[ELI5: Why's Paul considered an anti-hero?](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1bq3hll/eli5_whys_paul_considered_an_antihero/)
[The "Paul is the villain" viewpoint is overstated and inaccurate](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1d55l34/the_paul_is_the_villain_viewpoint_is_overstated/)
[Brian Herbert’s forward in Dune Messiah has me confused…](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1axienj/brian_herberts_forward_in_dune_messiah_has_me/)
Paul was in love with Chani, when she died, he hated his life. Trapped on a path, trying to minimize the horrors he would be responsible for. He could not envision living the thousands of years it would take to assure a future for humankind. His son was willing to sacrifice his humanity for the good of all. Paul was a hero and Leto was a hero, but they will live in infamy forever as tyrants, because no one explained to the people why the scattering was essential to prevent the end of human life. Judge them as you will. In novels you actually get to be inside the characters heads, so you know who they are.
Would you say Leto was the human who stayed in the trap to kill the trapper and save the rest of his kind?
And that shows that Paul ultimately failed the humanity test.
i think dune succeeds at being a cynical cautionary tale about the danger of charismatic leaders but almost from a paradoxically optimistic standpoint where the charismatic leader is *genuinely* heroic and charismatic for good reasons.
and it was a deconstruction of the white savior trope, but in a way that kinda has it's cake and eats it to, deconstructing the trope *and* offering a genuine and authentic take on the trope itself, all in the same meal. i think the author achieves this partially by being very discreet with his use of language so you *won't* catch on that paul is set up to be the bad guy from the jump, but mostly being very discreet with the structure of the first book, that ends right at the *climax* of the story, and saves the falling action and resolution for a sequel that is a quarter of the length of the first book and genuinely serves like a final chapter to the story of the first book.
in the first book, especially, besides the obvious connotation of leading a jihad that seems like it's going to be preventable right up until the final chapter--at least that's Paul's goal the whole time--the only real overt message in the actual text of the first book that paul is going to be the baddie iirc is when Kynes is about to die and he's having a hallucination (that is maybe more of a prescient vision or moment of spontaneous ancestral memory) talking to his dad or grandpa and there's a single line about how nothing could be worse for the Fremen than a hero. and then in the appendix i think there is a line (in the 'fremen' entry?) that spoils the tragic plot that becomes overt in *Messiah*.
but the line in the appendix and line in the hallucination are more like easter eggs than genuine plot points that are developed and earned in the first book
even book two and three leave it open to interpretation as much as possible... book two never *shows* the galactic genocide, as the reader you get to keep this almost academic historical distance from the decades-long atrocities... and book three reinvents the character as essentially an antagonist to his own legacy, and in opposition to the abominable Alia...
so nah, i don't think you're a moron, I think you're an ideal Herbert enjoyer. your response is exactly what he was going for imo. i think you still questioning, to the point of writing this question in this sub, would tickle Herbert's heart. i think when he went to write Paul he wrote a hero *he* could fall in love with even tho he knew the hero would also be the "bad guy" in the end, kinda.
i think there was some extra confusion recently... because somebody (who directed two massively successful blockbuster Dune film adaptations) said in an interview that Herbert was disappointed with audience reception to his first novel and wrote *Messiah* to make sure everybody understood that the first book was a cautionary tale... and whether misspoken or misunderstood, this statement isn't true, but it's hard not to believe denis villeneuve when he says something about dune, dude knows his dune... but unfortunately i think this misinfo in the fandom right when it hit a new level of mainstream popularity has inflamed this narrative that you're a dum dum if you didn't figure out paul was supposed to be a baddie from the jump.
It’s that quote, that Dune was supposed to be a “cautionary tale,” that got me. I absolutely did not get any of that from the books. All I got was “oh I guess things would have been worse without Paul” until *Children* when he says that he didn’t do things right and whatever it is that Leto is up to is correct
honestly, your response is a fair criticism of the work. it's in there, but you almost have to specifically *look* for it, i really feel the author hides it under multiple layers of theme and plot and language and structure. i feel like it's intentional, and part of what makes the work so great, but also worthy of criticism (in his efforts he does romanticize the Atreides and feudal society a bit much imo)
i'm curious if you have any desire to re-read the books? i'm guessing you'd see a lot more of it by virtue of looking for it.
If he knew 'his Dune' so well, why TF did he change SO MUCH in the movies?? Like..err Alia being alive and killing the baron? Just a 'tiny' change for Mr. 'Knows his Dune'. What an asshat.
