Dune Messiah Characters: Who's Who Before Dune: Part Three

Dune Messiah's cast is small next to Dune's. It is mostly the people around Emperor Paul Atreides twelve years into his reign, and the plotters who want to break him. This guide covers each of them in the novel and notes the actor playing them in Dune: Part Three where the studio or the film's own launch has confirmed it. It has light spoilers for the book; the full plot is on its own page. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three official site)

Paul and the people closest to him#

Paul Atreides is Emperor and, to his followers, a god. Twelve years after taking the throne he is worn out by the holy war fought in his name and by a future he can see but not escape. He knows about most of the plots against him and lets them run, because the alternatives his prescience shows are worse. Timothée Chalamet plays him in Dune: Part Three. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Chani is Paul's Fremen partner and the woman he loves, though not his wife. She wants a child badly and hasn't been able to have one, for reasons she comes to suspect. Her pregnancy drives the second half of the book. Zendaya plays her. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Alia Atreides is Paul's sister, fifteen years old and born already awake with the memories of her ancestors. She is a priestess of Paul's religion, the people fear her, and she finds herself drawn to the ghola Hayt. Anya Taylor-Joy plays her. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Princess Irulan is the daughter of the deposed Emperor Shaddam IV and Paul's wife for the sake of the throne. Paul has never shared her bed. A Bene Gesserit, she joins the conspiracy and secretly keeps Chani from conceiving, hoping to bear the heir herself. Florence Pugh plays her. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Stilgar was Paul's first Fremen protector and is now his minister of state. He stays loyal, but he can see the old Fremen ways dying and the court turning his people soft, and he offers to kill the Guild's ambassador if Paul wants it. Javier Bardem plays him. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Lady Jessica, Paul's mother, has gone home to Caladan and stays offstage in the novel. Rebecca Ferguson still appears in Dune: Part Three, as Paul's mother. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

The conspirators#

The last conspiracy against Muad'Dib is a meeting of old powers that Paul's rule has pushed aside. Their plan is to break him rather than make him a martyr. (Dune Messiah)

Gaius Helen Mohiam speaks for the Bene Gesserit. She tested Paul with the gom jabbar when he was fifteen in Dune, and the Sisterhood now wants control of his bloodline back. Charlotte Rampling, who played Mohiam in the first two films, is in Part Three's official cast, though her role there hasn't been stated. (Dune; Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three official site)

Edric is a Guild Navigator who lives in a tank of orange spice gas. His own prescience hides the plotters from Paul's sight, and he comes to Arrakeen as the Spacing Guild's ambassador, bringing the Tleilaxu gift with him. (Dune Messiah)

Scytale is a Face Dancer of the Bene Tleilax, a shape-shifter who can wear anyone's face. He is the most active of the plotters, and he takes the shape of Otheym's daughter Lichna to lure Paul into a trap. Robert Pattinson plays him, and has said Scytale is not a conventional villain. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

Korba was one of Paul's Fedaykin and is now a priest of the Qizarate, Paul's Panegyrist. He works with the conspiracy from inside the Fremen, on the cold reckoning that a dead Muad'Dib would serve the religion better than a living one. (Dune Messiah)

The ghola#

Hayt is the Tleilaxu gift: a ghola, the body of Duncan Idaho regrown from his dead flesh, with none of Duncan's memories. The Tleilaxu have trained him as a Mentat and a Zensunni philosopher. Paul accepts him knowing he is a weapon, and the question of whether Duncan is still inside him is one of the book's great threads. Jason Momoa, who played Duncan in Dune: Part One, plays Hayt. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

The Fremen and the dwarf#

Otheym was one of Paul's first Fedaykin. He is dying of a disease caught off-world in the jihad, and he has gathered something Paul needs: the names of the Fremen who have betrayed him. (Dune Messiah)

Bijaz is the Tleilaxu dwarf in Otheym's house, a living record who holds those names in his memory. He talks in riddles, he is far more than he seems, and he plants a hidden command in Hayt. Duncan kills him on Paul's order at the end. (Dune Messiah)

Farok is a veteran of the jihad, back on Arrakis after fighting on other worlds. Scytale visits him early in the book. Isaach de Bankolé plays him in Dune: Part Three. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailer launch)

The children#

Leto II and Ghanima are Paul and Chani's twins, born at the very end of the novel. They barely appear in Dune Messiah, but they carry the next book, Children of Dune, and Leto becomes the God Emperor. Paul and Chani's twins appear in the Part Three trailers. (Dune Messiah; Dune: Part Three trailers and character posters)

For how the films changed these characters before Messiah begins, see how Dune: Part Two sets up Dune Messiah. The Dune characters guide covers the whole series. (Dune Messiah)

Test yourself: take the Dune Messiah quiz, twelve questions on Paul, the plotters and the ghola Hayt. (Dune Messiah)