How do you picture Asshai?

[Vaelya of Asshai]

I really enjoy thinking about Asshai, it is very interesting. I think some photos posted are very accurate to my imagination (http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/089/b/3/eon__city_by_anotherwanderer-d7c7pm4.jpg AND http://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1305/medieval_city_by_Geistig_4717910_lrg.jpg) however there are some things missing. I feel like the buildings would be very far eastern, as the names of the places around Asshai seem to be similar to far east places. I think it would be a mixture of the two photo above and also the far eastern buildings. I also imagine it being very mystical and magical, with queer coloured trees and flowers flooding the mountains and streets, I imagine the sky to be dark a lot, with the sun barely shining through, creating white and red tinge in some parts of the sky. I think it would be above average temperature, somewhat like Europe in our world. I think the streets will be filled with houses with the curved far eastern roofs, with lots of red. I imagine their lights to be made of red to symbolise their god, which will have many Temples and statues in the streets and figures and ornaments in people's household. The people I imagine are often cloaked, wearing facial masks (like Quaithe), or covering their faces with silk, and wearing part-metal clothes and part silk or other garments. I imagine them to be pale like Melisandre, or similar to far Asian people. They will have strange animals roaming the areas, native only to Asshai and surrounding cities. I think sorcery is widely practised, but only few are talented enough like Melisandre. The people will have slaves like any other place, as Melisandre was a slave. I think the mountains will have their own clans much like the Eyrie, attacking travellers. I also imagine these streets to be on different levels, some being high up on mountains, others being on low lands due to the terrain.

[The Dragon Demands]

I picture black stars rising in a sky with strange moons.

[Cobalt86]

Shadows...

Shadows everywhere...

Lurking in the darkness...

Killing people!

That's how i picture Asshai.

:ninja: :ninja: :ninja:

[Pod The Impaler]

For me is a mix of Babylon, an Indonesian temple and Pompey (the shadow is a volcano, right?)

Yes, I like the Indonesian one. I have imagined it as something like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but with a lot of emphasis on fire and shadow.

http://medias.photodeck.com/acfc9ecc-20bb-11e0-a985-d104406398ab/12100_16_AngkorWat_xlarge.jpg

Or perhaps this image I found ...

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130122112237/avatar/images/0/09/Capital_Fire_Temple.png

[OllyS]

The word makes me think people going round juggling fire with the floor being coal and dragons flying around and shit.

[Game Of Thrones]

It's inconceivable.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Well, its by the shadow not in the shadow. So I guess it doesnt have a dark atmosphere.

[OllyS]

Well, its by the shadow not in the shadow. So I guess it doesnt have a dark atmosphere.

Well, its by the shadow not in the shadow. So I guess it doesnt have a dark atmosphere.

By that logic it could be the thing creating the shadow...

[The_Onion_King]

I always imagined it with dark skies and dark surroundings, basically always in a hazy fog like blackness, surrounded by a see of white grass and modest architecture and buildings, not quite huts, but not quite city buildings. And demons, demons everywhere.

[The Mother of The Others]

If there's a long term black volcanic smoke vent sitting next door to the city, like a volcano would normally spring up in that spot but this particular venting is smoke-only in a way that's keeping the planet happy.... then no volcanic eruption ever actually builds tension to the point of exploding and killing off the town?

[Kyll.Ing.]

I don't picture it being exceedingly dark or creepy or anything - a dark sky would imply it's impossible to grow crops, or for that matter timber for buildings (or firewood, for those nightfires). Also, it would be a terribly gloomy place to live. Yes, it's said to be a dark place, but worse things were said about faraway cities all over the world in medieval times, and they used to be great exaggerations if not outright fabrications most of the time.

Remember that Asshai is to the Westerosi what Tokyo (or, well, Edo) was to the medieval English. Really, really, really far away, with only fancy stories if anything reaching the ears of the Europeans, and even then the stories might be generations old by the time they hit the streets of London.

However, Edo turned out to be a city like cities tend to be, without any mystical or magical whimsy going on. To reach it, you'd have to pass through a fair few white spots of maps marked "Here be dragons", but in the end, it turned out to be a pretty ordinary place, all things considered.

From the maps of the known world, it's evident that Asshai is a port town. It lies very far south, so it must be a quite hot place, though it might lay south of the equator. Ulthos, which is even further south, is said to be covered in jungle, so it can't be so far south that the climate becomes as cold as it is in most of Westeros.

That being said, I think there's a reason why Asshai is located at the very tip of the Shadow Lands, and it can't be for prime port estate only. It would be a very windy place, bordering oceans on three sides. I can imagine storms hitting Asshai hard, meaning that curved Eastern roofs would be impractical - they'd be blown off by harsh winds come the storm season. However, I think it would be a more hospitable place than the rest of the Shadow Lands, because it would be relatively flat. There's a river running straight towards the city from the Shadow Lands. That means loose sediments from the mountains will be washed away, and end up in a river delta where I imagine Asshai is built. River deltas are fertile, and way flatter than the mountains, giving more room for large cities. Both spices and wine from Asshai are mentioned in Essos, implying that there is sufficient agriculture there for export. If there were few areas to grow crops, and the sky was too dark to yield much of a harvest, nobody would bother to grow grapes or spice.

