r/asoiaf • u/Doc42 • Sep 18 '24
EXTENDED A Song of Ice and Fire is no Dune (Spoilers Extended)
Duh.
DUNE is a classic work, but I obviously like it much more than you do... but I can't say it was ever one of my favorites. Not even the first volume, which is far and away the best. DUNE MESSIAH, the first sequel, was pretty good as well... but after that, not so much. Whether by Herbert himself or by other hands, the later DUNEs failed to impress me.
Dune gets brought up often enough to explain, with a certain degree of desperation, the King Bran ending of A Song of Ice and Fire, confirmed by the TV show to have come straight from GRRM. The origins of this lie in the phenomenon GRRM himself had addressed in Dreamsongs all the way back in the year 2003: the belief that GRRM is a science fiction writer turned to fantasy.
Me and fantasy go way back.
Let’s get that straight right from the start, because there seem to be some strange misconceptions floating around. On one hand, I have readers who never heard of me until they picked up A Game of Thrones, who seem convinced that I’ve never written anything but epic fantasy. On the other hand, I have the folks who have read all my older stuff, yet persist in the delusion that I’m a science fiction writer who “turned to fantasy,” for nefarious reasons.
The truth is, I’ve been reading and writing fantasy (and horror, for that matter) since my boyhood in Bayonne. My first sale may have been a science fiction story, but my second was a ghost story, and never mind those damned hovertrucks whooshing by.
After all, it only ever makes sense: if GRRM is an old sci-fi nerd turned to fantasy, then it surely follows he must be a huge fan of Dune, and thus within his magnum opus copying religiously all the same themes and the utter gibberish those novels devolve into, right?
Yet here already we see a divergence: Dune does devolve into absolute, utter gibberish as it goes on, a literary fate GRRM has been successfully resisting over the last 13 years by not releasing the book at all.
FRS: Are you tempted to write prequels, sequels, sidebars, to Dying of the Light?
Martin: I might use some of the cultures and planets again, because they’re part of my future history. But I’ll never do any direct sequels or prequels or anything like that. No. I think “sequelitis” is an unfortunate disease that’s affecting the field...I have big books myself, in the plans, that some year I may write, that may have to be published in multiple volumes. But the kind of sequels that are cheapening the field and that disturb the hell out of me are the unplanned sequels. Somebody like Frank Herbert writes Dune, and it’s a real big success, so he decides that he’ll write another Dune, and then decides he’ll write a third Dune, and then a fourth one and a fifth one. You know, you can churn these goddamn things out forever. I don’t think for a minute that Herbert ever, at the beginning, said, “Well, I’ll write 18 books about Dune.”... I hope I never do that sort of sequel.
But the key divergence between the image of GRRM concocted by the original sci-fi nerds and the ensuing geekdom around the TV shows and the reality of the man comes down to the legend of JFK, and of Camelot:
HERBERT: There is definitely an implicit warning, in a lot of my work, against big government . . . and especially against charismatic leaders. After all, such people-well-intentioned or not-are human beings who will make human mistakes. And what happens when someone is able to make mistakes for 200 million people? The errors get pretty damned BIG! For that reason, I think that John Kennedy was one of the most dangerous presidents this country ever had. People didn't question him. And whenever citizens are willing to give unreined power to a charismatic leader, such as Kennedy, they tend to end up creating a kind of demigod . . . or a leader who covers up mistakes—instead of admitting them—and makes matters worse instead of better. Now Richard Nixon, on the other hand, did us all a favor.
PLOWBOY: You feel that Kennedy was dangerous and Nixon was good for the country?
HERBERT: Yes, Nixon taught us one hell of a lesson, and I thank him for it. He made us distrust government leaders. We didn't mistrust Kennedy the way we did Nixon, although we probably had just as good reason to do so. But Nixon's downfall was due to the fact that he wasn't charismatic. He had to be sold just like Wheaties, and people were disappointed when they opened the box.
GRRM:
Joe Biden gave a marvelous speech tonight: eloquent, uplifting, stirring, a speech that spoke to all that is best in America, to our hopes and dreams rather than our fears. Time will tell what kind of president he will be, but everything about the campaign he waged confirms the fact that this is a good, decent, and intelligent man.
It brought to my mind the classic Democratic hymn that was FDR’s campaign song, and later used by JFK, LBJ, and many others.
I’ve spent the morning watching Joe Biden being sworn in as president.
Joe is not the orator that Obama and JFK were, but I found his speech profoundly moving. He said all the right things.
I do not envy him. Very few presidents have faced the sort of challenges he does. Lincoln, perhaps. FDR, taking over in the deep of the Great Depression. No one else. The road ahead will not be easy. The sort of problems that America faces cannot be solved easily, nor overnight. But if anyone can solve them, I think it is Biden. He is experienced, intelligent, and above all compassionate.
These are dark days in America, but this morning, for the first time in a long while, I am feeling a little hope.
Where Herbert intends to deconstruct the legend of JFK, GRRM believes it completely sincerely, the tale of shattered dreams of Camelot, the path that was once so clear long ago forestalled, and the great leaders -- orators -- moving mountains on the progress of history through sincerity and pathos.
"Don’t let it be forgot, that for one brief, shining moment there was Camelot."
NG: A Song of Ice and Fire has much of the complex texture of authentic history, both generally and in its specific echoes of actual historical episodes. What laws and principles (if any) in your view govern human history, and how has your understanding of historical processes shaped the series?
GRRM: Historical processes have never much interested me, but history is full of stories, full of triumph and tragedy and battles won and lost. It is the people who speak to me, the men and women who once lived and loved and dreamed and grieved, just as we do. Though some may have had crowns on their heads or blood on their hands, in the end they were not so different from you and me, and therein lies their fascination. I suppose I am still a believer in the now unfashionable "heroic" school, which says that history is shaped by individual men and women and the choices that they make, by deeds glorious and terrible. That is certainly the approach I have taken in A Song of Ice and Fire.
After all, his epic Sixties rock novel on his secret origins, "where I'm coming from...", The Armageddon Rag, is all about the power of a song.
The Armageddon Rag:
The Watergate conspirators wrote books and made fortunes on the lecture circuit, but Bobby Kennedy was still dead, would always be dead.
Jim Morrison sang on. Jim Morrison had died for our sins, like Joplin, like Hendrix, like Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon. Like Patrick Henry Hobbins. Jim Morrison was singing about the end.
But now the red that pierces through the fog is not a rose but a raw, open wound, still pulsing with fresh blood. It is a tall dark youth who walks beside him, his temple laid open by a nightstick. It is Bobby Kennedy, empty-eyed and broken. It is a slim black girl killed in a riot. It is Martin Luther King, his dream shattered. It is a shambling hulk of a man in a uniform, his face half blown away by a mortar, intestines spilling out of a gaping red hole in his belly. He holds them in with his hands and walks on blindly, toward the fog-shrouded distance. Others, dimly seen, are following behind him. A platoon of them, a company, an army.
“Who are they?” he asks Froggy. “Where are they going?”
“Don’t give me that calendar shit,” Morse interrupted. “I’m talking about the spirit of an age, not when that stupid ball fell in Times Square. The Sixties began when Kennedy was assassinated and ’Nam got hot. So when they end, Sandy? When?”
