We Need to Talk About Dune and Religion

Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known.

--From the Orange Catholic Bible, as quoted in Dune, Frank Herbert

Lead them to Paradise.

--The last words spoken by Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) in Dune: Part 2 (2024)

1.

This is not going to come as a surprise to anyone who really knows me, but sometime around late junior high I read Dune.  I had seen the David Lynch movie version a couple of years before and thought it was cool but didn't really understand it (not an uncommon reaction to that film, whether one is ten as I was or an adult).  Reading the book at 14 was just the right time to be really formed by the novel in all of its strangeness and complex ideas.  I then read all of the rest of the original novels by Frank Herbert (while developing my controversial opinion that novels 5 and 6 not very good, but that is a side issue) in the same general time span.  I read some of the follow-on novels by Herbert's son, rewatched the Lynch Dune movie a couple of times, watched the 00s-era Sci-Fi Channel miniseries of Dune and Children of Dune on many occasions (ultimately pretty good but obviously limited by budget).  Some people had Star Wars or Star Trek or certain anime series (especially for folks younger than me) sink their claws into them.  For me, it was Dune and also Lord of the Rings/D&D (which came a bit earlier).

So, when it was announced that Denis Villeneuve was going to do Dune, my hype level was through the roof.  I loved both Arrival and Blade Runner: 2049, and, as I will get into in more detail below, the interview cycle prior to the first movie coming out definitely made it seem like he really got what Dune is about.  I saw the first movie, Dune: Part 1, twice in the theater (completely unusual for me) in 2021, and went to a sneak peak screening for Dune: Part 2 a week before the opening.  I really, really liked Part 1, and I thought Part 2 was maybe the best movie I have ever seen.  So much so that I want to talk about it.

But first, a warning.  In order to get into what I want to get into, I have to spoil not only Dune: Part 2, but also the first book and parts of Books 2 and 3 (and, I suppose, the Lynch movie from '84).  If you want to see the movie or read the books--and you should--go do that and come back to this discussion.

  2.

OK.  Dune is a book about many things, but one of the main things it is about is religion.  When Paul Atreides arrives on the desert world of Arrakis, elements among the indigenous people, the Fremen, question whether he is the promised messiah, known to them as the "Lisan al-Gaib" or the "Mahdi."  We come to learn that the Fremen have a legend that an off-worlder, whose mother is a member of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood (more on them in a bit), will not only liberate them from political oppression at the hands of off-world interests, but also transform Arrakis into a green paradise.

Paul and his mother Jessica, a Bene Gesserit, find themselves among the Fremen after their family is displaced from control of Arrakis by their enemies the Harkonnens.  Paul has to make a decision as to whether he is going to embrace the role of the Fremen's messiah, in large measure because the Fremen are an elite fighting force with far larger numbers than anyone suspects, allowing Paul the possibility of leveraging their military power to overthrow the Harkonnens and indeed the Emperor himself (who was ultimately behind the death and displacement of the Atreides family).  All of this is made more possible by the fact that Paul is the end-product of a millennia-long selective breeding program by the Bene Gesserits, giving Paul, among other things, the latent ability to see the future.  Complicating this decision for Paul is the fact that he knows that this prophecy of an off-world Messiah who is the son of a Bene Gesserit was engineered by the Bene Gesserits, as part of their long-game of subtle manipulation of cultures and peoples.

At a certain point, Paul takes the Water of Life (which has killed every man who has tried to drink it, though Bene Gesserit women use it routinely).  His prescience, ability to see the future, is fully unlocked.  And in this vision, he sees that fully taking on the mantle of the Lisan al-Gaib will unleash a "jihad" (the book's term), resulting in billions of innocents killed as the Fremen establish the religion of their new messiah on the rest of the Universe.  In the end, Paul voluntarily accepts this outcome, fully takes on the mantle of messiah, and retakes Arrakis and becomes the Emperor.