The Shadow Lands themselves might not be volcanic in nature, though that would explain why dragons are reported to be there (on the other hand, dragonfire could potentially give the appearance of volcanoes where there are none). They might simply be very mountainous, with steep and narrow valleys. There's a city there, Stygai, which is said to only get some sun around noon every day. Unless the volcanoes run like clockwork down there, I think the perpetual shadow has more to do with topography than volcanic clouds. Here in Norway, there are a couple of towns in the same situation, where neither sunset nor sunrise can ever be seen, and where the mountains keep the sun away for most of the winter: Rjukan being the most prominent example (they installed mirrors in the mountainside a couple of years back, to direct some light to the city square at the bottom of the valley). "Passing under the shadow" to get to Asshai might simply mean "walking through narrow mountain passes". The sources say nothing of why Stygai was abandoned, but I can imagine Asshai being a major competitor and all-round brighter place to live, with more jobs due to the harbour, might have contributed to its abandonment. When the sea trade started blooming, people moved from the Shadow Lands to the windy (but comparatively bright) city by the ocean.

If the religion of R'hollor originated in he Shadow Lands, it's easy to see why: It'd be dark most of the year, and the sun would not help much due to steep mountains. To get proper light (and maybe heat, depending on the climate - high mountains might imply glaciers, which tend to send cold air into the valleys below), people would have to turn to fire. From there on, the road to a religion is very short. The darkness of the Shadow Lands would also explain the weird and twisted statues Daenerys see in Vaes Dothrak: Try walking through the woods at night, and see what horrible forms the trees appear to take on.

In short, I believe the Shadow Lands to be extremely mountainous, with steep, dark valleys, whereas Asshai itself is relatively bright, fertile and sitting comfortably on a river delta jutting out of the mountains. There would be gardens and fields capable of feeding a decently big population, with some left over for export. However, the oceans would make it a windy place, and despite the sunniness of Asshai itself, its culture would be heavily influenced by the dark and gloomy Shadow Lands beyond. With Asshai being so ordinary, and the Shadow Lands so dark and gloomy, foreigners and travellers' tales tend to mix them up, instead claiming that Asshai itself is dark and gloomy.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Stygai entry in the app says it's a ruined city that is located in the Valley of Shadows, where sunlight only seen sometime around noon. In TLOIAF, Stygai is in the middle of Shadow Lands, so Shadow Lands are called so because sunlight is only seen around noon. Asshai is not in the Shadow Lands, hence Asshai by the Shadow.

So, Asshai is most probably a normal city, I theorized that their walls are magically warded against ghost grass so that they can make wine and farm in the city. The city is probably hot as it's the most southern city in the known world.

I guess their culture is unique, not anything like in our world, as far as we know they wear masks and tend to tattoo themselves and they look dark and solemn and open to practice of magic, oh and they make statues that are so twisted and weird that Dany even couldn't look some of them.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I used to imagine it as a gothic city with misshapen statues and gargoyles around, I still do but I just saw this (of course I think Asshai's sky is darker hence the Shadow)* and I quite like it and I said "why not?". I think Asshai has no real world equivalent so it's hard to imagine.

*The picture above is not suppose to be Asshai, I just saw it and think that Asshai may look similar.

Question is how do you picture Asshai? :laugh:

Gorgeous picture but if it correlates to the ASOIAF universe at all it would be Yi Ti, not Asshai.

I imagine Asshai to be exotic (compared to Wisconsin, and really compared to Wisconsin what isn't?), and slightly purple. No, I can't explain that last part. I think it has something to do with that darn shadow and lighting though.

[kimim]

My first post here, with apologies for sounding idiotic. For whatever reason, I always imagined Asshai as a city in Northern India or Nepal, flanked by great mountains, but on the sea. I can't figure out how to post images; look up Leh, but darken it a bit (or a lot).

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Just did a Google search for images of ancient cities and I'd like to throw out some ideas.

This statue is in a park in Bangkok, and it (or something similar) is a must for Asshai.

I got to thinking that whatever causes "the shadow" could be something worth hiding from, so maybe it's a hidden city like this. Petra also came to mind, but it's too recognizable.

This is a good option for an Asshai'i temple. Here's a cool city gate. And look! I found Mel's place!

Still haven't seen anything that really nails it for me. I may need to add in a bit of India, and maybe some Mayan architecture. This one has the purple.

Of course we could all be way off base and it could really be more like this.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

^woah! that snake thing looks very Asshai-y.

Well no it's not a hidden city, it's a port city where people all over the world visits and trades.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

My first post here, with apologies for sounding idiotic. For whatever reason, I always imagined Asshai as a city in Northern India or Nepal, flanked by great mountains, but on the sea. I can't figure out how to post images; look up Leh, but darken it a bit (or a lot).

Good call! I like Jaipur too. Just looking into cities in India and Jaipur is emerging as an early favorite.

kimim, what do you think of Bhaktapur for Asshai?

[Lady Blizzardborn]

^woah! that snake thing looks very Asshai-y.

Well no it's not a hidden city, it's a port city where people all over the world visits and trades.

Well there goes that idea. :bang:

[kimim]

Good call! I like Jaipur too. Just looking into cities in India and Jaipur is emerging as an early favorite.

kimim, what do you think of Bhaktapur for Asshai?

I had to google it, and wow, it's perfect. Feel like buying plane tickets, too.