History Literature / GodEmperorOfDune

* {{Jerkass}}: Siona opposes the greatest tyrant mankind has ever known, but she's also hypocritical, cruel and pointless vindictive. Nor does she admit the consequences of her actions. [[spoiler:She does not even oppose the Golden Path once she understands it, but persists nonetheless.]] Which just goes to show you that Leto is cruel because he ''must'' be, Siona is cruel ''just because.''

[[caption-width-right:236:You've got person in my worm! No, you got worm in my person!]]

\\

** And despite what Brian and Kevin J Anderson would have you believe with their sequels, a close friend of Frank's has stated that he told him that if he were to end the series, he'd do it in such a way where a ''true'' democracy was established.
** You don't even need inside information to reach that conclusion, really: Leto II was quite open and fierce about his ''hatred'' of the "pharaonic model".

* EvenEvilHasStandards: With his immense knowledge of history, Leto II goes on to round up historians who fabricate and lie to serve their own ideology and has them burned on pyres of their books. When discussing this, Leto II makes it clear that he will not kill historians who simply made errors. While he states that it's because [[PrgamaticVillainy he doesn't want to make martyrs]] from Leto's own point of view he's committing these actions to kill and spare because he genuinely believes he's helping humanity.

''God-Emperor of Dune'' is the fourth installment of the ''[[Franchise/{{Dune}} Dune Chronicles]]'' by Creator/FrankHerbert. God-Emperor of Dune was published in 1981 by Putnam, it was a best seller according to Publisher Magazine the same year.

''God-Emperor of Dune'' [[TimeSkip skips]] 3500 years from ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune''. Leto II is ruler of the Imperium and has continued the metamorphosis he started in ''Children of Dune'', greatly enhancing his life-span and making him NighInvulnerable. Leto's awareness greatly surpasses even his father's and he had an iron grip on all aspects of life in his empire in order to ensure humanity's continued survival via the 'Golden Path'. Leto has commandeered the Bene Gesserit breeding program for his own purposes, culminating in Siona Atreides, a rebellious girl who is invisible to even Leto's oracular vision. Siona is the daughter of Moneo, Leto's majordomo, who himself was once a rebel as well before seeing the necessity of the Golden Path. Moneo and Siona are distant descendants of Leto's sister Ghanima. The cast is rounded out by Duncan Idaho, which Leto continues to task the Tleilaxu with restoring back to life over the last three millennia both for breeding and for the company he provides, despite many of them dying while trying to assassinate Leto himself.

!! ''God-Emperor of Dune'' contains examples of:

* BadassArmy: The Fish Speakers. Created by Leto as a replacement for the Corrinos' Sardaukar, and the Atreides' Fremen warriors. The remnants of the Sardaukar served Leto in the early decades of his reign, but eventually a Duncan Idaho clone rallied them to make a last, futile rebellion against the God-Emperor, after which they were permanently disbanded. The Fremen, meanwhile, were not destroyed - but centuries of living on a lush and terraformed planet made them go soft, ending the harsh desert culture that made them such potent warriors in the first place. Fremen bloodlines continued but as a culture they've gone extinct. Many of the Fish Speakers, however, were bred from Sardaukar and Fremen bloodlines.

* EmperorScientist: Leto II actually becomes the God-Emperor of the Universe to continue a gigantic human breeding program personally.
* TheEmperor: Leto II as God-Emperor

* AchillesHeel: Leto II, at the end of ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune'' [[TwoBeingsOneBody combines his body with sandworm larvae]] to extend his life by thousands of years and gain immunity to almost every form of physical damage, also inherits the sandworms' [[KillItWithWater vulnerability to water]]. Of course, this is intentional and part of his plan.

* AGodAmI: Leto II, at least publicly.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Leto II’s enforced "peace" makes Paul’s jihad look benign. Also highlighted in how the death of some historians seem to get greater focus than the plight and death of billions under Leto II.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Leto II’s enforced ‘peace’ makes Paul’s jihad look benign. Also highlighted in how the death of some historians seem to get greater focus than the plight and death of billions under Leto II.

* ShoutOut: Leto II asks Hwi Noree if she's familiar with the philosophy of Noah Arkwright[[labelnote:*]] a MeaningfulName, when you consider that "-wright" means "maker" or "builder."[[/labelnote]]. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a pseudonym of Leto II. It's an in-universe shout out to the Biblical character.]]

* WarfareRegression: Lasguns are back in use, thanks to Leto banning Shield Technology to force warfare to start evolving again.
** Then reverts back when Leto II bans shields.

