underrated comment

*_"Who me? Nah, I'm just a worm."_*

I have never asked that question.

But I have figured out the question if I put on weight would you still love me, the answer is no, they don’t. Thank goodness. Because otherwise I put this weight on for nothing.

​​@@kerrynicholls6683 Of course men still love their girlfriend/wives when they get fat, but they will be less sexually attracted to them depending on how much weight they gain.

PICKLERICK!!!!

😂

All hail the god worm.

I have been laughing the whole day

Or he could have just gone to group therapy and got help from fellow spice addicts getting over delusional dreams. 🤔😎

I think your take is the closest to what Herbert meant, but I also think it's actually even more subtle than that: the Empire under Leto is not at all described like a brutal dictatorship, on the contrary, it's described as very prosperous, healthy and peaceful. In a sense, his goal was to make people "sick of peace", because the Pax Romana/Americana that he imposed, although "materially" fulfilling, was too "spiritually" stifling. The Golden Path can then be understood as "driving out the instinct for laziness and security out of mankind, by giving too much of it". This is in the end what enables prescience-cloaking "genes"; Siona is basically the incarnation of the opposite of this peace, this stagnation: a truly unpredictable instinct for adaptation, evolution, and self-renewal. Leto sacrificed his own humanity to bring the rest of humanity both salvation and enlightenment; and did so by pushing mankind to revolt against its own instinctive standard of "happiness". It's one of the most tragic and most beautiful moral choices ever put forward in literature.

He also wanted humanity not to be dependant on a mono dominant form of government and an end to a feudalistic society as it was clearly socially and economically stagnant and self destructive due to it's addiction to melange

"I must make myself impossible to assassinate!" *turns himself into a creature with a deadly allergy to water*

@@RelativelyBest Not an issue if nobody knows it. And Leto probably wanted to retain a way for his life to eventually end.

Spoilers 💀

Try sonic lore

​@@docsonic2381how TF does a hedgehog go from fighting a fat mad scientist to fighting literally Eldritch abominations

I 've read all the books and still I have so many questions...but what I did learn,is that this is the BEST sci-fi saga.

Elden ring might have competition with that.

Even then he punished them to live in squalor as Museum Fremen. Everything he did was the harshest lesson possible.

@@brianstiles1701 It's still interesting to examine how Fremen history might have worked out without Paul and Leto II. Their first Lisan Al'Gaib (Pardot Kynes) essentially doomed their culture, a process which Paul only hastened. Leto II was the only one of these who was actually part Fremen, and he did what he could to preserve that culture. Not in the Museum Fremen necessarily, but in the mentality necessary for survival among the harshest of circumstances. Without Leto II, Sheeana would never have existed. And I don't mean genetically, but as a personality.

Yes, but also I believe that he also very specifically made sure that every remaining sandworm was descended from the sandtrout that had fused with him and thus had a 'pearl of awareness' aka tiny part of Leto's consciousness within each of them - which meant that every remaining sandworm was now PRESCIENT. This meant that when Arrakis was all but destroyed, some/many/all??? of the worms knew to hibernate deep beneath the surface until such a time as the planet was habitable for them again. At least, that's MY take.

The true worms are all extinct. After Leto falls into the river and dies he is also the last worm to die as well. However it is said that there were other worms taken off Arakis with other humans during the scattering, so actually the worms aren't technically extinct

Can you imagine the powerful spice addicts harvesting the lingering spice from other spice addicts to sustain themselves? Sounds bad, but that was one of the futures he saw!

I found it strange that paul tried to talk leto out of saving the human race and that people debate whether leto should have saved the world. It reminds me of the last of us game, where the point is to let the human race die and not sacrifice, for we aren't worth it, at least that is the point I got from it.

@@Tuberiascaesar well remember it was to stop the possibility of the human extinction. The human extinction wasn't guaranteed. Paul probably didn't want his son to pay the price to increase humanities chances and instead have a life for himself. The big difference between the two is that Paul had to grow into being what he is while Leto was born aware

Yes, I agree with you. I think many people, were this a nonfiction book series, would make the same call.

Paul saw the Worm and refused it. By doing so, he doomed his own son to a fate he was too cowardly to embrace. Remember that Leto had all of Pauls memories even before he was born, so he remembers Pauls visions and his reasons for not following them.

Remember that Nala had an Ixian device in her head and Leto II could speak to her. Did he himself have Nala take the shot causing his death? Up to the reader. There's alot of evidence he ###### himself

I concur. The golden path seems to have the same outcome hence when Paul told his mom his reasons for eliminating whole religions and tribes during the jihad was for humanity to understand that it could not be held under any “tyrant” ever again. In comparison when the god emperor voiced why a “tyrant” was necessary. Paul just got humanly overwhelmed by the mess of it all. Whereas Leto II was born harnessing the mess of it all. Paul had a route to the golden path when he failed his son was chosen to resume another route.