This is how Book 1 ends.  Book 2, and also Book 3 and to some extent all the other books Herbert wrote, deals with the consequences of Paul's choice.  In doing so, Herbert very explicitly stakes out the position that messiahs are bad because they lead to fanaticism, and fanaticism leads to oppression, genocide, and suffering.  At the same time, there is a through-line that what Paul (and later his son) do as a result of taking on the mantle of messiah is to some degree necessary, or maybe inevitable, or perhaps both (indeed, one of the reasons I have problems with Books 5 and 6 is the way they hammer home how that actions of Paul and particularly his son were necessary in a Galaxy Brain greater good sense, undermining the "charismatic leaders are bad" message of the earlier books).  This tension between horror and necessity/inevitability is at the heart of the moral dimension to the books--the characters that are ostensibly presented as the heroes, Paul and his son, are more like monsters.  Complicating this analysis is the fact that basically the entirety of the prescient visions of the future are presented form the point of view of the individuals having the visions, raising the possibility of unreliable or self-justifying narrators.  

When all of that makes its way onto the screen in Lynch's Dune, as much as I enjoy the film for its Lynch-ian weirdness, we run into some major problems.  Specifically, Lynch's Dune presents Paul's defeat of the Harkonnens and becoming Emperor as an uncomplicated victory of good over evil, with no indication whatsoever of the consequences of that victory.  Moreover, the last shot of the film, after Paul fully takes on the mantle of the Emperor, has it spontaneously raining on Arrakis for the first time in what would be tens of thousands of years.  Putting aside the problems such rain would cause for the ecology of Arrakis as set forth in the books, the problem with this scene is that it presents Paul as truly, in an ontological sense, the Messiah.  If that is true in the way it is presented in the movie, the moral complexity of the story is stripped away, and we are firmly in the realm of Kierkegaard's teleological suspension of the ethical.  This is, I believe, to essentially upend the meaning of the story Herbert is attempting to tell with Dune.

Which brings us to Villeneuve's version.  As this project was getting off the ground, Villeneuve stated on several occasions that his full vision was a trilogy that encompassed both Books 1 and 2.  Insisting on including Book 2, where the consequences of Paul's choices come clearly in to focus, strongly implied that Villeneuve understood in a deep way the religious dynamic and moral problem presented by the books.  And, as it turns out, this proved to be entirely correct.  The heart of the story Villeneuve is telling in Dune: Part 1 and especially Dune: Part 2 is this precise dynamic.  But what was so exciting to me about these movies is that Villeneuve makes a series of small but meaningful changes to the story to both heighten and at the same time reframe these questions.  In do so, I believe he tells the same story in a way that is actually better and more impactful than Herbert's retelling.

Let's start at the end.  In the book, Paul is able to ascend to the throne because he is able to credibly threaten to destroy spice production on Arrakis, and as a result the Spacing Guild has no choice but to back Paul's claim and essentially strong arm everyone else into going along.  While the movie does have a nod toward threatening spice production (via a less interesting, but easier to understand without a lengthy detour into the life-cycle of the sand worms, mechanism), there is no Guild strong-arm as presented in the movie.  Instead, the major political factions of the Empire, the Great Houses, reject Paul's claim.  As a result, Paul very consciously unleashes his Fremen on the universe to enforce his claim (with the chilling order from Paul to the commanders of the Fremen "lead them to Paradise.")  Thus, rather than the book's Jihad being presented as an inevitable consequence of Paul's political machinations, the movie's Holy War is itself one of those machinations, a tool of statecraft deliberately employed by Paul.  Movie Paul is, by any reasonable calculation, much more morally culpable for what is to come from the Holy War than the book counterpart.  And while this is perhaps less nuanced that the book version, it hammers home the villainous quality of Paul Atreides, and puts into clear focus Herbert's theme of the danger of charismatic leadership.

