#dune meta

[the-crooked-library]

so within the universe of Dune, gender roles abide by a rigid false dichotomy created by the bene gesserit - men lead the noble houses, while the women may join their order, and the powers of both are kept intentionally separate. at the same time, the plot demonstrates repeatedly that the role of paul atreides as a character is that of the border between the concepts juxtaposed within dichotomies: he is both an outerworlder and fremen, both harkonnen and atreides, both a duke and a disciple of the bene gesserit.

as such, it follows that within the in-universe gender structure, he occupies the roles of both male and female, thus being functionally and societally nonbinary. in this essay, i will -

#dune #paul atreides #diversity win! this aspiring space dictator is nonbinary #dune 2024 #atreides #bene gesserit #gender lens #dune meta #this is probably very obvious and already talked about but i had to get it out #i think it's also supported by the original intent behind his birth. as in he was supposed to be a girl etc #gender roles #worldbuilding

[all-inmoderation]

Paul, looking out in horror at the Harkonnens massacring Sietch Tabr, saying "I didn't see this coming" (I should've/could've seen this coming). Paul, having a vision of Chani dead in his arms. Paul, having a vision of a djinn Jamis telling him to drink the Water of Life so he can see the future. Paul, after months of being terrified of what the prophecy will do to him, willingly going into it so he can See. So he will be able to See the future and protect the people he loves. Paul, succumbing himself to monstrosity, in the end.

Paul, watching Chani walk away.

#oh god. oh fuck. #in the end his mom didnt convince him to come to the south #his fear did #that there would be more attacks that he couldnt foresee and more fremen would die. Chani would die. #im sobbing on the floor #dune part two #dune 2 #dune meta #paul atreides #chani #chani kynes #paul x chani #denis villeneuve #lisan al gaib #kwisatz haderach #dune 2024 #dune part 2 #dune part two meta #timothee chalamet #zendaya #dune chani #paulchani

[feyd-meowtha]

Some thoughts on Dune, media literacy and the way we interact (and do not interact) with difficult topics in fiction....

Buddy, imma say this with kindness in my heart.... If this gets you 'tweaking' then you aren't gonna like the ending of Children of Dune...

On the media literacy note.... big sigh.

It is explicitly said that Feyd and Paul were meant to marry and have a child had Paul been born a girl - obviously the natural reaction is to consider what the nature/implications of that would have been. The source material is EXPLICITLY telling you that they were made for eachother, destined to be together. This is also the text EXPLICITLY telling you that this relationship would be an acceptable thing in this world. Therefore engaging with this concept is not at all a reach and is very much backed up by the source material. People are not getting this idea from nowhere.

(Also if that still offends you, they're not actually first cousins but cousins once removed and 2 seconds of thinking about the family tree would have made that obvious, not that it really matters at all in the context of this story, but it is a very easy feat of inductive reasoning)

The fact is that this is a story about ruling families and (as they almost always do) it involves a degree of incest. This is ESPECIALLY true in the world of Dune where these people are being selectively bred like show dogs to have certain genetic characteristics, I hope I do not have to patronise anyone by explaining how that works. Especially given as Reverend Mother Mohiam says this, oh, 10 pages into the first book:

People who haven't read the literature love to lecture people on literacy, funny.

So, in conclusion, if this is how you feel then, with love, Dune is not the story for you. The fact is that a degree of incest IS normalised in this universe and if you're inclined toward tedious moralising based on writers exploring difficult ideas in fiction then I'm honestly surprised you ended up here in the first place. Dune is a story that constantly presents the reader with difficult ideas and invites them to critique and analyse them for themselves, including the morality of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme. In Dune no character is morally pure, no ideology is beyond corruption and no path is free of ugly choices. As adults we can engage with these difficult topics as we wish.

*Sigh* A few years ago these people learned the term 'media literacy' and they've been insufferable ever since.

#dune #paul atreides #feyd rautha #dune part 2 #dune part two #timothée chalamet #austin butler #dune meta #feydpaul #dune spoilers #paulalia #tw incest #incest cw

[mutsubaki]

Now, let's talk about "you fought well, Atreides".

Yes, Feyd-Rautha enjoys the fight. He enjoys the volence. But he is acutely aware of the fact that he is on the Arena. He's a gladiator - Baron put him here for his own entertainment. On a gladiator's arena, one might be a beast, and another one might be a warrior, but both of them face death; the game is rigged to Feyd-Rautha win, but he still could've died.

