History YMMV / Dune

* FandomEnragingMisconception: Calling the Bene Gesserit abilities "PsychicPowers" is sure to open a can of worms. In the series' universe, things like the Voice and the Weirding Way are meant to be simply forms of CharlesAtlasSuperpower, that is, natural human abilities like mentalism and hypnosis trained to an impossible degree; that's why many fans disapproved of the 1984 film giving the Bene Gesserit overt telepathy in an attempt to be gimmicky, because they claimed it just missed the point of the setting. The whole affair becomes blurred, however, because there ''are'' literal psychic powers in the ''Dune'' universe, most notably the Spice-generated prescience and the Reverend Mothers' forehead-to-forehead mind link, but those powers are never completely differentiated from the abilities that can be chalked up to mere enhancement of human gifts (on the opposite, it's implied they are something all humans have in little pieces, which only a selective breeding program can capitalize on to produce an usable seer like the Kwisatz Haderach).

** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40k'' has many elements inspired by ''Dune'', particularly the God-Emperor of Mankind being very similar to Leto II (both being powerful, psychic {{Manipulative Bastard}}s who are responsible for their setting going completely [[CrapsackWorld crapsack]]). Fans of ''Dune'' tend to look down their noses at [=40k=], while [=40k=] fans tend to think ''Dune'' is pretentious and dull.

** The Baron Harkonnen is a perfect example of the DepravedHomosexual trope (in a series otherwise almost completely devoid of any positive or neutral depiction of non-hetero people), which is difficult enough to swallow for a modern audience, but we can still remind ourselves that the first book was written in the early 1960s (i.e. before even just the 'counterculture' movement) and so the author probably didn't know any better and didn't do it intentionally to send a homophobic message. But then we find out via the author's bio that he had a son (Bruce Calvin Herbert, not Brian), who would have been 13-15 years old at the time the first ''Dune'' novel was written/published and who was thus the perfect age to test-read his father's writing, and in addition to painting a rather unfortunate picture of his father's opinion of gay men, the Baron Harkonnen would have almost certainly been the only queer male character this poor kid would have come across and until at least a decade later.[[note]] (When Marion Zimmer Bradley published ''The Heritage of Hastur'', a novel in her sweeping ''Darkover'' series, which was similar to the ''Dune'' series at least in terms of belonging to the same genre of "soft sci-fi/fantasy revolving around feudal houses and psychic powers awakened by natural drugs". The ''Darkover'' novel also features a predatory homosexual adult male who abuses teenage boys, but in addition to that the teenage hero and his love interest in that story are also queer (bi and gay respectively) and this is treated with remarkably sensitivity for the time. Though of course that book has its own HarsherInHindsight issues concerning parallels between the author's family life and how the villain avoids serious punishment for his sexual abuse of minors...)[[/note]]\\
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Bruce Calvin Herbert later became a gay rights activist in the 1980s - just when the Lynch movie came out and doubled down on the DepravedHomosexual aspect of the villain, giving the Baron Harkonnen a diseased appearance with oozing sores and pustules, which wasn't just meant to make him even more repulsive but also to remind the audience of the time of the beginning "gay cancer" (HIV/AIDS) epidemic. Since Frank Herbert was still alive at this point and [[ApprovalOfGod went on record saying how much he liked the movie]], we can assume that he was okay with this depiction or at least didn't see this as something that should be prevented on the grounds that such depictions of homosexual characters as (exclusively) evil, disgusting and probable incestuous pedophiles would make it harder for society to have empathy for people like his gay son. (10 years later, the son died of AIDS, either because he already had HIV when the movie was filmed, or more likely, because he got infected in the decade [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP when the US government couldn't be bothered to finance research of life-saving treatments or do much of anything to stop the epidemic, since it only killed 'undesirables' anyway...]])\\
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Oh, and if you don't think the author had anything to do with the exaggerated depiction in the Lynch movie: According to Brian Herbert, his father actually hated gay men so much that he ''disowned'' his brother when he came out of the closet. One can only hope that the HoYay example below (from one of Frank Herbert's last books in the series, which came out in 1984/85, shortly after the Lynch movie) was meant to be a very belated olive branch from father to son, even if it's still just a vague description of a safely platonic relationship where one man [[BuryYourGays tragically dies]] before the other even realises his feelings.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The world of ''Dune'' is a bleak, deterministic universe full of unsympathetic heroes and villains. Paul Atreides is a ManipulativeBastard and DarkMessiah who embarks on a genocidal quest for revenge following the massacre of his household using an army of religious fanatics who slaughter billions across the galaxy in his name- he is the protagonist. Paul's enemies are House Harkonnen- depraved, power-hungry psychopaths and sexual sadists with next to zero sympathetic qualities- and a hodgepodge of corrupt politicians, secretive cults and crooked drug-peddling business mutants. It is firmly established that Paul is both horrified by the atrocities he has unleashed on humanity and at the same time [[YouCantFightFate a puppet of millennia-spanning plans and his own supernatural prescience]], meaning his own agency and those of every other character is constantly in question, which arguably results in a BrokenAesop as Paul is meant to be a warning against blindly following messianic religious saviours yet his own attempts to avert becoming just that either fail or make things much worse.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: People who are only familiar with the film or video game adaptations are very likely to suffer this when they start to read the novels, as, unlike the films and the video games, the novels have very few, if any, genuinely likeable characters, with the Atreides family and the Fremen becoming more ruthless as the series goes on. Not to mention Leto II turning pretty much into a tyrannical and self-loathing VillainProtagonist in order to save mankind from stagnation.