Oh, I like this. There is so much negativity surrounding stagnation in our everyday lives. It has a purpose. It is part of the flow of creativity. Why do we use chemicals and therapy to try to stop it. Embrace it. Intermittent stagnation and suffering is uncomfortable and painful, but it is natural. Is nature tragedy? I don't know. It's just nature. Frank Herbert understands society as an extension of nature. It's so beautiful he could put it into a narrative. I love these books.

Beautifully put :) I have only read the first but Herbert was definitely a Genius. @@mariabird6045

They realize his sacrifice much much later in time when all of his journals are discovered, not just the ones stolen when he was alive.

Actually, the Bene Gessirit could halt the ageing process(as Alia did ) but that would have left as physically vulnerable as any human and would doom the worms to extinction. The metamorphosis was the only way to ensure the survival of both species. That's what I think, anyway.

@@lillycrecelius985 It always seemed possible to me that Paul would have knowledge of the Bene Gesserit life extension technique, and this would have made him no more a target than he already was had he chosen to use it.

@@tobyvision agreed, in Leto's case it was about the connection between humans, worms, and the Golden Path. His reign would not have been possible for an immortal human. Only the Tyrant could lead humanity in the necessary manner.

@@lillycrecelius985 also as the last living worm, he became the most precious resource in the universe. No great power would dare harm him.

I love the John the Baptist and Jesus comparison.

Final sentence is 11/10.

he became a Eldritch Abomination

@@mcspud Can you explain why?

@@vyttieri because jesus ultimately also became a sandworm.

It was both, without his control over his body the bond would've failed, and without the huge doses of spice, the sandtrouts wouldn't have even tried in the first place. Let's not forget also that his mind was steeled since childhood thanks to having to abate all his previous lives under his control , without such focus he wouldn't have been able to retain control over the whole process.

Can I do this with cocaine?

Leto had to control his body chemistry or he would have died from a spice overdose and he wouldn't be able to think with that much spice in his system it says so in the books

I read it long time ago bu as i remember Leto rejected the voices of the past. But later it is said that someone took over his precience

I think the humanity would be forced to create a different kind of technology that would allow them to travel through the space, if the spice was gone earlier. After all the spice's function is to navigate through the space. So without the spice maybe humans would be forced to embrace forbidden technology and create artifical intelligence again.

@@o.f.7. Spice allows human life to extend and other various purposes, as well as the fact much of the universe's populace is already addicted to some extent and to deprive that would entail death on a massive scale. Humanity wouldn't just be home bound: they'd be dead.

Man, I think I was unaware of or got busy with life at the time, and never knew about the story beyond 'God Emperor'.

@@o.f.7. I still wonder how we are gonna deal with Rocks, coming out of standard FTL jumps.

@@gregorysagegreene the first ships would take the risks then the would establish safe points in space to jump to. When ever the ships are jumping into the unknown they would take that risk just like people exploring the unknown on earth takes that risk. Very much like sailers both ancient and modern take the same risk. Slocum was the first to sail alone around the world but after his success he was most likely rammed by steam powered cargo ship and killed. Sailors in the trade routes are killed every year. Your chances of emerging into a star or planet are low. The first people that forge the route to the next object of interest take the risk establishing the map and then scientific and engineering vessels create the trade routes that follow the best route to the objective and then the bigger ships full of workers and machinery and materials come to build space statione and build the infrastructure then the really big ships that are most costly are able to safely take these trade routes and would bring the material and manpower to live there and accomplish whatever the goal is. You couldn't populate a new area without the maps and trade routes and infrastructure. There would be ships that would be lost just like sailing ships.

Also, if you believe Paul and Leto II's view of time, neither of them really have a choice. Becoming prescient basically ends human choice and personhood, and makes you aware of yourself as just another pebble that contributes to the course of the stream. Paul repeatedly muses about how his steps are no longer in his control.

@@tobyvision Yep. Besides the fact that cause and effect imply determinism IRL, Herbert's universe has prophets (Paul and Leto II being the main ones, ofc) and prophecy requires a predetermined universe. They're not playing guessing games here, they're seeing a static, unchanging narrative that includes everything and everyone, including whatever effects them being aware of it could bring... Paul can't take it (for many reasons, including the trauma that comes from being space Hitler and understanding that this is, somehow and sadly, the only way forward/to remain alive so he has to continue), Leto can (maybe he's not as attached to the idea of free will and self determination since he's been exposed to the truth since very young, so now he's going with the flow, so to speak) so he does and takes the painful path of duty that comes with high wisdom (he's like omniscient, basically).