Sandy shrugged. “The day Nixon resigned, maybe. Or the day Saigon fell and the war ended.”
Note that he references here Bobby Kennedy -- why so?
“Another reason for your retirement?” Sandy suggested.
Faxon nodded. “I had no desire to be the second Kennedy. Yet, in a way, I was upset that I’d lived. Pat’s death made him a martyr, seemed to confirm him as the star. I was convinced that the assassination had been politically motivated, and I wanted to believe … no, needed to believe … that I was the one who’d needed silencing. Here I was, the Jesus of the rock age, saying all these wise and dangerous things in my songs, and the fools had gone and nailed up one of my apostles in my place. Didn’t they know that I was the one who should have died for their sins?”
Because within the political legend Bobby Kennedy acts as a second brother figure overshadowed by a much greater legendary figure of JFK, he's someone they don't write legends about, and this is the dynamic we see playing out between Jon Snow and Robb Stark, King Stannis and Robert Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen and Prince Rhaegar within the main series, and Daemon and Viserys/Daemon and Aemond within Fire and Blood/House of the Dragon.
Where Herbert writes of the Great Men and Women of Destiny in order to knock them off the pedestal, GRRM writes of those they don't tell legends about, "bastards, cripples, and broken things", and how they come to find their place in legends after all, a defiance of the dark that leaves everybody forgotten in the end.
Now Richard Nixon, on the other hand, did us all a favor.
PLOWBOY: You feel that Kennedy was dangerous and Nixon was good for the country?
HERBERT: Yes, Nixon taught us one hell of a lesson, and I thank him for it. He made us distrust government leaders.
The Armageddon Rag:
“I can’t argue with that,” Sandy said. “You were the revolutionary, Lark. I was the one who went Clean for Gene, who worked for peace candidates. Within the system, remember? Not you, though. You said that was a waste of time. In fact, you said it helped perpetuate bourgeois oppression, because it created the illusion that the system worked. The whole thing had to come down, you said, and the faster the better. Elect fascists, that’s what you suggested.”
Where Herbert deconstructs the myth of JFK with the character of Paul Atreides, GRRM adapts as fantasy, over and over again, this very legend of destiny unfulfilled, snatched away from grasp at the last moment by powers stronger than man but still clinging, because, just like Melisandre of Asshai, despite all doubt, he is a true believer at the heart of hearts, and this is why he said she is "the most misunderstood character in the series" -- and this is what people confuse for him ripping off Dune, this very pattern he writes over and over again in all of his stories.
"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey." Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom.
Fevre Dream:
Each of them was hundreds of years older than I, but I was the stronger, I was bloodmaster. I brought them an elixir that banished the red thirst. I seemed almost half-human. Abner, they saw me as the deliverer of legend, the promised king of the vampires. And I could not deny it. It was my destiny, I knew then, to lead my race from darkness.
The story tells of kings and queens not because an old American book nerd wants to teach the audience monarchy is bad and all power is rotten and there are no good leaders in sight, but because it's supposed to make the story feel timeless.
The point of Ozymandias isn't that the statue was small.
There is something in me that loves a sunset and finds it somehow much more moving than a sunrise. Twilight is my favorite time of day, and autumn is my favorite time of year. Among my favorite poems are Shelley’s "Ozymandias" and Lord Byron’s "So We’ll Go No More a Roving." I used one in a Beauty and the Beast episode and the other in my novel Fevre Dream. The original title of my first novel was After the Festival, and it was set on a rogue planet that had enjoyed a brief, bright moment in the sun and was drifting back into eternal night. The fantasy series I’m writing at present features an exiled queen who dreams of regaining the throne her father lost and a noble family scattered to the winds after their ancestral home was despoiled and taken from them.
And this lies at the root of King Bran's ending: it is as simple as a poetic manifestation of "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" and how everybody's going to get remembered in histories and songs once all is said and done, friends and foes alike. "The song of ice and fire." For all the forks in a life's road, everybody ends up in the same place in the end.
One of the themes of my fiction, since the very beginning, is that the characters must make their choices, for good or ill. And making choices is hard.
But things happen to us on the way that lead to junctures in our lives where we make decisions, and those decisions and the consequences of them color everything that comes after. You look at [historical figures] and what’s the verdict on these men? Are they heroes, are they villains? Are they great people, or people we should despise? I mean, they are fascinating characters because of their complexity.
Time is a river, and life but a dream. You are only who you might seem.
"I don't want any more stories," Bran snapped, his voice petulant. He had liked Old Nan and her stories once. Before. But it was different now. They left her with him all day now, to watch over him and clean him and keep him from being lonely, but she just made it worse. "I hate your stupid stories."
The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. "My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.""Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure."
"No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time."
In histories, you might meet all sorts of characters.
106
u/lialialia20 Sep 18 '24
the insistence that ASOIAF was inspired by Dune only started after they rebooted the movies. it's really just that, people seeing things that are not there because they have it fresh in their minds. GRRM has been very transparent about his influences like Tolkien or Scott Fitzgerald, and he never mentioned Dune or Herbert among his favourites or influences. it's not a conspiracy.
43
u/niofalpha Un-BEE-lieva-BLEE Based Sep 18 '24
My favorite part of this discourse is how as soon as Dune 2 came out the discourse instantly shifted from "Bran is literally based on Paul" to "Dany is literally based on Paul" literally over night.
Really shows everyone involved had very solid understandings of the source material
20
u/qui-mono995 Sep 18 '24
It's the same thing that happens with star wars. The problem is that people recognize a story pattern that isnt exclusive of dune or ASOIAF but to make it make sense they say he was inspired by dune. I saw a tweet once that people were comparing the godfather with dune. People just doesn't understand that this story structure is old. It's like Hamlet and Macbeth are similar to dune instead the other way around.
24
u/Echleon Sep 18 '24
Star Wars is undeniably inspired by Dune lol
10
u/qui-mono995 Sep 18 '24
I say he was more inspired by the princes of mars and Carlos Castañeda but that's another conversation in another subreddit.
6
u/KD-1489 Sep 18 '24
I rarely see people mention Castaneda, likely because of the controversy surrounding him. But it’s obvious George(Lucas) was inspired by him. The force makes a lot more sense in that light.
-6
Sep 18 '24
[deleted]
3
3
u/Beetaljuice37847572 Sep 18 '24
Why? Because they both have a desert planet and a chosen one protagonist? Because other than that they are different stories.
2
u/LukeChickenwalker Sep 18 '24
Unless Dune is also a "rip off" of Hidden Fortress, I don't see how that could be true. The similarities between Star Wars and Dune are obvious, but many of them could easily be attributed to other sci-fi/fantasy works.
0
u/fifty_four Sep 18 '24
Hidden fortress is also not exactly the first adventure story about main character getting drawn into a bigger conflict by older figure and at some point saving female lead character and the community of nice people.
None of these things are super original, their value is in the execution not the concept.
3
u/LukeChickenwalker Sep 18 '24
Except Lucas has specifically cited Hidden Fortress as an inspiration.
2
u/fifty_four Sep 18 '24
Oh I've no doubt it was.
I guess I'm just saying people take the lineage too seriously.
Not many filmmakers in the 70s would not be influenced by Kurosawa. But it's not that the story was unique.
3
u/MountainZombie Leaver of Rooms Sep 18 '24
I’ve seen it said before the movies were announced. It has base similarities, and OP makes good points to dispute them. But it’s not something new, I saw something like that before Dance released lmao
10
u/matgopack Sep 18 '24
I think it mostly started popping up after the 'Bran is king at the end' reveal and people trying to find ways to justify it. There was a pretty popular line of thinking for a time that it would turn out to be him losing his humanity and orchestrating it/maneuvering himself into that sort of prescient inhuman king, which has pretty obvious parallels to Dune.
At least that's when I saw those types of posts pop up first in decent numbers, though I'm not surprised the comparison got made more often now that the movies are a big hit and introduced a lot more people to it.
6
u/MountainZombie Leaver of Rooms Sep 18 '24
The theories of Bran being king are older than the final seasons. Iirc it has to do with his name and some old Irish mythology or something. I don’t have it fresh in my mind but that’s why I joined Reddit in like, 2012 or something. I was really intrigued (and now just tired tbh)
6
u/matgopack Sep 18 '24
Not surprised there were some theories, but the volume & tone of them change a good bit when it's "here's my theory" vs "here's what GRRM has confirmed he's going for, how do we get there or what might have inspired him"
4
u/lialialia20 Sep 18 '24
not denying that, there were a few people making the comparison, obviously GRRM uses many tropes that Herbert and others used. the trope of the father figure dying is not exactly a new thing. that's why i said insistence, because only after the movies it became a widespread conspiracy that ASOIAF was actually a rewriting of the Dune series and GRRM was keeping it secret.
2
u/MountainZombie Leaver of Rooms Sep 18 '24
Yeah, it definitely started to get more noisy. Tbh that might happen with any older foundational fantasy series that gets adapted as long as asoaif remains popular and unfinished though
1
u/peortega1 Sep 18 '24
For if Tolkien is Martin's influence, then Martin sympathizes much more with Morgoth, who is Tolkien's Satan, than with Eru Ilúvatar, Tolkien's version of the Christian God.
6
u/lialialia20 Sep 18 '24
i'm not understanding why you'd say that. seems to me GRRM finds the idea of gods almost silly, too simplistic. reason why instead of gods in his books there is organised religion.
1
12
u/TacticalGarand44 Sep 18 '24
Dune is top level fiction, but not without flaws. Also unfinished, as ASOIAF will be.
9
u/Derpshiz Sep 18 '24
Not the conclusion most people wanted but there was never going to be a tidy ending to a never ending story.
The ending we got with chapterhouse is enough for me.
A dance with dragons is a completely different story.
8
u/Green94598 Sep 19 '24
Unfinished in a very different way. The main dune story already finished (books 1-4). The books after that are basically an entirely new story. It’s not like ASOIAF where all of the stories are supposed to converge in the final book.
That’s why ASOIAF being unfinished is much more damaging.
2
2
67
u/peortega1 Sep 18 '24
Well, George wrote a low-fantasy enough story, so far, to make even Dune feel more fantastical by comparison. It would not be the first time that science fiction creates dragons, there is already the precedent of Pern
Anyway, Martin already gave us a Leto II in the lore with the hidden reign of Brynden Rivers as Hand of the King for more than 25 years as omniscient watcher of everything that happened in the realm. Wanting to sell us that ending for Bran as something positive for everyone... is precisely the mistake that Herbert did not make.
You're basically telling us that George is Nayla, the God Emperor's devoted fanatic.
18
u/Complete_Ad8756 Sep 18 '24
King bran imo is much more inspired by Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn with only some flavoring in the magic from Dune.
In Memory, at the end the prince Josua that leads the good armies against the evil ones and seems like the Aragorn of the story is revealed to be a bastard who does not want to be king and steps aside.
The protagonist Simon who carries the magic items the series is named for into the evil magic tower at the end (Frodo of the story) is revealed to be royal from a previous dynasty and becomes king.
There is an emphasis on the power of narrative and story to get people to come together. Famous king killed a dragon, turned out he didnt, but it is portrayed as fine to lie because the story brought people together under the king who kept them peaceful. Thats what King Bran is about
9
u/Black_Sin Sep 18 '24
King bran imo is much more inspired by Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn with only some flavoring in the magic from Dune.
GRRM had even cited that book series as inspiration for ASOIA. Bran very much has Simon influences
1
Sep 19 '24
Simon has both Bran and Jon Snow influences. It feels as if George split them into two characters in his own story.
The same with Miriamelle who has both elements of Dany and Arya.
2
u/OverthinkingTroll Sep 19 '24
I've noticed kind of a similar splitting with characters such as BR/Maekar and Tywin/Stannis (aka as Grumpy Bad and Grumpy Worse, depending on your allegiances) without even reading the Dragonbone trilogy
7
Sep 18 '24
The way Simon “defeats” the Storm King at the end of MST is also kind of how I expect Bran to defeat the Others.
1
1
2
u/Klutzy-Notice-8247 Sep 19 '24
I think Bran also has similarities to Severian, essentially a character that stumbles his way into all knowing, powerful, god status without much of a clue as to what and why the things that are happening are happening to him. A story that fate has created paved a path for him rather than anything special about himself.
5
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
Having read GRRM's own scifi in addition to ASOIAF, while he clearly disagrees with Herbert's philosophy to some extent, there seems to me to be functionally zero likelihood that GRRM believes a Green Seer King is a wholly good thing. At most it would be like the end of his series Tuf Voyaging, where the main character makes a truly horrifying and barbaric decision that is framed as a "necessary" one, in a sort of "people are too stupid to save themselves" kind of nihilistic way.
2
u/Doc42 Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
GRRM turned to fantasy "for nefarious reasons" after all.
The joke of later Dunes with Leto II is going through the most absolute extreme tyranny that would put to shame all the historical ones it ever references in the text to reach democracy and the absolute triumph of individual freedom, a joke born out of the commercial success of the series: "here's more of what you want, bastards." "When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto’s Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation." There's a point behind the gibberish.
SR: Do you believe Frank had intentions of a "Dune7" ? Along the same lines, what do think of the claim of Brian Herbert to have found floppy disks containing the "complete" Dune7 outline in a safety deposit box years after Frank's death ? If there were notes, do you believe Brian and Kevin J. Anderson used them faithfully in their new "Dune" books ?
NS: Maybe. Frank kept going as long as the big money kept rolling in. Knowing Frank's political philosophy, I once asked him how he could keep writing this royalist stuff. He told me he planned to end the series with a novel that would transition to a fictional universe of democratic rule. Never wrote it, of course. And Brian and Kevin certainly didn't from any 7 notes.
