Film Theory: The Mystery of Dune's Spice SOLVED! (Dune)
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
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Dune is an epic fantasy that has captured the imaginations of people for YEARS. It all centers around a specific substance known as "spice". This spice is the key to everything in the Dune universe. Today, Theorists, I am to figure out what exactly that spice IS and WHY it works the way that it does. It's time to get spicy!
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#Dune #DuneTrailer #DuneTheory #DuneLore #Spice #DuneSpice #Dune2021 #Theory #FilmTheory #Matpat
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Credits:
Writers: Matthew Patrick, Stephanie Patrick, and Zach Stewart
Editors: Pedro Freitas, Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick, and AbsolutePixel
Assistant Editor: Caitie Turner (Caiterpillart)
Sound Editor: Yosi Berman
Matpat: *spends 10 minutes explaining how prednisone is probably the bulk of spice*
Also Matpat: "What about the genius calculations? Eh probably cocaine idk."
"Probably cocaine" The Juice of Sapho which the mentats use, and which stains their lips, is essentially super cocaine lol
@@taricsuporfeed1474 juice of Sappho??
spice definitely cocaine
@@taricsuporfeed1474 wasn't it coffee?
@@ismata3274 I don't think so, The Juice of Sapho is a substance extracted from the roots of a plant, which sounds much more like Opium than Coffee Beans which is why I always found Cocaine to be the closest substance for comparison.
As someone who took prednisone when I was as a kid, I was never informed that having blue sclera was a side effect. Kinda scary honestly.
I have found you again
I just remember being extremely hungry
if getting blue eyes was a side effect. I would use it a lot.
@suzan Wtf?
How
My late wife had Lupus and therefore took Prednisone from the age of 13 until she past at 30. She had a lowered immune system and suffered from night terrors from it but was always looking toward the bright side of her situation. She would have loved your video Matt and would definitely had started calling her daily med regimen her daily spice melange.
I have someone with lupus in my life too. I'm going to share Matt's findings with her, maybe to give her one more bright side to work with. I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, at such an early age.
Very sorry for your loss. :( ❤
CBD would have helped and Monatomic Gold.
@@blahblah6497 its not a cure for severe autoimmune issues, FYI.
@@blahblah6497 its not a cure for severe autoimmune issues, FYI.
Actually, I recall Paul went blind because some rebels tried off him with a 'stone burner' atomic weapon, it blinded a bunch of other fremen as well. This became a plot point because blind fremen were considered useless and were expected to fall on their knives or die in the desert. I think its the former because, why waste the water? Paul said he'd pay for bionic eyes for those that wanted them. But I digress, its been a decade since I read original books, but I'm certain he didn't go blind from spice consumption. Still kudos on the theory combination of reality and imaginary worlds and the like.
Exactly. I love Mat, but he should have read ahead. lol
You're right, I finished Dune Messiah yesterday.
It's strange, I've heard/read the incorrect explanation of how Paul went blind so many times, I was surprised when I read that part in the book.
Bit of a late reply, but I just finished reading Dune Messiah, and (spoilers below)
He was blinded by the stone burner, and then left out in the middle of the desert to die. It sounds like the Fremen justify this waste of water as giving it back to Shai-Hulud (the sandworks).
"Man, sneaking a Ryan George reference is going to be difficult"
MatPat: "actually its gonna be super easy,barely an inconvenience."
yeah, I was very surprised but happy
How did I miss this in the video
MattPat must've found some spice, because his jokes were TIGHT
Wow wow
Wow
Referencing Ryan George is TIGHT
For anyone who has never read the books and only the movie, yeah a lot of stuff from the books inspired Star wars. There was also a lot of inspiration from the Valerian comics (which aren't from America so I can understand why not many people understand) not including more obvious inspiration from samurai movies and westerns. Besides its not really a rip off because Star wars is way less opposed to AI compared to Dune so its easier for a droid to calculate interstellar math than a human.
...there is a bot problem on youtube now
Cap
This is weirdly defensive. Not having the butlerian jihad doesnt make it not a rip off. Star Wars doesnt care if it was directly influenced by dune. It faced those criticisms and still put droids in the prequels.
@@Luminousreign actually it was based off tons of different things not just Dune. I did a essay on George Lucas's creation of star wars & how it changed the world.
I'm a fan of Star Wars, it's my favorite franchise out there. I never heard of Dune before this movie, and I didn't even think of it being a Star Wars ripoff. I thought if anything it would be cool for them to be connected somehow. Even so, I cannot believe people think it's a ripoff, that's like saying the moon landing is a Star Wars ripoff because it takes place in space.
Fun Fact: The worm hunters of Dune are based on a Native American tribe of whale hunters. The spice could be an analog for ambergris. It's pooped/puked out, the natives had no real commercial use for it, but the colonizers found it incredibly valuable. Sounds like spice to me.
Well, except that the people from arrakis actually do have a use for it, a religious one.
This would have been soooo much more entertaining. Prednisone is not something you can take in high doses without having serious problems and the whole 'water retention' thing he's talking about? Well, that's not exactly a good thing and can lead to serious problems like peripheral neuropathy, even limb loss int he extreme cases. I can't believe MatPat's falling this far....
@@jonokai he did say that water retention is bad, but that for this story and planet and living conditions it was perfect.
@@ayoubwehbi So you've never had family deal with edema. Got it.
Not actually surprising when I think of it
Paul goes blind because he gets irradiated by a weapon know as a Stone Burner. Not because of his blue eyes.
I was just about to say.
But the blue eyes would’ve accelerate the damages that he gets from being irradiated by… well just about anything really.
@@tonamg53 it's described as "blue within blue", it's not the lack of pigment, there's something else not described going on. One of the snippits in the first few books said it actually acted as a form of protection from the sunlight and enabled the Fremen to see better during the day.
Well, that's Matt Pat, what did you expect..
Correct
Paul didn‘t lose his sight due to spice over-use. He lost the soft eye tissue from a stone burner a type of weapon used in an assasination attempt.
