In A Clash of Kings, Daenerys Targaryen meets “three seekers” – Pyat Pree, Xaro Xhoan
Daxos, and Quaithe – who are kinda like the three wise men of the Bible – they come
after a miraculous birth beneath a special star, and give gifts to a possible prophesied
saviour – but anyway – Pyat Pree is a douchebag warlock guy, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is
a douchebag “merchant prince” guy, and Quaithe is… a mystery. She wears a red mask,
and calls herself “Quaithe of the Shadow”. Like Melisandre, she says she’s a shadowbinder
from Asshai. A shadowbinder seems to be someone who uses shadow magic – like Mel does to
kill Renly and Cortnay Penrose – and Asshai is a city at the edge of the known world,
steeped in darkness and magic and mystery, much like Quaithe herself – beyond her
name and where she’s from, we know nothing about this woman. Yet she repeatedly appears
to Dany, offering cryptic advice. What’s her deal?
In Qarth, Quaithe tells Dany to “Beware … Of all” who might want to take her dragons,
which as Jorah says, is good advice. Later, she says magic is becoming more powerful in
the world of ice and fire, which is something we’ve heard before, but she implies
that it’s happening because of the birth of Dany’s dragons. Then Quaithe tells Dany
to leave Qarth. Dany asks where she should go, and Quaithe says this: “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”. At first Dany thinks
this means Quaithe wants her to go to Asshai, which is, after all, “Easternmost and
southernmost of the great cities of the known world”, so she asks “What is there in
Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?”, and Quaithe just says “Truth”. It’s
probably possible for Dany to go to Asshai – it's about as close to Qarth as Meereen is. Some
suggest Dany might pass through Asshai, go all the way east, and approach Westeros from
the west. But there’s good reason not to believe that Dany goes to Asshai – George
R. R. Martin has said that “[We will see Asshai] Only in flashback and memory, if at
all”. Further, it seems really silly to have such a cryptic riddle solved immediately
after we hear it. Right? So it seems unlikely that Quaithe means for Dany to go to Asshai.
But she means something important, ’cause in the next book, in Slaver’s Bay, Quaithe
appears to Dany again, seemingly in a dream, and repeats the go back to go forward thing.
In Dance, Quaithe appears a third time, and this is where she speaks the most. Dany asks
Quaithe if she’s dreaming, and Quaithe says “no”, but she also says that she’s not
actually there, and that only Dany can see her. She then says “The glass candles are
burning”. This may explain how Quaithe keeps appearing to Dany when she sleeps – glass
candles are magical Valyrian artefacts that allow communication over long distances, kinda
like palantiri in Lord of the Rings, or just, like, uh, phones. But glass candles, according
to Marwyn the Mage, allow you to “enter a man’s dreams and give him visions”, which
sounds like what’s happening to Dany. And it’s plausible that Quaithe might have a
glass candle, it’s not like they’re super-rare – the maesters of the Citadel have a bunch,
the Targaryens of Aemon’s day seem to have had some, and someone called Urrathon
Night-Walker has some, in Qarth, where Quaithe presumably still is. So it looks like Quaithe
is using a glass candle to communicate with Dany.
That’s one puzzle solved, but Quaithe gives us more. She says “Soon comes the pale mare,
and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and
the mummer’s dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed
seneschal”. This is basically a list of everything and everyone Dany has to deal with.
“[T]he pale mare” is the disease that ravages Slaver’s Bay, “the others” probably
the Yunkai’i. The “kraken”’s Victarion and maybe Euron, the “dark flame” is
Moqorro, the “lion” Tyrion, the “griffin” Jon Connington, “the sun’s son” Quentyn
Martell. “[T]he mummer’s dragon” is probably Aegon, maybe hinting that he’s
no true Targaryen. And “the perfumed seneschal” could be a bunch of stuff – maybe Reznak,
or Varys, or the ship Tyrion was on. Interestingly, Quaithe mentions all these people, but not
Marwyn the Mage, who’s also coming for Dany. And it just so happens that Marwyn uses a
glass candle – could he be in contact with Quaithe? In any case, overall that stuff’s
pretty straightforward, and pretty accurate, too, right? Dany notices that Quaithe predicts
“the pale mare” and Quentyn. But she still doesn’t understand the go-back-to-go-forwards
stuff. Everything starts to make sense in Daenerys
X, A Dance With Dragons. In this chapter, Dany has a climactic kind of a vision quest
at the edge of the Dothraki Sea. She eats some funny berries, flies around on Drogon,
hallucinates – a lot like that scene in Tenacious D, actually. But the point of this
for Dany is huge turning point in her character. All through Dance, she tries to peacefully
and diplomatically rule the city of Meereen – she marries Hizdahr when she wants Daario,
she chains away her dragons when she wants them free, she opens Daznak’s Pit, and allows
Yunkish slavery, though she thinks it wrong, all the while telling herself “If I look
back I am lost”. That’s the mantra by which she supresses the violent, uncompromising
side of her personality, the Targaryen side. And that’s how this chapter starts – she
tells herself her home is in Meereen, she needs to bend before the whip, if she looks
back she is lost. But in this chapter, she looks back. Quaithe appears, and says “Remember
who you are … The dragons know. Do you?” And her vision quest begins. A vision of Viserys
reminds her of her Targaryen blood, the grass reminds her that her dragons are her true
children, a vision of Jorah reminds her that Meereen is not her home, that her war is in
Westeros, he says “Remember your words”, and Dany says “Fire and Blood”. So at
the conclusion of this chapter, Daenerys says “To go forward I must go back”. She flies
off on Drogon, hunts and eats a horse, thinks of Daario, and the chapter ends with the appearance
of a Dothraki khalasar. Dany is going back to the Dothraki, back to the Targaryens, back
to “Fire and Blood”, and it all starts with Quaithe. This is what Quaithe means when
she says “To go forward you must go back”, and the “go north [to go] south” and “east”
“to [go] west” stuff presumably means the same thing, just a little more poetically.
