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March 25, 2024 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
11:13
The Hero's Journey of Paul Atreides

Let's take a look at the narrative of Paul Atreides in the recent Dune and Dune Part Two movies.

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I watched Dune and Dune Part 2 and to my pleasant surprise they were really great films.
I don't know anything about the background behind them, the actors, the production team, the director, etc. and I don't care.
I was just happy that for once I was presented with two parts of a movie trilogy which didn't seem to hate the source material or the anticipated audience.
I was also rather surprised at the message contained within the text, which I of course do not endorse, but sprung to life from the story nonetheless.
For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed a film that achieved a commitment to itself.
It took itself seriously and sincerely as a world, faithful to Frank Herbert's vision of what Arrakis ought to look like.
The characters, all of them, are living within the moment.
None of them make silly quips that dissipate dramatic tension and put the viewer in the state of mind that there are in fact no stakes for which to be fought.
The characters don't feel like they have read the script.
They feel as they ought to feel, that they are in danger of dying.
And in the world of Dune there are indeed things worth dying for.
It's a remarkable feat that there still exist actors who can make the viewer believe that such a thing is possible in this day and age, or that such a message can make it through the progressive sensors.
The overarching narrative is that of Paul Atreides, a straight white young man of impeccable privilege, who is striving to escape the Bene Gesserit longhouse.
Paul is the product of generations of machinations from this secretive group of women who use what amounts to magic powers to control others while operating from behind the scenes to pull the strings and manipulate the weaknesses of the men around them.
This is the source of their power and influence, and they have their hands in everything.
They are the power above other powers, and Paul understandably wishes to break free of their control, because who would want to be a pawn in their game of four-dimensional chess?
I'm not a Dune lawmaster, but I understand that the Bene Gesserit as an order are exclusively female, and their tactics are distinctly feminine.
They are attempting, apparently, to guarantee the future of the human race by manipulating the genealogy and societies of the universe.
Part of this was to spread a false religion to the tribesmen of Arrakis so Paul could become a messianic Lawrence of Arabia figure that will liberate the planet from foreign domination.
However, the unexpected consequence that will happen because of the overconfident devouring mothers of this galactic conspiracy is that it will spark a jihad that will cause the deaths of billions.
Despite being raised by a single Bene Gesserit mother and learning many of the Bene Gesserit's womanly tricks, the necessities of life as a privileged Atreides scion surround Paul with warrior men who draw him towards embracing his true nature as a conquering hero.
The problem is that the female experience only accounts for half of the whole, and imposing this regime through guile and trickery upon the other half fundamentally lacks legitimacy.
The Bene Gesserit will forever be forced to use deception to keep their wards under a fog of confusion and disempowerment.
Paul is not satisfied with the life plan they have mapped out for him because Paul was meant to be born female.
And it's no wonder that he, trained in the manly art of war from a young age, yearns to be the author of his own life, the setter of his own values, the master of his own fate.
Subterfuge and deceit are no substitute for the ultimate legitimator of moral authority, violence.
To Paul Atreides, violence is a liberating force which allows him to break free from the control of his domineering mother and embrace a spiritual path, fulfil his destiny and avenge his extirpated bloodline.
Throughout Dune, we are shown that formalized and ritualized violence is key to Paul becoming what he is destined to become.
Violence is a rite of passage, and once Paul has passed through the rite, he becomes free from Bene Gesserit control and is able to make his own authentic decisions for the first time in his life.
We see this often.
The first time Paul kills a man, a Fremen, in single combat, his defeat of Feyed Ratha in single combat as well, and his ability to win battles.
Through the spilling of blood, Paul is able to ascend to a position above the longhouse, with these rituals proving that Paul is not just a man, but a worthy man, beyond the control of his mother.
The duel with Feydratha is particularly interesting here, as Paul could have nominated a champion to fight him instead of endangering himself personally, but chooses to fight to demonstrate his legitimate right to lead, and as he leads, the Benegesserit have no choice but to follow.
The specialization in violence is not merely arbitrary nor vainglorious either.
