This isn't life imitating art. It's art imitating life.
It's just that this story in real life has been going on for a long time, since well before the first Dune books were written.
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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It's like when people say it's crazy how "Andor predicted this". Like no dawg, this has happened before.
I saw some interview and the creator of Andor was a history student, or they referenced history for the writing. Basically they just followed fascism 101 for the plot design.
While there are a lot of parallels to conflicts in the middle east, Dune was largely inspired by the Russian empire's war against the people of the Caucuses that were united by Imam Shamyl in the 1800s. The book The Sabres of Paradise details Shamyl's life and the conflict and much of the Fremen culture is basically lifted wholesale from it.
fair
I mean, herbert intended spice to be a metaphor for oil and the fremen are arab/muslim-coded for a reason. It's just that this same conflict has been going on a long time.
Important note, I feel. In the book it's jihad, in the movies it's holy war. Presumably because America has been so openly Islamophobic the last twenty plus years, that I imagine the audience would have perceived racism, when, in fact, the 1965 text says jihad. Just like to point that out as an interesting historical and cultural note. (Side note, haven't seen the latest, but I remember at least the first one saying holy war and never jihad.)
The final script for Dune: Part Two also never used the word "jihad".
And for anyone curious, "jihad" literally means an exertion, an effort, or a struggle. The sense of righteousness is implied with context.
I was thinking it was because of reactionaries who would freak out about the "good guy" leading a "jihad".
I mean they never read the book too, where it's pretty obvious that the Paul's jihad is something horrific he wanted to avoid, and the next books when it's obvious that Paul was not even a good guy (and he did not even seen himself as one!)
Yes, a solid point too. Paul saw this jihad washing over the whole of the galaxy and he really really really didn't want it, but didn't know how to do the one without the other. English teachers must have an absolute blast with this one. Heh, like Jesus seeing the crusades and going... wait.... shit.
Like how he straight up said he was worse (in terms of people his genocide has killed) thank Hitler and Ghengis Khan....
Right, these are people who do not read books
Yeah, and then it morphs into a horrific regime led by a human-alien hybrid that things the only way forward is cruelty,
Assuming Herbert is truthful then the alternative was even greater cruelty and I think even extinction
No, notice how the books did never at any point had omniscient narrator. Leto II forced his own vision on entire galaxy and even himself had serious doubts about if it was the only path possible, or he was just locked into the random one.
This! Knowing one path that "works" despite all it flaws and the pain it creates, but feeling trapped because the alternative is a great unknown and possibly a worse outcome, so he follows the one he can foresee.
It's also very ironic because if we stay on the ground of Frank and ignore Omnius, Golden Path was cure for the problems created by Golden Path in the first place.
It's also full of holes for example how starving humanity who just walks and lives on subsistence farming was supposed to suddenly obtain thousands of FTL spaceships of new and forbidden design and Scatter to colonise possibly multiple galaxies. Or how was humanity who just walks and lives on subsistence farming even starve in the first place just because the ruler croaked.
the alternative was even greater cruelty and I think even extinction
That's what they always say.
It's what makes Iran so hard to invade. When people say "geography", they mean giant worms that sense vibration.
And then the "hero" of the story, using religion to become the most genocidal dictator in the history of mankind.
Also their entire religion is fake and the prophecy was made up ages ago so a different cult could use it when they felt they needed.