Illustrations of Dune, Ep. 02 | Baron Harkonnen: The Science of Discontent

COUNT FENRING

“Mankind has ah only one mm-m-m science…”

BARON HARKONNEN

“And what science is that?”

COUNT FENRING

“It’s the um-m-m-ah-h science of ah-h-h discontent.”

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PRINCESS IRULAN

“What do you despise? By this you are truly known.”

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BARON

“You must be always hungry and thirsty.

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BARON

“Like me.”

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PAUL ATREIDES

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”

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IRULAN

“To attempt an understanding of Muad’Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood.

“It is to attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness.

“It cannot be.”

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This series builds on itself from one episode to the next, so if this is the first one you’re seeing, I would definitely recommend starting from the Prologue: Paul is You, or at least the previous episode, the Art of Ruling, for a better overall understanding. Having said that, I’m not your dad, your twisted mentat, or your secret grandpa, so I’m sure you’ll make your own decisions no matter what I say.

One more thing: this video mostly refers just to the events of the first book but near the end we’ll also be crossing over into the events of the second and third books, Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune, as well. Since it’s not until the end, I’ll throw up another warning beforehand, in case you’re trying to avoid those spoilers.

Last time we talked about Paul’s father, the Duke Leto Atreides, and the philosophy of the Art of Ruling. To over-simplify, one can’t expect to rule well over others unless they’ve first attained some level of rule over themselves. Not a rigid discipline that must be maintained at all times, as with the Old Duke, but a delicate refinement of the self, like what Leto ultimately achieves, if only briefly. A true “Art,” with all the nuance that verbiage implies. 

In truth, we’re actually going about this whole thing backwards, but then again, that’s exactly what the relationship between a parent and their child is: going about life backwards. A father stands at the end of a long line of experiences and attempts to prepare his son for his own long line of experiences. The son, ironically, can’t grasp the full depth of the wisdom being offered until he also shares those experiences for himself. “A legacy of misunderstanding,” as I called it last time.

But what exactly am I talking about, going backwards? Leto’s character arc represents someone who learns to recognize and embrace himself in his totality, including those parts he might otherwise deny or reject. Taking a step back, this is a concept called “shadow integration,” a term coined by Carl Jung, whose work in psychology in the early 20th century heavily influenced Frank Herbert, author of Dune. In a way we’ve been indirectly talking about Jungian psychology the whole time, but previously I could get away with letting context clues do all the heavy lifting. From here it would just be more prudent to explain directly.

As an aside, I’m aware that modern psychology doesn’t really acknowledge Jung’s work as entirely correct anymore but within the realm of narrative fiction many of his concepts still remain extremely relevant. Just keep in mind that a fictional character can never be as complex as an actual human being whose nuance doesn’t exist for the convenience of plot or to establish motivation.

If Leto’s arc can be thought of as a general introduction to shadow integration as a concept, Baron Harkonnen and his house would represent the “masculine” extreme meant to be balanced against and contrasted by the all-female Bene Gesserit, whom we will be discussing next time. To be clear, “masculine” and “feminine” in this context are being used to illustrate duality, not to assign certain traits to men or women in particular. In Jungian psychology, “masculine” traits are considered to be those concerned with order, fact, and reason, whereas “feminine” traits are concerned with the abstract, fluidity, and intuition. The key to understanding this duality is remembering that no traits are inherently positive or negative. Instead, it’s more of a question of how well, or not, they’re inter-balanced with each other as a whole. 

Aside from this masculine/feminine duality, over the next two videos I also want you to keep in mind what effects might arise, if any, from comparing oneself to what might be considered an ultimate evil - in this case, Baron Harkonnen. To what lengths should one go to resist such an opponent and to what extent would - or should - those lengths be justified? These questions may not have strictly definitive answers, which is all the more reason why they should be explored more deeply.

With all that in mind, we’re ready to begin our research into Baron Harkonnen and the Science of Discontent.

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BARON HARKONNEN

“There it is, [...] the biggest mantrap in all of history. And the Duke’s headed into its jaws. 

BARON HARKONNEN

Is it not a magnificent thing that I, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, do? Observe closely [...] Could anyone mistake this place? Arrakis! Truly unique. A superb setting for a unique victory.”

Few villains possess the raw presence of Baron Harkonnen. From his rumbling basso to his imposing frame he casts a devouring shadow over all he surveys. Unlike House Atreides with golden hawks proudly emblazoned upon their breasts, House Harkonnen has no iconography to speak of, only the Baron himself. He is the consolidation of wealth, the lopsided nature of capitalism, endless stratification that only serves the elites. Extreme inevitability.

It would be easy and even tempting to just circle around that point for twenty minutes, allude vaguely to current global politics, and wrap up an analysis of Baron Harkonnen right there. After all, how often is obesity used as a mere symbol of greed, excess, dominance? Baron Harkonnen’s appearance and brutal nature is completely intentional, a play on your expectations of evil. We discussed last time how the narrator is fully aware of his audience, but it bears repeating: that narrator is Paul Atreides selectively retelling the events of his life after the fact from the perspectives of his blood relatives, who witnessed them. He is not without an agenda.

We have been conditioned, in some ways, to accept that a villain may just be “the bad guy.” A living representation within the story of an incongruence that must be corrected or removed. Combined with an extreme portrayal that renders the villain less realistic to the audience, the expectation that the character should behave realistically is relaxed … and exploited. The Baron seems like a cartoonishly evil man with a scary voice and an unfriendly shape, why should we bother to look any deeper?

But the Baron’s considerable bulk isn’t just a symbol of imposition, it’s being used to obscure as well. Not every author or story necessarily warrants this level of scrutiny, however every single sentence in Dune is load-bearing and saturated with meaning, which is what makes it so infinitely re-readable. The intention is to contemplate and revisit these events, comparing and contrasting your understanding of them at different points in your own history, prompting you to understand yourself better as a result. Remember, Paul is you and Dune is written the way it is to encourage this level of literary and personal analysis.

To be clear, Baron Harkonnen certainly does represent all the things I’ve mentioned so far, but to assume it ends there would be to forget that it’s the very nature of obesity to possess depth beneath the surface.

In the case of the Baron, what lies beneath is a cavernous well of desire. This is expressed in many ways, most notably through gluttony … and lust. Despite that, I’ve personally noticed that in many discourses surrounding Dune the subject of the Baron’s sexuality is barely mentioned, if addressed at all. As a queer person myself I can certainly understand the reluctance to delve much into this particularly thorny patch of topics. Nevertheless, these details are just as purposefully chosen and placed with the intention of conveying a message, so if I’m not willing to discuss them either, who will?

So here it is: Baron Harkonnen is another in a long, long, long line of literary villains who are either heavily inferred or outright confirmed to be homosexual in the text, usually as a storytelling device to “other” them from the rest of the cast in a fundamental way. If you’ve ever heard the term “queer coding,” this is what that refers to. It’s my personal opinion that Baron Harkonnen is a particularly egregious example of queer coding because he is not only the lone example of a non-heteronormative character in the narrative, he is explicitly a rapist and pedophile and inferred to be incestuous as well.

As you can imagine, this casts a very unflattering light on my community and myself when taken at face value that is extremely troubling, however a refusal to discuss it will not make it less so. That said, where this subject is concerned I will not tolerate any hate speech or disrespect of any kind to myself or others in my comments - or anywhere, for that matter. This manner of portrayal can and often does have harmful and even regressive effects, intended or otherwise, on the communities being referenced and on the individuals therein. It’s already far too easy for ignorance to lead one to unjustifiably conflate homosexuality with degeneracy and child abuse in a wide variety of ways and that, simply put, is totally unacceptable. I’m generally very positive about this series and author, but if credit should be given where it’s due, it should also be withheld where it’s not.

With all of that said, I’m not incapable of understanding the logic that may have gone into the development of this character in this way and it would be hypocritical of me to dismiss the literary symbolism at work entirely out of hand just because I find some elements of it offensive. 

Recall, Baron Harkonnen represents the “masculine” side of the Jungian duality: he is highly concerned with hierarchy, dominance, and order. One might even go so far as to say he’s attracted to these masculine qualities. Taking it a step further, Baron Harkonnen makes it clear that this is not just an attraction towards the masculine but also a rejection of the feminine:

FEYD-RAUTHA HARKONNEN

“Why haven’t you ever bought a Bene Gesserit, Uncle? With a Truthsayer at your side--”

BARON

“You know my tastes!”

FEYD-RAUTHA

“Still, one would be valuable for--”

BARON

“I trust them not!”

This speaks to another Jungian concept at the core of the Baron’s overall association to masculinity: anima development. In brief, the anima is a man’s internal understanding and integration of feminine traits, contrasted by the animus, a woman’s internalization of masculinity. Remember, these aren’t explicitly female traits, both men and women can and do possess both. If it helps, instead of “masculine” and “feminine” you could also think of it as “order” and “chaos,” as represented in the symbol of yin and yang from Taoist philosophy. Neither are inherently good or bad because both are necessary to some degree,  and when each is at their peak they contain the other within. The point is to achieve an equilibrium between them, to attune them within yourself and become a well-balanced individual in the process, capable of fully exploring and understanding your own duality and the duality of others in turn. 

In short, the more developed a man’s anima, the better he can relate to femininity both in himself and others - and not just in women but in everyone. By rejecting the Bene Gesserit the Baron indicates a very poorly developed anima, if it can be considered developed at all. In truth, this probably has more to do with why the Baron is one of the primary villains of Dune from a literary perspective. He stands equal and opposite to the Bene Gesserit, both representing either extreme in a duality of imbalance. He is a cautionary tale of how an unwillingness to allow for chance, emotion, change, and intuition might lead one to brutality and domination. How unrelenting rigidity and legality may build places like the over-industrialized Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime: highly efficient yet profoundly sterile. How an abundance of scheming and a deficit of empathy can only bring about self-predation in an endless cycle of abuse.

The Baron’s relationship with desire most certainly does not end here, however. Baron Harkonnen’s character is anything but two-dimensional, as reflected by his character design, which constantly calls attention to his literal, physical depth. To best explore this depth going forward, however, we need to take a step back from the Baron himself and explore instead the ways in which he weaponizes his unique sense for the desires of others. Particularly in the nature of his relationship with his right-hand man: the twisted Mentat, Piter de Vries.

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BARON HARKONNEN

Well, then, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, I summoned you here hoping to teach you a bit of wisdom. Have you observed our good Mentat? 

A most efficient Mentat, Piter, wouldn’t you say, Feyd? [...] 

Efficient, Piter, but he’s still prone to passionate outbursts. 

Efficient, Piter, but he still can err.

PITER DE VRIES

(in a low, sullen tone)

Did you call me in here to impair my efficiency with criticism, Baron?

BARON

Impair your efficiency? You know me better, Piter. I wish only for my nephew to understand the limitations of a Mentat.

PITER

Then I’m on display. Shall I dance? Shall I perform my various functions for the eminent Feyd-Rau--

BARON

(interrupting abruptly)

Precisely. You are on display. Now be silent.

(to FEYD-RAUTHA)

This is a Mentat, Feyd. It has been trained and conditioned to perform certain duties. The fact that it is encased in a human body, however, must not be overlooked. A serious drawback, that.

Of all the members of House Harkonnen, Piter de Vries is the most intriguing to me. He stands at the center of one of the most audacious schemes for power in the Empire, second in scope only to the Bene Gesserit breeding plan, and yet almost nothing is known about him. What we can be certain of is that he’s the logistical mastermind behind the plot to eliminate House Atreides. Every detail is accounted for and no opportunity for cruelty is overlooked. 

Lady Jessica describes Piter as a twisted mentat, and when you compare him to Thufir Hawat of House Atreides that distinction couldn’t be clearer. Both men have a certain ruthlessness inevitable in someone with such a calculating nature, but where Thufir maintains boundaries, Piter revels in his maliciousness. He probably lacks this discipline because Piter is a product of Tleilaxu genetic manipulation rather than a formal mentat education. All talent and no discipline, he is morally unrestrained and profoundly unstable.

A typical mentat, as a reminder, is someone who’s trained from a very young age to hone their minds for extremely fast and accurate computational abilities, allowing them to act as human supercomputers in the universe of Dune, which had previously eliminated “thinking machines” long ago. Though an individual mentat doesn’t necessarily have to be male or female, mentats as a concept are very thematically masculine, being masters of facts, organization, and calculation, which explains why Baron Harkonnen makes a point to never be without one if he can help it, and why he’s willing to pay extra to have one grown to his sinister specifications.

The rudimentary nature of Piter’s arrangement with Baron Harkonnen is simple: so long as he remains useful, he may continue to go on living. There’s no question of loyalty or morality, just a simple calculation predicated on that basest of needs: to survive. 

But what does Piter want? 

BARON

“You should have been a Bashar of the Corps. You’re too interested in blood and pain. Perhaps I was too quick with my promise of the spoils of Arrakis.”

PITER

“Do not toy with Piter, Baron. You promised me the Lady Jessica. You promised her to me.”

BARON

“For what, Piter? For pain?”

No really, Piter, why do you want Jessica?

Down to the last moment Piter remains silent about why he wants Lady Jessica so specifically. We can never know for certain, but I think there’s enough there for an educated guess, at least.

Of course, it’s always possible that Baron Harkonnen’s assessment of Piter is correct and he just wants her for torture, but even the Baron doesn’t actually believe that, as we’ll see. Instead, I believe that Piter wants Jessica because he has discovered who she really is: Baron Harkonnen’s only child.

Or rather, Baron Harkonnen’s rightful heir.

Let’s take a step back again to explain. In the early planning stages of the plot to eliminate House Atreides Piter had originally anticipated that Paul would be a girl, an inaccuracy the Baron still chides him for more than fifteen years later. Now, it is true that the Bene Gesserit can control the sex of their infants during pregnancy and usually bear daughters, as Piter points out - even the Emperor’s own consort has borne only daughters - but I have a few issues with this explanation. For one thing, that data strikes me as a bit too loose and anecdotal for a mentat to rely on by itself, especially when the Bene Gesserit are known for their political schemes. Unless Piter was certain, why would he include this detail? Piter would have likely dug deeper, especially given the Baron’s distrust of the Bene Gesserit, and it’s not inconceivable that he may have uncovered a small but revealing detail concerning a certain breeding program: that Lady Jessica is the secret daughter of Baron Harkonnen by an unknown Bene Gesserit and that she was instructed to bear a daughter with Duke Atreides. Naturally Piter would recognize the value of this information and would have a vested interest in keeping it secret from the Baron until Jessica is securely in the twisted mentat’s possession. If that were the case it would certainly - in my opinion - justify a seemingly flimsy excuse for an uncharacteristic inaccuracy from a mentat who is otherwise known to be extremely efficient and precise.

Speaking of efficiency, don’t forget: Lady Jessica was also being set up to seem like a Harkonnen spy. The genius here is the way Piter has manipulated the situation to his favor regardless of the outcome. If her identity remains a secret this is merely a clever way to manipulate House Atreides against itself and the events play out exactly as written. On the other hand, if Jessica’s lineage were to be uncovered - say if Thufit Hawat were to learn it while investigating her - it would only seem to confirm the misinformation already in place suggesting she’s a Harkonnen plant. It’s this detail in particular that leads me to believe Piter has learned Jessica’s lineage, because he twists the truth into his deception, concealing it with the Harkonnen signature move: a feint within a feint within a feint.

Like I said earlier, we’ll never know for sure if this is why Piter wanted Jessica and ultimately it doesn’t matter, as the Baron soon illustrates:

BARON

“In many ways Piter is quite naive. He doesn’t admit to himself what a deadly creature you are, Lady Jessica. I’d show him, but it’d be a foolish risk.

I know what Piter really wants. Piter wants power.”

PITER

“You promised I could have her.”

BARON

“I give you a choice, Piter.”

[...]

“This woman and exile from the Imperium, or the Duchy of Atreides on Arrakis to rule as you see fit in my name.

“You could be Duke here in all but name.”

[...]

“Understand yourself, Piter. You want her because she was a Duke’s woman, a symbol of his power - beautiful, useful, exquisitely trained for her role. But an entire duchy, Piter! That’s more than a symbol; that’s the reality. With it you could have many women … and more.”

[...]

“I must go now. I will send in the guard I’ve reserved for this moment.”

PITER

“You don’t have to leave. I’ve chosen.”

BARON

“Ah, hah! Such a quick decision can mean only one thing.”

PITER

“I will take the duchy.”