* WomenAreWiser: {{Invoked|Trope}} The reason the Fish Speakers are an [[AmazonBrigade all woman force]] is because of Leto's assertion that men, conditioned to violence and deprived of an outlet, will turn on their own populace, while women in the same position will turn to maternal instincts. Leto understands this because he has both male and female GeneticMemory.
** Ultimately averted though, as women are just as flawed as men, just in different ways. They are just a more easily controlled army then men are.
** Given that the Honored Matres in later books are a fusion of Fish Speakers with rogue Bene Gesserit, and Leto could forsee the future...it's possible that he made an all-female army of super-soldiers ''anticipating'' that this would lead to the creation of the Honored Matres.

* OrwellianEditor: Leto II, being a Kwisatz Haderach, has full access to his masculine and feminine genetic memory which stretches from about the year 40,000 back to the beginning of human awareness. What does he do with it? He has hundreds of historians burned alive for misconstruing the facts that he has personal access to. Of course, this was partly mystique-building, as he secretly rendered them unconscious first.

* DarwinistDesire: Leto II essentially confiscates the Bene Gesserit breeding program to produce the Siona trait.

* GoneHorriblyRight: Hwi Noree. The Ixians breed and designed her to be the perfect HoneyPot for Leto. Unfortunately their attraction and compatibility with one another is so perfect that Hwi sides with Leto and betrays the Ixians soon after meeting him for the first time.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Leto II

* KingBobTheNth: Leto II

* BadassArmy: The Fish Speakers

''God-Emperor of Dune'' [[TimeSkip skips]] 3500 years from ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune''. Leto II is ruler of the Imperium and has continued the metamorphosis he started in ''Children of Dune'', greatly enhancing his life-span and making him NighInvulnerable. Leto's awareness greatly surpasses even his father's and he had an iron grip on all aspects of life in his empire in order to ensure humanity's continued survival via the 'Golden Path'. Leto has commandeered the Bene Gesserit breeding program for his own purposes, culminating in Siona, a rebellious girl who is invisible to even Leto's oracular vision. Siona is the daughter of Moneo, Leto's majordomo, he himself was once a rebel as well before seeing the necessity of the Golden Path. The cast is rounded out by Duncan Idaho, which Leto continues to task the Tleilaxu with restoring back to life over the last three millennia both for breeding and for the company he provides, despite many of them dying while trying to assassinate Leto himself.

* AbsentAliens: Unless you count the Sandworms, and their [[{{Precursors}} implied creators]]. Even then, the sentience was added after the fact, by Leto II. Plenty of non-sentient species are also mentioned in passing. There's a lot of ''life'' in the universe, but none of it talks back.

* ActionGirl / ActionMom:
** The Fish Speakers are quite literally warrior moms.
** Siona - her first appearance is to out run a pack of genetically modified wolves, and then swear revenge on Leto II.
* AddictionPowered: Leto makes decade-long allocations of scarce Melange, highlighting this aspect of the Imperium.
** Bene Gesserits depend on some drugs and the Spice for some of their abilities, each Reverend Mother is addicted. In a report within the novel, the sisterhood monitors how much Spice is allocated and why.
* AerithAndBob: While the first book introduces many distinctly-European names, such as Paul, Jessica, Gurney, and Duncan (even Baron Harkonnen, whose first name is Vladimir), the names get far more exotic as the cast fills out throughout the series. Notable examples include Moneo, Hwi Noree, many Fremen, and the Latin-European-Greek full names of the Bene Gesserit.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Not that the computers were inherently bad, it was that humanity chose to destroy them because they were making humans lazy and limiting humanity's potential, effectively making them dependent on sentient machines for survival. Even the God-Emperor publicly upholds the prohibition, even though he plays with this by privately using technology that others would find questionable.
* AlternativeCalendar: It's implied that the (3000-year) reign of the Leto II has in effect become a calendar.

* AncientAstronauts[=/=]AllMythsAreTrue: A variant in that humans themselves fill this role, with the Bene Gesserit purposely spreading myths based on heroic and religious archetypes throughout fledgling colonies to make use of the people there later. Its one of the reasons why Leto II dislikes the Sisterhood - retaining a religious pretense while abusing it for their agenda.

* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Leto II, Moneo Atreides, Hwi Noree, Duncan Idaho]]

* ArtificialHuman: Any Tleilaxu-creation, including the Face Dancers, Gholas, clones, some Mentats, and [[MixAndMatchCritters human-animal hybrids]].
* AscendedExtra: Duncan Idaho, being a resurrected clone-thing. In the first book, actually ''dies'' only to become the only character to feature in all six novels of the original series.

