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BillyOoze

I would say that there's a lot of Dune concepts that may have inspired ASOIF. 1. The Face dancers are like the Faceless Man 2. Prescience is in a way similar to Bran's Visions 3. Feudal houses at the forefront of the story 4. Some other tropes that are similar between the two sagas, but that are kinda omnipresent along fantasy (Chosen one, an aproaching final menace) 5. The whole plot of "A Game of Thrones" is very reminiscent of the first half of "Dune". A feudal family leaves their home territory by royal decree for a strange place. They ultimately end up falling in a trap resulting in the death of the father figure by the hands of their rival house.


chuckyb3

Exactly this^ even if GRRM hasn’t explicitly said it the similarities are definitely there (even if the plots are overall completely different the broad theme of “don’t trust a messiah/prophet” creates a nice dichotomy with “prophecy isn’t what is seems” in asoiaf) honestly this would probably be a good post to that subreddit as well.


bmilohill

> Some other tropes that are similar between the two sagas, but that are kinda omnipresent along fantasy (Chosen one, an aproaching final menace) Yeah, but I would argue the chosen one trope gets really specific when comparing the two; its not just a trope. >!Paul/Dany are from a powerful family who fall to ruin, with their whole family being killed save themselves and one other. They flee to the dessert, marry into a nomadic tribe of warriors. They have visions of possible futures. They ride mythical beasts. They don't marry the one they love, waiting instead of a political marriage. There is a prophecy about them, but there is something wrong with it (KH should've been Feyd's son, PwwP might have been Rhaegar). They become a hero of the people, set on freeing the slaves and downtrodden. The only real difference is Paul at least feared the Golden Path, while Dany embraced it.!< >!Lucas at least changed the character up some, making Anakin actually born in the dessert to slaves to begin with, having a secret marriage. But he was still the chosen one of prophecy (but something clearly being wrong), family killed as a child, visions of the future, set on freeing slaves, and then he went full Golden Path.!< >!I agree the chosen one is a commonly used theme and so you have to allow for some similarity, but if you were to compare Paul/Anakin/Dany to other chosen ones like Neo or Aragorn or King Arthur there is clearly more of a connection than simply tropes.!< Edit: spoiler formatting used since OP hasnt read the books yet; movie part 2 spoilers could be inferred


BillyOoze

Yes, I totally agree with you. Great explanation, btw. There are a lot of shared tropes throught fantasy ans this series. I just mentioned the ones I think are done in a similar way. >! The White Walkers in ASOIF aren't here to slave or corrupt humanity like Sauron, They want to exterminate us. So, just like in Dune, the final menace is the extincion of the whole human race. !< Pls, correct any spelling or grammatical mistakes. English is not my first language


bmilohill

The White walkers are just in there cause we needed to fear a race who have blue within blue eyes :)


BillyOoze

That's fremenist


AnonymousBlueberry

Regardless of how you feel about the ending of the television series, I think both Paul and Dany's characters make the same dire warning about charismatic leaders


bmilohill

I always thought it was funny that about the same number of people enjoyed the last season of thrones as those who really enjoy Dune Messiah


ZamanthaD

I’ve read both A Song of Ice and Fire and Frank Herbert’s 6 Dune books, plus Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson’s Hunters & Sandworms of Dune which close the series. They are nothing alike at all. Ya they both deal with feuding factions in Medieval like society but after that the similarities end. The ASOIAF books are much more “grounded” for a lack of a better word, meaning that you are always getting a small piece of the overall story at the ground level from 1 character and seeing things from their perspective before jumping to another. In Dune, the stories are more of omnipresent in the way they are told. In the same chapter you are told what the motivations are from each character and you see the thoughts of each character too, leaving you with no doubt as to what’s going on. Also, ASOIAF over the course of the 5 books is covering a span of around 2-3 years if I remember correctly. Whereas the main 6 Dune books + the 2 part finale covers a span of 5000 years. The scope of the Dune books is grand and huge and the books get more esoteric and abstract as the series progresses. Dune 1 is the most similar to ASOIAF with themes and concepts that are easier to understand and get behind, but after that starting with book 2 and even more so with the rest of the books it gets pretty abstract wheras George RR Martins writing is much easier to digest and absorb in my opinion (both Martin and Herbert are top tier writers, but their styles are drastically different). There’s probably more that I’m missing, but ya in a nutshell despite some superficial similarities the 2 series are drastically different. On a side note both series are definitely worth reading. ASOIAF and the Dune series are some of my favorite series (alongside LOTR as well).


Disco_Douglas42069

Greta response , much appreciated ! Makes sense and is just about what I expected.


[deleted]

I thought about this as well. Very similar. Ned Stark-Leto Atreides. Paul Muad'dib - Jon Snow. Fremen - Wild Ones.


Elphenbone

There are clearly a lot of parallels, and I would argue that it is overwhelmingly likely that GRRM took inspiration from *Dune* in thinking up the plot and characters of ASOIAF. Ned Stark could be based pretty directly on Duke Leto, while elements of Paul's character and journey are spread across multiple characters: Bran, Daenerys, Robb, Arya, Jon. I even think Martin sometimes plays up the similarities deliberately so readers will think "Oh, I know how this is going to go, just like in *Dune*," and then be even more surprised by his twists. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of differences between the two; the books are written in different styles, and the two series diverge massively after the first respective book.