When Leto talked he did say Paul's vision wasn't as strong so he couldn't see what he needed to make such a horrific step, not in a physical sense but as a catalyst paul didn't see as far into the future it would seem he already struggled with events around him and was emotionally tied to chani long before he even met her.

Paul will alway remain one of my favourite protaginists in fiction of all time, my take why he did not go the golden path is unilke his sister and children Paul was not pre-born and by the time Messiah roll by he is dead inside from the Jihad then he knows to save humanity he need to do much much more that his galatic genocide will look like nothing. Paul is very human at the end of it all and understand why he can't go through with it.

Most people, from what I've come to know talking among Dune fans, don't realize that the Duncan Leto kills at the start of God Emperor was almost awakened. If you go back and read the passage after reading the last few books, you'll see it. He ALMOST awakens. Knowing that Herbert didn't get to finish the series on his own but did indeed have that moment in what is arguably his greatest work...

Duncan idaho being the kwisatz is not Canon. Herbert didn't write those books

@@Lethalbanter true, but Herbert did leave mountains of ideas, outlines, and notes on where he thought the story should go and who the true Kwisatz Haderach is. It was all in a safety deposit box on a OLD computer disk, computer printouts, and handwritten notes.

The human race does not deserve to survive. They are parasites on the Universe.

@@paullopez6620 The problem is that those notes have not been published everywhere, so there is no way knowing what aspects of the Brian Herbert books are faithful to his father's notes. Furthermore, there is always the possibility of misinterpretation and the use of material that Frank Herbert had decided not to implement himself. This in my mind makes it impossible to consider the later books as canon.

I never really saw a balance between hero and villian, remember Frank Herbert tells us to be careful about charismatic leaders in the first books, then proceeds to have LetoII commit horrible acts on the universe, but because he is omnipotent hero in our eyes we think that his path is the only path forward, Frank Herbert pretty much tricks us into siding with another charismatic/genocidal leader after explicitly warning us.

I often think about leto II while listening to the prophecy theme from dune 1984. The theme has this way of reaching your soul that no other piece of music has. The isolation, pain, burden, history - you can feel it all.

Speaking only for myself here - I detest the "Golden Path" as a solution for the existential problem of prescience. Because of that, I don't trust Leto's claims of his actions were necessary to save humanity from a possible extinction event and view him as an unreliable narrator.

@@Grizabeebles I think he was right in that it was the only way forward. But that is only because humanity had painted itself into a corner. It isn't obvious until after Leto is dead but humanity was in its swan song. Death of at least the species would happen and had only been postponed by the very thing that caused the problem. Prescience. But no one was interested in truly fixing the problem. Just finding a quick and dirty solution to let them continue doing what they were already doing. Utter stagnation of the sort that would destroy the Empire that was keeping humanity alive. There was no hope. Just endlessly teetering on the edge until some new player came along and pushed it all into oblivion. Leto had to do it because he had to make sure such a thing could not happen again. That the species itself would recoil from that path. So he fit himself to the role as the one who would whip humanity until it was instinct to never do so again. His name of Shaitan was apt. His role was to be the adversary of humanity. He knew it. He played it to the hilt. He was humanity's hero because he accepted becoming its greatest villian. To be a living portrayal of its worse vices and sins. The Tyrant and the Worm Who Is God. A thing all the more hateful because it is the only thing keeping you alive. No doubt he enjoyed his cruelty. How else could he perform his duties and remain sane enough to keep going?

@@jacobfreeman5444 -- I couldn't disagree more. By the time of his death, Leto II was standing in the same role as the thinking machines that humanity had fought in the Butlerian Jihad. He controlled everything - and many, many people were probably very happy with that. The Scattering accomplished nothing as far as preventing a second Machine empire. In fact, it drastically encouraged the creation of one. Mass migration out of the Empire created a perfect storm whereby populations invisible to prescience and driven to reject the empire and its proscriptions could become lost to the spacing guild, run out of spice or the ability to train mentats and gradually recreate thinking machines in order to keep their own civilizations from collapsing. The problem was not prescience, it was _prescient rulers._ The problem was not great stewards like Duncan Idaho. The problem was "great leaders" like Paul and Leto II.

@Slim Dim Of all the stories on the internet, it's this one which stuck out as a lie?

@Slim Dim >implying anything at all on the internet is true

@@TheGreenKnight500 You're not real! Nothing on the internet is real! _I'm_ not real!

