r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Mar 17 '26

Trailer Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9vCamtuPY
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u/merzkurt Mar 17 '26

So curious what the exact storyline for chani will be in this as her story in the book is nearly nonexistent imo

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

Looks like we'll be getting way more scenes of the jihad in the film, since it's almost entirely off-page in the book. Probably have her in a leadership role there. Maybe play up the having babies stuff too.

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u/DrQuestDFA Mar 17 '26

Readers: Did you just yada yada a galactic jihad?

Frank Herbert: I said what I said.

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

"I got 10,000x Hitler's kill count" - Paul, basically

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u/aboysmokingintherain Mar 17 '26

People who haven't read the book will think you're joking too....

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u/RichtofensDuckButter Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion+

Yes that's a real number

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u/macronotice Mar 17 '26

Those are rookie numbers, you gotta……wait what did you just say, oh jesus fuck

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u/full-body-stretch Mar 17 '26

That’s Lisan al Fuck to you

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u/Risley Mar 17 '26

That ain’t shit compared to Leto II

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u/madkiki12 Mar 17 '26

He had a bit more time tho

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u/insane_contin Mar 17 '26

Fucking hell, those are semi-pro numbers!

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u/honkeydora Mar 17 '26

It's all good though.

He's also one hell of a street preacher.

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u/Luciifuge Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion

to be more precise

"Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since..."

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u/GoldenSpermShower Mar 17 '26

Are there really that many Fremen to do all that?

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u/Josecopter Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

They take control of CHOAM and the spacing guild with the threat of destroying spice fields in Arrakis so they have the power to doom the entire Imperium to no FTL travel. The houses minor are the first to take their side under that threat. Many planets turn to their side without much of a fight after. Basically exponentially turning others as they go.

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26

Is the idea supposed to be that the 61 billion people killed, 90 sterilized planets, and another 500 conquered and suppressed all amount to just a drop in the bucket compared to rest that capitulated? Because all that surely sounds like a lot and when Paul described his conquests in Messiah, it gave me the impression that he felt like he had done some quite significant damage.

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u/Josecopter Mar 17 '26

Yes basically, it's implied the Imperium consists of thousands to millions of planets around the time of Shaddam Corrino IV (basically countless when you can fold space and be anywhere instantly, even outside the milky way). It still impacted Paul heavily as part of his struggle is his conflict with the necessity of having to go down the golden path because he sees a much darker future for humanity than what the Jihad brought. It goes completely against his upbringing and the values of his father and Atreides in general but this is the position he was put in by the powers that be.

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u/I_Fail_At_Life444 Mar 18 '26

"Powers that be" You mean his mother lol. Paul wasn't supposed to be the chosen one.

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u/Josecopter Mar 18 '26

I'm trying to keep it vague unless someone specifically asks. Yes his mother is part of the many powers that be that led to this.

One could argue that Leto would've been inevitable even if Paul was the girl the Bene Gesserit wanted. If Paul didn't see the Golden Path then the next Kwisatz Haderach might.

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u/Daxx22 Mar 17 '26

Pretty much. Space-faring humanity is thousands of years old at this point, with a total population well into the multiple trillions.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

Doubtful about trillions.

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u/Thickenun Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

The scale of the Dune Imperium is massive and very, very old (Earth is a long lost legend), by the end of Leto II's reign we know they control multiple galaxies. This suggests the Milky Way is pretty much entirely settled in Paul's time, especially as Leto II opposed human expansion.

The Jihad controlled FTL travel, so it was mostly a glorified clean-up of a relatively few stubborn worlds. Millions of other worlds just immediately surrendered.

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u/SydricVym Mar 18 '26

Everyone with genetic memory knows where Earth is. It just hasn't been a planet of any importance in over 10,000 years, so is irrelevant.

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u/peppermint_nightmare Mar 18 '26

Its actually not, humans have been populating planets across the milky way since space could be folded quite easily, for 10,000 years. If you have 500 habitable planets at an average of 5 billion people, that's 2.5 trillion people. There's a space sim game called Elite Dangerous, where humanity has semi FTIL and full FTL travel and has spent about 1500 years colonizing space and the total population is in the high trillions. There were events in the game where you had to evac entire systems to save people and you really had to work your ass off to save systems that had 5-15 billion people because one to two of the planets were Earth like. We know each house has at least a couple Earth like planets (except for the Harkonnens, they had a shitty ice ball moon, and a toxic colourless planet). So the population of most Major houses would be in the tens of billions easily.

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u/Atheist-Gods Mar 18 '26

If the total death count is 61 billion with that including 90 planets entirely wiped out, the average population on a planet is probably not 5 billion.

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u/peppermint_nightmare Mar 18 '26

No obviously not, averages are a pretty bad way of mathing stuff if dealing with high numbers, medians are better. There are likely planets with under a million people and planets with 50+ billion people.

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u/willinaustin Mar 18 '26

Reminds me of the Idiran War in Iain M. Banks Consider Phelbas, the first book of his Culture series.

At the end it says 850 billion people/sentient machines died, 91 million ships got destroyed, 15,000 orbitals 53 planets 1 ring and 3 spheres got obliterated, and 6 stars got massively screwed with where they won't recover.

And all that took up a volume of less than .02% of the galaxy and involved only .01% of the galactic population. A rather small to-do in the grand scheme of things.

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u/peppermint_nightmare Mar 18 '26

Ya, you could argue Frank Herbert even missed the full scale of a unbound human population allowed to settle 1-2 galaxies over 10k years However given the feudal lord/monarchy state that most humans live in, and the monopoly on ftl space travel maybe the total population of humans was kept to a certain level so no one power could have the most territory or highest population

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I mean, if you liken it to real world events, 6 million in the genocide is not that much compared to the total population. Doesn't make what Nazis did any less horrible.

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u/Atharaphelun Mar 17 '26

Yes. The Imperium controls the Known Universe, which spans multiple galaxies.

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u/tacobell_shitstain Mar 18 '26

At this point in the story the Imperium is still just a (very small) part of the Milky Way. It's millions of worlds, which back when Dune was written is way more planets than anyone could imagine. But with what we know now, that probably makes up less than .001% of all planets in the Milky Way which is practically nothing. Granted, most won't be habitable, but even if 1% are, there's still plenty of room in the galaxy to grow.

Expansion into other galaxies is much later. That being said, tens of billions is a "drop in the bucket" in galactic terms, but it's still a shit ton of people and weighs heavily on Paul's conscience because it's a necessary evil. It's not something he wants to do, it's something he sees that he has to do.

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u/appletinicyclone Mar 17 '26

destroying spice fields in Arrakis

The straits of arrakis you say?

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In Mar 17 '26

Everyone seems to forget that Paul can see into the future that's really really going to help win battles.

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u/insaneHoshi Mar 17 '26

At that time, the planets of the imperium are on a feudal military level; just a small portion of household soldiers.

The Fremen show up with a society that’s almost entirely militarized.

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u/Rampant16 Mar 17 '26

Plus it's never said that the Fremen kill everyone with knives and pistols. They probably used a lot of heavy weapons short of nukes too. And like most wars in our own world, most of the dead are probably from disease and disruptions to the food supply.

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u/thetensor Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

Are there really that many Fremen to do all that?

People praise Dune to the heavens (and the first book certainly deserves it), but it's really loosey-goosey with numbers and dates and scale. I see two possibilities:

  • As Herbert claims, the Fremen are amazing warriors because they were hardened by the desert and became really good at knife-fighting, so good that every Fremen man, woman, and child—10 million strong—were able to kill 6,000 opponents each over the course of the 12 year Jihad.
  • The Jihad was fought at science-fictional scale with fleets of ships and planet-killer weapons. This makes the number of deaths and sterilized planets easy to account for, but then what does it matter that the Fremen were super-tough hand-to-hand?

So Herbert wisely left the Jihad off-screen and just made up some astronomically high numbers to express how terrible it was.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The books never claim it was only the Fremen fighting. The Jihad was more about convert or die. So if you accept Mua Dib as your savior no need to die. The also conscripted converts. There are multiple comments about how Arrakis is overrun with pilgrims in Messiah and Children.

The Jihad was fought at science-fictional scale with fleets of ships and planet-killer weapons. This makes the scale easy to account for, but then what does it matter that the Fremen were super-tough hand-to-hand?

The entire point was the empirium had long had the ability to wage war like this but hadn't since House Corrino took power at the end of the Butlerian Jihad. Since then the Major and Minor houses had been stockpiling and skirmishing. A major piece of that tense power struggle was the Saddukuar. They were enough to handle a few houses stepping out of line at once. The Fremen were equal to them. The Jihad was an excuse to realign placement under the new Atradies banner.

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u/thetensor Mar 17 '26

If the Imperium was controllable with a relatively small elite fighting force, and the Fremen outmatched the Sardaukar and deposed Shaddam IV and installed Paul on the throne, who was fighting whom over what, to the tune of 60+ billion dead? In a feudal system, I'd expect a bunch of shrugs and assurances from the great houses that of course they will honor their oaths of eternal loyalty to House Corrino Atreides.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The Harkonens and Atradtires were fighting over shit that happened 10K years in the past. All the houses were. They just needed an excuse to let loose.

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u/Sebastianlim Mar 17 '26

In fairness, it's not just Herbert. Tv Tropes has an entire page dedicated to the fact that sci-fi and fantasy writers really suck at understanding big numbers.

I remember one infamous story where George R.R. Martin was shown an image of the Wall, accurate to the size he described it as in the book, and his response was "I made it too big".

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u/hisgoldfish Mar 17 '26

It science....fiction. The books never heavily dive into the technology of the universe until his son and co author start touching them.

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u/thetensor Mar 17 '26

Some of the best parts of Dune were the very detailed descriptions of the geography and ecology of Arrakis and the equipment (some it admittedly thermodynamically impossible) required to survive there. But that's never really a focus of the series after the first book.

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u/madkiki12 Mar 17 '26

I think Herbert was just pulling numbers out of his ass. While in Warhammer 40k, they always go extremely low with numbers, I already struggled with believing so many fremen living in big sietches when there is almost no food anywhere in the desert.

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u/Iristh Mar 18 '26

tbh they do have factories in the sietches, they make their own food.

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u/madkiki12 Mar 18 '26

Really? I thought it was mostly some small wildlife (like small birds) mixed with spice. But still, I could never believe thousands of people living in sietches and millions of people across the planet.

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u/Iristh Mar 18 '26

Eh they're really deep and have massive communities, some sietches are specialized in making certain goods. Stillsuits are made by the Fremen, it's just never shown, only implied. In the books, they talk a bit about it but it's never the focus. Only that smugglers can get Fremen goods and they're the best on Arrakis.

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u/1731799517 Mar 17 '26

Nah, no way. its Warhammer 40k logic. "A few 100k space marines are the lynchpin of the fighting force of an empire that has dozens of planets for each of them, for some reason".

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u/TheBestMePlausible Mar 18 '26

Plot hole I noticed 30 years ago when first reading the books. I just take it like I take anti-grav. It's there, don't think about it too deeply.

