What's The Point of Dune? The Key Themes of The Dune Saga

dune 2020 is happening and there has been an onslaught of new photos of the movie and the set and so far everything looks pretty epic and a whole new wave of excitement has been ignited for this movie and the dune series as a whole so before we get started if you wanted detailed breakdowns of doing lore check out my ultimate guide to doing videos which can be found in the doom playlist on the front of this channel so far i've covered the first five original frank herbert dune books and i'm currently working on the final video in the series many people are talking about dune right now which is great because i think it's one of the greatest and certainly one of the most influential science fiction sagas of all time but dune is also very complicated not only narratively but thematically as well so in this video i will do my very best to break down some of the key themes of the series first however we will have to briefly talk about the setting of the dune universe and its social and political structure alright so dune takes place in the year 101 90 ag this is about 20 000 years in our future the epoch ag stands for after guild the guild is significant enough to be used as a marker of time because the guild provided the means for safe faster than light travel between worlds which effectively unify at the imperium you've probably heard that the dune universe runs on a substance called spice that is true the planet iraq is also known as dune is the only planet in the known universe where the spice melange can be found the spice is a substance that extends life heightens awareness and in some it can lead to prescient vision and it is also essential to space travel oh and one last thing the spice is highly addictive to the point that once you become addicted you must continue taking it otherwise the withdrawals will kill you moving on the empire is maintained by a balance of power between the emperor the noble great houses of the lamb's rad the spacing guild and the highly secretive highly manipulative ever adapting benny jesuit sisterhood the benny jesuit sisterhood are key to the essential plot lines of dune for thousands of years they've been attempting to create the quizets had iraq the quizzes had a wreck would be a man trained in their ways possessing of all their powers and more but ultimately their plans are thrown off when the benny jesuit lady jessica who was given the task of bearing only daughters to the duke of tradies chose to give birth to a son instead jessica trained her son paul in the bini jesuit way the result was quizets hadirak born a generation too soon paul was not bound under benny jesuit conditioning they could not control him inadvertently through their own hubris they unleashed a super being unto the universe and the eventual results would be devastating and long lasting alright so now that we've gotten all that out of the way it's time to get to the main topic of this video what are the key themes of the dune saga the major theme that i have mentioned multiple times on this channel and will continue to drive home is that all leadership should be questioned everything else in the saga is woven around this idea this theme isn't as obvious in the first book as it is in the later books of the series in book one paul does however glimpse the jihad he sees what his leadership of the freeman eventually leads to the death and devastation that is caused to survive in the desert paul and jessica called upon the sisterhood's missionary protectiva myths and legends had been planted on the planet by the benny desert centuries ago in order to prepare the universe for the coming of the quizets hatarak it was one of the ways that the sisterhood manipulated the people of the imperium knowing this paul and jessica used these myths to convince the fremen that paul was in fact the freeman's prophesized savior and the freemen served even to their own demise the price of the survival of house atreides was the death of 60 billion people related to this the benny jesuit sisterhood sought to control power beyond them in the creation of a quizette's hatarak powers that mankind should not wield though paul's creation was their mistake the result of jessica's betrayal the question of whether or not they would have been able to control any quiz at tatarak must be considered it is clear from the book heretics of dune that the mother superior of the sisterhood teraza fears even the remnants of prescience in atreides descendants such as o'draid who still possesses a form of what they referred to as the wild talent in my opinion all of this suggests that the dune saga can be viewed as arguing that prescience is a power that no one should have this seems the most heavily implied in the book god emperor of dune in this novel the goal of lato ii is ultimately to destroy the ability of those endowed with prescient power to affect the whole of humanity as he did in order to undo the damage done by prescience in the past lato had to transcend his humanity and become something more a god lato made the ultimate sacrifice doing what his father paul had refused to do locking humankind into a future in which he was doomed to suffer eons of personal torment and loneliness as he underwent his metamorphosis for this he knew he would be remembered as the tyrant all of this he did to write the damage done by the sisterhood's tinkering and to prevent the future damage that prescience would cause i am not a leader nor a guide a god remember that i am quite different from leaders and guides god's need take no responsibility for anything except genesis gods accept everything and thus accept nothing gods must be identifiable yet remain anonymous gods do not need a spirit world my spirits dwell within me answerable to my slightest summons i share with you because it pleases me to do so what i have learned about them and through them they are my truth here lato is clarifying the difference between a leader or a king and a god who or what permits lato to do as he does to claim godhood and maintain dominion over the human universe in the book god emperor of dune this question is explored on several occasions it is best exemplified in one of the god emperor's conversations with the character siona none of this gives you the right to govern she said lato suppressed a smile at last they were down to the root of siona's rebellion by what right where is the justice in my rule by imposing my rules upon them with the weight of fish speaker arms am i being fair to the evolutionary thrust of humankind lato's right to rule is key here he was not elected the people did not raise him up as their leader he was a god ruling through tyranny and oppression but lato had experienced the whole of humanity through his other memory and prescient power he knew what was to come and what had come before in the dune universe the extinction of humankind is thwarted by a god king who had a very valuable lesson for them all of course in the real world there are no god-kings no one that can or should wield that power in our own world there is no lato the second to teach us that ultimate lesson so it is up to us to realize it for ourselves to sum things up so far we've discussed some of the key themes involving leadership and accepting the limits of human power and control tying both of these together are the ideas presented surrounding fanaticism and religious engineering the word fanatic comes from the latin word meaning furious enthusiastic or raging fanaticism refers to behaviors or beliefs which are characterized by unquestioning zeal and enthusiasm to the point of obsession often the word fanatic is used to refer to a person obsessively devoted to a religion or