On the flip side, the movie does more to emphasize Paul's initial resistance to taking up the mantle of the Lisan al-Gaib.  Paul understands that if he goes to the South and seeks support from the more fundamentalist Fremen (itself a new idea in the movie, one that I think adds depth to Fremen culture), he will set in motion the sequence of events that unleashes the Holy War, and so he does everything in his power not to do that.  It is only when his adopted home, Sietch Tabr, is devastated by the Harkonnens that he sheds his resistance and goes South to take the Water of Life.  And once he takes the Water of Life, and he can fully see the future, he makes the 180 degree turn and embraces the role of messiah (with all that comes from that).  This timing demonstrates is a more direct way something the book comes hints toward--if Paul were to reject being the Lisan al-Gaib, the Harkonnens would win and wipe out the Fremen.  To me, this adds necessary depth and believability to what is essentially Paul's heel turn.  It is easy to say that it is bad to bring about genocide in the abstract; it is much harder to hold that line if you know that holding that line will result in your death, and the death of everyone you care about, at the hands of the people who already killed your Dad and your best friend.  That doesn't (IMO) excuse what Paul did, but it does make it more believable and understandable.

Speaking of taking the Water of Life, the Reverend Mother version of Jessica is presented as someone who is completely unconcerned with the consequences of the prophecy, pushing Paul to the South at every opportunity.  While initially this results in a much more forceful and manipulative version of the character from the book version, it also reinforces the idea that there is no alternative for success beside the Holy War, as the ability to truly see the future convinced both Paul and Jessica immediately to go down this route.  Jessica's forceful stance in Dune: Part 2 sets up an interesting dynamic for Dune: Part 3, as Book 2 and Book 3 Jessica takes the role of skeptic and naysayer of Muad'Dib's mystique and religion.  If Villeneuve keeps to that in Part 3, it would be easy for Paul to retort with "oh, so now you have concerns about where this is going?"

Of course, maybe Villeneuve will ditch that thread in Part 3, as Part 2 places the role of skeptic and naysayer of the Lisan al-Gaib firmly on the shoulders of Chani.  For me, this is the biggest change Villeneuve makes from the book, and the more I turn it over in my head the more I like it.  Book Chani is a Reverend Mother in training, and nothing in either Book 1 or Book 2 suggests that she has any hesitations regarding Paul's status.  Here, Chani is a kind of reflexive anti-religious persona, seeking a "secular" political salvation for the Fremen.  Chani also articulates from the jump the notion that the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib is a manipulation (though it is not clear whether she knows that the prophecy is a Bene Gesserit manipulation, or whether this is part of a more general anti-religious position).   

This move does, from my perspective, two major things as we look forward to Part 3.  First, Part 2 makes clear that Chani loves the human Paul and hates the Lisan al-Gaib.  The last shot of the Part 2 has Chani leaving the victory celebrations and the mustering for the Holy War and riding off into the desert.  Some have suggested that this means that Chani cannot and will not play the role she does in Book 2 in Part 3, but I disagree.  Paul has a throw-away line that "she will come around eventually," and I think Chani will absolutely be at the center of things in Part 3.  I am currently re-reading Book 2, and I think this dichotomy between Paul the messiah/Emperor and the "regular guy" is very much there in the text, and is at the heart of Paul's internal conflict.  Paul's ultimate decision at the end of Book 2 is about throwing away (or, perhaps more accurately, attempting to throw away) the mantle of messiah.  Chani maintaining an absolute insistence on this dichotomy helps emphasize this idea.