This gives us a look into Feyd-Rautha's particular kind of madness: he's cruel, he enjoys the acts of violence, but he's not arrogant to assume he'll always land on top. He understands the hierarchy of power very well. It is shown in his behavior in the Emperor's court: he doesn't get himself involved into a battle he can't win, just observes.

And we know who taught him well.

At the Arena, he shares a short, perverted moment of tenderness with his victim - because it could've been him. The fight was rigged against them both: of course Baron expected him to win like this, without a shield, because Feyd-Rautha was put into the Arena in front of millions of his fanatics. When gift is not a gift?

Nothing about this is honorable. You didn't stand a chance, but you fought well, Atreides.

But the second time we hear this, everything changed.

Baron is dead. For a fleeting moment, Feyd-Rautha is Baron. There is no game within a game. Nobody forces him to step up as a champion. The goal is clear - protect the emperor. Neither fremen or sardaucar will interrupt them.

Finally, he can have his honorable and true fight.

He doesn't kill Paul, while he lays on the floor, because that move would be almost constdered a sucker punch.

And Paul wins the right way. It could've been either of them, but now it's Feyd's choice.

"You fought well, Arteides", and I am grateful for that.

I wonder if Paul catches this gratitude.

#dune #dune part two #feyd rautha #feyd x paul #feydpaul #paul atreides #dune meta #almost a headcanon tbh but whatever

[thealexandriaarchives]

I can't stop staring at Feyd-Rautha's walk here and what it implies about his fight with Paul now that I'm able to stop just comparing it to Timothy's killer body work matching it (or vice versa).

Villeneuve takes the book canon, that the Harkonnens took the Atredies's morbid heirlooms of an oil painting of grandfather's death and the bull's head with his blood still dried on his horns to hang above the arena as trophies to the next level: making Feyd-Rautha the victorious young matador with the guards dressed as bull-minotaurs, circling to play banderillos and sink banderillas into the backs of the Atredies bull if it gets too close before the final faena has Feyd-Rautha pulling his opponent past him in the close, intimate passes that show off his athleticism and skill before his false blade is exchanged for the one that will be used for the killing blow and oh my god there are whole schools of thought on coming forward to meet your opponent vs waiting for them and killing with a single blow to the heart and honoring the fight and if anyone who knows how to make gifsets wants make one about this to I'd LOVE to rant more about the breakdown of these two fights and how Feyd is 1001% Matador Machismo but my point to all of this is:

Look at that Sand.

Look at his feet dig deep and kick it up as he strides out into the heart of that arena. Is it a rhythmic walk? Oh yes. Confident. Powerful. In the book this will be his 100th arena kill as he comes of age. This is his natural habitat. Where he learned his skills, for us to parallel with what we saw for Paul in Part 1.

This matters, because it's one of the main premises for why the Fremen are so Good At Fighting. When everyone is trained to fight with shields (stun then slow) and bulky armor, and on flat, solid ground with lots of cover, it's easy to be fast and silent and terrifyingly effective against them. Gurney Halleck is shown to be one of the best fighters in the franchise and the film makes a point of showing how his (recognizable) footsteps are not suited to move quickly, lightly, and with stability on sand like they are on solid ground.

Only... Bullfighting rings aren't sandy. They're fairly hardpacked. Earth for the bull and Matador to maneuver in quickly. There is a layer of albero traditionally layered on top, a chunky yellow clay dirt that serves aesthetics but also absorbs blood quickly. The idea the sand may not be white because... With Giedi Prime who knows?! Is Fantastic.

Paul Muad'Dib became the only Atredies to be recognized as Fremen, to see his father's dream of Desert Power recognized, to fight as Fedaykin, to be recognized as the Mahdi, the One Who Points The Way, and it is made clear to us from the opening words of a Child's History of Muad'Dib that Arrakis was his Home, and yet every major one-on-one duel he had from Jamis to Feyd-Rautha was on solid ground, giving him an advantage that made him respected as a fighter among the Fedaykin right away as part of his training.

