The misunderstood Harkonnens

[Dante]

I was thinking a bit recently about House Harkonnen, probably because I'm taking a Harkonnen character in Fanfiction right now, and I realised from the reactions of a few people around me that the Harkonnens aren't really understood. They are treated as sadistic, evil monsters with little in the way of justification. Why are they evil? Oh, because they're Harkonnens.

In the original books, none of the Harkonnen family could truly be described as one-dimensionally evil (yes, I know I don't believe in evil, but let's just say for the sake of this argument that I do). The Baron wanted power, he wanted wealth, and he wanted to defeat an enemy. He found a method by which to achieve his ends, and he took it. He didn't cause pain or suffering because he enjoyed it, he did it because it served his purposes. Had there been a better method that was entirely painless to all concerned, he would have used that. The Baron was a pragmatist, not a sadist. There were few indications that he enjoyed causing distress or pain to anyone but the Atreides. Yueh, for example, was killed for practical reasons, not for fun.

The same can be said for Feyd. Swapping poison on knives, etc. Cheating, dishonourable, not as bright as the Baron; but not evil. Not causing pain for the sake of pain, not killing because he could, but because he saw it as necessary to achieve his desires.

The exception to this rule could be Rabban. Though he doesn't appear quite as often as Feyd and the Baron, as far as I remember, he does seem to actually gain pleasure from the crushing of populance, though it could be argued that this is just bull-headed ignorance of how to govern properly. In any case, there can be exceptions for every rule.

Then there is the matter of the Harkonnen of the Battle of Corrin. Leaving aside the prequels (I'll get to them later...), we are left with very little infomation, except that a Harkonnen called Abulurd was deemed a coward by an Atreides. This is accepted as fact, but it should be noted that the circumstances are never explained. There may have been a justification for the Harkonnen's actions. Perhaps, perhaps not.

Now it could be argued that the Harkonnens are still evil for doing what they do, even though they do it for purely non-sadistic reasons. I like to contrast the actions of the Harkonnens in the House prequels, and elsewhere, with those of the Harkonnens in the original series.

In the prequels the Baron is treated (as he is by many) as a one-dimensional sadist who kills people for fun by drowning them in sewage. He rapes Mohiam, something the original Baron would never stoop to. The Baron Rakkan's cry of "War, sublime war!" in Emperor is hardly befitting a Harkonnen. In the movie, prequels, and games, the Harkonnens are simply dismissed as 'the bad guys' who do bad things because they are bad. It's what they do. The original books show characters that aren't evil as such, just not hindered by honour or morality. I ignore the Harkonnens in the Legends series because frankly if I took anything from that seriously I would kill myself in shame.

I just thought that the characters should be treated with more respect, and less like cardboard cutouts that should be instinctively hated without explanation.

[HasimirFenring]

House Harkonnen's actions are deemed evil by our current arbitrary moral standards, so David Lynch, BH&KJA and SciFi decided to run with it.  Without a doubt, the Baron is ruthless; the fact that he is willing to do things which we consider "evil" to achieve his ends could make him "evil" (again, by our arbitrary standard; don't forget the allied bombing of Dresden).  Feyd killed slaves for sport in the original, I recall?  That sounds evil to most people.

[Sober]

But wasn't it "evil" in our way how the Harkonnens use Rabban as the despot, and then bring in Feyd as the saviour?

We do have to see that society would see the Harkonnens as sadistic killers if they never read deeply into the chronicles. Maybe all the interpretations of Dune (movies, games, etc) seeing the Harkonnens as people trying to achieve something without honour/morality are considered evil people, and society would deem the evil people sadistic killers. (Vlad the Implaer, Hitler, Stalin, etc).

[Moose212]

After reading "House Harkonnen" , I would say thet the Baron does indeed enjoy killing for the fun of it.

[Tako]

taking the prequels serious that is? ::)

they are not evil; theyhave different moral valeus, the good of the famelie goes before all,

others are not as important as them, a sort of facism really but not evil!

[Dante]

After reading "House Harkonnen" , I would say thet the Baron does indeed enjoy killing for the fun of it.

House Harkonnen is a prequel, and as such is not canon. It's barely even fanfiction, really. I mean it's like the authors took Dune and squeezed every single last drop of talent and creativity out of it, before going on to mangle and butcher everything inside of it that could be considered worthy of being written down. This empty, shattered husk was then filled with bile and dung, and sold to us as the prequels. Even worse things happened to the Legends of Dune. There are walls covered in graffiti that are more worthy of being prequels to Dune than the utter trash that has been published.

As you may have gathered, I do not accept anything in the prequels as fact, or even noteworthy fiction. Therefore anything that the Baron does in them is not important.

But wasn't it "evil" in our way how the Harkonnens use Rabban as the despot, and then bring in Feyd as the saviour?

I fail to see how. Shrewd and uncaring, yes, but not necessarily evil. Certainly it wasn't evil for evil's sake.

We do have to see that society would see the Harkonnens as sadistic killers if they never read deeply into the chronicles. Maybe all the interpretations of Dune (movies, games, etc) seeing the Harkonnens as people trying to achieve something without honour/morality are considered evil people, and society would deem the evil people sadistic killers. (Vlad the Implaer, Hitler, Stalin, etc).

The Harkonnens were not sadistic in that they recieved little pleasure from being cruel, the probably exception being Rabban. The Baron was cruel because he believed it was necessary; while Feyd killed to further his own ends. Neither of them went about being evil for the sake of being evil, or simply because they could. Feyd killed people in the arena because it was expected of him, and because he saw it as entertainment. Some might consider this evil in itself, but he had his own motives.

Focussing specifically on the Baron, I see little in the books that indicate any sadism or arbitrary violence on his part. He killed Leto Atreides because he was his enemy, and remember that he did send a declaration of peace first. Even if it was merely to observe protocol, he offered his enemy a chance.

He turned Arrakis over to Rabban only in order to prepare it for Feyd, who was to have ruled far more gently. He killed Yueh to preserve himself, not because he derived any pleasure from it. Piter would certainly be described as a sadist, but the Baron himself merely used sadists. He himself, I think, would have been a generous and kind-hearted soul, had he thought it would benefit him.

[nemafakei]

I think the Harkonnen take some pleasure in flouting rules and so forth... what was that phrase someone (TMA?) used in the other thread... 'perverting common expectation'. The aim is not just to get power, but to do so in an 'elegant' way, preferably demonstrating originality, daring etc.

As to the use of 'evil'... well, very few people, if any, are evil for the sake of being evil. We consider most to be evil because they are quite happy to do things knowing well that they're harmful.