#I mean the colonizers (really including Leto in the first novel) are pretty explicitly in the wrong thew whole time

[warblingandwriting]

Okay so I'm finally starting the second Dune book and the introduction states that people disliked it when it came out because it subverted Dune's 'classic hero story'??? And maybe it's just because I first read the book as an adult, but I felt like even the first book was shouting from the rafters that it is very intentionally criticizing that type of story.

Like, the only reason Paul is seen as prophecised hero is because the Bene Gesserit intentionally seeded planets with made up prophecies so that they could one day, if they ever needed to, get the people under their sway. He is completely manufactured- and that whole shebang is not presented in a good light. It's basically an out and out criticism of colonialism.

I mean, the entire novel (to me) feels like direct response to Burroughs' Barsoom series, basically upending the idea of the epic hero taking his place as king of the native people of that planet by explicitly telling the reader that it was all manufactured from the start, and that actually, at some future date, he will destroy the very people he is now claiming to want to help. Like - his final vision does not show a bright or happy future, the book ends of a very dark note.

It makes me excited for the second book that these themes are obviously going to be more present, but I am a bit taken aback that people didn't realize them in the first book at the time.