I always thought that Paul did not become the God Emperor because he was not born with the memories of his ancestors. He could not sacrifice his individual humanity, but his son who never really had that chance could choose it. The abomination was needed for the salvation of humanity.
Paul is too afraid to walk the golden path so he curses his son to walk it in his stead. Leto confronts him about it and calls him out for it. Pretty dark man. Great novels!
Leto was ruthless because he loved humanity. His only goal was to prevent our species extinction. He would do anything to achieve his goal. He would sacrifice anything to prevent a extinction event from happening. Paul saw the same visions as Leto. Paul could not make the sacrifices necessary save humanity in the long run. Paul was his father's son and could not live with the things that he had to do. Leto was a mix of his mother and father. Chani was a person who could make hard choices and sacrifice herself. Leto was able to do what he did because he had the strength of both of his parents.
@@loboilustrado IMO Paul chose the lesser of two evils. If he didn't act humanity would have gone extinct in the near future. He allowed the Jihad to happen because he couldn't find another path that would save humanity. The guilt that he felt after the Jihad made him walk into the desert. Unfortunately the Jihad was not enough. It just delayed our extinction. Leto had to become the God emperor to make the changes that were required to prevent all of humanity from being destroyed.
@@loboilustrado From my understanding, Paul basically went with the flow of the visions he saw, there's multiple times in the book where he's just regretting the choices he's making but prefers it over the Leto path. There's also a point where he knows he's gone too far to go back, that even if he dies he'll just become a martyr and make the Jihad even stronger.
@@loboilustrado I think that's a 2 part situation. 1 The Fremen demanded the jihad to fulfill their false prophecies, 2 he basically drove the Landsraad to irrelevance and setting the stage for LetoII
There was a fundamental difference between Paul and young Leto that ultimately determined how they would react to the requirement of becoming a worm-human hybrid. This was that Paul, unlike his son, hadn't been born to a mother super saturated with spice, and thus, pre awakened. Thanks to his presience (?) Paul was able to do some pretty unpleasant things, but he was still solidly human. Leto, on the other hand, had to fight from birth to retain his humanity... and his sense of self had already been weakened by the time he finally chose to take up the Golden Path. What becomes clear in Children of Dune is that Leto and his sister Ghanima knew about the Golden Path long before the events in the book play out, they had discussed it, and both knew that one of them was going to have to adopt it. Ghanima was equally capable of taking up the challenge, but she didn't know if she had the mental and emotional strength to see it through to its end. Leto, on the other hand, having been supersaturated with spice not once, but twice, was already one personality amongst many when he adopted the sandtrout skin. With the weight of millions, if not billions, of human lives to support him through the thousands of years of slow metamorphosis, he believed he had enough humanity (or the memories of it) to see him to the conclusion of the Golden Path. And unlike his father, with his own individuality already subsumed in the collective Other Memory, he wasn't afraid of losing something already buried in the myriad.
The concept of the Golden Path suggests that a prescient being can see humanity's future and guide it to avoid self-destruction. However, the very nature of prescience's has limitations, as evidenced by Jessica and Thufir: Jessica, as a trained Bene Gesserit with some prescient abilities, and Thufir, a Mentat, are both skilled in the art of prediction. Yet, they find themselves unable to prevent the Duke's fate. This raises questions about the infallibility of the Golden Path. Does it truly provide a clear roadmap to navigate humanity's fate, or does it merely offer a narrow and limited perspective? It becomes unclear whether one can truly foresee all consequences and outcomes, or if prescience merely presents a narrow perspective on the future.
@@axelfury3189 Its limited. Paul exlains this in messiah. There are dark paths. itrs even limited by interfence by Navigators. and Some People were always immune ( shaddams IV ferret like assasssin ) Mentats dont have Presience. ( but the skills do seem to help when you do) Paul, later Duncan are also treained as Mentats. Paul is partly a superhuman as he is trained in most of the Guilds including swordsman, Benee gesserit, some Zen Sunni Philosophy and Mentat skills the later books assert over and over again that Prescience is a trap. Its subjective to confirmaton bias and the Boostrap paradox. Navigators have partial Prescience, its how they are able to navigate. The Golden Path Ended the Monopoly power where one person could control all of humanity ; by inducing the scattering , people travelling so far into unknown space they cant return. No ships, siona genes and No sheilds, hiding from prescience it also stopped the threat that self replicating hunterseekers could evolve to destroy all of humanity.
I've met a shocking amount of Dune fans that have read through God Emperor of Dune and did not understand that the invisibility to prescience was the bulk what Leto's Golden Path was (the Scattering being the other part).
I would actually reverse that order: The Scattering was what was needed to save humanity; the propogation of invisibility to prescience throughout humanity was what was necessary to prevent anyone else from ever undoing what Leto II was doing.
Invisibility to prescience was the most important. It makes humans unpredictable, so that if a subsequent entity gained prescience, it could not use it to enslave humanity. Remember that in the prequels, the machines were desperately trying to understand humanity - they failed, and the Butlerian Jihad happened. Probably one of the most incomprehensible things in human existence is religious fervor; imagine an immortal machine being able to control it.
also not being trapped in one persons prescient vision, vs being invisible, to exist outside of it... ie had the spice and worm forced a future upon humanity?
I always thought the darkest future would be a prescient despot. Imagine a Harkonnen as a Kwisach Hedarach. Mankind would turn forever inward serving the capricious whims of the despot. Civilizations wouldn't expand and grow since absolute control would be necessary. Change would be the enemy. Any threat would be completely and immediately eradicated.
That is literally what happened. Leto is a cruel prescient despot. Duncan Idaho considers him as evil as a harkonen. And tries to kill him over and over.
Leto the second was a hero. He painted himself a villain, while actually creating a tyranny that actually caused minimum loss of life and suffering. There is a great example where he had to kill some historians, to add to his infamy he executed them by burning, but he had actually sedated them so they wouldn't feel anything. He even discusses at great length how he is priming the culture to admire exploration, while restricting that thing. It was a tyranny, but a carefully constructed one, not the brutality of a despotic ruler.
@@gokiburi-chan4255 I mean... what he says isn't that off in that regard, but we have to keep in mind that WORM DUDE COULD LITERALLY SEE INTO THE FUTURE. So it's not comparable to ANY real dictatorship / tyranny. Maybe it says that the only benevolent dictator is one who is omniscient? (???). Idk, just thinking thoughts.
I think this also ties in with the question of why Leto II didn't wipe out the Ixians to avert this apocalyptic future. Because Leto II knew that it would ultimately fail. That type of fear and thinking is exactly what led to Shaddam IV trying to wipe out the Atreides, and it ultimately led to his defeat and precisely what he feared coming to pass. No matter how skilled his Fish-Speakers were, there's no way Leto would have been able to completely eradicate the Ixians. And those Ixian survivors would likely have created the very hunter seeker weapon Leto II feared out of pure desperation or vengeance.
This helps with my questions of why didn't he just stop the Ixians. But even still you don't need to eradicate entire civilizations to stop the creation of this killing machine.
@@natestowes5867 But you would, if your whole shtick was getting humanity as a collective to become desperate to learn how to survive and thrive even with the worst of threats. The eradication of people was necessary if it meant those who remained became desperate to survive, and perhaps if they became desperate to survive: they'd have a better chance of evading prescient threats once prescience would be nullified. But until then, they would still need to learn to evolve of a sense of survival to save themselves and to diversity as part of Leto II's multi-faceted plan to effectively guarantee humanity's chances at a future beyond the great threat he saw. It's not like Leto II or any other prescient being knew the actual way that history was supposed to play out. They're still handling chances upon chances, they're just the only ones to see ALL futures that might be of concern and can piece their way through what to do and what not to do. He still needed to prepare humanity by doing multiple things at once because there was no guarantee that he could delay the emergence of the new hunter-seeker, or that he could create a gene which would hide humans from prescience. He knew the golden path, but it was a path that still had to be trodden by humanity, and he needed multiple solutions. Turning himself into the ultimate threat against humanity - making them learn to survive, was one of them. Paul wasn't willing to see any more of what his Jihad already did even if it meant he could do what he had to do to give humanity an even longer future. He was too human. Leto II was willing to kill even more, if it meant humanity could survive an even more existential threat. To be fair, it is true that he could've avoided all the extra death, but you could argue that in order to truly threaten humanity into strength, death would be a non-negotiable part.
He was seeing broad strokes in the crevices of those strokes there could have been Ixian survivors, to ensure total annihilation would have meant more prescience capable Assassins , in other words he could macro manage but he couldn't micro the size of a Barn without birthing the threat he tried to prevent
Duncan was important to Leto's breeding program thanks to his death at the blades of the Sardaukar, at variance with Paul's vision "Duncan was with him in that vision" - through clearly Duncan had avoided the grip that a prescient would have on setting a waveform-collapse on the local universe. Leto then back-bred Duncan with the Atreides to re-inforce this ability to disappear from prescient view and manipulation - resulting in biological mimesis that made humans invisible to prescience, in the form of Duncan's descendant, Siona Atreides. By the time of Heretics of Dune, almost all of humanity in the old Empire had Siona genes, so that the saying 'By the thousand sons of Idaho' and 'The nine daughters of Siona' takes on more meaning - within the 10,000 years after the fall of Leto II, the spread of these genes both within the Empire and the Scattering, allowed Bashar Miles Teg to reflect "Atreides, all of us...." I'm always suprised that the Bene Gesserit never picked up on this - but, then, as in the appendix from Dune (the Report on Bene Gesserit motives as compiled for the Lady Jessica) this seemed to be the clumsiness they often demonstrated - being blindsided by events where their assumptions proved wrong - and failing to learn from those mistakes in turn. Hence Leto II considered teaching them an even tougher lesson because "They are so close to what they should be, and yet so far..."
This is very interesting! Though I never got the impression that Duncan was able to avoid prescient manipulation/subjugation more so that Paul’s vision was weaker then and he wasn’t capable of seeing the future in a very clear and accurate way, which he was able to do later in the series. I believed he repeatedly recreated Duncan because he was the only person Leto could travel the millenniums with. Who else would have tolerated this? Not gurney, or stilgar, or thufir hawat. Duncan was loyal to a fault and was particularly appealing to Letos most recent ancestors, Leto the first Paul and jessica. Not saying your theory is incorrect and tbh it’s more interesting than my theory but I’m just sharing my opinion. Love this series.
I m not seeing it. The purpose Duncan Idaho played was never finished. ( He started to gain prescience against the New Facedancers technology their tachyon web ) . But this was after having thousands of lives and essentially Other Memory. If anything, Duncan was Hypervisible to Letos Prescience, a known quantity, which is the main reason he kept using him bringing him back. He was able to avoid all of Duncans many assasination attempts too. Except for he one with Siona . Siona Genes actually existed in Dune. Shaddams Furtive Assassin , Count fenring had them. He was described as a failed KH whos ability was in furtiveness, avoiding being noticed including Prescience.
@@AdamBlackIdaho’s purpose was fully realised in the escape of the no-ship from the face dancer/hive mind entity personified by Marty and Daniel. Idaho in his Chapter House incarnation - the amalgam of all of his ghola versions - is instrumental in the continuance of the thinnest thread of the Golden Path. Machine intelligence wasn’t the ultimate threat to individuated human expression - it was the face dancer/hive mind personified in Marty and Daniel. That the no-ship escapees take Van Gogh’s ‘Thatched Cottages at Cordeville’ to remind them of what it is to be human is such a masterful touch by Frank Herbert.
@@michaeloliver7525 I kind of agree with most of your points. I do think Duncan was hypervisible to Leto. And the strong implications during heretics Chapterhouse is the present in the Empire was Letos future. I don't remember Ultimate Duncan was doped with Siona genes. He escaped their tachyon net. The biggest mystery is what happens next. By that I mean does Frank turn it into a Trilogy, or do another time jump. If Dune7 was a direct sequel he's set it up for Duncan gaining prescience. Or much more. ( I don't believe his son will ever release the notes. ) Marty and Daniel have ability beyond the BG and Leto. They have a metastable SELFs outside multiple personas. Like joss Whedons Dollhouse . We also see Duncan was given secret abilities by the Tleilax. Since Frank set it up, it's possible in 7 he unlocks Face Dancer abilities. Or gains BG sharing, including from regular humans. He set it up so there was a parallel to Scattering Facedancers gaining Meta consciousness and Duncan from integrating past lives. Do you think Facedancers operate as a hivemind? Or do you just mean the group mind of Dany and Marty types?
