It's Book Week! My very lame pretense for posting this during Book Week is that the Dune series is a book series, despite the fact that I'm clearly reacting to the recent movie. Sue me. Some spoilers follow. Let me say off the bat that I'm sure someone else has already written a piece like this. But let me say: yes, in the Dune universe I root for Paul Atreides, Muad’Dib, Usul, the Kwisatz Haderach, Lisan al-Gaib. Yes! I do! And I know it won't end well. I don't care! I root for him and I don't feel bad about it. Get your revenge, Paul! Use the Voice, king! Fuck the Harkonnens! Fuck the Emperor! Fuck the Great Houses! Seize your destiny!
I've always had a hard time getting into Dune, so part 2 might be the first time I've actually absorbed what the story is supposed to be about. And, frankly, my reaction to seeing Paul start a holy was was: good. This is the Bene Gesserit plan spinning out of control and completely backfiring. I'm glad they lost control. I'm glad their plans to manipulate civilization are falling apart. It's probably a good thing.
It's one detail I don't quite understand, what the other characters know about how manipulative the Bene Gesserit are. Does the Emperor know? People seem to know they're up to something, but if they do they seem to oddly not care. Or is this Herbert's commentary on how power creates its own justifications in the minds of the subjugated?
The colour palette for the arena scene on Giedi Prime was worth the price of admission alone. And I agree that it is annoying to have internet people overexplain a book series I have loved since I was a teenager.
This doesn't need me to add anything to it, but I will because I can; isn't it suggested in the first book, or perhaps in the second, that the jihad is also necessary to cause chaos and re-mix the genes of humanity? Like, I kinda thought that Herbert's Dune was a little bit pro-jihad
Agree on Fight Club too - the criticism that Pitt is too alluring, seductive etc and it confuses the message re toxic masculinity like … completely misses the point. Toxic masculinity wouldn’t be so dangerous if it weren’t so seductive to lonely, discontented men!! You’re supposed to fall for him, and then feel uncomfortable because of it! That’s why it’s good!
Not directly related, but I was won over to Team TimCham by his performance in "Bones and All". It's by the director of "Call Me by Your Name" (a film which I still don't understand the hype for), but represents a massive step up in quality. The film is equal parts heartbreaking and revolting, and TimCham gives us a character who is an unrepentant monster who we fall in love with anyway.
i love the point about the need for the character to be cool. paul is cool, he can do cool stuff, he’s really good at stuff which is cool, and we all want to be cool and talented and effective so of course we identify with him. this isn’t my most thoughtful point about dune, but i have loved the book for a long time and even knowing all the outcomes of paul’s choices doesn’t change the fact that it’s enjoyable because it’s fun to root for paul.
I have mixed feelings about Dune 2, but it does a lot of great things, so I'll limit myself to one complaint: it doesn't do a good enough job of conveying Paul's prescience.
Speculative visions are a dime a dozen in movies, usually substituting for the interior monologues that books use to communicate internal doubt and conflict. One of the most interesting things about Dune, though, is that Paul's visions aren't speculative: they are absolutely what's going to happen *. Not "if I fuck this up, billions will die", but "I am choosing to cause the death of billions", which puts a rather fine point on the story. I wish DV has figured out a way to do that, perhaps by featuring visions of things that happen later in the story, then replaying them, frame-for-frame.
* To be more precise, I've always thought that Paul's ability to see the future was really the ability to see exactly how to make a possible future come to pass.
Meant to ask, has MENA gone wild on Twitter yet? It did for Dune 1, but that was released on streaming so all the shut-in social media addicts could watch it. MENA, if you're unfamiliar, is an acronym from the BIPOC school that I heard only ever on social media for the week preceding Dune's release and the fortnight following. Then forgotten.
This is a fun post! I guess I only would say that the idea of the "seductive" quality of Paul and his movement is really an intrinsic property of theater going back to...well, Aristotle, who was adamant that drama can neither be about straightforwardly good or normal people. To choose a concrete example: Hamlet (another hero son of great privilege who has to fight an usurper and an usurper's younger buddy) isn't a good guy by any normal standards. He randomly kills Polonius through a curtain without knowing who's actually there. He terrorizes his poor mom. He sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths for no particular reason; he could have just escaped and let them live. But he's Hamlet and we root for him because that's how theater works! (Even though Claudius would probably be a better king than him, if we're being honest.) It would be mighty boring otherwise.
I do also think that the second half of Dune 2 was almost absurdly rapid and overstuffed with plotting, to a degree that was distracting and just kind of bad. Dune 2 should have ended when Paul decides to go south and Dune 3 should have picked up with the Water of Life episode there...
I've read the books, seen the old movie (which I despised for some reason), seen the TV series and I loved Dune 2, for all of the reasons Freddie just enumerated. And I have always rooted for Paul and House Atreides. The scenes with the sand worms were terrific. Shai-Halud forever.
There's a C. S. Lewis quote about Jesus that is really important when reading Dune:
“Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened"
The simple fact is that Paul IS the Lisan al-Gaib. It doesn't matter that it was a Bene Gesserit lie to start with, it's a lie that happened to be true. Once he drank the water of life and looked to the place where no Bene Gesserit can see, the lies became true. The only real quibble is that it was Leto II who lead humanity to the Golden Path.
So all the stuff about false prophets is great, and the doubt is a great lesson, but at the end of the story it actually doesn't matter because he IS space Jesus and he does lead the Fremen to Paradise.
