The point of the book is that even the God emperor (the guy I was talking about, Paul Atriedes) doesn’t get to make his own future. He gets to choose a future, which is incredibly powerful, but he never gets to make one that satisfies everything he would ideally want.
Edit: It’s a subtle difference, but it is the driving problem through all of the rest of the Dune books, with future emperors growing increasingly esoteric and warped in their attempts to use spice to predict, and more importantly shape, the future, a path that Paul sees as unstable but inevitable.
the only one who makes their own future in Dune is the godamm G O D E M P E R O R (even then it’s debatable, been a minute since I read it)
The point of the book is that even the God emperor (the guy I was talking about, Paul Atriedes) doesn’t get to make his own future. He gets to choose a future, which is incredibly powerful, but he never gets to make one that satisfies everything he would ideally want.
Edit: It’s a subtle difference, but it is the driving problem through all of the rest of the Dune books, with future emperors growing increasingly esoteric and warped in their attempts to use spice to predict, and more importantly shape, the future, a path that Paul sees as unstable but inevitable.
not to detract from this great response (thank you!) but the god emperor is Leto 2, Paul’s son. That’s who I meant.
Right! My apologies I forgot it wasn’t until his son that the moniker was adopted. Mixing it up with 40k lore obviously.