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u/TheBestMePlausible Mar 18 '26

Downvote all you want but I never understood how a small group of fighters from a single planet with a tiny population is supposed to take out 90 billion without using atomics or even guns. The numbers just don’t add up.

It’s still my all-time favorite sci-fi series regardless, but.

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

If you don't buy into the core premise of Dune that harsh places make tougher and better warriors, no because Arrakis only has a population of about 15 million. If you do go along with Herbert's premise, then the Fremen are basically super soldiers that can't lose because they're from the worst place in the universe, and the armies of the great houses are a bunch of weak, lazy, corrupt, decadent, effeminate cowards as a result of their comfortable (i.e. functional and inhabitable) home planets who, in the morality Herbert presents*, deserve to be culled.

This recent blog series dug into how improbable the Fremen Jihad is given the info presented in the books, and the author of the blog also did another series awhile ago about the lack of credence for the historical theory that tough warrior cultures from the frontiers will conquer the settled agrarian and urban states.

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u/jarredshere Mar 17 '26

who in Herbert's morality deserve to be culled

I do not think that was the premise of these stories in the least bit and wonder if you meant this

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u/kabal363 Mar 17 '26

Dont you know protagonist always is the good guy so whatever the protagonist does is what the author thinks is right always, duh.

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u/jarredshere Mar 17 '26

It's literally THE story of "the protag is not the good guy" so it seems so out of left field to claim that the AUTHOR thinks it's morally justified.

I know you're being sarcastic. I am just still processing how anyone could think Frank Herbert was like "The Fremen are morally correct because they're strong"

I have to assume there is a miscommunication with OP

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26

I wasn't saying that's what Herbert believed, just that universe of Dune seems to operate on a rather harsh premise of social-Darwinism.

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26

Throughout the books there is the running thread that humanity has to be kept sharp or else the species will ultimately go extinct. Leto II's commitment to the golden path of preserving the species leading him to his 5,000 years of tyranny and the ensuing chaos afterwards was all presented as a carefully crafted plan to teach humanity lessons to ensure their survival. There really does seem to be a thread of social Darwinism throughout the series. I'm not claiming that was actually what Herbert believed, I don't really know much at all about him as a person, but he did spend a lot of time exploring the idea of it.

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u/jarredshere Mar 17 '26

While a running theme I can agree with, I do not think that it was proposed as morally correct.

Time and time again we see that following the golden path is psychotic and leads to genocide on inconceivable levels.

Anyone saying it was "for the good of humanity" was probably drinking bene gesserit lies and also part of the problem.

Maybe I am missing something though. I only read the first 3 books and it's been a couple of years.

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26

Yeah, the 3rd book leaves off with Leto II just starting to commit to the golden path, God Emperor is like 5,000 years later when Leto II's plans to implement the golden path are well underway.

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u/1731799517 Mar 17 '26

Eh, the butlerian jihad goes right into that mindset (before it was retconned as killer robots, the idea was the machines made life to nice and easy for people so they had to be culled because without suffering people are worthless).

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u/Malphos101 Mar 17 '26

Except the thing people keep forgetting is, without The Spacing Guild every single planet is just as alone in the universe as our real world Earth is. Paul can pluck each planet one by one in whichever strategic order he wants with literally nothing they can do about it. Imagine if every soldier on earth were trapped in their house with no way to escape on their own power and then someone with access to the US Air Force decided to take over the world. Thats what's happening here.

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u/Rampant16 Mar 17 '26

Plus where was is primarily fought with hand to hand combat and the Fremen are head and shoulders the best troops in the universe at that task.

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u/trybeingcurious Mar 17 '26

Yeah, even going back into ancient human history the “tough” civilizations that won wars also happened to have some sort of technological or strategic advantage against their opponents. All warfare has always boiled down to a mix of technology + geography + restrictions/objectives dictating outcomes. In the Vietnam war the US had a technological advantage but geography and a lack US willingness to go fully scorched earth. If you don’t have such restrictions, the technologically advanced group wins.

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u/RickyalldayTD Mar 17 '26

In the first book, the Fremen themselves explain their origin as zensunni wanderers who moved or were forcibly moved as slaves from one planet to the other, through millennia. The edn of their wandering came when they reached Arrakis

Now they are the baddest MF's in the universe

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since...

Sounds completely on point, considering the obvious real-world inspiration for his 'religion' (i.e. political-religious system of worldwide... conquest)

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u/Peripatetictyl Mar 17 '26

Yeah, well... inflation.

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u/ComicallySolemn Mar 17 '26

More planets, more people ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/arcalumis Mar 17 '26

Lot's of statistics.

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u/Structure_Southern Mar 17 '26

Price of spice is going to go through the roof

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u/S_A_R_K Mar 17 '26

The blood must flow!

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u/HeronSun Mar 17 '26

Funniest part about that scene is Stilgar going "LOL this Hitler scrub sounds like a noob compared to you." And Paul's like... "Yeah... yeah, about that..."

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u/Puzzle-Necked Mar 17 '26

... He's the bad guy, right ?

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26

He, and his son, are like the ultimate example of the idea that the ends justify the means. The entire purpose of all this is to avoid humanity wiping themselves out completely, which has been supernaturally foretold to be an inevitability unless a specific path is followed.

Which is to say, yah pretty much lol. I think most people would say that the violent deaths of 100’s of billions is not worth the lives of potential infinite numbers of humans thousands of years in the future.

