#i tried to avoid this going into other tags but i'm girding my loins nonetheless

[transdimensional-void]

jonsa inspired by “children of dune?”

thanks to the anon that messaged @esther-dot recently about parallels with the dune series, i’ve been thinking a lot about what grrm might have taken away from dune in terms of themes, reactions, plot points, and more.

i began thinking today about the end of the third book, children of dune, which rounds out what many think of as the dune trilogy. there are additional books in the series, but these are set far in the future, so children of dune can be seen as the end of the story of paul atreides which the first book began.

warning: spoilers for the entire dune series will follow, for anyone trying to avoid those!

plot summary

children of dune focuses on paul’s twin children, leto ii and ghanima atreides. when paul overthrows the imperial house corrino to become emperor himself, he marries the former emperor’s daughter, imperial princess irulan, to cement his rule. however, paul refuses to sleep with her, so at the end of his reign, his heirs are the children of his beloved concubine, the newborn twins leto and ghanima (side note: ghanima is actually the older twin).

because the twins are babies at the point when paul gives up his throne, his younger sister alia serves as regent for them. due to alia’s own tragic circumstances, she becomes an enemy to the young twins. so, the twins, who possess prescient powers similar to their father’s, plot to ensure their own safety and leto’s accession to the throne. at the age of nine, leto runs away and, while in hiding, undergoes a transformation that sees his body fuse with a mystical creature. he leaves behind his sister, ghanima, who is vulnerable to use as a pawn in others’ plots to take the throne.

eventually, leto re-emerges, having gained new skills and resolve during his time in hiding, overthrows his tyrannical aunt, and marries his sister ghanima to prevent her being used as a pawn to challenge his claim to the throne. however, the transformation leto underwent rendered him incapable of fathering children, so while he is married to ghanima, he has no intention of consummating the marriage. instead, he makes an agreement with farad’n corrino, a member of the former ruling dynasty which leto’s father had overthrown, to become ghanima’s concubine and father the future atreides line.

farad’n’s mother, a princess of house corrino, had been attempting to murder leto and ghanima to restore her own house to throne. farad’n grows disgusted with his mother’s attempts to gain the throne, leading him to join with the atreides. the agreement between leto, ghanima, and farad’n allows the atreides and corrino lines to merge their claims, thus resolving the conflict over the throne. 

the story is, of course, more complex than that. it is especially important to note that leto and ghanima are hesitant to take the throne initially because they have foreseen the great personal sacrifice it will require. leto ultimately makes a sacrifice of his own personal happiness and personhood to ascend to the throne, not because he desires power or wishes to carry on his family’s legacy but because he and ghanima have foreseen a terrible threat to humankind in the future and have a plan to use the power of the throne to guide humanity to safety.

parallels

as i considered this story, the parallels to the tv show ending of king of westeros bran/queen in the north sansa began to jump out at me.

like leto, bran goes missing at a young age and during that time undergoes mystical training and a physical transformation that involves fusing with a magical creature, the weirwood tree. he eventually re-emerges, changed forever, and takes the throne. while the tv show didn’t do much with bran’s powers, the books have strong hints that they are in some way tied to one of the greatest threats to humankind, the others. (another side note: i tend to see more parallels between leto ii’s “golden path” and the targaryens’ “prince that was promised” prophecy than what’s going on with bran, especially in terms of how leto feels that mass levels of human suffering are the price he has to pay to ensure humanity’s survival. but of course grrm isn’t going to copy another story beat for beat but instead will grab the parts that resonate with him and use them to tell the story he wants to tell.)

however, bran cannot have children of his own. the tv show claims that this makes him a better candidate for the throne (???), but of course in the books it will likely be seen as a disadvantage because of the lack of a clear succession. if king bran does end up needing to designate an heir, the most likely candidate would be a descendant of his eldest living sibling: his sister, sansa.

sansa, like ghanima, starts out under threat from a tyrannical regent (multiple ones actually: cersei, tywin, lysa, littlefinger) but becomes a ruler alongside her brother at the end of the tv show. bran and sansa of course do not marry, but they are co-rulers of the continent of westeros. and, just like ghanima, sansa is bran’s only real option for an heir from his own family (arya theoretically could marry and have children, but if she’s not even in westeros at the end of the story like in the tv show, that won’t do him a lot of good)--and if bran and sansa don’t plan carefully for sansa’s future marriage and the succession of both crowns, the next generation could see the continent break out into war again.

so, much like in the case of leto and ghanima, bran has a vested interest in ensuring sansa marries someone who won’t be a threat to either of their claims.

and, you know, just like in the case of farad’n corrino, a surviving member of the dynasty bran and sansa’s father helped to overthrow could prove to be a major threat to the stability of bran’s rule. so, say, if there happened to be a targaryen still hanging around westeros somewhere at the end of the story, wouldn’t bran have a strong interest in ensuring that that person’s descendants didn’t become a threat to his rule? (especially if said targaryen had a female relative who was a princess of the former ruling house who threatened the lives of bran and/or sansa while trying to take the throne back for her own dynasty...)

just spitballing here, but if there were a male targaryen still in westeros, and sansa’s children are going to be bran’s heirs anyway, then marrying sansa to said targaryen would actually be a smart method for smoothing the way for sansa’s child to accede to the iron throne. her children would have a claim through both their mother (as the current king’s sister) and their father (as a member of the previous dynasty).

conclusions

we don’t know for sure whether grrm was influenced by the dune series, but there are some striking parallels between the journey leto ii undergoes and bran’s own journey. it is very possible grrm wrote bran in response to the character of leto ii.

there are also some interesting parallels in the struggle for the throne which children of dune sets up and the resolution of said struggle, at least in terms of the tv series’s ending. the extremely critical question of succession which the tv show so carelessly glossed over in its ending is at the heart of the resolution that frank herbert wrote for children.

that resolution involves: 

1.) a boy with superhuman powers choosing to take the throne after gaining resolve through a mystical transformation

2.) sibling marriage to protect a woman’s claim from being usurped

3.) siblings as co-rulers 

4.)  the monarch designating his sister’s children as his heirs because he can’t have children of his own 

5.) marriage between a man of the former dynasty and a woman of the current one to resolve a dispute over the throne and hopefully belay future ones

6.) a man agreeing that his children will bear their mother’s family name rather than his own

we don’t have absolute confirmation that grrm plans to make bran king of westeros, but there is some evidence that this is one of the plot points he shared with the showrunners. the question of grrm’s interest in or influence from dune aside, the example provided by children of dune’s leto/ghanima/farad’n trio shows that if bran becomes king of westeros (and sansa and jon both live to the end of the series), a sansa/jon pairing is almost guaranteed to be the best way to secure the succession.

(and if jonsa was originally meant to be part of the story but was scrapped in later seasons, that could explain why the question of succession post-bran was addressed so sloppily by the tv show...)

Edit: now with a part 2