“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.”
“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with the warning label on the forehead ‘may be dangerous to your health.’” Thus stated Frank Herbert in a 1985 address at UCLA about his masterpiece, Dune (1966), a fantastical epic science fiction novel which sits perched at the unique confluence of different themes –ecology, politics, and religion. Dune subversively plays with the classic “hero’s journey” trope and it explores the idea of a messianic hero as examined through the cynical lens of Machiavellian politics. Frank Herbert shows us an appealing, inspiring story that lures us into a hero’s journey, but that it actually contains within it the seed of dangerous zealous fanaticism. He exposes the falsity of “messianic convulsions that occasionally overtake us” courtesy of the conmen, prophets, gurus, and demagogues who plague humankind. Above all, Dune is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of those who place their faith in messianic prophets and religious harbingers who promise a better world to come. It is a science fiction story that encourages a considerable degree of skepticism toward hero-worship, a subversive theme which Herbert illuminates for the close and careful reader. In 1979, Herbert stated: “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better [to] rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.” Perhaps this was why J.R.R. Tolkien despised Dune so much and even refused to review it. And in 1985, Herbert further wrote “Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader’s name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.”
“My father spoke of desert power… the Harkonnens cannot rule this planet without it. They’ve never ruled this planet, nor shall they. Not even with ten thousand legions of Sardaukar” (243).
Upon an initial reading of Dune, I was struck by the sheer majesty of the deeply rich lore in this book –each page seems to sing with music (often played on balisets), poetry, ancient cultural traditions, and complex languages. Each chapter begins with a brief epigraph, often a script or verse from a collection of writings published in the distant future (many by the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Irulan), giving readers the illusion that we are about to experience an event of immense cosmic significance.
“If wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets.”
Across the three books in Dune (Book I Dune, Book II Muad’dib and Book III The Prophet) we are introduced to Paul Atreides, the teenage ducal heir of the House Atreides (readers of Homeric literature will recall that Atreides was another word for the ancient Greek House of Atreus led by Agamemnon). In Dune, the House Atreides resides on the lush watery planet of Caladan, which they have ruled from the Castle Caladan for twenty-six generations (their home is quietly filled with the imagery of bullfighting and matadors, a reminder of their past lineage and an important motif which regularly recurs to remind us of the decline of this Empire), however House Atreides has been recently selected by the Emperor to relocate from Caladan to the barren, desert planet of Arrakis, or “Dune.” Why? We later learn that the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV, has been threatened by the growing military prowess of House Atreides. “The Padishah Emperor turned against House Atreides because the Duke’s Warmasters Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho had trained a fighting force –a small fighting force—to within a hair as good as the Sardaukar. Some of them were even better. And the Duke was in a position to enlarge his force, to make it every bit as strong as the Emperor’s” (473). House Atreides is led by the popular Duke Leto and his concubine, Jessica (Paul’s mother). There are good political reasons for the Duke to remain unmarried, that way the other houses in the Landsgaard can still hope for a marital alliance. Jessica has been raised by the mystical cult of Bene Gesserit, a quasi-religious group of women who have been propelling a selective breeding project for thousands of years by producing female babies (they have developed certain supernatural, telekinetic powers, such as the use of “The Voice,” and the ability to choose the sex of their children). The Bene Gesserit leaders instructed Jessica to produce a female child who might later be bred with the heir to the House Harkonnen, however, the duke wanted a male heir so Jessica violated her commandment from the Bene Gesserit and instead produced a male child, secretly in the hopes that he might become the fabled Kwisatz Haderach which means “one who can be many places at once.” Paul confirms his unique abilities during his “gom jabbar” at the start of the novel (a poison-tipped needle test of pain ceremony) with Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, the teacher of Jessica and Truthsayer for the Emperor (Jessica was her serving wench for fourteen years at the Bene Gesserit school on Wallack IX). The Emperor’s chief advisor and errand boy is Count Fenring, a somewhat cowardly figure.