House Atreides has many fearsome enemies, but their primary enemy and their ultimate ruin comes from the dysgenic Harkonnen clan, whose dark power is built on abuse, mistrust, and cruelty, as a reflected inversion of the loyalty and virtue of House Atreides.
Why should we treat virtuous men as the equal of the vicious?
The physiognomy of the Harkonnens is enough to want to stay away from them.
Their evil tells on the face.
Why would anyone wish to be trapped in a political union with such obvious villains?
Having this enemy on the inside constantly working against you requires them to only be lucky once.
You have to be lucky every time.
The Atreides must be ever vigilant, but to be constantly on the defence is a losing strategy, and look what it wrought for the Atreides.
It would have been better for them to have been in open war than in a pretend peace that led to their near extinction.
The Atreides seem like innocent fools for not perpetually plotting to destroy the Harkonnens in return.
I feel like there's a lesson in that.
The cycle of life is an intrinsic part of the feudal nature of Imperial politics in Dune.
The lineage that flows from the deep past into the far future is the most important thing that the people now living must consider.
The elders, the adults, the children are a single continuum which cycles through space and time and holds supreme political significance.
The connections of these things are intangible, but they matter.
Even after 10,000 years, the heroic rise of technology, space travel, and all else that comes with it, the beating heart of human existence is the act of generation, and woe betide those who ignore it.
It is baked into what it means to be human.
And as a quick aside, I think that it is true that mothers in the womb do have some kind of communication with the fetus they carry.
I suspect any pregnant woman can tell you the mood of her unborn baby.
The mysticism of Dune is reflective of the mysticism in real life.
People pretend that all things are rational, but there is always a mystique to these things, especially the power which binds people in place.
Why is it that we respect the charisma of authority or despise the wretchedness of weakness?
We don't really know why we behave in the way that we do, and science seems to show that most of our behaviour is habitual and rationalised after the fact.
The seeding of the Fremen by the Benegesserit with a religion which heralds the coming of a Messiah also shows us the power of belief and how these things can get out of hand.
The coming together of a magical story in which people are compelled to action reveals how a narrative itself can have compulsive agency and takes over the will of those who believe and propels them forward in an unfolding sequence of events whether they want to follow it or not.
The desire for a higher calling is always there, and if enough minds rise sufficiently high to touch it, then at what point does it take on a life of its own and become outside of the control of its makers?
The ritualized violence of which Paul Atreides is capable allows him to join the Fremen, giving him the opportunity to step out of the shadow of his mother and reluctantly step into the destiny that is now ordained for him.
Joining a tribe is no easy matter.
One has to become more than familiar with just the customs of the people.
One has to step into their worldview, complete their rites of passage, and see oneself as a member of the tribe to ultimately gain the recognition of the tribe itself.
Without this recognition, there is no way for a person to complete the final stage of forging tribal bonds, intermarriage.
Paul's Fremen love interest is a warrior called Chani, a woman who saves his life after he synthesizes the Benegesserit ritual of drinking the water of life with his being a man, allowing him to take on an ontological status hitherto unavailable to anyone before him.
Paul's uniqueness, lineage, and martial capability allow him to rise to a place nobody else has achieved, which is why he can become the emperor and the Mahdi.
After winning Chani to his cause and making her fall in love with him, he must thereby break her heart to finally ascend to the totemic pinnacle of the hierarchy.
Despite the mind-muddling control of the Benegesserit, the destruction of his family by the Harkonnen and the Emperor, and the shifting sands of emotion drawing him into the embrace of the Fremen, Paul Atreides has the strength of will to fight his way out of the snares in which he was entrapped and force the emperor to accept his right to rule and to give unto him the hand of his only daughter.
Whether this is just another play on the chessboard of the Bene Gesserit, I do not know, and it could be that he is further playing into their hands with every victory, but I am surprised there isn't more panic that Paul Atreides may be acting as an instructive lesson to young men.
With sufficient willpower, it is possible to rise above the longhouse, break the power of the Benegesserit, and achieve the status which is your birthright.
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