In the book Dune, much has been made of the contrast between Paul Atriedes and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.
They are about the same age, and both are heralded as last generation products of the Bene Gesserit breeding program intended to bring the Kwitzatz Haderach, or a male Bene Gesserit who can take a “Truthsayer” drug, survive and see into their ancestral memories.
Paul can also, before he ingests any spice, peek through the time stream to catch glimpses of possible future.
In the novel Dune, there is no suggestion that Feyd-Rautha can do likewise.
Much has been made of the character Margot Fenring’s observation of the extreme possibilities in Feyd-Rautha. He survives a fight in the Harkonnen arena against an opponent who was not, as was the norm, drugged to the point of not being lucid enough to fight well.
“You know, when you think what this lad could’ve been with some other upbringing — with the Atriedes code to guide him, for example,” Hasimir Fenring says.
So the novel makes explicit, in the opening chapter of its second “book” section that Feyd-Rautha is the foil for Paul Atriedes.
It is so prevalent an image that it is listed as the second most recent examples of a narrative foil in its wikipedia entry.
“In Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune, Feyd-Rautha serves as the narrative foil to Paul Atreides. While both characters are heirs of powerful noble houses, feature in the plans of the Bene Gesserit, and have received extensive combat training, Paul is compassionate and wishes to avoid war while Feyd is portrayed as interested solely in the acquisition of power,” it says.
The entry’s definition is “a character who contrasts with another character, typically, a character who contrasts with the protagonist in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities of the protagonist. A foil to the protagonist may also be the antagonist of the plot.”
Feyd is not the main antagonist to Paul’s protagonist. But he is the last real obstacle to him attaining what he desires.
He is a classic foil, very much like Laertes in Hamlet. Laertes is Hamlet’s foil not so much because of how dissimilar he is to Hamlet, but because of their similarities. Both are noble. Laertes is a bit of a hot-head, which does contrast with Hamlet’s classic indecisiveness in the first half of the play. But they are both skilled fighters and are put up to a fencing duel which Hamlet doesn’t know is a plot by his villainous uncle to kill him – with a poisoned blade, no less.
Feyd is such a major foil for Paul that in his filmed adaptation of Dune, Denis Villeneuve pumps up the character of Feyd-Rautha.
To show how the two might be equals, Feyd-Rautha is shown taking and passing the classic humanity test of the gom jabbar.
(I tend to think that, having stated that Feyd is a bit of a masochist who is into pain, a test of administering pain might be too “blunt an instrument” to get the necessary read on whether Feyd-Rautha is a real human.)
He also has a line of dialogue that, depending on how you read it, suggests he might be able to see a bit through time. He says he has seen Margot Fenring before, that he “dreamed” of her. This calls back to Paul’s dreams of seeing Chani in his dreams long before he left Caladan.
Another read on the line of dialogue is that this is perhaps not the first night of Fenring’s seduction of Feyd and he’s remembering something he was told to forget.
It is significant a paralleling between the two that some have taken it to mean that Feyd was a potential Kwitzatz Haderach as well.
I think that argument fails when you take the totality of what Villeneuve says in both films.
The exchange and Feyd’s passing the gom jabbar test say his genes are about on par with Paul’s. His martial training puts him about on par with Paul as well.
But Feyd is completely lacking what Villeneuve said in the first film was a very important factor. Paul has TWO bloodlines that he is heir to. He is the son of a Duke and a Great House. But he is also the son of a Bene Gesserit Sister and has been training in Bene Gesserit techniques.
Feyd is lacking that.
In the novel, Paul is also getting a fine dose of ethical training from his interactions with Yueh and probably Gurney Halleck. He is also getting Mentat training from Thufir Hawat. Paul and Feyd aren’t that close in overall capability.
As much as it is very apparent that Feyd’s function in the story is to be the foil to Paul’s character, a good work of fiction doesn’t have to limit itself to just one.
In Julius Caesar, also by Shakespeare, Brutus is said to have two foils, Cassius and Marc Antony. Cassius is an ally of Brutus while Marc Antony is very much a rival and an antagonist.
