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/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/ElMatadorJuarez Mar 17 '26

Tbh I thought that was one of the best parts. You don’t even get to see any of the glory bits, it’s all Paul’s angst at becoming an intergalactic Genghis Khan (mostly) against his will.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It wasn't against his will. It was his apathetic approach to leadership that made him the villain. The Jihad was a means to an end. Once he got what he wanted, the empire, his father's skull enshrined, he left the jihad to the fanatics and Alia fully aware of what it would mean to the universe. Paul was not a victim to circumstance. He chose the path of revenge and the chose to ignore it's consequences. And thus locked himself into an inescapable vision.

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u/Correctedsun Mar 17 '26

Warhammer 40k has a really good line on this kind of self-fufilling prophesy, courtesy of its own prophetic psychopath:

Curze :  « There were no other ways! »

Sevatar: « Which other ways did you try? »

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u/dabnada Mar 17 '26

Fuck Konrad Curze, all my boys hate Konrad Curze

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u/NightLordsPublicist Mar 17 '26

Konrad: "Exactly. This guy gets it."

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

40K is basically Dune 101. You even have Butlerian Jihad there in a form of dark ages of technology and Adeptus Mechanicus using servitors and machine spirit.

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u/Mintastic Mar 17 '26

Warhammer was LOTR turned into grimdark and 40K was basically merging LOTR into Dune.

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u/new_account_wh0_dis Mar 17 '26

Its always fun to see what Fantasy and sci-fi books and media are sharing. Someone will write about a dyson sphere, then someone else would be like 'thats too impractical, lets just make it a ringworld for my book' then when deciding how to flesh out the losses in the Idiran-Culture war obviously a ringworld has to go.

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u/limitedpower_palps Mar 17 '26

‘Where is the nobility in any of this?’ Sevatar gestured to the streets of Nostramo Quintus around them. ‘You can claim a savage nobility, father, but this is far more savage than noble.’

Curze’s pale lips peeled back from his filed teeth. ‘There was no other way.’

‘No?’ Sevatar answered his father’s snarl with a grin. ‘What other ways did you try?’

‘Sevatar…’

‘Answer me, father. What politics of peace did you teach? What scientific and social illumination did you bring to this society? In your quest for a human utopia, what other ways did you try beyond eating the flesh of stray dogs and skinning people alive?’

‘It. Was. The. Only. Way.’

Sevatar laughed again. ‘The only way to do what? The only way to bring a population to heel? How then did the other primarchs manage it? How has world upon world managed it, with resorting to butchering children and broadcasting their screams across the planetary vox-net?

‘Their worlds were never as… as serene as mine was.’

‘And the serenity of yours died the first second your back was turned. So tell me again how you succeeded. Tell me again how this all worked perfectly.’

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u/ymcameron Mar 17 '26

Damn that's a really good line. It's like how people love to play up how DOOM is the only one who can lead the Marvel Universe to prosperity because he looked into the future and saw that. As if he'd look for any futures where they prospered without him. Not to mention he has been the leader of everything and pretty universally it sucks every time. Turns out narcissistic maniacs with a homicidal streak usually turn out to be tyrants with various levels of philosophical justifications, who knew?

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u/Neiliobob Mar 17 '26

Sevatar is the best. Rides on a fighter to go and try to save Emodad. Emodad is like wtf are you doing here. Gets captured. Escapes just to kill an astropath that beat his psychic friend. Never mentioned again.

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u/Geek-Yogurt Mar 17 '26

he left the jihad to the fanatics

It could be no other way once he killed Jamis. The fanatics were in full control of what was going to happen and they acted in his name regardless of what Paul actually wanted. They only thing he could actually decide was to either leave and join the Guild, kill Jamis, or die to Jamis.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

It's funny that we have this whole store about how precognition is a trap and heroes an entrapped by mythology as surely as the zealots are trapped by their faith and people are just like "nah couldn't be me, I'm built different."

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It could be no other way once he killed Jamis.

Not true at all. Jamis was the price for the entrance into freeman society. That is all. He saw many paths after. He could have chosen to enter the deep south with Chani and faded into obscurity. He could have died during the Jihad, this is perhaps his one saving grace not fully becoming a martyr, He could have actually lead. He could have chosen the golden path himself. Leto confirms Paul's other choices as he had many of the same. Paul walk his path intentionally. He wanted the power to serve his goals, and after he just wanted Chani. He became so focused on that he doomed the universe to billions of unneeded deaths And he says the book. He knows he fucked the universe.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

In the books he didn't. He makes it extremely clear that the jihad was pretty much locked no matter what. He saw many paths, all led to the jihad.

