History Literature / Dune

* CanonForeigner: House Ordos, mentioned once in the semi-canon Dune Encyclopaedia, was picked by Westwood Studios to become the third faction in their ''Dune'' series of games. In contrast to Atreides being noble and Harkonnen being evil, the Ordos were made mysterious, insidious, and rumoured to experiment with forbidden technology.
** Ironically, this makes them a dead ringer for the Canon-compliant Ixians, but no adaptation has ever emphasized the latter.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Dune'' shares various concepts and themes with Frank Herbert's novel ''The Godmakers''. Published as a separate novel in 1970, the four original short stories were all published before ''Dune'' was even written. Includes Axlotl-tanks, Plaz, and even what could be considered a young version of the Bene Gesserit.

* TheyWereHoldingYouBack: BaronHarkonnen claims the Atriedes did this to Thufir Hawat.

** Paul. In the early chapters he supposedly shows insight beyond his years, but in reality he seems like a normal teenager. He remarks that when spice production fails people with a stockpile will make a lot of money-- this is correct, but it's standard economics, not brilliant insight. Later he asks the size of the territory of a sandworm, which is presented as more proof of his precociousness. It's a pertinent question, but again, nothing special even for a teenager.
** Suk Doctors are supposed to conditioned to be totally incapable of betraying the person they are sworn to. But there are no incidents in the stories where a Suk tries to betray someone and fails because of their conditioning, or where someone tries to subvert a Suk and fails because of the conditioning. The only incident shown is when Baron Harkonnen ''successfully'' subverts Dr Yueh by invoking IHaveYourWife, which isn't that unusual a method of compromising someone,[[note]]Threatening someone you love to make you cooperate is pretty much the first thing ''anyone'' would try[[/note]] making their reputation of being infallibly trustworthy fall flat.
*** Baron Harkonnen states in the first novel that he (actually [[TheDragon Piter de Vries]]) was able to break Yueh's conditioning, but refused to answer Feyd Rautha's inquiry as to how, which wouldn't make sense if torturing Yueh's wife was all it took. The method of breaking the conditioning is never shown or described.

* MatureWorkChildProtagonists: Paul Atreides is the main protagonist of the novel and he's only fifteen for a large part of the book, reaching his late teens/early 20s after the TimeSkip about two-thirds of the way through. The book is aimed more at adults than kids around Paul's age; although some teens probably wouldn't find it too difficult to read, it's quite a dense novel with lots of complex world-building and philosophical elements, which might not be as appealing or understandable to younger readers.

** Chani. At one point towards the end of the book, Paul is constantly interrupted by people who want a DuelToTheDeath with him to see if he's really any good. Chani puts a stop to it by ''taking one of the challenges herself''... pointing out, correctly, that a lot of challengers will be dissuaded by the certain knowledge that if a ''girl'' can beat them, the husband who trained her can certainly do it too.

* DaysOfFuturePast: Set cca 10,000-12,000 years in the future, the Empire is based off the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire -- with feuding noble houses, an emperor, mercantile trading, monastic church-like organizations...

** The Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino is nominally in charge and is the true mastermind behind the conspiracy to wipe out House Atreides. With that said, even he is having his strings pulled by forces greater than himself, namely, the Bene Gesserit and the Guild.

** On a whole, the villainous roles in Dune can be summarized as House Harkonnen being TheHeavy, Emperor Shaddam being the BigBad, and the Bene Gesserit and the Guild both serving as a collective GreaterScopeVillain.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The novels are consistently and deliberately ambiguous about the relative morality of each of the various factions. House Atreides, the most conventionally moral of the Great Houses depicted in the story, is made to pay heavily for its idealism -- and they're not precisely pure, clean-cut Good Guys.

''Dune'' is the first book in a popular series of ScienceFiction novels written by Creator/FrankHerbert. It was rejected twenty times by various publishers before finally being published in 1965 by Chilton, a publishing house best known for its DIY auto repair guides.[[note]]This was not out of rejection of the book's content, but rather of how ''much'' of it there was. At two hundred and fifteen thousand words, Herbert's manuscript for ''Dune'' was three to four times larger than what the average publishing house was used to, as the printing costs for such a work would be enormous. Luckily, Chilton was already well-accustomed to producing {{Doorstopper}}s.[[/note]] ''Dune'' is a UsefulNotes/HugoAward, UsefulNotes/NebulaAward and UsefulNotes/SeiunAward winner.

