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Poster for Dune movie showing a sandworm. Text says: Space Fascists and Sand Penises (smaller text: Also worm poop is cocaine or something, IDK)
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Generally speaking the political system pre-Paul is feudal, and the Arteides happen to be one of the good royal families, ruling Caladan with benevolent technocracy and power which they don't really have to use. Contrast that to the Harkonnen who bleed their fiefdom to the bone, imagine North Korea but competently profit-oriented. Both approaches are considered perfectly fine as far as the Emperor is concerned.
The Bene Gesserit have more important things on their minds than giving a fuck about how the serfs live and, just like the Spacing Guild, are a religious/scientific cult (having, respectively, a messiah prophecy and a goddess. And Norma seriously out-powerlevels Leto and yes Brian Herbert is worth a read even if the prose sucks fite me IRL)
You already lost me, the Atreides aren't "good", they're just populist and spend more energy on PR than the Harkonnens.
Their plans with the fremens is a pretty good example. Their plans with the Fremens was to turn them into a private army to use against the Emperor. They were going to use the fremens hatred of the Harkonnens as a recruiting tactic, but they weren't helping the fremens by any means. They were planning to trade fremen lives for Atreides power
There are really no "good guys" in Dune. Paul isn't a hero, he's a warning against the concept of heros
There's no Fremen on Caladan.
...and yes feudal rulers recruit armies, news at 11. Still doesn't even compare to the Harkonnen.
I know? What does that have to do with what I said?
Like 99.9% of what we know about how Arteides rule is Brian's descriptions of Caladan before the family moves to Arrakis, it's by and large a quite tranquil world. Quite agricultural but the people certainly don't seem to mind their rulers, on the contrary they adore them.
And yes of course feudal rulers draw their armies from their fiefdoms. Everyone of them does, that's not what makes a feudal ruler better or worse than another feudal ruler: You become a Harkonnen soldier because you like the opportunity to abuse others, you become an Arteides soldier because they're just so fucking noble and just, that is what makes the Arteides better. The Fremen situation was not really any different, though of course boosted by the Bene Gesserit. Or, let's put it this way: It takes an amount of nobility to actually trigger a messiah prophecy. The Fremen are not without agency, here.