Naath

Naath is a small island in the Summer Sea, known to the wider world chiefly as the homeland of the Naathi, a people with golden skin and a culture of profound gentleness. In the narrative of A Dance with Dragons, the island functions less as a visited location than as a persistent emblem of a peace that has been shattered and a home that cannot be regained.

Geography and People

The Naathi are distinguished by their golden skin and their pacifist, unwarlike nature. This very gentleness makes them a target. Missandei, the young scribe who serves Daenerys Targaryen, was taken from her home on Naath by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor. Her brothers Mossador and Marselen suffered a similar fate, being gelded and made into Unsullied. The island's vulnerability is a direct consequence of its people's refusal to meet violence with violence, a trait that marks them as prey in the brutal world of Slaver's Bay.

Naath as a Lost Home

For Missandei, Naath represents a lost paradise of childhood innocence. She recalls her brother Mossador with a memory of him sleeping in a garden covered in butterflies, a vision of peace and natural beauty that stands in stark contrast to the blood-soaked streets of Meereen. When Daenerys, overwhelmed by the nightly murders committed by the Sons of the Harpy, offers to send Missandei home to Naath to keep her safe, the girl refuses. "On Naath I'd be afraid," she confesses. "What if the slavers came again? I feel safe when I'm with you." The island, once a sanctuary, has become a place of fear, its safety irrevocably compromised by the slave trade that has already stolen her family.

Narrative Significance

Naath's role in the novel is primarily symbolic and emotional. It is a place that exists only in memory and longing, a counterpoint to the violence and political machinations of Meereen. For Daenerys, the desire to protect Missandei and the dream of a peaceful home are intertwined with her own yearning for the house with the red door, a lost sanctuary from her own childhood. The island thus serves as a shared symbol of a gentler world that both queen and scribe have been forced to abandon, a world that the narrative suggests may no longer exist anywhere in the known world.