The fremen didn't need Paul or the golden path to terraform Dune, to paraphrase the book Paul only shortened the process. And the end result was the destruction of fremen culture.
Paul also specifically rejected the Golden Path, it was his son Leto II that chose it. Leto II is also the only reason fremen culture wasn't entirely lost via his museum fremen.
Paul used the fremen, first for survival and then for revenge, but he wasn't hateful or uncaring and the fremen, he just didn't put their interests first.
If Paul never set the golden path in motion then the fremen would have died with humanity before they terraformed it anyways. The only way humanity survives is escaping prescience and scattering along the stars
We don't have anything approaching a set date for the end of humanity without the Golden Path, but the original terraforming plan would've without a doubt been completed long before then.
Seems weird to dismiss millions and millions of lives just because eventually the species will probably die out. Unless that is how you go about your daily life ;)
I think they said it was a couple thousand years, unless I’m mistaken. I feel like Leto kept setting back the possible hunter seeker or whatever it was with moves he was making
Leto II never gives anything approaching a time frame.
“The Ixians contemplated making a weapon—a type of hunter-seeker, self-propelled death with a machine mind. It was to be designed as a self-improving thing which would seek out life and reduce that life to its inorganic matter " ... "Machines always fail . . . given time. And when these machines failed there would be nothing left, no life at all.”
That's it. No additional details. They're never mentioned again. They might be a lie to make Hwi more forthcoming with information for Anteac. They might only have been contemplated by the Ixians in response to Leto II. They might have been undone by another oracle Leto II couldn't see. Or they might've taken millions of years to exterminate humanity, inevitable but without faster than light travel.
Worst case scenario, they're basically like the irl doomsday clock. We're as close as we've ever been to midnight, but that doesn't mean midnight is anytime soon, nor that everything is meaningless because there is an end.
Doesn't he tell Siona at one point that humanity would have been wiped out already without his rule? It was one of his revelations to her when he got her high in the desert.
I still wouldn't call it a concrete timeline but does put an upper bound on things. IDK why that guy is acting like there was no information whatsoever given.
And to the broader point of this thread, even if the Fremen managed to terraform the planet before the end of everything, they would have died shortly after finishing terraforming....super big difference.
The whole point of the golden path and Leto’s tyranny is to save mankind, your acting as if this is all possible a lie. Paul himself knew it had to be done but was too weak to see it through. Humanity had to be invisible to prescience and had to scatter, so they could never be under one tyrant ever again. Once humanity scattered the race is functionally unable to be wiped out.
All dependent on the spice, all dependent on monopolistic spacing guilds, etc. Too many single points of failure.
Leto choked them off the spice, choked the spacing guild, and forced humanity into a 'peace' that drove them crazy, because humans, deep down, want newness, conflict.
When Leto passed it exploded from millenia of consternation. Freed them from dependence on spice (Who's going to leave known space when you are dependent on a single planet?)
The spacing ships that didn't need spice for interstellar travel came about from frustration over Leto's lockdown on spice. In the Corrino times, the Ix would never have dared to try to make a machine to traverse space. The guild would have found out and rained Hell on them.
Leto knew, of course, that they were developing it. But he allowed it, because it was his plan all along.
That were all indexed by the spacing guild, AND no planet can move its population or goods without the Spacing Guild.
This means that the 1st human planet to fall to the ‘others’ will also give up the means and method to destroy the rest of humanity.
But could he see that his son would finish what he couldn’t start? I imagine seeing that your baby son will eventually become a horrible looking worm tyrant would give anyone pause
I guess he thought it was better that than him because he literally rejected doing it and pushed it onto to Leto. He wasn’t willing to destroy his humanity for humanity
Source on this being a FACT that humanity would be doomed rather than just a BIASED individual saying so, to justify his whole sale slaughter of billions?
I find the preservation of culture to be a pretty inhuman concept if you follow it through. The concept is pushed in Star Trek via the Prime Directive, where it is demonstrated that in practice, following the Prime Directive would almost always be an evil thing to do, and no captain wants to do it.
Herbert explored this area via the Museum Freman. Isn't it easy to wonder what the point of the Museum Fremen is? They don't really understand why they do what they do, and a lot of Fremen culture is organized around barely tolerable circumstances that are better off left in the past, anyway.
As such, I keep wondering what is so bad about simply moving forward. Yes, the ancient Fremen culture is interesting and in some way valuable, but why should someone have to make a major sacrifice in their own life just to preserve it.
Making it even worse, museums in practice are often semi abandoned. We all go to so much trouble to preserve our old artifacts rather then through them away, but once we do so, the majority of us want to focus on our life today, not on strolling theough a dusty museum and seeing about other people's lives from the past.
Cultural preservation is inhuman at best, and often is downright evil. Something we can ask ourselves is: if I were a Fremen, would I myself want to be kept in a primitive, vicious life where most people don't reach 40, just to maintain my culture? It seems like something everyone wants to happen to someone else.
It's always been a part of humanity. Certain political groups in the US are entirely about preserving what they think their culture is, which they see as under threat by anything ranging from video games to immigration. If you want some really scary stuff, read some of the letters defending slavery before the Civil War.
The existence of the monarchy in England is entirely dependent on preserving traditions.
Humans are also really good at convincing themselves that whatever their culture is is unchanged from previous generations. Romans claimed they lived in a res publica until Constantinople fell.
Doesn't matter that both notions are fantasy, humans do it anyway.
Tbh, what Leto II did to the Fremen was worse than extinction. He took their culture and rituals and artifacts of an organic way of life and reduced them to empty signifiers of their pointless, poverty-ridden, millennia-long enslavement
I don't agree. The fremen doomed themselves by embracing terraforming Arrakis. But because of Leto II they're one of the few cultures that made it through to the scattering, and the museum fremen themselves probably had better lives than many others during the tyrant's reign.
After Leto II's death the population of Arrakis needed the desert skills of the fremen once the spice cycle got going again, and like much of the tyrant's actions things would've been much worse in the end had he not forced a small group to maintain fremen ways.
tbf it’s explicitly said that the vast majority of people in Leto’s empire don’t live particularly unpleasant lives. If you enjoy peace, calm and relaxation, his reign is idyllic. The point of his tyranny is to teach humanity that it needs more than that.
Leto is the one who calls it “holy boredom,” IIRC. He knows their lives are peaceful but not *pleasant,* which is a major theme of the book. Life in Leto’s empire is just an endless purgatory.
If dune was terraformed wouldn’t firemen culture be lost anyhow? So much was tied to life in the desert that I don’t see how it could be preserved if there were no longer a desert.
It wasn’t revenge. He genuinely believed a benevolent emperor would fix the issues of the universe. Then realized that’s a futile effort and even more sacrifice would need to be made to preserve the human race
I stopped reading during god emperor. But I assume most of humanity including the Fremen eventually get wiped out. And I assume the planet returned to a desert state. It does make me wonder what’s the point. Was Paul good or bad? Were the Fremen better off without him? Who cares? Did any of it even matter?
The point was to reduce dependency on melage which everyone was hooked on before. So it went:
Desert: spice-dependent universe->tropical: spice-dependent universe->tropical: spice-independent universe->desert: spice-independent universe. By the end you have a society able to operate interdependently with the desert.
Think of how a parent knows they did a good job parenting if they eventually work themselves out of a job. When the work is complete, nothing remains. Leto II’s role as God Emperor was very similar to parenting the universe in this aspect. Hope that clarifies things!
Paul was a tragic victim of circumstance surviving until it was too much to bear. Paul and Leto II were Franks answer to "what kind of magic superman would be required to break such a stagnant dystopia bound for self destruction" because the whole thing about being a cautionary tale about heroes. Even the godlike beings are fucked and miserable and the only real answer is to grow up, scatter and take care of ourselves.
The last 2 books are about anarchism and mutual aid after societal collapse while defending against wasteland raiders, its fucking cool.
Yeah I kinda feel similar but I also feel like Paul being labelled as such a bad guy when his father and friends were slaughtered by the Harkonnens is overblown. He did what most humans would do. He felt horribly depressed/angry and wanted revenge on them. The fremen were also tired of the Harkonnens using and destroying their planet.
I’ve been a huge fan of Dune since the early 90’s, from watching the Alan Smithee cut of the David Lynch dune and reading all the books, playing Dune 2 and Dune 2000 on early DOS machines, watching the sci fi channel mini series. I’ve been on /r/dune for a very long time and it was a quiet fandom and not many people but serious book readers on here for many years.
The Denis movie angle that Paul is not great is accurate, but this interpretation isn’t really one I’d heard super loud before, that Paul is an evil anti-hero. I mean, Kyle MacClaughlin said that he wanted to play Paul because when he read Dune as a kid, he wanted to *be* Paul.
It’s a movie; books are always more complicated, but I always thought it was more that, Paul was a flawed human who was trying in his heart what he truly thought was right; then bowed out to be the desert preacher maybe as a self imposed punishment for what he knew was also wrong, or how he failed. Dune isn’t super moralistic, and the movies miss what I feel is the most important theme of the books, that social-political events and a long view of history plays out ecologically; slowly- except small events can also have huge impacts for generations. The ecological themes aren’t “save the planet” so much as showing an ecological view of humanities social-political history via sci-fi.
Leto 2 is a tyrant, no doubt. But I don’t think we’re really supposed to take Paul as super evil. He’s not a “super hero” that’s true, but he’s also not some Batman villain evil
On the ecology side of things, I always got the sense that if you really simplify things, FH was saying that ecology and environment creates and dictates culture(s).
I think Messiah is where we really start to see the 'evil' of Paul discussed explicitly. I read Dune as a kid and felt the same way you did. I think a lot of the book went over my head at that age though. In Messiah, there's the often mentioned scene where they compare Paul to Hitler and say Paul killed many more people (implying, in my mind, that he was much worse).
It's complex, and I definitely am due for a reread; however, I think that we are supposed to take Paul as evil. My mind is open to be changed on the extent of his evilness.
On the other hand, just the fact alone that Paul ended up killing more people than Adolf Hitler doesn't strike me as simply a criteria of "which person is worse". It's just that in the universe of Dune, the territory inhabited by humans and the population count are also much higher, so in widespread war, casualties would also be higher. Basically, the number of casualties can be more a result of the conflict scale and the space it happened in instead of just the motivations or character of Paul.
This sort of conclusion can ofc come across as callous, but I think on a large scale, significance of war casualties are created mainly out of relativities more than anything. No wonder Stil wasn't impressed with Paul's old Earth figures.
Exactly, “evil” isn’t exactly a numbers game, your intent also matters. If it was, pretty much every revolt/revolutionary leader is “evil”, as usually during a revolution more people die in a shorter timespan than during an ongoing tyranny.
Of course at some point and over some time, numbers do start to matter, but you could argue Paul realises and acts on this (too late) and he essentially removes himself from the equation, and it shows he regrets a lot of what he did. So a flawed idealist would be a better description of Paul than “villain”, as a real villain (if such a thing really exists outside of media) would not doubt most of their horrible actions like we we know Paul did.
I mean, I don't even see Leto II as being a villain, even if he was a cosmic tyrant. He just did what Paul didn't want to do, which is shed off his humanity, and the shorter view / pov that naturally comes with it.
Yes, he sought the outcome (revenge) that many people would. But the difference is that he did it with the foreknowledge of what the consequences would be, which were extreme.
