Nice take. Dune Messiah is a strange book, and THB it put me off the entire franchise when I first read it in high school. A re-reading a few years ago only did a little to rehabilitate it. It's supposed to be brilliant, but I find it heavy handed and a subjectively tough read.
IMHO, The Dune series fall off a cliff after Dune 2. Messiah, Children and God Emperor are all getting steadily worse. I've stopped there so no idea if Heretics and beyond are any good.
WRT the discourse - it has to be said that, as a teenager, I totally missed the 'Paul ascension is bad'. Like, sure, I got religious fervor isn't good (and I was sorry to see Stilgar devolve from a badass mentor to Paul to a religious devotee, though that's one sentence and you don't actually 'see' much of that) but that's the tool Paul has at his disposal.
I didn't even think the Emperor was a bad guy. A bit paranoid maybe in that he felt compelled to crush the Atreides when Duke Leto would have had clearly no interest in seizing the throne illegitimately. The Harkonens are clearly less nice but, even there, the fact is that the Baron is studiously obsessed with efficiency and doesn't kill randomly. It's just that, without the personality, warmth and ability to engender love of the Atreides family, he finds cruelty to be one of the instrument of power. Machiavel would agree.
But, as an adult, I became aware of Herbert's own take on the topic. And, like, what a wuss. Billions die in a jihad. Like, sure, but what's that, as a percentage? That's what matters. Not absolute numbers. And, if it is unavoidable, because the human race has grasped it's stagnating and need to mix the bloodlines and it only 'knows' how to do that through generalised warfare and refugee exodus, why is that anything to do with Paul? If he had had centuries to plan things differently, then yes. But he arrives when everything is about to blow up anyhow...
The God Emperor actually shows that, with centuries to plan, humanity can be made to evolve without the mass murders but from memory, his reign wasn't much fun either, even if billions weren't killed... Still, a future of unlimited human potential is worth a bit of present-day sacrifices...
Nice take. Dune Messiah is a strange book, and THB it put me off the entire franchise when I first read it in high school. A re-reading a few years ago only did a little to rehabilitate it. It's supposed to be brilliant, but I find it heavy handed and a subjectively tough read.
IMHO, The Dune series fall off a cliff after Dune 2. Messiah, Children and God Emperor are all getting steadily worse. I've stopped there so no idea if Heretics and beyond are any good.
WRT the discourse - it has to be said that, as a teenager, I totally missed the 'Paul ascension is bad'. Like, sure, I got religious fervor isn't good (and I was sorry to see Stilgar devolve from a badass mentor to Paul to a religious devotee, though that's one sentence and you don't actually 'see' much of that) but that's the tool Paul has at his disposal.
I didn't even think the Emperor was a bad guy. A bit paranoid maybe in that he felt compelled to crush the Atreides when Duke Leto would have had clearly no interest in seizing the throne illegitimately. The Harkonens are clearly less nice but, even there, the fact is that the Baron is studiously obsessed with efficiency and doesn't kill randomly. It's just that, without the personality, warmth and ability to engender love of the Atreides family, he finds cruelty to be one of the instrument of power. Machiavel would agree.
But, as an adult, I became aware of Herbert's own take on the topic. And, like, what a wuss. Billions die in a jihad. Like, sure, but what's that, as a percentage? That's what matters. Not absolute numbers. And, if it is unavoidable, because the human race has grasped it's stagnating and need to mix the bloodlines and it only 'knows' how to do that through generalised warfare and refugee exodus, why is that anything to do with Paul? If he had had centuries to plan things differently, then yes. But he arrives when everything is about to blow up anyhow...
The God Emperor actually shows that, with centuries to plan, humanity can be made to evolve without the mass murders but from memory, his reign wasn't much fun either, even if billions weren't killed... Still, a future of unlimited human potential is worth a bit of present-day sacrifices...
Didn’t this because I have t read Dune Messiah but I just have to say 10/10 title