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So let's say Ashara Dayne IS Quaithe...how?


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Let’s assume Ashara Dayne is Quaithe. In this post I’m not really interested in debating whether she is or isn’t, but in considering and speculating how Ashara, a relatively normal young highborn lady, could have become Quaithe the masked shadow binder of Asshai.

Here’s my own theory.

I think that she did in fact jump from the tower, but that she survived impact with the water, was found and saved, but was not recognized by her rescuer. The results of her near-death experience were a completely disfigured face and the awakening of ancient powers in her blood. Both of these things motivated her to journey to Asshai and become Quaithe.

1. The Jump/Fall/Push

For my purposes it really doesn’t matter which it was. Whether or not she bore a stillborn (or live) baby, Ashara had plenty of reasons to be depressed enough to end her life. She was also on top of a high tower near the sea, which often equals high winds. It’s conceivable that she slipped or was blown off. Its also possible that, through her association with Ned & Jon or some other secret we don’t know about, she knew too much and was pushed. I lean towards the jumper theory myself, mostly because it keeps the tragic aspect of her story intact.

1a) Maybe she threw a mannequin off the tower, a la Vertigo….? No, I don’t think so. There is no indication of a motive for Ashara to want to fake her death. If she just wanted to study magic, she could have made up some excuse about wanting to travel to Braavos or something and then slipping off to another ship. Or she could have just run away/disappeared. Lyanna and Sarella seem to show us that a sufficiently willful highborn lady can get herself wherever she wants to go. Faking your death is pretty extreme, and there doesn’t seem to be any hint that a powerful person was after her or anything like that. Whereas there are tons of things to indicate that she might have been suicidal. Also, it seems really hard to sneak unnoticed from the top of a tower filled with people who know you well after tossing a mannequin off the top.

2. The Landing

I believe that when Ashara hit the water of the Summer Sea, she was severely injured but not killed. I also believe that one of her injuries resulted in the total disfigurement of her face. This is important for a couple of reasons: it would keep her from being recognized by her rescuers, it would give her a compelling reason to be reluctant to go home after her recovery, and it explains Quaithe’s mask—which is something unique to Quaithe as far as we know, since other shadow binders and students of Asshai that we have met do not wear masks.

3. The Rescue

Even though I think Ashara survived impact with the water, she would have to be in pretty bad shape. It’s pretty much impossible that she would be able to swim ashore and drag herself to a maester. So I think she was found by a passerby, either in the water or after washing ashore. This person took her in and sent for a maester. She wasn’t recognized due to her facial disfigurement, and that’s why word was not sent to her family.

Actually, I think the most likely candidate for a rescuer was a passing ship. Keeping yourself afloat takes relatively little effort, so even if she was pretty banged up she could have kept herself from drowning long enough to come into the path of a ship going to or from Oldtown. Foreigners on a ship would also be less likely to hear of a young noblewoman who recently jumped from a tower and put two and two together despite the unrecognizable face.

4. The Awakening

During/after the jump/fall/whatever, I believe that Ashara experienced an awakening of ancient power, similar to Bran’s experience after he was pushed from the Winterfell tower. I don’t think Ashara was visited by the 3-Eyed Raven, because that seems to be a distinctly Northern thing, arising from a mixing of First Men and Children of the Forest lore. The CotF regarded Dorne as the “Empty Land”, and it doesn’t contain any weirwoods as far as I can recall, so I believe this was a different sort of power. And just as Bran’s awakening led him to journey Beyond the Wall, I think Ashara’s awakening led her to journey to Asshai. It seems that many ships journey to Asshai on a regular basis so she could have stowed away, or hired on as a cabin girl, with any of them. It’s also possible that she was pulled from the water by a passing ship on its way to Asshai, or at least somewhere in Essos. Perhaps her disfigurement made her less of a rape target; or, more likely, something about her new power helped her see who she could trust and intimidate those she couldn’t.

5. The Power: Seeing The Truth

What kind of power would this be?

