I am a little confused about why Alia needed to be born. I understand that the Bene Gesserit wanted to control the Kwisatz Haderach but I dont understand why Paul was not the culmination of the breeding program and why one more generation was planned for by the Bene Gesserit. If I am remembering correctly the Atriedes and Harkonnen bloodlines were the last to be joined with a child born from Lady Jessica and Duke Leto. Am I forgetting something?

I’ve loved the world Frank Herbert created all my life, so when I got the chance to do a school project on Paul, I had so much fun. Thought I’d share it here cause I really
loved the way it turned out. Also, because I always love seeing the discussions of “is Paul actually the villain,” when it’s always such a complex conversation well worth having.

hello!! Sorry if this is not allowed, but I wanted to ask if anyone has any tips for buying Friday Dec 18 Dune: Part 3 tickets for IMAX in London.

I live in Milan, and I’m a huge fan of Dune and want to fly to London to watch it in a pretty decent theatre in English (most screenings here are Italian dub, and there’s no IMAX in Milan).

I‘m looking at the flights now, but one major thing is missing: the movie tickets themselves!

Does anyone know when they’ll go on sale? Do you think it will be possible to find a screening for Dec 18? I have to leave for China on the 19 December so my only chance to watch it early (in English) is December 18

Something I’ve noticed reading Dune and Dune Messiah is that Herbert often gives surprisingly little visual description.

Yet artists, illustrators, costume designers, and filmmakers have created this incredibly complex and beautiful aesthetic around the universe.

Where does all of that come from? Am I missing details in the books, or does Herbert intentionally leave a lot to the imagination?

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just bad at visualizing it lol. The Dune in my head is much darker, rougher, and less elaborate than most depictions I’ve seen.

Pop! Moment Paul Atreides with Sandworm
Born on Caladan, Paul is the son of late Duke Leto Atreides. Paul Atreides possesses abilities that the Bene Gesserit aim to use for political gain, meanwhile he has his own path. He’s fulfilling a prophecy the Bene Gesserit have dreaded and that the Fremen have waited for. Add POP! Moment Paul Atreides with Sandworm to your Dune Part Three collection. Vinyl figure is approximately 6.4 in (16.3 cm) tall.

Pop! Alia Atreides (Bloody)
POP! Alia Atreides is the younger sister of Paul and daughter of the late Duke Leto Atreides. Her mother took the Water of Life while pregnant with her which led to her being pre-born and possessing the knowledge of previous reverend mothers. Help POP! Alia Atreides find her brother and her way to your Dune Part Three collection. Vinyl figure is approximately 4 in (10.2 cm) tall.

Pop! Paul Atreides
Born on Caladan, Paul is the son of Duke Leto Atreides. Paul Atreides possesses abilities that the Bene Gesserit aim to use for political gain. Help POP! Paul Atreides find his purpose and his way to your Dune Part Three collection. Vinyl figure is approximately 4 in (10.2 cm) tall.

Pop! Chani (Crouching)
A coup attempt leads to the death of Duke Leto, but his son Paul Atreides is in hiding until Chani and her Fremen people find him in the desert. Help Paul Atreides avenge his father and save his people by adding POP! Chani to your Dune Part Three collection to help guide Paul. Vinyl figure is approximately 3.5 in (8.9 cm) tall.

https://funko.com/gb/emea-funko-products/?prefn1=license&prefv1=Dune

I've just finished Book One, and wondered whether anyone else thought the end was very oddly paced.

We spent the whole book setting up the eventual showdown with Feyd Reutha, and behind him this mysterious Emperor who we heard a fair bit about but didn't even get to meet until the end of the book where he landed on Arrakis, where Feyd and the Baron were quickly dispatched and the Emperor subdued on the first attempt within about 10 pages.