* MainstreamObscurity: The books are certainly popular, but ''most'' people are more likely to only know of them through references and parodies involving the sandworms and the catch-phrases listed in MemeticMutation below than to have an actual working knowledge of the plot, themes, and characters. It doesn't help that the saga didn't have the benefit of a story that was easy to adapt and/or friendly to a wide audience, especially at its time (also because many of the story's most interesting and original traits were aped by ''Franchise/StarWars'' shortly after). The series has begun to climb out of this thanks to Creator/DenisVilleneuve [[Film/Dune2021 film adaptations]], especially with the success of ''Film/DunePartTwo'' finally providing a worthy adaptation to the first novel.

* MainstreamObscurity: The books are certainly popular, but ''most'' people are more likely to only know of them through references and parodies involving the sandworms and the catch-phrases listed in MemeticMutation below than to have an actual working knowledge of the plot, themes, and characters. It doesn't help that the saga didn't have the benefit of a story that was easy to adapt and/or friendly to a wide audience, especially at its time (also because many of the story's most interesting and original traits were aped by ''Franchise/StarWars'' shortly after), which is the reason it never had a truly successful adaptation despite the effort put on it.

** The scene where Thufir witnesses a Fremen (a culture of desert fighters that descends from Islam) hijacking an airship and crashing it suicidally against his enemies has ''not'' aged very well. Thufir's admiration of the act only digs it deeper.
** Considering that as of 2015, a ruthless and Machiavellian ruler named Vladimir (Vladimir Putin) is militarily intervening in favour of a brutal authoritarian regime in a desert environment to help suppress a rebellion driven at least partially by religious fanaticism and doing so at least partially to ensure the continuous supply and control of a vital resource necessary for transportation...

** Whilst Vladimir Harkonnen is a DepravedHomosexual, in real life Vladimir Putin is a HeteronormativeCrusader.
** 14 years after ''Dune'''s publication, [[UsefulNotes/IranianRevolution religious zealots, whose leader was believed by some to be the messianic Mahdi of prophecy, indeed overthrew a Padishah.]]

* 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.
* Piter de Vries, [[LoveToHate for a given value of "cool"]]; overlaps with TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot as it's mentioned early on that Baron Harkonnen is prepared to pay a fortune for a crysknife which would allow Piter - who is addicted to spice and therefore has the "blue-within-blue'' Eyes of Ibad - to infiltrate the Fremen community... and the whole plot goes nowhere, as Piter keels over from poisoned gas.

* Piter de Vries, [[EvilIsCool for a given value of "cool"]]; overlaps with TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot as it's mentioned early on that Baron Harkonnen is prepared to pay a fortune for a crysknife which would allow Piter - who is addicted to spice and therefore has the "blue-within-blue]] Eyes of Ibad - to infiltrate the Fremen community... and the whole plot goes nowhere, as Piter keels over from poisoned gas.