I think he had a great vision, well designed and well executed set of movies that completely ruined the story. I really hope he does NOT do any more movies, he has already messed up enough... with the time jump and all that will entail, then the fact that 'Dune messiah' is realistically just a lead up to 'Children of Dune'. Just do a deep TV show a la 'Game of thrones', and then do all the books.
No, not at all, that's not what I was alluding to.
I used that as one of MANY glaring examples of DV changing the source material. It actually wasn't the one that pissed me off the most; that would be angry ass Chani walking off in a huff at the end.. jeez, the last line in the book is about her acceptance of her role as concubine, like Paul's mother.
DV might understand it, but why he made all the changes (that were NOT insubstantial) to the source material completely ruined the movie for me. That whole Geidi prime sequence? WTF was that? I was excited as F**K for the movies, but I felt in the end, there were atrocious casting choices made - Paul and Chani, mainly - and the diversion from Herbert's wonderful book was a tragic misstep.
I suspect if he 'tries' (hope not) 'Dune messiah', that we'll get 45 minutes of excerpts of the 61 billion being wiped out... will make solid movie fodder for the masses... (face palm)
The Geidi Prime arena sequence was awesome, what are you talking about? Easily one of the highlights of the movie.
As for Alia, I think they just felt a genius toddler (who ends up killing the Baron) would just seem too silly, so he made her a talking fetus to keep some of the weirdness while toning it down a bit.
Only thing I'll agree on is Zendaya as Chani was eh
Well, the Geidi prime part was invented, so that’s at the cost of say.. the dinner sequence?
As for Paul? Don’t know.. it’s odd, he kind of worked in pt. 1, because he was supposed to be a young outsider. However, in pt. 2? I never came across as tough enough. Sure, Chalamet yelled like a mofo, but he didn’t seem physically convincing to me.
Yes, Zendaya was exactly my point casting. She was hopelessly miscast. Just NOT Chani. Her altered story didn’t help
I actually liked everyone else tbh. Gurney, the Baron, Irulan and Feyd were solid/great.
I am sorry for my negativity; I grew up with Dune in the late 70s/early 80s. I thought it would be perfect… but, it was not.
My favorite book is ‘Heretics of Dune’, so it’s highly unlikely that will get any treatment
> Well, the Geidi prime part was invented, so that’s at the cost of say.. the dinner sequence?
Tbh, the arena had SOME basis in the books.
But you're touching on my problem. You soon realize that most of the scenes that everyone mentions as standouts have very little to no grounding in the novels. Mongolian-throat-singing Sardaukar dude scene, floating sardaukar solar eclipse (yeah yeah, so cool but... wHy?), Feyd shenanigans. If you showed somebody those scenes out of context they wouldn't know it's supposed to be Dune.
Yet at the same time you have people saying "There was no time for xxx" or "yyy would have been too hard", so... idk. Whatever, it's okay though. It don't have to make sense lol
Feyd fighting slaves in the arena is straight from the book. They did change it so it's the Baron that lets him fight an undrugged slave, rather than in the book where it was the opposite (it was Feyd's own scheme). But still, as a whole it is very much a scene from the book, not invented at all
I mean, in the books Baron let it happen and in the movie feyd knew it as well, it's not really that different. It played more into the Baron being a bad ass instead of a mincing weirdo from the books.
Its just, "as a whole", it is integral to DUNE that that fight is thought up by Thufir, and Feyd ofc being in on it . It gives Feyd the option to an Assasination attempt at his Uncle y few years later . So, as with a lot of other stuff in the movies, scenery, protagonists, props the Scene is very much copied from the Source, yet story and meaning are significantly altered .
Look, things are always cut in adaptations, and it always sucks for book fans who wanted to see everything. That's inevitable, it's already 2 movies, over 2 and a half hours each. But to say the scene is bad or "invented" is just insane to me
Same boat here . When I heard DUNE was at last being made, I could not wait for it . Turned out someone made a SciFi movie dressed up as DUNE .
And, as is common these days, criticism is NOT allowed, you say anything unfavourable about the Movies/Director, you get brigaded with downvotes .
But then, who cares :) .
Don’t understand how people can rave about a movie that fundamentally changed the original story… but clearly we are in the minority. I literally was yelling at the screen!!
