Vladimir Harkonnen
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The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is primarily featured in the novel Dune, but is also a major character in the Prelude to Dune prequel series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
The Appendix IV: The Almanak en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses) in Dune says of him (in part):
VLADIMIR HARKONNEN (10,110-10,193) Commonly referred to as Baron Harkonnen, his title is officially Siridar (planetary governor) Baron. Vladimir Harkonnen is the direct-line male descendant of the Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen who was banished for cowardice after the Battle of Corrin. The return of House Harkonnen to power generally is ascribed to adroit manipulation of the whale fur market and later consolidation with melange wealth from Arrakis.
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[edit] Prelude to Dune
In the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, it is established that Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is the son and heir of Dmitri Harkonnen and his wife Victoria. Harkonnen's father had been the head of House Harkonnen and served as Siridar (planetary governor) and Baron of the planet Giedi Prime. Trained since youth as a possible successor, Vladimir Harkonnen had been eventually chosen over his younger half-brother Abulurd (namesake of the original).
Unhappy with his brother's doings, Abulurd eventually marries Emmi Rabban and renounces the family name and his rights to the title. Under the name Abulurd Rabban, he reigns as governor of the secondary Harkonnen planet Lankiveil. Abulurd and his wife have two sons: Glossu Rabban (later nicknamed Beast Rabban after he murders his own father) and Feyd-Rautha; Vladimir later adopts the boys back into House Harkonnen, and Feyd became his designated heir.
The Baron's most prominent political rival is his distant cousin Duke Leto Atreides, head of House Atreides and ruler of planet Caladan. House Harkonnen and House Atreides have been bitter enemies for millennia, since the Battle of Corrin that ended the Butlerian Jihad. When the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV orchestrates a plot to destroy the "Red Duke" Leto, the Baron eagerly lends his aid, and that of his twisted Mentat Piter De Vries.
The fact that Duke Leto's Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica is secretly the Baron's daughter is unknown by either; in the year 10,176, the Baron's grandson Paul Atreides is born to Leto and Jessica.
[edit] Dune
In Dune, the plot against the Atreides is executed: lured to the desert planet Arrakis on the pretense of taking over the valuable melange operation there, the Atreides are soon attacked by Harkonnen forces (secretly supplemented by the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Sardaukar). The Baron had arranged for the Duke to be taken prisoner by the trusted Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, Leto's own physician. Yueh follows orders, but has personal reasons to hate Harkonnen; Yueh provides the captive Leto with a fake tooth filled with poisonous gas as a means to kill the Baron (though Leto would die as well). Harkonnen survives Yueh's assassination attempt, but his Mentat De Vries dies with Leto. De Vries is replaced with Thufir Hawat, Mentat to the deceased Duke; under duress, Harkonnen convinces Hawat that they can join forces against the Emperor.
Paul and his mother Jessica flee into the desert and are presumed dead. Over the next two years, Harkonnen learns that both of his nephews are conspiring against him to obtain his throne; he lets them continue to do so, reasoning that they have to somehow learn to organize a conspiracy. As punishment for a failed assassination attempt against him, Harkonnen forces Feyd to single-handedly slaughter all the female slaves who serve as his lovers. He explains that Feyd-Rautha has to learn the price of failure.
A crisis on Arrakis begins when the mysterious Muad'Dib emerges as a leader of the native Fremen tribes against the rule of the Harkonnens. Eventually, a series of Fremen victories against Beast Rabban threaten to disrupt the trade of the spice. The Emperor decides to intervene himself and arrives on Arrakis along with five legions of Sardaukar forces. Shaddam and the Baron are shocked to learn that Muad'Dib is, of course, a very-much-alive Paul Atreides. The Imperial forces fell prey to a surprise attack by the Fremen. Part of the Fremen/Atreides strategy is to wait until a sandstorm shorts out the force field shields of the Harkonnen/Imperial transport ships, disable them with projectile weapons, and then attack with a vast assault force, using sandworms under cover of the severe weather to break the enemy lines. The Sardaukar and Harkonnen forces are trapped on the planet, astonished at the sandworm mounts and vast numbers of their attackers. Their past ruthlessness gives them little hope of quarter from the enraged Fremen.
Beast Rabban dies in the initial part of the battle. The Harkonnen army is massacred to the last man and almost all the Imperial Sardaukar are killed. Harkonnen himself is poisoned with a gom jabbar by Paul's young sister Alia Atreides, his own granddaughter, and dies at the age of 83. Paul then kills Feyd in ritual combat. House Harkonnen's virtual extermination removes it as a galactic power, but Paul's ascension to the Imperial throne in Shaddam's place guarantees that Vladimir's descendants will long reign as the Imperial House Atreides.
[edit] Children of Dune
Alia had been born with her ancestral memories in the womb, a circumstance the Bene Gesserit call Abomination, because in their experience it is inevitable that the individual will become possessed by the personality of one of their ancestors. In Children of Dune, Alia falls victim to this prediction when she shares control of her body with the ego-memory of the Baron Harkonnen, and eventually falls under his power. Alia eventually commits suicide, realizing that Harkonnen's consciousness has surpassed her abilities to contain him.
