Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dune Messiah, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power
Religion
Guilt and Longing
Fate and Choice
Summary
Analysis
Paul stands outside on sietch, his prescience telling him that it is night. To avoid thinking about Chani, he focuses on the remarkable sound of water flowing in the distance, gathered by the storm that morning. An aid comes up to Paul and hands him a clipboard with a paper on it, starting to explain that the paper is a treaty. Paul snaps that he can read it and signs the treaty. The aid runs away. Looking back at the desert, Paul thinks how it is ugly and barren, but rich. The desert requires water and love, he thought.
To everyone else, Paul appears blind. The fact that Paul claims to still be able to see frightens everyone, particularly the native Fremen whose customs ban the blind from living in civilization. Therefore, Paul’s persistence as a member of society upsets the Fremen and shakes their trust and worship of him. To secure their trust, Paul would have to sacrifice himself to the desert.
Themes
Paul wants to shout at the aids behind them that if they want to worship something, they should worship life itself. He knows they won’t understand, living in a place where nothing grows. Paul looks up at the stars and thinks how a man must be mad to think he could rule even a part of the infinite universe. He feels that everyone—including himself—lives trapped in rigid beliefs. What has his “creation” come to? When his rule is over, time will spread over the world.
Paul realizes that nature—not a human being—governs the universe. Gazing out at the desert and the stars—both of which are far vaster than himself—Paul feels the futility of attempting to control it. He imagines that he will be replaced not by another human leader but by Time—an inhuman natural law. Despite his power, Paul feels nothing but his immortality.
Themes
Paul hears scuffling and knows that Hayt has joined him. Hayt warns that it is dangerous for Paul to call him Duncan. Paul says he knows. Hayt explains that the nature of the Tleilaxu “compulsion” is violence. Paul says there will be no violence from Duncan, and then he says that he is dying of prescience. Hayt says that what Paul has seen might not happen. Hayt calls Paul “young master” as Duncan Idaho used to, and Paul asks if this is part of his Tleilaxu training. Hayt says it came from him, and then Paul commands him to free himself from the ghola and become Duncan. Hayt protests that he is not a human.
Knowing now why the Guild wants him to become Duncan Idaho, Hayt attempts to remain inhuman out of care for Paul. Ironically, however, the care for Paul that makes him resist becoming human is evidence of his humanness. Hayt’s conscientiousness reveals that he is in fact Duncan Idaho and not a mere ghola. In this way, his response to the Guild’s compulsion will merely match his identity to his already human nature.
Themes
Paul hushes Hayt, hearing someone wailing his tribal name (Usul) across the desert. When Hayt asks what Paul heard, Paul says he’s heard the future. Paul tries to remember the sound of Chani’s breathing. All he can remember is Chani’s irritation that Paul was wearing an old leather jacket the day before they left for the desert. When Paul said that even Emperors have favorite clothing, Chani started to cry.
Ironically, Paul’s recent confinement to his prescience makes him nostalgic. Able to see only the future, he misses the past, when his future was full of possibility. He wears the clothes he used to wear when he was a normal person, revealing how prescience only drives a person to longing for normalcy and the past.
Themes
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Paul rubs his cheeks, feeling his own tears. His heart swells. Someone wails again, and Hayt whirls around to see a man fling open the door of the keep. Chani, the man says. Paul finishes the man’s sentence: “she is dead.” Paul’s words burn Hayt’s chest and eyes. He feels like a puppet held in someone’s hands. His hand raises his knife, but his voice tells Paul to run. Paul says they will do what must be done. Hayt’s muscles lock, recognizing the words of Paul’s grandfather.
Notably, Hayt feels a burning in his chest and eyes, suggesting that his heart, like his eyes, is mechanical, and that the Tleilaxu compulsion therefore effects these mechanized organs that were created. The burning suggests that Hayt’s heart and eyes are transforming from mechanical to real, blood-filled organs as he becomes Duncan Idaho.
Themes
Hayt has the sensation of being both Hayt and Duncan Idaho. Old memories flooded into his brain, and the knowledge that the “young master” needs him drives him to act. Suddenly, the Tleilaxu compulsions fade away and Hayt feels alive. Paul addresses Hayt as Duncan, and Hayt confirms that this is who he is. Paul says that this is the moment Hayt was to become himself, and then he leads Idaho inside.
