History YMMV / Dune

* UnintentionallySympathetic: The narration, especially Gurney's POV, portrays Raban as an absolute brute, and not without reason. But considering Rabban has to take his marching orders from the Baron, whom he is quite reasonably scared shitless of, one has to wonder just how much of his more despicable actions are his own doing, and what kind of a ruler would he be without dear ol' uncle Vlad looking over his shoulder; especially given that his one appearance in the original novel shows him to be way smarter than he's originally made out to be.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: The series contains a sprawling universe adorned with myriad details and complicated histories, economics, and ecology. Creator/FrankHerbert loved to [[ShownTheirWork show his work]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Duncan Idaho gets somewhat less focus in the first book than the other Atreides lieutenants, but despite this, the swordmaster makes enough of an lasting impression on many readers and evidently the series itself [[spoiler: to the point that [[BreakoutCharacter he's the only character]] that all the original novels have in common]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Duncan Idaho gets somewhat less focus in the first book than the other Atreides lieutenants, but despite this, the swordmaster makes enough of an lasting impression on many readers and evidently the series itself [[spoiler:as shown by ​all his gholas in the sequels, to the point that he's the only character that all the orignal novels have in common]].

* FandomRivalry: Very old-school ''Dune'' fans (from the pre-movie or Lynch-movie eras) tend to have a pretty intense disdain for ''Franchise/StarWars'' (as a few other trope entries may illustrate); these fans tend to see ''SW'' as highly derivative of ''Dune'', bordering almost on plagarism and changing just enough to qualify as legal.[[note]]During the initial release of ''Star Wars'' beginning in the summer of '77, ''Dune'' jokes were common (and sometimes quite loud) in the audience.[[/note]] (It was ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' that really did it - prior to ''Jedi'' the comparisons were more specious, but with the return to Tatooine, ol' George just couldn't [[UnusualEuphemism keep the sandworm in his pants]] and the similarities became a lot more pronounced.) Younger fans from later eras tend not to care as much, though, having grown up with both works.

* MisappliedPhlebotinum: Since suspensor fields work inside shields (the Baron uses both), it would be reasonable to have HumongousMecha (human-piloted) or flying tanks in the setting (though walkers do turn up in some of the spinoffs).

* OlderThanTheyThink: Zensunni might look like a definitely fantastic religion by the real world standards, but there is a bit of precedent for mixing up Islam and Buddhism in history. The Quran contains a reference to a Prophet of God named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhu_al-Kifl Dhu al-Kifl]], which has been proposed to be an attempt to syncretize Gautama Buddha into Islam ("Dhu al-Kifl" would translate as "The Man from Kifl", ''Kifl'' being the Arabian name for Kapilavastu, where Buddha preached for thirty years).

* DracoInLeatherPants: You'll be *surprised* by how many people find Dr. Wellington Yueh as some sort of tragic figure -even in this page itself- who fans pitty or even sympathize with. Said people, for some odd reason, focus on the fact he saved Paul and Jessica and gave Leto a fighting change against the Baron. They tend to forget or ignore not only his betrayal began the domino effect of the whole series, but his actions directly led to the deaths of thousands of soldiers, people, House Atreides and the near systematic genodice of the Fremen... ''only because of the small chance his wife was maybe, perhaps, alive'' which, at the end ends up being completely pointless as even he realizes the odds of her being alive are far lower than the odds of her being dead. Not to mention his utter failure at trying to outgambit the Baron and the fighting chance he gave Leto also ended up killing him. The fact some fans feel sorry for him being considered the Judas of a religion after singlehandly nearly destroying everything is... ''shocking''.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Duncan Idaho gets somewhat less focus in the first book than the other Atreides lieutenants, but despite this, the swordmaster makes enough of an lasting impression on many readers and evidently the series itself [[spoiler:as shown by ​all his gholas in the sequels]].

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Duncan Idaho. [[spoiler:And all his gholas.]]

* FandomRivalry:
** Very old-school ''Dune'' fans (from the pre-movie or Lynch-movie eras) tend to have a pretty intense disdain for ''Franchise/StarWars'' (as a few other trope entries may illustrate); these fans tend to see ''SW'' as highly derivative of ''Dune'', bordering almost on plagarism and changing just enough to qualify as legal.[[note]]During the initial release of ''Star Wars'' beginning in the summer of '77, ''Dune'' jokes were common (and sometimes quite loud) in the audience.[[/note]] (It was ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' that really did it - prior to ''Jedi'' the comparisons were more specious, but with the return to Tatooine, ol' George just couldn't [[UnusualEuphemism keep the sandworm in his pants]] and the similarities became a lot more pronounced.) Younger fans from later eras tend not to care as much, though, having grown up with both works.
** Even if many people enjoy both authors perfectly, there's also some friction with fans of Creator/JRRTolkien and his works, especially given the fact that Tolkien had the chance to read ''Dune'' and, according to himself, "disliked it with some intensity". This should hardly surprise anybody who knew Herbert and Tolkien were polar opposites - Tolkien was an ardent Catholic obssessed with ideals and good vs. evil, while Herbert was an ideological skeptic who saw the world in gray and considered religion a political tool of control - which naturally tends to appeal to very distinct kinds of people.

