And what does it mean for the viewers, should we believe in the prophecy or still be conflicted that Paul is just using a series of coincidences and the story to his benefit.

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Doing a reread and I noticed during the scene when Duke Leto bites down on the poison tooth while trying to kill the Baron.

It says he “Leto sensed memories rolling in his mind. The old toothless mutterings of hags. The room. The table. The baron. A pair of terrified eyes, blue within blue. The eyes all compressed around him in ruined symmetry.”

The part about mutterings of hags and blue eyes reminded me of the Water of Life. The poison taken to be one of the Reverend Mothers, that men die from. Could part of the poison in his tooth have traces of it? It reads that his sight had already gone foggy so could these visions be more in his mind, like being high on melange.

Anakin and Paul would absolutely hate and not stand each other.

Paul would see Anakin as complete dumb moron that is muscles over brain, a foolish and lost man child with such a burden and heavy fate he's not prepared for at all and his complex of greatness for being such chosen being.

Anakin would not like Paul entirely for biased reasons, Paul is more a politician and an intellectual rather than a warrior and of course, Paul's lack of empathy, a twisted sense of justice and his whole causing the death and slavery of some billions, all those topics of slavery under Paul's wing would trigger some murderous thoughts on Anakin.

Luke and Leto II would probably get along way better(but with a few conflicts)

Luke would completely admire Leto's selflessness, how much he was willing to sacrifice in order to give the universe a chance to everything get better and less shit with The Golden Path, but would totally and probably fight against Leto reign and tyranny over slaving half of the whole fucking universe on hating him and creating an even worse authoritarianism regime than Paul's, Luke would still see goodness on Leto based on why he does all he does and would try his best to make Leto find another way and not being a ruthless monster in the process on ruining so many peoples lifes.

Leto in another hand, yeah, he would probably also be cool with Luke, respect his views and his pacifist perspective of hope and all, but would thought of Luke as a fool, a blind and idiotic dude that thinks that alternatives and choices are always at disposal, even though sometimes it's not and you have to do some dirty work to make the things and the changes to come, as much ugly some actions may be, even they guarantee a better outcome, there's no reason to complain or protest, regardless of how cruel such journey of an idealized conclusion may be.

So in the movie adaption, the biological relationship between Jessica and Mohiam is more explicit than the novel but I feel the question is still relevant.

Jessica does not become convinced that Paul is the KH until after drinking the Water of Life and connecting to her genetic memory. After she takes the mantle of Reverend Mother, she becomes the primary driving force in elevating Paul to his role as the KH.

Why does Mohiam, who is connected to the same ancestors, not share this same certainty about Paul? Where Jessica is confident in Paul as the KH, Mohiam is cautious and even doubtful.

Is it purely Jessica’s personal hubris as Paul’s mother that gives her the certainty of his role as KH?

I haven't read ALL the books yet but while reading The Legends of Dune trilogy and then Sisterhood of Dune, I found myself wondering what many of the characters would think if they could see their descendants fates. Especially, what would Agamemnon and Vorian think of Paul Atreides and beyond (I haven't read past Dune Messiah yet so I don't know anything about Paul's descendants).

Would Agamemnon be proud? I then thought presumably Paul knows his family history and with his powers can possibly access their memories much like the Bene Gesserit do with female ancestors. There's a long period of time between Agamemnon and Vorian to Paul so there would be long line of ancestors and who knows what happened in that time. Maybe Agamemnon and Vorian are so far back as to be pretty irrelevant to Paul?

I would love to see the three of them in some dimension having a conversation. Agamemnon, Vorian and Paul. I don't know if that's possible with Dune lore but it's fun to imagine.

Forgive me if I’m misquoting, but in Dune Part 1 when the Atredies get to Arakkis Thufir says, “Don’t be mistaken; that’s Harkonnen love out there” what does he mean by this? Wouldn’t the native Fremen hate the Harkonnen?

RIP David Lynch. Pictured with Frank Herbert on the first day of filming.

I don’t know how to do spoilers so I’m just pushing this down.

So clearly Duncan has issues with homosexuality, but the Fremen/their descendants in the Fish Speakers accept this.

Homosexuality does not seem to be maligned in the broader Dune universe. So I’m confused as to why the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre are exclusively focused on heterosexuality.

Like I totally understand from a breeding perspective. But just as sex does not exclusively equal breeding, why wouldn’t each faction have men or women conditioned to same sex manipulation if it could result in power play? Clearly homosexuality is a regular human occurrence in the Dune universe. It just seems strange that neither faction would train not just women but also men to act as controllers of current political/power issues.

I know these are women-focused power bases, but with all the emphasis on breeding could they not create men and women suited to homosexual political machinations? Surely organizations with such power over breeding could produce men who could seduce other men but also be controlled. They could have a certain amount of Bene Gesserit training to be useful but have some sort of Voice trigger that brings them back into control.

I understand the fear of another KH but like…there are gay politicians you’d want to take control of.

Maybe I’m just looking too deep into this lol

I first read Dune when I was 19, and now three decades later, I focus on different aspects of Frank's characters.

“Only that morning, Lucilla had posed naked before her mirror, forming the attitudes and motions of face and body that she knew she would use to obey Taraza's orders. In artificial repose, Lucilla had seen her own face appear like that of a prehistoric love goddess -- opulent with flesh and the promise of softness into which an aroused male might hurl himself.

In her education, Lucilla had seen ancient statues from the First Times, little stone figures of human females with wide hips and sagging breasts that assured abundance for a suckling infant. At will, Lucilla could produce a youthful simulation of that ancient form.”

The books state that it was Pardot, father of Liet Kynes who is responsible for just about all of the plants and animals present on the planet. In the same chapter it's also stated that people rarely ever kept any household animals because of their water cost being far too high. So what did the fremen eat then? All of this makes it sound like they basically lived off of sunlight.

Hi all, I just finished the first book and I think I understood a good chunk of it, but there's parts I'm still struggling to make sense of. I'm jumping right in to Messiah, so if any of my questions are answered in the later books I'd prefer to not have spoilers. Just let me know if I'm thinking in the right direction. My biggest fear is that I just read 800 pages and understood none of it.

My question is around Paul's motivation. I'm picking up on the tragic pseudo-villain aspect of his character. The idea that he, personally, is really only motivated by his desire for revenge as well as the shared Fremen terra forming dream (both noble goals). But through forces largely outside of his control he was molded into a messianic figure that started a chain reaction eventually leading to an inevitable jihad.

But does he ever actually try to prevent the jihad? He states throughout the entire book that his main goal is to prevent the war he sees in his visions, but it seems that he never really makes any attempt at altering fate. Is it purely that the jihad is the only outcome he ever sees? That it truly is is inevitable? It seems like he'd be more torn up about it in that case, and not actively vying for the throne. He says directly that his only chance to prevent the jihad is to become emporer which seems ass-backwards to me. I'm not seeing the logic there beyond maybe that with complete control of the empire he could terra form arrakis in the open without causing an uprising.

Am I just misunderstanding his presience? Everything after his spice agony was a little confusing for me. I appreciate the help!

My interest to read the first Dune book piqued after watching the 1984 Dune a while back, and even more so after seeing the first Villeneuve movie. But what really got me to dig in and start the series was my perusing of this sub one day after seeing the movie and seeing "god emperor" mentioned in passing. I immediately googled it expecting to see a picture of Timothy or MacLachlan's Muad'dib but was instead met with endless pictures depicting a giant worm with arms and a man's face. What the fuck?? I must know more. So I decided to crack open the first book.

But while reading the books (I'm about to start Heretics so no spoilers pls) I like doing a quick google image search for objects or places that had confusing or vague descriptions (hello shigawire) but for many of them beyond major major items or places, all that you'll find are a single 320x240 image from the mid 2000s or just nothing at all.

I was glad to see so many depictions of the god emperor because the weirdness alone pushed me into reading this series, but it seems like it kinda stops there. I was eagerly googling places while reading god emperor hoping to see some artistic pictures of the new landscape we're met with but there's really not much beyond leto, our gentle hwi, duncan and moneo.

"Try your tricks on me, old witch," Paul said. "Where's your gom jabbar? Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there staring out at you!"

“O erle chausi, jaraamas-ha abzih zihi sa kyurtu Fremnii”

I see a lot of people talking about how much they loved Austin Butler's imitation of Stellan Skarsgård's accent as Feyd-Rautha in Part Two and how much it added to their immersion or whatever. however, I have to say that, despite the fact that Butler did an undeniably great job at the accent, the fact that he had it made no sense at all. watching Part One, with Rabban and the Harkonnen soldiers and stuff all having standard American English accents, I figured that the Baron had an accent because he was older and might've been raised speaking a different language, but since then Giedi Prime had become more important among the Great Houses due to spice production etc. and had adopted Galach in a greater capacity as their national language. Austin Butler randomly speaking with a Scandinavian accent despite his brother not having one and apparently nobody else but the Baron having one made no sense to me – accents are consistent within populations and everyone else in Feyd's generation on Giedi Prime seems to speak with a standard American accent, the same one used by the Atreides and Corrino, so why would this one guy randomly talk like an 80-year-old? it would be like meeting a teenager who speaks in a 1950s trans-Atlantic accent.