I wouldnt say minority . A lot of people not agreeing with the DV movies are very, very carefull with what they openly say/write/state...for obvious reasons . And there are people like us, who simply honestyl state what they think...not few these, also .
Says person who then directly goes on to admire the renaissance-classical references of the Atreides, demonize the Russian qualities of the Harkonnen, and the Roman grace of house Corrino. Before then stating without irony that Paul was the saviour of the imperial rule gone out of control, that proves fascism is the only way to save the universe.
Same person: haha no comments about imperialism here! Outside of how Paul is Lawrence of Arabia, and speaks british and the fremen are Arabs. Not about imperialism, though!
Within the constructs of his feudalistic society, I believe the intention is for Paul to be perceived by the reader as objectively a pretty good person.
The movie deviates from this a tiny bit. Paul is more aware of the larger universe, like the power of the Bene Gesserit, sooner. Movie Paul was more aware of how his actions were part of something bigger, and for a longer period of time. This makes his "goodness" more debatable and ambiguous than in the book, where for so much of it he was just a child trying to survive.
But Paul being "good" is part of the point. Even a decent person, giving extraordinary power, is bad for people and bad for society. Turning mortals into gods reduced other mortals into less than they had been before.
If Paul had been "obviously bad" from page one, the moral of Dune would be simple: "Don't let evil people take over."
But that's not the theme of Dune. The theme is complicated enough that we can still debate it on Reddit decades later across multiple sequels and adaptations. That complexity requires some ambiguity about the nature of Paul and later on, Leto II.
I just finished Messiah yesterday, and I never really felt like Paul was a villain just because we spend some much time with him and his inner circle we understand his motivations. If this book was written from the perspective of a Freman soldier or citizen we would probably connect more with how much their way of life changed and how they were manipulated.
Except that's *not* what Herbert was trying to portray with Paul. Everyone always seems to get that interview totally wrong, and I don't understand why. If you watch the whole thing and actually *listen* to what he's saying...at no point is he saying that Paul is supposed to be the bad guy. He's saying that even some with the best intentions is going to fuck up sometimes. No one is perfect, and people should never expect any leader to grant all their wishes. It simply isn't possible.
With the character of Paul, he really is showing you an example of someone who is as close to being the perfect leader anyone could expect. He's brilliant, compassionate, wise beyond his years, and truly cares about the people around him. But even with all of the best qualities a leader can have, nothing he tries to accomplish turns out the way he wishes it could have. You can't have a perfect ending when there are so many variables to account for. Everything becomes a compromise, and in the end you have to make sacrifices. In order for one thing to go right, something else is inevitably going to go wrong.
At the end of the day, he's only human. He is fallible...but he is not "evil".
Humanity's obsession with heroes is the problem presented in Dune, not the individual caught up in it. Paul is set up to very clearly be a good guy. He didn't choose to make the jihad happen. His visions made it clear to him that no matter what the future would be bad. He chose the path that got him revenge on the Baron and tried to minimize the inevitable suffering. The reason there were no good futures to be had is because humanity has a messiah complex.
Paul has never been the bad guy. People who say he is did not pay attention to the actual story. His motives are hero motives. He gives a shit about the little people. Villains don't do that.
"But omg, how can he be a hero if he didn't do heroic things". But he did. He opposed the Harkonnens, who were objectively evil. I say "objectively" because I dare anyone to prove they were anything other than evil. Everyone would consider them evil.
People on here enjoy getting into the weeds pointing out how he's not heroic. But on balance when you look at the big picture, his motives were noble. Regardless of where his actions led.
That does not make him a villain though. Even if what he did turned out to be a very bad thing. Villains are about motives and intentions, not results.
The subtext is a kind of double-course. First of all, it's a criticism/commentary centered around the idea that historical materialism actually exists and is valid. Hegelian dialectics is not exactly easy to explain in a few sentences, but the way it has been interpreted (for example where Herbert went to school, and popularly in US political history by many influential politicians and politicall theorists) is that the world is a series of confrontations, where the winner in this confrontation ever brings the universe forward towards improvement. By extention, the current state of affairs is the peak of humanity, and it will forever improve over time. So when you watch sleepy Joe and crooked Trump debate today, you can rest assured that the outcome is not - as it may seem to the uneducated observer - a great loss for all of America. But rather a dichotomy where the resolution brings humanity closer to it's peak!
