We all know that Denis Villeneuve’s film Dune 2 came out, and it sparked a wave of online debate, mostly centering around Paul Muad’dib, the main character of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”: Is he a Hero, or a Villain? Is he a psychopath? Should he have taken Chani and hid somewhere in the deep desert to start a small family so he could avoid the Ji…. or Cru….? Either way, the Holy War of the Fremen, which killed north of 60 billion people and sanitized dozens of planets – a scale of murder that makes the worst dictatorships of Earth look like little children playing with ants.

I took part in these online debates and got told, by fellows who have read the books, that I had not understood these books; that I was a deluded fool too dumb to understand Joseph Campbell.

“There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness”

(from Dune: Messiah)

So, what did I do?
I went and re-read Dune Messiah (that is book 2, set after the events of the well-known Atreides-Harkonnen-Corrino struggle) with a special care to second-guess my opinion.

“Because we cannot imagine a thing, that doesn’t exclude it from reality.”

(from Dune: Messiah)

But even after re-checking: My opinion stands.
Paul is NOT “the true villain”, not even “a villain”.
Let us explore.

So, what happens in Dune: Messiah?

I will try to keep spoilers to a minimumm, but there will be spoiling going on, it is impossible to discuss the book without them. Spoilers ahead. If you want to avoid them, stop right here.

Dune Messiah is set 12 years after the original Dune. Paul is Emperor for that whole time, married to Princess Irulan, but no private interaction ever happens between them. He has Chani as his concubine and intends to make her the mother of his heir(s).

To her eternal frustration, for all these 12 years she has not been able to bear him a heir, and people claim she is barren. We know that she isn’t: In the first book they already had a son, and Sardaukar killed this baby and all the Fremen guardians around him. [in the movie, this detail does not happen]

This leads to Chani’s sadness and feelings of loss, feelings of letting Paul down, being a burden… and therefore considering, for Paul’s sake, that he maybe should do just as Irulan demands and father an heir on her.

What neither she nor Paul know is that Princess Irulan is to blame for the lack of an heir: she clandestinely feeds Chani a contraceptive this whole time: 12 years of slow medication, to make sure she does not conceive. Why? Because the Bene Gesserit have their centuries of crossbreeding to consider, and they would rather kill another planetfull of people than allow a “wild genetic strain” to “pollute” the carefully vetted Atreides bloodline: Chani’s undocumented and unvetted ancestry, consisting of unknown Fremen and the wild-card half-rebel Liet-Kynes.

Meanwhile, Paul is not happy on the throne. He is surrounded by nothing but bitter, hateful Enemies and blind, fanatic Followers: The Fremen revere him to a point where he can hardly use their counsel, while the various political cliques; Guilds, Cults, Houses, his wife in her role as a Bene Gesserit; try to manipulate him and spin their conspiracies in the lee of psychics to escape notice of Paul’s visions. His mother has retreated to Caladan and is out of reach, refuses to let anyone drag the pretty ocean world into the struggles of the Galaxy; his sister is busy with her own personal development and, as the high priestess of Arrakis, the religious aspects; the only pillar he has is Chani, his beloved.

“We’ve lost that clear, single-note of living. If it cannot be bottled, beaten, pointed or hoarded, we give it no value.”

“If you need something to worship, then worship life — all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together.”

(Both: Paul, in Dune: Messiah)

Without Chani, he would long have broken under the strain, and he is cynical, resigned, and dodges his responsibilities: When asked to step out and lead the prayer as the religious figurehead for the masses he sends a stand-in in a robe to do it. “Nobody will notice at the distance.”

He is called a god, but not only does he not believe it himself, he does not want the people around him to believe it. Yet — as usual! — he does not follow through with what he wants. He does what the office demands: He had them build the greatest palace that ever was in human history, a gigantomaniac mega-building full of architectural tricks to inspire awe. There are pilgrimages from all sorts of planets to his Arrakis, to his palace.