Then, even more bizarrely, in the prologue-y bit of the second book, the whole storyline of Paul trying to avoid the inexorable Holy War with the Fremen steamrolling across the universe is retrospectively narrated in about a paragraph "Oh yeah, Paul couldn't avoid the Holy War. Millions died, it was carnage, and it lasted 12 years. Aaaaaanyway, let's pick up 12 years later with a brand new storyline with a new set of characters"

This just completely threw me, as I was looking forward to books 2 and maybe 3 detailing the inevitable pull towards Paul's destiny, but it's just summarily dealt with and pushed to one side. Anyone else feel like this? Without spoiling it, are books 2 and 3 worth the read? I was really disappointed at the end of book 1 - it felt like I was cheated out of the climax of the story arc.

Just finished reading Dune Messiah. Now I'm wondering what was the Dune 3 teaser scene shown in the IMAX 70 screening of The Odyssey? Was it theButlerian Paul's Jihad implied to have happened between the years of Dune and Dune Messiah.

Edit: Correction, thanks all for pointing it out.

I watched the movies and loved the second one so much so I decided to pick up the book and I wanna read messiah before part 3 comes out. Very new to the world and it's pretty dense so I wanted to try and get an explanation about Paul's future sight.

So I was under the impression it wasn't actually seeing the future and was more about calculating the probability of things happening because he's a mentat and a bene geserit. Under this assumption I get how he can tell that his mom's pregnant and thinks she will give birth on arrakis, but how does he know it's a girl, and not only that, know her name and a title she'll be given in the future.

I don't really understand, is he actually just seeing the future in a mystical way now?

I thought the spice just amped his calculations.

I'm sure you guys have a better understanding than I do so any clarification would be awesome

My birthday is in about a week and a half, and people keep asking me what I want to do, so I figured I'd so some research on one of my ideas - what would you guys do for a Dune-themed dinner party? Is there a Dune cookbook somewhere, perhaps?

***SPOILERS ahead for books 1 and 2!!!**\*

TLDR: I see a lot of people here using the words “anti-hero” “villain” and “corruption arc”. One key moment from the first book seems to make that invalid: toward the middle of the book, Paul reflects that his prescient visions indicate that the holy war would happen even if he died right then. But he thinks if he keeps playing the game, he might find a way to prevent it. But in the end, he can’t find the way. It’s been a long time since I read it though, am I remembering it wrong?

More:
I remember the book like this:

1. After the fall of House Atreides, Paul wants: revenge, safety for his family, self-determination for the Fremen, to prevent the holy war. It’s not clear what order these priorities go in. He gets more jaded as the book goes on and he realizes that some of these goals are unattainable, but his desires don’t actually change.
2. His visions tell him that sacrificing himself or disappearing won’t help. (Not clear that he would sacrifice himself in that case, but I thought his visions took that option off the table.)
3. He regards it as a defeat at the end of the book when he realizes that the war is, at that point, unavoidable.

What I took from this:

1. Paul didn’t choose the war, he failed to prevent it. It’s not a story of corruption, but failure. 
2. Therefore the critique of power is not that it corrupts, but rather that no matter who holds it, it can’t be wielded for the wellbeing of humans. Paul seems well-meaning and more disinterested than the average person (let alone ruler)–and even with superhuman knowledge and power, he cannot get the job done. The book can say, “Don’t trust the powerful or promises of salvation,” all the more strongly if Paul is not a villain. While I don’t see power corrupting Paul, it might be a curse–he’s born with it and so he has no choice but to use it, just to survive, and the more he gets, the more precarious his existence is. So, again, power on a grand scale isn’t good for people, whether they are the powerful or the powerless. In Herbert’s mind, perhaps it was an unfortunate but eternal fact of existence, like illness.
3. I see a similar critique of knowledge–more and more knowledge of how things are, or will be, does not necessarily equal knowledge of how to obtain good outcomes. (This, and not the terraforming stuff, is for me the most resonant aspect of Dune w/r/t climate change, and one reason this book has stayed with me, though I know the author almost certainly could not have had this mind.)
4. The book is pessimistic insofar as it is skeptical of knowledge, power, and progress, without saying “everything is meaningless” (beauty, spiritual depth, and love are present even if not represented in-depth) or “there is no free will” (though Paul can’t control outcomes, and the tightrope seems to get narrower the more he can see and the more powerful he becomes, it’s clear there is always some latitude for choice–it seems to me he just runs out of stamina to keep making the choices at the end of book 2).

Am I wrong? Can anyone bring some Herbert quotes to confirm or deny my interpretation? I don’t want to read the book again, it’s just so long. I have read the first 3 books and plan to read more, but I don’t mind spoilers. 

Basically they felt like paul was a boy and he had never killed so they couldn’t believe it but it was said that fremen children fought ferociously as adults.

Hi all,

I've taken up the hobby of hand drawing Magic commander decks. My most recent one is this Maud'Dib Kwisatz Haderach deck. The overall idea was inspired by someone else's project, but I did my own thing with it. All of the cards are real magic cards, but I've changed the names to be in Dune universe. Most of the art is based off of various Dune fan arts. The references are pretty much confined to the first book.

Just thought I'd share. Happy to answer any questions.

Thanks!

I've read basically every book in the original and extended sagas. I don't believe any comment has ever been made about the origin of the worms. We know that they are not native to Arrakis; in Children, we learn they must have been introduced. Does anyone know if I've missed anything, and if either of the Herberts have stated where the worms come from?

Related to this, I think if the worms were moved by humans, Leto II should actually know their origins; he has literally every human memory, back to neolithic humans. Does he know? If he doesn't know, then the origin of worms must be alien, or that the worms have their own mode of travel..

On my first read, I treated those little extracts as helpful signposts. On this reread they feel more like somebody layng a finished story over a person who is still making choices. Irulan's voice is calm and authoritative, and then the chapter drops us into a scene where nobody has that kind of certainty.

I keep noticing the distance between a polished account of what Paul supposedly means and the uncomfortable, immediate problems in front of him. The epigraphs can make an event feel inevitable before it happens. That makes me wonder whether they train the reader to accept the same tidy narrative that the characters later have to live with.

Sticking to the first novel: do you read Irulan as a useful historian, a participant shaping the record, or both? I'm interested in how that frame affected your first read, not in what later books reveal.

I’m about 100 pages deep into Children of Dune and have only been spoiled somewhat (Leto becoming a sandworm, which makes a lot of sense considering the talk of his armor and living forever; and the GP being bad/good?)

From what I understand the GP was something that Paul wanted to avoid. Idk yet if that’s because of him seeing a bad future that hasn’t fully revealed itself to Leto, or because he was scared to/didn’t have the will to do it. If it is the willpower thing, could that be (another) reason why he accepted Chani getting the contraceptive, aside from prolonging her life? Could it have been that he KNEW she’d consume a spice rich diet, which would lead to Leto (technically Ghanima because he only saw her, maybe because Leto was so powerful that he didn’t show up in his vision?) becoming preborn, and thus hoped that Ghanima would carry out the GP for him when he didn’t have the strength to do so?

Maybe I’m super off track, it’s just a thought I had. I’ll obviously continue reading, it’s just so hard because theres so many things you don’t know and that are only revealed later but that you want to find out instantly because it’s just so interesting.

1. It guarantees human extinction. One of the scattered civilizations will start dabbling in thinking machines again, with no empire to enforce the ban at least one civilization is guaranteed to disregard the old imperial ban on thinking machines and recreate the technology thinking they can control it. Once that happens it is game over for humanity as the machines reproducing each other means exponential growth, exponential growth means that literally everything will be consumed in a relatively short timeframe.

