Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we're continuing our
explorations of stories on both page and screen because we have yet another well known
book that's coming back to theaters. In this case, it's part two.
It is Dune. Dune is a very well known science fiction book that has
been told on screen a number of times, and we recently got a very
popular movie part one of it, I think about two years ago. We
have a part two of it is going to be releasing right around the time
this episode comes out, and I wanted to get Stephen Cox, who is
someone who's been on this podcast before who has a depth of knowledge about this
book and a lot of the themes and theories that go into it. It
also happens to be my brother in law on to talk with me about it.
And the interesting thing about this whole is that as I have learned more
and more about this I read the book once a long time ago. I've
seen now numerous versions of the movie and kind of ironically given just did as
I said another page and screen episode on Frankenstein. On Frankenstein, forgive me,
I've watched too much mel Brooks. This is yet another story where the
book and the understanding of the book does not always match up with the popular
culture understanding of it, particularly the way it's presented on screen. And so
Steven, let me kind of just jump in right with that. This is
another story about a hero who goes off to become just like the people who's
trying to liberate and becomes a great hero to them and as a messiah figure,
and he leads them to glorious battle and his eyes turn blue and everyone
rides off into the sunset happy because he has taken over and brought justice for
everyone. Is that's certainly seemed to be the popular conception of Doom. Yeah,
yeah, Matthew, I'm really glad you started there, because that is
kind of my biggest peccadillo with the portrayal of this story in film and the
TV mini series. Is it really does become this kind of white savior.
He comes in and he saves the colonized. You know, he's destined for
greatness. He's the one, he's the neo, he's you know, he's
everything. Yeah, But if you read the books, and by the books,
I'm kind of thinking about the original trilogy of books, there's more books
beyond that. But the original trilogy, taken together is is precisely an admonition
to beware of that figure. That figure is devastating and destructive, and that
charismatic religio political leader is the worst thing that can happen to humanity. So
the idea that this is just dances with shihood is not actually accurate. Although
the first book, I mean, that's the thing is that the tone of
the first book is strikingly different. You know, each of the books and
the trilogy has a different kind of theme. You know. The first one
is is is religion and destiny, the second one is politics, and the
third is prophecy, and you have to kind of take them all three,
you know, the second and especially the third books get very very strange and
very very weird. So to me, it's not particularly surprising that Hollywood hasn't
gone there, but it really does a disservice to Herbert and the story itself.
It makes it kind of the opposite of what it is. Right,
So let's start with this popular conception of the book, and it's one that
I'll admit I inhaled until not that long ago, you know, and I
believe actually a conversation with you helped me kind of get started on this,
because when the movie was coming out, I remember saying, I wasn't that
excited about the story because, to me, great, I'd read the book
once, but I'd probably kind of not give it too much attention. It's
a very dense book, and I think not that it's not what I call
a page turner unless you're really into some of the themes. And I was
probably at a point in my life where I was not reading it to be
a page turner. Like I think it's probably a very good book, and
I want to go back and read it again. And so they skim some
parts to get ready for today. But as I said, the impression I
think that a lot of people have is, you know, it's about this
guy who the Harconin are treating these people the Fremen terribly, and the Atradees
in some ways are very similar to the Fremen. They're both getting kicked around
by everybody, and so the Treads go there. And this is largely coming
to me from the most recent movie, but you know, the Duke wants
to work with the Fremen and partner with them and help help give them a
better life instead of just instead of just ruling over them as slaves the way
the harcone En did. And as I thought about that story, and a
grand admit, I think a lot of it would you know, people writing
about the story and talking about it, and like the stories kind of take
on meaning themselves in the way that it's you know, Mandela effect told down
it again and again. It became this great example of why one people saying
that they're going to liberate another just never works. You know that you cannot,
as colonizers liberate the colonize. They have to do it themselves, and
you can support that and sort of get out of the way of it.
But that, from what I'm hearing from you, is very much not the
story of the book. Correct, Yeah, I mean I guess I guess
I shouldn't plant too firm a flag on that because it's a little more complicated.
I do think that if the book, and just thinking about the first
book has a weakness, it is a little bit that the Fremen don't get
the screen or like the page time. I guess that they maybe deserve.
