Vladimir Harkonnen
The ruthless and cunning head of House Harkonnen.
Also known as Baron Harkonnen, The Baron.
Vladimir Harkonnen was grotesquely fat and endlessly scheming. He clawed his family back onto the Arrakis fief through a conspiracy built with Emperor Shaddam IV. It took disguised Sardaukar troops, a bought physician in Dr. Yueh, and a single devastating strike that crushed House Atreides. The Baron handed Arrakis first to his brutal nephew Rabban. He planned to hand it next to the sharper, more presentable Feyd-Rautha. The point was to bleed the planet dry, then groom a false savior to replace Rabban's tyranny with the appearance of mercy. Suspensors carried his enormous body wherever he wished to go, a fitting crutch for a man built from indulgence, cruelty, and a real appetite for manipulation. His boast of plans within plans within plans became shorthand for everything Harkonnen scheming stood for. His reign of terror over Arrakis ended at the hands of his own granddaughter. Alia Atreides killed him during the battle for Arrakeen, closing out a blood feud that had simmered between the two Houses for generations.
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