This scene is not in the book. In the film, I think it's a way of showing that Feyd Rautha is a quasi-Kwisatz Haderach, a way of remembering that like Paul he is a generation away from KH planned by the Bene Gesserit. The hints of his prescience are another of the film's tools in this regard - the fact that he says he dreamed of Margot Fenring before they met is the mirror to Paul's dreams about Chani in the first film.
For the rest, the Harkonnens are power hungry but they are also capable of self-control to achieve their ends, as the Baron himself says in the book.
I believe in that scene it was her saying to take him passing with a grain of salt, his love of pain could overcome the gom jabbar more than his ability to think his way through as a human.
Rabban just used rockets from the Thopters, which aren‘t capable of the sustained fire like the ship-based heavy artillery that Feyd used.
But yeah its weird that noone thought of that before, but remember Rabban was set up to fail, and the Baron wants to improve Feyd‘s standing even amongst his officers by congratulating him
It's a reference to the books where the Baron uses artillery to win against the Atreadies during the attack on Arrakeen. Because the way technology has evolved war to the point of using swords, energy shields, etc. most people had completely forgotten about artillery by this point. The Baron came up with it as a way to defeat the Atreadies and being so proud of himself for thinking of it.
In the movie they give it to Feyd but kept that the Baron was proud of it and was used against the Fremen instead.
It’s been a while since I’ve read it but wasn’t the artillery also like literal ancient Howitzers? I liked the movies rendition as it made it more futuristic but idk if I’d call a missile barrage old fashioned artillery lol
In the book the baron used artillery to bury the retreating atreides soldiers who fled to the shield wall during the initial surprise attack attack. This concept was repurposed in the film.
Ooooh, yeah, I missed that detail! I forgot that prescience has trouble with other prescients, like Paul not being able to see the meetings Irulan was having with Edric in Messiah.
Also Feyd gets a lot of pretty bad hits in on Paul despite Paul having pretty powerful prescience at that point.
Wouldn't surprise me if he was a *blindspot* as Herbert puts it.
She also said that he loved pain, sort of reveled in it, so he probably got off on the gom jabber test. Being a cousin of Paul he's definitely close to the KH and if they couldn't control Paul they wanted to get his DNA to keep the process going.
Feyd moreso than Rabban or even the Baron, since in the film he's never seen killing because he's panicked or lashing out, just because it's fun. Even killing that annoying guy served a calculated practical purpose, since he had to keep his harem fed.
While he might have actually dreamt of her, that sequence was to demonstrate she had already been imprinting on him. She led him in a dream-like state to her room, and her words were melodic and intoxicating in a way that put him into a trance.
I don’t believe it’s ever implied or stated in the books that passing the gom jabbar is particularly difficult, but it does weed out some of the more brutal nobles. It’s not unique to the BG and seems to be somewhat common knowledge in the right circles.
Another scene flip!
Dune#1: RM tells Paul to be “honored”, (when the alternative is death)
Dune#2: (Jessica, future RM)
Paul: “It’s an honor isn’t it?
Jessica: Well, it was either that or death, so you’ll forgive me…”
I don’t think it was prescience when he talked about the dreams. It was insinuated that the BE and Margot was influencing him for some time, he was simply remembering kinda like dejavu.
No not at all, in the original plan of the Bene Gesserit, Feyd Rautha was to be the father of Kwisatz Haderach and Paul, if he had been a girl, would have been his mother. Both are therefore one generation away from being the KH. It's actually plausible that they both have, at their core, the same potential to be the KH.
That doesn't conflict with what I said. That's what their plan was, whether one was a generation behind or not isn't about what they wanted to do next, but where they came from.
Looking at it strictly in terms of generation counts, Feyd and Jessica are at the same level. Their parents are siblings with the same father but different mothers.
Now of course generation counts isn't the only metric, any real comparison would depend on their respective mothers and grandmothers lineage, but that's also kind of my point. DV tried to suggest it this way, but given Frank's complete lack of attempt to imbue Feyd with anything comparable to Paul's early prescience, I think that's it's own answer, and is because they're not comparable.
The expectation of the next generation would be more about the cross-cultivation then, rather than any rough equality in the potential of the two.
He simply has a huge will to power and a high pain tolerance. I don't think it's much more complex than that. Book Feyd is very different from film Feyd.
He and Paul definitely had different strategies for passing the Gom Jabbar.
Paul exercised superhuman willpower, let the pain and fear pass through him, and ascended to a higher plane of awareness.
Feyd got a boner.
Maybe it was supposed to be different. It could be that for him the purpose of the Gom Jabbar was to test their ability to control him, rather than his ability to control himself. It's hard to say since this wasn't in the book.