But but even even as there is a little bit of that, you know
that lack of agency, as as as they're kind of led by Mouadi,
by Paula trades like, they are treated with respect and strength, they're fully
fleshed out their three dimensional they they do have agency, although we don't see
it a lot. I think in terms of planting the seeds in the first
book of that theme, a lot of it is kind of really like rooted
in Middle Eastern history. Herbert was not only I mean, look, you
know the book's orientalist like that, there's just no getting around that. But
Herbert was very respectful of Middle East culture and Middle Eastern history. He clearly
had people he was talking to, not just books he was reading, but
colleagues and friends he was talking to who were familiar with the culture and with
the history. And well, to interrupt me there for a second, because
I think you're starting to answer a question that had that I wanted to get
into, which is that you know, this is a book about a people
who are considered more primitive to the kind of first world or types again using
these terms in quotes, who live in a desert area and have control of
a resource that the rest of the universe needs for transportation. So this is
very much supposed to be a metaphor for Saudi Arabia, like the Middle East
and oil. Correct, is that kind of where you're going? Yeah,
I mean it's really hard to read it now without thinking that. Yeah,
I think I think maybe Herbert was thinking a little a little more classical history
than that. I think I think in terms of you know, when we
think about jihad, the theme of jihad is really really strong. It's that's
what the first book is about, is about this coming Jahad. Now,
now again, I don't mean to keep interrupting you, but because you're using
terms that I think a lot of the audience may not know, or I
think for most people when they hear the word jihad, well, if you're
a certain kind of geek, you think of vampire the masquerade, but mostly
you probably think about the word that is used to describe what is described in
the West as acts of Islamic terrorism. Now, I know that that word
is not that, and I'm sure you don't mean it as that. I
can't say, though I know exactly what it should be defined as. So
one of the reason why we're bringing Stephen Hieron is he is also an expert
in Middle Eastern history, and concepts like that talk a bit about what the
word jihad means and what you mean, what you think Herbert means by it.
Yeah, you know so, by the way, in the twenty twenty
one film, I think they replaced jahad with crusade, which, like it's
kind of inevitable because Americans have this inescapable association of the word. But in
Islam, jahad just means struggle, and over the centuries it has generally come
to mean a struggle for liberation. There's an internal struggle for liberation, there's
an external struggle for liberation, and so anti colonial movements in the Middle East
were often couched as jahad, And I think that's really that really gets at
what Herbert is talking about. That's how he means it. He means it
in the way that most Muslims, you know, when he's writing in the
sixties and seventies, most Muslims would have thought of it. In most Middle
Easterners anyway, would have thought of it in those terms, in those liberatory
terms. And you know, we Western audience, especially American audiences, really
just don't think of it that way. And so it's really got a lot
of baggage to it, but I do think, I do think that's what
he was going for, Okay, And so because that's the idea, is
that there is this, And I think it's also further helpful is that we're
using the word Messianic quite often. That's a word that in popular culture today
is associated explicitly with Christianity. But all three of the Altoholic religions have a
concept of Messiah to some extent. Judaism, at least Temple Judaism thousands of
years ago, very much did. Many parts of Judaism today have moved away
from it. Some parts still are waiting for Messiah. There's an agreement that
Jesus was not that Messiah. Christianity obviously believes that that Jesus was the Messiah,
and Islam also does have some Messianic ideas that are different sects of Islam
hold to more or less. But again this is not exact parallel to Islam
by any means. But talk about the good. Yeah, So I one
of the interesting things, so in Dune, Paul Trades is referred to as
the Mahdi, which is the Islamic Messiah, and especially in Shism, there's
a chain of Mahdis and the kind of prevalent threat of twelve or Sheism has
that this Mahdi has been hidden, occluded from us, but will will come
back. And I think that's the tradition that Herbert is drawing from, because
Gosh, I should have looked this up. The the twelfth and mom the
Mahdi uh died under the abbased caliphate during the Middle Ages, and that's when
he went into occlusion. But very similar to paula trades the Mahdi and Dune.
