the expanded duniverse
how often does the baron harkonnen off his goons?
House Atriedes and House Harkonnen feel painfully underdeveloped.
I find myself projecting a lot of my own ideas onto the houses, which in a way is cool but I wish there was a bit more to work with.
Kind of a risky thing to do and I’m maybe glad Frank didn’t go too hard because I feel like, knowing how he writes, if he decided to clarify more about the houses we would be overwhelmed with details we didn’t care for.
Reid says he wishes he saw more of the “lower ranks” of both houses. Yeah. Give me a Harkonnen stable boy or some shit.
We’re longing for systems again. Help me understand an Atreides janitor’s day. Like, what does life for a normie on their planet look like or at least give me a really thinned out understanding of it.
The Harkonnens are hard because I doubt they’re all obese pedophiles like the baron, I think that’s supposed to be just him but he’s the only Harkonnen we really know so I’m forced to assume the rest of them are just temporarily embarrassed obese pedophiles.
In Part Three, we learn a bit more about the Baron. I like that he kills his own minions constantly. I think that solidifies the way Harkonnens roll quite a bit and it’s comically done, in my opinion. Which I actually like.
How do I explain this. I feel like the Baron cannot possibly kill off a third of his staff every day for dragging a corpse in a way he doesn’t like, but of course, he rules an entire planet so yeah he could do that. And it’s extreme while not being sold as being extreme within the text, which does a shit load of work for the narrative.
The Baron killing off random people and it being extremely chill and normal for the Baron is a great touch. Cute and funny and helps me see the Harkonnens as the barbarian empire within the Duniverse (do people say Duniverse? They should).
Reid points out that we have a ton of cultural information about the Fremen. Yeah. That’s cool.
The Fremen are definitely personified the most and that’s kind of telling, as they’re really the protagonist faction within the story, moreso even than the Atreides.
Reid says the impression he gets from the Baron executing half his goons is that he doesn’t actually do that often but he does it enough to make sure everyone knows he’s one poorly planned meal away from doing it.
Yeah.
We happened to catch him when his blood sugar was low so he ordered a bunch of people killed over it.
Another thing I like is that Leto said the Harkonnens never took the Fremen seriously and I think that says a lot about the Harkonnens as well. Very top down organizational style, very we kill minions who perform poorly, very black and white, militaristic kind of vibe.
Sets them up as a good bad guy in a lot of ways. Not a lot of nuance but pretty clear, which was probably Frank’s aim there.