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Paul Orestes Atreides
Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides in Dune (1984)
Aliases	Usul, Muad'Dib, The Preacher
Gender	Male
Date of birth	10,175 AG
Date of death	10,217 AG
Occupation	Kwisatz Haderach Padishah Emperor
Spouse	Chani Irulan Corrino
Parents	Leto Atreides I Lady Jessica
Children	Leto Atreides II and Ghanima Atreides
Siblings	Alia Atreides
Relatives	Vladimir Harkonnen (grandfather)
Affiliation	House Atreides Fremen
Real-Life Information
Portrayed by	Kyle MacLachlan (1984 film) Alec Newman (2000 miniseries/2003 sequel)
First appearance	Dune
Final appearance	Children of Dune
Alec Newman as Paul Atreides in the Dune miniseries (2000)

Paul Orestes Atreides (10,175-10,217 AG) is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert; he later takes the Fremen name Paul Muad'Dib and the sietch name Usul. Paul is a prominent character in the first two novels in the series, Dune (1965) and Dune Messiah (1969), and returns in Children of Dune (1976). The character is brought back as two different gholas in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson conclusion to the original series, Sandworms of Dune (2007).

Paul was portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation, and by Alec Newman in the 2000 Dune miniseries and its 2003 sequel. In both films, he appears much older and taller than Herbert describes him to be; in the beginning of the novel, he is fifteen and short for his age.

The son of Duke Leto Atreides I and the Lady Jessica, Paul Atreides is the heir of House Atreides, a nuclear-armed aristocratic family that rules the planet Caladan. Jessica is a Bene Gesserit and an important key in the Bene Gesserit breeding program. According to the breeding program, she was to produce a daughter, who would marry Feyd-Rautha, a nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. However, Jessica falls in love with Leto and grants him a son.

Although Paul is a boy, he receives a Bene Gesserit training, giving him among other things, great control over his metabolism, heightened senses and knowledge of martial arts. He is also trained in weapon use by Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho, and receives training as a Mentat from Thufir Hawat.

When Paul is fifteen years old, the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV, orders the family to leave Caladan and govern the desert planet Arrakis (known as Dune), though Paul's father, Duke Leto, is in full knowledge that the Emperor is colluding with House Harkonnen to destroy the Atreides as a perceived threat to the throne. On Dune, the family is betrayed by their Suk doctor, Wellington Yueh. He disables the House defensive shields, allowing the Imperial Sardaukar troops, dressed in Harkonnen uniforms, to capture Duke Leto and Thufir Hawat and to kill most of the Atreides army. Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself while attempting to hold off the Sardaukar and ensures Paul's escape. Yueh's betrayal was motivated by the Baron's capture and torture of his Bene Gesserit wife; he implants a poisonous gas capsule concealed within a false tooth on Duke Leto after his capture and instructs him to use it to kill the Baron. Shortly afterwards, the Baron has Yueh murdered. Upon meeting Baron Harkonnen and his twisted Mentat Piter De Vries, Leto bites down on the capsule. He succeeds in killing De Vries — and himself — but not the Baron. The Baron captures Thufir Hawat, feeding him a poison for which only he has the antidote, and forcing him to serve as his new Mentat. Paul and Jessica escape, with some help from Dr. Yueh, into the desert.

They flee to the Fremen, who see in Paul the Lisan al-Gaib, the Mahdi, a prophet who will ensure a green, lush Dune. They take shelter in Sietch Tabr, a Fremen settlement led by the Naib, Stilgar. Paul and his mother train the Fremen in weapon use and martial arts, creating a formidable army. Under his Fremen name Muad'Dib, Paul leads a Fremen campaign of resistance against Harkonnen rule. He and Chani, daughter of Liet Kynes, take each other as mates and produce a son. Paul also reunites with Gurney Halleck, who had sought refuge with smugglers after the Harkonnen attack. In a bid to unlock his latent powers, Paul undergoes the process of spice agony via the consumption of the Water of Life. He survives, although barely, and the ordeal gives him knowledge of his male and female ancestors; this proves Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach.

