Hwi Noree

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Hwi Noree is a fictional character in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. She is a major character in God Emperor of Dune.

Hwi Noree enters the story as the new Ixian ambassador to the God Emperor Leto II. Hwi Noree is a highly empathic and intelligent woman, who has hugely admired Leto from afar, and almost immediately understands him. Hwi Noree and Leto have a bond of mutual understanding from the first. Leto is immediately attracted to her, as she is exactly the kind of woman that (if he were still a man) he would have wanted as a mate. As such, she is a kind of delicious agony for him because his sexual organs have long since disappeared. He is aware that she is quite obviously some kind of Ixian trap, since clearly someone must have deliberately created and trained her to be such a perfect fit for him, but he cannot resist the pleasure of her company even so. Furthermore, he possessed no foreknowledge of her, which meant that somehow the Ixians had managed to hide her existence from his prophetic dreams.

When Hwi Noree and Leto meet for the second time, she is hurriedly called to audience with Leto. When she arrives, she learns that her embassy had been overrun by Face Dancers (including her own assistant Othwi Yake), and the only reason she had survived was because they needed the time to perfect their mimicking of her in order to fool the God Emperor. Shocked by this, she wonders why the God Emperor hadn't wiped out the Face Dancers. He answers that they have their uses and furthermore that the only political group Leto ever actually considered destroying were the Bene Gesserit, because they are so near to what they should be, yet so far. As if this is not enough for one meeting he asks Hwi Noree to be his bride, though he "reassures" her that he is incapable of being her physical lover and tells her that she can have children with a discreet lover if she so wishes. Finally, he suggests she goes away to think about it.

Moneo Atreides, Leto's chief minister, meets with Leto with news. He first suggests that the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Anteac is a secret mentat, a skill prohibited in the Empire. Leto agrees but says that it amuses him. Moneo goes on to say that they have pressured the Bene Tleilax into giving him information about Hwi Noree. The Bene Tleilax played a role in her birth, by supplying the Ixians with technology to do a cellular restructuring. Leto suggests that it is interesting that Hwi Noree seems the total opposite in character to Malky, the previous Ixian ambassador crafted by the Ixians as a being of pure cynicism and amorality, with whom Leto had had a close friendship.

Hwi Noree and Leto talk again. Leto explains the shape of his Empire and what he is trying to produce. He talks about how in human affairs each cycle is a reaction to the previous cycle. He explains what will happen when he "goes into the sands" and his empire falls apart. Basically, he believes that the process will make humankind more mature, through being confronted by the desperate experience of the disasters his death will cause. Hwi Noree, unlike Moneo and the Duncans understands what Leto means, which pleases Leto greatly. At the end of the audience Leto asks her if she has given any thought to his proposal, and she answers that she has chosen to marry him.

Upon leaving Leto, Hwi goes to see Anteac and shares her knowledge of the environment she was brought up in. Anteac has been conscripted by Leto to lead a Fish Speaker assault on Ix, to wrest the secret of Hwi's origins. Anteac is shocked at the knowledge that Hwi is to marry Leto and at the same time annoyed that her order had allowed so talented a woman as Hwi to pass through their training programme without turning her into a Bene Gesserit.

Later, the city of On rises in rebellion against Leto. Leto is completely surprised, which is interesting in itself. The rebels attack the Ixian embassy, which, because of the threat to Hwi, sends Leto into a rage. He leaps out of his cart, and physically attacks the rebels. The Fish Speakers, using the confusion and panic his assault causes, wipe out the rebels. Regaining his calm upon discovering Hwi is safe, Leto regrets his intervention because he has created a dependency among his Fish Speakers. Now they know that he awaits in the wings, a seemingly invincible death machine. Leto realizes it will take generations to erase this dependency. Leto also realizes that this attack must have been planned by Malky, hidden away within the Ixian machine that protects people from his vision.

The announcement that Leto is marrying Hwi Noree upsets Moneo immensely. Moneo believes the wedding will bring Leto's enemies in alliance against him. He asks Leto for an explanation for why Leto must do this. Leto tells him that it is because of emotions. He says the Hwi provokes glorious emotions within him that he had long thought he had lost. She restores his sense of humanity. During the conversation we learn more about Moneo's abilities and limits. Leto tries to raise Moneo's level of awareness but ultimately fails. Moneo's idea of himself limits him from being all he could be.

After the frustration of having to deal with Moneo, Leto answers Duncan's calls for audience. Duncan, Leto realizes, is suffering from what he call "Since Syndrome", something which happens to most gholas, but with this one had happened much earlier than ever before. Duncan feels out of sync with this time and place. Duncan is also upset by the news Leto is marrying Hwi, a woman he finds intensely attractive also. Leto orders him not to spend time with her.

Some time later Moneo and Leto discuss Duncan. Leto is irritated that Duncan is courting Hwi Noree. However, Moneo informs him that it is Hwi Noree herself who is initiating the meetings. He says that Hwi feels a great deal of sympathy for Duncan because he is so out of his time and place. But this does not calm Leto because he says Duncan is very clever with women. Leto asks when a new Duncan ghola can be provided by the Tleilaxu. Moneo says that the Tleilaxu claim they are having problems and that it will be a year. Leto orders that his marriage to Hwi be hurried along.

Moneo and Duncan talk. Moneo tries to get Duncan to call off his pursuit of Hwi Noree. The conversation becomes very heated and Duncan says a number of critical things about the God Emperor, within the hearing of Fish Speakers. When Duncan finally returns to his room he finds Hwi waiting for him. She had been told of his latest outbursts by some sympathetic Fish Speakers and had rushed to calm him down. However, things do not get any calmer. Hwi says to him that she was produced to seduce the God Emperor, to seduce an Atreides, and that he, Duncan, is as much the Atreides ideal as any. In the heat of the emotional interchange, Hwi Noree and Duncan have passionate sex. But afterwards, to Duncan's great disappointment, she tells him that she is still going to marry the God Emperor. When Duncan asks why, she says it is because he has the largest needs of the two of them, the largest need in all the Empire.

Duncan and Siona hatch a desperate plan to kill the God Emperor. When Leto's convoy arrives, Siona orders her servant Nayla to fire her lasgun at the bridge, and Nayla, having been directly ordered by Leto to obey Siona's every order, obeys, fully expecting it to be a religious test of Leto's. The shot shatters the bridge and Leto is hurled into the water. Hwi Noree is accidentally killed by the blast, sitting as she was in the same carriage. Duncan is distraught, and kills the utterly shocked Nayla.