* FandomRivalry: Very old-school ''Dune'' fans (from the pre-movie or Lynch-movie eras) tend to have a pretty intense disdain for ''Franchise/StarWars'' (as a few other trope entries may illustrate); these fans tend to see ''SW'' as highly derivative of ''Dune'', bordering almost on plagarism and changing just enough to qualify as legal.[[note]]During the initial release of ''Star Wars'' beginning in the summer of '77, ''Dune'' jokes were common (and sometimes quite loud) in the audience.[[/note]] (It was ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' that really did it - prior to ''Jedi'' the comparisons were more specious, but with the return to Tatooine, ol' George just couldn't [[UnusualEuphemism keep the sandworm in his pants]] and the similarities became a lot more pronounced.) Younger fans from later eras tend not to care as much, though, having grown up with both works.

** The series' abundance of Arabian and Islamic elements, especially tied around the main character and his allies, has led many people to see ''Dune'' as a Muslim-friendly work, a particularly tempting view given the low representation of this religion in the science fiction genre compared to Christianity and other faiths. In reality, under all the aesthetical and philosophical elements, the case is basically the reverse; Herbert's stance, and the saga's own {{Anvilicious}} Aesop, is rather that things like Messianism, jihad, theocracy, and organized religion in general are destructive concepts that should be opposed for the sake of mankind's future and free thought. The series' main exponent of all those, Leto II, is tormented precisely because becoming a GodEmperor himself was the only way to avoid greater evils, and is bent on setting mankind in a way that will ensure it never happens again.
** The Bene Gesserit, an all-female order of spiritual superhumans, is also appreciated by feminist readers, despite the many reasons why Bene Gesserit should be considered all but such. If we don't count the variety of uncomfortable gender tropes that the Reverend Mothers routinely employ (seduction, marriage for power, human trading), the only point in which the order pays attention to gender is, ironically enough, their plan to achieve suoeriority in the universe by breeding a male Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach, whose power is precisely inherent to his sex. Later books make their ways even less compatible, as when they are confronted by the nightmarishly misogynist visage of [[spoiler:an order that turns all their women into human breeders]], the Bene Gesserit's only reaction is to ask for the method so they can do it themselves.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The Zensunni, a mix of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam, would have been a shocking way to explore syncretism and both religions. Instead, the religion presented in the story is essentially 90% Sunni, 10% Zen, which has its own flavor, but feels like a lost chance at those things.

* DracoInLeatherPants: You'll be *surprised* by how many people find Dr. Wellington Yueh as some sort of tragic figure -even in this page itself- who fans pitty or even sympathize with. Said people, for some odd reason, focus on the fact he saved Paul and Jessia and gave Leto a fighting change against the Baron. They tend to forget or ignore not only his betrayal began the domino effect of the whole series, but his actions directly led to the deaths of thousands of soldiers, people, house Atreides and the near systematic genodice of the Fremen... ''only because of the small chance his wife was maybe, perhaps, alive'' which, at the end ends up being completely pointless as even he realizes the odds of her being alive are far lower than the odds of her being dead. Not to mention his utter failure at trying to outgambit the Baron and the fighting chance he gave Leto also ended up killing him. The fact some fans feel sorry for being him considered the Judas of a religion after singlehandly nearly destroying everything is... ''shocking''.

