r units During his interrogation of Duke Leto those suspensors saved his life The Red Duke bit down on a poison filled tooth spewing forth a deadly gas One needs but to compare Vladimir s reputation for deadly efficiency with the picture of the huge body making a hast; bouncing retreat-arms flailing as he bobbed backwards-to enjoy a grim chuckle His own granddaughter Alia described him unsparingly a few years later He doesn t appear much does he-one frightened old fat man too weak to support his own flesh without the help of suspensors It was an apt assessment of the Baron at die illusory height of his career With the advent of Alia his historical significance assumed a unique character It is thus better to continue his biographj after the Arrakis Revolution in terms of his relationship with Aha rather than end it with his death at her hands THE BARON AND ALIA Psycho regenera tton is a misleading term though convenient in the image evoked In Alia s case only a fine line separates possession by genetic memo nes from an essential regeneration of Vladimir Harkonnen within Aha s unstable psyche Pre born Aha was bound to undergo an inner struggle with the ancestral figures whose DNA was intrinsic to her own genetic composition like an unwanted but unavoida ble inheritance This struggle she ultimately lost failing to achieve an alliance such as Leto II s which allowed the survival of her own independent identity Vladimir Haricon nen s victory quelling the other insistent inner voices gradually subsuming Aha s psy chic integrity may almost be considered revenge Yet not the Baron but merely his genetic essence manifested itself in Aha s mind Poetic irony here waxes supreme What was the nature ot Vladimir s post mortem manifestation to Alia s awareness? Most documents describe the reemergent Bar on appearing m Alia s mind in the form he had at his death-grossly obese speaking m a bass voice Such a limited notion contra diets the foundation of possession itself which is based on genetic essence not on temporal definition or development Would not a fat HARKONNEN VLADIMIR 299 HAWAT Baron dressed in red robes elicit hate and revulsion from Aha no matter how well such a figure quelled the hosts of ancestors desiring a front seat in her mind9 The best answer to the question comes from art not from psychology the keen insight of the great Harq a! Hart>a provided his audience with a stunning piece of stage business and at the same time gives us a key to under standing psycho-regeneration The play Water for the D&td (10302) tells of the intertwined lives of Harkonnen and Aha In Act I we see Vladimir as a slim athletic handsome youth but by Act ffl he has become the hulking monstrosity killed by the infant Alia In the last Act we see the gradual effects of her possession only through the actions of Alia but in the climactic scene she begins to dance with an invisible partner As she spins her robes billow form gradually changing in color (thr