On the point of the "Fremen prophecy" - those "prophecies" are seeded on various planets by the Bene Gesserit and are intentionally vague enough that they can make use of them as needed. It's not so much a matter of destiny as one of artificiality - same with their eugenics program.
But that's where the jihad and the metaphor of the worm come in. It be steered a bit, but it is beyond the scope of anything that the Bene Gesserit are able to engineer, and it is their undoing. This is the closest Dune comes to destiny, and it can just as easily be interpreted as a result of historical forces. Even if the Harkonen plan had gone off without a hitch and the Atreides had all been killed, the jihad would still have take place if only to remove the Harkonen oppressors from Arrakis.
Edit: I can never remember how to do spoilers on the first try.
I've only read the first book myself.
Dune
On the point of the "Fremen prophecy" - those "prophecies" are seeded on various planets by the Bene Gesserit and are intentionally vague enough that they can make use of them as needed. It's not so much a matter of destiny as one of artificiality - same with their eugenics program.
But that's where the jihad and the metaphor of the worm come in. It be steered a bit, but it is beyond the scope of anything that the Bene Gesserit are able to engineer, and it is their undoing. This is the closest Dune comes to destiny, and it can just as easily be interpreted as a result of historical forces. Even if the Harkonen plan had gone off without a hitch and the Atreides had all been killed, the jihad would still have take place if only to remove the Harkonen oppressors from Arrakis.
Edit: I can never remember how to do spoilers on the first try.