Finally Got Around To Drawing Them

Cover art by Matt Griffin for new hardcover Deluxe editions of ‘Dune Messiah’ and 'Children Of Dune’, books 2 and 3 in the 'Dune’ series written by Frank Herbert, as first revealed by io9.

The new Deluxe hardcover editions will be published April 4 2023 by Ace Books.

I know people like to interpret Paul as an outright villain of the story and while that's not unreasonable, I personally love another interpretation.

It doesn't matter if you are a kind person with good intentions, it doesn't matter if you are smarter that anyone else and it doesn't matter if you can literally see the future, NO ONE has the right to hold absolute power over other people.

Systems with strict vertical hierarchy cause oppression. There is no way around it. Even that one guy who you think is better than that shouldn't be put at the top.

Paul being portrayed with many positive character traits doesn't muddy the message, it enhances it.

I miss Marieposting

What is the future if you die?

can't stop thinking about how even though they don't 'die,'--"his vital signs are too low to be detected"-- when they drink the water of life and gain the precognition, whoever they were dies. lady jessica died, the reverend mother rises from her body. paul, son of leto, partner to chani, fremen equal, is dead. reborn with the desert spring tears is paul maud'dib atreides, the mahdi, the lisan al gaib, the kwisatz haderach, emperor of the known galaxy.

Sandworms this, Bene Gesserit that, something I really love about the Dune books is they look you dead in the eye and tell you how fucked up parents and children are.

A huge part of the Dune novel is about subtle workings of violence and resentment in the family. The way Jessica views Paul as her creature and posession and recoils in horror from the parts of him she can't control. The way Paul sees her as a source of both his strength and his deepest fears: She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy. And in all this they still love each other. It's not the lack of love. It's the idea that birth and nurturing are inherently violent for both sides.

Just like with Duke Leto and his father. Just like with Jessica and Alia. And we see the same thing mirrored in the Harkonnens. The Baron abusing Feyd-Rautha while raising him and preparing him as his successor?? Fully aware the boy's rise to power will be his own death. The Baron himself as the book's main villain is a giant grotesque baby. Parenthood as existential horror.

The theme continues with Messiah where the birth of Leto II and Ghanima erases their parents. In Children of Dune Paul offers himself as sacrifice to the son he tried to kill and Chani nearly returns from the dead by possessing her daughter. Leto II and Ghanima are eldritch horrors trapped in child bodies. But even they come off as less cruel than Jessica in her final abandonment of both Paul and Alia. Leto II returns in God Emperor to claim humanity as his children, becoming both a god and a tyrant. Meanwhile his whole dead family lives inside his head and has to be kept from overpowering him at all times.

There is so much weird horror surrounding parents and children in the Dune books.

And I love that a lot of that found its way into Villeneuve's Jessica. That's who she is, that's why Rebecca Ferguson's performance is a horror performance even though it might not always serve the character. It captures that part of the books beautifully.

Sting as Feyd-Rautha - Dune (1984)

saint alia of the knife

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen & Marie Fenring, father and daughter.

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson | Jacek Jędral, Untitled, 2020 | "Black Bathing Suit" by Lana del Rey | Moebius' Dune concept art, 1974 | Imogen by Herbert Gustave Schmalz, 1888 | "Poacher's Pride" by Nicole Dollanganger | unknown | "Anecdote of the Pig" by Tory Adkisson | The Abduction of Ganymede, Gustav Moreau, 1886 | Snow Maiden, Viktor Vasnetsov, 1899 | A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin