Soyjaks are cringe but it gets the point across. I made this shitpost while at work, feel free to share it on reddit and report back the results
Paul: "I'm gonna overthrow this fascist government to install my own even bigger one"
OP: "So true!"
If Muad'dib was based we could at least make the point about two terrors, but he just replaced capitalist/feudal caste system empire with theocratic capitalist/feudal caste system empire, and his son forced nearly entire humanity to live in subsistence farming, and engineered hunger and scattering times that were so horrible that even 1500 years later still nobody even wanted to talk about that.
Actually, the best option there was was that when Paul and Jessica would die somewhere between the fall of Arteides and arriving at sietch Tabr. Jamis, you had one job... Or maybe if he destroyed the spice, humanity would eventually recover but without the nightmare of spice and ubermensch sects.
Dune is like if Baron Trump went to Gaza, Joined HAMAS, crushed Israel, then killed Joe Biden, and made himself god-emperor of the entire world.
It is definitely a message of Dune that occupied people have the unquestionable right of violent resistance against empire
What about the Fremen uprising is unquestioned??
The central premise of Dune & Messiah is that the uprising of a people against a fascistic government is easily corrupted and controlled, resulting in a new fascistic government.
Herbert didn't have any solutions to that issue but the entire point is that a populace that is oppressed will follow false saviors that give them hope, resulting in a loss of everything they hold dear. A transition of power to a new autocrat and a worse situation for more people than before.
Dune is, above all else, a repudiation of the
Great Man mythsingle man saviors and Religion. It mostly treats fascism as inevitable.I disagree with it in that sense and think that the masses do have a right to revolt. But it's inaccurate to say it's unquestioned in Dune since the question of that right to resistance is central to the books.
The last thing you should take from Dune is that violent uprisings are effective. That is antithetical to the message.
Who said that this is the message of Dune? I just said that there are rebels who are fighting against the empire. And by rebels I mean the Fremen.
These movies show the conflict, to some degree or another, from the side of the oppressed. As soon as a movie shows the chosen race + ethnicity of people living in relative okay conditions due to benefiting from said fascism, people often side with the empire.
Starship Troopers being an obvious example.
