The Harkonnens

[atomicar]

Good boy, arnoldo!

Now would you care to elaborate?

Well i agree with arnoldo that house harkonnen is based on the russians    :)  here are some comparisons and solid proof

1) Baron Vladimir Harkonnon,           Vladimir is a russian name

2)House Harkonnen insignia is red,    the russian flag is red

3) House Harkonnen in the Dune Encyclopaedia

According to the Dune Encyclopaedia, the Harkonnens claim descent from Count Palaigo Corrino, grandfather of Sheuset I, founder and first ruler of the empire; according to their traditions, Sheuset's father, Count Costin, was a demibrother of Harkonnen Obeshev, the first Harkonnen mentioned in historical records; according to the source, this claim has not been proved, however, and instead it is also mentioned that Obeshev could have actually been the son of a trashman who seduced one of Costin's daughters or sisters. The Harkonnens further claim common ancestry with the Corrinos in the Palaiologoi, the last ruling house of the Byzantine Empire, via Constantine XI's younger brother, Thomas Palaiologos. Finally, through Harkonnen Obeshev's wife, Lisia Pozzo di Borgo, this family claims descent from Kiril' Romanov, cousin to Nikolai Q, Russia's last tsar, and heir to his empty throne.

4)Giedi Prime home planet of Harkonnen is a industial toxic planet,  now i think of  cherynobal disaster in russia in 1986

5)House Harkonnen is big , powerful and bad ,                            Russia is big powerful and communist (were communist)

6)House Harkonnen has the death hand   :P                               Russia has nukes

7)Giedi Prime is renamed Gammu                                              Soviet Union is renamed Russia

[Andrew]

4)Giedi Prime home planet of Harkonnen is a industial toxic planet,  now i think of  cherynobal disaster in russia in 1986

Dune was written in 1965, so I doubt Chernobyl had anything to do with it.

[atomicar]

Dune was written in 1965, so I doubt Chernobyl had anything to do with it.

:-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[

Hmmmm ur right

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

i did not realize how old the book was,wow  :-X :-X :-X

[vota dc]

Both Russia and Harkonnen have a connection with  Byzantine Empire because they are the third Rome?

With the game Harkonnen are a lot russians: they are red (instead of blue..they are blue only in Dune 1) and they are big tanks specialist (in the book they don't use tanks).

In the book they are master of trade (well I haven't read the prequel but I repeat...a simple baron should have started with less land and resource than a duke) and they shouldn't have too much manpower since they use foreign troops (just like Ordos, but elite mercenaries) and they don't seem to have any elite troop. So in the book Harkonnen are a little...Ordos.

So

1)Ok

2)No in the book. Ok in games

3)Ok (DE is more canon than prequel since Herbert directly approved it)

4)Ok: not Chernobyl, but URSS already ruined the enviroment...Aral Sea started to disappear in 1960

5)In book the right word is wealthy. Ok in games.

6)Ok in games.

7)Ok

And I add

8)Vladimir Harkonnen copy Stalin: he use some people (Piter then Rabban) to do unpopular work and then he purge them to make a new leading class (Feyd). The difference is that Stalin will purge the new leading class, Vladimir do not.

[athanasios]

...The Harkonnens further claim common ancestry with the Corrinos in the Palaiologoi, the last ruling house of the Byzantine Empire, via Constantine XI's younger brother, Thomas Palaiologos.

... The black sheep of my family. I tried to conceal it.  :-[

[SandChigger]

Sheesh. My almost-apologies arnoldo, I thought you were repeating a commonplace so well known it's not worth mentioning. I didn't realize it was still amateur hour. (Your use of "probably", though, is a bit suss.) ::)

I seem to remember Frank Herbert saying or writing somewhere that he found the name Harkonnen in the phone book. (It's of Finnish origin, btw.) He chose it because he hoped people would think it sounded Eastern European and associate the Harkonnens with sinister images of the "evil" Russians and Soviet Communist bloc. It was the height of the Cold War after all. The Baron's given name Vladimir just emphasizes the point more.