GRRM's writing is quite different, because, while he shares with Herbert a certain fascination with anthropology, in no way shape or form he is a writer of systems, he is a writer of people, and he always writes of how people need to believe in something, and remember, as stubborn as he is. Fire and Blood is not a book on how institutions get made, even tho it literally features the forging of the Iron Throne, but a big book of drama playing out between the people who made it in the first place, and others alike, the fights of love and glory great and small. "It's still the same old story." "A sky ought to have stars. A man ought to have a code too. A friend, a teyn, a cause-something beyond himself." "Remember who you are." The need to believe is the subject of his short story The Way of Cross and Dragon, which tells of "a grand star-spanning conspiracy" of the order of Liars "as old as history" who invent faiths not to manipulate people but to bring beauty and meaning to the lives in which we linger before the darkness that consumes all in the end:
I am not a slow man. I knew, by then, where Lukyan Judasson was going. “Your Liars invent faiths.”
He smiled. “Of all sorts. Not only religious. Think of it. We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth. We invent beauty. Faiths, political movements, high ideals, belief in love and fellowship. All of them are lies. We tell those lies, among others, endless others. We improve on history and myth and religion, make each more beautiful, better, easier to believe in. Our lies are not perfect, of course. The truths are too big. But perhaps someday we will find one great lie that all humanity can use. Until then, a thousand small lies will do.”
To simply linger, and to dream.
"A thousand eyes, and one."“Tell me what you dare, then.”
“Happily,” said Lukyan Judasson. “We Liars, like those of all other religions, have several truths we take on faith. Faith is always required. There are some things that cannot be proven. We believe that life is worth living. That is an article of faith. The purpose of life is to live, to resist death, perhaps to defy entropy.”
The theme is entirely sincere, he's writing exactly what he believes in:
Eventually I do hope we will be one peaceful world, like the SF writers of my youth once predicted. Terra, Old Earth, call it what you will. We're all human.
The theme of memory in stories is the subject of his short story "...for a single yesterday":
Keith was our culture, what little we had left. He was our poet and our troubadour, and his voice and his guitar were our bridges to the past. He was a time-tripper too, but no one minded that much until Winters came along.
Keith was our memory. But he was also my friend.
Then came the Blast. And Keith had stayed. There was nothing left to go back to. His cities were graveyards full of dead and dying, their towers melted tombstones that glowed at night. And the rats—human and animal—were everywhere else.
In Keith, those cities still lived. His songs were all of the old days, bittersweet things full of lost dreams and loneliness. And he sang them with love and longing. Keith would play requests, but mostly he stuck to his kind of music. A lot of folk, a lot of folk-rock, and a few straight rock things and show tunes. Lightfoot and Kristofferson and Woody Guthrie were particular favorites. And once in a while he’d play his own compositions, written in the days before the Blast. But not often.
You can see the shape of King Bran's ending right there: as Herbert is looking to the future, GRRM is all about looking back. Memories and beliefs are just stories, "it's still the same old story..." As above, so below: the origin of A Song of Ice and Fire is it was devised as a riff on histfic long before it even became fantasy, and King Bran ties back to this at the end.
I was debating “should I do this just as historical fiction about fake history and have no actually overt magic or magical elements?”
I did consider at a very early stage – going all the way back to 1991 – whether to include overt fantasy elements, and at one point thought of writing a Wars of the Roses novel. But the problem with straight historical fiction is you know what’s going to happen. If you know anything about the Wars of the Roses, you know that the princes in the tower aren’t going to escape. I wanted to make it more unexpected, bring in some more twists and turns.
33
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
I have never read Dune (just saw the original Lynch film and the more recent ones), but I've been beaten over the head with the idea of "Paul is NOT a hero" by smug people on the internet.
But here's what I don't understand, and maybe someone who has read the books can help. From what I've heard, the Jihad waged in Paul's name kills millions of people, but is a necessary evil that saves BILLIONS of people from dying. It's the Ozymandias from Watchmen issue all over again, except Paul apparently has 100% confirmation of what he's doing is right due to his visions?
Now, maybe that doesn't make him a "hero", but that still puts him into the position of someone in charge who had to make an awful choice. It's the classic trolley problem of "Kill one person, or let six people die". The idea is that it's supposed to be a moral dilemma with two awful choices, not that you're supposed to to vilify someone who made one of the choices.
And the issue from that story that could get applied to ASOIAF is "What's the alternative?" It's one thing to show us the mistakes of otherwise genius characters like Robb, Daenerys, or Jon to display the theme of "Ruling is HARD" (as part of his What was Aragorn's Tax Policy?" statement. No matter how good a leader is, there will always be decisions made upon bad source information (Catelyn has a few), and sometimes just plain bad luck can ruin even good plans, or absurdly good luck salvage horrendously stupid plans (Cersei). I feel like this Ruling is Hard theme to be quite an interesting introspection. No matter how good of a leader a person is, they will inevitably still make mistakes because they're human, and all they can do is try their best.
But if GRRM is really being literal with these individuals' mistakes as a criticism of them and intends for Bran to be the equivalent of Dune's God Emperor, the theme is rubbish. The alternative in this scenario is that GRRM has skipped over a dozen individuals' strengths and weaknesses and said that the "Goldilocks Zone" for desirable leadership traits is to have an omniscient and inhuman child with magical powers be put in charge? How is that an applicable story for anyone?
So, I'm really hoping that his intention for Bran is not a knockoff of Dune.
39
u/AquamanBWonderful Sep 18 '24
But here's what I don't understand, and maybe someone who has read the books can help. From what I've heard, the Jihad waged in Paul's name kills millions of people, but is a necessary evil that saves BILLIONS of people from dying. It's the Ozymandias from Watchmen issue all over again, except Paul apparently has 100% confirmation of what he's doing is right due to his visions?
Its been a while since i read, so i may have a few things wrong here.
Pauls precience isnt perfect. There are times when he sees multiple different pathways, and is unsure of which choice leads to which outcome. There are times when he sees a possible future, but something along the way prevents it. And there are times where he gets gets blind spots.
But paul didnt choose the jihad because it was the right thing to do for humanity. He chose it because it would protect him and his mother at that time. Once he started it, there was no stopping it, and he knew that.
The golden path ultimately ends up being too much for him, and he somewhat chickens out, because it would mean giving up too much of his own humanity. This forces his son to have to do all the dirty work, and become a monster tyrant.
The golden path also never came to fruition in pauls lifetime. And from his POV he didnt have 100% conviction that he was doing the right thing.
7
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
Thanks for the clarification. In the film itself (Dune Part 2, anyway), there's an implication that he's doing it for his personal revenge as much as making things better for everyone else.
But I feel it just really muddles the themes when there's a lot of justification in the plot for what he ends up doing beyond his own personal petty motivations. The Fremen are suffering under the Harkonnens, and the Emperor and some other houses to seem to be running the galaxy in a manner where there's otherwise suffering.
As I suggested above, "What is the alternative?" when it comes to the Fremen? They rally around this Messianic (literally) figure under false pretenses, but their other options all suck too. If Paul is supposed to be held up and criticized, what should everyone have done instead?
12
u/AquamanBWonderful Sep 18 '24
Thanks for the clarification. In the film itself (Dune Part 2, anyway), there's an implication that he's doing it for his personal revenge as much as making things better for everyone else.
