After coming from exile, the House of Harkonnen became one of the richest of the Great Houses because they got placed in charge of harvesting Melange. However, the House of Atreides gets given the role of being the governors of Arrakis; this led Baron Harkonnen to plot against the Atreides.
Baron Definition
A Baron is a title given to the head of the House of Harkonnen. Because of their cowardice in the Battle of Corrin, the House of Harkonnen got banished from the Imperium. However, they returned as they had amassed many shares in CHOAM. With the massive shares owned by the Harkonnens, they tried to destroy the Atreides. However, Paul escaped with his mother into the desert and joined the Fremen. After Paul gained prescience, he led the Fremen to war against the Harkonnen and destroyed them.
The Relevance of the Baron in the Dune Universe
The Baron was a crucial character in the story of Paul Atreides. After the Atreides got placed in charge of Arrakis, Baron Harkonnen connived with emperor Shaddam IV to destroy them. Breaking Wellington Yueh’s Suk Conditioning, the Baron successfully leads an attack against the Atreides. Paul and his mother escaped into the desert and became a part of the Fremen tribe, Sietch Tabr.
As a part of the Fremen, Paul’s influence begins to grow as the Fremen believed him to be the messiah promised by the legend inputted into their religion by the Bene Gesserit through Missionaria Protectiva. After Jessica takes the water of life, she becomes a reverend mother for the Fremen, and this gives her a better role in supporting Paul as the messiah of the Fremen. Paul also takes the water of life and becomes the Kwisatz Haderach. Now the Kwisatz, Paul becomes the Fremen’s messiah, and his sister, Alia, gets born.
A raid performed by Baron Harkonnen using the Sardaukar leads to the death of Leto, Paul’s son, and the capture of Alia, his sister. However, Paul leads the Fremen to war against the Harkonnen and Sardaukar in the battle of Arrakeen; this led to the Sardaukar’s defeat and death of Baron Harkonnen.
With the Baron and his heir Feyd-Rautha dead, The House of Harkonnen gets destroyed; this leads Paul to become the emperor of the Padishah Empire.
People associated with the Baron’s Position
The most popular Baron the Dune series is Baron Harkonnen. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was the Baron of the House of Harkonnen during Paul Atreides’s time. He got described to be tall, red-haired, and black-eyed. Baron Harkonnen also used a suspensor to move as he was overweight.
Glossary Terms Associated with Baron
Here is a list of terms associated with Baron:
- Na-Baron: The Na-Baron is a title that gets given to the heir apparent to the position of the Baron. In ‘Dune,’ Feyd-Rautha became the Na-baron, but he got killed after invoking kanly with Paul Atreides.
- Suk Conditioning: This is the training all Suk doctors underwent to render them incapable of killing. Wellington Yueh’s Suk conditioning got broken by Baron Harkonnen when his wife got captured.
FAQs
What happened to Baron Harkonnen in Dune?
After Paul invaded the Harkonnen and Sardaukar, Baron Harkonnen got killed with a Gom Jabbar. Though Alia was a toddler, she had other memory which made her a fully-grown woman in a child’s body. Before killing him, Alia told Baron Harkonnen that she was his granddaughter.
Did Baron Harkonnen get resurrected?
Yes, during the days of the Kralizec, Khrone tasked Uxtal to create a clone of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen; this clone got created to train the clone of Paul Atreides called Paolo. As the Kralizec begins, Paul and Paolo dueled with each other. Baron Vladimir stabs Alia as revenge for her killing him. After Paolo dies from taking an enhanced form of spice, Wellington Yueh kills Baron Harkonnen. Paul’s duel with Paolo made him regain his consciousness which he then used to reveal that Duncan Idaho was the true Kwisatz Haderach.
What made the Baron extremely obese?
From ‘Dune,’ the primary cause of Baron Harkonnen’s weight was gluttony. Because he enjoyed overeating, the Baron became so fat that his legs could not support his body’s weight; this led to him using suspensor belts to move around. The suspensor belts of Baron Harkonnen saved his life when Leto bit the poison tooth placed in his mouth by Wellington Yueh.
Why does the Baron hate the Atreides?
Baron Harkonnen hated the House of Atreides because the Atreides started getting respect from the people. Though the Harkonnens were rich and powerful, they got hated because they were brutal and unforgiving. The Atreides, on the other hand, treated people with dignity; this made the Baron and emperor see them as a threat to their sovereignty and riches. Because the emperor and the Baron had a common hatred for the House of Atreides, the emperor borrowed Baron Harkonnen the Sardaukar to invade the Atreides and kill their governor, Leto.
