Paul Atreides

Paul Orestes Atreides (10,176-10,219 AG) is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is the most prominent fictional character in the early books of Herbert's Dune science fiction series; he takes the Fremen name Paul Muad'Dib and the Sietch name Usul.

Dune

The son of Duke Leto Atreides I and the Lady Jessica, Paul Atreides is the heir of House Atreides, a nuclear-armed aristocratic family that rules the planet Caladan. Jessica is a Bene Gesserit and an important key in the Bene Gesserit breeding program. According to the breeding program, she was to produce a daughter, who would marry Feyd-Rautha, a nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. However, Jessica falls in love with Leto and grants him a son.

Although Paul is a boy, he receives a Bene Gesserit training, giving him among other things, great control over his metabolism, heightened senses and knowledge of martial arts. He is also trained in weapon use by Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho, and receives training as a Mentat from Thufir Hawat.

When Paul is fifteen years old, the family is pressed to leave Caladan and govern the desert planet Arrakis (known as Dune). They suspect it is a trap, but accept nevertheless because it could bring power to them. On Dune, the family is betrayed by their Suk doctor, Wellington Yueh. He disables the House defensive shields, allowing the Imperial Sardaukar troops, dressed in Harkonnen uniforms, to capture Duke Leto and Thufir Hawat and to kill most of the Atreides army. Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself while attempting to hold off the Sardaukar. Upon meeting Baron Harkonnen and his twisted Mentat Piter De Vries, Leto uses a poisonous gas capsule hidden inside a false tooth in an attempt to kill Harkonnen. He succeeds in killing De Vries — and himself — but not the Baron. The tooth was given to him by Yueh, who planned revenge against Harkonnen for killing his wife. Thufir Hawat is used by the Baron as his new Mentat. Paul and Jessica escape, with some help from Dr. Yueh, into the desert.

They flee to the Fremen, who see in Paul the Lisan al-Gaib, the Mahdi, a prophet who will ensure a green, lush Dune, taking shelter in Sietch Tabr led by their Naib, Stilgar. He and his mother start training Fremen in weapon use and martial arts, creating an army. He and Chani, daughter of Liet Kynes, take each other as mates. He also reunites with Gurney Halleck, who sought refuge with smugglers after the Harkonnen attack. While in the desert, Paul Muad'Dib undergoes the process of spice agony via the consumption of the Water of Life. He survives, although barely, and the ordeal gives him knowledge of his male and female ancestors; this proves Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach.

After some years, he attacks the Harkonnen and Imperial troops with his Fremen army (Fedaykin), riding the enormous sandworms indigenous to the planet. They win and Paul requests an audience with Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. He threatens to destroy the spice melange, thus making transport between the planets impossible and effectively destroying civilization. In return for preserving the spice, he asks for the hand of the Emperor's daughter Irulan as well as the Emperor's abdication, effectively making Paul Emperor. Urged by the Spacing Guild, Shaddam accepts his terms.

Dune Messiah

In Dune Messiah, Paul has been Emperor for twelve years. His jihad has killed sixty billion people across the known universe, but according to his prescient vision, this is a fate far better than what he has seen. Paul is beleaguered by a need he sees — to set humanity on a course that doesn't lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time managing both the Empire and the religion built around him.

A Fremen conspiracy attempts to assassinate Paul using a stone burner. The attempt fails: however the effects of the weapon destroy Paul's eyes. Although he becomes technically blind, his prescience allows him to "see" anyway (By acting in lockstep with one of his visions, the events that play out mirror the vision exactly). Another assassination attempt by a conspiracy of the Bene Tleilax, the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild is made using a ghola (a resurrected clone) of Paul's friend and mentor Duncan Idaho. It also fails, but the ordeal seemingly helps the Duncan ghola to regain his memories. Later, Chani dies in childbirth, bearing twins: a boy, Leto II, and a girl, Ghanima (which means "spoil of war"). With a knife over the babies, the Tleilaxu Scytale offers to make a ghola of Chani and restore her to life, in exchange for all of Paul's CHOAM holdings and his effective ascension from the throne. However Paul, seeing through his newborn son's eyes, kills Scytale. Immediately afterwards, the dwarf Tleilaxu Master Bijaz makes the same offer regarding the Chani ghola; Paul asks Duncan to kill Bijaz.

The birth of the twins was an event that was absent in all of Paul's visions, thus it ends his lockstep approach and renders him sightless. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his children in the care of the Fremen while their aunt Alia, Paul's sister, rules their empire as regent.

Paul Atreides saw in his prescient visions that the human race was headed toward extinction in the near future. He saw a way to prevent this but felt the sacrifice he would need to make was too terrible. That sacrifice though was made later by his son Leto II, the God Emperor.

Children of Dune

In Children of Dune a mysterious figure known as The Preacher emerges from the desert and preaches among the people of Arrakis. Led around by a boy, he discredits the religion that has been built around Paul Atreides, saying "The religion of Muad'Dib is not Muad'Dib," and scorns Alia. It is strongly suggested that he is indeed Paul, which is confirmed when he walks past Alia and says, "Stop trying to pull me into the background once more, sister."

Paul meets with his son Leto in a desert, telling the boy that he had hoped that Leto would just enjoy his life rather than take the steps needed to prevent the human extinction. Leto, of course, had decided otherwise; he is later the title character of God Emperor of Dune.

Back in Arrakeen, Paul is stabbed to death by one of Alia's priests after a confrontation with her.

Later works

At the end of the sixth book in the Dune series, Chapterhouse: Dune, a ghola of Scytale is seemingly the only Tleilaxu Master left alive. Unbeknownst to all, he possesses a nullentropy capsule containing cells carefully and secretly collected by the Tleilaxu for millennia. These cells include those of Tleilaxu Masters, Face Dancers (both regular and "perfect"), Paul Atreides, Chani, the original Duncan Idaho and Atreides retainers such as Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Stilgar, and others.

In Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Scytale is a prisoner on the no-ship Ithaca, at the mercy of (among others) the latest Duncan Idaho ghola and the Bene Gesserit Sheeana. He trades these cells for permission to grow his own ghola; Duncan and the Bene Gesserit group subsequently grow gholas of Paul, Chani, Jessica and others. Elsewhere, the Face Dancer Krone obtains Paul's genetic material from a religious relic on Caladan; he creates his own ghola of Paul, named Paolo, whom he and Daniel and Marty will use in their plot to take over the universe.

In adaptations

Paul was portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation, and by Alec Newman in the 2000 Dune miniseries and its sequel. In both films, he appears much older and taller than Herbert describes him to be; in the beginning of the novel, he is fifteen and short for his age.

See also

• House Atreides

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