I doubt he read messiah
I was coming down here for this lol
Thank you. I had to stop the video to make this comment. Glad to see someone beat me to it.
He's getting everything wrong. No one even cares if they're accurate, just MONETIZE
Yeah that sounded weird to me, because there is no mention of Paul losing his sight before the stone burner scene either, so its pretty clear that he went blind because of the stone burner and nothing else
As usual, NO ONE that covers Dune understands the Navigator's Guild. They don't do calculations, they literally see the future. They see the future where they don't fly through a star and get to their destination. And then they do that.
So it's more like Dr. Strange seeing millions of possible future outcomes?
@@MonochromeTrouble bingo.
@Tobias John If that's all there is to it, yeah, seems pretty straightforward.
This! Also it's the Mentats who are trained since they are children to be living computers, and theydont use spice.
@@Grandott Yeah, he's clearly mixing the two up. While the Mentat's do have their own special little drug in Sapho Juice, it's not related to Spice in anyway, and is basically just super coffee mixed with aderol
My only problem with the claims of this video is Paul's blindness. His blindness has no connection at all to the spice. It's caused by a device that goes off that is designed to blind people.
if memory serves me well, it was a mini-nuclear explosion and he looked at it
It was called a Stone Burner, and it was an atomic-based weapon that skirted the Great Conventions prohibition against using atomic weapons against a population. It emitted something called J-rays that caused blindness in anyone exposed to them.
I came here to say that, I'd rather upvote your comment than make my own.
His eyes literally rotted out of his head in the second book because of the fast acting eye cancer
Just read the appropriate section in Dune Messiah.
Stone Burners are atomics, yes. It has a propensity for burning eyes out to look at it, but nothing about it being targeted, or about eye cancer. His eyes were gone by the time he returned to the palace to see Chani.
After the new hosts took over, I was honestly surprised to hear Matt's voice
To add, "melange" can also mean "variety."
That's right.
The most lore-dense acclaimed sci-fi book series is a setup for a pun:
"Variety is the spice of life."
Frank Herbert got everyone with that pun
Very good, I like this. But I can guarantee that my writing, which has elements of science fiction, has more lore than Dune. But you did not know that until now, so you do not have to go to Gulag.
@@jeffsampson5822 they said Acclaimed Sci-Fi book
😆
One of the side effects of spice melange is addiction - once you start taking it, you can't stop or you'll die. So if this stuff is an enhanced form of alien Prednisone, and your body's immune system becomes dependent upon it, then that would make sense. If you stop taking it, your immune system can't cope and you die.
I do feel I have to point out that Paul's blindness is not caused by exposure to the spice. It was caused by a stone burner, an atomic-based weapon that emits something called J-rays when used. It is those J-rays that destroy the optic tissues and cause blindness.
Actually, no. The immune system will start to regain function once the prednisone is stopped, but stopping suddenly after taking large doses or taking it for a long period is still a horrible idea. Prednisone withdrawal happens because cortisol in the body becomes too low. Symptoms include: lethargy, aches and pains, nausea, and dizziness. It isn't commonly lethal if treated, but in the harsh environment of Dune you could easily die if the impairments prevent you from being at your best.
I had the same thought about Paul's blindness
yeah, addiction, the other things, and y'know,
seeing the godamn future
Glad you mentioned the blindness being caused by the stone burner. Just read that part of the book a while back and actually said out loud “Uh… did his eyes just melt?” Lmao
Just a medical fact " you can't stop or you'll die. " also applies to food. Which despite bringing about a question of lawful or unlawful has escaped the attention of mankind.
one flaw in this theory: if it was just a chemical substance, it'd be possible to synthesize it in a lab, so, no need to risk on Arrakis, or the dependency on (and dangers of) the sandworms would be necessary... I think the _melange_ is alive (a microbe) AND parasitic... the plankton, the trouts, and the worms are, essentially, the spice itself (like literally), these stages are merely forms the melange (whatever it really is) takes... _but that's just a theory, MY theory_
actually further in book series they synthesised it and at first it gone wrong and killed many people and then worm-emperor aka paul’s grandson prohibited any further research BUT when he died and created like new species of worms tleilaxu invented the way to make it for themselves in bodies of their women BUT they were like wiped out AND arrakis was blown up by group of gesserit-like women anddddd the author like died or whatever soooo there’s no more information about it
@@ВасилисаМакеева-в3к but that’s after a long, long, long, long time. For a very long time, the only source of the geriatric spice was the worms
in the dune encyclopedia, there was a chemical formula though
@@MiyuwiTV the dune encyclopedia’s canonicity is extremely questionable
@@elipse371 true lol
I guess the women addicted to Dune’s spices are called Spice Girls
@Keebe The Kirby plush i agree
Sad, its such a good comment
@Keebe The Kirby plush yeah they are out of control wow
That spice is so hot it is so spicy isn't it
I guess that's what the Bene Gesserit are...
It’s a mélange - a mixture. It’s gotta have some DMT in there. DMT occurs naturally as an analog and sometimes as a precursor to Tryptophan, it looks quite similar to spice, it is a strong hallucinogen that has been shown to have some anti-tumerogenic effects, and neurogenic effects, along with reliably producing prophetic, spiritual, and religious experiences, resulting in a long-term change in personality. Also it could actually be plausible that some long-dead megaflora released pockets of DMT throughout Arrakis, after being crushed by millenia of pressure and heat. Also, people frequently refer to DMT as “The Spice.”
And who knows, maybe there's some actual cinnamon, or at least something similar, in there for the flavour.
@@stevenbobbybills yeah, or a chemical compound smelling like cinnamon.
Reminds me of scientists finding out the most common protein chain you can find in outer space and gaz nebulae is also the same one responsible for the taste of raspberries (or something along that line), meaning... space tastes like rasberry, mainly.
Blew my mind.
Wouldn't be surprised prednisone and DMT protein chains share that kind of "taste like..." property. xD
Found Joe Rogan's alt account.
