Upstairs, downstairs.

[Seams]

There are twenty uses of the word “serpentine” in the published ASOIAF series, according to the search site. Seventeen of those refer to the serpentine steps in the Red Keep, as many of the citations in this thread have already noted. One time the word is used to describe the passageway in the House of the Undying just as Dany escapes with Drogon. The final two uses of the word describe Drogon’s neck as Dany decides to take charge and become a dragon rider in the fighting pit.

 

Springwatch cited this Tyrion encounter with the serpentine steps:

When Pod and he reached the serpentine steps, however, Tyrion could only gape at them in dismay. I will never climb those by myself, he confessed to himself. Swallowing his dignity, he asked Bronn to carry him, hoping against hope that at this hour there would be no-one to see and smile, no-one to tell the tale of the dwarf being carried up the steps like a babe in arms.

ASOS

 

Since Bronn had been Tyrion’s champion at the Eyrie, I wondered whether there might be a parallel reference to Oberyn Martell helping Tyrion with some steps. I think I found the parallel:

 

He never heard his father speak the words that condemned him. Perhaps no words were necessary. I put my life in the Red Viper's hands, and he dropped it. When he remembered, too late, that snakes had no hands, Tyrion began to laugh hysterically.

He was halfway down the serpentine steps before he realized that the gold cloaks were not taking him back to his tower room. "I've been consigned to the black cells," he said. They did not bother to answer. Why waste your breath on the dead?

ASoS, Tyrion X

 

Oberyn is the Red Viper; he is serpentine. As a serpent, however, he has no hands so he dropped Tyrion’s life. By contrast, Bronn is able to carry Tyrion like a babe in arms. (Later, Bronn will name his wife’s baby after Tyrion.) Springwatch mentioned Stonesnake in the example of Jon climbing the mountain in the Frostfangs. I bet he is connected to the serpentine / Red Viper figure in these step stories as well. Clearly, he is one of the guide figures I was starting to see as a pattern, although he may not be a step guide, as Old Nan and Hodor appear to be.

 

In keeping with a number of the comments already shared in this thread, the liminal journey on the serpentine steps could represent death and/or birth.

 

I wonder whether going up steps might represent impregnation – the sperm swimming up the birth canal – while going down the steps represents birth or rebirth. But that does not fit with Bronn carrying Tyrion up the steps like a babe in arms. The person or thing at the top of the steps might also make a difference. Maybe this is where the person’s destiny determines the meaning of the up/down choice – if you are destined to sit on the Iron Throne, you are “born” when you go upstairs.  If you are the king of the underworld, like Ned Stark or his children, you are “born” when you go downstairs, such as visiting the Winterfell crypt. (Maybe.)

 

The “steps = birth/death canal” notion is influenced by some ideas from another current thread in the forum. Curled Finger questioned whether sphinxes might be a clue to Targaryen blood magic and their shared heritage with dragons. Some of the excerpts in that thread opened my eyes to the similarities between skinchanging and pregnancy / childbirth. I see some additional clues here in the serpentine steps, with the serpent description making a natural connection to dragons and their Targaryen BFFs.

 

Of the twenty references to serpentine things, some don’t immediately fit the birth / death imagery or the dragon / Targaryen association, but others might provide interesting clues. For instance, elsewhere in this forum people have theorized that the mean old tomcat in the Red Keep was once the kitten of the murdered Targaryen princess Rhaenys. Arya wants to catch that cat as part of her sword training. The cat is mentioned three times in connection with the serpentine steps: twice in Arya POVs and once in a Sansa POV:

 

She would need to go down the serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard, that was how she'd gone last time, chasing the black tomcat … only that would take her right past the barracks of the gold cloaks. She couldn't go that way. 

AGoT, Arya IV

The noise receded as she moved deeper into the castle, never daring to look back for fear that Joffrey might be watching . . . or worse, following. The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows above. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

ACoK, Sansa II

 

Arya is escaping after the Gold Cloaks seized Ned and Sansa is trying to sneak away in response to a note asking her to meet a rescuer in the gods wood, the beginning of her long-term escape plan to get out of King’s Landing. Both liminal moments in their stories, I would say: Arya is about to be reborn as Ary and Sansa is reborn as Jonquil. Is the cat an indication that Rhaenys is watching over the Stark girls, helping them to avoid her fate?

