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References and Homages


Ran
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From Dune-

The conflict between the Starks and Lannisters reflects the conflict between House Atreides and House Harkennon. The character of each house, with the Starks/Atreides being more noble and the Lanns/Harks being so up their own asses about financials is similar, not to mention the sigil of Atreides is a wolfs head, just like on the GoT show.

Furthermore, a trusted power calls the head of House Atreides to take over the spice operation on Dune (or Arrakis, or Rakis), just as Robert calls Ned to KL to be his Hand. Only difference would be the trusted power in Dune did betray them and good ol Bobby B would never do that to Ned.

Arya is sort of reflecting the training Paul Atreides got with the Fremen, with getting training from Braavosii (Forel, the Faceless), both very skilled in blades. Along with taking drugs (melange for Paul, blind milk for Arya) in the training.

Bit of a creepy thing, the Fremen have glowing blue eyes... Like the wights. Mayhaps the Faceless Men are going to somehow help the wights. Perhaps not even intentionally.

I could go on for a bit about more similarities that could be considered references/homages, but you get the picture lol. Recently re-read the first Dune, forgot how good it is

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From Dune-

The conflict between the Starks and Lannisters reflects the conflict between House Atreides and House Harkennon. The character of each house, with the Starks/Atreides being more noble and the Lanns/Harks being so up their own asses about financials is similar, not to mention the sigil of Atreides is a wolfs head, just like on the GoT show.

Furthermore, a trusted power calls the head of House Atreides to take over the spice operation on Dune (or Arrakis, or Rakis), just as Robert calls Ned to KL to be his Hand. Only difference would be the trusted power in Dune did betray them and good ol Bobby B would never do that to Ned.

Arya is sort of reflecting the training Paul Atreides got with the Fremen, with getting training from Braavosii (Forel, the Faceless), both very skilled in blades. Along with taking drugs (melange for Paul, blind milk for Arya) in the training.

Bit of a creepy thing, the Fremen have glowing blue eyes... Like the wights. Mayhaps the Faceless Men are going to somehow help the wights. Perhaps not even intentionally.

I could go on for a bit about more similarities that could be considered references/homages, but you get the picture lol. Recently re-read the first Dune, forgot how good it is

You'll find more on this in the references and homages thread...
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Uthosian - I think I pointed out the similarities to what happens with the Atreides on Arrakis and to the Starks at KL before, but isn't the Atreides' sigil an eagle? Anyway, I also pointed out the similarity between Bran's metamorphosis as a child to that of Leto Atreides II, and the similarity between an empire founded on sandworms to an empire founded on dragons. There are reasonable similarities between the lives of Paul and Daenarys, Arya sounds similar to Alia, 'direwolves' is obviously based on 'D-wolves', the Fish Speakers bring to mind the Unsullied, the Face Dancers recall the Faceless men, etc. And there's the resurrected characters in ASOIAF as compared with gholas. And the sexual imprinting of Melisandre as compared to that of the Bene Geserrit and also the Honored Matres. There's even a bit in one of the Dunk and Egg tales where one of the Fremen...sorry, the Dornish...speaks of not weeping to not "waste water on the dead" in order to point out this is all deliberate, because the phrase is straight from Dune. All we need is for the main characters to start going off on long Tao-Buddhist libertarian monologues to further hammer through the point.


Edited by The Killer Snark
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I was about to mention the House of Atreus. You beat me to it. There's obvious structural similarities between ASOIAF and the Dune series too, though. Both are POV based, the first three Dune novels are House based, both feature character thoughts as dialogue in italics, feature mostly grey characters (including heroes) and operate on an 'anyone can die or get grievously injured' basis that is more gruesome in ASOIAF but sometimes more preposterous in Dune.


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If we are at Dune...I never read the books but watched the Lynch movie, and there was this extreme focus on the eyes. A theme grrm has aswell. He is completely fixated with the eyes of characters. Every slightly important character has his eyes described or not at all described and thus is mysterious.


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Happens constantly in the novels. When Duncan Idaho returns as Hayt in Dune Messiah he has metallic eyes which are commented on throughout, because the supposition is that the Bene Tlielax who brought him back gave him false eyes so that his feelings and inner motives wouldn't be known. Actually, Herbert is not big on physical character description. You get identified with the characters mainly by their hair and eyes in spite of the fact that melange addiction has made most of the major characters' eyes pure blue.


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Happens constantly in the novels. When Duncan Idaho returns as Hayt in Dune Messiah he has metallic eyes which are commented on throughout, because the supposition is that the Bene Tlielax who brought him back gave him false eyes so that his feelings and inner motives wouldn't be known. Actually, Herbert is not big on physical character description. You get identified with the characters mainly by their hair and eyes in spite of the fact that melange addiction has made most of the major characters' eyes pure blue.

Yeah he really wasn't, your right about the sigil being an eagle not wolf I think the wolf was associated with the swordmasters though? Someone who's allied or under the command of House Atreides at least I seem to recall. The Bene Tielax remind me of the Children somewhat also, as they're small and non threatening in appearance but the difference is the Bene Tielax for sure did that to not seem like a threat, the Cotf we aren't quite sure of their own motivations yet.

sounds a bit like glamour stuff with the eyes.

and with that addiction thing: Qarth, obviously.

Yeah that was the first thing I thought of when I read of the Warlocks the first time since I read Dune in middle school for the first time.

Even more so with the glamour though, the Face Dancers were beings engineered by the Bene Tielax that could take on the total appearance of a human. Very much like a sci fi glamour haha. Or the Faceless Men, since they usually killed the person and took their place, VERY similar to the quite obvious notion of Pate being taken out and replaced by a Faceless.

If Dany morphs into a half dragon half human it'll be God Empress of Westeros hahaha

Edited by Ulthosian Stark
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Another thing about ASOIAF and Dune is the 'show, don't tell policy', which I think is most notable in how Herbert and Martin treat the backgrounds of certain characters. Surely I can't be the only person who's ever noticed the following:



Lady Fenring attempts to distil the Harkonnen gene-flow by impregnating herself to Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, but you're never actually told what happens to her child. In Children of Dune Prince Farad'n shows up. It is heavily implied that he is not Wensicia Corrino's biological son and was adopted from the Fenrings. He has obvious Kwisatz Haderach breeding stock potential. Jessica senses something is weird about him from the first but can't quite place what it is. He winds up married by Leto II to his sister. If you then skip a novel you're told that Leto II subsumed the Harkonnen bloodline into that of the Atreides descendants who were produced from his breeding programme, which obviously started with his sister. Hence, Farad'n Corrino is actually Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen's son. Leto II must have sensed that, so he wished to wrest control of the Harkonnen bloodline away from House Corrino. None of this is explicitly mentioned. In fact, I'm the only person I've so far come across who's been able to work this out. Very, very similar to the way that Martin plays around with L+R+J and possibly also the possibility of Tyrion being a Targ.


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It was bungled to a fairly large extent, and I'm a big fan of David Lynch, but it also suffered coherence-wise in the cutting room. The Sci-Fi Channel miniseries was much more faithful, which I found very good, though it was variably received: but they made a bit of a mess of adapting Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.


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There is a book called The Palace of Love written by Jack Vance. I think GRRM is a fan of him?


In Chroyane, Garin's palace is called Palace of Love (not sure if it was Garin's palace I imagined it as open to the public because of Tyrion's thoughts, anyway).


It might be a coincidence given the sexual nature of the Rhoynar.


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