I was lookong for the Joe Rogan comment. I am complete now.
yup, its probably DMT
The spice doesn’t affect Paul’s eyesight nor does it make him go blind. In Dune Messiah he is affected by a radiation based weapon caused a Stoneburner which destroyed his eyes. I literally just finished that book.
I can second that. I remember vividly Paul losing eyesight becasue of (basically) staring into a nuclear explosion. I don't know what Wiki Matt read to get this bogus info :/
Idk know much about dune
I was gonna say, what is he talking about lmao
I was just gonna type that xD
Correct. If the spice had been the cause of Paul’s blindness there would have been a lot of blind
Fremen.
Yeah, I went and saw Dune a second time after watching it and it was worth the money. Amazing visuals and sound effects, the characters were well-played, and the storytelling was immaculate.
My biggest thing about the movie is that you have to know a lot of the back story to fully appreciate it. I loved it, having been introduced to it over a decade ago. My roommate, having known very little of its existence, mostly could only enjoy the cinematics
MatPat, you also forgot that the spice is officially so addictive that the addiction is what extends life. The body and mind get so addicted they will defy death and aging in order to keep getting it.
Not it's just really addictive with not a lot of negative side effects.
YEEEEESSSSS A DUNE THEORY. I unexpectedly *loved* that movie more than I thought I would. The costumes, the actors, the vibe of the world.
I thought it was a snore fest.
Get ready for a completely wrong video about it then.
Go read the books, or if you'd like there is a another UA-camr on here called "Quinn's Ideas" that does in-depth reviews of content pertaining to the entire series. Complete with actual segments from the books. Many of them are extremely in-depth, and even get into topics that require an extensive knowledge of the entire story Cannon, universe, and even extended content such as video games, card games, and other sources of media Associated to the series.
Here’s an interesting one: in the scene “The Coneheads”, Mr. Conehead used a camera that left scorch marks on the wall of the house and burn marks on their daughters date. How powerful was that camera, and could a human actually survive it?
Why are all of your replies bots?
The frick are all these bots from
Interesting.
Why are there like 30 bots
@@zZGreat_SleeperZz why is there sm today😭
2:00
Mat : "And chair dogs. You heard that right, dogs that are also chairs"
People who watched GF "Weirdmageddon" :
"Oh No ! Anyways..."
So I just started reading the books a little bit after they announced the new movie im just starting the last book written by Frank Herbert. So here are some things that don't line up.
Some SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. Paul does go blind in the second book. But its from a outlawed super weapon called a stone burner. The scene talks of massive heat melting his eyeballs and of those near him young and old.
2. Spice doesn't make you great at math. That's becoming a "Mentat". Basically a human computer not created using spice. And thats not what "guild navigators" do. They plot a course trough space by basically seeing the future using spice and knowing what's a safe option because they have this limited ability to see in to the future(Not as big as Paul who is a mentant and a future seer/oracle/prescient).
3. Lady Jessica never had any delirium what so ever her daughter had it do to something called aberration and having the memories of her ancestors in her before having any memories of her own. The movie gives you a very different picture of jessica then the books. No where near as calm and collected as a bene gesserit is supposed to be.
4. The personality change comes from the sad ability and hopelessness of seeing the future. Multiple mentions of Paul and latter his Son The God Emperor Leto II being bored of and becoming disconnected because of this the latter especially.(Side note the son of Paul is one of the most amazing characters written imo and for Warhammer 40k fans you will see the inspiration for the emperor of mankind).
So over all even though I don't disagree with the theory and its conclusion. The points made are based on missinformation or more so just reading it on a wiki out of context and not understanding how some thing happened.
I was actually going to mention the Stone Burner melting his eyes but you already mentioned it
one correction, I believe, it was atomic radiation, that especially affects optical tissue, from the stone burner not heat.
This. A hundred times this. Spice and glare didn't blind him. Radiation and heat did.
I agree, there's so much misinformation in this video even though it's meant to be a joke. Making it somewhat hard to take as such.
Just one correction though, Alia didn't do to something called aberration she was more susceptible to becoming an abomination (i.e losing yourself to you inner egos/personalities) from birth compared to a "regular" individuals with such power.
Exactly. Matpat has all his information completely skewed, and it's very clear he hasn't actually read the books. Just the first six books alone, completely paint a different picture than what he has outlined here. I suspect that he skimmed through it, and didn't actually take the time to digest what he was reading. While the theory of Prednisone being in the spice is very possible, it is not the only biological agent within the spice that causes the aberrations that people suffer from. But merely instead, one of many, hence the name "Spice Mixture". I suspect that Herbert intended it to be seen as a cocktail of pharmaceutically engineered , and biologically engineered chemicals, that over time became byproduct of the worms themselves through careful manipulation by the Bene Jesuit Sisterhood and another unknown undisclosed party that even Leto II could not discern.
"If you've seen dune the movie, dune the old movie, dune the book..."
People who played dune the videogame be like:
sad Ordos player noise*
Honestly sounds like "Spaceballs T-shirt, Spaceballs colaring book, Spaceballs cereals, Spaceballs the FLAMETHROWER!!! Children love those."
Me: * Laughs in Frank Herbert's Dune and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune miniseries. *
@@MrAlopex112 You have contributed one unit of spice to house Ordos...
dune 2 and dune 2000 was my jam
The human computer thing doesn't come from the spice. It comes from the Mentat training that was developed after computers were outlawed, long before the spice was discovered by the galaxy at large. And it's a product of the sand trout, which is a larval form of the sand worm. That whole ecology is kind of weird as the sand worms have three distinct phases in their lives, but they cycle through those phases, over and over, and the larger sand worms actually feed off of the tiny sand trout, which would grow into sand worms later in life, if they don't get eaten.
even in the first part of the book, the dune section, when they are going after the spice farmer thingy to get the people out, Kynes answers one of Paul's questions that is basically just 'so they always come? do the worms have anything to do with the spice?' even before he realized his terrible purpose thing. Thought it was such an obvious red herring to something when I first read it but remembering it now, it all comes together
The mentats I think also use spice as part of their training, just like the B.G. use it for their truthsense. But that was always unclear to me in the books, I know they also use Sapho.