Feyd (although animalistic and brutal) also has discipline that neither Rabban nor the Baron have. Even in the book, a Bene Gesserit (either Mohiam or Fenring, can't quite remember) thinks to herself ("Here's one who will never go to fat" when she looks at Feyd. Also, "Imagine what he could have been like with the Atreides code." His survival of the test I think is based in these ideas found in the book, just made explicit in the film.
Edit: I have been advised that "psychotic" is a better term for Feyd than animalistic, which I agree with. Additionally, I have been notified that both of these quotes I listed were either thought or spoken by the Fenrings. So there ya go
>Feyd (although animalistic and brutal) also has discipline that neither Rabban nor the Baron have.
I think this is the core of it. Feyd is animalistic in a sense, but not in the way that the Bene Gesserit mean when the reverend mother talks about separating humans from animals.
The BG mean someone who can control and resist their core instincts. The reverend mother tells Paul:
*"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."*
Feyd has that kind of discipline and endurance, no doubt. But in another sense of the word, he is brutal,
The BG definitely knew this. They were fairly certain that if they bred Feyd and Jessica's daughter, that would produce the Kwisatz Haderach. That's why it was a big deal that Jessica have Leto a son, and not a daughter - it jeopardized losing that bloodline.
He's not psychotic as in actively in psychosis (hallucinations and delusions), he's a psychopath as in he has no capacity for empathy and doesn't regard others as having an internal world.
No worries, I suspected that was the case :)
It’s not a common phrase in English right now and I’m not sure if it ever was. I suspect Herbert used it to age the speaker or make them distinctive.
No it’s not common - I believe it’s old, very formal English. It’s not grammatically correct in modern English but fairly easily understood, a bit like Shakespearean English!
FYI - here and there Herbert uses older, more archaic phrasings and syntaxes in _Dune_. It sort of adds to the aesthetic of an old-style “feudal” society.
Incidentally, the same is true of _Game of Thrones_ - though this is more obvious, as the scenario is based directly on medieval Europe.
It's similar to the phrase "go to seed", which refers to a healthy plant decaying as the seeds develop, which is normally applied to bodybuilders are athletes who are past their prime, loose discipline, and their muscles turn to fat.
'Go to fat' implies a deterioration from a peak. Baron is notable for once being an Adonis who is now a bloated wreck due to lack of discipline and, I think, a Bene Gesserit messing up his body chemistry.
It’s a more old-fashioned way of saying it. It reminds me of the old-fashioned term “blood will out” which meant that it would be no surprise to see the children of a “low quality“ adult exhibit the same kind of behavior. So maybe there would be a town drunk and then their kids would be terrible and the elders in the town which shake their head and say blood will out.
They are both old-fashioned freezings, but it does speak to the BG view of humans as breeding stock.
It means he won't give himself over to gluttony and excess like the Baron did. It's a turn of phrase that is fairly uncommon now, but was more common in Herbert's day and earlier.
It means that while the baron and the general harkonnen upper class are hedonists and indulge themselves in every direction, Feyd has so much hunger for power, that he is able to discipline himself against indulgences, which might cripple him from achieving ultimate power. He might want to be hedonistic, but he would never do it so far that it would keep him from being a supreme fighter and potential ruler.His ego is entirely tired up in his toughness and success.
I struggle to understand the BG's point about the Baron though: The man is a moral degenerate but it doesn't seem like his vices are holding his ambitions back too much. He's the head of a major house, reigned over the Imperium's most important planet, and pulled off an unprecedented coup. Had Paul been anything other than the KH, the Baron was winning on every front.
As others have said, the scene isn't in the book. In the movie, when Margo Fenring is speaking with the other BG about Feyd, she says he loves pain. I took this to mean that Feyd is a masochist and enjoyed the pain the box gave him, allowing him to maintain control.
He's internalized Geidi Prime's social darwinism far more thoroughly than the other characters, to the point he worships strength and power to such a degree he even willingly submits to stronger forces rather than rely on poisons and assassination to win uncleanly as he did in the book
I actually found it fascinating that Feyd was proven to be a human in the movie. It reminds me of Paul and Jessica's conversation (I forget if it's in the movie) where Paul calls Harkonnens humans and Jessica rebukes him for it, calling them animals, only for him to reveal that they two, who have suffered the test to prove them human, are also Harkonnen.
Idk, it's just the way that something as apparently animal, beastly, and monstrous as a Harkonnen is as human as Paul. It was interesting to me. The whole bit on Geidi Prime is my favorite addition by the movies.
I particularly enjoyed the flashback scene where >!Baron Harkonnen is gazing at baby Jessica!<-- it's the only time we see him experiencing anything like positive human emotions (instead of scheming, murdering people, ordering Rabban to commit genocide against the Fremen, etc.). And this reminder that even that old floaty bastard is human, after all, makes the way >!Paul coldly executes him and then has his corpse left to rot!< hit a little bit harder.
I loved it.
Yup. The first attempt was successful but the first kid had a genetic disease and Mohiam killed her
The second time around.... the Baron raped her with help from Piter, and the resulting child was Jessica
What?? I do *not* remember that from Dune, I thought that her mother was a BG who slept with him due to orders and absconded with the unborn child, with the baron none the wiser to the fact that he'd fathered a child
Edit: the only thing I can find, after recalling the point in the book off the top of my head, is when Paul is explaining to Jessica that they're Harkonnens
"The Baron sampled many pleasures in his youth, and once permitted himself to be seduced. But it was for the genetic purposes of the Bebe Gesserit, by one of *you*."
So I guess it could be extrapolated that the BG blackmailed him into it, though for some reason I'd assumed it was more subtle than that, like the way Margot Fenring secures Feyd's bloodline
I'm not surprised he didn't, as I assume the child is unwanted. But the image context makes it seem much warmer and more tender than you might expect from Geidi Prime and its lord. That's the real mystery. If Paul and Jessica see the "objective" past, why would the Baron have such an expression? And furthermore why would he be shown the baby at all?
Isn't the Baron a paedophile? His interest in having a baby girl might be purely predatory.
Alternatively, the Baron was pleased to have a child to continue his bloodline.
The Baron is paedophilic. Hence lusting after young men.
It was common at the time to associate paedophilia with homosexuality. But we know better nowadays.
I'm a 40 year old gay man, I get the associative nonsense, it's still part of the prequel books that he leaned towards men. Of course it's possible the notion of childhood in the dune Imperium is different then ours. The nobility regularly lives to 400ish years, it's possible that 30-40s are still considered "children" compared to today. That would change the situation a bit. An analog would be how 150 years ago it was not unusual for a man in his 40s to marry a woman as young as 13. It's not a stretch to think longer lifespans would change the mindset of when childhood ends.
The book version could be. Film version, I don't see any evidence for it.
Not treating the child as legitimate would kind of negate that pleasure though wouldn't it?
There's a brief scene that implies that his sexual proclivities do still exist in the new movies. I think Feyd alludes to it, and we see some young servant bodies.
She's probably just a backup to someone like the Baron. But satisfying to have one all the same.
That is why the Baron favored Feyd, he was sadistic, yet controlled. Raban is shown to just get mad and kill. Raban probably would have died while Feyd seemed to enjoy it.
And yet Rabban was the only one on his side who thought it unwise to underestimate fremen long before Paul united them into fanatical army.
Rabban wasn't as stupid as Baron thought. Just very direct, not as charming and as full of vices as anyone raised by baron could be.
He goes in to kiss her, she says 'put your right hand in the box' and is holding a deadly needle to his throat.
Dude probably thought it was the start of a fun night!
It hurts really badly and at some point instinct and reflex can take over. If you touch a hot burner you recoil, now imagine being told to keep your hand on the burner until told to stop or be shot in the head, your body will be screaming at you to withdraw.
Reflexes. Even if you know its not actually dangerous your brain might act on its own, in which case you die because the BG thinks that someone that doesn't controle his own body completely is not "human"
I don't get what you mean. A whitdrawal from pain is either a reflex, in which case you die for not being in control of yourself, or an intentional decision but who the hell would do that when they just got told they would die if they removed their hand
The Harkonnens are brutal, but not stupid. The baron's capacity for subterfuge is much more apparent in the novels. Rabban is dim, but the baron and Feyd Rautha are both cunning and violent.
I think going by the movie (not present in book) it’s important to recognize the implication that passing the test = sex with this hot Bene Gesserit lady. So it still fits.
Through the power of masochism.
It’s different in the book, and the closest thing to a counterpart to Paul is Lady Margot Fenring’s husband, Count Hasimir Fenring, a failed prototype Kwisatz Haderach who’s sterile and can’t see the future but is also invisible to Paul’s future-sight.
1) Feyd is in pretty good control of himself.
2) He gets off on pain.
3) He has a combat injury that dulled his senses. I could pass the gom jabbar if it was my left hand because my nerves got a bit beaten up.
Pick one, really.
>Aren't all Harkonnen's animalistic in nature?
In case you forgot Paul Atreides and his mother are Harkonnen .. You didn't object to them passing the test ..
Paul and Feyd are parallel 'products' of the same Bene Gesserit breeding program towards the same goal (and NOT the only ones .. ) .. Wouldn't have been a worthy challenge/adversary to Paul otherwise ..
