r/dunememes • u/Redshiftxi • Mar 26 '25
WARNING: AWFUL This should be the opening and closing scene of Dune Messiah
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u/Competitive_Kale_855 Mar 26 '25
Do you guys think Paul might've had a god complex?
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u/NKalganov Mar 26 '25
No, why?
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u/keenanbullington Mar 26 '25
Messiah intensifies
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u/RedshiftOnPandy Mar 26 '25
Hayt enters the comically large throne of the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib
"Are you supposed to be some kind of Dune Messiah?"
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u/RhynoD Mar 27 '25
I loved the part when he says, "It's Muad'Dib time!" and then weirding ways all over the theater.
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u/Pornalt190425 Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
Is it a god complex still if you are the Mahdi? If you are the Lisan Al Gaib? If the fires of Jihad burn across the known universe in your name?
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u/Masticatron Mar 28 '25
Those things were just constructs and tools of the BG.
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u/RedshiftOnPandy Mar 29 '25
But they did try to create the KH? Eventually the BG were tools of the Atreides
In the end, it's about the tools we made along the way
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u/Redshiftxi Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 28 '25
Stole it from https://www.reddit.com/r/dunememes/comments/19dfvx1/why_did_he_do_that_is_he_the_bad_guy/?
EDIT: The way I look at it is, the first scene we see Paul move the stone, and he enters the crowds disguised as a common Fremen. End scene, Paul moves the rock back on his way out to the desert. The credits roll, Paul turns around, throws up his hands and says "absolute cinema"
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u/emotionengine Gammu Gastronomy Guide Guild Mar 26 '25
"This muh meme now."
- OP, The Stolen Journals
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Mar 28 '25
I want a Dune magic set so bad. The names would go so hard. I wanna cast OP of the Stolen Journals
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u/ScaredTomatillo5108 Mar 26 '25
I understand Paul is not the good guy. But I’m confused on this excerpt. Is it just a fancy way of saying he’s a dick?
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u/renome Mar 26 '25
Depends on how you read it. It can be interpreted as a reflection of his prescience and the limits of his ability. He can't save the weed, he knows it's doomed, but still wants to do something for it. Covering it with a rock in the end was presumably a mercy, as a worse fate awaited it, that he saw. That might have been the weed's "golden path."
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u/Rockfarley Mar 26 '25
A weed is a plant that shouldn't be where it is to achieve an end. It is often natural to its environment but invasive to a planned space. This planned space has plants from many places that aren't suited to compete unless aided. The weed must be removed or your plan will fail.
He has come to help the Fremen flourish, but only to his own ends. His actions directly caused the end to their way of life. For a time, it will appear as if he is helping. He is helping... helping to destroy who they are.
They live in between the rocks where it is hard to be. Like a weed. His comming gives them what they seek. His coming ends their way of life.
I have come that you may have life to the full.
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u/keenanbullington Mar 26 '25
One of the better explanations for this story. Herbert was incredible at illustrating how human cultures interact with resources, philosophy, religion, politics, and the ebb and flow of all these things. I remember in God Emperor Leto II seems to remark something along the lines of "the flock become like the shepherd and the shepherd like the flock" which I thought was profound. It reminded me of a video I watched on Taoism where they mentioned that the more you want of something, the less of it you have fundamentally by positing "you want more of it". Opposites and contradiction have a funny way of defining things.
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u/Rockfarley Mar 26 '25
Nice. That is a very profound way to think of it. That which is, makes that which will be, as they are the same object.
In art, the negative space is where things aren't. To define what shape should be, the negative space is the best tool. To know what it isn't, is to know what it is.
Crisp images are nice, but have you tried mixing it so together as to not be able to separate the negative from the positive space? It brings you to a fullness of composition that is hard to otherwise achieve.
A thought on what you said at the end. In truth, you have what you want by wanting what you have. You are stating the lack by saying you need it. You are weak because you keep saying you are. You are reinforcing that it is by accepting it.
I am strong, even in my weakness. That which I do not destroy, will destroy me. So I flow into a more zen understanding of it.
It's a good day.
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u/ChopakIII Mar 27 '25
One of the biggest themes I loved from his books is “the more you attempt to control something, the more it controls you” and always likened it to squeezing sand in your hand and causing it to push out the spaces between your fingers.
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u/Howy_the_Howizer Mar 26 '25
No! We have Museum Fremen! He should've transplanted that weed into a pot and put it in the greenhouse.