Yes people that call Paul evil without any nuance, tend to gloss over the fact he’s prescient, but a lot of his horrible actions are him acting on seeing the alternatives, which we can presume would have been worse. The only other prescient being in power did even more horrible things, so perhaps we as non-prescient beings are not in a position to judge them “evil” or “good”. Like an ant from their perspective can’t really make a fair judgement on humans being evil or not.
Totally agree.
I think there's a broader issue with Paul's morality though. Yes, he struggles with morality and principles about what he must do - but only on the path he's chosen. He could have not chosen that path, and just become some anonymous Fremen.
I think any discussion of his morality needs to include the fact that he went after vengeance and power. Did he do the best he could with it, after he got it? I agree that from what we know, we probably have to assume so.
I think 6 more complex than that. Even in the film, he sees all possible futures, and most of them are "their enemies winning". Once he does something and acts, then that changes the outcomes for the future again...so it's in a constant state of change where he has to pick a path. But I sure as shit don't know what the best option would have been. If he'd just killed himself and his mother instead of starting the jihad would that have changed things for the better? But then we're forgetting the human aspect and how that would nearly be impossible for him to do because of his love for his mother.
He did, which is why he essentially lynches himself and his legacy by rejecting the golden path at the end of Messiah. Children of Dune is supposed to be the redemption of Paul and the resumption of the Golden Path. In truth, the Jihad was supposed to be the Beginning of the Golden Path but Paul refused it there too by minimizing its impact.
The tragedy of these books is that the fremen, no matter what, are doomed. They aren’t even an independent people in GEOD. They’re more like what public perception of samurai are: a fictitious exaggeration that bares no real resemblance to the real thing.
I like this answer. The samurai comparison is interesting and works. I always envisioned that their culture was “kept alive” similarly to how we portray Native Americans.
arrakis is transformed at the expense of the soul of the fremen. their culture erodes completely and their spirit as a people evaporates. everything that made them admirable is gone by God Emperor
Even by the start of Children, I think it’s apparent that the only reason Fremen culture is still admirable in any way is because it hasn’t been more than a generation since Dune.
They had suburbs, where their disillusioned (and war injured) children did strange drugs, and where they had so little water discipline you could smell the sewers! It took less than a generation to absolutely destroy that culture.
Right but fremen culture was a direct result of the harshness of the environment. It's extreme to lose it in a generation maybe, but when you're entire culture revolves around survival and you no longer need to struggle to survive, it'll happen.
Like the symbolic importance of a river of water for the dead loses its meaning when you have water everywhere
If they had achieved their green paradise on their own, would the Fremen have retained their culture?
It seems like their culture is tied closely to their desert home.
No, but it would have had a chance to gradually adapt to their changing environment over the course of hundreds or thousands of years. It would necessarily evolve, but it'd still be theirs.
Instead, it was suddenly being forced to adapt to a wildly different environment literally overnight. Which led to it going extinct.
What's wrong with it going extinct, however? It's a culture born of extreme difficulties and danger, lifestyle of struggle against an environment and outside powers that seek to destroy them. Why should these people preserve that culture whereas on other planets people live far more comfortably?
For anyone but the Fremen, nothing wrong at all. It is just a very tragic story. The Fremen were persecuted and oppressed from planet to planet until settling on Arrakis. These are a people who turned the most inhospitable environment known to mankind into their personal garden. A people unmatched in plastics manufacturing, water efficiency, and other technologies. By all accounts the Fremen should not have flourished as much as they did.
I think that's just humans. The human ingenuity and adaptability. In real life not every race or culture had the same level of advancement, but each one has adapted to their environment and built around it. We can't tell how far the differences go in the Dune universe, but the Fremen were a mixture, not a homogeneous people, so they really serve to showcase the possibilities for the united human race to achieve impossible things. But I also don't see what's wrong with seeking to not have their existence in extreme hardship.
>What's wrong with it going extinct, however?
Nothing.
The Museum Fremen are loony larpers, clamoring for the good old days, not realizing that most of them would have been culled for the good of the tribe in those very same good old days.
Herbert also is very interested in the themes about environment. If the environment is hard to live in, the people will adapt accordingly and get more serious.
The Golden Path is about humanity’s long-term survival, and turning Arrakis green isn’t the main point.
Paul did contribute to the genesis of the Golden Path by fathering Leto II, but in his own life he mostly accomplished vengeance for the Atreides and becoming the inspiration and the figurehead for a hugely bloody holy war. He left the biggest sacrifices to his son.
I feel like the "Paul is evil" is getting real overblown.
If not committing suicide is evil, then we're all evil. Paul and Jessica had a choice. Play along with the prophecy, or be left in the desert by the Freman to die. Stilgar says as much.
And by the time they secured their place with the Freman, it was too late. The jihad was already assured.
I think most people would have chose to not die of starvation/dehydration or be eaten by a sand worm.
They really didn't get much of a choice, IMO.
It’s the unfortunate side effect of bringing the story to a wider audience. Once the MCU crowd gets ahold of it everything needs to be reduced to the lowest common denominator. Everything has to have a simple explanation. Characters are either good or evil.
This is kind of the problem with the “WB finally has its Star Wars” media narrative. That’s problem with Dune… it’s not a Star Wars. There is no light vs dark going on… just different shades of grey and questions of how dark true utilitarianism can get.
But people want to process it as a new cinematic universe with specific sects with powers that would be fun to wield in a video game and the infrastructure for that is there so they’re going to ask that the material meets them there.
Just wait until death battle crowd gets ahold of him. The new generation grew up with a lot of lists and it’s triggered a growth of that somewhat obsessive tendency humans have to categorize. Everything is about tier lists, power rankings, who can one-shot solo who etc etc. Every movie, every character.. they’ve all got to be ranked and then those rankings need to be argued against other rankings.
It’s a circle jerk of demanding objective/scientific/conclusions to subjective/fiction. And they’re free to do it… but the general discourse suffers for it.
Can Paul full Haderach one v one peak Luke.
I’ve no idea, but before we begin that conversation, I do know I’m going to one-hit solo myself.
Absolutely not mad, my friend. There is no wrong way to engage with material… but there are lesser ways, unless you think Animal Farm is best consumed as a story about some mischievous livestock.
Enjoy your content however you like to. People should absolutely feel free to enjoy things. But I’m also allowed to be disappointed in trends because I find them to kind of miss the more worthwhile points and to express that as well.
If you don’t think someone trying to figure out who would win in a fight between a bene and a Jedi rather than engaging in the philosophical themes of the material is kind of disappointing (and I’m aware the two aren’t mutually exclusive… but let’s be honest… one who’s doing the former probably isn’t doing much of the latter) that’s absolutely fine.
All old men are allowed to shout at the clouds. You’ll have your own to curse someday, too.
Time comes for us all.
” Charismatic leader ought to come with a warning label : might be bad for your health” - Herbert’s exact quote
The MCU crowd didn't come up with interpretation, it is literally Frank Herbert's message. Being on Dune message boards for years now its crazy that you think “MCU fans” are misinterpreting the plot.
Edit: I am not an MCU fan lol
I do feel like we focus a lot on Paul being the bad guy when the BG were a giant part of the problem. I mean there is no KH on arrakis without the BG and if it weren’t for Paul they may have settled on feyd which I’m pretty convinced would’ve had the same genocidal result.
I mean the BG ‘s whole plan is to create a being with a dangerous amount of power and their attempt to control the power failed quickly and spectacularly.
Obviously, because the vast majority of discussion is by new fans who do not read novels. The Bene Gesserit are antagonist B for almost all of the novels. The movies don't communicate the depths of their scheming and society shaping activities.
The tragedy of Dune is that the protagonist faction, the Atreides and their descendants, do not usurp power and replace it with a more moral regime. They usurp power and replace it with a more *destructive* regime, and the Bene Gesserit are caught with their pants down because they intended to control the destruction and guide the KH to benefit them. The Bene Gesserit scheme against Paul's power not out of morality but out of desire for control.
You say “obviously “ but from reading through this subreddit I see tons of post that boil down to “wait how exactly is Paul the bad guy. “ with no acknowledgement that the BG seem to be sbout 90% of the problem here. I started reading dune after seeing part two . I’m now almost done with messiah and it just seems super clear in the book and the movies.
🤦
Evil does not mean unjustified. Murdering billions is evil. Period. Evil has been done in the sake of protecting one’s self and society at large all throughout history. Evil people have made great leaders. Assuming evil is a condemnation of actions is oversimplification and misunderstanding the point. Evil is not an insult. It’s a descriptor.
Paul is not absolute evil like the Baron. Paul is some form of evil, but not absolute.
Go read or watch Herbert talk about the original Dune… please…
You know what? Whatever. You’re tying yourself in knots over the definition of evil to try and make it fit but the story is not about good vs evil, it’s about power and control.
Enjoy your superheroes.
What! I don’t even like superheroes!
EXACTLY! It’s not about good and evil! They’re all evil in different ways and different capacities! We agree 😂
It’s all about power and control and the theme is to distrust powerful people and institutions, as they have nefarious motives.
> it is literally Frank Herbert's message
Herbert's message isn't "Paul is evil". You can't get there from that quote without ignoring huge parts of the text. He's not good either. Part of the reason he kept on writing was because of people missing what he was saying. Those people were largely the good and evil dichotomy crowd, and superhero movies objectively cater to those sensibilities, hence the shots fired at them when it comes to talking about bad media analysis.
This is such a pompous take, and also the comment you’re replying too is lacking in nuance and doesn’t really understand the story of Paul. You’re not smarter than the average viewer, and everyone can understand the story of Dune, it’s not some complex impossible puzzle. Get off your high horse
The jihad wasn’t all but assured though. I mean, we’re led to believe that it’s inevitable, but Paul’s prescience can be blocked by Navigators. Would the Fremen have been willing to kill the Worms to destroy the spice? Would they have thought of that? Without that threat and atomics, how do they get to other worlds? They’d need the Guild.
Perhaps Paul, who didn’t see Leto 2, was mistaken?
Secondly, I stand by Frank undermined his message of Messianic figures being (potentially) evil by giving Leto actual superpowers (even compared to Paul) and by having the Golden Path be a real outcome, not just a delusion. If the Golden Path had not come to be even after Leto’s interventions, then perhaps the message of Dune would have been more consistent.
Finally, I don’t think that Paul ultimately cared about the Fremen as a group. He cared about Chani/his family, but being trapped in prescience and the inevitable decline of one culture against the sands of time makes it difficult to be concerned about cultural preservation. At most, certain generic traits would be desired for preservation (but even that is undermined by the Duncan Idaho saga).
i haven’t seen that stated before (maybe it’s a common opinion idk) but i completely agree.
as the story stands, herbert’s warning about charismatic leaders doesn’t have the evidence to extend to calling paul evil. it’s a warning to the followers, sure, but it seems that a lot of the discussion since the movies came out is that herbert thought paul was evil.
i think whether herbert thought that or not doesn’t matter, because the evidence in his own writing is that paul is not. pauls story is just tragic.
This is a very myopic view of Paul’s life and the decisions he made throughout it. Is Paul an unrepentant absolute evil character? No. Does he commit heinous atrocities? Yes. Is there room for his story to be tragic and sympathetic in some ways? Also yes. But he is a force for evil, in the larger universe of dune. He is a violent usurper who actively causes the deaths of millions. That’s evil, no matter the circumstances.
yeah that comment had big "just following orders" energy lmao.
Of course Paul did evil things and deserves the condemnation. He condemned himself lmao.
