Fictional Biography
The Appendix IV: The Almanak of en-Ashraf (Selected Excepts of the Noble Houses in Dune states:
COUNT GLOSSU RABBAN (10,132--10,193) Glossu Rabban, Count of Lankiveil, was the eldest nephew of Vladimir Harkonnen. Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban (who took the name Harkonnen when chosen for the Siridar-Baron's household) were legal sons of the Siridar Baron's youngest demibrother, Abulurd. Abulurd renounced the Harkonnen name and all rights to the title when given the subdistrict governorship of Rabban-Lankiveil. Rabban was a distaff name.
Glossu Rabban was the older nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. He inherited the Harkonnen cruelty and sadism but without the intelligence. He was known to the Fremen of Dune by the nickname 'Mudir Nahya', which translates as "Demon Ruler" or "King Cobra". He is best known for his tyrannical and vastly ineffective governance of Arrakis during the insurgency by the Fremen led by Paul Muad'dib. He earned the nickname "Beast" when he killed his father, Abulurd Harkonnen II.
The Baron planned to let Glossu rule the planet for a time in the most brutal way possible, so that when the favored nephew, Feyd-Rautha, took over, the new ruler would be welcomed as a hero. Notably, Glossu had told his Uncle on their return to Arrakis (when they had seized it from the Atreides) that he felt the Harkonnens had woefully underestimated both the numbers and threat of the Fremen population, to no avail. He is slain by Paul Muad'Dib's wild Fremen and the very populace of Arrakeen which he had brutalized only recently, when Paul made his move to retake Arrakis and gain the Corrino throne. In the 1984 film version, The Beast is beheaded by the Sardaukar when the Emperor decides to eliminate the population of the planet.
"Rabban" is a distaff name. It is a tradition on Lankiveil that children carry the surname of their mothers.
Read more about this topic: Glossu Rabban
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