@@Ki_Adi_Mundi I have no real but I must exist 😱

​@@TheGreenKnight500 Do androids dream of real sheep?

i think he could also produce it himself, which would mean he'd be his own unlimited gold mine.

@@namekman01 Not unlimited. He is much smaller than a real sandworm and would also produce less spice. Unending, maybe, undiminishing, certainly, but in a room he is in a just one creature, while a real sandworm could eat a harvester much bigger than the room in one piece, and the worms are many times longer than the diameter of their mouths. So he would produce maybe one millionth the amount of one adult sandworm would. I have no idea if one millionth is still a little or a lot. 😅😆

he'd literally be eating his own shit lol

@@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681 Not unlimited, but unlimited in value. Paul concentrated all spice under his control. Leto II went a geometric step further and concentrated the last remaining source into himself. This made him unequivocally the most precious resource in existence.

@@tobyvision You just wanted to use the word "unlimited". 😛 If you want to say "unlimited in value", you could just say "priceless". Or "irreplaceable".

There's also Siona, and he also explains how he is setting up conditions and manipulating humanity's psyche as a whole to cause the Scattering

👏👏 Well said. God Emperor to me is where Dune ended. It's a bleak but accurate tail about the Messiah complex, that I personally suffered from, hell that complex is what drove me to reading Dune. It was a huge book with historical and religious references. Dune 1 is everyone with a Messiah complex's fantasy, to save the downtrodden, get revenge, and secure your love. While God Emperor is a accuracy metaphor for how Emperors, Cult Leaders and other charismatic leaders actually cause change, and it's via the rebuilding done by those long after the figure is dead. Whether it be Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Alexander all these men ruled empires and soon after their deaths the world learned to cooperate and not worship men, that is until they forget again. The long peace in Europe after WW2 is a great example of this.

Yes, Siona is so incredibly important. Leto did what Bene Gesserit had done. It was a secret breeding program with the goal to exclude a part of humanity to be invisible to prescience.

@@sethgaston8347 Yeah, I recommend people to read not just the first book, but up to #4, as well. It's just such a great bookend that puts everything that came before it into perspective.

@@ROTTERDXM I agree...mostly. My first recommendation would for people to stop after Book 1 because it's all downhill from there. But the story is obviously unfinished when Dune closes, so for anyone who chooses to read on, I'd stay stop after God Emperor. That's the full ending to the story, in all its glory and tragedy. The books that come after it are boring and useless IMO.

Yes! More intelligent but also specifically I believe they inherited his prescience and therefore knew to hide deep beneath the surface in time.

And also agravaring Leto's agony since he would live in all those worms.

@@fb150185 alive and conscious, but only barely - aware but fragmented, unable to ever form a full being again

More intelligent 🧠 worms? Is that like a worm on a hook yelling, "Here fishy fishy!"

@@PlanetEarth3141 No, more like an apex predator that can more easily hunt and kill people.

In a sense, Messiah and Children were tragedies as well. Paul and Alia were the protagonists at one time, and their downfalls were not the fault of some personal greed or hunger for power.

Yo

The Atredies tragedy has always been the struggle to harness the powers of evolution of the race while remaining an individual. It takes a very strong ego just to survive hearing the voice of your species. Now imagine having to look forward and see all the paths your kind could go. Even those you find repellent. Paul was undone by by that revulsion. Alia by the fact she did not receive the coaching neccessary to strengthen her own seldom sufficiently. She couldn't be selfish enough to save herself thanks to her upbringing. The twins survived by sheer chance. Leto himself was lucky he could master the art of diplomacy enough to get the shade of the species on his side. His sister just happened to accidently walk into the idea of creating a personal partition in her mind with hypnosis. But neither actually intended this result. Even so they suffered terribly for they had to endure making the choices neccessary to ensure life would continue.

@@whitworth5s248 Herbert claims the theme of the book is the danger of the charismatic leader, but in the actual story the lesson is very clearly that transcending humanity means leaving humanity. This eventually becomes ridiculous in Chapterhouse when people have powerful transhuman abilities, but are still enslaved by sexuality or love.

@@tobyvision This is why God Emperor of Dune is the conclusion of the story in my eyes. Heretics and Chapterhouse are just a collection of afterbirth ideas better unexpressed.

Actually, Jessica and the Bene Geserit commanded leto go through it, It was Gurneys job to prove that Leto was in fact Human, and not abomination. It was Leto's Gom Jabbar.

Was it an assassination attempt? I just finished the book and it wasn't entirely clear the motives behind feeding him all that spice. I know one of his captors was a double-agent intent on killing Leto for Alia, but Gurney Halleck was there working on behalf of Lady Jessica only to test Leto as a potential abomination, and I thought he was aware that Leto was being put into the spice trance.

@@whitworth5s248 He was, there is a scene in the book where Gurney is talking to Leto about why he is putting Leto through it, and Leto told Gurney that he was doing the very thing that could turn him to abomination. Even Paul said in the original Dune book that the BG were wrong to use the gom jabbar, because the test was an under estimation of what makes a human. I think he called it a wrongness against his truthsense.

Thanks for the details. It’s been 20+ years since I read them.

ahem Squirt gun

@@pd28cat better be the Supersoaker 9k, but otherwise.... yeah.

I think that he, along with the BGs wanted to keep everyone else from finding out they could extend life. Becoming a sand worm meant that he could become immortal without having to worry that anyone else would follow in his tracks.

To be a god he had to wield physical prowess of a good. Imperial title was not enough.

@@pd28cat a miss-conception they drown the worm to kill it. Its like a slug with salt. Except its a worm with water. The worm over absorbs the water and bursts. You still need alot of water. A human wouldnt die in it. Unless they couldnt reach the surface.

Sacrifise...the golden path is to sacrifise. Because that state of higher being cant sustain the spirit... "architects flight without feathers lyrics "

Beautifully said.

I've never understood why anyone disagrees with this or is confused about it. All the data we are given in the books reveal that Leto II's prescience is complete, and he states emphatically several times that the golden path is the only long term alternative to human extinction. Even Herbert's claim that the series is about the danger of charismatic leaders kind of falls apart given that Paul and Leto II can in fact see the future. We are never given any evidence to the contrary.

@@tobyvision possible future...nothing surthen if those holding the knowledge chosen to make the changes not act.

@@privatprivat7279 Leto II emphatically and clearly states on several occasions that his actions are the only thing which will prevent eventual extinction. This is most clear in his conversation with Siona in the desert. It is definitely more murky with Paul, but Leto II is clearly a great step further than Paul in his his transhumanism. I see no place in the original 6 novels in which we are shown that Leto II was wrong in his statement.

Spoilers ahead. Later books reveal (Heretics or Chapterhouse) that the Bene Gesserit can do that, but none of the do that.

@@LightningRaven42 It would not surprise me if, at some point in the dune future, it's revealed that some have learned to do it in secret, but far away from prying eyes, especially as the universe becomes less controlled.

@@LightningRaven42 my understanding is there was a couple of characters who actually did it but it is very very frowned upon

@@liqd Exactly.

@@Tuberiascaesar They probably did. The scattering pretty much ensures that the pockets of humanity that went out there would develop their own society, it wouldn't be strange for the Bene Gesserit of these societies either succumb to the temptation, the custom around it change or even some of them doing it to make sure that their people keep thriving.

They all lived happily ever after?

@@Junksaint Seems highly unlikely given the way things have gone so far.

like the 7 a and b his son put out based on notes?

Yes, yes to this man you listen.

Or maybe... Write an ending of your own 👀

I am guessing that George RR Martin read the Dune books as well and I kind of compare Bran Stark's ultimate fate to be a little similar to the fate of Leto II Atreides. Both characters sacrifice part of their humanity in order to make sure the rest of humanity is able to withstand and survive the greatest of threats.

@@3baxcb for sure...fictional characters often take up similar traits or mannerism from one another, because each character is imagined by a human being. That goes all the way back to Plato and his notion of common archetypes. If you ask someone to close their eyes and imagine a chair, then NO MATTER WHAT they will imagine something with 4 feet/legs and 1 back. The particular differences aren’t at all important, because every chair is imagined as having 4 legs and 1 back. Thus, the archetype of a chair is common among everyone involved. Again, the archetype of a chair is one that will always have 4 legs and 1 back. Archetypes (and their neighbor: paradigms) make up the building blocks of how we come to believe in things. Pretty cool, isn’t it?!

@pyropulse That is only your opinion. Martin most likely gave the shorunners his own notes and manuscript years in advance.

Those books were enormous, and some of the roughest of my collection to get through ... but in the end, totally worthwhile. Lot of very late nights though.

@@gregorysagegreenegod emperor was thr one i didnt hsve trouble getting through. Some big plot holes but you saw peoples perspectives snd understood what was going on In dune and the other books..you have to alreasy know the writing is brilliant. In most books "blalel tge blue says :blabla" then shortly is killed...blabla had no deep meaning. Blalel was a throwaway char for an action scene. None of it mattered. In a Great book blalel was a person..w a history..youll see why those words were important. Understand why he was tgere etc. But you have to go in already knowing that and thinking about it and 99.9% of writers arent that talented

Then you find out it's a metaphor, and you gotta look that up... Been a procession of references ever since....

