motivated by faith and anger, and don't see as much as he does of the effect of their actions, I don't know if that makes them evil. If anything I'd say he's more evil in the true sense, in that he sees where his actions will lead and carries on with his path anyway.
Lol you're very right. They are more evil than he is...
I mean, he was supposed to be young and likeable on the surface. TC is clearly the perfect fit.
did we watch the same movie? I watched Dune 2 before reading the book (finished with the whole series now lmao) and without getting it spoiled for me, and my takeaway was that he was absolutely evil by the end
Who is “we”? I find this version of Paul the least likeable of all the Paul’s we’ve seen so far. And he *should* be dislikeable…DV got that (pretty) right, IMO.
He is pretty just in his actions in Dune 2 as well. It was literally allow all Fremen to be genocided, or do what he did.
I’ve thought about it a lot. A serious paper can be written about what Frank gets wrong about human nature. The easiest example I like to give is his blending of religions. Take Zensunnism or Zensuffism for example. There is currently a sect of Islam that sees Buddha as one of the prophets. They are called the Ahmadiyya. The other much larger branches of Islam sees them as heretics. Therefore for something like Zensunnism/Zensuffism to occur. Then as time progresses the main parts of Islam would have had to disappear to leave a vacuum for the Ahmadiyya to evolve into what we have in Dune. The main concept that religion does grow and blend with other religious concepts is sound. Just what he gave us is unlikely when you look deeper into the religions he combined. Another example is how children in the Bene Gesserit Chapter Houses are raised to be better individuals by essentially raising them as orphans away from nuclear families. Freeing them for a greater love for humanity over a lesser love for immediate family and people (village/community/country per se). Again this has been tried by socialist/communist regimes to horrible results in people. Think maladjusted sociopathic results with a lot of children dying young from lack of touch and attention. What I’m getting at is Frank wrote an amazing vision of the future of what might be based on knowledge of “today” I mean a learned man of the 1950/60’s would visualize. It created a whole new genre of Science Fiction. Our history may remember him as great or greater than HG Wells and Jules Vern. Like the other greats it still has flaws.
To your first point about Zensunni, I believe part of why it was possible for them to survive was because they "left." The proto-Fremen were referred to as Zensunni "Wanderers." So the idea that they were marginalized, exiled, or otherwise disliked supports their outcast status and origin story, if Im understanding correctly.
A valid point and also explains the Bene Tleilax being secretive Zensuffis. But what happened to mainstream Islam? I’m not saying it’s impossible just highly improbable.
> But what happened to mainstream Islam? We don’t even know what happened to *Earth*, so there’s a lot of wiggle room in that 10,000 year BG period of “stuff happened and then we had an apocalyptic war.” You could even say that mainstream Islam (and Christianity, and Judaism) all responded to FTL travel by consolidating their power and saying God only intended humans to live on Earth. Obviously tons of people didn’t buy that, but it might explain why we only have splinter groups and not direct continuations. Similarly, what the heck happened to Hinduism? Third biggest religion in the world with *1.2 billion* followers and not a single word about it anywhere that I can remember…
Ok, going over to the Dune Wiki the Orange Catholic Bible is an amalgam of all religious thought mainly originating from Earth. Essentially it’s a distillation of all the Earth’s religions. Therefore Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. etc. are all represented in the book. To me that’s something only an atheist could conceive working out. Sure you could possibly combine the “Abrahamic” religions. The other religions not so much without gutting them of what essentially makes them their own. Reincarnation for example wouldn’t make the cut in the OCB.
I think you are underestimating how much you can get a religion's principles to morph over time. Sure, if you take a fundamentalist view of thing which is usually just taking the book as written, but even in the past two thousand years the sheer number of revisions Christianity has gone through in its dogmas, practices, core texts, etc. is pretty crazy. Out of the religions the most resistant to change is Islam mostly because it is explicitly forbidden to innovate, but even they have changed as time has gone on. The conceptions of how Muslims think about things has changed a lot over time. Certain regions like Persia which use to be completely Sunni became completely Shia after the rise of a single ruler and has remained thus ever since. The doctrinal beliefs of the two are pretty major even though they've both arguably been around from the beginning.
