Dune Messiah

by

Frank Herbert

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Themes and Colors
Power  Theme Icon
Religion  Theme Icon
Guilt and Longing Theme Icon
Fate and Choice  Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dune Messiah, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Power

While Dune tells the story of one man’s rise to power, Dune Messiah portrays the nature of his power once he has attained it. Author Frank Herbert intended Dune Messiah to be an inversion of the science fiction novel’s typical subject matter: the hero’s rise to power. Instead, Dune Messiah deals with a hero’s downfall and the failures of power. Dune’s hero, Paul Atreides, enters the scene as Dune Messiah’s protagonist—the ruler, or…

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Religion

Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah explores the dangers of religion, especially when mixed with forces of government. In Dune Messiah’s prequel, Dune, the Fremen people of Arrakis choose Emperor Paul Atreides as their messiah, and Paul starts a religious jihad. When Dune Messiah picks up 12 years later, the powerful jihad continues to reign supreme. Paul struggles to steer humanity toward safety while also maintaining his role as messiah for the Fremen people. Not…

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Guilt and Longing

Guilt and longing are prevalent emotions throughout Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah. The novel’s protagonist, Paul Atreides, has held a position of power in the universe for 12 years, and he’s begun to feel power’s effect on his personal life. He and his lover, Chani, often talk about leaving the city of Arrakis for the desert where Chani grew up and spending the rest of their lives in peace and simplicity. However, not…

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Fate and Choice

Dune Messiah explores the nature of fate and the power to see the future. Not only is the world of Dune Messiah subject to fate, but its protagonist—the Emperor of the fictional planet Dune, Paul Atreides—is gifted with the power of prescience, or the power to see the future. From the outset, this power is not a positive thing. In fact, as an omniscient narrator claims at the outset of the novel, “completely accurate…

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