* AuthorCatchphrase:
** "Ah-h-h-h-h."
** "Plans within plans... wheels within wheels..."
* BadassNormal: Duncan could be considered this, seeing as Leto’s breeding program has enhanced the physical capabilities of his Fish Speakers, Duncan is hopelessly slow in combat and can even be bested by Moneo. But Duncan more than compensates by being a brilliant tactician.

* BadassBookworm: Moneo show shades of this, Leto II counts too.
* BadassFamily: Atreides
* BeliefMakesYouStupid: Inverted, Subverted, Justified, and Invoked. All depends on your personal interpretation, and which characters you examine. Frank himself said one of the main themes of the series was putting all your faith into one person and following them blindly. You can ''follow'' someone, but to utterly ''submit'' to them leads to total destruction. [[spoiler:This is what happens at the end of the novel. Nayla puts her faith so blindly in Leto that she follows unquestionably every command. Even one that she clearly sees would end up killing Leto.]]

* BlessedWithSuck: You can see the future. All of it. Every twist, turn, nook, and cranny. There are no surprises. There is no escape. You will never live something that you have not already foreseen. Leto is bored.

* ButtMonkey: Duncan is reincarnated as a ghola. [[spoiler:Again. And again. And again. And again. And killed (rather than dying of old age) only a slightly smaller number of times.]]

* TheCasanova: Duncan Idaho, dear god. Described as having a devastating masculine appearance and animal magnetism. Brought back to life as a ghola hundreds of times to be used as a stud in various sex-related schemes that resulted in thousands of children and eventually millions of people with his genes. This comes full-circle when the Tleilaxu conditioning he receives from his last incarnation allows him to [[spoiler:seduce an Honored Matre]].

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Leto II seemed to want to suppress some of these.
** The Bene Gesserit train themselves to alter their blood composition, manipulate others by voice alone, being able to hold their breath for long periods of time, delay aging, neutralize any poison or drug, possibly see the future, and intense martial arts. They only get the future-vision and molecular control from the Spice. Everything else is pure Charles Atlas, with a few hints of selective breeding.
** Mentats as well are "human computers". They are trained to possess photographic memories and deduce perfectly logical conclusions from the barest minimum of information. A Mentat Advisor is one of the most valuable assets that a noble house can have.

* CloningBlues: Gholas (clones of the dead), especially the multiple incarnations of Duncan Idaho.

* CrapsackWorld: Dune is a universe of tyrannical regimes, war and constant backstabbing. And even the most moral factions aren't that moral either, Leto II takes it UpToEleven -- see BlackAndGrayMorality.

* TheCreon: Moneo
* CultureChopSuey: A classic example. Millennia of galactic colonization have created completely new unrecognizable ethnicities and modified versions of current Earth religions.
* CulturedBadass: Pretty much ''everyone''.

* DeadGuyJunior: Paul named not just one but ''both'' of his sons after their late grandfather, though one (son) had died by the time the other came along. Oddly, they're both named Leto II.
* DeconstructorFleet: For TheChosenOne, the MessianicArchetype, and [[TheHero hero]] tropes in general.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Foldspace

* FictionalGenevaConventions: The Great Convention, which prohibit certain weapons from being used in warfare. The most important is the use of nuclear weapons on human targets.
* ForegoneConclusion: A major theme of ''Dune'' is YouCantFightFate, so expect these in spades.
** ''God Emperor of Dune'' is written from the FramingDevice of the titular Leto's unearthed memoirs. That he is dead and his reign ended is therefore known from the start, and the nature of his demise ("fragmented consciousness") is foreshadowed.
* FrickinLaserBeams: Only useful without DeflectorShields, which are ubiquitous, so almost a subversion/aversion. (A lasgun shot hitting a shield is highly unpredictable, and can cause either a nuclear-level explosion or only destroy both shooter and shootee). Also, lasguns are presented unusually realistically for sci-fi (except for the universe-physics-specific shield bit). In Leto II's future, lasguns have come back into general use after he banned shields, leading to a massive arms race after [[spoiler:his death]].
* GalacticSuperpower: The Empire that reigned from the Butlerian Jihad to Leto II's planned Scattering.

