Dune: Part Two

Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the universe, he must prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

Dune: Part Two is an upcoming 2024 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jon Spaihts. The sequel to Dune (2021), it is the second of a two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert, and follows Paul Atreides as he unites with the Fremen people of the desert planet Arrakis to wage war against House Harkonnen. Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem reprise their roles from the first film, with Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux joining the ensemble cast.

Cast

• Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the exiled Duke of House Atreides, who is called “Muad’Dib” by the Fremen
• Zendaya as Chani, a young Fremen warrior and Paul’s concubine 
• Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s Bene Gesserit mother and concubine to Paul’s late father and predecessor, Leto Atreides
• Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, the former military leader of House Atreides and Paul’s mentor
• Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s youngest nephew and planned successor of House Harkonnen
• Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter
• Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, the brutish nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and older brother of Feyd-Rautha
• Christopher Walken as Shaddam IV, the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe and head of House Corrino
• Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring, a Bene Gesserit and close friend of the Emperor
• Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli, a Fremen warrior
• Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, head of House Harkonnen, Feyd-Rautha’s and Glossu Rabban’s uncle, sworn enemy to Atreides and former steward of Arrakis
• Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer and Lady Jessica’s mother
• Javier Bardem as Stilgar, leader of the Fremen tribe at Sietch Tabr
• Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides, Paul’s unborn sister who appears in his visions.

They flee to the Fremen, who see in Paul the Lisan al-Gaib or “the Voice from the Outer World”, a prophet they call the Mahdi whom they believe is “The One Who Will Lead Us to Paradise”. Paul and Jessica 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. When Paul is accepted into the Fremen tribe, he is given the secret “sietch name” Usul, the Fremen word meaning “the base of the pillar”. He chooses “Paul Muad’Dib” as his common name of manhood, to be used openly. Muad’Dib is the name of the adapted kangaroo mouse of Arrakis, and Stilgar relates that Paul’s choice pleases the Fremen:

Muad’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own water. Muad’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad’Dib we call ‘instructor-of-boys.’ That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul Muad’Dib, who is Usul among us.

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, named Leto in honor of Paul’s father. 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.

Awakening, Paul launches an attack on the Harkonnen and Imperial troops with his Fremen army (and with his personal squad of bodyguards, the Fedaykin), riding the enormous sandworms indigenous to the planet. In the attack, he learns that his son Leto has been killed in a Sardaukar raid. They win and Paul requests an audience with Shaddam 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 requires 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.

Abilities and skills

• Prescience: As the Kwisatz Haderach long sought out for by the breeding programme of the Bene Gesserit Order, Paul possessed a powerful ability to bridge space and time with prescient ability. From an early age, he experienced visions in his dreams which were reported to the Sisterhood by his mother Jessica and was known to have had visions that were accurate, penetrating, and defied four-dimensional explanation. This was one of the key attributes that made them first suspect him being their long-awaited Kwisatz Haderach achieved early. Upon the arrival of House Atreides on Arrakis, Paul’s prescient ability was strengthened by the spice melange he constantly inhaled, and it grew greatest during his alliance with the Fremen people, when he first forsaw the jihad that would be waged across the Known Universe in his name, and began to try and avert it. By the end of his reign, Paul’s prescience was so powerful that when he lost his eyesight due to a Tleilaxu stone burner, he could interact with the world around him without aid. This was because he was able to remember all the details of his vision of the future. Essentially, Paul knew where everyone would be and what they would say and do. While this helped him in many situations, it was also ultimately his downfall as he was helpless to prevent his future.
• Weirding Way: Paul was trained by his mother in the Weirding Way of the Bene Gesserit, allowing him to maneuver around and strike an opponent at unimaginable speeds. When first encountering Sietch Tabr this saved his life, as he was able to overcome the Fremen who saught to kill him and Jessica for their water by means of the Weirding Way. He later taught the Way to many of the Fremen across Arrakis, making them into skilled and deadly Fedaykin by these means, and this was a key factor in his victory in the Battle of Arrakeen.
• Voice: At the time the Atreides landed on Arrakis, Paul was also developing the audio-neuro control mechanism of Voice used by the Sisterhood to achieve complete control over a reciever. He demonstrated his emerging talent in this field when, after the decimation of the Atreides and the capture of him and his mother into an ornithopter, he used the Voice to order a Harkonnen agent to remove Jessica’s gag so that she could use it even more effectively against him, and thus saving both their lives.
• Prana-bindu control: Paul was taught by the supreme control of nerve and muscles known to the Bene Gesserit as prana-bindu by Jessica, which laid the foundations for his use of the Weirding Way and allowed him to gain a higher control over his body which would come to his advantage at many points in his life.
• Swordfighting: In addition to the Bene Gesserit techniques taught to him by his mother for his survival, Paul became a skilled swordfighter after years of training by his chief Atreides teachers, the renowned Swordmaster Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, who he nearly bested shortly before the move to Arrakis. This proved to be a vital skill, as he employed it not only to best Jamis after he declared amtal during his early years in Sietch Tabr, but later to kill his cousin, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, another skilled fighter, in a kanly duel at the time of his ascension to Emperor.
• Mentat training: For the first fifteen years of his life, much of Paul’s training, through his teachers, had been geared toward turning Paul into a Mentat by order of his father Duke Leto. The theory was that when Paul succeeded his father as the Duke of the Atreides, one of the most respected and moral Great Houses of the Imperium, a Mentat-Duke would truly be a formidable force in the Landsraad. He became a fully fledged “true” Mentat after first escaping the Harkonnens with his mother, and the high level Mentat abilities he gained at that time would help him at many points in his life, including helping handle the data of the battles of his jihad and allowing him to piece together the nature of the conspiracies which were aimed against him more quickly than he could have otherwise.
• Endurance: Paul’s unusual endurance, especially for a male, was noted by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam when she tested him with a gom jabbar, a test which he passed through this skill. She noted that he surmounted more agony in the test than any other human of record.

Paul: “You’re the strong one, Chani. Stay with me.“

Chani: “Always.“— Paul and Chani’s love

Chani Kynes

Chani was born on Arrakis, the daughter of the half-Fremen planetologist Liet Kynes and his full-Fremen wife. She gradually developed into a formidable fighter, and by the time of her father’s death was serving under naib Stilgar.

Her introduction to Paul came during a tense stand-off. Chani was familiar to the Atreides heir because of her appearance in his prescient visions prior to his arrival on Arrakis. But to her Paul was initially a stranger.

They are reluctantly taken in by a tribe of the planet’s native Fremen, and Chani is the Fremen woman put in charge of protecting and guiding Paul. They soon become lovers, and Paul rises as a religious leader among the Fremen, and is called Muad’Dib.

Already a talented warrior before meeting Paul, Chani becomes deadly after training by Paul and Jessica in the Bene Gesserit martial arts called the “weirding way” by the Fremen. Chani later manages to bring Paul out of the deep spice trance he falls into after using spice essence to enhance his powers. Paul and Chani’s first child, Leto II (not to be confused with their later son, Leto II Atreides), is killed as an infant in a Corrino raid on their home in the deep desert.

To cement his control of the Empire after deposing Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, Paul takes Shaddam’s daughter, the Princess Irulan as his wife. Chani understands the political reasons, but Paul reassures her:

“I swear to you now … that you’ll need no title. That woman over there will be my wife and you but a concubine because this is a political thing and we must weld peace out of this moment, enlist the Great Houses of the Landsraad. We must obey the forms. Yet that princess shall have no more of me than my name. No child of mine nor touch nor softness of glance, nor instant of desire.”

Jessica adds:

“Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine—never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine—history will call us wives

After the defeat of House Harkonnen and House Corrino on Arrakis, and Paul’s subsequent ascent to Emperor and marriage to Irulan Corrino, Chani became his official concubine and remained his exclusive partner.

Twelve years later, when Chani became pregnant once again, Irulan sought to usurp her and become the bearer of Paul’s children. She found support with the Bene Gesserit, who feared the impact of Chani’s largely-unknown bloodline on their breeding program.

However, Irulan’s attempts to terminate Chani’s pregnancy through drugs failed. After a traumatic pregnancy, which was accelerated by Spice, taking only five months instead of nine, Chani gave birth to twins, who Paul named Leto and Ghanima.

Irulan’s treachery did, however, bring a secondary result. Chani died shortly after giving birth to the twins, due to complications stemming from the drugs Paul’s titular wife had been surreptitiously feeding her.

The Tleilaxu Scytale offered immediately to resurrect Chani in an axlotl tank. Yet despite the temptation, Paul refused, knowing the impact such an event would have on the Golden Path.

Lady Jessica of the Atreides (10154 AG-10256 AG), born as either Jessica Nerus or Jessica Harkonnen, was the official concubine of Duke Leto Atreides I, and the mother of his son, Emperor Paul Atreides, and daughter, Alia Atreides. She was also a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.

As a result of the Bene Gesserit breeding program, Jessica was the illegitimate daughter of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and Tanidia Nerus. Due to this, prior to becoming Leto’s concubine she was probably referred to as Jessica Nerus in Bene Gesserit records, as opposed to Jessica Harkonnen, which was top secret information and her lineage remained a secret according to Bene Gesserit tradition.

She was raised from birth by the Bene Gesserit, who intended to breed her to the House Atreides heir Leto Atreides I, to produce a daughter who would then breed with Feyd Rautha Harkonnen in order to produce the Kwisatz Hadarach, the one who would not only possess the genetic memories of all male and female ancestors, but also see into the future. Consequently, Jessica was provided with the most intense and advanced Bene Gesserit education and training.

The Bene Gesserit plan to couple Jessica with Duke Leto Atreides I initially appeared to work perfectly. Jessica became the official concubine of Leto Atreides I, which allowed him to also marry, should such a political union prove advantageous for the Great House.

The relationship between the two quickly evolved into genuine love, and due to this love, Jessica disobeyed her orders and gave birth to a son, Paul Atreides, who would be heir of House Atreides, and ultimately ruined the Bene Gesserit plans.

Gurney Halleck

Halleck is a talented minstrel skilled in the use of the baliset. His jawline bears a scar from an inkvine whip wound inflicted by Glossu Rabban in the Harkonnen slave pits. A loyal friend to Duke Leto Atreides and his concubine Lady Jessica, many years after Leto’s death it is suggested in Children of Dune that Gurney and Jessica have become lovers.Leto’s son Paul Atreides refers to him as “Gurney the valorous” in Dune, and Duke Leto comments that Paul has named Gurney well.

Halleck is Paul’s weapons teacher, as well as a skilled musician. He is one of Leto’s chief officers, and serves alongside Duncan Idaho as a Swordmaster of House Atreides. According to Dune, Gurney was trained by “the best fighters in the universe”, and alongside Idaho and Thufir Hawat gave Leto a war council almost unparalleled in the Imperium. He manages to survive the fall of House Atreides on Arrakis with 73 men. In the years after the attack, he falls in with the melange smugglers, eventually becoming a powerful figure. His smugglers fall for a Fremen trap—a fake hoard of spice—and are almost killed before Paul, now the Fremen leader “Muad’Dib”, recognizes him. Halleck later becomes Jessica’s loyal chief officer after nearly killing her, mistakenly believing she betrayed Duke Leto.

In Children of Dune, Gurney returns to Arrakis with Jessica from Caladan. He coordinates a purging of dissidents along with Fremen leader Stilgar, an operation that he kept secret. He goes to the sietch Jacurutu under what he believes are Jessica’s orders to test that Paul’s son Leto II has not fallen to Abomination. When the Fremen Namri reveals that the testing was ordered by Alia, he kills the man and escapes, sending a message to Duncan to set off the course of events that will force Stilgar to act. He takes temporary shelter with a new batch of smugglers before stealing an ornithopter. With it, he escapes to a rebel sietch, where Leto II and The Preacher arrive. Leto II takes him to Shuloch. After Leto II returns to Arrakeen and takes the throne, Gurney is assigned to Sietch Tabr as part of Stilgar’s council.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen

Siridar-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, born as Feyd-Rautha Rabban in October 10174 AG, was the final Baron of House Harkonnen. After the death of his uncle, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Feyd briefly assumed the barony before being killed in a duel with Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides shortly after the Battle of Arrakeen in December 10193 AG. While alive, Baron Vladimir held a preference for the charismatic and cunning Feyd-Rautha over his older and less astute brother, Glossu “Beast” Rabban, the Count of Lankiveil. Thus, he anointed Feyd as his chosen heir.

Feyd, like Paul Atreides, was the product of a centuries-long breeding program organized by the Bene Gesserit, who planned to marry Feyd to a daughter of House Atreides. This union would unite the powerful houses, end their feud, and assure their offspring would have a high probability of becoming the long-awaited Kwisatz Haderach. This scheme became impossible when the Atreides concubine, Lady Jessica, defied her orders to produce a daughter. She instead gave birth to a son: Paul.