Feyd-Rautha was the one Harkonnen who may have learned combat primarily or even exclusively with sand beneath his feet, and he died on Arrakis on the polished stone floors of a palatial residence, still trying to play by Matador rules.

thank u for coming to my Ted Talk

#dune meta #feyd rautha harkonnen #paul atreides #dune part 2 #burn after scrolling #dune #dune 2024 #feyd rautha #house harkonnen #feydpaul

[dysfunctionalcreature]

just rewatched Dune Part 2 and noticed something, when Feyd Rautha enters the area for his birthday fight, and after he wins the fight, the people in the audience of the arena are chanting his name in a very rhythmic and quite frankly terrifying way - "Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha! Feyd Rau-tha!"

And after Paul kills Feyd Rautha, takes Irulan's hand in marriage, and declares war on the great houses, the Fremen people around Paul begin to chant - "Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib! Lisan al Gaib!"

They chant for Paul with the same rhythm and ferocity with which the Harkonnen audience chanted for Feyd Rautha earlier in the movie. If that doesn't show Paul's transformation and loss of humanity then idk what does

(also FeydPaul parallels in general yessssss I love every connection between these two fucked up boys, it's tragic that they barely even get ten minutes of screentime together)

#if this is incomprehensible it's because I'm barely awake falling asleep as I write it #sorry but not sorry bc i just really needed to get my thoughts out #dune part 2 #dune #paul atreides x feyd rautha #paul muad'dib #paulfeyd #paul atreides #feydpaul #feyd rautha #feyd rautha harkonnen #dune 2 #dune meta #dune analysis

[the-gom-jabbar]

You know fucking tears me me apart about Paul Atreides? From the very beginning, the very fucking start, he's rejecting his destiny. He's terrified of it. He's just a kid and he's completely scared out of his wits, he's warning everyone he trusts that he's the catalyst of a castrophe. He's screaming for help

And nobody listens.

#paul fucking atreides #Paul Atreides deserved better #kwisatz haderach #paul atreides #house atreides #dune #dune 2021 #frank herbert #children of dune #dune messiah #chapterhouse: dune #duncan idaho #god emperor of dune #dune 2023 #House Harkonnen #House Corrino #dune 1984 #Arrakis #shai hulud says live life make spice don't give a fuck #Dune meta

[machinesonix]

Somehow I have made it this long without realizing that none of the screen adoptions of Dune so much as mention the Butlerian Jihad. Like I guess it's burned into my brain so hard I sort of assumed it was part and parcel of the universe. Don't get me wrong, I think that's probably the first thing you learn if you want to dive deeper into the setting, but it still hits me like if the LotR movies showed us the big flaming eyeball tower and was like ‘Oh, that's why there are bad things, but don't worry, that's just background stuff.’ Yeah, you can understand the movie, but if the story is just like Frodo vs. The Witch King you are losing out on any of the conversation about the corruptive allure of power or theological undertones. So without further ado let's pretend this is for the benefit of interested new fans roped in by the movies and not part of my desperate attempt to silence the howling specters of literary analysis that live in my blood.

The Butlerian Jihad is an event set ~10k years prior to the events of Dune in which humanity won their freedom from the machines that they had enslaved themselves to. As a result, it is a religious taboo to create a machine that thinks like a human. That's frankly the bulk of the information presented by Frank Herbert in the text without dipping into books 7+, but whether or not those are canon is frankly an enormous can of worms, which really makes sense when you consider the size of the worms. But boy howdy, Frank loved his subtext and parallelism. Everyone has a foil character, every theme is hit from multiple angles, and Villinueve has been doing an excellent job of capturing a lot of that in repeated imagery and dialogue. The Butlerian Jihad happens off camera, but it's themes are absolutely critical to the big picture.

The Butlerian Jihad was a holy war. It was not merely a rebellion against the machines, it was a crusade against them. The prohibition against thinking machines isn't just a law, it's in the pan-universal Bible. Absolute psychopath Pieter DeVries himself claps back at the Baron for insinuating he might have a use for a computer, and this is a guy who has been hired specifically for his preternatural absence of morals. Let's hold onto that idea for a minute. 