Well, part of Quaithe’s power seems to be seeing people’s true motives. In Qarth, I assumed on my first reading that Quaithe knew the Thirteen and the Warlocks were untrustworthy because she had been in the city a long time and knew them well. However, there’s no indication that she has been interacting much with them. And there’s no indication that they really know her, either. Xaro dismisses her as an untrustworthy shadow binder, but on the grounds that all shadow binders are generally untrustworthy. (In fact that seems to be the basis for everyone’s problem with Quaithe, which leads me to think that she probably is trustworthy since GRRM loves blowing up stereotypes—about bastards, women, wildlings, and so on). Xaro’s motive for saying this is to get Dany to trust and rely on him. He doesn’t really seem to know anything specific about Quaithe.

So I believe that Quaithe is able to sense the true motives of others, even if she hasn’t met them, and even if she isn’t able to explain these motives very specifically. This ability seems to go beyond the power of glass candles as we know them.


“The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak tone another half a world apart, seated before their candles.” —A Feast for Crows, ch. 45, Samwell

There is no mention of mind-reading or seeing the truth of people’s hearts or anything like that. Long distance viewing and communication seem to be the extent of the candles power; Quaithe’s ability to sense motives is apparently something else.

Now let’s consider House Dayne and any mystical powers they seem to display. This is tricky, because there is no account of them having obvious powers such as warging. However, alone among the great houses of Dorne, the Daynes of Starfall are given a bit of magic in their background.


“At the mouth of the Torrentine, House Dayne raised its castle on an island where that roaring, tumultuous river broadens to meet the sea. Legend says the first Dayne was led to the site when he followed the track of a falling star and there found a stone of magical powers. His descendants ruled over the western mountains for centuries thereafter as Kings of the Torrentine and Lords of Starfall.” —The World of Ice and Fire, p. 238

The other two great houses, Fowler and Yronwood, credit their power to strategic positions and/or mineral wealth, without a whiff of anything mystical.

The most obvious mystical thing about House Dayne in modern times is their ancestral sword, Dawn. There are a couple of interesting things about Dawn. First, it appears “pale as milk glass”, unlike the other Valyrian-steel house swords but very much like the swords of the Others. Second, it can only be wielded by someone considered “worthy”.


“Though many houses have their heirloom swords, they mostly pass the blades down from lord to lord. Some, such as the Corbrays have done, may lend the blade to a son or brother for his lifetime, only to have it return to the lord. But that is not the way of House Dayne. The wielder of Dawn is always given the title of Sword of the Morning, and only a knight of House Dayne who is deemed worthy can carry it.

“For this reason, the Swords of the Morning are all famous throughout the Seven Kingdoms.”

We are not told exactly what makes a knight worthy. But we do know that there is no current Sword of the Morning in ASoIaF, and the most recent was Ser Arthur Dayne, member of the Kingsguard and closest companion of Rhaegar Targaryen. There don’t seem to be any stories of a Sword of the Morning turning bad. The other two mentioned in the wikki are Ser Ulrick Dayne, “considered one of the greatest knights of his time,” according to Dunk in “The Sworn Sword”; and Ser Davos Dayne, third husband of Princess Nymeria. Since both Dunk and Nymeria seem pretty awesome, and since Ned, also pretty awesome, regarded Ser Arthur Dayne very highly, I think we can infer that Swords of the Morning tend to be pretty great guys. Clearly there is something in this “worthiness” required by Dawn that holds some serious water, since every other order that is supposed to only take worthy people (the Faith, knighthood, the Kingsguard) has a lot of bad seeds on record. So it seems that something about Dawn really does detect worthiness in its potential wielder.

Also relevant to this point, I think: one of Ser Arthur Dayne’s most notable achievements was the dissolution of the Kingswood Brotherhood, which he accomplished by winning over the small folk, giving them more than the Brotherhood could. Winning over small folk by giving them stuff is a pretty novel idea in the Westeros we know, so there seems to be some implication that Ser Arthur, like Quaithe, had a particular gift for perceiving the true motives of others.

