Jess, I just saw an add that said the LOTR trilogy is coming back to theaters for a short run. First, is this going to be one sitting for all three extended movies? Second (and maybe this is too obvious to ask) are you going to attend there in your hometown? I have the extended addition DVD's on my shelf, and I have a HUGE TV and a surround system. I can watch them anytime, although I've never done them all in the same day. Why would I want to go to my local theater for this?
Thank you. Your comments were excellent, as was your analysis. I have been a long time fan of the series. To me, Herbert was writing in response to Machiavelli. Be careful of giving power (& instruction) to any one person as they will distort humanity.
Low-key, Dune is the Tale of Shai Hulud 😂!!! The whole imperium Intergalactic space travel the Guild, Presience ALL PREMEDITATED by Shai Hulud. He then sought out the *RIGHT Great House Bloodline (Atreides) then thru SPICE told the Bene Gesseret to tell Emperor to send Atreides to Arrakis. Led Paul into the Jihad via Spice then mergered with his son to rule the Imperium it has created thru SPICE as an actual Atreides SandWorm . SHAI HULUD!!!! 🔥
There is a parody of Dune that was done by The National Lampoon that I think you will love. In it, Paul is the "Kumkwat Haagendaaz" Or he who can cook a meal and have all of the food ready at the same time. LOL.
Herbert ends up defending the perpetrators of genocides by setting up the same false dichotomy that these maniacs always do: I had to do the genocide because the one and only possible future was worse. In the real world, there are dozens/hundreds/thousnads/etc of possible outcomes, virtually all of which are better than the genocide. Paul’s a villain, in part because Herbert setup a wildly unrealistic trolley problem. Nobody is 100% a villain or 100% a hero, but if you perpetuate a genocide, particularly on this scale, you are in the high 90s on the villain side.
dear lady for the sake of everything thats holy PLEASE either finish drinking that mug or put it aside, my ocd is making me INSANE its killing me xD its like watching someone else edging xD
He’s the hero. Heroes build bad power structures and are the product of them as well. But he is the hero, his prescience and “terrible purpose” are real.
That's the pop culture version of the trolley problem. RU-vid doesn't allow external links, so please google Open Yale Courses PHIL 181: Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature Lecture 15 Empirically-informed Responses for a brief discussion of the real trolley problem.
Yes, Paul is a villain. He exploits the Fremen for personal goals and the "best path" for humanity that ONLY he can see, plus the Bena Gesserit made up their entire religion just to help facilitate Paul's Goal. It's literally what Iran/North Korea/other Theocratic goverments have been doing. Paul is literally Kim Jong Un
Wow, you totally nailed that whole thing with an incisiveness that stings. I have, of course, my own solution to the Trolley Problem, which involves derailing the whole freaking train before it gets to the switch, and punching the person who posed that dumbass question in the first place right in their stupid nose... which, as you point out so succinctly, means that I am certainly no longer human and have not been for a very very long time. Berzerkermanr noaddje, huh! Information-energy has a life and a flow of its own; and as single creatures being components of much larger systems of consciousness and social and physical ecologies, we can perhaps hope to achieve a kind of systemic representation of that flow -- aspects and attributes, perhaps -- or perhaps we should hope that we do not. This is the alchemy of evolution. In the case of the Returning, we simply don't have that choice to make, for it is the very purpose of our existence to embrace and transform according to these qualified aspects. For those humans who can say, like the elf queen: "I pass the test. I will diminish, and return into the West, and remain Galadriel" you have a chance to go through all these things and still remain you. This is the difference between the evoker and the invoker. The evoker, like Paul Atreides, can hope to summon great magics, and to return from that ceremony with whatever treasures or tragedies and still remain them. For the invoker like Leto II, however, like the shaman, it is inevitable that "What comes back is not the same as what went out." The magic is manifest upon the creature, not for its benefit, but to make it suitable to do what must be done to fulfill not its own purpose, but the purposes of Nature Herself. Humanity had become too good at control. Leto was made into such a creature that he could say, "You want control?! I'll show you the meaning of control, and the results thereof!" Ultimately, he was in fact rewarded for his faithfulness to his invocation, and he was set free to spread himself across the Nature of consciousness itself. He had Become what was required of him by the flow of information-energy, and so he was allowed to Become the Becoming, and the worms were let loose across the sands once again to wrap themselves in the truths of the winds. He had sown the channelled wind, and so at last he could Became the wirlwind, the chaos of identity in which thought could transcend a world. No, it's not about heroes and villains. It's closer to a function of fluid dynamics. Individuals are a kind of vortex in the stream, a symptom of turbulence that surrounds their own identity-matrix. Ultimately, you might say that Paul failed because he could not let go of his identity, and didn't want to. Leto II succeeded because he recognized that it was simply inevitable, and he returned his aspect to Nature along with his self when he was done, and so Leto... never... died. The truth is, he never really lived in the first place, and he made peace with that from the start, and so he could complete his work after all. Frank Herbert knew how these things worked, which makes me wonder what killed him at some point early in his life. He knew that such historical figures are, essentially, neither heroes nor villains. They are just symptoms of the state of Nature in their generation. Perhaps, if we can conclude anything about these matters, or gain any wisdom from them, it is this: "Don't take yourself too seriously, kid!" or as Gandalf put it at the end of The Hobbit, "You are a very fine person, Bilbo Baggins, and I am quite fond you; but you are only just a little fellow in a wide world after all." "Thanks goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.