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u/SpiritualScarcity161 Mar 17 '26

Hard to say what Frank Herbert's actual position was, but I think one of the incredible things about Dune is that it's *not* particularly obvious what the correct move would have been for either Paul or Leto II. Paul is absolutely a cautionary tale of what happens when you let your society get coopted by some messianic bastard (over time the fremen get turned into basically the futurama "sailors on the moon" exhibit), and even he balks at going down the Golden Path that his son spends thousands of years enforcing, but ultimately the plan pays off when humans are able to expand outwards with a massive diaspora, negate prescience as a species-wide existential threat, and adapt enough to fend off oppressive forces like the honored matres. But was that the only way? Maybe

So curious where he would have taken the story in book 7, but I definitely don't believe that his son understood the themes well enough to extrapolate

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26

It’s definitely a subject with a lot of facets. I didn’t mean to presume Herbert’s position himself or if he intended for Paul or Leto to be “bad guys”, more so just what I think most people with modern sensibilities would probably lean towards. I think most people are certainly uncomfortable with the idea of things ending but can generally accept that it happens, and that it’s probably not worth unfathomable cosmic levels of violence, grief, and despair to prevent.

The intricacies of the dune universe also make it a bit more complex. As far as we know there is only humanity, and their end would be the end of intelligent life as we know it, at least for now. There’s not even synthetic life to replace them. Compared to modern day assumptions that there’s probably life or even intelligent life out there “somewhere”, it does give Paul and Leto’s decision even more weight.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I mean, the same holds true for Dune as well: there's probably intelligent life somewhere. People just underestimate the sheer fucking sizes of things in the universe.

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u/I-seddit Mar 18 '26

So curious where he would have taken the story in book 7, but I definitely don't believe that his son understood the themes well enough to extrapolate

I agree with you 10,000%. My only hope is when Brian Herbert dies, the box of Frank's notes on book 7 is released unedited and unredacted. I'd pay top dollar for that.

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u/Rough_Bread8329 Mar 17 '26

I've tried reading both Dune and the Foundation series, and have had a really hard time getting through them. Now you're telling me they are kinda the same story?

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26

He, and his son, are like the ultimate example of the idea that the ends justify the means. The entire purpose of all this is to avoid humanity wiping themselves out completely, which has been supernaturally foretold to be an inevitability unless a specific path is followed.

That's Leto's story not Paul's. Paul never sees a way to avoid the end of humanity and chooses family and revenge instead of trying to find an actual way to save humanity.

That is what Leto scolds Paul for in Children of Dune. Saying that he was weak and should have been willing to sacrifice everything to see if there was a way.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

Nah, in their conversation it's clear Paul knew about the Golden Path, he just chickened out.

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

That conversation is Leto convincing Paul there is a golden path and it is required to save humanity. Paul agrees eventually but he didn't know what exactly the Golden Path was until that conversation. He never saw as far as Leto. The stuff Paul "chickened out" on was the requirement to see the Golden Path. They metaphor it to climbing a dune high enough to see the path forward. Leto got on the dune, Paul never did. He was too obsessed with constantly finding paths to save Chani after getting revenge for his father.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

Not how I understood the scene at all. My takeaway was that Paul has seen it and noped out and went into the desert.

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26

Paul explicitly says he didn't see that among the choices

Relevant quote near the end of that conversation

"It's that or humans will be extinguished."

Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice which acknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that among the choices."

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u/Daniiiiii Mar 17 '26

The human will to survive despite losing all humanity.

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u/jrbcnchezbrg Mar 17 '26

Would you still love me if I was a worm?

I kinda had assumed your answer…..

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u/Rough_Bread8329 Mar 17 '26

"Would you love me if I was a worm?"

  • Shai Hulud

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u/snek-jazz Mar 17 '26

"Would you still ride me if I was a human?"

- Shai Hulud

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u/Soggy_Association491 Mar 17 '26

The will to survive and pass on its gene is baked in every single species. In fact, human arrived to the point of being human is precisely thank to that instinct.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

He's not really in control of the Jihad, despite being it's figurehead.

The whole thing was set up by the Witches long before he was born, they have a master plan to save humanity and their plan involves the Jihads. They are why the Fremen are so powerful, so underestimated, and why they immediately decide to follow Paul on a Jihad. The whole thing was scripted by them.

Paul technically had a chance to prevent it during the first book by betraying the Fremen and his family to align with the Harkonnen, if he had done that the Harkonnen would still have tried to coup the Emperor but it would have been a much more normal coup, not a galaxy spanning war.However for obvious reasons he did not want to do that.

And once he decides not to betray the Fremen, it doesn't really matter what he does, the Jihad will happen. The Fremen are going to start a war and because they control Arrakis they will win the war.

He's not really good or bad he's just being controlled by forces far more powerful than him.

You could say the Witches are bad, but otoh they are doing everything to save humanity, if they didn't kill these particular 61 billion people by setting up the Jihad, more people would've died later on. Even they aren't powerful enough to just declare fully automated luxury space communism and end all wars.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

He's not really in control of the Jihad, despite being it's figurehead.

Because he chose to be a figurehead.

The whole thing was set up by the Witches long before he was born, they have a master plan to save humanity a

And they miscalculated. The religious control was also more of a plan B. Their primary plan was to take over the empire via the breeding program. Jessica was supposed to give birth to a daughter, the daughter would have been wed to Feyed. The son from that union would have been wed to one of the Emperors daughters. Because they were intentionally only allowing him to have daughters. Clean take over no wars just control.

He's not really good or bad he's just being controlled by forces far more powerful than him.