 

Here's a great excerpt to show a Targaryen connection to the serpentine steps as well as some key figures - Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch - who reject or cannot use steps and therefore scale walls. (As Springwatch mentioned, Jon climbs the Wall with the wildlings and I also noted that Theon, Bran and Ned make notable climbs that avoid using steps. But why?)

 

"The castle is ours, ser, and the city," Roland Crakehall told him, which was half true. Targaryen loyalists were still dying on the serpentine steps and in the armory, Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch were scaling the walls of Maegor's Holdfast, and Ned Stark was leading his northmen through the King's Gate even then, but Crakehall could not have known that. He had not seemed surprised to find Aerys slain; Jaime had been Lord Tywin's son long before he had been named to the Kingsguard.

ASoS, Jaime II

 

An example of a rebirth on the serpentine steps involves a surprising (to me) figure: Ser Dontos. As he helps Sansa escape in the chaos after Joffrey's death, he is wearing his House Hollard colors under his cloak, and he tells Sansa that he wanted to be a knight again. The steps lead them to a gallery where the shadows make the old "scaled" (Targaryen?) armor come alive again, much like Ser Dontos being reborn as a knight. Is Ser Dontos reborn as a Targaryen? Or, like the tomcat that was the pet of Princess Rhaenys, are the dragonknights protecting and guiding Sansa during her escape?

He was so drunk that sometimes Sansa had to lend him her arm to keep him from falling. The bells were ringing out across the city, more and more of them joining in. She kept her head down and stayed in the shadows, close behind Dontos. While descending the serpentine steps he stumbled to his knees and retched. My poor Florian, she thought, as he wiped his mouth with a floppy sleeve. Dress dark, he'd said, yet under his brown hooded cloak he was wearing his old surcoat; red and pink horizontal stripes beneath a black chief bearing three gold crowns, the arms of House Hollard. "Why are you wearing your surcoat? Joff decreed it was death if you were caught dressed as a knight again, he . . . oh . . ." Nothing Joff had decreed mattered any longer.

"I wanted to be a knight. For this, at least." Dontos lurched back to his feet and took her arm. "Come. Be quiet now, no questions."

They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper. They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the taper's light made the shadows of each scale stretch and twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she thought.

One more stair took them to an oaken door banded with iron. "Be strong now, my Jonquil, you are almost there." When Dontos lifted the bar and pulled open the door, Sansa felt a cold breeze on her face. She passed through twelve feet of wall, and then she was outside the castle, standing at the top of the cliff. Below was the river, above the sky, and one was as black as the other.

ASoS, Sansa V

Dany's decision to leave her husband and the fighting pits, to climb aboard Drogon's serpentine neck and to be reborn on the Dothraki Sea - at "dragonstone" is another liminal moment. I don't know whether the author has been telling us that climbing steps is like riding a dragon or whether riding a dragon is like climbing a flight of serpentine steps. I guess the point is that they are part of the same symbolism.

[Seams]

Just going over some of the details around the serpentine steps: POVs who traverse them, who accompanies them, are they going up or down?

Arya – down x 2 (black tomcat)

Tyrion –

1) Lady Tanda at the top (Tyrion walks past to different steps),

2) Bronn “went his way” and Tyrion struggles up;

3) with Pod and Bronn – Bronn carries wounded Tyrion up steps;

4) Shae going up with young knight and pail while Tyrion goes down;

5) Tyrion down with gold cloaks;

6) Varys refers to steps then tells Tyrion his path is down. 

Sansa –

1) Sansa up (black tomcat spits at her),

2) Sansa down (encounters the Hound),

3) Sansa up with Ser Loras,

4) Sansa descends with Dontos who kneels on steps (Torrhen Stark allusion?)