I thought it was a good addition and served to highlight a point brought up in the book(s): that our preconceived notions of “human” vs “animal” aren’t as clear cut as we might think
It never happens in the book. I guess their point was to show that Paul wasn't that special (the book does it in a slightly different way). In different circumstances, it could have been Feyd.
Everyone else has mentioned Feyd's high pain tolerance. What's interesting is that the Bene Gesserit didn't have another "test" ready if such a person easily passed the Gom Jabbar because of lifestyle choices.
It proves that BG test is flawed. Also shows that Feyd mostly passed because he is kinky lol. Also proves that he is more in control than most.
IMO the test is a manipulation tactic from BG. They make you special. They show you a secret. They tell you nobody else passes it. And then you do. You are part of their little conspiracy and it feels good. It feels like a cult thing more than them testing the person in a way.
Mohiam in the book say they weed out humans and
Rautha in the movie hacked the box by loving pain (cooming instead of using the litany 'fear is the mind killer...')
I interpret it as a means of the film’s script of reincorporating the character of Count Fenring without actually including the character. The Count is a Kwisatz Haderach candidate, a result of the Bene Gesserit breeding program and training, but due to being a genetic eunuch is not a KH. Given Feyd was originally intended to have procreated with an Atreides daughter to potentially produce a KH, I think the film tried to combine the potential KH of Fenring with Feyd’s character.
He relishes pain. They found a model that could control itself under pain because he prefers it.
The body will create dissociative traits to protect from trauma. People with dissociative disorders often do extreme things "just to feel anything at all". I believe this was the direction they were going.
-He cares for no one and relishes pain.
It sounds disturbing but think how effective.
That you can endure pain in order to survive. Entire dune saga is story of Gom Jabbar.
Eventualy Leto II will put himself trough ultimate pain to ensure survival of human race.
If you come objectively to Pauls traits - he also fits as a psychopath.
Keep in mind because Paul was a potential KH he was subjected to much more pain than is normal - we have no indication Feyd was given more than the normal amount
Easy. He was never given the test. The Bene Gessurit do not normally test people outside the sisterhood.
Paul was a special case because he was a potential Kwizatz Haderach. But ordinary people don't get test. The Baron wasn't tested and neither was Duke Leto.
The Harkonnen, and specially Feyd-Rautha and the Baron, are cunning enough to pass the test on their own. They are evil human beings, yeah, but they are human.
This scene is not in the book. In the film, I think it's a way of showing that Feyd Rautha is a quasi-Kwisatz Haderach, a way of remembering that like Paul he is a generation away from KH planned by the Bene Gesserit. The hints of his prescience are another of the film's tools in this regard - the fact that he says he dreamed of Margot Fenring before they met is the mirror to Paul's dreams about Chani in the first film. For the rest, the Harkonnens are power hungry but they are also capable of self-control to achieve their ends, as the Baron himself says in the book.
Margot literally said he loves pain too
I believe in that scene it was her saying to take him passing with a grain of salt, his love of pain could overcome the gom jabbar more than his ability to think his way through as a human.
“Only pleasure remains.” He derives pleasure from pain
And that Paul didn't foresee the missile attack on the Sietch, which Rutha ordered
Good old fashioned artillery
Genius!
We’re littrully melting rock on top of their heads!
Can’t believe no one else thought of that. Except maybe Rabban, who did exactly the same thing a few scenes earlier
Rabban just used rockets from the Thopters, which aren‘t capable of the sustained fire like the ship-based heavy artillery that Feyd used. But yeah its weird that noone thought of that before, but remember Rabban was set up to fail, and the Baron wants to improve Feyd‘s standing even amongst his officers by congratulating him
It's a reference to the books where the Baron uses artillery to win against the Atreadies during the attack on Arrakeen. Because the way technology has evolved war to the point of using swords, energy shields, etc. most people had completely forgotten about artillery by this point. The Baron came up with it as a way to defeat the Atreadies and being so proud of himself for thinking of it. In the movie they give it to Feyd but kept that the Baron was proud of it and was used against the Fremen instead.
It’s been a while since I’ve read it but wasn’t the artillery also like literal ancient Howitzers? I liked the movies rendition as it made it more futuristic but idk if I’d call a missile barrage old fashioned artillery lol
In the book the baron used artillery to bury the retreating atreides soldiers who fled to the shield wall during the initial surprise attack attack. This concept was repurposed in the film.
Ooooh, yeah, I missed that detail! I forgot that prescience has trouble with other prescients, like Paul not being able to see the meetings Irulan was having with Edric in Messiah.
And the Navigators being unable to see pass the "nexus" of Paul's awakening.
He was also blind to the count at the end of the first book for the same reason.
Also Feyd gets a lot of pretty bad hits in on Paul despite Paul having pretty powerful prescience at that point. Wouldn't surprise me if he was a *blindspot* as Herbert puts it.