@@marquistf1996it’s not that Paul was less capable he was just seeing “possible futures,” though at that time he didn’t have enough dosage of spice to figure it all out
One moment that resonated with me was a scene between the God-Emperor and Malky. We don't see their dialogue, but it's clear that Leto II told Malky about his visions of the Ixians creating the hunter seeker and asked him if the Ixians could not do it. And Malky simply sighed and chided Leto II, because no matter what, the Ixians couldnt stop. Because even with the warning of what they would create, they would simply assume that they could avoid such an outcome because of their confidence in themselves.
An interesting idea is that part of Leto's golden path was actually helping humanity to overcome their aversion TO technology. Not only did he not crack down on the IXians but he was enamored with their machines, going so far as to have a dictaphone that could literally read his thoughts. Him getting rid of most of the universe's natural spice forced people to use computer navigation in their ships. By Chapte House the Bene Gesserite are even making cyborgs out of people.
Yes this is an interesting avenue of thought. We don't get a lot of information about his attitudes in this direction, but he clearly wanted to moderate the fanaticism that resulted from the Butlerian Jihad, without losing its essential injunction that humanity must be preserved (a conundrum we are facing now, in our own version of reality).
Nice one Quinn. I've been re-reading the original 6 books over the last year and I'm in Heretics now. I love how everyone is still trying to figure out what the hell the god emperor was actually trying to do. His ways were not understood during his long life and cannot be understood even through hundreds and thousands of years of study. He was written so well as a detached all knowing being, but at the same time a living raw nerve! Such a great character. Wish we knew more about his sister's life though. Is there a book by Herbert's son or Anderson or the two of them about her that I missed?
only expansion we got on any of the years between 3 and 4 is in the Dune Encyclopedia, which is... canon/noncanon- depends whom you ask. The entry on Ghanima in there is all we get. imo it's more canon than the stuff his son and Anderson did if only because Frank himself endorsed the work, but gave disclaimer that history was constnatly changing and things in the Encyclopedia were still open to change, but w/e I'm ranting now
@@Noun-fq8tj This is just the kind of thing I was looking for, I never went to the encyclopedia, so this is great info for me. I read all the son and Anderson books back in early 2000's too and found them lacking. I appreciate the direction, not a rant, just great info, thanks again!
She is reduced to irrelivance.......one of the worst outcomes for the twin sister of the god emperor who must now live with the agony of her death after having the intense bond of being pre-born together.
@@yurimodin7333 except she's not irrelevant. Her descendants contribute to the reality that is the gene which allows humanity to survive. Her path was far less arduous, but extremely beneficial in the long run. We don't know the names of the 1400 or so humans which survived the bottleneck. But they're existence is why we are all here. Sometimes notoriety is not remotely related to relevance
I read the first three Dune books with mixed reactions. THEN I started God Emperor....it was a WTF moment. I instantly concluded Herbert had completely jumped the shark, or jumped his own worm, or had completely 180'd himself and was swimming upstream against his own backside. I've never given another Dune clone or Gola even a shot at wasting my time. Yeah, I watched the new movie to see how the story translated, but I am not INVESTED in Dune stock. I'll keep my interest in cash, at least until the dollar completely crashes out. Cash is the spice of life, but not life itself.@@Noun-fq8tj
Man the parallel of Paul not taking on the task to save Humanity and letting his kids deal with it, matches to real world leaders always deferring the hardest problems to another generations problem.
What if Paul couldn’t do that, and foresaw that Leto was the only way forward? There are so many reasons hinting he just wasn’t born for this. For instance, Paul was raised as a human, had feelings and a life of his own. He also wasn’t born with the knowledge of his ancestors, unlike Leto, that actually leveraged this curse to "build" a supra human personnality that could take the only good decisions for thousands of years. Or he wasn’t born with fremen genes that allowed a symbiosis with the worms (body that saves water, more tolerant to spice,…) Or simply Leto had a twin that understood him and supported him on his choices. Or Paul needed to become an historic figure and Leto needed to become the Tyrant in order for the plan to work. Etc etc.
Is not that... Paul just could not do it... you need to think like this guy can see the future... he could not do it... same with the sister, she would break before the golden path could be finished.
Another Dune video? You know Quinn is addicted to this series when he's still making stuff about it in 2023. Love the videos, man. Keep up the good work!
@@ohauss it's still pretty timeless sometimes a play a game or watch a movie nd think what if they had this concept or they did that but then i saw nd read some dune nd it was like all the ideas i had were already done in a book it was insane nd i really how basic average joe i was
No matter how hard we try, death machines will inevitably emerge. We can only delay their arrival, not prevent it entirely. The idea of a death machine possessing foresight is deeply disturbing.
I appreciate the accuracy that you present. So many times I hear people talking about the Choice that Paul had to make and completely get it wrong. Paul DID know what the Golden Path ultimately was (though he didn't ever use that term, obviously - he called it his Terrible Purpose) that Leto put into motion, but he was unwilling or unable to make that sacrifice - but Leto ultimately was willing. Great work, my friend!
It has been a while since I read the books, so my recollection may be a bit muddied. Something I recall picking up from Frank's books was that Paul, if not also Leto, considered their prescience to be a kind of curse. Maybe I imagined it but I thought Frank was making reference to concepts in physics like collapsing the superposition of probabilities through observation. I thought he was trying to suggest that seeing the future was like opening the box in Schrodinger's metaphor. Once observed, future events became crystalized removing any surprise and paradoxically any choice since the future observed would also include your knowledge of the future, and the actions you chose in response. The golden path was the best and possibly only way to avoid a myriad of cul-de-sacs to human existence. Moreover I got the sense that Paul was frightened to look any further forward for the chance that he might see, and therefore doom humanity to, a worse fate.
Completely agree with your reading. The face dancer /hive mind entity personified by Marty and Daniel is something akin to pan-prescient and nearly omnipotent - Idaho and the other no-ship escapees avoid the future/net the hive mind has ‘laid out’ (ie planned/closed) for them. This is the Golden Path that Leto II put in train but never ‘foresaw’ for precisely the reasons you outline.
This is also why Leto II was so persistent on making a group of humans that were unassailable to prescience. You literally could not foresee what they would do and how they might change the future. This essentially makes the problem on observation go away since those people cannot be observed.
Absolutely, the prison of prescience comes up multiple times, and is as much a danger for humanity as destruction by an outside force. Prescience is just one version of a failure to adapt and evolve, since everything is determined in advance. Leto had to walk the knife's edge between blind destruction on the one hand and a perfectly determined future on the other, to allow for an unknowable future of free choice, a future where people would take responsibility for their own fates instead of letting others decide for them.
There's a glimpse of another dark future at the end of Dune Messiah: "Again he stumbled. Chani, Chani he thought. There was no other way. Chani, beloved, believe me that this death was quicker for you . . . and kinder. They'd have held our children hostage, displayed you in a cage and slave pits, reviled you with the blame of my death. This way . . . this way we destroy them and save our children."
@@purpledragons1146but it could be the other houses that succeeded to killing Paul and then blame Chani for it. Since they’re loyal to Paul (and not Chani) they can also be vulnerable to believe that his concubines killed him out of irrational anger that he’s simply dead. That or other Houses will simply blame Chani and imprison her even if it’s obvious it wasn’t true. The common Fremen can’t do anything about it if there is no emperor.
@@CarolinaHernandez-bv1nh Chani was the niece of Stilgar, the most respected Fremen naib and one of Emperor Paul's closest advisors. The Fremen under Stilgar never would have let Chani be blamed for Paul's death and would have brought the real conspirators to justice.
Seconded, thirded and then quadrupled. While I notice why enhancing the hunter-seekers with an AI could possibly lead to human extinction, I don't think it is the primary reason behind the God-Emperor's motivation, as it is not hinted in the saga in any way, at least as far as I remember. (Keep in mind I only read original 6 books... I might eventually pick up the other ones, but I've heard so much negative opinions on them I'd like to contemplate the original Herbert's work - pun intended - at least for now.)
An AGI could interface with swarms of them with no discernable pause in processing. It'd be like seeing a PC controlled army in an RTS at work, only the stakes are genocidal defeat, not a loss screen. An AGI implementing itself into a self replicating swarm of them would be a gray goo/nanopocalypse scenario.
@@Upgraayd read them again, he is. He is really close to being a KH but his genetics lead to a dead end. The only reason he was invisible to Paul was because he is also a oracle or his prescience was strong enough to hide from other oracles at least
@@lecamaroni2279 nah I don't think prescience was ever mentioned for him. He specialized in furtiveness. I think you should read it again. In any case it isn't worth an argument.
Sir...I think your research and what you do on your platform is brilliant! I wish that I could be one of those who could support your work properly, but I am on a budget. I will donate as best I can when I am able and you will be here for us to see your genius for some time in the future. Good luck!
As someone who tried and failed to get into Dune, I am immensely grateful for your ability to break down its high concepts and character motivations. The ending of Children of Dune made me not want to bother with God Emperor after Lato said he would be a worse tyrant than his father. Maybe I'll give it another shot when I have an avaliable audible credit.
No no no. You were correct not to read it. read the cliffs notes, skip directly to Heretics of Dune. Letos is tyrant, hes a monster. Book 4 has very little action and is claustrophic. everything in this video is mentioned in a small blurb of letos Journals.
You really should read God Emperor. It is a remarkable story with a very compelling character. The devil is in the details. Reading past it will only make you understand appreciate Heretics and Chapterhouse less, because you will not grasp why the sisterhood thinks what they do and acts how they do.
The funny thing is, Leto was the ultimate human. In Dune, Mohiam tells Paul that the purpose of the gom jabbar is to sift people to find humans: "An animal caught in a trap would gnaw off its leg to escape, but a human would endure the pain so that wehen the hunter came, he could kill him and remove a threat to his kind." Prescience was the ultimate trap and Leto endured it for 3000 years in order to save humanity. It also makes him quite rightly the God-Emperor because he personifies the Biblical types: prophet, priest, king and victim.
Glad to see you haven't forsaken the smaller videos. Still Quinn, with all these Dune videos, you should do some super cuts of all Dune videos besides just the playlist. All of the Explained in five minute episodes, all of the Ultimate guides together, etc etc for example
I think that it was not a singular threat but severall deadends for humanity. But what unified all this threats were the twin problems of stagnation or uncontrolled development. Basically he could save humanity by destroying every possible source of a possible bringer of the endtimes from within, but by doing so forcing humanity to stagnate what would mean they became suspectible of a outside threat.
I’ve pondered a lot about why Leto II couldn’t just wipe out the Ixians. I suppose the Ixians were in some way inevitable. (Not trying to mix franchises, here.) Even if the Ixians were to be wiped out, there would someday arise another technological culture. The threat could only be delayed. Leto needed to reshape humanity to survive enemies of its own creation. The no-gene was the best, lasting solution. Don’t just remove a threat, but make us capable of surviving any threat.
Leto II didn't wipe out the Ixians because he needed a technological center, and the known evil is better than the unknown one, because you can control the former, whereas you might not be able to control the later.
The issue was not just the Ixians. The real issue is that Butlerian Jihad is fundamentally flawed. It only takes one idiot bending the rules a little, or sticking to letter instead of the spirit, to create an intelligent rival to humanity. - It might be Ixians making smarter and smarter machines, pushing the boundary of what counts as "non-thinking machine" and end up enslaving intelligent AI that rebels, or worse, not make the AI smart enough to to understand what user means by "make more paperclips". - It could be Telelaxu creating face dancers that rebel (they are not literal machines, but they are enslaved intelligent non-humans). - It could be a prescient human-worm hybrid (or even mutated human), that abandons his own sense of humanity and starts prioritizing his own survival over survival of humans. (hint: This is why Paul didn't trust himself become worm God, he already once picked saving his own skin over preventing Jihad with body count in billions, even while he was still human) - It could be actual aliens discovering humanity and concluding its too dangerous to be left alive (btw this is an example of the very laws of nature not following butlerian jihad)
The problem is, even no-fields could be nullified, so it was really just kind of pointless. But of course the Ixians were inevitable, because eventually a monopoly on space travel without a human/spice component would come into play, as it was far more convenient. The further in the past the machine uprising was, the less people would take heed and fear its warnings, believing they could just do it more carefully this time, even though it wouldn't matter how carefully they did it, eventually sentience would arise, because you can't build enough safeguards into the system that a thinking machine couldn't eventually get around.
@@peoplez129Naturally, null fields do not provide 100% protection. But in the long term and on the scale of the universe, they create measurement error in calculations. And the more people use them independently of each other, the more the number of unaccounted variables increases. The more their variability increases. The more the probability of error increases. At a certain point, making prescience useless.
Man there´s no other youtuber like you explaning with such love and appreciation to Science Fiction books, the music, the audio, everything...This is the best channel to go deeper in this genre, keep bringing this amazing content! 👏👏
It is so good to see you back to Dune! It's awesome to see you covering other series, don't get me wrong, but I started following you all those years ago and you were covering dune a lot; it feels nostalgic
I believe Leto was coerced into this by his grandmother. She was poisoning him to death with spice and basically forcing him to put on the trout skin so he could escape. Not to mention that Aaliyah told the twins that in order to truly appreciate their memories they had to grow and make their own. Which they both agreed with. Leto was super young and didn’t have a full understanding of what he was giving up despite his vast knowledge of other memory.
Paul saw it too. He just couldn't sacrifice himself the way Leto could. He ran from the golden path. Leto embraced it and sacrificed his humanity to make it happen
I want you to know that it’s because of your Dune videos that I went and read all six books in the Saga last year. I so appreciate your quality content, and I can’t wait to start reading some other series that you’ve covered once I’m done with my Tolkien fix that I’m on. You are a terrific content creator. Thank you.
I wonder if frank Herbert's last book was going to tackle the belief in God's and faith. I'm not sure, but Daniel and Marty seemed like a caution against trusting in a greater power. We will sadly never know, but it's a fun idea.
Great Video. I'd love for a compare and contrast of the Atreides Golden Path vs the Seldon Plan from Foundation, and how the two concepts are similar and how they're different. I'm surprised more people don't talk about this.
Because they are nothing alike. Seldon wants to restore Civilization quicker from an inevitable collapse. The Golden Path is pure despotism , destruction of Civilzation, then utter dissolation in all directions. The only thing the two series have in common is at the beggining. Trantor and Kaitain are similar. its the Bene Gesserit that have longranging plans like Seldon. They have tendrils in everyones pie, and like Seldon rule in secret. The Mule has unexpected powers which disrupts the plan . ( this is more similar to Paul or Leto ) .
Leto II is the most fascinating character, the despot saviour, the God Ruler who served all of humanity. A sacrifice of his blood line, so that his twin sister would not have to, and to watch generations of her descendants live and die knowing that he will not die but will devolve into some pearl of genetic remnant-consciousness within the worm cycle, so that the rest of the species can continue. That's some major sacrifice.
Hi I have followed and thoroughly enjoyed your content for a number of years and have finally been able to join patreon. I know it's the lowest , But I hope with time to increase. Thanks Quinn for your content and enthusiasm that keep me going.
I follow many channels and this is probably the most consistently high quality content. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, passion and putting so much work into making these vids 🙏🍻
Man you must create more videos. You make me a dune fan. Already i reading original book series. Unfortunate my hand first get to childrens of dune . Now i found first and secend books but now I'm in mid of 3 book. For as 40k fan i really like dune this is magnificent.
Loved the video. I read the original hexalogy in my early teens for the first time, way before the prequels came out. Despite that I always believed that Kralizec, the spectre of doom that loomed over mankind had everything to do with the very thing that the commandments of the Butlerian Jihad were all about: prohibiting humanity from ever developing thinking machines again. I expected them to either come from IX (which would fit your theory of the "kwisatz haderach" hunter-seeker device, or from beyond the borders of the empire, i.e. remnants of the thinking machine empire). Maybe that's also why I was not so peeved about the prequels and sequels written by Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson. I expected the Enemy to be the thinking machines. Although written in a very different style, I enjoyed reading them, and discovering more about the Dune universe, greatly. Pretty much the only thing I was peeved about (but that came along much later when I had worked my way through the two sequel books), was Ominus and Erasmus being the old married Face Dancer couple. That simply made no sense to me. I do not know if Frank Herbert ever intended for it to be so, but there are entries in his larger body of work that deal with similar issues, albeit less extensively. Similar plot elements and similar motifs are presents which to me suggest that they share a universe with the Dune Saga. At the same time, Frank Herbert was notorious for reusing various terms and concepts for a multitude of his books, so what do I know ;-).
Another excellent Dune video, thank you! Despite his transformation Leto II was the most human of all at that time. He had so many millions of lives, some going all the way back to early Earth to draw from. He's always been my favorite character due to his complexity.
You always have such cool insights and explain things so well. It's been 20 years since I read these books and you talk about them with deep knowledge, but also very accessibly for people that don't know or remember all the details you mention and reference. One of the best.
I always assumed it was the end of humanity. I always felt like the core plot of Dune was the evolution of humanity, and the opposite of evolution is Extinction.
Love your videos Quinn, they have this ASMR feeling to them because of your presentation and voice.I often fall asleep to you talking about mind viruses, dimensional collapse, mutations and other generally horrible things. But your presentation just makes it a pleasant experience
I constantly think about the god emperor and Nietzsche’s classic ‘stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back’. The two circle each other perfectly so
Just a quick comment on editing, I LOVE your videos, but the intro could be pulled back a bit volume-wise. Your voice is perfect, but that intro shocks me sometimes :) Love the music though :) keep it up!
There is something I have been struggling to reconcile with the Dune books so I suspect I am missing something. It is always stated that one of the main theme of the books is to be a warning against following charismatic leaders. And yet, if it weren't for these specific charismatic leaders, Paul and Leto II, humanity is doomed to extinction. Which seems to be implying that we need charismatic leaders? What am I missing?
I think it's more a warning of charismatic charlatans that want power for power's sake rather than actual charismatic leaders that actually have a plan to improve and help society, Paul and Leto II both had plans to improve society towards an end goal, even though they had to be the villians on the face of it all.
Paul and Leto can see the future so they actually know what to do to solve humanity’s greatest challenges and they refuse to be captive to the influence of other factions, unlike literally every other charismatic leader in history who are self-aggrandizing and beholden to the interests of others.
Okay, but that still doesn't resolve my issues. Are the books saying, don't follow charismatic leaders! Except for the few good ones, those you can follow and depend on them to save you! Or is it because humanity keeps falling for and following these types of leaders and their systems that the extremes measures of Leto II had to happen?
@@evannerson3498I think Leto was a good leader not because he “saved” mankind but because he made it so mankind can save itself. Both Paul and Leto caused great suffering to their subjects through their actions. Only by removing the need for a leader altogether they could justify all the suffering they caused to get to that point.
Maybe the implied argument here is 'don't follow charismatic leaders unless they can literally see the future, and even if they can, *watch out*' or 'committing atrocities for the sake of a charismatic leader could only ever be justified in this completely insane situation involving magical prescience and an existential threat to humanity that doesn't exist in real life.' It does seem to be a bit of a mixed message though, if you wanted to write something against fanatical cults of personality I'd think the very last thing you'd want to do would be to fully justify pretty much the worst one imaginable through narrative fiat.
This is just one interpretation. However... that's how I see it. Paul is no hero. But... He is the man who frees the Fremen! The man who beat the Harkonen! True, but he was almost acting on instinctive self-preservation. He did what he did to survive and it just worked! He never showed any willingness to put himself aside during this struggle. It was just that his personal interest aligned with the interests of the Fremen. Becoming a messianic figure was also necessary for him to survive and secure his position. This guy never did ANYTHING that did suit him 100%. And then came the hard part. Doing the sacrifice. But Paul was like "No, no, no thank you very much. Let someone else do it". He had the choice to save the Fremen and everyone else and he said "Eh...No... I would rather be at peace and have a good legacy. I am already a hero. Get someone else". I mean, it is normal even for heros to lose their courage or have second thoughts, even Jesus had that. But the difference is that they do the right thing in the end. On the other hand, imagine if Jesus said "Ok... Forget this dying on the cross thing. Nope. I did my part", well, in the context of Dune we do not have to imagine anything. Paul did just that. Paul was the ultimate "bad" individualist. Someone who had great power thrusted upon him and instead of doing the right thing, he kicked the can further down the road. Leto the second was a tyrant. Most would say a benevolent one. Some would say an inexcusable one. Some would say that it doesn't matter because he was still a tyrant. I got my opinion but that's not what we are talking about here. Leto the second was the ultimate "good" individualist. But... How can he be an individualist if he sacrificed himself, his legacy and even his individuality for the others? He absolutely can. Because HE did it. HE felt that only HIM could do it that it was HIS duty. He took it upon him to save humanity because that was his way. And if that meant being a tyrant and oppressing everyone, he would do it because nothing and noone was as important as his mission. He did everything because he believed in his ultimate personal responsibility. And why is he "good". Well, that's easy. He made the sacrifice so that humanity lives. And he took all the burden for humanity to survive.
I am not even that religious but besides that, this is just the interpretation I have about Paul and Leto the second. If you ask me, the best ruler was Leto the first. There were two things that led me to that interpretation. 1.) The "Paul good, Leto the 2nd bad" interpretation just disregards the nuance of Dune. Paul did good things. Sure. He also got close to dooming the galaxy and he was really selfish and impulsive at times. Leto the 2nd was an absolute tyrant and he held humanity back. True. He also protected humanity and provided stability compared to the eras before and after him and he was the first to make sacrifices if they were needed. Dune is not black and white (ok Harkonnen are mostly black...) 2.) I could never bring myself to view Leto the second as a criticism towards utilitarianism. I totally see Frank Herbert going this way (people got political opinions after all). But it just did not fit with the complexities of Dune and I do think that Herbert could easily depict Leto the second as completely evil but he chose not to do that. But that brings us to the issue that if someone considered Leto the second as a good guy, and many people did that, it would effectively backfire because the criticism would end up being viewed as praise. Therefore, I chose to interpret Leto the second as the ultimate individualist. At the end it is just another from of selfishness but a more benevolent one. At the end it is a discussion between maintaining the status quo and steering the pot. Would I like to have a guy as Leto the second as a ruler? Nope, no sir, no. I would also hate dying in a huge war like the jihad or being attacked by omnipotent aliens. But that's Dune...
You don't understand how excited I see that you've posted another video! I literally clear my schedule for at least 20 minutes to just listen to your sci-fi lore explanations!
God emperor is still my favorite sci fi book ever; Leto II is so well written, I’ve never seen any other author get close to making such a nuanced and idealistically driven character. His death at the hands of those stupid, horny schlubs always makes me shed a tear.
His death at the hands of those stupid horny schlubs was HIS INTENTION. It's like these people who don't understand that Jesus MEANT for himself to be crucified. THAT WAS THE PLAN.
@@billl2903 Not OP, but I agree in the sense that the god emperor had to die. In quite a few ways, he did help humanity but by the end even he knew that his time had come, that he was reacting with emotion (which he himself attributed to Hwi, but by Moneo’s account we can tell that his tantrums have been happening for years), and more importantly he realizes that he really is no longer human. As he says, he find more and more human preocupation on his mind, but he also realizes that it’s because he now sees them as external and not him. I do think he saved humanity (although I’m still pissed FH didnt describe what he actually prevented/ Moneo and Siona saw in the visions)
Unless I'm misremembering, I was pretty sure the threat was stagnation. Spice dependance/production restricted human exploration and, eventually, maybe in 10,000 or 100,000 years humans would either devolve or become extinct. The Omnius/Erasmus angle was a fabrication by Brian and Kevin.
What I find interesting and its not something ive seen talked about much is how almost all of our evidence for such fates come from Leto himself. If we consider he is an unreliable narrator then suddenly his apparently nobility and selflessness comes into question. Would there REALLY have been no people left if leto hadnt become the God emperor? We actually can't know for sure because this info only comes from leto, who could easily be lying to justify his own tyranny.
Yes, many people have that fan theory, but this video proves it wrong since Paul saw it as well, but wasnt acting on it or exploiting it for more power. What is more interesting IMO is the idea that is woven throughout the books that the presceint generate their own results... That their own fears and imaginations generate the possible futures and by acting on those possible futures, they cement them. That maybe Krailesec wasn't real at all... just a campfire story to frieghten kids... but by acting as if it was real, Leto lashed humanity to that future.
Nah. Paul saw the Kralizec, too, and, if I'm not wrong, the Bene Gesserit did too (or at least a hint of it). Let's also keep in mind that Leto's transformation is basically a very prolonged torture. He would have to reeeeaaaally love the idea of being a tyrant in order to put himself through that just to become one. And there's no indication in the books that he is enjoying his tyranny. More like enduring it.
@@patreekotime4578 I don't think the idea of prescience shaping the future applies to that extent. In fact, it's said (or implied) that Kralizec is the one and only inmutable thing in the future. Which checks out with both Paul and Leto seeing the same thing (and I think the Bene Gesserit saw it too, perhaps less clearly than them, but still devoting their entire existence to prevent or minimize it).
@@YarblocosifiliticoIf it is the one thing everyone fears because of its persistence in every myth or religion, then everyone would see it. It is quite possibly just a primordial human fear. Or does it loom large even in primordial myth exactly because soothsayers have always seen it?
@@patreekotime4578 Who said everyone?? Paul, Leto, and the Bene Gesserit (to some extent, it would seem) have access to the future. Like, they can literally see it. It's one of the premises of this fictional saga. Kralizec seems to be a specific event, not just fear of extintion. At least that was my interpretation; I guess there's room for others.
Quinn, I was wondering if you are ever going to do a video about the three other Wallfacers in the Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest. What were their plans and why did those plans failed.
I feel like the whole idea of "the God Emperor's brutality was necessary" undercuts the theme of Dune, that you should be extremely wary of charismatic leaders, since painting extreme actions as necessary for the greater good is the hallmark of a dictator.
I had another thought - is the destruction of humanity in this scenario really just physical death...? What if this monstrous scenario does not involve physical extinction, but a complete and utter loss of human essence. A complete distortion of the species - even more inhumane than the Tleilaxu and the Honored Matres combined?
I watch dune and now I keep getting recommended all these ideas channels that I have never seen before. It's like a new niche I never saw before. Anyways, it's cool, subbed. Interesting stuff.
It’s not just “Paul’s actions,” as you say here, but also (and I cannot stress this enough) because of his refusal to act. Which forces it upon his second son, Leto II (the God Emperor).
I honestly feel that, as good as the latest Dune movie was, it could never reach the depths of the books. The movie is still for normies in my opinion, focusing mostly on the action sequences, and not on the deeper messages.
Still one of the best adaptations ever. How would you go about doing a non-normie Dune movie, exactly? How would you show prescience and its effect on Paul, so that we get the "deeper messages"? And which are those, exactly?
@Yarblocosifilitico I honestly don't know. And I was thinking about the fact that in a book you can get deeper. I do love the movie, and am eagerly waiting for part 2.
@@DiegoB0525 that's my point. It's just different mediums. Villeneuve did an amazing job. I'm one of (I'm sure) many people who read the books due to the movie. I had heard of Dune, but tried the old movie and never finished it. But I knew it was a literary classic so when the movie was coming up, I begun looking into it (hence why I subbed to this great channel) The movie is still too deep for normies. People thought it slow, weird, vague, etc. Some others loved it. Dune is such an unique IP that it's always gonna be somewhat niche. Which, seeing how Star Wars fared, it's great news :P I'm right there with you, hyped for part 2. Take care, fellow Dune fan!
There probably are notes or even a manuscript that could give an idea of what he had in mind. From what I heard, George R.R. Martin had given details to TV shorunners about how his own immersive story would end.
Quinn’s ideas are quite interesting 🤔, just re found your channel after some months absence, As they say absence makes the heart grow fonder !!! Intelligent insights into sci-fi well done m8 , all the videos that I’ve seen of your work are well thought out and excellently presented, keep up the great work Quinn !!! Thank you very much and have a good new year !
Thank you for being one of the very few to get it. Paul is a failure, and a bit of a coward. He knew what lies ahead and knew he had to become a monster to save humanity, but was unable to do it. Leto II was the true hero. Everyone tries to analyze Dune using modern political sensibilities (and postmodern bullshittery like saying that Paul and Leto II were unreliable narrators) and that it’s about power corrupting, or that Leto was a villain by enforcing his will, and they miss the whole point - it’s about Letos sacrifice in becoming a monster and being remembered as a monster while simultaneously making that sacrifice to be the true hero in saving humanity.
My 2 cents, by spending money on the Ixians and also preventing interstellar travel from almost all people the need for a hunter seeker that could be prescient was reduced. You don't need to have a hunter seeker capable of traveling between stars to hunt down a target, you just need a hunter seeker on a specific planet and it goes after people. IF interstellar travel was still allowed freely then eventually the natural course of a technologically based arms race between houses would have seen a hunter killer capable of using a small holstmen drive to travel between worlds and using prescience be able to teleport directly to a foe and kill them. Those actions gave them time to work on the camouflage gene.
If it were mandatory in school, I predict that students will not appreciate it, and probably dislike it. PSA for everyone here: Reread the Great Gatsby after you turn 30. It hits differently.
As the above comment says, that's a bad idea. I mean, Dune is not for children, period. Maybe in college, but even then most people would not enjoy it, and so they would learn very little from it. It's perfectly ok to have masterpieces that most people dismiss. That's just how society works (we're all unique individuals, and that's a good thing).
I got introduced to Dune few years ago, and NOTHING can compare to it.. This is without doubt my favourite universe and lore (only rivaled by the one from Freelancer, but I am entirely biased towards that game) and Frank Herbert has created so many unique concepts and scenarios that baffle my mind to this day.. the idea of Kralizec is by far my favourite, but thats probably due to me being biased, I just love absolutism. The idea of a "war at the end of time" is so colossal and incomprehensible that it just twists my mind like a wet sponge, love it. Before I go off another tangent, this is just my way of thanking you Quinn, for keeping my spice addiction alive, and doing it in the highest possible quality for our entertainment!
Dune's cool and all but this whole, "the totalitarian fascist that removed people's freedoms and killed without mercy was right all along," angle seems like it goes AGAINST the original purpose of the books which were (according to Frank Herbert [according to the internet]) to warn people against charismatic and powerful leaders. But if space h1tler never existed, humanity would have gone extinct? If you view the series from that angle, it absolutely fails in the most embarrassing way. The series is still awesome, has mind blowing concepts, great prose, pretty cool characters and a very other-worldly feel. But... the series is kind of cringe when it suggests that the only thing that can save humanity is a brutal, heartless totalitarian dictator. If there's any truth to that in real life our species should just go extinct. That would not be a tragedy. Why bother even being around if we're all just going to be dicks to each other?
I LOVE THESE SERIES A LOT, I find it crazy how in the movies when Paul gets his first kill he doesn’t cry but in the book he does and his mom humiliates him knowing a life is a precious thing
Hey bud love your content, is one of your BGM from a game called Eschalon book 1? I literally just heard your flute BGM bar for bar match the tangletree ossuary external area?
7:00 - that brief passage is the ONE mention of the big thing that Leto fears. I’ve always thought that in such a big book, it could’ve used fleshing out
This is the second video about Dune that I've watched of yours. I haven't read the books and am on the fence on whether or not I want to commit to that. You do such a good job breaking things down without making it confusing. Thanks for the video.
great video as usual. I never would have had the patience to grasp this increasingly bizzar universe, and your soothing narration and expositions are always a treat. p.s. though i like the new intro composition, i do kinda miss the OG... thanks for sharing your passion
It's fairly obvious upon detailed re-readings that Herbert did not have the entire mythos constructed ahead of time, or even from one book to the next. He would have done a better job of foreshadowing if he has the entire idea complete say, at the start of writing Messiah. He, to some extent, was making it up as he went, and changing his mind as he went.
Rather than universe, it may be more accurate to say that Paul was the fulcrum for the Human Empire which consisted of about roughly 20,000 planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Which is probably just a very small portion of the galaxy. To say "the whole universe" I think gives a misleading impression. Thanks for the great videos! Keep em coming. 😊
I always thought that Paul did not become the God Emperor because he was not born with the memories of his ancestors. He could not sacrifice his individual humanity, but his son who never really had that chance could choose it. The abomination was needed for the salvation of humanity.
He also refused to give up Chani too
Oh wow!!! That's a really interesting observation!!!! Thank you for sharing!!
I can't blame him. Leto II might be the most badass character ever, due to that decision alone.
Paul is too afraid to walk the golden path so he curses his son to walk it in his stead. Leto confronts him about it and calls him out for it. Pretty dark man. Great novels!
@jeervin I think you explained this very succinctly and accurately. 100% agree with you.
Leto was ruthless because he loved humanity. His only goal was to prevent our species extinction. He would do anything to achieve his goal. He would sacrifice anything to prevent a extinction event from happening.
Paul saw the same visions as Leto. Paul could not make the sacrifices necessary save humanity in the long run. Paul was his father's son and could not live with the things that he had to do. Leto was a mix of his mother and father. Chani was a person who could make hard choices and sacrifice herself. Leto was able to do what he did because he had the strength of both of his parents.
What I don't understand is why he leaded the Muad'Dib's Jihad? that's like a weak leadership or did it prevented something worse?
@@loboilustrado IMO Paul chose the lesser of two evils. If he didn't act humanity would have gone extinct in the near future. He allowed the Jihad to happen because he couldn't find another path that would save humanity. The guilt that he felt after the Jihad made him walk into the desert. Unfortunately the Jihad was not enough. It just delayed our extinction. Leto had to become the God emperor to make the changes that were required to prevent all of humanity from being destroyed.
@@loboilustrado From my understanding, Paul basically went with the flow of the visions he saw, there's multiple times in the book where he's just regretting the choices he's making but prefers it over the Leto path. There's also a point where he knows he's gone too far to go back, that even if he dies he'll just become a martyr and make the Jihad even stronger.
@@loboilustrado I think that's a 2 part situation. 1 The Fremen demanded the jihad to fulfill their false prophecies, 2 he basically drove the Landsraad to irrelevance and setting the stage for LetoII
What’s the point of humanity existing if we’re miserable?
There was a fundamental difference between Paul and young Leto that ultimately determined how they would react to the requirement of becoming a worm-human hybrid. This was that Paul, unlike his son, hadn't been born to a mother super saturated with spice, and thus, pre awakened. Thanks to his presience (?) Paul was able to do some pretty unpleasant things, but he was still solidly human. Leto, on the other hand, had to fight from birth to retain his humanity... and his sense of self had already been weakened by the time he finally chose to take up the Golden Path.
What becomes clear in Children of Dune is that Leto and his sister Ghanima knew about the Golden Path long before the events in the book play out, they had discussed it, and both knew that one of them was going to have to adopt it. Ghanima was equally capable of taking up the challenge, but she didn't know if she had the mental and emotional strength to see it through to its end. Leto, on the other hand, having been supersaturated with spice not once, but twice, was already one personality amongst many when he adopted the sandtrout skin. With the weight of millions, if not billions, of human lives to support him through the thousands of years of slow metamorphosis, he believed he had enough humanity (or the memories of it) to see him to the conclusion of the Golden Path. And unlike his father, with his own individuality already subsumed in the collective Other Memory, he wasn't afraid of losing something already buried in the myriad.
The concept of the Golden Path suggests that a prescient being can see humanity's future and guide it to avoid self-destruction. However, the very nature of prescience's has limitations, as evidenced by Jessica and Thufir: Jessica, as a trained Bene Gesserit with some prescient abilities, and Thufir, a Mentat, are both skilled in the art of prediction. Yet, they find themselves unable to prevent the Duke's fate. This raises questions about the infallibility of the Golden Path. Does it truly provide a clear roadmap to navigate humanity's fate, or does it merely offer a narrow and limited perspective? It becomes unclear whether one can truly foresee all consequences and outcomes, or if prescience merely presents a narrow perspective on the future.
