What is the golden path in Dune?

This post contains spoiler For the “Dune” books written by Frank Herbert.

The “Dune” book series that extends far beyond that currently planned film trilogy Calculate with the end and embark on foreign terrain. There are large casting changes, considerable shifts in the thematic focus and massive leaps in time. If you get to the fourth book “God Emperor of Dune”, almost all characters in the first book have been dead in almost 3,500 years. If you come to the fifth book “Heretics of Dune”, almost all characters have also been in the fourth book for about 1,500 years dead.

Despite all these shifts and changes, author Frank Hebert has nevertheless given the series a few constants to stick to. The first was Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa in the cinema), the only character that exists in all six books, albeit in a clone form. However, the second and most important constant was the idea of ​​the golden path. It is a concept that is a little difficult to grasp and is rarely defined with the clarity that readers would like, but it is what the protagonists subtly from the first page from “Dune” to the last page From “Chapterhouse” and even in many of them continues books that Herbert’s son Brian wrote after Frank’s death.

In essence, the golden path is a vision of the future of humanity, which extends over thousands of years and can only be seen by someone who has a high level of education and talent in view of the future. Paul Atreides (played in the latest films by Timothée Chalamet) only then completely deals with the golden path absorb the water of lifeA very dangerous substance that is obtained from the bile of a dying sandwormbaby.

This is the point in the book/film, where Paul concludes that his path to the throne is inevitable that its rise to power and the associated destruction is a necessary price for the probably not only of his family, but the universe as a whole are . Paul can see that as a direct consequence of his seizure of power, billions of people will die in a holy war of the fremen who spreads across the whole universe, and yet he decides to do it anyway – sometimes because he believes that the alternative persists Will gets worse.

So what is the alternative? Well, stagnation. At the beginning of “Dune”, humanity was stuck in a drop in a millennium; This is one of the reasons why the world of the HBO series “Dune: Prophecy”, which plays a whole ten thousand years before Paul’s takeover of power, sees the world in which Paul grew up. All of humanity is essentially ruled by a single government, the empire, and that the lack of diversity (genetic, socially, politically, geographically) was a long -term existential threat. There is also indications that the later son of Paul and Chani, Leto II, fears a threat from outside; Perhaps he feared a return to hostile memorial machines (which had already been). banned during the Butlerian Jihad Long before the series began), or maybe he feared the first real encounter of mankind with an intelligent extraterrestrial species.

Anyway, Paulus and Leto II believed that mankind was not ready to face one of these external threats, and even without them it seemed to be condemned under the current course to collapse. To protect humanity, they had the feeling that they had to radically change the status quo of this universe.

For many reasons, perhaps the main reason, because Paul was born earlier than expected and was therefore not entirely the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach, as predicted, Paul has not completely implemented his search for the golden path. The second book, “Dune: Messiah”, who focuses on the fall of the PaulusIs a little vague about what Paul would have to do to achieve this, but it is clear that the golden path would bring even more human suffering and that Paul would lose even more of his humanity. He decides to give up his power and pull it into the desert so that he can never climb the throne again.

But even though Paul gives up the golden path, his young, forward -looking son Leto II (probably the true Kwisatz Haderach) decides to continue it in his place. He does this, knowing that this path requires that it turns into a huge immortal worm system (yes, really) and with an iron fist over the universe. Hey, it’s a lonely life, but someone has to do it.

Leto II takes over at the end of “Children of Dune” (the third book) and gives us an idea of ​​what his rule will look like. Above all, he plans to continue the escort of Arrakis and slowly die out the sandworms that produce the only spice supply of the universe. In the meantime, he would largely deliver the shrinking spice supplies to his narrow allies, while the rest of the universe would have to do without it. This was a very difficult change for many people in the entire universe, many of which were dependent on the spice to have an unnaturally long lifespan, but leto II believed that it was necessary to wean humanity from their spice mechanism , to make them stronger and stronger more independently.

The other important factor is that Leto II, since it was essentially a huge sensitive worm, was basically indestructible and immortal. Science fiction authors have often dealt with the nature of absolute power, but rarely a ruler has given a character of the sheer level of power through the Leto II. It is not only almost invincible, but also almost omniscient.

Leto II is killed at the end of “God Emperor of Dune” after over 3,500 years of uninterrupted rule. However, all of this was part of the plan, since his death creates a deliberate power vacuum, which means that humanity is no longer ruled by a single, coherent empire. It helps that humanity is largely exterminated at that time; Even if the Bene Tleilax (a large political faction that is responsible for all of these Duncan Idaho clones) has finally learned to produce spices themselves, this is still not enough to prevent the decentralization of humanity. This leads to great scattering in which humanity begins to travel through the stars to unknown areas of the universe, just as Leto II planned.

The rule of Leto II had also led technological innovation at a great time, not only because the planets had to learn now without continuing the spice, but because factions that were against the rule of Leto II knew better Technology would need to overthrow it. This clearly benefited the society in “HERETICS” and “Chapterhouse”, as the readers see the invention of no-ships (spaceships that cannot be discovered by someone with expected) and the introduction of more advanced face dancers (spies that can change their appearance). Humanity in general has seemed physically and mentally one step further since the beginning of the rule of Leto II.

Tragically, Frank Herbert died before he was able to end the series so that it is unclear what exactly he was up to with the planned seventh and last book. We just have to work with the books that his son wrote are controversial to say the least. We will probably never see the exact end goal that Leto II imagined for humanity, provided that Herbert had planned at all. The golden path feels like the answer to the meaning of life when it is difficult to define and difficult to imagine and we are not sure whether we would like the answer if we got it. In a way, it feels appropriate that the “Dune” series has been on the golden path for so long, but in the end never fully reached it.