Up until now, Hayt has corrected whoever called him Duncan Idaho, insisting that his name is Hayt. Here, Hayt asserts that he is Duncan Idaho, indicating that he has fully transformed and is no longer caught between two identities. His transformation has occurred, but it did not result in violence against Paul, as he feared it would.
Themes
When Paul and Idaho enter the Keep, an aid says that Lichna is waiting to speak to Paul. Then the aid says that Paul has two children, a boy and a girl. Paul clutches Idaho’s arm in disbelief that Chani gave birth to twins. As the aid leads them toward Chani’s room, he asks Paul why Hayt is carrying a knife. Paul tells Duncan to put away his knife. In his mind, Paul begs Chani to forgive him, telling her that this was the quickest death for her, and that it was the only way to save their children. They enter a room filled with people. He knows he should be overcome with grief, but his vision didn’t go that way.
The nature of Paul’s regret suggests that he had, in a way, chosen this form of death for Chani. His prescience told him that she was going to die—and there was nothing he could do about it. However, he protected her from death for a time by allowing her instead to get pregnant and live long enough to bear their children. In this way, Paul’s prescience allowed him the freedom to choose how his fate would unfold, but this kind of choice makes Paul feel the regret a murderer would feel.
Themes
Paul confirms with someone that Alia has been summoned. The mob moves aside to let him pass, and Paul wishes he could remove all these faces from his vision. Paul desperately wants relief, but he presses forward, fulfilling his vision. Idaho guides him forward until he feels drapes brushing his face. Paul asks for Chani, and Harah’s voice guides him.
Paul has rehearsed every moment of this scene in his prescience so that he moves through it now feeling nothing. His foresight of Chani’s death robbed him of the immediate shock and grief of the event, and he moves through his present like a ghost.
Themes
Harah’s voice directs Paul to a cradle holding the babies. Paul reaches inside the cradle, feeling warm breathing ribs. He can’t believe there are two when his vision only contained one girl. Harah asks Paul if he is blind now, and Paul knows she is thinking of the Fremen rule that the blind must be abandoned in the desert. Paul asks Harah where Chani is, feeling that he must take a place in the universe that he does not want. Suddenly, Alia’s voice calls to Paul, saying urgently that she must speak to him. Paul insists that she wait. Alia says that Chani doesn’t have much time, but Paul says that Chani is dead.
Paul’s surprise that Chani was pregnant with twins leads Harah to ask if Paul is now truly blind. The absence of this vital information about the future suggests that Paul’s prescience may be slowly leaving him now. Paul’s prescience was an aspect of his position as Emperor, and now that Paul has a son, it is possible that his prescient powers are leaving him as his heir usurps his position of power.
Themes
Paul collects himself and opens his vision on Chani. She lies on a pallet, her white robes arranged to conceal the blood from the birth. Paul turns away, but the vision of Chani moves with him. He wants to cry, but no tears come. The babies’ crying pulls Paul out of his vision. He whispers goodbye to Chani.
Paul finally focuses on an image that has been in his prescience for a long time now—but that he has not dared to confront directly. In this way, Paul’s prescience has tortured him more than it has helped him.
Themes
Alia says that she has brought Lichna. Turning, Paul says that it is not Lichna but Scytale, the Face Dancer. His voice sounding nothing like Lichna’s, the disguised Scytale asks if the ghola is Hayt or Duncan Idaho. Paul says he is Duncan Idaho. Paul says he will not bargain with Scytale; Idaho will kill Scytale if Paul commands it. Alia says that Paul doesn’t know what he is refusing. Scytale asks Duncan what he knows of his past, and Duncan says he knows everything. Paul is lost in darkness, hoping for a vision. Scytale asks about the babies, and Paul shouts for Harah to remove them. Scytale tells everyone to freeze, threatening to kill both the babies.
Though Hayt’s transformation into Duncan Idaho seemed to be the crux of the Guild’s plot, the transformation plays out smoothly, bringing no violence to Paul. Therefore, Scytale’s entrance comes as a shock, and becomes the new defining moment of conflict between Paul and the Guild. Now that Paul does in fact have an heir, the Guild’s target shifts to disposing of this heir instead of disposing Paul or Chani.
Themes
Alia groans that this is all her fault. Paul wills that Idaho will not succumb to violence, or else the babies will be killed. Scytale starts bargaining with Paul, offering to revive Chani as a ghola with full memory. Paul realizes why the conspiracy sent him Hayt: to prove to Paul that gholas could fully restore to their former selves. Paul asks if Chani would be conditioned to kill her own children. Then he asks Alia to bargain with Scytale on his behalf. Scytale asks Alia what she can offer him in exchange for reviving Chani. He urges her to hurry since Chani’s flesh is steadily decaying. He suggests she start by offering Paul’s CHOAM holdings.
Scytale appeals to Paul’s human longing to get him to give up his power. In sending Hayt, the Guild tried to revive Paul’s sentimental memories of the past to surpass his love of power. In this way, the Guild tried to destroy Paul by making him human. Although Paul witnessed Hayt become Duncan Idaho, he knows he became Duncan Idaho because of the Tleilaxu compulsions. Therefore, he is suspicious of the revived Chani and what her compulsions might be.
Themes
Suddenly, Paul is filled with vision from the vantage point of his son. He sees himself standing across the room, and Scytale’s knife pointing into the cradle inches from Paul’s son’s face. Paul takes out his knife. Looking through his son’s eyes, Paul calculates the angle and jabs his knife into Scytale’s eye. Scytale hits the wall and falls to the floor, dead. Shocked, Idaho asks if this is part of Paul’s vision. Paul shakes his head. Alia asks for Paul to forgive her for being tempted. Paul reminds her that there are some prices that cannot be paid.
Because Paul didn’t foresee that he would have a son, he also failed to foresee the thing that would end up preventing a terrible fate from happening. In this way, the earlier gaps in his prescience were hopeful signs, just as Paul had suspected. In this way, Paul is saved through blindness and the lack of prescience rather than prescience itself, suggesting that power is more of a vulnerability than a strength.
Themes
Paul leans against the wall, amazed that he saw through his son’s eyes. He hears his son’s voice and feels one with his father and his grandfather. Paul thinks of Alia’s precocious awareness in her mother’s womb but cannot understand how this happened to his son. Paul feels he is in the cradle, Alia cooing over him. Slowly, Paul disengages from his son’s awareness. Paul decides to name his son Leto, after his father, and his daughter Ghanima, meaning “spoil of war.” Paul hears the creak of Chani’s pallet being moved; the process of taking water from the dead to give to the people is beginning. Paul grips Idaho’s arm and asks him to take him to his room.
Paul feels like both his son and his grandfather, suggesting that his awareness has become a unity of the future and the past. Throughout the story, Paul’s prescience has pulled him toward the future—meanwhile, Hayt, Chani, and Paul’s longing for the old ways have drawn him to the past. Now that his son and heir has been born, Paul feels like the synthesis of both forces of time. Instead of feeling removed from the present by some hyper-awareness of time, Paul now feels all of time wash over him.
Themes
Bijaz meets Paul and Idaho at Paul’s door. Paul tells Idaho to kill Bijaz if he comes any closer. Bijaz says that Scytale’s plan is not dead; if Bijaz can find the right trigger, he will access the “compulsion” to kill Paul. Bijaz explains that if Hayt had forgotten that Duncan Idaho considered Paul the son he never had and killed Paul, then Scytale would have bargained with Alia for Paul’s revival. Bijaz asks Paul again if he’d like his beloved to be restored.
Bijaz’s explanation reveals that the Guild overlooked how strong Duncan Idaho’s care for Paul was. They relied on the thirst for revenge over past strife between Paul and Duncan’s families to surpass Duncan’s feelings for Paul. In this way, the Guild underestimated the human capacity for love to overcome the thirst for war and power.
Themes
This time, Paul has a hard time resisting the offer, but he orders Idaho to kill Bijaz before he can succumb to temptation. Idaho obeys. After a silence, Paul tells Idaho that he had no choice; he had tried to change the future before, but only once he’d decided to give in did it surprise him. After saying this, Paul feels the last vestige of prescience fade away. His detached vision floats over the desert like wind.
Paul fully loses his prescience once he fully embraces it. The more he learned to accept prescience and not fight it, the more obscured his future became, until entire invisibility at last prevails. This construes prescience not as a power a person can wield but rather a natural power a person must submit to.
Themes