His father was a leader of the Banu hashim Plan, a leader of
a very highly respected family. He actually was the eleventh Imam, the eleventh
uh Uh Messiah, and arguably he was killed by the Halif, just as
in the book and film, Paul's father Ledo was very popular, rivaled the
emperor, was killed by the emperors. So there's I think that parallel is
just right. Okay, So I because I didn't realize that they're actually using
Islamic words, they're actually using Arabic words to discuss similar similar ideas here,
Yeah, he sometimes he sometimes tries to obfuscate the Arabic terms that he's using,
like and you know, my Arabic is terrible now. But you know,
I don't I don't think like Moadib or lisan al Gaib like, I
don't think a lot of these terms quite translate. But Madi for sure,
and Jahad I think he's using just spot on interesting, Okay, Okay,
So so that's sort of the public well and so again, yeah, the
idea of the white blue eyed person who runs this, I can see them
again. Why we're getting into some critiques here. So what do you think
Herbert is actually trying to say about this idea of the Moadib who comes along
and you know, as an outworld or comes along to be more Fremin than
the Fremen and to lead them to glorious victory. Because also again in the
popular culture understandings, the movies and if you've just read book one, it
and with them just liberating the Fremen, right, it's not going beyond that.
In the in the first book they yeah, they liberate the Fremen,
but then at the very end Mouadib marries the Princess Aralon and becomes the new
emperor. Right, so you know spoilers for the end of part two.
Uh, they win at the end, the Fremen are are are liberated,
you know, through their struggle and through Paul's And then book two is kind
of about the emperorship of Paul moadib and he becomes this tyrant m through the
spice he you know, I mean, we wouldn't get into all the you
know, he he kind of combines. This is another kind of theme of
the book, is this kind of gender essentialism. He kind of combines what
Herbert considers like the masculine and the feminine logic and intuition, the mentat and
the Benny Jessert and becomes kind of more than both of them. And he
has this incredible prescience that makes it makes his rule kind of impossible to resist.
And that's when we start to see this liberatory figure this like, yeah,
this colonial, anti colonial white savior is he isn't he like become exactly
what I think Herbert, who himself was fairly libertarian and right leaning, would
have considered. You know, this is what happens with charismatic leaders. This
is what happens when the colonized and the colonial combine forces to over come that
system. Because I think I think one of the one of the complications of
the white savior narrative is that in anti colonial movements, it is often kind
of a blurry distinction. You know, a lot of times these anti colonial
movements aren't maybe led by a white savior, but but often are led by
indigenous folks who have been brought up within that system and are part of that
system. And it's that combination of colonial and anti colonial forces turned against the
system that has produced some of the strongest anti colonial movements, right, because
you have to both literally and figuratively, you often have to speak in a
language that the colonialists will understand, right, right, and Muadep speaks all
the you know, he does it all. He's neo, he's the one
he he can do all of it, and his rule becomes this this combination
of of sort of hegemony as has gained through his prescience and his kind of
all knowing status and also repression, because the Fremen go from being this really
put down struggling group to being the feared imperial army, like, you know,
they overtake the sardakar as as this this tyrannical police force in the in
the galaxy, right, which, given that in the early parts of the
story at least do not understand it. In the book and certainly in the
movies, they present themselves very much as we don't want to have any part
in all of your imperial struggles. We just wish you would leave us alone
and honor our world and honor our worms and all of this. It feels
like yet it's real betrayal of what they had claimed to originally want. Yeah,
and in that case, in that sense, you know, I think
the figure of still Gar is really important to that because his evolution, uh
kind of in a way mirrors Paul's and he he you know, in a
in a book that could really give more page time and agency to the Fremen,
Stillgar becomes this kind of stand in where we watch that transition take place.
Would it be fair to say then that this is kind that the first
book and is kind of the Paula Trady is villain Orange story. I mean,
the trade presented as or is he more of like a like a Macbeth
figure, like a tragic you know, uh, you know, a tragic.
He's not only a hero, I guess, but like you know,
the the person who who has had everything go wrong. And that is interesting.