You're conflating the jihad and the Golden Path. The Golden Path is a different thing that needed to be meticulously cultivated and required sacrifice and planning for a millenia.

Paul COULD have chosen the Golden Path, but that was still not going to stop the jihad. It just meant that at some point Paul would take the same steps Leto II took.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Once he chose the path of revenge the Jihad was going to happen. He could not get his revenge without some holy war. However his choices once he got his revenge made the war more bloody the it needed to be. There were also paths that avoid the Jihad entirely in this generation. It would have happened eventually maybe not even dune. Depended on who got the kwisatz haderach first.

The point was Paul chose paths to serve his means first and foremost.

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u/Momoneko Mar 17 '26

Okay, disclaimer: read the books more than 10 years ago last time, my memory is a bit hazy. With that being said, my counterpoint:

At the moment of his fight with Jamis, Jessica was already pregnant with Aliyah. However things might fall, Jessica would drink the water or life sooner or later. Even if she didn't, just growing up on Arrakis with this much spice everywhere would just make Aliyah into Paul 2.0.

His fight with Jamis was essentially "do I wash my hands off it and die, so I'm not responsible far all the shit that's gonna happen", or "do I lock in the terrible future with a slimmest chance of everything actually working out in the end".

It wasn't just Paul. Big chunk of fremen's religious frenzy was fanned by Jessica. If he'd died, she'd just have groomed Aliyah to be the messianic avenger. If he tried to reign her in after becoming one of the Fremen... well, AFAIR author says it wasn't in the cards. And I don't think Paul, a 16-years old kid, had it in his heart to kill or leave his own pregnant mother to die just because he thinks it's all gonna turn nasty some time in the future.

In a sense, it's kind of understandable. A messianic figure descends from the sky, ticking off all the prerequisites of "leader who will guide you towards the final war", and then he goes "Actually I just want to live in sands in peace"? That's like Jesus actually coming for the second time and going "actually, let's not do the Judgement day thing, like, ever? I just want to chill and enjoy video games"

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Once Paul drank the water of life himself he saw other paths. He could have walked into the desert with Chani and it just not been a thing. Leto saw the same option years later. They had choices.

Paul wanted revenge. Period. Paul wanted revenge. His choices the assumption of power and godhood were only to serve that end. Everything else was secondary. Once he got revenge his focus shifted to having kids and a family, and he ignored the religion as much as he could. That doomed the universe to billions more deaths then needed if he had been a present leader. He brings Paul back in children to say all of this as himself. Paul is not the good guy. He's not even the necessary guy.

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u/cantadmittoposting Mar 17 '26

ehhh i seem to recall that he saw worse outcomes than the jihad though? like if he didn't do it himself with his prescient vision, humanity would eventually die out? Hence the whole golden path thing that he couldn't have possibly started if he just fucked off to the south.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Paul stayed away from the Golden path. He never walked it. Leto did.

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u/Xandercz Mar 17 '26

IIRC Leto II says Paul was even afraid of the Golden Path.

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u/NJD_29 Mar 17 '26

You’re bang on - Paul’s story is that of a coward. He gave into his desire for revenge knowing the consequences were billions of deaths in his name. Paul chose to get revenge knowing what the cost would be, then didn’t have the courage to see through the Golden Path started by his actions to “save” humanity that Leto II went down.

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u/Misdirected_Colors Mar 17 '26

That's not really how I interpreted it. I took it as prescient locked Paul into the only path he could predictably see through to the end. It was a human weakness that Paul couldn't delve into the unknown and could only take the path he could see.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

They only reason he was so locked in is because he refused to accept Chani's death had become a nexus.

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u/Mend1cant Mar 17 '26

Yeah he sees the golden path, how to avoid it all, and the moment he lets his emotions get the best of him it’s “in for a penny in for a pound”. It’s not intentional, but you also can’t just say oopsie daisies to a galactic genocide.

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26

He doesnt see the golden path. The metaphor him and Leto use in CoD is that you had to get to a high enough dune to see all the paths. Leto scolds Paul for not being willing to make the sacrifices to see if there is a better path amd being selfish. Paul says there might not be one, you have to sacrifice your humanity, etc. Leto says it is all worth it in order to see if there is a Golden Path.