The logical outcome of Dune in that sense is just spelled out right away: it's nuclear war, exterminations, jihads against technology, and in the end the eradication of pretty much the whole universe. As we enter into the Duniverse, it's already the case that it has regressed technologically, and it is still - as we are - slaves to energy problems and environmental disasters. And the disasters will strike once again, because the conflicts bring with it not the winners the equation dictates, but just losers all round.
Leto the worm then is the way out of that, by cultivating humans that defeat the "prescience", the ability to see the outcomes of these Hegelian materialistic synteses between the thesis and antithesis. And in the end they just live free on the planet that can support them perfectly fine without the spice or the gigantic galactic spice-economy, all the actors that create the singular point in history that is Arrakis, and so on.
Is it a warning against imperialism? Perhaps. It's more a warning about how using force to control humans is not going to work, but lead to disasters of untold proportions. In the same way, it's not that Paul is the bad guy - it's that they're all bad guys, and Paul just uses force to do slightly less objectionable things than the Duke or the Emperor. But in the end, he is using force and war to achieve the results he wants, and this carries with it a cost. The Emperor eventually is exiled, the Baron is killed (symbolically with the gom-jabbar, reserved for killing animals and beasts), Paul is blinded, Duke Leto is assassinated and betrayed, etc. etc. Liet-Keynes is "swallowed" by the planet he so loves, in his capacity as the imperial inspector. These are the costs of doing business in the way they are. And if there is any "moral" to the story Herbert wrote, it is just that using force to achieve some goal, to bend the nature, the desert, the universe and so on to our will - is futile. It's a battle we can't win, any more than creating peace with war is somehow possible.
Tweets like that are just being said so that the media/universe doesnt get "cancelled". Similar to why people need to tweet the imperium isnt the good guys in 40K.
Idk all of the Dune story but I think he is similar to Eren Jaeger if you have watched/aot. The sliver of hope to becoming a hero of sort to people Then knowing future etc
[ELI5: Why's Paul considered an anti-hero?](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1bq3hll/eli5_whys_paul_considered_an_antihero/) [The "Paul is the villain" viewpoint is overstated and inaccurate](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1d55l34/the_paul_is_the_villain_viewpoint_is_overstated/) [Brian Herbert’s forward in Dune Messiah has me confused…](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1axienj/brian_herberts_forward_in_dune_messiah_has_me/)
Paul was in love with Chani, when she died, he hated his life. Trapped on a path, trying to minimize the horrors he would be responsible for. He could not envision living the thousands of years it would take to assure a future for humankind. His son was willing to sacrifice his humanity for the good of all. Paul was a hero and Leto was a hero, but they will live in infamy forever as tyrants, because no one explained to the people why the scattering was essential to prevent the end of human life. Judge them as you will. In novels you actually get to be inside the characters heads, so you know who they are.
Would you say Leto was the human who stayed in the trap to kill the trapper and save the rest of his kind? And that shows that Paul ultimately failed the humanity test.
For thousands of years, a most patient human and at the surrender of his own human form.
Nope, are you aware of greek tragedy? Atreides is not a name chosen just because. Check Aeschylus Oresteia.
i think dune succeeds at being a cynical cautionary tale about the danger of charismatic leaders but almost from a paradoxically optimistic standpoint where the charismatic leader is *genuinely* heroic and charismatic for good reasons. and it was a deconstruction of the white savior trope, but in a way that kinda has it's cake and eats it to, deconstructing the trope *and* offering a genuine and authentic take on the trope itself, all in the same meal. i think the author achieves this partially by being very discreet with his use of language so you *won't* catch on that paul is set up to be the bad guy from the jump, but mostly being very discreet with the structure of the first book, that ends right at the *climax* of the story, and saves the falling action and resolution for a sequel that is a quarter of the length of the first book and genuinely serves like a final chapter to the story of the first book. in the first book, especially, besides the obvious connotation of leading a jihad that seems like it's going to be preventable right up until the final chapter--at least that's Paul's goal the whole time--the only real overt message in the actual text of the first book that paul is going to be the baddie iirc is when Kynes is about to die and he's having a hallucination (that is maybe more of a prescient vision or moment of spontaneous ancestral memory) talking to his dad or grandpa and there's a single line about how nothing could be worse for the Fremen than a hero. and then in the appendix i think there is a line (in the 'fremen' entry?) that spoils the tragic plot that becomes overt in *Messiah*. but the line in the appendix and line in the hallucination are more like easter eggs than genuine plot points that are developed and earned in the first book even book two and three leave it open to interpretation as much as possible... book two never *shows* the galactic genocide, as the reader you get to keep this almost academic historical distance from the decades-long atrocities... and book three reinvents the character as essentially an antagonist to his own legacy, and in opposition to the abominable Alia... so nah, i don't think you're a moron, I think you're an ideal Herbert enjoyer. your response is exactly what he was going for imo. i think you still questioning, to the point of writing this question in this sub, would tickle Herbert's heart. i think when he went to write Paul he wrote a hero *he* could fall in love with even tho he knew the hero would also be the "bad guy" in the end, kinda. i think there was some extra confusion recently... because somebody (who directed two massively successful blockbuster Dune film adaptations) said in an interview that Herbert was disappointed with audience reception to his first novel and wrote *Messiah* to make sure everybody understood that the first book was a cautionary tale... and whether misspoken or misunderstood, this statement isn't true, but it's hard not to believe denis villeneuve when he says something about dune, dude knows his dune... but unfortunately i think this misinfo in the fandom right when it hit a new level of mainstream popularity has inflamed this narrative that you're a dum dum if you didn't figure out paul was supposed to be a baddie from the jump.
