Valya Harkonnen

Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen was a member of House Harkonnen from Lankiveil who became the second Reverend Mother Superior of the Sisterhood, the first to bear that title under the name she gave the order: the Bene Gesserit. A faithful and talented student of Raquella Berto-Anirul, she was driven from childhood by a vendetta against Vorian Atreides and all of House Atreides, whom she blamed for her family's downfall. She developed the audio-neuro control technique of Voice into a trained method and used it to claim sole leadership of the Sisterhood after Raquella's death. (Sisterhood of Dune; Mentats of Dune; Navigators of Dune)

Early life on Lankiveil#

Valya was born on Lankiveil to Vergyl and Sonya Harkonnen. From childhood she blamed the downfall of House Harkonnen on Vorian Atreides and vowed vengeance on House Atreides. She groomed her brother Griffin and her younger sister Tula to murder everyone of the Atreides bloodline, and her younger brother Danvis to help Griffin, who aspired to lead House Harkonnen, win prominence in the Landsraad. (Sisterhood of Dune)

When Valya and Griffin were thirteen and twelve, their father and uncle took them out in a boat onto the frigid northern waters to track a fur-whale pod. A wave struck from the starboard side and washed Griffin overboard into the arctic sea. Valya dove in after him and kept him afloat until the boat came around again. Griffin clung to his sister, his frozen fingers knotted into her wet blouse, and never released his grip even as he lost consciousness. The bond between them ran deeper than that of ordinary siblings. (Sisterhood of Dune)

Rise in the Sisterhood#

Valya began her career as a promising young student of Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul within the Sisterhood of Rossak, recruited by Sister Arlett. She excelled in her training and became one of Raquella's most faithful and talented Sisters, working closely with Sister Karee Marques, one of the last pureblood Sorceresses, to study new drugs and poisons for the testing process. In time she was among the few Sisters entrusted with the secret of the Sisterhood's computers. (Sisterhood of Dune)

Accompanying Raquella to Salusa Secundus to negotiate with Emperor Salvador Corrino, Valya witnessed Vorian Atreides, whom she had not known to be still alive, arrive to request protection for his world of Kepler. Meanwhile her fellow Sister Dorotea, a Butlerian sympathiser whom Raquella had set Valya to spy upon, stole two pills of the Rossak drug. Believing Valya a friend to her cause, Dorotea gave one to her and urged her to take it; Valya only feigned doing so and kept the pill. When Emperor Salvador came to Rossak to expose the Sisterhood's computers, Valya helped Raquella destroy them in advance. After the Emperor disbanded the Rossak Order, she returned to Lankiveil, where news arrived of Griffin's death on Arrakis, his body returned by Vorian with a letter denying involvement. Valya refused to believe it, declaring that the feud would never end, and took the Rossak drug to become the third Reverend Mother before following Raquella to Wallach IX with twenty-eight Sisters. (Sisterhood of Dune)

Ginaz and the path of vengeance#

Raquella later permitted Valya to travel to Ginaz to train as a Swordmaster, ostensibly to serve the Sisterhood but in truth to prepare to kill Vorian Atreides. There she perfected her technique of Voice, which Raquella had achieved decades earlier through her transformation but which Valya was only now developing into a deliberate trained method. She used it to best her trainer, Master Placido, leaving a scar on his forehead. During this period she dispatched her sister Tula to the ocean world of Caladan, where Valya had uncovered an unknown branch of the Atreides family descended from Vorian's relationship with Leronica Tergiet. Following her marriage to Orry Atreides, Tula murdered him on their wedding night per Valya's orders, then fled to Chusuk in guilt. (Mentats of Dune)

Mother Superior#

As Raquella neared death she summoned both Valya, now a graduated Swordmaster, and Dorotea with her Orthodox Sisters to Wallach IX to settle the schism in the Sisterhood, announcing that the two would be co-leaders. Valya instead used Voice to force Dorotea to take her own life and declared herself sole Reverend Mother Superior of the reunited Order. In her first years of rule she reshaped the Sisterhood into its modern form, renamed it the Bene Gesserit, and erected the first Mother School. She recaptured Tula from Chusuk and attempted to strip from her the guilt and sympathy for the Atreides, intending for her to kill Willem Atreides and finish the bloodline. (Mentats of Dune; Navigators of Dune)

Hearing rumours, deliberately fostered by Vorian himself, that he had travelled to Corrin, Valya pursued him there. Her Truthsayer Cindel tried to tell her that Vorian had not in fact killed Griffin, but Valya dismissed this. She duelled Vorian as Tula duelled Willem; she attempted to use Voice to freeze Vorian's muscles, but his mental strength resisted it, and the fighting was ended by the intervention of Korla, Queen of Corrin. Believing Vorian dead when his ship exploded, though he survived, Valya travelled to Salusa to advise her brother Danvis as he entered the court of Emperor Roderick Corrino, then returned to her duties on Wallach IX. Her later rule, and the threat Desmond Hart posed to it, drive the HBO series covered in our guide to Dune: Prophecy. (Navigators of Dune; Dune: Prophecy)

Abilities#

Valya developed and first refined the audio-neuro control mechanism of Voice into the trained technique later used throughout the Sisterhood, achieving complete control over a target. She demonstrated it in forcing Dorotea's suicide and in nearly killing Vorian Atreides. Through constant sparring with her siblings and her training on Ginaz she became a more skilled hand-to-hand combatant than any of them, and her swordmastery let her press Vorian hard, though he had fought evenly with both Griffin and Tula. As a highly skilled Sister she also possessed petit perception, the ability to monitor minute detail in others to detect concealed emotions, motivations, weapons, surgery, false accents, and deception of every kind. (Sisterhood of Dune; Mentats of Dune; Navigators of Dune)