Dune offers a world of medieval politics in space. The Empire is ruled by the Padishah Emperor who oversees a Landsgaard of royal houses and a Spacing Guild which handles large-scale travel and trade. It is a delicate political balance. The planet Arrakis is important because it is the one place in the known universe where a rare element called “spice,” or “mélange,” can be mined (in part, spice was inspired by psilocybin and Frank Herbert’s hobby of cultivating mushrooms). Spice is a highly addictive drug that also has geriatric properties that extend youth, vitality, and lifespan. Spice is highly valuable because it is consumed by the Spacing Guild navigators for interstellar travel. It is produced deep in the sands of Arrakis thanks to the presence of sandworms, gigantic creatures who swim through the sands of Arrakis and attack anything that causes a vibration, the reverberations send the worms into a frenzied rage. Also, violent sandstorms rage over the surface of Arrakis. Thus, mining spice can be a highly dangerous, volatile activity. The only people who seem to be able to survive on Arrakis are the Fremen, a deeply religious, slightly mysterious tribe of “sand people” who are fervently pious with close parallels to modern messianic religions, such as Islam and Christianity. As has been the case on many planets, the Bene Gesserit have seeded various religious prophecies (Missionaria Protectiva) like colonial missionaries in order to help advance their goals. The particular prophecy they have created and perpetuated among the Fremen is a myth of the forthcoming “Lisan al-Gaib,” or a “voice from the outer world,” who will deliver the Fremen from the desert and reawaken the natural wellspring of water on Arrakis. For the Fremen, water is rare and sacred. They live at the limits of human existence.
“Arrakis has its own way of determining who wears the mantle of authority” (282).
The House Atreides are mortal enemies with the Harkonnen family, a wealthy family led by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (a disgusting, morbidly man who requires the use of portable suspensors harnessed to his flesh to carry his massive body). The Harkonnens, whose home planet is Giedi Prime, previously ruled Arrakis for eighty years with an iron fist, where they tortured the Fremen. They held the planet as a quasi-fiefdom under a CHOAM Company contract (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles) to mine the geriatric spice. But now that Duke Leto is replacing the Harkonnens as “fief complete” on Arrakis, a looming sense of dread pervades the Atreides as they begin to arrive. An attack upon them is all but certain. Duke Leto’s military commanders are Thufir Hawat, the Master of Assassins, and the two elite soldiers Gurney Halleck (a music man), and Duncan Idaho (a trustworthy soldier who is dispatched on Arrakis in attempt to quickly earn the trust of the Fremen). Thufir Hawat is a “mentat,” akin to a human computer who is used as a chief strategist and calculator of complex mathematics. Human leaders now use mentats instead of artificial intelligence or computers because:
“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
Very quickly after their arrival on Arrakis, rumors begin to swirl of a traitor in the midst of House Atreides. Is it Duncan Idaho? Thufir Hawat? The Lady Jessica? Notably, Thufir Hawat suspects Jessica of being the traitor, but readers are soon made aware that the traitor is a person nobody suspects –Dr. Wellington Yeuh, a medical doctor who has secretly made a “shaitan’s bargain” with the Harkonnens in exchange for tracking down his wife, Wanna (though he curiously seems to be aware this is merely a fool’s hope). It is a sad, fateful decision that he makes. At any rate, after the Atreides meet with the Imperial Ecologist/Planetologist on Arrakis, Dr. Liet-Kynes (who is later revealed to be a Fremen), we are given our first glimpse of a giant sandworm as it consumes a mining facility (or spice crawler) which is unable to be airlifted off the sand fast enough before the worm arrives. Typically, carryalls airlift the spice crawlers back to safety as the mining of spice eventually draws the attention of a giant, frenzied of a worm. During the crisis, Dr. Liet-Kynes is impressed by Duke Leto because he rescues Fremen workers into an ornithopter, or simply ‘thopter, which is a kind of helicopter machine, rather than saving his valuable equipment. This relationship will later prove to be important to the Atreides family. Not long afterward, the dark betrayal occurs. Duke Leto awakens in the night to find many of his guards and attendants murdered (including Shadout Mapes, a Fremen housekeeper who has gifted Jessica crysknife as a test). He notices that the shield has been lowered leaving the house completely exposed. Dr. Wellington-Yeuh paralyzes the Duke with a dart and installs a poison-tooth inside his mouth so that Duke Leto may bite down and unleash the poison whenever he is given a private audience with the villainous Baron. Yet despite doing so, Dr. Wellington-Yeuh also pledges to help Paul and Jessica escape.