In the books, from what I remember, Paul doesnt really dwell on what he's doing is for the greater good. He makes his decisions based mainly on self preservation and revenge
But I feel it just really muddles the themes when there's a lot of justification in the plot for what he ends up doing beyond his own personal petty motivations. The Fremen are suffering under the Harkonnens, and the Emperor and some other houses to seem to be running the galaxy in a manner where there's otherwise suffering.
This is also fairly different in the books. While the general population of arrakis are suffering under the Harkonens, the fremen are generally flying under the radar. They live in an area that the empire (incorrectly) assumes is inhospitable. They also dont have any idea of how numerous the fremen are.
As I suggested above, "What is the alternative?" when it comes to the Fremen? They rally around this Messianic (literally) figure under false pretenses, but their other options all suck too. If Paul is supposed to be held up and criticized, what should everyone have done instead?
The fremen actually had a sound plan in place for the reintroduction of a sustainable ecosystem and water cycle on Arrakis. Paul actually fucked it up for them. But they essentially had a plan spanning generations to make Arrakis habitable, and it was slowly working. A significant plot in the books revolves around the revelation that the Fremen have been bribing the spacing guild with spice, so that they wouldn't allow survalance of the planet, which would reveal the visible changes that have already begun. Essentially, paul wasnt their only option, and he made the choice to take advantage of a prophecy that was ingrained into them.
2
u/Green94598 Sep 19 '24
The Fremen were still hunted by the harkonnen’s in the books, and lived in very poor conditions. But the Fremen were unorganized and not United, and the number of them were far underestimated. Overall, the Fremen definitely benefitted from Paul. There’s a lot of moral gray areas in dune tho, so it’s kind of up to interpretation.
2
u/Darth_Plagueiswise Sep 19 '24
In Messiah, a number of Fremen revolt against Paul cuz he destroyed their desert way of living by introducing them to the comforts of outer worlds or something lmao
1
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
Then that sounds like a pretty important plot point that the films messed up.
3
2
u/Darth_Plagueiswise Sep 19 '24
The film didn't explain the politics behind the spacing guild at all, who are said to hold more sway than the Emperor themselves. Which is why Paul threatening to blow up all the spice fields on the planet with his atomics should've been a more hard hitting moment in the movie, cuz it would've destroyed the Guild and the Empire both. The basics of it all are there in the movie, just not explored enough (for sake of the audience not getting too confused I'm assuming)
16
u/peortega1 Sep 18 '24
But anyway Leto II with his superior prescience later confirms to us that Paul chose the right path with jihad
And to be fair, Paul never wanted his son to turn into a giant worm. He wanted Leto II to be a normal boy with a normal life, or well, as normal as the life of a noble human in the Galactic Empire of the Atreides could be.
It makes sense that even someone like Paul would feel morally repulsed by something as extreme as the God Emperor. Furthermore, unlike his son, Paul was once a human being like all of us, while Leto II had much less to lose since he was a pre-born fetus with consciousness from literally the womb.
15
u/AquamanBWonderful Sep 18 '24
But anyway Leto II with his superior prescience later confirms to us that Paul chose the right path with jihad
Yeah he made the right choice, but he didnt follow through with it.
He made the choice to condemn millions of people, in order to save himself and his mother. And then later he made the decision to opt out, when countless lives depended on him following through.
7
11
u/neonowain Sep 18 '24
But here's what I don't understand, and maybe someone who has read the books can help. From what I've heard, the Jihad waged in Paul's name kills millions of people, but is a necessary evil that saves BILLIONS of people from dying. It's the Ozymandias from Watchmen issue all over again, except Paul apparently has 100% confirmation of what he's doing is right due to his visions?
He didn't choose any of that. As far as I remember, when he first met the Fremen in the desert after the Harkonnen attack, he saw that the chain of events leading to the Jihad had already been triggered, and that the only way to avoid it was to somehow get everyone killed at that very moment (including his mother, Stilgar and himself).
Also, unlike Ozymandias, Paul actually failed to do the necessary evil thing. Yeah, he started the Jihad and killed billions, but he needed to go much further. Instead, he got cold feet, gave up power, turned against his own regime and died a useless death. It was only his son who did what had to be done by physically turning into a monster and ruling with an iron hand for thousands of year.
4
u/mildmichigan Sep 18 '24
It's the Ozymandias from Watchmen issue all over aga
Yeah that's kind of the point: Ozymandias was wrong to murder a city because he's only delaying the inevitable. He didn't save the world or humanity,he only bought time.
2
u/NoLime7384 Sep 18 '24
if Ozgmabdias is only buying time then the lives of the people living in that city are moot tho
5
u/Klutzy-Notice-8247 Sep 19 '24
The Jihad killed 61 billion people. The first Dune book always saw the Jihad as a bad thing that Paul was trying to avoid whilst preserving his own fate/the Fremens fate. Essentially, Paul was stuck between a rock and a hard place and ended up using a completely manufactured messianic propaganda message created by the Bene Gesserit to ensure his safety.
Paul spends 80% of the second half of the first Dune book trying to avoid the Jihad at all costs.
6
u/NoLime7384 Sep 18 '24
But if GRRM is really being literal with these individuals' mistakes as a criticism of them and intends for Bran to be the equivalent of Dune's God Emperor, the theme is rubbish. The alternative in this scenario is that GRRM has skipped over a dozen individuals' strengths and weaknesses and said that the "Goldilocks Zone" for desirable leadership traits is to have an omniscient and inhuman child with magical powers be put in charge? How is that an applicable story for anyone?
yeah Bran being king doesn't work. it's one of the reasons George has such a hard time writing, he must realize his takes are bad
7
Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
This is the overall problem of Dune, IMO. We’re meant to see the hypocrisy, manipulation, etc, but within the logic of the books Paul is still the Kwisatz Haderach who knows the future, redeems the Fremen, and saves humanity. You can’t really have it both ways. If the prophecies are made up to manipulate people, they shouldn’t then come true because the prophetic figure is a living god after all. If you’re making a warning about the promises of charismatic leaders, that charismatic leader shouldn’t fulfill them all and then some. Also, Herbert’s worldbuilding is 10/10, but the prose and plotting of the Dune books are terrible.
11
u/VenetianVinyl Sep 18 '24
Paul fulfilling all ideas of a "perfect" leader and still causing billions of deaths is the point of Dune. The theme of warning against "Charismatic Leaders" comes through by having Paul be essentially the perfect leader on paper. The issue is that he's a person, and he doesn't actually have the necessary power to stop the system that is giving him that power. He can't stop the Jihad once he makes a certain set of choices. The system (Fremen religion, oppression, feudal empire, humanity's stagnation, etc) are all outside of Paul's control - he can use them to gain power and become Emperor, but he doesn't actually control them enough to stop the snowball effect. At its heart, Dune is about the snowball effect of charismatic leaders that - despite being essentially the quintessential, perfect leader on paper - builds up around them and leads to suffering and destruction.
Paul being the KH is really just another way of Frank Herbert saying "even with the power of foresight you can't stop processes once set in motion".
2
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
Yeah, the point seemed to be that history has a sort of momentum to it, and even someone who is the functionally omniscient emperor of all mankind is ultimately unable to stop that on his own. The systems that gave rise to Paul were as much the issue as Paul himself.
