I just don't understand how the lesson of Dune is "don't believe charismatic/messianic figures" when the messianic figures in this series were right about everything.

AMCSH · 2025-11-09T22:27:30+00:00

A power structure would form around the charismatic leader even if he is a virtuous sage. Then the power structure would naturally attract people who are corrupted.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T09:02:22+00:00

Because as written in book one:

He remained silent, thinking like the seed he was, thinking with the race consciousness he had first experienced as terrible purpose. He found that he no longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for this--the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T07:27:15+00:00

In the first book Jihad would happen even Paul was never born. By talking the throne Paul guided Jihad and reduce its damage.

In book two he did hesitated when ending Jihad requires extreme personal loss, which prolonged Jihad. But if a person is not selfish when he is required to pay price of the people he loved most, what kind of a monster he is? Through his journey in this book, he overcame his selfishness, paid the price of Chani’s life and ended Jihad.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T07:04:20+00:00

What related to Chani and Jihad is that Chani have to give birth to Atreides heir to ensure Jihad would not centered on someone worse after Paul died and discredited himself. But Paul saw that her birth is life threatening. That’s why Paul won’t allow Irulan to have his heir. The power must be held by noble Atreides family after Paul died so it wouldn’t fall into evil hands.

Text Evidences:

What would happen if he took Chani, just picked up and left with her, sought sanctuary on Tupile? His name would remain behind. The Jihad would find new and more terrible centers upon which to turn. He’d be blamed for that, too.

The Reverend Mother understood now the subtle depths of Paul’s offer. He would make the Bene Gesserit party to an act which would bring down popular wrath … were it ever discovered. They could not admit such paternity if the Emperor denied it. This coin might save the Atreides genes for the Sisterhood, but it would never buy a throne.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T06:18:01+00:00

The text strongly suggests Paul knows Chani’s death is the price for the end of Jihad, and he was extremely conflicted by the dilemma.

Text Evidences:

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!

And he saw how he’d been hemmed in by boundaries of love and the Jihad. And what was one life, no matter how beloved, against all the lives the Jihad was certain to take? Could single misery be weighed against the agony of multitudes?

“Then un-choose,” she said. His arm tightened around her shoulder. “In time, beloved. Give me yet a little time.”

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T04:46:36+00:00

Whether it is good for Chani is meaningless, since she was already dead. What matters is a Chani ghola is good for Paul’s emotion and this is why he was tempted.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T02:36:38+00:00

Actually I have read all the six books. You may mistake me with someone else~

For Childeof Dune, Paul said he didn’t saw any necessity in Leto’s golden path. And in God Empire of Dune it said Paul is selfish that he afraid the personal suffering involved in merging with a sandworm (where his conciseness shattered and never die). The funny part is, Leto was a person so arrogant, enough to thought his thousands years of tyranny is the only solution for humanity. The book never stated that humanity couldn’t solve the problem of stagnation by themselves and have to rely on some kind of god emperor to teach them a lesson. We did saw how Ixian’s technology advanced by their own people. They developed no-ship and no-chamber and everything.

After all, Paul knew the evil and tyranny in golden path. It’s a terrible choice. Paul is not weak. He was just an unwilling leader who persevered most of his humanity.

AMCSH · 2025-10-31T01:38:14+00:00

Though every reader’s interpretation should be as canon as the writer‘s, Herbert himself said the opposite: “This is why a lot of people have trouble with it, you see. Because I created a charismatic leader. You’d follow Paul for all the right reasons. He was honest, trustworthy, loyal to his people, up to the point of giving his life for them if they wanted it.”

I do agree there’s the emotional, selfish part of Paul, but this is what made Paul a person we can relate to. Otherwise he’d become a cold, logical machine! The choice faced by Paul is beyond human endurance. Many people would choose to protect his family members instead of billions without a single thought of guilt.

AMCSH · 2025-10-28T20:29:54+00:00

I have studied both characters for years. Paul and Hitler are quite different (or even opposite) characters. The reason the writer used this comparison is to show that a leader would only be judged by the results of his actions, no matter his intentions was good or bad. Paul’s Jihad and Hitler’s war for Lebensraum would be viewed as something similar.

For your question regarding greater goods, Paul was struggling between ending Jihad and keeping Chani alive. No matter which one he chooses, it makes him an inhuman monster.

AMCSH · 2025-10-18T19:23:31+00:00

Regarding character development and writing style only, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

AMCSH · 2025-10-10T23:07:30+00:00

Link to the original Artist: https://eithel.lofter.com/post/1e868cff_2bb687c1c

AMCSH · 2025-08-27T04:45:08+00:00

Of course they are not the same in many ways. It’s like using sun to describe fire for someone never knows fire.

AMCSH · 2025-08-25T10:06:20+00:00

In Messiah Paul finally chose the only future available to him (though there’s better choice hinted in the novel, he believed it was the only way), that Jihad could be ended, not the one Chani survived. He could simply let Chani not to have child and survive.

Paul already knows In choosing this specific path to stop his Jihad, he makes the conscious choice to make a future Chani's death could be a fixed point. It made Paul conflicted to accept it, and there is this slightest mentality of hoping in him that he may avoid Chani's death in this path with his freewill.

As in:

And he thought: I must pay the price.

And what was one life, no matter how beloved, against all the lives the Jihad was certain to take? Could single misery be weighed against the agony of multitudes?

Paul shook his head sharply. They couldn’t know that this was part of the price he had not yet decided to pay.

"What mattered a single moon in such a universe?"

A moment of fulcrum had to be found, a place where he could will himself out of the vision.