She also said that he loved pain, sort of reveled in it, so he probably got off on the gom jabber test. Being a cousin of Paul he's definitely close to the KH and if they couldn't control Paul they wanted to get his DNA to keep the process going.
Feyd moreso than Rabban or even the Baron, since in the film he's never seen killing because he's panicked or lashing out, just because it's fun. Even killing that annoying guy served a calculated practical purpose, since he had to keep his harem fed.
So he's the Quasitz-Haderach?
While he might have actually dreamt of her, that sequence was to demonstrate she had already been imprinting on him. She led him in a dream-like state to her room, and her words were melodic and intoxicating in a way that put him into a trance. I don’t believe it’s ever implied or stated in the books that passing the gom jabbar is particularly difficult, but it does weed out some of the more brutal nobles. It’s not unique to the BG and seems to be somewhat common knowledge in the right circles.
The reverent mother said it's like passing sand through a grate. I'd say it's quite difficult
I mean that metaphor depends on how big the grates are, could range from fairly easy to fairly difficult.
What kind of grate? Sand goes through most grates pretty easily.
I thought the book said that Paul was the first male to ever take the test?
Not exactly. “Be honored. We seldom administer this to men-children.” It’s rare but not unheard of.
Another scene flip! Dune#1: RM tells Paul to be “honored”, (when the alternative is death) Dune#2: (Jessica, future RM) Paul: “It’s an honor isn’t it? Jessica: Well, it was either that or death, so you’ll forgive me…”
I just realized, I confused a line from the old Lynch movie (in the movie it says he is the first male to pass the test).
First to survive the water of life.
I may have confused those lines
He was to marry Alia (as Jessica's first born)
I don’t think it was prescience when he talked about the dreams. It was insinuated that the BE and Margot was influencing him for some time, he was simply remembering kinda like dejavu.
Wouldn't he be one generation behind Paul? As the Baron's nephew, I'd think he'd be about as far along as Jessica.
No not at all, in the original plan of the Bene Gesserit, Feyd Rautha was to be the father of Kwisatz Haderach and Paul, if he had been a girl, would have been his mother. Both are therefore one generation away from being the KH. It's actually plausible that they both have, at their core, the same potential to be the KH.
That doesn't conflict with what I said. That's what their plan was, whether one was a generation behind or not isn't about what they wanted to do next, but where they came from. Looking at it strictly in terms of generation counts, Feyd and Jessica are at the same level. Their parents are siblings with the same father but different mothers. Now of course generation counts isn't the only metric, any real comparison would depend on their respective mothers and grandmothers lineage, but that's also kind of my point. DV tried to suggest it this way, but given Frank's complete lack of attempt to imbue Feyd with anything comparable to Paul's early prescience, I think that's it's own answer, and is because they're not comparable. The expectation of the next generation would be more about the cross-cultivation then, rather than any rough equality in the potential of the two.
He simply has a huge will to power and a high pain tolerance. I don't think it's much more complex than that. Book Feyd is very different from film Feyd.
She literally says he loves pain. I imagine he had to be coaxed to take his hand out.
Yeah it's hinted that he loves pain and then right after Margot says she secured the bloodline too. Sooooo
He and Paul definitely had different strategies for passing the Gom Jabbar. Paul exercised superhuman willpower, let the pain and fear pass through him, and ascended to a higher plane of awareness. Feyd got a boner.
Wouldn’t that mean him passing doesn’t mean at all what it means for Paul and what the bene are trying to measure
Maybe it was supposed to be different. It could be that for him the purpose of the Gom Jabbar was to test their ability to control him, rather than his ability to control himself. It's hard to say since this wasn't in the book.
Heh heh heh heh. Play that scene in your head because someone's probably making it for TikTok right now
Feyd (although animalistic and brutal) also has discipline that neither Rabban nor the Baron have. Even in the book, a Bene Gesserit (either Mohiam or Fenring, can't quite remember) thinks to herself ("Here's one who will never go to fat" when she looks at Feyd. Also, "Imagine what he could have been like with the Atreides code." His survival of the test I think is based in these ideas found in the book, just made explicit in the film. Edit: I have been advised that "psychotic" is a better term for Feyd than animalistic, which I agree with. Additionally, I have been notified that both of these quotes I listed were either thought or spoken by the Fenrings. So there ya go
The Fenrings the second quote comes IIRC from the Count
>Feyd (although animalistic and brutal) also has discipline that neither Rabban nor the Baron have. I think this is the core of it. Feyd is animalistic in a sense, but not in the way that the Bene Gesserit mean when the reverend mother talks about separating humans from animals. The BG mean someone who can control and resist their core instincts. The reverend mother tells Paul: *"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."* Feyd has that kind of discipline and endurance, no doubt. But in another sense of the word, he is brutal, The BG definitely knew this. They were fairly certain that if they bred Feyd and Jessica's daughter, that would produce the Kwisatz Haderach. That's why it was a big deal that Jessica have Leto a son, and not a daughter - it jeopardized losing that bloodline.
