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I liked the idea Paul chose to fight specifically because he could not see the path beyond the fight. I think it was his last try to escape his dark destiny.

Paul's worst enemy was diabetes until the spice agony, where he said "nah, I'm built different"

Once again, with a keen insight, a calm, reasoned tone, and a storyteller's skill, you opened up nuanced meaning in the Dune saga that few others even perceive let alone account. Paul's dual nature, for instance. My compliments to the chef.

Very well done. I would add Piter de Vries to this list as he was instrumental in the fall of Duke Leto. Yes, he was less of an enemy to Paul directly, but his plans and actions were instrumental to the story.

Amazing video, very well done, and accurate to my feelings and experience with Dune. Paul wanted desperately to escape the traps laid for him by so many but just as much laid by his own prescience. He did not want the jihad, but it was unavoidable, he did escape the Golden path thought, even though his son would take it and become millions of times more the "villian" than Paul ever was

The thing I love about Frank Herbert the most is his very intimate understanding of human nature. Even though human beings are very complex we are also very predictable.

This is one your finest videos Elaine. Thank you for all your efforts and keeping Dune alive.

I think even Frank Herbert himself probably missed an opportunity by not following the Fenring's thread further. Both interesting and intriguing characters.

Great Video Elaine. Keep the Cookies Flowing.

That stuff about the Fenrings is pretty rich. So strange that they should be so universally dismissed in the great adaptations.

4:21 In House Atreides, Paul was loved and tutored in good honorable leadership. So Paul becoming a messianic figure was a forgone conclusion. In House Harkonnen, Feyd was repeatedly victimized by his uncle Vladmir and shown the most vile methods to control people. So Feyd becoming a sadistic thug was also a forgone conclusion.

Although not the biggest fan of the Dune series there are elements I like. These videos of yours have been really interesting to watch.

It's incredible he didn't use the power word in this final duel with Feyd but I suppose that's his final triumph

Dune has so many intriguing and compelling villains motivated by a whole host of different motions in respect of why they act against Paul and his house. House Haakoon, wants revenge, pure and simple, Emperor is trying to retain his hold on power and secure his dynasty continuation as rulers, Spice guild fears his control over the spice trade and sisterhood want to control and use what he will become as the supreme being. With all of them ended up defeated and brought low by Paul in the end.

Keep these coming when you can. I see I'm not the only one who sees Paul and Feyd-Rautha as foiles.

Hi, I love your Dune videos. I first read Dune back in 1982, and almost all of the original series, and all of Brian Herberts prequels. But my question is have you played any of the Dune board games? Such as Dune Imperium. If so would you consider giving your thoughts on how the game meshes with the novels. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Corpulent. I never knew that word before, Thanks for introducing us.

Your videos are so well done and full of answers to all the questions I have about it. Great job.

Well presented, as usual!

Brillaint. Thank you so much for the Dune Video! Love it.

Another super vid with many of the facets of this diamond of a story touched upon.

Another great video Elaine

Awesome video to you and your team.

Great job!

Thank you for the video Elaine, I hope you’re doing well. Keep up the great work, take care!

Read Dune in 1965 and still find it a compelling . Paul is a truly complex and tragic heroVillan.

Awesome video! Will we see in Dune part 2 other misterious characters, like the Tleilaxu? Cheers from Brazil!

Never understood why the Emperor didn't make an arrangement with Duke Leto for Paul to marry Irulan.

Thanks Elaine

Let's not forget the Spacing Guild.

You left out a villain, of course … Paul himself.

Emperor Shaddam IV always backstabbed any Great House of Lamdsraad, including Coalition of Nobles He is the best villian of the Imperial

I wish people were not this fearful in this country and around the world to overthrow tyrannical regimes.

All of the Harkonnen are variant VLONES of the same person

Really cool video, as always. You do go into some odd corners, but they make you think and this one *really* made me think, and while thinking, I realized one thing about the novel that makes it seem even greater than before: it fools everyone with a magic trick: an act of sleight-of-hand that keeps everyone who reads it from seeing the obvious: the fact that nothing that happens in the novel is inevitable. Dune's plot is driven by situations analogous to real events and situations in history like the rise and early spread of Islam in the name of the Prophet Mohammad and the invasion and conquest of Christian and other countries in Europe and Asia. The links are there in an emperor who is bound to a religious order which has no formal access to military power save through its access to temporal power which it enjoys by making itself indispensable to the nobility. It has fractious nobles capable of raising armies who, if they combined their forces could fight wars between themselves and, were they sufficiently dissatisfied with the emperor (or the king in the real world) could combine to force him to accede to their demands (the situation that lead to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 CE) or actually depose him. All of this creates a backdrop for a fantastic plot involving heroes and villains cloaked in layered themes (or clichés depending on your viewpoint). The Harkonnens are greedy, cruel, sexually perverse, and loath the noble Atreides whom the Emperor views as a potential threat to his rule and this is where the sleight-of-hand comes in to give the novel a quality reminiscent of Greek tragedy that I'd never realized was there before watching this video: none of the things that happen in Dune are inevitable outgrows of the situation. That is only part of the big trick of Dune though, the other part is how well Herbert deflects our attention to the conflict between the Harkonnens and the Atreides which brilliantly causes his readers, myself included, to fail to see how unnecessary all the scheming, villainy, and war in the novel are. And it is here that the novel can be said to touch on the themes of Greek tragedy and the themes of ill-fate brought about by a moral failing brought about by hubris in a character's knowing, or being capable of knowing, the morally or religiously correct course of action and doing its opposite because of a character flaw and here, the character flaws we are turned to are the almost cartoonishly twisted Harkonnens whom it is his own fear of Duke Leto Atreide's popularity with the assembly of nobles that causes him to plot the utter destruction of House Atreides by treacherously bolstering an attack by the Harkonnens with overwhelming force using his own fanatical elite troops. The Emperor's actions eventually lead to his being stripped of his wealth and his throne and forced to retire in exhile on the hellish world that forged his Jannisaries. That is the meat of the novel, the thing that drives the actions that make it the fascinating read it is, but if we "rewind" and go back along Shaddam IV's possible decision pathways, an obvious course of action had been open to him: He could have gone against the wishes and agendas of the Bene Gesserit (the equivalent of the Catholic Church for European monarchs) and given his daughter-in fact, any one of his FIVE(!) daughters-to Paul Atreides, handed Arrakis to Duke Leto as his daughter's dowry, and told the Harkonnens to pound sand when they complained about it. By adopting this course, he could have maintained his position, strengthened his military by the addition of Duke Leto's loyal and well-trained troops, solidified his relationship with the Landraat (sp),, and so improved the conditions on Arrakis through giving the planet a ruler who respected the traditions and rights of the Fremen improving to guaranty ongoing spice production by fostering cooperation. It is also imaginable that, in the fullness of time, the joining of House Atreides with House Corrino could have seen the ancient blood-feud resolved between those two houses resolved by action against house Harkonnen which would have ended the rule of the Harkonnen family leaving it to administered by one of the Emperor's or The Duke's lieutenants improving the lot of the whole population of Giedi Prime. Instead of all these easily-projected outcomes, we see that the emperor's decision-making as the direct result of his real and deep weakness of character (the inability to side with the better man in the conflict) which, just as much as the destruction of House Atreides and Paul's rise as a prophet at the head of a Jihad, would not only destroy his dynasty but lead to the deaths of billions. Steeped in vileness as he might be, Baron Harkonnen was not the prime-mover or the main villain in the events that drive Dune: it was the emperor through his weakness of character. Thanks for the video that made my understanding this possible.

Rogue's gallery. Of dune ( alternative title) 😂

The true villain in the Dune series is the idea of CONTROL. Control is the antithesis of dharmic expression, or the expression of one's true self. Control in this story looks like the hyperbolic manifestations of cis-heteronormativity, religious hegemony, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism (the more categories you fall into, the more successful you will be within The System). Again and again, we see people trying to control others via these mechanisms, believing control is somehow beneficial. But in reality, this violent dispute over control is merely the continuation of the animalistic/earthling cycles leading to a galactic empire in stagnation, incapable of change. The whole story is about breaking these cycles of stagnation once and for all. By the end of the story, the idea is not to control one's dharma but to understand it, accept it, and fulfill it to the best of one's abilities. All successful life is adaptable, opportunistic, tenacious, interconnected, and fecund (the more categories you fall into, the more successful you will be per your own standards).

Are there any plans to produce Dune as a musical? 😀

huh. Must have missed this one.

I seem to remember that there was a good reason for the closeness of Paul and Feyd. Lady Jessica was supposed to have a daughter and with the intricate birthlines of the Bene Gesserit was meant to have a child with Feyd,wasn't it? And that child would be close or even the by the Sisters bred Kwisatz Haderach. Did not Fenring almost succeeded in killing Paul with the help of his wife and extraordinary gifted daughter?

Hilarious. When you mentioned Paul's enemies, I had looked away for a second. Back on my phone there was this "guy" from TikTok.(I would use other words to describe him) I thought you were messing with us.... I'm retarded...

First 🖤🖤🖤🖤🔥🔥🔥🔥

I really didn't like the Reverend Mother. She is the kind of authority figure that I hate the most, and seeing everything blow up in her face is awesome

Anyone play Dune Spice wars? 😊

I know this channel was founded on dune lore, but you’re running kind of thin on material. You’re going to have to dig into Brian Hebert’s work soon.

So what if they did embrace the Arabic influences? I can think of a number of ways different people would complain about that

Paul is not a villan. Paul s caracter, and most of the Dune is not about the strugle, it about the burden of lidership and how every disision you make as a lider will be juded, explioted against you....even you family will be against you, your friendes...