Stilgar/DE

This article refers to elements from The Dune Encyclopedia Pages for this subject as it appears in other canons: Stilgar article for Original Dune Stilgar article for Expanded Dune

"Stilgar was a tall man — well over two meters — and appeared to tower over his brethren. A history of success in combat, some of it costly, was evidenced by scars old and new which covered much of his body. He possessed in large measure the mercurial temperament characteristic of Fremen: he could turn from consoling an injured child as tenderly as arty woman in his sietch, to ruthlessly hunting an enemy's blood with his crysknife without a visible wrench. And he was equally skilled at both." ~ Conversations with Muad'Dib

Naib Stilgar ben Fifrawi (10141 AG - 10228 AG), born as Tuan and more commonly known as Stilgar the Fremen or Stilgar the Naib, was a Fremen who was the Naib of Sietch Tabr and the Governor of Arrakis from 10196 AG onwards. He was a close friend and chief advisor to Emperor Paul-Muad'Dib Atreides.

Early Life

During his youth in Sietch Umbu, Stilgar was known as a wali — the name given to an untried Fremen youth. It was not until 10153, when he became a sandrider and accompanied a group of other youths on a raid against a Harkonnen village that he acquired the name by which he would be best known. (His troop name, used only by his comrades at Umbu Sietch, is thought to have been Sahkan — the Fremen name for a type of desert hawk — but verification of this point is difficult to obtain. The evidence found thus far consists of a reference made by a man from that sietch who accompanied Stilgar on jihad.)

Stilgar left Umbu in 10157 when Pardot Kynes asked that a work force accompany him to one of the newer palmaries to assist in planting poverty grass along the dune faces. The young Fremen demonstrated an ability to lead groups of workers and Kynes delegated as much work to him as he could handle. So impressed was Kynes by this new worker that he took him back to Sietch Tabr with him as an assistant when he returned in 10158.

Life at Sietch Tabr

Stilgar fit easily into the social structure of his new sietch, being challenged only once by a young hothead who saw his closeness to Kynes-the-Umma as a possible threat to his own standing. Following Stilgar's victory on the killing floor, Forad — Naib and leader of the sietch — welcomed him into the tribe, pointing out to any other would-be combatants that the newcomer had proven his right to join them. Stilgar's place at Sietch Tabr was further anchored when Pardot Kynes arranged for Stilgar's bloodbrotherhood with the young Liet-Kynes a year later. For his first seventeen years at Tabr, Stilgar followed the usual pattern for Fremen males: he worked at the plantings, he fought Harkonnens and their allies, and he met the other men of the sietch in practice knife combat, where he could be compared with and evaluated by his peers.

That he was often meeting good friends in practice combat did not seem incongruous to Stilgar, nor to any of the other Fremen. The burda (leadership) of a sietch was passed from one man to the next by challenge and a fight to the death, so it was best to know how friends fought. The practice served the double purpose of educating the likely in how to win and convincing the unlikely not to offer challenge, all while keeping the young men's hand-to-hand skills sharpened.

Marriages to Misra and Tharthar

Stilgar married twice during this same period, in 10160 to Misra and in 10168 to Tharthar, both women of Sietch Tabr. His first son, Alir, was born in 10165; Misra was also delivered of a daughter (stillborn) in 10169, while Tharthar gave birth in 10170 to a surviving daughter, Kala.

As Naib of Sietch Tabr

In 10175, Stilgar's position changed. Pardot Kynes' death in a cave-in at Plaster Basin left the nineteen-year-old Liet-Kynes to take over leadership of the tribes. This accident was the signal in several sietches — Tabr among them — to reexamine their leaders. The older naibs like Forad were seen as relics from the days before Kynes, better replaced by younger men in whom the Umma's dreams and ideals had been instilled since birth. It came as no surprise to Forad when Stilgar, already having proven himself many times as the best fighter of his group, tailed him out a few weeks after the death of Pardot Kynes. Nor did Stilgar's victory over the older, slower man startle anyone at Sietch Tabr.

What did surprise the Fremen community, though, was Liet-Kynes' timely and unannounced arrival, riding in on a sandworm and striding onto the killing floor only moments after the watermen carried Forad's body away. Misra paused in bandaging the slash wound Stilgar had received on his right side during the fight, and the sietch held its collective breath, waiting to see if Liet-Kynes now intended to challenge his blood-brother.