* AbsentAliens: Unless you count the Sandworms, and their [[{{Precursors}} implied creators]]. Even then, the sapience was added after the fact, by Leto II.
** Plenty of non-sapient species are also mentioned in passing. There's a lot of ''life'' in the universe, but none of it talks back.
* AccidentalMarriage: Paul, before adapting to Fremen culture, asks Chani to carry his water tokens for him without realizing that only a betrothed does this for a man, making his offer tantamount to a proposal. Unusually for the trope, the Fremen are well-aware that he didn't mean it that way and don't think anything of it.
** Paul's defeat of Jamis also counts, since he didn't realize he'd inherit Jamis' widow out of it--though, given the choice between accepting Harah as wife or as servant, he chooses the latter. (Having killed her husband, he's required to take responsibility for her either way; on the other hand, there's the succession of House Atreides to consider, as well as the fact that he doesn't particularly want to marry Harah in any case.)

* MonochromaticEyes[=/=]TechnicolorEyes: A result of high-level Spice addiction, when enough ingestion saturates the blood stream and stains the eyes. Described in the books as "blue-on-blue."

** The Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, have a deep understanding of this ecosystem and they adapt their way of life to it through a philosophy that regards everything in their surroundings as resource management. The Bene Gesserit, employ advanced genetic manipulation and religious conversion in order to further their political goals and struggle for control. The Spacing Guild's navigators rely heavily on the spice in order to make space travel possible. Advanced technology, especially artificial intelligence, is strictly limited due to the Butlerian Jihad, a war waged against powerful machines leading to a prohibition on them, promoting Mentats -- humans who have undergone training in order to enhance their reasoning skills.

** ''Dune: The Sisterhood'', a spinoff Creator/HBOMax series [[ExpandedUniverse set in the same universe]] as the above films and focusing on the Bene Gesserit, has been announced. The pilot is to be helmed by Villeneuve as well.

* GenocideBackfire: Arguably happens in ''Dune'', where Baron Harkonnen kills his rival, Duke Atreides, and attempts to do the same with his only son, thus wiping out the Atreides family line and ending the millennia old Atreides/Harkonnen blood feud. At first he thinks he's successful, but they [[NeverFoundTheBody never find the boy's body...]]

* GoThroughMe: Subverted in a way in ''Dune'': After Chani dispatches a would-be challenger to her lover Paul-Muad'Dib, she says that fewer people will try to challenge him if they learn that first they have to go through (and suffer the possible disgrace of being killed by) his woman. (Paul's narration notes how right she was.)

* HyperAwareness[=/=]SherlockScan[=/=]SpiderSense: The Bene Gesserit use their hyper awareness as a tool for manipulation. Descriptions of Bene Gesserit thought processes in the novels are often comparable to chess masters watching the world around them like one big chessboard, and calmly noting their accruing advantage. At one point a Bene Gesserit correctly deduces that there is a hidden room on the other side of a large banquet room by noting the subtle geometry of the walls of the room and the objects in it as being specifically designed to produce a slight echo where those in the hidden room can listen in.
** Even with mental processing as incredible as that, the Bene Gesserit still only learn those abilities as a ''supplementary'' skill for their main areas of expertise. The mentats, however, specialize specifically in HyperAwareness and so are infinitely more adept then even the best Bene Gesserit. Then you take a Bene Gesserit and train her (or occasionally him) as a Mentat.

* IAmXSonOfY: Paul ''never'' lets anyone forget that, before being Usul of the Fremen, before being Muad'dib, before being the awaited Mahdi, before being the Kwisatz Haderach, he is Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides. In fact, the closest thing Paul has to a [[BerserkButton berserk button]] is someone belittling the memory of his father or the Atreides name.
* IceCreamKoan: The phrases of the Zensunni sect from ''Dune'' are said to intended to be {{Ice Cream Koan}}s, similar to Zen as mentioned above. Instead of providing enlightenment though bypassing rational thought and accepting paradox; they're intended to teach the student to recognize nonsense and obfuscation, regardless of how logically-constructed and reasonable it may appear, and to see through to the "true" underlying reality. Zen emphasizes acceptance of the irrational. The Zensunni philosophy underlying most schools of thought in ''Dune'' emphasizes the extremes of rationality and mental development (eg. the Mentat human computers, and Bene Gesserit observation techniques).