Daenerys –

1) with Drogon, runs in serpentine passageway (House of the Undying);

2) Drogon's serpentine neck bent like an archer’s bow, “…He spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames.”

Jaime – Targ loyalists dying on steps (flashback)

Cersei – “On” but not clear whether down or up in both references.

1) With the Knight of Flowers

2) She left the Grand Maester on the serpentine steps.

The appearance of Lady Tanda and Bronn carrying "babe" Tyrion does seem to foreshadow something about Bronn's future connection to House Stokeworth.

There is often a woman accompanied by a knight or guard in these step scenes.

The presence of Ser Loras may connect again to that notion of guides who can lead other characters up and down steps - or maybe the guide is able to pass through walls. (Mentioned in an earlier comment in connection with Theon and with Old Nan and Hodor.) As Ser Dontos leads Sansa along her escape route, "When Dontos lifted the bar and pulled open the door, Sansa felt a cold breeze on her face. She passed through twelve feet of wall, and then she was outside the castle, standing at the top of the cliff" (ASoS, Sansa V). We know that Ser Loras will be first over the wall at the seige of Dragonstone. Old Nan's grandson died at the wall of Pyke during the Greyjoy Rebellion. Nan's stories often involve things that happen beyond The Wall. Something there is that doesn't love a wall (<-- Robert Frost poetic allusion), and these heroic, knightly guide characters - especially if they are always sacrificed when they lead someone through a wall - may be among those who do not love walls.

The most interesting things to me were the parallel details that became apparent. When Arya decides to avoid the serpentine steps for her escape from the gold cloaks, she wears a cloak and hides her sword under the cloak. She decides to head to the river wall, which seems to be the same place Ser Dontos leads Sansa when they make their escape from King's Landing. Ser Dontos also wears a cloak and deliberately hides his knight's surcoat under it. Later, when Arya is revelling in her cozy cell at the House of Black and White - comparing and contrasting it to the bed she had when she scrubbed steps at Harrenhal - she counts her floppy hat and colorful layers of blankets among her comforts. Ser Dontos is described as having a floppy sleeve and very colorful house Hollard surcoat in his scene on the steps with Sansa. 

In the scene when Daenerys decides to become a dragon rider, Drogon initially spits fire at her. We saw the old black tomcat spit at Sansa when she begins her plotting to escape King's Landing. Interestingly, there is also bow and arrow imagery in the Drogon scene, with the dragon's "long serpentine neck bent like an archer’s bow…He spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames.” (ADwD, Daenerys IX). Maybe this belongs in the, "Wow. I never noticed that . . . " thread, but the imagery is very similar to Tyrion climbing the ladder to Tywin's bedchamber, stepping through the door in the fireplace and using the crossbow to kill his father. 

The serpentine steps are a significant liminal area at the Red Keep (thank you, @Lollygag, for pointing out this meaning) but GRRM uses the "serpentine" adjective and other details associated with these particular steps to connect scenes here to other liminal scenes where steps are not present. The cloak, hidden sword / knight's surcoat with floppy sleeve and reference to scrubbing steps help us to connect the Arya and Sansa step scenes. Arya remembering her scrubbing duties and Shae's pail of water link those scenes. The Stokeworth / Bronn presence foreshadow Bronn's climb up the "social ladder" that will follow his knighthood. Because of the bow and dart metaphor (as well as the dragon fire and fireplace fire), the connection between the Drogon scene and Tyrion's climb to Tywin's room becomes clear.

So it was good to use the "serpentine" excerpts to focus in on a set of steps but the author shows us that steps are universal and interconnected - even steps of ladders, steps on a mountainside and the neck vertebrae of a large reptile. 

@Springwatch mentioned in an early comment on this thread that the "Game of Thrones" may be played out on these steps and in choosing the right door at the House of the Undying. I think these scenes and their details confirm that notion. In the U.S., there is a children's board game called "Chutes and Ladders." I suspect GRRM was having a little fun with that when Tyrion climbed the ladder to Tywin's chamber and found his father sitting at the top of a (privy) chute. In one of the last serpentine references, Cersei "left the Grand Maester on the serpentine steps. . . ." and then proceeded with Qyburn to cross "over the spiked moat that girded Maegor’s Holdfast.” It's as if she has stopped playing the game that Pycelle knew how to play and has started an entirely new game with Qyburn. Of course, she has already demolished the Tower of the Hand - the place where her father played his game - and all the ladders, tunnels and steps in it. 