** The Bene Gesserit are also big on the Gambit Gambling Circuit, manipulating individuals, societies, governments, religions, and bloodlines to produce their [[ChosenOne Kwisatz Haderach]]-- and then having to start over from scratch when they get one too soon.
* GhostMemory: Bene Gesserit acolytes receive the total line of their predecessors' memories when undergoing the Water of Life. Later books have Bene Gesserit placing their foreheads together to exchange genetic memory in times of extreme danger.
* GodEmperor: The series was [[TropeCodifier a big influence]] on the more modern "Memetic Divinity" aspect.

* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The ''Dune'' universe is positively riddled with words seemingly inspired by or derived from Arabic and Farsi (most of the future religions have some Islam in them). Even Hebrew shows up once or twice. Amongst other things, ''K'fitzat ha'derekh'' (compare to Dune's ''Kwisatz Haderach'') is a magical ability ascribed to some real-world Chassidic holy men -- specifically, the ability to teleport.
* GeneticMemory: Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers (and Wild Mothers such as the Fremen's and Rebecca) get genetic memories of all their female ancestors, the Kwisatz Haderach gets them for ''all'' his ancestors, as do children of these two. [[CloningBlues Gholas]] can gain past life memories this way too, by being manipulated into doing something their original self would never have done.
* GenderBender[=/=]{{Hermaphrodite}}: Face Dancers are described as "Jadacha hermaphrodites" (a term with an unknown meaning) and "mules" due to their sterility. They are able to change appearance and gender at will, and perform the role of either gender, but cannot reproduce.

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: The appendix to ''Dune'' lists several "awareness-spectrum narcotics" that increased the user's understanding and mental abilities, including melange (by Guild Navigators), the Fremen "Water of Life" (which affected Paul Atreides and his sister Alia), and the drugs used by Bene Gesserit Truthsayers (who were {{Living Lie Detector}}s).

* HumanResources: The Tleilaxu. [[spoiler:Achieved by using ''all'' their females as artificial wombs for their genetic products]].
* HyperAwareness[=/=]SherlockScan[=/=]SpiderSense: The Bene Gesserit use their hyper awareness as a tool for manipulation. Descriptions of Bene Gesserit thought processes in the novels are often comparable to chess masters watching the world around them like one big chessboard, and calmly noting their accruing advantage. At one point a Bene Gesserit correctly deduces that there is a hidden room on the other side of a large banquet room by noting the subtle geometry of the walls of the room and the objects in it as being specifically designed to produce a slight echo where those in the hidden room can listen in.
** Even with mental processing as incredible as that, the Bene Gesserit still only learn those abilities as a ''supplementary'' skill for their main areas of expertise. The mentats, however, specialize specifically in HyperAwareness and so are infinitely more adept then even the best Bene Gesserit. Then you take a Bene Gesserit and train her (or occasionally him) as a Mentat...
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Frank Herbert's original ''Dune'' novels all contain the word "Dune", and three out of six follow the formula "X of Dune".
* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: Whoooooooooo boy...

* InsignificantLittleBluePlanet: Humanity rules an Empire of a million worlds that stretches across the galaxy. Thing is, not one of those is Earth, the majority of humanity has no idea where their race evolved. Leto II is one of the few who know.
* InstantOracleJustAddWater: The Guild Navigators adapted to life in a spice-filled environment which granted them precognition and the ability to navigate at FTL speeds. They spend most of their lives inside of zero gravity tubes filled with spice laden air rather than a tub of water, but same concept.
* IntrinsicVow: Gholas. ...All of them.

* KillAndReplace: A favorite tactic of Tleilaxu Face Dancer {{Shape Shifter}}s, such as the infiltration of the Museum Fremen and the Ixian Embassy.

* LivingLieDetector: Bene Gesserit can notice the visual and auditory cues that denote a lying person. Many courts employ Bene Gesserit for this specific purpose, as "Truthsayers". Leto II can detect a human's emotional state with perfect accuracy by sampling pheromones at 3 parts per billion.

* LongevityTreatment: One of many uses for spice, when it is plentiful lifespans of three hundred years aren't uncommon. Oddly enough, Moreno refuses to use The Spice despite this benefit.
* MainliningTheMonster: Sandworms are the source of the invaluable Spice, without which galactic civilization would collapse. While keeping them captive is unfeasible to say the least, the need to preserve their species runs at odds with the Fremen drive to make Arrakis more liveable for humans, making it a ''major'' political issue.
* MonochromaticEyes[=/=]TechnicolorEyes: A result of high-level Spice addiction, when enough ingestion saturates the blood stream and stains the eyes. Described in the books as "blue-on-blue".

* NationalWeapon: Crysknives, made from the tooth of a sandworm, are sacred to the Fremen. Leto II keeps his father’s in a special compartment for use in ceremonies. The rest are kept in displays by the Museum Fremen.
* TheNavigator: An entire guild of them, who depend on spice to guide their ships.

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Both subverted and played straight. Deliberate breeding programs are used to create humans with intelligence, reflexes, lifespan, capacity higher consciousness and physical capabilities far beyond those of current-day humans, but a religious taboo is kept in place on genetically engineering anything recognizably inhuman or unable to interbreed back into the larger human population. Thus, the characters and societies remain human while simultaneously having greater advancements over modern man than modern man has over homo erectus. The Tleilaxu, however, have no religious taboo on inhumanity and gleefully make a living selling inhuman humans genetically-engineered for specific purposes. Though Leto II could arguably be a ProHumanTranshuman.

* OccultBlueEyes: The influence of Spice turns people's eyes an unnatural bright blue. The turning blue is implied to be a normal biological reaction of humans exposed to spice. However Spice also gives psionic abilities to at least some humans which links the two together in people's minds.

* OrganicTechnology: Though most of Dune prefer the use of these, Leto II often uses the Ixians more mechanical technology.

* PhlebotinumOverload: The justification for banning shields is because this could result when a lasgun is fired.

* PrescienceIsPredictable: One of the core themes of the main series. Indeed, this could be the TropeCodifier for all modern uses.
-->'''Leto II''': It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.

* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Justified -- prophecy actually controls reality. Specifically, the future is open and branching, until someone with prescience actually takes a look - which will lock the future they see into place. Leto's whole plan is about making humans immune to prescience, so that this can't happen any more.
** This is a common misconception. The prophecy doesn't control reality, it merely shows the only way through a minefield where every option that steps off the Golden Path leads to the extinction of the human race.
*** In fact, Paul specifically mentions that he is disgusted by the path he would have to take to save humanity, and cannot bring himself to follow it. Leto II does follow through however.
* PsychicPowers: Prescience (precognition), Other Memory and memory transfers, Miles Teg's clairvoyant sensing of No-Ships, most of these are not explained as "psychic" powers, but a natural consequence of GeneticMemory and CharlesAtlasSuperpower levels of mental training.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Bene Gesserit take this to the extremes. With complete control over their biochemical makeup, they can slow down or speed up the aging process at will or choose to ''look'' younger or older while chemically being another age. They rarely take advantage of this, however, because such power can be intoxicating and dangerous. If someone outside the inner-Bene Gesserit organization were to notice the true extent of their powers it could lead to their destruction from superstitious outsiders as well as loss of [[TheManBehindTheMan influence over the Empire]]. Leto II ends up doing this, living up to 3,500 years. [[spoiler:Until he is (willingly) assassinated, that is.]]
** The pre-Born count in a different way. While chemically and physically true to their age, exposure to the Water of Life in the womb awakens their GeneticMemory. This leads to a personality being composed solely of their complete lineage of ego memories, upwards of hundreds of thousands of generations. Leto II and his sister Ghanima are both nine when they begin wresting control of the empire from their similarly-affected aunt, and must constantly chastise anyone that presumes them to be mere "children." They never had a childhood, nor a life of their own. Only the memories of billions.

* ScrewDestiny: This is the major theme of ''Children of Dune'' and ''God-Emperor of Dune''. The main character's goal of the novels is the creation of what he termed, the 'Golden Path' -- a future completely free of destiny with unlimited choices. The ironic thing is, to do this, Leto not only messes with people's futures for the next 3,500 years, but makes himself a victim to fates he foresaw for himself, thus giving up his own freedom. This is also a direct subversion of the original novel, where one of the main themes were "you can't fight fate."
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: "True" prophets (Paul Atreides and his descendants) don't predict the future so much as create it, locking themselves (and everyone else) into an inescapable destiny. It takes [[spoiler:Leto II]] almost four thousand years to break humanity free from the consequences of this.
** This is a misconception. They don't create the future, they find the one path through all the potential extinctions of the human race to make humanity safe from others viewing the future to eradicate humanity.
* SendInTheClones: [[spoiler:Duncan Idaho]] dies in the first novel, only to return over and over again first as a ghola, then as a ghola-clone. ''God-Emperor of Dune'' even has several Duncan gholas throughout the story, though all but one were played with through flashbacks and mentions.

