GP - Necessary?


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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Freakzilla »

merkin muffley wrote:
SandRider wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: his Vision of The Golden Path created the situation.
...acting on prescient vision
creates the future ...

Yeah, that's what I meant, but was unspecific. That happened with Paul (and at the end of DM he became trapped in an apocalyptic waking dream). Leto II thought he had broken humanity out of that trap... That doesn't sound quite right, and my brain hurts.
The only way Leto could break free from Pauls prescient trap was an act of creation, that is what the Golden Path is, his own vision of the future.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by aethereon »

merkin muffley wrote:
aethereon wrote:
Obscure might be the "perfect" word - I'll fix it later.
So do you think Leto saved humanity from a situation he put them into? (thing is, that question is already pretty obscure)
No, I'm convinced that Leto shared a common vision with Muad'dib, and to a lesser degree the BG. Leto maintained what he viewed as a necessary chokehold on humanity to reconcile his own foresight, and by consolidating power around himself and securing it for millennia, he could ensure the safety of humanity to the best of his ability by paring down the obscurities.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

Hm, early in my day to tackle this one, but I'll give it a shot.

Paul absolutely saw the terrible future awaiting humanity *without* the Golden Path. All the prescient Atreides saw this. It drove Alia mad, and it was used ultimately by the God Emperor to bend rebels like Moneo and Siona to his will.

What made Paul's view unique is that he became aware that the Oracle, he himself, was by his actions locking humanity into the terrible future he saw. Everything in the universe changed because of his existence as the Kwisatz Haderach. The Bene Gesserit were right to fear him as an uncontrolled element because his union with the Fremen and overthrow of the Emperor gave him the power in the physical universe to impose his vision on humanity, and once he had done it there was no turning back, it took on a life of its own in the fanatical devotion of the fedaykin and the priesthood.

What ultimately separated Leto II from Paul was their reaction to awareness of that future. Paul tried to free humanity from the deadly grip of the Oracle's vision by retreating from the world, killing the legend of Muad'Dib ... but he knew this would not be enough. He knew that only a fundamental change in the attitude of humans toward power, government and each other, a change in their very genetic makeup, could create humans that would break free of his vision, or any Oracle's vision. This would save them from the deadly Ixian devices that used something similar to Oracular power to find their victims, but more importantly it would cause the Scattering that would get all of humanity's eggs out of the one, fragile basket they were in. As Leto told himself when testing Siona, "I must have no pity. If she dies, she dies. If any of them dies, that is a required event, no more .... It was just that all of them could not die." Only the God Emperor could change humanity enough to ensure its survival, and how could he do that?

"... my purpose is to be the greatest predator ever known." (The Journals of Leto II) He would shape us by the nature of how we adapted to him .... those who survived the God Emperor would be the humans that could survive anything.

What Leto II embraced, and Paul could not, was the method of bringing humanity to that freedom from the Oracle. It required the millenias-long rule of the God Emperor, adopting the skin-that-is-not-my-skin. Paul could have done even that ... but he could not overcome his terror of the price the God Emperor would pay, an eternity of his awareness being shattered and imprisoned in the 'tiny pearls' of the sandtrout that would follow the God Emperor's destruction. THIS was the horror that Paul (and I think every prescient Atreides) recoiled from, but Leto II embraced. He saved humanity by destroying his own humanity and condemning himself to an eternity as a helpless but aware observer. That was the price for creating Siona and her descendants, the humans finally free of the Oracle. This is why Hwi loved Leto, she was actually his only contemporary that understood the scope of his sacrifice.

The Golden Path is only that prescient sense of the Atreides that humanity's survival is assured as far as their oracular vision can see ... to the point where it can no longer see humans at all, because they are hidden from the Oracle's vision and thus free of its grip on their lives.

Leto knew that his purpose would be misunderstood by everyone, including the Bene Gesserit. That was acceptable, possibly even necessary, for his role as the ultimate predator, shaping our evolution. It did not matter if he was hated by future generations, so long as there were future generations, and in Heretics and Chapter House we see that his plan succeeded, by creating a future where the Oracle has no hold on humans.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Olympos wrote:Hm, early in my day to tackle this one, but I'll give it a shot.

Paul absolutely saw the terrible future awaiting humanity *without* the Golden Path.
Paul absolutely did NOT.

"I cannot lie to you any more than I could lie to myself," Paul said. "I
know this. Every man should have such an auditor. I will only ask this one
thing: is the Typhoon Struggle necessary?"
"It's that or humans will be extinguished."
Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice which
acknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that among
the choices.
"

~Children of Dune
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

Although I think there are a couple snippets in God Emperor from Leto that are inconsistent with that quote from Children, I haven't scared them up yet. But I think there are several references to the choice Paul could not make.

*edit -- here we go:
"Do you judge me, Hwi?"

"No, but I fear for you."

"Think on the price I pay," he said. "Every descendant part of me will carry some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless."

She put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.

"This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity."

She lowered her hands and whispered: "You will be conscious?"

"In a way ... but mute. A little pearl of my awareness will go with every sandworm and every sandtrout -- knowing yet unable to move a single cell, aware in an endless dream."

She shuddered.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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The horror Leto is refering to it the metamorphasis, not the extinction of mankind.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

Inextricably bound together ... the Golden Path is only necessitated by the alternatives.

I mean I agree that Herbert was a little inconsistent here, I think his notion of the role of Leto II changed as he wrote the book. If he could go back and revise from the start, he'd take out either the quote you provided from Children or the one I did from G-E, because they're not really compatible. I think his vision of the choices of Paul and Leto evolved and that the quote from G-E is what he saw it as later .... that Leto chose the path his father could not.

It's in the very start of God Emperor when Leto is explaining the balance of personalities within himself, in the volumes from Dar-es-Belat:

"Even my father is not content. I have done what he feared to do and now his shade must share in the consequences. The Golden Path demands it .... We who have prescience, we who know the pitfalls in our human futures, this has always been our responsibility."
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by D Pope »

I think that's possible. I'm working on a theory that FH envisioned his books one, maybe two, at a time, so after mulling a concept over and over he got a better idea.

Isn't it also possible that he was doing a none too delicate job of pulling the readers through an evolving viewpiont?
The two quotes you list aren't nessesarily in conflict.

edited.
Leto II is gone for good, except for OM. The "pearl" was just that; a miniscule portion of what Leto was, and not a compressed version of the whole. The pearl that the worms have do not make them Leto, or in any way similar to him.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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What Paul feared to do was the Metamorphasis. He saw the possibility of it, IIRC it says as much in CoD. However, he didn't see the possible extinction. The metamorphasis is what prevented human extinction, the Golden Path was Leto's plan to prevent such a thing from happening after he died. The Golden Path was what Leto did with the time given to him by the Metamorphasis and had nothing to do with the extinction he prevented. Without being the saviour of mankind, a 3,500 year rule to Paul would have just been cruel.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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"The Golden Path was what Leto did with the time given to him by the Metamorphasis and had nothing to do with the extinction he prevented. "

Oh, I can't agree with that. Leto makes it clear over and over, the Golden Path is only about one thing: humanity surviving. It is *entirely* about preventing the extinction. Moneo and Siona are 'sensitized' to it, Siona by being shown the horror of the Ixian genocide. Leto and other prescient Atreides only know that the Golden Path exists because they are perpetuating a timeline where humanity does *not* perish. The Golden Path is only Leto's prescience showing him that human beings still exist in the future, and *everything* he does is toward this goal.

From his explanation to Hwi:
"Seeing futures is a vision of a continuum in which all things take shape like bubbles forming beneath a waterfall. You see them and then they vanish into the stream. If the stream ends, it is as though the bubbles never were. That stream is my Golden Path and I saw it end."

"Your choice" -- she gestured at his body -- "changed that?"

"It is changing. The changes comes not only from the manner of my life but from the manner of my death."
As a writer I think the real problem of Leto as hero, for Herbert, is that a full explanation of his choices essentially makes Paul a coward, in retrospect. The transformation and the eternal prison of his shattered consciousness in the sandtrout 'pearls' was simply too horrible for him, and he let his son do it instead. Not too heroic. But how could the Kwisatz Haderach be unaware of ANY of it? Paul actually had to know that if he could not find an alternative to the transformation that worked at preventing the holocaust, Leto would do it ... he must have seen countless futures where Leto did it and KNEW the price Leto would pay.

But it puts this line from G-E into a perspective that I really enjoy:
You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul Muad'Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo did not understand why the story disturbed me.
And well it should disturb him! Imagine going through all the sacrifice of freeing humanity from the grip of the Oracle, only to have Muad'Dib return after you die and undo it all!
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Olympos wrote:"The Golden Path was what Leto did with the time given to him by the Metamorphasis and had nothing to do with the extinction he prevented. "

Oh, I can't agree with that. Leto makes it clear over and over, the Golden Path is only about one thing: humanity surviving. It is *entirely* about preventing the extinction. Moneo and Siona are 'sensitized' to it, Siona by being shown the horror of the Ixian genocide. Leto and other prescient Atreides only know that the Golden Path exists because they are perpetuating a timeline where humanity does *not* perish. The Golden Path is only Leto's prescience showing him that human beings still exist in the future, and *everything* he does is toward this goal.

From his explanation to Hwi:
"Seeing futures is a vision of a continuum in which all things take shape like bubbles forming beneath a waterfall. You see them and then they vanish into the stream. If the stream ends, it is as though the bubbles never were. That stream is my Golden Path and I saw it end."

"Your choice" -- she gestured at his body -- "changed that?"

"It is changing. The changes comes not only from the manner of my life but from the manner of my death."
You quote supports my argument, his body prevented the extinction.

"What makes you do what you do?"
The question was well framed. He said: "My need to save the people."
"What people?"
"My definition is much broader than that of anyone else even of the Bene
Gesserit, who think they have defined what it is to be human. I refer to the
eternal thread of all humankind by whatever definition."
"You're trying to tell me. . ." Her mouth became too dry for speaking. She tried
to accumulate saliva. He saw the movements within her face mask. Her question
was obvious, though, and he did not wait.
"Without me there would have been by now no people anywhere, none whatsoever.
And the path to that extinction was more hideous than your wildest imaginings."
"Your supposed prescience," she sneered.
"The Golden Path still stands open," he said.
"I don't trust you!"
"Because we are not equals?"
"Yes!"
"But we're interdependent."
"What need have you for me?"
Ahhh, the cry of youth unsure of its niche. He felt the strength within the
secret bonds of dependency and forced himself to be hard. Dependency fosters
weakness!
"You are the Golden Path," he said.
"Me?" It was barely a whisper.


The Golden Path was producing Siona, who could not be seen by prescients. This is for human survival AFTER his death. Clearly the extinction he prevented and the future welfare of mankind are two different things.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Olympos wrote:"As a writer I think the real problem of Leto as hero, for Herbert, is that a full explanation of his choices essentially makes Paul a coward, in retrospect.
I can't argue with that.
The transformation and the eternal prison of his shattered consciousness in the sandtrout 'pearls' was simply too horrible for him, and he let his son do it instead. Not too heroic.
But Paul didn't see a reason for it.
But how could the Kwisatz Haderach be unaware of ANY of it? Paul actually had to know that if he could not find an alternative to the transformation that worked at preventing the holocaust, Leto would do it ... he must have seen countless futures where Leto did it and KNEW the price Leto would pay.
Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Freakzilla wrote: Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
But how likely is that? What hid Leto from the Oracle? He wasn't Siona, it would take nearly 4 millenia to produce a Siona.

Now you get into all sorts of possibilities related to free will. If Muad'Dib really could see all possible futures, he had to see Leto's. But if he couldn't see futures created by the free will of another Oracle, okay, let's give Frank that one.

But to me it all looks like dancing around bluntly making the point that Paul balked at the last moment at something too terrible to do, knowing his son would do it instead. To me, G-E makes clear some things that Children sort of muddled. Siona was only necessary to prevent one *particular* holocaust, based on Ixian devices that mimic the Oracle's prescient ability and use it to track humans. The Scattering was necessary to prevent all the other possible holocausts that could wipe us out while we were restricted to a very small area of space. Leto's millenial breeding programs were not *just* to produce Siona, but to evolve human beings with a longing to travel and a deep distrust of central authority.

I think Paul could have accepted the sandtrout skin and "only" a few millenia of being The Worm, and that would have achieved both Siona and the Scattering .... but he just couldn't deal with the horror of being imprisoned forever in helpless pearls of awareness, and Leto could.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by lotek »

Olympos wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
But how likely is that? What hid Leto from the Oracle? He wasn't Siona, it would take nearly 4 millenia to produce a Siona.
He was an oracle himself, which shielded him from other prescients, even Paul.
Olympos wrote:Siona was only necessary to prevent one *particular* holocaust, based on Ixian devices that mimic the Oracle's prescient ability and use it to track humans.
Siona was Leto's way of making sure that no prescient(human)would ever hold humanity in his/her grasp. That coupled with the scope of the Scattering.
Ixian devices are mathematical compilers that mimic the Guild Navigators capacity to chose the safest course for a spaceship. That's all they do, they don't predict the future like an oracle would, they "just" analyze possiblities.
Or did I miss something? What makes you believe Ix invented a machine oracle?
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

lotek wrote:
Olympos wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
But how likely is that? What hid Leto from the Oracle? He wasn't Siona, it would take nearly 4 millenia to produce a Siona.
He was an oracle himself, which shielded him from other prescients, even Paul.
Which only puts us back to what Leto said about Siona ... he couldn't see her, but he could see her tracks in the sand. Even if Paul couldn't see Leto, he would see *everything* about the world created by the God Emperor, he would see the impact of Leto on history and know it for what it was.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by lotek »