@@tanjaeubanks read the books......
@@tanjaeubanks the Guild Navigators have a limited form of prescience, which allows them to safely fold space.
bro what are u saying, mentats are literally humans who have eaten a large amount of spice but they have a secret recipe/method of the way they absorb the spice into their body which is not the same as just eating it normally.
I always associated the spice to oil - oil is extremely valuable because you need oil to produce energy and the world would grind to a halt without it
On a side note, Dune is one of the most visually spectacular movies I’ve ever seen
Wowww ua-cam.com/video/FSSFgWlDbJU/v-deo.html….
Really? To me, it looks like another Star Wars. IT'S NOT BAD, just not the most interesting visually.
@@CaptainCat101, I thought this spectacularly outdid any Star Wars movie, but to each his own.
I started reading the series a year ago when they announced the movie last year. Since then I've read the entire series 3 times (I'm on my fourth time right now). I am now beginning a read-through of a bunch of prequel lore books its awesome to see more people who love this series as much as I do. it is also disappointing to see a lot of people who only see dune as a Star Wars knock-off and not the Star Wars inspiration that almost got star wars sued. To me, the Dune universe is better but that's an opinion. I'd love to start a group that also shares a love for the dune universe where we can discuss a bunch of unanswered questions.
Dang y’all really blew this one up😂
Try E.E. Doc Smiths Lensman series
When you say entire series are you taking about the 6 original books or the additional 2 his son made as well? I also did the same as you and have fallen HARD in love with the Dune books
Fine fans do not consider any of Brian’s books canon. He has bastardized his father’s work for $.
@@AndrewSWTN They've written a lot more than just the 2 to finish the original
In [dys/u]topia people ride addiction waves and chase fiat dragons. Therefor people live within a stimulation.
But Paul's blindness is caused by a powerful weapon, a stone burner, which released radiation that destroyed his eye tissue, not by heavy spice intake.
EXACTLY
Shuh, don't tell him that. Let him embarrass himself even more for not doing home work properly.
Technicalities
Heathen
@@yaroslavpanych2067 Humans make mistakes. If you have not read the books there will be a lot of research required, which takes time and effort. MatPat does not have to answer to me for this mistake, I merely wanted to point it out.
The Tleilaxu sold many eyes that day.
The spice was created for the book to represent oil in our real life. We all have become so dependent on oil in our day to day lives, the same way spice is essential for all progress in the dune universe. But a fun tidbit is that frank Herbert actually based his spice off a real life spice and it’s not a pharmaceutical drug but it does have psychedelic properties. Nutmeg. The most fought over spice with the highest human body-count for any spice in the world. Didn’t see that coming did ya.
Ps: nice try if you thought salt would be the most fought after spice. I did too
This! It's pretty clear that spice is a direct allegory for oil! It comes from the desert, originates from animals and is the main fuel for transportation in universe. He just added the psychedelic element because, you know, the 60s.
But that's just a fact, A historical fact.
I'm going to exclude that on the basis that Erowid does not mention one single case of people getting hallucinations off nutmeg, and instead a whole lot of people getting in pain, sick, nauseous, getting seizures and palpitations.
Salt is a mineral though.
I was thinking something like saffron
I watched Dune in theaters, wow it was a cool movie. Certainly high level storytelling, as not a lot is explained verbally, rather everything important is shown to you and left for you to figure out. I love Dune's universe, it's just so cool. Also its pedigree is insane, being one of the inspirations for Tatooine in Star Wars is certainly nothing to shake a stick at. I can't wait for part 2.
Also, watch the replies to my comment be Lou Lou and all the other s*x bots. I'm watching you.
You called it lmao
You called it dude but where tf are they coming from?-
yep u were right
They are so annoying
Yeah it’s pretty cool. Except for the stuff surrounding shields. It’s stupid if you start thinking too much about it.
Few things get quite as frustrating here as when MatPat comes so close to having some good points, and just over focuses on trying to make something fit a specific talking point rather then just see what the data could mean on it's own, and when he gets some pretty major and basic fact wrong.
Paul didn't go blind just from being out in the bright desert, he went blind due to being too close to, and looking right at, what was essentially a nuclear powered road flare the size of a building.
And trying to force this into a 'this is just prednisone but with some added sci-fi stuff just, feels like trying to hard to make the spice something it simply isn't, as yeah it does have these other properties, and is made in a very different fashion with a lot of other things that don't add up. Yet, the fact so much does fit with it is itself worth looking at for how Spice works, and to establish that while clearly not Prednisone itself, it could very well be some form of corticosteroid similar to the drug, and examining how that could work out.
The fact is simples: on the books, you discover that the Spice is nothing but refined sandworm poop, and that the spice when diluted on water can be either poisonous (for common humans) or psionicly powerful (like with paul or the bene gesserit sisterhood), so yeah, MatPat is again just ignoring data just to git on his theory
@@gabrielsalesmartins pretty sure he is focusing mainly around the movie rather than the books.
@@thejestor9378 Except he is using examples from later books like Paul going blind (though getting the cause completely incorrect).
@@gabrielsalesmartins Everyone can use the spice, afaik, think of the millions of Fremen alone. I think what you mean is the "water of life", which is spit out by a dying Bringer (baby sandworm).
Fr i didn't understand why he made this video like spice was a hidden resource that wasn't explained in the books as being sandworm poop
“They’re not exposing each other to their germs.”
That scene where the Fremen making camp collectively spit into a coffee machine.
it was coffee service lol plus wouldn't the boiled spit be safe once its boiled off/converted with the device
@@Yungwolfo Correct, but it is still spit. Not that that it bothers them what with some of their water is from their processed dead.
4:43 that’s kinda beautiful in a way though because the idea of me having direct connection to someone’s brain feels romantic in the least creepy way possible 😂
No! Paul didn’t loose his sight because of the Spice, in DUNE Messiah there was an attempt to assassinate him by blowing him up and he got blinded in the explosion.
