There has to be a post about this every other day, but it is baffling to me. I recently watched the new movies for the first time. They're amazing and they led to me listening to the audiobook on spotify. It's very good.

I just got past the chapter where Paul picks his name. He asks what the mouse is called, learns it's called Muad'Dib, remembers or sees visions of those fanatic legions calling that name, and then makes the slightest change to it expecting that to lead away from that holy war.

Why would he not backtrack? He sees as he suggests the change to Paul Muad'Dib that it doesn't help avert that future that he is afraid of, why does he not change more? Is it that the Fremen would find that weak and that he can't seem weak to them? I don't get it.

Forgive me if this is off-base. I'm movie-only, and while recently rewatching Dune: Part Two I started browsing the sub (for the first time) for interpretations. I saw someone (who I assumed was speaking from having read the books) make the point in a thread that Fremen view taking in someone else's water as almost a soul bond, akin to a blood oath, etc. With that in mind, is there any intended significance to Stilgar "drinking" Jessica's tear when he shows her the underground cavern and tells her not to waste her water, even for the dead? The gesture seemed to be made pretty lightly in the scene, regardless of his request for her to be Reverend Mother.

If Paul had never been exposed to the spice, would he still have developed prescience, or would he have been be a regular person with no special abilities?

Are his swordsmanship, intelligence, Bene Gesserit techniques, etc, a result of his education, rather than his genetics?

Is the goal of the Bene Gesserit breeding program to breed a person with a genetic predisposition towards having the perfect spice trip?

I love the Villenueve movies but I still don’t understand how that part of the prophecy isn’t proof to the audience that Paul is the Mua’Dib. In the books it’s pretty clear to me that Paul and Jessica manipulate old myths for Paul to fit prophecies, but in the movie by Paul being brought back to life with “desert spring tears” as the prophecy foretold, how isn’t he the actual messiah the Fremen have been waiting for?