Irulan Corrino
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Princess Irulan Corrino is a fictional character and member of House Corrino in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert.
Irulan is the eldest daughter of the 81st Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and the Lady Anirul Sadow-Tonkin Corrino, the most famous Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Proctor Superior of the Hidden Noble Rank and Kwisatz Mother. Irulan has four younger sisters named Chalice, Wensicia, Josifa and Rugi, and no brothers.
In Dune, Irulan is described through Paul Atreides' eyes:
Paul's attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. Without being told it, Paul knew her — Princess Royal, Bene Gesserit-trained, a face that time vision had shown him in many aspects: Irulan. There's my key, he thought.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen later notes that Irulan had eyes "that looked past and through him." In Dune Messiah, the Tlielaxu Face Dancer Scytale refers to Irulan as "a tall blond beauty ... she carried herself with an aristocrat's hauteur, but something in the absorbed smoothness of her features betrayed the controls of her Bene Gesserit background."
Excerpts from Irulan's later writings appear in the form of epigraphs [1] in Dune, as well as (to a lesser extent) other novels in the series.
Irulan is played by Virginia Madsen in the 1984 film Dune, and by Julie Cox in the 2000 TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune (and its 2003 sequel, Children of Dune).
The non-canon Dune Encyclopedia (1984) by Dr. Willis McNelly invents an extensive, alternate biography for Irulan.
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[edit] Upbringing
Irulan was born in 10,162 A.G. and raised among the intrigues and politics of her father's Imperial Court upon Kaitain, where she received the finest of education and conditioning to make her a young lady of refinement and elegance suitable to be the eldest daughter of an Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe. She grew up to be just such, described as willowy of appearance with fair skin, platinum-blonde hair and bright jade-green eyes.
Like her mother Anirul before her, Irulan was trained in the Bene Gesserit ways. In anticipation for the conception of the Kwisatz Haderach, the Sisterhood had conspired so that her Bene Gesserit mother would only bear daughters, making Irulan's father the last Padishah Emperor of House Corrino. The resultant vacuum of power would provide the perfect opportunity for the Kwisatz Haderach to seize the Imperial throne, effectively giving control to the Bene Gesserit.
Irulan's Bene Gesserit teachers realized the girl's important position as the key to the throne, and her training was sufficient enough (through her mother and the Imperial Truthsayer, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam) to hopefully make her coercible at some point in the future when she would find herself in a position of power. But despite all the manipulations and expectations of others, Irulan retained a strong sense of personal identity and ambition, qualities that would later cause tensions with the Atreides and her Bene Gesserit would-be masters. It is later indicated that, for lack of discipline, her powers and skills never reached their full potential. In addition, she herself never undergoes the ritual spice agony to become a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother.
Meanwhile, Irulan's father Shaddam himself saw her value as a means to marry her to a husband that would allow some retention of House Corrino's influence over the Imperium.
[edit] Plot against House Atreides
Prior to Dune Duke Leto Atreides' power and influence had grown in the Landsraad, making him a threat to Shaddam. Irulan writes:
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them — my father and this man in the portrait — both with thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. Princess-daughter, my father said, I would that you'd been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman. My father was 71 at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies. — In My Father's House by the Princess Irulan [2]
Subsequently in Dune, Shaddam orchestrates a plot to destroy the "Red Duke" Leto, with the eager aid of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and his twisted Mentat Piter De Vries; House Harkonnen and House Atreides have been bitter enemies for millennia, since the Battle of Corrin that ended the Butlerian Jihad. The plot against the Atreides is executed: lured to the desert planet Arrakis on the pretense of taking over the valuable melange operation there, the Atreides are soon attacked by Harkonnen forces (secretly supplemented by the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Sardaukar). Leto is killed, and Paul and his Bene Gesserit mother Jessica flee into the desert and are presumed dead. A crisis on Arrakis begins when the mysterious Muad'Dib emerges as a leader of the native Fremen tribes against the rule of the Harkonnens. Muad'Dib is, of course, a very-much-alive Paul Atreides.
[edit] Downfall of the Corrino Empire
The situation finally breaks on Arrakis and Shaddam is forced to personally intervene. Irulan accompanies her father and his army of Sardaukar shock troops to the desert planet as he seeks to restore order and the disrupted production of the all-important spice melange. After Shaddam's armies are disastrously defeated by the Fremen assault, Paul sets his terms: the Imperial armada would leave Arrakis and Paul would marry Irulan — or he would destroy all spice production.
Shaddam is furious; Irulan says: "But here's a man fit to be your son." Once Paul defeats the Baron's treacherous heir Feyd-Rautha in single combat, and Count Fenring refuses the Emperor's order to kill Paul, it is done — Paul would ascend the throne in Shaddam's place, assuming power of the Empire in Irulan's name. Jessica sums it up thus:
"See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she'll have little else." A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. "Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine — never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine — history will call us wives."