In sum, I propose that the latent power of the Daynes is the ability to perceive the true motives of others, just as Dawn can perceive who is worthy to carry it. For most Daynes, this power does not manifest on a magical level, just in a particular perceptiveness. Just as many Starks are in tune with nature and animals (Lyanna being “half a horse” for example) but do not manifest full warging. I think that Ashara’s fall awakened the motive-perceiving ability on a psychic level, and that this power is evidenced by Quaithe in her ability to not only see things and people with her glass candle but also to understand that the people she meets and sees through the candle don’t all have pure motives. So far the people she has warned Dany about are legitimately pretty sketch, or at least have motives that conflict with Dany. (Tyrion being a possible exception but also a bit of a wildcard; he’s on Dany’s side but pragmatically, to get revenge and Casterly Rock, and its easy to see how he might turn against or abandon her for some reason—especially if he gets ahold of his own dragon, as many speculate.) There are also people around Dany that Quaithe has not warned her about, most notably Jorah; at the time of Quaithe’s first warnings, Jorah was no longer a threat to Dany even though he had previously betrayed her. If all Quaithe saw was things that actually happen, then she would be suspicious of Jorah as well as JonCon, Victarion, Griff, etc. If Quaithe’s pattern of “people warned against” and “people not warned against” remains justified then I feel my case will get a lot stronger.

So what do you guys think? Supposing Ashara Dayne IS Quaithe, how did it happen, and why?

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Here's my take on it. She never jumped. We have no first-hand, or even second-hand accounts of that happening. There aren't even any details. Time of day. Suicide note. Previous mentions of having nothing left to live for, etc.



She became a shadow-binder because Rhaegar had a dream that TDtwP needed a shadowbinder and so far as I know they're all female. Ashara was the only person in the in-crowd at court who had basically no life left in Westeros. So she went to Asshai in secret, possibly after performing some other service for House Targaryen (also in secret), to be of help to Rhaegar's son or whoever else ended up being TDtwP.



As to your theory...



1. She doesn't need to have jumped, slipped, or been pushed. Again we have no witnesses. No one who claims to have seen her jump. The only info we have is from Barristan (who was nowhere near Starfall) and her nephew Edric who wasn't even born yet!



2. She didn't need to be disfigured. All shadowbinders wear masks, except apparently Mel. But Mel isn't just a shadowbinder, she's also a red priestess. The red laquered mask is one of the ways shadowbinders are known in the series.



3. If she actually did fall from the tower, sure. But if it was at night she still doesn't need to be disfigured. Most smallfolk and foreigners wouldn't know what Lady Ashara looked like anyway.



4. Actually it's not a northern thing. Euron mentions crows and dreams and flying. Ashara has the blood of the First Men, so she absolutely could have been visited by Bloodraven's feathery counterpart.



5. Could be that seeing the truth is something they teach you in shadowbinder school. I bet Mel left before she finished that class, which would also explain her lack of a mask.



I don't know that Dawn decides who wields it. I always thought the family decided and it was based on fighting ability. The sword has magic, no question, but I don't think it has any sentient ability.



Quaithe isn't seeing anything through glass candles at first, because they haven't been burning for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. So it's a big deal when she tells Dany the glass candles are burning. I agree that she's been absolutely right about everything. I love Tyrion, but I wouldn't trust him.

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I used to think that she didn't jump, just faked her death. But then, why does everyone think she jumped off the tower? Someone must have seen someone (or something) fall from the tower in order for "Ashara jumped off this specific tower" to become a unanimous story. There are no conflicting or even slightly different versions of what happened.



Or else maybe her family is covering for her and spread the story around?


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I thought "how" doesn't matter in crackpots, just the idea. :D



I just don't see any reason for this twist. We've heard so much about her (to a nauseating degree almost) and to have her turn up as some shadowbinder more than half a world away with no real foreshadowing and convenient eye coverage? Meh. Too off the wall for me.


