Can you name another writer who misunderstood the book he wrote?
nabokov
>Twitter account is mamed sullaProscribed
Upton SinclairThe JungleWritten to expose the horrible working conditions of people in America's meat and dairy industries, what it wound up doing instead was disgusting people at how revolting food processing in the country was at the time. Instead of leading to reforms for workers it led to reforms in food handling and processing, including the founding of the Food and Drug Administration by the federal government.As Sinclair himself eventually put it, he "aimed for the nation's heart, but hit its stomach."
>>25393199I believe Lawrence once said, "Never trust the teller, trust the tale". But this sounds like cope.>>25393182That's something completely different, retard.
>>25393182It’s very rare, but this is an example of a twittercel being right. The Golden Path and the Atriedes stewardship of humanity ultimately safeguarded humanity from domination by tyrants and extinction.
>>25393300More than that, I just don't know what Herbert was thinking if he wants us to feel conflicted about Paul. He claims that Paul's supposed to be a cautionary tale about the danger of charismatic leaders, but then the first book is Paul going on a texbook Hero's Journey. Paul IS THE HERO of Dune, he fulfills a heroic role. He avenges his father, he redeems his family, he defeats those who plotted his and his family's downfall. He wins the throne and gets the princess, like in a fairy tale. How are we not supposed to root for him? The story insists that we do.And let's not forget that his enemy is literally an evil fat pedophile. You don't set somebody up with an enemy like the Baron if you DON'T want us rooting for that person.In fairness to Herbert, he seems to have realized how heroic he made Paul after the first book had come out, and Messiah is him trying to backfill his original intentions. But the "damage" is already done. Paul is heroic.
>>25393417If he really REALLY wanted to drive his theme home, he would’ve Revealed that the Golden Path was actually bullshit and either intentional misdirection by the Atriedes or a delusion or their paranoid imaginations. >No, 3000 years of slut trooper enforced massacres and forcing everyone to live in farming towns with the tech level of the Middle Ages under the rule of a bipolar mutant freak actually wasn’t necessary at allReally would’ve been a kick in the nuts
I can't say that Paul is the bad guy, because it seems clear to me that his only alternative to the events of the book was dying like a bitch in the desert. But it would have been better for the entire rest of the universe if he died in the desert. It would have been better for everyone if the Fremen let him live, even lead, but without blindingly worshiping him. It would have been better if the Bene Gesserit didn't make him. Instead this kid gets to lead a Jihad that kills billions, marry a princess he doesn't even want, and wonder what to do with himself. Maybe the Golden Path was only necessary to fix the galaxy after Paul ruined it? Think about that.
>>25393417>texbook Hero's Journeyyeah and it's used ironically as showcased by the many passages commenting on everyone being manipulated by preplanned narratives and how terrible it is knowing that uncountable amounts of people are going to diethis is already explicit in the first book, y'know
if I may interject, it's not possible for an author to "misunderstand" their book. They wrote a message, other people might read a different message.
>>25393533>you're not a bad guy if you choose yourself over genociding the universe
>>25393560This doesn't land at all because we don't even see the jihad. When Paul talks about killing billions and beating Hitler's high score the reader just doesn't give a fuck because there's no context. Dune Messiah should've been the third book.
>>25393576>When Paul talks about killing billions and beating Hitler's high score the reader just doesn't give a fuck because there's no context.what context would be required?
Trillions must die for a better future. Low IQ Space Arabs must be zealously weaponized to do this. To save the future. Sometimes something awful is used to prevent something even more awful from happening. Sure. This is true. But what I think is the silliest thing about Dune, is that Herbert wants the reader to assume that there is no other way.
>>25393585>wants the reader to assume that there is no other way.???
>>25393590The Golden Path is the Golden Path. Trillions must die.
