Ghanima
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Ghanima (meaning 'spoil of war' in the Fremen language) is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. She is a main character in Frank Herbert's third novel in the Dune series: Children of Dune. She is the daughter of Paul Atreides and Chani, and twin sister to Leto Atreides II.
Along with Leto and their aunt Alia, Ghanima was born with the ability to access the knowledge and personality of all her female ancestors; only Leto and Paul could see the lives of both male and female. Leto and Ghanima's mother, Chani, consumed so much melange during her pregnancy that Leto and Ghanima awoke to full, adult consciousness before birth, receiving the genetic memories of all their ancestors. All those ancestors are in the twins' heads, more or less in the background, providing almost infinite knowledge, but each genetic memory of a person also ready to completely possess the body that holds them. Ghanima had a very close relationship with Leto; they worked together to create the Golden Path, a plan to avoid humanity's almost inevitable future destruction. She supplied her fertile creativity to the details of the plan, and ensured the continuation of the Atreides line by bearing children fathered by Farad'n of House Corrino.
Upon his ascension to power, Leto II took Ghanima as his wife in a purely political marriage, and appointed to Farad'n the post of Royal Scribe.
In God Emperor of Dune, it is mentioned that Ghanima lived a relatively normal life. Upon Ghanima's death, Leto II performs a miracle, causing the voices of all the Atreides to flow forth from Ghanima's water.
Book Quotes About Ghanima
- “Two children, Paul thought wonderingly. The vision had contained only a daughter.” ~ Dune Messiah, p. 310, Ace edition
- “Paul felt himself in the crèche then, with Alia cooing over him. Her hands soothed him. Her face loomed, a giant thing directly over him. She turned him then and he saw his crèche companion – girl with that bony-ribbed look of strength which came from a desert heritage. She had a full head of tawny red hair. As he stared, she opened her eyes. Those eyes! Chani peered out of her eyes... and the Lady Jessica. A multitude peered out of those eyes.” ~ Dune Messiah, p. 317, Ace edition
- “‘And my daughter,’ Paul said. ‘Let her be called Ghanima.’
- ‘Usul!’ Harah objected. ‘Ghanima’s an ill-omened name.’
- ‘It saved your life,’ Paul said. ‘What matter that Alia made fun of you with that name? My daughter is Ghanima, a spoil of war.’” ~Dune Messiah, p. 317, Ace edition
- “Ghanima was more like her mother. There was Chani’s red hair, the set of Chani’s eyes, and a calculating way about her when she adjusted to difficulties. She often said that she only did what she had to do, but where Leto led she would follow.” ~Children of Dune, p. 131, Ace edition
- “But he stared at Ghanima. Her eyes, the way they danced when she spoke! The movement fascinated him. Those deep blue, steady, demanding, measuring eyes. And that way of throwing her red-gold hair off her shoulder with a twist of the head: that was Chani. It was a ghostly resurrection, an uncanny resemblance.” ~Children of Dune, p. 132, Ace edition
- “Slowly, cautiously, Ghanima made her way back to Tabr, holding herself to the deepest shadows of the dunes, crouching in stillness as the search party passed to the south of her. Terrible awareness gripped her: the worm which had taken the tigers and Leto’s body, the dangers ahead. He was gone; her twin was gone. She put aside all tears and nurtured her rage. In this, she was pure Fremen.” ~Children of Dune, p. 196, Ace edition
- “‘Never!’ Ghanima said. ‘I’d kill him on our wedding night.' She spoke with a barbed stubbornness which thus far had resisted all blandishments.” ~Children of Dune, p. 259, Ace edition
- “Ghanima interrupted with a coarse Fremen expletive which came shockingly from the immature lips. Into the quick silence she said: ‘You think me just a mere child, that you have years in which to work on me, that eventually I’ll accept. Think again, O Heavenly Regent. You know better than anyone the years I have within me. I’ll listen to them, not to you.’” ~Children of Dune, p. 261, Ace edition
- “‘You feared to be the window for a multitude,’ Ghanima accused. ‘But we’re the preborn and we know. You’ll be their window, conscious or unconscious. You cannot deny them.’ And she thought: Yes, I know you – Abomination. And perhaps I’ll go as you have gone, but for now I can only pity you and despise you.” ~Children of Dune, p. 261, Ace edition
- “Irulan shuddered at this evidence that Ghanima was, after all, Fremen entire, child no different from adult in this terrible bloodiness. After all, Fremen children were accustomed to slay the wounded on the battlefield, releasing women from this chore that they might collect the bodies and haul them away to the deathstills. And Ghanima; speaking with the voice of a Fremen child, piled horror upon horror by the studied maturity of her words, by the ancient sense of vendetta which hung like an aura around her.” ~Children of Dune, p. 264, Ace edition
- “‘Because I’m his daughter,’ Ghanima said. ‘We Atreides go back to Agamemnon and we know what’s in our blood. Never forget that, childless wife of my father. We Atreides have a bloody history and we’re not through with the blood.’” ~Children of Dune, p. 287, Ace edition
- “Ghanima once more took Farad’n’s hand, but her gaze looked beyond the far end of the hall long after Leto had left it. ‘One of us had to accept the agony,’ she said, ‘and he was always the stronger.’” ~Children of Dune, p. 408, Ace edition