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Hm...but if we've heard so much about her, might there not be a reason for that? :-D



I admit it's kind of off the wall. But between the glass candles and the sorcerous Hightowers and two dragons that need claiming, I think the upcoming books are going to get a lot more weird and mystical than the previous books.


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Ashara can definitely be alive without breaking suspension. As you said, we've heard so much about her and her death is convenient for not knowing "for sure" if she died. But I just don't think it's Quaithe. Or Lemore.

We haven't heard that much. Two times in aGoT, one in Clash, two in Storms, none in Feast and one in Dance. I don't mean every time she has been mentioned, but every situation in which her name or story has been brought up. And every time is "oh, she was the supposed mother of Jon" or "she was pretty", but nothing about the woman herself. The only ones giving some back story are Edric and Barristan, and it's very little. Considering the only two other characters that were death but then they weren't are Aegon and Griff, it's hard to see what kind of pattern GRRM uses in these situations.

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Well, House Dayne in general has what I'd consider "a lot" of mentions despite their apparent lack of importance to the present story. To me, that's pretty standout from other smaller noble houses.

Personally, I have a rule about these situations. If a dead character is mentioned a lot

1. If there are witnesses of his/her death, then s/he is really dead and the mentions is because his/her actions will be important eventually

2. If his/her death is not clear, there are not witness, then the character is likely alive.

There is information about Ashara's death: they know how she died. Someone had to witness her jumping, otherwise, then we could say that same someone simply invented some story. If she's confabulated with Varys as many claim, then he's contradicting himself: her death is too romantic compared with Griff and the advice about fake deaths he got from Varys.

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Personally, I have a rule about these situations. If a dead character is mentioned a lot

1. If there are witnesses of his/her death, then s/he is really dead and the mentions is because his/her actions will be important eventually

2. If his/her death is not clear, there are not witness, then the character is likely alive.

There is information about Ashara's death: they know how she died. Someone had to witness her jumping, otherwise, then we could say that same someone simply invented some story. If she's confabulated with Varys as many claim, then he's contradicting himself: her death is too romantic compared with Griff and the advice about fake deaths he got from Varys.

Well, everyone seems to know that she *jumped*, but they simply assume that she died--no one saw a body.

I like the "she jumped but survived" idea because 1) it retains the tragic element of her story and 2) it potentially has a lot of parallels to Bran.

It's also possible that there was some other pressing reason she needed to go to Asshai, and her family covered for her by claiming to have seen her jump. That way no one looks for her and no one questions why there is no body laid out for viewing.

Either way, I somehow doubt she's in league with Varys.

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We haven't heard that much. Two times in aGoT, one in Clash, two in Storms, none in Feast and one in Dance. I don't mean every time she has been mentioned, but every situation in which her name or story has been brought up. And every time is "oh, she was the supposed mother of Jon" or "she was pretty", but nothing about the woman herself. The only ones giving some back story are Edric and Barristan, and it's very little. Considering the only two other characters that were death but then they weren't are Aegon and Griff, it's hard to see what kind of pattern GRRM uses in these situations.

Still, that's a lot of mentions for someone who doesn't seem to have done anything to really impact the story. People talk about Ned a lot because he did a lot of things in the past that still have consequences in the current story. Ditto Rhaegar, Lyanna, Robert, and dozens of other characters back to Aegon the Conqueror and Garth Greenhands.. I don't think characters are brought up repeatedly for no reason. If Ashara is not Jon's mother (and I don't think she is), then what did she do that is so important she's been brought up by Cat, Cercei, Meera, Edric, and Ser Barristan? Dance with Ned that one time? Seems like there's probably more to it.

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One of the reasons I have always believed Ashara could be around is that I thought it was Ned who told everyone she jumped from the tower, and we know Ned was involved in a cover up at the time. If for example Ashara had asked how her brother died and asked why the fight occurred/ what was he doing at the TOJ, perhaps Ned couldn't bring himself to lie and he told her the truth but then told her she had to go, or instead told her she could never tell anyone and she said it would just be better for her to go.