Second, Chani functions as a kind of audience surrogate in a way that makes the movie more compelling and believable.  In the Year of Our Lord 2024, the collective movie watching public is primed to be inherently skeptical of a religious messiahs and the fanaticism that are associated with them.  In the time between Herbert writing Dune in 1965 and the present, we have seen the rise of (to take only a few examples) (1) Wahhabism and other forms of political Sunni Islam; (2) the Iranian form of political Shia Islam; (3) the Moral Majority and the rise of the Christian Right in the United States (and, increasingly, exported to other places); (4) various forms of ultra-Orthodox political Judaism in Israel and the United States; and (5) the Hindutva in India.  We know, or at least we should know, how dangerous theocratic governance can be, because we have seen it.  And, as previously mentioned, one of Herbert's key messages is that we are right to be skeptical of the fusion of politics and religion embodied in charismatic leaders.  Setting up Chani to voice our concerns about what is happening here makes it so that no one can mistake the message of the story.  And having her around for Part 3, where if Villeneuve follows along with Book 2 we will see Paul's Empire as an unambiguously theocratic state with all that includes, drives the point home even further. 

3.

So, that's the story analysis part.  But watching Villeneuve's Dune on the big screen was about more than that for me.  Dune had an enormous influence on my personal development.  The older I get, the more I think the way I approach religion is formed by Dune.  Most of the discourse on religion is either folks telling you that religion as a whole is bad and stupid and essentially without nuance or distinction, or that a particular religious point of view (theirs) is self-evidently correct and not subject to critical analysis.  Dune stands for the proposition that religion is real and powerful, and also extremely dangerous and should be made subject to studied analysis.  I have often found myself in the valley between the two common forms of religious discourse, and I have often wondered how exactly I got the place I sit with regard to religion. "God is entirely real; religion is almost entirely a creation of human beings" is a position that is likely to annoy pretty much everyone.  It's not the only reason, but I think a big part of how I got there is Dune.    

As I was writing this piece, I Googled "Dune and religion quotes" and found the one at the top of essay.  It expresses in a succinct way pretty much everything I have discovered over the course of the last twenty-five years of my life as person who grapples with religion.  I have seen the hatred for life lurking in the foundations of many religious projects.  I have found myself emmeshed in "rules and rote."  But I have also experienced the moment of feeling like something that was always inside gets unlocked, that some wisdom that was hidden has now come to light.  I find myself in the position of thinking that my life was been immeasurably enhanced by diligent efforts in the religious sphere while at the same time thinking that organized religion has mostly let me down at every turn.

In perhaps no area of my life do I feel more out of the norm than when it comes to religion.  So seeing a property that deeply informed the way I look at the world portrayed on the big screen by a famous director that seems to look at that property in exactly the way I do is very exciting.  I don't know Denis Villeneuve, obviously, but I have a very strong suspicion that we would have a lot to talk about.  It's not that he loves Dune (though he clearly does), but that he thinks it means what I think it means, as reflected in the movie he made.  And that is really awesome, and I suspect we could have some very fascinating discussions about religion generally. 

The great 20th Century Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner said that the Christian of the future will be either a mystic or will not exist at all.  It's an aphorism that is capable of many different interpretations.  My take is that it points to the end of the line for the idea that people will be captivated and encompassed exclusively by some sort organized religious system that also maintains its integrity and principles.  Our options are either a religious reality in which the believer finds God within himself or herself first and foremost, and then secondarily finds support and wisdom from some sort of more structured institution, or a descent into the fascism-in-a-religious-cloak that we have seen both in our world and explored in the Dune books.  I suspect Rahner would maintain, and I would agree, that the later scenario is not Christianity or true religion in any meaningful way. 

I know for many people this is a terrifying prospect, especially for many for whom religion is a deep part of their personality and life, but I find to be as much exciting as it is scary.  The Dune books articulate a vision of human possibility and enlightenment, while at the same time being clear-eyed about the potential for horror. And it was thrilling to see all of the possibility, as well as the horror, that these books signify for me expressed on the screen. 

There is so much more to say about Dune, both the books and the movies (there is a whole essay on what Dune has to say about AI).  But here to me the heart of it is a story about what we believe about ourselves, and what the consequences of those beliefs are.  And the movie delivers that story in all of its glory on the big screen.