Dune Family Tree — The Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino and Fenring Networks

The Dune family tree, without the guesswork

Dune is a story about empire, but its family tree is where the empire becomes personal. Duke Leto Atreides accepts Arrakis because refusing would dishonour his house. Jessica disobeys the Bene Gesserit because she wants a son, not a breeding result. Paul survives the trap and becomes the thing his father feared: a messiah with an army. The Harkonnens, the Corrinos and the Fenrings each believe they are managing the Atreides; each is managing a future they cannot see.

This archive treats the Dune family tree as data, not decoration. Every parent, spouse, sibling, adoption, mentor and loyalty connection is a named source-target pair in a file. The interactive networks draw those pairs; an image model is never asked to invent a line. The result is a family tree you can check, filter and argue with — which is the only kind of Dune family tree that makes sense.

The families

The Dune story is not one tree. It is four separate claims on the same imperial centre. The Atreides ask what honour costs. The Harkonnens ask who owns the future. The Corrinos ask who is allowed to sit on the throne. The Fenrings ask what a marriage is for when both partners serve a larger design. Each network has its own cast, its own centre and its own way of failing.

The Atreides line

Leto and Jessica raise Paul on Caladan, then accept Arrakis as a fief and a trap. Alia is born after the fall, pre-aware and already carrying the family's dead. Paul joins the Fremen, takes Chani as his companion, and has twins, Leto II and Ghanima. The network has ten characters and twenty explicit edges; the gold parent lines and the rose spouse lines carry the whole tragedy.

The household is part of the family. Gurney Halleck trains Paul, Duncan Idaho dies covering his escape, and Thufir Hawat is captured and turned into a test of loyalty. Those mentor and loyalty edges matter because they are what the Harkonnen attack destroys first.

The Harkonnen line

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen rules through debt and spectacle. His half-brother Abulurd is disgraced; Abulurd and Emmi's sons, Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha, are raised as rival instruments. The Baron takes Feyd as his chosen heir while keeping Rabban as the blunt instrument that makes Feyd look civilised. Piter de Vries designs the Arrakis trap; Dr. Yueh is coerced into opening the Atreides door.

The network has eight characters and fourteen explicit edges. The crimson blood line runs from Abulurd and Emmi to their sons. The adoption line from the Baron to Feyd is the one that decides the succession. The loyalty lines to Piter, Yueh and Shaddam are all transactions, and each one has a price.

The Corrino line

Shaddam IV holds the throne through Sardaukar force and a Bene Gesserit marriage. Anirul gives him daughters; Irulan turns history into a political instrument; Wensicia schemes for Farad'n. The Emperor authorises the attack on Arrakis because he fears a popular Duke more than he fears the Harkonnens.

The network has eight characters and thirteen explicit edges. The parent lines from Shaddam and Anirul to their daughters are the spine. The marriage line from Paul to Irulan is the one that ends the Corrino monopoly. The Fenring marriage sits at the edge, close enough to the throne to be dangerous.

The Fenring line

Hasimir Fenring is the Emperor's cousin, confidant and reluctant assassin. Margot Fenring is a Bene Gesserit agent sent to test Feyd-Rautha and report on the Harkonnen bloodline. Their marriage is a posting as much as a partnership. Around them: Shaddam, Irulan, Paul, Feyd, Jessica and Anirul.

The network has eight characters and thirteen explicit edges. The loyalty line from Hasimir to Shaddam is the centre. The mentor lines from Margot to Irulan and Feyd are the order's quiet work. The rivalry between Hasimir and Paul is the one edge that could have changed the ending and did not.

Seven profile cards

The archive includes seven archival profile cards, each made with the character-profile-card skill: Leto, Jessica, Paul, Baron Vladimir, Feyd-Rautha, Irulan and Margot. Each card is a full dossier, not a portrait: identity, house, role, likes, dislikes, personality, a COMBAT radar, a TACTICS radar and a five-line introduction. The cards sit inside their family sections on the hub, so you meet Leto with the Atreides, the Baron with the Harkonnens, Irulan with the Corrinos and Margot with the Fenrings.

Five design sheets

Five characters also have full design sheets made with the character-design-sheet skill: Leto, Paul, Baron Vladimir, Irulan and Hasimir. Each sheet shows front, side and back views at the same scale, four expression heads, detail callouts for face, hands, boots and signature ornament, and a small colour palette. The sheets are visual references, not posters: they exist so the same face and costume can be reused across the networks and the poster.

One family poster

The family poster is made with the character-relationship-poster skill. It shows seven named people exactly once: Leto, Jessica, Paul, Alia, Chani, Leto II and Ghanima. It draws exactly nine edges: Leto and Jessica as spouses; Leto to Paul and Alia as parent; Jessica to Paul and Alia as parent; Paul and Chani as spouses; Paul to Leto II and Chani to Leto II as parent; and Leto II and Ghanima as siblings. The poster is a summary, not the source of truth. The source of truth is the data file behind the networks.

Why a network instead of a poster

A poster is a picture of a family tree. A network is the family tree itself. In the four interactive networks, every edge is a source-target pair with a relation type, so a line cannot drift to the wrong person. You can switch views: the whole family, the blood and twins line, the household and teachers, or the Arrakis plot. You can click a face and read the relations around it. You can use it on a phone. None of that is possible when an image model is asked to draw a family tree from prose.

The poster still matters, but it has a different job. It is the one-glance summary: seven faces, nine correct edges, a legend that separates parent, spouse and sibling. It is composed from the same cast and the same pairs, so it cannot contradict the networks. That division of labour is the whole point: the networks hold the argument, the poster holds the image.

Frequently asked questions

Is this canon?

Novel canon first. Kinship follows Frank Herbert's six Dune novels. The 2021 and 2024 films are marked film-only where they change or invent detail; the 2000 miniseries is not used. Every note in the world says which canon it belongs to.

Why four networks?

A single graph with every character becomes unreadable. Four networks keep each argument legible and let you start from the question you actually have: inheritance, the Harkonnen grudge, the Imperial throne, or the court shadow.

Is Paul married to Irulan?

Yes, but it is a political marriage that seals the transfer of power. Chani is his companion and the mother of the twins. The archive draws both bonds separately rather than collapsing them into one line.

Are the films the same canon?

No. The 2021 and 2024 films are marked film-only where they change or invent detail. The archive does not treat a film invention as a novel fact, and it does not use the 2000 miniseries at all.

Why does the poster have only nine edges?

The poster is a summary, not the source of truth. Seven people and nine edges are enough to show the spine of the Atreides tragedy. The networks carry the full set of relations, including mentor and loyalty edges that would clutter a single image.

Can I use it on a phone?

Yes. The networks are built to be dragged, zoomed and tapped. The hub and the archive page reflow to a single column, and the images are served as compressed files.

Open the archive

Start with the hub, then open the Atreides network and click a face. If you want the Harkonnen argument, open the second network. If you want the throne, open Corrino. If you want the court shadow, open Fenring. The poster is there when you need the whole family in one glance.

Built with four skills

Every layer of this archive was built with four named skills: relationship-network for the four interactive graphs, character-relationship-poster for the family poster, character-profile-card for the seven dossiers, and character-design-sheet for the five turnaround sheets. The data, the drawings and the pages are separate on purpose, so each one can be checked against the others.