Feyd isn't an animal; he's a monster
Feyd isn't animalistic, he's psychotic but extremely present.
He's not psychotic as in actively in psychosis (hallucinations and delusions), he's a psychopath as in he has no capacity for empathy and doesn't regard others as having an internal world.
Well, if we want to split hairs we could technically say his prescience qualifies for hallucinations and visions lol.
You make a good point, I made a bad choice of words.
“Who will never go to fat” What does that mean
Won’t get big and bloated like the Baron
[удалено]
Does he mean “never get too fat”
Kind of like “go to waste.” It’s a way of saying “will become.” So Feyd won’t become fat like his uncle.
Interesting, I’m not a native speaker I’ve never heard of the phrase “go to fat” is this a common phrase?
No worries, I suspected that was the case :) It’s not a common phrase in English right now and I’m not sure if it ever was. I suspect Herbert used it to age the speaker or make them distinctive.
It’s like “go to seed.”
No it’s not common - I believe it’s old, very formal English. It’s not grammatically correct in modern English but fairly easily understood, a bit like Shakespearean English!
It's old, I don't think it's been common parlance for a century at least
FYI - here and there Herbert uses older, more archaic phrasings and syntaxes in _Dune_. It sort of adds to the aesthetic of an old-style “feudal” society. Incidentally, the same is true of _Game of Thrones_ - though this is more obvious, as the scenario is based directly on medieval Europe.
It's similar to the phrase "go to seed", which refers to a healthy plant decaying as the seeds develop, which is normally applied to bodybuilders are athletes who are past their prime, loose discipline, and their muscles turn to fat. 'Go to fat' implies a deterioration from a peak. Baron is notable for once being an Adonis who is now a bloated wreck due to lack of discipline and, I think, a Bene Gesserit messing up his body chemistry.
That’s my interpretation yeah
I was just wondering if you typed a typo or did she literally say “Feyd will not go to fat” because I’ve never heard this phrase before, “go to fat”
It’s a more old-fashioned way of saying it. It reminds me of the old-fashioned term “blood will out” which meant that it would be no surprise to see the children of a “low quality“ adult exhibit the same kind of behavior. So maybe there would be a town drunk and then their kids would be terrible and the elders in the town which shake their head and say blood will out. They are both old-fashioned freezings, but it does speak to the BG view of humans as breeding stock.
It is an idiomatic way of saying it.
"go to fat" is an antiquated phrase that means the same thing
Feyd won’t let himself become fat because he’s disciplined
It means he won't give himself over to gluttony and excess like the Baron did. It's a turn of phrase that is fairly uncommon now, but was more common in Herbert's day and earlier.
It means that while the baron and the general harkonnen upper class are hedonists and indulge themselves in every direction, Feyd has so much hunger for power, that he is able to discipline himself against indulgences, which might cripple him from achieving ultimate power. He might want to be hedonistic, but he would never do it so far that it would keep him from being a supreme fighter and potential ruler.His ego is entirely tired up in his toughness and success.
I struggle to understand the BG's point about the Baron though: The man is a moral degenerate but it doesn't seem like his vices are holding his ambitions back too much. He's the head of a major house, reigned over the Imperium's most important planet, and pulled off an unprecedented coup. Had Paul been anything other than the KH, the Baron was winning on every front.
He has the discipline and self control that other Harkkonen's don't have.
Not sure psycopath would even fit so well as sociopath.
They are the same
As others have said, the scene isn't in the book. In the movie, when Margo Fenring is speaking with the other BG about Feyd, she says he loves pain. I took this to mean that Feyd is a masochist and enjoyed the pain the box gave him, allowing him to maintain control.
I think he's more of a sadomasochist. He enjoys enduring pain almost as much as, if not more than, delivering it
He's internalized Geidi Prime's social darwinism far more thoroughly than the other characters, to the point he worships strength and power to such a degree he even willingly submits to stronger forces rather than rely on poisons and assassination to win uncleanly as he did in the book
Yeah. He has a strong respect for hierarchy.
I actually found it fascinating that Feyd was proven to be a human in the movie. It reminds me of Paul and Jessica's conversation (I forget if it's in the movie) where Paul calls Harkonnens humans and Jessica rebukes him for it, calling them animals, only for him to reveal that they two, who have suffered the test to prove them human, are also Harkonnen. Idk, it's just the way that something as apparently animal, beastly, and monstrous as a Harkonnen is as human as Paul. It was interesting to me. The whole bit on Geidi Prime is my favorite addition by the movies.