>>25393590The Golden Path is the survival curriculum of Dune. It required millennia of brutal, enforced tyranny by the immortal god-emperor Leto II to save humanity from existential threats like extinction or absolute control by prescients. The path required unimaginable demographic sacrifices including trillions of deaths and Leto II merging with sandtrout to become an immortal tyrant, because it was the only way to achieve three critical goals:Preventing extinction by forcing humanity to adapt through scarcity and isolation, Leto shattered centuries of static feudal stagnation.Achieving immunity to prescience: He bred a gene that made humanity invisible to prophetic sight, ensuring they could never be completely controlled again.The Scattering: By keeping the galaxy repressed, he built immense pressure that ultimately exploded into "The Scattering," spreading humanity so widely across the stars that no single threat could wipe out the species.Frank also thought men in the army are destined to become abusive homoerotic rapists. This is why the god-emperor’s army is entirely female. His goal was to emasculate humanity.
>>25393599thanks Claude
>>25393569By the time Paul had power it was too late. At first he was a young man, scared, in the dark and weighing the present against visions of the future. He did the wrong thing but it's a classic tragedy.
I just like the prose
>>25393182didn't he just fucking copy Lawrance of Arabia and put him in space? It's really not that great. They are making slop movies in Hollywood out of it ffs. It's not that deep, he wrote something that smelt of "fascism" and had to give up to the peer pressure and say what he said
>>25393300A major theme of Dune is how far you might have to go/what you need to sacrifice to ultimately arrive at a “happy ending,” to survive. Paul can’t stomach it and if anything the “theme” is that charisma isn’t enough to charm your way out of inevitability.
>>25393815>Haven't read this book but let me tell you all about it
>>25393850>nigger doesn't know Lawrence of ArabiaThomas Edward Lawrence, commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia, served as a direct historical inspiration for Frank Herbert's 1965 sci-fi epic, Dune. Both stories follow a foreign outsider who immerses himself in a desert culture, adopts their ways, and leads the indigenous population in a revolt against an oppressive empire.The parallels between the real-life historical figure and Dune's protagonist, Paul Atreides, are heavily woven into the lore of Arrakis:The Protagonist: Both T.E. Lawrence and Paul Atreides are charismatic, enigmatic figures from foreign empires who manage to unite disparate, nomadic desert tribes.The Setting: Dune's desert planet Arrakis is a clear sci-fi reflection of the Arabian Peninsula, just as the spice itself mirrors the geopolitical struggle over oil in the Middle East.The Natives: The Fremen of Arrakis, with their nomadic survivalist culture and fierce warrior traditions, are heavily modeled after the Bedouin and Tuareg tribes Lawrence encountered during the Arab Revolt.The Ideological Subversion: While Lawrence of Arabia is a historical study of the "white savior" complex and how foreign liberators can reinforce imperialism, Dune actively deconstructs this trope. Frank Herbert explicitly wrote Paul Atreides as a cautionary warning against following charismatic leaders, as Paul's ascension ultimately leads to a devastating holy war.
>>25393950copy-pasting an article isn't reading the book>Haven't read this book but let me tell you all about it
>>25393963no thanks, I'm busy reading good books instead. enjoy your Lawrance of Arabia in Space sloppa though.
>>25393579A big pile of shoes.
>>25393841The major theme of dune is that writing talent is not hereditary
>>25394007Film Adaptation by Quentin Tarantino
>>25393417I kind of get it. Heroes always are terrible people, they achieve great things, but with great costs.
>>25393599such a retarded concept. let me spend thousands of years enacting a species-wide eugenics program that will kill trillions in order to select for THE OPPOSITE of the trait that I want in this population.and then it actually works because herbert was, well, retarded.
>>25394108like a firefighter. he saves a bunch of people, but in order to do that he denies the flame their flesh as fuel. and that's equally as terrible. one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. it's all in the eye of the beholder, really.
>>25394470Firefighter is not heroic, not in the classical sense.
>>25394464Humanity had grown stagnant, and what Paul and Leto did gave humanity the desire to spread and learn again, to break away. With all of those years to rebuild populations under the strict control and dominance of Leto, they'd hate him and the instant he was gone, humanity was free to share or run to wherever they wanted in any galaxy.With all of those people remembering what allowing an absolute tyrant come to power would look like.
>>25394108>Heroes always are terrible people, they achieve great things, but with great costs.That isn't the case for 99.9% of heroes in fiction or real life. That is bullshit.
>>25395748Bullshit.