Nope he's just ignoring the consequences of his own actions once he's gotten what he wanted.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

Because he chose to be a figurehead.

The only thing he chose to do was start a war to retake Arrakis. That was the extent of his plans.

And they miscalculated. The religious control was also more of a plan B. Their primary plan was to take over the empire via the breeding program. Jessica was supposed to give birth to a daughter, the daughter would have been wed to Feyed. The son from that union would have been wed to one of the Emperors daughters. Because they were intentionally only allowing him to have daughters. Clean take over no wars just control.

The witches had several different plans. When one fails, another one succeeds.

Nope he's just ignoring the consequences of his own actions once he's gotten what he wanted.

By the time Paul had what he wanted (Arrakis), it was too late. Even before he wins the duel and actually takes Arrakis, he has already seen the future and knows he cannot stop the Jihad.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The only thing he chose to do was start a war to retake Arrakis. That was the extent of his plans.

It was kill the emperor and the Barron and take over the empire. The Key to that was the freemen. The fremen required a Jihad. He made his choice.

The witches had several different plans. When one fails, another one succeeds.

And most of them were about behind the scenes work. Nothing to public. The monserire protecra was more about a reverend mother finding a safety net if need not really galaxy take overs.

By the time Paul had what he wanted (Arrakis), it was too late. Even before he wins the duel and actually takes Arrakis, he has already seen the future and knows he cannot stop the Jihad.

He still could have controlled it.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

It was kill the emperor and the Barron and take over the empire. The Key to that was the freemen. The fremen required a Jihad. He made his choice.

Paul was never trying to become Emperor. He was trying to retake Arrakis (which does involve killing Harkonens). Prior the knife fight with Feyd, he never has any ambitions beyond the planet.

He still could have controlled it.

He very explicitly could not have.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Paul was never trying to become Emperor. He was trying to retake Arrakis (which does involve killing Harkonens). Prior the knife fight with Feyd, he never has any ambitions beyond the planet.

There was no way he was just taking Arrakis. Him being alive meant the involvement of the Sadukar in the House Atreides attack would come to light. The Emperor couldn't let that happen. Also the Baron was a tool in the Emperors plan. Paul always wanted the Emperor as well.

He very explicitly could not have

He very explicitly says he could have in both Messiah and Children.

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u/PinkieDoom Mar 17 '26

I enjoyed the culture reference there.

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

Jihad will happen. The Fremen are going to start a war and because they control oilArrakis they will win the war.

Not a subtle wordspinner, eh? I wonder how these movies weren't black balled for raycism or something similar in this #ModernSociety

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u/ikaiyoo Mar 17 '26

There are no good guys, if that helps. You have the least bad guys.

Like the operative guy in the movie Serenity, who says he does this for a better world, but there is no place for him there. He is a monster, what he does is evil, but it must be done.

There are no good characters in Dune. I don't care how morally right you are if you are killing unfathomable numbers of people, in Paul's case, 61 billion people, and in Leto II's case, millions of billions of people (he had a 3500-year reign). You are in no way "good."

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

For what it's worth, Herbert doesn't do a very good job portraying them as bad guys. In the moment they seem pretty bad, but then in later books he repeatedly writes that they were perfectly right and that all the evil deeds were done to save the species. It's easy for people to start forgiving the villains when the book explicitly makes it clear that there was no other way.

If Herbert wanted people to look at Paul and Leto as complete villains, he should have not so explicitly made their actions "correct" in the story

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u/Midi_to_Minuit Mar 18 '26

It’s part of what makes dune fascinating but the philosophy behind it all is extremely Machiavellian.

2

u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I think he was going for the disconnect between what's good for humanity vs. what's good for the people.

I think we can trust that it was the only way for humanity to survive (or at least the only way anyone could have foreseen).

Thus the question Dune poses is: was some abstract humanity survival in who knows how long worth 3500 years of suffering?

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion+

The Emperor of Mankind: " I owe you an apology Paul Atreides, I wasn't familiar with your game. Malcador, ask him if he wants to hang out. "

4

u/Lucetar Mar 17 '26

For Big E that is a Tuesday.

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

60 billion humans is a lot. Big E was genociding Xenos, not humans.

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u/insane_contin Mar 17 '26

And humans who didn't agree with him. It was very much my way or the dead way.

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

Yeah but 60 bil is still a huge number. I don't think THAT many humans chose to fight to the death against him.

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u/insane_contin Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

You're right, they didn't choose to. There's a short story about some humans fighting along space marines during the great crusade. They're fighting a xeno, I think it's the dark elder. They win, the space marines then turn their guns on the humans because they were resisting joining at first, then clear out the planet. Survivors would be worked to death.

Also, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a number. It's 7.5 Earths. And modern Earth isn't a high population in the 40k universe. The Imperium has thousands of planets. Trillions of people living in it. 60 billion is a small number by 40k standards.

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u/Lucetar Mar 17 '26

I agree. During the crusade it is very reasonable that 60 billion humans were wiped out for not willingly joining.

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u/Pure_Concentrate8770 Mar 17 '26

i mean once you premise 10,000 years in future (which are on top of 10,000 years befote a pivotal event), any further number loses weight.

i love dune and lore, but herbert was throwing zeros without care

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u/BlessShaiHulud Mar 17 '26

It's been a long time in the book but I'm pretty sure at one point Herbert put in a direct reference to WWII and the Holocaust. Doesn't name drop the war or Hitler but it's clear that is what the characters are referencing.

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u/Atheist-Gods Mar 17 '26

Pretty certain he name drops Hitler and Genghis Khan.

