I'm going to state an unpopular but true -- As in texturally accurate thing about Frank Herbert's DUNE.
It might be uncomfortable for some. Academics in particular because it doesn't serve their social agenda and even in later years the author trying to distance himself from Richard Nixon and Watergate.
In historical hindsight however Frank Herbert's work is perfectly applicable to Watergate, but not in the way the Establishment wants it to be. Which is why so much effort has been made to retrofit it as a warning text, when it is not even constructed like such a thing.
DUNE'S Real Message: An Outsider Standing Against Corruption and Paying The Price For Doing So! Basically entrenched powers using any method at their disposal to get rid of a would be reformer. Had Frank Herbert embraced what he actually wrote, rather than what was expected of him to say about it, he would have been blacklisted by Hollywood and academia. Because they would think that a dangerous Anti-Establiment message and both are gatekeepers of the Establishment. But that actually is the text.
DUNE fundamentally and structurally is about an outsider, Paul who comes to power and is opposed at every level by entrenched powers who plot against him both during his rise and later during his reign and wrong him repeatedly throughout the course of his arc.
It is not about Paul gaining power and becoming corrupted by it. Quite the contrary. Despite what Denis Villanueve would have you think. But Denis Villanueve's idea of DUNE and Paul is not supported by the text. Paul actually exits power willingly -- That is not the mark of a corrupt ruler.
One of the biggest moments for me in this entire conversation took place in a YouTube video comment section, involving an all too certain 'Well actually Frank Herbert meant... " Comment and a refreshing and all too good reply to it.
It went like this: Well actually Frank Herbert wrote DUNE as a Warning about Charismatic Leaders and Messiahs (You have heard some variation of this asserted hundreds of times)
The reply: If that was Frank Herbert's point he did a terrible job of showing it. (This really cuts right through the whole discourse)
Because that response told me something important. The person replying is responding from the text itself and not the discussion that has come to overwhelm and supplement it. That is, they clearly read the books as they are written not as many want them to be or mistakingly believe they are. Which is an important difference.
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