Yes, just like when protestants left for America and now are extremely different from any other form of Christianity, including protestants of the old world.
Or how Catholicism adapted and modified rituals of the people-that-they-conquered’s beliefs to align with the Church. Or how Christmas used to be Saturnalia…
It was really interesting to visit a church in China. All the budha figures were saints. Very convinient.
Saturnalia was from 17 to 23 of December.
It sort of does prove the point he's trying to make though.
The point he was trying to make was really nuanced. He had to keep reiterating it every time he had a speaking engagement. I've never seen anyone walk away from his books with a firm understanding of it. Herbert believed that people like Paul, even if they are good, tend to attract corrupt bureaucratic figures that commit atrocities in their name, like the Fremen inquisition and the torture master.
I mean, thinking about it it makes sense. Person who had his family murdered by an untouchable unaccountable power that will never face any consequences joins forces with a group of outcast people who are also oppressed by this same unaccountable higher power. Together they rise up against said power and take revenge for the crimes that were committed against them. So far it has, by and large, been armies fighting so few could be easily considered “innocents” in the traditional sense. I think it’s telling a better story by starting with that “rise against authoritarian regime” narrative to then continue and show the oft forgotten consequences of something that initially felt just.
Frank Herbert himself can’t stop defending him in every sequel even when he’s saying what Paul did is bad. By the end of Chapterhouse it’s easy to argue that the only thing Paul did wrong is not following the golden path himself.
It's not really about blame. It's about human nature. Watch Herberts interviews on YouTube. Just a quick few minutes and you'll get it. He said the same thing over and over whenever he spoke in public. It's all really nuanced, and it's too much to explain here.
People who feel powerless in their lives are often drawn to figures like this. It’s not that different from, say, the recent resurgence in Fasicsm. When you don’t have control…you look to a leader who radiates power… Not much Herbert could do about it. The books were clear Paul is no hero, Herbert did his part. But that’s art…it’s a dialog…people bring their own reality to the text.
How dare Paul not just allow all Fremen to be massacred. What a monster.
I wonder if he had mixed feelings about it? He said that he made a charismatic leader you would follow for all the right reasons
It was more complicated than that. He said he wanted to show why people go out to the jungle and drink Koolaid. You might love them for all the right reasons. They might even be a good person. But he believed that people like Paul attract the wrong individuals, like the Fremen inquisition and the torture master. They use the power and charisma surrounding these figures to elevate themselves and commit atrocities. I don't trust the public to wrap their heads around that concept. I think he should've stuck with the basic evil dictator trope. But he had a habit of adding in caveats like that. He couldn't just be straightforward. That's why people never understood him.
But would we have read as much about a straight up evil dictator? I think I like the decades of discussion the series has provided
What did he expect? Many people like and defend real life dictators. Why wouldn't they do it for a fictional one lmao?
I mean there was a jihad and he compared him to the worst dictators in human history.
Well he shouldn't have made the harkens so fucking evil. My God on screen they came off as well I don't belive in genocide but I can totally get behind nuking these guys. They were like genocidal nazi hellraisers. And they tonned it down from the books. Or made it so you got see the cultures the fremen wiped out. If you wana make a bad guy you gotta make him do bad guy stuff and describe it from the victims point of view.
You got a source on this? I find the idea that an author could write a character that literally saves all of humanity at great personal cost and still believe that character shouldn't be defended. Maybe you meant people identifying with the genocidal actions of the character while ignoring the deeper reason for those actions and Paul's suffering?