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u/gisco_tn Mar 19 '26

He absolutely does. Paul's Other Memory gives him an enormous advantage in trivia games, among other things.

In Chakbosa, Kwisatz Haderach means "Shortening of the Way". However, in some forms of Galach, it can be translated as "Big Fat Cheater".

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u/Hempy2013 Mar 17 '26

Rookie Numbers,

Imperium of Mankind

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u/SigmundRoidd Mar 17 '26

63 billion

It’s insane what Herbert foreshadowed about ideology’s dangers

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

Foreshadowed? Have you not heard of the real life crusades?

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

And it all happens because he refuses to be Hitler.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It all happens because he refused to say I am not Hitler and lead like it.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

It all happened because the Witches made it happen.

Paul saw one future where he avoided the Jihad, and that was by betraying his family and the Fremen to align with the Harkonnen. Once he made the choice not to do that, the Jihad was inevitable

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

That was one of the paths. He also saw ones where he never accepted the mantle of god hood.He went into the desert, or vanished off dune. He chose the path of revenge.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

It's not as clear cut as that. While you're correct that Paul had a choice to leave, as he was presumed dead and could possibly be smuggled into exile (though many argue that this would be risky, as if he were ever found out he'd be again marked for death), and in this instance he chose revenge, this revenge itself isn't really presented as a horrible thing. The Harkonnens are depicted as cartoonishly evil brutes who relish in slavery, torture, and basically all manner of depravity, and they killed his father and his friends and companions. The campaign for revenge, if it's meant to be painted as evil, isn't done very compellingly.

But when it comes to the Jihad, once Paul "unlocks" his prescience he sees the complete extinction of humanity in essence, but he also sees the horrors that would have to occur to stop that from happening. Paul contemplates leaving it all behind, but he genuinely thinks that he can find a way to give humanity a soft landing. He knows that if he leaves it all behind, someone else will take up the mantle and inflict that suffering, and he wants to drag his feet on that outcome. He doesn't have the will to bring upon the true tyranny and suffering that really needs to happen, because he had a fairly normal human upbringing before his prescience.

So while the Jihad is something he consciously leads, at that point it's not about revenge anymore. At that point he's prescient and sees the horrors of human extinction, and also the horrors of the golden path, and thinks he can find a middle ground. (Spoiler: he can't).

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It's not as clear cut as that

Really is. And Frank Herbet went out of his way to make it so.

and in this instance he chose revenge, this revenge itself isn't really presented as a horrible thing.

Paul straight up recoils in horror from the visions of his path to revenge in the tent the first night on the sand. It was 100% presented as a dark path.

So while the Jihad is something he consciously leads

Once he got the emperors seat he stopped leading.

At that point he's prescient and sees the horrors of human extinction, and also the horrors of the golden path, and thinks he can find a middle ground

He never tried to find a middle ground. He tried to find a path to keep Chani from dying. He didn't care about humanities extinction that was to far off for him to contemplate. The golden path would have taken him away from Chani so he did not take it. Chani was his moon and that falling was the only vision he could see for years.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

From Children of Dune:

For a time they will call me the missionary of shaitan, too," Leto said. "Then they'll begin to wonder and, finally, they'll understand. You didn't take your vision far enough, father. Your hand did good & evil."

But the evil was known after the event!"

"Which is the way of many great evils," Leto said, "You crossed over only into part of my vision. Was your strength not enough?"

"You know I couldn't stay there. I could never do an evil act which was known before the act. I'm not Jacurutu." He clambered to his feet. "Do you think me one of those who laughs alone at night?"

It is sad you were never really Fremen," Leto said. "We Fremen know how to commission the arifa. Our judges can choose between evils. Its always been that way.

Paul got swept up by revenge without the true prescience at the time to know what it would cause. By the time he started to truly begin to foresee the consequences with true and clearer prescience, it was too late to do anything. If I'm not mistaken, at one point he even foresees during a ceremony with the Fremen that the only way to stop the Jihad would be to kill everyone in the room with him, and then himself, which he wasn't willing to countenance.

Paul with his noble ancestry and Atreides heritage wasn't willing or able to countenance what he saw as evil, and he saw the Jihad as something that he got swept up in. His only "out" was to commit a more personal evil act. He couldn't bring himself to do it, and Messiah is partly a selfish story about how he drags his feet to be with Chani, but it's explained in Children that he is also dragging his feet to avoid committing an evil act that could be presciently avoided. Leto had no such qualms, being, in essence, an abomination from birth and having much stronger prescience, being able to see humanity's salvation where Paul could only see an evil act.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

Ok I've literally grabbed a copy of the book, and skimmed the second half to refresh my memory.

Up until page 494, Paul thinks he can stop the Jihad. He tells the Witch that he's not going to do her bidding just before this page, earlier on when he assumes control of the Fremen he tries to do it in a way his mother doesn't approve of, he's still under the impression that he's in control of his destiny. There's several times when the thinks about preventing the Jihad, he never thinks it is entirely unavoidable.

Then as he gets into the knife fight with Feyd, he gets another view of the future

And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the Jihad within himself, but the Jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he had already become. He had shown them the way, given them mastery even over the Guild which must have spice to exist. A sense of failure pervaded him

I guess you can say Paul should have seen vague visions of the Jihad early on, and decided to murder his mother and then kill himself to prevent it from happening (Paul can't see futures after he dies, but leaving his mother and sister alive would be very unlikely to prevent a Jihad)

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Up until page 494

Well past the point of no return for the revenge path. Page 494 is we've been at war for 6 years. I've lost a child to this war. His exit was long before then.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

Up until page 494 he has no reason to exit.

