Astapor

The Red City

The southernmost of the slave cities, red brick and dust at the mouth of the Worm, where the Good Masters train and sell the Unsullied.

The fuller tale

Astapor is red brick and red dust at the mouth of the Worm, a hot, declining city that the other slaversÔÇÖ towns sneer at ÔÇö and the home of the one commodity no one sneers at. In its fighting yards the Good Masters manufacture the Unsullied: boys cut young, trained past pain, past fear, past name ÔÇö each recruitÔÇÖs final examination, the books specify, is the purchase of a newborn from its motherÔÇÖs arms and its killing before her, with a silver coin paid to the owner for the loss. The result is the finest infantry in the world, obedient as the dead, and AstaporÔÇÖs Plaza of Pride displays them for buyers beneath a bronze harpy while masters like Kraznys mo Nakloz detail the product in Valyrian, confident the silver-haired barbarian girl cannot understand a word.

The sale is the storyÔÇÖs cleanest trap. Daenerys offers a dragon for every Unsullied in the city, endures KraznysÔÇÖs obscenities through the diplomatic filter of a young slave translator named Missandei, and takes possession of eight thousand spears ÔÇö then reveals, in flawless Valyrian, that a dragon is not a slave. DrogonÔÇÖs first word of command, dracarys, turns the Plaza of Pride into the mastersÔÇÖ pyre; the Unsullied, freed on the spot and asked to fight as free men, choose her to a man. It is the taleÔÇÖs most satisfying morning, which is precisely why the story appends an afternoon.

Daenerys marches on and Astapor demonstrates what a beheaded tyranny grows back. The council she leaves ÔÇö a healer, a scholar, a priest ÔÇö is overthrown within the year by a butcher named Cleon, who crowns himself, cuts boys to make new Unsullied, and drags the city into war with Yunkai. In the books the sequel is grimmer still: siege, famine, plague, a butchered Butcher King, and refugees streaming toward Meereen carrying the pale mare with them ÔÇö the red city reduced to a warning that reaches Daenerys as a disease. Astapor is the question mark the story pins to every liberation that follows: chains can be burned in a day; what was done to the people who wore them cannot.

The chronicle here

In Astapor, Dany inspects the Unsullied while a warlock's child nearly kills her. (S3┬ÀE1)
In Astapor: 'Dracarys.' The Unsullied are hers, the masters are ash, and the whip is on the ground. (S3┬ÀE4)
Dany learns Astapor and Yunkai have fallen back to old ways, and decides to stay: a queen rules. (S4┬ÀE5)
Aboard Balerion a Sorrowful Man's manticore nearly ends the dragon queen; Arstan Whitebeard's staff is quicker, and the course is set for Astapor ÔÇö for an army. (ASOS 9)
In Astapor Kraznys mo Nakloz shows off his Unsullied in Valyrian obscenities that his translator softens; Daenerys pretends not to understand a word. (ASOS 24)
ÔÇ£Dracarys.ÔÇØ The whip changes hands, the Unsullied turn, and Astapor's masters learn what a dragon is worth: everything, and their city with it. (ASOS 28)
Yunkai buys sellswords and allies while Astapor dies behind its walls; the queen's peace hangs by threads, and the pale mare has begun to ride. (ADWD 17)