>twitter screencrap thread>about a movie based on genre fiction >where someone says the author said something >and someone else says the author is wrongFuck every single one of you, get off my board
>>25393182I always heard this narrative but when I first the first novel two things were clear- Paul was very aware of the dangers of what he was doing and becoming, and he tried extremely hard to navigate his new powers to find the middle ground between unstoppable jihad and genocide- Nearly every Jessica chapter outlined in plain language that the religious stuff was bullshit implemented by generations of bene gesserit and was just a way to manipulate things and add little footholds they could take advantage ofSo when I hear about future books wanting to 'warn' us against Paul or his hero's journey then i don't really get it. What changes that's not already in the first book?
>>25393417>>25393599I think he simply regretted being too subtle about Paul in the first book. Looking back Paul is sort of Herbert's take on the perfect tyrant/nietzschean ubermensch. His kwitz haderich status is simply perfect empathy/understanding of history (bene gesserit) married to perfect tyrany/authority (prediction of future), where his abandoning Paul's perspective in favor of Jessica's is supposed to mirror his fall from human being with a family to avenge, to immovable force of nature gripping humanity by it's collarI feel like he imagined Paul ending up in a position where he must replace the Emperor he topples in order to make a world where his family's heads don't end up on stakes is supposed to end the novel on a somber "but at what cost" note because his mother does not recognize him, the context of his actions, or what the fuck he's actually hoping to accomplish beyond what she would do in his position (avenge his family, become emperor to victimize the family of his enemy) and she is scared and grieving most of the timeThe second and third book really seem to hammer home that despite the whole "nothin more dangerous than your people falling victim to a hero" thing, Paul is at the absolute limit of human ability and the qualities that make him the perfect tyrant, make him someone who would discard tyranny outright as soon as possible. He spends these books pretty much trying to erase that mistake he make in the first that makes all this confusion, the quote above is from a massive hypocrite who co-opted fremen culture in a tyranny that abused their superstitious planet mysticism and belief in a promised land to achieve an ulterior motive despite the fact that it would destroy who the fremen are as a people He was morally opposed to most of what people found sympathetic and I think simply frustrated by the effort of making it more clear, but I don't think he misunderstood what he wrote
>>25393599As someone who actually read the books, this anon is completely correct except for the homoerotic part which was a strange thing to specifically add..He just thought a male army during peace time would cause trouble ad encourage ideas of manly rebellion which he was trying to stomp out. He directly states that he wants the population completely dependent on his/the government so that they are pussy incompetent dependent npcs so that the utter collapse of his one galaxy empire caused by his death will teach humans an eternal lesson to never be a dependent npcs and result in the scatteringTM which is possible now thanks to tech that hides people from prophetic sight and FTL engines that dont require, and are therefore dependent on, spiceIts a common theme with him of:>Hard times create hard men, soft times create soft menYou see it also with the sardukar sp? And fremen. Leto 2 created ultra soft times to make ultra soft men in order to make ultra hard times to make ultra hard men
>>25397286
>>25397060Tyranny of that magnitude would just make people passive and unwilling to trust anyone. The passivity and low social trust would encourage sociopaths and other predators once the tyrant dies, which ironically would lead to something resembling feudalism. If you want people to scatter and be independent and break out of stagnation then it would be way more efficient to just select for those traits directly by settling dangerous hell worlds with volunteer colonists and then selling ships to their descendants so they can settle more worlds with the sort of people who thrive pushing back the boundaries of the universe.
>>25397286>Hard times create hard men, soft times create soft mencringe
>>25397450That idea and the fremen specifically was based on Afghan cavemen beating a world power. I wander what he would think to have seen them do it again. Not to mention Vietnam
>>25393182>I understand the book you wrote better than you dothese "people" need to be exterminated
>>25397450but that's the whole theme of them there books
>>25393569This but unironically.
>>25393964You clearly didn’t read either, bro
>>25397065It is. In Iliad nobody praises the "heroes" killing each other, at best their virtues. Only in modern time, people watching children's shows and comics think heroism means being goodest guy you can be.>>25397068Firefighter is heroic as a postman who brings the mail. Only people who believe platitudes think so. Firefighters do work that is valuable, but its not heroic.
>twitter screencap thread
>>25393533>Maybe the Golden Path was only necessary to fix the galaxy after Paul ruined it?Nope. It was necessary to force an ossified society to think in new ways, and break its own bonds. Stagnation and extinction loomed if it failed to do so.
