Leto II Atreides

Leto II Atreides (known as the God Emperor) is a character in the book Children of Dune written by Frank Herbert. He is one of the most interesting and charismatic characters in the saga, since he is the reflection of the most horrendous and, at the same time, the most beautiful thing about the human being, a duality that will be his curse, and that will mark his destiny. of the.

Son of Paul Atreides and Chani, twin brother of Ghanima Atreides, he will access the throne after assuming a symbiosis with the sandworms of Arrakis, covering his skin with sand trout, which makes him an invulnerable being, of strength and superhuman longevity. In this way he will begin the Golden Path, establishing an empire for more than three thousand years, in which politics and religion will come together to force a continuous and uninterrupted peace, the Peace of Leto . The empire's reaction to its disappearance will be a return to chaos, a famine that leads humanity to a diaspora throughout the universe, The Dispersion, ensuring the survival of the human race.

In the television miniseries Children of Dune (2003) the character is played by actor James McAvoy.

About the character

The messiah of Dune

The character appears towards the end of the second novel of the saga, the son of Paul Atreides, Emperor of the Known Universe, and his concubine Chani. Due to the contraceptive treatment that Princess Irulan, Paul's official wife, surreptitiously administered to Chani, during her pregnancy she was forced to consume large quantities of melange, so Leto and his twin sister Ghanima are pre-born, that is, with the ability to access the Other Memories, the countless lives of their ancestors within them, and prescients, which will allow them to see the countless plots of various futures.

After Chani died during childbirth, and after Paul was blinded in a Tleilaxu attack, little Leto shows part of his future powers when his father, faced with the face dancer Scytale, uses his vision to locate and kill him.

Children of Dune

As they are orphans, Leto and Ghanima's guardianship will pass to their aunt Alia Atreides, Paul's sister, and Irulan Corrino, Paul's official wife as Emperor, who will take care of them both until they come of age, when Leto, at being the male, he would ascend to the throne as the new Emperor. However, 9 years pass and not everything follows a peaceful course. Alia begins to be slowly possessed by the old Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who forces her to plot against the twins' lives to ensure the power of his regency, increasingly chaotic and fanatical, while Wensicia Corrino, Irulan's sister, plans to directly attack against the lives of the brothers. Neither of them realizes that the Atreides brothers have their own plans. Leto and Ghanima see the rapid decline and death of the human race in the course of time. His father's decision to support Muad's Dib's Jihad could not avoid this fate; He would have to make a decision, and that was the Golden Path.

Leto's visions guide him to the mysterious and legendary Sietch Jacurutu, where he will find an answer still undeciphered. But there is a problem: Alia. His constant conspiracies will never allow the twins to carry out this search. However, a failed attempt on both their lives will be their chance. Leto will fake his death, and Ghanima, thanks to an ancient mental manipulation technique, will erase her brother's escape from his mind, leaving him for dead.

While Leto is captured by the people of Jacurutu (among whom is Gurney Halleck on the orders of Lady Jessica) and subjected to the trance of the spice, Ghanima is betrothed to Farad'n Corrino, Wensica's son. who was blamed for the attack against his brother. Alia's plan is simple: Ghanima, in her rage, will murder Farad'n on the wedding day, delaying or even preventing her ascension to the throne, but something will ruin the regent's evil intentions.

After several overdoses of spice, Leto sees only one way out for humanity: his sacrifice. For the Golden Path to work, Humanity needs a being stronger than itself to guide it with a rod of iron. With more Spice in his body than he can handle in an escape attempt, he allows himself to merge with the sand trout, stretching out his body and allowing himself to be absorbed, creating a new being, neither human nor worm: an indestructible, long-lived, creature. and of enormous strength and speed, the result of Leto's mental alliances with his ancestors, the trout and himself.

With his new powers, and presumed dead, Leto began a series of sabotages against the regency. As a result, the transformation of the atmosphere on Arrakis will be delayed by at least 200 years. But that was not the most incredible thing: Leto will crash her sister's wedding, dethroning Alia, almost completely possessed by the Baron, which will detonate in her suicide and her ascension to power, where she will proclaim herself God. Emperor. His sister marries him, but will have children with Farad`n Corrino (Harq al-Ada).

God Emperor of Dune

Leto's fusion with trout will extend his life for 4,000 years, but not everything will be good: during that time, his body will mutate until he becomes a sandworm. Once the cycle is complete, the trout will leave its body to become a new species of sandworm. From then on, the only spice in the Universe will be the one that Leto produces, which will give him a total monopoly on it.

After his ascension to power, millennia will pass, and the entire plan hatched by Leto and Ghanima, now dead, is carried out. The Atreides who descend from Farad'n and Ghanima are part of a genetic planning supervised by Leto himself, and to a small extent by the Bene Gesserit, but they always die.

Leto's loneliness leads him to demand from the Bene Tleilax some Duncan Idaho Gholas to keep him company, but they always end up turning against him. Centuries pass, and Leto is alone. As he himself will say about himself: "I am the representation of everything old and obsolete in this Universe."

In the 3500th year of his rule, Leto, already practically a worm, finds new emotions in his monotonous longevity: Siona Atreides, a direct descendant of his genetic plan, is the first creature in the universe to hide from the oracle of the prescience, and Hwi Noree, an Ixian experiment under the guidance of the Bene Tleilax created to seduce the God Emperor. The old worm, excited for the first time in millennia, decides to marry Hwi for the second time in his life, but he does not count on a factor that will ruin his plans: Duncan Idaho. Although Leto assigns the new Duncan as Siona's partner, he cannot prevent him from falling in love with Hwi. When Idaho learns of his engagement to Leto, he decides to stop him at all costs. Together with Young Atreides, Duncan conspires against the worm infallibly, destroying the bridge to the altar where Leto's wedding car crosses on his wedding day, causing the entire delegation to fall into the void, including the bride, to the misfortune of Idaho.

The ancestral Atreides falls into the river where the sand trout, by the action of the water, repel him, giving him a slow and very painful death. Leto's last moments are for Siona and Idaho, who watch him die fighting against his countless internal memories, who at the last moment break their alliance when threatened by death.

The death of Leto II Atreides results in times of famine and anarchy in the Empire, which will give rise to the phenomenon called the Scatter: humans are forced to flee and seek new hope in the unknown Universe, as planned on the Golden Path: giving Humanity a new reason to live. Leto's legacy is complete.

Meanwhile, the gradual transformation of the climate on Arrakis brings back a new sandworm, just as Leto once predicted.

Bibliographical reference

• Frank Herbert, The Messiah of Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-667-1
• Frank Herbert, Children of Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-432-5
• Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-748