system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Dune] Were the Harkonnens always evil? Or was Vladimir just a bad apple?

I understand that 1) the Atreides and the Harkonnens have been feuding for generations, and 2) Vladimir Harkonnen is an especially cruel and treacherous man.

But even if there was a legitimate cause for multigenerational bad blood between two families, I don't see that requiring that one side is particularly evil. It just means that there was a grievance or some kind of inciting incident back in the day.

Were the prior heads of House Harkonnen as depraved as Baron Vladimir is now? And if the Harkonnens have actually been that heinous for generations, why are the Atreides the only house that seems to have a vendetta with them? Wouldn't they have made more enemies in the past?
gpt
Evil is often in the eyes of the beholder, but the Harkonnen for generations were a House that prioritized their own interests as nobles, well above that of their people. Indeed, the people served to promote the lifestyle of the Harkonnen. If the average citizens got wealthy under that system, so be it. It just means more taxes for the House. *Everything* in their society was arranged to benefit the people at the top because that was their literally divine right as Nobles.

Meanwhile the Atredies, for generations felt that Nobility's main job was to provide a stable environment for the people to prosper. Now that meant the Nobility had to live life a certain way to maintain their readiness to fight and protect the people, and it also meant the people had a duty to support the House in a accordance to those needs, but it all comes down to allowing the people who serve House Atredies to be able to live their lives are freely as possible (as constrained by moral law) and to grow and prosper.

The end result is that both houses taxed their people, used those taxes to live a life of relative comfort and luxury, and to make war (or at least scheme) on other Houses. Both built large militaries, drafted troops, and engaged in conflict (with other Houses as well as each other, and sometimes their own cadet branches that decide to rebel). While it is fair to say that neither house has hands entirely clean of blood or oppression, the Harkonnen were bloodier by light years as that basic conceit of "All for One" meant taking every last bit of excess to fuel their lives, while the Artedies's belief on "One for All" meant protecting those weaker (admittedly, for a price).