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The Five Forts


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The equivalent to the Wall idea is an interesting one, but has a fairly sizable distance issue for any kind of literal connection. Grab a Known World map and you can see the Five Forts share latitude with Dorne in addition to being a very challenging distance to travel even allowing for on dragon back. Being closer to the equator then to the poles, or even tropical, isn't really suggestive of countering the Others.



At the same time not sure I discount it entirely because there is something to this east-west symmetry unless all the Azor Ahai stuff comes to nothing.



Though btw I believe its an error that there is any indication of the Night's Watch having pre-Andal records still around. They were old but not that old, the Lord Commander count is apparently an oral tradition doubted in the books and I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. And the durablity is extraordinary but there are at least some nominal cases that have been around longer like Casterly Rock.


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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.

I'd kinda agree with you that it's deffinatly not such a strong connection at all, and that it needs more passage's from the text that give simmilar hints of there being connections between Westerosi family's and Yi-Ti'ish emperors. Such i also admitted i n my post. I posted it anyhow because i thought it to be interresting nevertheless and people seem to folow me in that.

And while i can understand youre general scepticism, on certain details you touched i have to say though that one has to consider "kernel of truth".

I deffinatly find the idea that Starks being of the same lin of those who build the 5 forts in Essos to be interresting. A few considrations play into this: First of all, all Westerosi are technicly Essosi immigrants, as the first men came to Westeros by the arm of Dorne. That some of this immigrants might have come from Yi Ti then seems probable, it being the great empire of dawn.

Brandon the builder is a mysterious man too. He seems to be associated with everything of complex architecture in Westeros. The wall, Winterfell, Storms end, and he is even mentioned for what regards the construction of the hightower, though not the base of it. Where did Brandon originate from? We have no idea, but it leaves load of questions. He was young when he was at the court of Doran, and not nessecarily Lord of the North by then yet, as that title seems to have been created when he constructed Winterfell. Who was Brandon then to rise up to such prominence to be able to build Winterfell, or to be at the court of Doran at a young age? Who were the Starks before the came Starks, seeing as that Brandon kinda "became" the first Stark? Obviously Brandon had a certain prominence even when hadn"t build the wall and Winterfell yet.

I associate Brandon with the last hero and/or the original AA either being him or offspring of him. Brandon must have lived in the time of the first AA or just after it, since it seems he was young at the time the battle of dawn was concluded, and him being prominent even when not having a castle.

And Azor Ahai came from the east. But again, all first men came from the east. All in all i think it''s not that unreasonable to speculate that the 5 forts and the wall might have been build by members of the same family, as if brilliance in construction passes on geneticly.

What i really find important with such considerations is what conclusions i might draw from it. The idea might be fairly worthless if it doesn't lead to getting more understanding trough it. The association with pearl and "pearl emperor" seems to me one of "purity" and direct lineage to the lord of light+lion of the night. That the Starks might be of such an epic lineage might actually fit well for what regards the story i guess, and give reason to the Azor Ahai background. All other gems then might be considered a corruption upon that purity, the narrative of the pearl emperors legend then kinda being that people nowadays arn't that "pure" as they used to be in the dawn age.

In that respect, the emergence of bloodstone then seems to indicate a very serious corruption, and on the surface that possibly is indicative for the emmergence of dragons?

If it is so then that the Starks are of the same lineage of those who build epic constructs all over the world, still, why was the wall build with ice? It's not like it's brandon's favourite construction material seeing as Storms end and Winterfell was build in stone. Why not build the wall in stone just like all great constructs and indeed like the 5 forts?

Was it that ice was so much more an obvious building material? The wall weeps and needs regular maintanance for that fact, and by that token an exceptional hot streak could melt half of it away you'd think. Maybe price has something to do with it although they didn't seem to mind costs when they build such things like the 5 forts. So maybe there can be certain reasons then why it needs to be ice, like:

- It might not be possible to build the wall in stone there. That is to say, certain special/magical technique's that might be employed to build things like the 5 forts elsewhere might not work at the location where the wall is.

- Building it out of stone would make it weaker. In this regard magical ice would be a better material to stop those others than stone. That would suggest though that the nature of the fight is different around the wall than around the 5 forts.

yes i'm deffinatly just throwing out ideas here, for what it's worth. But if there is any important question that i might have drawn from this excersise in loose associations, is the question why the Wall and the 5 forts are build out of such distinctivly different building materials whereas they seem to serve the same function.

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I suspect the Wall is made of ice simply because it's the most obvious building material in the north if you need to make a wall the width of the country. Stone might be tougher but the amount of stone required would need a massive amount of labour and quarrying even to extract the raw materials alone. Then you need mortar etc to stick it all together.


Ice would have been plentiful and also easy to build with and to repair as all you need is water to freeze any repairs.


It's along the same lines as why igloos are made of ice, they could be stone but it's so much easier to use what is sitting around than digging materials out of the ground.



Five Forts are stone because there appears to be no other material around in that area.



One thing i'd love to know is does the Wall move? A glacier that big would be constantly moving downhill by several feet a year thanks to gravity. Does that mean the Wall does the same? I imagine the ends of it are pretty treacherous areas!


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One thing i'd love to know is does the Wall move? A glacier that big would be constantly moving downhill by several feet a year thanks to gravity. Does that mean the Wall does the same? I imagine the ends of it are pretty treacherous areas!

If the Wall moved several feet a year, the castles of the Night's Watch would've been crushed underneath it in the millennia since it was built. I think it's fair to say that it stays in the same place; just explain it by being magic.

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The Wall should melt in any case, if not for magic. Crops can be grown in the Gift, and forestland extends for 600 miles North of it. The Wall can only be explained by magic. It is in no way equivalent to a natural glacier.