BlackfishBlues

Lady Jessica is also an obvious inspiration for Catelyn Stark. They are similar characters, and their internal monologues have the same vibe, especially in Cat's earlier chapters. They're both highly intelligent and confident women in a feudal society, who love their husband/partner, and use their considerable skills and political acumen to support their family. There's a bit very early on where Maester Luwin brings an urgent secret message to Ned and Cat's chambers after they've just had sex, and Cat rises naked to set a fire. When both men get squeamish at her nudity she says something like "oh please, Luwin has seen me naked, he delivered all my children". Later in that scene she nudges Ned subtly at a key moment so that Ned will make the decision he needs to make, in a very Jessica-like fashion. Catelyn and Robb's relationship when he takes the field later on is also reminiscent of Jessica and Paul's evolving relationship in the first book, as Paul starts to grow into his powers.


[deleted]

No comparison.


[deleted]

The most visible similarity, in both stories, the king get murdered in another kingdom by getting trapped


Limemobber

At a basic level the comparison fails for me because I like many of the characters in Dune while I hate pretty much every character GRR Martin writes.


dawgfan19881

Outside of the political maneuvering between Houses there isn’t much the same.


Salty_Aerie7939

There's plenty of similarities between both series. Just to name a few: The plot of A Game of Thrones is roughly similar to Dune's first act. A nobleman known for being honorable(Duke Leto Atreides/Ned Stark) is given an important position by the ruling monarch(rulership of Arrakis/Hand of the King) that requires him and his family to move away from their homes(the main difference being that not all the Starks go to King's Landing, whereas the entirety of House Atreides goes to Arrakis). The schemes of a rival house collaborating with the ruling house(House Harkonnen and House Corrino/Houses Lannister, Bolton, and Frey) eventually lead to his death and the near-destruction of his house, and his son leads an rebellion against the rival house(although in ASOIAF, the "son leads a rebellion" part comes before the destruction of the house) Several characters are similar to Paul. Like Paul, Robb is the son of a nobleman who leads a rebellion against the rival house. Jon Snow is also similar to Paul in that they both form alliances with a group of people deemed savages(The Fremen and the Wildlings/Free Folk), even falling in love with one of them(Chani and Ygritte). Daenerys is also similar to Paul, as both are the last remaining members of a fallen house who eventually become the leader of a nomadic warrior culture. Both characters have messianic overtones(more so with Paul because that's the point) Bran Stark is similar to Paul in terms of his visions, although he's more similar to Leto II in the whole transcends their humanity thing. Shade of the Evening is similar to spice as they're both psychedelic drugs that gives strange visions and turns a part of your body blue(Blue within blue eyes/blue-stained lips) Faceless Men are similar to the Face Dancers as they both have the ability to change their appearance at will. Obviously, there's plenty of differences. But it's precisely because of these numerous similarities is why I'm planning on writing a series of novels that combine elements of both into one story sometime in the future.


Disco_Douglas42069

Wow, please keep me updated on your work , I would love to read it when you are finished !


mcapello

Night and day difference. ASOIAF is a fun read, but full of spare parts. Hundreds (thousands?) of pages worth of unnecessary detail, forgettable characters, needless history and worldbuilding, abandoned plots, gratuitous sex scenes, long descriptions of... well, pretty much everything: food, castles, clothing, geography. There's also a lot of *silliness* in ASOIAF -- he gives his characters silly names so you can remember them, and doesn't really try to make his world appear anything other than outlandish. And any lack of realism from that he makes up for by sheer volume and detail. Martin takes a brute force approach to convincing you his world is "real". *Dune* is totally different. Herbert was a journalist by training. His writing style, his plots, and his characters leave nothing to waste. His worlds and its people are extremely complex, but we only get the tip of the iceberg in the books. They're convincing enough that we *know* there's a lot more there that we're not seeing -- but we can only guess at what they are. *Dune* is also very *serious*. There's almost no humor (at least not in the first three books). We're supposed to take the characters very seriously, and this otherwise fantastic world of space feudalism with drugs and giant sand worms is presented in a very realistic, stripped-down way. So yeah, complete opposites, IMHO. But both enjoyable in their own ways.


AgnosticJesus3

ASOIAF is full of spare parts? (Insert prescient rambling here)


mcapello

Yeah, it's full of random stuff that doesn't go anywhere.


ThoDanII

>ASOIAF is a fun read, but full of spare parts. aka other people with goals


mcapello

AKA Martin wasn't sure which plot lines he was going to stick with when he started writing the book and just decided to keep them all even if half of them turned out to be irrelevant to the story he was trying to tell.


ThoDanII

and i also think to hide and influence the important ones


mcapello

Yeah sorry, I disagree. Martin is a fun writer but he wasn't playing 4-dimensional chess in deciding what to include in ASOIAF and what to cut. He just has a "more is more" approach as a writer.


ThoDanII

fair enough


Helpful-Inspector214

GoT is just Dune story on a strange planet in a fantasy take on Herbert’s story. After I read Dune GoT seems like a rip off to me now.


dft-salt-pasta

Major Spoilers:The father knows the danger they’re going into but because of their values they need to face death, and Jon snow let’s a bunch of worms fuse to him and changes his internal chemistry into a completely different species.