This ignorance of command on Jessica’s behalf established an irreconcilable tension between Feyd and Paul, as both were the scions of their bitterly-opposed noble houses. The risk of one or both of these young men being killed, which would destroy thousands of years of genetic engineering, was so great that the Bene Gesserit sent an envoy, Margot Fenring, to seduce Feyd and conceive a child, salvaging his genetic material in case of his demise. During the seduction, she used a form of hypnotic suggestion (the Voice) to make Feyd vulnerable to a command which, upon a specific word (most commonly “Uroshnor“), would cause complete muscle paralysis, a technique sometimes used on individuals who were considered highly dangerous.

Princess Irulan

Princess Irulan Corrino was the eldest daughter of the 81st Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, and Anirul, a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank. She was also the wife, in title only, of Emperor Paul Atreides, and an important historian who chronicled the events of Paul’s rise to the Imperial throne through a series of written works.

Irulan is established as the eldest daughter of the 81st Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and Anirul, a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank. She has four younger sisters named Chalice, Wensicia, Josifa and Rugi, and no brothers. In Dune, Irulan is described through Paul Atreides’ eyes:

Paul’s attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. Without being told it, Paul knew her—Princess Royal, Bene Gesserit-trained, a face that time vision had shown him in many aspects: Irulan. There’s my key, he thought.

As the eldest of five daughters to Shaddam, Irulan was raised under auspicious circumstances in the Imperial Court, and received an excellent education through the Bene Gesserit. Like her younger sisters Chalice, Wensicia, Josifa, and Rugi, Irulan was conditioned to be a lady of refinement and elegance.

From an early age, Irulan’s father Shaddam IV expected her to become Empress after his death, or at the very least to wed a political ally and retain House Corrino’s hegemony over the Imperium. The Bene Gesserit also saw potential in the girl, and gave her sufficient training so that they could exploit her at some point in the future, were she to find herself in a position of power.

However, despite the expectations of others, Irulan remained only an average Bene Gesserit adept, and retained a strong sense of personal identity and ambition: qualities that caused tension between herself and her equally strong-minded father. Lady Jessica mused that Irulan was too proud to progress very far with her Bene Gesserit training, and that the Sisterhood never pressed the point because Irulan’s primary use would be as Shaddam’s daughter, even with Bene Gesserit abilities.

Irulan wrote everything important in her private diary:“My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them — my father and this man in the portrait–both with thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. ‘Princess-daughter, my father said, I would that you’d been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman.’ My father was 71 years old at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was only 14 years old, but yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies.” — “In My Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan

Following the consolidation of Paul’s rule over the Imperium, Irulan quickly discovered that she was Paul’s wife in title only, and that his beloved Fremen consort, Chani, was his exclusive partner and the sole bearer of his children. Jealousy and resentment drove her to secretly drug Chani with dangerous contraceptives, so that she would not produce his heirs. However, the scheme did not work as intended, and Irulan was left with remorse when Chani died after giving birth to twins named Leto and Ghanima. This act, combined with the apparent death of Paul Atreides after he walked into the desert a blind man, led her to devote herself to House Atreides and her two surviving stepchildren. Alia, who had never liked Irulan, grudgingly admitted that she “reek[ed] of trustworthiness,” and allowed her to become Leto and Ghanima’s guardian, since her defection destroyed any hope the Bene Gesserit had of manipulating the children.

Through their developmental years, and following the rise of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II, Irulan spent her remaining years studying and documenting all the events that came to pass since House Atreides took control of Arrakis in 10,191 A.G. She was occasionally flustered by the twins’ unusual behavior, given their Other Memory.

Count Glossu Rabban (10132 AG – December 10193 AG), commonly known as Beast Rabban and also called Mudir Nahya (Demon Ruler) or King Cobra by the Fremen, was the older nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and the Count of Lankiveil.

He inherited the Harkonnen penchant for sadism and cruelty, but not the cunning. He was best known for his tyrannical and vastly ineffective governance of Arrakis during the Harkonnen fiefdom of Arrakis, as well as during the insurgency of the Fremen led by Paul Muad’Dib. He earned the nickname “Beast” when he killed his father, Abulurd Harkonnen. The Baron planned to let Glossu rule the planet for a time through fear and terror so that when his favored nephew, Feyd-Rautha (Rabban’s younger brother) took over, the new ruler would be welcomed as a hero.