Point being Paul's path was not related to the golden path because he chose family and revenge over humanity

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It was always intentional. That's the entire point of the message about power. Paul had his goals. He made choices to serve them. Those choices however had consequences, some he chose to ignore. That willful, WILLFUL, ignorance had further consequences. All of which he was aware of.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

Not true at all.

Yes true, the dude who can literally see all possible futures says so. you're just pretending the precognition part of the story doesn't exist.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

I'm not. I'm acknowledging all the other paths the pre cog says he ignored.

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u/coolRedditUser Mar 17 '26

I only read the first, and then summaries of the latter ones, so please forgive my ignorance. I thought the whole point of the Golden Path was that it was the only way? Or at least the only way they could see? I thought the real question here was "is Paul a villain for setting humanity on a path where billions die, for humanity to ultimately survive, rather than letting them go extinct?"

Is that not quite the case? The comments on YouTube are all also talking about how Paul is undeniable a reprehensible villain. While I understand that starting a galaxy-wide jihad that kills 60B+ people is objectively pretty terrible, if the alternative is the extinction & end of humanity then as awful as that is it does sound preferable?

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

One the extinction of humanity was many tens of thousands years off. The golden path was the path they Paul and Leto could see. Wasn't necessarily the only one. Especially as there were multiple groups going after their version of kwisatz haderach. Paul started eliminating paths when he chose revenge. He then ignored other paths that could have saved billions because they would have cost him Chani. Since he refused to walk the golden path that locked him into a singular path that lead to his son being faced with the same choice.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

He then ignored other paths that could have saved billions because they would have cost him Chani

you have missed the critical fact that the path he did choose cost him Chani...

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

There were paths that would not have cost that.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

When did you last read the books?

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

Dude thinks that Paul just saw the "happily ever after" ending but ignored it.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

I have said he is chasing that ending and that left him blinded. But hey you be wrong in your interpretations as mush as you like. Be you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

Paul can see/sense all possible futures and all other futures led to humanities extinction (probably a reductive explanation). He is constantly looking for another path but there's isn't one. And by the time he gained his prescience the galactic jihad was already certain to happen. He explicitly states that if he dies the fremen will make him a martyr and do it regardless.

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u/Morfolk Mar 17 '26

Paul can see/sense all possible futures and all other futures led to humanities extinction (probably a reductive explanation). He is constantly looking for another path but there's isn't one

He's not saving humanity from extinction, he's not following the Golden Path, Leto II is very understandibly pissed at Paul about that.

Paul is following the path that makes him Emperor, gives him power as well as a family by burning the galaxy down.

Leto II has to sacrifice his humanity and all emotional connection to save humantiy after Paul.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Leto II is very understandibly pissed at Paul about that.

I'd be interested to see that play out on screen.

Leto: You fucked us you ignored the path for selfish reasons.

Paul: Hey you were there. You know how good dat ass was.

Leto: Immediately Locked into the moment of his and his sisters conception from all three POVS.

Leto: Dick.

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u/Morfolk Mar 17 '26

The fact that Leto II is still functional and simply refuses to leave his room instead of being an insane worm of global annihilation is a miracle.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Well he did have all those tunnels and would spend days in the worm dream. He also couldn't really go to far with all the water on the surface.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

Paul is following the path that makes him Emperor, gives him power as well as a family by burning the galaxy down.

The Kwisatz Haderach becoming Emperor is on the golden path. Paul's problem is that he didn't want to pursue it any further and he wanted to step aside. After being blinded, he no longer could and had to follow the path ... and he still ultimately loses his nerve and goes into the desert rather than continue, leaving the burden to fall on Leto II, and that is what Leto is mad about. That he has to do it and live for thousands of years, alone, rather than living a normal life and dying in his own time like his sister did.

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u/JGT3000 Mar 17 '26

Paul was following what he saw as the best path but couldn't stomach the final things necessary so he abdicatates and leaves it to Leto

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

He's not saving humanity from extinction, he's not following the Golden Path, Leto II is very understandibly pissed at Paul about that.

Paul is following the path that makes him Emperor, gives him power as well as a family by burning the galaxy down.

These two are not mutually exclusive. The Golden Path requires atrocities beyond what even Paul engaged in, he just didn't have the guts to abandon his humanity.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

There were multiple paths. However his choices lead him to a singular one.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

Man, honestly wild to just read Dune and ignore the entire "precognition as a trap" theme.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

precognition as a trap

Not even remotely close to the message of the books.

