What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works
The first was for catholic indulgences.
The second was for religious propaganda during the European wars of religion.
It ushered in massive creativity! The early printshops were innovation hot-beds and quickly developed textual things that had never existed at scale before, like dictionaries, newspapers, political cartoons, encyclopaedia, technical drawings / manuals lacking copy errors, local maps, etc.
How long do you think that took? There's a wide range of possible dates for each endpoint, but I don't think it reaches a century.
The north star, was written as Al Jedi... the Jedi. It goes a step further, in that it's arabic which translates as the kid (as in a goat, but the same way Hans refers to Luke).
I'm not sure how much is coincidence, but reading about Thomas preparing to travel by starlight, it struck me as being remarkably reminiscent. I guess there are no original stories.
A tale as old as time
My view was that Herbert was trying to show how we could try to direct human progress and evolution if we would have ability to see the future. Both Paul and Leto II have such ability and they tried to do it with mediocre success. Tides of history were largely operating by forces they could not change but slightly skew.
My though was that they were both just trying to do good for the mankind, kind of succeeded, but not much - Leto was by intention so bad that when he finally fall - people scattered through galaxy with those new ships that did not need spice.
Was not this the real moral of the story? Resist stagnant empire and explore the universe? Basically the same as Foundation that is book from the same era?
> Was not this the real moral of the story? Resist stagnant empire and explore the universe?
I think this is somewhat the general idea, but more specific. His main message is that charismatic leaders, even the ones with the best of intentions as Paul certainly was (and Leto II, though in a more complex way), are extremely dangerous and should not be trusted or followed. The empire overall would have been an unquestionably better place if Paul had been killed in the desert (except that perhaps the Bene Gesserit would have led people in an even worse direction if their plans had succeeded at the time). Arrakis itself would have been in a better shape if the fremen had risen up and overthrown their oppressors, but had otherwise stopped at that.
So according to me first book was a bit dark: - Paul accomplishing his goal but failing ultimatively - per what you are saying - starting the jihad - In the second he is killed but we have his children - so again a bit dark but with hope. - In the third we have - making a new empire and change from desert to a green planet - so again hope for something better coming even if it is a but slow (god-emperor living for hundreds of years) - Then we have really two strange books but last one, at least last written by Herbert, ends with one character asking other one if the purpose of all those events is understood, and the second chacter realizes this purpose with kind of awe.
So to me in overall Dune was a positive tale. according to you it is just grim sentence: do not fall for the words of false prophet. Imho if this would be just it, would be little sad.
But maybe I should read them again maybe after so many years, the reception will be different.
But Paul is exactly the failed version of Leto II. Paul saw the option of doing what his son did, but didn't have the courage to do it. He instead chose to believe that he can become the benevolent dictator that would uplift humanity through his strong moral core, and instead brought only needless suffering to the galaxy and to all those around him.
The good future that Leto II fought for is one where every human is truly unique and free, spreading in a thousand distinct directions, impossible to predict for anyone (which also implies that they are impossible to lead as an overall group, as they will never again accept to follow someone else).
I think the "moral" of Dune shifts pretty dramatically between Messiah and Children. Dune and Messiah are essentially a warning about charismatic leaders reshaping the world in their eyes, abusing religion and faith to do so, and harming all humanity in the process whilst losing their own. Paul Atreides is not a desert mouse, but a sandworm that consumes all in his path. This isn't even subtext, it's basically stated explicitly both in the text and in later writing/talks by Herbert himself.
In the later books I think it shifts a bit to a story that one must lose their humanity in order to save it, and it's important that Leto is not Paul.
There were many actual "spice wars" fought in the region to wipe out competing crops, to build alliances, and later betray those local allies, etc.
Only ginger and turmeric are found below soil, and even then you wouldn't usually describe farmers as "literally mining for potatoes."
Others might disagree. English is a fun language.
What cannot be disputed is the significant increase in national wealth brought home by the Dutch operations in what was known as the Dutch East Indies.
Batavia ( now Jakarta) was the capital of the VOC's lucrative spice trade for 3½ centuries.
Ships laden with tamarind, mace, cloves and nutmeg – at that time worth more, gram for gram, than gold - sailed from there to the Netherlands and often wrecked on the Western Australian coast returning with gold.
It's the value per weight part that merits comparison with Spanish aquisition of gold in the new world.
As a native english reader, writer and speaker of some six decades I grasp the tension in the use of ' literally "airquoted" ' and embrace it.
I also enjoy Riddley Walker, the first edition of Clockwork Orange (sans lexicographic annexure), and the outrageously provocative shock value of the opening sentence of Burgess's panoramic saga Earthly Powers.
Your opinion is noted and respected.
I can appreciate that and hope that I added to the tension.
My only mild disappointment is that while I opened the door by airquoting "mining" and drawing attention to an actual nation scale spice industry no one made comment on the "spice mining" in both Dune and in the Spice mines of Kessel being both the harvesting of a seasonally produced organic bloom.
In Dune the spice harvesters surface scooped fresh blooms as they appeared from active worms, on Kessel I believe (I'm no authority here) they harvested old buried organics using mineral mining techniques rather than fresh cropping from a surface source.
EDIT: It appears the Kessel spice may have been a mineral? .. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_mines_of_Kessel
TBH that's a rabbit hole of detail I'm happy to skirt.
A century or so later, laudenum.
The spice trade itself didn't shrink so much as it was subsumed by other trade, I think, particularly as shipping capacity, reliability, and safety increased.
And even sugar became much less commonly used to in Europe.
If you have data to bring to the discussion I'd be interested in seeing it.
Sugar is included in what were termed spices, FWIW:
In the medieval and early modern periods, ‘spice’ was a term liberally applied to all kinds of exotic natural products from pepper to sugar, herbs to animal secretions.
<https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1777/the-spice-trade--t...>
From the sources I'm finding (relatively few and vague, granted), my interpretation is less that total trade in spices (however construed) fell in absolute tonnage than that the per-tonne value dropped as the goods fell in price and were consumed by far greater shares of the population. It wasn't that spices were less a part of culinary culture, but that because they were so common (both senses of the word) they became less significant. Total tonnage and likely overall value were all but certainly increasing, but the importance attached to formerly exotic goods (pepper, ginger, cinnamon, etc.) fell as anybody could attain these.
Look to the history of the pineapple (of which there were once temples built in its honor in Europe) from exotic to highly mundane fruit for another example:
That's what renewed my passion for reading; revisiting texts with contexts in mind, history, intent, etc.
I feel the education system really fails people with these little bits
Later saw the movie and kept thinking there would be a twist. Was largely disappointed but the mother starting a holy war was a bit intriguing.