Probably my favorite scene in the first book is the one where planetologist Liet-Kynes is dying out in the desert. As the last of his strength fades to dehydration he hallucinates conversations he had with his father concerning terraforming Arakkis for human habitability. He's told that the means are not complicated. There is already enough water on the planet, the Little Makers just have it all trapped deep underground as part of the sandworm reproductive cycle. You just need to isolate enough water to start irrigating plant life, and once it's established that'll keep the water on the surface on its own. The hard part is making sure everyone on the planet is environmentally conscious enough to foster a developing ecosystem. Nobody can drink any of that water while it's being collected, because they'll just introduce it back into the water cycle where the Little Makers are. It's going to take generations, so that sort of water discipline is going to have to go above and beyond a social convention. People need to be willing to die before they'll take a sip and compromise the plan. Ghost Dad Kynes concludes that the only mechanism in the human experience to enforce this consensus is religion. 

In the context of this whole parallelism thing, you have probably noticed that the Butlerian Jihad is not the only holy war in the narrative. Paul sees a new jihad as the only way of creating a future where humans can flourish. Now you might be saying ‘Wait now, Machines. I thought the point of Paul’s holy war was to avenge Leto and disempower established power structures by taking away the control of the spice!’ And you’d be right. The thing is, without getting into spoiler territory, Dune Messiah is not going to be about how everything just gets so much better now that Paul has destroyed the economy, government, and untold billions of human lives. This isn’t the endgame. Dude can see the future and the way he does it involves looking into the past. Paul lives in a society defined by a holy war and his goal is to redefine society. 

Putting it all together you can see what I mean about the Butlerian Jihad being essential to the themes even though the story never shows us a thinking machine or a narrative beat where the absence of computers changes the outcome. It helps us see the big picture. I’ve seen a lot of dialogue lately on whether Paul is a tragic hero or a consummate villain and I’m not here to answer that, but I am here to underline the critical detail. Paul intends to be seen as a tyrant. Just like Kynes’ hallucination says, religion is the lever to make a value stick around forever. He wants to traumatize humanity to hate chosen ones and emperors the same way the machines traumatized humanity to change them forever. The Water of Life ritual doesn’t invert his values, it lets him realize these visions of war are the means, not the ends. He is absolutely not happy about it, but this is Paul’s terrible purpose. 

#dune #paul atreides #dune meta #dune part two #butlerian jihad

[loveakii]

yeah idk how people walked away from this book thinking paul was the hero like. dude.

like it’s not even subtext it’s simply just THERE. “am i the son of my honourable father?” “you look like you’re evil grandfather.” “why is nobody acknowledging the kindness in cruel violence but me smh” “i’m god now you should fear me mother” HELLO???????

i know hawat is talking about the old duke and not the baron there but it’s a reoccurring thing in the last few chapters where characters notice “paul is looking more like his grandfather” both from ppl who know he’s the baron’s grandson and those who don’t.

and it’s a really interesting thing that he’s meeting his harkonnen grandfather’s fate by becoming a villain but also parts of his atredies grandfather’s the way he boasts and agrees to risk his life and fight feyd at the end when he doesn’t have to when the old duke died fighting a bull for sport.

actually realizing paul and his split parantage reminds me of zuko great grandfathers being firelord sozin and avatar roku. inside you there are two wolves—

#dune #dune part two #frank herbert #paul atreides #dune meta #mine

[lunamond]

I've been rereading Dune while also rereading some greek tragedies, specifically Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.

I don't know if I just have Dune brainrott, but Paul is so Oedipus coded???

Both of them rulers haunted by prophecy and fate since birth. Desperately trying to prevent the horrible future they have forseseen/been foretold from happening. But it all still came to pass, no matter how hard they tried??? Just the self-fulfilling prophecy of it all.

I'm just looking at the way Oedipus is described prior and after his downfall, and it fits Paul so well.

— Dune messiah spoilers —

Also, the way both of their stories end?

Oedipus gouging out his eyes with the broaches of his dead mother/wife vs. Paul knowingly allowing the plot to go through, resulting in his eyes being burned out ???

Blinding themselves after they realise the futility of all their desperate attempts to go against their preordained fate??? Realising that in a way they themselves have become responsible for it???

Doing it as a sort of repentance for their sins???

After they leave blind and broken into exile. The only person who keeps believing in them being their sister/daughter???

(I know Alia isn't literally Paul's daughter, but he absolutely took on a paternal role for her and took on the emotional role of a spouse for Jessica)

And after they are gone, both their legacies are forever tainted by their actions???

