Īs Paul makes his final bid to usurp the Padishah Emperor's power, he is challenged by Feyd, the current Harkonnen leader after the deaths of the Baron and Rabban. Feyd agrees, but as punishment for his assassination attempt, the Baron forces Feyd to single-handedly slaughter all the female slaves who serve as his lovers so that Feyd will learn the price of failure. The Baron explains that the elevation of House Harkonnen means more to him than power in his own lifetime, so if Feyd promises to forego any further assassination attempts, he will voluntarily step down and let his nephew succeed him-after his plot against the Emperor has succeeded. The attempt fails, prompting the Baron to reveal to his nephew the lofty plans he has for him, possibly to even have him ascend the throne as Emperor. įeyd's ambition and impatience to inherit the Baron's title and power spur him to attempt his uncle's assassination. It is also later noted by the Reverend Mother Mohiam that Feyd's encounter with Lady Fenring produced a daughter. Margot also intends to "plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him," which she later refers to as the "hypno- ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche." Presumably he is thus "prepared" and made vulnerable to a command which will cause complete muscle paralysis, a technique the Bene Gesserit sometimes use on individuals who are considered highly dangerous.
The risk of one or both of these young men being killed, destroying thousands of years of genetic engineering, is so great that the Bene Gesserit send an envoy, Margot Fenring, to seduce Feyd and conceive a child, salvaging his genetic material. For this reason, Lady Jessica's decision to defy the Sisterhood and to produce an Atreides son, Paul, threw the Bene Gesserit's plans into turmoil and established an irreconcilable tension between Feyd and Paul as the scions of their bitterly opposed noble houses. įeyd, like Paul Atreides, is also the product of a centuries-long breeding program organized by the Bene Gesserit, who planned their own alliance by joining a Harkonnen son to an Atreides daughter with the expectation that their offspring would have a high probability of being their hoped-for Kwisatz Haderach. To assure Feyd's power, the Baron intends to install him as ruler of Arrakis after a period of tyrannical misrule by Rabban, making Feyd appear to be the savior of the people. įeyd is, for a while, the Baron's heir, or na-Baron. A year or two more - say, by the time he's seventeen, I'll know for certain whether he's the tool that House Harkonnen requires to gain the throne. There was a sharpness to the boy that the Baron enjoyed. But Rabban's younger brother, young Feyd-Rautha. Not this Rabban he'd summoned, of course. The Baron could see the path ahead of him. The Baron favors the handsome and charismatic Feyd over Feyd's older brother Glossu Rabban ("The Beast") because of Feyd's intelligence and his dedication to the Harkonnen culture of carefully planned and subtly executed sadism and cruelty, as opposed to Rabban's outright brutality. But where Paul displays compassion and loyalty, Feyd cares only for himself and the acquisition of power." Appearances Dune Īs Dune begins, Feyd-Rautha figures heavily in the Baron's plans to gain power for House Harkonnen. Ari Szporn of Comic Book Resources wrote, "Both are charismatic, cunning young noblemen who have received the greatest education and combat training. The character Feyd serves as a narrative foil to Paul Atreides, son of the Baron's enemy, Duke Leto Atreides. Feyd and his elder brother Glossu Rabban are the legal sons of Baron Harkonnen's youngest half-brother, Abulurd Rabban, who had "renounced the Harkonnen name and all rights to the title when given the subdistrict governorship of Rabban-Lankiveil".
The Baron also notes that the "full and pouting look" of Feyd's lips is "the Harkonnen genetic marker". He is lean and muscular in contrast to his morbidly obese uncle, and is a deadly fighter. Sixteen-year-old Feyd, the younger nephew and heir of Baron Harkonnen, is described as dark-haired, and "round of face and with sullen eyes". Austin Butler portrayed the character in the 2024 film Dune: Part Two. He is the younger nephew and heir of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and is depicted to be cruel, treacherous and cunning, though not as much so as his uncle.įeyd is portrayed by Sting in the 1984 film Dune, and by Matt Keeslar in the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune. Matt Keeslar played Feyd in the Dune miniseries (2000) Austin Butler portrayed Feyd-Rautha in the 2024 film Dune: Part Two.įeyd-Rautha Harkonnen is a fictional character in the 1965 science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert.