“May thy knife chip and shatter.” Well, sure, but history will tell you sometimes it is far easier to bring a gun to a knife fight. Why, then, in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” universe and every “Dune” adaptation, are the likes of Paul Atreides, Duncan Idaho, and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen constantly trying to stick each other with blades instead of (and pardon our language) emptying a clip in one another? The explanation is actually a sensible one if you delve into the history of the time before the Atreides family touched down on Arrakis. Due to the technological advancement in one particular (force)field, guns got taken off the table.
This all came about thanks to the creation of the Holtzman Shield, a highly convenient forcefield that covers the entire body of its wearer. At the press of a button on a bracelet or wristband, the user is safe from harm when it comes to any projectile weapon. Unfortunately, its distribution made a favored weapon of choice during the Old Imperium era – the lasgun – nearly obsolete. The gun which omitted a beam of light at its target wouldn’t be deflected by the shield, but instead create a small nuclear blast killing anyone in the vicinity. As a result, projectile weapons were almost completely phased out leading to other tools becoming far more effective in battle. Specifically sharp and pointy ones, some of which can be crafted from sandworms.
Knives might be a weapon of choice, but the Fremen still have a special kind of firearm
Due to the fancy shields that keep Paul protected (up to a point), blades are the key instrument of war, not just for one-on-one combat but battles on an even grander scale. The future of houses would rest on knife edges in massive battles, with lasguns being phased out. As a result, shields that were not only used to protect an individual but also whole ships and locations could be breached by chemical weapons (as seen during the siege of Arrakis in “Dune: Part One”) or simple handguns when it came to close-quarter encounters.
As for the Fremen, they tend to use a firearm called a Maula pistol. This spring-loaded weapon fired poisonous darts that moved at such a speed and force they could breach Holtzman’s shields and take out whoever they were fired at. They make an appearance in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation being used by Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and the meme-worthy Stilgar (Javier Bardem) updated with a folded grip to be easily stored in a stillsuit. As fancy as they were, though, a trusty knife or Crysknife (a blade molded from the sharpened tooth of a sandworm) is predominantly used, and we support this decision. Without it, we wouldn’t have had the last stand of Duncan Idaho which made Jason Momoa look even more badass than usual, or Austin Butler and Timothee Chalamet’s epic knife fight in “Dune: Part Two.”
