{"id":4248,"date":"2022-04-01T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T19:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/?p=4248"},"modified":"2022-04-15T15:58:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T20:58:56","slug":"the-one-dunes-paul-atreides-as-the-quintessential-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/the-one-dunes-paul-atreides-as-the-quintessential-messiah\/","title":{"rendered":"The One: “Dune’s” Paul Atreides as the Quintessential Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks for joining me as I continue to analyze the science-fiction genre in my film criticism series. My last post focused on <\/span>Rise of the Planet of the Apes <\/span><\/i>and its ideas of undeserved power and questionable personhood. Today, I am looking at Denis Villeneuve\u2019s latest sci-fi epic, <\/span>Dune<\/span><\/i><\/a> (2021).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Connor. King Arthur. Jesus Christ. The crux of the western messiah archetype is precisely identified by Oscar Isaac\u2019s Leto Atreides: \u201cA great man doesn\u2019t seek to lead. He\u2019s called to it\u2014and he answers.\u201d A messiah is not so by choice or because he seeks power, but because he was born to be. Because he fulfills his destiny. In his adaptation of Frank Herbert\u2019s iconic novel <\/span>Dune, <\/span><\/i>the progenitor of modern science fiction, Villeneuve masterfully incorporates both generic and religious conventions in order to craft a savior character that resonates deeply with its audience. In Paul Atreides (Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet), <\/span>Dune<\/span><\/i> provides the ultimate messiah archetype by combining components of both Christianity and science fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dune <\/span><\/i>likens Paul to Jesus Christ, the quintessential messianic figure, through many parallels. In the Hebrew tradition, the Messiah is the subject of thousands of years of prophecy, anxiously awaited by the Jews. Some believe he has yet to come, while others (namely Christians) believe he has already arrived. Likewise, Paul learns from his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) that the Bene Gesserit\u2014a powerful religious organization whose ways she has been teaching him\u2014have been preparing for a savior called \u201cthe One\u201d for millenia. \u201cWe think he\u2019s very close now,\u201d she tells him. \u201cSome believe he\u2019s here.\u201d It is implied that Jessica, as well as some others, believe that Paul is the One. When they arrive on Arrakis, a planet over which the Emperor has granted control to House Atreides, she explains to Paul that the Bene Gesserit have been \u201cpreparing the way\u201d for the One by planting prophecies among the Fremen, the planet\u2019s indigenous people. This is reminiscent of <\/span>Matthew 3<\/span><\/a>:1-6, in which John the Baptist cites the prophecy in <\/span>verse 3 of Isaiah 40<\/span><\/a>: \u201cPrepare the way for the Lord, \/ make straight paths for him.\u201d He goes on to baptize the people in order to prepare them for their Savior\u2019s arrival. And in a fashion not unlike Jesus referring to himself as \u201cthe way\u201d in <\/span>John 14:6<\/span><\/a>, the Bene Gesserit refer to their traditions and spiritual powers as \u201cthe Way.\u201d The parallels continue: Jesus is said to be the king of his people\u2014the Jews\u2014but also a savior and leader to the world: gentiles, sinners, and all. Mirroring this, Paul becomes the Duke of House Atreides upon his father\u2019s death, but he is also ostensibly destined to be the Fremen\u2019s savior, and he plans to become ruler of the entire galactic Imperium. Finally, just as King Herod ordered his men to massacre all Hebrew newborns in a failed attempt to eliminate the threat of the supposed king of the Jews, the Emperor sends his army to wipe out House Atreides, whose leadership among the houses threatens him, but fails to kill Paul.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dune <\/span><\/i>further establishes Paul as a messiah through its implementation of nonlinear chronology, a common semantic element of science fiction. For sci-fi saviors, \u201cprophecy\u201d typically comes in the form of knowledge of the future. Often, this knowledge ends up being the very reason for the messiah\u2019s existence, creating a time loop. Take James Cameron\u2019s <\/span>The Terminator <\/span><\/i>(1985) and its sequel <\/span>Judgment Day <\/span><\/i>(1991) for instance: John Connor (Edward Furlong) is born only because Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) travels back in time to ensure the war hero\u2019s safe birth and subsequently falls in love with his mother, and Connor goes on to save the world only because he has been raised with the knowledge that he will. Similarly, Paul, who initially rejects the idea of being the One, has visions of the future induced by the psychoactive Spice which imply that he is. As his premonitions continue to come to pass, Paul begins to accept his destiny and allow the visions to guide him on his path to becoming the One. Therefore, his knowledge of the future is what causes this future to come into existence in the first place, reinforcing the idea that it is Paul\u2019s destiny. Just as with James Cole (Bruce Willis) in Terry Gilliam\u2019s 1995 film <\/span>Twelve Monkeys <\/span><\/i>(which I discussed in an <\/span>earlier post<\/span><\/a>), Paul\u2019s visions of his own future influence his choices, suggesting that they were never his in the first place. Paul is the One. It is not his choice; it is his calling, and he must answer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In keeping with this post\u2019s exploration of futuristic visions and predestination, my next post will be on Villeneuve\u2019s other sci-fi masterpiece: the mind-bending <\/span>Arrival <\/span><\/i>(2016)<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>Make sure to check it out!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks for joining me as I continue to analyze the science-fiction genre in my film criticism series. My last post focused on Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its ideas of undeserved power and questionable personhood. Today, I am looking at Denis Villeneuve\u2019s latest sci-fi epic, Dune (2021).\u00a0   John Connor. King Arthur. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":4249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-criticism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/04\/05601fe3-d228-4526-8ede-6192ff20bcc2-paul-dune-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4248"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4262,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248\/revisions\/4262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}