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I used to think that she didn't jump, just faked her death. But then, why does everyone think she jumped off the tower? Someone must have seen someone (or something) fall from the tower in order for "Ashara jumped off this specific tower" to become a unanimous story. There are no conflicting or even slightly different versions of what happened.

Or else maybe her family is covering for her and spread the story around?

Easy. She's not there in the morning. Her family says she jumped from the tower. If they say she jumped at night, it's entirely possible that no one saw a thing.

The fact that there are no conflicting versions, slight variations, or rumors about it is part of what makes it so suspect.

Until we get an eye-witness report (and quite frankly those aren't always accurate either) there's reason to believe she is alive.

One of the reasons I have always believed Ashara could be around is that I thought it was Ned who told everyone she jumped from the tower, and we know Ned was involved in a cover up at the time. If for example Ashara had asked how her brother died and asked why the fight occurred/ what was he doing at the TOJ, perhaps Ned couldn't bring himself to lie and he told her the truth but then told her she had to go, or instead told her she could never tell anyone and she said it would just be better for her to go.

We don't actually know who spread the story. The only connection we have to Ned with that is that when Cat heard the servants gossiping about him and Ashara he made sure they stopped gossiping.

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Easy. She's not there in the morning. Her family says she jumped from the tower. If they say she jumped at night, it's entirely possible that no one saw a thing.

The fact that there are no conflicting versions, slight variations, or rumors about it is part of what makes it so suspect.

Until we get an eye-witness report (and quite frankly those aren't always accurate either) there's reason to believe she is alive.

We don't actually know who spread the story. The only connection we have to Ned with that is that when Cat heard the servants gossiping about him and Ashara he made sure they stopped gossiping.

I mostly agree with you--especially that it is weird that everyone seems to know she jumped, yet we're never told who saw her jump.

I just think that even if she did jump, she could still be alive.

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Impossible.



For someone to be a shadowbinder of Quaithe's caliber, decades of practice and dear sacrifices are necessary. And that is only if the person has some sort of affinity to magic. George said that Ashara is in her mid thirties. There is no way a random person can become a shadowinder like Quaithe within 14 years.


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Personally, I have a rule about these situations. If a dead character is mentioned a lot

1. If there are witnesses of his/her death, then s/he is really dead and the mentions is because his/her actions will be important eventually

2. If his/her death is not clear, there are not witness, then the character is likely alive.

There is information about Ashara's death: they know how she died. Someone had to witness her jumping, otherwise, then we could say that same someone simply invented some story. If she's confabulated with Varys as many claim, then he's contradicting himself: her death is too romantic compared with Griff and the advice about fake deaths he got from Varys.

1. Ashara, cross. No witnesses that we know of

2. Ashara, tick. The death is not clear. Sources say she jumped from a tower, but the sources are far removed from the fact. The story explicitly says no body was recovered. In short, even any potential witnesses don't know for sure she died, just that she jumped.

It isn't true that someone had to witness her jumping. For all we know someone did just invent that story.

Its also not entirely contradictory with what Varys told Griff about fake deaths.

We want no songs about the gallant exile. Those who die heroic deaths are long remembered, thieves and drunks and cravens soon forgotten.

Add suicides to thieves and drunks and cravens.

The reason it changes from forgotten suicide into beautiful tragedy is entirely because of Ned Stark and Jon Snow. Ashara is unlikely to have factored that in to her plans, after all, she knows that Ned (and Jon) have no real connection to her so is unlikely to expect people to make that leap.

Impossible.

For someone to be a shadowbinder of Quaithe's caliber, decades of practice and dear sacrifices are necessary. And that is only if the person has some sort of affinity to magic. George said that Ashara is in her mid thirties. There is no way a random person can become a shadowinder like Quaithe within 14 years.

Wow, we know so much?