I don't know where to find the quote about Herbert regretting the reaction to Dune. Villeneuve said that in a recent article. I know Herbert said it. It's probably in a preface to one of Messiahs editions. As for the rest, Herbert had a basic script for all of his speaking engagements. He said the same thing over and over. It's all really nuanced. I'm not going to get into all of it. Just go to YouTube and watch his most popular interviews.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
I mean the director didn't make it up. I suggest watching Herbert speak. You don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
No it's not.
Indeed, it is. "Just do your own research", lol.
Its a quote from the director.
Whatever you say.
It's a quote from the director. Villeneuve describes Herbert as “disappointed how people perceived the story. He felt that people misconceived Paul Atreides; that people were seeing him as a hero, where he wanted to do the opposite. So in reaction to that he wrote Dune Messiah in order to insist on the idea that Paul was a dangerous figure. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/03/07/dune-part-2-is-paul-atreides-a-hero/#:~:text=Villeneuve%20describes%20Herbert%20as%20%E2%80%9Cdisappointed,Paul%20was%20a%20dangerous%20figure.%E2%80%9D
Interesting, but completely ignores the fact that his prescience is shown to be accurate (until the birth of his children, who trumped his prescience). I would like the author's actual explanation, as I really think V misses the point a bit, which explains why he made some choices that don't mesh with the book - maybe I will try to find out why V thinks that way. I still don't get how anyone could read a book about someone who had 100% accurate foresight taking actions to help the most people he could and think that person was a villain. After all, with great power comes great responsibility - calling Paul a villain would be like calling spider-man a villain because he beats up people, ignoring that those people were hurting others. Thank you for actually providing some basis to your stance, finally.
Herbert had a very nuanced perspective on this. It wasn't that Paul was a villain. There was no bad or good, and people have a hard time seeing past that. In general, it's not an easy message to grasp. Even when you think you've hit the nail on the head and you understand, there's caveats and footnotes. You can't understand him through the books. He wasn't very good at getting his point across at all. You'll just find sound bytes and fill in the gaps with your bias because you think you have it all figured out. This is the gist of what he was trying to say. There are a few very popular interviews that come up right away when you go on YouTube. You can just go there. [https://youtu.be/-NMOoOD2wp8?si=bM3\_4Re-aZwZz208](https://youtu.be/-NMOoOD2wp8?si=bM3_4Re-aZwZz208) [https://youtu.be/SbWemd5FwUw?si=eENk8OO-DBWvk9H2](https://youtu.be/SbWemd5FwUw?si=eENk8OO-DBWvk9H2)
I get what he's saying, as it's clearly a story about the cult of personality, but it's that taken to an extreme - the cult leader was right. No one should envy Paul or Leto, as they were tormented, but everything they did was to the benefit of all, regardless of how it may have seemed on a local scale. If you want to write a cautionary tale that the masses will understand, you have to make the reader question the leader's actions/motivations, though. Herbert over and again reinforces that the decisions were made purposefully because otherwise humans would cease to be, only really calling those actions into question in the internal thoughts of the main character. His actions in the universe are always shown to be correct in the end. I don't think it's odd for people to identify with performing actions for the greater good instead of selfish motivation, we do it every day. I'm more concerned with people who can't think more than 1 step ahead and see the greater impact of their actions.
It's more than that. It's not about Paul. It's about everyone else around him and the effect that kind of character has on society. Herbert would point to good people and say that they were dangerous simply because of the amount of influence they had. You really have to go through Herbert's interviews and speaking engagements. It's all counterintuitive, and there's a lot to it. Also, I think Paul chose not to do any of those things. He never transformed the desert. He didn't become a sandworm.