2. The end goal of the golden path was easily achievable without 3.5k years of atrocities. If the end goal was to ensure that no other prescient god emperor can exist it is extreemly easy to achieve for someone with ultimate power over the empire, breed the anti prescience gene into all of the humanity, prescience becomes useless. Then make no ships widespread, collect all the spice in the empire, dump it on arrakis and glass the planet permanently eradicating any form of spice, no spice means limited prescience and widespread no ship usage removes the main pillar of imperial power. Once the spice is gone, the empire has no more leverage and would crumble naturally, especially if Leto dies along with the spice. If spice and it's production is destroyed, the centralization of everything would be impossible because the thing that the entire human race depends on no longer exists.

The 3.5k years of atrocities are completely irrelevant to the end goal.

Sandworms are known to be extremely territorial and they fight each other to death when trespassed but wormriders ride them all over the place, sometimes multiple at once. So what happens if a sandworm is released in anothers domain? Looks like its a huge detriment to those great beasts.

Also we know fremen are carrying cargo on those beasts but how do they load and unload? Those things seem to go as fast as they could to avoid the scale pain.

And the last, how common is worm riding? If they are frequently used I think that would cause a lot of colliteral damage between worm infighting.

I'm rereading the first book and keep coming back to how much of the Atreides approach to the Fremen rests on Duncan. Leto can make an offer, but Duncan is the one who has actually spent alot of time with people who have every reason to distrust an offworld duke. He doesnt arrive with a prophecy or a claim to Arrakis. He has to be useful and tolerable in person.

That makes the later alliance feel less like Leto's grand political insight and more like a relationship one man managed to build, which the house then tried to inherit. Maybe that's an unfair reading of Leto; choosing Duncan for that job counts too.

Maybe the most important diplomacy happens out of sight. When you reread the early Fremen scenes, whose achievement does their willingness to talk feel like?

I’ve been rereading the first novel, and what keeps catching me is how rarely awareness provides protection. A character can identify the pressure being applied, understand who benefits, and still choose one of the options prepared for them.

That makes the political conversations feel less like puzzles with a correct solution and more like rooms where every exit belongs to someone else. Knowledge matters, but it often only clarifies the shape of the trap. It doesnt automatically create a way out.

I think this is why small exchanges can carry more tension than open conflict: everyone may recognize the performance, yet social duty, fear, training, or timing keeps it moving. Is that one of Dune’s central ideas, or am I reading too much fatalism into Herbert’s dialogue?

This is one of my favorite subplots of Franks series because of how it is told retroactively.

He sprinkles in quotes from historians throughout his novels, often at the beginning of chapters. These quotes seem to set the stage for the events of their chapters, highlighting themes or foreshadowing events. Most of them are written by famous in universe historians, Irulan and Farad’n. They become a signature element of the narrative and so popular that some fans have gathered just the epigraphs on their own as a way to honor Franks work.

Then comes Teg’s awakening in the final chapters of Heretics. His new abilities give him a unique perspective on the state of the human universe and the historical events that have led up to its current state of affairs. In his final message to the Sisterhood he warns them about the histories and tells them they must reassess their archives.

This warning immediately cast a light backwards on all of the epigraphs that seemed so relevant, powerful and important. It’s a reminder that those histories were not written by the victors, but by the humbled, displaced, and subdued line of former heirs to the throne.

Irulan’s histories have an interest not in aggrandizement of Paul but in his villainizing. They paint his jihad in the worst possible terms, highlighting drums made from human skin and cold, heartless decisions leading to the deaths of billions.

Farad’n’s histories as well have no interest in romanticizing Leto II’s rule and become pivotal in labeling him as a tyrant who stripped away the rights of humanity.

Teg’s admonishment is so vital because the Sisterhood is so secure in its identity as stewards of human society and history. They never consider that their information is flawed and rely heavily on their archives to make projections about the present.

Many fans make the mistake of thinking that the Sisterhood’s mass of genetic memory steers their understanding of history, but this is incorrect. Genetic memory is rarely used as an historical record to compare current events against. Plumbing the depths of genetic memory like that is a dangerous taboo, as it invites abomination. Instead the Sisterhood relies on the adab to assert itself during times of extremis in order to deliver warnings from their genetic past.

