> How could one choose between a jihad (bad on short term) and the golden path (good on very long term)?
That's kind of the central question of the books, isn't it? Were the horrors along the way a justification of the ends? They certainly were horrors. They long term good was certainly the rationalization for much of the the horrors.
> Paul did not like the choices he had (understandable) but can't say he was clearly a hero or an anti-hero.
Paul took more of the selfish choices than not and still rationalized to a great deal that he was the hero. Irulan's slash fic of the both of them as great rulers together also didn't help but further rationalize Paul's villainous choices as "heroic" both in universe and for most readers of the early books.
But if timescale matters, and given timescale is such a crucial part of the series, it probably does: on the largest timescales offered by the series and the internal writers with the longest views of history it's almost always said that Paul was one of the worst villains of history. It's a heck of a rug pull, but it is absolutely an intentional rug pull in the series. It's fascinating what the series does with such unreliable narrators. (Among other things, rooting for the "hero white savior" who turns out to be the "genocidal villain" seemed certainly meant to allegorically give a lot of Americans reason to question American ethics in world politics, especially with regards to climate change.)
That's kind of the central question of the books, isn't it? Were the horrors along the way a justification of the ends? They certainly were horrors. They long term good was certainly the rationalization for much of the the horrors.
> Paul did not like the choices he had (understandable) but can't say he was clearly a hero or an anti-hero.
Paul took more of the selfish choices than not and still rationalized to a great deal that he was the hero. Irulan's slash fic of the both of them as great rulers together also didn't help but further rationalize Paul's villainous choices as "heroic" both in universe and for most readers of the early books.
But if timescale matters, and given timescale is such a crucial part of the series, it probably does: on the largest timescales offered by the series and the internal writers with the longest views of history it's almost always said that Paul was one of the worst villains of history. It's a heck of a rug pull, but it is absolutely an intentional rug pull in the series. It's fascinating what the series does with such unreliable narrators. (Among other things, rooting for the "hero white savior" who turns out to be the "genocidal villain" seemed certainly meant to allegorically give a lot of Americans reason to question American ethics in world politics, especially with regards to climate change.)