Feyd-Rautha

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Sting as Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch's Dune (1984)

Feyd-Rautha portrayed by Matt Keeslar in the Dune miniseries

The Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is a key character in the science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert.

[edit] Role in the story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Feyd-Rautha is the younger nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and figures heavily in the Baron's plans to gain power. He is, for a while, the Na-Baron, or heir to the throne. The Baron favors the handsome and charismatic Feyd-Rautha over Feyd's older brother Glossu Rabban, "The Beast," because of Feyd's extreme intelligence and his dedication to the Harkonnen culture of carefully-planned and subtly executed sadism and cruelty, as opposed to Rabban's outright brutality.

The Baron intends a strategic marital alliance, hoping to marry Feyd to Princess Irulan Corrino, the eldest daughter of the Emperor Shaddam IV, and giving the Harkonnens influence or control over the throne. To promote Feyd's power, he is to be installed as ruler of Arrakis after a period of tyrannical misrule by Glossu Rabban, making Feyd appear to be the savior of the people.

Born on Lankiveil as the son of Abulurd Rabban and his wife Emmi, Feyd had been his father's hope for a son who would not have to inherit the dishonour of the name Harkonnen, and a worthy heir in comparison to his older, more brutal son, Glossu. Feyd was named in after his maternal grandfather, Rautha Rabban, who had been killed by Glossu. When the Baron heard of this he decided to take the boy Feyd from his father, to raise him on Giedi Prime, as a possible heir of his own. In time, the Baron came to also favour Feyd more over his older brother, though for different reasons.

Feyd, like Paul Atreides, is also the product of a centuries-long breeding program organized by the Bene Gesserit, who planned their own alliance by joining a Harkonnen son to an Atreides daughter with the expectation that their offspring would have a high probability of being their hoped-for Kwisatz Haderach. For this reason, Jessica Atreides' decision to defy the Sisterhood and to produce an Atreides son, Paul, threw the Bene Gesserit's plans into turmoil and established an irreconcilable tension between Feyd and Paul as the scions of their bitterly opposed noble houses. The risk of one or both of these young men being killed, destroying thousands of years of genetic engineering, is so great that the Bene Gesserit send an envoy, Margot Fenring, to seduce Feyd and conceive a child, salvaging his genetic material.

And the Lady Fenring thought: Can that be the young man the Reverend Mother meant? Is that a bloodline we must preserve?

Margot also intends to "plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him," which she later refers to as the "Hypno-ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche." Presumably he is thus "prepared" and made vulnerable to a command which will cause complete muscle paralysis, a technique the Bene Gesserit sometimes use on individuals who are considered highly dangerous. It is also later noted by the Reverend Mother Mohiam that Feyd's encounter with Lady Fenring produced a daughter.

Feyd's ambition and impatience to inherit the Baron's title and power allow him to be manipulated by Thufir Hawat, a counselor to the Atreides who is captured by the Baron. Both the Baron and Feyd are nearly assassinated as a result of Hawat's machinations.

As Paul makes his final bid to usurp the Emperor's power, he is challenged by Feyd. Though famed for his prowess in single combat, Feyd intends to guarantee victory by breaking the formal rules of kanly (which govern this type of challenge) and using a hidden poison spur in his fighting outfit. He nearly succeeds in killing Paul Muad'dib in the ritualized fight, as Paul struggles with whether to try the paralysis word-sound and owe the Bene Gesserit his victory, or to risk his life against Feyd in a "fair" fight. Paul manages to defeat Feyd without the command, and goes on to ascend the throne of the Emperor.