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This article refers to elements from Original Dune Pages for this subject as it appears in other canons: |
For adaption and Canon equivalents, see Alia Atreides (disambiguation)
- "The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demi-goddess whose special charge is to protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seek her out with demands that she restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of anti-mentat. She feeds on that strong human desire for the mysterious. She is living proof that the 'analytic' has limits. She represents ultimate tension. She is the virgin-harlot - witty, vulgur, cruel, as destructive in her whims as a coriolis storm.[29]"
- ―St Alia-of-the-Knife as taken from The Irulan Report
Alia Atreides (November[30] 10191 AG - 10219 AG), also known as Saint Alia of the Knife and later Coan-Tean ("the female death-spirit who walks without feet") to the Fremen and called Hawt the Fish Monster on the outer worlds, was the posthumous daughter of Duke Leto Atreides I and his Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica. Born on Arrakis, she was the younger sister of Paul Atreides.
As Regent of the Atreides Empire, she established an autocratic government based on her cult of personality. Succumbing to ancestral possession, she later leapt to her death in defiance of the genetic memory of her maternal grandfather, Vladimir Harkonnen.
Biography[]
- This article is a stub: It may require more information.
Early life[]
A young woman of extraordinary cognitive powers, Alia was born several months after her father was murdered by her maternal grandfather and her mother and brother were forced to flee in exile into the deep desert. Her ancestral memories awakened in the womb when Jessica underwent the Water of Life ritual to become the Reverend Mother of Stilgar's Fremen tribe. Thus she was preborn, and therefore highly susceptible to ancestral influence.
After her brother's two-year rise as the Fremen messiah brought Emperor Shaddam and Baron Harkonnen to Arrakis to intervene in the Desert War, Alia allowed herself to be captured during a Sardaukar raid and took this chance to avenge her father by fatally pricking the Baron with a gom jabbar as she informed him of their familial ties.
As Paul-Muad'Dib's army and sandworms conquered the combined forces of the Imperial Sardaukar and House Harkonnen Military, little Alia slew dying soldiers on the battlefield for their water.[31]
Paul's reign[]
Twelve years into Emperor Muad'Dib's bloody rule, Alia regularly sermonized a community of fearful distrust despite their devout worship of her "holy" family.
Distressed by the weakening state of her prescient powers amidst widespread use of the Dune Tarot, she subjected herself to a near-fatal overdose of spice melange and brought herself ever closer toward Abomination.
Regency[]
Early rule[]
After Paul's stone burner-induced blindness forced his exile into the deep desert following the birth of his preborn twins - Leto II and Ghanima - Alia was left as Regent of the Atreides Empire.
Grief-stricken by her brother's loss and desperate to keep his Empire intact, she was soon corrupted by power and established a theocratic cult of personality, using rich trappings and grandiose titles such as the Mahdinate to amplify her political standing and religious mystique.
Decline[]
Years later, the love Alia had for her family became twisted as the countless ancestors in her mind tormented her for dominance - the loudest and most powerful being her dead Harkonnen grandfather, who offered to silence these other voices in exchange for her cooperation in granting him fleeting moments of possession and renewed life. These pleasures included both sex and food, with the Baron's signature overindulgence resulting in a "plumpness which had begun to bulge her body."
Little by little the Baron warped Alia's fragile mind into plotting against the people she loved most, including her mother, niece and nephew. By the time Leto II returned from the desert and confronted her at her Imperial Keep, she was in the full throes of Abomination and nothing more than a puppet for Vladimir Harkonnen. However, Alia was no match for her sandtrout-enhanced nephew and, in a brief moment of clarity, threw herself out a high window to end her grandfather's torment - a sacrifice witnessed by all of her surviving family.
Relationships[]
Alia's first words to her Fremen nurse were "I love you, Harah." While her childhood relationship with Harah was warm, her unique abilities and precocious maturity made her an object of fear and superstition in her sietch. Because of the conscious and overwhelming trauma she experienced in the womb, Alia's relationship with her mother was strained at best and simmered with deep resentment. As an adult, she found "nothing strange in loving and hating her mother simultaneously.”
While it's fair to say that Alia understood her preborn niece and nephew better than most, their relationship was challenging. While recognizing that they, like her, were never really children, she was frustrated over their refusal to experiment with the spice. They, in turn, could only pity her as they understood the psychological and social strain that plagued her entire existence.
Though she loved and admired her brother, she also suffered the burden of being the sister of an emperor and living god. And while her love for Duncan Idaho may have been genuine, her gradual descent into Abomination - including her infidelity with Javid and other men - slowly destroyed this relationship.