[edit] Hunters of Dune
In Hunters of Dune, the Baron is resurrected as a ghola (5,029 years after the death of Alia) by the Lost Tleilaxu Uxtal, acting on orders from the Face Dancer Khrone. Khrone intends to use the Baron ghola to manipulate a ghola of Paul Atreides, named Paolo. Khrone tries various torture techniques for three years to awaken the 12-year-old Baron's genetic memories; these methods fail due to the Baron's masochistic/sadistic nature. Khrone finds with success when he imprisons the Baron in a sensory deprivation tank for a prolonged period; the Baron's memories for his former life return. Ironically, the reincarnated Baron is soon haunted by the vooice of Alia in his mind.
[edit] Character traits
Vladimir never married; his homosexuality, implied by his preference for teenage boys and young men as partners, was something of an open secret. He did, however, twice copulate with Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, Gaius Helen Mohiam. Blackmailed into supporting their elaborate and covert breeding program, the Baron was forced to father an offspring which was to be raised on the Bene Gesserit homeworld of Wallach IX. Mohiam used this opportunity to exact retribution upon the Baron for his violent treatment of her during the second sexual encounter, by infecting him with a disease which resulted in his later obesity. Ironically, this child would later become the Lady Jessica.
Vladimir was a skillful, if ruthless, politician with an apparent talent for manipulating people and events towards his chosen ends. During his reign the House Harkonnen progressively gained in both wealth and power. His major sources of wealth were his dominance in the whale fur market and his control of the melange-producing planet Arrakis. The Baron was able to finance elaborate political schemes that further added to his power. For several years he was assisted by the sadistic Mentat Piter De Vries. Much of his success at political maneuvering was due to a ruse that he was rash and overtly brutal, using such overtures to mask his subtler primary plots.
The Baron Harkonnen was known for his creativity. This showed itself in the war against the Duke Leto, when the Harkonnen soldiers fought the Atreides at one point with old-fashioned explosive artillery. While artillery and firearms were generally worthless against the Holtzman shields that were commonplace in the Empire, shields were not used on Arrakis and the Baron calculated that the Atreides soldiers would retreat to caves. The artillery sealed them in, causing the Atreides soldiers to die by the thousands of suffocation and starvation. This tactic greatly reduced Harkonnen and Sardaukar casualties. It is not known if the Baron had studied the ancient history of humankind, but the Baron's reintroduction of a weapon that was obsolete since the days of Old Earth helped him achieve a crushing victory.
The Baron frequently displayed his prowess at controlling and manipulating people for his own means through their weaknesses and innate qualities, such as drug addiction (in the case of the Mentat Piter De Vries, who was addicted to the spice melange) or dependency upon an antidote for a latent poison (in the case of Thufir Hawat). This manipulation extended to his cunning political decisions, such as his choice to place Rabban as a ruthless tyrant as ruler of Arrakis so that the planet's inhabitants would look upon Feyd-Rautha's assumption of power as a salvation.
[edit] Appearance
Frank Herbert's representation of the Baron Harkonnen portrays him as an imposing, powerful man. His eyes are described as "spider-like" and his voice a deep, rumbling basso with a style of dress often including a flowing robe and a collection of rings adorning large hands. The original explanation for his excessive weight was simply attributed to overindulgence. This was later retconned by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson in their first prequel trilogy, explaining that the Baron was once an exceedingly handsome young man, possessing a near-perfect physique. In this version, his bodily deterioration is said to be the result of a rare disease caused by Jessica's mother, a Bene Gesserit named Gaius Helen Mohiam, in punishment for the Baron's actions leading to her pregnancy. After which, his physique began to slowly atrophy into the obese one. In Dune: House Harkonnen, he at first walked with the assistance of a cane, then relied on belt-mounted suspensors to retain mobility. To conceal this debilitation, Vladimir put on the pretence that his obesity was due to intentional overindulgence. He tried to force Mohiam to reveal the means to reverse the disease, but doesn't succeed, for the affliction was uncurable. In all instances, he displays extreme intelligence and carries an air of ruthless cruelty.
[edit] In adaptations
In David Lynch's 1984 film, he was played by Kenneth McMillan. In this characterization, he was grotesquely overweight and covered in large, black pustules which required constant draining and treatment. This version of the character is more overtly unstable than in the novel, screaming and laughing incoherently at any given moment and even drinking the blood of a servant after removing a "heart plug." Lynch's interpretation was inspired by Star Wars character Jabba the Hutt, who had appeared in Return of the Jedi the year before.
The latest incarnation of this character appeared in a 2000 miniseries produced by the Sci-Fi Channel, played by British actor Ian McNeice. This version of the character is lighter and campier in tone; while he still takes sadistic enjoyment in the suffering of others, he is portrayed as an effeminate, pompous blowhard. He tends to speak in iambic pentameter at the close of each scene.
[edit] Appearances in Other Media
In the video game Emperor: Battle for Dune, whose in-game movies are based on David Lynch's film, Vladimir Harkonnen is replaced by Rakan Harkonnen. The latter being nearly identical in both appearance (minus the belt-mounted suspensors) and personality to the former. The baron is portrayed by Michael McShane in this game. Coincidentally, this baron also shares the same death as Vladimir, being poisoned to death in the Harkonnen Campaign.
