See I still disagree. The Fremen had already seized their own fate, as Liet Kynes shows. They're already changing the planet in their favor, they've already structured their society to be the most powerful warriors in the universe, etc. Sure, Paul sped things up by a century or so (maybe), but I think the outcome was inevitable one way or another. The material conditions of life on Arrakis had already created the fuel. If Paul wasn't the spark something else would be. I guess it's not as well spelled out as I like, so I agree that the optics of a Lawrence of Arabia type deal is Not Great.

And got it, yeah I stopped reading about halfway through Children of Dune so I never got to the God-Emperor stuff. I like that my Dune journey starts and ends with Paul, who rather poetically I think finally rejects his destined "place" in history and walks out into the desert to die, forging his own path as he will not be merely a pawn to a game greater than himself and can choose his own destiny. Which also reinforces what I was saying above—Paul runs away and refuses to complete his task, but it doesn't matter. Somebody else eventually does. You cannot stop what history has been leading to. Not sure if anybody's made that case but I think Dune can definitely be viewed through a historical materialist lens!