* SpaceAgeStasis: Society is partially stagnant due to the religious proscriptions against thinking machines, robotics, and computers set up after the Butlerian Jihad, which keeps things from advancing too much. Spice does this as well, since its properties allow for expanded lifetimes and space folding, so there was no desire to experiment and find alternatives. Finally, the Bene Gesserit and Guild collaborated to set up a feudalistic government with full knowledge that it would be easier to control.
* SpiceOfLife: The Spice itself, which is the most valued commodity in the entire universe.
* SuperDetailedFightNarration

* SwordFight: Idaho tries to get into or invokes a knife fight. He's thwarted every time.
* TangledFamilyTree: Courtesy largely of Leto II's 3,500-year breeding program, a Duncan Idaho ghola was introduced every few generations for the "wild" genes of the distant past.

* ThemeNaming: (Nearly) all the Bene Gesserit have names of the form Something-us (Female Name) (Surname), which is slightly odd considering -us is a male suffix.
* TimeSkip: 3,500 years since ‘’Literature/ChildrenOfDune’’

* TwoPartTrilogy: Dune was originally conceived as one large masterwork, with the two sequels of ''Dune Messiah'' and ''Children of Dune'' entwined into the story. Considering the original is 412 pages, the second 222, and the third 592, they were obviously split. This creates an interesting case of the first book being easily stand-alone, while the two sequels are more closely connected but can still in a way also be stand-alone. They also allowed for ''God-Emperor of Dune'', basically a midquel that set up the last two books in the series to be written. It's just kinda hard to say where TwoPartTrilogy begins and TrilogyCreep ends, or even what was intended to be a simple, ''honest'' trilogy.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: The universe features wheels-within-wheels plots and dense mythology, although the poetic descriptions can make the book enjoyable even to those who fail to understand it.
* VillainProtagonist: Leto II in ''God Emperor''. Interesting in that he is [[NecessarilyEvil only evil so that he can preserve humanity]]. This really comes out when you see how Siona and the novel's [[CloningBlues main Duncan]] feel about him, as they are virtually the only people who don't worship or beg of him.

* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Justified -- prophecy actually controls reality.

* AncientAstronauts[=/=]AllMythsAreTrue: A variant in that humans themselves fill this role, with the Bene Gesserit purposely spreading myths based on heroic and religious archetypes throughout fledgling colonies to make use of the people there later. Its one of the reasons why Leto II dislikes about the Sisterhood - retaining a religious pretense while abusing it for their agenda.

* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Leto II, Moneo Atreides, Hwi Noree, Duncan Idaho]]

-->’’"The surest sign that an aristocracy exists is the discovery of barriers against change, curtains of iron or steel or stone or of any substance which excludes the new, the different”’’

** "Plans within plans...wheels within wheels..."

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: Inverted, Subverted, Justified, and Invoked. All depends on your personal interpretation, and which characters you examine. Frank himself said one of the main themes of the series was putting all your faith into one person and following them blindly. You can ''follow'' someone, but to utterly ''submit'' to them leads to total destruction. [[spoiler: This is what happens at the end of the novel. Nayla puts her faith so blindly in Leto that she follows unquestionably every command. Even one that she clearly sees would end up killing Leto.]]
* BigBad: The Tleilaxu [[spoiler: and Ix]]

* ButtMonkey: Duncan is reincarnated as a ghola. [[spoiler: Again. And again. And again. And again. And killed (rather than dying of old age) only a slightly smaller number of times.]]

->''It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.''

-->''It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.''

* HumanResources: The Tleilaxu by [[spoiler:using ''all'' their females as artificial wombs for their genetic products]].

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Bene Gesserit take this to the extremes. With complete control over their biochemical makeup, they can slow down or speed up the aging process at will or choose to ''look'' younger or older while chemically being another age. They rarely take advantage of this, however, because such power can be intoxicating and dangerous. If someone outside the inner-Bene Gesserit organization were to notice the true extent of their powers it could lead to their destruction from superstitious outsiders as well as loss of [[TheManBehindTheMan influence over the Empire]]. Leto II ends up doing this, living up to 3,500 years before [[spoiler:being (willingly) assassinated.]]

* ShoutOut: Leto II asks Hwi Noree if she's familiar with the philosophy of Noah Arkwright[[labelnote:*]] a MeaningfulName, when you consider that "-wright" means "maker" or "builder."[[/labelnote]]. [[spoilers: It turns out to be a pseudonym of Leto II. It's an in-universe shout out to the Biblical character.]]