the borders of the Golden Empire proper, past the legendary Mountains of the Morn, in
the city of Carcosa on the Hidden Sea, dwells in exile a sorcerer lord who blames to be
the sixty-ninth yellow emperor, from a dynasty fallen for a thousand years. xiv
"Carcosa" is of course a callback to The King in Yellow the 1895 collection of short
stories by Robert Chambers, featuring a lost city called Carcosa and an otherworldly, monstrous
King in Yellow who rules there (the "sixty-ninth yellow emperor" is thus also an allusion).
Elements of Chambers' stories were borrowed by Lovecraft for his stories xv . Chambers' King in
Yellow became the Hastur the Unspeakable of Lovecraft and other Mythos writers. In these
stories, the revelation of the divine beings, or Old Ones, brings forth not Beatific Vision of the
Christian heaven, but horror and madness. R'hllor, might be one such God, especially if
Melisandre of Asshai is his servant.
We have not discussed Asshai-by-the-Shadow, by all accounts an unpleasant place:
Few places in the known world are as remote as Asshai, and fewer as forbidding.
Travelers tell us that the city is build entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples,
palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a
greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches
and hearth fires alike. The nights are very black in Asshai, all agree, and eve the
brightest days of summer are somehow grey and gloomy.
Asshai is a large city, sprawling out for leagues on both banks of the black river Ash.
Behind its enormous land walls is ground enough for Volantis, Qarth, and King's
Landing to stand side by side and still have room for Oldtown.
Yet the population of Asshai is no greater than that of a good-sized market town. By night
the streets are deserted, and only one building in ten shows a light. Even at the height of
day, there are no crowds to be seen, no tradesmen shouting their wares in noisy markets,
no women gossiping at a well. Those who walk the streets of Asshai are masked and
veiled, and have a furtive air about them. Oft as not, they walk alone, or ride in
palanquins of ebony and iron, hidden behind dark curtains and borne through the dark
streets upon the backs of slaves.
And there are no children in Asshai. xvi
This city literally has Here be Demons on the maps beyond it (and a corpse-city called
Stygai, another Robert Howard reference). It is the edge of the world and the edge of madness
and it may be where the worship of red R'hllor began.
With all this cultural and theological context, let us consider the story of Jon Snow. xvii
We will die, but not without some honor from the Gods. xviii