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It does, but then that narrative cuts against the Fremen being the good guys, which they absolutely are. Herbert attempts to subvert the white savior trope by going “well akshually the white savior could lose control and the religious crazies will be even worse than the evil imperialist empire” which is where the problematic part comes in in Messiah.

The story is actually more anti-imperialist if we accept the white savior trope and accept Paul as a good guy, cause otherwise we have to accept Herbert’s reactionary narrative that de-colonial movements are bad and go too far and might be worse than colonialists. That well intentioned and noble movements are easily coopted and used towards nefarious ends. This is the Liberal view of communism, that the stupid masses get manipulated into doing the will of the leader that has little to do with the goals of the movement. Making the Muslim stand-ins dumb and impressionable is pretty sus.

Basically Herbert put us in a double bind where either way it’s problematic, because he is fundamentally a liberal and has that Liberal brainworm where there can never be a justified liberationist good guy that improves the world. Any attempt to change anything makes everything worse.

The timing of Dune 2 and the visuals of an Islam-coded guerrilla force in the desert destroying technological imperialists has lead to a lot of its appeal, people love seeing these evil scumbags getting blown up and eaten by worms. People associated that with Palestine vs. Israel and thus really connect with Paul’s Fremen plot line.

That’s going to get real awkward in Messiah where the plot is basically “the Muslims got out of control and went too far and killed billions, and in fact the Israel stand-ins were the lesser evil”