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Would Daenerys find a home in Asshai?


Br16

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It seems that Dany has this strong desire go back to some sort of "true home" as shown by her repeated dreams of House with Red Door and Lemon Tree. So far, she associates her end game with Westeros and the Iron Throne. However, what if the point that Quaithe was trying to communicate with the "To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." message was that Dany has gotten it all wrong and that she would actually be truly at home in Asshai among sorcerers and the supernatural.

I once attended a Chinese Philosophy lecture and the speaker said that Confucian texts state that you only possess land if you fit in with the people, and that merely controlling the land means nothing if you cannot gain true popular support. 

So perhaps Dany is simply too weird for Westeros with her Unsullied, Dragons, and Dothraki (and implied magic). Perhaps Asshai would suit her and her dragons better considering the hints that dragons and dragon-lore still exist in the Shadow. Moreover, she did get the dragon hatching sacrifice ritual right despite the DIY nature of it. So maybe Quaithe is saying that Dany's destiny is to be Queen of dragons and sorcerers not Andal feudal farmers?

On the plus side, there could be a lot of empty palaces in Asshai. She might have trouble feeding the Unsullied given that nothing grows there, but she could set most of them free and take only a core loyal guard.

What do you guys think?

 

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I always understood it more like she needs to go to Asshai not necessarily to retrieve something. And she shouldn't go anywhere before that. Quaithe tells her not to trust the people who are coming her way at the end of ADwD because she knows they want her to go to Westeros right away. The point is the Shadowlands are a dangerous but also very magical place. She needs to pass beneath the shadow to touch the light... So she needs to go there to find the truth? To find a way to destroy a menace? To become a magical being? Lots of people think there are still dragons there... Could she learn how to control hers better? It might be needed for her to become who she really is (maybe like Bran in his weirwood tree) and she needs a specific knowledge. 

One thing I believe is that she is not meant to stay there at least not for now. She has only to pass... Nothing is said about staying, she is meant to go elsewhere and Quaithe's prophecy is clear about that aspect. Maybe it also means that if she doesn't go she will fail in her next journey (conquering Westeros). 

Then it could also be that for whatever reason Quaithe wants to take control of her and her going there is just a way to have this happen... Derail her from the real journey... Quaithe has been mostly right, but so have others. We don't really know or understand her agenda. Maybe she wants her to go there to add her dragons to the herd of dragons already there... Lol. 

This has been boggling my mind for a very long time and I'm afraid I haven't come up with a clear idea.

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20 minutes ago, Lady Valicious said:

I always understood it more like she needs to go to Asshai not necessarily to retrieve something. And she shouldn't go anywhere before that. Quaithe tells her not to trust the people who are coming her way at the end of ADwD because she knows they want her to go to Westeros right away. The point is the Shadowlands are a dangerous but also very magical place. She needs to pass beneath the shadow to touch the light... So she needs to go there to find the truth? To find a way to destroy a menace? To become a magical being? Lots of people think there are still dragons there... Could she learn how to control hers better? It might be needed for her to become who she really is (maybe like Bran in his weirwood tree) and she needs a specific knowledge. 

One thing I believe is that she is not meant to stay there at least not for now. She has only to pass... Nothing is said about staying, she is meant to go elsewhere and Quaithe's prophecy is clear about that aspect. Maybe it also means that if she doesn't go she will fail in her next journey (conquering Westeros). 

Then it could also be that for whatever reason Quaithe wants to take control of her and her going there is just a way to have this happen... Derail her from the real journey... Quaithe has been mostly right, but so have others. We don't really know or understand her agenda. Maybe she wants her to go there to add her dragons to the herd of dragons already there... Lol. 

This has been boggling my mind for a very long time and I'm afraid I haven't come up with a clear idea.

Thanks for your reply and you bring up great points. Reading it again, I agree with you that the visit to Asshai is a priority, but probably meant to be temporary. It would be so cool if there are more dragons. However, I feel Quaithe is honest since so many people are already trying to fool Dany that it seems only fair that she gets at least one mysterious person with honest intention backing her.

My gut feeling is that places with feared reputations may sometimes turn out to be magically great places in disguise (e.g.  to touch the light) while places advertised as dream places may turn out to be a den of corruption.

So perhaps the feared corpse city of Stygai (located in the shadow) might be a place for her to go? Maybe there are other Dragonlord Valyrians hiding there (lifespan extended by sorcery) who survived the doom. Maybe it's a place only Dany could go to and even Quaithe can't enter?

Asshai and the shadow is simply so mysterious and without real world equivalents that they have has gripped my curiosity since I read about them. I hope we would explore those locations in detail in the future books.