The new naib, still flushed from the exertion of the combat, also waited. While he did nothing to betray his feelings at the time, Stilgar later described the moment as "more fearsome than facing a legion of other men alone... I was terrified that my brother would call me out, and whether more from fear of killing him or of being killed, I cannot say."

The agony was brief, happily ending when Liet-Kynes hurried across the killing floor and embraced the new leader. After congratulating Stilgar on his victory and assuring himself that the slash was minor, Liet-Kynes asked permission to address the troop. It was immediately granted, and he explained to the assembled company that he had been granted his father's position as Imperial Planetologist and would be continuing the work with the palmaries that Pardot Kynes had begun.

The speech was short but effective: Liet-Kynes had made it clear, in terms the Fremen could accept, that he had taken on his father's role as their leader; that the leadership of the individual sietches would remain inviolate, as it had been under the older Kynes; and that the ecological transformation would not be interrupted by the death of any one man, even its originator.

Sietch Tabr prospered under its new naib. Stilgar led a dozen successful raids against the Harkonnens during his first year of leadership, all with minimum casualties. More farsighted than his predecessor, he also made plans for a gradual expansion of the cave warren, adding larger factory and weaving areas and extra classrooms for the slowly increasing number of children in the sietch (along with the new windtraps and catchbasins the larger population would require).

In 10176, Liet-Kynes returned to Tabr for a visit lasting several months. It was during this time that he married Falra, a Tabr woman with whom he had grown up, under the Fremen ritual with Stilgar officiating. Late the following year, when the couple's daughter Chani was born, Stilgar and Misra stood as godparents to the child, pledging to raise her as their own in the event that her parents were unable to do so.

That responsibility came on them abruptly in 10180 when Falra was injured in a rockfall and died before help could reach her. Because Liet-Kynes was in-sietch so seldom, and because it was essential to the Fremen's plan that his connection with them not attract unwanted attention, the girl Chani was made a part of Stilgar's household at once. Misra and Tharthar, their own children nearly grown, took the child immediately to their hearts — as did Stilgar's third wife, Kalifi, whom he married in 10185 (after defending his burda against her former mate, Jesal, in 10184).

During Atreides Stewardship

Like the rest of his people, Stilgar greeted the transfer of the Arrakis fief to House Atreides (10190) with cautious optimism. True, the new rulers were off-worlders, like the Harkonnen beasts; but heartening stories of the House's character had preceded their arrival. The Fremen decided to wait to see if the tales had any truth to them before they judged the newcomers.

As far as Stilgar was concerned, the first proof came in the person of Duncan Idaho, Swordmaster for Duke Leto Atreides. Idaho had been sent to Sietch Tabr as Leto's representative, to make contact with the Fremen and to assure them that the abuses suffered during the Harkonnen reign would now be ended. During his stay in-sietch, Idaho had adopted Fremen customs without question and had conducted himself honorably. After he had left to return to his Duke, the Fremen heard about a plot to send Harkonnen mercenaries disguised as desert people against the Atreides; because of the favorable impression Idaho had made, Stilgar dispatched a courier with a warning, following shortly after with a small band of men intent on seeing how the new soldiers would measure up as warriors.

The courier was waylaid en route by the pseudo-Fremen and badly wounded. The Harkonnens attacked Idaho and his men but were rebuffed, with many being killed and the survivors taken prisoner. Idaho found the courier and was taking him to the House medics when the man died. He took the body back to Atreides headquarters, intending to bury him, surprised that Stilgar and his men — who had joined him for the last part of the battle — had not asked that the corpse (containing water of their tribe) be given them.

Stilgar's reasons for accompanying Idaho were threefold: (1.) he wished to learn the manner of man whom Idaho served so loyally; (2.) he was curious about how the Atreides would treat the body of the dead courier, Turok (the Harkonnens, it was known, showed no respect to Fremen dead, not even to taking their water); and, (3.) most important, he was compelled to see what Idaho intended to do with Turok's crysknife, having surprised the dying Fremen in the act of throwing it away.

