“Dune”: the tragedy of Paul Atreides, the character that Timothée Chalamet brings to the cinema

“Dune” hits the global billboard on Friday, October 22 (October 21 in Peru and other markets), but the story of Paul Atreides begins in 1965, when the original novel written by Frank Herbert hit the shelves and forever changed the story of science fiction, as well as that of the writer himself; who gained fame. In the following years he released five acclaimed sequels that expanded the universe of sand and spice, but his early death in 1986 thwarted plans for the seventh installment.

But “Dune” was not unfinished. In 1999 Brian Herbert, son of the original author, and writer Kevin J. Anderson, released “Dune: House Atreides”; a new novel as a prequel that put this saga back on the best-seller list. After six books that told the origins of the great families and conflicts of the saga, they were encouraged to write the sequels “Hunters of Dune” (2006) and “Sandworms of Dune” (2007); They put an end to what Frank Herbert started.

Before the launch of the film written and directed by Denis Villeneuve, we review the history of its protagonist, played this time by Timothée Chalamet. Paul Atreides, the adolescent tied to a destiny that he did not ask for, but did assume with nobility. This is your drama.

A birth that shouldn’t have happened

The world of “Dune” is set in the future of humanity, where Earth has been abandoned after a nuclear catastrophe and artificial intelligence has been banned after the machines rebelled and were exterminated in a war called the Butlerian Jihad. In this context, the Bene Gesserit, a brotherhood of women capable of controlling every cell in their body, have a eugenics plan: after generations of selective mating, they will create a man capable of seeing genetic memories of all his ancestors with ‘X’ chromosomes and ‘X and Y’, commonly called women and men. In this fictional world the Bene Gesserit, being biologically female, can only see the genetic memories of their X chromosomes.

The point is that the eugenic plan, in addition to being a secret, is also very specific and requires Duke Leto Atreides to have a daughter with a Bene Gesserit named Lady Jessica; descendant who, in turn, must have a male child with a Harkonnen; enemy house of the Atreides. But Lady Jessica disobeys the order and gives birth to a boy, Paul; Well, the duke needs a male heir. The Bene Gesserit, by controlling the biology of their bodies to the extreme, can determine the gender of their progeny.

Paul should not have existed, but he did and, considering his carefully selected ancestors, he turned out to be a person of great mystical and intellectual capacity: he is the Kwisatz Haderach. In the novel “Dune”, Paul’s contact with the spice produced by the sandworms of the planet Arrakis awakens his hidden potential: Thus, these abilities lead him to forge the Golden Path, a plan that guarantees the survival of humanity. But this plan is anything but simple, and carrying it out requires sacrifices.

A deadly legacy

Paul never asked for power, but faced with the choice of letting the species die without doing anything or becoming a tyrant to save it; chose the latter. In the novel, “The Messiah of Dune” (1969), he describes himself as someone worse than Adolf Hitler and reveals statistics of his crimes. Eventually, Paul would leave the Golden Path, which would be taken by his son Leto II, who fused his body with the sand trout (the baby sandworms) and became the God Emperor; an even more controversial figure than his father; whose memories live through this new character. Leto II ruled for 3,500 years and was known as ‘The Tyrant’.

But let’s go back to Paul: while in the original novels the character dies, his return occurs in the sequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Paul Atreides is cloned so that his abilities are once again useful to humanity in Kralizec, the “battle at the end of the universe”, where the thinking machines, believed to be extinct, have returned.

Did Paul get the happiness he never could in his first life? Or did fate again take its toll on him? Would someone who has caused so much pain deserve happiness in any case? The answer, in the books. But also in the heart of the reader.

Given

You can buy “Dune” in digital form on Amazon.com. The physical edition is in your nearest bookstore.