@@axelfury3189 Its limited. Paul exlains this in messiah. There are dark paths.
itrs even limited by interfence by Navigators. and Some People were always immune ( shaddams IV ferret like assasssin )
Mentats dont have Presience. ( but the skills do seem to help when you do)
Paul, later Duncan are also treained as Mentats. Paul is partly a superhuman as he is trained in most of the Guilds including swordsman, Benee gesserit, some Zen Sunni Philosophy and Mentat skills
the later books assert over and over again that Prescience is a trap.
Its subjective to confirmaton bias and the Boostrap paradox.
Navigators have partial Prescience, its how they are able to navigate.
The Golden Path Ended the Monopoly power where one person could control all of humanity ; by inducing the scattering , people travelling so far into unknown space they cant return. No ships, siona genes and No sheilds, hiding from prescience it also stopped the threat that self replicating hunterseekers could evolve to destroy all of humanity.
Beautifully articulated!
prescience = pre (before) + science (knowledge) 👍😊
the trick to remembering words is to know the roots
@@scratthesquirrel5242 Science means 'truth', not 'knowledge'.
I've met a shocking amount of Dune fans that have read through God Emperor of Dune and did not understand that the invisibility to prescience was the bulk what Leto's Golden Path was (the Scattering being the other part).
Yes. Thank you.
I would actually reverse that order: The Scattering was what was needed to save humanity; the propogation of invisibility to prescience throughout humanity was what was necessary to prevent anyone else from ever undoing what Leto II was doing.
@@heretic-668 and removing humanity's dependence on spice via No-Ship navigation
Invisibility to prescience was the most important. It makes humans unpredictable, so that if a subsequent entity gained prescience, it could not use it to enslave humanity. Remember that in the prequels, the machines were desperately trying to understand humanity - they failed, and the Butlerian Jihad happened. Probably one of the most incomprehensible things in human existence is religious fervor; imagine an immortal machine being able to control it.
also not being trapped in one persons prescient vision, vs being invisible, to exist outside of it... ie had the spice and worm forced a future upon humanity?
I always thought the darkest future would be a prescient despot. Imagine a Harkonnen as a Kwisach Hedarach. Mankind would turn forever inward serving the capricious whims of the despot. Civilizations wouldn't expand and grow since absolute control would be necessary. Change would be the enemy. Any threat would be completely and immediately eradicated.
never thought of that.
Paul was 1/4 Harkonnen - his maternal grandfather was the Baron
@@ticallionzbut imagine if Feyd was the Kwisatz Haderach…Paul may have Harkonnen blood but he was not raised as a Harkonnen.
The original plan was for Feyd to hook up with an Atreides daughter for the final breeding
That is literally what happened. Leto is a cruel prescient despot.
Duncan Idaho considers him as evil as a harkonen. And tries to kill him over and over.
Leto the second was a hero. He painted himself a villain, while actually creating a tyranny that actually caused minimum loss of life and suffering. There is a great example where he had to kill some historians, to add to his infamy he executed them by burning, but he had actually sedated them so they wouldn't feel anything. He even discusses at great length how he is priming the culture to admire exploration, while restricting that thing. It was a tyranny, but a carefully constructed one, not the brutality of a despotic ruler.
Cope
literally missed the whole point of the saga lmao
He is an archetypal 'benevolent dictator' no??
@@gokiburi-chan4255 I mean... what he says isn't that off in that regard, but we have to keep in mind that WORM DUDE COULD LITERALLY SEE INTO THE FUTURE. So it's not comparable to ANY real dictatorship / tyranny. Maybe it says that the only benevolent dictator is one who is omniscient? (???). Idk, just thinking thoughts.
I've heard people describe Joseph Stalin like this. 'It was all needed to win WW2'
I think this also ties in with the question of why Leto II didn't wipe out the Ixians to avert this apocalyptic future. Because Leto II knew that it would ultimately fail. That type of fear and thinking is exactly what led to Shaddam IV trying to wipe out the Atreides, and it ultimately led to his defeat and precisely what he feared coming to pass. No matter how skilled his Fish-Speakers were, there's no way Leto would have been able to completely eradicate the Ixians. And those Ixian survivors would likely have created the very hunter seeker weapon Leto II feared out of pure desperation or vengeance.
This helps with my questions of why didn't he just stop the Ixians. But even still you don't need to eradicate entire civilizations to stop the creation of this killing machine.
A self-replicating doomsday weapon.
@@natestowes5867 But you would, if your whole shtick was getting humanity as a collective to become desperate to learn how to survive and thrive even with the worst of threats. The eradication of people was necessary if it meant those who remained became desperate to survive, and perhaps if they became desperate to survive: they'd have a better chance of evading prescient threats once prescience would be nullified. But until then, they would still need to learn to evolve of a sense of survival to save themselves and to diversity as part of Leto II's multi-faceted plan to effectively guarantee humanity's chances at a future beyond the great threat he saw.
It's not like Leto II or any other prescient being knew the actual way that history was supposed to play out. They're still handling chances upon chances, they're just the only ones to see ALL futures that might be of concern and can piece their way through what to do and what not to do. He still needed to prepare humanity by doing multiple things at once because there was no guarantee that he could delay the emergence of the new hunter-seeker, or that he could create a gene which would hide humans from prescience. He knew the golden path, but it was a path that still had to be trodden by humanity, and he needed multiple solutions. Turning himself into the ultimate threat against humanity - making them learn to survive, was one of them.
Paul wasn't willing to see any more of what his Jihad already did even if it meant he could do what he had to do to give humanity an even longer future. He was too human. Leto II was willing to kill even more, if it meant humanity could survive an even more existential threat. To be fair, it is true that he could've avoided all the extra death, but you could argue that in order to truly threaten humanity into strength, death would be a non-negotiable part.
So he avoids the self-fulfilling prophecy trope. Wise one!
He was seeing broad strokes in the crevices of those strokes there could have been Ixian survivors, to ensure total annihilation would have meant more prescience capable Assassins , in other words he could macro manage but he couldn't micro the size of a Barn without birthing the threat he tried to prevent
Duncan was important to Leto's breeding program thanks to his death at the blades of the Sardaukar, at variance with Paul's vision "Duncan was with him in that vision" - through clearly Duncan had avoided the grip that a prescient would have on setting a waveform-collapse on the local universe.
Leto then back-bred Duncan with the Atreides to re-inforce this ability to disappear from prescient view and manipulation - resulting in biological mimesis that made humans invisible to prescience, in the form of Duncan's descendant, Siona Atreides.
By the time of Heretics of Dune, almost all of humanity in the old Empire had Siona genes, so that the saying 'By the thousand sons of Idaho' and 'The nine daughters of Siona' takes on more meaning - within the 10,000 years after the fall of Leto II, the spread of these genes both within the Empire and the Scattering, allowed Bashar Miles Teg to reflect "Atreides, all of us...."
I'm always suprised that the Bene Gesserit never picked up on this - but, then, as in the appendix from Dune (the Report on Bene Gesserit motives as compiled for the Lady Jessica) this seemed to be the clumsiness they often demonstrated - being blindsided by events where their assumptions proved wrong - and failing to learn from those mistakes in turn.
Hence Leto II considered teaching them an even tougher lesson because "They are so close to what they should be, and yet so far..."
This is very interesting! Though I never got the impression that Duncan was able to avoid prescient manipulation/subjugation more so that Paul’s vision was weaker then and he wasn’t capable of seeing the future in a very clear and accurate way, which he was able to do later in the series. I believed he repeatedly recreated Duncan because he was the only person Leto could travel the millenniums with. Who else would have tolerated this? Not gurney, or stilgar, or thufir hawat. Duncan was loyal to a fault and was particularly appealing to Letos most recent ancestors, Leto the first Paul and jessica. Not saying your theory is incorrect and tbh it’s more interesting than my theory but I’m just sharing my opinion. Love this series.
I m not seeing it. The purpose Duncan Idaho played was never finished.
( He started to gain prescience against the New Facedancers technology their tachyon web ) . But this was after having thousands of lives and essentially Other Memory.
If anything, Duncan was Hypervisible to Letos Prescience, a known quantity, which is the main reason he kept using him bringing him back.
He was able to avoid all of Duncans many assasination attempts too. Except for he one with Siona .
Siona Genes actually existed in Dune. Shaddams Furtive Assassin , Count fenring had them. He was described as a failed KH whos ability was in furtiveness, avoiding being noticed including Prescience.
@@AdamBlackIdaho’s purpose was fully realised in the escape of the no-ship from the face dancer/hive mind entity personified by Marty and Daniel.
Idaho in his Chapter House incarnation - the amalgam of all of his ghola versions - is instrumental in the continuance of the thinnest thread of the Golden Path.
Machine intelligence wasn’t the ultimate threat to individuated human expression - it was the face dancer/hive mind personified in Marty and Daniel. That the no-ship escapees take Van Gogh’s ‘Thatched Cottages at Cordeville’ to remind them of what it is to be human is such a masterful touch by Frank Herbert.
@@michaeloliver7525 I kind of agree with most of your points.
I do think Duncan was hypervisible to Leto. And the strong implications during heretics Chapterhouse is the present in the Empire was Letos future. I don't remember Ultimate Duncan was doped with Siona genes.
He escaped their tachyon net.
The biggest mystery is what happens next.
By that I mean does Frank turn it into a Trilogy, or do another time jump.
If Dune7 was a direct sequel he's set it up for Duncan gaining prescience. Or much more. ( I don't believe his son will ever release the notes. )
Marty and Daniel have ability beyond the BG and Leto. They have a metastable SELFs outside multiple personas. Like joss Whedons Dollhouse .
We also see Duncan was given secret abilities by the Tleilax. Since Frank set it up, it's possible in 7 he unlocks Face Dancer abilities. Or gains BG sharing, including from regular humans. He set it up so there was a parallel to Scattering Facedancers gaining Meta consciousness and Duncan from integrating past lives.
Do you think Facedancers operate as a hivemind? Or do you just mean the group mind of Dany and Marty types?
@@marquistf1996it’s not that Paul was less capable he was just seeing “possible futures,” though at that time he didn’t have enough dosage of spice to figure it all out
One moment that resonated with me was a scene between the God-Emperor and Malky. We don't see their dialogue, but it's clear that Leto II told Malky about his visions of the Ixians creating the hunter seeker and asked him if the Ixians could not do it. And Malky simply sighed and chided Leto II, because no matter what, the Ixians couldnt stop. Because even with the warning of what they would create, they would simply assume that they could avoid such an outcome because of their confidence in themselves.
An interesting idea is that part of Leto's golden path was actually helping humanity to overcome their aversion TO technology. Not only did he not crack down on the IXians but he was enamored with their machines, going so far as to have a dictaphone that could literally read his thoughts. Him getting rid of most of the universe's natural spice forced people to use computer navigation in their ships. By Chapte House the Bene Gesserite are even making cyborgs out of people.
Yes this is an interesting avenue of thought. We don't get a lot of information about his attitudes in this direction, but he clearly wanted to moderate the fanaticism that resulted from the Butlerian Jihad, without losing its essential injunction that humanity must be preserved (a conundrum we are facing now, in our own version of reality).
Nice one Quinn. I've been re-reading the original 6 books over the last year and I'm in Heretics now. I love how everyone is still trying to figure out what the hell the god emperor was actually trying to do. His ways were not understood during his long life and cannot be understood even through hundreds and thousands of years of study.
He was written so well as a detached all knowing being, but at the same time a living raw nerve! Such a great character. Wish we knew more about his sister's life though. Is there a book by Herbert's son or Anderson or the two of them about her that I missed?
only expansion we got on any of the years between 3 and 4 is in the Dune Encyclopedia, which is... canon/noncanon- depends whom you ask. The entry on Ghanima in there is all we get.
imo it's more canon than the stuff his son and Anderson did if only because Frank himself endorsed the work, but gave disclaimer that history was constnatly changing and things in the Encyclopedia were still open to change, but w/e I'm ranting now
@@Noun-fq8tj This is just the kind of thing I was looking for, I never went to the encyclopedia, so this is great info for me. I read all the son and Anderson books back in early 2000's too and found them lacking. I appreciate the direction, not a rant, just great info, thanks again!
She is reduced to irrelivance.......one of the worst outcomes for the twin sister of the god emperor who must now live with the agony of her death after having the intense bond of being pre-born together.
@@yurimodin7333 except she's not irrelevant. Her descendants contribute to the reality that is the gene which allows humanity to survive. Her path was far less arduous, but extremely beneficial in the long run.
We don't know the names of the 1400 or so humans which survived the bottleneck. But they're existence is why we are all here. Sometimes notoriety is not remotely related to relevance
I read the first three Dune books with mixed reactions. THEN I started God Emperor....it was a WTF moment. I instantly concluded Herbert had completely jumped the shark, or jumped his own worm, or had completely 180'd himself and was swimming upstream against his own backside. I've never given another Dune clone or Gola even a shot at wasting my time.
Yeah, I watched the new movie to see how the story translated, but I am not INVESTED in Dune stock. I'll keep my interest in cash, at least until the dollar completely crashes out. Cash is the spice of life, but not life itself.@@Noun-fq8tj
Man the parallel of Paul not taking on the task to save Humanity and letting his kids deal with it, matches to real world leaders always deferring the hardest problems to another generations problem.
What if Paul couldn’t do that, and foresaw that Leto was the only way forward?
There are so many reasons hinting he just wasn’t born for this.
For instance, Paul was raised as a human, had feelings and a life of his own.
He also wasn’t born with the knowledge of his ancestors, unlike Leto, that actually leveraged this curse to "build" a supra human personnality that could take the only good decisions for thousands of years.
Or he wasn’t born with fremen genes that allowed a symbiosis with the worms (body that saves water, more tolerant to spice,…)
Or simply Leto had a twin that understood him and supported him on his choices.
Or Paul needed to become an historic figure and Leto needed to become the Tyrant in order for the plan to work.
Etc etc.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of Paul’s inability to follow the golden path.
Is not that... Paul just could not do it... you need to think like this guy can see the future... he could not do it... same with the sister, she would break before the golden path could be finished.
Such is the way throughout human history.
It's also a parallel of Paul's forefathers failing to settle their own scores
Another Dune video? You know Quinn is addicted to this series when he's still making stuff about it in 2023. Love the videos, man. Keep up the good work!
Another nude video indeed !
That and the money involved in views
The Dune saga is so rich and complex it's a fascinating universe Herbert created
But it's also a product of its time and the limitations of Herbert's knowledge.
@@ohauss it's still pretty timeless sometimes a play a game or watch a movie nd think what if they had this concept or they did that but then i saw nd read some dune nd it was like all the ideas i had were already done in a book it was insane nd i really how basic average joe i was
No matter how hard we try, death machines will inevitably emerge. We can only delay their arrival, not prevent it entirely. The idea of a death machine possessing foresight is deeply disturbing.
I appreciate the accuracy that you present. So many times I hear people talking about the Choice that Paul had to make and completely get it wrong. Paul DID know what the Golden Path ultimately was (though he didn't ever use that term, obviously - he called it his Terrible Purpose) that Leto put into motion, but he was unwilling or unable to make that sacrifice - but Leto ultimately was willing.
Great work, my friend!
It has been a while since I read the books, so my recollection may be a bit muddied. Something I recall picking up from Frank's books was that Paul, if not also Leto, considered their prescience to be a kind of curse. Maybe I imagined it but I thought Frank was making reference to concepts in physics like collapsing the superposition of probabilities through observation. I thought he was trying to suggest that seeing the future was like opening the box in Schrodinger's metaphor. Once observed, future events became crystalized removing any surprise and paradoxically any choice since the future observed would also include your knowledge of the future, and the actions you chose in response. The golden path was the best and possibly only way to avoid a myriad of cul-de-sacs to human existence. Moreover I got the sense that Paul was frightened to look any further forward for the chance that he might see, and therefore doom humanity to, a worse fate.
Completely agree with your reading. The face dancer /hive mind entity personified by Marty and Daniel is something akin to pan-prescient and nearly omnipotent - Idaho and the other no-ship escapees avoid the future/net the hive mind has ‘laid out’ (ie planned/closed) for them. This is the Golden Path that Leto II put in train but never ‘foresaw’ for precisely the reasons you outline.
This is also why Leto II was so persistent on making a group of humans that were unassailable to prescience. You literally could not foresee what they would do and how they might change the future. This essentially makes the problem on observation go away since those people cannot be observed.
Absolutely, the prison of prescience comes up multiple times, and is as much a danger for humanity as destruction by an outside force. Prescience is just one version of a failure to adapt and evolve, since everything is determined in advance. Leto had to walk the knife's edge between blind destruction on the one hand and a perfectly determined future on the other, to allow for an unknowable future of free choice, a future where people would take responsibility for their own fates instead of letting others decide for them.
There's a glimpse of another dark future at the end of Dune Messiah: "Again he stumbled. Chani, Chani he thought. There was no other way. Chani, beloved, believe me that this death was quicker for you . . . and kinder. They'd have held our children hostage, displayed you in a cage and slave pits, reviled you with the blame of my death. This way . . . this way we destroy them and save our children."
what? I need more of these posible futures
that's just for Chani and the Atreides if the Fremen broke faith with Paul
I never actually got this. There was too many Fremen loyal to Paul and Chani. Stilgar and the other loyalists would never have let Chani be enslaved.
@@purpledragons1146but it could be the other houses that succeeded to killing Paul and then blame Chani for it. Since they’re loyal to Paul (and not Chani) they can also be vulnerable to believe that his concubines killed him out of irrational anger that he’s simply dead. That or other Houses will simply blame Chani and imprison her even if it’s obvious it wasn’t true. The common Fremen can’t do anything about it if there is no emperor.
@@CarolinaHernandez-bv1nh Chani was the niece of Stilgar, the most respected Fremen naib and one of Emperor Paul's closest advisors. The Fremen under Stilgar never would have let Chani be blamed for Paul's death and would have brought the real conspirators to justice.
The hunter-seeker in the first book was not programmed, it was steered by a human controller.
Right. 100%. I am confused by this Hunter seeker theory.
@@jdbarcelo Agreed the Seeker / seeking connection is too thin. He may be trying to retrofit the BH/KJA thingamabobs into the proper story?
@@TheZoltan-42 I think exactly this. BH/KJA, in my opinion, did a great disservice to Frank's work.
Seconded, thirded and then quadrupled. While I notice why enhancing the hunter-seekers with an AI could possibly lead to human extinction, I don't think it is the primary reason behind the God-Emperor's motivation, as it is not hinted in the saga in any way, at least as far as I remember. (Keep in mind I only read original 6 books... I might eventually pick up the other ones, but I've heard so much negative opinions on them I'd like to contemplate the original Herbert's work - pun intended - at least for now.)
An AGI could interface with swarms of them with no discernable pause in processing. It'd be like seeing a PC controlled army in an RTS at work, only the stakes are genocidal defeat, not a loss screen. An AGI implementing itself into a self replicating swarm of them would be a gray goo/nanopocalypse scenario.
I am always fascinated that Count Fenring had the trait that Leto II was looking for in his own breeding program, except he couldn't pass it on.
You mean the invisibility? He was only invisible because he was another oracle, also, he was close to a KH
@@lecamaroni2279 I wasn't aware fenring was an oracle. just an almost kh.
@@lecamaroni2279 i don't think he was. i only read frank's books though so maybe i am missing something
@@Upgraayd read them again, he is. He is really close to being a KH but his genetics lead to a dead end. The only reason he was invisible to Paul was because he is also a oracle or his prescience was strong enough to hide from other oracles at least
@@lecamaroni2279 nah I don't think prescience was ever mentioned for him. He specialized in furtiveness. I think you should read it again. In any case it isn't worth an argument.
Sir...I think your research and what you do on your platform is brilliant! I wish that I could be one of those who could support your work properly, but I am on a budget. I will donate as best I can when I am able and you will be here for us to see your genius for some time in the future. Good luck!
As someone who tried and failed to get into Dune, I am immensely grateful for your ability to break down its high concepts and character motivations. The ending of Children of Dune made me not want to bother with God Emperor after Lato said he would be a worse tyrant than his father. Maybe I'll give it another shot when I have an avaliable audible credit.
No no no. You were correct not to read it. read the cliffs notes, skip directly to Heretics of Dune.
Letos is tyrant, hes a monster. Book 4 has very little action and is claustrophic. everything in this video is mentioned in a small blurb of letos Journals.
You really should read God Emperor. It is a remarkable story with a very compelling character. The devil is in the details. Reading past it will only make you understand appreciate Heretics and Chapterhouse less, because you will not grasp why the sisterhood thinks what they do and acts how they do.
The funny thing is, Leto was the ultimate human. In Dune, Mohiam tells Paul that the purpose of the gom jabbar is to sift people to find humans: "An animal caught in a trap would gnaw off its leg to escape, but a human would endure the pain so that wehen the hunter came, he could kill him and remove a threat to his kind." Prescience was the ultimate trap and Leto endured it for 3000 years in order to save humanity. It also makes him quite rightly the God-Emperor because he personifies the Biblical types: prophet, priest, king and victim.
Glad to see you haven't forsaken the smaller videos. Still Quinn, with all these Dune videos, you should do some super cuts of all Dune videos besides just the playlist. All of the Explained in five minute episodes, all of the Ultimate guides together, etc etc for example
I think that it was not a singular threat but severall deadends for humanity. But what unified all this threats were the twin problems of stagnation or uncontrolled development. Basically he could save humanity by destroying every possible source of a possible bringer of the endtimes from within, but by doing so forcing humanity to stagnate what would mean they became suspectible of a outside threat.
I’m really glad that the movies are helping your videos blow up. Been watching you for years and it’s good you’re getting the recognition you deserve
I’ve pondered a lot about why Leto II couldn’t just wipe out the Ixians. I suppose the Ixians were in some way inevitable. (Not trying to mix franchises, here.) Even if the Ixians were to be wiped out, there would someday arise another technological culture. The threat could only be delayed. Leto needed to reshape humanity to survive enemies of its own creation. The no-gene was the best, lasting solution. Don’t just remove a threat, but make us capable of surviving any threat.
Leto II didn't wipe out the Ixians because he needed a technological center, and the known evil is better than the unknown one, because you can control the former, whereas you might not be able to control the later.
He was also in love with an Ixian at the end of his reign
The issue was not just the Ixians. The real issue is that Butlerian Jihad is fundamentally flawed. It only takes one idiot bending the rules a little, or sticking to letter instead of the spirit, to create an intelligent rival to humanity.
- It might be Ixians making smarter and smarter machines, pushing the boundary of what counts as "non-thinking machine" and end up enslaving intelligent AI that rebels, or worse, not make the AI smart enough to to understand what user means by "make more paperclips".
- It could be Telelaxu creating face dancers that rebel (they are not literal machines, but they are enslaved intelligent non-humans).
- It could be a prescient human-worm hybrid (or even mutated human), that abandons his own sense of humanity and starts prioritizing his own survival over survival of humans. (hint: This is why Paul didn't trust himself become worm God, he already once picked saving his own skin over preventing Jihad with body count in billions, even while he was still human)
- It could be actual aliens discovering humanity and concluding its too dangerous to be left alive (btw this is an example of the very laws of nature not following butlerian jihad)
The problem is, even no-fields could be nullified, so it was really just kind of pointless. But of course the Ixians were inevitable, because eventually a monopoly on space travel without a human/spice component would come into play, as it was far more convenient. The further in the past the machine uprising was, the less people would take heed and fear its warnings, believing they could just do it more carefully this time, even though it wouldn't matter how carefully they did it, eventually sentience would arise, because you can't build enough safeguards into the system that a thinking machine couldn't eventually get around.
@@peoplez129Naturally, null fields do not provide 100% protection.
But in the long term and on the scale of the universe, they create measurement error in calculations.
And the more people use them independently of each other, the more the number of unaccounted variables increases.
The more their variability increases.
