Yeah, looking for a happy ending for Paul and humanity is really missing the point of Dune.
Ok, but in the 1984 Dune movie, it was LEE-toe. And Har-KO-nnen.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGqdE1NdMTg Jump to 1:25 and 2:10.)
I think basically all you need to know is some years after the end of Dune Part 2, Paul and the Freman have been waging jihad against the rest of the Universe and Paul’s sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) is all growns ups. Presumably he’s also dealing with having to balance his wife (Florence Pugh) and his girlfriend (Zendaya).
I guess that’s about it, right?
Hmm…correct, though I do think Dune Messiah and Children of Dune wrap things up quite nicely.
I tried to read past that and I just didn’t think it was worth it. No Paul = Lost storyline.
I blame David Lynch.
FWIW, Wiktionary lists the ancient Attic pronunciation as /lɛː.tɔ̌ː/, changing to /liˈto/ by the 4th century CE. In the far future, it is your guess to extrapolate…
I’m not sure I’m a big fan of time-jumps in sequels, book or not. Like a lot happened in two long movies and then…what…Maud’dib’s jihad against the Known Universe doesn’t get interesting from a narrative perspective for at lest 10+ years?
Same thing with long-ago prequels like HBO’s Dune Prophesy. Like ten thousand years ago the Atreides and Harkonens were already at it and then just more of the same until Leto got his marching orders to ship out to Arrakis?
Paul leading a galactic jihad and becoming history’s greatest mass murderer wasn’t the story Herbert wanted to tell. The story he wanted to tell was its aftermath.
Then let me ask you something: if Paul was going to conquer the galaxy by force anyway, why marry Irulan? Why bother?
It’s been a while since I read the books, but I remember the ending of the first novel differently then the sequels later portrayed it. True, Paul spent the book afraid of becoming a monster, but in the end, it looked like he managed to thread the needle - the Emperor abdicating and declaring him as his heir through marriage to ensure continuity of government, the Guild and Bene Gesserit accepting his rule, and the Landsraad standing down after he threatened to destroy all the spice with the Water of Life. No need for a Jihad at all.
And then Herbert decided to write a sequel and retconned the ending - and in the meantime, the Vietnam War gets nasty, the culture shifts, and he decides to turn his story into an antiwar fable.
I always thought that Paul was trying to avoid the jihad that he had seen visions of from fairly early on. Ultimately, he was unsuccessful, because he also needed the Fremen, and they weren’t going to give up this chance to get revenge on the Empire that had oppressed them for generations.
It wasn’t Paul’s jihad, it was the Fremen’s, and Paul was like a person being pulled by the leash around a mad dog’s neck.
The Fremen spent the whole book angry at the Harkonnen; they never once expressed any resentment against the thousands of other planets that never had anything to do with Arrakis. Why waste their time invading them when they already ruled the Empire?
Yes. The time spent reading sequels to Dune is always better spent re-reading Dune. The book is thought provoking and has layered meanings and multiple lenses to view it with. It’s the single best American “science fiction” novel about people instead of technology. And the technology is cool.
That said, I’ll watch the movie. I don’t expect them to get it right, but it’s worth watching the director’s vision.
House Harkonnen was already destroyed, and that rage had to be directed somewhere. In addition, the jihad was an opportunity to spread their religion by force.
The real question is if Paul was complicit by continuing in his role as emperor and as the messiah of the Fremen in the midst of that jihad, and was this a sign of his becoming corrupt from power? Or was he there to try to mitigate the atrocities as much as he could, and do his best to guide the Fremen constructively by what limited means he had? I think it’s probably a mix of both.
Basically the Fremen are religious zealots, and Paul knows he can’t stop their jihad.
Wikipedia says:
Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides has ruled as Emperor for 12 years. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, he has unleashed a jihad which has conquered most of the known universe but is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created. Although 61 billion people have perished, Paul’s prescient visions indicate this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity
Brian
The Fremen Jihad wasn’t about political power; it was about religion.
At some point, Paul realized he couldn’t stop the Jihad, no matter what he did or didn’t do, alive or dead. Paul’s agency was the first victim of the Jihad.
There is no evidence of that in the first book - in fact, the Fremen are portrayed as fierce yet pragmatic, and rarely kill without purpose. Killing for the sake of killing is against their character.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the Fremen of the first book as the kind of people who would spread their religion by the sword - or at least, not against the Mahdi’s wishes. Paul was their religion, their alpha and omega. If he had ordered them to stand down, they would have obeyed.
The Fremen had been moved from planet to planet in the past, always oppressed, and eventually sent to the worst planet. They were angry at everyone. The discovery of spice on Arrakis made it even worse.
Their religion was a mix of what they brought and Bene Gesserit manipulation. They were primed for religious zealotry, because the Bene Gesserit had done that to have a handle to control them. The Fremen leaders in the story are mostly reasonable, but the vast majority of Fremen that live in the south are not.
This is what Paul said, but I always viewed that claim with a great deal of suspicion. If you believe Paul, the billions dead from Jihad (that happens off screen) was the least bad of possible paths. “I know this is going to hurt, but I’m doing it for your own good,” excuse for atrocities.
There absolutely is evidence of that in the first book, otherwise the whole idea of a Fremen jihad would have never come up in the first place. Paul had visions of it coming. If it was against their character then there would have been no chance of it. It’s not like this only came up in the sequel; it was part of the original novel. It’s just that at the conclusion of the first novel, it seemed like Paul was able to avoid it. (Though you see that it eventually happened anyway.)
What you saw were a people who never had enough power to do that, and Paul was given prophetic warnings that they could become those people when given the opportunity, and ultimately that is what ended up happening.
I am also skeptical, and I think that Paul was ambitious and wanted the power, and this was part of the price. I don’t think he was an evil monster, at least not the worst of them in the books, but he wasn’t a saint either. I also think Frank Herbert became cynical after the first book, which was reflected in Paul’s later actions in the sequel.
Paul claims he cannot stop them. Again, I’m suspicious of this. Did he even try?
He was the embodiment of the prophecies put in place by the Bene Gesserit, but like all religion, these are going to be interpreted by the believers. Hence his claim that if he tries to stop them he’ll lose all control. Better to let them jihad and only kill a 100 some billion, instead of wiping out humanity completely, or whatever his drugged up brain uses as an excuse.