Artist Michael Stribling's representation of Paul

Awakening from the Spice Agony, he launches an attack on the Harkonnen and Imperial troops with his Fremen army (and with his personal bodyguard, the Fedaykin), riding the enormous sandworms indigenous to the planet. In the attack, he learns that his son has been killed in a Sardaukar raid. They win and Paul requests an audience with Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. He threatens to destroy the spice melange, thus making transport between the planets impossible and effectively destroying civilization. In return for preserving the spice, he asks for the hand of the Emperor's daughter, the Bene Gesserit-trained Princess Irulan as well as the Emperor's abdication in favor of Paul. Urged by the Spacing Guild, Shaddam accepts his terms.

In Dune Messiah, Paul has been Emperor for twelve years. His jihad has killed sixty billion people across the known universe, but according to his prescient vision, this is a fate far better than what he has seen. Paul is beleaguered by a need he sees — to set humanity on a course that does not lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time managing both the Empire and the religion built around him.

A Fremen conspiracy attempts to assassinate Paul using a stone burner. The attempt fails: however the effects of the weapon destroy Paul's eyes. Although he becomes technically blind, his prescience allows him to "see" anyway. Afflicted by despair as a result of his prescience, Paul faces another assassination attempt by a conspiracy of the Bene Tleilax, the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. This attempt, made using a ghola (a resurrected clone) of Paul's friend and mentor Duncan Idaho also fails, but the ordeal seemingly helps the Duncan ghola to regain his memories. At the same time, Chani dies in childbirth, bearing twins: a boy, Leto II, and a girl, Ghanima (which means "spoil of war"). Paul, who did not foresee the birth of twins, loses his prescience after Chani's death and becomes truly blind, although he conceals this. With a knife over the babies, the Tleilaxu Scytale offers to make a ghola of Chani and restore her to life, in exchange for all of Paul's CHOAM holdings and his effective abdication from the throne. However Paul, seeing through his newborn son's eyes, kills Scytale. Immediately afterwards, the dwarf Tleilaxu Master Bijaz makes the same offer regarding the Chani ghola; Paul orders Duncan to kill Bijaz.

At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul, a blind man, walks into the desert alone, in accordance with Fremen law. He leaves his children in the care of the Fremen while their aunt Alia, Paul's sister, marries the Duncan Idaho ghola and rules the empire as regent.

It is revealed in Children of Dune that Paul Atreides saw in his prescient visions that the human race was headed toward extinction in the near future. He saw a way to prevent this but felt the sacrifice he would need to make was too terrible. That sacrifice though was made later by his son Leto II. Paul appears briefly in this book as an assumed memory of Leto.

In Children of Dune a mysterious figure known as The Preacher emerges from the desert and preaches among the people of Arrakis. Led around by a boy, he discredits the religion that has been built around Paul Atreides, saying "The religion of Muad'Dib is not Muad'Dib," and scorns Alia. It is strongly suggested that he is indeed Paul, which is confirmed when he walks past Alia and says, "Stop trying to pull me into the background once more, sister."

Paul meets with his son Leto in a desert, telling the boy that he had hoped that Leto would just enjoy his life rather than take the steps needed to prevent the human extinction. Leto, of course, had decided otherwise; he is later the title character of God Emperor of Dune.

Back in Arrakeen, Paul (as the Preacher) speaks out against Alia to the crowd outside Alia's Temple; his words and the actions of Leto cause a riot. Reacting to his blasphemy, Alia's priests rush forward and stab Paul to death, as Alia and the remaining Atreides watch from above.

At the end of the sixth book in the Dune series, Chapterhouse: Dune, a ghola of Scytale is seemingly the only Tleilaxu Master left alive. Unbeknownst to all, he possesses a nullentropy capsule containing cells carefully and secretly collected by the Tleilaxu for millennia. These cells include those of Tleilaxu Masters, Face Dancers (both regular and "perfect"), Paul Atreides, Chani, the original Duncan Idaho and Atreides retainers such as Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Stilgar, and others.

In Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Scytale is a prisoner on the no-ship Ithaca, at the mercy of (among others) the latest Duncan Idaho ghola and the Bene Gesserit Sheeana. He trades these cells for permission to grow his own ghola; Duncan and the Bene Gesserit group subsequently grow gholas of Paul, Chani, Jessica and others. Elsewhere, the Face Dancer Khrone obtains Paul's genetic material from a religious relic on Caladan; he creates his own ghola of Paul, named Paolo, whom he and Daniel and Marty will use in their plot to take over the universe.

• House Atreides