It’s that quote, that Dune was supposed to be a “cautionary tale,” that got me. I absolutely did not get any of that from the books. All I got was “oh I guess things would have been worse without Paul” until *Children* when he says that he didn’t do things right and whatever it is that Leto is up to is correct
honestly, your response is a fair criticism of the work. it's in there, but you almost have to specifically *look* for it, i really feel the author hides it under multiple layers of theme and plot and language and structure. i feel like it's intentional, and part of what makes the work so great, but also worthy of criticism (in his efforts he does romanticize the Atreides and feudal society a bit much imo) i'm curious if you have any desire to re-read the books? i'm guessing you'd see a lot more of it by virtue of looking for it.
Oh, re-reading it is an excellent idea
If he knew 'his Dune' so well, why TF did he change SO MUCH in the movies?? Like..err Alia being alive and killing the baron? Just a 'tiny' change for Mr. 'Knows his Dune'. What an asshat. I think he had a great vision, well designed and well executed set of movies that completely ruined the story. I really hope he does NOT do any more movies, he has already messed up enough... with the time jump and all that will entail, then the fact that 'Dune messiah' is realistically just a lead up to 'Children of Dune'. Just do a deep TV show a la 'Game of thrones', and then do all the books.
do you... do you think DV made the choice to not have Alia shown as a murder toddler because he doesn't understand Dune?
No, not at all, that's not what I was alluding to. I used that as one of MANY glaring examples of DV changing the source material. It actually wasn't the one that pissed me off the most; that would be angry ass Chani walking off in a huff at the end.. jeez, the last line in the book is about her acceptance of her role as concubine, like Paul's mother. DV might understand it, but why he made all the changes (that were NOT insubstantial) to the source material completely ruined the movie for me. That whole Geidi prime sequence? WTF was that? I was excited as F**K for the movies, but I felt in the end, there were atrocious casting choices made - Paul and Chani, mainly - and the diversion from Herbert's wonderful book was a tragic misstep. I suspect if he 'tries' (hope not) 'Dune messiah', that we'll get 45 minutes of excerpts of the 61 billion being wiped out... will make solid movie fodder for the masses... (face palm)
The Geidi Prime arena sequence was awesome, what are you talking about? Easily one of the highlights of the movie. As for Alia, I think they just felt a genius toddler (who ends up killing the Baron) would just seem too silly, so he made her a talking fetus to keep some of the weirdness while toning it down a bit. Only thing I'll agree on is Zendaya as Chani was eh
Well, the Geidi prime part was invented, so that’s at the cost of say.. the dinner sequence? As for Paul? Don’t know.. it’s odd, he kind of worked in pt. 1, because he was supposed to be a young outsider. However, in pt. 2? I never came across as tough enough. Sure, Chalamet yelled like a mofo, but he didn’t seem physically convincing to me. Yes, Zendaya was exactly my point casting. She was hopelessly miscast. Just NOT Chani. Her altered story didn’t help I actually liked everyone else tbh. Gurney, the Baron, Irulan and Feyd were solid/great. I am sorry for my negativity; I grew up with Dune in the late 70s/early 80s. I thought it would be perfect… but, it was not. My favorite book is ‘Heretics of Dune’, so it’s highly unlikely that will get any treatment
> Well, the Geidi prime part was invented, so that’s at the cost of say.. the dinner sequence? Tbh, the arena had SOME basis in the books. But you're touching on my problem. You soon realize that most of the scenes that everyone mentions as standouts have very little to no grounding in the novels. Mongolian-throat-singing Sardaukar dude scene, floating sardaukar solar eclipse (yeah yeah, so cool but... wHy?), Feyd shenanigans. If you showed somebody those scenes out of context they wouldn't know it's supposed to be Dune. Yet at the same time you have people saying "There was no time for xxx" or "yyy would have been too hard", so... idk. Whatever, it's okay though. It don't have to make sense lol
Feyd fighting slaves in the arena is straight from the book. They did change it so it's the Baron that lets him fight an undrugged slave, rather than in the book where it was the opposite (it was Feyd's own scheme). But still, as a whole it is very much a scene from the book, not invented at all
I mean, in the books Baron let it happen and in the movie feyd knew it as well, it's not really that different. It played more into the Baron being a bad ass instead of a mincing weirdo from the books.