#i adore the greek tragedy of it all #pls i need sb to agree #the brainrot is real #now i feel like i need to reread Antigone as well #just to scourer it for alia parallels #dune part two #dune spoilers #dune messiah #paul atreides #lady jessica #st alia of the knife #alia atreides #pauljessica #oedipus rex #dune meta #dune

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Other Dune thoughts thrown into one post

So it only really hit me recently that Paul is literally from a planet that is mostly water/very lush and rainy. And ends up in, you know, the desert for much of the story. ik that's pretty crucial but I just never clocked it, ya know?

Also: first time we see him interacting w/sand is in the scene right before they leave Caladan, and he picks up some of the sand that's underwater on the beach. He probably can't even picture sand without the context of being near water. There's something there.

The colours of House Atreides are green and black right? Isn't there a detail where in Paul's vision of the holy war he sees the fighters with his family's banner, but then when we actually see that for real in part 2 the banner is a different colour? The *actual* colours shown on the banner in part 2 are white and red. So you know, the exact opposite from what the Atreides banner is. I am Unwell.

Part 1: Reverend Mother walks into the Atreides home like she owns the place and holds a poisoned needle to Paul's neck. Part 2: Paul waltzes into the imperial ship like he owns the place and stabs the baron in the neck. Enough said.

Only noticed this upon watching a gif recently but when Paul grabs Feyd's knife, he doesn't actually try to push it away from himself, just redirects it so he gets stabbed in the shoulder instead of in the neck, and at the same using it as a distraction so he can stab Feyd.

Which is possibly - possibly - a concentrated reference to like. his relationship with fate/his visions in general? He saw terrible things happening if he did nothing, and terrible things happening if he did something. So he did Something, knowing it would lead to terrible things, but I have this idea that part of that is him wanting to at least have some control over what bad things happen - if tragedy and disaster is gonna happen anyway, he'd rather take responsibility for it if it means he can have some measure of control over it. Ergo, redirecting the inevitable into something that still has a bad outcome, but at least it's within his control. That knife is Going Into Him, might as well push it in a direction he can control even if it means still being hurt in the process. Idk. Maybe I'm looking too deeply into this.

The sign language. In part 1, every time it's used, it's either used only by Jessica, or the conversation is initiated by her. Until the scene where her and Paul meet the Fremen for the first time, where he initiates it. And then again in part 2, the first time it's shown he once again is the one who starts it. Shows he's beginning to "take the lead" in their situation.

It's subtle, but you can actually see Paul getting slightly more tan as the second movie goes on. sun, ya know.

Also, I like that his eye colour changes gradually instead of all at once, again it's subtle but you can see it happening in stages

Despite the Fremen being super careful about never wasting their water (i.e. never crying Ever - see Stilgar with Jessica), Paul cries a couple times in front of Chani and she never tells him to be careful about it despite it being so foreign to her. Not sure *exactly* what we're drawing from that yet, but you can definitely get *something* out of it.

Edit: more stuff vvv

Paul leaves Caladan at sunset (or at least they depict *a* sunset on Caladan, appears to be one of the last things he sees of his home planet) and then his final duel also takes place during a sunset - albeit one on Arrakis

I just think it's neat that in the final scene, when Chani remains standing and then turns to leave, Paul doesn't even try to stop her. There's a real look of understanding he's got on his face, like he knows that what he's done is unforgivable (and also possibly that it doesn't matter because she'll come back to him eventually)

#dune #dune part 2 #dune meta #i'm still Thinking About Things

[the-crooked-library]

regarding Dune Part 2: i am obsessed with its consistent visual theme of self-destruction. the shot of paul surrounded by his new followers seems triumphant - until the viewer remembers that each crysknife is made from a tooth of shai-hulud, and paul is standing in a circle of them, in the allegorical mouth of the worm. he orders a missile strike, and the viewer sees them fly directly through his head. every victory for the prophecy is a blow to paul himself; he's killing himself with every step he takes towards his destiny, and we know that already, and the film is screaming it, but it's a hell of a thing to watch it happen, isn't it?..

#dune #dune part 2 #dune 2024 #paul atreides #kwisatz haderach #shai hulud #dune 2 #dune meta #film analysis #visual metaphors

[number1villainstan]

Paul could have fallen on his knife at any time.

The books, and the most recent movies, present Paul's descent from 'somewhat innocent son of Atreides' to 'dark Messiah' as something he had no control over, to an extent--the power of the prophecies, of the Bene Gesserit manipulations, of the political forces at work, and of eventually the actions of specifically Jessica were just too powerful and too inescapable. It is presented as a tragedy, with all of the inescapability that entails. There is no choice.

