Baron Vladimir Harkonnen Character Analysis

The power-hungry Head of House Harkonnen with a dangerous intellect, who regularly engages in corrupt schemes. The Baron is an enormous man whose morbidly obese weight is held up by anti-gravity suspensors. He spends much of his energies designing ways to destroy House Atreides and Duke Leto Atreides. He thinks nothing of using manipulation, torture, and brute force to get his way, examples including his corrupting Dr. Yueh, deceiving Thufir Hawat, and killing individuals such as Liet-Kynes who get in the Baron’s way. He treats his family with the same cruel attitudes, using people and then tossing them aside or destroying them. Notably, though, he always orders someone else to undertake his dirty work, including his Mentat and chief collaborator, Piter de Vries. The Harkonnen leader and his Mentat manipulate the Padishah Emperor into joining forces to exterminate the Atreides, creating a cunning plan to gift Duke Leto the valuable planet Arrakis and there spring a deadly trap. The plan is largely successful, and the Baron gloats over capturing the Duke. His arrogance is almost his downfall when Duke Leto nearly kills him with poisonous gas. The Duke dies in this attempt and House Harkonnen re-take Arrakis, making life terrible for its populace. Some years later, the evil Baron receives his comeuppance when he is outsmarted by Duke Leto’s son, Paul, and killed by Leto and Jessica’s daughter, Alia.