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 * Valya Harkonnen

Valya Harkonnen is a fictional character in the upcoming 2024 Max science fiction television series Dune: Prophecy, portrayed by Emily Watson. She is the leader of the Sisterhood, a secretive and powerful matriarchal order whose members undergo intense physical training and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman abilities. Set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, ten thousand years before the events of the 1965 novel Dune, the series follows Valya and her sister, Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams), as they combat forces that threaten humanity's future and shape the Sisterhood's evolution into the Bene Gesserit order.

The character first appears in the Great Schools of Dune (2012–2016) prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Development and casting
In June 2019, Legendary Television announced a full series order of Dune: The Sisterhood, a series in development which would focus on the Bene Gesserit order and serve as a prequel to Denis Villeneuve's 2021 film adaptation Dune. The casting of Emily Watson as Valya Harkonnen was announced in October 2022. Shirley Henderson was originally cast as Tula alongside Watson in October 2022, but left the series during an extended production hiatus in February 2023. The role of Tula was recast with Olivia Williams in June 2023. In November 2023, the series was retitled Dune: Prophecy.

Description

 * The official description: “10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides, Dune: Prophecy follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit.”

Set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, Dune: Prophecy takes place ten thousand years before the events of the 1965 novel Dune.

A powerful social, religious, and political force, the Bene Gesserit is described as an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and abilities that seem magical to outsiders. The group seeks to acquire power and influence to direct humanity on an enlightened path, a concerted effort planned and executed over millennia.

In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the Bene Gesserit are a secretive matriarchal order who have achieved superhuman abilities through physical and mental conditioning and the use of the drug melange. Under the guise of humbly "serving" the Empire, the Sisterhood is in fact a major power in the universe, using its many areas of influence to subtly guide humanity along the path of its own plan for humanity's future.

Before the Bene Gesserit, there was the Sisterhood of Rossak.

Valya Harkonnen sparks the feud between Harkonnen and Atreides, seeking vengeance for her family's disgrace after the Butlerian Jihad. Valya plays a crucial role in founding the powerful Bene Gesserit order, starting as the Sisterhood of Rossak and evolving into its influential form. The origins of the Bene Gesserit will be explored in Dune: Prophecy, showcasing Valya's journey from a vengeful noble to a formidable leader.

The first trailer for Dune: Prophecy is here, taking viewers to a whole new era of the universe created by Frank Herbert. The HBO series is set 10,000 years before the events of the original novel, showing the origins of the order that eventually became known as the Bene Gesserit. What took most people by surprise is that most of the trailer is actually narrated by a character named Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson). There is also almost no mention of House Atreides in the video, apart from her naming Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) when contextualizing when Prophecy takes place. So who is Valya, and what role does she play in the origins of the Bene Gesserit?

‘Dune: Prophecy’ Adapts One of the Many Prequels to Frank Herbert’s Novels

The Dune universe is vast, spanning a total of 26 novels. Frank Herbert wrote the original hexalogy of Dune novels, documenting the saga of House Atreides from Paul Atreides' arrival on Arrakis to becoming Emperor. The rest was written by Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson, setting up the universe as it was before the original Dune novel, and going further after the last of Frank Herbert's books, Chapterhouse: Dune. Dune: Prophecy will adapt Sisterhood of Dune, the first novel in a prequel trilogy known as Great Schools of Dune.

Sisterhood of Dune takes place around 10,000 years before the original Dune novel, but, more importantly, it's set 80 years after the end of the Butlerian Jihad. This is the conflict that ultimately resulted in the victory of humans over artificial intelligence (referred to as "thinking machines" in the novels), and that banished all kinds of computers from the universe. The Butlerian Jihad also sets up the board for the Great Families to take their place in the Imperium, with House Butler becoming House Corrino and taking the throne, House Atreides being set up as military heroes, and House Harkonnen falling from grace after one of their members is labeled a traitor and a coward at one of the Jihad's key battles.

The disgrace of House Harkonnen began when one of its earliest members, Abulurd Harkonnen, refused to follow a command that would involve sacrificing nearly two million humans in the final battle against the thinking machines from his superior, Vorian Atreides. Instead, he disabled the weapons in all the human fleet, which ended up causing even more casualties. Vorian then brands Abulurd a traitor, and he and his House are banished to the ice planet Lankiveil. This is the cause of the grudge between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen, which would last for millennia afterward.

Valya Harkonnen Perpetuates Her Family’s Grudge Against House Atreides

Valya Harkonnen is one of the most fascinating characters in the Dune continuity. House Harkonnen felt heavily the consequences of Abulurd's actions in the Butlerian Jihad, even if his intentions and moral standpoint were indeed justified. But, instead of contesting why they became disgraced after the war, the Harkonnens accepted the punishment and kept to themselves. Lankiveil is a harsh planet to live on, and they lead a poor life, completely different from the opulence that becomes associated with them by the time Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) leads the family.

The first Harkonnen to stand up to the way her family is treated is Valya. From her early years, she understands that the person responsible for her family's misfortune is Vorian Atreides, and that he had no more right to act as he did than Abulurd. So she vows to end the Atreides bloodline, convincing her siblings Griffin and Tula to help her. She is the person who effectively ignites the feud between Harkonnen and Atreides, and mobilizes the people around her to help her. For example, Griffin follows Vorian Atreides to Arrakis when the latter is exiled by the Emperor Salvador Corrino, who fears Vorian's status as a war hero, and, although Vorian and Griffin end up understanding each other, Griffin dies on Arrakis. Tula, on the other hand, successfully murders Orry Atreides on their wedding night.

While her parents and uncles didn't share Valya's hatred for House Atreides, they never did anything to stop her, either. She spends a year honing her own combat skills until she achieves the rank of Swordmaster, just so she can eventually challenge Vorian to a duel and kill him. Until that can happen, though, Valya decides to dedicate herself to another blossoming order in the Imperium, the Sisterhood of Rossak. And, thanks to her, the Sisterhood will eventually grow into the powerful institution known as the Bene Gesserit.

Valya Harkonnen Plays a Key Role in Turning the Bene Gesserit Into a Powerful Order

The main subject of Dune: Prophecy is the origins of the Bene Gesserit, an all-female order of priestesses that, by the time of the original Dune novel, is the most influential in the universe. They have members in all the Great Houses of the Landsraad, and carry out a secret eugenics program that crosses the genes of all noble houses to create a superior being, a powerful male Bene Gesserit, whom they call the Kwisatz Haderach. All this starts with Valya Harkonnen, as she is the person who creates the order as it is.

In the beginning, though, they weren't known as the Bene Gesserit, and were confined to a single planet named Rossak. The local flora is extremely rich, and produces the Rossak drug, a hallucinogenic substance that the Sisterhood of Rossak used as a precursor of the spice mélange to achieve their required levels of prescience. Valya starts her career as a student of Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul, who, unknown to her, is actually a granddaughter of Vorian Atreides. She and Sister Dorotea are Raquella's best students, and are quickly initiated into the use of the Rossak drug, but Valya only pretends to use it, so she can first observe what its effects really are. Dorotea takes it, achieves prescience, and becomes the second-ever Reverend Mother. However, the Sisterhood still used computers for archival purposes, and this practice had been forbidden since the end of the Butlerian Jihad. Valya and Raquella destroy the machines, but Emperor Salvador Corrino still disbands the Sisterhood, some of them relocating to the planet Wallach IX.

This causes a schism in the Sisterhood. Some of them remained on Rossak under Emperor Salvador's watchful eye, and became known as the Orthodox Sisterhood, led by Reverend Mother Dorotea. Mother Superior Raquella attempts to placate both factions, but is only able to do it on her deathbed, when she calls both Valya and Dorotea to make them both co-Mothers. They accept, but Valya soon turns the tables. After she took the Rossak drug herself, Valya developed the Voice, the Bene Gesserit mind-control practice that is widely used in the Dune movies and novels. She uses the Voice on Dorotea, commanding her to commit suicide, thus becoming the sole Mother Superior of the Sisterhood.

As the Mother Superior, Valya Harkonnen is the person who effectively gives the Sisterhood a broader mission. She starts by renaming the order, now called the Bene Gesserit. She also sets up a Mother School, where new sisters are trained in what will become known as the ways of the sisterhood from a very young age. That's also when the idea of the eugenics program is first put into action, as a way of always keeping the Bene Gesserit behind the powers that rule the universe. Little did Valya know the Kwisatz Haderach would eventually be created by crossing Harkonnen and Atreides genes, a notion she would probably hate.

Great Schools of Dune
Valya Harkonnen first appears in the Great Schools of Dune (2012–2016) prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe. A sequel to the Legends of Dune trilogy (2002–2004), the series takes place nearly a century after the events of Brian Herbert and Anderson's The Battle of Corrin (2004), in which humanity finally defeats the thinking machine armies bent on their extinction. Now, the fledgling Bene Gesserit, Mentat and Suk Schools, as well as the Spacing Guild, are threatened by the independent anti-technology forces gaining power in the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad.

Over the course of three novels, we’ll describe the formation of the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, the Suk Doctors, the Spacing Guild and the Navigators, as well as the solidifying of the Corrino imperium. It’s a big story set against the great turmoil of continuing anti-technology fervor and the religious unrest of the C.E.T.
 * We’re going back to the exciting and unexplored territory of the first century after the end of the Butlerian Jihad — a trilogy that explores the formation of the major schools and political organizations that guide and shape the Dune universe.


 * Sisterhood of Dune (2012)
 * Eight decades later, a number of schools have arisen to push the human mind to its highest levels. This includes the training of Mentats as human computers, the development of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood as practitioners of mental and social manipulation, and the bizarre transformation of men and women into mutated Navigators who use their minds to allow instantaneous interplanetary travel. Amid these changes, youthful members of disgraced House Harkonnen seek vengeance against the Atreides hero responsible for Harkonnen's downfall, while the Butlerian movement under the leadership of zealot Manford Torondo seeks to root out every vestige of machine dependency.

On the planet Lankiveil, the Harkonnen family ekes out a lean existence, far from the glory enjoyed by their ancestors after Vorian Atreides disowned the disgraced Abulurd Harkonnen. While the parents have decided to surrender ambition for survival and a humble existence, the two oldest children, Griffin and Valya, seek to rebuild their family fortunes through service to the Landsraad and the Sisterhood on Rossak, respectively. Vorian's granddaughter Raquella Berto-Anirul, who survived a poisoning that provided her with the memories and mental presences of her female ancestors, leads the Sisterhood. She thwarts Butlerian sympathizers within her own ranks, who correctly suspect that Raquella and her inner circle are using computers to manage their breeding index, which comprises an immense amount of family data from across the Imperium. Raquella is aided in these efforts by Sister Valya Harkonnen, who finds her efforts to rebuild her family's glory impeded when the spoiled Princess Anna Corrino (sister to Emperor Salvador and Roderick) is sent to Rossak. Anna, viewed as an embarrassment by the royal family, is meant to learn important skills with the Sisters, but instead follows her own childish ambitions and takes a drug designed to induce the near-death transformation that gave Raquella her abilities. Through the new director of the Suk Institute (and former Rossak Sister) Dr. Ori Zhoma, the Sisterhood also plots against Salvador, who it fears may be the ancestor of a potentially disastrous tyrant.


 * Mentats of Dune (2014)


 * Mentats: Ancient Mother Superior Raquella has seen her beloved Sisterhood School on Rossak destroyed in a fit of pique by the volatile Emperor Salvador Corrino. She attempts to rebuild it on Wallach IX, with her most talented and ambitious student, Valya Harkonnen . . . who also has designs on becoming the Sisterhood's next leader after the old woman dies. But Valya Harkonnen has another goal—to hunt down and exact revenge on Vorian Atreides, the legendary and near-immortal hero of the Jihad, whom she blames for her family's downfall.

With anti-technology Butlerian forces of Manford Torondo growing in strength and influence, Prince Roderick Corrino sees a threat to the Imperial power of his brother, Emperor Salvador. Industrialist Josef Venport squares off against Torondo, whose interference thwarts Venport's business interests. Meanwhile, Gilbertus Albans grows increasingly fearful for his Mentat School on Lampadas (and the copy of the thinking machine Erasmus he is hiding there) as Torondo grows bolder. When Gilbertus refuses to force his Mentats to swear an oath to the Butlerians, his school is invaded and his past as a "machine sympathizer" is revealed. He is executed by Manford, but Anna Corrino escapes with Erasmus. Meanwhile, a riot incited by Torondo results in the death of Roderick's daughter; Salvador seizes the lucrative melange mining operations on Arrakis from Venport, who soon uses the constant danger of giant sandworms to orchestrate the Emperor's assassination. Raquella Berto-Anirul has reestablished her Bene Gesserit school on Wallach IX, thanks to the help of Josef Venport. Valya Harkonnen, now a Reverend Mother, retrieves the hidden computers from Rossak and hopes to succeed the declining Raquella as Mother Superior. Raquella believes that the only hope for the Sisterhood to survive is for the Wallach IX sisters to reconcile with Dorotea's faction on Salusa Secundus; her health failing, she summons Dorotea to the School and forces Dorotea and Valya to put their differences aside and agree to work together for the good of the Sisterhood. Naming them co-leaders, Raquella dies; Valya however, still bitter about Dorotea's betrayal, uses her newly discovered power of Voice to force Dorotea to commit suicide. Valya declares herself to be the sole Mother Superior, and ingratiates herself to the new Emperor Roderick. Vorian Atreides, feeling guilty for the death of Griffin Harkonnen, tries to help his struggling family with a secret infusion of funds to their whaling business on Lankiveil. He next travels to Caladan to meet his descendants; soon tragedy begins to befall the Atreides, and Vorian realizes too late that Griffin and Valya's younger sister Tula has visited Harkonnen vengeance on them.

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 * Navigators of Dune (2016)