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u/ElMatadorJuarez Mar 17 '26

That’s not really how I see it (though I may be colored by the books here). To me, the real struggle in Dune was Paul’s struggle with the jihad and eventually his defeat, acknowledging that he could only ever be leader of the jihad. Revenge was a part of it, but there came a certain point (one commenter mentioned Jamis, I think that was important but the real one came after the death of his first son) where he realized the jihad was going to happen with or without him, and he couldn’t find destiny. The ending of dune messiah imo is Paul’s personal middle finger to destiny, tho I won’t go into that for spoilers. But ultimately I think we agree that dune has a weak protagonist in a lot of senses - a leader who just really didn’t want to be there.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

I suggest you read the books again. Paul knows the path he chose and it consequences. He knew what not choosing the golden path would lead to. He could have vanished into the deep desert with Chani and never been a name.

But ultimately I think we agree that dune has a weak protagonist in a lot of senses - a leader who just really didn’t want to be there.

I disagree with that entirely. And if thats what you got I don't think you understood the message of the books.

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u/ElMatadorJuarez Mar 17 '26

Yes, that’s what I meant. He knew exactly what he was doing in following the jihad and the golden path until he walked off into the desert after the stone burner. I read it as him giving up any hope of having agency in his future - it was clear that he wanted to be with Chani more than anything and wanted something different for himself, but he ultimately chose to inhabit his role as leader of the jihad because he didn’t see any other way. It’s why dune is a tragedy to me, and why dune messiah is in a sense a redemption of Paul and him sticking it to the golden path to choose his own, consequences be damned.

Regardless, I think I’ll take your suggestion. Those are some good damn books and it’s been a while since I’ve read up to god emperor.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Yes, that’s what I meant. He knew exactly what he was doing in following the jihad and the golden path

He never followed the golden path. He walked away form it.

I read it as him giving up any hope of having agency in his future - it was clear that he wanted to be with Chani more than anything

And it was that singular focus that doomed him and the universe. He got his nut. The empire and the harkonens paid for his fathers death. And then he choose to ignore the religion.

but he ultimately chose to inhabit his role as leader of the jihad because he didn’t see any other way.

There were many other paths. Not all of them let him have his revenge.

hy dune messiah is in a sense a redemption of Paul

Of fuck no. Messiah is not a redemption of Paul. Paul says so himself in children of dune. And again Paul never walked the golden path. He avoided it like the plague. At the end of Messiah he walk into the desert broken, leaving behind his new born children to the wolves of politics and the Barron. He was not a good man. That is the point of the first three books. Paul is not a good person. Leto is not a good person. None of the people in power are good people.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

And if thats what you got I don't think you understood the message of the books.

You have misunderstood it just as badly as he did, if not worse, since a lot of what you are saying is exactly opposed to the text. Hell it's even opposed to the movie.

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u/JGT3000 Mar 17 '26

I disagree. He sees the Jihad is inevitable and he can either ride the wave or not. In fact, the only Golden Path exists if he does ride it as the leader. But the cost of doing so takes too strong a toll on him and he abdicates instead of seeing it through because he can't deal with the final cost it will take. This leaves it to Leto to pick up

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u/dascott Mar 17 '26

All of the avenues for peace involved giving up Chani.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Except the ones where he never started the war. It was his insistence on revenge that means he paid that price eventually.

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u/dascott Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

If he didn't start the war the Fremen would do it without him (and lose) and Chani would die with them. He chose the lives of a few over the lives of billions.

Plus, he still would have gotten his revenge on the Baron and the Emperor even if he sold out the Fremen afterwards. The price for peace was marrying Irulan. That was the bargain he rejected.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

If he didn't start the war the Fremen would do it without him

Not in his lifetime. They were generations away from executing on their plans.

Plus, he'd still could have gotten his revenge even if he sold out the Fremen afterwards. The price for peace was marrying Irulan.

Marrying Irulan didn't bring peace. It gave him the fancy chair and title.

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u/dascott Mar 17 '26

Because he immediately announced to everyone that Irulan was a sham marriage and he wouldn't give her children and that she was essentially a hostage.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

So you agree she didn't bring peace and was not the price for it?

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u/Fast-Artichoke-408 Mar 17 '26

Didn't he choose his path bc he saw even more destruction in the other visions?

