Edit: Can we please calm down on the toxic mean girl comments if at all possible. I value my mental health as it's not been good over the years. I don't need unnecessary hate. You can disagree with this post and leave it and move on, but there's no need to be cruel. It would suck to have been the one to solve this only to have it sullied by people acting like this.
I appreciate that's a big claim in the title - but I think I may have done it. This seems too much to be a coincidence. This is with some inspiration from Glitching Queen's video uploaded yesterday. Worth watching that first, she explains how to get the word CODA from the Der Eisendrache books, and what a coda is etc. I just felt like there was more to it than where she got to.
So, supposing you have the prerequisite knowledge from her video, then you apply this further -
- Line 3: Dee
- Line 18: Sage
- Line 22: Teal
- Line 23: Draco
In the image, look at where the CODA count finishes on Line 23 (Draco, Myth vs. Fact). The word immediately before that final comma is Draco, which is an anagram of CODA + R (hint at DECODER D-CODA). On Line 18 (Sage, Wisdom for the Ages), the word before the comma (Sage) is an exact anagram of the last word in the title (Ages). This seems to be two ways to point to a clue - anagram the words immediately before the four commas.
The period on Lines 3 and 23: Look at the punctuation across all 24 titles. Only two lines in the entire list contain a period, and they are the first and last comma lines.
Line 3: John Dee, Illuminated De-Resurrectionist. (The only title that ends with a period)
Line 23: Draco, Myth vs. Fact (Contains an internal period)
Dee + Draco = A DECODER
Seems to be giving us a hint we're onto something. So -
Combine the 16 letters from those four words with the commas (D-E-E + S-A-G-E + T-E-A-L + D-R-A-C-O):
Combining Dee (D-E-E) with the CODA inside Draco (D-R-A-C-O) gives you the 6-letter verb DECODE, with the letters A and R left over.
Solve the remaining 10 letters: Combine that leftover A and R with Sage and Teal (A, R + S, A, G, E + T, E, A, L = A, A, A, E, E, G, L, R, S, T). Those 10 letters form A GREAT SEAL.
Putting all 16 letters together gives the complete message with zero leftover letters -
"DECODE A GREAT SEAL"
Yes, those 16 letters will decode into about 10 other phrases that make sense if you run them through an anagram solver, but this phrase is the only compelling one.
I feel like this is hidden in plain sight. An anagram allows for that. Enciphered texts looks like enciphered text, these book titles, although some odd, don't look like code, so it's not reasonable to look at them as Cyphertext. I don't think the IEE is a cypher, because that'd look too obvious. This is literally hidden in plain sight, with a new, novel way of coding the message that Jason has invented that doesn't look like a cypher, but uses a unique mechanism to hide a message.
A coda is a final part, chapter, or scene that happens after the main story ends to wrap things up or share what happened next. Jason's coda is this hidden message, his legacy, that carries on what happens next. He doesn't want it to be found, because that would in a sense close out the story. However it does conclude the coda.
The word comes from the Latin word "cauda", which literally means "tail", it is an ending.
Yes it's not some grand message. However, Jason told us not to set our expectations high. This is beautifully simple and elegant when you work the solution.
I'd also refer to Jason's few hints on this. He mentions books - The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. It teaches that you achieve victory by mastering discipline, recognising patterns, and remaining completely adaptable to change. This fits with the unique "decoding" process here.
Also, Here Be Dragons: The Scientific Quest for Extraterrestrial Life by David W. Koerner & Simon LeVay. It explores the boundaries of what science can prove versus what remains hidden in the vast unknown. A core theme is human psychology: people naturally assume that missing or hidden knowledge must conceal something incredibly important. The elegance of this solution is that it is entirely unimportant. It means something to me, but if I’m right... It means everything to him.
I believe Jason's grand masterpiece was THE GREAT SEAL, and I have DECODED it.
