is dune... anarchism ? [rich in spoilers]
Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:08 pm
like... hear me out: small recap, dune is about an aristocratic kid in a feudalistic society who is born into power, loses power as a result of an attack by his enemies, and then proceeds to accrue more and more power, at least at first, in order to survive and regain his former position and status: as a result of this, combined with various happenstances, he is so wildly successful that he becomes, quite literally, hitler times a million. it's not even funny, the atreides jihad that follows his big triumph at the end of the book (or second movie) ends up being the single biggest mass death even in the universe: this is all pretty much in the text. but like, I'm pretty sure it's also in the text that paul really didn't have a lot of a choice: sure, dune is explicitly about superhumanly competent people -mentats, psychic powers, its all framed as like this mind-enhancing techniques is what humanity has been sinking all of its technology points since at least the butlerian jihan, but the guy's not immortal: a knife to the gut -or no water in the desert- and he's dead, just like anyone else: at first, the prophecy is a necessity to get the fremen to take them in (what's the alternative, live in the desert alone? na he'd die), sure, he could have not used it out of, you know, wouldn't you make some moral allowances if the alternative is *death*, and plus, he doesn't fully grasp the future yet. then, challenging the emperor is basically his only choice once his existence becomes known to the wider empire. and by then, it is explicit in the text that he -magically prescient by now- estimates he can't stop it by now. it follows from this that his only other choice -if we trust his account of events, which is what we mostly get in the text- would have been to sacrifice his life in the effort to stop this dire event that would come to pass. the text doesn't explictly put it like this, but it's pretty strongly implied that he considers doing so, but elects not to. so, it's not a stretch to say that throughout the story *power itself*, the dynamics of it, its own shape and the way it bends and pushes and blabla as different powerful entities, the bene gesserit, the houses, whatever) is what causes the galactic genocide.
because it's not "fantasy" in the traditional sense we tend not to look at it as a morality tale, cause scifi is not supposed to be about that (except it very, very, veeery often is), it's easy not to: but if we look at it from the perspective of it being a tale about good and evil (and dune, as a work, certainly invites us to do so from time to time) then the point of it is that just by getting enough power you cause evil. that, power, itself, is evil. that's pretty breadpilled, innit ?
because it's not "fantasy" in the traditional sense we tend not to look at it as a morality tale, cause scifi is not supposed to be about that (except it very, very, veeery often is), it's easy not to: but if we look at it from the perspective of it being a tale about good and evil (and dune, as a work, certainly invites us to do so from time to time) then the point of it is that just by getting enough power you cause evil. that, power, itself, is evil. that's pretty breadpilled, innit ?