* ValuesDissonance: While Herbert did include a fair amount of DeliberateValuesDissonance for the time he himself was writing in so that the setting would feel different, and while the books have some pointedly sharp elements pressing against the culture of the time, there are still elements of the early books, in particular, that mark the books as [[FairForItsDay products of their era]] and might feel strange to readers half a century or more later.
** Although Herbert's overall treatment of gender roles is complex and part of the point, there is one element that rather sticks out: whenever a ''man'' learns the secrets of the ''all-female'' Bene Gesserit order or its offshoots, the men are shown as being inherently superior in these arts without exception, and exploiting this in-universe is actually part of the Gesserit plan. While it's implied that the chosen man actually needs to have centuries of genetic manipulation behind him in order to be able to learn such secrets (Paul, Leto II, Duncan Idaho, Miles Teg are all complete anomalies brought about by genetic engineering), as well as some token mention being made of the situation being reversed earlier in history, in practice the narrative consistently demonstrates an ideal of male superiority. Apparently the male psyche is too horrific to be looked at by a female consciousness (to be fair, a lot of modern feminists would still argue that, though for slightly different reasons). In the 21st century the worst and earliest examples of this in the series can seem almost comical, but in TheSixties the idea of total male superiority was still omnipresent - it's the whole reason the women's liberation movement ''existed'' - and for an author born in 1920 and writing in the [=60s=], this approach and philosophy would've been largely mainstream and presupposed.
** An exiled prince is thrust out into the desert with his mother, slowly but surely earns the trust of the sun-darkened inhabitants of the desert, eventually rising to become their leader and their prophet, and leads them to glory against their enemies with the actual mystic, foretold powers he possesses. Today's readers, upon starting the book, may assume the original ''Dune'' is playing the MightyWhitey card just like Film/LawrenceOfArabia. Those who are drawn to the novel through the 1984 film may also assume such. However, the book and the rest of the series ''famously'' turns this trope on its head a good deal, as the prophecy and Paul's abilities are entirely the result of ''thousands'' of years of [[TheChessmaster human]] [[GambitPileup machinations]], the coming galactic Jihad is unambiguously presented as an inevitable, terrible thing, and Paul and his family then need to deal with the consequences of all this (and the 1984 film glossed it all over). In the [=60s=], though, this was only just beginning to become a DiscreditedTrope and examples prior to and contemporary to ''Dune'''s release were ubiquitous, and indeed still part and parcel of Anglophone young adult adventure (which is the original book's genre, at least on its face, [[BaitAndSwitch before getting more complicated]]). Also, if we're bringing skin color into it, it's arguably a SubvertedTrope already: the Atreides complexion is said to be "olive" like the Fremen (with the Duke Leto in particular being "dark olive") and the very name ''Atreides'', meaning "son of Atreus", hints that they have distant Greek ancestry (their direct descent from [[Myth/GreekMythology Agamemnon]] son of Atreus is confirmed in ''Children of Dune'' through ancestral memory), making it debatable if they are actually "white" (in the sense that they should be considered Mediterranean rather than fully Caucasian). This can't be debated for the actors cast as Paul, however.
** The first sequel novel can run into a problem very different from the previous point, upon extrapolating this: as Paul makes use of the Fremen as a conquering army to enforce his control over the Empire, the Fremen engage in deliberate, wanton destruction and rape which lies in stark contrast to the structured, "civilized" feudal violence the Houses had practiced earlier. While Herbert does not shy away from the psychological damage this inflicts on everyone involved, including the Fremen, ''especially'' in TheNewTens and beyond it's very possible to read this depiction of the Fremen as a breathtaking anti-Muslim (and specifically anti-Arab) racist allegory. While this doesn't seem to have been Herbert's ''intent'', "outsiders" invading and destroying "civilization" was another ubiquitous trope of fiction in the first half of the 20th century and it's little surprise he made use of it.
** The opposite case could be made about the previous point too. With groups like the Islamic State, the Taliban and Al Qaeda on everyone's radar, it's become increasingly harder to read fanatical jihadis as good guys, and while in the story Fremen are not presented as good guys per se, they are still the protagonists' main allies and a solid source of favorable comparison to the decadent Harkonnens, Corrinos and the rest of the Imperial peoples. The latter division also presents Fremen in a light that enforces classical NobleSavage traits, like being closer to nature, maintaining a tough-but-just meritocratic society, and being ultimately superior in battle to their enemies in a way connected to their also superior virtue, while at the same time overlooking archaic gender dynamics (like polyginy and trade of wives as booty) that are not condemned or deeply addressed in the story. The result is that modern readers might feel uncomfortable at being suggested to root for them, either due to the brutality they spouse or to the outdated cultural stereotypes that in other circumstances should have served as redeeming qualities.
** Herbert was mostly able to keep his extreme homophobia (to the point of disowning his younger son for supporting gay rights) out of the books, but the brief moments portraying Baron Harkonnen as a DepravedHomosexual who lusts after his own nephew are quite uncomfortable these days.
** Despite being set thousands of years of the future, the setting has a clear lack of futuristic 'laserguns' common to the genre. Herbert found an in-universe justification for this by having the beam of a lasgun, when striking a shield, would cause a nuclear explosion killing both target and gunner, so no rational person would ever use them lightly. This makes a lot of sense when you realize when the first book was written during the cold war, when the US and USSR had the nuclear weapons to utterly destroy one another, but mutually-assured-destruction ensured anyone pulling the trigger would die in nuclear fire just like the target, and fortunately for all rational minds kept their cool. But that was before the rise of fanatical terrorism, which resulted in suicide bommbers and other fanatics that would gladly martyr themselves in order to kill as many of the enemy (or even their civilians) as possible. Moreover, since then every fighting force has become very conscious of things like friendly fire or accidental discharges, which you can never fully prevent. As such, having everything protected by something that blows up in a mushroom cloud the moment someone is crazy or careless enough to hit it with a type of gun that is uncommon but hardly rare, would seem rather insane.
*** Also, mentats are stated to be superior to computers, being able to do computations faster and allowing for human ratio and insight to draw connections and conclusions a machine cannot. However, Herbert wrote Dune in a time when computers were the size of rooms and used solely for mathematical computations. Most experts at the time assumed computers would become bigger and bigger as they became more capable, and the head of IBM infamously stated that in the future there would be five computers: one for each continent, servicing the computational needs of all the people there. What happened instead was the rise of the personal computer, small yet capable enough to meet the needs of a single individual. And those needs often did not require raw computational power to solve second order differential equations, but word processors to make documents, programs for snazzy presentations, spreadsheets to simply keep track of numbers, the easy storing of information, etc. This continuous to this day, with computers used for convenience rather than processing power. Computers became very flexible and adaptable tools in the hands of its users which strengths do not fully overlap with even the greatest mind. Stating a mentat to be superior to a computer is like stating one's head is superior to a hammer; usually true, but which do you want to use when hammering a nail? And you cannot play Call of Duty on Thufir Hawat. As such, the books premise that humans have taken over the tasks of computers seems a bit myopic.

