“2001: Space Odyssey” author Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Dune is the only masterpiece fiction series that can be compared to the “Lord of the Rings”. The series even influenced series like “Star Wars” and it can be considered as a milestone in the science-fiction literature. However, Dune is not typical science fiction; it can be considered more philosophical fiction as Frank Herbert said. Not only philosophy, but Dune also refers to sciences such as sociology, history, climatology, mythology, linguistics, and psychology. In this article, we will examine the Dune series from several perspectives.
Firstly, we will study the Dune series from the religion and mythology perspective. As Frank Herbert was creating his characters for Dune, he searched through different religions and myths, in the end, Messiah’s story was the main inspiration point for him. Many terms referring to the Holy Books and King Arthur myths can be found throughout the series. For instance, the term “Kuisatz Haderach” means to be at different places, simultaneously for a holy person. These words come from Hebrew and it refers to faiths like Islam’s “Miraç” and Christianity’s “Ascensio Domini”. Lastly, the term “Zensunni”, which represents a religion in the series, is composed of the combination of the words “zen” and “Sunni”. “Zen” comes from Buddhism, which is a Japanese term for the Buddhist school “Mahayana”, Sunni is a sect name in Islam.
Secondly, we will examine the perspectives of climatology and the environment. In the universe of the Dune series, the planet Arrakis, which is named “Dune” by the local people on the planet Fremens, is formed by a desert. In Arrakis, water is not enough for everyone so it is highly essential. There are still suits for people to save their body water and turn it into drinkable water. These still suits have mechanisms built in, to turn body water (sweat, tear, urine, etc.) into drinkable water for water saving. With this example, we can understand the extent of the water scarcity in Arrakis and apprehend the importance of recycling. In my opinion, Arrakis is a portrait of what will happen if we do not use our nature and its sources properly.
Lastly, to understand the history, leadership, and military perspectives of Frank Herbert, which form the main structure of the Dune series, I chose a series of different quotations from the books to analyze. In the first book, there is a crucial sentence: “There is no escape we pay for the violence of our ancestors”. This sentence describes that we are connected with our ancestors and their violence, we cannot deny or ignore them. As a result, we are responsible for them. For example, America is still affected by the American-Indian genocide. In the book “Heretics of Dune”, there is a quote that is remarkable for understanding the leadership aspect of Frank Herbert. “Who watches the watchmen?”. This quote belongs to the Roman poet Decimus Lunius Luvenalis, and it explains no one can manage the decision maker if it is the only authority. This situation brings lots of danger because the fate of the country relies only on one person, who can naturally make mistakes. The last quote is for understanding the military perspective. In the book “Dune God Emperor”, there is a sentence “All-male army was too dangerous to its civilian support base.” This indicates if the external enemy and the war ends, an army of men turns back on itself, thereby causing civil conflicts and wars. We can also read this quotation from a feminist perspective, but this is not within the scope of our article.
To sum up, in one of Herbert’s interviews, he got asked about the message and the statement of the Dune series. He replied, “Don’t trust leaders to be always right.” and continued with, “People do not trust the government. Government is a shared illusion, when the myth dies it disappears.”. As Herbert mentioned, the major concern of the series is to create a mythology that would give people a different view of how we give our lives over to leaders. In today’s era, this fact is too dangerous because self-distraction tools are very common and these tools are controlled by leaders. They may cause the extinction or recreation of our world, Frank Herbert warned us about these critical points, but in the end, the decision to listen or ignore them is up to us.
