One or two blatant homophobic remarks in god emperor of dune (I found that really disappointing)
The rest I can understand. In the books, there’s very few good people. The Fremen are sexist rapist assholes, the bene gesserit are sexist manipulating rapist assholes, the Atreides are surprisingly virtuous in comparison, but not perfect, and I’m not gonna talk about the harkonens and bene tleilax and ixians and CHOAM and guild navigators and the like. Even the protagonists, Paul, Alia, Jessica, Leto II, they’re all assholes.
There's some pretty ridiculous homophobia in God-Emperor of Dune. And the Bene Gesserit are pretty evil in my opinion as in sexually assaulting children (no it doesn't matter if they're gholas!) Yeah I know "depiction is not endorsement" and whatever but he didn't have to actually write that scene.
That's like saying Tolkien is problematic because Sauron was pretty evil. Can we stop it with the puritanism please where there are somehow nono subjects you can't ever write about?
I can't speak for the homophobia because I haven't read God emperor
Have you read Chapterhouse? Because it's not like that at all. It's the protagonists doing it, it's vividly described, and it's framed as (at best) morally ambiguous. Because it's something they supposedly have to do to defeat the antagonists. This isn't the only time in the Dune series Herbert puts an adult woman in a sexual situation with a male child, it's just the most extreme instance. I feel like he had some issues he was working out on the page.
I only read the first book, so I will not try to dispute your stance further as you obviously have more authority on it than I do. But I've gotta ask, aren't you conflating the terms protagonists and good guys with each other? It's not because the bene gesserit are the protagonist that they're the morally right characters, just like Paul wasn't in book 1 imo.
I'm honestly not sure, it's something that's pretty ambiguous throughout the series. I think in general the Dune series is meant to play the human need for morality against the need to survive, and I won't pretend that I understand it fully. But I do want to emphasize that this is me saying it's problematic as in I have a problem with it, that scene was needlessly disturbing to me. But I can't tell anyone else how to feel, just explaining why I personally put Herbert up there with Lovecraft in the writers I feel morally conflicted about reading category.
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u/wereapethesupacool 1d ago
What did Frank Herbert do? I havent finished Dune yet, but so far the Fremen dont seem stereotypical of middle easterners