Mugen Monday - 29th Edition

I had the opportunity to dive into Dune Part 2 in New Delhi’s PVR in Laser Imax, Priya complex. And while I’ll at first beg your forgiveness for being archaically late into the Dune sequel’s theatre-going party. But secondly, I would afford you a few leisurely yet perhaps interesting sentences - drawing a striking resemblance between Eren Jaeger and Paul Atreides.

Now upon the reception of the above text, one may be elated in two ways: either you’ll scoff it off as another Eren fanboy rant, or see some actual rationale behind such a claim.

I am here, however, to make some substantial points. What has taken me aback is just how much similarity I find in the entire Dune story with Attack on Titan.

While both are separated by their galactic and planetary premise, they do share some shred of political formulas that are commonly applied.

• Both involve two main families or kingdoms in blood with each other (Eldians against Marley and Atreides against Harkonnen)

• Both involve a hero who has the ability to see through time, and both of them go through a similar line of thematic progression.

• Both involve themes of betrayal by a party that has no other option (Atreides house doctor and Reiner, Berthold),

• Both involve manoeuvring through otherwise unrideable terrains (sandworms and titans).

• Both involve themes of revenge and a setting of the protagonist having to take responsibility that involves the entire world’s fate.

There are more, like both the protagonists having a love interest that they can never be with, the death of a family member by the apparent enemy, both controlling the other remaining parent, both transforming into some non-human form.

Paul Atreides’s ascent to the God Emperor and his passing down of the same to Leto II involves a timeline that is much larger than whatever timeline Attack on Titan is based on.

However both the heroes, upon seeing the future of humanity itself, find that the only way to avoid extinction is that they take the weight of being the unifying force themselves.

In both Eren and Paul’s cases, such a weight is not just of being the unifying force, but the unifying antagonist. Have you seen Dune? If you have, how did you come across seeing its similarities with the theme of Attack on Titan?

Do write back to us at my address, and we can talk further about this.

- From the Editor’s Desk

Rhytham Das, Editor-in-Chief, Spiel Anime