>>25393567I once read (or tried to read) one of EE Smith's "Lensman" novels. While it was mostly immature garbage, I found the subliminal Nazism and repressed homosexuality uproarious. It is almost certain Smith himself was unconscious of this, and that he certainly misunderstood his own novel.
>>25394464>herbert was, well, retardedHe was an order of magnitude more intelligent than you, at least.
>>25393964Surrender accepted.
>>25397450t. soft man, probably a zoomer
>>25397594kek
>>25398833You don't need to sign your posts.
>>25393182Alan Moore and Rorschach in watchmen is probably the most famous example.Moore is a raging commie, so he has very collectivists mindset. To him the scenario presented at the end of the novel where millions were killed to save billions is an easy one, especially given how the deed was done. As far as he was concerned the choice was easy and Rorschach was a madman to try and tell the world the truth as it was a waste of lives. Normal people on the other hand would say that what Ozymandias did was inherently evil and Rorschach was in the right. And his unwavering moral compass right until the end in a story full of bitter, broken people is something most people would find admirable. Standing in front of a god and going "I won't compromise on my principles, do what you must" is something a true hero would have done.From the hindsight of how the cold war actually played out the whole thing looks even worse. Ozymandias comes across as a smart ass that thought he could predict the future and undertaking drastic measures to change it while being dead wrong on his predictions. He started a flood to prevent a fire that would never happen.
>>25398845I summoned you, and here you are.
Fahrenheit451and Bradbury I think was another one
>>25398524You are just being contrarian.>everything that is good is actually bad>everything that is bad is actually good>I will double down on a untenable position simply because it is against what the majority of people thinkChildish and stupid.
>>25397060Except that's not what's gonna happen, is it? His rule would necessitate the constantly culling and otherwise suppression of everyone who resists it, while rewarding and encouraging the growth of everyone who embraces it. The humanity hat comes out of that thousands years long eugenics program is not going to want to spread out, it's going to be collectivist, xenophobic, insular, and terrified of exploration. The first thing it's going to do after Leto dies is find themselves a god emperor replacement and then begin killing the few people who are left that don't like it in insane purges to retain collective purity. They would think that the absolute tyrant was a good thing, because THAT'S what he's been selecting for for all this time.
>>25393508>If he really REALLY wanted to drive his theme home, he would’ve Revealed that the Golden Path was actually bullshit and either intentional misdirection by the Atriedes or a delusion or their paranoid imaginations.Second Apocalypse fixes everything Herbert tried but failed to do in this regard.
>>25398863you unironically lack basic media literacy
>>25399044I’ve never read Watchmen, where is he wrong
>>25398863I think you should read Watchmen again. You got the wrong lesson from it.
>>25399058Humans are too messy and complicated for the notion of superheroes or even supervillains to ever work.Some people reject that idea and argue one of the archetypes was *actually* heroic, and it's usually Rorschach as he's the closest to a reader stand-in.But Rorschach is immensely self-centered and has a broken moral compass. You ever meet a guy that's the "i just tell it like it is!" type, where they're mean and tactless and stupid yet still feels morally righteous because technically he's revealing truths? That's Rorschach.
>>25397450This is what the books are all about, the reason the Fremen are all superninjas is they live in a really hot desert.
>>25393300Yet it circles back around to being right. What is the Golden path? It's Leto II (and Paul, since Paul could not achieve it as a mere human rather than an abomination like Leto) becoming such an unimaginably all-consuming, all-controlling totalitarian tyrant that humanity 'learns a lesson in their bones' or however Herbert says it, to never again trust such a charismatic figure and to pursue the means to forever be free against such prescience.Two things can be right at the same time - The Golden Path was necessary, and you should never trust a charismatic cult of personality authority. The Golden Path was necessary because humanity never learned that lesson, and so the supreme charismatic leader was necessary to teach them that.
>>25393417the point is that even though Paul is a good guy he can't stop the Jihad. The idea of a great leader is more powerful than the great leader himself. If Paul had actually been an evil conniving asshole all that would change is he wouldn't feel as guilty about all the death and destruction hia regime caused
>>25397286Frank explicitly mentions the homoerotic shit, either in Leto II's own words or in some commentary. I am fairly sure it's Leto II's own words.>>25398927If you read the book you'd remember Leto II intentionally cultivates resistance against his rule. Even when he can see it. You guys are not as smart as you think you are.