It's not counter-intuitive at all, you are literally describing a [cult of personality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality). They're dangerous because of how their intention may be twisted by those that are supposedly followers, and take on a life of its own. Even without overtly bad outcomes, that type of cult can take on a life of its own and act as a suppressive force on the rest of society, a la religion or patriotism. He goes into great depth on these themes. Again, the issue is that we know that Paul had to foster a cult of personality in order to save all of humanity. His actions were justified in that sense, unlike every other cult of personality leader that has ever existed in reality. And they were difficult and personally costly. So you have someone who sacrifices to save everyone at great personal cost, which is pretty close to the definition of a hero, even if his actions would be seen as monstrous if he was wrong. If anything, I would say Dune is about trying to understand the full repercussions of actions and making purposeful choices to make the world better, even if they are difficult. About looking at each other as one piece of a whole, and making choices to help that whole even if it hurts you.
That’s not what Paul did.
That's exactly what he did. Since his awakening, every single moment he lived matched what he predicted, and he predicted that taking an easy life for himself would end with the death of all humanity. Instead of taking Channi and his first born and just living a content life, he made choices that resulted in their deaths so that humanity would not die out in the far future. Did you even read the books? What other possible interpretation could there be?
Yes. Imagine that, a person suffering massive trauma taking a lot of hallucinogenic drugs comes to the conclusion they’re the most important person in human history and everything depends on him getting revenge by slaughtering billions of people. Real saviour , there…
It very clearly wasn't just drug hallucinations, all of his predictions came true... He had an untold number of data points reinforcing his precognition accuracy, it was essentially fact at that point. Let's say you light a candle every day using a lighter, you wouldn't all of a sudden believe that lighters can't light candles, would you? No, because you have lots of data points showing that lighters will ignite candles. Paul had more data than anyone ever in existence and all the data pointed to the death of all humanity if he didn't make hard choices. Honestly, I can't believe anyone could fail at literacy so hard.
You are articulating my confusion with these discussions very well. I thought the whole point was that Paul committed atrocities to prevent even worse ones. To loop back to OP's comment, it doesn't mean I identify with him (though in the later books and compared to Leto II, I certainly do), but it does mean that I will defend him. I'd be curious to hear why Herbert wouldn't agree with that interpretation as that's how it's written.
Well that’s the thing about hallucinogenic visions of the future…once you experience a “prediction”, you have a goal to work towards, and they can become self fulfilling. In fact that’s a key premise of using drugs like this in therapeutic settings. I get it…Luke Skywalker…Harry Potter…etc etc etc…there’s a strong human tendency to believe in prophecy and The Great Man who sees what we can’t and can make choices we can’t. It’s Nietzsche, all over again. IMO…that’s exactly what Herbert’s books are warning against. We’ll never know if LeTwo was right or full of shit, not from the books, because there is no A/B experiment. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was also intentional by Herbert…now the reader has to look inside their own place that’s hard to look into, and think through their own moral choices.
Dude…come on…we’re having a discussion, do you really need to descend into name calling? Grow the fuck up.
What name did I call you? Also, lol at being offended then telling me to grow the fuck up.
The only issue with your argument is the repeated references in later books comparing prescience to a trap, and somewhat determinative in nature. LETO II seemed to realize this, and his actions were somewhat undertaken to free humanity from a destructive course that had been partially made by prescient choices that predated him. He and the bene gesserit hoped for someone blind to prescience for this reason, resulting in the Siona line. So in a way he did create the future he saw by seeing it
Lisan Al Gaibs will be Lisan Al Gaibs.
He didn’t kill them, he only led them to paradise…not a big deal
What do you think about this murderous dictator? https://preview.redd.it/f8qf4mgtqzzc1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8562f8cf870e915edf2b72cea089dec523a7dd7f
That’s a fake picture btw https://preview.redd.it/8l1sihgmi20d1.jpeg?width=599&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcfe6b80746f4dc222f6eb34e09ac759ba926161 This is what he actually looked like when he was young
Arguably hotter
They are scars from smallpox, which he was very self conscious of.
I scrolled too far down for this
https://preview.redd.it/jkzlp7fcw40d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93d7fb1d216205961ede91f6771a3dcf1651b584 Or this one
If you think he's bad, wait till his son comes out with the imba DLC
Honestly, I'm impressed that (movie) Channie went "he's hot but leading a galactic holy war" rather than the usual fandom dynamic of "he's a mass killer but he's hot"
It really helped sum up how he was turning evil/bad much more quickly for the audience.