** Thufir Hawat. Supposedly a brilliant mentat, he fails at pretty much everything he does. He miscalculates the size of the Harkonnen attack; he fails to anticipate the assassination attempt on Paul; and he wastes his time trying to find evidence against an innocent person while completely ignoring the real traitor. Even his attempts to play Feyd off against the baron never lead to anything useful. On top of this he generally seems ignorant. He was not aware that the Harkonnens had kidnapped Yueh's wife. Worst of all, he was surprised by Jessica's Voice ability, even though she had been training Paul to use it and had taught people like Gurney and Duncan to resist it. Some of these things can be justified by the fact that he lacked resources, but it is still a pretty dismal performance. At best Thufir is simply past his prime. At worst he was always badly overrated.
*** To give credit where credits due, Thufir Hawat does prove himself to be TheChessmaster genius once by discovering a BatmanGambit conspiracy orchestrated by Feyd-Ruta to murder his uncle Vladimir Harkonnen during sex, then warning Vladimir about it and thus spoiling the plan. Vladimir then even lampshades Thufir’s previous uselessness and assumes that the Mentat simply never even had a chance to show his true potential while serving the Atreids, whereas the chaotic and scheming life of the Harkonnens would be a much better environment for Thufir to show his capabilities – however, despite the change in environment, Thufir never repeats anything remotely genius for the rest of his life.
** Paul. In the early chapters he supposedly shows insight beyond his years, but in reality he seems like a normal teenager. Examples: He remarks that when spice production fails people with a stockpile will make a lot of money. This is correct, but it's standard economics, not brilliant insight. Later he asks the size of the territory of a sandworm, which is presented as more proof of his precociousness. It's a pertinent question, but again, nothing special even for a teenager.

*** Baron Harkonnen states in the first novel that he (actually [[TheDragon Piter de Vries]]) was able to break Yueh's conditioning, but refused to answer Feyd Rautha's inquiry as to how, which wouldn't make sense if torturing Yueh's wife was all it took. The method of breaking the conditioning is never shown or described. The baron then uses IHaveYourWife to convince an already-broken Yueh to betray the Atreides, something he would still be highly unlikely to do even after having his conditioning broken, given respect and affection he is shown to have for the Lady Jessica and Paul. So while there is still no example of the conditioning at work, this is somewhat less an example of this trope than the others listed.

** Baron Harkonnen calls this out specifically during the assault on Arrakis, where he boasts of resurrecting artillery to counteract the shields the Atreides troops were expected to use, [[spoiler:which is possibly a partial aversion, since the artillery is only useful in a very conditional way: he uses it to attack the caves in which the troops sheltered, rather than attacking the shielded troops directly]]

* LaughablyEvil: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is arguably both the BigBad of the first book ''and'' the comic relief.

* LongevityTreatment: One of many uses for spice, in the sequels when it is plentiful lifespans of three hundred years aren't uncommon.
* LoopholeAbuse: The Great Convention forbids the use of nuclear weaponry by any Great House. ''On People.'' Paul uses them against an inanimate topological feature... [[MagnificentBastard to his immediate tactical benefit]].

* MacGuffin: The spice is largely a MacGuffin, since the majority of what makes it valuable and highly contested (the geriatric properties) are not supported in 'verse. The Fremen don't have long lifespans, and no character of the original trilogy is described as being unusually old, or even references someone who is. That said, old characters (like the 75 year old Emperor) are described as _looking_ young, and given the setting, violent deaths are pretty common around the people who are rich enough to afford spice as well as the Fremen. The demonstrated, mind altering, properties of the spice are useful only to a very limited group. By far the most common use of the spice is as... spice (very much TruthInTelevision as to the desirability and value of spice) - it is said it never tastes the same way twice to the same person, providing quite a bit of variety.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Baron Harkonnen, upon receiving news that Paul and Jessica Atreides had to be dead after flying into a sandstorm, asks explicitly, "You've seen the bodies?" He was right to doubt. This series also provides the pagequote for that trope.

* NobodyHereButUsBirds: Played straight in ''Dune''. The Fremen use bird calls to communicate with each other: "Jessica heard... the distant bird calls that Stilgar had said were the signals of his watchmen."

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Both subverted and played straight. Deliberate breeding programs are used to create humans with intelligence, reflexes, lifespan, capacity for higher consciousness, and physical capabilities far beyond those of current-day humans, but a religious taboo is kept in place on genetically engineering anything recognizably inhuman or unable to interbreed back into the larger human population. Thus, the characters and societies remain human while simultaneously having greater advancements over modern man than modern man has over ''Homo erectus''. The Tleilaxu, however, have no religious taboo on inhumanity and gleefully make a living selling inhuman humans genetically-engineered for specific purposes.