Full Hobbit and devout Arrakeen, this was beautiful. I love both Paul and Leto II (though technically he was III, read the books and you will understand....) But still, wonderful video. Happy to be one of your (many) subscribers!
All God's bless the blasphemous Yue. And may he and his wife find the ultimate peace of society. I pray I may never be served with the injustice of this philosophical tragedy.
There is a problem with the Trolley Problem. No one ever picks the third possible option, or even realizes it exists as far as I can tell. Just jam the switch halfway and derail the trolley. P.S. I love the new look for your hair.
It's fascinating - ok, to me - to compare Paul Atreides with Robin Hobbs's FitzChivalry and Le Guin's Ged. I think it's fair to say that all three protagonists represent a rejection of the hero/antihero dichotomy. However, Atreides' character arc and denouement are significantly more (though not entirely) postmodern than metamodern by comparison with the other two. To me, this endears FitzChivalry and Ged, while leaving Atreides more akin - I'm reaching here - to a Turin or an Oedipus.
The problem is that when somone can *actually* see the future, and the least worst option is to create the lake of blood and wade through it... that's a whole lot of oof.
Maybe a different signoff for the Dune material? I don't feel very hobbity after contemplating the destiny of humanity and its tragic cost of billions of lives and a hero's soul... 😅
Ironically I'm reading ready player two . The world is going to hell and everyone going into the oasis is making things way worse because people t not doing anything in the real world but people go there to escape reality. So it's who's fault is it the ones who give an escape or the population for hiding from it . The moral argument is do we shut it down even though that's where kids go to school. Sorry if I am long winded but there's parallels here do you help one to screw over someone to better yourselves.
Great work of literature or not, Dune has certainly failed as a story to deliver the author's message. Honestly, Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga series does a better job on the 'beware of leaders' front... such a shame.
It always bugged me that no visual representation of Dune ever included that Paul was raised as a Mentat (1960 speak...pure masculine logic). Plus his Mothers Bene Gesserit (pure female) prowess...equals the Golden path. Was this the perfect solution...or the most unnatural solution ever.
"Hero" and "villain" are very subjective terms. Constantine the Great is heralded as one of Eastern Orthodoxy's biggest saints, for converting the Roman Empire into Christianity. The historical records speak of a very ruthless monarch though, something not uncommon, yet something that wouldn't fit a "saint" or "hero". Maybe we could have attributed one term or another to Paul, in hindsight, had Frank finished the story. Paul had seen a million million paths for humanity and decided that the jihad was the only viable for survival, but he was a human, elevated in abilities, sure, but still human. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there were other paths he hadn't seen. Despite Frank leaving notes about the ending, I am not sure how much do his son's books remain true to what he had in his mind, if he had something in mind at all. An open ended finale would be fitting, as a message of not letting things like "fate" lock us down in a path that we are unwilling to see beyond. I like to think that Sapkowski wanted to "counter" the trolley problem with Geralt's quote "If I have to choose between two evils, I prefer to not choose at all" which in itself sparks debates as well. Paul made a choice of one evil but couldn't carry through in the end, so maybe there is validity in Geralt's quote.
I personally find it very satisfying, that the question in this video cannot be answered so easily. In the end, humans are complex beings capable of demonstrating even more complex behaviours. Reducing this to two extremes (hero / villain) does often not honour that complexity. Most often taking a deep dive into the question why someone did something (the motive or motives) is much more rewarding. I think Frank Herbert is a master in portraiting this. Stereotype characters which can clearly be attributed to either villain or hero honestly bore me. I am glad that there are stories which offer so much more depth in character development.
I like to think of the first 2 books as one massive gom jabbar that Paul fails. In the end, he couldn't do what objectively needed to be done and fled from the pain.
Maud'dib and Leto II are neither heroes nor antagonists. The former is a warning, the latter is the solution taken to the extreme. The God Emperor's solution is vindicated in the later books. Comment written before watching this video.
Finally someone who actually has read the books and not only pretends to it while only talking about the films. Great analysis Jess, I agree Leto transcends the categories of Hero and Villain, his father was broken by the decisions he had to make and inthe end couldn't.
I agree with this criticism too lol I mean I get why they did it, but it was a bit silly at times. I was surprised at some of his lines in the book too, I suppose ‘wise’ is the best way to put it. You make an EXCELLENT point about Gimli being the only dwarf and thus being the character representative of dwarves as a whole, making his personality important.
Yes let's talk about the Dune movies all the time, Jess. Denis Villeneuve is an absolute genius. I'm not sure how I feel about the changes made to Chani's character, but overall I'd say they are the greatest film adaptations of a novel since the Peter Jackson trilogy.
Dune is basically a greek tragedy, as far as the Atreides go. They realize they have to become the villains by everyone else's standards. In order to keep humanity from being destroyed.
