No, I'm with you. I think Herbert's point was not that Paul was bad -- we wanted him to succeed -- but how naturally seductive the idea of a messiah or superher

No, I'm with you. I think Herbert's point was not that Paul was bad -- we wanted him to succeed -- but how naturally seductive the idea of a messiah or superhero is to us. Characters even explicitly say that a real messiah is about the worst thing a people can get. I think Dune Messiah (which is rather disappointing even outside of how marginalized Paul becomes after focusing so much on him) is more about how the artifice built up around him becomes evil and does just fine without his actual presence.