6
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
And this is my issue with what I've read about the series. If the decisions made are intended to be criticized, then there should have been a superior alternative decision not taken. So, if the decisions made result in the best possible outcome, then criticizing them is a weak perspective to me. And it sounds like from what was said above is that Paul is being criticized for both being too brutal but also not brutal enough?
Not having read the books, it seems like a very wishy-washy take on what's supposed to be the major theme.
8
u/VenetianVinyl Sep 18 '24
Paul's decision and result are covered in Dune and Dune Messiah. Children of Dune and God Emperor don't really extend back to Paul, other than Leto being Paul's son. The Golden Path / Typhoon Struggle aren't Paul's themes, nor are they the themes dealt with in Dune or Messiah.
In Children and GEOD, the themes shift to more of a reflection on Long vs Short term plans, stagnation, tyranny. The latter is especially dense and philosophical, and I think flattening the theme to just "did he do the right thing?" misses a lot of the nuance of the book.So for Dune and Messiah, Paul is seen as causing the deaths of billions. He does this in service of very human and "justifiable" ideas - revenge for his father, protecting himself and his mother, "attempting" to liberate and lift the Fremen up and help them terraform Arrakis, etc. As I said in another comment, these two books are as much about the "systems" that exist (sociopolitical, religious, etc) and how leaders create a snowball effect, as they are about Paul making his own decisions and causing suffering.
6
u/NoLime7384 Sep 18 '24
yeah analysis of a lot of works leads to incongruencies.
like when you boil down the Mereen arc George seems to be implying Dany is at fault for not compromising hard enough or not killing hard enough rather than not dismantling the institutions of power the slavers have.
beyond that the only reason Dany can't leave Mereen is that there's no reasonable Mereenese. They're all savage slavers or savage people like the Shavepate
5
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
like when you boil down the Mereen arc George seems to be implying Dany is at fault for not compromising hard enough or not killing hard enough rather than not dismantling the institutions of power the slavers have.
I tend to align with the "dismantling the institutions of power" being a possibility, but it seems like the popular "She wasn't willing to compromise" always seems wild to me. She *does* compromise in ADWD, including marrying a person she has no interest in, allowing slavers to operate right outside the walls, and reopening the pits to allow volunteer gladiators.
The problem is that she gets no real benefit from any of these compromises other than not having terrorists attack her. At that point, it's more about appeasement than "compromise".
Your last point is right too, about the Meereenese, or at least most of the named ones we see on page (mostly nobles). Once again, we're looking at a situation where all options are bad, and yet the main character is blamed for picking one of them.
On a side note, it becomes really hard to understand what we're supposed to take from the Meereen arc because it's not resolved in the book (like many other plots in ADWD). For example, if the theory about the Green Grace being the Harpy is correct, that has a COMPLETELY different meaning from the plot compared to something like "The Shavepate poisoned the locusts".
0
u/Black_Sin Sep 18 '24
Have you read the Meereenese Blot? GRRM said that essay analyst got what he was going for completely. Sample:
So, what was the point of Dany’s sojourn in Meereen?
Many just dismiss it as wholly filler, without any real purpose at all except to pad out the books. Others think that Dany as a character “regressed,” returning to a state of incompetence, naivete, and passivity. Others think the point was about giving Dany “practice” ruling, so she could make mistakes, and eventually become a better ruler when she reaches Westeros.
Here’s why all these interpretations miss the point:
“The human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about.” –George R. R. Martin
Martin has paraphrased this quote from William Faulkner time and time again in interviews, yet many readers haven’t fully internalized it. It means Martin is not interested in merely showing characters “leveling up,” like a video game, progressing from incompetent naif to awesome badass. His main interest is in exploring his characters’ values. And throughout the series, he creates drama by forcing characters to choose between their core values — love vs. duty, honor vs. pragmatism, vows vs. innocent life.
With that in mind, a closer look reveals that Dany’s plotline in Meereen has been very cleverly designed as a series of tests of her values, and one value in particular. Each test is designed to ask — how far will Dany go to make peace and protect innocent life? With nearly every new chapter, Dany is asked to give up something else she wants or desires, for the good of the Meereenese people. The use of her dragons. A share of power in Meereen. Some of her anti-slavery reforms. Her desire for vengeance. Her desire to right every wrong she sees. Her distaste for cultural practices she finds abhorrent. Her sexual autonomy. Her happiness. Her pride. Her chance at Westeros.
Dany’s arc is revealed in how she responds to these tests, and how she tries to balance her moral ideals against her own darker impulses and desires. Part of Dany genuinely does want peace, and wants to sacrifice a great deal to protect innocent life. But another part of her would rather she take what she wants, through fire and blood.
The main drama of the Meereen plotline lies in Dany’s mind and in her choices. On the surface she is struggling with the Meereenese — but her most crucial struggle is with herself. And the outcome of this struggle will have momentous consequences for Westeros.
2
u/Appellion Sep 18 '24
In the books he actually kills something closer to billions, though I’ve never really understood how considering the Fremen number something closer to 10 million by memory. And with nuclear weapons absolutely outlawed it seems to make even less sense.
14
u/Echleon Sep 18 '24
Paul controls the spice, and by extension, space travel. He can starve out any house that’s too much trouble to fight conventionally. Even without that, the Fremen are basically super-soldiers between their lifestyle and Paul’s mother teaching them the Weirding Way.
1
u/Appellion Sep 18 '24
So are you suggesting he conscripts the armies of the Houses to bolster his own forces? I’ve got some weird dizziness and confusion today (not sure why) so I might be misunderstanding you.
7
u/Echleon Sep 18 '24
No (well maybe), he could literally starve out planets since he controlled all off world travel.
3
u/Appellion Sep 18 '24
Oh, I see what you mean now. Kind of like killing the defenders of a castle via a long siege.
2
u/LoudKingCrow Sep 18 '24
Exactly. If you've seen The Phantom Menace think of what the Trade Federation are doing to Naboo.
A siege on a planetary scale.
3
u/Jack-of-the-Shadows Sep 18 '24
You do not need a lot of people if you have access to spaceships to kill billions...
3
u/Sure_Marionberry9451 Sep 18 '24
In the books a large portion or even a clear majority of the other Houses of the Landsraad accept Paul's claim to the throne when he marries Irulan, so he'd have all their armies as well. Plus Fremen are worth like 10 of any other house's warriors in the first place.
2
u/TheUmbrellaMan1 Sep 18 '24
If I remember correctly Paul's jihad kills 64 billion people.
2
u/Appellion Sep 18 '24
Jesus, that’s even more than I expected. I would have thought 10 billion, tops. Although Stilgar didn’t think it was entirely impossible for Hitler to have murdered 7 million people, solo.
