Every Woman on This Show Is Loathsome. That’s By Design.
4 min read
Dune: Prophecy opens with a thesis statement. It comes as the Reverend Mother Tula Harkonnen (played by Olivia Williams), a member of the powerful, quasi-religious order known as the Sisterhood, instructs a group of novices in the subtle art of Truthsaying, which is used to determine whether someone is being dishonest. “Humanity’s greatest weapon is the lie,” she tells them—both the justification for the lesson and an explanation of the ethos that the Dune universe’s rigid imperial society runs on. But the Sisters’ weapon isn’t just their ability to sniff out lies; it’s also their ability to tell them. Tula and her fellow Sisters are not simply reacting to the deceptive men in control of the empire, as portrayed in the Dune books. Instead, the women of Dune: Prophecy are the show’s heroes and its villains.
Toying with the binary of “good” and “bad”—and who falls into which category—is a core interest of the Dune franchise. The novelist Frank Herbert’s (predominantly male) heroes are bound by virtue, but they’re also deeply flawed: Paul Atreides, the protagonist of the first Dune novel, is a deconstruction of the messianic figure, his seemingly divine traits the result of forces beyond his control. The reader is encouraged to root for Paul, but the story’s climax argues that the existence of an omnipotent despot spells bad news for a fragile interstellar empire.
Dune: Prophecy relies on Frank Herbert’s antihero model in recounting the origins of the Sisterhood, a nunlike order of duplicitous superwomen eventually known as the Bene Gesserit. Prophecy is based on the prequel novel Sisterhood of Dune—written by Brian Herbert, Frank’s son, with the writer Kevin J. Anderson—which follows the high-ranking (and biologically related) Sisters Tula and Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) in their pursuit to grow their order. Their goal is to manipulate the noble houses into installing one of their members on the imperial throne, thus cementing the Sisterhood’s control over the known universe.
A more obvious interpretation of this story would perhaps have girlboss-ified these characters, painting them as an independent and influential group of women determined to save humanity from its darkest impulses. Instead, though Tula, Valya, and their co-conspirators see themselves as saviors, Prophecy ensures that the audience doesn’t. The show repeatedly reveals the women’s hypocrisy: They have no problem using the very lies they deem forbidden to everyone else, and they’ll go to extremes to protect their legacy.
The series’ antagonistic view of the Sisterhood is an expansion of the order’s portrayal in Frank Herbert’s work. In the first book, the author reduces the Bene Gesserit to a cautionary tale of hubris: Paul thwarts their millennia-long efforts to influence the empire for their own gain. Dune: Prophecy deepens the audience’s understanding of why these women crave absolute power despite its dangers, and their despicable methods to attain it. In the Dune-iverse, your legacy is your destiny, but for the Sisters, destiny is just another tool at their disposal.
Prophecy’s emphasis on its main characters’ inconsistent morals is a refreshing change from other female-led fantasy series of late. Recent shows have typically encouraged viewers to root for the women at their center: HBO’s House of the Dragon renders its central former friends turned sworn enemies as tragic, not malicious. The Wheel of Time’s sorceresses fight to save their world’s source of magic from the forces of darkness. A female Elf commander leads the battle for Middle-earth on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and it’s not even a real contest. When the conflict is heroes versus villains, it’s easy to know which side to stand on, and thus a little boring to engage with.
The Sisterhood, by contrast, is sneaky and manipulative and amoral. These alienating qualities don’t hold Prophecy or its characters back; the Sisters’ moral turpitude drives both the empire and the intrigue forward. But what’s most compelling is how these women depend on, and often promote, the Dune universe’s strict, gendered structures. They arrange marriages, ensuring that noblewomen bear children that carry on humanity’s most coveted genes, and uphold the technologically advanced empire’s archaic system of lords and serfs. Where other series in its genre tend to showcase strong female characters breaking free of sexist restraints, Prophecy shows how its women leads use discrimination and subjugation to their advantage.
Not all of this works. The show has already gotten its fair share of criticism for its use of certain source material (some Frank Herbert purists consider the Brian Herbert prequels noncanonical) and for its depiction of some parts of the lore. But its core themes—the corrupting allure of control, the dangers of putting the future in the hands of greedy autocrats—align closely with those of the original Dune novels. Like the elder Herbert’s male leads, Prophecy’s women willfully perpetuate a cycle of abused power and depravity. Their actions are their own, and they’re not ashamed of them.