But there is always a choice. There always has to be a choice. These machinations only work if they have the right tool. So what do you do when you want to escape being the figurehead, the spark that lights the fire that is the Jihad? You must take away that spark. Permanently.

But that's the thing, isn't it? The only way out was so drastic Paul would never have taken it. To fall on his knife would be to leave behind his mother and his growing sister and Chani, it would be to betray Stilgar, it would be to end the male line of House Atreides (remember how gender works in this world, remember how women cannot hold power outside of religion) and betray his father, it would be to give in to the Harkonnens.

But to fall on his sword would also be to deprive the machinations of the Bene Gesserit of their Kwisatz Haderach, the corrupted fundamentalist faith of the Fremen their Messiah, the looming Jihad its figurehead and focal point. Perhaps it wouldn't be enough, perhaps the focus would have simply shifted to Jessica or even Alia, gender roles notwithstanding, but it's still a powerful act, a powerful message to send--that one would rather die than act to cause death.

Or perhaps the route the galaxy would go without the Jihad would be worse in the long run. Perhaps the Fremen would stay an oppressed people; but I want to believe that Chani (specifically Chani in the recent movies) is correct, that the Fremen need no outside Messiah and would have freed themselves. That maybe the galaxy wouldn't get better, but it certainly wouldn't have gotten worse.

And isn't that awful? For a non-tragic ending to require such a tragic choice?

#tw suicide #dune #dune series #paul atreides #really only half coherent #i'm not the kind of person to say 'kys' or to think that it's okay to say 'kys' #but like *gestures at the Jihad* i think i'm a little bit justified here #and it's not even a strictly utilitarian thing #like. paul has precognition he KNEW the Jihad was coming and he KNEW he was gonna be at the forefront of it #and when you know your continued existence is going to bring about death and suffering on a literally galactic scale #sometimes you have to ask yourself if suicide is the moral choice #dune meta #ish

[feyd-meowtha]

#dune #feyd rautha #paul atreides #dune part two #austin butler #dune part 2 #timothée chalamet #dune meta #dune memes #dune spoilers

[mutsubaki]

There’s our boy. Our most beloved boy. His father loved him unconditionally and he knew it. His mother loved him more than her hundreds years old bestowed purpose. His woman loved him almost as much as she loved her people. Her people worshipped the ground he walked.

There’s Paul Atreides, who started the unquenchable fire of holy war.

There’s our boy. He’s loved only by strangers. His father is estranged. He killed his mother. We don’t know exactly how this uncle abused him, but the glimpses and implications are horrifying enough. He is terrifying even for his closest followers.

There is Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, who could’ve stopped everything, if he won.

Nothing means anything, nurture killed nature and vice versa, when your destiny is not yours; this kind of destiny could only be forced on someone.

I hate this. I hate this so much. I guess I love feydpaul because it would be them breaking from that force, and choosing something that was unimportant and not needed for bene gesserit plans - love and compassion for someone who is just like you, if you look closely.

#dune #dune part two #feyd rautha #feyd x paul #feydpaul #paul atreides #bene gesserit #dune meta

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hi Muffin 😀 Your last post about Tom Riddle in Arrakis is so interesting! I love the way you think. Going on a similar note what if Tom was reborn as Paul's sister? Either as Alia or a random oc let's say. I'm not too familiar with the Dune books but I remember seeing post about how if Paul was born a girl he'd be betrothed to Feyd (I think his name was? Correct me if I'm wrong lol) so would that make Tom in a arranged marriage with him?? (Going the oc route) That would be hilarious 😭🙏 And! There's the possibility of him having magic or no magic which I think can be really interesting!

Anyways I just wanted to know your thoughts if you have any because your post definitely made me curious. If I ever in the future read the dune books maybe I shall write the fic hehehe

That Thing About the Paul/Feyd Ruatha Marriage

I mean.

That bit about Paul as a girl being married off to Feyd Ruatha is explicitly in the books and gets a sort of mention if you squint and pay very close attention in Dune Part 1. It's what the Bene Gesserit had had planned as they wanted one last mix of the gene pool of Harkonen and Atreides and then the next generation would be the Kwisatz Haderach. Jessica fucked that up by giving Leto the heir he wanted and thus unwittingly producing the Kwisatz Hadearach a generation before the Bene Gesserit expected him and causing them to lose control over him.