Reminds me of the Luc Moullet take that “On fascism, only the point of view of someone who has been tempted is of any interest”
Something missing from lots of contemporary popular criticism is recognition that the purpose of depicting odious behaviour isn’t always to endorse or condemn, but often to investigate why such behaviour could ever be attractive.
BASED
and FIRST!!!!
I've always had a hard time getting into Dune, so part 2 might be the first time I've actually absorbed what the story is supposed to be about. And, frankly, my reaction to seeing Paul start a holy was was: good. This is the Bene Gesserit plan spinning out of control and completely backfiring. I'm glad they lost control. I'm glad their plans to manipulate civilization are falling apart. It's probably a good thing.
It's one detail I don't quite understand, what the other characters know about how manipulative the Bene Gesserit are. Does the Emperor know? People seem to know they're up to something, but if they do they seem to oddly not care. Or is this Herbert's commentary on how power creates its own justifications in the minds of the subjugated?
The colour palette for the arena scene on Giedi Prime was worth the price of admission alone. And I agree that it is annoying to have internet people overexplain a book series I have loved since I was a teenager.
This doesn't need me to add anything to it, but I will because I can; isn't it suggested in the first book, or perhaps in the second, that the jihad is also necessary to cause chaos and re-mix the genes of humanity? Like, I kinda thought that Herbert's Dune was a little bit pro-jihad
Hell yeah brother.
Agree on Fight Club too - the criticism that Pitt is too alluring, seductive etc and it confuses the message re toxic masculinity like … completely misses the point. Toxic masculinity wouldn’t be so dangerous if it weren’t so seductive to lonely, discontented men!! You’re supposed to fall for him, and then feel uncomfortable because of it! That’s why it’s good!
Not directly related, but I was won over to Team TimCham by his performance in "Bones and All". It's by the director of "Call Me by Your Name" (a film which I still don't understand the hype for), but represents a massive step up in quality. The film is equal parts heartbreaking and revolting, and TimCham gives us a character who is an unrepentant monster who we fall in love with anyway.
i love the point about the need for the character to be cool. paul is cool, he can do cool stuff, he’s really good at stuff which is cool, and we all want to be cool and talented and effective so of course we identify with him. this isn’t my most thoughtful point about dune, but i have loved the book for a long time and even knowing all the outcomes of paul’s choices doesn’t change the fact that it’s enjoyable because it’s fun to root for paul.
I'm on the sixth book. It turns out I like Dune.
I have mixed feelings about Dune 2, but it does a lot of great things, so I'll limit myself to one complaint: it doesn't do a good enough job of conveying Paul's prescience.
Speculative visions are a dime a dozen in movies, usually substituting for the interior monologues that books use to communicate internal doubt and conflict. One of the most interesting things about Dune, though, is that Paul's visions aren't speculative: they are absolutely what's going to happen *. Not "if I fuck this up, billions will die", but "I am choosing to cause the death of billions", which puts a rather fine point on the story. I wish DV has figured out a way to do that, perhaps by featuring visions of things that happen later in the story, then replaying them, frame-for-frame.
* To be more precise, I've always thought that Paul's ability to see the future was really the ability to see exactly how to make a possible future come to pass.
Yeah, baby!
Meant to ask, has MENA gone wild on Twitter yet? It did for Dune 1, but that was released on streaming so all the shut-in social media addicts could watch it. MENA, if you're unfamiliar, is an acronym from the BIPOC school that I heard only ever on social media for the week preceding Dune's release and the fortnight following. Then forgotten.
This is a fun post! I guess I only would say that the idea of the "seductive" quality of Paul and his movement is really an intrinsic property of theater going back to...well, Aristotle, who was adamant that drama can neither be about straightforwardly good or normal people. To choose a concrete example: Hamlet (another hero son of great privilege who has to fight an usurper and an usurper's younger buddy) isn't a good guy by any normal standards. He randomly kills Polonius through a curtain without knowing who's actually there. He terrorizes his poor mom. He sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths for no particular reason; he could have just escaped and let them live. But he's Hamlet and we root for him because that's how theater works! (Even though Claudius would probably be a better king than him, if we're being honest.) It would be mighty boring otherwise.
I do also think that the second half of Dune 2 was almost absurdly rapid and overstuffed with plotting, to a degree that was distracting and just kind of bad. Dune 2 should have ended when Paul decides to go south and Dune 3 should have picked up with the Water of Life episode there...
I've read the books, seen the old movie (which I despised for some reason), seen the TV series and I loved Dune 2, for all of the reasons Freddie just enumerated. And I have always rooted for Paul and House Atreides. The scenes with the sand worms were terrific. Shai-Halud forever.
There's a C. S. Lewis quote about Jesus that is really important when reading Dune:
“Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened"
The simple fact is that Paul IS the Lisan al-Gaib. It doesn't matter that it was a Bene Gesserit lie to start with, it's a lie that happened to be true. Once he drank the water of life and looked to the place where no Bene Gesserit can see, the lies became true. The only real quibble is that it was Leto II who lead humanity to the Golden Path.
So all the stuff about false prophets is great, and the doubt is a great lesson, but at the end of the story it actually doesn't matter because he IS space Jesus and he does lead the Fremen to Paradise.
For he IS the Kwisatz Haderach!
Reminds me of the Luc Moullet take that “On fascism, only the point of view of someone who has been tempted is of any interest”
Something missing from lots of contemporary popular criticism is recognition that the purpose of depicting odious behaviour isn’t always to endorse or condemn, but often to investigate why such behaviour could ever be attractive.
Fuck yeah! Let's go!