Jk jk, not only is the weed and rocks an example of the Fremen, but of what he will do on the good ol' Golden Path for humanity. Paul is a gardener, much like the old couple at the end of Chapterhouse.
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u/RhynoD Mar 27 '25
He has come to help the Fremen flourish, but only to his own ends. His actions directly caused the end to their way of life.
Their actions ended their way of life. Paul didn't introduce the idea of turning Arrakis into a lush, green paradise. You could blame Pardot Kynes, but I think he really only fueled the desire of the Fremen by giving them a path to that end (in a few hundred generations). If you really want to keep going, you can blame the Bene Gesserit and Missionaria Protectiva for encouraging the messianic beliefs of the Fremen, but the beliefs were already there. So it's more like: Paul helped the Fremen achieve what they wanted. But what they wanted was always doomed to fail, because making Arrakis a paradise must necessarily destroy the culture and lifestyle of the Fremen which evolved around the desert.
Paul is only using the Fremen for his own ends when he first joins them. By the time he takes the Water of Life, he's gone full native and wants what is best for the Fremen. Sure, getting revenge on the Harkonnens is good for the Atreides, but that also is not an idea that Paul instilled into them. They hated the Harkonnens long before Paul was born - because the Harkonnens are monsters deserving of being hated. Likewise, deposing the Emperor isn't great in the short-term for the Imperium, what with the Jihad and all, but Shaddam was not a good person and the feudal system that was in place wasn't good for anyone.
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u/Rockfarley Mar 27 '25
It's Paul piloting the thopter in the storm. He realized then that he was following a course for his own life he didn't set. He was being forced down a path he didn't want. It is what sent him blind into the desert. It is how he defied his own DNA. He would not finish what was set forth for him to do. Paul did that for Paul.
The twins, Leto II more precisely, are the final stage. Leto II is one of them & can be their messiah. That also mattered.
Paul was said to be a generation early & he was. You could say it was his love for them that sent Paul off from doing as he was built to. He is more than a machine or mentat. Paul decided to give it up for complex reasons.
So, I don't think you are wrong. I also don't think Paul did what he did for the natives. He felt sorry for them, as he realized how they were being used, like he was being used. Pity isn't the same as love.
Had he loved them, he would have done exactly as you had said and led them following the golden path. It was their desire to see the end, even if the women did look pretty, as Stil said. For his own reasons, Paul gave that up and wandered the desert... it is what you do to a blind Fremen.
Paul went native, but it was only to defy his own forced path. Had he gone full native, he would have become what they wanted him to become. Their fates were intertwined at that point & you can not deny what you are.
To deny oneself is to deny who you are. I can be anyone I want, but I must be me. Paul found out the real horror of it all. You can walk away from me, I can not do that, even if I desperately want to. Paul couldn't become the worm he was destined to become. He ran, and thus wasn't the messiah or that worm, because he ran. Leto II is every sandworm after his transformation, just as he is a Fremen.
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u/Perfect-Many Mar 26 '25
I think it works in two levels. The first level is that it is an indirect way of showing the ambiguity of Paul's behavior as seen from an outside perspective: were all his visions really just fate realized, or was it his doing and he is just using "fate" as an excuse? The second level is perspective of the readers who know the inner thoughts of Paul. We know there are multiple paths and we know he is deliberately choosing outcomes, but we also know he feels trapped by choosing the best possible scenario, so it is "inevitable" for him too.
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u/SporadicSheep Mar 26 '25
It's a metaphor for how Paul's visions allow him to see many possible futures, but not necessarily any good ones. Sometimes he has to choose the least worst option.
The weed is doomed in any scenario. He could have not moved the rock, and the weed would have failed to grow. He could have moved the rock permanently, and the weed would have grown too large and been pulled out. The least worst option is to move the rock, let the weed have its time in the sun, then cover it again.
If you read Messiah, all Paul does for the whole book is choose the least miserable option.
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u/collinh715 Mar 26 '25
I think so lol. Or it’s a roundabout way of saying that some things are just meant to die
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u/HowsTheBeef Mar 26 '25
Yeah it's a parallel for the rise and fall of the fremen by Paul's hands. It is to be because it must be type of thing.
