#dune meta

[the-crooked-library]

so within the universe of Dune, gender roles abide by a rigid false dichotomy created by the bene gesserit - men lead the noble houses, while the women may join their order, and the powers of both are kept intentionally separate. at the same time, the plot demonstrates repeatedly that the role of paul atreides as a character is that of the border between the concepts juxtaposed within dichotomies: he is both an outerworlder and fremen, both harkonnen and atreides, both a duke and a disciple of the bene gesserit.

as such, it follows that within the in-universe gender structure, he occupies the roles of both male and female, thus being functionally and societally nonbinary. in this essay, i will -

[feyd-meowtha]

One thing that really hits me every time I reread Dune or Messiah is how instantly I'm drawn back to Paul's side, how much I care about and root for him, even knowing where it all ends up. When I've gone a while without reading the text, I'm able to be extremely critical of him (sometimes perhaps too critical) but as soon as I crack open those books, the person who greets me isn't the selfish, hubristic tyrant who plunged the universe into an unprecedented cataclysm, but the sleepy teenage boy that I remember from chapter 1.

This, I think, is the genius of Herbert's characterisation. As the crowds chant his name, we recall the version of Paul that we met at the beginning of the story, confused and vulnerable after being woken up by a stranger in his bedroom. We remember him crying over Jamis' death because he knew that they could have been friends. We remember him lashing out at his mother after he failed to grieve his father the way that he thinks he should. We remember his earnest puppy love for Chani and his respect for Stilgar and his kind treatment of Harah.

Underneath all the pomp and the mythology, he's still the boy that we grew to love, the one who identified with the little desert mouse and chose it for his name. As much as I question, on a deep and profound level, his decisions throughout the story, reading passages like this....

Well, it breaks my heart

[asmalltooth]

Sandworms this, Bene Gesserit that, something I really love about the Dune books is they look you dead in the eye and tell you how fucked up parents and children are.

A huge part of the Dune novel is about subtle workings of violence and resentment in the family. The way Jessica views Paul as her creature and posession and recoils in horror from the parts of him she can't control. The way Paul sees her as a source of both his strength and his deepest fears: She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy. And in all this they still love each other. It's not the lack of love. It's the idea that birth and nurturing are inherently violent for both sides.

Just like with Duke Leto and his father. Just like with Jessica and Alia. And we see the same thing mirrored in the Harkonnens. The Baron abusing Feyd-Rautha while raising him and preparing him as his successor?? Fully aware the boy's rise to power will be his own death. The Baron himself as the book's main villain is a giant grotesque baby. Parenthood as existential horror.

The theme continues with Messiah where the birth of Leto II and Ghanima erases their parents. In Children of Dune Paul offers himself as sacrifice to the son he tried to kill and Chani nearly returns from the dead by possessing her daughter. Leto II and Ghanima are eldritch horrors trapped in child bodies. But even they come off as less cruel than Jessica in her final abandonment of both Paul and Alia. Leto II returns in God Emperor to claim humanity as his children, becoming both a god and a tyrant. Meanwhile his whole dead family lives inside his head and has to be kept from overpowering him at all times.

There is so much weird horror surrounding parents and children in the Dune books.

And I love that a lot of that found its way into Villeneuve's Jessica. That's who she is, that's why Rebecca Ferguson's performance is a horror performance even though it might not always serve the character. It captures that part of the books beautifully.

[letsduneit]

dune really explores every possible way someone can die without actually dying. paul's childhood self dies the night his father does. his atreides heritage dies when he seeks revenge. paul himself dies when he drinks the water of life. jessica the wife dies the night leto does. jessica the mother dies when she drinks the water of life. the girl alia could have become dies in the womb. stilgar dies when he becomes a follower. the fremen die when they leave their home to fight paul's war for him. the narrative treats every one of these deaths as a tragedy, as a palpable loss; the ghosts of who these characters were or could have been remain to haunt the narrative long afterwards.

(expanding on my original tags from this post)

[thealexandriaarchives]

I can't stop staring at Feyd-Rautha's walk here and what it implies about his fight with Paul now that I'm able to stop just comparing it to Timothy's killer body work matching it (or vice versa).

