Dune: An exploration of the novel and its legacy

Dune - Sandworms

There is probably no other book more influential in the history of science-fiction than Dune, by author Frank Herbert. Being this important and inspiring, though, didn’t save this incredible story from being obscure in the modern pop-culture context. Dune was even translated into other mediums as well, from video games to movies, and its last incarnation, a big-budget movie by Denis Villeneuve, will surely spread its themes, characters, and setting worldwide.

But Dune is a profound journey into fundamental aspects of human life and culture, and its messages are often misunderstood or poorly translated on other mediums. We will try to introduce some pivotal themes from the book, to help the immersion in this wonderful, yet terrifying world.

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

FRANK HERBERT
“Litany against fear”, from “Dune”.

The maker of Dune: Frank Herbert

Born in the USA during the ’20s of the last century, Frank Herbert grew up as a journalist, but his interests were many and wide, and so his jobs: field report during the war; speechwriter for a US senator; philosophy and religion researcher; historian and ecologist. While he attended the university, he could not complete this journey: his mind was interested in a range of fields so wide he was easily diverted.

Frank Herbert
Credit: Common License

We could consider Herbert a “multipotentialite”, or a polymath. In the words of author Emilie Wapnick, “Multipotentialites thrive on learning, exploring, and mastering new skills. We are excellent at bringing disparate ideas together in creative ways. This makes us incredible innovators and problem solvers.”

While researching for an article about the desertification of the Oregon regions filled with moving dunes, he came with the principle of hostile nature, which in order triggered the whole concept behind the story of Dune.

He then left his job and started research for the novel he would write. Being already in his 40’s, he was economically unstable and not fully sure to pursue a writing career. When Dune was completed, it was refused by more than 20 publishers; finally, the one that accepted the novel and published it was a car manual seller.

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Despite winning the important science fiction literature prizes of Hugo and Nebula, Dune didn’t sell well at the beginning. With a word of mouth in the communes, the literary circles, and the science fiction fan, during the following decades, it will know an incredible success, being considered one of the 100 immortal masterpieces in the New York Times list that should be read before dying.  

The plot of Dune

The Dune story is set in a very far time from now, beyond the year 10.000. The universe is dominated by a feudal system, with a great, galactic empire that thrives on this social model, while the noble Houses are bringing forward ancient feuds between them, that sometimes are developing in open hostility.

This system is perhaps the direct result of the Butlerian Jihad – a holy war that coalesced all the human factions against the so-called “thinking machines”, advanced artificial intelligence that rose against humanity. Having them defeated, advanced computing has been banned, and thus, the society adapted to use advanced technology without automated control.

In this “renaissance” future, any development and economy are indeed controlled by monopolies such as the Space Guild (who controls the fast travelling in the huge galactic empire) and the CHOAM (short for “Combine Honnette Ober Advanced Mercantiles) which controls the commerce in space.

Shai-Ulud
Credit: Lee Fitzgerald

The ancient order of Bene Gesserit, a sisterhood, is present everywhere, with their advanced knowledge given by the previous lives awakened inside their members, and they are revered as counsellors and truthseekers, running their own agenda in the background.

Each of these monopolies and organizations are depending on a single substance: the Spice. Also known as Melange, the Spice allows the navigators from the Space Guild to fold space and time while developing precognition and isolating corridors for fast travels. Bene Gesserit’s powers are also tied to the use of the Spice.

The major issue is that the Spice can be extracted from one place only in the whole universe: the planet of Arrakis, also known as Dune. The planet is completely covered by harsh deserts, with zero water precipitations, terrifying Coriolis sandstorms capable of ripping apart metal, and inhabited by gigantic Sandworms (who can develop up to kilometres in length) and the only local human population: the Fremen, despised by everyone in the Empire.

Dune: Duke Leto
Credit: Brian Taylor

The Emperor gives the right to harvest Spice to the most visible House each time, and it’s the turn of the noble Atreides to take over the deviated Harkonnen (their known nemesis) in managing the harvesting on Dune. This set up in motion a plan that the Emperor and Baron Harkonnen have devised to betray and ultimately eliminate the Atreides.

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The young son of the Duke Leto Atreides, Paul Atreides, will find himself in the middle of this struggle and tragedy, while a mysterious prophecy about the coming of a messiah for the Fremen will unfold in the background, to become of capital importance for the whole universe.

The philosophy of Dune

“And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become.”

FRANK HERBERT, “DUNE”.

At the center of Dune’s story, there is a long and deep ponderation about power. Herbert conceived the character of Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides to be a living embodiment of the inherent dangers of power. The writer always warned about leaders and messiahs, that they should come into the civilization with a label on the forehead: “could be dangerous for the health”.

