Let’s Talk About Magic Dick Theory in ‘Dune’
Posted by
JD (aka Jason Dean)
Feb 28 '24, 07:59
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By Brian Phillips
I mean, who are the chosen ones in traditional fantasy and speculative fiction? Almost all straight, cis boys on the cusp of sexual maturity, right? And how does their chosenness reveal itself? Generally through the acquisition of an object that is both transparently phallic and imbued with profound mystic significance. A wand. A lightsaber. A magic sword.
Bonus points if this object belonged to the chosen one’s father. Double bonus points if it symbolizes a transfer of potency from one male generation to the next. Arthur pulls Excalibur from the stone (gross), thus revealing himself to be the true heir of Uther Pendragon. Harry Potter receives a phoenix-feather wand that’s the twin of the wand used by Lord Voldemort, the nemesis who killed Harry’s father. Aragorn, in Lord of the Rings, differs from the classic chosen-one protagonist in many ways—he’s older, and he’s not the main character—but Narsil, the sword of his ancestor Isildur, is as classic a chosen-one object as it gets. It reconnects Aragorn to the patrilineal part of his family, establishes both his identity and his claim to political legitimacy, and, in being broken and then reforged, symbolizes the renewal of royal male potency, in the absence of which Middle-earth has languished.
However my absolute favorite part of the piece is:
The Bene Gesserit haven’t been sitting around waiting for the foreordained birth of the Kwisatz Haderach. They’ve been actively attempting to create their messiah by breeding selected bloodlines together across untold generations. Paul is just the result of this breeding program. He’s not the chosen one. He’s a goldendoodle.
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