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I agree that the "East" and "Shadow" parts of Quaithe's prophecy refer to Asshai. And maybe the "South" part refers to Sothoryos? One thing I enjoyed about ADWD is that we got to visit some places that had been just names on a map until then. I hope we get more of that in the next book(s).

And let's not forget that, in Bran's first flying dream (AGOT chapter 17, Bran III), he looked East and saw "Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise."  

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I really wish Dany would go there, but depending on how long the Dothraki part will take it might not happen. It's like there's a piece of the puzzle there (not sure which one lol). I had forgotten about that part in the Bran chapter... Maybe he saw new dragons or maybe those were Dany's as she will go. I still hope Marwyn will meet her. He traveled to many places Asshai included maybe he can make sense of Quaithe's insistence that she go there. He should know what to expect. 

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Some of our perviest posters were saying a while back that the outline was changed for what's planned and the sight seeing tour of Asshai got cut.    It's a saddener.    The shadow may have been where dragons first "stirred," like a point of origin for them.  I don't tink there's a flock hidden there nowadays.  That'd make Danneee less special, and she's very special.  So very.   But you have to take into account that i don't read any of the cash grab books like Fire & Blood, which means most of the time I'm talking directly out of my rectum on things like this.

I hope we still get a magic heavy plot that picks up with the Citadel and its sphinx, Marwyn and whatever message he considers vital enough to spill to Daenerys, the horning of a dragon, the pants down spanking of the maesters in public, the Braavosi making their big play for the seven kingdoms' ownership- - including magical infiltration- -and for the love of my multiple pagan gods let's please get an explanation of why the Others are so pissy and why fire & ice combo blood matters so much to history supposedly, and a bit more of a look into the real mind of the old gods / children / weirnet.   By the time any or all of this comes to pass, hopefully it'll be as if we got to see Asshai, because we'll have seen behind the green curtain enough to feel contented.   Once your nipples get hard from decent magical revelations you see the purpose of including them on a breastplate.

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@The Mother of The Others

Oh I hope you are right. I definitely want more magic as things go to their conclusion. I totally expect the battle against the Others to be mostly magical. What gives me hope is that Dany sees in her Trident dream an army clad in ice and not thousands of wights fighting for them. I want to know what they are about and why they go south to fight men... And that dragon horn one part of me wants it to be genuine and to succeed, the other wants the dragons to all go to Westeros with Dany (I really want Jon to bond with Viserion). 

Marwyn is totally the one who will tell us more about passing beneath the Shadow. Maybe he will go there again for Dany while she goes to Westeros. If there's anything to learn or get there he's the perfect candidate... Maybe going with Jorah who was pushing her to go there at the beginning... 

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On 5/31/2019 at 5:09 AM, Lady Valicious said:

I always understood it more like she needs to go to Asshai not necessarily to retrieve something. And she shouldn't go anywhere before that. Quaithe tells her not to trust the people who are coming her way at the end of ADwD because she knows they want her to go to Westeros right away. The point is the Shadowlands are a dangerous but also very magical place. She needs to pass beneath the shadow to touch the light... So she needs to go there to find the truth? To find a way to destroy a menace? To become a magical being? Lots of people think there are still dragons there... Could she learn how to control hers better? It might be needed for her to become who she really is (maybe like Bran in his weirwood tree) and she needs a specific knowledge. 

One thing I believe is that she is not meant to stay there at least not for now. She has only to pass... Nothing is said about staying, she is meant to go elsewhere and Quaithe's prophecy is clear about that aspect. Maybe it also means that if she doesn't go she will fail in her next journey (conquering Westeros). 

Then it could also be that for whatever reason Quaithe wants to take control of her and her going there is just a way to have this happen... Derail her from the real journey... Quaithe has been mostly right, but so have others. We don't really know or understand her agenda. Maybe she wants her to go there to add her dragons to the herd of dragons already there... Lol. 

This has been boggling my mind for a very long time and I'm afraid I haven't come up with a clear idea.

Passing beneath the shadow to see the light again is about the Long Night.  It's not about Asshai.  Daenerys will live through the Long Night to see the return of the Light.  

Asshai is the prophecy of going East to go West.  We already have a clue who Quaithe is.  And if this is true, she is one of the few or only one who knows what lies beyond the east of Essos.  She sailed from Westeros going west and made it to Asshai.  There is something in Asshai that could benefit Daenerys.  Perhaps it has something to do with the Long Night.  More magic candles perhaps.  Candles that do not burn out is a light bringer.  

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