I think you could read it both ways. M. Paul's trying to
Paul sees the Jihad common and he's actually trying to prevent it. He's trying
to avert this destruction that he sees in the future and clearly becomes instead the
avenue of it. Now, when you talk about that, do you mean,
like, for the Fremin, is the jihad the struggle to liberate Dune
or is the struggle to then go out and become the new Sadakar Sadahar and
become like the new Imperial strike Force. Yeah, unclear, unclear to me,
at least early it's spoken of very much in terms of the liberation of
Eractus. But like, you know, like kind of a simplistic reading of
Islamic history, which maybe Herbert is doing here. It goes from liberal liberation
to like, well, I mean we did we should we just take everyone's
ass, like we could just take everything, right, I can see that,
And yeah, like I I definitely have heard that version of Islamic history,
often from right wing folks of like, you know, what started as
the fight to liberate Mecca and Medina becomes you know, the Islamic you know,
conquest of all North Africa and up to you know, with now Bosnia
and Serbia and things like that. So I can see it where that comes
from. There's it makes me think there's a medieval Islama or Middle Eastern writer,
even Kaldoon, who traveled a lot around at the time, the the
cal of Fate and the Muslim world, and he actually he talked about that
within within Middle Eastern history, this this given take between the city and the
edge, the center and the hinterland. And he even saw Middle Eastern history
as characterized by these periodic you know, you had these settled, settled cities,
these settled empires Rome, Persia, and then you've got somebody on the
on the periphery who starts off liberating themselves and then finds that it's actually quite
easy to go ahead and just take that imperial place. And so you should
argue that the Arab armies did that. You could argue that the Church did
that, you could argue that the Mongols did that. You know, it's
a trope. I don't you know. I don't subscribe to it, but
it's a trope that that is very very popular in looking at history. Yeah,
I can see that, and am I also right that in the book,
like Herbert again, you know, the popular conception you seem to be
that Herbert likes Messiah stories. These at least I didn't get from reading the
book, but I don't think you get as much from the movies and TV
shows, though I do have hope that this most recent version is going to
go deeper into this. But my memory is specifically in the book that there's
a lot of evidence actually that the benet Gestirate like planted the seeds of this
prophecy. They basically kind of created a self fulfilling prophecy of, oh,
you should believe that one day a person will do X, Y and z,
and then you should follow that person so that much later they could have
a person who is X, Y and Z. Because that now feels very
critical of religion and specifically critical of this idea, like kind of like not
even just that the Fremen are wrong, but that the Fremen were, like
you know, have basically been like not even not quite mind controlled, but
have been so deeply manipulated. For anyone who watches Babylon five, it's very
much kind of like the Vorlons do there of like teaching people to think that
you are the creatures of mythology so that when you come to them, they
will listen to you. Am I getting that right? Is that actually kind
of more what the Benny jestrit are in the books? Yeah, oh man,
I'm so glad. Okay, So you're talking about the missionaria protectiva,
right, right, this is the Benajeserate order of you know, which is,
however you want to refer to them, send out missionaries of sorts to
every corner of the galaxy to plant stories because they are looking, you know,
they're through their genetic manipulation, like they're on their own quest for the
Messiah. They're they're trying to breed the Messiah, and they're trying to make
every corner of the galaxy safe for that person when they arise. And so
this tweet Sadarak come is planted all over in different stories, and so by
the time Paul comes to Aracus, they've already got this well fleshed out mythology
about his coming, which I think is I don't want to say it's like
my favorite part. It's I think it's one of the more interesting colonial aspects
of the story. I think it's fascinating the way that that that mythology,
the way that that kind of long term You're right, it's not not brainwater,
you know, like that long term just planting of like the seeds of
ideas and seeing what they sprout as a way of control, as a way
of you know control. Yeah, it's a deep level cultural manipulation of convincing
people that there's some sort of outside mystical force that this person is then fulfilling
the prophecy of when really you just told them that this prophecy would happen so
that later you could intentionally fulfill that. Yes, but it also it takes
root because it speaks to something, you know. It's like they say that,
you know, culture all over the world have a flood myth, you
know, similar to like Noah. It fulfills a cultural need. And for
the Fremen, that need is their genuine subjugation, Like they do need that
that hope that comes with the idea that that the Mahdi is coming right,
and so what is the benet gestric goal like you said that for them,
it's not totally made up though they also believe this person. I think it's
called the hazy shazarak that you say it. I always thought it was Quissac
Satarac, Quissac Satarac. So what is their conception of this person. Their
conception of this person is, oh, gosh, if memory serves, it's
really not too different from uh, the role that Paul ends up fulfilling,
except that they were hoping that it would be someone under their control, right,
And you know, they they have kind of been for thousands of years