BTW, it was just 'thirties', not 'mid thirties'.

“At the mouth of the Torrentine, House Dayne raised its castle on an island where that roaring, tumultuous river broadens to meet the sea. Legend says the first Dayne was led to the site when he followed the track of a falling star and there found a stone of magical powers. His descendants ruled over the western mountains for centuries thereafter as Kings of the Torrentine and Lords of Starfall.” —The World of Ice and Fire, p. 238

I rather suspect the stone of magical powers became Dawn. To me, this is just another relatively mundane advantage they had.

I don't see anything particularly 'magical' in the Dayne bloodline, just a unique artifact. I don't think one can only wield Dawn if one is 'worthy' (ie unworthy people magically cannot wield it), I think House Dayne by tradition choose only worthy people to wield it - as a way of maintaining their House honour and the aspirations of their youths, rather than any magical necessity.

Its not the magic sword in the stone, its the magic (extraterrestrial) stone that became the sword.

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Impossible.

For someone to be a shadowbinder of Quaithe's caliber, decades of practice and dear sacrifices are necessary. And that is only if the person has some sort of affinity to magic. George said that Ashara is in her mid thirties. There is no way a random person can become a shadowinder like Quaithe within 14 years.

You know what else goes with that logic?

The Targaryens tried for a very long time to bring dragons back into the world, the best and brightest of scholars and magicians couldn't help them accomplish it. So there's no way a 13 year old girl with zero knowledge of magic, little knowledge of dragons, and no one to advise her on either point could possibly hatch dragon eggs in the middle of nowhere.

We're not talking about a "random person." We're talking about a specific character who supposedly committed suicide, and whose body was never found. In real life, that happens. In fiction, it's a plant. Ashara's family is of First Men blood and owns a magic sword. Also, for a dead girl who in theory has no impact on the story, she's mentioned a lot.

Where are you getting the idea that it takes decades to become a decent shadowbinder? I hope you're not using Mel as an example because other than birthing assassins she's shown very little talent. If it's TWOIAF, well I haven't read that yet.

It should take decades for Bran to get as far as he has with his abilities. He's probably not the only special snowflake in Westeros. It's not the Stark blood. Bloodraven has abilities no one else does (except maybe Bran) and he doesn't have ANY Stark blood. However, he and Bran both have First Men blood, as does Ashara Dayne.

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“All sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor.”



“Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.”



“All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire."


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“All sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor.”

“Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.”

“All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire."

Ok.

But that doesn't really prove your point that Ashara Dayne couldn't possibly become a shadowbinder in 13-14 years. Nearly a decade and a half is quite a bit of time, definitely checks the box of "years of study."

We also don't have specific evidence that Quaithe uses blood magic, and she certainly doesn't seem to worship the Red God. We don't even have reason to think she casts glamours--after all, if she could cast a glamour, why bother with a mask? Just to be atmospheric or something? So really not much that we learn from Mel about sorcery can be applied to Quaithe.

Quaithe's main ability seems to be the use of glass candles. Even Marwyn, who isn't particularly old and doesn't seem to exhibit any innate magical abilities, is able to use a glass candle. So I don't think there is reason to assume that Quaithe would need multiple decades to learn how to do what she does.

I wouldn't claim that someone who disappeared last year could be Quaithe; I agree several years of study would likely be necessary. But 13-14 seems plenty to me.

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“All sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor.”

“Bloodmagic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.”

“All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire."

Quaithe does not appear to be under a glamour. So far in the series, everyone who has been under a glamour has been wearing a ruby. No rubies have been mentioned as part of Quaithe's appearance.

No evidence of Quaithe practicing blood magic as yet.

Quaithe is from Asshai, not Valyria. Ashara was from Westeros, not Valyria. Valyrian sorcery has no bearing on this. Even if Valyria got all their info from Asshai, that still wouldn't mean Asshai only does blood and fire magic. They could have special training facilities for each kind of magic, including green magic, water magic, and ice magic.

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