(spoilers everything) the eastern game of thrones

The asoiaf story is told from the perspective of planetos's west. While our focus has been on the threat from beyond the wall, we know that the long night was a worldwide phenomenon. The legends of the song night come from Westerns, Valeria, YiTi, and numerous other cultures. There is clearly some intended symmetry between the Wall in the west and the Five Forts in the East, but I think the symmetry goes beyond that. I've heard some people even speculate that Jon will be the hero for the west, while Danny will head east and be the hero there. I'm not so sure about that.

A major theme of the series is that the people of the seven kingdoms waste lives and resources playing the game of thrones while ignoring the real threat: the Others.

One of my favorite sections from the World of Ice and Fire was the one that outlined the current events of YiTi, specifically that there are currently 3 claimants to the the title of emperor. So While the west is fighting the war of five kings, the east is fighting the war of three emperors. Just like the west, they are fighting among themselves while ignoring the real threat, in their case from beyond the five forts.

It made me think that there is a parallel story to the one we are reading, with its own heroes and villains, that we will likely never know about. Here's the little that we know:

The three claimants to the empire of YiTi are

Bu Gai - The current Azure emperor who rules from the traditional capital port city of Yin

Pol Qo - Known as the Hammer of the Jogos Nhai, this YiTish general claims to be the first of the Orange Emperors, setting his capital in the inland city of Trader Town

The Sorcerer Lord of Carcosa - We don't know his name, only that he claims to be from the line of the Yellow Emperors, making him the 69th Yellow Emperor. Carcosa itself is so little known that it might be called a city of Legend along with the City of the Winged Men.

The Five Forts - between the empire of YiTi and the Gray Waste sit five massive forts, large enough to garrison 10,000 men each. Whereas the Wall was build to defend against the others, the Five Forts were build to defend against the demons of the Lion of Night. We don't know if there is any eastern equivalent to the Night's Watch.

This is all we know, and I doubt that we will know much more by the end of the series. I personally like the idea that there is a struggle as dense and tangled as asoiaf happening on the other side of the Bone Mountains. I would love to see this story one day, where we get hints of the story we know filtered though exoticism and false assumptions.