@@cdreid9999 I dunno mate, you may mean "writers [today]". A lot of what I read in the early 80's was awesome. ... Clarke, Bradbury, Farmer, Heinlein, McCaffrey, and Herbert. Staple fare for an expanding mind.

Haha same. What’s up with the worm guy on the cover

yet without the human 'frailty' is life even worth living is another point of the novels.

@@Tuberiascaesar exactly

You can't go round burning cultures down and bringing "Democracy", McDonalds, and oil wells, whether the people of that culture want "freedom" or not. Most people's personal freedom now is restricted by money. People today spend all the useful hours of the day, and most of their energy, off working for other people, making the company rich off the backs of their workers. Sure you're "free" to sell your labour and your skills, you're also "free" to starve in a ditch if you don't want to. And while you're off fulfilling your contractual obligations, you are very much not "free". You're given very many options to either voluntarily restrict your behaviour, or else voluntarily go live in penury. There's so much freedom in the First World, that we all choose to live in near-identical houses full of near-identical private property and have nearly-identical daily routines. Near-identical on a day for day basisc, near-identical between individual people. All choosing a life that's a pain in their arse, where their hours don't belong to them (they voluntarily chose to give them to a company, the alternative choice was penury, I mentioned), where there are consolations and love, but even that is strained by the excessive demands put on us all in the name of profit for a few. In fact it might not even be "a few", half of us may well work for computer programs without realising it. Or at least for a few milliseconds here and there. Faufreluches, I dunno, I've never lived in it, and the books don't describe much of an everyday citizen's life. It seems mostly to be, that if your planet is ruled by a Nasty Evil House, then your life is miserable slavery with your blood sucked out of you by superiors (not terribly hygienic, everyone on Giedi Prime would surely have died from bacterial infections caused by improperly cleaned heart plugs). If your planet is ruled by a Nice Duke, it's presumably pastoral and you'd drive a giant tractor harvesting algae from shallow ponds or something. There'd be plenty of cultural stuff and entertainment going on, and life would be pleasant. Until your Duke underspent on defense, preferring social security, and the bastards from 2 planets over came and pillaged all your pundi rice.

@@greenaum sounds not so different from the way systems have always been. The books talk about humanity but human nature can be entrapping lol

@@greenaum Heart plugs were from Lynch's... ahem... Adaptation. The key difference between the irl first world and the world of Dune is that the first world ostensibly views personal freedom as a virtue, and people as "ends in themselves". The Fraufeluches were more of a feudal/caste system, by comparison, that required central planning and eugenics to even function: The people weren't an "end in themselves", they were truly subservient to whatever church/ideology/fiefdom they happened to be born into. The inability to explore or expand enforced by the ideology of the Fraufeluches system kept all eyes permanently facing inward towards a central point (the emperor), as opposed to outward, towards the stars.

I would love to see it too. I understand why there might be apprehension putting a giant worm man on screen and figuring out how to make it work without it looking ridiculous. Personally I wouldn't care how goofy it might come across, I'm ready to see some big budget weirdness on screen. Been a while since I read it but that book deals with some high concepts. Come on Denis, grow a pair and do it!

Only in the Herbert/Anderson books is he a Kwisatz Haderach. And those are basically fan-fic from the author's son admittedly. We don't know that Duncan (from the Heretics and Chapterhouse books) has the same kind of prescience that Paul of Leto II had but being able to remember all of his lives despite the fact that some of his remains might very well have not been available to be incorporated into subsequent gholas indicates something akin to prescience. It can be said that his ability to perceive the trap laid by the evolved face dancers indicates some ability beyond what his creators intended. We don't know to what extent Duncan is prescient or merely exceptionally perceptive and able to remember all of his past lives. Too bad Frank Herbert couldn't finish the 7th book I am sure it would have been fascinating and entertaining.

@@wills.8662 I think prescience is not the point about Duncan at all - he is to be "the memory that witnessed it all" and who could help humanity learn from history. Remember how many Idaho gholas were produced by the Tleilaxu on orders of Leto II. Leto was aware that to be guided by prescience means to be trapped by it, that's why he bred that strain out of humanity. It would totally interfere with his long-term purpose to make Duncan a KH. The Tleilaxu must have had kittens discovering that they were practically working on eroding their own power base thereby.

@@christianealshut1123 I would say this makes Duncan an embodiment of Tradition. If someone has effectively been around long enough to see the patterns that play out repeatedly over the course of history, and has paid proper attention, they won't need prescience to see what's coming around the bend and how it might be avoided.

@@wills.8662 Actually, the Duncan who Leto kills at the beginning of God Emperor nearly awakens. So no, Duncan's role is NOT made up by Herbert's son. It's in the original texts.