** Perhaps the most horrific example of this trope is the story behind the Tleilaxu axlotl tanks.

* NukeEm: Almost all of the Great Houses keep stockpiles of "atomics" as a tool of last resort. However, under the "Great Convention", the rules of house warfare in ''Dune'', the use of nuclear weapons against humans is grounds for [[EarthShatteringKaboom planetary annihilation]]. Of course it helps in the context of the novel that humanity's eggs are in many, many baskets. In the climax, Paul blows a hole in the Shield Wall with one, arguing he is targeting a terrain feature, not people. Gurney Halleck notes that that's a rather fine point; Paul's response is that the Guild ships in orbit will take any point to avoid having to destroy Arrakis.

* OccultBlueEyes: The influence of Spice turns people's eyes an unnatural bright blue. The turning blue is implied to be a normal biological reaction of humans exposed to spice. However Spice also gives psionic abilities to at least some humans which links the two together in people's minds.

** Considering how much Paul angsted over trying to stop the jihad, it's possible that if he ''did'' say that, he was just being ironic.

* OpposeWhatYouSuffered: The Bene Gesserit struggle to improve humanity because they have inherited all the atrocities humanity has both suffered and inflicted through their GeneticMemory (though it would be argued by the Bene Gesserit themselves that this is more of a case of the Bene Gesserit being [[TheAtoner the atoners]] rather than [[OpposeWhatYouSuffered opposing what their genetic ancestors suffered]], since they only inherit the memories of ''survivors'' - which usually means the memories of those who perpetrate atrocities rather than suffer them).

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: A Bene Gesserit's "ancestral egos" can become troublesome. [[spoiler: Alia finds this out the hard way.]]

** The pre-Born count in a different way. While chemically and physically true to their age, exposure to the Water of Life in the womb awakens their GeneticMemory. This leads to a personality being composed solely of their complete lineage of ego memories, upwards of hundreds of thousands of generations.

** Other changes that might be considered a RetCon within the first three books included the appearance of Guild Navigators (at the end of ''Dune'', they were perfectly normal-looking humans except for the blue-within-blue eyes that they hid behind contact lenses), and the factors that make a child "pre-born" ("No no no, Alia wasn't pre-born because she downloaded the dying Reverend Mother's memories while she was still in the womb, she was pre-born because her mom was addicted to the Spice!")

** And then he tries to right his wrongs in the sequels, to disastrous results (he does finally get it right at the end, however, to the point where the reborn Atreides have forgiven him).

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: The royalty/nobility in ''Dune'' basically do nothing ''but'' scheme against one another and actually ruling their domains. Even the leisure occasions and court functions which they ''do'' have seem to only serve the purpose of furthering their schemes for power.

* ScryVsScry: A few times in ''Dune''. Bonus points for the foresight itself being a trap; seeing a future locks it in among all the possible futures, so it's avoidable ''unless'' you know it's coming.

* SillyReasonForWar: The Atreides/Harkonnen feud started thousands of years prior to the start of the series, because an Atreides general reprimanded a Harkonnen subordinate for failing an assigned mission, and the Harkonnens have never been able to forgive that.

* SpitefulSpit: Subverted. When we first meet Stilgar, he spits onto Leto's conference room table as a sign of respect. Water is precious on Arrakis. Played straight in Children of Dune, where a captive spits in the face of the man who's about to kill him. In ''that'' context, it means "See how little I value my water when it is taken by animals."

* StalkerWithATestTube: This is basically the Modus Operandi of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood -- breeding together people with the right genes in order to produce the Kwizatch Haderach... whether that means matchmaking, blackmail, or outright rape is of little concern to them as long as the right children result. At one point Margot Fenring casually discusses with her husband about her orders to seduce, mind-whammy and 'retrieve the genetic material' of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. (In ''Dune Messiah'', we learn that the Sisterhood ironically aren't allowed to ''use'' testtubes, as artificial insemination is banned as part of the Buterlian Jihad.)

* SuperDetailedFightNarration

* TenLittleMurderVictims: Suspicion briefly falls on Jessica as being a mole for the Harkonnens, though the Duke angrily discards such accusations.

* TheyWereHoldingYouBack: What's done to Thufir Hawat.

