- Glossu Rabban
Glossu Rabban, Count of
Lankiveil (nickname 'The Beast') was a minor character in thescience fiction novel "Dune" byFrank Herbert .The "Appendix IV: The Almanak of en-Ashraf (Selected Excepts of the Noble Houses" in "Dune" states:
COUNT GLOSSU RABBAN (10,132--10,193) Glossu Rabban, Count of Lankiveil, was the eldest nephew of
Vladimir Harkonnen . Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban (who took the name Harkonnen when chosen for the Siridar-Baron's household) were legal sons of the Siridar Baron's youngest demibrother, Abulurd. Abulurd renounced the Harkonnen name and all rights to the title when given the subdistrict governorship of Rabban-Lankiveil. Rabban was adistaff name.Glossu Rabban was the older nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He inherited the Harkonnen cruelty and sadism but without the intelligence. He was known to the
Fremen of Dune by a nickname that translated as "Demon Ruler" or "King Cobra ". He is best known for his tyrannical and vastly ineffective governance ofArrakis during the insurgency by the Fremen led by Paul Muad'dib. He earned the nickname "Beast" when he killed his father, Abulurd Harkonnen.The Baron planned to let Glossu rule the planet for a time in the most brutal way possible, so that when the favored nephew, Feyd-Rautha, took over, the new ruler would be welcomed as a hero. Notably, Glossu had told his Uncle on their return to Arrakis (when they had seized it from the Atreides) that he felt the Harkonnens had woefully underestimated both the numbers and threat of the Fremen population, to no avail. He is slain by Paul Muad'Dib's wild Fremen and the very populace of Arrakeen which he had brutalized only recently, when Paul made his move to retake Arrakis and gain the Corrino throne. In the 1984 film version, The Beast is beheaded by the
Sardaukar when the Emperor decides to eliminate the population of the planet."Rabban" is a
distaff name. It is a tradition on Lankiveil that children carry the surname of their mothers.Rabban was played by
Paul L. Smith inDavid Lynch 's1984 film Dune, and byLászló I. Kish in the "Dune" miniseries.External links
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