Olympos wrote:
lotek wrote:
Olympos wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
But how likely is that? What hid Leto from the Oracle? He wasn't Siona, it would take nearly 4 millenia to produce a Siona.
He was an oracle himself, which shielded him from other prescients, even Paul.
Which only puts us back to what Leto said about Siona ... he couldn't see her, but he could see her tracks in the sand. Even if Paul couldn't see Leto, he would see *everything* about the world created by the God Emperor, he would see the impact of Leto on history and know it for what it was.
yeah that's the catch...
But we don't really know how far or how much Paul saw form the future created by his son. Remember in Dune Messiah, the vision that guides Paul never told him of a son. If we follow the "tracks in the sand" logic, he should have known about Leto II even without "seeing" his birth.

Remember the prescient saw the future like from the high or low of a dune, there were limitations. Also I seem to recall that the "power" of the oracle had something to do with who could "see" who.(not sure about this one though)
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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But we don't really know how far or how much Paul saw form the future created by his son. Remember in Dune Messiah, the vision that guides Paul never told him of a son. If we follow the "tracks in the sand" logic, he should have known about Leto II even without "seeing" his birth.
Right ... so I think my thesis here is that the view of the post-Paul timeline is subtly different in the writing of GE than it was in the preceding books, that Herbert's conception of the father-son relationship changed as his protagonist became the son as a fully functioning adult.

Thanks for the convo, very interesting ... now it's 7:30 pm Amsterdam time and I'm making like Freakzilla's av at the Abraxas coffeeshop so .... everybody have a good weekend!
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Olympos wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: Paul NEVER saw Leto in any prescient vision.
But how likely is that? What hid Leto from the Oracle?
Likely or not it's what FH wrote in DM.
He wasn't Siona, it would take nearly 4 millenia to produce a Siona.
And she wasn't prescient. :wink:
Now you get into all sorts of possibilities related to free will. If Muad'Dib really could see all possible futures, he had to see Leto's. But if he couldn't see futures created by the free will of another Oracle, okay, let's give Frank that one.
I agree, chalk one up for Frank.
But to me it all looks like dancing around bluntly making the point that Paul balked at the last moment at something too terrible to do, knowing his son would do it instead.
He tried to stop him in CoD but didn't realize it was necessary until Leto told him.
To me, G-E makes clear some things that Children sort of muddled. Siona was only necessary to prevent one *particular* holocaust, based on Ixian devices that mimic the Oracle's prescient ability and use it to track humans.
No, the "Ixian" holocaust what what Leto's metamorphasis prevented. The vision she saw was a possible past Leto prevented, IMO. He showed it to her to justify his existance and his actions.
The Scattering was necessary to prevent all the other possible holocausts that could wipe us out while we were restricted to a very small area of space.
No, that's what the Siona Gene and no-fields did.
Leto's millenial breeding programs were not *just* to produce Siona, but to evolve human beings with a longing to travel and a deep distrust of central authority.
No, that wasn't bred into all humans, Leto forbidding space travel for 3,500 years was enough to do that and the INM and no-field enabled it.
I think Paul could have accepted the sandtrout skin and "only" a few millenia of being The Worm, and that would have achieved both Siona and the Scattering .... but he just couldn't deal with the horror of being imprisoned forever in helpless pearls of awareness, and Leto could.
Paul couldn't be cruel just for the sake of it because he was a noble, Leto could because he was a Fremen.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Freakzilla wrote:
Paul couldn't be cruel just for the sake of it because he was a noble, Leto could because he was a Fremen.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

D Pope wrote: I'm working on a theory that FH envisioned his books one, maybe two, at a time, so after mulling a concept over and over he got a better idea.
No need for a theory, FH explicitly said that the first 3 books were one book in his mind (channeling Tolkien I suppose...). GEoD is obviously a standalone, and was tagged on afterwards - we know he wrote the last books simply because he was offered a big paycheque, but I can't remember if that included GEoD or not for sure, I believe it did though. Then HoD and ChD were clearly books 1 and 2 of a trilogy.
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

Two especially I wanted to respond to here.
Freakzilla wrote:No, that wasn't bred into all humans, Leto forbidding space travel for 3,500 years was enough to do that and the INM and no-field enabled it.
Forbidding space travel for 3500 years, putting everyone (except an elite like FIsh Speakers) on foot, 'restraining' humans in almost every way, that's exactly what I mean by Leto breeding humanity toward the version that exploded outward in the Scattering. As Leto explains to Hwi:
"You have observed that the Guild and I do not allow this [travel in space]."