a parallel power structure to the Patasha Emperor, and for the long term survival
and thriving of the human race, they have been kind of reading breeding I
just bloodlines. You know, there's a lot of a lot of biological determinism
in this book, and they've been trying to combine bloodlines to create someone who
can combine that masculine and feminine aspect and become kind of the Benny Jesser that's
greater than the emperor. So on some level, they're kind of looking for
like the plato Is republic idea of like that there's gonna be av the benevolent
prince, that that they very much want authoritarianism, but they want there to
be like the one perfect person who will rule with perfect authority and justice and
and that kind of thing. But also, as you said, under their
control. Yeah, and and in the book, I don't think it comes
through quite in the movie very well. But in the book, Lady Jessica
gets a lot of flack for letting herself give birth to a son because that
wasn't the plan. The plan was she was going to give birth to a
daughter. They were going to pair that daughter with someone else, and then
that person was going to be hopefully the queed sac right. And by giving
birth to a son who is not under Beny Jester at control, Jessica's in
fact, you know, Jessica gets so like I think in the movie Jessica
gets such short shrift because in the books she's such a pivotal character and in
the movie she just kind of like sweats and like like like, uh,
needs her hands together a lot. But even then in both movies, uh,
she does have a conversation a she does have a confrontation with the I
want to say the mother Superior. I don't think that's the exact title,
but with the head of the Benny Jest where who says you're supposed to have
a you're supposed to have a daughter. You know, this is your arrogance,
et cetera. Yeah, yeah, and and that's that really really strewed
up their plans, right, okay. And in the second book, the
Benjesta that are actually you know, part of they become part of the resistance
against Paul's rule. Interesting, okay, okay, And so as part of
that, like, there are some science fiction worlds where there are human like
people living on multiple planets, but we're never supposed to think that they're all
like descendants of Earth, like in Star Wars, there's no Earth, but
am I corrected? In the Dune world, we are supposed to think that
these are actual human beings, that there wasn't Earth at some point, and
therefore all of these planets are colonists who eventually because part of what I'm getting
at is are the Fremen a literal different species who just are very humanoid?
Or is the idea that like the humans, the Fremen, the Harconins,
the Artredes, all of these people can trace their origins if they go far,
far, far far back enough to the humans on Earth. I believe.
So. I think the way that Star Wars takes place, you know,
a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, This takes place
in our galaxy, but a long time from now, so that whatever we
would recognize as our species is deep in the midst mists of time. Right,
So folks like the Fremen are not native per se to Eractus, but
they've been there so long, right that they might as well be. Yeah,
I mean, which you know, if you think about other native peoples,
like, yeah, humans did, as far as we know, did
not independently develop in the Americas. They developed all of us, you know,
came from Africa. But a group of people's came to the Americas thousands
and thousands and thousands of years ago, and then five hundred years ago Europeans
started to come here. And so we say those people are indigenous, and
that that's really what indigen a it means, is that, yeah, that's
exactly that's exactly the parallel. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.
So given all this, why do you think it is that the story
is so often misremembered and that maybe the tellings of it seemed to lose a
lot of this nuance and complexity. Boy, I mean, Hollywood does love
its own kind of call it Messiah, call it white Savior, you know,
like we love our NEOs, We love our Luke Skywalker's. Yeah,
Hollywood loves to make those films. A film about Luke Skywalker becoming well,
I was going to say becoming Darth Vader, but Anakin kind of does.
But the idea that that this person who we invest all of our hope in
becoming the most nightmarish thing possible is I think maybe just less appealing. Yeah,
I mean, look at like Last Jedi is one of my favorite Star
Wars movies. But it's why they well, it is by no means hated
by majority of Star Wars fans. There's a minority, even very loud one
already, that very much doesn't like it, and one of their biggest reasons
is because they want Luke Skywalker to be this hero and not a morally complex
character. And Yeah, I find that comparison particularly humorous because I would then
say that one of the best evidences of how misunderstood the story of Dune is
in popular culture is when people who will say, oh, a New Hope
is just a rip off of the Dune story, when from what you're saying,
it actually sounds like Dune is more of a critique of the kind of
stories that a new hope is Yeah, yeah, I think you know,
George Lucas, you know, I don't even think George Lucas kind of thought
it through that deeply. You know. I think he wanted to tell a
hero's journey, and that's really not what Dune is, right, Like,
is there a hero that emerges as kind of the main view of you character
to oppose Paul or is it much more just a story of this is the
brokenness of power and of politics and of religion. You know, it's been
sometimes since I've read the second and third books, but I do think there's
various characters Channi, who becomes Paula Trades's wife in the Empress, it kind
of fills that role to some extent. I think Duncan Idaho, who spoiler
alert it is brought back in the second book, kind of becomes that figure.
