Paul Atreides’ rise to Godhood via political power (Part 1)
In the Dune series, Denis Villanueve tells the story of countless factions, Great Houses, religious orders, and a vengeful civilization, all who clash towards the pursuit of power. And in the end one man comes out on top, the Lisan Al-Gaib — Paul Atreides. The dynamics of power in the Dune movies aren’t exactly the most simple and certainly has a few layers to it. One of the first displays of this happens in the first Dune movie, and it comes from Paul’s father, Duke Leto Atreides. When the Atreides first arrive on Arrakis, they may have been appointed rulers of the planet from the Emperor, they have yet to gain the respect of the Fremen — the natives of the sand planet. Brute Coercive force is one of the more surface level types of power that is ever so present in the Dune universe. Being the leader of a Great House, Leto has plenty of this: Thousands of soldiers, countless ships and artillery, all which he could use to make the Fremen obey him. But Leto understands that there is a better way, and tries to reason with the Fremen, trying to win them over instead of goin to war, and there is a very special reason for this.
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Leto understands that his Power on Arrakis is built on two main things — Force and Legitimacy. I covered force earlier, and legitimacy is something that is completely necessary to maintain, people need to believe that his rule is justified. Someone can only rule for so long with just pure coercive force, intimidation and fear does not work well in the long term. A prime example of this happens right in the films, that of course being House Harkonnen’s rule of Arakkis. They are the epitome of fierceness and savagery, but without a drop of legitimacy, they soon face many obstacles. Brute force is important of course but I will mostly be tackling the types of Legitimacy that appear throughout the films. I will break down how Paul Atreides uses these types of Legitimacy to propel himself throughout the ranks and go from a young boy to a God Emperor.
