Glossu Rabban

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Glossu Rabban, Count of Lankiveil (nickname 'The Beast') was a minor character in the science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert.

Glossu Rabban was the older nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He inherited the Harkonnen cruelty and sadism but without the intelligence. He was known to the Fremen of Dune by a nickname that translated as "Demon Ruler" or "King Cobra". He is best known for his tyrannical and vastly ineffective governance of Arrakis during the insurgency by 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 so that when his favored nephew, Feyd-Rautha, took over, the new ruler would be welcomed as a hero. He is slain by Paul Muad'Dib's wild Fremen and the very populace of Arrakeen which he had brutalized only recently when Paul made his move to retake Arrakis and gain the Corrino throne. In the 1984 film version, The Beast is beheaded by the Sardaukar when the Emperor decides to eliminate the population of the planet. "Rabban" is a distaff name. It is a tradition on Lankiveil that children gets to carry the surnames of their mothers.

Rabban was played by Paul L. Smith in David Lynch's 1984 film Dune, and by László I. Kish in the Dune miniseries.