The more the probability of error increases.
At a certain point, making prescience useless.
Man there´s no other youtuber like you explaning with such love and appreciation to Science Fiction books, the music, the audio, everything...This is the best channel to go deeper in this genre, keep bringing this amazing content! 👏👏
Dune is ultimately about defeating the Great Filter
THIS!!!
It is so good to see you back to Dune!
It's awesome to see you covering other series, don't get me wrong, but I started following you all those years ago and you were covering dune a lot; it feels nostalgic
I believe Leto was coerced into this by his grandmother. She was poisoning him to death with spice and basically forcing him to put on the trout skin so he could escape. Not to mention that Aaliyah told the twins that in order to truly appreciate their memories they had to grow and make their own. Which they both agreed with. Leto was super young and didn’t have a full understanding of what he was giving up despite his vast knowledge of other memory.
But it wasn’t jessica who drugged him! In Jacurutu we later learn the orders to give Leto spice came from Alia (rly vladimir harkonnen)
@@JAzzWoods-ik4vv ahh I didn't know that. That was a detail I missed. I'll try to look out for that detail next time I listen to the audio book again.
I always thought leto could see further into the future and thus see a bigger treat to humanity than paul imagined.
Paul saw it too. He just couldn't sacrifice himself the way Leto could. He ran from the golden path. Leto embraced it and sacrificed his humanity to make it happen
I want you to know that it’s because of your Dune videos that I went and read all six books in the Saga last year. I so appreciate your quality content, and I can’t wait to start reading some other series that you’ve covered once I’m done with my Tolkien fix that I’m on. You are a terrific content creator. Thank you.
I wonder if frank Herbert's last book was going to tackle the belief in God's and faith.
I'm not sure, but Daniel and Marty seemed like a caution against trusting in a greater power.
We will sadly never know, but it's a fun idea.
He gets into the manufacturing of gods in another novel, too.
to me they are just idiots afraid with facists... that is why Daniel and Marty are not even real. only herbert's work needs to be counted.
Great Video.
I'd love for a compare and contrast of the Atreides Golden Path vs the Seldon Plan from Foundation, and how the two concepts are similar and how they're different. I'm surprised more people don't talk about this.
Because they are nothing alike.
Seldon wants to restore Civilization quicker from an inevitable collapse.
The Golden Path is pure despotism , destruction of Civilzation, then utter dissolation in all directions.
The only thing the two series have in common is at the beggining.
Trantor and Kaitain are similar.
its the Bene Gesserit that have longranging plans like Seldon. They have tendrils in everyones pie, and like Seldon rule in secret.
The Mule has unexpected powers which disrupts the plan . ( this is more similar to Paul or Leto ) .
the seldon path is just the golden path but completely unironically.
Leto II is the most fascinating character, the despot saviour, the God Ruler who served all of humanity. A sacrifice of his blood line, so that his twin sister would not have to, and to watch generations of her descendants live and die knowing that he will not die but will devolve into some pearl of genetic remnant-consciousness within the worm cycle, so that the rest of the species can continue. That's some major sacrifice.
its been a while, missed you
It's only been 12 days :0
Thanks
Just going to compliment you on your music choice. In a world of soft jazz, I genuinely look forward to your sci-fi sounds.
Hi
I have followed and thoroughly enjoyed your content for a number of years and have finally been able to join patreon. I know it's the lowest , But I hope with time to increase.
Thanks Quinn for your content and enthusiasm that keep me going.
Thank you.
Quinn
I really appreciate your videos. Not many places exist where I can relive and review my adolescent days whiling away at these books.
I follow many channels and this is probably the most consistently high quality content. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, passion and putting so much work into making these vids 🙏🍻
Man you must create more videos. You make me a dune fan. Already i reading original book series. Unfortunate my hand first get to childrens of dune . Now i found first and secend books but now I'm in mid of 3 book. For as 40k fan i really like dune this is magnificent.
Loved the video.
I read the original hexalogy in my early teens for the first time, way before the prequels came out. Despite that I always believed that Kralizec, the spectre of doom that loomed over mankind had everything to do with the very thing that the commandments of the Butlerian Jihad were all about: prohibiting humanity from ever developing thinking machines again. I expected them to either come from IX (which would fit your theory of the "kwisatz haderach" hunter-seeker device, or from beyond the borders of the empire, i.e. remnants of the thinking machine empire).
Maybe that's also why I was not so peeved about the prequels and sequels written by Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson. I expected the Enemy to be the thinking machines. Although written in a very different style, I enjoyed reading them, and discovering more about the Dune universe, greatly. Pretty much the only thing I was peeved about (but that came along much later when I had worked my way through the two sequel books), was Ominus and Erasmus being the old married Face Dancer couple. That simply made no sense to me.
I do not know if Frank Herbert ever intended for it to be so, but there are entries in his larger body of work that deal with similar issues, albeit less extensively. Similar plot elements and similar motifs are presents which to me suggest that they share a universe with the Dune Saga. At the same time, Frank Herbert was notorious for reusing various terms and concepts for a multitude of his books, so what do I know ;-).
The hype must flow
Hello, have you heard about our Lord and saviour, the God Emperor of Mankind? (A grimmer, darker possible future.)
In The name of Him on Terra, Bless you, my son. 😉🙏
Another excellent Dune video, thank you! Despite his transformation Leto II was the most human of all at that time. He had so many millions of lives, some going all the way back to early Earth to draw from. He's always been my favorite character due to his complexity.
Thanks Quinn! Please make a ultimate Dune extended saga series!
No nude in the dune !
You always have such cool insights and explain things so well. It's been 20 years since I read these books and you talk about them with deep knowledge, but also very accessibly for people that don't know or remember all the details you mention and reference. One of the best.
I always assumed it was the end of humanity. I always felt like the core plot of Dune was the evolution of humanity, and the opposite of evolution is Extinction.
Love your videos Quinn, they have this ASMR feeling to them because of your presentation and voice.I often fall asleep to you talking about mind viruses, dimensional collapse, mutations and other generally horrible things. But your presentation just makes it a pleasant experience
I love so much Dune my favourite book series. It is so mystical, we have economic, politics, intrugues, "magic" technolofy.. ooohhh
I constantly think about the god emperor and Nietzsche’s classic ‘stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back’. The two circle each other perfectly so
“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Just a quick comment on editing, I LOVE your videos, but the intro could be pulled back a bit volume-wise. Your voice is perfect, but that intro shocks me sometimes :) Love the music though :) keep it up!
The ultimate human: a being immune to fate, immune to prophecy, immune to the machine.
I gave a friend your video on the complete Dune saga ..and he’s shocked at how ef’ng dark it gets 😳
There is something I have been struggling to reconcile with the Dune books so I suspect I am missing something. It is always stated that one of the main theme of the books is to be a warning against following charismatic leaders. And yet, if it weren't for these specific charismatic leaders, Paul and Leto II, humanity is doomed to extinction. Which seems to be implying that we need charismatic leaders? What am I missing?
I think it's more a warning of charismatic charlatans that want power for power's sake rather than actual charismatic leaders that actually have a plan to improve and help society, Paul and Leto II both had plans to improve society towards an end goal, even though they had to be the villians on the face of it all.
Paul and Leto can see the future so they actually know what to do to solve humanity’s greatest challenges and they refuse to be captive to the influence of other factions, unlike literally every other charismatic leader in history who are self-aggrandizing and beholden to the interests of others.
Okay, but that still doesn't resolve my issues. Are the books saying, don't follow charismatic leaders! Except for the few good ones, those you can follow and depend on them to save you! Or is it because humanity keeps falling for and following these types of leaders and their systems that the extremes measures of Leto II had to happen?
@@evannerson3498I think Leto was a good leader not because he “saved” mankind but because he made it so mankind can save itself. Both Paul and Leto caused great suffering to their subjects through their actions. Only by removing the need for a leader altogether they could justify all the suffering they caused to get to that point.
Maybe the implied argument here is 'don't follow charismatic leaders unless they can literally see the future, and even if they can, *watch out*' or 'committing atrocities for the sake of a charismatic leader could only ever be justified in this completely insane situation involving magical prescience and an existential threat to humanity that doesn't exist in real life.'
It does seem to be a bit of a mixed message though, if you wanted to write something against fanatical cults of personality I'd think the very last thing you'd want to do would be to fully justify pretty much the worst one imaginable through narrative fiat.
This is just one interpretation. However... that's how I see it.
Paul is no hero. But... He is the man who frees the Fremen! The man who beat the Harkonen! True, but he was almost acting on instinctive self-preservation. He did what he did to survive and it just worked! He never showed any willingness to put himself aside during this struggle. It was just that his personal interest aligned with the interests of the Fremen. Becoming a messianic figure was also necessary for him to survive and secure his position. This guy never did ANYTHING that did suit him 100%.
And then came the hard part. Doing the sacrifice. But Paul was like "No, no, no thank you very much. Let someone else do it". He had the choice to save the Fremen and everyone else and he said "Eh...No... I would rather be at peace and have a good legacy. I am already a hero. Get someone else". I mean, it is normal even for heros to lose their courage or have second thoughts, even Jesus had that. But the difference is that they do the right thing in the end. On the other hand, imagine if Jesus said "Ok... Forget this dying on the cross thing. Nope. I did my part", well, in the context of Dune we do not have to imagine anything. Paul did just that.
Paul was the ultimate "bad" individualist. Someone who had great power thrusted upon him and instead of doing the right thing, he kicked the can further down the road.
Leto the second was a tyrant. Most would say a benevolent one. Some would say an inexcusable one. Some would say that it doesn't matter because he was still a tyrant. I got my opinion but that's not what we are talking about here. Leto the second was the ultimate "good" individualist. But... How can he be an individualist if he sacrificed himself, his legacy and even his individuality for the others? He absolutely can. Because HE did it. HE felt that only HIM could do it that it was HIS duty. He took it upon him to save humanity because that was his way. And if that meant being a tyrant and oppressing everyone, he would do it because nothing and noone was as important as his mission. He did everything because he believed in his ultimate personal responsibility. And why is he "good". Well, that's easy. He made the sacrifice so that humanity lives. And he took all the burden for humanity to survive.
Like your interpretation 👍
You would make a great religious fanatic. You are what is warned about in Heretics of dune.
I am not even that religious but besides that, this is just the interpretation I have about Paul and Leto the second. If you ask me, the best ruler was Leto the first.
There were two things that led me to that interpretation.
1.) The "Paul good, Leto the 2nd bad" interpretation just disregards the nuance of Dune. Paul did good things. Sure. He also got close to dooming the galaxy and he was really selfish and impulsive at times. Leto the 2nd was an absolute tyrant and he held humanity back. True. He also protected humanity and provided stability compared to the eras before and after him and he was the first to make sacrifices if they were needed. Dune is not black and white (ok Harkonnen are mostly black...)
2.) I could never bring myself to view Leto the second as a criticism towards utilitarianism. I totally see Frank Herbert going this way (people got political opinions after all). But it just did not fit with the complexities of Dune and I do think that Herbert could easily depict Leto the second as completely evil but he chose not to do that. But that brings us to the issue that if someone considered Leto the second as a good guy, and many people did that, it would effectively backfire because the criticism would end up being viewed as praise. Therefore, I chose to interpret Leto the second as the ultimate individualist. At the end it is just another from of selfishness but a more benevolent one. At the end it is a discussion between maintaining the status quo and steering the pot.
Would I like to have a guy as Leto the second as a ruler? Nope, no sir, no. I would also hate dying in a huge war like the jihad or being attacked by omnipotent aliens. But that's Dune...
You don't understand how excited I see that you've posted another video! I literally clear my schedule for at least 20 minutes to just listen to your sci-fi lore explanations!
Absolutely incredible breakdown. You touched on so many important points in logical order. Bravo!
God emperor is still my favorite sci fi book ever; Leto II is so well written, I’ve never seen any other author get close to making such a nuanced and idealistically driven character.
His death at the hands of those stupid, horny schlubs always makes me shed a tear.
His death at the hands of those stupid horny schlubs was HIS INTENTION.
It's like these people who don't understand that Jesus MEANT for himself to be crucified. THAT WAS THE PLAN.