When Jessica does get pregnant with Alia initially it's in an attempt to appease her Bene Gesserit minders by producing the girl they had wanted from her but at that point, things have gone too sour between the Atreides and the Harkonens and the emperor was already conspiring to eliminate the Atreides family. It was too little too late, essentially, which was basically what the head Bene Gesserit Reverand Mother tells Jessica.

By the time Alia comes around, not the least because Paul and Jessica have now figured out all of the above where Jessica had been kept in the dark as a typical Bene Gesserit member/pawn, that marriage was never never never going to happen. (And also because Feyd Ruatha soon after dies around when Alia's only four so what are you going to do.)

Basically, it's not a fan theory, it is very clearly, explicitly, brought up several times in the book.

Would Paul's Sister Be Married Off to a Harkonen?

If Jessica had bit the bullet earlier to finally give the Bene Gesserit what they wanted?

Well.

Depends.

But probably not.

Which was part of the reason the Bene Gesserit gave their whole "Fuck you" response to Jessica when she noted that she's finally having a girl like they asked.

The thing is that House Atreides, because of bitter centuries of conflict entirely off screen that precede the main novels as well as just general House Harkonnen policies, hates House Harkonnen. And the feeling goes both ways.

Now, if Paul had been a girl, the reason that this alliance could have worked is a few things. We would have one of two scenarios.

The first, House Atreides would not have a male heir, Leto would remain staunchly unmarried and deeply devoted to Jessica, and would thus have to merge his house with another. He'd really really really really really hate to do it with the Harkonens but it'd make the Atreides very rich (because of Arrakis), Feyd Ruatha's of a similar age, and it'd give the Atreides political capital to survive the emperor getting increasingly nervous about their popularity.

The second, Leto is very sad and has to get married and produce a male heir. He also really really really really really canonically did not want to do this, never did, despite everyone wanting him to do this. In this case, he can use his bastard daughter as a bargaining chip in negotiations and while he would loathe to marry her off to any Harkonnen that sweet sweet spice. They'd have to offer him a very good deal but there is a world where he takes it.

Though there's also a world I can see where Jessica does make a girl as asked and Leto goes "I hate the Harkonens and love Jessica more than I love the patriarchy" and chooses to make fem!Paul his female heir anyway because fuck the idea of having to get married and fuck having to merge his house with another. Fem!Paul is fine! Fuck you all.

All this to say though, that if House Atreides has this male heir through Jessica, the whole game changes and it becomes increasingly less likely that either Leto or Vladimir will ever accept the match no matter what underhanded negotiating the Bene Gesserit try to pull. At that point it's a "Now, Paul's sister, as a loyal Bene Gesserit acolyte what you're going to do is get Feyd Ruatha very very drunk and have an illegitimate child with him" (which to be fair is also the Bene Gesserit way).

But again, that's the reason they're so pissed at Jessica at the start of the novels and have been for over a decade. She really fucked up their plans here because her lover whined to her about having a son.

Which is ultimately to say I don't think Paul's sister would be married off to them.

Would Reincarnated Tom Have Magic?

Almost certainly yes.

Or at least, it's the right mix of genes to produce the Kwisatz Haderach. That's the whole thing, after thousands of years of careful eugenics, the Bene Gesserit were certain they were one generation off from the payoff.

And not to get so much into what magic is or isn't--if there is an equivalent in Dune it's in these bloodlines that the Bene Gesserit have very carefully cultivated. The difference is there's no wand/no system of magic that people have to rely upon/just precognitive and other abilities.

There isn't really an option in which this does not occur because the gene pool's so loaded. Now, because fem!Tom is a sister, she's out of the running for becoming what Paul ends up being, that's just the genetic breaks, but she'd be one hell of a talented Bene Gesserit with the right training.

And of course, going to Arrakis sets this stuff in hyperdrive as that spice accelerates all these abilities/makes them even possible in the Dune universe.

BUT WHAT ABOUT TOM?!

All of this has been a hypothetical younger sister who is older than Alia. If it's Tom himself reborn into this? That's a fic question as it deals with a lot of 'what's Tom's mindspace at the time', 'what does he want to do', 'what is he going to sit by and let happen', and so on.

It's not really a great tumblr post.

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