If you know the term, you know that it signifies the “rigid rule of class distinction enforced by the Imperium.”
But there’s so much that’s weird about it.
First of all, it’s this all-encompassing class (one could even call it a caste) system that apparently controls the lives of billions, if not trillions, across the known universe, but in the core canon, it only gets mentioned in Dune and Children of Dune for a total of eight times. Yes, really.
(Much of what we’re gonna be talking about today is coming from the Dune Encyclopedia.)
“Jessica whirled, stared down at a knobby, gray-haired woman in a shapeless sack dress of bondsman brown.”
— Dune [1965]
Then, and not knowing this probably bugs me the most, we don’t know where the word comes from. There are fan theories (could it really be fanfreluche?), but nothing as definitive as to earn a spot among the words we collected inLanguages of Dune [part 2/2].
So just don’t worry about pronouncing it wrong - we know Frank Herbert approved of fan edits. (faw-freh-loo-chez? fau-fra-loo-hes? how do you say it?)
SPOILER WARNING
Includes content from the Core Canon, the Dune Encyclopedia, and the Expanded Universe.
The natural order
But maybe not spelling it all out was part of the storytelling.
From what we do know, the faufreluches system was so seamlessly integrated into Imperial society that most people couldn't even see it as a system. They just saw it as the natural order of things. It was the water the fish swam in, the gravity that held the Imperium together.
Think about the letter Shaddam IV wrote to Leto when he took over Arrakis:
If the people of this decadent garrison city could only see the Emperor’s private note to his “Noble Duke”—the disdainful allusions to veiled men and women: “… but what else is one to expect of barbarians whose dearest dream is to live outside the ordered security of the faufreluches?”
The Imperial elite genuinely couldn't understand why anyone would reject their carefully ordered hierarchy. To them, faufreluches represented security, stability, I’d say even civilization itself.
Living outside the system was considered savagery.
We know this from Paul’s studies of Arrakis, before moving over.
Dr. Yueh, his teacher, had hinted that the faufreluches class system was not rigidly guarded on Arrakis. The planet sheltered people who lived at the desert edge without caid or bashar to command them: will-o’-the-sand people called Fremen, marked down on no census of the Imperial Regate.
I read this to be not unique to Arrakis but rather to any backwater world or frontier planet - places too remote or wild for proper Imperial oversight.
Which brings me to the third weird thing.
The most important planet in the known universe, the single source of spice, wasn’t locked down tight? It was allowed to operate outside the rigid class system?
Then again, we know that the only deciding factor for Dune was whether the Spice was harvested in sufficient quantities.
🔒 In the full article:
What we know of the faufreluches hierarchy
How the "escape routes" were designed to fail
The extent of psychological control
Whether the Harkonnens were real nobility
The vicious circle of money and power
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