Dune: Part Three has a very different problem to solve than the first two movies. Paul Atreides has already won. The Harkonnens are broken, Emperor Shaddam IV has been defeated, and Paul sits on the throne he spent two films fighting to reach. Sounds like the perfect ending, right? Not even close.
Denis Villeneuve’s third Dune movie is expected to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah, and that story is far less interested in watching Paul become powerful than in showing what that power actually does to everyone around him. Twelve years have passed, the galaxy is drowning in a holy war carried out in Paul’s name, and the imperial court has become a pressure cooker. Sitting inside it is Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan, and honestly, she might be the most fascinating character in the entire story.
Irulan isn’t simply the woman standing beside Paul on the throne. She’s a political prisoner, a Bene Gesserit operative, the daughter of a deposed emperor and eventually one of the key figures in a conspiracy designed to undermine the most powerful man in the known universe. What makes her story especially nasty is that she doesn’t need a sword, army or dramatic assassination attempt. Her weapon is Chani’s inability to have a child.
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Irulan Got the Throne, But Lost Everything That Mattered
The ending of Dune: Part Two leaves Irulan in a brutally awkward position. She agrees to marry Paul because the marriage gives him political legitimacy, but there is almost nothing resembling a normal relationship between them. Paul loves Chani, and that isn’t exactly a secret. Irulan gets the title of Empress, but the emotional reality is closer to being trapped inside a beautiful prison.
That distinction matters enormously in Dune Messiah. Irulan was raised to understand power, diplomacy and imperial politics. She was supposed to become the wife of an emperor and participate in the machinery of government. Instead, she watches Paul become increasingly isolated while billions of people die in a religious war fought under his name.
There is a bitter irony here. Irulan has technically achieved the highest social position imaginable, yet she has almost no control over her own life. The old Corrino dynasty is finished, Paul doesn’t love her, and the Bene Gesserit are treating her as another piece on their enormous genetic chessboard.
That is exactly the kind of situation where resentment starts turning into something much uglier.
The Conspiracy Against Paul Is Much Bigger Than Irulan
One of the things I like about Dune Messiah is that Paul isn’t threatened by some cartoon villain who suddenly appears with a secret superweapon. His enemies are smart. They know that attacking him directly is practically suicide, especially because Paul can see possible futures.
The conspiracy brings together several factions that have completely different reasons for wanting Paul weakened or destroyed:
- Princess Irulan provides access to the imperial household and secretly works against Chani.
- The Bene Gesserit want control over Paul’s bloodline and remain obsessed with their breeding program.
- Edric and the Spacing Guild help obscure the conspirators from Paul’s prescient awareness.
- Scytale and the Bene Tleilax bring genetic manipulation and one of the story’s creepiest weapons into the equation.
This is where the story becomes much more interesting than a conventional political thriller. Everyone involved thinks they can manipulate Paul. The problem is that Paul already knows the game is being played.
And that’s where the really depressing part begins.
Irulan’s Real Weapon Is Chani’s Fertility
The Bene Gesserit don’t simply want Paul dead. They want control over his descendants. Chani represents a massive problem because she isn’t part of the Bene Gesserit’s carefully managed breeding plans, and a child born from Paul’s relationship with her could push the Sisterhood even further away from the influence it desperately wants.
So Irulan is given a horrifying assignment: prevent Chani from becoming pregnant.
Rather than openly attacking Chani, Irulan secretly administers contraceptives. It’s a remarkably cold strategy because nobody needs to know anything is happening. Chani eats, drinks, lives her life and slowly realizes that something is wrong with her body without knowing that the person responsible is standing inside the palace.
For years, the scheme works.
But Chani eventually stops following the palace’s controlled diet and returns to traditional Fremen practices. That decision changes everything. Irulan’s carefully maintained barrier collapses, and Chani finally becomes pregnant.
Except the damage has already been done.
Paul Knows What Irulan Is Doing
This is one of the most brutal ideas in Herbert’s story, and it’s also the part that can make Paul extremely difficult to sympathize with.
Paul knows Irulan is interfering with Chani’s fertility. His prescience gives him information that no ordinary emperor could possibly possess. Yet he doesn’t immediately expose her.
Why?
Because Paul has already seen the terrible alternative.
His visions tell him that Chani’s death is connected to childbirth. As long as Chani remains unable to conceive, Paul believes he can keep her alive for longer. That means Irulan’s betrayal becomes a twisted form of protection from Paul’s perspective.
Think about how messed up that is. Paul isn’t simply tolerating treason because he’s distracted. He allows it because the treason is temporarily giving him more time with the woman he actually loves.
It’s one of those decisions that makes Paul feel less like a traditional hero and more like a man completely trapped by the future he has seen.
Florence Pugh Could Completely Change How Irulan Is Perceived
This is where I think Villeneuve has an enormous opportunity.
In Herbert’s novel, Irulan is important, but much of her characterization comes through the historical excerpts and political context surrounding the main story. A movie can’t rely on that in quite the same way. Florence Pugh gives Villeneuve the chance to put Irulan directly into the machinery of the plot.
And I really hope he takes it.
Irulan should not be presented as a generic evil imperial woman plotting in a dark room. That’s far too simple. She’s intelligent, politically trained, manipulated by the Bene Gesserit and genuinely trapped by the consequences of Paul’s victory.
At the same time, her actions toward Chani are awful. There’s no need to excuse them. Whatever sympathy the character earns, secretly poisoning another woman for years is an unforgivable line to cross.
That contradiction is exactly what makes her compelling.
| Character | Role In The Conspiracy | Personal Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Princess Irulan | Imperial insider | Protect Corrino interests and control Paul’s succession |
| Gaius Helen Mohiam | Bene Gesserit strategist | Preserve the Sisterhood’s genetic plans |
| Edric | Guild Navigator | Shield the conspiracy from Paul’s prescience |
| Scytale | Bene Tleilax agent | Manipulate Paul through genetic technology and psychological pressure |
The Duncan Idaho Problem Makes Everything Worse
Irulan’s conspiracy is only one piece of the larger nightmare. The Bene Tleilax introduce another weapon that hits Paul somewhere much deeper than politics: Duncan Idaho.
Or rather, a ghola created from Duncan’s genetic material.
The idea is disturbing even before you get into the details. Paul is confronted with a version of someone he loved and trusted, except this person has been deliberately engineered and placed in his orbit. The goal is to create an emotional weakness that can eventually be exploited.
This is exactly the sort of science-fiction horror that makes Dune Messiah feel different from the first novel. The enemy isn’t just trying to defeat Paul militarily. They’re trying to attack his memories, relationships and understanding of reality.
Chani’s Pregnancy Is the Point Where Everything Falls Apart
Once Chani becomes pregnant, the conspiracy starts racing toward its inevitable disaster.
She eventually gives birth to twins, Leto II and Ghanima. But the childbirth kills her, fulfilling the future Paul has been desperately trying to delay. Irulan’s actions don’t single-handedly explain every aspect of Chani’s death, but her long-term interference becomes one of the darkest threads running through the tragedy.
And Paul is left with exactly what he feared: the children survive, but Chani doesn’t.
That’s the cruel joke at the center of Paul’s prescience. He spends enormous effort trying to avoid the future, only to discover that his attempts to control it are part of what makes the tragedy possible.
Irulan’s Redemption Is Surprisingly Effective
After the conspiracy collapses, Irulan’s story takes a direction I find much more interesting than a simple punishment arc.
Paul ultimately leaves the throne after being blinded, following Fremen tradition and walking into the desert. The imperial system Irulan once believed would define her entire existence is suddenly crumbling around her.
And then she changes sides.
Irulan finally breaks with the Bene Gesserit. Instead of continuing to serve the organization that manipulated her, she chooses to help raise Paul’s children. The woman who spent years trying to prevent Chani from giving Paul an heir becomes one of the people responsible for protecting those children after their mother is gone.
It’s messy. It’s tragic. And thankfully, it isn’t a clean Hollywood redemption where everyone instantly forgives her.
Irulan still has to live with what she did. Her decision to protect Leto II and Ghanima doesn’t erase the conspiracy. It simply gives her something meaningful to do after the political game she was trapped inside finally destroys itself.
Why Irulan Might Steal Dune: Part Three
If Villeneuve handles this correctly, Irulan could become the emotional surprise of Dune: Part Three. Paul is still the central figure, obviously, but his character has changed. He’s no longer the young man fighting desperately for survival. He’s an emperor who has achieved everything he thought he wanted and discovered that victory can be its own kind of nightmare.
Irulan is experiencing a similar collapse from the opposite direction. She begins with privilege, status and political education, then loses almost everything that made those things meaningful.
That’s why I don’t want a sanitized version of her.
Give me the jealous Irulan. Give me the calculating Irulan. Give me the woman who genuinely believes she’s acting for the survival of her family while doing something absolutely monstrous to Chani. But also show the exhausted woman underneath all that political armor, because that’s where the character becomes more than another conspirator.
Dune: Part Three has the chance to turn a familiar science-fiction sequel into something much nastier and more intimate. The war, the throne and the political maneuvering are huge, but Irulan’s conspiracy works because the damage is painfully personal. She doesn’t need to destroy an army. She only needs to interfere with one woman’s life and wait.
And if Florence Pugh gets the material this story promises her, I wouldn’t be surprised if audiences walk out of the theater talking about Irulan almost as much as Paul.
