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The Five Forts


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The main question about the five forts is who built them, and when? They are made out of the same fused black stone that the Valyrians used, and the same as we find in the mysterious Hightower Fortress on Battle Isle, a pre-LN structure, implying that dragonlords existed prior to Valyria and prior to the Long Night. That seems important.


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A lot of people, me included, think that part of the conclusion of the series will be "righting" the seasons, i.e. figuring out how to re-balance Planetos and thus causing the seasons to be normal lengths again. So in that case, no, the upcoming winter would not be as long as advertised.

i thought about that, too. but imo there should at least be one last long winter.

but i don't think we will get to see that

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The main question about the five forts is who built them, and when? They are made out of the same fused black stone that the Valyrians used, and the same as we find in the mysterious Hightower Fortress on Battle Isle, a pre-LN structure, implying that dragonlords existed prior to Valyria and prior to the Long Night. That seems important.

All I could come up with is the early dragons of Asshai. :dunno:

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All I could come up with is a really long essay about these and ancient dragonlords. ;)



That would be the Fingerprints of the Dawn essay below, although that one makes more sense if you read the other two astronomy essays first, but you can just dive in to that one if you want.


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All I could come up with is a really long essay about these and ancient dragonlords. ;)

That would be the Fingerprints of the Dawn essay below, although that one makes more sense if you read the other two astronomy essays first, but you can just dive in to that one if you want.

I'm on the 2nd one, lol. God's be good, there's so much to read about reading. Well done!

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I think the Grey Waste was the biological waste deposal site of the Great Empire of the Dawn. They were creating hybrid creatures and eventually dragons. Failed experiments like the winged-men, Shrykes, lizard-men and so on were dumped to the Grey Waste and the Five Forts were raised to prevent them invading their realm.

Hmm the Empire of Dawn may have created dragons using Wyverns and Wyrms. It is possible that they were experimenting with humans such that they wanted humans to have wings like dragons. These experiments are the winged men as you have said. They are said to have leathern wings and are able to fly. Perhaps the humans may have been mated with wyverns or dragons to make these winged men.

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I'm pretty sure the main point of putting the five forts in the Worldbook is to tell us that dragonlords existed prior to Valyria, and that they are from the east.

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Lord Mace Tyrell came forward to present his gift: a golden chalice three feet tall, with two ornate curved handles and seven faces glittering with gemstones. “Seven faces for Your Grace’s seven kingdoms,” the bride’s father explained. He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf.




I find this an interresting passage with perhaps having some sort of connection to the yi-ti'ish emperors although i'd say it's a bit of a long shot at that.


The passage kinda associate's 4 houses from Westeros vaguely with Yi Ti emperors of that gem. It is to say, one can understand why specificly gems like these would be used to represent those houses simply because of their colour. At the time when that gift is give, that being Joffrey's wedding, it's kinda interesting that he then dies of an amethyst where there was also an amythyst emperor.



Interresting in relation the five forts and wall then is that house Stark is associated with pearl here, the pearl emperor build the 5 forts and the Starks the wall.


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Lord Mace Tyrell came forward to present his gift: a golden chalice three feet tall, with two ornate curved handles and seven faces glittering with gemstones. “Seven faces for Your Grace’s seven kingdoms,” the bride’s father explained. He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf.

I find this an interresting passage with perhaps having some sort of connection to the yi-ti'ish emperors although i'd say it's a bit of a long shot at that.

The passage kinda associate's 4 houses from Westeros vaguely with Yi Ti emperors of that gem. It is to say, one can understand why specificly gems like these would be used to represent those houses simply because of their colour. At the time when that gift is give, that being Joffrey's wedding, it's kinda interesting that he then dies of an amethyst where there was also an amythyst emperor.

Interresting in relation the five forts and wall then is that house Stark is associated with pearl here, the pearl emperor build the 5 forts and the Starks the wall.

Wow interesting. There's no way that correlation between the GEotD and the major Houses is by mistake. I don't know what it is but just really think there's a major hint in the stories of the Great Empire as it relates to the story. There's something there.

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Since both the Lannister Lion and Tyrell rose are gold, they switched to the second colors for them. Opal does not sound like a good choice for the red Martell sun. But perhaps they wanted to make a contrast with the ruby lion. Similarly, the Stark direwolf is grey, not white as pearl.