And there’s a very interesting foil for Paul Atriedes lurking throughout the pages of Dune who does not get elaborated upon in this regard.
The foil would have to be someone with similar qualities to Paul, which are smarts, martial ability, a command presence.
The person who most aptly contrasts with Paul is not Feyd-Rautha, but Paul's father, Duke Leto.
Leto had a similar teacher to Paul in Thufir Hawat, who ended up serving House Atriedes for almost 60 years and through three generations from the Old Duke to Paul.
He is the one who gives Paul many of his lessons in leadership, sacrificing for one’s people, loyalty. And that “air of bravura” that Paul certainly inherits from his father, who got it from his father.
If you further compare the two, one notes that the Bene Gesserit chose to completely write off Duke Leto. He was beneath their notice.
“Not for the father,” the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam says in the book about whether there was anything that could be done to save Leto. That has become, “For the father, nothing,” in movie parlance. He wasn’t worth the trouble.
Before Arrakis. But after, there was some rethinking of Leto in Bene Gesserit circles.
In an epigraph from “Muad’Dib, Family Commentaries,” the Princess Irulan writes, “You see him there — a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: ‘What is the son but an extension of the father?’”
Paul is, in many ways, what Duke Leto made of him.
The Duke was written off by the Bene Gesserit, but they knew he was two generations removed from what they thought was the achievement of “Totality,” the Kwitzatz Haderach.
How far off was he?
I posit he would have passed the gom jabbar test.
An animal caught in a trap will eat off a limb in order to escape. But a human will remain in the trap, hoping to ensnare the hunter and therefore remove a threat to humankind. That is the essence of what they BG are looking for in the test.
And what was the move to Arrakis? Baron Harkonnen in the second chapter of the book calls Dune the biggest mantrap in history and says the Duke is walking right into it.
We know from subsequent chapters that, despite the Baron saying the Emperor’s involvement is a secret, Leto already knows the Emperor is in on it and will be sending Sardaukar. His only hope is to get five battalions of Fremen to join his forces before the Baron and the Emperor strike. It’s his plan.
But the main thought here is he knows there is a trap and he remains in it. He is hoping to ensnare the hunter and remove a threat to his kind.
His decision to go to Arrakis is the core of the humanity test in action. Not even a metaphorical situation with real but phantom pain administered. A real threat with real pain and real potential loss if he doesn’t pull it off.
There are some dark parts of the Duke’s character. He is fully willing to exploit the Fremen. He is taking a HUGE risk with his family members, and the lives of most of his retainers and military. He is not greedy for space bucks, but he is wanting to play the feudal game of thrones to its fullest. He might have been thinking of the throne as the end game.
But he is most adeptly contrasted with Paul in his actual loyalty to individuals that he has serving him. During the spice harvester tour, the Duke risks the lives of his entire entourage in order to save the spice harvester crew.
“Damn the spice, save the men,” is the classic line that defines Duke Leto more than any other. He is shown to have other little things that inspire loyalty in his men like that, but none more vivid. And that moment is enough to turn Liet Kynes from someone who is ordered to not help and to betray the Atriedes into an almost convert.
“I like this Duke.”
The final contrast comes later in the book. When Paul tricks the smugglers that Gurney is working with, he expresses regret that they cannot save the smugglers’ carryall..
“Your father would have been more concerned for the men he couldn’t save.”
Paul does explain that the smugglers were interlopers in Fremen land, and they aren’t Paul’s people. The Fremen now are.
But at another stage, the Duke agreed to let the smugglers operate so long as they paid proper "dues" and a proper cut for Imperial taxation was taken out of the bribe.
As Duke of Arrakis, the smugglers are not Fremen, but they are his responsibility. They are his people.
If you look at Feyd-Rautha you can come away making the mistake of thinking Paul is the actual hero of Dune instead of just the protagonist. Feyd bad, so Paul good.
But if you see Duke Leto as the other, more proper foil for Paul, to contrast Leto and Paul, you can clearly see that Paul is being set up as not the noble hero, but at the very least an anti-hero.
Leto good, Paul ... not so much.
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