* ToThePain: Feyd-Rautha

** ''Children of Dune'' had the [[{{Narm}} dubious]] "beefswelling" for "erection".

** The irony is that [[spoiler: it actually happens, since Paul is his grandson. But only for a brief period in ''Children of Dune'' is it a Harkonnen he can control - Alia - and only as an ancestral memory inside her head.]]
** In ''Children of Dune'', Wensicia Corrino plots to regain the throne for her House by making her son the logical heir. Her son actually considers her methods foolish and hamfisted, and banishes her when they inevitably fail.

* VillainousGlutton:
** The Baron. A sensation-hedonist, he purposefully eats as much as he can both because he enjoys the taste and sensation of eating and because it amuses him that his grotesquely fat body disgusts others.

* VoiceOfTheLegion: The billions of ego memories within genetic memory-awakened individuals can appear like this, especially to the pre-born.

* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Paul is described as this in the first book, justified due to the intensive training he was given as heir to House Atreides. The pre-born, due to awakened genetic memory in the womb, never develop a personality of their own and are entirely intelligent even before birth.

* WorldBuilding: One of the most developed examples, right here with Tolkien. Considered to be the very ''first'' science fiction novel of its kind to do this ("six years of research ahead of it", according to a [[WordOfGod radio interview]] the author gave shortly before his death).

* YouShallNotPass: Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself to hold off a flood of Imperial Sardaukar elite troopers, while Paul Atreides makes good his escape. In the sequel, it's revealed that while he did indeed die, the surviving Sardaukar were so impressed with his skills as a MasterSwordsman that they preserved his body, later having it resurrected as a "Ghola"... and that, as it turns out, has some extremely far-reaching effects on the ''Dune'' universe.
** It is later revealed in ''Children of Dune'' that during his last stand in ''Dune'' Idaho slew ''nineteen'' Sardaukar -- and at the height of their power and training, a single Sardaukar was reportedly a match for ten ordinary house regulars and even a Bene Gesserit adept.
*** However, it is also worth nothing that at the time of Idaho’s last stand the Sardaukar [[WorfEffect were far from the height of their power]].

!! Other adaptations provide examples of:

* FutureImperfect: According to the pseudo-canon encyclopedia, House Atreides claims to have been founded by Atreus, the son of Agamemnon of Myth/GreekMythology, House Harkonnen claims descent from the Romanovs of Tsarist Russia, Alexander the Great is considered to have been the first Galactic Emperor, and members of the "House Of Washington" (i.e., America) were the first historical users of atomic weapons. Averted in some cases, as the Bene Gesserit (and some Atreides) possess GeneticMemory telling them exactly who their ancestors were and covering the entire scope of human history. It's also mentioned that the origin of the planet Ix's name is obscure. Turns out it means [[NumberedHomeworld "nine", from its position in its own solar system]].

* FixFic: The end of ''Sandworms.''

* FlyingDutchman: The in-universe legend of Ampoliros: a starship whose crew experiences group psychosis and believes the human race has been wiped out by aliens. They elect to wander the galaxy, taking as many of the aliens with them as they can. The time dilation effect of near light speed travel makes them effectively immortal, every planet is hostile by definition, and any ship is a legitimate target. To make things worse, the men are sick of, and fatigued by, their endless voyage ("forever prepared, forever unready")... but in their minds at least, to stop would spell the end of the human race.

* DividedForPublication: At least one French translation of splits the novel into two volumes. The story is divided into three parts, the separation happens in the middle of the second part, [[spoiler:when Paul and Jessica flee the Harkonnens by flying into a storm.]][[note]]For some reason, this is averted for the rest of Frank Herbert's novels. Even ''Sisterhood'', which is roughly as long as ''Dune'', is released as a single volume in the same collection.[[/note]]