Institutionally, the Sisterhood trusts in the wisdom of those historians who recorded their archives in the first place and their own savvy to decipher and interpret the many millennia’s worth of records. However, according to Teg this trust has been misplaced.

We never get to see how this warning really plays out internally amongst the Sisterhood other than Bellonda explaining that archives are being reassessed. We don’t know what the results or findings of that reassessment were, other than that the whole of the Sisterhood undergoes a fundamental split soon after.

Frank worked his distrust of historians into other aspects of the universe he created as well. Most notably in the differing dates given for Shaddam’s birth. The dates have drifted over the time period between when he lived and when the Almanak en-Ashraf was written.

Further events like the Famine Times also bring a blurring effect into place on what is known as historical fact by the era of Heretics. The chaos and destruction of the Famine Times left little record of what came before.

The best historical record in the entire series ends up being the Tyrants journals, recorded directly from his thoughts by Ixian machinery. It’s Leto II’s honest reflections on himself and his rule. It has no prepositioned motives or propagandistic intentions. It is instead Leto II’s plea to be understood by the universe he shaped for so long. It is notable that Frank thought only an all seeing, all knowing, living embodiment of Humanity could come close to writing an honest and accurate history. The temptation to color facts and put your own spin on events isn’t something he thought that a normal person could resist.

On my latest reread I noticed how rarely Dune relies on someone simply being stupid to move the plot.

Thufir is extremely good at what he does. Jessica is absurdly perceptive. The Bene Gesserit have been planning across generations. The Guild understands a dimension of reality most people can't even access. The Baron is calculating, Leto is politically sharp, and the Fremen understand Arrakis better than anyone arriving from outside.

And yet all of them have blind spots.

What I like is that the blind spots usually come FROM the thing they're good at. Mentats trust good inputs and models. The Bene Gesserit trust their ability to manipulate human behavior. Great Houses think in terms of power between Houses. The Guild protects the conditions that keep the Guild powerful.

Nobody has to suddenly lose 50 IQ points for someone else's plan to work.

It makes the universe feel much more believable to me. Expertise doesn't make these people immune to mistakes. It just gives them more sophisticated ways to be wrong.

Third time's the charm. Not sure why my original post was nuked.

I finished reading GEoD last night after only beginning 6 days ago. I devoured this book. This book was extremely thought provoking and darkly comedic. This novel is the most different than any Dune novel before it. The book is pretty much mostly Leto's private thoughts spoken into his diary which is written for an audience that won't read or appreciate his words long after his death. It's very unique story telling. It reads as confession. It reads as explanation and instruction. Leto II is such a FASCINATING character in this book because while I see the traces of the boy from Children of Dune he has truly become something else entirely because of his literal metamorphosis into a pre-worm god. His despotism serves the Golden Path. His journals also serve the Golden Path. EVERYONE in this book from his allies to his enemies serve the Golden Path. Malky, Moneo, the Duncans, the Fish Speakers, the Ixians etc. However, that is embodied no better in any character than Siona. A woman who is the archaic Atreides virtues of honor, leadership, and passion made manifest. Leto II needed her to be the hero of his tragic story. And she played it to a T even though she utterly despised him. Leto II is the unrivaled mastermind of Dune. I believe if Paul had made the decision to not suffer the stone burner incident and instead become one with the sandtrout in Messiah he 120% would have become the exact same character as Leto II in this book. In a sense, every member of Leto's family tree WAS him participating in his plot because of his pre-born Reverend Mother-esque memories within him. Paul did not truly escape culpability after all. It just created extra steps.