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Lord Mace Tyrell came forward to present his gift: a golden chalice three feet tall, with two ornate curved handles and seven faces glittering with gemstones. “Seven faces for Your Grace’s seven kingdoms,” the bride’s father explained. He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf.

I find this an interresting passage with perhaps having some sort of connection to the yi-ti'ish emperors although i'd say it's a bit of a long shot at that.

The passage kinda associate's 4 houses from Westeros vaguely with Yi Ti emperors of that gem. It is to say, one can understand why specificly gems like these would be used to represent those houses simply because of their colour. At the time when that gift is give, that being Joffrey's wedding, it's kinda interesting that he then dies of an amethyst where there was also an amythyst emperor.

Interresting in relation the five forts and wall then is that house Stark is associated with pearl here, the pearl emperor build the 5 forts and the Starks the wall.

Hey, that's a great catch Waters Gate. I don't think that's coincidence. The Pearl Emperor reigned after the ascent of the God on Earth and built the Five Forts to keep the baddies away. The Starks set up one of the first kingdoms after the LN was ended (possibly by way of a heroic figure who then died) and built a wall to keep the baddies out.

I'm just polishing up the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods, which will trace the signs of GeoDawnian culture throughout the rest of the world. There are a lot of seeming connections between the Faith of the Seven and the CoSW, which I'm having a great time collecting. But by way of sneak preview, here is by far the strangest appearance of the GeoDawnian gemstones in the series proper:

Illyrio was reclining on a padded couch, gobbling hot peppers and pearl onions from a wooden bowl. His brow was dotted with beads of sweat, his pig’s eyes shining above his fat cheeks. Jewels danced when he moved his hands; onyx and opal, tiger’s eye and tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, jet and jade, a black diamond, and a green pearl. I could live for years on his rings, Tyrion mused, though I’d need a cleaver to claim them.

ADWD, Tyrion

So, is Illyrio a GeoDawnian revivalist? COSW cultist? Does he have oracles for hands? Strange, to say the least.

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I don't think their original purpose was to keep monsters at the bay, but yeah, it works like the Wall in the present.



Dunno who built it.





So, is Illyrio a GeoDawnian revivalist? COSW cultist? Does he have oracles for hands? Strange, to say the least.





He totally is. :dunno:


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Hmm the Empire of Dawn may have created dragons using Wyverns and Wyrms. It is possible that they were experimenting with humans such that they wanted humans to have wings like dragons. These experiments are the winged men as you have said. They are said to have leathern wings and are able to fly. Perhaps the humans may have been mated with wyverns or dragons to make these winged men.

Um. Um. Ummmm.

Winged men have leathery wings because GRRM (rightly) believes that mammals should have bat-like wings in fantasy as it's realistic.

Seriously guys stop with the human/something hybrid theories :bawl: :bawl:

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It's not a theory, TWOAIF tells us it happened at Gorgai (now Gorgossos). And there is a ton, a ton of evidence of aquatic humans breeding with humans, cotf breeding with humans, Others breeding with humans, lizard men, giants breeding with humans, the Tiger-woman bride of the bloodstone emperor...

This is George's thing, not a theory anyone else made up. I'm not even sure where he's going with it but it is all over the place.

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Hey, that's a great catch Waters Gate. I don't think that's coincidence. The Pearl Emperor reigned after the ascent of the God on Earth and built the Five Forts to keep the baddies away. The Starks set up one of the first kingdoms after the LN was ended (possibly by way of a heroic figure who then died) and built a wall to keep the baddies out.

I'm just polishing up the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods, which will trace the signs of GeoDawnian culture throughout the rest of the world. There are a lot of seeming connections between the Faith of the Seven and the CoSW, which I'm having a great time collecting. But by way of sneak preview, here is by far the strangest appearance of the GeoDawnian gemstones in the series proper:

Illyrio was reclining on a padded couch, gobbling hot peppers and pearl onions from a wooden bowl. His brow was dotted with beads of sweat, his pig’s eyes shining above his fat cheeks. Jewels danced when he moved his hands; onyx and opal, tiger’s eye and tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, jet and jade, a black diamond, and a green pearl. I could live for years on his rings, Tyrion mused, though I’d need a cleaver to claim them.