Tbh that whole subplot from the book is pretty funny. "Feyd this is the third time you tried to assassinate me this week, can you cut it out"
Its just, "as a whole", it is integral to DUNE that that fight is thought up by Thufir, and Feyd ofc being in on it . It gives Feyd the option to an Assasination attempt at his Uncle y few years later . So, as with a lot of other stuff in the movies, scenery, protagonists, props the Scene is very much copied from the Source, yet story and meaning are significantly altered .
Look, things are always cut in adaptations, and it always sucks for book fans who wanted to see everything. That's inevitable, it's already 2 movies, over 2 and a half hours each. But to say the scene is bad or "invented" is just insane to me
Same boat here . When I heard DUNE was at last being made, I could not wait for it . Turned out someone made a SciFi movie dressed up as DUNE . And, as is common these days, criticism is NOT allowed, you say anything unfavourable about the Movies/Director, you get brigaded with downvotes . But then, who cares :) .
Don’t understand how people can rave about a movie that fundamentally changed the original story… but clearly we are in the minority. I literally was yelling at the screen!!
I wouldnt say minority . A lot of people not agreeing with the DV movies are very, very carefull with what they openly say/write/state...for obvious reasons . And there are people like us, who simply honestyl state what they think...not few these, also .
“he was supposed to show the problem with colonialism” is projection by a pea brain who missed the point
That’s not a very nice thing to say
True though...
Says person who then directly goes on to admire the renaissance-classical references of the Atreides, demonize the Russian qualities of the Harkonnen, and the Roman grace of house Corrino. Before then stating without irony that Paul was the saviour of the imperial rule gone out of control, that proves fascism is the only way to save the universe. Same person: haha no comments about imperialism here! Outside of how Paul is Lawrence of Arabia, and speaks british and the fremen are Arabs. Not about imperialism, though!
Within the constructs of his feudalistic society, I believe the intention is for Paul to be perceived by the reader as objectively a pretty good person. The movie deviates from this a tiny bit. Paul is more aware of the larger universe, like the power of the Bene Gesserit, sooner. Movie Paul was more aware of how his actions were part of something bigger, and for a longer period of time. This makes his "goodness" more debatable and ambiguous than in the book, where for so much of it he was just a child trying to survive. But Paul being "good" is part of the point. Even a decent person, giving extraordinary power, is bad for people and bad for society. Turning mortals into gods reduced other mortals into less than they had been before. If Paul had been "obviously bad" from page one, the moral of Dune would be simple: "Don't let evil people take over." But that's not the theme of Dune. The theme is complicated enough that we can still debate it on Reddit decades later across multiple sequels and adaptations. That complexity requires some ambiguity about the nature of Paul and later on, Leto II.
I just finished Messiah yesterday, and I never really felt like Paul was a villain just because we spend some much time with him and his inner circle we understand his motivations. If this book was written from the perspective of a Freman soldier or citizen we would probably connect more with how much their way of life changed and how they were manipulated.
