This article contains spoilers For books “dune” written by Frank Herbert.

The series of books “Dune”, which extends far beyond the time when cinematographic trilogy currently planned expects to end, moves away in strange territory. There are major upheavals in distribution, significant changes in thematic orientation and massive time jumps. As you arrive at the fourth book, “God Emperor of Dune”, almost all the characters in the first book have died for almost 3,500 years. As you arrive at the fifth volume, “Heretics of Dune”, almost all the characters in the fourth volume have also died for about 1,500 years.

Despite all these changes and changes, the author Frank Hébert still gave the series some constants to hang on. The first was Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa in movies), the only character to exist in the six books, although in the form of a clone. However, the second and most important constant was the idea of ​​the golden path. It is a somewhat elusive concept and rarely defined with the clarity that readers would like, but that is what subtly leads the protagonists of the first page of “dune” on the last page of “Chapterhouse”, and which continues Even in many episodes. Books written by Herbert’s son, Brian, after the death of Frank.

Basically, the golden path is a vision of the future of humanity, extending over thousands of years, which can only be seen by someone highly qualified and gifted to see the future. Paul Atréids (played by Timothée Chalamet in recent films) only fully attacks the golden path IngleA very dangerous substance extracted from the bile of a baby worm of dying sands.

This is the point of the book/film where Paul concludes that his way to the throne is inevitable, that his accession to power and the destruction that accompanies him are a necessary price for the good not only of his family, but of the universe as a whole. . Paul is capable of seeing that billions of people will die in a Holy Fremen war which will propagate through the universe accordingly direct of his accession to power, and yet he chooses to go to the end anyway – partly because that he thinks that the alternative will be worse.

So what is the alternative? Well, stagnation. At the start of “dune”, humanity was stuck in a millennial rut; This is partly why the world of the HBO series “Dune: Prophecy”, which takes place ten thousand years before the coming to power of Paul, is so much like the world in which Paul grew up. All of humanity is mainly governed by a single government. , Imperium, and this lack of diversity (genetically, socially, politically, geographically) was an existential long -term threat. There are also clues according to which the possible son of Paul and Chani, Leto II, fears an external threat; Perhaps he feared a return to hostile thinking machines (which had been Prohibited during the butlelérian jihad Long before the start of the series), or perhaps feared the first real meeting of humanity with an intelligent extraterrestrial species.

Be that as it may, Paul and Leto II thought that humanity was not ready to face any of these external threats, and even without them, they seemed dedicated to internal collapse in the context of the current trajectory . Thus, in order to protect humanity, they considered that they had to radically upset the status quo of this universe.

For many reasons, the main one perhaps being that Paul was born a generation earlier than expected and was therefore not entirely the ultimate as predicted Kwisatz Haderach, Paul did not quite prosecute his quest to accomplish The gold path. The second book, “Dune: Messie”, which focuses on Paul’s fallis a little vague on what Paul should do to get there, but it is clear that the golden path would cause even more human suffering and that Paul would lose even more of his humanity. He decides to abandon his power and move away in the desert so as not to take over the throne again.

But although Paul abandons the golden path, his young premonitory son Leto II (undoubtedly the real Kwisatz Haderach) decides to follow him in his place. He does it knowing very well that the path forces him to transform himself into a giant creature of immortal worm (yes, really) and to reign on the universe of an iron hand. 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 volume), and gives us an idea of ​​what his reign will be. More particularly, he plans to continue the de-detestification of Arrakis, gradually making the worms of sands disappear which produce the only spice reserve in the universe. Meanwhile, he would largely provide his supplies in spice to decrease to his nearby allies, while the rest of the universe should do without it. It was a very difficult change for many people through the universe, many of whom counted on the spice to live an abnormally long lifespan, but Leto II thought that it was necessary to wean the humanity of its dependence on Mixtures of spices to make it stronger and stronger. more independent.

The other important factor is that Leto II, because it is essentially a sensitive giant worm, was fundamentally indestructible and immortal. Science-fiction writers have often been struggling with the nature of absolute power, but rarely has a leader gave a character the extent of the power enjoyed Leto II. He is not only almost invincible, but he also knows almost everything.

Leto II lets himself be killed at the end of “God emperor of dune”, after more than 3,500 years of continuous reign. However, all of this was part of the plan, because his death creates an intentional emptiness which leads the human race to no longer be governed by a singular and coherent empire. It is useful that the dependence of humanity with spices has been largely eliminated at this stage; Even if the Bene Tleilax (a major political faction responsible for all these Duncan Idaho clones) have finally learned to make spices by themselves, this is still not enough to prevent the decentralization of humanity. This comes the great diffusion, where humanity begins to cross the stars towards unknown areas of the universe, exactly as Leto II had planned it.

The reign of Leto II had also led to a large period of technological innovation, not only because the planets had to learn to continue to function without spices, but because the factions opposed to the reign of Leto II knew that they would need Better technology to overthrow it. . This has also clearly benefited the company in “Heretics” and “Chapterhouse”, as readers see with the invention of non-vaisseaux (spaceships which cannot be detected by a person with a forensack) as well as the ‘Introduction of more advanced face dancers. (spies that can change appearance). Humanity in general seems to have really progressed a notch since the start of the reign of Leto II, both physically and mentally.

Tragically, Frank Herbert died before we could finish the series, so we don’t know exactly what he had in mind for the seventh and last planned volume. All that we need to work with are the books that his son has written, who are at least a source of division. We will probably never see the exact end objective that Leto II was considering for humanity, assuming that it was even what Herbert predicted to make us see. The golden trail is very similar to the answer in the sense of life insofar as it is difficult to define, difficult to imagine, and we are not even sure to love the answer if we had it. In a way, it seems appropriate that the series “Dune” spends so much time to go through the golden path, never to reach it at the end.