WARNING: Spoilers Off applies to all Moments pages. There will be unmarked spoilers below.
For Dune: Part Two, see here.
- Jessica being forced to put her son through the Bene Gesserit’s trial, and crying when she hears him let out groans of pain. Imagine listening to your child cry out in horrible pain, and not being able to do anything about it.
- And the purpose of this test? To determine if Paul is "human enough" to be allowed to live. Jessica could well have walked back into that room only to see her son's corpse.
- And this is the same test Jessica herself had to pass to become a Bene Gesserit, so she knows exactly what her son is going through.
- Having escaped from the Harkonnen, Duncan confronts Liet-Kynes about whether she'll be taking this news to the Landsraad; when she tells him that she was ordered to say nothing, Duncan's heart clearly breaks as he realises just how thoroughly the Atreides were set up to fall and that the Emperor sent them all to Arrakis to die.
- When Paul and Jessica are safe in the Stilltent after escaping the Harkonnens, Paul is already reeling from the devastating loss of his house and his father when he gets a whiff of Spice inside, triggering a prophetic vision in which he becomes the figurehead of a holy war that costs the lives of billions. When Jessica tries to comfort him, Paul lashes out using the Voice, blaming her and the Bene Gesserit sisterhood for making him a tool for one of their labyrinthine conspiracies.
- After this, he buries his face in his mother's arms, crying, and croaks "my father's dead" with nothing but utter hopelessness in his voice.
- You can pinpoint the exact moment Paul's childhood gets ripped away from him for good: when Duncan Idaho, his beloved surrogate uncle and mentor, kneels before him and addresses him as "my lord duke", signifying that Paul is now Duke Atreides. In one fell swoop, he loses the old relationship he had with Duncan (because now he's Duncan's liege lord), and it finally becomes real that his father is gone and nothing will ever be the same, and that he has no choice but to grow up and be responsible right now, no matter that he's only fifteen. Jessica's shocked reaction shows that she knows it as well.
- Duncan Idaho's Heroic Sacrifice; he salutes his young Duke, who, realizing Duncan's plan, rushes to stop him, only to arrive too late, leaving Paul fruitlessly pounding on a door, knowing that he's about to lose yet another friend who was like a Cool Uncle to him. Duncan's Last Stand is an awesome moment, but his death is a devastating moment for both Paul and the audience.
- Paul meeting Chani for real comes out as this. For the entire story, he has seen her as some beautiful, almost ethereal creature, his soulmate for life. However, when they meet, she turns out to be just a Fremen like any other, practical and completely dismissive of him, and the only thing she has to say to our hero is wishing that he dies quickly so they may continue on their way. You can see the pain in Paul's eyes, when he thinks of all the things that he should tell her, and knows that she won't understand it... at least, not yet.
- The conclusion of Paul's duel with Jamis manages to be this for two things. First is Paul's remorse for having killed a man, knowing there wasn't even a good reason for it. Second, because of Paul's visions in which Jamis was more of a mentor or a big brother figure for him, the tragedy gains an extra layer thanks to Paul knowing for a fact that he killed a potential lifelong friend. He is all too aware it is due to his own error in judgement over how he handled the situation (tarnishing his honor by knocking him down when his mother engaged in combat and defused the situation) that caused a scenario where Jamis' teaches him the way of the desert through his death rather than through his life.
- Following that, on a fourth level, Paul refusing to be smuggled offworld and choosing to live with the Fremen, because his father wanted to cultivate their power. This is Paul's first step on the road to what will become a galaxy-spanning holy war, and Paul knows this.
- Leto's death. Although in this version, Leto, using the poison gas tooth, actually manages to severely injure the Baron besides killing Piter, the scene in its entirety is nothing short of heartbreaking; the paralyzed and naked Leto is put in a chair opposite the Baron, who taunts him and falsely tells him that Paul and Jessica are dead. The fact that Leto dies right under the bull head, which is a reminder of the death of his own father, doesn't make it any better.
- As the Baron is taunting Leto about the fall of his House and the deaths of his loved ones, the Duke can be seen quietly shedding tears. He knows how much he's lost, and is clearly despairing about his Arch-Enemy getting everything he wanted in return. Sure, he may have the poison tooth to get some kind of last laugh, but it's clear he has nothing left to live for, and he dies believing that he failed his family and the House of Atreides as a whole.