Like there are these kind of moral compasses that you can latch onto,
but there's no one. There's no one anti anti hero, which is maybe
the point, right, Yeah, I mean it feels like it's a very
kind of like complex, nuanced narrative that just in general doesn't translate the screen
very well. You know, we were talking about exactly this in in a
recent episode that we did about Frankenstein, where I hadn't actually fully read the
Book of Frankenstein until the last couple of weeks and was amazed how incredibly different
it is of every instance of frank Like I knew enough to know that the
point is that doctor Frankenstein is the monster, not the monster that he creates,
and it's very much supposed to be a critique of scientific ethics and all
that kind of thing. But realizing like, you know, there's no igor,
there's no lightning, there's no the monster is incredibly eloquent, you know
when he speaks. It's not just the kind of thing, you know,
it seems so very different than everything from you know, the Bell of the
Go See movies to you know, every Frankenstein episode that every TV show has
ever done. And it sounds like, dude, it's kind of a similar
thing. Yeah. I saw I saw someone online complaining, you know,
someone on the right kind of complaining about this revisionism of Frankenstein as as the
put upon victim, and it's like, that's the whole that's the book,
that's what the book is. Yeah. Yeah, you know, even the
fact that we call the monster Frankenstein when that's that's the name of the doctor
the creature. I mean his name is Adam, right, he in the
book, he's never really given a name. He kind of refers to him
as Frankenstein's Adam, but he often calls him a monster. And yeah,
I think that's we wrestled with what to call him because we don't want to
call him a monster. But that's how Frankenstein how it is doctor Frankenstein's narrative,
and so that's how he frames the creature. Interesting. Yeah, it's
very much an Adam kind of a story with an attempt to create an Eve
as a big part of the book. So pulling it back to Dune,
then, so you saw the movie that came out a couple of years ago,
right, Yeah, I rewatched the movie just a couple of hours ago,
and I think I missed this the first time I watched it in part
because I think it is a beautiful movie and it's a very slow movie,
and so I probably was not paying as much attention as it should have been.
And this time I was kind of like doing things while having it on,
which weird way allowed me to concentrate it up more but the point of
all that being and so maybe it's because of all that, or maybe it's
because I have now come to understand a lot of the stuff that you and
I have been talking about before we record it, even but also we're talking
about with others. It does feel like this first movie not only is Paul
feeling very reluctant, but there's a lot more that makes me hopeful that maybe
this movie isn't going that same direction in part two, that they are actually
trying to say there's something wrong with this whole culture of you know, hero
worship and them immediately being like, oh, you're the most friend and Freemen
that's ever a friend. And to Freemen, what's your feeling like, did
the first movie strike you as yet another we just see Paul as a hero
and we're not we're not muddying those waters, or did it seem like there's
a real potential to get into this nuance? I I am hopeful. I
am hopeful that we didn't get there. The way that his visions of the
of the Crusade played out, it did look like he was, you know,
not not feeling very conflicted about it, and I, you know,
maybe this is cynical of me, But I think the fact that Chani is
played by Zendaya, who is just such an enormous star, I think she's
hopefully going to get the agency and the role that that character really deserves and
almost never gets, and that that could be a really good way. I
do think like culturally, maybe we are ready for that, that complication,
you know, hope. So, yeah, and I think that there's a
lot of there's a lot of reasons both cynical and optimistic, to hope that
the Part two really delivers that. Yeah, I would really love to see
that. And you know, I have my own cynicism in part because,
like, from a cinematic perspective, your hero riding into battle on a five
hundred foot long death worm, surrounded by his you know, loyal fighters fighting
against the Harconin who are presented as you know, evil mechevil pants, it's
hard to think that's gonna be anything but badass, and that you're not gonna
look at that and go yeah, go Paul, Go Paul, and so
wanting to both morally complexify that that's not a word, but you know what
I mean, well, at the same time also being like yeah, but
it looks pretty bad ass, doesn't it. Like I'm not sure how they