There's no "probably" about it. FH had the Russians in mind.

[MrFlibble]

There's no "probably" about it. FH had the Russians in mind.

Most of the arguments above that are supposed to prove this point are quite irrelevant though (especially those referring to games).

Would be nice if you could quote the exact source though :) And BTW, what about "Valdemar Hoskanner" from Spice Planet? Was this name found in Frank's notes, or is it entirely the result of KJA/BH's imagination?

[SandChigger]

http://forum.dune2k.com/index.php?topic=15860.msg260021#msg260021 ;)

Note, I haven't read it there myself, because I've never been able to read that PoS all the way through from cover to cover.

what about "Valdemar Hoskanner" from Spice Planet? Was this name found in Frank's notes, or is it entirely the result of KJA/BH's imagination?

No idea. Supposedly in the notes. But to the best of my knowledge there's never been a shred of REAL evidence offered that anything in that "Spice Planet" story included in Road to Dune was actually conceived by Frank Herbert. Why those two idiots think ANYONE would be more interested in seeing their fleshing out of a FH story than the actual outline & notes & chapter/character sketches is beyond me.

Mr Teg believes that the original "Spice Planet" outline (along with all of the Road to Dune extras, in fact) is actually in the Fullerton Collection, but no one's been able to get down there and find it yet.

I've never bothered reading "Spice Planet" and never will.

[Wolf]

This might be off-topic, but have any portion of the notes been published? Has anyone pushed for it? I think, at this point, my fear is that KJA/BH go "George Lucas" on the original notes and intentionally destroy--I mean, "tape over" them, accidentally--so that they can have better control over the franchise. No better way to respect Frank Herbert than to destroy the last "living" shred of him, right?

[Dante]

As far as i know they have never been seen, let alone published.

[Wolf]

This is fascinating. Wholly unobjective, of course, and if KJH/BA were actually concerned about the possibility that people believe that they had invented/abused the original notes--apparently, in this case, enough so that they wrote about it--then the best thing they could do would be to release them. I need to look into this more, because it's pretty goddamn illegal to "invent" a portion of another's estate.

EDIT: Also, I'm no hand-writing expert, but doesn't it look weird to you that the two floppy disks are not only different brands, but have a different style of handwriting on them? (One is cursive, the other is print.) I mean, only a moron would make that mistake, but then again...

[Dante]

You may find this enlightening relevent.

[SandChigger]

if KJH/BA were actually concerned about the possibility that people believe that they had invented/abused the original notes--apparently, in this case, enough so that they wrote about it--then the best thing they could do would be to release them.

I forget the exact wording of Brian's comment, but at one book signing or other event he mentioned something about releasing an outline (the one for Dune 7 maybe?) or some more notes (supposedly Road to Dune contains that sort of thing, but it may all be a Fullerton anyway) and Kevin jumped in and said, "NO! The fans would just use it/them against us!"

And of course he's completely right. :D

[arnoldo]

This might be off-topic, but have any portion of the notes been published? Has anyone pushed for it?. .

Some of the notes from the Fullerton Archives was published in William F Touponce's book entitled "Frank Herbert." From the inside book cover;

William F. Touponce's authoritative and definitive treatment draws on archival materials, including taped interviews in which Herbert talks extensively about his childhood, recordings of conversations with Herbert about his work and reproductions of the earliest versions of certain passages that demonstrate the development of the Dune cycles. 

[SandChigger]

Good arnoldo.

He'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Wolf was referring to the notes KJA & BH keeping referring to but never show anyone, not materials available to public (albeit limited) access at Fullerton.

Wolf, we started a "petition thread" over on DN asking for them to release the "Dune 7" outline, on the basis of the fact that they have used it to write Hunters & Sandworms and therefore there should be no reason NOT to release it. (At only 2~3 pages, they could whip it into a webpage and release it on the website in just a few hours.) If I remember correctly, the admin Byron Merritt experienced some oral flatulence to the effect that the publisher wouldn't let them, blah blah blah.

