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Written in the Sand
Dune, Book One, Chapter Two part 1
And in this Corner, Floating like a Bumblebee
 

At the end of our last episode we completed Chapter One. It was a Five parter with one Mini-sode in the middle. As I said, some chapters are going to take longer than others. One thing I’m planning to do sometime this week is synopsize the the meta points we went over and post them in a list for the chapter for easy reference. I know in the mini-episode I talked about other plans and those are still in the works, I beg your patience on those. It should be obvious by now I don’t do frivolous and simple, and things will come as I feel they’re ready. I think it’ll be worth it.

Today, in this installment, we’re going to concentrate primarily on the Baron Harkonnen and his immediate associates, but that will be through a lens on the nature of evil, and a specific breed of evil. I’m breaking this chapter into only two installments. One on the character of the personalities in it, and another about the allegories present in some of the comments. This chapter does not entail one of those long analysis that requires many installments – and that surprised me just as much as I'm sure that it surprises you. What topic could be more complex than evil and the main villain of the first book? Shouldn't that deserve multiple installments?

The answer to both those questions is yes. Unfortunately, because we are going chapter by chapter this particular piece happens to be about the Harkonnens and I hate to break it to anyone who is a "fan" of the baron's villainous status but, Baron Harkonnen is boring. Baron Harkonnen is simply just obvious as a villain. Like black hat levels of bad guy. No pun intended, he's the type of villain you can see coming from a mile away. Dune isn't exactly about the obvious enemy. We're definitely going to talk about him, but there is no warning needed for someone like the Baron.

Regarding this chapter, what the Harkonnens are is an opposite of the Atreides. The Weaknesses of the Harkonnens are the Strengths in the Atreides, and vice versa. The Harkonnens are repulsive and scary, but they are not as dangerous as one would think. Not quite. They are close, but they are too petty and emotional to be a primary evil.

If, in this episode, it seems like I'm getting irritable, it is because I seem to have reached a point where power plays and politics have become repellent to me. Perhaps it's the current political landscape, and by current I mean the past decade or two. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but there is a part of me that has reached an almost unbearable level of, how should I put this, impatience with people from all different groups and in all levels of power who would gladly watch the world burn for a tiny morsel of personal advancement.

What I am going to do with this chapter is take this opportunity to discuss certain personality types which are relevant here. These tend to fall under the psychological diagnosis of antisocial personality disorders. Bear in mind that I am not a mental health professional, so my descriptions will not necessarily be entirely kosher. What I'm trying to do is define terminology at this point. In layman's terms we are more familiar with sociopath, psychopath, and narcissist. Depending on who you ask, narcissism and socio-pathology are interchangeable; I want to keep them separate for my own perceptions of subtle differences.

With some variations on behavior, as well as differences in causes,