In the jungles of Caladan, Paul Atreides learned the value of ferocity, of going after his enemies instead of letting them pursue him. From our current perspective, this must be seen as one of the factors that made him the most aggressive Emperor in the long history of the Imperium. He accepted the necessity of pursuing his enemies and killing them without a modicum of compassion or regret. In his first experience of actual war, joining his father on the battlefields of Grumman, Paul saw how violence could infect men with irrationality, how hatred could extinguish reason. And he came to understand that the most dangerous enemy is not the man with the most weapons, but the man with the least to lose.

—A Child’s History of Muad’Dib by the PRINCESS IRULAN