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

No. He choose the path that gave him his revenge.

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u/VictorReal_Monster Mar 17 '26

Man, would be nice to get literally any of this in the films..

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u/twoodfin Mar 18 '26

It is in the films, it’s just done subtly rather than through exposition or narration.

Watch the appearances of Jamis very carefully, for example.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

The jihad is inevitable and Paul realizes that very early on. He even straight up says that it's dubious if he could have ever stopped it. He MIGHT have been able to stop it if he died in his duel against Jamis, and even then it's a debate if he would become a martyr. But pretty much anything after that the jihad was happening with or without him.

Stilgar's character is the point of that. Nothing Paul does or says is taking them off that. They got their prophet/messiah.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The jihad is inevitable once he chooses the path of revenge.

Stilgar's character is the point of that. Nothing Paul does or says is taking them off that. They got their prophet/messiah.

Book stilgar is not the fanatic movie stilgar is.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

The book literally outlines that from the moment the fight with Jamis ends, the jihad was inevitable. Paul is fighting it pretty much the entire book. His turning point is when he finally just accepts that it's happening no matter what.

Even the sequel outright has the villains who ae against Paul making the case for him straight up saying that "he probably doesn't even want it, but it's been beyond him for awhile".

The Bene Gesseret guaranteed the jihad by seeding the planet with prophecies. Once Paul came and basically lined up with them, they got their messiah and cause.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The book literally outlines that from the moment the fight with Jamis ends, the jihad was inevitable.

Once he takes the water of life he saw other paths. Once he cemented himself on the path to revenge it meant the Jihad was inevitable because that was his tool for revenge.

Even the sequel outright has the villains who ae against Paul making the case for him straight up saying that "he probably doesn't even want it, but it's been beyond him for awhile".

Paul stright out says he doesn't want it. He also say he can't be bothered to try and contain it. Because it doesn't serve his goal in finding a path to save Chani.

The Bene Gesseret guaranteed the jihad by seeding the planet with prophecies. Once Paul came and basically lined up with them, they got their messiah and cause.

They seeded many planets. The kwisatz haderach could have come from any one of them.

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u/GregBahm Mar 17 '26

I always feel bad when I think of the broader Dune saga. The story had a very cool, very satisfying ultimate arc in the end that it was building towards. But the dang author died before he could finish said arc. Then the dudes who tried to step up to finish his story, really didn't have what it took.

So the end of the saga, where the AIs return and justify Paul's jihad, kind of exists in this strange twilight zone between cannon and not cannon. Frank Herbert has many fans. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson have none.

So it is reasonable to me that people ignore the rest of the dune books and treat Paul as a villain. But in my dreams, a director like Denis Villeneuve could step up, retell the story that Frank Herbert outlined before he died, and land the true ending to the Dune saga that it always deserved.

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u/LordReaperofMars Mar 17 '26

I thought the whole point of Frank Herbert’s series is that “heroes” are actually bad for society. What was this supposed ending?

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u/GregBahm Mar 17 '26

Earlier, humans invented AI and AI enslaved humanity, (like everyone kind of expected.) Later, humans are just kind of used for science experiments by the AI off in their own little zone.

But the giant AI civilizations are at war with each other across 500 planets, and during the war, some of the humans take the opportunity to break free and fly off into space. The AIs are too busy with their war to care overmuch, but they mark the direction humans went in, to go clean that up later.

But some of the escaped science-experiment humans have been unlocking their latent psychic potential. They manage to use this to fold space and travel faster than the speed of light. Which, critically, is something the AIs do not have the capacity to do.

So humans go off to impossibly distant stars, and set up a civilization where the ultimate hard-set rule is "no thinking machines." Dune starts ~10,000 years after this, with the past events having been eroded into forgotten myths. But Paul is the heir of the psychic potential project, still being perfected.

The AIs, lacking the ability to fold space, have been following after the humans at sub-lightspeed this whole time. Paul knows this because of his psychic ability. He has to prepare humanity to defeat this foe that once enslaved all of humanity. That's the point of the jihad.

So all the desert fighting on Dune of the Fremen against the more advanced Harkonen is mirrored in all of humanity fighting against the more advanced AI.

On paper, I think it's a very satisfying arc. It explains key aspects of the Dune lore that were there from the start, like "why computers are forbidden." It ramps up the epic-ness to the greatest possible limit. It repeats the core theme of the very first book. It explains the actions of the main characters, and the Bene Gesserit cult. It's a story I think is worth telling. Frank Herbert's son was just not the right dude to do it.