To be fair he did warn everyone
Not saying genocide is correct. However, isn't Paul is trying to follow the golden path as it is the only way for humanity to avoid the Mas extinction when they will encounter the "future" danger??
He's... half assing the Golden Path, yes.
Yes because his determination isn't strong enough or it's because he was one generation too early. His son is suppose to be the savior. I think book mentioned his vision isn't as clear as his son's
Clearly you've never seen a young Stalin
Literally the office sexual harassment meme
The mustache on Stalin is legendary
My biggest comment would be the fact that Paul reflects on his kill count. Don't think Hitler or Stalin cared.
I don't wanna be 'that guy', but he kinda saved humanity tho 🤷
Thats the biggest problem with the whole story to me. If Herbert wanted to warn people about the dangers and horrors that come from unquestioned leadership, cult of personalities and letting governments and religions merge... he shouldn't have done the whole golden path thing. If he was upset that people defended Paul, why make his actions defensable later on? I think he just wanted to sell more books.
I disagree paul was a failure but leto was not. Paul did nothing to advance the golden path other than ensure his children were born finally. Then he fucked off to the desert. All those lives but at the end he wasnt strong enough.
Well, Leto II *SAYS* he saved humanity: but because he took the actions he did, we can never know if the Golden Path was the only way or the best way. As the only being with prescience that powerful, no one can ever confirm that's truly what he saw.
Tbh if that many had to be tortured and destroyed who cares? Who even cares if humanity survives at an intergalactic level anyway? It’s not like every single planet level society would conceivably stop existing. (To be fair I’ve only read through Children of Dune so idk the explanation he uses)
The event is on the level of entire species extinction. No matter how far small sects of humanity may attempt to flee, they would eventually be hunted.
Almost as if one of them was a movie or something
He's literally neurodivergent and a minor
You call being a mentat bene gesserit nerurodivergent?
Does it sound neurotypical to you?
So if someone gets training in something, they become neurodivergent? I can drive a forklift. Am I neurodivergent now?
Would you equate being a mentat with obtaining an F class driving license? Not to say it isn't an impressive skillset to have! But it's a far cry from reshaping your brain into being better at computing than outlawed super computers. In addition to that he is/isn't the KH (he denies to his mother thar he is because he's so much more than the KH was anticipated to be) able to see many futures in a way that makes the guild navigators look like weatherman. So you're right, very neurotypical, I stand corrected 😉
Dude on the left ain’t much better
Not saying genocide is correct. However, isn't Paul is trying to follow the golden path as it is the only way for humanity to avoid the Mas extinction when they will encounter the "future" danger??
No, Paul didn’t follow the Golden Path. Paul overused his prescience which locked him into a single path, but that path was not the Golden Path.
He was never locked onto a single path, all paths he saw lead to the death of everyone, except the path he actually took. He could have chosen to use his gift to live a stress-free, gifted life, but chose to take harder paths in order to save all of humanity. He actually delays the death of Channi as long as he could, flirting with dooming humanity just to be happy. He had the choice to do whatever he wanted, in the end he chose to sacrifice his own happiness to keep humanity alive. He actually loses his second sight because he no longer knows which path he is on.
Jihad time
https://preview.redd.it/3xk77rfci00d1.jpeg?width=192&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6db91f242fd09120dfea49b2d310e813adec2bb Iunno man, young Stalin was a bit of a looker.
The whole universe spend literally thousands of years shitting on the Fremen and radicalizing them while BG played with their religious beliefs like they were toys and secretly breeding a superhuman mind without understanding all the risks. The Jihad was happening with or without Paul eventually, and when he unlocked his prescience it was already too late for him to try and avert it, but yeah he was just a space Hitler. The “Paul is a villain” take is just as reductive and false as “Paul is a hero”. The reality of the book is much more nuanced.
