In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One, under the influence of melange, spice which can be found only on Arrakis, Paul sees the visions of a holy war, and in shock, tells his mother: “It’s coming. I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner in my father’s name… Fanatical legions worshipping at the shrine of my father’s skull. A war in my name. Everyone shouting my name!” Paul sees a horrifying future and senses that it will happen, since his earlier visions have proved to be true. In this instance, Paul is like Cassandra, a priestess of Apollo from Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, the first play of the trilogy Agamemnon. She was brought from Troy as a slave after the Achaean armies pillaged the city of Troy and destroyed its shrines to the gods. The similar thing happened to Paul, it happened in Arrakeen shortly after the Atreides family moved there. The Emperor granted Arrakis to Paul’s father Duke Leto as a fief, so they can be exterminated by the combined forces of Harkonnens and Emperor’s own Saurdakar. Both Cassandra and Paul witnessed the destruction of their city, or the place where they had been assigned to live. Paul experienced the murder of his father, while Cassandra experienced the murder of her countrymen, and the pillage of sacred shrines. Both of them lost their footing.
Cassandra is brought to Argos as a mistress to the king Agamemnon, and she has visions of the brutal murder of both the king, and herself:
“Look out! look out! –
Ai, drag the great bull from the mate! –
a thrash of robes, she traps him –
writhing –
black horn glints, twists –
she gores him through!
And now he buckles, look, the bath swirls red . There’s stealth and murder in the cauldron, do you hear?”
And she prophecies her own murder in words:
“The nightingale – O for a song, a fate like hers !
The gods gave her a life of ease, swathed in her wings,
no tears, no wailing. The knife waits for me.
They’ll splay me on the iron’s double edge.”
What’s crucial, like Paul, she feels the weight and terror of the truth in her visions:
“What good are the oracles to men? Words, more words,
and the hurt comes on us, endless words
and a seer’s techniques have brought us
terror and the truth.”
In Dune: Part Two, Paul settles with the Fremen, falls in love with Chani, who becomes his lover, battles alongside the Fremen and experiences visions of horror again, now mostly in the form of nightmares. After the battles in the North of Arrakis were lost, and the sietch, a hidden settlement where they lived, was destroyed, Paul is confronted with a choice, whether to stay in the North, or go South to the religious fundamentalists and realize his foreseen destiny. He says: “Spice opened my mind Gurney. I can foresee things. If I go South, all my visions lead to horror. Billions of corpses scattered across the galaxy. All dying because of me.” Paul decides to go South, when confronted with a desperate situation on the battlefield, drinks the Water of Life (poison of the sand worm, normally lethal to men), and becomes Kwisatz Haderach, he can access both male and female memories across time. Now, he is no longer simply a seer like Cassandra, he becomes a being which can foresee all possible futures, like god Apollo could in the myths of Ancient Greece. As a priest of Zeus says in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King: “Apollo sees the future in the ashes”. So does Paul.
He says to his mother: “The visions are clear now. I see possible futures. All at once. Our enemies are all around us. And in so many futures they prevail. But I do see a way. There is a narrow way through.” Now, he no longer feels helpless in the face of his visions, there is strength and clarity in his voice. He no longer fears his destiny, he embraces it, more importantly, he chooses it. No longer tortured by the visions, but motivated by both survival and desire for power, he sees the “narrow way through”, a way in which he can achieve victory over his enemies. He is no longer a seer who sees the demise which is about to come, and can do nothing about it, like Cassandra, now he is more like a god who can see everything, and acts upon that knowledge. That knowledge is now seen not as a curse, but as a gift of clarity, which can save his family and himself, from many possible futures which involve their demise. But saving himself, his mother and sister is not the only bounty, it is also a chance to rule the galaxy, no matter the cost. The visions are about to come true not only because he has seen them, but because he decided to act on them.
Vigour of Film Lines 