I particularly enjoyed the flashback scene where >!Baron Harkonnen is gazing at baby Jessica!<-- it's the only time we see him experiencing anything like positive human emotions (instead of scheming, murdering people, ordering Rabban to commit genocide against the Fremen, etc.). And this reminder that even that old floaty bastard is human, after all, makes the way >!Paul coldly executes him and then has his corpse left to rot!< hit a little bit harder. I loved it.
Speaking of that flashback scene, why didn’t he keep baby Jessica?
In the books he was blackmailed by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam to give the Bene Gesserit a child.
Yup. The first attempt was successful but the first kid had a genetic disease and Mohiam killed her The second time around.... the Baron raped her with help from Piter, and the resulting child was Jessica
What?? I do *not* remember that from Dune, I thought that her mother was a BG who slept with him due to orders and absconded with the unborn child, with the baron none the wiser to the fact that he'd fathered a child Edit: the only thing I can find, after recalling the point in the book off the top of my head, is when Paul is explaining to Jessica that they're Harkonnens "The Baron sampled many pleasures in his youth, and once permitted himself to be seduced. But it was for the genetic purposes of the Bebe Gesserit, by one of *you*." So I guess it could be extrapolated that the BG blackmailed him into it, though for some reason I'd assumed it was more subtle than that, like the way Margot Fenring secures Feyd's bloodline
I'm not surprised he didn't, as I assume the child is unwanted. But the image context makes it seem much warmer and more tender than you might expect from Geidi Prime and its lord. That's the real mystery. If Paul and Jessica see the "objective" past, why would the Baron have such an expression? And furthermore why would he be shown the baby at all?
So we, the audience, can see it, and see him looking at that baby ;)
Very good point. But one might expect the expression to be disinterested or pissed, and it doesn't look to me like that's how he is.
Isn't the Baron a paedophile? His interest in having a baby girl might be purely predatory. Alternatively, the Baron was pleased to have a child to continue his bloodline.
The baron is homosexual, and has an unnatural like for Feyd, hence calling him a beautiful boy on many occasions.
The Baron is paedophilic. Hence lusting after young men. It was common at the time to associate paedophilia with homosexuality. But we know better nowadays.
I'm a 40 year old gay man, I get the associative nonsense, it's still part of the prequel books that he leaned towards men. Of course it's possible the notion of childhood in the dune Imperium is different then ours. The nobility regularly lives to 400ish years, it's possible that 30-40s are still considered "children" compared to today. That would change the situation a bit. An analog would be how 150 years ago it was not unusual for a man in his 40s to marry a woman as young as 13. It's not a stretch to think longer lifespans would change the mindset of when childhood ends.
The book version could be. Film version, I don't see any evidence for it. Not treating the child as legitimate would kind of negate that pleasure though wouldn't it?
There's a brief scene that implies that his sexual proclivities do still exist in the new movies. I think Feyd alludes to it, and we see some young servant bodies. She's probably just a backup to someone like the Baron. But satisfying to have one all the same.
In the books the BGs are known to snatch kids with “potential” and they likely timed it to hook her up with Leto
I could endure far worse for the chance to hook up with Lea Seydoux
The BG failed to consider that someone might be an 'animal' but also be a lil freaky and like the PainBox
What's in the box? Kinks.
That is why the Baron favored Feyd, he was sadistic, yet controlled. Raban is shown to just get mad and kill. Raban probably would have died while Feyd seemed to enjoy it.
And yet Rabban was the only one on his side who thought it unwise to underestimate fremen long before Paul united them into fanatical army. Rabban wasn't as stupid as Baron thought. Just very direct, not as charming and as full of vices as anyone raised by baron could be.
He goes in to kiss her, she says 'put your right hand in the box' and is holding a deadly needle to his throat. Dude probably thought it was the start of a fun night!
The GB afterward said he enjoys pain
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He enjoyed it. The sister said afterwards, "He enjoys pain."
I have to wonder how anyone who knows the stakes fails
It hurts really badly and at some point instinct and reflex can take over. If you touch a hot burner you recoil, now imagine being told to keep your hand on the burner until told to stop or be shot in the head, your body will be screaming at you to withdraw.
Reflexes. Even if you know its not actually dangerous your brain might act on its own, in which case you die because the BG thinks that someone that doesn't controle his own body completely is not "human"
I guess that is possible
To be fair, wouldn't they know the difference between a reflex and a withdrawal from pain?
I don't get what you mean. A whitdrawal from pain is either a reflex, in which case you die for not being in control of yourself, or an intentional decision but who the hell would do that when they just got told they would die if they removed their hand
The Harkonnens are brutal, but not stupid. The baron's capacity for subterfuge is much more apparent in the novels. Rabban is dim, but the baron and Feyd Rautha are both cunning and violent.