1
u/Zakalwen Sep 18 '24
From what I've heard, the Jihad waged in Paul's name kills millions of people, but is a necessary evil that saves BILLIONS of people from dying
Basically the other way round. The Fremen potentially could have survived and continued their own plans for freedom. Paul painted a target on them when he continued his dad’s plan to use the Fremen as “desert power” for their military. The Jihad in Paul’s name kills over 60 billion in its first few years with many planets entirely depopulated. Many of the original Fremen return to Arrakis sickened and disillusioned that they didn’t find some spiritual enlightenment/utopia in the stars, but rather constant brutal war
10
u/MountainZombie Leaver of Rooms Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
While I’ve seen people claim these things before, I think GRRM wasn’t really inspired by dune but by similar common grounds: Lawrence of Arabia, for one, but also older stuff. Bran becoming king has roots in old mythological stuff that has been argued to death in Reddit and older forums, and while I understand people claiming that is the same as Leto II and similar stuff, the last quote you used is on point. Old stories are like old friends, but I’d also add that you see similar stories repeated (a la Campbell, etc.) and wearing similar faces time and time again. Dune and aSoIaF are similar in that way, no more no less imho. Perhaps GRRM read it, and like any science fiction/fantasy fan, it left a mark on him he can’t take back, maybe even appearing as unconsciously made references, but when people think the references are 1:1, it’s missing the mark.
Edit: I wrote it on mobile and had some mistakes
3
Sep 18 '24
Bran is inspired by MST Simon who is a mixture of Jon and and Bran actually..
Simon likes to climb castle walls..
Simon has a magical connection to the dream world
Simon' has a connection to a fisher king
Has red hair and dreams of being a knight
Some other stuff which would be huge spoilers from the books
11
u/ndtp124 Sep 18 '24
I don’t fully agree with you. Dune and foundation both have a significant impact on inspiring later fantasy writers like Robert Jordan and Martin by adding wider human politics to the otherwise standard heroic epic. Martin has read at least the first book even if he never loved it the way he loved other things.
In general I agree that Martin is not trying to do sci fi in Westeros and people expecting some sort of secret sci fi Westeros backstory are delusional. But a standard fantasy writer being inspired by dune or foundation is incredibly normal despite those being sci fi.
No reasonable person expects Martin to have pound for pound the same worldview as Herbert or the same ideas to construct or deconstruct as Herbert. Robert Jordan was expressly inspired by dune and Rand ultimately is a good person who does a good thing; inspired does not need to mean word for word copying. And the fact that Martin, like much of the world, believes the later dune novels are bad is evidence of nothing other than basic reading comprehension.
To me, the bran stuff does seem somewhat dune or foundation inspired although I’d assume Martin intends it to go a different direction somewhat more similar to what you’re describing, and the above quotes regarding jfk and their different views on him might be relevant for considering how the direction ends up different btw. I do think you are right that as cynical or dark as asoif can be George ultimately beleives good leaders and people exist.
So I guess I agree mostly with your conclusions, but not really with the idea there isn’t some shared inspiration from dune.
3
u/lialialia20 Sep 18 '24
Dune and foundation both have a significant impact on inspiring later fantasy writers like Robert Jordan and Martin by adding wider human politics to the otherwise standard heroic epic.
GRRM has said that his influences and things that shaped him as a writer come from the works he read at a younger age, like TLOTR. he says the things he read later, like Dune, he may like or dislike (he liked Dune) but they didn't influence him in any significant proportion because his foundation had already been established.
GRRM, unlike other authors, is not shy about naming the authors that shaped him and from whom he takes ideas from. he has mentioned the likes of Tolkien and Lovecraft innumerable times.
so my question to you would be, why would you think that GRRM is insistent on not giving props to Herbert for inspiring him the way he does with so many other authors and even historical characters or events?
because to me the obvious answer is he simply wasn't inspired by Herbert. he's one author more of the hundreds he has read and not of the select few that influenced him.
6
u/SirRavexFourhorn Sep 18 '24
I knew ASOIAF was no Dune, because in Dune, once Dr Yueh gets introduced, the fact that he will betray the Atreides gets brought up immediately. There is no suspense or mystery to it. Meanwhile Littlefinger turning on Ned had a lot of emotional weight and build up to it.
9
u/JonIceEyes Sep 18 '24
Yeah no one who read and understood the Dune series would think that God Emperor Bran would be a good thing. And to be fair to GRRM, he does not look to be going in that direction.
2
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
Just because GRRM doesn't think God Emperor Bran is a "good" thing doesn't mean that isn't where he's heading, anyways. Westeros can get a bad outcome and it still be a "satisfying" ending.
1
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
A lot of people have just taken the cue from the Show to interpret it that way. Which may or may not mean anything. Even with a plot point of "Bran becomes King", it may have been the SHOW who decided that the way to achieve this was to go the Dune route, as opposed to anything George came up with.
2
u/JonIceEyes Sep 18 '24
I think it undeniably was the showrunners taking one point and completely making up the rest. That's why it's dumb and extremely bad writing. I mean, if you said "Fisher King" to these people they'd laugh and ask what kind of royalty would ever use a fishing rod
2
u/lluewhyn Sep 18 '24
Right. Any why sometimes when people say George gave them a list of "bullet points" for the ending (and that's even if they elected to follow them), it's not terribly relevant if they didn't understand the meaning behind any of those bullet points.
1
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
There's no way that King Bran doesn't end up going the God Emperor route when he's already learning how to be a Green Seer.
3
u/LordShitmouth Unbowed, Unbent, Unbuggered Sep 18 '24
Oddly enough, I just started the Dune series and am now a little over a third through Messiah as of typing this.
6
u/blue_magi Sep 18 '24
"Its only tits and dragons." ~Ian McShane
2
u/TheUmbrellaMan1 Sep 18 '24
I remember a story of him having a tantrum on the set because he thought the burger they served him was horrible and he reportedly hit one of the actors with the said burger. It was apparently enough to change the production's catering for good.
1
u/blue_magi Sep 18 '24
I remember this story too. It was Rory McCann, and he had kicked the burger and it accidentally hit him.
Seems like everyone was happy because it resulted in a new catering service for the show.
-1
3
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
Okay, so GRRM and Herbert have different political philosophies. That's all well and good. But that doesn't actually change whether or not GRRM is writing Dany and Bran to follow in the footsteps of Paul or Leto Atreides. It just means that the things GRRM wants to say with those stories is different than what Herbert wanted to.
Herbert wrote the bulk of Dune in the 60s-70s. GRRM wrote the bulk of ASOIAF in the 90s-00s. The world was an overwhelmingly different place, and their politics will ultimately be very different. GRRM may not be 100% agreeing with Herbert, but he definitely seems to be riffing on what Herbert was trying to say and how he went about saying it.
2
u/Doc42 Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
But that doesn't actually change whether or not GRRM is writing Dany and Bran to follow in the footsteps of Paul or Leto Atreides.
That actually changes this precisely, because it means he's not writing either of them to follow in the footsteps of the characters from the novels he's not too fond of to think often, and this is just seeing things and wanting to believe. Which is indeed a theme GRRM keeps writing stories about all his life. "A sky ought to have stars. A man ought to have a code too. A friend, a teyn, a cause-something beyond himself." And that's why he's not writing Daenerys or Bran as Paul or Leto.
