Sothorys, Ulthos...

[Don Roberto]

That's an old guess at what the Jade Sea looked like, but it no longer stands.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

Quaithe is of the Shadow Lands, where people hide their faces behind masks.

Melisandre is from (maybe not originally, but recently) Asshai, where people do not.

Asshai and the Shadow Lands are neighbours, but they are not the same place or culture.

Oh. So the wiki is incorrect in stating that Quaithe is a priestess of AsshaI?

[The Dornishman's Wife]

Oh. So the wiki is incorrect in stating that Quaithe is a priestess of AsshaI?

I believe the wiki is mistaken in calling Quaithe a priestess (I've just looked back at her mentions in ACOK, ASOS and ADWD, and nowhere is she described as a priestess, but only as a shadowbinder. Melisandre is both, but there is little reason to suppose that all shadowbinders are priests -- it seems more like a word to describe a practitioner of a certain kind of magic).

About the part of whether Quaithe is from Asshai itself or from the Shadow Lands outside Asshai the wiki seems to make sense though. She introduces herself as "Quaithe of the Shadow", but the appendices all name her a "shadowbinder of Asshai". As Asshai is called Asshai-by-the-Shadow anyways, I take both designations to be consistent and to imply that her affiliation is with Asshai itself.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Actually, The Shadow refers both of Asshai and The Shadow Lands.

Quaithe is of the Asshai, it's stated in the appendix of aFfC.

People cannot live outside of the city because The Shadow Lands is covered with ghost grass, so there's no plant. No plant = No food.

Melisandre isn't an Asshai'i. She was a slave and she says "long before Asshai".

[Don Roberto]

But there are two rivers coming down from the mountains of the Shadows, and where there's river it's likely to have food. Asshai itself looks surrounded by ghost grass, it probably takes its livelihood from the sea. Maybe there's a way to eat ghost grass itself, or maybe even the tails of ghost grass are innacurate (we know little of it and from unreliable source).

[Werthead]

Actually, The Shadow refers both of Asshai and The Shadow Lands.

Negative. The Shadow or Shadow Lands is close to Asshai, but Asshai is not included in it. That's why it's sometimes called Asshai-by-the-Shadow, not Asshai-in-the-Shadow.

ACoK definitely gives the impression that Melisandre is from (not originally, but for the purposes of simplicity) Asshai and Quaithe is from the Shadow Lands. The Shadow Lands are described as inhospitable, but not described as totally 100% uninhabitable. In particular, the coasts may be settled with fishing as a possible source of food. Quaithe being described as being from Asshai may be an error or GRRM changing his mind without accomodating the fact that Melisandre and Quaithe seemed to be earlier described as coming from adjacent but not identical cultures.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

@Werthead

...pale-skinned voyagers from Qarth, coal-black Summer Islanders in feathered cloaks, even masked shadow-binders from Asshai by the Shadow.

It says masked shadow-binders from ASSHAI, not The Shadow or something.

According the appendices of aFfC and aDwD

—QUAITHE, a masked shadowbinder from Asshai,

Anyways, I think we need to wait and see, or maybe Ran can help us about it :kiss:

Maybe, you're right, they're like the wildings and northerners. They're similar but not same.