I definitely agree with that, and I suspect there is a stone wall at the core. Fused black stone? Perhaps.

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It is well known that plot magic glue can only be created by roasting Squishers in dragon flame with the appropriate amount of smoke and salt. On the night of a full moon, it goes without saying.

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It is well known that plot magic glue can only be created by roasting Squishers in dragon flame with the appropriate amount of smoke and salt. On the night of a full moon, it goes without saying.

That is why you should never drink with a Dornishman under the full moon.

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"what IS this, it tastes really weird.."

"Oh don't worry, just drink it, it well get you fuuuucked up!"

*glug glug*

"Ok guys, so what WAS that?"

(general rawkus laughter)

"YOU JUST DRANK SQUISHER PISS BRO!!! AH HA HA HA!!"

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@Waters Gate, you bring up the in-universe legend of "Bran the Builder built EVERYTHING!!!1" a bit in that post. In interviews (or SSMs, can't remember), GRRM has said that people attribute impressive structures to him, simply because he's the most well-known ancient builder of things. It's in the vein of "Bran built this impressive thing long ago. Over there is another old, impressive thing. That one must have been built by Bran too".



With that in mind, I think a few of your points sorta fall out of validity.


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There is no proof in TWOIAF of the Five Forts being built by the GEotD. There are speculations as to which civilisation may have built it and the speculation range from pre-GEotD via the Pearl Emperor to the Valerians. So, nothing should be taken for granted.

We can safely remove Valyrians from these candidates because nothing suggests that they existed east of the Bone Mountains.

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I'm puzzled now. Haven't you advocated a theory that the GEotD is where Valyrians came from?

Valyrians might come from there but they were not "Valyrians" back then. They were the ancestors of the Valyrians. The Five Forts cannot be built during the Valyrian Freehold era because if the Valyrian dragonlords reached there, there should be records and settlements pointing to a Valyrian existence there. We do not have such data.

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Valyrians might come from there but they were not "Valyrians" back then. They were the ancestors of the Valyrians. The Five Forts cannot be built during the Valyrian Freehold era because if the Valyrian dragonlords reached there, there should be records and settlements pointing to a Valyrian existence there. We do not have such data.

As I said, it is all murky.

Certain scholars from the west have suggested Valyrian involvement in the construction of the Five Forts, for the great walls are single slabs of fused black stone that resemble certain Valyrian citadels in the west...but this seems unlikely, for the Forts predate the Freehold's rise, and there is no record of any dragonlords ever coming so far east.

TWOIAF

However, this passage suggests that GEotD is not Valyria's predecessor.

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It's not really murky at all. The five forts were built before the Long Night, ergo, they had nothing to do with Valyria. What this means is simply that dragonlords existed before Valyria and built the Five Forts. The GEotD is basically the only candidate. If you want to call then ancient Asshaii instead that's cool, they didn't call themselves "The Great Enpire of the Dawn" I'm sure. But these are Asshai people here.

The Pearl Emperor IS part of the GEotD. So we are only given one candidate for who built them - definitely the GEotD, and specifically, maybe the Pearl Emperor.

Valyria seems to be descended from the GEotD in some way, given the hair color and dragon magic, but Valyria established itself sometime after the LN, just after Ghis got started, which was also after the LN.

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I would say that this passage indicates Valyria itself did not come so far west, it doesn't really say anything about whether the Valyrians descended from the ancient Asshaii / GEotD.

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It's not really murky at all. The five forts were built before the Long Night, ergo, they had nothing to do with Valyria. What this means is simply that dragonlords existed before Valyria and built the Five Forts. The GEotD is basically the only candidate. If you want to call then ancient Asshaii instead that's cool, they didn't call themselves "The Great Enpire of the Dawn" I'm sure. But these are Asshai people here.

The Pearl Emperor IS part of the GEotD. So we are only given one candidate for who built them - definitely the GEotD, and specifically, maybe the Pearl Emperor.

Valyria seems to be descended from the GEotD in some way, given the hair color and dragon magic, but Valyria established itself sometime after the LN, just after Ghis got started, which was also after the LN.

There is no mention of the GEotD having dragons. There is a mention of dragons existing in the 14 flames and there is also a mention of the first Valerians being shepards. And the only shepard nation mentioned on Planetos are the Lhazareen who believe in the Great Shepard (AGOT). Both Valyrians and the Lhazareen have been quite conveniently omitted from TWOIAF. So, I do not see any proof for your conclusion that the GEotD knew anything about dragons, nor any link between them and Asshai. If you mean that the link is the statement that the BSE practiced dark magic and prompted the LN, that has nothing to do with Five Forts. They had been built long before the BSE walked the Planetos.

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There is no mention of the GEotD having dragons. There is a mention of dragons existing in the 14 flames and there is also a mention of the first Valyrians being shepherds. And the only shepherd nation mentioned on Planetos are the Lhazareen who believe in the Great Shepard (AGOT). Both Valyrians and the Lhazareen have been quite conveniently omitted from TWOIAF. So, I do not see any proof for your conclusion that the GEotD knew anything about dragons, nor any link between them and Asshai. If you mean that the link is the statement that the BSE practiced dark magic and prompted the LN, that has nothing to do with Five Forts. They had been built long before the BSE walked the Planetos.

It's extrapolation based on the fact that we have structures that appear to have been built with the same dragonfire method that the Valyrians used, yet they're architecturally distinct from Valyrian structures and are dated to before the Valyrian's taming of dragons and the rise of the Freehold. And as far as we know, the only civilization we know of that lived in that region that long ago was the Great Empire of the Dawn.

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