Baron Harkonnen doesn’t know why Piter wants Lady Jessica and he doesn’t need to. He has correctly assessed that Jessica is a means to an end. Piter wants power. If the Baron can’t figure out why Jessica is important but he knows she isn’t what Piter really wants then he can eliminate any danger she might represent by removing her from the equation altogether. Fittingly, it’s a tactic reminiscent of buying out a competitor to remove their threat to your profits. In this way the Baron casually out-maneuvers one of the most dangerous mentats in the Imperium by simply giving him what he wants.

BARON

“Is it not wonderful that I know Piter so well? I wagered with my Master at Arms that this would be Piter’s choice. Hah!”

Of course, thanks to Leto’s assassination attempt, Piter never realizes his lust for power, but his usefulness was only fleeting at best. As the Baron outlines instead to his replacement, Piter would have been under orders to relentlessly squeeze the population of Arrakis for every ounce of profit possible. The massive expense of their scheme must be recouped, after all, but at no small cost to the morale or livelihoods of the people. Over the years their discontent would have mounted against Piter and his draconian rule until he was eventually deposed, paving the way for the Baron’s true heir: his nephew Feyd-Rautha. By this time the conditions will be perfectly set for his own regime to be welcomed in with open arms and would be far, far worse.

But first, there are certain lessons the Baron must teach his young and ambitious nephew…

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BARON

(roaring)

“Nefud!”

(after a pause, now in a silken tone)

“How long have you been my guard captain, Nefud?”

NEFUD

(nervously)

“Since Arrakis, my Lord. Almost two years.”

BARON

“And have you always anticipated dangers to my person?”

NEFUD

“Such has been my only desire, my Lord.”

BARON

(roaring with anger)

“Then where is Feyd-Rautha?”

NEFUD

(recoiling)

“My Lord?”

BARON

(silken tone again)

“You do not consider Feyd-Rautha a danger to my person?

(tone remains silken, but intensifies)

“Did I not command you to know precisely where the na-Baron was at all times? Did I not say to you that you were to know precisely what the na-Baron was saying at all times - and to whom?”

(silken tone remains faintly as intensity mounts)

“Did I not say these things to you?”

FEYD-RAUTHA

(sounding hurried, despite an attempt not to)

“Uncle.”

Feyd-Rautha is a character we’ll circle back around to in detail another time, but it’s worth studying him briefly now as well, in the context of and in contrast to Baron Harkonnen. Before we get started, though, a quick history lesson, since a lot of the details are only spelled out in afterwards and appendices, rather than in the story itself.

Long before the events of Dune the Baron’s forebear was a Colonel Bashar of the ancestor of Emperor Corrino’s Sardaukar, something like a planetary-scale military governor. But the Bashar was accused of treachery by House Atreides and banished for cowardice following the decisive battle establishing the Imperium under the rule of House Corrino. In the millenia since, the Harkonnens’ have gradually ascended back into prominence largely due to a savvy manipulation of the whale fur market and a consolidation of spice melange supply lines, giving their House a reputation for brutal working conditions and cutthroat business practices.

As I mentioned when we were talking about Piter, Baron Harkonnen has no direct descendants that he’s aware of. His demi-brother Abulard has renounced his name and titles for the “distaff name” Rabban (the noble house of his wife). With no direct Harkonnen heir to speak of, the Baron has bargained with Emperor Corrino for the ability to select an heir at his own discretion - possibly for his part in the plot against House Atreides - and has chosen his demi-brother’s youngest son, Feyd-Rautha. This represents an eventual full-circle moment in which the Baron would be revenged upon the Atreides while restoring an excised bloodline, reclaiming some of House Harkonnen’s former status as he claims vengeance. Not to mention that it also sets the stage for the loftiest of his ambitions, in case you thought the Baron had somehow forgiven House Corrino for their involvement in the Harkonnen’s previous disgrace.

As Piter was quick to remind us, the Baron defines everything by its usefulness and to that end Feyd-Rautha is the instrument of his ultimate victory. In an alternate universe where Feyd-Rautha is the protagonist of this series instead of Paul he would have every bit as strong a narrative justification - from a certain perspective - to claim his “rightful” place as emperor, the culmination of House Harkonnen’s grand redemption arc. A space opera retelling of Hamlet instead of Lawrence of Arabia, if you will. We’ll never know for sure, but if the Bene Gesserit had their way, this may have been the ideal situation: a Harkonnen emperor, his Atreides empress, and their son, the Kwisatz Haderach, inheritor of all the Known Universe. 