can be done, but I think it's possible and I would love to see
it. They or and especially because I do think that movies can do a
good thing where the movie does make you feel something and then later tries to
make you feel bad about feeling that. And I'm I mean kind of facetious
there. I don't mean in quite those terms, but like I could see
that if early in the movie we do think this is really badass, and
then if later the moral complexity and nuances really kind of hammered home, then
we have to even sit in the theaters and think, wow, maybe when
I was cheering on, you know, Paul leading his army, I should
have been more aware of the problematicness of it. Yes, yes, And
I think I think, you know, the characters of Stilgar and Shannie are
the ones who are gonna provide that if anything, you know, like they
they're they're so perfectly placed to, you know, look at Paul and you
know, and see what he's doing and starts to question it and and give
voice to that for the audience. Right, So we had a lot to
say about this and I want to let you have some follow up last things
to say, but I want to this guy's last question. I want to
ask you. And again this is kind of trying to look into an author's
intent, and so I don't know how much you've read it, but it
does seem like you know a good deal about Herbert. Come thinking about like
what is he trying to say here? Particularly because and like as our world
right now proves, like we still have in many hearts this country and many
parts of this world, very very negative views of anything that Middle Eastern people
are doing for what they might understand as a freedom fight, and which isn't
a blanket endorsement of all of it, but also a blank is critiquing the
blanket critique, but surely even more so in nineteen sixty five, like it
was almost unheard of in the United States at least to be questioning anything except
you know, Israel good, Syria, Egypt, all these other places bad.
And you know, you know, we'd fought a big horn. N
there's a big war in nineteen fifty six. We're coming up on the big
war in nineteen sixty and another big war in nineteen sixty seven, two years
before this two years after the book is published. My point being, do
you have the sense that Herbert was specifically critiquing Islam and Messianic ideas within Islam
and sort of the religiosity of Islamic freedom fighting movements, And maybe it was
those, Maybe it could be also. I mean, this is when Malcolm
xination of Islam and all those are also big figures. Is it more that
or is it more this is a critique of Messianic ideas and sort of like
holy wars in all of these religions. But that couching it as in a
culture that would ring bells of you know, Eastern Orientalism type things, as
you were saying, is a safer way to tell the story than making it
more explicitly about all kinds of holy war ideology. I think there's a couple
of things going on with Herbert there. Think. I don't think he's singling
Islam out. I think he's trying to trying to present an exotic other world,
and he's doing so in a way that, like today we would not
probably consider like the way to do it. But I don't think he's critiquing
Islam specifically. I think he's critiquing power. I think it goes really more
to his view about politics rather than his view of religion. Religion just becomes
this conduit for manipulating people. And but I think the actual critique of his
story is about government. That makes sense. That's what that makes sense.
And I mean, while granted, religion did not have the overt political power
in the United States that it does today, this is before the forming of
the moral majority or any of the things that will then eventually lead to,
you know, the Christian evangelical political movements of today. You know, certainly
still Christianity had a lot of political power, and religion had power in places
all over the world, often to great, you know, terrible effect.
Oh yeah, the biggest lie that liberals ever told is that the West is
secular and the the East is you know, a combination of religion and politics.
It's entirely religion is suffused in our politics. Yeah, yeah, always
has been. So we're gonna have some bonus content for our members in just
a few minutes, specifically about like hopes for the second movie that's coming,
but any of the last things you want to say in terms of just like
helping people better understand the story in ways that the pop culture discussions and the
movies up to this most recent one. I say movies. There's the David
Lynch movie and then there's the Netflix TV show or the two main ones that
I know of. But I think it's also been kind of like told,
you know, in as a Dune type story, in many other things.