Was looking for some to confirm this, thanks
Wasn't it specifically a nuclear blast that he stared at that blinded him?
Which if you think about it, makes the movie even insaner, considering all the shields active and idiots firing lazguns like crazy.
@@naolmstead it's referenced as a "stone burner." The way I always interpreted it was small-scale nuclear weapon. It wasn't big enough or with enough radiation to destroy the city but it was big enough to cause a devastating bright explosion at the site it was set up.
@@blacksun3920 Yeah. And freman culture basically is "Blind? Be gone! Into the desert with you."
Something I just want to mention. You don’t have to necessarily be addicted to spice in order to have the blue eyes. Spice basically gets everywhere on Arrakis, it’s in the air you breathe and the sand that you walk in. You’re exposed to it so much, that in about a few years of continuous living on Arrakis, your eyes will turn blue.
While close, at that point you are addicted. See spice saturation at that level means that you can't ever leave Arrakis without taking Arrakis with you because your body physically needs the spice and if you don't get it then you go through withdrawals that are almost always fatal.
actually in the original few books one of the side comments is something about once you live on arrakis you must take a part of it with you everywhere you go, in reference to the fact that all people who live long term in the desert are addicted to the spice.
Paul doesn't go blind because of spice usage, but because stone burners, which are basically radiation bombs, and specifically damage your eyes.
Check and mate⸮
woah
Matt has a long history of making comments like this, where he doesn't seem to actually research the fiction he's doing a theory on
@@weldonwin he & his team could of done the research & just missed it, from a mix of it being a variy long story, & thus easily missed how it happened, to the fact that his show has always been using media as a vehicle for teaching vs the other way around.
Yeah bro, it makes me think he didn't even read the books
Yeah but in Matt’s defense the freman once blind are exiled. Telling us that it’s happens quite often.
Dune peeps: “artificial intelligence is too powerful and dangerous to be trusted”
Also Dune peeps: “let’s get our most powerful leaders hooked on weapon grade ADHD drugs instead.”
the replies section is kinda depressing
@@WilliamDoesStuff yeah… make sure you’re doing your part and reporting these inane bots
Where are you've seen 'powerful leaders hooked on' any drug? Emperor isn't as far as I remember from both movies and books. Not in degree that one might expect. Navigators guild, Fremen, Bene Geserrit are, but not actual leaders. At least, not until book 5 or something.
No. Read the books.
All advanced technology of Digital Society, will only be developed and produced and regulated through house "IX".
All other technology is outlawed because it cannot be trusted, do not be manipulated by outside sources.
The Spice; is a forgotten genetically engineered drug, that is produced by a biological entity that was also genetically engineered, and deposited onto only one planet thousands of years ago. The technology behind it has been long since forgotten, and Society speculates at what could be the answer behind it, but the only people that might know any information about it aside from house "IX", are the Bene Jesuit Sisterhood, who are highly secretive, manipulative, and operate from their own agenda in the shadows of society. The information they have about the origins, history, and Society can only be discerned by members of their religious order, who intend to use their information to control the Galaxy.
@@yaroslavpanych2067 the emperor is 70 years old but looks 35. If I recall, it is strongly implied that this can only be due to the known effect of preserved youth and extended life that heavy use of the “geriatric spice” brings.
5:38 ah yes thanks for the reminder to stock up on SPF 5 million for next time i go to the ball of sand that looks like my noze in the morning
I really love the vfx in Dune, the way they made the glass dust look like sand because it was filmed in slow mo was a much better choice then doing it digitally
@let's watch ! nice self promo
@Squid Game 2.0 in my channel nice self promo
@C H A R L O T T E 🌹 nice bot
@@intanmayasari932 Bad robot, bad! No thermal paste!
Can't wait for Dune: Part 2!
Same here with my dad and I!
I love how you can pull these filaments of possibilities into something real. But being a Dune geek of the original six novels (I won't get into what I think of other novels), I have to point out that even though you did mention you were going by the Dennis Villeneuve version, you did mention something that happens in the second novel (and third movie, if Dennis and the studio are willing to close out the Paul story arc - but not really since there's a character that appears in the third novel that may or may not actually be Paul, not to be spoiled here), that Paul's blindness has nothing to do with the spice and all due to a Stone Burner nuclear device being detonated near him, a side effect being it melts your eyes. Okay, late-60's sci-fi weird. But since Paul has prescience, he can function as if he still had eyes as he can see the future a moment in advance. Due to his prescience he knows he has to suffer this fate for the events to play out along the Golden Path, even though he's too chicken to make the ultimate sacrifice, leaving it to his son, who Paul's prescience didn't inform him would be born. Remember that. It's important for the remaining novels :)
exactly!! the comment i was looking for
And that's exactly it; matpat references content from the other books, that has no bearing on the first movie, and then makes references that are not actually accurate. If we're going to do a analysis based on the spice only on what is perceived in the movie, that's one thing. But when we make bold statements about the spice and use references from other books, and then fail to understand just what exactly the spice is, what it's capable of, or how you get things like Navigators, mentats, or even how it affects various types of cognitive abilities, arguably even influencing the Bennett Jesuit Sisterhood, something matpat did not mention, which is actually referenced in both the first book in the movies; it starts to become a question of how much research did he actually do, and how well did he understand the topic, the details, and each of the pieces he references before making the Theory?
Need to insert that gif is Homer yelling "Nerd!"
@@tokumei_llc Remember, Matt is entertainment. If he was super-dedicated to perfect accuracy, he wouldn't be making half the videos he does.
Ayye 1....2....3!!!
I don’t know how you research the contents of the books enough to know Paul goes blind, but not enough to know that he’s blinded by an atomic weapon, or that the explosion burns his eyes out entirely and he’s walking around as a weird, eye-less corpse-looking dude for a while.
Because he doesn't read, he's a talentless youtuber for 12 year olds lol. We made a mistake coming here, friend. Come, let us go to Quinn's Ideas.