* CocaPepsiInc: Perhaps the most famous example in science fiction. Due to thousands of years of space migration, various religions and cultures have merged, split, then re-merged again and again. The Fremen are Zensunni, a combination of Sunni Islam and Zen Buddhism. Though most of this occurred naturally, it eventually was pushed this way by an ecumenical council that produced the "Orange Catholic Bible". The title suggests a reunification of Catholicism and Protestantism (the militant, anti-Catholic Protestant Irish Orangists), although it is actually far more ecumenical, incorporating "Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislamic traditions".
** A few religions manage to survive intact through the millennia, most notably Judaism.
** Also, while the Corrino Imperium appear to have tolerated many religions (after all, what were a bunch of non-violent monks on Lankiveil going to do?), Paul's fanatic followers demand that everyone worship Muad'Dib or die. When the Lankiveilian Zensunni monks refuse to build a giant statue of Muad'Dib, Paul orders them slaughtered and their temple burned to the ground.
** The novel ''Sisterhood of Dune'' reveals that the creation of the Orange Catholic Bible was hardly easy. The ecumenical council did not have the blessing of the Imperium and was just a bunch of scholars who thought they could logically compel fanatics into accepting a unified faith. The millions of people killed shortly after the publishing of the book prove them wrong. The members of the council are almost universally shunned and hunted by the Butlerian fanatics. While Emperor Julius Corrino initially offers them sanctuary in his palace on Salusa Secundus, when the leader of the council is caught [[TooDumbToLive sleeping with the Empress]], the entire council is publicly executed.

** Norma Cenva is tortured by the cymeks until she releases a destructive psychic wave of her latent powers. The wave not only kills her captors but also destroys her body. In that instant, she gets access to Other Memory and rebuilds her body molecule-by-molecule into that of an extremely attractive woman. She also becomes the most powerful sorceress of all.

* BreakTheCutie: A very disturbing example from ''House Harkonnen'' is the prolonged and violent forced prostitution (and eventual [[KillTheCutie murder]]) of Gurney Halleck's gentle younger sister Bheth. First she is kidnapped by the Harkonnens for trying to protect her brother. Then they cut out her larynx so she can't do more than scream wordlessly. Next she is subjected to 6 years (starting at age 17) of sadistic torture. Rabban finally kills her in retribution of Gurney's attempt on his life.

** Even earlier, after the ''gom jabbar'' test, Paul and the Reverend Mother have a long conversation about the state of humanity and the Empire, most of which Paul, as a young noble groomed to lead one of the Great Houses of the Empire, already knows. Also justified in that the Reverend Mother is equal parts testing how much Paul actually knows, seeing what conclusions he draws from what he already knows, dropping some new information to see what he'll make of it, and offering some conclusions of her own. In general, Frank Herbet is pretty good at justifying the use of this trope when it needs to occur.

* In 2000, the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]], in association with Hallmark Entertainment, produced a three-part miniseries adaptation of the novel, ''Series/FrankHerbertsDune''. This version followed the plot of the book much more closely, but had a ridiculously small budget, [[AscendedExtra and gave several characters expanded roles]] while paring others down to bare bones or removing them entirely. The Sci-Fi Channel also adapted ''Messiah'' and ''Children'' into a second three-part miniseries in 2003, which [[AdaptationDistillation streamlined two very contradictory novels into a cohesive whole, removed or simplified some of the extremely convoluted plot elements]], and paid off the previous series' CharacterDevelopment of [[AscendedExtra Irulan]], all in all serving as a far more coherent, character-driven bridge between ''Dune'' and ''Literature/GodEmperorOfDune'' than the novels it adapts.

* TopWife: Noblemen of the Empire can have one official wife and any number of concubines. It's a plot point that Jessica, though the love of Duke Leto's life and the mother of his heir, is for political reasons only a concubine and not a full wife. In turn, and again for political reasons, their son Paul takes the Emperor's daughter as his wife and the woman he really loves, Chani, as his concubine. The novel ends with Jessica commenting to Chani:

* GeneticMemory: Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers (and Wild Mothers such as the Fremen's and Rebecca) get genetic memories of all their female ancestors, the Kwisatz Haderach gets them for ''all'' his ancestors, as do children of these two. [[CloningBlues Gholas]] can gain past life memories this way too, by being manipulated into doing something their original self would never have done.

* YouShallNotPass: Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself to hold off a flood of Imperial Sardaukar elite troopers, while Paul Atreides makes good his escape. In the sequel, it's revealed that while he did indeed die, the surviving Sardaukar were so impressed with his skills as a MasterSwordsman that they preserved his body, later having it resurrected as a "[[CloningBlues Ghola]]"... and that, as it turns out, has some [[ForWantOfANail extremely far-reaching effects]] on the ''Dune'' universe.

* The [[DividedForAdaptation two-part adaptation]] by by Creator/DenisVilleneuve, comprising 2021's ''Film/{{Dune|2021}}'' and 2024's ''Film/DunePartTwo'' (they incorporate elements of ''Dune Messiah''). Villeneuve is hoping to adapt ''Messiah'' in full as a final film in a hypothetical trilogy.