Talk:God Emperor of Dune

God Emperor of Dune - talk
"Leto, now confident that his Golden Path — a course into the future in which humanity's survival is guaranteed — is now secure, wants an opportunity to remove himself from the Golden Path, i.e. to die."

I don't believe he 'wanted to die', but rather he wanted a future of surprises, and he embraced his own end as a surprise when it came. The nature of his death - falling into water - and the timing, happening as it did after he had secured certain goals, including but not limited to the breeding and the testing of Siona, both ensured that his death would not impede or thwart the Golden Path. By contrast, earlier in the novel, when he contemplated taking a plunge from the heights of his citadel tower in the Sareer, he felt the Golden Path 'winking in and out of existence'. Had his death at the hands of Siona, Duncan and Nayla similarly threatened the Golden Path, he would have foreseen that possible death and avoided it altogether. Instead, because Siona had survived her test, bore the necessary genes, and was fated in subsequent events to procreate with Duncan, the Golden Path was secured regardless of Leto's fate, and thus his death came to him as a surprise.

24.79.7.164 23:57, December 12, 2012 (UTC)