Admittedly, the bit saying “to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow”
doesn’t really fit this interpretation very well. The fact that Asshai is called Asshai-by-the-Shadow
does make it tempting to believe that this means Dany will go to Asshai, but again, that seems
unlikely. So maybe the light and shadow stuff will make more sense later. For now, we’ve got
a pretty good explanation of Quaithe’s prophecy. “To go forward you must go back” refers
to transformation of Dany’s character, a return to violence and power and “Fire and
Blood”. Maybe she’ll lead a horde of Dothraki. Maybe she’ll go burn her enemies in Slaver’s
Bay. Maybe she’ll finally go to Westeros. And maybe, with the loss of her gentler side,
she’ll become a bit of a bad guy. This is a big deal for Dany.
But we still don’t know what’s up with Quaithe. Who is she, and what does
she want? To answer these questions, let’s “go back”, to the reign of King Aegon
IV Targaryen, more than a hundred years ago. Known as “the Unworthy”, Aegon famously
fathered lots of bastards, including the original Daenerys Targaryen, after whom our Dany is
named, but he also fathered someone called Shiera Seastar, who according to one theory,
is Quaithe. Now, for Quaithe to be Shiera, she’d have to be more than a hundred years
old, but funnily enough, Shiera Seastar’s half-brother and lover was Brynden Rivers,
a.k.a. Bloodraven, a.k.a. the three-eyed crow, who Bran finds alive beyond the Wall, and
who, like Quaithe, gives cryptic guidance from afar. If Brynden extended his life, and
he was close with Shiera, maybe Shiera could extend her life too. Of course, Quaithe is
not a tree-person, but The World of Ice and Fire says Shiera’s mother was said to be
a sorceress, and George R. R. Martin has said Shiera “was reputed to practice
the dark arts” – the same is said in The Sworn Sword, specifically the she “bath[ed]
in blood to keep her beauty”. So it seems totally possible that Shiera might magically
extend her life. Further, there are strong symbolic connections between her and Quaithe.
Shiera is associated with stars – her mother named her “Star of the Sea”. And in Daenerys
X, in the Dothraki Sea, the stars whisper Quaithe’s prophecy to Dany, and Dany sees
Quaithe as a “mask … made of starlight”. Quaithe’s whole role in the story is symbolically
that of a sea star, a guiding light that “show[s] [Dany] the way” when she’s “lost [on
the Dothraki] sea”. Being Shiera may explain Quaithe’s motivations – it makes sense
that a fellow Targaryen princess, or legitimised bastard, whatever, would want to guide Dany
back to her Targaryen roots, and return to Westeros. Also, Shiera is said to have
“spoke[n] a dozen tongues and surrounded herself with ancient scrolls”. You’ve
gotta wonder – might some those ancient scrolls have said something about a saviour
called Azor Ahai? That prophecy seems to come from Asshai, so maybe Shiera Seastar
went to Asshai for that reason, and she helps Dany because, like Benerro and Aemon, she
thinks Dany is Azor Ahai. Or she might have just gone to Asshai for general shadowbinding
black artsy stuff. Or maybe she’s never even been to Asshai and she just says he has,
and wears a mask, and takes the name of Quaithe to hide her identity – she was a famed beauty
in her day, maybe she doesn’t want to be recognised. Maybe she had to leave Westeros
to hide her unnaturally long life. We could speculate all day. The point is that there’s
fairly strong evidence that Quaithe may be Shiera Seastar. It’s far from certain, some
things don’t fit – like, Shiera’s eyes are different colours, and Dany doesn’t
notice that in Quaithe. But there are still strong symbolic connections between the two,
and being Shiera may explain Quaithe’s motivations. Whoever she is, Quaithe’s prophecy seems
to refer to a transformation in Daenerys’ character from peace and restraint to “fire
and blood”. Thanks for watching. Let me know in the comments
whether you think Quaithe is Shiera Seastar, and what topic you’d like to see next.