ADWD, Tyrion

So, is Illyrio a GeoDawnian revivalist? COSW cultist? Does he have oracles for hands? Strange, to say the least.

YES. Yes he 100% is.

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Hey, that's a great catch Waters Gate. I don't think that's coincidence. The Pearl Emperor reigned after the ascent of the God on Earth and built the Five Forts to keep the baddies away. The Starks set up one of the first kingdoms after the LN was ended (possibly by way of a heroic figure who then died) and built a wall to keep the baddies out.

I'm just polishing up the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods, which will trace the signs of GeoDawnian culture throughout the rest of the world. There are a lot of seeming connections between the Faith of the Seven and the CoSW, which I'm having a great time collecting. But by way of sneak preview, here is by far the strangest appearance of the GeoDawnian gemstones in the series proper:

Illyrio was reclining on a padded couch, gobbling hot peppers and pearl onions from a wooden bowl. His brow was dotted with beads of sweat, his pig’s eyes shining above his fat cheeks. Jewels danced when he moved his hands; onyx and opal, tiger’s eye and tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, jet and jade, a black diamond, and a green pearl. I could live for years on his rings, Tyrion mused, though I’d need a cleaver to claim them.

ADWD, Tyrion

So, is Illyrio a GeoDawnian revivalist? COSW cultist? Does he have oracles for hands? Strange, to say the least.

Its not a great catch its blue curtains.

Both these examples are only vaguely similar, which is the proof there is no symbolism. At least as far as the specifics of the gems mentioned versus the Dawn Emperors anyways. Everything can have symbolism, Mace's chalice has clear and obvious symbolism and some less clear but still there ones given what happens shortly after it shows up. But to associate it with some secret bonus information from the Worldbook as some kind of significant theme requires similiar clear an coherent matching.

Namely actually being similar and making a coherent set. Which for the Great Empire of the Dawn was: Pearl, Jade, Tourmaline, Onyx, Topaz, Opal Emperor, Ameythst & Bloodstone.

Even if we take the last two as symbolically special to exclude in looking for patterns when looking at these other two... where is the Topaz?

What's with the silver, the tiger's eye, and the ruby?

And all the other extras and omissions?

How does Dawn 6 or 8 match Mace's 7 or Illyrio's 12

Where is the consistency to make this a recurring motif?

There isn't any ergo there is zero significance. This barely ranks as vaguely similar, and present us with either GRRM has some inconsistent esoteric gem motif that can swap itself willy nilly and can only be understood via supplementary marterial... or he just occasionally likes to use words like "tourmaline" in writing.

I know what side Lord Occam has called his banners for.

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Well first off, you could certainly be right that it's coincidence, SolomonBlack. And I did call it the wierdest occurrence of the Great Empire of the Dawn gemstones. But on the other hand, I've tracked all the occurrences of two or more of these gems appearing together, and all of them seem to relate to dragons, Asshai, or something of that nature. If we are going to figure out what is coincidence and what is secret metaphor, we have to maintain a open mind and explore the possible connections before dismissing them as coincidence.

So in the case of Illyrio, what do we have to suggest possible connections to the ancient, pre-Valyrian dragonlords? Well, he does show up with the critical three dragon eggs, which he claims are from Asshai. Whether they are or not, he did both possess dragon eggs and give them to the right person, Daenerys. After he heard that they hatched, he helped her in many ways - sending capable defenders like Barristan and Belwas and advisors like Tyrion. He was trying to include her in his plans for his own (probable) son, fAegon Blackfyre, and in doing so was sending Dany an army. He sent her ships as well. He also follows R'hllor and the Red Temple, which fits with an association to the GeoDawnians or the CoSW.

So it seems there are reasons to at least keep an eye on him in this regard.

I'll also say that Indo think all of the gems on his rings have significance, or at least a possible one. I'm saving that for my next essay though. ;)

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And while Occum's razor spares very few in real life, we are talking George R. R. Martin here. This guy hides metaphors in everything bowls of spider crab soup to swords, mountains, and comets to the sigils and words of the a great houses. We certainly have to at least consider the possibility that Martin is drawing some kind of parallel when we find common symbols around a pair of things. Symbols are really the most honest thing in the books.

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