Why/how does Kublai only have one legitimate son?

Yeah, I chalk it up to artistic license. You're right -- historically, Kublai had several wives (I think three?) and many children. (In Season 1, doesn't Kublai call Chabi is his "favorite" wife, implying that he has multiple?) But having just one heir simplifies the plot. Can you imagine how much more convoluted the plot would be if Kublai had multiple legitimate heirs. I think the writers wanted to show a balance of conflict -- both from within the Khan's 'family' and from external threats (the Chinese rebels, the Christian West). And having multiple sons, from a screenwriter's standpoint, would've opened too many other possibilities for disloyalty from within the empire. Besides, having only one heir makes it easier for us to see the tensions b/w all the Khan's "sons" -- blood and adopted, legitimate and bastard.

He talks about his other wives a couple times in season 1. One wife is old so probably no kids from her, one is ugly and then Chabi

I've been actually looking this up, but there's very few information about it. Apparently he did only have one true heir, Jingim (I think it's not the correct spelling though), Jingim died years before Kublai did, and when Kublai died, his grandson became the ruler, and I think the dynasty ended after that.

So yeah, it really was true, he only had one heir.
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Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not.

In real life, he and Chabi had another son who died young. And some daughters, I believe.

He had children with concubines too but they weren't official heirs. But they had powerful military positions (as shown in the show).

This isn't that uncommon. Genghis Khan had only four sons with his Empress, Borte. And one of those may not have been his (she was abducted and raped and then rescued by him and the timing of the birth was ambiguous). He had many other spouses and many children by them. But none of them were allowed to be Empress. And only his four sons by Borte were allowed to inherit. So, a son who may not have been his by his beloved Empress was in line to inherit but his sons with other wives could not.

Their family structures were kind of complicated. And the empress really did have a huge amount of power. That's not made up for the show. So that even considering allowing your other kids by other women to be in line may not have even be worth the struggle.


Guess who has two thumbs, speaks limited French and hasn't cried once today? This moi.