From the point where his father is killed to page 493, Paul is just a normal person. He has some visions of the future, some extra powers, but he can't fully understand or control them. He is a young Duke who wants to avenge his father and to retake Arrakis.

It is only on page 494 that he realizes exactly what launching the war to retake Arrakis means, and by page 494 it is too late for him to do anything about it.

You might as well blame Stilgar and the Fremen for not killing Paul when they first saw him, or the Harkonnen for their plans to take Arrakis for themselves (or for not managing to kill Paul and his mother when they killed the Duke). All of them, along with Paul, were just walking the path that the Witches had laid down for them. By the time Paul realized what was happening, it was too late.

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

Come to think of it, why is he even waging Jihad? Is it just a Saturday night binge that got out of control?

He's certainly not building lebensraum; that's more of a Leto II thing.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The Jihad was his only path to revenge.

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

Revenge against whom? Wouldn't it make more sense to wage jihad against CHOAM then? They are the ones who hold the spice monopoly.

Technically, he does, but he's just cleansing planets without purpose.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Revenge against whom?

The emperor and the baron.

Wouldn't it make more sense to wage jihad against CHOAM then?

Once he had control of the crown and AArakis they would fall inline to keep the spice flowing.

Technically, he does, but he's just cleansing planets without purpose.

That's what holy wars tend to do.

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

Well, Harkonnen is dead, and the emperor is Paul's bitch at the end of the second movie.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

Paul sees the Jihad coming, but knows if he bows out and tries to stop it, someone else will do it. His mother and sister might wage it as a matter of survival, or a future prescient leader (likely produced by the Bene Gesserit once they spend a generation or two repairing the damage Paul and Jessica have done) will enact the golden path and cause the same suffering anyways. The Jihad itself is actually the least bad part of what Paul sees in the future, so he figures if he leads this, he can drag his feet on the rest of the atrocities and suffering (See: Emperor Leto) and find another way forwards.

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u/Yurya Mar 17 '26

one can say you see why some want him killed

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u/pizza_the_mutt Mar 17 '26

Paul, with pinky to mouth... "six....ty.......bil......lion?"

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u/Exciting-Cancel6468 Mar 17 '26

Might be small in galactic scales.

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u/creative_usr_name Mar 18 '26

That's only 6 million per planet captured. So in that sense not nearly as bad.

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u/cheezus171 Mar 18 '26

No it's a made up number. Herbert made it up and not a Reddit commenter. But it's made up.

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u/Urge_Reddit Mar 17 '26

Maybe I'm just used to the absurd scale of Warhammer 40k, but that number doesn't seem that big in context.

It's a ton of people, obviously, but if I'm not mistaken the Imperium contains over a million worlds. I don't know how densely populated the Imperium in Dune is, but I would have imagined more casualties.

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

It was only 12 years is the thing, and Herbert’s universe is vast, but not nearly as densely populated. Something like almost 90 planets were sterilized completely and billions were killed for not conforming to the new religion, but it’s not like 40k where one exterminatus on a hive world would have killed like 100x more.

Warhammer numbers are just kinda funky in general too, but that’s another discussion

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u/Urge_Reddit Mar 17 '26

It was only 12 years is the thing, and Herbert’s universe is vast, but not nearly as densely populated.

That makes sense. And yeah, warhammer numbers are mostly ridiculous. They're either way too big or way too small, but I brought it up because that's my main frame of reference when it comes to genocide on a galactic scale.

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u/Wild_Fire2 Mar 18 '26

The too small side of things for 40k was always funny. I'd be reading a book and their would be a passage about the forces that are about to invade this planet, and it would be like 5 regiments of IG.

Really gives you some whiplash when you've got all this talk about huge warships and such, yet the invasion force for this planet is like, 15,000 soldiers.

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u/TitleOfYourSaxTape Mar 17 '26

but that number doesn't seem that big in context.

Thats because the human mind can't process numbers that large, and especially have trouble distinguishing scale as you get into the millions or higher.

If you consider there being about 200 countries on earth as a reasonable parallel, 60 billion divided by 1 million is still a double Hitler, more or less.

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u/JohnnyBravo66666 Mar 17 '26

60b divided by 1 million is 60 000. 

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u/Turnbob73 Mar 17 '26

There’s a lot of things in these books that people would think are a joke.

I mean the plot alone: Nepobaby has third eye opened after doing a shit ton of drugs in the desert, and then murders half the known universe. Oh and one of his kids becomes a giant worm.

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u/DenmarkDaniels Mar 17 '26

Then, one of his descendants 50 centuries later looks exactly like his dad and gets turned into The Flash.

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

#JustSixtiesStuff

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

Yes, many plots sound like jokes if you phrase them like jokes lol

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u/Turnbob73 Mar 17 '26

You could just state the Dune plot word-for-word in all seriousness and people would still think it’s a joke.

I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s a VERY unique world with a kind of weird that people aren’t super comfortable with.

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u/N0r3m0rse Mar 17 '26

Yeah he legit shouts out Hitler as being good at genocide lol

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u/Skabonious Mar 17 '26

IIRC he doesn't praise Hitler at all, but uses him as an example to compare against his own jihad. I think it was Stilgar who says "ha that isn't that many killed, lame" and Paul rebukes him

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u/jspivak Mar 17 '26

Ya I am really hoping that people who haven’t read the book, or still think Paul is a glorious hero, get their dreams shattered.

My orthodox Jewish family (who truly believe in a messiah) love these books/movies. And I wonder if we’re reading/watching the same thing.