On all counts, the naib was satisfied. After he had forbidden Idaho to unsheath the crysknife before the other Atreides men (thereby "defiling," in Stilgar's eyes, an "honorable blade"), he found that Duke Leto not only refused to be provoked by the encroachment on his authority, but enforced the command. When the Duke added that it was an Atreides custom always to pay their debts and inquired whether there were any other way to honor the man who had died in his service, Stilgar was enough impressed by the new ruler's behavior to favor him with a small fai, or water tribute: he spat on the tabletop before Leto. The angry reaction of the Atreides servitors — who did not realize how Stilgar had honored Leto — was checked when Idaho reminded them of how precious water was to a Fremen, thanked Stilgar for his gift, and repeated the gesture himself.

Stilgar then requested that Idaho seek release from his service to the Duke and join his tribe. Leto, desperately needing an emissary to the desert folk, offered a dual allegiance, which Stilgar accepted. Turok's water would be Atreides water in fair exchange for the water of Duncan Idaho, and Stilgar left the corpse with the Atreides, satisfied that it would be treated with respect and its spirit released, and took Idaho back to the desert with him.

Arrakeen Affair

In 10191, following the Harkonnen/Sardaukar attack on the Atreides, Stilgar received an urgent command from Liet-Kynes. The Duke was dead and his concubine, Lady Jessica, had escaped with their son Paul into the desert; Duncan Idaho — who had returned to his Duke at the first sign of trouble — had given his life as part of the price for that escape. (Liet-Kynes's life would be another part, although Stilgar could not have known it at the time). Stilgar was to take a band out from Sietch Tabr and find them.

The true Fremen that he was, Liet-Kynes did not demand that Stilgar save both mother and son. Should one or both of the pair not seem fit to survive among the Fremen, it was left to Stilgar to order action appropriate to the good of the tribe. However the decision went, the demands of honor had been met by the attempt.

From his first encounter with Jessica and Paul, Stilgar felt himself being pulled into a world larger than the one he knew, an environment where legend and reality were inseparably mixed. And as, events proceeded — the acceptance of the strangers at Sietch Tabr, Paul's relentless progress toward deification, the formation of the Fedaykin, the death commandos who called themselves "the fighters of Muad’Dib" — Stilgar felt the old Fremen ways spilling like sand faster and faster from beneath his feet.

A drastic change was inevitable. It came in 10193, when the young men who had been raiding the Harkonnen sinks with Muad'Dib would no longer be put off and insisted on his challenging Stilgar for his burda. It was a measure of their confidence in their Mahdi ("The One Who Will Lead Us to Paradise") that the young bloods were so eager to pit him against their ruling naib. Stilgar would not be an easy man for any challenger to take, as a description of him from this period indicates:

Stilgar was a tall man — well over two meters — and appeared to tower over his brethren. A history of success in combat, some of it costly, was evidenced by scars old and new which covered much of his body. He possessed in large measure the mercurial temperament characteristic of Fremen: he could turn from consoling an injured child as tenderly as arty woman in his sietch, to ruthlessly hunting an enemy's blood with his crysknife without a visible wrench. And he was equally skilled at both.

The young Atreides, Lady Jessica, and Stilgar had planned against the moment such an encounter would be forced. Instead of challenging Stilgar, Paul declared himself ruling Duke of Arrakis and swore the Naib — with the crowd of young men suddenly converted from agitators to witnesses — into his service as liege man and ruler of Sietch Tabr in his Duke's name.

Battle of Arrakeen

The trio's plan was a success: the new Duke had a unified troop and the service of a wily and experienced commander, while Stilgar retained his burda and his loyalty to Muad'Dib. It was a combination that proved devastating shortly thereafter, when the Fremen met and defeated Harkonnen and Sardaukar troops in the Battle of Arrakeen, culminating in the abdication of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV Corrino.

Planetary Governor of Arrakis

One of the new emperor's first acts was Stilgar's appointment as Planetary Governor of Arrakis. The title altered the Naib's duties very little, at least in kind; Stilgar left the government of the individual sietches to their own naibs and continued to work with Muad'Dib as Warmaster and advisor. Except for those times when his services were needed in Arrakeen, Stilgar preferred to remain at Sietch Tabr with his wives (now numbered four, since Harah, Muad'Dib's servant for his first year with the Fremen, had joined the Naib's household).