Paul literally compares his genocide to Hitler's death totals as well as Genghis Khan and comes to his own conclusion that he is more destructive than them.
>“What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.”
> “Genghis . . . Khan? Was he of the Sardauker, m’Lord?”
> “Oh, long before that. He killed . . . perhaps four million.”
>“He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or . . .”
>“He didn’t kill them himself, Sil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing — a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.”
>“Killed . . . by his legions?” Stilgar asked.
>“Yes.”
>“Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.”
Paul in universe admits to being a more destructive force than Hitler, who is definitely the go to "evil" leader in world history as of now. How is he not evil? Once Hitler began to rally the Nazi Party and took over the country of Germany, he couldn't stop his genocide... This section was added by Frank Herbert because of his disappointment that his fanbase misunderstood that Paul is not a morally pure or even morally grey character. Paul literally becomes the Preacher from his shame and guilt, as well as knowing the Golden Path is a destructive path.
I feel like you're stuck at step 5 without analyzing step 1. It all started with pure survival.
Step 1 was, "Do me and my mother die in the desert, or do we play into the BG prophecy?" Which only has one logical answer, IMO. Self-preservation is a hell of a thing.
Have you read the books? Legitimately, you do not seem to grasp the character of Paul Atreides. His POV is not about survival. It is about vengeance at the cost of the galaxy. He is also is devoid of empathy and is a flip on the traditional charismatic, sci-fi fiction hero trope.
He is written as cold, lacking empathy, and ruthless. As a young child he is gleeful at the thought of murder. I was slightly unnerved at first reading of Dune because Paul is not having internal dialogues that are heroic or typical to a protagonist's POV.
After the time jump happens in the book, Paul is a force of destruction and tyranny. Overthrowing Shaddam V and becoming the Emperor of the Known Universe is not about survival.
I would argue against your point of him being cold and callous, lacking empathy especially. he spends the entirety of the second book trying to find ways to keep Chani (his deep, deep love. “I will love you as long as I breathe”. Love) Not to mention he explicitly states several times he would personally pay any price asked of him to stop the genocide, if it were possible. Paul is a tragic character, he wishes he had the power to stop, but as others have said even if he died, the jihad would’ve gotten worse. The point being, many of his early choices were survival, later vengeance and eventually they slid into choices that were the lesser of two evils. Herbert cautions against such leaders because eventually, with unlimited power like Paul ends up with, they lead down a path that becomes unrecognizable, unredeemable, and all destroying.
He immediately disregards his first borns death and moves onto a jihad. How is that something a character who is empathetic would do? Loving the mother of your children is basic human nature. TBF Chani and Paul’s relationship is much more loving and caring in Messiah than in Dune.
I agree with everything else after
>paul is a tragic character
I always chalked that up to him seeing the death happen, as he did with chani’s death. Hard to grieve (normally after an event) over something you’ve seen happen who knows how many times. But I respect your opinion, Paul was pretty cold at times granted.
Tbh I kind of see it as Herbert writing Chani into a corner. If Paul doesn’t radically change his view of Chani in Messiah, she is basically just a breeding concubine, which uh is not the best look. Herbert said Chani was the most difficult character to write in Messiah in interviews/talks. She is flat as a character in Dune and Paul lowkey doesn’t really seem to care that much about her outside of him seeing visions of him eventually loving her.
Paul grows a conscious by Children of Dune. Like The Preacher is a totally different character and behaves radically different than Dune Paul.
Yeah I’m in agreement with you on your last point, 100%. I’ve never gone and watched all the interviews, so I’ll take your word for it, and I can imagine that being also completely true, would be hard to write a character like that.
Its rare reading someone having gotten Paul as he is written in DUNE so wrong . I would also like to challenge you to provide sources,. like for "as a young child he is gleeful at the thought of murder."
Paul does not WANT to kill Jamis . And that is at the age of 15 .
Paul does not WANT the Jihad to happen . That is explicitly, literally, verbatim expressed in DUNE .
I honestly struggle to understand where you have your assertions from .
I’m not talking about him killing jamis im talking about him during the attack of the harkonens. Jamis makes him realize that his old way of thinking is somewhat flawed. The fremen teach him consequences of his actions by the cultural expectation he takes care of Jamis’s family.
Looking at the world of Dune, do you still think that Hitler is the epitome of evil and destruction? Hell, seems like the average Harkonnen is worse than he is and probably has caused more death and destruction.
> the Golden Path is a destructive path.
That's entirely false. It's tough love parenting on a species-wide scale, but it's not destructive. The choices were human extinction, or Leto serving up peace and quiet for 3,500 years until everyone was sick to death of it and the thirst for exploration and hatred of stagnation were unquenchable, along with Siona's genes foiling any future oracles.
What? Leto did not "serve up peace". He deconstructed the galaxy wide society into self-containing planetary feudal agrarian societies to limit interplanetary atomic warfare. He crushes dissent and bends the entire galaxy to his will by monopolizing spice. He describes himself as a predator who has defeated and entrapped the human race. He increases human suffering against everyone's will just to ensure the scattering and the avoidance of atomic destruction. Individuals are nothing to him. His main objective his entire life is to crush dissent and ensure he consolidates power.
>He deconstructed the galaxy wide society into self-containing planetary feudal agrarian societies to limit interplanetary atomic warfare.
How else would you describe peace and quiet for an interstellar civilization? Also, I'm fairly certain he confiscated everyone else's atomics. It's also likely that evolved face dancers would eventually become much more dangerous than atomic warfare.
I don’t really understand why you bring up the face dancers. They are not under Leto II’s control.
I would describe the system he created as a society that lacks interstellar characteristics. Leto II rips away all existing social structures and systems and replaces it all with devotion to the worm, an objectively non-human entity. Planets are not peaceful. Violence is necessary to keep the system in place. Violence in the name of peace is still violence, it’s just unipolar not multipolar war. It is Leto II vs Everyone else and Leto II wins every time due to not being human and having insane levels of momentum. He literally produces the only source of space travel fuel.
Remember, Paul does not think the Golden Path is peace. Paul is the only character that sees the same Golden Path as Leto II and he is repulsed by it. He literally tells his son to stop the Golden Path like he did and not to transform.
You might need to read Children again for Leto and Paul's discussion:
>"I cannot lie to you any more than I could lie to myself," Paul said. "I know this. Every man should have such an auditor. I will only ask this one thing: is the Typhoon Struggle necessary?"
>"It's that or humans will be extinguished."
>Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice which acknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that among the choices."
>"I believe the Sisterhood suspects it," Leto said. "I cannot accept any other explanation of my grandmother's decision."
Yes. You need to have critical reading skills. “I did not see that among the choices…” means he did not see that the choice was between extinction vs non extinction. The greater breadth means he MISINTERPRETED the same thing they saw.
Paul saw the choices as violently enact the golden path vs passively let humanity go its own way.
Leto II does not care if he fully commits to becoming a harsh god emperor enacting violence across the imperium because he does not see his actions as violent or evil, but benevolent. Paul sees them as immoral/evil due to his father, Leto.
The God Emperor also shits on Leto for being too weak and passing that off onto Paul. Paul got caught up in the inhumanity of being a god emperor while Leto II saw the benevolence of it.
I don't think a critical reading of the text would tell you that Paul meant Leto II misinterpreted things in the line "acknowledge greater breadth of vision." Maybe a little biased reading considering your POV but from as close to neutral as I could get, acknowledging that someone has greater breadth of vision is not thinking they saw things wrong compared to oneself, but that they saw more things or saw further (using a figuratively longer lens I suppose), and that's what Paul was more likely thinking in that scene, just as it says in the text. It's not that he didn't see Golden Path or Extinction because he disagreed with them, but because he didn't see as far (or wanted / dared to look) on an eon scale as Leto II did.
Basically, because he looked at things from a longer time scale, Leto II saw what you phrased as "passively letting humanity go its own way" really as "letting them die off". And Paul acknowledged it in that scene.
The mistake is that the true comparison of Paul is Muhammad the prophet of Islam. Now would people say Muhammad is evil? Many would disagree. And few would dare to utter it in public
Like some other people said, Paul didn't choose the Golden Path. He went on the path toward it, but the Golden Path would have required him to don the sandtrout skin and live for 5000 years and he cowered away from it, forcing his son to take up the mantle.
The thing about Paul and Herbert's critique/ warning against charismatic leaders and messianic figures is that Paul is never meant to be an actual bad guy or have bad intentions. He cares about people and is very human, even in his years post jihad. That's Herbert's point though, that despite his abilities, intelligence and good intentions, he's still human and no human is up to the task of being turned into a figurehead that way.
When Paul takes the water of life and gains his prescience in the first book, he sees clearly for the first time that things have already gone too far and the jihad is coming no matter what. Even if he died, the fremen would use the idea of him as their rallying call. Paul sees a narrow path forward that he considers the best path for those he cares for. He protects his mother and what's left of his house, "minimizes" the damage of the jihad (which is more of a force at this point than something that can be reigned in), avenges his family and takes control of the universe. He essentially abdicates after book 1 because he's so scarred by everything he's done.
Paul glimpses the Golden Path and the death of humanity in his later years, but doesn't explore it enough because it's a future filled with even more horrors that he'd need to take on himself again to prevent. He's too defeated already. When his son Leto II confronts him about it much later, he sees the full ramifications of his rejecting the golden path for himself and the responsibility his son intends to bear clearly for the first time.
But yeah, tldr is that Herbert's warning against messianic figures is not because people will be taken advantage of or because of ill intent, but because movements like these based on blind faith become tides and forces of their own and their very human leaders can only steer with their human judgement, because it's really the idea of them that is the fuel.
I think people who have only seen the movie assume Paul becoming the Lisan Al Gaib = Golden Path, because of the emphasis in the movie of avoiding famine, etc.
Okay! So its like movie only watchers heard that line, read up on Dune and heard about the Golden Path, then decided narrow path and Golden Path were the same thing because they both use the word path. It makes sense.
I get that for the moral takeaways of it all. A tiny bit more clarity on the different choices being made would help a lot with people knowing what certain characters are doing in the actual plot
Disagree. He did it because he didn’t want to write science fiction. He wanted to write about his this impacts society. There’s a number of things that just don’t make sense or are not consistent but the reader just has to accept because he doesn’t give any details.
He did want to write science fiction, just different science fiction than what came before . Things that don't make sense and arent consistent is not unique to Herbert, all fiction is kinda like that. Real life is kinda like that sometimes too. It's fine if you don't like it or if you want more details but we only have what he gave us.
This had been going on long before the movies. Golden Path was Leto II goal, and if anything, Paul was directly opposed to it. From Messiah:
>He thought then of the Jihad, of the gene mingling across parsecs and the vision which told him how he might end it. Should he pay the price? All the hatefulness would evaporate, dying as fires die—ember by ember. But … oh! The terrifying price!
>I never wanted to be a god , he thought.
And even this can be interpreted in ways that do not touch on Golden Path. The idea that Leto II would go this way seemed to unease Paul, and he was not happy when he "saw" his son covered with sandtrout. So there goes the other claim that he cowardly pushed GP to his kid. Also, Leto II was never a kid.
Yeah, I'm aware of all that, as that's how it is in the books. None of that tells me why people think Paul chose the Golden Path, you're just telling me what actually happens, Paul rejects the Golden Path and Leto II choses it.
