Dune is not a good story.
It’s just Gary Stu who is awesome overcoming insurmountable odds by the sheer force of his awesomeness. It’s right up there with ready player one and twilight in terms of wish fulfillment garbage narratives.
Dune is not a good story.
Correct.
You stupid fuck. The book is literally about the pitfalls of becoming a godlike being.
Next time, try reading something you can understand, like some faggy Japanese comic.
STFU retard.
He struggles with it at first but almost immediately adjusts. After that we never see him struggling with anything beyond being worried about which vision of the future he has will come to pass. He doesnt struggle at all with the challenges of being omnipotent after he reaches adulthood. We dont really see him struggling with almost anything at any point in the book because the point of Paul's character is that hes the most specialist, perfect boy who ever lived and everything he does he does in the most incredible, perfect way that it has ever been done before. I agree with the other anon who said they were surprised when Paul rides the worm that he wasnt the specialist, most perfect worm rider who ever lived that's exactly what I thought was about to happen.
You're just projecting your own ideas onto pauls character because paul is so very dull that to get anything out of this character you'd just have to make up something. If the point of this book was to examine the pitfalls of becoming a godlike being it is an utter, abysmal failure. I mean you cant genuinely believe that. The point of dune is to be an exercise in world building and secondarily an environmental commentary, and in those areas it was a success. Paul is an afterthought.
I'm not the anon you were responding to, theres a lot I like about dune but paul is tedious and dull and overall I found the book to be a slog.
I'd say a better example of a similar type of character would be Dr Manhattan from Watchmen. Theres a character that recognized he was leaving his humanity behind and had complicated feelings on it.
Hates Dune, likes capeshit. You can remove yourself from the conversation
>hes the most specialist, perfect boy who ever lived and everything he does he does in the most incredible, perfect way that it has ever been done before
You obviously haven't read the books. Further opinons disregarded.
This is a perfectly validand understandable criticism PROVIDED you are someone who learned everything they know about writing from youtube.
ok tranny
there are a lot of weaknesses in Dune but it was groundbreaking, totally unique and still feels unique 60 years later
Again, and I emphasize, it's not a good STORY. It might have been better in third person, as a flawed and struggling character watches as someone he knows ascends to godhood, but as a character focus on Paul it drips with wish fulfillment.
>better in third person, as a flawed and struggling character watches as someone he knows ascends to godhood,
It is in third person. Do you mean it would have been better in first person, told by someone other than Paul? (Like e.g., the Great Gatsby, where the guy telling the story is mostly just watching events?)
Interesting idea, butwould be very hard to do, I think. Who ya gonna have as the narrator? There's no one person who sees enough stuff. He would have to hear about it later and so on. It would feel a bit artificial.
Unironically, Pauls' mother.
She's perhaps the best option but think how many scenes she doesn't witness. All the Baron's scheming, Paul's test at the start, Leto's death, etc etc
You mean there might be...unforseen plot twists!? Oh, no! That might be...gripping.
>Dude tries to write what it's like being a pregnant woman.
Paul is taking to training the fremen valiantly for the assault, but none of my bras fit and my boobs are getting too sensative again the baby is kicking upward too much and I have the strangest craving for Caladan deep trout in a chocolate melange glaze.
Just because you don't like the character it doesn't mean the story is bad. Dune isn't just about Paul have all of these remarkable characteristics (definitely plays apart in being Muad'dib though.)
It's the consequence of that and how these characters navigate the politics between all of the separate groups whose ideologies are vastly different between one another.
>a flawed and struggling character watches as someone he knows ascends to godhood
What you're describing is literally the perspective of the Fremen, Bene Gesserit, Emperor and everyone else.
So, I think you're making my point for me. From everyone elses' perspective Dune might be an interesting story. From Pauls' perspective he gets a call to an awesome adventure, he puts his hand in the box and does not take it out because he is awesome. He defeats his teacher in shielded sword fighting because he is so awesome. He beats a hunter seeker because he is so awesome. He knows how to wear the desert suit perfectly because he is so awesome. He saves his mother from the Harkonnen because he is so awesome. He defeats and is taken in by the Fremen because he is so awesome. He gets a Fremen girlfriend because he is so awesome. He rides a Sandworm because he is so awesome. He drinks the water of life because he is so awesome. He defeats the Harkonnens and mollifies the emperor because he is so awesome. He becomes the Kwisatz Haderach, the Lisan al Gaib and the Emperor of the known universe because he is so awesome. Then at the end, what does he conclude? Oh, woe is me. One day I will die and the Landsraad will be thrown into chaos without my awesomeness to hold it together.
Honestly it makes a better villains' origin story than a heroes' journey.
Just say you didn't read it man.
>Honestly it makes a better villains' origin story than a heroes' journey.
