Dune is the true name of the character who becomes Folken-a man twisted with loneliness and hatred. Because of the misery he feels, Folken decides to destroy the world to end all misery.

When Dune was a young man he lived in peace with his family and, in particular his little brother. While he would forget these times for most of his life, the brothers once loved each other. Van would run to him, calling him brother, and both were happy. These times would not last because they were a royal family and succession to the throne was not decided by birth, but by signs, and it was Van who was to become king.

Perhaps Dune's anger was simply a result of being denied power, but power doesn't appear to be his final goal. It is more likely that Dune felt rejected and viewed his brother's position as a betrayal by Van and his entire family. He changes his name to Dune (perhaps to disconnect from his family or to indicate that his family has forsaken him) and proceeds to commit the most terrible of crimes-he murders his own mother and father. Van escapes and Folken declares to his father that he will murder his brother with his own hands.

Folken's army, The Black Dragon Clan, sweeps through the land like a plague, killing everyone who has not joined with him. His goal is to find the God of Destruction, Escaflowne, as well as the Tsui no Kami, The Winged Goddess, and use them to destroy everything including himself. He finds Hitomi, an Earth girl who suffers from the same loneliness and misery as Folken-her wish is to simply disappear and get away from everything in her life. Her sense of nihilism resonates with his and he summons her to his land, where she ends up in the war armor called Escaflowne.

The ship carrying Escaflowne is attacked by Van and everyone aboard is killed. The suit comes to live with Hitomi inside and when she falls out of it in a daze, Van declares that he will serve he will, at least until the suit disappears. Folken sends out a troop lead by Dilandu to capture both the suit and Hitomi, but Van protects her, though he ends up badly wounded in the process. While Van heals, Hitomi starts to care for him and it looks like Folken might not be able to use her himself.

With Folken is a beautiful, winged lady named Sora who is able to sense events which take place anywhere. While she appears to be a slave, their relationship seems to be a bit more complicated. When Hitomi and Van make it to the city where the final battle with occur, she summons Hitomi out of the castle in an attempt by Folken to pull her over to his side, but her love for Van is too strong and she remains true to him. Folken decides that it doesn't matter who has Escaflowne. Van feels as much pain as he does, so he will destroy the world instead, but Folken doesn't care as long his misery is ended. He doesn't count on Hitomi saving Van from his loneliness and hurt, which causes Escaflowne to transform into a dragon form.

He faces his brother, still wanting to destroy the world. He tells Sora that she is free, but she tells him that she wants to see him die. Instead of the huge battle he had most likely expected, his brother comes to him with forgiveness and peace in his heart, and he is unwilling to kill his older brother. Folken does die though, but not without realizing that he did love his brother and that he never had to be alone.

Folken in quite different from his anime version. It is not peace he seeks, but utter destruction of everything. He feels the same sense of failure and isolation, but it has made him bitter as well as cold, and he imposes his own misery on everyone else. While in the anime he simply watched the destruction of his home, in the movie he is responsible for the deaths directly and he appears to relish in the destruction. Both versions use people, but anime Folken was to some degree compassionate, though distant, but the movie version is cruel, brutally torturing his own people. He no longer cares to be noble-he simply doesn't want to exist.

Still, the tragedy of both versions of the character is his blindness to the truth. In the anime he follows Dornkirk and destroys thousands of lives instead of seeing the lie-people can be forced into neither peace nor freedom. These things must be chosen. In the movie, the lie was his isolation. Despite everything, there were people who still loved him, namely Van (after a bit of a revelation from Hitomi) and Sora, the woman who he thought he forced to keep by his side. His misery and isolation were self-imposed and, perhaps if he had seen the truth earlier, he might have found peace while he was alive. Both versions finally see the truth, but are too far in debt to escape destiny and die.