Diksha Sundriyal
In HBO’s ‘Dune: Prophecy,’ the clock turns 10,000 years back in time before the events of the ‘Dune’ movies and the rise of Paul Atreides. The series is set after the war with the thinking machines that humans won after a lot of bloodshed. However, even as decades pass, the machines aren’t entirely removed from the picture. They linger in the background, but their threat becomes more prominent as new information comes to light. One of the recurring things throughout the season is a pair of blue eyes that appear in visions of different people, especially in connection to Desmond Hart. In the finale, we discover the true identity of these eyes, which sets the ground for more chaos in the Imperium. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Blue Eyes Reveal the Truth Behind Desmond Hart’s Powers
After skirting around and trying to sabotage each other indirectly, Valya Harkonnen and Desmond Hart finally come face to face in the sixth episode. This is after Valya has helped Ynez and Kieran escape and is trying to bide time for them to get out of danger. By now, she has seen a couple of demonstrations of Desmond’s powers, including the fact that the Voice doesn’t seem to work on him. So, she decides to face his power and see where it leads her. In the beginning, she struggles to stay alive, but with Tula’s help, she is able to control her emotions and comes out the other side, which is also when she sees the blue eyes.
Desmond’s powers allow him to activate the virus that is already inside humans, planted by the thinking machines during the war. He wasn’t born with this power, but it was given to him after he faced the Sandworm on Arrakis. It seems that he doesn’t remember exactly what happened to him, as he believes that the Sandworm gave him this power. But once Valya’s mind reaches out into his memories, she discovers that it was the thinking machines who installed the virus in his eyeball. It is them that the blue eyes belong to, which also explains the machine sound that usually accompanies them. It also turns out that it wasn’t the work of a single machine, but there are more of them, which means that the war that was believed to have been over decades ago isn’t quite so.
A Mysterious Enemy on Arrakis Controls the Blue-Eyed Machines
Apart from the machines and the procedure they do on Desmond’s eye, Valya also gets a glimpse of a person in the background overseeing the whole thing. The stranger is merely a shadow, and Valya is not able to make out who it is, but it is clear that this person is in charge of the machines and is behind all the havoc that Desmond has wreaked on the Imperium and the Sisterhood. What makes it more interesting is that the enemy is on the planet of Arrakis, whose natives are known for their piercing blue eyes. This knowledge adds another layer to the presence of the blue eyes in the visions so far, especially the ones that the Sisters had on Wallach IX.
It is possible that their visions warned them about a danger that was rearing their heads on Arrakis, and they were working behind the scenes while Desmond Hart took center stage. Everyone had been so occupied with him, his powers, and his maneuvers on the Emperor against the Sisterhood that no one thought about the origin of his sudden powers and the real reason behind his meteoric rise on Salusa Secundus. Once Valya gets a peek inside his mind and removes the curtain on the blue eyes, she realizes that the real enemy has been operating from the shadows. To find and defeat them, Valya must go to Arrakis and bring the war to them.
Read More: Where is Dune Prophecy Filmed?