“I was almost a historian and seriously considered being a historian and while I was in the throes of this decision, I came on the idea that leaders are human beings and when they make mistakes, their mistakes are amplified by the numbers of those who follow them without question.”

FRANK HERBERT, INTERVIEW.
Dune: Paul Atreides
Credit: Alexander Modolo

Dune is a story where his main character, glowing of a great charisma aura, is driven by the most righteous intentions and good principles but draws a path to a terrifying scenario. An incoming war in his name will be fought, a holy jihad that will draw the entire universe in blood. Since he can foresee the future due to his powers, he realizes that this path is inescapable.

“My favorite US president is Nixon. Because he taught us to not trust power”

FRANK HERBERT, INTERVIEW.

During the history of civilization, many leaders took the mantle of saviours, all-seeing beings, gods, legends to be followed. Under their rule, their people would follow them into any endeavour, as far as causing a global conflict with millions of casualties.

In 1961, similar premises convinced a psychologist, Stanley Milgram, to perform a controversial experiment. A pool of common people was chosen, and they would ask questions to an accomplice. Whenever he answered wrongly, the tester would discharge an electrical charge through a connected machine. Each discharge will be increasingly powerful in voltage, up to 400 Volts. Not considering the obvious fact that the machine was fake, the tested people in the majority discharged up to the maximum and the rest up to 300 Volts, despite the (fake) screams of the accomplice on the other side.

Dune: Stanley Milgram
Credit: Alexandra Milgram

This demonstrated that, under a minimum of pressure from an authority source, a human being is capable of almost anything. Authority, it seems, generates an instinctive response in people.

“’The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations.
The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding an explanation.’”

STANLEY MILGRAM.

The tragedy of Paul Atreides is increased by his awareness of the future, and the willingness to take up the mantle of responsibility. This is an involuntary boost to his charisma, which leads to a more blind following consequently. While being more emotionally engaged with him, we are victims of the paradoxes of power as well.

Religion and control

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late. – Ancient Bene Gesserit Proverb.”

FRANK HERBERT, “DUNE”.

Religion is often used as an instrument of social, cultural, and political control, and Dune is not escaping this nature. In modern society, we are used to considering myths and legends as a system of beliefs conceived in ancient, primordial times, to explain the nature of the universe and make it less scary. These archaic models came to the present era through many iterations and changes, but they are fundamentally tied to the principle of dogma.

Dune: Gom Jabbar
Credit: Joel Chaim Holtzman

Whatever the reasons are for a person to become religious, the faith system works through a dogma basis, where no one can test any of the beliefs nor doubt about the fundaments of the religion. This avoids any logical fallacy naturally included in any cult to be called out.

While religion is generally culturally and socially related, it has a territorial factor too; the latter is, however, a transitive trait, that can be attributed, for example, through the duties of proselytism. Colonialism used this trait to its advantage, and in Dune, the sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit pushes this old agenda in the same way: colonize the minds before the land.

Frank Herbert uses the word “infection” to describe this particular property of religion, as well as other writers interested in a similar comparison, such as Neal Stephenson. The way religion finds its way into our civilizations is, indeed, a viral one, in all aspects.

Through the “Missionaria Protectiva”, the Bene Gesserit muolds religions and myths ad hoc, implanting and enforcing them in primitive and pre-industrial civilizations which, centuries later, will grow into a solid system of beliefs and superstitions that the sisterhood will exploit to its advantage.

When Paul and his mother Jessica found themselves among the Fremen, this ancient mechanism from the Bene Gesserit will be triggered, and Paul will instantly fit into the legendary messiah construct that has been part of the Fremen lore for ages. However, he will rise against the sisterhood, once more proving that religion can be a powerful instrument of control, but it can be easily turned against anyone and spin out of control.

Sandworm
Credit: Kevin Keele

Building the world of Dune

Aside from its themes about power, religion, and evolution, Dune is a believable world too, due to the accuracy that Herbert put into it since the beginning.

The ecosystem of the planet of Arrakis is a solid example, a culmination of a decade of studies from Herbert. On the other hand, we have the brilliant removal of two of the major science-fiction tropes: artificial intelligence and sentient alien life.

We don’t know if Herbert willingly included Fermi’s Paradox in the plot, but we do know why he decided to exclude the above factors in his story: in a rather humanistic way, he simply wanted to put humankind at the centre of the plot.

Another great focus is on the environment. Herbert was a fervent supporter of renewable energy, at the point to fear the increasingly depleting of fossil fuels since the ’70s.

“I don’t want to be in a position to have to say to my grandchildren: “Sorry, there is no more world. We used all up!”