Legacy[]
Alia's religious influence was long-lived. Revered in life, she was still worshiped 35 centuries after her death. Toward the end of her nephew's long life, a Cult of Alia was discovered on Giedi Prime by Duncan Idaho's agents. Ultimately, however, Alia's influence vanished soon after the God Emperor's demise.
Quotes[]
- "My brother comes now. Even an Emperor may tremble before Muad'Dib, for he has the strength of righteousness and heaven smiles upon him.[32]"
- ―Alia to Shaddam IV
- "I’m sorry, Grandfather. You’ve met the Atreides gom jabbar.[32]"
- ―Alia to Vladimir Harkonnen before killing him
- "I have breasted the future to place my words where only you can hear them. Even you cannot do that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And . . . oh, yes -- I've killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. He had very little pain.[33]"
- ―Alia to Paul
- "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness.[34]"
- ―St. Alia of the Knife from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan
Trivia[]
- The name Alia (also spelt Alya or Aaliyah) means "sky, heaven, loftiness" in Arabic. According to Herbert, it is derived from the Arabic term, which in turn is derived from Ali, the cousin of Muhammad.[35]
Portrayals[]
- In the 1984 film, Alicia Witt portrayed the character wearing a hijab, a headscarf commonly worn by Arab and Muslim women.
- While still responsible for the Baron's demise in the 1984 film, her method of killing him is dramatically protracted by slashing his face with her gom jabbar, pulling out his implanted suspensor cables and using telekinesis to spin him in the air, through a shattered ceiling and into the open maw of her brother's sandworm.
- Laura Burton portrayed Alia as a child in the 2000 miniseries, while Daniela Amavia took over the role to play a teenager and adult in the 2003 miniseries. Interestingly, despite the character being fifteen years younger than Paul Atreides, Amavia is actually nine years older than Alec Newman.
- Alia's weight gain is omitted from the Children of Dune miniseries, presumably to avoid the need for fatsuits and the narrative association of female obesity with evil and mental illness.
- Alia's death is also handled differently: instead of committing suicide by autodefenestration, she stabs herself with her own crysknife to prevent the Baron from harming Leto.
- In Dune: Part Two, the book's two-year timeskip is removed and Alia remains unborn throughout the film - though still capable of communication. However, an adult Alia, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, briefly appears to Paul in a future vision after he drinks the Water of Life.
Gallery[]
Illustrations[]
.jpg "The Illustrated Dune - Alia taking out baron Harkonnen with gom jabbar (art by John Schoenherr).jpg (199 KB)")
Apocrypha[]
Adaptations[]
Appearances[]
- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Children of Dune
- God Emperor of Dune (mentioned only)
- Heretics of Dune (mentioned only)
References[]
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 3: Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife:
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 23: There they call you Coan-Teen..." "The female death-spirit who walks without feet," Alia snarled.
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 40: Ghanima, reading the overtones of contrivance in Alia's voice, stared across at her aunt. "You're lying, O Womb of Heaven. I've heard about your fight with my grandmother. What is it you fear to tell us about her and your precious Duncan?"
- ↑ Dune Messiah - Chapter 20: They call her Hawt, the Fish Monster, on the out-worlds," Bijaz said. "How is it I hear your blood boiling when you speak of her?"
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 47: "That child is an abomination!" the old woman said. "Her mother deserves a punishment greater than anything in history. Death! It cannot come too quickly for that child or for the one who spawned her!" The old woman pointed a finger at Alia. "Get out of my mind!"
- ↑ Dune - Appendix IV: The Almanak en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses): Prenatal exposure to an awareness-spectrum narcotic is the reason generally given for Bene Gesserit references to her as "Accursed One."
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 40: No, he reassured himself, for Alia-the-Strange-One, his sister, had gone there with his mother and with Chani -- a twenty-thumper trip into the south, riding a Reverend Mother's palanquin fixed to the back of a wild maker.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Children of Dune - Chapter 2: Ghanima spoke placatingly: "When our father went into the desert to die, he left you as Regent. He... "
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 62: Why was Paul doing this? To half the population he was a "desert madman" and, therefore, sacred. Others whispered in the bazaars and shops that it must be Muad'Dib. Why else did the Mahdinate let him speak such angry heresy?
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Dune - Appendix IV: The Almanak en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses): LADY ALIA ATREIDES (10,191- )
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 34: "House Atreides is not dead," Jessica said."What is House Atreides?" he asked."Are you House Atreides? Is it Alia? Ghanima?"
