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No children in Asshai


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she also never mentions the High Priest, which you would think she would if she had been in Volantis and seen him probably daily

It's not a must imo. She barely remembers her own past, I think remembering fiery days with the High Priest is her second priority.

(I think she actually wants to forget her past? or am i making this one up)

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It's not a must imo. She barely remembers her own past, I think remembering fiery days with the High Priest is her second priority.

(I think she actually wants to forget her past? or am i making this one up)

If Melisandre is a wight, then one would expect her memory of the past to be hazy. But, even if she has never actually died, she seems to have a lost a great deal of her humanity, and loss of her memories may be part of that.

Alternatively, she may be trying to repress some very unpleasant memories of her childhood. Memories of being seized from her mother, of being abused in various ways as a slave, and of taking part in ghastly magical rituals.

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If there's some kind of magical radiation in Asshai, it could well be that said radiations render every living being who stays there long enough sterile.

And since the disasted happened so long ago, it might have been a bit like post-Doom Valyria earlier on, but now, the radiation level has decreased and people can live there without dying fast or mutating into freaks after some time. Basically, Asshai is what Valyria will be in a few thousands years - you can live there but you won't be able to have kids anymore and will be mildly irradiated.

As for why people go there, it's obviously another "hinge of the world", like the Wall according to Melisandre.

This is what I think too. Living in Asshai renders you sterile, or possibly it makes it so you can only have shadowbabies and not regular babies. (This would mean Melisandre's shadowbaby thing doesn't come from R'hllor at all, though she might have told Stannis it did, but from having lived in Asshai for a long time. Sorry, I don't remember exactly what she said about it in the books.)

I think you could theoretically bring a child there from outside, but that very few would want to. The only exceptions would be unscrupulous types who wanted a sacrifice, and thus the child wouldn't be there for long.

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Seems like anyone who hasn't embraced the fire magic probably wouldn't last more than a few years there. I'm guessing the servants don't have long lives. Children and old people probably don't do well at all.

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I posted it in many threads that magic seems to be working on the sacrifice of life-fire. Seeds, newborn babies, reproductive ability, souls etc. are all forms of life-fire sacrificed to work dark magic. I am just writing these examples out of my head: The Night's King sacrificed his seeds to the Others. Stannis' seeds were transformed into shadow assassins. Patchface was said to sacrifice his seeds in order to breathe under the sea. Varys' supposed castration is another form of sacrificing seeds. There was also a rumor about Rohanne Webber that she was selling her newly born children to a demon to learn dark arts. Shiera and Danelle supposedly bathed in children's blood in order to keep their charm, which in a distorted way says that they used bloodmagic to hold supernatural charm over men.



Why are children/babies special? Because their life-fire burns much brighter than grown up people. We get this idea from the fact that life-fire extraction caused Stannis to age a decade or more.



Now, recall what really happened at the House of the Undying. These undead wizards were luring fools into their houses in promise of great power and knowledge and whatnot. But the reality was that they were just fooling them and feeding on their blood and life-fire to survive.



Now, recall that Asshai is the single greatest gathering of sorcerers, wizards, shadowbinders and so on. They are practicing their arts openly in Asshai and we do know from Mel that spells work better in Asshai compared to the rest of the world.



Now, you can see that the same deceit is done in both Asshai and the HotU. The only difference is that Asshai has a much grander scale. All those foolish people coming to Asshai to learn dark arts sacrifice their seeds (for males), babies, eggs (for females), and reproductive abilities to learn magic. Meanwhile, some transcendental beings grant the foolish people magic in return of these life-fire sacrifices.



I think it is highly likely this process might be empowering those transcendental beings. Burning people alive to get good winds. Yes but we do not have a scale like mana system to measure the input and the output. Mayhaps, the input (burning people alive) releases 10 units of mana and whoever produces the output (good winds) only needs 1 unit of the released mana to produce the requested output. So, only gods can know what they do with the 9 units of free mana.



George has always been warning us about the dangerous and unpredictable nature of magic. I think by now it should be clear that magic is evil in itself. It is not simply a tool for power. Humans are not supposed to do magic. They are not evolved to work like that. We see that the more a person delves into magic, the more that person steps out of humanity (both physically and emotionally). People should stop feeding the transcendental evil entities that are probably breaking the balance of the planet.



​As for how these transcendental beings survive and contact people to manipulate them to their will, I think candlenet is the answer. Candlenet seems like a copycat of weirnet. Glass candles and weirwood trees function almost in the same manner. We know that humans were making blood sacrifices to the weirwood trees and there is the tale of a “demon tree” called Ygg which feeds on human flesh. So, the glass candles should be working with blood sacrifices too.



Maybe weirnet is safe for the CotF but humans should not be a part of it.


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I posted it in many threads that magic seems to be working on the sacrifice of life-fire. Seeds, newborn babies, reproductive ability, souls etc. are all forms of life-fire sacrificed to work dark magic. I am just writing these examples out of my head: The Night's King sacrificed his seeds to the Others. Stannis' seeds were transformed into shadow assassins. Patchface was said to sacrifice his seeds in order to breathe under the sea. Varys' supposed castration is another form of sacrificing seeds. There was also a rumor about Rohanne Webber that she was selling her newly born children to a demon to learn dark arts. Shiera and Danelle supposedly bathed in children's blood in order to keep their charm, which in a distorted way says that they used bloodmagic to hold supernatural charm over men.

Why are children/babies special? Because their life-fire burns much brighter than grown up people. We get this idea from the fact that life-fire extraction caused Stannis to age a decade or more.

Now, recall what really happened at the House of the Undying. These undead wizards were luring fools into their houses in promise of great power and knowledge and whatnot. But the reality was that they were just fooling them and feeding on their blood and life-fire to survive.

Now, recall that Asshai is the single greatest gathering of sorcerers, wizards, shadowbinders and so on. They are practicing their arts openly in Asshai and we do know from Mel that spells work better in Asshai compared to the rest of the world.

Now, you can see that the same deceit is done in both Asshai and the HotU. The only difference is that Asshai has a much grander scale. All those foolish people coming to Asshai to learn dark arts sacrifice their seeds (for males), babies, eggs (for females), and reproductive abilities to learn magic. Meanwhile, some transcendental beings grant the foolish people magic in return of these life-fire sacrifices.

I think it is highly likely this process might be empowering those transcendental beings. Burning people alive to get good winds. Yes but we do not have a scale like mana system to measure the input and the output. Mayhaps, the input (burning people alive) releases 10 units of mana and whoever produces the output (good winds) only needs 1 unit of the released mana to produce the requested output. So, only gods can know what they do with the 9 units of free mana.

George has always been warning us about the dangerous and unpredictable nature of magic. I think by now it should be clear that magic is evil in itself. It is not simply a tool for power. Humans are not supposed to do magic. They are not evolved to work like that. We see that the more a person delves into magic, the more that person steps out of humanity (both physically and emotionally). People should stop feeding the transcendental evil entities that are probably breaking the balance of the planet.

Totally agree. But, that does not answer the question what one becomes after sacrificing one's reproductive powers. I'd say one becomes a nemesis of the Others and that is what I think all creatures who live in Asshai are, Mel included.

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