Diksha Sundriyal
HBO’s ‘Dune: Prophecy’ expands the world brought on the screen by Denis Villeneuve’s movies and takes us back thousands of years before the arrival of Paul Atreides. While the story majorly delves into the origins and rise of the Bene Gesserit, the series also opens the space for several other things featured in Frank Herbert’s novel series. Sister Theodosia in the HBO show portrays a character with a complicated past, which comes to light in the second half of the season. In the finale, she uses her powers to help Valya execute her plan in the fight against Desmond Hart. However, in doing so, she sacrifices herself to a dark fate. SPOILERS AHEAD
Sister Theodosia Sacrifices Herself for the Greater Good
In the finale of ‘Dune: Prophecy,’ things take one unexpected turn after another on Salusa Secundus. For Valya and the Sisterhood, putting Princess Ynez on the throne is the only thing they have worked on for all these years. However, when Ynez is thrown in a cell by her own mother after she tries to free Kieran Atreides, Valya realizes that things have been bent out of shape too far, and to save the Sisterhood, she will have to take drastic action. She decides to free Ynez, but she needs an escape plan because the moment Ynez is freed, Desmond Hart will come after her. Sister Theo, whose power of shapeshifting was revealed in a previous episode, offers herself up to help Valya and Ynez escape.
Valya knows that the best way to keep people from chasing after Ynez is if they think she is still in prison. So, when Ynez is freed, Theo will shape-shift into her and take her place. However, when the time comes, Ynez refuses to leave without Kieran, which puts Valya and Theo in a bind. Now, Theo cannot pretend to be Ynez because people will refuse to believe that Kieran fled without her. Moreover, there’d still be a manhunt for Kieran, which means that they’d find out about Ynez’s escape as well. Still, they need a way out, and Theo offers to stay back and keep Desmond Hart and his men busy long enough to give Valya, Ynez, and Kieran the time to escape.
Because she cannot pretend to be Ynez now, Theo takes the form of a soldier. When Desmond Hart and his men come to the cells to capture Valya, Theo pretends to be wounded. She attracts Desmond’s attention by whispering something to him. Desmond, believing that the dying soldier is trying to tell him something important about the Mother Superior, gets close to her to hear her better. Theo takes advantage of his proximity and stabs him. The plan to get rid of him was pretty sharp and would have worked on a lesser man, but Desmond Hart has been through much more than this during his time on Arrakis. Notably, he was the only person to have come back alive from the place about three times when the rest of his party perished. So, not unexpectedly, Desmond doesn’t just survive Theo’s surprise attack, but he also hits her back enough to render her unconscious. And that’s where the problem happens.
Desmond Hart’s Discovery of Sister Theodosia’s Secret Power Will be Damaging to the Sisterhood
When Theo falls unconscious, her power of shapeshifting stops working, which means she regresses to her original form. Desmond Hart sees this change happen right in front of his eyes, and he realizes that Theo is something he has never encountered before. He tells his soldiers to capture her and put her in one of the cells, which means that he plans to come back and find out more about her and her work as a Sister of the Bene Gesserit. The part about her shapeshifting is going to play a huge role in how Desmond decides to twist the narrative against the Sisterhood, which would be much easier now that the Emperor has been killed and his daughter and successor have been kidnapped by the Mother Superior.
Nothing about this bodes well for Theo, who will most likely be tortured for information, not just about the Sisterhood but about her own powers. The only silver lining so far for Theo is that she won’t be the only Sister in the prisons of Salusa Secundus. By the end of the season, Desmond Hart also has Tula arrested, even after he finds out that she is his mother. Tula’s intention is to help Desmond get rid of the virus, which was planted in him by some mysterious people and thinking machines. However, when she discovers that Theo is also imprisoned, she’ll try her best to free the acolyte. However, for now, freedom is a distant dream for Theo, and she must do whatever it takes to survive.
Read More: Where is Dune Prophecy Filmed?