“I’ve had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think I don’t see my own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt! I’ve insinuated my rites into the most elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad’dib! They make love in my name, are born in my name – cross the street in my name. A roof-beam cannot be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree without invoking the blessing of Muad’dib!”

(from Dune: Messiah)

He blames himself for the Jihad and revisits memories of possible points where he could have tried some other path that may maybe have avoided it. He gives his closest advisors material to read about Genghis Khan and Hitler to try and make them think, but they are too busy with the present to delve into forgotten Terra lore. He spells it out to them: “We have eliminated multiple full religions with all their Believers” – “Unbelievers!” say his Followers.

The Tleilaxu … another faction like the Bene Gesserit, the more tech-focused one … obtained genetic material of the fallen Duncan Idaho, maybe even the whole body, and clone/revive him, cleared of memory. They replace his eyes with cybernetics and send him as a “gift” to Paul, a Trojan Horse to further muddle his already muddled emotions and prompt him to make a deadly mistake.

And then suddenly Chani DOES conceive. Worst case scenario for all of Paul’s wildest enemies. The Atreides cannot be allowed to cement their bid for the throne. Assassins are long ready to prevent this most unfavourable outcome of all possible timelines: An heir that is not under the tight control of any of the various conspiracies, a free agent.

They will not stop at anything to destroy Paul and Chani, and pull on their strings to funnel them towards their own destruction.

Until there is only one answer: Desert wisdom — the customs of the Fremen.

The main picture of this post is from the old Eidos computer adventure game Dune 1.
And this here is one from the more successful real-time strategy game Dune II; also quite old:

So, what is my opinion about Paul being a power-hungry psychopath, an unreliable narrator and the true villain?

I call the theory bullshit.

First of all, Paul is not the narrator. Secondly, his enemy is Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, and I would question the sanity of people who claim that in that struggle, Paul is the “true villain”.

Now, a more complex question is: Is Paul a power-hungry psychopath, is he “a villain”, and should he have gone into the deep desert to start a small family, leaving the Empire to the Harkonnen and the Bene Gesserit breeding program?

Well, maybe he should have gone and left. If successful in retreating, he and Chani would certainly be happier that way; and more free.
As things stand, they are both caged in this palace, tied up like animals, pulled every which direction, medicated, fed lies, pressured.

But would the Empire have let them hide in the desert? Would the factions have taken the risk?

That is a clear No. Had only one rumor of Paul being alive somewhere reached the powers that be they would have done anything to find him and either exterminate him or recover his precious gene strain.

In addition, Paul continues to struggle with his path. He did so all through the first novel, ever trying to puzzle out a way where his Faithful would NOT overrun the galaxy and depopulate entire planets. And even after the fact he still struggles to find out how he could have avoided what already happened.

The fact is, he couldn’t. And now he is crying over milk long spilled and curdled.

Back when, his mother was tasked to bear a daughter to marry Feyd Rautha, and their son was supposed to be the Chosen One: the nexus of power that could have been manipulated by the Bene Gesserit for their own ends. A Harkonnen Emperor trained and prepared to do anything that his Bene Gesserit wife … one generation after Princess Irulan … would have made him do.
Would that have succeeded? We don’t know, because Jessica defied them and bore a son.

“Kowing it to be inevatible, why not choose an aristocrat’s death, ending life on a secret flourish, squandering any years that might have been? To die before coming to the end of willpower, wat that not an aristocrat’s choice?”