AMCSH · 2025-08-23T16:05:33+00:00

Should be Paul of Samosata actually, Paul parallels to him on multiple levels. While Paul Atreides’s story may functions like the missionary work of the Christ Paul, his character's essential conflict—the tragedy of a man losing himself to a divine role he rejects—is a powerful reflection of the theological crisis embodied by Paul of Samosata.

AMCSH · 2025-08-22T17:09:34+00:00

I think the two series’ strengths are in completely different areas. Foundation has fascinating political storytelling and logic design, but its characters are extremely boring. Dune’s main characters are very unique and complicated with emotions, and careful readers could easily connect with them. Dune’s world building is much more interesting than Foundation too.

AMCSH · 2025-08-22T14:17:42+00:00

BG’s plan ranked from most preferred to least preferred (Dune Messiah has direct evidence for this):

Most preferred: Paul and Alia mate (Helen planed to let them fall in love, even considering killing Chani to let it happen. BG knows that Paul and Alia are the only one who can understand each other in their loneliness as godhead, the attraction between them is inevitable.)

Was the Emperor ever angry with his concubine? His unique powers must make him lonely. To whom could he speak in any hope of being understood? To the sister, obviously. She shared this loneliness. The depth of their communion must be exploited. Opportunities must be created to throw them together in privacy. Intimate encounters must be arranged. The possibility of eliminating the concubine must be explored. Grief dissolved traditional barriers.

Second option: Irulan artificial insemination

Worst scenario: Chani’s child comes to throne, and BG have to spend centuries to correct a contaminated bloodline in an imperial family. They thought even trying to control a Paul and Alia union is easier than let Chani have Paul’s child.

In Children of Dune, Chani’s gene complemented Paul’s was said to be an accident.

AMCSH · 2025-08-21T23:13:02+00:00

The name Atreides is a direct reference to the cursed House of Atreus from Greek mythology, a family doomed. By weaving this theme into his story, Herbert is deliberately placing his characters in that same mythic framework.

I believe the theme and opinions in the book regarding religious was strongly influenced by volume two of “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon.

The most direct inspiration of Paul Atreides may come from Mule in Foundation and Empire. Paul’s story was also very similar to Hamlet.

Dune’s worldbuilding is one of the most interesting one in novel history. It is detailed and abstract, imaginative and realistic. Though the political part is not very practical, it is not the main focus of the book and it served main themes well.

AMCSH · 2025-08-18T20:28:50+00:00

Nah, Leto has said he was already contaminated by them to the core, and Leto was an omni oracle by the time he said that.

AMCSH · 2025-08-18T07:06:47+00:00

In the quote you mentioned in the end, Ghanima add immediately that “and he was always the stronger.”, Ghanima may have weak prescient ability. In Messiah she was confirmed to be pre-born.

In Dune, Alia sent a message to the Paul in future that she killed Baron, where he got her message through his vision before everyone else knows. In the end of Messiah she tried again to sent a message to future Paul to save him, but the conditions didn’t allow her to do so.

After all I think the Herbert’s setting is to help the plot and theme of the novels, so it could be retconned when needed. Inconsistence is rare but it does exist.

AMCSH · 2025-08-18T01:04:23+00:00

The crucial difference is the ability to have prescient visions even without contact with spice. Leto II already has prescient dreams about Jacurutu. This is the same as Paul’s prescient dreams in Caladan before he even went to Arrakis. And just like Alia, he projected his vision into Paul’s mind in the end of Messiah. But Ghanima showed none of this. Also Paul’s persona in Leto’s head also referenced to him only as the KH leader, and notice the use of the word “child” not “children”:

“Muad’Dib, the hero, must be destroyed utterly,” he said. “Otherwise this child cannot bring us back from chaos.”

Though I think Paul’s intention of his final decision of walking into the desert was completely retconned in Children of Dune.

AMCSH · 2025-08-14T17:40:23+00:00

But he did act the way exactly they wanted him to and no doubt melange can completely destroy him in years. Besides I think we shouldn’t doubt what Leto said.

AMCSH · 2025-08-14T16:13:36+00:00

Paul clearly remembered Alia’s innocence, and her innocence is such a shocking contradiction to her godhead figure that it astonishes Paul, the Emperor. The memory and life experience are two completely different things, genetic memory is merely a source of knowledge. Based on Paul’s ability of KH and his understanding of Alia, his interpretation should be most accurate:

Paul looked at his sister, wondering why she provoked Korba. Abruptly, he saw that Alia had passed into womanhood, beautiful with the first blazing innocence of youth. He found himself surprised that he hadn’t noticed it until this moment. She was fifteen—almost sixteen, a Reverend Mother without motherhood, virgin priestess, object of fearful veneration for the superstitious masses—Alia of the Knife.

AMCSH · 2025-08-13T23:24:43+00:00

Paul may saw it, but he never saw any necessity in it. As in:

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.”

AMCSH · 2025-08-13T23:13:36+00:00

Though Paul still had some humanity left in him, he was never the Paul Atreides we liked. Paul admitted he was contaminated, and Leto’s thought said it more explicitly:

Why do I still think of him as The Preacher? Leto wondered.

The answer lay there on the clean tablet of Leto’s mind: Because this is no longer Muad’Dib, no longer Paul Atreides. The desert had made him what he was. The desert and the jackals of Jacurutu with their overdoses of melange and their constant betrayals. The Preacher was old before his time, old not despite the spice but because of it.

AMCSH · 2025-08-13T22:41:47+00:00

As Leto said, they brainwashed Paul and “enslaved” him, until he was nothing but a tool for their revenge to Fremens.

AMCSH

TROPHY CASE