"You do not allow it."

"True. If the Guild disobeys me, it gets no spice."

"And holding people planetbound keeps them out of mischief."

"It does something more important than that. It fills them with a longing to travel. It creates a need to make far voyages and see strange things. Eventually, travel comes to mean freedom."

"But the spice dwindles," she said.

"And freedom becomes more precious every day."
As a species, Leto is pushing humans toward a longing for freedom over security. Leto's Peace provides sustenance and survival for the masses, but frustrates every attempt at innovation or exploration ... as the Predator, Leto is pushing humanity to adapt to him by wanting more and more the things he takes away. The Duncans react to it instantly when their ghola selves are brought into Leto's time.
Freakzilla wrote: Paul couldn't be cruel just for the sake of it because he was a noble, Leto could because he was a Fremen.
This raises a set of really interesting issues to me. Because after Paul's transformation by the Water of LIfe and his immersion in ancestral memories, after he *becomes* the Kwisatz Haderach, is it really meaningful to refer to him as a noble any more? Didn't he strike the same bargain Leto did, allying himself with a particular faction of the 'inner voices' to avoid Alia's fate? Yes, he had more experience to deal with the onslaught of the inner voices than the pre-born like Alia, Leto and Ghani, but it is still a trial that destroyed every man before him that tried it. With those legions of warriors and Fremen within him, was he *really* that much less capable of cruelty than Leto?
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Re: GP - Necessary?

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Olympos wrote:
Freakzilla wrote: Paul couldn't be cruel just for the sake of it because he was a noble, Leto could because he was a Fremen.
This raises a set of really interesting issues to me. Because after Paul's transformation by the Water of LIfe and his immersion in ancestral memories, after he *becomes* the Kwisatz Haderach, is it really meaningful to refer to him as a noble any more? Didn't he strike the same bargain Leto did, allying himself with a particular faction of the 'inner voices' to avoid Alia's fate? Yes, he had more experience to deal with the onslaught of the inner voices than the pre-born like Alia, Leto and Ghani, but it is still a trial that destroyed every man before him that tried it. With those legions of warriors and Fremen within him, was he *really* that much less capable of cruelty than Leto?
You think the way you were raised just goes out the window once you take the WoL? Besides, Paul's ancestors are mostly nobles, Leto's are half Fremen, half nobles.

"By the Sisterhood's definition, perhaps. Harum is cruel and autocratic. I
partake of his cruelty. Mark me well: I have the cruelty of the husbandman, and
this human universe is my farm. Fremen once kept tame eagles as pets, but I'll
keep a tame Farad'n."


Besides that, Paul is not pre-born like Leto. Paul is just like a Reverend Mother but with male ancestral memories, too. Either memories come to him or he must search them out, Leto is a composite of all his ancestors.
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
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Olympos
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Olympos »

It's an interesting question to me because I've always had this nagging doubt about Leto ... what if all his objectively evil acts as the God Emperor are a result of him being every bit as nuts as Alia, but with a much better cover story?

'Oh I'm not really a tyrannical monster crushing everything in my path because I'm an Abomination .... it's all for the Golden Path, trust me!'

For the people being oppressed by Fish Speaker force of arms, they might well be thinking of Nicholson's quote from The Departed:

"When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"
All rebels are closet aristocrats.

Leto Atreides II
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Freakzilla
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by Freakzilla »

Now you're getting it!

In that case, his GP would still be real but the need for it caused by his insane Vision.

:wink:
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
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SandChigger
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Re: GP - Necessary?

Post by SandChigger »

Freakzilla wrote:Paul couldn't be cruel just for the sake of it because he was a noble, Leto could because he was a Fremen.
Is that really the way you want to phrase that, that Leto and the Fremen were cruel simply for the sake of being cruel? They acted out of necessity, unhindered by the squeamish qualms of (some of) the "noble" aristocracy.
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