Gaius Helen Mohiam
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Gaius Helen Mohiam is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. She is a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, who initially featured in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert. She also had a more major role in the Prelude to Dune trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
Mohiam trained Lady Jessica in the Bene Gesserit chapterhouse on Wallach IX. Two decades later, Mohiam tested the young Paul Atreides before his departure for Arrakis with the gom jabbar. The test was to discover whether Paul was "truly human" by trial of pain. The pain inflicted when Paul put his hand in the box was caused by nerve induction and clearly drains an incredible amount of energy from the Reverend Mother.
In the novel Dune Messiah, the Reverend Mother joined the conspiracy to topple the rule Paul Atreides after he ascended the Lion Throne and unleashed his Jihad upon the Empire. She, along with Scytale (a Tleilaxu face dancer), Edric (a Spacing Guild navigator), and Irulan (embittered wife of Paul Atreides), plot to insinuate the Tleilaxu ghola Hayt into the court to weaken Paul's confidence in his prescience and thereby ruin him. When the plot failed, she was executed in the retailiation initiated by Alia Atreides after Paul walked into the desert after the death of his wife Chani.
The prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson that began with ' and ' reveal that Mohiam was secretly the mother of Jessica and grandmother of Paul, in contradiction to Children of Dune, which states Jessica's mother as Tanidia Nerus (it is stated in the Prelude to Dune novels that this name was an alias used by the Reverend Mother for work outside of the Bene Gessserit Sisterhood. It is probably the name in the "open" records, as the Bene Gesserit commonly hid true parental identity). This occurred as a result of a vicious rape by the Baron Harkonnen.
Portrayal in other media
Reverend Mother Mohiam was played by Siân Phillips in David Lynch's 1984 film Dune (film) and by Zuzana Geislerová in the Dune miniseries and its sequel Children of Dune
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