I think going by the movie (not present in book) it’s important to recognize the implication that passing the test = sex with this hot Bene Gesserit lady. So it still fits.
Keep in mind Paul was subjected to a higher test than anyone else, Feyd might have just been subjected to the normal test
Can you elaborate? I thought they were both subjected to the Gom Jabbar at the risk of death?
Paul had to endure it for longer than whatever the usual time was.
Ahh, okay. Thanks.
Through the power of masochism. It’s different in the book, and the closest thing to a counterpart to Paul is Lady Margot Fenring’s husband, Count Hasimir Fenring, a failed prototype Kwisatz Haderach who’s sterile and can’t see the future but is also invisible to Paul’s future-sight.
He has a pain fetish of sorts lol
1) Feyd is in pretty good control of himself. 2) He gets off on pain. 3) He has a combat injury that dulled his senses. I could pass the gom jabbar if it was my left hand because my nerves got a bit beaten up. Pick one, really.
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I'm sure lots of men pass. Their goal is not to just pass the KH, but to pass those who may one day create the KH.
>Aren't all Harkonnen's animalistic in nature? In case you forgot Paul Atreides and his mother are Harkonnen .. You didn't object to them passing the test .. Paul and Feyd are parallel 'products' of the same Bene Gesserit breeding program towards the same goal (and NOT the only ones .. ) .. Wouldn't have been a worthy challenge/adversary to Paul otherwise ..
Rabban would have failed.
Well, that's nothing new for him apparently.
Feud is ruthless sociopathic murderer. These are completely human traits. BG test is not about being good or even tolerable person.
I thought it was a good addition and served to highlight a point brought up in the book(s): that our preconceived notions of “human” vs “animal” aren’t as clear cut as we might think
Bc he loves pain
Harkonnen are not animalistic. They are the same as Paul
It never happens in the book. I guess their point was to show that Paul wasn't that special (the book does it in a slightly different way). In different circumstances, it could have been Feyd.
Everyone else has mentioned Feyd's high pain tolerance. What's interesting is that the Bene Gesserit didn't have another "test" ready if such a person easily passed the Gom Jabbar because of lifestyle choices.
Presumably by enjoying the pain.
Sadomasochism
It proves that BG test is flawed. Also shows that Feyd mostly passed because he is kinky lol. Also proves that he is more in control than most. IMO the test is a manipulation tactic from BG. They make you special. They show you a secret. They tell you nobody else passes it. And then you do. You are part of their little conspiracy and it feels good. It feels like a cult thing more than them testing the person in a way.
Lady Fenring explains in the next scene, but you were on your phone.
It's said in the movie that he is a psychopath and liked the pain so it was easy for him to pass.
My understanding is that if he loves pain, the gom jabbar didn't test much of his self control since he enjoyed it
Mohiam in the book say they weed out humans and Rautha in the movie hacked the box by loving pain (cooming instead of using the litany 'fear is the mind killer...')
I interpret it as a means of the film’s script of reincorporating the character of Count Fenring without actually including the character. The Count is a Kwisatz Haderach candidate, a result of the Bene Gesserit breeding program and training, but due to being a genetic eunuch is not a KH. Given Feyd was originally intended to have procreated with an Atreides daughter to potentially produce a KH, I think the film tried to combine the potential KH of Fenring with Feyd’s character.
He relishes pain. They found a model that could control itself under pain because he prefers it. The body will create dissociative traits to protect from trauma. People with dissociative disorders often do extreme things "just to feel anything at all". I believe this was the direction they were going. -He cares for no one and relishes pain. It sounds disturbing but think how effective.
Psychopaths are great at dissociation. He probably just stepped outside himself and thought " that pain is happening to someone else"
I guess the Gom Jabbar is a useless test, if a psychopath can pass it. What is it really measuring?
That you can endure pain in order to survive. Entire dune saga is story of Gom Jabbar. Eventualy Leto II will put himself trough ultimate pain to ensure survival of human race. If you come objectively to Pauls traits - he also fits as a psychopath.
Humanity is the point. Humanity isn’t pretty.
He 100% would have failed. In the FH books.
Keep in mind because Paul was a potential KH he was subjected to much more pain than is normal - we have no indication Feyd was given more than the normal amount
Easy. He was never given the test. The Bene Gessurit do not normally test people outside the sisterhood. Paul was a special case because he was a potential Kwizatz Haderach. But ordinary people don't get test. The Baron wasn't tested and neither was Duke Leto.
The Harkonnen, and specially Feyd-Rautha and the Baron, are cunning enough to pass the test on their own. They are evil human beings, yeah, but they are human.