You can really tell he didn’t really learn about the dune books because he says paul went blind from spice. He lost his eyes from a nuclear weapon thing in the second book
Mat[at kinda sucks for doing research and not just google and random wikis
He said he’s only focusing on the new movie version tho
It was called a Stone Burner.
@@Desertdweller1965 yeah thanks I forgot what it was called
@@Yungwolfo Yeah, I remember I used to defend him until he got to one of the fandoms I was involved in. Anyone who knows the Hollow Knight lore knows what I mean 💀
can still be fun to watch tho
Didn’t not expect to see Prednisone, a medication that this Crohns Disease survivor knows very well, in a Film Theory. Matt, you and your team make fantastic videos. I love you show and learning while laughing keeps me watching with my family. Thank you and happy holidays to your family.
I'd love it if people who are hot to cover Dune to get views on YT would actually learn the lore first. Paul didn't loose his sight to spice, he lost it to a stone burner aka type of atomic device. But thanks to the spice and his kwisatz haderach prescience, he can function as if he can still see, because he's seen the future. (many futures, actually)
I showed this episode to a Dune-book-reader. They had these points to say
1. In the books, the spice doesn’t ‘Float’ out of the sand, it bubbles up from gas underneath to make piles (the ‘Spice Blows’)
2. He didn’t go blind from Sun/blue eyes, he went blind from radiation poisoning after he got too close to a stone burner
3. It’s not their poop, it’s their dying exhalation-like they drown to make the spice. They don’t poop it out
4. They also liked the movie 👌
Yeah I had to stop watching because pretty much everything he said about the books was… wrong. Which is a shame because I was really excited when I saw this theory.
The spice isn't the dyeing breath of the worm, that's the water of life, the spice comes from the sandtrout cycle.
@@brandonwheeler2226 This! Spice is actually the remains of the worm, itself. When a worm dies the sandtrout that make it up are released back into the sand, which then eat some material in the sands of Dune, and form a new worms. This causes the spice blow which expels the spice to the surface, the blow then summons old worms to the vibrations allowing them to absorb the excess sandtrout, and grow larger.
2:50 I did not expect a special appearance by Ryan George!
Referencing other channels is tight!
Paul goes blind in the books, not from his spice usage, but because he was exposed to the flash of a nuclear weapon, which from the description, made me think his eyes actually popped, but his prescience of the future was powerful enough that he didn't need eyes
6:08 Paul goes blind after bunch of fanatics detonate nuclear weapon in the dead of night and he stares at the explosion like a moron.
I remember the blue thing! I recommend “why blue in nature is so rare”, if you want a deeper insight about the color blue in general! It’s super interesting!
As someone who's experienced Prednisone psychosis I can verify that it is exactly 0% fun. I dread the possibility of my doctors even considering asking me to go back on it.
I'm so happy that Game Theory content is getting back into it, I've felt like for a while it's been filler but now that the quality content and stuff like these videos are coming back I'm taking more interest
630 (Yep)
When we saw the spice in the new dune I could not stop laughing because my dad was like "The spice extend shelf life. the spice expand the culinary mind. the spice is vital to a good spaghetti sauce." and the homemade spice mix we put in our 16L (4 gal) sauce batches is reddish brown to burned orange.
The other consideration that you forgot to mention is the spice’s rarity and difficulty to synthesize. I can’t imagine Prednisone being that difficult to produce.
I love that you're going into this theory blind. It's hilarious to listen to you make up theories that I already know are wrong. I do like seeing you be so creative too. Keep up the great entertainment MatPat.
He went blind because of a nuclear weapon… The Stoneburner produced enough radiation to blind people nearby
Wowww ua-cam.com/video/FSSFgWlDbJU/v-deo.html……
4:00 As someone with blue eyes who has done much research on melanin, I very much enjoyed hearing this part. I have fair skin, blue eyes, and brown-red hair, so in terms of melanin, I have some but less than many. Bow down to your low-melanin superior, you peasants.
I’m not even gonna touch this one
Superioir Freak more like
@@pastorTracy911 yo my brother wrote this before he made his own account. He's not a fascist I swear
MatPat is one of the best theorists on UA-cam and yet he still can't pronounce Zendaya's name correctly
He clearly didn't read the books either
In relation to Children of Dune: there was no invisible children born. There were a pair of children born, but due to the interaction of prescience (essentially precognition) and one of the children being born prescient, they were "invisible" to the others prescient views, but could easily be seen with the naked eye.
More then likely he skimmed through the books, which is kind of a big no no, in a series like this. There is to much details that can and will be missed if you do that.
*impatiently waits for No Way Home theories based on the official trailer*
You are confusing blue and gray eyes here. Yellow-brown is from pigment, blue is from structures in the iris that scatter light, green is a mix of both and gray is the lack of both. If you start green and lose pigment, you may get blue, but if you start with brown and lose pigment, you get gray.
You can also lose blue to get gray, which is what my eyes did. As a child my eyes were blue, but as I got into adulthood they got less vivid and became opalescent.
The confusion you stumbled into is because of that opalescence causing many with gray eyes to be mistaken for blue or green.
For Dune, it's an additive effect, not a subtractive one. In all versions it's a vivid blue, and it's usually depicted affecting the sclera also. There is a sclera tattoo that some have gotten to replicate the look with pigment, but in real biology you can get yellowing of eyes from chemical deposition in the sclera and iris, as well as other parts of the eye. Dune blue eyes are likely some chemical being deposited there. Colloidal silver notoriously causes bluing of skin when abused, so it's not without some level of precedent.
Not only that, but he never lost his vision from Spice. He lost it to a nuclear device in the second book.
@@DreadnoughtHvor Yep. The "Stone Burner". I didn't comment on that part because I haven't seen the new movie and wasn't sure if they'd changed it to have his vision degrading or something.
I have been treated for autoimmune disease since 1999 and recently noticed the periphery of my iris has turned blue… thanks Mat Pat! Making an appt with my doctor ASAP!