But that’s Bene Gesserit talk, we’ll get to that soon enough.

When I say that Feyd-Rautha is the Baron’s instrument of ultimate victory, I mean that the Baron acknowledges to himself that he’s not likely to achieve his goal of ruling the empire in his own lifetime, though not for lack of trying. His nephew is the extension of his will into the future, so it’s of the utmost importance that he exemplify the Baron in all ways as much as possible. So if the Baron considers Feyd-Rautha to be a threat to his person it’s because he was intentionally raised to be that way, as reflected in the Baron’s response to his nephew’s half-baked assassination attempt:

FEYD-RAUTHA

“Uncle.”

BARON

“There is a body in my chambers that I wish removed.”

(pause)

“I presume you left matters peaceful in the slave quarters, Feyd.”

FEYD-RAUTHA

“I’ve been playing cheops with the slavemaster.”

BARON

“Playing pyramid chess, how nice. Did you win?”

FEYD-RAUTHA

(struggling to contain his disquiet)

“I … ah, yes, Uncle.”

BARON

(aside)

“Nefud, you wish to be restored to my good graces?”

NEFUD

(quavering)

“Sire, what have I done?”

BARON

“That’s unimportant now. Garrote the slavemaster. Bring his body to me when you’ve finished that I may see it was done properly. We cannot have such inept chess players in our employ.”

Swift and brutal, this is the manner of a Harkonnen lesson. The greatest offense of Feyd-Rautha’s grab for power is not the fact that it very nearly succeeded - the Baron would never admit that openly - it’s that it was hasty, ill-conceived, and a waste of the Baron’s true value to his nephew. At this point Feyd-Rautha is only nineteen years old and clearly still has plenty to learn. He only perceives the Baron as an obstacle to be averted, a means to an end. He sees a pathway to power rather than a guide along that pathway and beyond. He hasn’t considered that he can derive exponentially more usefulness from the Baron over time in the form of experienced council, both before and after he becomes the Baron himself. Worse yet, as Baron Harkonnen sees it, he hasn’t learned how to properly manipulate his target, regardless of who they may be.

BARON

“The man without emotions is the one to fear. But deep emotions … ah, now, those can be bent to your needs.”

FEYD-RAUTHA

“Uncle, I don’t understand you.”

BARON

(wearily)

“Yes, that’s plain enough.”

The fact that Feyd-Rautha’s lack of understanding of this key Harkonnen concept is the main point of discussion following his attempt on the Baron’s life highlights another important subtlety inherent to the Baron’s methods: that one’s desires can be weaponized, but they can also be called upon for defense as well. The upfront nature of the Baron’s … depravity … serves as an expression of his wealth in this manner, a reminder that you couldn’t possibly offer or refuse the Baron anything that he couldn’t get his hands on anyway. How do you blackmail someone with no shame about what you might reveal and no need for anything you could offer? He is, ironically, nigh-incorruptible, answerable primarily to himself and the select few who possess the ability to stand in the way of his ambitions.

The lesson, in that case, is clear: 

BARON

“Never eliminate a man unthinkingly … Always do it for an overriding purpose - and know your purpose!”

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FEYD-RAUTHA

“In a way, it’s like the arena. Feints within feints within feints. You watch to see which way a gladiator leans, which way he looks, how he holds his knife.”

BARON

“Now you see how you need me. I’m yet of use, Feyd.”

FEYD-RAUTHA

(sneering)

“Yes, Uncle.”

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SPOILER WARNING

From this point onward we’ll be continuing our discussion of Baron Harkonnen by analyzing events that take place in the second and third books of the series, Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune. If you aren’t already familiar with these stories and want to avoid spoilers, this is where you should stop the video for now, but come back later after you’ve given them a read, and I hope to see you again soon for the next video about Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit!

Once Paul becomes emperor and his jihad has run its course through the galaxy, it would be fair to say that the whole face of the empire is changed, leaving little trace of the order that preceded it under the millenia-spanning rule of House Corrino. But nowhere is the empire’s evolution more apparent than its newly established seat of government, the desert planet of Arrakis. 

