Dune
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Dune... heroes who "fail" ?
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That's a pretty good definition of Tragedy: "when the hero fails."
Actually the Greek definition of tragedy is specifically this: a character who is unable to avoid his destiny. As in, no matter what Oedipus does, he can't swerve from his path. He's caught like a proverbial rat in a trap!
That much is obvious.More interesting is the way in which Leto I and his son not only fail to achieve their own goals but how they failed the people who adopted them as heroic leaders.
Dune has so many layers and complexities, I'm hesitant to say you can boil it down to a hero that failed. The first novel has him acquiring what could be called a superpower that balances him against other superpowers in his universe: Mentats, Bene Gesserit, Sardaukar. He achieves success, or what he defines as victory, at that time. But as we see in excruciating detail in DM, success traps the superhero in a very small cage, and he goes from being attacker to target. Is his acceptance of martyrdom failure of a hero, or messianic completionist? Did he become the living god his worshippers thought he was already, when he walked out into the desert, a blind man? It's something that makes the series one of the very best in SF.
Well he also realized that it was necessary too, after a fashion. When he confronted Feyd, he understood that humanity needed to be shook from its complacency, and that this was his "terrible purpose". He couldn't endure the consequences after he saw what it created, a corrupt theocracy and an army of mindless supplicants, not to mention the death of Chani.
Matthew wrote: "Well he also realized that it was necessary too, after a fashion. When he confronted Feyd, he understood that humanity needed to be shook from its complacency, and that this was his "terrible purpo..."In DM he again and again tried to steer his course to the path of least pain for Chani and guarantee a bloodline for himself. To know every permutation of future action and to realize only a few paths had viability factors would drive you to madness, wouldn't it? His life held no variables, no chance, no unknowns. Every day and every moment was given to him in advance. What an existence! How could you not hate your mother for that, how could you not indulge in self hate, unable to be or do anything unknown in advance? Terrible purpose indeed.
Duncan Idaho is the REAL hero of Dune anyway...... (so long as you look at it like the saga it is and not just a single novel which it really isn't)
I totally agree, Kat.The successive layers, in which each book reveals the errors of the previous, is what makes this more than a mere adventure story.
And that is what the Brian Herbert prequels lack, despite their rootedness in Frank Herbert's notes.
Frank Herbert had an extreme distrust for charismatic leaders and believed that this blind trust in heroes was an extreme mistake. He even wrote once that John F. Kennedy was a worse president than Richard Nixon for that reason (that Kennedy inspired people into adoration for its leaders, whereas Nixon did the opposite).One of the most prevalent themes in the Dune series is the danger of hero worship and the selfishness and failure of hero figures.
Where lies the guilt? The flawed leader, or those inclined to follow?FDR and Hitler were both charismatic and mostly adored by their respective populations. Nixon received a commanding re-election vote total.
E.D. wrote: "Where lies the guilt? The flawed leader, or those inclined to follow?FDR and Hitler were both charismatic and mostly adored by their respective populations. Nixon received a commanding re-electio..."
and Churchill got tossed by the mob when they got sick of him. It's not an easy question to answer. Consider the hero worship of the memory of Ronald Reagan today and compare it to JFK; I think it stacks up the same. Paul Muad'ib is a man consumed by the necessity of his god hero image and the trap that his life was predestined to be. The only piece of his life worth the living was to free Dune of the Harkonnens. After that, he was in the trap and couldn't escape.
Good points, Christopher.Image overtakes actual accomplishment and becomes fodder for manipulation. How many *heroes* would recognize themselves as they are perceived by history? Which ones would be happy with it?
In this sense, they don't fail..., they become irrelevant. Their "followers" become the tale.
If you continue with Children & Messiah you find out that Paul ran from his fate and left that to his own children. And when confronted with the choices of his children realizes his failures.