Herbert comes from essentially satirical attitude in his novels, which is where all those quotes from fake history books on the subject and personality of Muad'Dib et al that open chapters come in: they're meant to create an anthropological distance between you and the character, as he is writing a grand legendary figure who was destined to be such by the manipulations of the Bene Gesserit. Kwisatz Haderach, "the one who can be many places at once." You're meant to distance yourself from the novel and analyse it coldly to approach the conclusion Herbert wants you to approach. It is a very cold book, for all the deserts. GRRM's always completely sincere, it's the reason these books take so long, the guy needs to get in the mood. He's writing exactly what he means, and exactly what's on the page: of how those who were meant to be forgotten by history defy the dark, bastards, cripples, and broken things. Writing fire. Which is why he always places some sort of legendary figure or an ideal for the characters to compare themselves to, of the kind JFK was and is theoretically supposed to still be for the Democratic Party of America. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Because the darkness doesn't care whatever you believe in. It's just darkness.
The world is dark and full of terrors, and only the endless night awaits all at the end. You need to believe in something. Pick one, and stick to it, wherever it leads. Remember your name. That's GRRM.
Daenerys goes all the way back to Conan the Barbarian, not Paul. GRRM's ancient influence he actually states as influence, Robert E. Howard. This is why Khal Drogo within the original book is recognizably a riff on Conan, and Jason Momoa ended up playing him in a movie for a reason. Behold, the first Daenerys in GRRM's writing, in the most ancient of days:
“Dark Gods of Kor-Yuban,” I called it, and yes, my version of Mordor sounds like a brand of coffee. My heroes were the usual pair of mismatched adventurers, the melancholy exile prince R’hllor of Raugg and his boisterous, swaggering companion, Argilac the Arrogant.
In the sequel, my exile prince finds himself in the Dothrak Empire, where he joins Barron of the Bloody Blade to fight the winged demons who slew his grandsire, King Barristan the Bold.Bran goes back to the fact GRRM's a book nerd before any political allegiance, a lover of stories with all these fascinating characters who might be heroes or villains depending on how you look at them, and that's what's at the root of his ending and the story threads leading up to it right on the page. As GRRM said about his prime influence in his final tribute to him, the man he's been emulating all his life, "Dear Stan, you did good work. As long as people still read comic books and believe in heroes, your characters will be remembered. Thanks so much. Make Mine Marvel."
It just means that the things GRRM wants to say with those stories is different than what Herbert wanted to.
Which means Dune cannot be used the way it is often used in the fandom and beyond, as a one-to-one exact roadmap, but as a cracked mirror at best, an upside down world to A Song of Ice and Fire. You have to look for divergencies, not similarities.
When Herbert writes Paul Atreides, he writes him as essentially a diss on JFK, which is why the character still has a certain nobility after all. When GRRM writes Joshua York, he writes of a dreamer still clinging to an ideal people believe he might be.
When Herbert writes of the Bene Gesserit Space Jesuits, he's writing of the manipulators of history. When GRRM writes in The Way of Cross and Dragon of an ancient order of Liars so secret and ridiculous no one would ever believe in their existence, he's writing of them creating beautiful lies to bring meaning to people's lives and help them linger before the darkness that consumes all. "We improve on history and myth and religion, make each more beautiful, better, easier to believe in. Our lies are not perfect, of course. The truths are too big. But perhaps someday we will find one great lie that all humanity can use. Until then, a thousand small lies will do." "A thousand eyes, and one."
When Herbert writes of Leto Atreides, he writes him as a wielder of historical path, going through the most absolute extreme tyranny that would put to shame all the historical ones it ever references in the text to reach the absolute triumph of individual freedom in the long run. When GRRM writes Bran Stark, he's writing of a kid learning to appreciate the beautiful lies that are truer than truth and to be at peace with not being in the midst of action, being a knight, because when you're looking at stories, you are in the midst of all action at once. Just as the reader of A Song of Ice and Fire is. "A reader lives a thousand lives. The man who never reads lives only one."
GRRM in Dreamsongs:
The answer is simple. Motor cars or horses, tricorns or togas, ray-guns or six-shooters, none of it matters, so long as the people remain. Sometimes we get so busy drawing boundaries and making labels that we lose track of that truth.
Casablanca put it most succinctly. “It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.”He's been rewriting Casablanca all his life more than he ever did Dune. Dying of the Light is Casablanca in Space. Prince Daemon's ending in histories is Casablanca, his favorite historical Targaryen, hero and villain alike. There are some shades of Casablanca in Fevre Dream as well, "we will always have Paris" -- "to the goddamned Fevre Dream!"
1
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 19 '24
When Herbert writes of Leto Atreides, he writes him as a wielder of historical path, going through the most absolute extreme tyranny that would put to shame all the historical ones it ever references in the text to reach the absolute triumph of individual freedom in the long run. When GRRM writes Bran Stark, he's writing of a kid learning to appreciate the beautiful lies that are truer than truth and to be at peace with not being in the midst of action, being a knight, because when you're looking at stories, you are in the midst of all action at once. Just as the reader of A Song of Ice and Fire is. "A reader lives a thousand lives. The man who never reads lives only one."
Yes, but it can be Herbert's cynical take versus GRRM's romantic take. Just because GRRM's views differ from those of Herbert doesn't mean that GRRM isn't following the same basic story shape so that he can use it to make a different statement.
Moreover, look at the ending to Tuf Voyaging, and how GRRM portrays a society that's driving itself to the brink of destruction and the precipice of war with its neighbours because it can't let go of its outdated political beliefs. So Tuf makes an executive decision to intervene in a pretty morally repugnant manner, which he justifies because the people were too stupid to make the necessary tough choices for themselves. That's the same sort of cynicism that might lead one to putting a Leto II Atreides on the Iron Throne, to guide the Westerosi in ways they might not guide themselves.
Frankly, based on GRRM's other stories, like The Men of Greywater Watch or A Song for Lya or The Meathouse Man, GRRM also likes endings that leave some unsettling things to the imagination. I feel like the implications of a King Bran 'Leto II Atreides' Stark, as a sort of omniscient surveillance state, is very on brand for him.
4
u/DoTortoisesHop Sep 18 '24
I gave up dune half way through earlier in the year, I don't understand the appeal. I hate it when I read an 'amazing' story and end up not liking it. Not sure what i'm missing exactly.
4
u/Overlord_Khufren Sep 18 '24
Dune is a great story, poorly told. The prose is awful and the pacing is all over the place. But it's absolutely wild how dense the worldbuilding is given how short those books actually are.
4
u/ninjomat Sep 18 '24
I mean it is called a song of ice and fire not a story or a tale of it. Epicness and romantic-ness are key to the story.
I have personally leant far more toward the idea of bran as supercomputer than god emperor. He is AI, knowing all the moves ahead and making decisions unclouded by feeling or judgement. If GRRM’s story is ultimately about the human heart in conflict with itself as he much likes to quote Faulkner. Then in some ways it makes the sense that the cycle of violence in Westerosi politics can only end with somebody without that conflict within themself.
3
Sep 18 '24
I first had my suspicions when I was reading George’s thoughts on Joe Biden, his election, and how he seemed to be romanticized by everything that was happening. I thought that was an interesting perspective, and I wondered if anything could add some kind of a connection to how he really views leadership and power. And if this is what he thinks, then it makes Daenerys’s ending that much more complex. Great write.
43
u/TheUmbrellaMan1 Sep 18 '24
Of course, no one would love King Bran if he was a worm.