>>25393182>The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.
>>25398917No, not really. I'm more of a opinion like the chinese saying. Great person/hero is a great thing, but also great tragedy.Although its accurate that I don't care what masses think.
>>25399390Great catastrophy*Eh, any way. You get the point.
>>25398902I'm a millennial.
>>25393417I'm not sure, but I think you're essentially missing the point, like everybody else. Paul isn't the hero, he's more or less a passive observer with little say in the matter. A puppet set up to rule by the Bene Gesserit.
>>25398863I saw an interview with Moore and he said he didn't want to make Rorschach to be one sided disguisting paranoic freak, making Rorschach "cool and stoic" was a conscious choice.His was butthurt at the movie and Rorschach reception because it didn't portray his faults at all, but enhanced his coolness
>>25399058nta but Moore went out of his way to show Ozzy's plan was already unraveling - the missing artists, the Comedian's death and all the crumbs that left behind, etc. Moore wasn't saying "sacrificing millions to save billions is easy" - he was saying Ozzy was a megalomaniac who thought he was a god, and his "solution" was just another temporary lie built on corpses. The book ended with Rorschach's journal about to be published, inviting (You) to wonder: what happens when the truth gets out? Ozzy's peace is fragile at best.But that doesn't make Rorschach a hero. Moore wrote him as a hypocrite - his "unwavering moral compass" only applies to others, never himself. He's a brutal vigilante who justifies torture and murder because he thinks he's the only pure one. His final stand wasn't noble heroism; it was suicidal self-righteousness. He'd rather die than live in a world that contradicted his black-and-white worldview. What's fucked is that both of them are wrong. Ozzy commits atrocity for a utopia that won't last, and Rorschach offers no alternative except nihilistic truth-telling that would restart the war. Moore was saying superheroes are broken people who shouldn't have that kind of power in the first place
>>25393579Seeing the impact of the jihad upon various societies and characters we know, not just having a number brought up every so often and then swiftly ignored. Messiah should have been the third book.
>>25393567This
>>25393199I think this counts>>25393280
>>25398863I will say that there are things in Watchmen that challenge the idea that Moore thought of Ozy as a good guy. Tales of the Black Freighter as metaphor would I guess be the main one. Ozy's swimming dream emphasises that he's the protagonist of Tales of the Black Freighter.
>>25399920
>>25393567What if the authors standard around the message are absurd? An analogy: when Pretti pulled a gun on some ICE agents, he got shot before he could pull the trigger. Left-wingers watching the video of this event maintain that he is innocent, I have not seen an exception. A left-winger could write a scene identical that event to show that ICE is a fascist police force, everyone on the right would see that movie and concluded that the resistance were hysterical idiots.
>>25399920>>25399921I like his Ben Garrison cartoon
>>25393182Paul wasn't charismatic though, his father, Grandfather and Stilgar were. Paul showed more comparisons in leadership with his maternal grandfather Vlad Harkonnen
>>25398524Heroism means doing your duty under dangerous/scary circumstances, like going into a burning building to safe your fat ass
The premise of Dune falls flat because everything that happens is so predetermined in the series. Let's say I don't put my trust in a charismatic leader. Well it doesn't matter because the other sandniggers are just gonna kill me and paul already saw the future.
Did Herbert even say that? It literally has no bearing on anything in the book, or any of the books.Paul and even his son were by all accounts good men who were forced to do questionable things for the good of humanity. They actually *were* everything they were jumped up to be.
>>25401992Leto occasionally questions his prescience
>>25401992Paul had the choice between (his own) death and the golden path and he chose the golden path but then punked out like a bitch and left it to Leto to go through with. He has a fag.
>>25401931So just like real life?
>>25401901Firemen do it only if they know they can do it safely. Like any profession. Are chinks doing shit china heroic? They do it without any safety gear, and get killed constantly because if it.
>>25397477It's dumb to think this isn't possible. Even authors say this about other authors. Same thing with people you know, you probably understand some of them better than they understand themselves.