particular group there are several examples of fanatical groups in the dune saga the freemen who led paul atreides jihad are the most famous example but ideas surrounding fanaticism continue throughout this series the fish speakers the all-female servants of the god emperor lato the second are probably the best example of a fanatical group in the whole series their devotion to their god is without question anything they viewed as a slight against their god emperor was met with the harshest punishment they obeyed the god emperor in all things at his command they would slaughter innocents by the thousands or fall on their own blades without hesitation the character naila and god emperor of dune is the best single example of a fanatic in the whole series nayla's green eyes on the gilded cushions of her cheeks stared out at him without questioning without comprehension without the need of either response if i sent her out to collect the stars she would go and she would attempt it she thinks i am testing her again i do believe she could anger me this damnable religion should end with me later shouted why should i want to loose a religion upon my people religions wrecked from within empires and individuals alike it's all the same yes lord religions create radicals and fanatics like you thank you lord the short-lived pseudo-rage sank back out of sight into the depths of his memories nothing dented the hard surface of nala's faith nayla's faith in later would allow her to accept any paradox she knew with a certainty that only fanatics possessed that her god's will was the first and the last and that nothing that happened was beyond his vision nayla's fanaticism does not end well for her ultimately the character stillgar over the first three books is an excellent example of a fanatic growing out of their fanaticism in the book doom stilgar is confident in paul's godhood throughout the second book do messiah he is confused but still certain of it floating on the edge of realization but by the book children of dune he has come to a revelation it was the religion of muadib upset stilgar the most why did they make a god of muadeeb why deify a man known to be flesh muadeeb's golden elixir of life had created a bureaucratic monster which had satisfied human affairs government and religion united and breaking a law became sin a smell of blasphemy arose like smoke around any questioning of governmental edicts the guilt of rebellion invoked hellfire and self-righteous judgments yet it was men who created these governmental edicts it takes more than twenty years before stillgar finally realizes the horror of what they had done on arrakis the apotheosis of paul atreides they had placed the powers of god in the hands of a man and he had caused obscene damage with it before he himself was ultimately destroyed and witnessing paul's children the royal twins lato angonema who are clearly more powerful stillgar sees even more potential danger and even considers killing the twins stilger however was only able to realize that paul and his children were flesh and bone due to his proximity to events and even then it took decades for his fanaticism to die on that same coin are the themes surrounding religious engineering as i mentioned before religious engineering is a form of social engineering directly focusing on human beliefs about spirituality morals prophecy sacred texts etc the idea is that once you understand the ways in which religion can be used to control and manipulate groups of people then you can start doing this on a larger scale intentionally which is exactly what the benny jesuit sisterhood did with their missionary protactiva as i mentioned earlier the goal of the sisterhood's missionary protactiva was to sew legends and miss on different planets throughout the imperium these myths which were carefully designed by the sisterhood were intended to prepare the universe for the eventual quizatrak which they hoped to create one day alongside this the sisterhood operated in the guise of a religious organization they infiltrated countless groups throughout the imperium positioning themselves out of sight while manipulating everything around them stilgar's reluctance to let go of paul's divinity is a testament to the effectiveness of the sisterhood's religious seeding it was the many generations of religious seeding done by the sisterhood that would allow for the rise of paul atreides and his friend legions and of course later ii built his empire including the religious framework and mystique surrounding himself on the backbone of what they had done before the point of these ideas about fanaticism and religious engineering being present is this frank herbert wants us to question the things we believe and attempt to understand why we believe them now if you've been paying attention you can probably see how this relates to his ideas about looking critically at our leaders human beings are always fallible subject to change vulnerable to corruption there is no god emperor no one to glimpse into the future and figure out the best path for us and if such power did exist who could be trusted with the responsibility of it how could we ensure that they would lead us down the correct path for us all and not just one which benefited them in their own well-being the results like in dune would almost certainly be devastating in the real world it is up to us to prevent kralozak the mythic battle at the end of time and the way we do that is by growing continuing to change and evolve accepting our differences while at the same time coming together as one human organism so in a nutshell question your leaders question your beliefs accept human limits but continue to grow and never stagnate and those are just a few of the main themes of dune there's so many that in all actuality i'll probably end up making a part two to this video dune is absolutely one of the richest series that i've ever read the philosophies and concepts that are explored are endlessly intriguing and the way frank herbert presents them is also very appealing to me personally and as always with the upcoming dannyville new dune movie coming out at the end of the year there has been a lot of excitement just the other day brian herbert son of frank herbert and author of the expanded dune books tweeted that we have even more exciting press releases coming very soon so stay tuned for that guys i'll of course be covering all of the dune 2020 news here on this channel as it comes out so make sure you subscribe please let me know what you guys think of all this in the comment section below one of the best things about doom fans is that you guys always leave such thoughtful comments and i thought a video like this would be just the thing to get some deep thoughts going oh and one more thing for the past couple of years i've had the privilege and the wonderful opportunity to work on a graphic novel called tadia all the art in the book is drawn by the incredibly talented matthew weldon who it's been an honor to work with the story itself was written by me it's a horror story about witches and you can get put on the mailing list to be notified as soon as the campaign launches in less than two months click on the link in the description thanks guys special shout out to my top patrons trini girl joseph rosner milton christopher appling richard hess deus technica juliana ilion the collier report paula zach glazar matthew snyder jim nimmith alex butler and frederick nordland

Channel: Quinn's Ideas

Views: 385,880

Keywords: Guide, dune, Denis Villeneuve, New, Timothee Chalamet, Frank Herbert, Dune Lore, Update, Trailer, Movie, Paul Atreides, Explained, Lore, ideasoficeandfire

Id: yJAyPjX8r2Y

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020