I've read Dune (as well as the other 5 books) many times.

I have two observations - one specific to the book, and one that more focused on my response to the experience of the reread.

First - the experience (much easier to explain)...

When I first read Dune in high school (in the ancient past) I was frequently confused, but enjoyed it. Then I got to Messiah, and was even more confused and liked it less.

On my next re-read, I liked Messiah more than Dune. But I thought Children of Dune was a messy.

In retrospect, I repeated this pattern on my subsequent read-throughs. This time, I enjoyed Chapterhouse far more than I have in the past, even though on my last reread I found it the least impressive.

Odd series that way.

The Observation:

Based on past readings, I had observed the following things that run against the "typical" understanding of the book. I'm sure about this things and the text pretty clearly backs them up.

• Paul was Kwitzatz Haderach, but the Kwizatz Haderach was not really an oracle. He was intended to be a male reverend mother - someone who had access to male memories. Also voice, nerve/muscle control, metabolic regulation... all the things that the reverend mothers were. Paul was very clear that he was something they did not expect
• The Missionaria Protectiva had nothing to the with the Kwizatz Haderach. It was also not a "real" prophecy. It's nothing more or less than engineered changes to the cultures and religions of native populations to allow for Bene Gesserit sisters to be safe and find sanctuary among them. In essence, the lisan al gaib was nothing more or less than a lie
• In Children of Dune (and later books) it's stated that (theme spoiler, not plot) prescience is >!less the viewing of the future than it is the *creation* of the future!<
• In Dune, we learn from Paul that the Fremen had latent prescient ability, but the were terrified of the talent and suppressed them, except during the spice orgy
• The Bene Gesserit did not use the Spice Essence at this time. They used other poisons for the agony. They didn't even know about the Spice Essence, but the essence (unlike the others) allowed for the *sharing* of ancestral memories. One Fremen RM could grant her ancestral memories to another. The Bene Gesserit had no idea that this was a thing

What I've missed previously, but now see pretty clearly is that these things work together in interesting ways.

The Fremen spent centuries having spice orgies where their latent prescience was allowed to run wild. And these weren't random... they were lead by Fremen reverend mothers. The orgies were not possible without a Fremen mother to make the spice essence safe for the others.

Additionally, unlike the Bene Gesserit, the Fremen reverend mothers could (and did) share ancestral memories with each other. This meant that, in addition to their own ancestors, the Fremen reverend mothers all over Dune had many shared ancestors as well. They could share their *own* minds with each other as well.

So, the spice orgies were lead by Fremen Reverend Mothers in extremely similar ways. Their understanding of the past was shared by all.

So - you have centuries of spice orgies with millions of Fremen - not just predicting the future - but *creating* the future. A shared future.

The Bene Gesserit created the lie of the lisan al gaib.

But the Fremen made it... real. They quite literally created the future that brought Paul to Dune under circumstances that would allow him to lead them in their ascendancy.

It's a crazy idea.

In some ways, it's reasonable to say that Paul was summoned to Dune.

The concept is hard to wrap my brain around, but I immediately reread the book and it's contradicted nowhere. In fact, there really are hints are everywhere.

What is the relevant part in order for the voice to work on someone? Is it the pure "effect / energy" of the voice itself, meaning it works on anyone (animals?), or does one have to understand the content too, meaning people who did not yet learn to speak or speak another language are not affected by the voice?

edit: to clarify, this question is meant seriously, because I don't know it's ever explained in the books how exactly the voice works on humans and/or other creatures. Thanks to the mods for giving me the hint that the question may be interpreted as a joke, which was not my intention.

Reading the beginning of Messiah, did you also have a little difficulty understanding the dimension of Paul's Jihad and how the Known Universe began to function after this event? Was it intentional that FH didn't focus much on this?

The Harkonnen's held on Geidi Prime even when they were extracting billions from Arrakis each year.

The entire reason behind the fall of the Atreides was because they moved everything they had to a new planet which they were not used to.

They could not have been defeated in such a manner if they had still kept a bulk of their troops on their home planet, and focused only on spice production on Arrakis.