Margot Fenring

For the character in the film series, see Margot Fenring

Lady Margot Fenring, was the Bene Gesserit wife of the Mentat Count Hasimir Fenring. Despite superficially falling under the influence of House Corrino, Margot fully served the Sisterhood to many ends. After the vast reduction of Bene Gesserit influence following the Ascension of House Atreides, Margot and her husband dedicated themselves to serving their own ends.

Background

The beautiful and cunning Lady Margot Fenring is a powerful and important member of the Bene Gesserit whose ultimate loyalties lie with the Order. She is renowned for her super human abilities of observation and awareness. She is also noted for her supreme skills with seduction and  sexual imprinting. Like other members of her Order, she is also in complete charge of her own physiology and can control the physical sex of her fetus/offspring.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen offers a description of Margot in Dune. He sees the “willowy” Lady wearing a long flowing gown and is struck by her “golden” hair, “gray-green eyes,” and “perfect figure.” He also notes she “had that Bene Gesserit serene repose about her” that Feyd-Rautha calls “subtly disturbing.”

Margot Fenring is also an adept political player herself. Her Order entrusted her with multiple secretive missions. And she was also one of the Bene Gesserit’s breeders, one of the sisters who contributed to the Order’s crossbreeding program designed to produce the Kwisatz Haderach.

The Bene Gesserit frequently had its members become either wives or concubines to major political figures. The Sisterhood had Margot Fenring marry Count Hasimir Fenring. The Count was a leader of a House Minor, deadly fighter and assasin, and close friend of the Emperor. Count Fenring was once a possible Kwisatz Haderach candidate, but was born sterile. His wife also trained him in some of her Order’s ways, giving him acute observational skills.

Margot was with her husband on Arrakis when he served as the planet’s temporary governor during the handoff between House Harkonnen and House Atreides. Before Lady Margot departed the planet she left a coded note behind for her fellow Order member, Lady Jessica. Margot warned Jessica about the Harkonnen plan to kill Paul Atreides and his father Duke Leto.

Fenring is also tasked by her Order, with her loving husband’s knowledge, to breed with Feyd-Rautha to maintain the Harkonnen bloodline. She also uses her abilities to covertly maintain control over the deadly Harkonnen warrior for the Bene Gesserit’s secret goals.

Marriage to Hasimir Fenring

The Sisterhood allowed her to be married to Count Hasimir Fenring, the ruler of House Fenring, a House Minor long aligned to House Corrino. While present in the Padishah Emperor's court she persuaded Shaddam Corrino IV to marry Reverend Mother Anirul Corrino, whom the Sisterhood knew would not yield House Corrino any sons. As the wife of Hasimir Fenring, Margot was resident on Arrakis during his temporary governorship. Prior to their departure, and the arrival of House Atreides, she left an encoded message for the Lady Jessica Atreides, warning her of House Harkonnen's planned treachery.

"TO THE LADY JESSICA — May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes"

―MARGOT LADY FENRING

The visible note contained the code phrase every Bene Gesserit not bound by a School Injunction was required to give another Bene Gesserit when conditions demanded it. Jessica's fingers detected the subtle coded dots, scanned them in a single passage:

"Your son and Duke are in immediate danger. A bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H loaded it with death traps to be discovered, leaving one that may escape detection. I do not know the exact nature of the menace, but it has something to do with a bed. The threat to your Duke involves defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant. The H plan to give you as gift to a minion. To the best of my knowledge, this conservatory is safe. Forgive that I cannot tell more. My sources are few as my Count is not in the pay of the H"

―In haste, MF.

Unfortunately, Margot's warning is not enough to stop the Harkonnen plot against the Atreides. Duke Leto Atreides I is killed, and Jessica and her son Paul are forced to flee into the desert of Arrakis.

Margot has shared some of her training with her husband since when the Count focused on Paul. He saw with his eyes Lady Margot had trained in the Bene Gesserit way, aware of the mystery and hidden grandeur about this Atreides youth. Hasimir subsequently refuses Emperor Shaddam IV's command that he kill Paul.

Gallery

Quotes

"I Dreamed about you last night" - Lady Margot Fenring seduces Feyd-Rautha and tests him with the Gom Jabbar, Dune Part Two

Appearances

• Dune (First appearance)