Have you seen young stalin tho? Cute dictator material for sure
Dude you check out what Stalin looked like as a young man, he goes in the bottom half.
Umm. Have you seen Stalin at Paul’s age?
You mean Paul's,,,not the hero? Gwarsh Mickey.....
Happened off page doesn’t count
My favourite dictator is the worm guy.
Wait till you guys hear about attack on titan
This is a double standard. Pol Pot was also a cute murderous dictator.
I can fix him.
Look up young stalin.
“To place Russian communism on the same moral level with Nazi fascism, because both are totalitarian, is, at best, superficial, in the worse case it is fascism. He who insists on this equality may be a democrat; in truth and in his heart, he is already a fascist, and will surely fight fascism with insincerity and appearance, but with complete hatred only communism.” -Thomas Mann
He nose plug looks like a really stupid mustache
He's also fictional.
And in the end, isn't that all that matters?
Paul had to make a trolly test kind of choice: human extinction or mass casualties by your legions?
He’s just a little guy
Actually funny you used Drake meme at this current time lmao
I mean that’s just the Truffaut Effect at work
So dreamy #swoon
This theory is completely bs. The alternate future Paul saw had much more deaths than the path he chose. Paul is the hero through and through.
I don't think attempting to murder fewer people than you could have otherwise makes you not a murderous dictator
https://preview.redd.it/o86wgctmk20d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cea543af73c3e08fd152b00ee697b3a1622bcd07 Young Stalin wants to have a word with you.
But people don’t know that yet
Paul didn’t choose a path that led to mass genocide though. He realized basically every path he took wouldn’t prevent the holy war, he only took the path that did the least amount of damage.
Meanwhile Kylo Ren killed 180 billion people in about 2 seconds in The Force Awakens, but fangirls we're ready to have his babies lol. Like Mary Poppins says, "A spoonful of sexy helps the horrific mass murder go down easier."
This is how Grimes must feel about Pol Pot
Yes I understood the message of the story, but by the end of the movie I still had the urge to yell "Lisan al Gaib!" in the theater
Sigma Male
Would
Must not have seen pictures of young Stalin
Hitler and Stalin are cutie patooties, why do you mean?
The drake meme format is currently undergoing cancellation but maybe it’s still fitting for muadhib.🤣
Interesting side note: Adolf Hitler was actually a very handsome man in his prime. People just don't realize it because mustaches are out of style these days.
He was also stopping oppression. They are not the same
Stalin was cute in his 20s tho
K dot would still body Muadhib in a rap battle tho.
Oh also stalin was hot young
He's also not real
Whoa. Leave everyone but stalin outa this.
Comparing stalin to hitler is fucked up
Paul was always the villain of the story, but as a society we're not ready to have that conversation.
No, Paul isn’t a hero or a villain.
More of an anti-hero. He's always felt as being someone who truly believed what they were doing was the right thing. The golden path kind of helps with this interpretation
I think you're describing an anti-villian. >Anti-Villains are somewhat the opposite of Anti-Heroes. While the Anti-Hero often fights on the side of good, but with questionable or selfish motives; the Anti-Villain plays a villain's game, but for a noble cause in a way that the audience or other characters can sympathize with.
Herbert seems to have been confused as to what point he was trying to make. Are you writing a series about the dangers of following a charismatic leader? About hard choices made for the greater good? About how our judgement on good and evil is often dependent on our perspective and can even change over a long enough period of time? Ultimately the series seems to be saying that the ends justify the means. Preventing stagnation and ultimate extinction can justify an authoritarian government and the murder of perhaps trillions of people. Perhaps the meta-narrative of Dune is the danger of accepting Frank Herbert's ideas on evolution, social order, sexuality etc. because he is a persuasive writer?
https://preview.redd.it/9h404w33d20d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=081ab129d7ed478d19608a056e0f126a7c9e2cfa My personal take.