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 Dune - Chapter 47: "I am Alia, daughter of Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica, sister of Duke Paul- Muad'Dib," the child said.
- ↑ Dune -Chapter 48: "[Irulan] be my wife and you but a concubine because this is a political thing and we must weld peace out of this moment, enlist the Great Houses of the Landsraad."
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 40: Yet Chani was deep in the south -- in the cold country where the sun was hot --secreted in one of the new sietch strongholds, safe with their son, Leto II.
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 25: Leto had recognized what Alia was doing; that much was obvious. Both twins had spoken of their aunt's "affliction," even when defending her
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 2: "Here she comes now," he said, shifting to Atreides battle language as a warning. Ghanima nodded to her aunt as Alia stopped in front of them, said: "A spoil of war greets her illustrious relative."
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 35: He looked up at the new talismans flanking the exit to his hall--the mounted bull's head and the oil painting of the Old Duke Atreides, the late Duke Leto's father.
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 11: You see," the basso voice rumbled, "it is only your maternal grandfather. You know me. I was the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen."
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 15: "It'll be in their breeding records: Jessica out of Tanidia Nerus by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen."
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 19: She looked at her husband, measuring how he absorbed these words. Duncan Idaho deserved careful study in these moments; there was no doubt that he'd become something far more subtle and dangerous than the one-time swordmaster of House Atreides.
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 11: "Very well, then. Take Javid for your lover"
- ↑ Children of Dune - Chapter 64: Alia's water had been poured upon the sand.
- ↑ Dune Messiah - Chapter 8: As she moved into the training room, Alia caught her own reflection multiplied thousands of times in the crystal prisms of a fencing mirror swinging in the heart of a target dummy... The sword felt right in her hand. She slipped the crysknife from its sheath at her neck, held it sinister, tapped the activating stud with the sword tip. Resistance came alive as the aura of the target shield built up, pushing her weapon slowly and firmly away.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Dune - Chapter 47: "I'm sorry, Grandfather," Alia said. "You've met the Atreides gom jabbar." She got to her feet, dropped a dark needle from her hand. The Baron fell back. His eyes bulged as he stared at a red slash on his left palm. "You ... you ... " He rolled sideways in his suspensors, a sagging mass of flesh supported inches off the floor with head lolling and mouth hanging open.
- ↑ Dune Messiah - Chapter 9: "My sister killed the Baron," Paul said, voice and manner dry, "just before the battle of Arrakeen.”
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 Dune Messiah - Chapter 5: Alia laughed, throwing her head back. The movement dropped the black hood of her aba robe. Her features lay exposed -- blue-in-blue "spice eyes," her mother's oval face beneath a cap of bronze hair, small nose, mouth wide and generous.
- ↑ Dune Messiah - Chapter 12: Alia brushed a strand of coppery hair from her forehead, said: "And what else is hidden in this bargain?"
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 41: Seeing her daughter, Jessica was caught as she frequently was by Alia's resemblance to Paul at that age -- the same wide-eyed solemnity to her questing look, the dark hair and firmness of mouth.
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 8
- ↑ Book II of Dune ends in mid-autumn, which is late October or early November. Alia has still not been born. Early in Book III, Alia is stated to be about two years old. We also know that it is still 10,193 at the end of Book III, due to Appendix IV. It seems very unlikely that Book III covers just a month, so we can make a fair assumption that Alia was born in November 10,191.
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 48: "Where is Alia?" she asked. "Out doing what any good Fremen child should be doing in such times," Paul said. "She's killing enemy wounded and marking their bodies for the water-recovery teams."
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Dune - Chapter 47
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 48
- ↑ Dune - Chapter 3
- ↑ 2/27/78 Timothy O'Reily Interview
| Preceded by Paul Atreides (Emperor) |
Regent of the Atreides Empire 10210 AG - 10219 AG |
Succeeded by Leto Atreides II (Emperor) |
House Atreides
| |
|---|---|
| Dukes |
Old Duke • Leto Atreides I • Paul Atreides • Leto Atreides II |
| Family |
Atreides at Corrin • Jessica Atreides • Alia Atreides • Chani Kynes • Leto Atreides II the Elder • Ghanima Atreides • Moneo Atreides • Siona Atreides |
| Retainers |
Duncan Idaho • Gurney Halleck • Thufir Hawat • Wellington Yueh • Fedor • Mattai • Arkie • Gladiator • Stilgar |