@@Perceptionreflection How would he awaken? Frank Herbert tells us in Chapter house. He can remember *ALL* of his lives even though he likely does not have all the cells of all the Duncangholas that ever existed being used to create his latest life. If he is exposed to a lot of spice he can sense the evolved Facedancer couple and their trap. That's still far from reaching all the capabilities that Paul and Leto II had.

Confused? Did you even read the book? It is all in the book. Leto explains everything in his diaries

From Leto's perspective he didn't have a choice. The responsibility should have been Paul's, but he collapsed under the pressure in "Messiah".

Keep in mind the fear of death might have been a factor in the living for thousands of years and possibly forever.

Dune has more fantasy element than science so don't worry

Probably my favorite of the series

@@WraithX959 I loved it. can you imagine it being made into a movie? I honestly can't but It would be a treat.

@@ryancoody7069 Imagine seeing Leto II bellyflopping onto Duncan on the big screen. That’d be hilarious

@@merrittanimation7721 dude exactly lol. Some of the scenes would be too hilarious. I've tried to make Leto's bubble cart look cool in my head but I just can't man.

Sandtrout aren’t attracted to spice. They are attracted to water.

Isn't the plan currently to have the movies be a trilogy ending with Messiah? I'd love to see his take on Children and God Emperor, but I have no idea how well the latter would be adopted to film considering how much of the book is Leto's inner monologue.

Del Toro would suit it better

@@bilbobagend8155 It is widely speculated that the "Dreams are messages from the deep." quote at the beginning of the first movie is a foreshadowing of Leto II speaking.

@@bilbobagend8155 i think it will end with messiah, (messiah start is slow but the ending has so much emotions) ,i think children of dune is not possible as live action cuz tjose dailouge by childen wount look realistic, altho imagine if its like a animated series ,they would be able to so much and maybe even better ,like arcane and cyberpunk edgerunners which are great.

Orbalisks

@@infinitreality yea that thing

Orbalisk armor. Took 5 Jedi masters to bring him down.

Rick and Morty has the leeches as well. For the cow people episode.

Jabba the hutt

It's all because the computers wanted destroy humans

@@TheHiphopgems They tried to. Well, more correctly they tried to subjugate us and people being people we fought back in some systems. Those systems later became the Landsraad. Also typical of people, once the dust settled and the killer machines had been neutralized we took things too far and decided that any tech more advanced than something like an analogue radio was heretical and dangerous, and therefore had to be destroyed Dune lore is fascinating. There are things I dislike about the prequels but the overall picture they paint is pretty intriguing

Well, TBF, AI wanted to destroy humankind. Maybe the root of the problem was that humanity renounced their reasoning to favor a chosen one.

@@camilaandreabecerraplata4550 From an outside perspective, perhaps we don't deserve to make it. I don't know, I'm human so I can't say... but I could see why an immensely powerful AI might decide that we had to go. However, Omnius didn't want to destroy humanity. It wanted us under it's boot. Especially early on (1000 years before the beginning of the Butlerian Jihad, shortly after the takeover and before an organized resistance League was formed) it certainly had the capability to wipe out humankind. Yet it didn't. That's significant

I liked _Dune_ and _Children of Dune_ on SyFy, but was disappointed they didn't continue to _God Emperor of Dune_ as that was my favorite and the most important. Perhaps they didn't want to make a show titled "God Emperor" just as they avoided "Messiah" in the sequel?

So Leto II is a edgelord on the lines of lelouch of code geass Such a stupid premise of a famed book,I had never guessed

If so that's a very convoluted biological process that happens all of once.

@@merrittanimation7721 having a convoluted lifecycle’s actually not that uncommon, especially in aquatic species… It’s just interesting to look at it from the worm’s perspective, rather than Leto’s. The worms have no interest in turning humans into “gods”-they exist to perpetuate their own kind.

Reminds me of the behavior altering ant 🐜 fungal parasites.

Very intriguing theory!

​@@alpenjon herbert explains the worm cycle in the book(s). so there`s no need for an ”alternative theory”, intriguing or not.

i think she was trying to make him that to avoid any reprisal from the bene jesrit. at the very least he was taught their ways.

If you read it, I believe it was more wishful thinking rather than an actual point for point plan, but yes, she did intend it to some degree, at least after Paul was born.

The plan was for Jessica to birth a girl, who would then go on to mate with Fayde-Rautha, and that child would then be the Haderach.

Despite all the books he has, he doesn't get it right. He also missed the details of Leto being heavily overdosed on spice and overcoming it, and the role it had on the sandtrout sticking and bonding.