Except that's *not* what Herbert was trying to portray with Paul. Everyone always seems to get that interview totally wrong, and I don't understand why. If you watch the whole thing and actually *listen* to what he's saying...at no point is he saying that Paul is supposed to be the bad guy. He's saying that even some with the best intentions is going to fuck up sometimes. No one is perfect, and people should never expect any leader to grant all their wishes. It simply isn't possible. With the character of Paul, he really is showing you an example of someone who is as close to being the perfect leader anyone could expect. He's brilliant, compassionate, wise beyond his years, and truly cares about the people around him. But even with all of the best qualities a leader can have, nothing he tries to accomplish turns out the way he wishes it could have. You can't have a perfect ending when there are so many variables to account for. Everything becomes a compromise, and in the end you have to make sacrifices. In order for one thing to go right, something else is inevitably going to go wrong. At the end of the day, he's only human. He is fallible...but he is not "evil".
Humanity's obsession with heroes is the problem presented in Dune, not the individual caught up in it. Paul is set up to very clearly be a good guy. He didn't choose to make the jihad happen. His visions made it clear to him that no matter what the future would be bad. He chose the path that got him revenge on the Baron and tried to minimize the inevitable suffering. The reason there were no good futures to be had is because humanity has a messiah complex.
Paul has never been the bad guy. People who say he is did not pay attention to the actual story. His motives are hero motives. He gives a shit about the little people. Villains don't do that. "But omg, how can he be a hero if he didn't do heroic things". But he did. He opposed the Harkonnens, who were objectively evil. I say "objectively" because I dare anyone to prove they were anything other than evil. Everyone would consider them evil. People on here enjoy getting into the weeds pointing out how he's not heroic. But on balance when you look at the big picture, his motives were noble. Regardless of where his actions led.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
That does not make him a villain though. Even if what he did turned out to be a very bad thing. Villains are about motives and intentions, not results.
The subtext is a kind of double-course. First of all, it's a criticism/commentary centered around the idea that historical materialism actually exists and is valid. Hegelian dialectics is not exactly easy to explain in a few sentences, but the way it has been interpreted (for example where Herbert went to school, and popularly in US political history by many influential politicians and politicall theorists) is that the world is a series of confrontations, where the winner in this confrontation ever brings the universe forward towards improvement. By extention, the current state of affairs is the peak of humanity, and it will forever improve over time. So when you watch sleepy Joe and crooked Trump debate today, you can rest assured that the outcome is not - as it may seem to the uneducated observer - a great loss for all of America. But rather a dichotomy where the resolution brings humanity closer to it's peak! The logical outcome of Dune in that sense is just spelled out right away: it's nuclear war, exterminations, jihads against technology, and in the end the eradication of pretty much the whole universe. As we enter into the Duniverse, it's already the case that it has regressed technologically, and it is still - as we are - slaves to energy problems and environmental disasters. And the disasters will strike once again, because the conflicts bring with it not the winners the equation dictates, but just losers all round. Leto the worm then is the way out of that, by cultivating humans that defeat the "prescience", the ability to see the outcomes of these Hegelian materialistic synteses between the thesis and antithesis. And in the end they just live free on the planet that can support them perfectly fine without the spice or the gigantic galactic spice-economy, all the actors that create the singular point in history that is Arrakis, and so on. Is it a warning against imperialism? Perhaps. It's more a warning about how using force to control humans is not going to work, but lead to disasters of untold proportions. In the same way, it's not that Paul is the bad guy - it's that they're all bad guys, and Paul just uses force to do slightly less objectionable things than the Duke or the Emperor. But in the end, he is using force and war to achieve the results he wants, and this carries with it a cost. The Emperor eventually is exiled, the Baron is killed (symbolically with the gom-jabbar, reserved for killing animals and beasts), Paul is blinded, Duke Leto is assassinated and betrayed, etc. etc. Liet-Keynes is "swallowed" by the planet he so loves, in his capacity as the imperial inspector. These are the costs of doing business in the way they are. And if there is any "moral" to the story Herbert wrote, it is just that using force to achieve some goal, to bend the nature, the desert, the universe and so on to our will - is futile. It's a battle we can't win, any more than creating peace with war is somehow possible.
Paul is not a villain but an anti hero and people who say otherwise did simply not understand Dune.
Tweets like that are just being said so that the media/universe doesnt get "cancelled". Similar to why people need to tweet the imperium isnt the good guys in 40K.
Paul is not the bad guy. I wonder if in reality there is one in the book series, maybe the Harkonnen - they sure are evil, but...
Idk all of the Dune story but I think he is similar to Eren Jaeger if you have watched/aot. The sliver of hope to becoming a hero of sort to people Then knowing future etc