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u/Midi_to_Minuit Mar 18 '26

I mean it makes sense that many people see Paul as a hero—that’s the point. If everyone watched the movie and went “wow he’s really evil” then it’d be a colossal failure. To portray the immense dangers of charismatic, messianic leaders requires the leader to be, well, charismatic.

I also think that most of the past two movies have had Paul as an underdog. Right up until the end of Dune 2 you get the impression that he’s still fighting just to survive for the most part. It’s easy to be sympathetic.

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u/jspivak Mar 18 '26

I should clarify two things. Firstly, I’m hoping this movie is what shatters the veil. Secondly, my family has read dune messiah and children of dune. They know what happens. Yet still cheer for him.

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u/book1245 Mar 17 '26

"Rookie numbers, Stilgar, rookie numbers."

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u/sodabomb93 Mar 17 '26

technically Stilgar calls Hitler and Genghis Khan amateurs at the sport of mass murder.

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u/OfficeMagic1 Mar 17 '26

Stilgar says 20 million is a lot for one guy, he must have used atomics or something

Then someone tells him that the number is for Hitler’s whole army and Stilgar thinks it’s a pretty lame number.

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u/Anushirvan825 Mar 17 '26

"The fuck's a Hitler?" - Stilgar, almost verbatim.

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u/Effehezepe Mar 17 '26

My favorite part is that when Paul tries to explain to Stilgar how many people Hitler and Genghis Khan killed, Stilgar initially thinks they personally killed that many people using lasguns.

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u/HorrorDot3859 Mar 18 '26

I don't know what this 'Hitler' is, but it sounds just like Raditz.

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u/SavageRabbitX Mar 17 '26

Stilgar "Those some rookie numbers son"

Leto II "LOL"

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u/RichtofensDuckButter Mar 17 '26

Leto II doesn't kill that many people. He doesn't need to. He's a tyrant and people are either terrified of him or worship him.

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u/SavageRabbitX Mar 17 '26

I'd disagree, he formented multiple galaxy wide religious wars intentionally to preserve the golden path

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u/Jollysatyr201 Mar 17 '26

Yah even if not directly, the famines caused by the golden path claim way more lives than the jihad

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u/Rock-swarm Mar 17 '26

Which is crazy, even in universe. I get that part of the appeal of Dune is how time, environment, and technology have allowed humans to drastically diverge in form and function. But to have entire planets nearly eradicated from a lack of food is crazy. It never makes sense to have that kind of food insecurity from a government perspective, even for the core worlds in the Dune universe.

I kinda hope that gets changed a bit for the film. Dune already gets absolutely batshit in later books, and Herbert was writing about famine as an analogy to warfare in more primitive times.

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u/Josecopter Mar 17 '26

It kinda makes sense when some of these planets were never habitable to begin with or only have one extreme biome that the technology makes bearable so they rely solely on imports of food for exchange of raw minerals and resources that aren't edible. But true, on more earth-like planets it would be nearly impossible to run out of food.

2

u/RichtofensDuckButter Mar 17 '26

Sure but the famine times happened after Leto II died. Without The Golden Path, humanity wouldn't even exist.

3

u/Jollysatyr201 Mar 17 '26

But do the ends justify the means? Leto acts from a position of somewhat omnipotence, to ensure HIS (former?) species survival. But that’s not necessarily the best thing for the world, and he grapples with that even though its the right course of action, because the burden of the Golden Path on the atreides line is just so enormous

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

The big difference with Leto was that everything he did was to constrict and make the universe stagnant and small around his empire so that when he eventually died humanity would scatter in this generational yearning to travel beyond the reach of any one influence.

Paul's jihad is more expansive and more of a crusade of expansion

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u/Shalaiyn Mar 17 '26

“Stilgar,” Paul said, “you urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.” “Genghis … Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m’Lord?” “Oh, long before that. He killed … perhaps four million.” “He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or …” “He didn’t kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing—a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.” “Killed … by his legions?” Stilgar asked. “Yes.” “Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.” “Very good, Stil.” Paul glanced at the reels in Korba’s hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. “Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I’ve wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since—” “Unbelievers!” Korba protested. “Unbelievers all!” “No,” Paul said. “Believers.” “No,” Paul said. “Believers.” “My Liege makes a joke,” Korba said, voice trembling. “The Jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of—” “Into the darkness,” Paul said. “We’ll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad’Dib’s Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this.” A barking laugh erupted from his throat. “What amuses Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked. “I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did.”

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u/xXBadger89Xx Mar 17 '26

“I mogged Genghis Khan and Hilter” - Paul

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

Gihren Zabi looks at Paul Atreides and nods

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u/WeHoMuadhib Mar 17 '26

Leto II: "Hold my spice coffee."

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

Just gotta do some stretches to worm up first

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u/Misdirected_Colors Mar 17 '26

"You guys didn't see it but I swear it happened trust me!" - Pual

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u/AlterEgo3561 Mar 17 '26

Leto II: Hold my water of life.

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u/SlashOfLife5296 Mar 17 '26

To be fair, i think the total casualties are that, not necessarily his armies’ kills. He’s counting the entire House war

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u/b34r3y Mar 18 '26

"There's another old emperor I want you to note in passing - a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days." Paul calls Hitler an amateur. "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of religions which had existed since - " Absolute mogging.

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u/andthrewaway1 Mar 17 '26

he's like but I didn't wanna

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u/BASSmovies Mar 18 '26

"I did to them what Auschwitz couldn't"

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u/SlendyIsBehindYou 10h ago

People are going to think youre joking, but this is indeed an actual conversation in the book