Went to see this with my dad. Didn't enjoy the original so i had low expectations
But it was amazing
Hello fellow nep fan
Yeah, it really playes in a whole nother league than former screen adaptations ^^
@@catvanbrian9470 ah yes it is good to see that our kind (Nep fans) are still strong
Paul wasn't blinded because of glare from the sun and spice usage. He was blinded after seeing an atomic explosion, or nearly atomic, it might have been a laser/shield interaction, which basically melted his eyes. Matpat, do better
the assassination attempt was with a Stone burner, which releases a radiation that specifically dissolves eye tissue. They aren't atomic weapons, but are powered by atomic fuel, which gets them around the "using nukes on people will result in your whole planet being annihilated by the other great houses" rule. Apparently they also have another setting that can punch a hole down to a planet's core.
@@Lectrikfro I will definitely admit it's been a couple of years since I've read the Dune books. Thanks for the clarification. When Matpat said his bit, I kind of went "nope, nope, wrong" and got extra annoyed with his lack of fully researching the topic.
@@rainestormed so in your attempt to make matpat "do better" you fucked up yourself and ought to "do better?"
@@Kirbster-D-Shroom my mistake was confusing one nuclear type reaction for another, not completely missing and misrepresenting what happened to the character he was referencing. So, yes, I fucked up and should have remembered something I haven't read in about four years. I will gladly agree with that. You decided to insert yourself and try to correct someone who already admitted fault. So, have a nice day. Respectfully, get bent. And have a nice day.
I didn’t think people still called her zen-die-ya, I thought everyone knows her name by now.
Paul lost his sight from atomics in the books, not from spice. While the blue eye theory makes sense, it's not what causes blindness in any of the Fremen
This video is DUNE perfectly.
Figuring out what the spice was, was "Super easy, barely an inconvience"
Ohh Figuring out what spice is tight
Nice reference
This is a certified "SPICE" classic
In case anyone is wondering, I think the IRL equivalent of Sapho juice is ginseng root extract. It’s harvested from the roots of a specific plant and enhances cognition in the human brain. It’s also an ingredient in GamerSupps.
No. You're completely wrong. While yes there is a potential that prednisone could be in the spice itself; which is theoretically possible, the problem is that the worms themselves are genetically engineered. It's never specified exactly where they came from in the entire series and many have speculated that it may have come from the only alien race that was ever mentioned in the series, but the issue at hand is that the spice melange is a mixture of embryonic fluid, that comes from the birthing places of the worms. The warm itself is not actually excrete the spice, it's a byproduct of the birth of a worm. In fact in a much later part of the series, has her cone and tries to create their own version of the spice, after capturing a baby worm, and trying to sympathetically reproduce it. Nearly as effective as the original.
The reason why Jessica, Paul's mother, goes into a state of delirium later in the book, is because she consumes the Water of Life. The Water of Life, is the afterbirth and milium from a recently born worm. And it's technically a deleted scene from the original 1984 movie.
The Navigators, are mutated people who at birth have been a exposed to ultra high concentrations of the spice while still infants, which alter their genetic structure to something similar to that of a hybrid of the "Sand Trout" (the base genetic creature the worms origins) and a human infant. This intense genetic alteration along with careful genetic breeding and targeted education is how the "Navigators" are created within their own guild.
In fact when you research it within the series; most of the different houses and gills have each become augmented and mutated through a combination of spice and other scientifically engineered Technologies, many of which has been lost to other houses and Society at Large. This in turn, means that the spice melange itself is not necessarily responsible for the problems that it causes, but is Instead The Catalyst, that when combined with other influences causes these mutations, alterations, and other problems. Such as the existence of the mentats, are not caused by spice consumption directly, but by the mixture of the spice, and the "Wine of Safu" which is a highly addictive cocktail made from alcohol, narcotics, other brain enhancing chemicals and spice. the Mentats drink this mixture to allow themselves to do 4th dimensional mathematical computations and planning so that society, aside from house IX, does not need the use of digital technology.
In the end the spice is not an all encompassing resource that solves everything but is instead a universal catalyst created through thousands of years of complex scientific manipulation that society forgot about, after the "Machine war" 300 years ago.
Well done in remembering all of this! Very much appreciated.
It's High Science, the sort that dips into the whole 'so advanced that it is magic' territory.
We don't have the bio-chemical knowledge to even begin unravelling that universe as a theory....
But this was nothing more then an excuse to write off movie watching as a work expense.
Cool story but none of that's in the movie so it's sort of outside the stated scope of the video.
@@SinHurr I was just about to say that. Like matpat full on stated that he wasn't gonna delve much into the books themselves and that he was simply trying to find a real world equivalent, there's really no need for sheer amount of nitpicking op did
There is a small hint to the claim about the worms being a genetic creation, when Pauls son uses sand trout to slowing turn himself into something very close to but not exactly that same as the sandworms. Almost like that they are a type of parasitic creature that acts like a retro-virus to at the very least humans.
Me before watching this episode: "It's just cinnamon"
Me after watching this episode:
I haven't fully watched it yet
Edit: It's just prednisone, kinda boring but ok
I had been on prednisone since I was 8, treating a disease called Systemic Juvinile Idiopathic Arthritis. I got off it 3 years ago, and I can most definitely say I got the ‘Prednisone High’ I read the labels of everything I saw, everything. I definitely had mood changes, however being in denial of them. Anger, frustration, and not really caring about others’s feelings were a few of them. I was on it because basically SJIA is a Autoimmune condition where your own immune system fights back on your joints, tendons, muscles, and because of the Systemic part, my organs. I had to take HIGH amounts of Prednisone to weaken my immune system so I could actually walk. No joke, I had tablets at breakfast before school, and dinner before bed. I even had infusions of it every month, and cortisone injections in my joints. The only thing that was not mentioned in this theory was that it caused me to feel hungry at the strangest times, sometimes waking up at midnight to eat a bowl of spaghetti. I am so thankful I am off it, and happy that I can share my story.
I'm glad you don't have to take it anymore!
Something I love is how they calculate the safe path through hyperspace isn’t with a precise math calculation but instead taking the spice let’s them see the future and they just copy the safe path that was taken violating the grandfather paradox.
Good work! This reminds me of the experiment where researchers made Egyptian beer based on an ancient recipe and relict grain. The beer produced low levels of natural tetracycline, which would have fought infections without the Egyptians even realizing it.
new theory: the spice is actually evaporated fetus dust
Pretty sure that's canon
That's evil 💀
You aren't that far off, just need to switch the creature.
0:54 same, when it finished I was like, it's done already?
5:53 he goes blind from witnessing a nuclear weapon going off right in front of him. The whole room goes blind.
Nice, matpat once again bends the plot points for his own narrative, Paul was blinded by a stone burner, not by spice, and fremen went on to rage jihad on the universe, so the isolation helping the immune system narrative doesn't work, much of the people don't even use the stillsuits in the sequels
Also every rich person in the universe used spice, without negative side effects…
I mean, yeah, so?
Sense the books sort of already answer that question it obviously wasn't going to be the actual answer.
Mat tends to ues the media he is talking about as a way to teach people about new stuff. He has actively made this point.
Can confirm that with blue eyes light sensitivity goes up. Sometimes it's so bad that if I go outside after being in even a slightly dark environment the light of the sun even bouncing off the cement is enough to hurt my eyes and make them water
I don't even have blue eyes and that's how I feel all the time, I simply can not bear bright sunlight, imagine if I did, that would be a nightmare.
I also have blue eyes, and I agree! It's even worse in the winter when there's snow on the ground. The glare that comes off the snow in sunlight is so blinding.
Spice in the Dune universe is like oil to us living on earth. Everyone wants it. Guano, bird/bat droppings, is also wanted by everyone. Helps crops grow.
I thought that was Gatorade
Sort of but we don't get addicted to it, die without it, or see the future with it
oh god matpat. he went blind because of a nuclear explosion
If I remember correctly, Leto II keeps like a tight grip on the spice and space travel so that when he finally dies, it would get people get the spice and spread out throughout the universe. And it works.
All hail the god emperor of dune!!
I'm gonna be honest, i didn't understand the movie, probably because i had no idea there was stuff before the most recent movie.
i just started watching the video, i hope i get to understand it better now!
As someone with a chronicically inflammated intestine I can this as true. I got the activated part, prednisolon, and experienced a lot of those effect. Funnily enough... Thanks to that my once hazel-green eyes have a greyish blue hue since I had to take the meds.
That’s crazy - I have hazel eyes that are turning blue and I’d never heard of this before. Kind of cool to hear about someone else like me. (I’ve had RA since 1999/take prednisone)
Chronically suppressed immune system not only means lower immunity to infections, but also much higher rate of neoplastic tumors, especially when exposed to such massive UV light - this is the reason that the Fremen wouldn't statistically live longer and healthier than people not exposed to spice.
Wait... nope! Not watching this poorly sourced video one second longer. Paul didn't go "nearly blind" because of melange. It's specifically laid out in Dune Messiah that Paul lost his vision because of an attempt to assassinate him with atomics. He'd foreseen it to some degree and submitted to it, understanding that it was essential to his path as well as that of Leto II and the universe. The type of atomics used had a particular appetite for the flesh of the eyes of anyone unlucky enough to look at the flash; not only blinding them completely, but burning their eyes from the sockets.
I can’t get over the fact that he mispronounced Zendaya’s name 😭
1:10
Interesting theory, but Paul goes blind because of an "accident", so it's instant rather than a slow transition over years
Exactly, he is exposed to a stoneburner aka a NUKE which causes his blindness.
"I need more! I'm not dune yet!" XD
Yo Matt & co. Thats not how Paul goes blind. He goes blind from looking at a nuke. Nor does Spice allow for quick maths. Its actually the seeing the future thing that allows for the FTL piloting.
The real question is, how do the Fremen stay so tan when they go out covered head to toe.
Probably genetics ngl
Isn’t that the same as looking into a bright light for extended periods of time? Also seeing the future would enhance brain activity/decision making, you see the future
The spice having an effect that makes the user’s immune system dependent on it actually makes sense in the context of the books. As it is made clear that once people ingest the spice, they would die if they stopped injesting it
I think that is only true if you reach addiction levels of it, Because in most books you see that some people take it as a form of medicine, or use if as a food additive.
I saw the movie and I didn't understood lol
so I am glad MatPat is talking about it
‘I must not fear’
Also MatPat: “Spice makes you blind”
Portugal and the Netherlands in the 1400 to the 1600s 0:10
It doesn’t make everyone hallucinate. Just people that already have enhanced minds. Paul was genetically bred with traits for an enhanced mind so Paul was prescient/precognitive before the spice so it simply enhanced that. Also it wasn’t spice that damaged his eyes, it was looking directly at an atomic explosion
Nope, lots of problems with this theory, obviously not familiar with the material. Paul is blinded by a stone burner, a nuclear weapon. Spice has nothing to do with mentat calculation ability. Extreme exposure to spice over generations can produce a navigator...they can determine how to fold space due to their prediction abilities (seeing the future). Paul and Jessica are awakened to past memories via a liquid made from drowning a worm...similar to spice but not spice exactly. Normal people just die when exposed to this. Alia is screwed up because she has all these past memories before forming her own personality due to being awakened in the womb. Paul, like navigators can see possible futures due to the spice plus bene jesserit/fremen reverend mother awakening. So well that he can use it to see.
I would argue he didn't even read the book. To be honest I thought spice assisted mentat skills but maybe it's more of fuel for their abilities and not an something that creates the thinking skills. I'm only 3 books in so that could be why.
@@joshuabivens5825 he probably read the first one but not any after that. The blindness thing must’ve been lost in translation when he was researching
Poor Alia. Screwed before she's born by having all these jerks yelling at her in her head.
@@joshuabivens5825 I think in the books spice is used by mentats but only because they serve the wealthy and powerful and all the wealthy use it for longevity reasons.
@@OGPedXing ok, makes sense
I love you making sense out of things that wasn't even supposed to make sense!