East: the strangest places in Game of Thrones?

What strange places lie to the far east and south of Westeros? What are the dangers of Sothoryos and the Basilisk Isles? What lurks in the Shivering Sea? What does the Great Empire of the Dawn and the Five Forts reveal about the Long Night and Azor Ahai? What are the dark mysteries of Asshai?

Art credits:
Images from The World of Ice and Fire used with permission from Random House.
Images and video from Game of Thrones are the property of their creators, used here under fair use.

Other images:

Special thanks to Patrons Reverend Xandria, Cameron Weiss, Jason Rattray, Ryan Steele, Eric Louis-Dreyfus, Triangle Wine Company, Harry, Chris Cole, Paul Lesiak, Hank Lero, Zach Gordon, DscoDan, Shane Veglia, Cregg Riley, Joel Soucy, Ali Almuhanna, LVE, I think a Faceless Man ran up and said 'Valar Morghulus' before running off?

0:00 Intro
0:36 Sothoryos
2:58 Basilisk Isles
5:37 Sarnor
7:28 Shivering Sea
8:33 Ib
10:35 Thousand Islands
11:40 The Bones
12:49 Jogos Nhai
14:21 Yi Ti & Great Empire
15:57 Five Forts
17:38 Leng
19:08 Asshai

[TheGreatAndEpicMe]

I like how Westeros seems more like the more historical Medieval city, while Far Eastern Essos places seem like something out of Dark Souls

[themcknox]

"The basilisk isles are best avoided"

Everywhere on this planet seems best avoided tbh

[jessemcdonald]

I think it’s important to keep in mind when thinking that Westeros must be very boring in comparison, that George RR Martin does a very realistic job of portraying foreign lands. A lot of these stories are speculative, and prone to exaggeration by sailors and adventurers. Westeros probably gets the same treatment in those distant places

[erickonami]

This video made Melisandre more cool to me. She literally went to the edge of the world and saw terrors behind imagination. Being in that darkness would make anyone worship a lord of light and pray for a sword that gets set on fire.

[antonioalvarez]

My god, this stuff is interesting as hell. They seriously need to make a spinoff series about these cities and lands

[Precil]

The CGI budget can only handle 1/12th of RR. Martin’s imagination.

[LordChevonlier]

It's strange to me just how mystical the setting of asoiaf is. In the books (especially the first few) it feels like a typical medieval setting with little magic

[emily_kn]

Imagine you are living in YiTi and you here about the war of the five kings…. All the things that are happening in westeros are so insignificant for these people in the east. I hope we maybe find out more about Asshai in the next book, maybe Euron will talk about it or something like that.

[dawud]

So your telling me that Cersei was excited to get elephants when there were zorses, wyverns, fricking dinosaur, unicorns, and etc?

[Mizukageize]

"Those events are crucial for the last season of game of thrones"

Haha-no.

[gustavocentella]

"All of this is gonna play out in the final season" oh boy, how naive we were back then

[strabe]

It’s just amazing to me that all of this came from one man’s imagination. The world of Game of Thrones is so large it’s hard to imagine one person thought of all this.

[brohan]

A land far to the south where everything wants to kill you. So Sothoryos is Australia?

[Arigatex]

It's kinda sad going from this cool, interesting lore to the actual last season of GOT

[shiveringmousepodcast]

I was wondering where I had read about “greasy, black stone carvings” when you mentioned Lovecraft and *BOOM* Call of Cthulhu!

[BigBeakEntertainment]

It's interesting to see the similarities between the mythology of Yi Ti and Westeros. It would be hilarious if the stories of Yi Ti were just the stories of Westeros refracted west across the entire world back to Westeros.

[dh]

I didnt realize Dany travelled such a great distance between S1 and 2

[tejpatel]

"When an ice dragon dies, they melt so nobody can find them."


Well isn't that convenient...

[PabbyPabbles]

The East has been more mysterious since the start. In the first ASoIaF book, first they give you two maps, "The North" and "The South", showing most of Westeros up to the Wall with place names and stuff, then you get the prologue and two Stark chapters, and then BAM there's a Dany chapter in Pentos and if it's 1996 you might spend an hour squinting at the two provided maps before realizing it's not on them

[MaraJadeSkky]

18:48 I'm dying at the GRRM quote🤣