Obamuad’dib

Via Ansible:

Michael Chabon explains the mood of the US Democratic National Convention in easy-to-understand terms as ‘like the change that might occur between the first and second volumes of some spectacular science fiction fantasy epic. / At the end of the first volume, after bitter struggle, Obama had claimed the presumptive nomination. We Fremen had done the impossible, against Sardaukar and imperial shock troops alike. We had brought water to Arrakis. Now the gathered tribes of the Democratic Party […] had assembled on the plains of Denver to attempt to vanquish old Saruman McCain.’

Chabon’s reading is an interesting one, but I always thought of Bush as being the best real-life analogue of Paul Muad’dib, the principal figure in Frank Herbert’s Dune books. Bush fits the mold in many ways: Like Bush, Paul Atreides fought to avenge his father Duke Leto (Bush Sr.), an honorable man who had been overthrown by Baron Harkonnen, a slave to his own base appetites and more animal than man (Clinton).

But okay, let’s run with Chabon’s reading: Obama, like Paul Muad’dib, is the “voice from the outer world” (Kenya, perhaps?) calling forth the long-suffering Fremen warriors (Fremen->”Free-men”->liberals) to overthrow the Emperor and found a new messianic religion, the Qizarate. So ends our heroic epic.

Except the story doesn’t really end there. Herbert thought of Dune as merely the first, triumphant part of a much larger and more tragic story. The sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, tell of the humiliation and destruction of Muad’dib and the repudiation of the religion founded in his name. It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of messiahs—political, religious, or otherwise. Said Herbert, “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes.”

Although I gather that’s not what Chabon was trying to say.

UPDATE: Might as well add this: