59 years later, ‘Dune’s latest twist has just set up Paul Atreides’ greatest villain

In Dune: Prophecywe haven’t yet gotten to the point where everyone in House Harkonnen shaves their heads and starts getting into sadism, but the series certainly lays the groundwork for how and why the most depraved and arrogant group in the Imperium became this way. While Dune: Prophecy is based on previously established knowledge of Frank Herbert Dune (1965), it fleshes out these details from many newer books. In fact, the extended flashback in the third episode, “Sisterhood Above All,” focuses on a pivotal murder from the book Duin’s Mentatespublished just 10 years ago, in 2014.

It is at this moment, and throughout the episode, that we begin to understand the long rivalry between House Atreides and House Harkonnen. Yes, House Atreides has a right to be angry, but the beginning of House Harkonnen is probably not what most fans thought. Spoilers ahead Dune: Prophecy’s “Sisterhood above all” moving forward.

House Harkonnen before Giedi Prime

At this point in the Dune timeline, House Harkonnen has not moved to the planet Giedi Prime. Instead, their homeworld is Lankiveil, a snowy planet where harvesting hairy whales is a major undertaking. Whale fur is mentioned in the original Duneand that’s intentional: selling a ton of whale fur will actually cause House Harkonnen to rise, at least in the long run. At this moment, in the present tense of Dune: ProphecyHouse Harkonnen has been shunned and all but banished. This idea comes from the first episode where we are told that House Harkonnen was blamed for having “given up” in the fight against the oppressive Thinking Machines.

In a tense dinner scene in this flashback, Vayla (Jessica Barden) hints that her grandfather was wrongly accused of being a traitor for “trying to stop a genocide.” What is she talking about? At the end of the episode we learn that Valya and Tula are still using illegal AI, which means it possible that their grandfather wanted to preserve an intelligent AI, instead of destroying everything. That would explain the accusation of cowardice during the Bulterian Jihad: either you were for the eradication of all AI, or you were probably considered a traitor to the human race.

But more broadly, this episode shows that after the defeat of The Thinking Machines, House Atreides actively worked to keep House Harkonnen out. Of course, that’s why they came back with a vengeance.

Tula infiltrates House Atreides

Elsewhere in the flashback, some time after the tense dinner scene, but not even close to the present, we see that young Tula (Emma Canning) has also left Lankiveil and is now pretending her last name is ‘Vale’. She lives with the Atreides after falling in love with a man named Orry Atreides and has hidden the fact that her last name is actually Harkonnen because she knows his family will not approve. But the twist is that Tula isn’t really there out of love for Orry Atreides, but to poison him and all the members of his family. This is on Valya’s orders and explains why in the second episode Tula mentioned the secrets and sacrifices they both made to get where they are.

Up until now, Valya has seemed like the more hardcore of the two sisters, but in this episode we see that Tula is capable of poisoning an entire family at the same time. She spares one of the younger children, but that’s literally it.

Again, this event technically comes from Duin’s Mentatesbut there Tula killed Orry, not that many people. And so, in presenting this twist, Dune: Prophecy slowly introduces the merciless character of the Harkonnen line. They started as victims and then evolved into power brokers seeking revenge and ultimately ultimate power.

Dune: Prophecy airs new episodes every Sunday on HBO Max.