Other than constant complaints which they constantly ignore, that's about all the "push" I've seen.

(Oh yeah, Byron claims he's seen the notes. But it was evidently years ago. As a disinterested witness, yeah, I believe him. ::) )

[MrFlibble]

If I remember correctly, the admin Byron Merritt experienced some oral flatulence to the effect that the publisher wouldn't let them, blah blah blah.

"The King of the Potato People won't let me" :P

[SandChigger]

(Did you ever see the pic of him 'shopped into the Burger King? Mr Potato Head would probably work, too.)

[arnoldo]

Actually, there is no need for the outline since Hunters/Sandworms is based on a FH outline.  We know that at the end of Chapterhouse, Murbella was in grave danger from trying to merge the BG and HM.  Murbella

[SandChigger]

So I was right in my greeting post when you joined here (which one of the mods, I forget which now, decided to delete), that you are here just to shill for the HLP and promote the McDune nonsense! Bully for YOU, arny!

Did you come up with that one all on your own, or did someone feed it to you for use in situations like this? Either way, and with any due respect, I'd rather see the actual outline for myself. The players in this farce have a considerable credibility problem, which you seem not to have noticed, so sorry if I'm not convinced by this "The outline is in the books" line of "argument". ;)

[MrFlibble]

Actually, there is no need for the outline since Hunters/Sandworms is based on a FH outline.

I'm sorry, but this is utter nonsense. Even if FH wrote Dune 7 himself and published it, any notes, outlines, drafts and outtakes would still be of interest and importance.

[ErasOmnius]

I'm sorry, but this is utter nonsense. Even if FH wrote Dune 7 himself and published it, any notes, outlines, drafts and outtakes would still be of interest and importance.

No one thinks that FH ever imagined that there were going to be seaworms.

Or that sandworms could 'hibernate' under the soil of Rakis for 40 years until awakened by Waff?

[arnoldo]

No one thinks that FH ever imagined that there were going to be seaworms.

FH imaged there were amphibian slaves on Buzzell

Or that sandworms could 'hibernate' under the soil of Rakis for 40 years until awakened by Waff?

There were hints in CH:D that there were other Tleilaxu survivors besides Scytale.

[SandChigger]

FH imaged there were amphibian slaves on Buzzell

Imagined, you mean? Yes, he had the BG consider it as a possibility suggested by the evidence they had. But it was never confirmed. That doesn't mean he would have ever even considered waterworms, as ErasOmnius has pointed out.

There were hints in CH:D that there were other Tleilaxu survivors besides Scytale.

Such as? (Quotes, arnoldo, not your usual vague obfuscations.) And why are you considering the Rakian sandworms to be "Tleilaxu survivors"? That makes no sense at all.

Wonderful. This is the sort of crap logic that has made the Dune Novels forums the simply stunning intellectual milieu they are today. Good work!

(Actually, though, it seems to be just the sort of logic that's currently popular on this board as well. Good call joining up when you did! :) )

[MrFlibble]

Or that sandworms could 'hibernate' under the soil of Rakis for 40 years until awakened by Waff?

There were hints in CH:D that there were other Tleilaxu survivors besides Scytale.

Such as? (Quotes, arnoldo, not your usual vague obfuscations.) And why are you considering the Rakian sandworms to be "Tleilaxu survivors"? That makes no sense at all.

I remember that at one point Scytale asks Odrade if the BG have any information on other Tleilaxu survivors, and she tells him of rumours about several Domel held captive by the HMs, but no other surviving Masters. Still, there's no logical link between this and the sandworms of Rakis... ???

[arnoldo]

Again, In Chapterhouse Dune Frank Herbert wrote that the physiology of a human (which may be far more complex than a sandworm's) could be adapted for life underwater.  In Heretics of Dune Frank Herbert writes that the Sandworms are an oracular force which is binding humanity.  Possessing such an oracular force would not rule out the Sandworms from hibernating to survive the destruction of Rakis.  Like Qelso, Rakis will probably require terraforming to make it a suitable environment. 

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Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.