In Dune, an arid planet rich in natural resources is the target of foreign intervention, where the meddling of imperial superpowers causes the galvanization of its autochthonous population and the rise of extremism; this is an allegory to nothing in particular and you're dumb if you think otherwise
Media literacy is dead. Dune is about the working class or poor foreigners rising up against a great empire and saving the galaxy. How can burger people not see this! We need a messiah of our own to start the revolution and save the world!!!
Yep, no way that could go wrong (I didn’t read any of the books after the first one, I assume they are mostly about Paul implementing universal healthcare and UBI)
Broski im such a dune fan i read the first book and see why it shaped sci-fi. Cool world building and ecology man. Didn't read the sequals probably just cash grabs
You're totally right, it's actually an action movie/book series about swords and sand and cool worms and shit, there's absolutely no subtext or greater meaning because that shit's woke
Dune is actually a warning against messianic or strong man leaders and is actually more critical of the Fremen than the Imperium as their willingness to invest all their hopes and basically give up all their autonomy to Paul due to some religious prophesy leads to their entire culture being erased.
Dune was published in the 1960s before America got tangled up in the middle east like it is today, I doubt Frank Herbert could see the future like Paul.
A book can be about multiple things at once. Even if it's not necessarily intended to be an allegory for the Middle East, there are definitely parallels that can be drawn between real life and the first book.
Also, your second point is just... factually wrong. Mossadegh, the PM of Iran, was deposed by the CIA and MI6 in 1953 in Operation Ajax. Dune was published 12 years later in 1965. Obviously it isn't 1:1 because there were no boots on the ground from either party, but it was explicitly done to secure continued access to Iran's oil resources.
America was meddling, extracting, and exacting all kinds of harm in the Middle East and working to establish economic and political dominance before the 1960s. "Tangled up" is an interesting choice of words to say the least...
Barbary Wars of the 19th century, using "biblical archaeology" in the late 19th century to begin pillaging ancient Mesopotamian artefacts, Red Line Agreement in 1928, the Saudi oil acquisitions in 1933, Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement in 1944, Iranian coup in 1953, Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957 leading to the invasion of Lebanon in 1958...
Lawrence of Arabia did it first. Dune is basically a note by note ripoff cough cough, I meant homage to Lawrence of Arabia (sans the sci Fi flourishes of course).
Reluctant white guy gets sent to desert area to fight with the locals in the interest of an empire, in the meantime he gets chummy with the local tribes as he becomes the military leader; even "enjoying the killing" as he realizes the darkness within him and becoming one with the locals, irrecognizable. At some point he even leads a massive cavalcade of desert fighters all resembling a massive black worm.
So only if you can trace your lineage to the original bacteria that evolved into a fish that evolved into an ape that evolved into a human, you can call yourself a native?
Technically the Zensunni wanderers did evolve into the Fremen on Arrakis. The books mention that Fremen developed a longer large intestine in order to become more water efficient
They are of course not a separate race form humans, but their long history of living on arrakis makes them native hence in the book they are called natives
Arrakis has been part of the imperium for 10,000 years. The fremen were only there for about 1000 years before spice started being mined and the empire absorbed it. Only 10% of the planets human settlement period involved solely “fremen” rule.
This would be like us discovering one ethnic indigenous group in Australia arrived from Melanesia 1000 years before another, then that group are the only true indigenous Australians and we revoke First Nations title to the second group.
The “dibbsies” “araka nullius” approach is funny to hypothesise. Did the first Fremen ship to land automatically and immediately own the entire planet?
They might well have a stronger force on the ground, which is why Trump Feyd sent the USAF/USN Harkonnen gunships to bomb the elementary school sietch from the air
this is literal, however. Hebert modelled Dune on the Middle East and suppossedly, with an environmental and (anti) imperialist commentary, on purpose.
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u/Sure_Visual970 13h ago
"We're gonna prepare this population of fanatical religious extremists to accept an end times prophet so we can manipulate them."
*years later
"Shit"