Feyd's Cannibal Pets | Harkonnen Harpies Explained | Dune Lore

An exploration of the significance of Feyd Rautha's cannibal darlings within the context of Villeneuve's adaptation, their alignment with the source material and the ways in which they compliment a few fascinating elements present in Herbert's original work.

License for commercial use: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported "Share Alike" (CC BY-SA 3.0) License.

Art Credits

All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel does not claim any right over them.

*Fair Use*
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

All content falls under fair use: any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.
Use of any copyrighted material in this video qualifies as fair use.

[westofthemoon]

The lack of food he was referring to on the trip over were corpses. Aka: he didn't get a chance to murder anyone to feed to his harpies during the ride over. It has nothing to do with feeling responsible for anyone. Its actually a thinly vailed threat to anyone in the room who might oppose him. In essence "watch out cause I haven't killed anyone in a while and I'm looking for a reason to do it".

[Omar_listenin]

I didn't put together that Feyd saw Chani as nothing more than Paul's pet. It makes sense given how twisted his perspective is

[Questionthis]

They make it more fascinating and powerful when he looks at Chani and asks Paul if he needs to give any "special attention for the pet"?

[DraugSatan]

I would like to add, as a neuroscientist, eating human flesh does not in any meaningful way regress or diminish cognitive faculties in and by itself. What I presume the video is talking about is prion disease, or a very specific prion disease called "Kuru", an epidemic phenomenon amongst a tribe of people practising ceremonial cannibalism. The current best explanation for Kuru was that, at some point, a tribesman developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD; a known prion disease) and upon his death his brains were eaten by others who, in turn, developed the fatal neurodegenerative illness. The long incubation time of CJD (10-50 years) ensured that the brains of those infected could be ingested without anyone ever having seen its symptoms in the living before they were, well, harvested for consumption. Thus, unless you specifically eat uncooked brain tissue from someone with CJD, you will probably not regress to bestiality and lose cognitive functions. If you do, it will also take decades, so you'll never know. Just don't eat brains, folks.

That being said, my picking at that loose thread is only meant as a helpful appendix to the video itself, I very much enjoyed it and it is well thought out and well made. Thank you for making it for us!

[FaustianDaydreams]

Dennis had to change the perversions of the Baron so that Hollywood execs wouldn’t feel personally attacked.

[mirrors]

Great video! Studying Feyd, I don't think it's affection like we would have for other people or actual pets. He's giving Ramsay Bolton energy with his dogs. He starves them on purpose to kill. Feyd is voicing a threat that they're hungry, letting everyone know they could be his next victim. He's described as a psychopath and sociopath. These people are not known to have remorse or deep emotional connections. Denis describes him as a Rockstar, and a Rockstar isn't complete without groupies. They're like having the latest designer handbag.

[manuelkong]

I think the cannibal harpies were introduced to replace the fact that in the books Baron Harkonen wanted s3x with little boys
....this way the harkonen could remain VERY EVIL yet the movie could avoid controversy

[MattsCollection]

Dr Yueh mentions in the first movie that the Harkonnens take his wife apart and put her back together again "like a doll." There may or may not be a nod to the Benne Teilax in the movies, or we're supposed to think that the Harkonnens do this to people just because they can.

[joshDammmit]

Fayd utters the phrase, “you fought well, atreides, ” twice; once when killing a member of the house, and then again when being killed by Paul.

[quentincollins]

I think the Harpies are an homage to Dracula's brides in the Coppola film. Clever and fitting.

[bdso]

May we also discuss the dark horned " bull like" lancers in the arena as well? Is it ironic that the "bulls" and their lancing of victims is also reminiscent of bull fighting? An effigy of House Atreides and the old Duke's demise??

[Nom_AnorVSJedi]

Why are the Harkonnens so depraved? How can a dynasty like that survive? Why don’t the people of Giedi Prime revolt? In our history you see this Ancient Rome overthrowing the tyrant King Tarquinius and the Zhou Dynasty overthrowing the depraved Shang dynasty.

[Splunkmastah]

I think it's an excellent way of showing off Harkonnen depravity without devoting a large amount of runtime to it. Between their look, their world, their pets, and the way they treat their inferiors, you get a good look at who they are, and it's nasty.

[alden]

In Chapterhouse Dune, they confirm the Axolotl tanks ARE in fact the Bene Tleilaxu women. The last Tleilaxu divulges the secrets of the tanks, which the Bene Gesserit find abhorrent, but not so much so that they refuse to adapt their own women for the purpose, including for the production of artificial Spice.

[unityvirtualproduction]

Funny. During my viewings, I interpreted 'The lack of food during the trip' as one additional layer of Feyd's brutality. I imagined durations of starvation were a means by which Feyd forced 'his pets' into cannibalism and a means by which he kept them ravenously enthusiastic for whatever meat we would provide them.

[evanramp]

Feyd's twisted sense of love, honor, and responsibility are integral components to his character in the book, and I love how Denis Villeneuve translated this to screen. Given how much of a minimalistic director he is, combined with Feyd only getting a few minutes of screentime, the addition of his little harpe cult to show this side of him is pure genius.

[emilywilhite]

The Harkonnens need to meet the Cenobites.

[butterchuggins]

My sister got harpies from her ex boyfriend

[Cath-Ddu]

Yeah, I think they complimented Herbert's vision of the Harkonnens quite well, but if it had been truer to the book I suppose they would have been children, which wouldn't have been acceptable to viewers.

[aliasfakename]

In the novel, Feyd does something to piss off the Baron so he orders the boy to kill his entire harem. He does so and only feels bad cuz he lost some toys, not because he just murdered a room full of sex slaves