** The opposite case could be made about the previous point too. With groups like the Islamic State, the Taliban and Al Qaeda on everyone's radar, it's become increasingly harder to read fanatical jihadis as good guys, and while in the story Fremen not presented as good guys per se, they are still the protagonists' main allies and a solid source of favorable comparison to the decadent Harkonnens, Corrinos and the rest of the Imperial peoples. The latter division also presents Fremen in a light that enforces classical NobleSavage traits, like being closer to nature, maintaining a tough-but-just meritocratic society, and being ultimately superior in battle to their enemies in a way connected to their also superior virtue, while at the same time overlooking archaic gender dynamics (like polyginy and trade of wives as booty) that are not condemned or deeply addressed in the story. The result is that modern readers might feel uncomfortable at being suggested to root for them, either due to the brutality they spouse or to the outdated cultural stereotypes that in othe circumstances should have served as redeeming qualities.

** The Bene Gesserit, an all-female order of spiritual superhumans, is also appreciated by feminist readers, despite the many reasons why Bene Gesserit should be considered all but such. If we don't count the variety of uncomfortable gender tropes that the Reverend Mothers routinely employ (seduction, marriage for power, human trading), the only point in which the order pays attention to gender is, ironically enough, their plan to achieve suoeriority in the universe by breeding a male Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach, whose power is precisely inherent to his sex. Later books make their ways even less compatible, as when they are confronted by the nightmarishly mysoginist visage of [[spoiler:an order that turns all their women into human breeders]], the Bene Gesserit's only reaction is to ask for the method so they can do it themselves.

* {{Sequelitis}}: Brian Herbert's and Kevin J. Anderson's books. So far they have written six prequels, two sequels, and three midquels. Two more midquels are planned, as well as up to three more prequels. This will mean a grand total of ''sixteen'' books compared to Frank's six. This comes across to many as [[CashCowFranchise milking the cow a bit roughly]].

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable:
** It's perfectly possible to lose ALL your Fremen troops in the Cryo ''Dune'' game if you send them against Harkonnen fortresses unprepared, though it takes time and effort.
** It's also perfectly possible to tell Stilgar to remain in a place which you can only enter with him (the windtrap with Water of Life), and then leave. Since he is a RequiredPartyMember at some points of the game, you can't win anymore.
** Also, good luck giving your own orni to any Fremen troop early in the game (when you don't have psychic powers and can't call a worm) and sending them away from the sietch.

* TooCoolToLive:
** Duke Leto Atreides. He's a good father to Paul, a loving partner to Jessica and a ReasonableAuthorityFigure. Met his tragic end by trying to bring down the Baron Harkonnen with the poisoned capsule from Yueh.

* UnwinnableByInsanity: It's perfectly possible to lose ALL your Fremen troops in the Cryo ''Dune'' game if you send them against Harkonnen fortresses unprepared, though it takes time and effort.

** Around the same time as the divisive ''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy, ''Dune'' received its own widely-disliked prequels and sequels, but unlike ''Star Wars'', the ''Dune'' prequels did not go on to be VindicatedByHistory. Even worse, ''Star Wars'' later had an even more divisive sequel trilogy, just like ''Dune'''s own sequels.