In the novel, while lacking in cunning, he did possess at least some degree of common sense and foresight, as he repeatedly insisted to the rest of the Harkonnens that they not underestimate the Fremen and do a head-count of their forces before occupying Arrakis, and also posed an insightful enough question about his uncle’s subversion of Yueh that the baron himself had to give pause.

Rabban was slain and beheaded by the Fremen populace of Arrakeen, whom he had brutalized for many years.

Shaddam Corrino IV [b. 10119 AG] was the eighty-first and last Padishah Emperor of the Corrino Empire, and thus the Known Universe, reigning from the year 10156 AG, when his father Emperor Elrood IX succumbed to chaumurky, until replaced by the Regency set up in the name of his eldest daughter, Irulan, in 10196 AG.

After his deposal, he was exiled to his former prison planet of Salusa Secundus along with Count Fenring and his five daughters, Irulan, Chalice, Rugi, Josifa and Wensicia.  

Shaddam married Anirul, a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank. Their marriage resulted in the birth of five daughters:

• Irulan Corrino — The eldest daughter of Shaddam and Anirul, and the Imperial Crown Princess and the heiress apparent to the Imperial Golden Lion Throne of the Galactic Padishah Empire.
• Chalice Corrino — The second daughter of Shaddam and Anirul, who died unexpectedly on Kaitain or Salusa Secundus.
• Wensicia Corrino — The third daughter of Shaddam and Anirul, and the former Sovereign Co-regent of the Imperial House Corrino.
• Josifa Corrino – The fourth daughter of Shaddam and Anirul, and the Bene Gesserit Truthsayer of the Landsraad.
• Rugi Corrino – The fifth and youngest daughter of Shaddam and Anirul, and the last Princess of the Imperial House Corrino.

Shaddam’s lack of legitimate sons ensured that he was the last ruler of House Corrino.

His wife Anirul died in 10176 AG.

In 10196 AG, Shaddam was exiled to his ancestral planet of Salusa Secundus along with his four younger daughters and Count Hasimir Fenring. Princess Irulan Corrino was named Sovereign Co-regent, but Paul Atreides effectively ruled as Emperor as her husband. The Almanak en-Ashraf mistakenly listed that Shaddam Corrino IV died in year 10202 AG at the age of 68. However, he was still alive in the year 10208 AG, and was putting his Sardaukar through landing maneuvers on Salusa Secundus.

Margot, Lady Fenring

Lady Margot Fenring, was the Bene Gesserit wife of the Mentat Count Hasimir Fenring. Despite superficially falling under the influence of House Corrino, Margot fully served the Sisterhood to many ends. After the vast reduction of Bene Gesserit influence following the Ascension of House Atreides, Margot and her husband dedicated themselves to serving their own ends.

The Sisterhood allowed her to be married to Count Hasimir Fenring, the ruler of House Fenring, a House Minor long aligned to House Corrino. While present in the Padishah Emperor’s court she persuaded Shaddam Corrino IV to marry Reverend Mother Anirul Corrino, whom the Sisterhood knew would not yield House Corrino any sons.

As the wife of Hasimir Fenring, Margot was resident on Arrakis during his temporary governorship. Prior to their departure, and the arrival of House Atreides, she left an encoded message for the Lady Jessica Atreides, warning her of House Harkonnen’s planned treachery.”TO THE LADY JESSICA — May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes“―MARGOT LADY FENRING

Bene Gesserit not bound by a School Injunction was required to give another Bene Gesserit when conditions demanded it. Jessica’s fingers detected the subtle coded dots, scanned them in a single passage:”Your son and Duke are in immediate danger. A bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H loaded it with death traps to be discovered, leaving one that may escape detection. I do not know the exact nature of the menace, but it has something to do with a bed. The threat to your Duke involves defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant. The H plan to give you as gift to a minion. To the best of my knowledge, this conservatory is safe. Forgive that I cannot tell more. My sources are few as my Count is not in the pay of the H“―In haste, MF.

Unfortunately, Margot’s warning is not enough to stop the Harkonnen plot against the Atreides. Duke Leto Atreides I is killed, and Jessica and her son Paul are forced to flee into the desert of Arrakis.

Margot has shared some of her training with her husband since when the Count focused on Paul. He saw with his eyes Lady Margot had trained in the Bene Gesserit way, aware of the mystery and hidden grandeur about this Atreides youth. Hasimir subsequently refuses Emperor Shaddam IV’s command that he kill Paul.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (10110 AG – December 10193 AG), commonly known as the Baron Harkonnen, was the penultimate ruler of House Harkonnen, and the chief architect in the demise of Duke Leto Atreides of House Atreides during the latter part of the reign of Shaddam IV.