[edit] Unhappy marriage to Paul Atreides
Irulan is not originally unhappy with her position as Imperial Consort, as she desires to be the mother of a new Atreides-Corrino royal bloodline with Paul and hopefully retain the Imperial House Corrino's influence in some form. However, she quickly discovers that she is to be Paul's wife in name and title only, as he intends his beloved concubine Chani to bear his children and heirs apparent, essentially writing Irulan out of her desired place in history. She is also under pressure from the Bene Gesserit, who seek to preserve the Atreides bloodline, if not subvert Paul's rule entirely.
In Dune Messiah it is revealed that this resentment, coupled with Bene Gesserit orders that Paul not be allowed to father an heir with Chani, drives Irulan to secretly drug the Fremen woman with dangerous contraceptives. As a result, the new Emperor and his concubine are without children for twelve years. When Chani begins a special Fremen fertility diet, Irulan loses her access to administer the contraceptives; though urged by Reverend Mother Mohiam to chemically abort any potential fetus, Irulan protests. Irulan does, however, become part of a conspiracy against the Emperor involving the Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu, and Spacing Guild. Paul says of her at this time:
That's a real princess down the hall. She was raised in all the nasty intrigues of an Imperial Court. Plotting is as natural to her as writing her stupid histories![4]
Irulan's skills as a court player seem to never match her scholarship, however, as her double-crossing and drugging of Chani are both found out. Paul threatens her banishment to the hellworld of Salusa Secundus with the rest of the Corrinos, but she is never so directly punished.
She is productive during this time in her role as historian, writing at least twenty works on Muad'Dib and related events. In addition, she never indulges Paul's offer to discreetly cuckold him for her own pleasures.
[edit] Later years
Chani dies after giving birth to Paul's twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, and a newly-blinded Paul soon thereafter wanders alone into the desert to die (as is Fremen custom for the blind). Irulan is intensely grieved by these deaths (Chani's death being caused by her druggings, and Paul's being a subsequent result), at this time first feeling a deep love for her husband that she had never realized she had.
Irulan subsequently devotes herself to House Atreides and Paul and Chani's two orphaned children by deserting the Bene Gesserit to raise and train the twins as their foster mother. During the events of Children of Dune, Irulan attempts to serve as a guide and confidant to Ghanima, but is often flustered by the child's near-infinite wit and experience gained from her genetic memories. Irulan also serves as a chief advisor to Paul's sister, Alia, during her reign as Holy Regent. Alia never trusts Irulan because of her Corrino heritage and Alia's own increasing paranoia; this distrust proves to be well-placed, as Irulan follows Ghanima and Stilgar into the desert during the Fremen rebellion against Alia's tyranny. Though the other rebels are massacred, Irulan is imprisoned upon her capture.
Later, after the rise of Leto II as the God Emperor of the Known Universe, Irulan spends her remaining years continuing her study and documentation of historical and contemporary events. Irulan eventually dies in 10,248 A.G.
[edit] Works attributed to Irulan
Excerpts from the following works appear in the form of epigraphs in Dune, as well as (to a lesser extent) other novels in the series:
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[edit] Irulan in adaptations
Irulan is essentially the narrator of the novel Dune, via the epigraphs from her later writings which open each chapter. The 1984 film preserves this version; as in the novel, Irulan only appears in person at the very end of the story, but narrates an introduction to the Dune universe.
The 2000 miniseries, however, invents an extensive subplot for Irulan. Director John Harrison has said that he felt the need to expand Irulan's role because she plays such an important part in later books, and her epigraphs make her a significant presence in the novel. Additionally, the character gave him a window into House Corrino. [5] In the miniseries, Irulan is sent to Arrakis to confirm Duke Leto's position, and there strikes up a friendship with his son, Paul. After the attack on the Atreides, she immediately realizes that her father is the only one who could have possibly helped the Harkonnens. Irulan spies on Mohiam's clandestine meeting with a Spacing Guild operative; realizing that something big is afoot, she heads for the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime and coyly coerces Feyd into confirming her suspicions. As the Fremen uprising grows worse, Irulan joins her father's planning councils and offers valuable advice. She is the only one to realize the connection between Muad'Dib and Paul Atreides (which she dramatically reveals after Alia's capture), and she sees and accepts her role in Paul's unavoidable ascension to the throne.
Besides the final scene in which Irulan is betrothed to Paul, the only of her appearances in the miniseries based on an actual excerpt from the novel is her visit to Feyd. However, in the book it is a different Bene Gesserit, Margot Fenring, who visits the Harkonnen heir, on assignment from the Sisterhood to retrieve his genetic material (through conception) for their breeding program. The miniseries does not suggest this as Irulan's motive.
[edit] References
- ^ Collected Sayings of Princess Irulan ~ DuneMessiah.com
- ^ Herbert, Frank. Dune.
- ^ Herbert, F. Eye, 1985, pg. 206, ISBN 0-7434-3479-X (2001 US reprint) "This authentic visage of the Princess Irulan, Muad'Dib's virgin consort, should be committed to memory before your walking tour of Arrakis. The pilgrim should beware of false images. You will be beset by tradesmen hawking such mementoes. Irulan authorized only this portrait for official sale to pilgrims."
- ^ Herbert, F. Dune Messiah.
- ^ "DUNE: Remaking the Classic Novel" ~ Cinescape.com
