47 pages • 1 hour read
Frank HerbertDune Messiah
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1969A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Paul makes his way through Arrakeen to Otheym’s house, musing on the increasing bureaucracy of the Qizarate, and debating his degree of agency in his fate. He witnesses Alia’s rite, a display of her prescient powers for the pilgrims who flock to her temple. The enormous crowd causes Paul to imagine the full extent of the universe and he wonders, “How could one man, one ritual, hope to knit such immensity into a garment fitted to all men?” (219).
After a call-and-response exchange with the crowd, Alia accepts questions from the pilgrims. The pilgrims ask about their own futures, and Alia answers with cryptic, angry answers. One pilgrim asks how long Paul will rule, and she ends the rite furiously and abruptly. Paul realizes that Alia has seen the same future that he has, as well as the alternate futures.
Chapter 17 Summary
Paul arrives at Otheym’s house, nervous about performing his part exactly as he has foreseen and wondering how far he has already committed himself. A dwarf, Bijaz, greets Paul at the door; Bijaz is also a Tleilaxu-created being of mysterious capabilities who speaks in riddles and double-meanings. Otheym greets Paul as an old friend, calling him by his Sietch name “Usul” and “Maud’Dib,” Paul’s chosen Fremen name. Paul, knowing Otheym will soon die, laments that his former Fedaykin, or elite warrior, must be a casualty in manifesting this version of the future.
Otheym tells Paul that Bijaz is a distrans and contains the names and plans of all the Fremen traitors. Paul realizes that his visions showed him leaving Otheym’s with the information, but never in what form. Paul worries about whether Bijaz’s presence indicates that Paul has already failed to secure the least harmful future, or if Bijaz is merely concealed by another oracle. Paul suspects Bijaz is part of the Tleilaxu conspiracy. Paul lies to Otheym that Lichna is safe, and the older man admits that he doesn’t “like the world we’re making” (238). He says, “It was better when we were alone in the desert with only the Harkonnens for enemy” (238).
Bijaz insists that it is time for him and Paul to leave. Otheym speaks the words Paul foresaw, saying, “Do what you must, Usul” (240). Paul fulfills his own prophecy and says, “There’ll be an accounting” (240). Paul and Bijaz leave.
Chapter 18 Summary
Just as Bijaz and Paul rendezvous with Paul’s security detail, an atomic stone burner blows up Otheym’s house, killing everyone inside. Paul and his men are far enough away to survive, but their eyes are destroyed by the radiation. Bijaz, as a Tleilaxu creation, has special metal eyes that are not harmed. Despite losing his eyes, Paul can still see using his prescience. His actions have limited the potential futures so severely that he can successfully navigate using his visions as they unfold in real time.
Stilgar arrives with a rescue team, distraught that Paul has been blinded, as this means he must be exiled into the desert according to Fremen custom. Paul refuses this fate on the grounds that he retains a kind of vision. Further flouting custom, Paul orders that his men receive artificial eyes of Tleilaxu make, though he refuses these for himself. Paul commands Stilgar to discover how the illegal stone burner came to be on Arrakis.
Chapter 19 Summary
As rumors of Paul’s blindness and supernatural vision spread, Paul and Chani share a fraught but tender moment in their chambers. Chani is disturbed by Paul’s empty eye sockets and rejection of Fremen tradition and frightened by his descent into mysticism. Paul tells Chani, “Forget mystery and accept love” (251). He promises her that their child will lead an even greater empire than his own. Privately, Chani finds it strange that Paul speaks as if she carries only one child, assuming the doctors have told him that she is pregnant with twins.
Alia begins the Imperial Council without Paul, as he has instructed. Korba will stand trial as a traitor, having been implicated in the plot to procure the stone burner. Alia recalls reading a letter from the Lady Jessica that morning, in which her mother wrote of the “deadly paradox” of religious government. Lady Jessica insists that eventually “your laws must replace morality” (257). Korba protests his innocence, demanding to meet his accuser according to Fremen custom. Paul arrives and announces that the Fremen conspiracy has successfully abducted a sandworm for offworld spice production. Paul frightens the gathered Fremen leaders with his supernatural sight and intimidates Korba. Korba insists that he sought the stone burner for the Qizarate’s protection, but Paul reveals that Otheym gave him the details of the conspiracy. Stilgar insists that Fremen law be honored; Paul assents and names Stilgar as Korba’s legal counsel.
Afterwards, Paul and Stilgar reveal that the entire scene was a performance to make the Fremen leaders feel threatened and expose their loyalties; Alia notes who indicated traitorous sympathies. Paul appoints Alia to rule in his stead as he leaves for Sietch Tabr with Chani. Alia tells Stilgar that she knows he will disobey Paul and kill the traitors rather than try them.
Chapter 20 Summary
Hayt goes to question Bijaz, who immediately confirms that Hayt is truly Duncan Idaho, saying that he watched Hayt be grown in the same Tleilaxu tank Bijaz was created in. Bijaz is really a Tleilaxu plant, sent to reprogram Hayt. After profoundly unsettling Hayt by reminding him of his past as Duncan, Bijaz uses special humming and voice modulation to implant a command. After Chani dies, Paul will say, “She is gone” (278). Upon hearing this, Hayt will offer Paul a ghola replicated from Chani’s corpse on behalf of the Tleilaxu. In his grief, Paul will not be able to resist at least considering the offer, and Hayt will attempt to kill Paul as he hesitates. The command successfully implanted, Bijax removes Hayt’s memory of their conversation.
Chapters 16-20 Analysis
As the novel approaches its climax, Herbert deepens his thematic exploration of time, fate, and the nature of government. Herbert keeps the exact details of Paul’s vision of the future intentionally vague until Chapter 17; Paul hides his knowledge of the future from the reader as he hides it from Chani and his friends. This narrative strategy allows for the attack on Otheym’s house to unfold as both surprising and inevitable, echoing Paul’s simultaneous arrogance in attempting to shape the fate of the universe and resentment of the personal costs and moral compromise.
Standing in Otheym’s house, Paul reflects that “any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage” (235). As Paul commits himself to the version of the future that will destroy him personally but save humanity, he abandons all hope of alternate paths and rages at his inability to control the same powerful forces that won him his throne.
Paul’s physical blindness is another allusion to Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus puts out his own eyes upon realizing that he has unknowingly fulfilled the prophecy that he would murder his father and marry his mother. Herbert riffs on the ancient play through Paul’s prescience; Paul does not unwittingly doom himself but fulfills his own prophecy. However, Paul’s ignorance that Chani carries twins reminds the reader that Paul’s prescience is not as infallible as he assumes it to be—for better or for worse.
The introduction of Bijaz also complicates Paul’s version of the future and adds a more unpredictable element to the plot. Even if Paul had not restricted himself to one vision of the future to replace his physical sight with oracular vision, Paul would not know about Bijaz’s true purpose regarding Hayt. Still shielded by Edric’s prescience, Bijaz and an unwilling Hayt create the next trap in the conspiracy against the Emperor. This trap—that Hayt will attempt to kill Paul when the secret verbal command is spoken—is presented as even more dangerous than the previous ploys because Paul cannot discover it through visions or logical reasoning. Crucially, this maintains dramatic tension heading into the final chapters of the novel, even as Paul himself feels that his fate is sealed.
Herbert’s examination of an individual’s ability to influence the fate of many segues into Alia’s musings on the nature of government and its relationship to religion after reading the letter from Lady Jessica. Paul refers to “Law” as “our highest ideal and our basest nature” (253), and this paradox immediately becomes embodied in Korba, who attempted to advance his personal political power under the guise of religious conviction. Ironically, Paul condemns Korba for tactics that he uses, including justifying violence with a mystical profession of morality. The continued scheming, negotiating, and subtle statecraft remind the reader that whatever Paul’s motives are, he embraces the same methods as his enemies. Paul himself is disillusioned with the idea of heroes yet forced to pretend to be one.
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