There were, of course, some things demanded of an Imperial servant which Stilgar would never have had to face in the desert. Court intrigues, interplanetary diplomacy, and the like occupied much of his time — more than he cared for — and his favorite tasks were usually of a military nature. (The emperor dispatched him at times to the more troublesome or sensitive spots on the jihad.) Despite his occasional longings for simpler times, however, Stilgar managed to adapt to his new role and to carry out his duties with a minimum of personal trauma for the first twelve years of Atreides's reign.

Under Alia Atreides' Regency

In 10209, the background against which Stilgar had fixed himself was shattered past repair. Following the births of Leto II and Ghanima, and Chani's death, Paul Muad'Dib Atreides — twice blinded, first by a stoneburner and then by a shift in his prescient vision — walked into the desert, leaving Stilgar as guardian of the children and Alia as their Regent. Under Alia's orders, the Naib's first duty was to execute the group of traitors who had helped to bring about Muad'Dib's downfall, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, once the Corrino Emperor's Truthsayer, among them.

The decade Stilgar spent as guardian aged him severely. Misra died of a sudden fever in 10211, ending a companionship that had lasted more than half a century. (At the ceremony to release her spirit, Stilgar was said to have "given water to the dead." It was the one time in his entire life the old naib was seen to weep). The Regency was turbulent, marked by rebellions major and minor. Worst of all was the Regent's steady progression into Abomination, as Alia succumbed to the control of an ancestral personality stronger than herself.

All the threads in the skein were drawn together in 10219. Young Leto was assumed dead, Ghanima and Irulan were endangered by Alia's possession, and the unknown element of a Bene Gesserit-trained Corrino prince was entering the scene. Amid all this, Stilgar found himself confronted by Alia's consort, the original ghola of Duncan Idaho. Idaho urged him to take Irulan and Ghanima and flee to the desert with them, arguing that Alia's condition negated Stilgar's oath of fealty to her. The Naib listened, but declined to rebel against the woman he acknowledged as his rightful liege.

Seeing that argument would never succeed against the stubborn Fremen, Idaho resorted to desperate measures: he provoked Stilgar to a murderous rage and let the other man kill him without raising a hand in his own defense. Stilgar, after his passion dissipated, realized the enormity of what he had done; he gathered his household, as many of his fellows as were willing to travel with him, and the Atreides women Idaho had urged him to protect, and decamped to the safety of the desert.

Alia sent Buer Agarves to negotiate with Stilgar for his pardon, demanding the return of Ghanima as its price. Stilgar refused, as Alia had anticipated he would, but it made no difference; the Regent had also sent a troop of soldiers to attack Stilgar's camp, capture him along with Irulan and Ghanima and scatter the remainder of his people.

Her trap worked perfectly. The one satisfaction Stilgar took with him to the dungeons beneath Alia's Temple was that he had managed to kill the treacherous Agarves. Even this vengeance was scant consolation, however, as the Naib rightly assumed that Alia had chosen her emissary with just such a fate in mind.

After the Ascension of Leto II

Chained and isolated, Stilgar did not witness the final confrontation between Leto II and his aunt. Nor was he forced to watch as [[The Preacher/DE]|The Preacher], die. He first glimpsed the new order when Leto freed him and Irulan by tearing the door to their dungeon off its hinges and ripping their chains out of the walls. It was an impressive first look.

In the days that followed, Stilgar watched with the other naibs as the new emperor demonstrated his powers. The rest were awed and terrified, and quick to pay homage to their new ruler; Stilgar, on the other hand, mourned for Muad'Dib's son even as he honored him. What horrors could the child have seen in his oracular visions that made such a terrible transformation seem his duty?

He mourned for his people as well. Though he would not live to see it, Stilgar had heard Leto's description of the changes in store for Arrakis, and he wanted no part of that new world. No worms? No spice? No endless desert against which to pit body and mind, knowing that the outcome of such a battle could only be determined by Shai-Hulud in the end? The old life, the Fremen life, would come to an end.

It was a subdued and tired naib who returned to Sietch Tabr. In less frightful times, one of the younger men of the sietch would undoubtedly have challenged Stilgar and won; but much of the heart had gone out of the desert folk, and the challenge never came.

Death

Following Stilgar's death in 10228, Leto forbade the men of the sietch to slay one another for his burda. Instead, he appointed one of their number, a pliable young man named Mirat, as leader. That the Fremen acquiesced would have proven to the old naib that his worst fears were justified.

See also

• Atreides, Leto I
• Atreides, Leto II
• Atriedes, Paul
• Fremen