FRANK HERBERT, INTERVIEW.
CHOAM
Credit: Unknown

The CHOAM, as Herbert puts it, is the equivalent of the OPEC. The control of the natural resources (the Spice as the fossil fuels) is metaphorically mirrored in the novel, and it comes with a warning about our careless depleting of the natural resources. For Herbert, it will lead to a global struggle and, possibly, to the end of civilization as we know it.

Translating Dune into other mediums

As Dune increasingly became more and more popular, it was the object of transpositions on other mediums. One of the most renowned was the movie adaptation of 1984, by the director David Lynch. While the movie has been criticized in many ways during the years, bombing the box office too in a spectacular way, it has its artistic value and importance.

The production (especially Dino DeLaurentis) followed a strict mindset, typical from that time, and the total length of the movie was cut from almost 4 hours to roughly 2. This demolished the vision Lynch had, negatively affecting the storytelling at the point to render the whole movie plot confusing.

Dune: David Lynch
Credit: Universal Pictures

The visual impact of the movie, though, was incredibly bold for the time, and the Byzantine canvas of the story was matched with a similar visual treatment, making the movie unique in its genre and one of the most solid attempts of a complex space opera portrait in the ’80s.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, another director, tried to adapt the movie previously, but his project vanished into development hell, through hardships and obstacles of every sort, becoming a legendary fail that haunted the idea of making a Dune movie until today (and spectacularly narrated in this documentary).

Following the movie adaptations, the video game world tackled the story of Dune. Initially, it was rendered as a graphic adventure with strategic elements by the French software house Cryo, with “Dune”. While an interesting game, Dune was probably ahead of its time and fell short on its propositions.

Dune: Westwood
Credit: Electronic Arts

It was followed by a sequel, called “Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis”, as the franchise was taken by a completely different software house, called Westwood. They decided to scrap all the political and story values while keeping the military aspects of the saga and created a Real-Time Strategy setting. This game was pivotal in the affirming of the RTS genre, at the point to be revolutionary – a fitting role for a Dune-related product.

A television series was produced in 2000 – an adaptation by the director John Harrison. While the production was covering for the first time the first three books of the franchise, it was not a perfect adaptation, with many flaws in productions and few good points.

As we write, the last Dune movie adaptation is on-screen, by the hand of Denis Villeneuve. It is a divisive movie, advertised as the next Star Wars franchise while chasing a whole other target indeed, it seems to hardly grasp the essence of what Frank Herbert envisioned for his saga.

Villeneuve’s style surely suits to represent the wide spaces of Dune’s world; however, it is rendered more sterile as it should be, losing much of its details. Many important events are running in the background and are not explained at all, leaving some lingering questions.

While the environments are receiving a bold treatment, the characters fall flat. The viewer is deprived of their inner world, their thoughts, which are pivotal in their growth. We lose so much in the process that the whole experience is indeed the opposite of engaging.

One major good point is that it seems we will have a better insight into the Fremen life – for what is shown in the first part of the movie adaptation of the first book. To explore the culture of these people and their old traditions of Zensunni philosophy (a mix of Islam’s Sunni and Zen Buddhism), and respect for the wild forces of nature is one of the often overlooked aspects of any adaptations.

Dune - Brian Taylor Paul
Credit: Brian Taylor Paul

The issues when translating Dune on other media are related to the original material purposes. The messages of the book are difficult to handle from a western point of view, especially in a capitalistic and consumeristic society.

This culture is based on the individual cult: strong leadership is considered a great value, while it tends to demote socialistic and other similar movements, despite their long tradition of philosophical roots.

The idea of religion as a control instrument, of the culture used to dominate civilizations, of the cult of a leader used to determine what the public opinion will accept or reject, are all strong factors that collide with a classic western movie plot template.

A protagonist, an antagonist, and a deuteragonist are the main element of a three-act story in these cases. The plot is always revolving around the triumph of the good principles, through any means necessary and to the application of the rough justice factor to the easily recognizable evil faction/character.

Dune is quite the opposite of this template. While the Harkonnen are easily a malignant opposing force, the real enemies are inside the characters and their potential. The story follows a hard path that questions our ethics and morals, forcing us to ponder on how the power, authority, and our system of beliefs are impacting our society model.

As Alejandro Jodorowsky put it, Dune could be unfilmable, especially regarding the entertainment industry movie-type. It is an industry that does not want to change society, while the novel aspires to the contrary, as every work of art should do.

Epilogue

Muad’Dib could, indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad’Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us, that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us “The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.” And always he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leads ever down into stagnation.” —from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan”

FRANK HERBERT, “DUNE”.

While in every decade since the ’60s our views on society were challenged by the questions raised by Dune, this story keeps its challenges on the highest levels. One of the proofs of this is the hype that the new movie has generated.

While we are equally challenged to love and fear characters such as Paul and be fascinated and horrified by his journey, the story of Dune will entice the future generations as it did with the past ones.

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