I think Dune (especially Leto II) shares a lot of parallels with Ozymandias in Watchmen.
It’s practically the same arc: a massively intelligent individual predicts the demise of humanity, and “does what needs to be done” to prevent it, killing a large number of people in the process. In both, the intended moral is “What gives you the right to expend peoples’ lives?”
I like that in both stories, they never do the hackneyed thing of pulling the rug out and saying “Ope! It turns out you killed all those people and it wasn’t even necessary.”. In both stories, Dune and Watchmen, it is implied that Humanity would have perished if not for them, which makes the moral quandary even more interesting.
And the main even influencing the setting and turning it in such dystopia is not even in the books themselves, since it’s Butlerian Jihad.
I wouldn’t say that the Butlerian Jihad turned the world of Dune into a dystopia. I think Frank Herbert is a cynic, and the world was destined to be a dystopia computers or not, because dystopia is inevitable. If not for the Butlerian Jihad, humanity would have died out millennia before any of the stories take place.
I wouldn’t say that the Butlerian Jihad turned the world of Dune into a dystopia. I think Frank Herbert is a cynic, and the world was destined to be a dystopia computers or not, because dystopia is inevitable. If not for the Butlerian Jihad, humanity would have died out millennia before any of the stories take place.
Hard disagree here as marxist (well except Herbert being cynic, that he was). It’s the antitechnological pseudohumanism that objectified humans into what we see in Dune, feudalism, slavery, cults, the cruel transhumanism of the schools, etc. and it was inevitable in such circumstances because backing the level of development to subsistence farming would not have any other effect. Hell the entire premise exist just because several literally magical technologies like super cheap and low tech antigravity, shields, FTL travel etc has been hamfisted in as pure exceptions to the tenets of jihad, which btw are so hypocrytical and going so much far then the anti AI premise that even Brian noticed that and tried to explain it.
And ultimately, the only thing that make saving humanity possible was the breaking of the jihad tenets, by the time of Heretics many forbidden techs are back and there would be no scattering without Ixians inventing the navigational computer.
I think Dune (especially Leto II) shares a lot of parallels with Ozymandias in Watchmen.
It’s practically the same arc: a massively intelligent individual predicts the demise of humanity, and “does what needs to be done” to prevent it, killing a large number of people in the process. In both, the intended moral is “What gives you the right to expend peoples’ lives?”
I like that in both stories, they never do the hackneyed thing of pulling the rug out and saying “Ope! It turns out you killed all those people and it wasn’t even necessary.”. In both stories, Dune and Watchmen, it is implied that Humanity would have perished if not for them, which makes the moral quandary even more interesting.
I wouldn’t say that the Butlerian Jihad turned the world of Dune into a dystopia. I think Frank Herbert is a cynic, and the world was destined to be a dystopia computers or not, because dystopia is inevitable. If not for the Butlerian Jihad, humanity would have died out millennia before any of the stories take place.
Never read Watchmen so idk.
Hard disagree here as marxist (well except Herbert being cynic, that he was). It’s the antitechnological pseudohumanism that objectified humans into what we see in Dune, feudalism, slavery, cults, the cruel transhumanism of the schools, etc. and it was inevitable in such circumstances because backing the level of development to subsistence farming would not have any other effect. Hell the entire premise exist just because several literally magical technologies like super cheap and low tech antigravity, shields, FTL travel etc has been hamfisted in as pure exceptions to the tenets of jihad, which btw are so hypocrytical and going so much far then the anti AI premise that even Brian noticed that and tried to explain it.
And ultimately, the only thing that make saving humanity possible was the breaking of the jihad tenets, by the time of Heretics many forbidden techs are back and there would be no scattering without Ixians inventing the navigational computer.