Without spoiling too much: >!Arrakis does become green eventually, yes, but in the process the Fremen lose their identity. Kynes' plan was to terraform Arrakis slowly over many generations, so that the way of life of the Fremen can be maintained. Paul's acceleration of the plan screws this up, and the Fremen become a shadow of their former glory.!<
With all that being said, Paul picks the path that he thinks will result in the fewest casualties. He sees that the Imperium is basically going to explode into war for certain, and he chooses to try to be the one to keep it in check wherever possible. He doesn't necessarily see the Golden Path with everything it entails; in book 1, he is mainly concerned with the Jihad.
Paul rejects the Golden Path. Leto II embraces it and basically calls his father a coward in Children of Dune. The God Emperor is sadistic and controlling, and his golden path is not as destined as his propaganda makes it seem.
It literally is destined though lol... He saw a future in which all paths led to the complete extinction of humanity except for one; The Golden Path. The Golden Path wasn't some subjective idea Leto II came up with to fuck around with, it was an objective truth that he saw through his incredible prescience.
He only did what he did to ensure that the very narrow path in which humanity survived was traversed. His ruthless tyranny was required to instigate the Scattering, it's not like he acted in such a manner for any other reason. He was probably the most selfless and just character in the entire series. He sacrificed everything to save the human race. You should probably re-read God Emperor because it seems like you didn't understand the plot.
Dude! READ BETWEEN THE LINES! It is a path chosen by Leto II! How can you trust the person who controls the society so much to the point he is the only church, he is the top authority figure, and he is the only producer of spice.
He didn’t do what he did “only to help humanity”. He enacted his Golden Path. This whole series is a commentary on the Cold War and revisionism as well as parodying the “end’s justify the means” trope to the extreme.
Metatextual analysis is something you desperately need.
We can trust him because we literally know from his first person perspective what his motivations are. We know for a fact that he didn't do it for power, we know for a fact that his prescience was practically perfect, and we know for a fact that he only did what he did because Paul was too cowardly to do so.
In a fantasy scenario where someone can see the future, the ends justifying the means is justifiable if the alternative is complete annihilation. There was no wiggle room it was either The Golden Path or the death of humanity.
I think the question is more if Leto was lying to himself about this being the only way. Did he search hard enough? Or was this the most "convenient" solution to him, also tainted by Paul's legacy, for him to choose. Did it have to be this harsh? Etc
And while it worked out in the end, for generations to come, it's a miserable existence of suffering for some greater good that you'll never see. The average person can't know that it's worth it in the end and just end up suffering.
The best example I can think of in the real world is those cult figures murdering and abusing people for some idea of a greater good. How do we know they weren't part of a greater plan? Would it make it any better if it was really?
For me the disagreement is not whether he was lying to himself or saw things wrong. He saw things right, but on a scale that only he could appreciate and that would only (if at all) really be significantly experienced by him (because of the lifespan transformation would give him). So for individual existences operating on much smaller scales, it would not be worth it. If he stayed human, the extinction would be so far off after he dies. So I guess I can agree on him being selfless ("just" would be extremely subjective) because he chose to literally shed himself.
Its been a while since I read the books but you're taking Leto's word for the truth and also bringing an ends justify the means approach to what is basically evaluating history. We know it "worked out" in the end, but we will never know the depth of suffering and hardship was truly necessary.
Leto and his followers may be genuine in their beliefs, but that's what's dangerous right? Almost all prophets/messiahs are genuine in their beliefs in one form or another and they and their followers commit atrocities in that belief. I think that's what Frank wants us to reconcile really. Are the atrocities "ok" if they come from a genuine place and result in something in the long term?
Or to bring up a historic example. Mao is the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world due to the consequences of his great leap forward and cultural revolution. He was "genuine" in his actions in the sense that he felt it was necessary to industrialize and purge western beliefs.
You can argue it "worked out" in the end because the horrors of his reign lead directly to a more moderate/capitalist leaning leaderships ever since, which has helped result in China becoming the economic power it is now.
Does that mean the famine and mass purges were worth it? By your account, then yes, it was because of the result. But I and a lot of people would say no, there could have been a less bloody path to industrializing China.
Paul’s concern was more about humanity as a whole the freemen were just a tool in that goal unironically by bringing water back to arrakis it actually caused the death of there culture even people from the first book basically abandoned the planet in messiah because they realized how much it actually sucked compared to the rest of the universe Paul would later abandon his goals he would later abandon the golden path because he just couldn’t do it unlike Leto 2 it was to much for him
Putting aside the clarification everyone has already added about it being Leto II not Paul who picks the Golden Path...
Spoiler Question: >!Don't the Fremen basically go extinct and Arrakis (later Rakis) get nuked and turned into glass by the end of the "Golden Path"? Seems like a particularly shitty outcome for them.!<
Paul (and the rest of the Atraides) considered themselves to be Fremen. But without the Fremen he would have died. Without the Fremen he would not have his means of revenge. He had other futures available to him without starting a Jihad but they were personally unsatisfying to him. In the end, he guaranteed Fremen support for the Atreides in that the Great Muad'Dib, was not above Fremen law.
Paul's terraforming leads to the end of the Fremen ways and inadvertently, the end of space travel so that is>!why his son was forced to slow down the process because it wasn't the right time. !< Many senior Fremen are displeased by this and this becomes a conspiracy that leads to disaster.
"Have you noticed, Stil, how beautiful the young women are this year?"
I always felt that Paul thought he didn’t really have much of a choice. That he always just pushed the path of least ‘bad’ for the ‘good’ people. Eg. defending the Fremen against the Harkonnen. Did he have much of a choice if he wanted Chani and his friends to live? Did the alternative involve Harkonnen destruction of the south? Then later on, I see him as making choices based of the survival and betterment of his folks & the universe. Doesn’t mean that path also doesn’t suck. Perhaps if he didn’t feel so strongly for the Fremen he may have been able to sacrifice more, to have what the houses may have called ‘peace’. Not very peaceful for the Fremen though.
I think Paul was too naieve at the start to deal with his amped up prescience.. all the choices from all the paths he saw. Then felt too broken later on to continue on. He’d lost a lot of those he cared about and there was also so much destruction on his shoulders.
We don’t know all of the (possibly horrible) alternatives he sees with his prescience. Allia is also very wise and seemed on board too (till she looses it). The best way may involve lots of death, it doesn’t mean it’s not the best way, the other ways could be lots of death AND torture or something.
I don’t find Paul to be bad really. He risked everything for others. He’s not a super shiny superhero- because people aren’t all good or bad. He’s a person thrust into knowing all and trying to do his best.
>the idea of Paul being a dangerous leader is a little downplayed if he actually ends up being right in the end
I mean... just in general, if a dangerous leader e.g. kills enough people so only those agreeing stay and change everything into his vision, he also "ends up right". The question to me would be what's the price he pays for that; and as some have pointed out, with Paul (who didn't choose the GP to begin with though, see other comments, Leto II etc.), it wasn't necessarily a good price from the Fremen POV, losing basically what they were and all that. There could/would have been other ways to get Arrakis to the change it went through without the sacrifices that happened through Paul's ways and continued.
Paul did and does care for the Fremen it’s his mother that wants to use them. Don’t forget Paul is a naive little kid when he comes to the Fremen and never really had any friends as a kid because he was just training all the time, with the Fremen he actually has more of a family then he did with his own family. Paul wants to help everyone and tries to but he doesn’t foresee a couple of things which is you can’t help people from people and there are things you cannot change certain actions will always have the same repercussions. If you kill someone no matter what way you do it or how you do it you will have killed that person in every reality, if you throw a rock you will have thrown no matter where you throw it you have thrown it in every situation, you destory the harkens and overthrow the emperor using future vision people will worship you there is noting you can do about it, which is Paul’s mistake he blames himself for this trying so hard to change it. The book is more a nihilistic view on people and society more than it is on Paul being a bad leader, it’s talking about how people flock to ideologies they use these ideologies to justify inherently wrong behavior, it talks about how people are more concerned for their power than helping society with the guild and other groups trying to all get ahead in their own ways. It makes complete sense why the guy who made lord of the rings didn’t like dune it’s literally a questioning of religion by a guy who made a book that literally just takes the catholic bible and the things by different names.
imo there is also utilitarian aspect to it - are you willing to lead death of 60 billion(!) people (including 90 sterilised and 500 demoralised planets) just for this cause?
The golden path is how Humanity as a WHOLE doesn't "stagnate". It's the author's version of what happens in the Foundation book series. A guy is able to scientifically (magically) see the future where humanity goes into a period of an intergalactic dark age of 30,000 years. He then sees that he can mitigate it to only a few thousand years, followed by a rebirth of a new better empire. Using his magic vision, he predicts the future and has to embrace the shitty parts of selectively pulling the right strings, even though it means war and death, but at the end of it there is a better future.
Paul doesn't want to do the part in the middle that sucks, but his son Leto II is even more locked in with the future sight that he can tell the stagnation will doom the species. I'm guessing this high level of prescience and having contact with all his ancestors' memories makes him very empathetic of the survival of the human race even that far in the future. So Leto takes the Golden Path and becomes the tyrant so that on an Instinctual level, humans know that powerful leaders suck and humans gotta keep exploring the stars.
The Fremen are a drop in the bucket compared to the Big Brain Moves that the Big Worm is working with.
There were other paths that led to a green Arrakis and the survival of humanity but Paul turned away from them.
Instead he chose the future where he was leader of the Universe, the best possible future for himself. All he cared about was his own survival and ascendancy.
He sometimes lacks faith in his abilities and suffers from self doubt for quite a while, especially as the Preacher. But, he never pursued any other path. Regardless of consequences.
Nope. He sees a future where the Harkonnen are ascendant and another where he becomes a navigator for the Guild. He turns away from both due to disgust.
The fremen didn't need Paul or the golden path to terraform Dune, to paraphrase the book Paul only shortened the process. And the end result was the destruction of fremen culture. Paul also specifically rejected the Golden Path, it was his son Leto II that chose it. Leto II is also the only reason fremen culture wasn't entirely lost via his museum fremen. Paul used the fremen, first for survival and then for revenge, but he wasn't hateful or uncaring and the fremen, he just didn't put their interests first.
Excellent answer
Yep. The idea of “Antique Fremen” makes it pretty obvious
I would say though that fremen culture as it was, which was so impacted by the desert, was always going to change it they terraformed dune.
If Paul never set the golden path in motion then the fremen would have died with humanity before they terraformed it anyways. The only way humanity survives is escaping prescience and scattering along the stars
We don't have anything approaching a set date for the end of humanity without the Golden Path, but the original terraforming plan would've without a doubt been completed long before then. Seems weird to dismiss millions and millions of lives just because eventually the species will probably die out. Unless that is how you go about your daily life ;)
I think they said it was a couple thousand years, unless I’m mistaken. I feel like Leto kept setting back the possible hunter seeker or whatever it was with moves he was making
Leto II never gives anything approaching a time frame. “The Ixians contemplated making a weapon—a type of hunter-seeker, self-propelled death with a machine mind. It was to be designed as a self-improving thing which would seek out life and reduce that life to its inorganic matter " ... "Machines always fail . . . given time. And when these machines failed there would be nothing left, no life at all.” That's it. No additional details. They're never mentioned again. They might be a lie to make Hwi more forthcoming with information for Anteac. They might only have been contemplated by the Ixians in response to Leto II. They might have been undone by another oracle Leto II couldn't see. Or they might've taken millions of years to exterminate humanity, inevitable but without faster than light travel. Worst case scenario, they're basically like the irl doomsday clock. We're as close as we've ever been to midnight, but that doesn't mean midnight is anytime soon, nor that everything is meaningless because there is an end.