As legions of Sardaukar soldiers (elite warriors trained on the Emperor’s harsh prison planet of Salusa Secundus) invade the House Atreides, Paul and his mother Jessica manage to desperately escape into the desert thanks to a sabotaged ornithopter and a case of helpful survival “fremkit” gear, including stillsuits –special body suits which reclaim the body’s water, keeping water loss down to a thimble per dy, that are used by the Fremen to remain hydrated in the desert. Also, Jessica carries her gifted crysknife (crafted from the tooth of a sandworm). They are helped by Duncan Idaho (who sacrifices himself battling the Sardaukar) and Dr. Liet-Kynes who leads Paul and Jessica to an ornithopter that allows them to fly into a dangerous sandstorm where they are presumed dead by the Harkonnens, who assume control of Arrakis once again (in a conspiracy between the Harkonnens and the Emperor to annihilate the Atreides and regain control of the CHOAM company). From here we learn a bit more about the Harkonnens –the revolting Baron (who is apparently a child abuser) and his sadistic nephew, Feyd-Rautha (the na-baron), who is set to inherit the House Harkonnen from his uncle in the future. The Baron places Rabban in charge of Arrakis and co-opts Thufir Hawat as his new mentat after the death of Piter De Vries who dies when Leto unleashes his poison tooth. The Baron stages the death of Dr. Liet-Kynes so as not to draw the ire of the Emperor by abandoning the doctor in the desert while high on spice where his body will never be found. A similar fate befalls Dr. Wellington-Yeuh, who is slaughtered by the Baron after betraying the Atreides, and Duke Leto, who unleashes his poison tooth which kills everyone in the room except the Baron.
“He felt the bubble lift him, felt it break and the dust whirlpool engulf him, dragging him down into cool darkness. For a moment, the sensation of coolness and the moisture were blessed relief. Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error” (352, Dr. Liet-Kynes killed by a worm while hallucinating on spice in the desert).
Meanwhile, Paul and Jessica survive on their journey into the desert. They cross the dune sea where they meet a group of Fremen, led by a pious desert-dweller named Stilgar (leader of Sietch Tabr). Both Jessica and Paul rapidly need to prove themselves as worthy among the Fremen –Paul kills a Fremen man named Jamis under the Amtal challenge, and Jessica is revered when she is revealed to be a witchy “weirding” Bene Gesserit. It doesn’t take long for Stilgar to become convinced that Paul is “the one,” or the messianic Lisan al-Gaib. He also assumes the name of the Muad’Dib (a reference to a desert mouse) and his local nickname is Usul. In this section of the book, we learn more about the elusive, blue-eyed Fremen –their habits and practices, such as the lightly delicate dance they perform when moving over the dunes in an effort to pass like wind and not awaken a “maker,” or a sandworm, deified by the Fremen as “Shai-hulud.” On the flipside, the Fremen can also summon a “maker” by using tightly wound thumpers which deliberately create vibrations on the sand. Frank Herbert was apparently inspired by the sand dunes he visited in Florence, Oregon where the blows over Highway 1 in central Oregon (the Fremen are also loosely inspired by the Kalahari Desert people in Africa). Paul’s many visions and dreams start to become fulfilled as he meets a young woman named Chani –they quickly fall in love and she eventually delivers his son, Leto. We also learn that Jessica is secretly pregnant with a daughter named Alia (daughter of the late Duke Leto) but Jessica is also invited to become the new Reverend Mother of the Fremen. During her initiation ceremony, Jessica is compelled to drink the Water of Life exhumed out of a drowned sandworm). For many people, the Water of Life would be poisonous, but not a Bene Gesserit woman. The introduction of the Water of Life brings new awareness and powers to Jessica, and also to her daughter Alia, who grows into a toddler who behaves oddly, as if she is an adult woman, like an “abomination.” And we learn that Chani is the daughter of the late Dr. Liet-Kynes. Lastly –and perhaps most importantly—Jessica learns she is the daughter of Baron Harkonnen. Somewhat disturbingly, this makes Paul the grandson of the Harkonnens.
“This was a dream for which men would die willingly. It was another of the essential ingredients that she felt her son needed: people with a goal. Such people would be easy to imbue with fervor and fanaticism. They could be wielded like a sword to win back Paul’s place for him” (405).
Paul gradually earns the trust and support of the Fremen. Increasing numbers of Fremen people believe he represents the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy, and Paul is somewhat eager to exploit this fanatical support –a jihad– while his mother Jessica urges caution (in the Denis Villeneuve film, Jessica is the one urging a skeptical Paul toward assuming the mantle of the messiah Lisan al-Gaib). There are several other notable distinctions between the book and the Villeneuve film –Chani is given a more prominent, less timid role in the film, and Alia is mostly absent from the film. At any rate, Paul takes to heart his learning of how to become a leader: “Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things… the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing… without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!” (38). A ruler must learn to persuade rather than compel, he must “lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men.” He must learn the language of his world, the language of the rocks and growing things… however Paul departs from his learning the further he lens into his fabled prophetic role as a religious savior. Paul learns to ride a gigantic “maker” (something the Fremen learn from the age of twelve), and he continues to exploit his supposed fulfillments of ancient prophecies. And Gurney Halleck is reunited with Paul during a Fremen raid (Gurney has been working independently as a smuggler). It takes him some time to understand that Jessica was no the betrayer of the House Atreides.