Villeneuve takes the book canon, that the Harkonnens took the Atredies's morbid heirlooms of an oil painting of grandfather's death and the bull's head with his blood still dried on his horns to hang above the arena as trophies to the next level: making Feyd-Rautha the victorious young matador with the guards dressed as bull-minotaurs, circling to play banderillos and sink banderillas into the backs of the Atredies bull if it gets too close before the final faena has Feyd-Rautha pulling his opponent past him in the close, intimate passes that show off his athleticism and skill before his false blade is exchanged for the one that will be used for the killing blow and oh my god there are whole schools of thought on coming forward to meet your opponent vs waiting for them and killing with a single blow to the heart and honoring the fight and if anyone who knows how to make gifsets wants make one about this to I'd LOVE to rant more about the breakdown of these two fights and how Feyd is 1001% Matador Machismo but my point to all of this is:

Look at that Sand.

Look at his feet dig deep and kick it up as he strides out into the heart of that arena. Is it a rhythmic walk? Oh yes. Confident. Powerful. In the book this will be his 100th arena kill as he comes of age. This is his natural habitat. Where he learned his skills, for us to parallel with what we saw for Paul in Part 1.

This matters, because it's one of the main premises for why the Fremen are so Good At Fighting. When everyone is trained to fight with shields (stun then slow) and bulky armor, and on flat, solid ground with lots of cover, it's easy to be fast and silent and terrifyingly effective against them. Gurney Halleck is shown to be one of the best fighters in the franchise and the film makes a point of showing how his (recognizable) footsteps are not suited to move quickly, lightly, and with stability on sand like they are on solid ground.

Only... Bullfighting rings aren't sandy. They're fairly hardpacked. Earth for the bull and Matador to maneuver in quickly. There is a layer of albero traditionally layered on top, a chunky yellow clay dirt that serves aesthetics but also absorbs blood quickly. The idea the sand may not be white because... With Giedi Prime who knows?! Is Fantastic.

Paul Muad'Dib became the only Atredies to be recognized as Fremen, to see his father's dream of Desert Power recognized, to fight as Fedaykin, to be recognized as the Mahdi, the One Who Points The Way, and it is made clear to us from the opening words of a Child's History of Muad'Dib that Arrakis was his Home, and yet every major one-on-one duel he had from Jamis to Feyd-Rautha was on solid ground, giving him an advantage that made him respected as a fighter among the Fedaykin right away as part of his training.

Feyd-Rautha was the one Harkonnen who may have learned combat primarily or even exclusively with sand beneath his feet, and he died on Arrakis on the polished stone floors of a palatial residence, still trying to play by Matador rules.

thank u for coming to my Ted Talk

[all-inmoderation]

Paul, looking out in horror at the Harkonnens massacring Sietch Tabr, saying "I didn't see this coming" (I should've/could've seen this coming). Paul, having a vision of Chani dead in his arms. Paul, having a vision of a djinn Jamis telling him to drink the Water of Life so he can see the future. Paul, after months of being terrified of what the prophecy will do to him, willingly going into it so he can See. So he will be able to See the future and protect the people he loves. Paul, succumbing himself to monstrosity, in the end.

Paul, watching Chani walk away.

[dysfunctionalcreature]

just rewatched Dune Part 2 and noticed something, when Feyd Rautha enters the area for his birthday fight, and after he wins the fight, the people in the audience of the arena are chanting his name in a very rhythmic and quite frankly terrifying way - "Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha!"

And after Paul kills Feyd Rautha, takes Irulan's hand in marriage, and declares war on the great houses, the Fremen people around Paul begin to chant - "Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib!"

They chant for Paul with the same rhythm and ferocity with which the Harkonnen audience chanted for Feyd Rautha earlier in the movie. If that doesn't show Paul's transformation and loss of humanity then idk what does

(also FeydPaul parallels in general yessssss I love every connection between these two fucked up boys, it's tragic that they barely even get ten minutes of screentime together)

[mutsubaki]

Austin Butler’s choice to make Feyd sound like Baron made an interesting parallel.

The Voice as a skill of Bene Gesserit is not magic as it’s not paranormal; it’s a skill of modulating your voice a certain way, so it’s almost impossible not to do as said.

The voice of Baron, as a dictator relying on fear, probably has the same effect on his subjects, because it becomes a bodily response to stress.

Paul Atreides gets subjected to the Voice and returns the damage to the Reverend Mother as he comes in full power.

Feyd-Rautha doesn’t have Bene Gesserit training, but his survival tactics are so advanced that he uses the wearpons of his abuser as his own. But that’s exactly what Paul did to Reverend Mother Superior.

In conclusion, they should’ve trained Feyd-Rautha in the way too that would be so cool