But in all of these like are there any other kind of last points you
want to bring up? The thing that I think is most interesting, and
it plays out in several ways, like both across the first book and across
the trilogy is the tension between like consent of the governed and repression. And
you know, so in the first book, the Hertanans are described as tyrannical,
as dominating the Fremen, and you know, and I think the the
portrayal of the Hearkens in the twenty twenty one movie is so much better than
in the nineteen eighty four version because the Hearkening are given their fair due,
Like they are brilliant, they are conniving, they are ruthless and brutal,
but they're not silly like they kind of come off in the nineteen eighty four
version. Yeah, they're not hot air balloons. Yeah, right, yeah,
and so you see that, as you said, like like Duke Lito
talking about cultivating desert power, kind of what he's talking about is instead of
dominating the fremen, winning hearts and minds and gaining hegemony. I love that
interplay, and how kind of by the end of the book they both come
together in the figure of Paul Muadeb who is both the winner of hearts and
minds and the dominator. And then throughout the rest of the trilogy you watch
his winning of hearts and minds continually degrade into just a pure domination, right,
which I think is off. I mean, I'll say another piece of
historical context that I think is really important here is this is coming out in
the nineteen sixties, where basically this is the last decade of the British Empire
and the French Empire, and a lot of the former European colonies, especially
in Africa and Asia, are getting their freedom for the first time, you
know. And so I think, yeah, there's another really interesting aspect of
the story there that's being commented on. Yeah, it's an anti colonial story,
but without the happy ending. Yeah. Well, I think in a
lot of ways Herbert might have been looking at a lot of the anti colonial
movements of the sixties and seventies and what ended up happening as anti colonial groups
become the rulers of their of their now independent country and lose the hearts and
minds of the people and rule increasingly through domination. Yeah, he probably was
looking at a lot of those examples and seeing and seeing what he wanted to
do with this. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of anti
colonial theory, that's something that's often talked about a lot, is that like
one of the worst parts of creating a situation were the only way that a
oppressed people can find liberation is through armed struggle. Is you're now meaning that
the the government of the newly you know that that there's there's now an armed
force that has won freedom, and that is very difficult to translate into uh
And a lot of the scholarly work particularly has been done by South Africans and
especially black South Africans, has talked a lot about this is that the you
know and that Nelson Mandela especially, who we often forget, was an armed
freedom fighter who committed a number of acts that we think of now as Yes,
they were, you know, fighting an evil regime of apartheid. But
you know, quote unquote, you know, but you know, quote unquote,
innocent civilians were often killed by his actions and they were described absou at
the time by terrorism as terrorism, and would be by the definitions many people
use today. I think it's a word that's you know, grossly misover misunderstood
and misused and hypocritically used. But that that in South Africa, the ability
for it to be a peaceful and democratic transition out of apartheid instead of just
the you know, the defeat of the apartheid government militarily changed a lot.
And I'm very much there afraid. I don't want to get too in just
direct politics. But to be very clear, I'm not using that to say
so therefore oppressed people should never use violence to fight back. I'm saying,
when all other options are cut off, I understand why violence is the option.
I don't think I can critique that it's a good reason for us to
stop using violence to impress people. But now we're getting way off in other
ideas. But yeah, no, I think I think that I think that's
helpful, especially when we think about this is a book that is now,
you know, fifty eight years old, and we're telling it with a fundamentally
different understanding of colonialism and of white supremacy and of white savior ideas and things
like that, and so it makes sense that the story is continuing to evolve
and change in how we see it. And I'm I would say the best
result to me of this conversation with you, and which also the last couple
of days, is then I'm much more excited to see part two of the
movie and ready to be very disappointed, but also ready to be really impressed.
Yeah. Me, I'm hoping. I'm hoping that they can stick the
landing and give us a more complicated neo figure. I mean, I think
I'm probably going to enjoy it anyway. It's one was just so beautifully shot.
That score by Hans Zimmer is just I mean, the movie is just
a joy to watch. And I'll certainly have my critiques, but yeah,
plan and enjoy well, and we'll definitely get you back. I'm gonna make
sure I've read all three books and we're gonna get you back to discuss them
afterwards, especially with some other Rob McKenzie, who's been a frequent cast on
this podcast is a big, big fan of Dune who knows the books very
well. So I'm hoping that the three of us can get back on as
well maybe some other folks, So we'll do a lot more of this,
Steve. For those who don't know you, do you have any published works
that people can find or is there stuff that people can be like, Hey,
the Steve Cox person has some good ideas. I want to see what
I can look at. I'm I'm entirely under the radar. I have kind
of social media I've got I've done nothing for anybody. Sorry, Okay,
the doctoral thesis has not yet. I should be referring to you as doctor
Cox, shouldn't I. Yeah, it's it's still under it's still under quarantine
for I think for another year. Okay, Okay that then you get the
right it's because it's owned by the university right now, and then you get
the right to publish it. Yeah, you know, if you want to
dive for it, you can look for it next year. It's actually on
the anti colonial movement in Egypt and the role that the Muslim Brotherhood played in
it. Nice. Yeah, very very relevant stuff. So thank you so
much, Steve. If you want to hear more of Steve, just stick
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