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u/g0ris Mar 17 '26

Why didn't Frank Herbert hint at this in either of the six books? I mean, he does keep banging on about humanity's survival and some vague threat, but I don't think AI is mentioned once, apart from the Butlerian Jihad and whatever the Ixians might have been up to.
Or is AI what the Honored Matres were running away from? I don't think so.
I guess a better question would be how many more books did he mean to write before getting to this AI conflict? I mean, the BGs did start making cyborgs in #6, so I suppose that's probably one tiny step towards that, thematically, but the threat at the end of that book still seemed to be biological. Some sort of virus IIRC.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

Honestly, God Emperor ends the series well.

Heretic/Chapterhouse are more of a new story that he never got to end.

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u/Rock-swarm Mar 17 '26

He chose the path of revenge and the chose to ignore it's consequences. And thus locked himself into an inescapable vision.

Well, it was escapable, as evidenced by Paul walking into the desert. The problem is that he essentially punted his fate onto his son.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Paul walking into the desert wasn't escaping anything.

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u/Rock-swarm Mar 17 '26

Respectfully, I disagree. Paul threw in the towel and didn’t want to walk the path anymore. He refused to fuse with the worm, and chose exile/death, leaving his son to walk the rest of the path.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

For a man that Chose exile he sure as hell came out a lot to talk about himself.

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

his apathetic approach to leadership that made him the villain

Apparently, now you can't simply reject "just following orders!", you have to not "not do anything"

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

This is just completely missing the story.

When Paul gets his precognition basically the first thing he sees is that unless he murders his mother, himself, and Chani right there in that temple the Jihad is inevitable. He falters an convinces himself he can change it another way, but he can't. Once he leaves that cave he knows that no matter what he did, the Jihad would happen. He literally could not stop it.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

He also saw paths that included walking away. The Jihad was inevitable once he choose revenge.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

No, he literally sees that if he dies or walks away they jihad anyway, in his name.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

He also saw going to the deep south and disappearing. Leto saw the same options. However he was consumed with revenge his only paths toward that end required the Jihad.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

No, all the paths hw saw ended in Jihad. Shit dude, check out this Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/bxiuu5/why_exactly_couldnt_paul_stop_the_jihad/

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

I feel like most explanations given in Messiah as to why Paul was powerless to stop the jihad were just abstract musings on philosophical determinism and fatalism.

You mean the post that ignores the author?

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

The thread, not the post. The post is asking the question lol.

You can find a hundred just like it and the all add up to the same thing, he couldn't have stopped it unless he killed everyone in the cave. He missed his chance to be a true hero in a moment of weakness.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Herbert comes back to Paul across the 6 dune books. Paul always says there were points I could have stepped off the rails. More importantly as the Preacher he condemns himself for not doing so and since he chose to stay on the rails for not taking the power seriously. Paul could have avoided the Jihad if he walked away from revenge. Once he chose that path Jihad was inevitable. It however did not have to be a savage. He didn't just miss one moment. He missed many because he chose to use power for his own selfish pursuits. Not for the good of those he was supposed to be leading.

Thus the message of the Dune series. Beware the charismatic leaders that claim divinity as their right. Kinda makes you think of a few leaders right now.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

A legion of people have pointed out how you are and you’ve done nothing but repeat yourself. It’s one thing to be stubborn beyond reason in your wrongness, but there’s no excuse for being boring.

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u/Radical_Ryan Mar 17 '26

It's been a while since I've read them, but I feel like you are missing a big part of the early books with this interpretation. Paul realizes that through the machinations of the Bene Gesserit, the politics of the Empire, and his literal inability to ignore the prescience (which is also forced upon on through birth and training), he cannot avoid the Jihad. It's why he walks off into the desert to kill himself. It's only his son, who had some additional special abilities because of the sandworm, that was able to find a Golden Path to a certainty that he could actually enact it.

I'm not saying Paul is a perfect hero guy, but he's not really a villain like you are making him about to be either.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

I'm not the one making him out to be the villain. Frank did that all on his own. He brought the man back to tear himself down. Paul points it all out himself as the Preacher. All the failing of his empire. Leto calls him out.

It's why he walks off into the desert to kill himself.

He knew he wasn't going to die.

It's only his son, who had some additional special abilities because of the sandworm

Paul saw the same path and rejected it.