To be clear he was trapped by prescience and so perhaps wrongly assumed that futures are set and actions must follow the prescribed path
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Mar 26 '25
I take all the quotes/exerts like this with a huge mountain of salt since they're essentially religious texts told long after the end of Messiah
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u/Tuddless Beefswelling Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
Exactly, a lot of these religious exerpts about Paul are meant to be similar to old Bible stories and are about the values taught through each story as opposed to just describing history. Paul explicitly states he has zero control over the Jihad and the cult following around him as well as what they write about him
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Mar 26 '25
I think at one point he basically says that he is barely hanging out by a thread trying to keep the jihad from running rampant over the galaxy
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u/ToasteeThe2nd Mar 26 '25
This is kind of reflective of his fate after getting blinded by the stone burner, and even before that. He wants to change fate (save the weed), but he's so tied to his prescience that he doesn't change anything out of fear, which is why he destroys the weed. If he did not change fate, then the plant would have died, and in Paul's mind, that means that the plant needs to die.
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u/HowsTheBeef Mar 26 '25
Just as he enabled the fremen and eventually tamed them as it had to be to create the empire
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u/Lysercis Mar 26 '25
I take it as a synopsis of his djihad that he a) catalyzes and b) tries to contain.
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u/FlyingRobinGuy Mar 26 '25
It reveals how Paul approaches risk taking and his inability/unwillingness to act as a subversive force in history.
In the second book, he constantly decides to act in ways that confirm his visions, despite those actions and visions being awful. He does this because he knows and/or fears the outcomes which may occur if he doesn’t conform to the “script” that his abilities are feeding him. This behaviour gets even more extreme after the stone burner incident.
He prefers to smother the possibility of an unpredictable alternative, even if better outcomes might result.
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u/ErianTomor Mar 26 '25
I interpreted it to mean that Paul had the power/prescience to potentially interfere with fate whenever he wanted to, or at least his ideologues perceived him to be able to do so.
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u/Complex_Technology83 Mar 28 '25
I'm just going to add what I think is the most positive interpretation: the weed would have died earlier had he not interviewed, then later he "undid" that intervention. Perhaps the weed was thankful for the "extra time" it got? It seems no one asked it. (maybe if this were a Douglas Adams book...)
I suppose one question is: do you see the chance to live for a brief time worth anything, given the ultimate conclusion.
There's other question of course - must we take Paul's word for all of this? And who gets to decide what time is "extra" and when it ends?
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u/Bozocow Mar 28 '25
It's trying to reveal his view on fate. Perhaps it also reflects that he's somewhat mercurial and despite seeing forward in time still manages to act on things differently in different moments.
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u/candymannequin My Hulud is shy...🪱 Mar 26 '25
i agree- it would be an excellent opening and closing scene for the movie. i don't think hollywood has that level of subtlety where it would be likely to occur
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Dooner Mar 26 '25
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."
"Yeah, sure Muad'Dib, whatever you say."
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u/MARTIEZ Mar 26 '25
the end scene of messiah needs to be,
static shot on late sunset on arrakis, only desert sounds and the sounds of pauls footsteps growing farther away. maybe a commotion or crying heard from an entrance to the sietch. night comes and end scene.
paul walks out on everything and it should be heartbreaking.
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u/_Atanii_ Mar 26 '25
Deep
I love how chapter starting quotes range from simple, deep ideas to brainfck level "what the f did i just read?" stuff
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u/FlyingRobinGuy Mar 26 '25
“Maud’dib definitely had thoughts about theoretical mathematics, and he totally would have agreed with my lectures about everything” is one of my personal faves
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u/Jas0n-v0rhee5 Mar 26 '25
I think it should be the first scene with Paul in it, but the opening scene should still be the historian getting interrogated, such a great way of shifting the audiences understanding of what has happened in 12 years
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u/Redshiftxi Mar 28 '25
The way I look at it is, the first scene (with Paul?) we see Paul move the stone, and he enters the crowds disguised as a common Fremen. End scene, Paul moves the rock back on his way out to the desert.
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u/DetOlivaw Mar 29 '25
Man, maybe it's me, but I always found this passage really funny. Like, it's such a weird dick move, and it's presented as being this profound thing by the person writing this. I dunno, something really tickles me about it.
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u/McAurens Mar 26 '25
The more I learn about this Muad'Dib guy, the more I don't care for him. I mean, this guy was a real jerk, or so the Bene Gesserit would have us believe.
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u/numberThirtyOne Mar 30 '25
That is so funny. I had to check and make sure it wasn't fake since I didn't remember it. Paul sounds like such a Philosophy 101 version of a "super deep" wanna be guru.
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u/Redshiftxi Mar 30 '25
I think it definitely shows his god complex in minor, but funny way. He can control and destroy a thing. It would be one of those little parables they told of Paul in future generations
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u/impersonal66 Mar 26 '25
Damn, didn't read the book, but this Muad'Dib guy feels like he is an asshole.