** 14 years after ''Dune'''s publication, [[UsefulNotes/IranianRevolution religious zealots indeed overthrew a Padishah.]]

** The Baron Harkonnen is a perfect example of the DepravedHomosexual trope (in a series otherwise almost completely devoid of any positive or neutral depiction of non-hetero people), which is difficult enough to swallow for a modern audience, but we can still remind ourselves that the first book was written in the early 1960s (i.e. before even just the 'counterculture' movement) and so the author probably didn't know any better and didn't do it intentionally to send a homophobic message. But then we find out via the author's bio that he had a son (Bruce, not Brian), who would have been 13-15 years old at the time the first ''Dune'' novel was written/published and who was thus the perfect age to test-read his father's writing, and in addition to painting a rather unfortunate picture of his father's opinion of gay men, the Baron Harkonnen would have almost certainly been the only queer male character this poor kid would have come across and until at least a decade later.[[note]] (When Marion Zimmer Bradley published ''The Heritage of Hastur'', a novel in her sweeping ''Darkover'' series, which was similar to the ''Dune'' series at least in terms of belonging to the same genre of "soft sci-fi/fantasy revolving around feudal houses and psychic powers awakened by natural drugs". The ''Darkover'' novel also features a predatory homosexual adult male who abuses teenage boys, but in addition to that the teenage hero and his love interest in that story are also queer (bi and gay respectively) and this is treated with remarkably sensitivity for the time. Though of course that book has its own HarsherInHindsight issues concerning parallels between the author's family life and how the villain avoids serious punishment for his sexual abuse of minors...)[[/note]] Apparently, this son later became a gay rights activist in the 1980s - just when the Lynch movie came out and doubled down on the DepravedHomosexual aspect of the villain, giving the Baron Harkonnen a diseased appearance with oozing sores and pustules, which wasn't just meant to make him even more repulsive but also to remind the audience of the time of the beginning "gay cancer" (HIV/AIDS) epidemic. Since Frank Herbert was still alive at this point and [[ApprovalOfGod went on record saying how much he liked the movie]], we can assume that he was okay with this depiction or at least didn't see this as something that should be prevented on the grounds that such depictions of homosexual characters as (exclusively) evil, disgusting and probable incestuous pedophiles would make it harder for society to have empathy for people like his gay son. (10 years later, the son died of AIDS, either because he already had HIV when the movie was filmed, or more likely, because he got infected in the decade [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP when the US government couldn't be bothered to finance research of life-saving treatments or do much of anything to stop the epidemic, since it only killed 'undesirables' anyway...]]) Oh, and if you don't think the author had anything to do with the exaggerated depiction in the Lynch movie: According to Brian Herbert, his father actually hated gay men so much that he ''disowned'' his brother when he came out of the closet. One can only hope that the HoYay example below (from one of Frank Herbert's last books in the series, which came out in 1984/85, shortly after the Lynch movie) was meant to be a very belated olive branch from father to son, even if it's still just a vague description of a safely platonic relationship where one man [[BuryYourGays tragically dies]] before the other even realises his feelings.

** [[FatBastard Baron Vladimir Harkonnen]] is a monstrous figure whose only concern is his own advancement and the glory of House Harkonnen. Initially lower than the Noble Atreides household, Harkonnen engineers its downfall, leading Duke Leto to a failed HeroicSacrifice to try to kill the Baron. When his wife and children flee to the desert world of Arrakis AKA Dune, Harkonnen assists in trying to crush the Rebellion in an essential genocide of the Fremen people. Revealing his two nephews, brutish Rabban and intelligent, reserved Feyd-Rautha, Harkonnen plans to assign Rabban to brutalize the Fremen and then later [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness have him removed]] by Feyd to cultivate the Fremen's goodwill with him. When Feyd tries to assassinate Harkonnen, Harkonnen, in amusement, forces him to kill every woman in the pleasure quarter, chiding him "there will always be more women, Feyd." At one point, a character comments Feyd might have become a great hero, if only someone who wasn’t such a monster had raised him.