(from Dune: Messiah)

Is Paul a nice guy?
“You don’t build politics on love,” he said. “People aren’t concerned with love; it’s too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos.”
That is true: People like to be told what is right and wrong. They like simple choices. Like “is Paul a hero or a villain”, as if there were only two options.
How power-hungry is he?
He hates being where he is. He just does not see how to get off the train.
How powerful is he?
He is fenced in on all sides by people more power-hungry than he.
Is he a psychopath?
What is a psychopath? Does the fact that a war is fought in one’s name make one a psychopath?
Is he bloodthirsty? He suffers guilt for being what he is. He wishes it was otherwise. And yet he continues on … because he sees not way out. Is that a psychopath?
He is responsible for uncountable deaths, but he did not want that. It weighs on him.
Could he have avoided it?
Yes — but only by dying early on. He even considered that option; but to succeed at avoiding the Jihad he would have had to die even before his mother and he got to the Sietch. The fight with Jamis was not just some random action scene. It was the one exit ramp for Paul Atreides.
Die by Jamis’ knife, that would have avoided the Jihad.
Right after winning that, events were in motion, and then he only had the choice between leader and martyr. The duel against Feyd-Rautha was inconsequential for the Jihad. The Fremen would not have returned home and put on the shackles just because Paul died. They would have killed every opposition either way.

Rewind to the duel with Jamis:
He could have avoided the Jihad, but with two consequences: A Harkonnen Emperor in the short,
and, if we believe the visions, the ultimate extinction of humankind in the long run.

That’s our two options:
A bloody Jihad killing scores of billions of people,
or no bloody Jihad, and all people going extinct.

The question is: Which is better? YMMV, depending on if you want humankind to survive or if you think they are a problem for Mother Nature.

But Paul’s options were not those:
a) Do I want to live a peaceful idyll with my love or
b) do I desire absolute power.
There never was a path to the white picket fence and the small family life.
His options were:
a) Do I die, or
b) do I become the most brutal dictator in the history of humankind?

And he never truly decided. Throughout the first book, and in Messiah too, he always hesitated, trying to postpone the definitive decision.

What is a Hero?
A Hero is someone who knows where he wants to go and struggles against all odds to make that happen. An actor with agency. Paul did not do that. He was swept away on the wave of destiny. Half-passive. Even when his visions tell him there is a trap, he tarries.
Knowing exactly the cage he is in, its extent, and the results of his actions, he bows to Fate and follows, and leaves the heavy lifting to Leto II.

“From the moment the Jihad had chosen him, he’d felt himself hemmed in by the forces of a multitude.”

(from Dune: Messiah)

Not a hero.
But also not a villain.

What is a Villain?
A villain is not so different from a Hero in that he also has plans, and he also works to accomplish them. A Villain has agency. He makes decisions that are in direct opposition to the goals of the Hero. That is what the dramatic conflict amounts to: Two active forces in opposition.

“Magnificent! You attack — therefore you have willpower and exercise self-determination.”

(from Dune: Messiah)

Paul Atreides was neither, simply a boy, a man, born into his place, sent onto a strange planet, thrown into an impossible position.
A Hero and a Villain both only to those looking at his surface image from the outside, coloured by their own perceptions.
And that is probably what is also going on in our real world of film watchers 2024. People call him a Hero or a Villain, not for what he truly is, but for what they are: Followers, or Enemies.

An impressive achievement for a film based on a book, to reflect the book-reality into the world. Well done, Mr. Villeneuve.

But the value of a book is that you can look through the surface and understand more of what is going on. And there Paul does not qualify for the role of villainy. People die, but they die either way: Paul does not kill them, he does not even decide which planet to destroy, he enslaves himself to his visions and lets the dice fall where they may.

So I reject the theory of Paul, the villain.

Have I failed to understand the books?
Maybe. Or maybe not.
None of us can be sure of our own perception and the clarity of our comprehension.

But:

In the best fiction, just as in reality! heroes and villains are not so simple to categorize as they are in Punch & Judy shows or in the reporting of TV news media.
The world is not a fairy tale. There are no comically evil crocodiles opposing saintly messiahs. Protagonists worth their salt have layers.
I am quite confident that the people of the “Paul is the true Villain”-faction have failed to understand the books too, and a good deal worse than I.

“Powers predispose[] one to vanity and pride. But power delude[s] those who use[] it. One tend[s] to believe power could overcome any barrier … including one’s own ignorance.”

(from Dune: Messiah)