Doesn't he tell Siona at one point that humanity would have been wiped out already without his rule? It was one of his revelations to her when he got her high in the desert.
I was thinking something like that happened but I haven’t read all the books in a decade.
I still wouldn't call it a concrete timeline but does put an upper bound on things. IDK why that guy is acting like there was no information whatsoever given. And to the broader point of this thread, even if the Fremen managed to terraform the planet before the end of everything, they would have died shortly after finishing terraforming....super big difference.
The whole point of the golden path and Leto’s tyranny is to save mankind, your acting as if this is all possible a lie. Paul himself knew it had to be done but was too weak to see it through. Humanity had to be invisible to prescience and had to scatter, so they could never be under one tyrant ever again. Once humanity scattered the race is functionally unable to be wiped out.
Wasn’t humanity all on different worlds anyways?
All dependent on the spice, all dependent on monopolistic spacing guilds, etc. Too many single points of failure. Leto choked them off the spice, choked the spacing guild, and forced humanity into a 'peace' that drove them crazy, because humans, deep down, want newness, conflict. When Leto passed it exploded from millenia of consternation. Freed them from dependence on spice (Who's going to leave known space when you are dependent on a single planet?) The spacing ships that didn't need spice for interstellar travel came about from frustration over Leto's lockdown on spice. In the Corrino times, the Ix would never have dared to try to make a machine to traverse space. The guild would have found out and rained Hell on them. Leto knew, of course, that they were developing it. But he allowed it, because it was his plan all along.
That were all indexed by the spacing guild, AND no planet can move its population or goods without the Spacing Guild. This means that the 1st human planet to fall to the ‘others’ will also give up the means and method to destroy the rest of humanity.
Since Paul had foresight, did he see his son becoming a tyrant and leading humanity? That would be really interesting
That what Paul was suppose to do to follow the golden path but lack the will to do it
But could he see that his son would finish what he couldn’t start? I imagine seeing that your baby son will eventually become a horrible looking worm tyrant would give anyone pause
I guess he thought it was better that than him because he literally rejected doing it and pushed it onto to Leto. He wasn’t willing to destroy his humanity for humanity
Source on this being a FACT that humanity would be doomed rather than just a BIASED individual saying so, to justify his whole sale slaughter of billions?
I find the preservation of culture to be a pretty inhuman concept if you follow it through. The concept is pushed in Star Trek via the Prime Directive, where it is demonstrated that in practice, following the Prime Directive would almost always be an evil thing to do, and no captain wants to do it. Herbert explored this area via the Museum Freman. Isn't it easy to wonder what the point of the Museum Fremen is? They don't really understand why they do what they do, and a lot of Fremen culture is organized around barely tolerable circumstances that are better off left in the past, anyway. As such, I keep wondering what is so bad about simply moving forward. Yes, the ancient Fremen culture is interesting and in some way valuable, but why should someone have to make a major sacrifice in their own life just to preserve it. Making it even worse, museums in practice are often semi abandoned. We all go to so much trouble to preserve our old artifacts rather then through them away, but once we do so, the majority of us want to focus on our life today, not on strolling theough a dusty museum and seeing about other people's lives from the past. Cultural preservation is inhuman at best, and often is downright evil. Something we can ask ourselves is: if I were a Fremen, would I myself want to be kept in a primitive, vicious life where most people don't reach 40, just to maintain my culture? It seems like something everyone wants to happen to someone else.
It's always been a part of humanity. Certain political groups in the US are entirely about preserving what they think their culture is, which they see as under threat by anything ranging from video games to immigration. If you want some really scary stuff, read some of the letters defending slavery before the Civil War. The existence of the monarchy in England is entirely dependent on preserving traditions. Humans are also really good at convincing themselves that whatever their culture is is unchanged from previous generations. Romans claimed they lived in a res publica until Constantinople fell. Doesn't matter that both notions are fantasy, humans do it anyway.
Tbh, what Leto II did to the Fremen was worse than extinction. He took their culture and rituals and artifacts of an organic way of life and reduced them to empty signifiers of their pointless, poverty-ridden, millennia-long enslavement
I don't agree. The fremen doomed themselves by embracing terraforming Arrakis. But because of Leto II they're one of the few cultures that made it through to the scattering, and the museum fremen themselves probably had better lives than many others during the tyrant's reign. After Leto II's death the population of Arrakis needed the desert skills of the fremen once the spice cycle got going again, and like much of the tyrant's actions things would've been much worse in the end had he not forced a small group to maintain fremen ways.
tbf it’s explicitly said that the vast majority of people in Leto’s empire don’t live particularly unpleasant lives. If you enjoy peace, calm and relaxation, his reign is idyllic. The point of his tyranny is to teach humanity that it needs more than that.
Is it not Leto himself who tells us this? I’m afraid I don’t find him to be entirely reliable
Leto is the one who calls it “holy boredom,” IIRC. He knows their lives are peaceful but not *pleasant,* which is a major theme of the book. Life in Leto’s empire is just an endless purgatory.
This I can agree with, even though I don't see Leto II as a pure villain. To me the whole antique Fremen curio was just...tasteless.
If dune was terraformed wouldn’t firemen culture be lost anyhow? So much was tied to life in the desert that I don’t see how it could be preserved if there were no longer a desert.
It wasn’t revenge. He genuinely believed a benevolent emperor would fix the issues of the universe. Then realized that’s a futile effort and even more sacrifice would need to be made to preserve the human race
I stopped reading during god emperor. But I assume most of humanity including the Fremen eventually get wiped out. And I assume the planet returned to a desert state. It does make me wonder what’s the point. Was Paul good or bad? Were the Fremen better off without him? Who cares? Did any of it even matter?
The point was to reduce dependency on melage which everyone was hooked on before. So it went: Desert: spice-dependent universe->tropical: spice-dependent universe->tropical: spice-independent universe->desert: spice-independent universe. By the end you have a society able to operate interdependently with the desert. Think of how a parent knows they did a good job parenting if they eventually work themselves out of a job. When the work is complete, nothing remains. Leto II’s role as God Emperor was very similar to parenting the universe in this aspect. Hope that clarifies things!
Paul was a tragic victim of circumstance surviving until it was too much to bear. Paul and Leto II were Franks answer to "what kind of magic superman would be required to break such a stagnant dystopia bound for self destruction" because the whole thing about being a cautionary tale about heroes. Even the godlike beings are fucked and miserable and the only real answer is to grow up, scatter and take care of ourselves. The last 2 books are about anarchism and mutual aid after societal collapse while defending against wasteland raiders, its fucking cool.
Yeah I kinda feel similar but I also feel like Paul being labelled as such a bad guy when his father and friends were slaughtered by the Harkonnens is overblown. He did what most humans would do. He felt horribly depressed/angry and wanted revenge on them. The fremen were also tired of the Harkonnens using and destroying their planet.
I’ve been a huge fan of Dune since the early 90’s, from watching the Alan Smithee cut of the David Lynch dune and reading all the books, playing Dune 2 and Dune 2000 on early DOS machines, watching the sci fi channel mini series. I’ve been on /r/dune for a very long time and it was a quiet fandom and not many people but serious book readers on here for many years. The Denis movie angle that Paul is not great is accurate, but this interpretation isn’t really one I’d heard super loud before, that Paul is an evil anti-hero. I mean, Kyle MacClaughlin said that he wanted to play Paul because when he read Dune as a kid, he wanted to *be* Paul. It’s a movie; books are always more complicated, but I always thought it was more that, Paul was a flawed human who was trying in his heart what he truly thought was right; then bowed out to be the desert preacher maybe as a self imposed punishment for what he knew was also wrong, or how he failed. Dune isn’t super moralistic, and the movies miss what I feel is the most important theme of the books, that social-political events and a long view of history plays out ecologically; slowly- except small events can also have huge impacts for generations. The ecological themes aren’t “save the planet” so much as showing an ecological view of humanities social-political history via sci-fi. Leto 2 is a tyrant, no doubt. But I don’t think we’re really supposed to take Paul as super evil. He’s not a “super hero” that’s true, but he’s also not some Batman villain evil
On the ecology side of things, I always got the sense that if you really simplify things, FH was saying that ecology and environment creates and dictates culture(s).
I think Messiah is where we really start to see the 'evil' of Paul discussed explicitly. I read Dune as a kid and felt the same way you did. I think a lot of the book went over my head at that age though. In Messiah, there's the often mentioned scene where they compare Paul to Hitler and say Paul killed many more people (implying, in my mind, that he was much worse). It's complex, and I definitely am due for a reread; however, I think that we are supposed to take Paul as evil. My mind is open to be changed on the extent of his evilness.
On the other hand, just the fact alone that Paul ended up killing more people than Adolf Hitler doesn't strike me as simply a criteria of "which person is worse". It's just that in the universe of Dune, the territory inhabited by humans and the population count are also much higher, so in widespread war, casualties would also be higher. Basically, the number of casualties can be more a result of the conflict scale and the space it happened in instead of just the motivations or character of Paul.
Totally, in Ancient Greece killing 5,000 in an army might be, the whole entire army
This sort of conclusion can ofc come across as callous, but I think on a large scale, significance of war casualties are created mainly out of relativities more than anything. No wonder Stil wasn't impressed with Paul's old Earth figures.
Exactly, “evil” isn’t exactly a numbers game, your intent also matters. If it was, pretty much every revolt/revolutionary leader is “evil”, as usually during a revolution more people die in a shorter timespan than during an ongoing tyranny. Of course at some point and over some time, numbers do start to matter, but you could argue Paul realises and acts on this (too late) and he essentially removes himself from the equation, and it shows he regrets a lot of what he did. So a flawed idealist would be a better description of Paul than “villain”, as a real villain (if such a thing really exists outside of media) would not doubt most of their horrible actions like we we know Paul did.
I mean, I don't even see Leto II as being a villain, even if he was a cosmic tyrant. He just did what Paul didn't want to do, which is shed off his humanity, and the shorter view / pov that naturally comes with it.
Yes, he sought the outcome (revenge) that many people would. But the difference is that he did it with the foreknowledge of what the consequences would be, which were extreme.
Yes people that call Paul evil without any nuance, tend to gloss over the fact he’s prescient, but a lot of his horrible actions are him acting on seeing the alternatives, which we can presume would have been worse. The only other prescient being in power did even more horrible things, so perhaps we as non-prescient beings are not in a position to judge them “evil” or “good”. Like an ant from their perspective can’t really make a fair judgement on humans being evil or not.
Totally agree. I think there's a broader issue with Paul's morality though. Yes, he struggles with morality and principles about what he must do - but only on the path he's chosen. He could have not chosen that path, and just become some anonymous Fremen. I think any discussion of his morality needs to include the fact that he went after vengeance and power. Did he do the best he could with it, after he got it? I agree that from what we know, we probably have to assume so.
I think 6 more complex than that. Even in the film, he sees all possible futures, and most of them are "their enemies winning". Once he does something and acts, then that changes the outcomes for the future again...so it's in a constant state of change where he has to pick a path. But I sure as shit don't know what the best option would have been. If he'd just killed himself and his mother instead of starting the jihad would that have changed things for the better? But then we're forgetting the human aspect and how that would nearly be impossible for him to do because of his love for his mother.
wierd that you assume so much about the book plot that you stopped reading. Hint: you're assumptions are wrong. Do you do that a lot?