“It came from the southeast, a distant hissing, a sand-whisperer. Presently he saw the faraway outline of the creature’s track against the dawnlight and realized he had never before seen a maker this large, never heard of one this size. It appeared to be more than half a league long, and the rise of the sandwave at its cresting head was like the approach of a mountain” (494, as Paul awaits the large sand worm he will ride for the first time).
Meanwhile, the Baron faces fraught internal politics as his nephew the na-baron, Feyd-Rautha, begins making efforts to assassinate his uncle and claim the throne (the Baron is only able to control him with promises of him becoming the future Emperor one day), while the Emperor seems to be disappointed with the Harkonnens and their handling of the spice on Arrakis while the Fremen are growing in fanaticism over a strange religious figure known as Muad’Dib. When a convening occurs on Arrakis, including the arrival of the Emperor himself, Paul drinks the Water of Life and after being revived, he leads a massive band of crusading Fremen who ride sandworms into the capital city while a massive sandstorm strikes. They slaughter countless Sardaukar and Paul’s two-year-old sister Alia is captured by the Harkonnens, only to assassinate the old Baron in the chaos. Paul and Chani’s son, Leto, is tragically killed in the battle. In the fight, Paul makes his way to the castle where he eventually battles Feyd-Rautha in hand-two-hand combat and brutally kills him. Paul then is reunited with Thufir Hawat and he threatens to annihilate the spice on Arrakis with his father’s atomic stockpile –“the people who can destroy a thing, they control it.” The Emperor is compelled to relinquish his power and hand the throne over to Paul as well as his daughter, Princess Irula, as Paul’s bride (though Paul pledges to remain true to Chani and that she will be his beloved concubine and provide him children as his mother once did for Duke Leto). Gurney Halleck is given an earldom and CHOAM directorship, and him in the fief of Caladan, every surviving Atreides man is rewarded with titles and attendant power down to the lowliest trooper, Thufir Hawat commits suicide before Paul, Stilgar is given the governorship of Arrakis, Jessica desires to return to Caladan, and Paul alludes to the fact that he will send the Emperor to the brutal prison planet of Salusa Secundus.
Notably, Dune ends on a cynical note. We do not conclude with a triumphant, victorious hero who has exacted vengeance on behalf of his family and righting the wrongs on Arrakis. Instead, Paul ends the novel with a slightly jaded perspective, growing ever more wary and alarmed at the emerging Fremen jihad he has unleashed on the universe. He begins to foresee a grave evil expanding across the stars. In many respects, Dune can rightly be regarded as a subtle but blistering indictment on jingoistic messianic fanaticism, a theme that is only further expanded upon in the sequel Dune Messiah in which Paul’s crusade is shown to be less of an inspiring uprising, and more of a wild, unbridled, populist, religious fervor that quickly shows itself to be the worst form of tyranny. Paul realizes he has lost friends and family but he has now gained worshippers instead –the sign of an unnatural state of being. In many ways, Paul is the polar opposite of his father. Duke Leto was celebrated as a beloved man of the people, while Paul has portrayed himself as prophet in the desert, leading the Fremen tribes to paradise in a cold, calculating political gambit which shamelessly exploits religion and rouses the masses to holy violence under false promises. In many ways, the character of Paul illuminates the sheer ugliness of the hero’s narrative. He embodies the lies inherent within the “magnanimous man” as his zealous, dogmatic messiah story is made vulgar and easily digestible for all of his devotees. To quote Frank Herbert: “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better [to] rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.”
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 2019, (1965).
Dune is dedicated by Frank Herbert to the people whose labors go beyond ideas into the realm of “real materials”—to the dry-land ecologists, wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration.
Thank you for your Dune review. It’s a good way to honour the impact of Dune: Part 2 which I saw this week and I look forward to your review on that too.
Appreciate your detailed review. As a reader, I never got into the series. I found the pace too slow for my preference, and maybe I’m too much of a fan of charismatic leaders. And I think now that you mention “medieval politics in space” … that might also have a lot to do with it.