By the second book the Fremen agree with you.
>Honestly it makes a better villains' origin story than a heroes' journey.
I don't get it. Do you just hate Paul because he's evil/selfish?
That was the point of the book
>muh story
Wrong board
This is a board for literature, not playstation games, story doesn't matter here.
The Bene Gesserit planted the prophecy on Arrakis. Paul did nothing so he's not a Gary Stu.
>original script was gonna have him romance his mother
Denied again.
This is like 99% of the sci-fi/fantasy genre. It has been done better though.
>product of thousands year old eugenics program
>gary stu
pick one
That's the very definition of the term
Just like in fanfics, it gets very boring to read about how Paul gained *another* super special ability.
By the end, when the buildup for the climax is interrupted to show Paul learning to ride a worm, I was thankful that there was no revelation of some shenanigan that made Paul the best worm rider to ever live.
>Just like in fanfics
You should stick to that shit, and leave real books to the adults.
It has some very original world building, it's hard to recognize this anymore because it's been aped by Star Wars and other sci-fi franchises big and small to the point where it's just "generic sci-fi stuff", but there was a time when it wasn't.
But yes, the story itself is very generic and forgettable and the pacing, characterization, and prose are remarkably not good. But it's Shakespeare compared to the sequels.
No point reading Dune if you won't read Messiah, Children, and God Emperor.
Psycho-kinesis and future sight introduce massive social problems almost as invidious as full blown AI takeover (or Terminator time travelers fucking with the timeline continuity). There's nothing 'wrong' with the setup of Paul per se or trying to thread the free will needle from within that.
nobody gives a shit about dune in a vacuum.
you just need to read it to provide context for reading better stuff.
People would call Napoleon a Gary Stu if he were a fictional character, just saying
Why do you think so many creative middle-weights and has-beens aspire to tell their amazing Napoleon story? Kubrick came to his senses, realized it's an ego trip and made Barry Lyndon, and entirely unremarkable picaresque novel to tell his sprawling cannonball and bayonet war story, and he was all the better for it.
Maybe you're right, I agree Dune is overrated, but my point is that muh Gary Stu isn't a valid criticism in of itself, if its executed well it can provide the most interesting and fundamental insight into human nature
Yeah, maybe, but you got to couch it. There’s no couching Paul Atraides. He just poses from one pedestal to the next.
>Gary Stu
>genetic experiment who ends up losing his free will after realising that he can do nothing to stop a global genocide except create a fake religion to justify it, going insane and becoming blind blabbering desert retard.
right in the feels.
Good cover entirely ruined by
>now a major motion picture
David Lynch did the best with what he was given.
That must be why he disowned the whole thing.
He disowned it because he didn't get final cut.
Yeah original cut was apparently like 4 hours like. That's why the movie makes no sense, all the context was chopped up and removed.
Dune isn’t about Paul being le heckin Mary Sue wish fulfilment. It’s about the perverse forces that conspire to make Paul into a messianic figure and how he responds to those forces. Paul doesn’t do things as much as things are done to him. If you read the second book this is developed a lot more and really makes you appreciate the end of Paul’s arc in the second book and helps you appreciate the first book a lot more.
The writing quality and dialogue nosedives into the depths of the abyss after the first book. Fuck you
>pleb got filtered
>reeeee
like pottery.
it's a 2/5 book but irulan's passages make it a solid 4/5
The world is great, that's it.
Twilight is great. Are you nonwhite or something?
From what I understand Paul is a Gary Stu in not a good way, that "overpower" stuff is just a huge weight of destiny that he can't escape, billions die, people die because of it ,is more a criticism of price of being a hero, free will and environment influence on us. That what I took reading Dune.
>braindead OP
>everyone on the thread shitting on him
Kino
Paul isn't a Gary Stu
That would imply everyone likes Paul when they meet him and get along with him
Most people who meet paul think he's a gay little weasely chud freak
The writing in this book is abysmally bad. Every scene, character, dialogue, and reported thought is designed to deliver exposition about the world. It's downright fucking hilarious how many times Herbert has a character "think" a thought for the sole purpose of clarifying the exposition or event he just delivered. This happens multiple times per chapter, every chapter, without fail.
The imagined world is interesting, though I would have liked there to be actual characters in it instead of plot vehicles in skinsuits.
>he prefers slabs of dry exposition to "show, don't tell"
Herbert created a milieu that was radically different to anything that had gone before. He had to do a lot of scene-setting to do in a very short time. He did it as smoothly than any other sci-fi writer could have done.
I can see you've never read a spy story.
seemed like a fun book to me, political intrigue and the like
Look it's not gary stu wish fulfillment as long as it's a Jesus/Muhammad/Buddha allegory