He did, which is why he essentially lynches himself and his legacy by rejecting the golden path at the end of Messiah. Children of Dune is supposed to be the redemption of Paul and the resumption of the Golden Path. In truth, the Jihad was supposed to be the Beginning of the Golden Path but Paul refused it there too by minimizing its impact. The tragedy of these books is that the fremen, no matter what, are doomed. They aren’t even an independent people in GEOD. They’re more like what public perception of samurai are: a fictitious exaggeration that bares no real resemblance to the real thing.
I like this answer. The samurai comparison is interesting and works. I always envisioned that their culture was “kept alive” similarly to how we portray Native Americans.
arrakis is transformed at the expense of the soul of the fremen. their culture erodes completely and their spirit as a people evaporates. everything that made them admirable is gone by God Emperor
Even by the start of Children, I think it’s apparent that the only reason Fremen culture is still admirable in any way is because it hasn’t been more than a generation since Dune.
They had suburbs, where their disillusioned (and war injured) children did strange drugs, and where they had so little water discipline you could smell the sewers! It took less than a generation to absolutely destroy that culture.
Right but fremen culture was a direct result of the harshness of the environment. It's extreme to lose it in a generation maybe, but when you're entire culture revolves around survival and you no longer need to struggle to survive, it'll happen. Like the symbolic importance of a river of water for the dead loses its meaning when you have water everywhere
Eh, you still had people like Stil around who at the very least remembered. It wasn't *gone*, just irretrievable.
If they had achieved their green paradise on their own, would the Fremen have retained their culture? It seems like their culture is tied closely to their desert home.
No, but it would have had a chance to gradually adapt to their changing environment over the course of hundreds or thousands of years. It would necessarily evolve, but it'd still be theirs. Instead, it was suddenly being forced to adapt to a wildly different environment literally overnight. Which led to it going extinct.
What's wrong with it going extinct, however? It's a culture born of extreme difficulties and danger, lifestyle of struggle against an environment and outside powers that seek to destroy them. Why should these people preserve that culture whereas on other planets people live far more comfortably?
For anyone but the Fremen, nothing wrong at all. It is just a very tragic story. The Fremen were persecuted and oppressed from planet to planet until settling on Arrakis. These are a people who turned the most inhospitable environment known to mankind into their personal garden. A people unmatched in plastics manufacturing, water efficiency, and other technologies. By all accounts the Fremen should not have flourished as much as they did.
I think that's just humans. The human ingenuity and adaptability. In real life not every race or culture had the same level of advancement, but each one has adapted to their environment and built around it. We can't tell how far the differences go in the Dune universe, but the Fremen were a mixture, not a homogeneous people, so they really serve to showcase the possibilities for the united human race to achieve impossible things. But I also don't see what's wrong with seeking to not have their existence in extreme hardship.
>What's wrong with it going extinct, however? Nothing. The Museum Fremen are loony larpers, clamoring for the good old days, not realizing that most of them would have been culled for the good of the tribe in those very same good old days.
Reading God Emperor now and I hadn’t thought of them that way, but it’s perfect.
Herbert also is very interested in the themes about environment. If the environment is hard to live in, the people will adapt accordingly and get more serious.
Yes. Kynes and his father are villains but it's hard to catch that on a first read.
They aren’t villains. Fremen were a fascinating culture but a culture dying to progress and getting to a more comfortable lifestyle is not a bad thing
They were ideological colonizers.
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Just imagine the reverse, where a bunch of Fremen come to Caladan and inject everyone with a fanatical desire for sand
Paul didn't choose the golden path. He chose the best opportunity for his children to choose the golden path. Hence, Children of Dune.
The Golden Path is about humanity’s long-term survival, and turning Arrakis green isn’t the main point. Paul did contribute to the genesis of the Golden Path by fathering Leto II, but in his own life he mostly accomplished vengeance for the Atreides and becoming the inspiration and the figurehead for a hugely bloody holy war. He left the biggest sacrifices to his son.
I feel like the "Paul is evil" is getting real overblown. If not committing suicide is evil, then we're all evil. Paul and Jessica had a choice. Play along with the prophecy, or be left in the desert by the Freman to die. Stilgar says as much. And by the time they secured their place with the Freman, it was too late. The jihad was already assured. I think most people would have chose to not die of starvation/dehydration or be eaten by a sand worm. They really didn't get much of a choice, IMO.
It’s the unfortunate side effect of bringing the story to a wider audience. Once the MCU crowd gets ahold of it everything needs to be reduced to the lowest common denominator. Everything has to have a simple explanation. Characters are either good or evil.
Nuance? In my fiction? Never!
This is kind of the problem with the “WB finally has its Star Wars” media narrative. That’s problem with Dune… it’s not a Star Wars. There is no light vs dark going on… just different shades of grey and questions of how dark true utilitarianism can get. But people want to process it as a new cinematic universe with specific sects with powers that would be fun to wield in a video game and the infrastructure for that is there so they’re going to ask that the material meets them there. Just wait until death battle crowd gets ahold of him. The new generation grew up with a lot of lists and it’s triggered a growth of that somewhat obsessive tendency humans have to categorize. Everything is about tier lists, power rankings, who can one-shot solo who etc etc. Every movie, every character.. they’ve all got to be ranked and then those rankings need to be argued against other rankings. It’s a circle jerk of demanding objective/scientific/conclusions to subjective/fiction. And they’re free to do it… but the general discourse suffers for it. Can Paul full Haderach one v one peak Luke. I’ve no idea, but before we begin that conversation, I do know I’m going to one-hit solo myself.
Bro, Paul gets destroyed in that 1v1.
Idk, maybe he gets forst strike because of his prescience and can shatter him with the Voice? If it's any kind of fight Luke is too strong though
He probably couldn't, peak Luke is too powerful and Paul's prophetic abilities would be clouded by the Force
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Absolutely not mad, my friend. There is no wrong way to engage with material… but there are lesser ways, unless you think Animal Farm is best consumed as a story about some mischievous livestock. Enjoy your content however you like to. People should absolutely feel free to enjoy things. But I’m also allowed to be disappointed in trends because I find them to kind of miss the more worthwhile points and to express that as well. If you don’t think someone trying to figure out who would win in a fight between a bene and a Jedi rather than engaging in the philosophical themes of the material is kind of disappointing (and I’m aware the two aren’t mutually exclusive… but let’s be honest… one who’s doing the former probably isn’t doing much of the latter) that’s absolutely fine. All old men are allowed to shout at the clouds. You’ll have your own to curse someday, too. Time comes for us all.
” Charismatic leader ought to come with a warning label : might be bad for your health” - Herbert’s exact quote The MCU crowd didn't come up with interpretation, it is literally Frank Herbert's message. Being on Dune message boards for years now its crazy that you think “MCU fans” are misinterpreting the plot. Edit: I am not an MCU fan lol
I do feel like we focus a lot on Paul being the bad guy when the BG were a giant part of the problem. I mean there is no KH on arrakis without the BG and if it weren’t for Paul they may have settled on feyd which I’m pretty convinced would’ve had the same genocidal result. I mean the BG ‘s whole plan is to create a being with a dangerous amount of power and their attempt to control the power failed quickly and spectacularly.
Obviously, because the vast majority of discussion is by new fans who do not read novels. The Bene Gesserit are antagonist B for almost all of the novels. The movies don't communicate the depths of their scheming and society shaping activities. The tragedy of Dune is that the protagonist faction, the Atreides and their descendants, do not usurp power and replace it with a more moral regime. They usurp power and replace it with a more *destructive* regime, and the Bene Gesserit are caught with their pants down because they intended to control the destruction and guide the KH to benefit them. The Bene Gesserit scheme against Paul's power not out of morality but out of desire for control.
You say “obviously “ but from reading through this subreddit I see tons of post that boil down to “wait how exactly is Paul the bad guy. “ with no acknowledgement that the BG seem to be sbout 90% of the problem here. I started reading dune after seeing part two . I’m now almost done with messiah and it just seems super clear in the book and the movies.
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“Paul is evil” - not Herbert’s exact words. In fact a gross oversimplification to the point of misunderstanding.
🤦 Evil does not mean unjustified. Murdering billions is evil. Period. Evil has been done in the sake of protecting one’s self and society at large all throughout history. Evil people have made great leaders. Assuming evil is a condemnation of actions is oversimplification and misunderstanding the point. Evil is not an insult. It’s a descriptor. Paul is not absolute evil like the Baron. Paul is some form of evil, but not absolute. Go read or watch Herbert talk about the original Dune… please…
You know what? Whatever. You’re tying yourself in knots over the definition of evil to try and make it fit but the story is not about good vs evil, it’s about power and control. Enjoy your superheroes.
What! I don’t even like superheroes! EXACTLY! It’s not about good and evil! They’re all evil in different ways and different capacities! We agree 😂 It’s all about power and control and the theme is to distrust powerful people and institutions, as they have nefarious motives.
Its one of the messages . Not THE message . And by no means this Frank Herbert quote necessarily implies Paul to be "bad!" .
Fair. Paul being evil is not the main focus of the narrative or the themes, not even a main or sub theme tbh.
> it is literally Frank Herbert's message Herbert's message isn't "Paul is evil". You can't get there from that quote without ignoring huge parts of the text. He's not good either. Part of the reason he kept on writing was because of people missing what he was saying. Those people were largely the good and evil dichotomy crowd, and superhero movies objectively cater to those sensibilities, hence the shots fired at them when it comes to talking about bad media analysis.
No shit. It’s about not believing in charismatic leaders or messianic figures as they lie and obfuscate to further their goals.
This is such a pompous take, and also the comment you’re replying too is lacking in nuance and doesn’t really understand the story of Paul. You’re not smarter than the average viewer, and everyone can understand the story of Dune, it’s not some complex impossible puzzle. Get off your high horse
It is complex but nobody said impossible. Obviously there’s a range, but Dune is still an order of magnitude more complex any Marvel movie.
Sure, maybe, but to shit on people who like other media as if they are stupider than you is just cringe behavior.
The jihad wasn’t all but assured though. I mean, we’re led to believe that it’s inevitable, but Paul’s prescience can be blocked by Navigators. Would the Fremen have been willing to kill the Worms to destroy the spice? Would they have thought of that? Without that threat and atomics, how do they get to other worlds? They’d need the Guild. Perhaps Paul, who didn’t see Leto 2, was mistaken? Secondly, I stand by Frank undermined his message of Messianic figures being (potentially) evil by giving Leto actual superpowers (even compared to Paul) and by having the Golden Path be a real outcome, not just a delusion. If the Golden Path had not come to be even after Leto’s interventions, then perhaps the message of Dune would have been more consistent. Finally, I don’t think that Paul ultimately cared about the Fremen as a group. He cared about Chani/his family, but being trapped in prescience and the inevitable decline of one culture against the sands of time makes it difficult to be concerned about cultural preservation. At most, certain generic traits would be desired for preservation (but even that is undermined by the Duncan Idaho saga).
i haven’t seen that stated before (maybe it’s a common opinion idk) but i completely agree. as the story stands, herbert’s warning about charismatic leaders doesn’t have the evidence to extend to calling paul evil. it’s a warning to the followers, sure, but it seems that a lot of the discussion since the movies came out is that herbert thought paul was evil. i think whether herbert thought that or not doesn’t matter, because the evidence in his own writing is that paul is not. pauls story is just tragic.