* CompleteMonster: [[FatBastard Baron Vladimir Harkonnen]] is a monstrous figure whose only concern is his own advancement and the glory of House Harkonnen. Initially lower than the Noble Atreides household, Harkonnen engineers its downfall, leading Duke Leto to a failed HeroicSacrifice to try to kill the Baron. When his wife and children flee to the desert world of Arrakis AKA Dune, Harkonnen assists in trying to crush the Rebellion in an essential genocide of the Fremen people. Revealing his two nephews, brutish Rabban and intelligent, reserved Feyd-Rautha, Harkonnen plans to assign Rabban to brutalize the Fremen and then later [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness have him removed]] by Feyd to cultivate the Fremen's goodwill with him. When Feyd tries to assassinate Harkonnen, Harkonnen, in amusement, forces him to kill every woman in the pleasure quarter, chiding him "there will always be more women, Feyd." At one point, a character comments Feyd might have become a great hero, if only someone who wasn’t such a monster had raised him.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Many people that have watched any of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' original trilogy before reading the ''Dune'' series may lose some of the impact from the many themes, concepts, and twists that ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[FollowTheLeader cloned]] into [[PopCulturalOsmosis pop culture]] more widely.

** Considering that as of 2015, a ruthless and Machiavellian ruler named Vladimir is militarily intervening in favour of a brutal authoritarian regime in a desert environment to help suppress a rebellion driven at least partially by religious fanaticism and doing so at least partially to ensure the continuous supply and control of a vital resource necessary for transportation...

* 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. This is lost in the ''Dune'' adaptations as they give Raban [[AscendedExtra enough characterization more]] to present him as TheBrute who fully embraces the cruelty of House Harkonnen.

** The Baron Harkonnen is a perfect example of the DepravedHomosexual trope (in a series otherwise almost completely devoid of any positive or neutral depiction of non-hetero people), which is difficult enough to swallow for a modern audience, but we can still remind ourselves that the first book was written in the early 1960s (i.e. before even just the 'counterculture' movement) and so the author probably didn't know any better and didn't do it intentionally to send a homophobic message. But then we find out via the author's bio that he had a son (Bruce, not Brian), who would have been 13-15 years old at the time the first ''Dune'' novel was written/published and who was thus the perfect age to test-read his father's writing, and in addition to painting a rather unfortunate picture of his father's opinion of gay men, the Baron Harkonnen would have almost certainly been the only queer male character this poor kid would have come across and until at least a decade later.[[note]] (When Marion Zimmer Bradley published ''The Heritage of Hastur'', a novel in her sweeping ''Darkover'' series, which was similar to the ''Dune'' series at least in terms of belonging to the same genre of "soft sci-fi/fantasy revolving around feudal houses and psychic powers awakened by natural drugs". The ''Darkover'' novel also features a predatory homosexual adult male who abuses teenage boys, but in addition to that the teenage hero and his love interest in that story are also queer (bi and gay respectively) and this is treated with remarkably sensitivity for the time. Though of course that book has its own HarsherInHindsight issues concerning parallels between the author's family life and how the villain avoids serious punishment for his sexual abuse of minors...)[[/note]] Apparently, this son later became a gay rights activist in the 1980s - just when the Lynch movie came out and doubled down on the DepravedHomosexual aspect of the villain, giving the Baron Harkonnen a diseased appearance with oozing sores and pustules, which wasn't just meant to make him even more repulsive but also to remind the audience of the time of the beginning "gay cancer" (HIV/AIDS) epidemic. Since Frank Herbert was still alive at this point and [[ApprovalOfGod went on record saying how much he liked the movie]], we can assume that he was okay with this depiction or at least didn't see this as something that should be prevented on the grounds that such depictions of homosexual characters as (exclusively) evil, disgusting and probable incestuous pedophiles would make it harder for society to have empathy for people like his gay son. (10 years later, the son died of AIDS, either because he already had HIV when the movie was filmed, or more likely, because he got infected in the decade [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP when the US government couldn't be bothered to finance research of life-saving treatments or do much of anything to stop the epidemic, since it only killed 'undesirables' anyway...]]) Oh, and if you don't think the author had anything to do with the exaggerated depiction in the Lynch movie: According to Brian Herbert, his father actually hated gay men so much that he ''disowned'' his brother when he came ot of the closet. One can only hope that the HoYay example below (from one of Frank Herbert's last books in the series, which came out in 1984/85, shortly after the Lynch movie) was meant to be a very belated olive branch from father to son, even if it's still just a vague description of a safely platonic relationship where one man [[BuryYourGays tragically dies]] before the other even realises his feelings.

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[[folder:The franchise as a whole]]

* BrokenBase: While most fans agree about the [[{{Sequelitis}} quality]] of the non-Frank Herbert novels (even if some still accept them), there is significant friction between fans of the Creator/DavidLynch [[Film/Dune1984 movie]] and [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]] [[Series/{{Dune}} miniseries]] adaptations. Hell, evidence of it is available on these very pages! The casting, acting, and costumes have been criticized by [[BrokenBase both sides]]. Criticisms of each side:
** The [[Film/Dune1984 Lynch version]] suffered from ExecutiveMeddling, extensive voiceover exposition, some changes from the novel, and often an overly "80s feel".
** The [[Series/{{Dune}} SciFi version]] of the first novel had the budget you'd expect from a cable miniseries and is more of an attempt at a TV drama than an outright movie epic. The issue is complicated by the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]] ''Series/ChildrenOfDune'' sequel (which includes the events of ''Literature/DuneMessiah''), which is generally accepted as much higher quality, as well as being the only adaptation of the sequels on film. Since most actors reprised their roles, it's hard to "choose" the Lynch version of the original and still accept the sequel.
** It even extends to the unmade Alejandro Jodorowsky version, opinions on which range anywhere from it being a lost masterpiece, to being an interesting story that wasn't really a good representation of Frank Herbert's novels[[note]]He actually was going to base it on a dream he had which just happened to resemble the novel[[/note]], to being just psychedelic crap.
* CommonKnowledge: Several unofficial fan sources give Lady Jessica's full name as "Jessica Atreides", but this is incorrect: Jessica is the mother of Duke Leto Atreides' children, but they aren't married--she's just his concubine.

* 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 (and truth to be told, nowadays it's all but impossible to find someone who's been introduced to ''Dune'' before being introduced to ''Star Wars'').
** Since the release of Villeneuve's ''Film/Dune2021'', the relationship seems to be moving closer to FriendlyFandoms. Sharing actors such as Oscar Isaac helps, and with the divisive reception the ''Star Wars'' sequel trilogy, fans of epic SpaceOpera who became fans through ''Star Wars'' are seeing what ''Dune'' has to offer.

** Gaius Helen Mohiam being Mother Superior, or at least the leader of the Bene Gesserit in her time, is assumed by some fans due to her being the highest ranked and most prominent Reverend Mother seen until the fifth book. In reality, nothing in the books suggest this; she is the Emperor's Truthsayer and the Proctor Superior of the Wallach IX school, which do give her a lot of clout, but it's never stated that she is the order's maximum member or that there is nobody higher in the chain of command (and her lines in the first book all but state her authority is not supreme).

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: ''Dune'' is apparently quite popular in Russia, judging by the amount of Russian-language fanfics on [[Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn AO3]].

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[[folder: Games]]

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** Gaius Helen Mohiam being Mother Superior, or at least the leader of the Bene Gesserit in her time, is assumed by some fans due to her being the highest ranked and most prominent Reverend Mother seen until the fifth book. In reality, nothing in the books suggest this; she is the Emperor's Truthsayer and the Proctor Superior of the Wallach IX school, which do give her a lot of cloud, but it's never stated that she is the order's maximum member or that there is nobody higher in the chain of command (and her lines in the first book all but state her authority is not supreme).

* 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 pity 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 genocide 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''.

* 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 genocide 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''.

* FranchiseZombie: Brian Herbert's and Kevin J. Anderson's books. While their plan was mainly to finish the trilogy that ''Chapterhouse: Dune'' started, they ended up doing a lot more than just that. On top of the two sequels, they have written six prequels 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]].