It’s crazy how much I disagree with this.
@@corvus8638 ha! Always interesting to meet people who have the opposite opinion about a thing…what makes you feel that way? I’d be curious to hear it
@@billl2903 Not OP, but I agree in the sense that the god emperor had to die. In quite a few ways, he did help humanity but by the end even he knew that his time had come, that he was reacting with emotion (which he himself attributed to Hwi, but by Moneo’s account we can tell that his tantrums have been happening for years), and more importantly he realizes that he really is no longer human.
As he says, he find more and more human preocupation on his mind, but he also realizes that it’s because he now sees them as external and not him.
I do think he saved humanity (although I’m still pissed FH didnt describe what he actually prevented/ Moneo and Siona saw in the visions)
I did read it again recently I was amused by the fact that Duncan seems to spend the whole book in a sulky tantrum:)
I love the new intro music!
Also, new Dune content is always welcomed!
me too, i seriously want to know the name of it
Sadly, Paul chose to chew off his own foot instead of enduring the long suffering required to save the pack.
You’re videos are too short, I absolutely love them. Thanks for making such great content Quinn!
Love these deep dives into Dune.
I love also a good deep dive into nude!
I am currently revisiting the Dune books. And, like the LOTR, Dune never loses its appeal. Love your work.
I always assumed Paul and later Leto was trying to protect humanity from the threat of (or perhaps another) Omnius and Erasmus, possibly Cymecs.
Unless I'm misremembering, I was pretty sure the threat was stagnation. Spice dependance/production restricted human exploration and, eventually, maybe in 10,000 or 100,000 years humans would either devolve or become extinct. The Omnius/Erasmus angle was a fabrication by Brian and Kevin.
@TheGavrael I'm certain readers might have gotten a clearer idea had the author didn't pass away when he did.
Very good to see you talking about Dune again! You do a better job than anyone I’ve ever come across at laying out the richness of the lore.
What I find interesting and its not something ive seen talked about much is how almost all of our evidence for such fates come from Leto himself. If we consider he is an unreliable narrator then suddenly his apparently nobility and selflessness comes into question. Would there REALLY have been no people left if leto hadnt become the God emperor? We actually can't know for sure because this info only comes from leto, who could easily be lying to justify his own tyranny.
Yes, many people have that fan theory, but this video proves it wrong since Paul saw it as well, but wasnt acting on it or exploiting it for more power. What is more interesting IMO is the idea that is woven throughout the books that the presceint generate their own results... That their own fears and imaginations generate the possible futures and by acting on those possible futures, they cement them. That maybe Krailesec wasn't real at all... just a campfire story to frieghten kids... but by acting as if it was real, Leto lashed humanity to that future.
Nah. Paul saw the Kralizec, too, and, if I'm not wrong, the Bene Gesserit did too (or at least a hint of it). Let's also keep in mind that Leto's transformation is basically a very prolonged torture. He would have to reeeeaaaally love the idea of being a tyrant in order to put himself through that just to become one. And there's no indication in the books that he is enjoying his tyranny. More like enduring it.
@@patreekotime4578 I don't think the idea of prescience shaping the future applies to that extent. In fact, it's said (or implied) that Kralizec is the one and only inmutable thing in the future. Which checks out with both Paul and Leto seeing the same thing (and I think the Bene Gesserit saw it too, perhaps less clearly than them, but still devoting their entire existence to prevent or minimize it).
@@YarblocosifiliticoIf it is the one thing everyone fears because of its persistence in every myth or religion, then everyone would see it. It is quite possibly just a primordial human fear. Or does it loom large even in primordial myth exactly because soothsayers have always seen it?
@@patreekotime4578 Who said everyone??
Paul, Leto, and the Bene Gesserit (to some extent, it would seem) have access to the future. Like, they can literally see it. It's one of the premises of this fictional saga.
Kralizec seems to be a specific event, not just fear of extintion. At least that was my interpretation; I guess there's room for others.
Quinn, I was wondering if you are ever going to do a video about the three other Wallfacers in the Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest. What were their plans and why did those plans failed.
Leto the Second is the Machiavellian Hero we all deserve. What a legendary character in fiction.
Heath ledgers joker would be the machiavellian hero...
I feel like the whole idea of "the God Emperor's brutality was necessary" undercuts the theme of Dune, that you should be extremely wary of charismatic leaders, since painting extreme actions as necessary for the greater good is the hallmark of a dictator.
Glad to see another Dune video!
I love this channel and I wish Quinn would post videos more often :(
I had another thought - is the destruction of humanity in this scenario really just physical death...?
What if this monstrous scenario does not involve physical extinction, but a complete and utter loss of human essence.
A complete distortion of the species - even more inhumane than the Tleilaxu and the Honored Matres combined?
So basically what the Qu did to humans in the book, All Tomorrows
Humans don’t have an essence that precedes our existence
@@ramonpizarro
An excellent example, only in this case it was done by people.
I watch dune and now I keep getting recommended all these ideas channels that I have never seen before. It's like a new niche I never saw before. Anyways, it's cool, subbed. Interesting stuff.
It’s not just “Paul’s actions,” as you say here, but also (and I cannot stress this enough) because of his refusal to act. Which forces it upon his second son, Leto II (the God Emperor).
It’s a choice we all make, to live or to survive. Paul chose life and Leto chose survival. Who’s to say who’s right
I honestly feel that, as good as the latest Dune movie was, it could never reach the depths of the books.
The movie is still for normies in my opinion, focusing mostly on the action sequences, and not on the deeper messages.
Still one of the best adaptations ever. How would you go about doing a non-normie Dune movie, exactly? How would you show prescience and its effect on Paul, so that we get the "deeper messages"? And which are those, exactly?
@Yarblocosifilitico I honestly don't know. And I was thinking about the fact that in a book you can get deeper.
I do love the movie, and am eagerly waiting for part 2.
@@DiegoB0525 that's my point. It's just different mediums. Villeneuve did an amazing job. I'm one of (I'm sure) many people who read the books due to the movie. I had heard of Dune, but tried the old movie and never finished it. But I knew it was a literary classic so when the movie was coming up, I begun looking into it (hence why I subbed to this great channel)
The movie is still too deep for normies. People thought it slow, weird, vague, etc. Some others loved it. Dune is such an unique IP that it's always gonna be somewhat niche. Which, seeing how Star Wars fared, it's great news :P
I'm right there with you, hyped for part 2. Take care, fellow Dune fan!
@@Yarblocosifilitico likewise, take care!
What do you expect from a film? Most of the book is internal dialogue
Saw the title.
Saw it was from Quinn.
Must watch! Love you man!
Shame that Frank Herbert died before completing his series.
There probably are notes or even a manuscript that could give an idea of what he had in mind.
From what I heard, George R.R. Martin had given details to TV shorunners about how his own immersive story would end.
Quinn’s ideas are quite interesting 🤔, just re found your channel after some months absence,
As they say absence makes the heart grow fonder !!!
Intelligent insights into sci-fi well done m8 , all the videos that I’ve seen of your work are well thought out and excellently presented, keep up the great work Quinn !!!
Thank you very much and have a good new year !
Thank you for being one of the very few to get it. Paul is a failure, and a bit of a coward. He knew what lies ahead and knew he had to become a monster to save humanity, but was unable to do it.
Leto II was the true hero. Everyone tries to analyze Dune using modern political sensibilities (and postmodern bullshittery like saying that Paul and Leto II were unreliable narrators) and that it’s about power corrupting, or that Leto was a villain by enforcing his will, and they miss the whole point - it’s about Letos sacrifice in becoming a monster and being remembered as a monster while simultaneously making that sacrifice to be the true hero in saving humanity.
I think Herbert just ran out of ideas
My 2 cents, by spending money on the Ixians and also preventing interstellar travel from almost all people the need for a hunter seeker that could be prescient was reduced. You don't need to have a hunter seeker capable of traveling between stars to hunt down a target, you just need a hunter seeker on a specific planet and it goes after people. IF interstellar travel was still allowed freely then eventually the natural course of a technologically based arms race between houses would have seen a hunter killer capable of using a small holstmen drive to travel between worlds and using prescience be able to teleport directly to a foe and kill them.
Those actions gave them time to work on the camouflage gene.
If reading like this were mandatory in school I’d be interested in seeing how that affects the decades to come.
If it were mandatory in school, I predict that students will not appreciate it, and probably dislike it.
PSA for everyone here: Reread the Great Gatsby after you turn 30. It hits differently.
As the above comment says, that's a bad idea. I mean, Dune is not for children, period. Maybe in college, but even then most people would not enjoy it, and so they would learn very little from it. It's perfectly ok to have masterpieces that most people dismiss. That's just how society works (we're all unique individuals, and that's a good thing).
I got introduced to Dune few years ago, and NOTHING can compare to it.. This is without doubt my favourite universe and lore (only rivaled by the one from Freelancer, but I am entirely biased towards that game) and Frank Herbert has created so many unique concepts and scenarios that baffle my mind to this day.. the idea of Kralizec is by far my favourite, but thats probably due to me being biased, I just love absolutism. The idea of a "war at the end of time" is so colossal and incomprehensible that it just twists my mind like a wet sponge, love it.
Before I go off another tangent, this is just my way of thanking you Quinn, for keeping my spice addiction alive, and doing it in the highest possible quality for our entertainment!
Dune's cool and all but this whole, "the totalitarian fascist that removed people's freedoms and killed without mercy was right all along," angle seems like it goes AGAINST the original purpose of the books which were (according to Frank Herbert [according to the internet]) to warn people against charismatic and powerful leaders. But if space h1tler never existed, humanity would have gone extinct? If you view the series from that angle, it absolutely fails in the most embarrassing way.
The series is still awesome, has mind blowing concepts, great prose, pretty cool characters and a very other-worldly feel. But... the series is kind of cringe when it suggests that the only thing that can save humanity is a brutal, heartless totalitarian dictator. If there's any truth to that in real life our species should just go extinct. That would not be a tragedy. Why bother even being around if we're all just going to be dicks to each other?
Leto II was not a human anymore paul was a human charismatic human and he failed utterly and was to cowardly to walk the golden path
Love hearing your ideas on dune, dude. I assume the topic you're talking about is the new trailer? :3 Hopefully. would love to see it. Cheers man!!
I have to disagree, Paul is the fulcrum, Leto II is the lever.
Paul knew about the golden path, he knew he couldnt take it, he knew Leto would .
Finally! This is the central topic which must be brought into focus in order to see the main plot & theme of the series. Thank you!
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More Dune content pleeassee Quinns Ideas is my favourite Dune related conversion/ videos!!
I LOVE THESE SERIES A LOT, I find it crazy how in the movies when Paul gets his first kill he doesn’t cry but in the book he does and his mom humiliates him knowing a life is a precious thing
Hey bud love your content, is one of your BGM from a game called Eschalon book 1? I literally just heard your flute BGM bar for bar match the tangletree ossuary external area?
Awwyeeahhh!!! New Quinns!!! Love it my brew!!! New Dune content from you is like Christmas lol
7:00 - that brief passage is the ONE mention of the big thing that Leto fears. I’ve always thought that in such a big book, it could’ve used fleshing out
This is the second video about Dune that I've watched of yours. I haven't read the books and am on the fence on whether or not I want to commit to that. You do such a good job breaking things down without making it confusing. Thanks for the video.
The books are worth reading in my opinion, some of the books in the series are a slow burn to read but do explore some fascinating concepts.
great video as usual. I never would have had the patience to grasp this increasingly bizzar universe, and your soothing narration and expositions are always a treat.
p.s. though i like the new intro composition, i do kinda miss the OG... thanks for sharing your passion
It's fairly obvious upon detailed re-readings that Herbert did not have the entire mythos constructed ahead of time, or even from one book to the next. He would have done a better job of foreshadowing if he has the entire idea complete say, at the start of writing Messiah. He, to some extent, was making it up as he went, and changing his mind as he went.
Rather than universe, it may be more accurate to say that Paul was the fulcrum for the Human Empire which consisted of about roughly 20,000 planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Which is probably just a very small portion of the galaxy. To say "the whole universe" I think gives a misleading impression. Thanks for the great videos! Keep em coming. 😊