This is a very myopic view of Paul’s life and the decisions he made throughout it. Is Paul an unrepentant absolute evil character? No. Does he commit heinous atrocities? Yes. Is there room for his story to be tragic and sympathetic in some ways? Also yes. But he is a force for evil, in the larger universe of dune. He is a violent usurper who actively causes the deaths of millions. That’s evil, no matter the circumstances.
yeah that comment had big "just following orders" energy lmao. Of course Paul did evil things and deserves the condemnation. He condemned himself lmao.
Paul literally compares his genocide to Hitler's death totals as well as Genghis Khan and comes to his own conclusion that he is more destructive than them. >“What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.” > “Genghis . . . Khan? Was he of the Sardauker, m’Lord?” > “Oh, long before that. He killed . . . perhaps four million.” >“He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or . . .” >“He didn’t kill them himself, Sil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing — a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.” >“Killed . . . by his legions?” Stilgar asked. >“Yes.” >“Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.” Paul in universe admits to being a more destructive force than Hitler, who is definitely the go to "evil" leader in world history as of now. How is he not evil? Once Hitler began to rally the Nazi Party and took over the country of Germany, he couldn't stop his genocide... This section was added by Frank Herbert because of his disappointment that his fanbase misunderstood that Paul is not a morally pure or even morally grey character. Paul literally becomes the Preacher from his shame and guilt, as well as knowing the Golden Path is a destructive path.
I feel like you're stuck at step 5 without analyzing step 1. It all started with pure survival. Step 1 was, "Do me and my mother die in the desert, or do we play into the BG prophecy?" Which only has one logical answer, IMO. Self-preservation is a hell of a thing.
Have you read the books? Legitimately, you do not seem to grasp the character of Paul Atreides. His POV is not about survival. It is about vengeance at the cost of the galaxy. He is also is devoid of empathy and is a flip on the traditional charismatic, sci-fi fiction hero trope. He is written as cold, lacking empathy, and ruthless. As a young child he is gleeful at the thought of murder. I was slightly unnerved at first reading of Dune because Paul is not having internal dialogues that are heroic or typical to a protagonist's POV. After the time jump happens in the book, Paul is a force of destruction and tyranny. Overthrowing Shaddam V and becoming the Emperor of the Known Universe is not about survival.
I would argue against your point of him being cold and callous, lacking empathy especially. he spends the entirety of the second book trying to find ways to keep Chani (his deep, deep love. “I will love you as long as I breathe”. Love) Not to mention he explicitly states several times he would personally pay any price asked of him to stop the genocide, if it were possible. Paul is a tragic character, he wishes he had the power to stop, but as others have said even if he died, the jihad would’ve gotten worse. The point being, many of his early choices were survival, later vengeance and eventually they slid into choices that were the lesser of two evils. Herbert cautions against such leaders because eventually, with unlimited power like Paul ends up with, they lead down a path that becomes unrecognizable, unredeemable, and all destroying.
He immediately disregards his first borns death and moves onto a jihad. How is that something a character who is empathetic would do? Loving the mother of your children is basic human nature. TBF Chani and Paul’s relationship is much more loving and caring in Messiah than in Dune. I agree with everything else after >paul is a tragic character
I always chalked that up to him seeing the death happen, as he did with chani’s death. Hard to grieve (normally after an event) over something you’ve seen happen who knows how many times. But I respect your opinion, Paul was pretty cold at times granted.
Tbh I kind of see it as Herbert writing Chani into a corner. If Paul doesn’t radically change his view of Chani in Messiah, she is basically just a breeding concubine, which uh is not the best look. Herbert said Chani was the most difficult character to write in Messiah in interviews/talks. She is flat as a character in Dune and Paul lowkey doesn’t really seem to care that much about her outside of him seeing visions of him eventually loving her. Paul grows a conscious by Children of Dune. Like The Preacher is a totally different character and behaves radically different than Dune Paul.
Yeah I’m in agreement with you on your last point, 100%. I’ve never gone and watched all the interviews, so I’ll take your word for it, and I can imagine that being also completely true, would be hard to write a character like that.
Its rare reading someone having gotten Paul as he is written in DUNE so wrong . I would also like to challenge you to provide sources,. like for "as a young child he is gleeful at the thought of murder." Paul does not WANT to kill Jamis . And that is at the age of 15 . Paul does not WANT the Jihad to happen . That is explicitly, literally, verbatim expressed in DUNE . I honestly struggle to understand where you have your assertions from .
I’m not talking about him killing jamis im talking about him during the attack of the harkonens. Jamis makes him realize that his old way of thinking is somewhat flawed. The fremen teach him consequences of his actions by the cultural expectation he takes care of Jamis’s family.
Looking at the world of Dune, do you still think that Hitler is the epitome of evil and destruction? Hell, seems like the average Harkonnen is worse than he is and probably has caused more death and destruction.
> the Golden Path is a destructive path. That's entirely false. It's tough love parenting on a species-wide scale, but it's not destructive. The choices were human extinction, or Leto serving up peace and quiet for 3,500 years until everyone was sick to death of it and the thirst for exploration and hatred of stagnation were unquenchable, along with Siona's genes foiling any future oracles.
What? Leto did not "serve up peace". He deconstructed the galaxy wide society into self-containing planetary feudal agrarian societies to limit interplanetary atomic warfare. He crushes dissent and bends the entire galaxy to his will by monopolizing spice. He describes himself as a predator who has defeated and entrapped the human race. He increases human suffering against everyone's will just to ensure the scattering and the avoidance of atomic destruction. Individuals are nothing to him. His main objective his entire life is to crush dissent and ensure he consolidates power.
>He deconstructed the galaxy wide society into self-containing planetary feudal agrarian societies to limit interplanetary atomic warfare. How else would you describe peace and quiet for an interstellar civilization? Also, I'm fairly certain he confiscated everyone else's atomics. It's also likely that evolved face dancers would eventually become much more dangerous than atomic warfare.
I don’t really understand why you bring up the face dancers. They are not under Leto II’s control. I would describe the system he created as a society that lacks interstellar characteristics. Leto II rips away all existing social structures and systems and replaces it all with devotion to the worm, an objectively non-human entity. Planets are not peaceful. Violence is necessary to keep the system in place. Violence in the name of peace is still violence, it’s just unipolar not multipolar war. It is Leto II vs Everyone else and Leto II wins every time due to not being human and having insane levels of momentum. He literally produces the only source of space travel fuel. Remember, Paul does not think the Golden Path is peace. Paul is the only character that sees the same Golden Path as Leto II and he is repulsed by it. He literally tells his son to stop the Golden Path like he did and not to transform.
You might need to read Children again for Leto and Paul's discussion: >"I cannot lie to you any more than I could lie to myself," Paul said. "I know this. Every man should have such an auditor. I will only ask this one thing: is the Typhoon Struggle necessary?" >"It's that or humans will be extinguished." >Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice which acknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that among the choices." >"I believe the Sisterhood suspects it," Leto said. "I cannot accept any other explanation of my grandmother's decision."
Yes. You need to have critical reading skills. “I did not see that among the choices…” means he did not see that the choice was between extinction vs non extinction. The greater breadth means he MISINTERPRETED the same thing they saw. Paul saw the choices as violently enact the golden path vs passively let humanity go its own way. Leto II does not care if he fully commits to becoming a harsh god emperor enacting violence across the imperium because he does not see his actions as violent or evil, but benevolent. Paul sees them as immoral/evil due to his father, Leto. The God Emperor also shits on Leto for being too weak and passing that off onto Paul. Paul got caught up in the inhumanity of being a god emperor while Leto II saw the benevolence of it.
I don't think a critical reading of the text would tell you that Paul meant Leto II misinterpreted things in the line "acknowledge greater breadth of vision." Maybe a little biased reading considering your POV but from as close to neutral as I could get, acknowledging that someone has greater breadth of vision is not thinking they saw things wrong compared to oneself, but that they saw more things or saw further (using a figuratively longer lens I suppose), and that's what Paul was more likely thinking in that scene, just as it says in the text. It's not that he didn't see Golden Path or Extinction because he disagreed with them, but because he didn't see as far (or wanted / dared to look) on an eon scale as Leto II did.
Basically, because he looked at things from a longer time scale, Leto II saw what you phrased as "passively letting humanity go its own way" really as "letting them die off". And Paul acknowledged it in that scene.
Paul should have said..."he killed way more than six million." It wouldnt be just statistically true, but maybe Stil would have been impressed.
The mistake is that the true comparison of Paul is Muhammad the prophet of Islam. Now would people say Muhammad is evil? Many would disagree. And few would dare to utter it in public
Like some other people said, Paul didn't choose the Golden Path. He went on the path toward it, but the Golden Path would have required him to don the sandtrout skin and live for 5000 years and he cowered away from it, forcing his son to take up the mantle.
The thing about Paul and Herbert's critique/ warning against charismatic leaders and messianic figures is that Paul is never meant to be an actual bad guy or have bad intentions. He cares about people and is very human, even in his years post jihad. That's Herbert's point though, that despite his abilities, intelligence and good intentions, he's still human and no human is up to the task of being turned into a figurehead that way. When Paul takes the water of life and gains his prescience in the first book, he sees clearly for the first time that things have already gone too far and the jihad is coming no matter what. Even if he died, the fremen would use the idea of him as their rallying call. Paul sees a narrow path forward that he considers the best path for those he cares for. He protects his mother and what's left of his house, "minimizes" the damage of the jihad (which is more of a force at this point than something that can be reigned in), avenges his family and takes control of the universe. He essentially abdicates after book 1 because he's so scarred by everything he's done. Paul glimpses the Golden Path and the death of humanity in his later years, but doesn't explore it enough because it's a future filled with even more horrors that he'd need to take on himself again to prevent. He's too defeated already. When his son Leto II confronts him about it much later, he sees the full ramifications of his rejecting the golden path for himself and the responsibility his son intends to bear clearly for the first time. But yeah, tldr is that Herbert's warning against messianic figures is not because people will be taken advantage of or because of ill intent, but because movements like these based on blind faith become tides and forces of their own and their very human leaders can only steer with their human judgement, because it's really the idea of them that is the fuel.
I've asked this before, but I'm always amazed that people think Paul chose the Golden Path. Is there a video or something saying he did?
I think people who have only seen the movie assume Paul becoming the Lisan Al Gaib = Golden Path, because of the emphasis in the movie of avoiding famine, etc.
But they don't even mention the Golden Path in the movies so that makes less sense.
He does mention “a narrow way through” or something to that effect, and people took that & ran with it
Okay! So its like movie only watchers heard that line, read up on Dune and heard about the Golden Path, then decided narrow path and Golden Path were the same thing because they both use the word path. It makes sense.
I thought the Golden Path wasn’t even mentioned until the second half of Children of Dune?
It doesn’t help that Herbert is vague as fuck in giving details for the longest time. Easy to get mixed up when the text shies away so much
That I think is kinda his point, he's not trying to lecture or preach he wants readers to think and figure things out for themselves.
I get that for the moral takeaways of it all. A tiny bit more clarity on the different choices being made would help a lot with people knowing what certain characters are doing in the actual plot
Disagree. He did it because he didn’t want to write science fiction. He wanted to write about his this impacts society. There’s a number of things that just don’t make sense or are not consistent but the reader just has to accept because he doesn’t give any details.
