[TWOIAF spoilers] Size and age of Asshai vs its poppulation and food resources hint at a past ecological disaster?

[Makrell]

Havent read the book, but this screams unreliable narrator to me. Who told this to Yandel?

I think asshai is a bit bigger than quart, but not as big as the world book claims.

Check medieval literature to see such exagerations are normal.

[Lord_Pepsi_Cupps]

Havent read the book, but this screams unreliable narrator to me. Who told this to Yandel?

I think asshai is a bit bigger than quart, but not as big as the world book claims.

Check medieval literature to see such exagerations are normal.

Absolutely normal, but: we also have to grapple with the fact that our unreliable narrators may be unreliable for a very good, and very specific, reason. Unlike medieval literature, everything we get on ASOIAF did ultimately arise from a single mind.

Now what the reason might be... That's what makes the discussion interesting :)

[Hrafntýr]

Yep I can see the possible parallel with the Others.

No denying that the lacquered masks are meant to hide something, but there's other hints to keep in mind:

(1) Asshai seems to have been built for a much much larger population than is currently seen there;

(2) other than the lacquered mask, there's nothing else "odd" about Quaithe's physical appearance when she's in Qarth (could be a glamour, sure); and she sounds fully Westerosi;

(3) have we ever had someone speak the CT with an accent "flavoured with the speech of Asshai" or some such? We have heard that for virtually every other language. That, again, could go towards there not being a living Asshai language anymore. Even Mel, who is "of Asshai" has "an exotic" accent, not an Asshai accent (I think).

None of this is definitive. I'm just attracted to the idea of this great and fabled dangerous place being, in the end, just a place, propped up by all the practitioners of magic going there. That's what makes it dangerous, not some mystical force hiding there and drawing all the priests and necromancers in.

On the "bigger story" point:

Yeah I definitely get the feeling that humans (and their whole history) is just a footnote to a much larger story. It's like GRRM is criticising our own tendency to talk about the 20th century as the craziest in human history, etc - when in fact, it's just that it's so recent and we're so self-centred.

I don't actually think we'll get any real definitive insight into that larger story - and that is a comment as well (about the "unknowability" of ancient history, beyond the odd fragment that survives).

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea in bold, too! Nevertheless, I don't know that the two concepts need to be mutually exclusive, and there we enough elements in the description of Asshai to make me think that there's some sort of ongoing dark force (the Shadow) in addition to the "trade" in sorcery that goes on there. Just as Mel says that her magic is stronger at the Wall, I'd guess that there's something about Asshai that makes magic stronger there (hinges of the world thingie). And a minor point, but I do think that I remember Mel offering a prayer to R'hllor once in Asshai'i, once in High Valyrian, and once in the Common Tongue? Maybe in a Davos chapter on Dragonstone? But I'm afraid that I don't have the books to check! But I think there is a language of Asshai. Maybe someone else can remember better than I.

And I like your comments about the bigger story, as well as those of ummester, with whom I agree that there's also an ecological narrative going on, too.

[Lord_Pepsi_Cupps]

I may be totally wrong about Asshai language! But anyway, the "no children" thing does have at least two plausible explanations, and that was what my "there's no native Asshai" thing was resting on, so I'm letting it go until we know more about the place (if D-bag ever actually gets her ass over there).

On the disaster / ecological thing... I do not want to get too literal, but could there be like a radiation element to some of the oily black stone? Yeen: the jungle won't go near it, kills things. Asshai: only twisted plants, no animals can survive, deformed fish in the water.

Maybe Asshai is the site of an ancient nuclear blast. Although the theory is so crackpot that it deserves to have that pronounced as "nucular".

Could work as a metaphor though, I guess.

[Hrafntýr]

I may be totally wrong about Asshai language! But anyway, the "no children" thing does have at least two plausible explanations, and that was what my "there's no native Asshai" thing was resting on, so I'm letting it go until we know more about the place (if D-bag ever actually gets her ass over there).

On the disaster / ecological thing... I do not want to get too literal, but could there be like a radiation element to some of the oily black stone? Yeen: the jungle won't go near it, kills things. Asshai: only twisted plants, no animals can survive, deformed fish in the water.

Maybe Asshai is the site of an ancient nuclear blast. Although the theory is so crackpot that it deserves to have that pronounced as "nucular".

Could work as a metaphor though, I guess.

I like it as a metaphor. I can't see GRRM going sci-fi and making it the literal aftermath of a nuclear blast, or the Long Night nuclear winter or something, but I do like how it might work by analogy, with past historical agents development of XXXX-power exceeding their ability to use it wisely or to have regard for the consequences of using it. Alternatively, some race/species were totally fine with the consequences, since it was advantageous for them but not for others.

[Jaak]

Another reason for Asshai to be a big city: mines.

[SeanF]

Asshai seems to have no purpose other than the study of sorcery of a very dark type.

But, one has to remember that Yandel has never been there, nor does he have any first-hand accounts of the city to rely on.

It may be that the reality is less sinister than the reputation.

[Winterfell is Burning]

The creepiest fact about Asshai is the lack of children. Although we do know Mel went there when she was a kid.

[ummester]

I found the whole shadowbinders hiding their faces from gods and men creepier.

No children just felt in line with nothing being able to grow and the deformed demons and dragons in the caves - it's a cursed place that is no longer naturally viable, life doesn't work there.

But those shadowbinders, what exactly are they hiding? Skulls, empty caves in place of features, something worse?

[Ser Lepus]

I found the whole shadowbinders hiding their faces from gods and men creepier.

No children just felt in line with nothing being able to grow and the deformed demons and dragons in the caves - it's a cursed place that is no longer naturally viable, life doesn't work there.

But those shadowbinders, what exactly are they hiding? Skulls, empty caves in place of features, something worse?

We'll know when Mel's spells fail her and the characters see her true face... :P