@demon-of-the-ancient-world / demon-of-the-ancient-world.tumblr.com
Cw: mild wound description, suggested suicidal ideation
His sleeping quarters had little light – but just enough to let her faintly make out the grey, crumpled figure on the floor.
Irulan stilled, fingers gripping the door handle. Made an attempt to slow her breathing and thoughts. Was he even alive? She was so sure she’d timed it right, that she wouldn’t be too late. If she was...if they found her here with him...
Shit.
I forget about it and then it slaps me in the face out of nowhere that Paul and Chani's fathers died within days of each other
Noooo don't stand too close to that recently detonated portable atomic device & get your eyes blown out you're so sexy aha
Paul Atreides' storyline leans heavily on the duality he exemplifies; having both Atreides and Bene Gesserit lineage, outworlder and Fremen, in a lot of ways essentially male and female; he also undergoes the consumption of a substance which physically ties him to the new, unknown, and at times frightening world he finds himself in whilst also awakening a more powerful yet darker side to himself he has to now contend with and balance - and his journey involves him "descending" in some ways while "ascending" in others; his relationship with his mother is deeply loving yet confused, they are never quite able to fully be on the same page; all this combined with the subtle and not-so-subtle Greek mythology ties to the Dune series one could easily view Paul as being a Persephone figure, in this essay I will --
someone NEEDS to put paul atreides in a blender. that person wil be me but the blender unfortunately must be metaphorical .
during the harkonnen siege, as paul wakes in the ornithopter with jessica, he cannot find the right pitch for the voice; that is, until the drop-door is opened, and the howls of the desert are heard -- that is paul's pitch: his voice, from the outer world
You have more than one birthright, boy
DUNE PART ONE // DUNE PART TWO
thinking about paul atreides and touch and the way chani strokes his cheek exactly the way his father used to and the way his mother always cups him with both of her hands like she used to cup him within her womb and the way chani and gurney both cling to him with relief when they find out he's alright and the fact that by the end of the second film he has distanced himself from his loved ones so immensely that the only people he touches are his enemies and even then he only touches them in order to subjugate them
(gifs are: 1, 3, 6. @timotheecontent 2. @where-theres-smoak-2 4. @thespicemustflowgirls 5. @whumpypepsigal 7. @5ummit 8. @ghaniatreides)
oh the logistics of writing a dude who by all means *should* have the highest self discipline and bodily control in The Universe because his brain is almost literally a computer -- but is also like. a human being who starts off the fic with some pretty serious physical injuries so sorry dude that's actually also going to very much Affect You
haha that's a nice starry-eyed ambition you've got there buddy. sure hope the narrative doesn't warp it into something ruthless and all-consuming
✅ tortured by Voices
✅ cursed by god
✅ small waist
✅ criminal record
✅ died once
Diagnosis: babygirl
New in: songs that give me Paul Atreides vibes --- The Cave by Mumford & Sons
"So tie me to a post and block my ears I see widows and orphans through my tears I know my call despite my faults, despite my growing fears"
"And I'll find strength in pain And I will change my ways I'll know my name as it's called again"
Also some PaulChani vibes goin on I must admit ("But I will hold on hope/And I won't let you choke/On the noose around your neck"; 'Cause I have other things to fill my time/You take what is yours and I'll take mine"; "So sing your siren's song/And sing all you want/I will not hear what you have to say")
Anyway so there's that
Love how Paul has this haughty, imperious streak that comes out around a lot of adult authority figures (Mohiam, Dr. Kynes, Gurney, the fucking Emperor) but never around Chani. The one single time he starts colonizersplaining to her she just raises her eyebrows at him until he realizes what an ass he sounds like and apologizes, and nothing like that ever happens again.
Boy will make the most powerful person in the Known Universe bow at his feet but with Chani it’s just instantly yes ma’am and you can’t imagine it any other way.
this was one thing that HAUNTED me about the last scene as well bc when she got up and left part of me was like oh no what's he gonna do. but he just...lets her go. .which all ties into my theory/interpretation that the WOL experience may have twisted paul's morality a little but it didn't like. make him totally blind to what's right and what isn't. it's not that he now believes what he's doing Is Correct; he knows it's unforgivable on a moral level but he does it anyway because he sees it as inevitable. i have made myself sad.
A rather chaotic combination of book and film versions of the ship
Unravel - Bjork Whatever May Come - Ramin Djawadi (from House of the Dragon) Work Song - Hozier Meet Me in the Woods - Lord Huron A Time of Quiet Between the Storms - Hans ZImmer (from Dune Part 2)
Thinking about Paul's final duel again. Thinking again about how, after spending half the movie watching him be a destructive godlike being we're thrown back into seeing him be just...a guy. I *love* that unlike in the book they let him actually get Fucked Up. That instead of him being depicted as heroic or villainous, it's not really played as him being powerful at all. Not a scary, evil destructive person but not a saviour either. Just a hurt, exhausted, lonely guy who's barely an adult. The fact that *that's* the angle a scene like that was filmed from just. hmmmmmmmmm. It Bites My Brain Sometimes.