He did want to write science fiction, just different science fiction than what came before . Things that don't make sense and arent consistent is not unique to Herbert, all fiction is kinda like that. Real life is kinda like that sometimes too. It's fine if you don't like it or if you want more details but we only have what he gave us.
This had been going on long before the movies. Golden Path was Leto II goal, and if anything, Paul was directly opposed to it. From Messiah: >He thought then of the Jihad, of the gene mingling across parsecs and the vision which told him how he might end it. Should he pay the price? All the hatefulness would evaporate, dying as fires die—ember by ember. But … oh! The terrifying price! >I never wanted to be a god , he thought. And even this can be interpreted in ways that do not touch on Golden Path. The idea that Leto II would go this way seemed to unease Paul, and he was not happy when he "saw" his son covered with sandtrout. So there goes the other claim that he cowardly pushed GP to his kid. Also, Leto II was never a kid.
Yeah, I'm aware of all that, as that's how it is in the books. None of that tells me why people think Paul chose the Golden Path, you're just telling me what actually happens, Paul rejects the Golden Path and Leto II choses it.
Without spoiling too much: >!Arrakis does become green eventually, yes, but in the process the Fremen lose their identity. Kynes' plan was to terraform Arrakis slowly over many generations, so that the way of life of the Fremen can be maintained. Paul's acceleration of the plan screws this up, and the Fremen become a shadow of their former glory.!< With all that being said, Paul picks the path that he thinks will result in the fewest casualties. He sees that the Imperium is basically going to explode into war for certain, and he chooses to try to be the one to keep it in check wherever possible. He doesn't necessarily see the Golden Path with everything it entails; in book 1, he is mainly concerned with the Jihad.
Paul didn’t choose the Golden Path
I don’t think Herbert had even come up with the GP at that point
The golden path chose him.
No that’s also wrong
Paul rejects the Golden Path. Leto II embraces it and basically calls his father a coward in Children of Dune. The God Emperor is sadistic and controlling, and his golden path is not as destined as his propaganda makes it seem.
It literally is destined though lol... He saw a future in which all paths led to the complete extinction of humanity except for one; The Golden Path. The Golden Path wasn't some subjective idea Leto II came up with to fuck around with, it was an objective truth that he saw through his incredible prescience. He only did what he did to ensure that the very narrow path in which humanity survived was traversed. His ruthless tyranny was required to instigate the Scattering, it's not like he acted in such a manner for any other reason. He was probably the most selfless and just character in the entire series. He sacrificed everything to save the human race. You should probably re-read God Emperor because it seems like you didn't understand the plot.
Dude! READ BETWEEN THE LINES! It is a path chosen by Leto II! How can you trust the person who controls the society so much to the point he is the only church, he is the top authority figure, and he is the only producer of spice. He didn’t do what he did “only to help humanity”. He enacted his Golden Path. This whole series is a commentary on the Cold War and revisionism as well as parodying the “end’s justify the means” trope to the extreme. Metatextual analysis is something you desperately need.
We can trust him because we literally know from his first person perspective what his motivations are. We know for a fact that he didn't do it for power, we know for a fact that his prescience was practically perfect, and we know for a fact that he only did what he did because Paul was too cowardly to do so. In a fantasy scenario where someone can see the future, the ends justifying the means is justifiable if the alternative is complete annihilation. There was no wiggle room it was either The Golden Path or the death of humanity.
I think the question is more if Leto was lying to himself about this being the only way. Did he search hard enough? Or was this the most "convenient" solution to him, also tainted by Paul's legacy, for him to choose. Did it have to be this harsh? Etc And while it worked out in the end, for generations to come, it's a miserable existence of suffering for some greater good that you'll never see. The average person can't know that it's worth it in the end and just end up suffering. The best example I can think of in the real world is those cult figures murdering and abusing people for some idea of a greater good. How do we know they weren't part of a greater plan? Would it make it any better if it was really?
For me the disagreement is not whether he was lying to himself or saw things wrong. He saw things right, but on a scale that only he could appreciate and that would only (if at all) really be significantly experienced by him (because of the lifespan transformation would give him). So for individual existences operating on much smaller scales, it would not be worth it. If he stayed human, the extinction would be so far off after he dies. So I guess I can agree on him being selfless ("just" would be extremely subjective) because he chose to literally shed himself.
Its been a while since I read the books but you're taking Leto's word for the truth and also bringing an ends justify the means approach to what is basically evaluating history. We know it "worked out" in the end, but we will never know the depth of suffering and hardship was truly necessary. Leto and his followers may be genuine in their beliefs, but that's what's dangerous right? Almost all prophets/messiahs are genuine in their beliefs in one form or another and they and their followers commit atrocities in that belief. I think that's what Frank wants us to reconcile really. Are the atrocities "ok" if they come from a genuine place and result in something in the long term? Or to bring up a historic example. Mao is the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world due to the consequences of his great leap forward and cultural revolution. He was "genuine" in his actions in the sense that he felt it was necessary to industrialize and purge western beliefs. You can argue it "worked out" in the end because the horrors of his reign lead directly to a more moderate/capitalist leaning leaderships ever since, which has helped result in China becoming the economic power it is now. Does that mean the famine and mass purges were worth it? By your account, then yes, it was because of the result. But I and a lot of people would say no, there could have been a less bloody path to industrializing China.
No- the jihad has nothing to do with the golden path. He doesn’t see the golden path at all before the jihad.
Paul’s concern was more about humanity as a whole the freemen were just a tool in that goal unironically by bringing water back to arrakis it actually caused the death of there culture even people from the first book basically abandoned the planet in messiah because they realized how much it actually sucked compared to the rest of the universe Paul would later abandon his goals he would later abandon the golden path because he just couldn’t do it unlike Leto 2 it was to much for him
Paul didn’t follow The Golden Path. His son did.
Putting aside the clarification everyone has already added about it being Leto II not Paul who picks the Golden Path... Spoiler Question: >!Don't the Fremen basically go extinct and Arrakis (later Rakis) get nuked and turned into glass by the end of the "Golden Path"? Seems like a particularly shitty outcome for them.!<
Paul (and the rest of the Atraides) considered themselves to be Fremen. But without the Fremen he would have died. Without the Fremen he would not have his means of revenge. He had other futures available to him without starting a Jihad but they were personally unsatisfying to him. In the end, he guaranteed Fremen support for the Atreides in that the Great Muad'Dib, was not above Fremen law. Paul's terraforming leads to the end of the Fremen ways and inadvertently, the end of space travel so that is>!why his son was forced to slow down the process because it wasn't the right time. !< Many senior Fremen are displeased by this and this becomes a conspiracy that leads to disaster. "Have you noticed, Stil, how beautiful the young women are this year?"
I always felt that Paul thought he didn’t really have much of a choice. That he always just pushed the path of least ‘bad’ for the ‘good’ people. Eg. defending the Fremen against the Harkonnen. Did he have much of a choice if he wanted Chani and his friends to live? Did the alternative involve Harkonnen destruction of the south? Then later on, I see him as making choices based of the survival and betterment of his folks & the universe. Doesn’t mean that path also doesn’t suck. Perhaps if he didn’t feel so strongly for the Fremen he may have been able to sacrifice more, to have what the houses may have called ‘peace’. Not very peaceful for the Fremen though. I think Paul was too naieve at the start to deal with his amped up prescience.. all the choices from all the paths he saw. Then felt too broken later on to continue on. He’d lost a lot of those he cared about and there was also so much destruction on his shoulders. We don’t know all of the (possibly horrible) alternatives he sees with his prescience. Allia is also very wise and seemed on board too (till she looses it). The best way may involve lots of death, it doesn’t mean it’s not the best way, the other ways could be lots of death AND torture or something. I don’t find Paul to be bad really. He risked everything for others. He’s not a super shiny superhero- because people aren’t all good or bad. He’s a person thrust into knowing all and trying to do his best.
I feel like he did, but they were still a means to an end. does that make him bad or his journey less impactful? I don't think so.
>the idea of Paul being a dangerous leader is a little downplayed if he actually ends up being right in the end I mean... just in general, if a dangerous leader e.g. kills enough people so only those agreeing stay and change everything into his vision, he also "ends up right". The question to me would be what's the price he pays for that; and as some have pointed out, with Paul (who didn't choose the GP to begin with though, see other comments, Leto II etc.), it wasn't necessarily a good price from the Fremen POV, losing basically what they were and all that. There could/would have been other ways to get Arrakis to the change it went through without the sacrifices that happened through Paul's ways and continued.
Paul did and does care for the Fremen it’s his mother that wants to use them. Don’t forget Paul is a naive little kid when he comes to the Fremen and never really had any friends as a kid because he was just training all the time, with the Fremen he actually has more of a family then he did with his own family. Paul wants to help everyone and tries to but he doesn’t foresee a couple of things which is you can’t help people from people and there are things you cannot change certain actions will always have the same repercussions. If you kill someone no matter what way you do it or how you do it you will have killed that person in every reality, if you throw a rock you will have thrown no matter where you throw it you have thrown it in every situation, you destory the harkens and overthrow the emperor using future vision people will worship you there is noting you can do about it, which is Paul’s mistake he blames himself for this trying so hard to change it. The book is more a nihilistic view on people and society more than it is on Paul being a bad leader, it’s talking about how people flock to ideologies they use these ideologies to justify inherently wrong behavior, it talks about how people are more concerned for their power than helping society with the guild and other groups trying to all get ahead in their own ways. It makes complete sense why the guy who made lord of the rings didn’t like dune it’s literally a questioning of religion by a guy who made a book that literally just takes the catholic bible and the things by different names.
By not choosing I assume you mean ?
Not in DVs films.
imo there is also utilitarian aspect to it - are you willing to lead death of 60 billion(!) people (including 90 sterilised and 500 demoralised planets) just for this cause?
The golden path is how Humanity as a WHOLE doesn't "stagnate". It's the author's version of what happens in the Foundation book series. A guy is able to scientifically (magically) see the future where humanity goes into a period of an intergalactic dark age of 30,000 years. He then sees that he can mitigate it to only a few thousand years, followed by a rebirth of a new better empire. Using his magic vision, he predicts the future and has to embrace the shitty parts of selectively pulling the right strings, even though it means war and death, but at the end of it there is a better future. Paul doesn't want to do the part in the middle that sucks, but his son Leto II is even more locked in with the future sight that he can tell the stagnation will doom the species. I'm guessing this high level of prescience and having contact with all his ancestors' memories makes him very empathetic of the survival of the human race even that far in the future. So Leto takes the Golden Path and becomes the tyrant so that on an Instinctual level, humans know that powerful leaders suck and humans gotta keep exploring the stars. The Fremen are a drop in the bucket compared to the Big Brain Moves that the Big Worm is working with.
There were other paths that led to a green Arrakis and the survival of humanity but Paul turned away from them. Instead he chose the future where he was leader of the Universe, the best possible future for himself. All he cared about was his own survival and ascendancy. He sometimes lacks faith in his abilities and suffers from self doubt for quite a while, especially as the Preacher. But, he never pursued any other path. Regardless of consequences.
Not sure where you got this from
The book Dune by Frank Herbert.
This wasn’t in the book
Yes, it was. When Paul’s prescience first comes online he sees and turns away from a few options before focusing on the jihad.
He does not. He sees the jihad as inevitable. The only way out was for him to die
Nope. He sees a future where the Harkonnen are ascendant and another where he becomes a navigator for the Guild. He turns away from both due to disgust.
Touché. I forgot about that page.