She was hoping, though.

What better a tryant than one of humanity's primordial examples of what a tyrant is. Unrestrained by modern law and ethics, unfiltered ego and lack of modernized ideas, power means power and must be attained and maintained at all cost. An ancient Pharoah is not a bad pick.

@@tuckernutter Considering the image of being god-kings they projected to their people, a Pharaoh is a perfect model.

@@tuckernutter That’s one bizarre, gross superiority complex you’ve got regarding the Western world and modernity. This isn’t to say that ancient Egypt was perfect or even particularly pleasant, but to think that **now** is better by some objective standard is ridiculous.

@@ilsalund9669 YOU THERE! PUSH ROCK UP THE RAMP NOW! YOU WONT BE NEEDING THAT FANCY SMANCY POSTING DEVICE FOR THAT GIV IT HERE NOW! THESE 100 STONES WILL BE STACKED BY NIGHTFALL OR YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE TAKEN AS COMPENSATION! GET TO IT CRETIN!

It wasn't that the ego memory of this pharaoh produced such a tyrannical leader, it's that he knew that by being tyrannical and squeezing humanity and restricting travel would make them pissed off and restless so when he eventually died, the bubble he had created would pop and humanity would spread among the vast stars. Ultimately saving humanity. He's like the Dark Knight lol he's a hero who had to become the villain to save the people.

Yeah, I'm surprised that he didn't mention that one of Leto's inner voices knitted together all of the others into a gestalt with him at the lead.

Yes, becoming Abomination was part of his sacifrice on behalf of humankind . a sacrifice that probably would never have been recognized as one. Remember, Frank Herbert's Dune is also very much about history being viewed as historians - this is why we have the "excerpt from historical documents" and the voices of various historians such as princess Irulan and her nephew. And he sacrificed that too - the possibility of being recpgnized by history for what he really had done for humanity. To many historians, I can imagine, it would occur that humanity survived in spite of Leto, rather than because of him. Except by one person perhaps, who in his own way, became quasi-immortal by goiong through I don't know how many iterations mainly in order to witness the whole process - Duncan Idaho. Perhps this was the precise reason that Leto had so many gholas made.

I never figured out who Harum was. Is there a historical early Egyptian or Mesopotamian ruler by that name?

Great point, and something I see little in God Emperor. How much of him is Leto and how much is Harum? Or did Herbert decide to forget about the abomination part?

This is a bit weird because the books actually have a definition for "abomination" - and that is St. Alia of the Knife, Paul's sister and Leto II/Ghanima's aunt. Alia was still a fetus when exposed to the Water of Life and so was an infant born with genetic memory. The specific reason this is considered abomination is explored in Messiah, where we come to know that the personalities stored in genetic memory can shape/influence/dominate a child, as a child does not yet have a sufficiently developed sense of self and the mental discipline to resist. Children who are born after exposure to the Water of Life can then be "possessed" by their ancestors, which is an abomination to the Fremen. Leto II is something else entirely, something beyond the Benne Gessirit and Fremen conceptions entirely.

What machines? NuDune bullshit is not necessary to explain Leto II.

@@Shan_Dalamani it is in God Emperor. When he tests Siona, he shows her a glimpse of the machine hunter seeker apocalypse, and references it a couple of other times. After he sensitises Siona to the golden path he knows he has finally prevented this possibility, which is why he says 'Don't fear the Ixians, they make machines but they can no longer make Arafel' right at the end

@@unfallen_bulbitian exactly. She sees the vision of people hiding from machines and slowly being eradicated. Siona was what God Emperor needed, so that people would not be ruled by prescience. All of Quin's stuff here is great, but for the plot, that's the "why" of it all. Of course, it gives us a lot of cool stuff along the way.

@@Shan_Dalamani it always cracks me up when people read this far into dune and are still so easily provoked. the whole series is about dealing with the human tendency and desire to just react to stuff instead of thinking about the best response. Peace to you, though.

@@mdchiesi I've been posting on comments sections for Dune content here for years. My one consistency is that the nuDune bullshit is just that. Bullshit. It doesn't follow the Holy Notes That Frank Left, because there's too much in nuDune that contradicts basic canon, not in how the characters act and think, but in their backstories and what happened in FH's books. As for "reading this far into Dune"... you do realize that some of us have had decades, right? Decades of reading, re-reading, forum discussions, and we had access to discuss stuff with both FH's grandson (who ran one of the forums) and KJA himself (he finally conceded I wasn't a Talifan like the others who don't like his novels), but was still curious as to why I read them if I didn't like them. I told him I kept hoping they would improve.

Yep, probably mine too.

There is nothing quite like it.