The native Fremen, once under the guidance of Liet Kynes, had endeavored to transform the harsh environment of Arrakis into a garden world, slowly evolving it over the course of many generations into a paradise. This demanded massive devotion to a united cause, considering that the Fremen who strove for it today would never see anything close to their ultimate goal - and neither would their great-great grandchildren.

So when Arrakis begins to turn lush and green right in front of their eyes, it might be difficult to fully appreciate or even imagine the complicated storm of emotions the Fremen might be feeling, both collectively and as individuals. At once a loss of cultural identity and a rush of religious fervor, with no small degree of uncertainty and mistrust in the spaces between.

Likewise, Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides would soon find himself at his own tumultuous center of endings and beginnings. He survives an assassination attempt he was mysteriously prevented from foreseeing and is blinded in the aftermath, forced to rely solely on his prescience to perceive the world around him. In some ways this is already Paul’s perspective and he adapts to the loss of his eyes almost immediately, but the Fremen have strict laws concerning those who have been blinded. Laws that no one is above, not even  the emperor. Not even the Lisan al-Gaib. 

And so, on that day - the day his twin children are born and his beloved Chani dies in childbirth - Paul walks out into the deep desert as tradition demands, to meet his fate at the mercy of Shai Hulud.

And thus the story continues...

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ALIA ATREIDES

“There had come that night when her brother walked alone into the desert seeking death, giving himself to Shai Hulud as blind Fremen were supposed to do. Within the month, Alia had been married to Paul’s swordmaster, Duncan Idaho, a mentat brought back from the dead by the arts of the Tleilaxu. Her mother fled back to Caladan. Paul’s twins were Alia’s legal charge.

And she controlled the Regency.

The crisis happened on a day like many others in the spring month of Laab, a clear morning at Muad’Dib’s Keep with a cold wind blowing down from the pole. Alia still wore the yellow for mourning, the color of the sterile sun. 

New lives began to clamour for their moment of consciousness. Alia felt that she had opened a bottomless pit, and faces arose out of it like a swarm of locusts, until she came at last to focus on one who was like a beast: the old Baron Harkonnen.

ALIA

(screaming in terrified outrage against the inner clamor)

“No!”

(whispering shakily)

“No … no … no …”

By now Baron Harkonnen is long dead, slain at the hands of his own granddaughter and Paul’s younger sister, “St. Alia of the Knife,” who was only five years old at the time. Alia is “preborn,” meaning she became self-aware in the womb when Lady Jessica took the water of life to become the Reverend Mother of Sietch Tabr. As an undeveloped fetus Alia was exposed to all her ancestors’ consciousnesses alongside Jessica, a traumatic and existentially terrifying experience that left her without the chance to properly develop a consciousness of her own.

In her early years she had the appearance of a child, but the awareness and intelligence of not just an adult, but every adult. As she’s grown older, however, Alia has learned discipline and how to selectively call upon their collective wisdom rarely and only as needed. There are countless Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers amongst her inner selves, after all, and such is their way.

Discipline is necessary because Alia is constantly under the threat of “possession,” losing her own tenuous identity under the overwhelming deluge of other consciousnesses, each more powerfully defined than her own by default. This makes her what the Bene Gesserit consider an Abomination, a stigma she can never fully escape, even - and especially - in the case of her own mother.

Since Alia is something of a villain in the plot of Children of Dune in particular, it’s important to keep some things in mind about her as a character. For one thing, while it may seem like Alia and Paul are similar in abilities, the gulf between them is incredibly vast. Though Alia shares Paul’s unlimited access to the lives of all their ancestors stretching backward across untold millenia, that’s just scratching the surface. Paul also possessed the advanced mental capabilities of an extremely talented mentat, one who is also deeply reliant and addicted to the spice melange in high quantities, enhancing those capabilities far beyond the natural. Paul is what you get if a mentat well on his way to becoming a guild navigator were to gain the greatest store of Bene Gesserit ancestral data imaginable with which to make his computations. When Dune says that Paul is prescient, this is what it really means: he is capable of living in the present while deeply analyzing the objective past from multiple perspectives, allowing him to predict the future with near-perfect precision and act accordingly to purposefully shape the destiny of all humanity.