Born the son of a Harkonnen Baron, Vladimir showed an early interest in attaining power, and was trained to become the heir to House Harkonnen, ahead of his more mild-mannered half-brother Abulurd. During this time, his father served as head to the House Harkonnen and as Siridar and Baron of the planet Giedi Prime.

Vladimir built upon the earlier success of his predecessors, gradually making House Harkonnen more successful through blackmail, subterfuge and treachery.

Vladimir Harkonnen died, aged 83, during the defeat of House Harkonnen and Sardaukar forces at the hands of the Fremen on Arrakis in the year 10,193. While watching the looming Fremen forces he was poisoned with a Gom Jabbar, wielded by a young Alia Atreides, his granddaughter.

When he was killed by Alia, House Harkonnen passed to his na-Baron, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. He challenged Paul Atreides to a duel, which Paul won. After Paul defeated Feyd, House Harkonnen passed to the next living heir, the Lady Jessica, who declined the title. Paul then ruled that House Harkonnen passed to himself as the last living heir, and became subsumed into the throne.

Gaius Helen Mohiam

Gaius Helen Mohiam is the Imperial Truthsayer, and the mentor of Lady Jessica, the Bene Gesserit concubine of Duke Leto Atreides. Mohiam is interested in Jessica’s young son Paul Atreides, who is a key figure in the Bene Gesserit breeding program but has also displayed unusual potential. She ultimately loses any influence she may have had over Jessica or Paul, who ally themselves with the native Fremen of Arrakis and depose Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

Naib Stilgar was a Fremen who was the Naib of Sietch Tabr and the Governor of Arrakis from 10196 AG onwards. He was a close friend and chief advisor to Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides.Stilgar was befriended by Atreides Swordmaster Duncan Idaho, who had been sent in advance by Duke Leto Atreides to gauge and study the Fremen. In Idaho’s reports to Leto, Idaho had judged Stilgar to be a ‘good example’ of the Fremen of Arrakis. Indeed, through Idaho’s relationship with Stilgar and his tribe, he became so impressed with the Fremen and their ways that Idaho accepted dual loyalties to the Atreides and to Stilgar.

Stilgar is the Fremen leader, or naib, of Sietch Tabr. In Dune, Duke Leto Atreides sends his swordmaster, Duncan Idaho, to build a relationship with the mysterious native Fremen of Arrakis, people tempered by the planet’s harsh conditions who Leto realizes are an underestimated and untapped resource. Leto allows Duncan, impressed with the Fremen and their ways, a dual loyalty to both the Atreides and Stilgar. When Leto’s son Paul and his Bene Gesserit mother, Lady Jessica, flee a Harkonnen attack, they find refuge with Stilgar’s tribe of Fremen. Paul, believed to be their prophesied messiah, comes to be known as Muad’Dib and rises as a military and religious leader among the Fremen. Previously underestimated by the Harkonnens, the Fremen overcome the Imperial and Harkonnen forces that control Arrakis thanks to Paul’s military strategy, their own ferocity and their ability to use sandstorms and the giant sandworms to their advantage.

Alia Atreides (November10191 AG – 10219 AG), also known as Saint Alia of the Knife and later Coan-Tean (“the female death-spirit who walks without feet”) to the Fremen and called Hawt the Fish Monster on the outer worlds, was the posthumous daughter of Duke Leto Atreides I and his Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica, born on the planet Arrakis. She was the younger sister of Paul Atreides. As regent of the Atreides Empire, she established an autocratic government based on the cult of her personality. She later leapt to her death in defiance of the possession by the spirit of a younger Vladimir Harkonnen retained in her Other Memory.

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Alia was still in the womb when Jessica took the Water of Life. Thus she was pre-born, and highly susceptible to Abomination from before birth. After living with the Fremen for several years, she was present in the palace on Arrakeen when her brother and his forces successfully conquered the combined forces of the Emperor’s Sardaukar and House Harkonnen.

During the invasion she poisoned Baron Vladimir Harkonnen with a Gom Jabbar, although not before revealing to the latter her familial ties to Harkonnen, and slew dying soldiers on the battle field for their water, earning her the title “St. Alia of the Knife.