What Futures Did Paul See? | Visions Explained | Dune Lore

What horrors did Paul foresee that were even worse than the devastation wrought by the Jihad? This video explores the answer to that question and Paul Atreides' true motivations for choosing the particular futures which he saw. Spoiler warning if you are unfamiliar with Frank Herbert’s Dune series.

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[ZEROmg]

Dune was the first series i read that shocked me in it's "vastness", everything was far beyond anything i could ever imagine. i loved it then and love it today.

[neilmurphy]

"You have eternity. I have only now" -Chani to Paul (Children of Dune tv series)

[rolf]

Paul’s humanity shows that like the butterfly effect that his selection of which path to take is in part ruled by personal feelings can cause many undesired effects like ripples in future time

[jaquandrejones]

Paul's the type of guy to not eat the last slice of pizza bc he saw a vision where stilgar wanted it ❤

[carolbriscoe]

With all his great power and abilities, Paul allowed himself to choose love. Love drove his decisions, making him a human being

[rognock]

What about the fact that he DID meet his grandfather? Does that indicate the films are the darker path?

[typeoneunit]

Paul saw the Golden Path and punked out.

[manwiththeredface]

I can't stop thinking about the Bene Tleilax's own Kwisatz Haderach and his very dark fate. Maybe sometimes the only way to win is not to play. Maybe very few people can handle the notion of free will being stripped away by having prescience and seeing nothing but the limitations of your options.

[neilmurphy]

One major shared emotional attachment that Paul and his son shared was for Duncan Idaho.. maybe both saw Duncan's importance for their plans for the future, and both could be swayed by affection for him..at least sometimes?

[mattymaple]

I have a neuro/ brain issue. I have trouble reading books as long as Dune is.
But I really enjoyed the movie and also your videos.

You have a great voice and it would be cool if you read some chapters of Dune.

[stuckpstuckp]

In Quantum Physics there is this idea, conceived of by Hugh Everett 3rd, that all possible outcomes of all particle interactions in the universe create their own parallel universes. The numbers are staggering when trying to determine the number of possible variant universes is, according to Max Tegmark, estimated to be 10 to the 10 to the 118. So a 1 with more zeroes than there are particles in the universe 10 to the 80).
Paul, looking down on these worlds might see blank worlds where human kind never appeared at all (The Great Wall explanation of the Fermi Paradox) . Probably the vast majority of paths. The rest may be lumped into broad common paths the way rivers of the US Continental Divide where a drop of water will either flow into the Atlantic or the Pacific depending on whether it falls an inch to the East or to the West of the Divide.
The mystery was Paul knowing that other paths existed but that these were hidden from prescience. There is an idea that everything is entangled in Quantum Physics meaning that particles states might be instantly correlated across vast distances. One might conjecture that the use of Spice by everyone, also entangles them, and makes their being scryable. By disentangling, humanity become hidden.

[austinguthrie]

Gods.... That version of Leto II, is haunting. I love it! 😂

[PeloquinDavid]

Well done! That said, I suspect most readers of the extended series (through to the end of "God Emperor") will view Leto II not so much as a selfless martyr as a tragic victim of his father's unwillingness to take the so-called "Golden" Path.

The father-and-son scene on a sand dune (toward the end of "Children of Dune") that you referred to marks the passing of this modern Atreides curse onto the next generation.

Anyone who's read "God Emperor" would be hard pressed to see Leto II as anything but a bitterly realistic figure who knew full well that the curse could end in only one way once he understood that his father would never "do what needed to be done" (the words that Villeneuve's film used - in an irony understood only by readers of the extended series - when Paul made his promise to Chani as he decided to "go South").

[mitchelllawrence]

Another great insightful, Dune narrating.

[kenaustinardenol]

Every comment I wanted to make, you aleady adressed. Excellent explanation!

[darealjm]

Always Love your videos and this one is no exception

[carolynallisee]

It seems that Frank Herbert was aware of the 'Heisenberg Principle' when he wrote 'Dune'. He understood that the act of observation itself could affect the item being observed: in this case, the possible futures Paul saw. What is interesting is that Paul apparently couldn't see beyond the Jihad at first, that the future that required the Golden Path to avoid, was obscured until the Jihad was well underway.
In the book, the 'landscape' of the prescient vison was described as being like a flag blowing in the wind: full of hills and valleys that blocked the line of sight. Perhaps this is why the path that led to Jihad was obscured, with so much of it determined not by Paul's actions, but those of others. Paul could control what he did, which might have flattened things out, by he had no real way of controlling what others did.
Clearly, going down the Harkonnen route was so repulsive to Paul, he didn't even try to see what lay beyond it. Would he have seen the future that required the golden Path, if he had? Or would it have ended in an entirely didfferent future? We will never know.
This brings me to another point, and that is, even before he was born, Leto II was no longer fully human. Paul was clearly terrified by the idea of losing his humanity, whereas Leto II wasn't. He already knew what would happen and accepted those consequences long before he actually went through it. for him, it was more a choice of whether he or his sister would do it, and what path they should follow once that was decided. Had Ghanima had been strong enough to truly hold her own against her ancestors' memories, she might well have gone along the Golden Path, rather than her brother... and that would have generated a whole different line of the story!

[sylar]

They should have a book or movie showing exactly what he saw in the vision.

[NewsRedial]

This is a very interesting topic.
I don't quite understand what it was that horrified Paul about the Golden path?
He knew he was going to lose Chani whatever he did and he knew billions would die whatever he did.
So that leaves him having to live as a sand worm symbiote for five thousand years. Was it the pain of that life that he couldn't bear?
I read all the books and it seems to me that during the life of Leto2, most people in the universe/imperium lived very peaceful lives free of war and slavery.
There was great suffering during the scattering after that but it ensured humanities survival.
What was it that Paul could not face exactly? Surely it can't have been living for thousands of years as a worm God? It was suffering for Leto 2 for sure but Paul seems to have been strong enough to endure it.
And any human suffering at scale was going to happen regardless of the path.

[austinharris]

Wooo! More Dune! Wooo!

Yes, I'm on cold medicine. Why do you ask?