So imagine suddenly inheriting All the Known Universe from the man who was literally bred for the specific purpose of leading humanity away from an inevitable stagnation and into an infinite future. A healthy young man, hardly thirty years old in an age where the geriatric spice can allow a life to be extended up to thrice its natural span and beyond. Imagine that one day soon you’ll have to pass this inheritance along to his equally capable twin children, both of whom are also preborn and fully capable of mature, adult critiques of your methods all along the way. Imagine the pressure of stewarding an empire of trillions of citizens, maybe more, spread over unfathomable distances across the galaxy and beyond. Now imagine that you only get a few weeks to prepare for this while you’re also planning your wedding and mourning the death of your late brother and the mother of his children, of whom you now have sole custody. 

Imagine that not even your own mother will stick around to help you.

It’s easy to imagine, then, how Alia could fall into the trap of allowing help from literally anyone who might actually be able to provide it, abandoned as she no doubt must feel. She was bred for a singular purpose but never granted the opportunity to realize it and the seeds of what should have been her strength instead act as her undoing. You see, as a female heir to House Atreides, Alia’s very genetics were crafted to be combined with a Harkonnen counterpart with the ultimate goal of bearing the Kwisatz Haderach, which makes her eventual possession by Baron Harkonnen something she was uniquely susceptible to from the start. Like her father, the Duke Leto Atreides, Alia is an example of shadow integration, but unlike Leto, Alia is led astray when extreme events seem to justify questionable decisions.

Baron Harkonen’s return as the villain behind the scenes in Children of Dune illustrates that denying your own shadow is only one way in which you can live your entire life without ever understanding yourself as deeply as you should. It can lead you to demonize those aspects of yourself, preventing you from recognizing them well enough to deal with them properly, or at all. So when something supposedly evil makes a point that actually seems completely reasonable, you may not be prepared to address it with the proper level of skepticism it truly deserves:

ALIA

“Go away! Oh please go away.”

BARON

“But you need help, granddaughter. 

[...]

“I’m willing to help you. The others in here would only fight to take over your entire consciousness. Any one of them would try to drive you out. But me … I want only a little corner of my own.”

ALIA ATREIDES

(whispering)

“What … what do you want?”

BARON

“I wish only a few simple pleasures. Give me but an occasional moment of contact with your senses. No one else need ever know. Let me feel a small corner of your life when, for example, you are enfolded in the arms of your lover. Is that not a small price to ask?”

ALIA

“Y-yes.”

BARON

“Good. In turn, my darling granddaughter, I can serve you in many ways. I can advise you, help you with my counsel. You will be invincible within and without. You will sweep away all opposition. History will forget your brother and cherish you. The future will be yours.”

ALIA

“You … won’t let … the … the others take over?”

BARON

“They cannot stand against us! Singly we can be overcome, but together we command. I will demonstrate. Listen…”

Building crowd chatter quickly fades into total silence.

It should go without saying, the Baron’s “simple pleasures” will only grow larger and more complex over the rest of the book, as does his influence over Alia. In the end he becomes so intertwined within her being that it becomes hopeless that they could be separated, and perhaps that was never possible in the first place. The Baron was always a part of Alia, after all, without him she literally could not exist. The point, then, is not to rid yourself of “evil” or deny it, as the temptation may be, but to recognize and accept what is already a part of yourself, bringing into balance the inherent duality it forms within you.

BARON

‘Yes! See him there, this man who believes he cannot be bought. See him detained there by a million shares of himself sold in dribbles every second of his life! If you took him up now and shook him, he’d rattle inside. Emptied! Sold out! What difference how he dies now?’

As I said before, coming to terms with your own internal duality is what allows you to understand and empathize with the duality inherent in others. Going further, understanding your own darkness allows you the latitude to keep those urges in check and maintain your agency in the face of temptation, whether it comes from those who would seek to manipulate you from without or within. Moreover, this allows you to recognize your own shadow and understand the shadow that must exist in others, however apparent it may be. To recognize that “evil” isn’t a state of being but a decision anyone - yourself included - is capable of making for any number of reasons, or even none at all. A decision made at every moment in life that intersects with the Science of Discontent.