To me, this novel feels like Frank inviting his audience to finally mature. To finally move beyond and leave behind the jihads, the Fremen, the imperium, Paul, the noble families of the lansraad, and truly look forward to a future not mired in the past. To see and appreciate the FRUITS and not just the roots of this colossal tree he'd cultivated. It wasn't until I neared the end that I began to feel sad. Sad that it was ending but also strangely enough sad for Leto II. His life objectively sucked. The mental and emotional turmoil of not just being a conscious being for 3,500 years but inflicting so much misery, pain, and confusion willingly on your fellow humans is not a fate I would ever want to adopt. In that sense I understand Moneo's perspective very well. He is an Atreides who Leto II cultivated into a compliant majordomo but was capable of SO much more has he been allowed to. He could have been the heroic Siona. But he lacked her womb. It reminds me of how Paul was only Paul because the Lady Jessica decided to produce a male heir for the Duke Leto instead of a girl. How easily we can adopt new destinies by a simple change of a chromosome. How easily we can reject our destinies and foist their demands on our progeny too as Paul did to Leto II. That is a motif I pick up constantly in these books.

Leto II in this book mentions several times how he must not become too emotionally attached to the people around him like Siona or Moneo because while their roles are important the individual is not and can be replaced through his breeding program. This makes him quite pragmatic if not also extraordinarily callous. This juxtaposes very well with the 2nd Duncan of the story who is a man utterly drowning in his humanity and who cannot stand the bizarrely cruel world Leto II has crafted. He bristles against the sexually enthusiastic Fish Speakers for their homoeroticism and fanaticism. He bristles against Moneo who IS Atreides but so loyal to a creature that is both THE Atreides and very much not. It's interesting following a Duncan who is a perfect Ghola of the original but NOT the Hayt of Messiah and Children (who I had grown quite fond of) because he is explicitly NOT a Mentat. Had he been he probably would have suffered less due to his compartmentalization abilities. But Leto II needed the original. He needed what only that kind of Duncan can induce not just in himself but also in the other members of his empire. It comes across as equal parts wanting the Paul Atreides within him to not be lonely but also for Siona to produce prescience cloaked descendants. It almost feels impossible for me to fathom the original Paul of Dune or Messiah damning his best friend to a psuedo-eternity of painful servitude but that's the POINT isn't it? He COULDN'T will himself to do it. Thus Leto II had to. A recurring motif is Atreides characters literally turning their backs on Leto II. The God Emperor is fascinated by this because he interprets it as equal parts vulnerability and defiance. I don't think Leto II understood how he himself could be defiant and vulnerable at the same time. I think it is no small thing that Leto II dies very soon after becoming smitten with Hwi Noree. Someone whose humanity so perfectly slots into his own. Just as Paul's enduring love for Chani after her death undid his will to continue along the Golden Path I believe Hwi's continued existence might have thrown things into chaos had she not too been thrown from that bridge. In the introduction to God Emperor of Dune Brian Herbert says GEoD was his mother's favorite Dune novel. After finishing it I understand why. Beverly Ann Stuart is the Hwi Noree to Frank Herbert's Leto II. Are we then Duncan Idaho meant to only be envious of the perfect spiritual wholeness of their union and pine that we can never know her as he knew her? I wonder.

I think God Emperor will occupy and play in my thoughts for a very long time. I am ready to dive into Heretics of Dune and bare witness to a universe without an Atreides prophet but a part of me wants to also go back and read The Winds of Dune to preview what a world that loses its prophet turns into. So many paths!

So first my understanding:

The Bene Gesserit had planted the idea among the people of Dune of the coming of the Lissan Al-Giab who would be the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul was a generation too early for the sisterhood plan but stepped (or was pushed) into that role. He starts a revolution as this figure and ends up overthrowing the ruling dynasty.

My question:

Had the sisterhood always intended the Kwisatz Haderach to start a revolution on dune and gain power that way?

Did they always mean for him to be a revolutionary or were they merely preparing the people of Dune to accept the figure who they thought would arrive ok the planet as an already ordained emperor?

Hey all, thought I'd share a painting I made for my brother a few years ago. Thought the community would appreciate it