I was going through one of your old Reddit AMAs, and in it you talked about how you think that George probably intended for Dany’s storyline to take her to Asshai. Do you mind elaborating on that?

So there’s a couple different places where I think you can see the original “Plan A”:

“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. “The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.” (AGOT, Dany II)

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (AGOT, Bran III)

“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, Dany III)

So GRRM is creating a very strong link between Asshai and dragons from early on – Dany’s eggs come from Asshai, Asshai are where dragons are still alive tho slumbering, and Dany gets a prophecy telling her to go to Asshai.

At some point, however, I think GRRM realized that he didn’t have enough time get Dany to Asshai and back, not so much due to physical limitations (although Asshai is 2700 miles east of Qarth, so it’s not a nothing voyage) but more due to how that would screw up everyone else’s timelines.

My guess is that point was either when he decided against the five-year gap (which would have given people plenty of time to get to where Dany is and vice versa), or when he was struggling through the Meereenese Knot and realizing that the timing and sequence of who meets Dany was more important than whatever he had planned in Asshai.

What does it mean “there are no children in Asshai”?

There are as many answers as you have imagination: they’re all undead, they’re all infertile due to magical radiation, they sacrifice all their children to Moloch, they eat babies, a monster comes and steals them all, etc.

Ultimately, it comes down to that Asshai is a Thin Place more than almost anywhere else in the world:

…beyond the walls of Asshai little grows save ghost grass, whose glassy, glowing stalks are inedible. If not for the food brought in from across the sea, the Asshai’i would have starved.

The ships bring casks of freshwater too. The waters of the Ash glisten black beneath the noonday sun and glimmer with a pale green phosphorescence by night, and such fish as swim in the river are blind and twisted, so deformed and hideous to look upon that only fools and shadowbinders will eat of their flesh.

Every land beneath the sun has need of fruits and grains and vegetables, so one might ask why any mariner would sail to the ends of the earth when he might more easily sell his cargo to markets closer to home. The answer is gold.

Beyond the walls of Asshai, food is scarce, but gold and gems are common…though some will say that the gold of the Shadow Lands is as unhealthy in its own way as the fruits that grow there…

The dark city by the Shadow is a city steeped in sorcery. Warlocks, wizards, alchemists, moonsingers, red priests, black alchemists, necromancers, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, torturers, inquisitors, poisoners, godswives, night-walkers, shapechangers, worshippers of the Black Goat and the Pale Child and the Lion of Night, all find welcome in Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where nothing is forbidden. Here they are free to practice their spells without restraint or censure, conduct their obscene rites, and fornicate with demons if that is their desire.”

This is a place where “nothing is forbidden everything is permitted.”

Isn’t it odd that Melissandre, being of Asshai, is portrayed as white? (Or in the books the only peculiarity is she has red eyes, but otherwise her ethnicity is not described which kinda implies white by default) Geographically, Asshai seems a sort of equivalent to RL India. How could people originating from Asshai A) be white and B) not have a distinctive language (I don’t buy Valyrian that far East, the books say Valyrian is already breaking down by Slaver’s bay)

This is a common misconception. Melisandre is “of” Asshai but she was not born in Asshai, because “there are no children in Asshai.” Rather, Melisandre was sold into slavery in Asshai:

“The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover’s hand. Strange voices called to her from days long past. “Melony,” she heard a woman cry. A man’s voice called, “Lot Seven.” She was weeping, and her tears were flame. And still she drank it in…

Dawn. Another day is given us, R’hllor be praised. The terrors of the night recede. Melisandre had spent the night in her chair by the fire, as she often did. With Stannis gone, her bed saw little use. She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord’s blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover’s kisses. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour. One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams. Melony, she thought. Lot Seven.”

Moreover, we have no idea what ethnicity the Asshai are, since “those who walk the streets of Asshai are masked and veiled.” So I think people are being far too conventional by assuming that any real world ethnicity applies to the Asshai, or humanity for that matter.

Finally, why white should be assumed as the default for Melisandre, I don’t know – she was a slave in Essos, so she could be from as far west as Lys to as far east as Qarth, I suppose. We know she has pale skin, but that’s it. And she speaks with a distinctively Eastern accent, so there’s that.

On what part of Planetos do you think R’hollorism first arose? I’m assuming not Asshai (although there’s probably a mission or semi-heretical sect or something) because a cult with a black-white moral system that aggressively tries to denounce other religions couldn’t have survived an infancy in a place as libertine as Asshai.

You think a city that lives “by-the-Shadow” where the very stones try to devour light, wouldn’t be attracted to a religion that worships the Light and believes that “the night is dark and full of terror”?

Moreover, Melisandre says:

“In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.“

That suggests that Asshai was one of the earliest centers of R’hllorism.