Asshai: To Reach the Light, You Must Pass Beneath the Shadow (Spoilers Extended)
Early on in the series, GRRM seemed destined to take us to Asshai before time/changes crept in and we recently got quotes like these:
“I don’t plan to set any scenes in Asshai – at least not in the present book, but you may find out a little bit about it in future books. We do have one character who’s been there, of course, and that’s Melisandre. So, in the chapters from her thought, you may occasionally have her think back to her time in Asshai.” -SSM, Guadalajara Book Festival: 2 December 2016
and:
[Will we see Asshai?]
GRRM: Only in flasback and memory, if at all. -SSM
Now I intended to make a nice big breakdown on going to Asshai with a ton of cool quotes and what not, but stumbled across this amazing post by u/BaelBard which covered it better than I ever could have hoped.
So instead of attempting to poorly mimic what u/BaelBard posted, I decided that I would just focus on this part:
Quaithe originally appears to Dany in Qarth back in ACOK:
"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."
Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?"
"Truth," said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd. -ACOK, Daenerys III
She later appears again in ASOS:
She is standing over me. "Who's there?" Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape. "What do you want to me?"
"Remember. 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." -ASOS, Daenerys III
Both of those make sense as at the time, I believe GRRM still intended for the reader to visit Asshai. As far back as 2003, this already started to seem unlikely:
I just wanted to ask, what are the chances of finally seeing Asshai/the Shadow in AFFC?
GRRM: Very remote. SSM, Seeing Asshai: 13 January 2003
So the question is raised, why would GRRM mention the same passage MULTIPLE times in ADWD, if this was an abandoned early plotline like Jaime becoming king, Coldhands/Lady Stoneheart possibly having the same character origin, etc.:
Moonlight shone in the woman's eyes. "To show you the way."
"I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. "I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you—"
"Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are." -ADWD, Daenerys II
and:
She dreamed. All her cares fell away from her, and all her pains as well, and she seemed to float upward into the sky. She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. "To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back. To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." -ADWD, Daenerys X
#Possible Options
The Wall
The Night's Watch permitted the forest to come no closer than half a mile of the north face of the Wall. The thickets of ironwood and sentinel and oak that had once grown there had been harvested centuries ago, to create a broad swath of open ground through which no enemy could hope to pass unseen. Tyrion had heard that elsewhere along the Wall, between the three fortresses, the wildwood had come creeping back over the decades, that there were places where grey-green sentinels and pale white weirwoods had taken root in the shadow of the Wall itself, but Castle Black had a prodigious appetite for firewood, and here the forest was still kept at bay by the axes of the black brothers. -AGOT, Tyrion III
and:
Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. -AGOT, Bran III
Quaithe is wrong
The possibility exists that Quaithe is wrong about Dany (similar to how the Red Priests are wrong about AA.
So the "pass beneath the shadow" could be directed at another character instead of Dany.
Glass Candle
Due to the fact that numerous characters in our story either have glass candles (Marwyn/Quaithe) or probably have glass candles (Euron/Leyton Hightower, the possibility (although pretty unlikely imo) exists that it refers to lighting a glass candle.
Idk i just like this quote:
"Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
"You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows." -ACOK, Davos II
Also a fun fact: In real life, a burning flame does not cast a shadow itself.
Dany goes to Asshai but we don't get a POV there
Dany is "going forward to go back" currently (Dothraki/Vaes Dothrak/etc.) and maybe after she becomes the Stallion that Mounts the World:
Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed. -ACOK, Daenerys IV
So its possible that after this Dany flies to Asshai on her own, (where we get no POV) and then returns to our story (where we get flashbacks/memories).
Its definitely important to note that GRRM could change his mind again (and again lol), but due to the power that is in this quote, I don't think it will have some small unimportant meaning (passing beneath the shadow of numerous things is referenced in the series such as the Small Hall in the Red Keep, Tower of the Hand and even the shadow city in Dorne), I've also seen it theorized that passing beneath the shadow is meant to represent death, but I don't think that fits particularly well either.
Thanks again to u/baelbard for saving me a few hours of research (which I actually really enjoy doing) and for typing it out far better than I ever could have.
TLDR: By including the wording in ADWD, GRRM has confirmed that "passing beneath the shadow" is necessary for our story, although it probably won't be in the way originally intended
Posted Jun 10, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC · edited