Thufir Hawat

Thufir Hawat (died 10193 A.G.) was a Mentat and Master of Assassins for House Atreides during the time of Duke Leto Atreides I, Leto the Just. For three generations he held responsibility for Atreides house security, anti-espionage, risk management, and the practice of kanly, and he was entrusted with training the ducal heir Paul in the arts of war and in political and military strategy. Throughout the Imperium he held a formidable reputation as both cunning and honorable, and other Great Houses coveted him for his skills as strategist, warrior, and trusted advisor.

Service on Arrakis#

When House Atreides was ordered by Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV to take over the fief of Arrakis, Hawat served as one of Duke Leto's principal advisors through the whole transition and was charged with the security of the royal compound in Arrakeen. His reputation was tested when Harkonnen agents left behind by the Baron tried to assassinate the heir Paul; Hawat offered his resignation, but the Duke treated the affair as a learning experience and kept the Mentat in his service.

Soon after their arrival, Leto ordered Hawat to coordinate a raid on Giedi Prime to destroy the secret spice hoards the Baron kept there for resale. The raid was daring and successful, boosting the morale of the homesick Atreides army, preparing the troops for the war both Hawat and the Duke knew would come, and demonstrating Atreides military intelligence. Most brilliant of all, House Harkonnen could not retaliate, since the Emperor had deemed such spice hoarding illegal.

A flawed analysis#

Hawat correctly surmised that the Harkonnens would not abandon the lucrative spice operations and that, should they attack Arrakis, House Corrino would tacitly help, most likely with Sardaukar legions disguised in Harkonnen uniforms. His analysis was sound but his numbers were not: he judged the Emperor would send at most two brigades of Sardaukar. The Emperor sent fifty.

A constantly suspicious man who nonetheless loved the Atreides, Hawat was hypervigilant in protecting the family, yet he mistakenly fixed on the Lady Jessica as the traitor in their midst, never suspecting Dr. Wellington Yueh. This was due in no small part to the Baron Harkonnen feeding him false information, and he continued to believe Jessica guilty even after the fall of the House. During the attack he came to discover the true quality of the Fremen. Holed up in a cave with some twenty Atreides troops while retreating from the Harkonnen advance, he witnessed a handful of Fremen leave only their own number standing after a skirmish with a dozen Sardaukar, and saw a Fremen pilot destroy a troop carrier of three hundred Sardaukar in a kamikaze run. Too late, he realized the Fremen could have been a powerful ally for his Duke.

Harkonnen servitude#

After the Harkonnens replaced House Atreides as rulers of Arrakis, the Baron took Hawat prisoner and forced him into service by introducing a poison into his blood, the antidote to which only the Harkonnens held. The Baron counted this a personal triumph, given Hawat's reputation, the many plans of his the Mentat had foiled, and the death of the Baron's own Mentat, Piter de Vries, at Leto's hand.

In Harkonnen service Hawat used his talents to manipulate his captors through political maneuvering and assassination, plotting in subtle ways for some two years in hope of avenging his beloved Duke and the one he believed to be the traitor, and of redeeming his own sense of failure. He attempted to drive a rift between the Baron and his nephew Feyd-Rautha by arranging for the na-Baron to face a fully capable Atreides soldier rather than a drugged slave in the gladiator ring; the warrior nearly succeeded, and the Baron's game trainer was executed for the danger to Feyd. Hawat very nearly brought down House Harkonnen from within by playing Feyd-Rautha's ambitions against his uncle.

Death#

In 10193 A.G., Paul restored House Atreides to power over Arrakis and wrested the Golden Lion Throne from the Corrinos. For two years Hawat had unknowingly helped the Harkonnens fight a Fremen leader called Muad'Dib, only to learn that Muad'Dib was Paul, the son of his beloved Duke. Discovering that he had been working against Paul, and offered his own life in return for all his service to the House, Hawat refused to kill the son of his Duke. He felled himself instead on a poison needle hidden in his left hand that had been meant for Paul, giving his life for the Atreides one last time. He was a grizzled elderly man with leathery skin, brown eyes, cheeks cracked by exotic weathers, and lips stained red by sapho juice.