[Springwatch]

Quote

So it was good to use the "serpentine" excerpts to focus in on a set of steps but the author shows us that steps are universal and interconnected - even steps of ladders, steps on a mountainside and the neck vertebrae of a large reptile. 

Yes, I agree. Apart from anything, Dany has her own game of thrones arc, but climbs very few steps, I think. That might reflect the way she climbs to power with relative ease, or maybe that her true powers are inborn. Either way, her life in power is not easy, so the serpentine passageway and serpentine Drogon make sense.

Quote

@Springwatch mentioned in an early comment on this thread that the "Game of Thrones" may be played out on these steps and in choosing the right door at the House of the Undying. I think these scenes and their details confirm that notion. In the U.S., there is a children's board game called "Chutes and Ladders." I suspect GRRM was having a little fun with that when Tyrion climbed the ladder to Tywin's chamber and found his father sitting at the top of a (privy) chute. In one of the last serpentine references, Cersei "left the Grand Maester on the serpentine steps. . . ." and then proceeded with Qyburn to cross "over the spiked moat that girded Maegor’s Holdfast.” It's as if she has stopped playing the game that Pycelle knew how to play and has started an entirely new game with Qyburn. Of course, she has already demolished the Tower of the Hand - the place where her father played his game - and all the ladders, tunnels and steps in it. 

It's a long shot, but I like this idea! This is the game I knew as 'Snakes and Ladders' - in this version, snakes always went down, but obviously GRRM's version of the game has to be more complex than that. Anyway, these observations on Tywin and Cersei fit very nicely.

[ETA I could believe that Grand Maester Pycelle represents the wisdom and learning of the royal court, in the same way that Ilyn Payne represents justice (both of them in terrible shape, by the way). Cersei leaves wisdom completely behind.]

The serpentine steps don't look as hard to climb as many others we see, but they feel very treacherous - the Hound thought Sansa falling might kill them both - and I wonder if Shae has her own steps story - she is climbing into Tywin's favour at the same time Tyrion is falling from grace. Come to think of it, Tyrion has a very clear arc, rising and falling to match his success in life, but it's less clear with Sansa - sometimes she's up, and sometimes down. She's not out of the game yet.

[Seams]

On 12/21/2017 at 1:30 PM, Springwatch said:

This is the game I knew as 'Snakes and Ladders' - in this version, snakes always went down, but obviously GRRM's version of the game has to be more complex than that.

Interesting and thanks for the link! I wonder whether GRRM uses both chutes and snakes for "down" and steps and ladders for up? It is the Red Viper who dropped Tyrion's life when he served as his champion, Tyrion tells us while on the serpentine steps. Of course, Stone Snake guides Jon Snow up the mountain.

Like my speculation about "up" for impregnation and "down" for birth or rebirth, I may be looking for too simple and literal of an explanation. GRRM doesn't settle for a single birth and rebirth for each character - he shows us Dany getting her hair burned off and the rise of her dragons at least twice. Arya is renamed a dozen times. Ned and Robert and even Rhaegar peek out at us through other characters long after their literal deaths. Maybe the author's point is that steps and ladders and chutes and snakes are a two-way street if you know how to navigate them - the "game" of thrones is not as simple as the board game for children. Sometimes you go down the same way you came up; other times you come up a way that was never intended as a way to ascend. This would fit with the hidden passages in Maegor's Holdfast and the Red Keep in general. (I wonder whether the name "Maegor" is a hint about "Game"? Maegor's Holdfast = Game of Hard Slots? Game of Short Lads? Game of Lord's Shat?)

(Stop here if you have not read the Dunk & Egg story, The Mystery Knight, and want to avoid a major plot spoiler. I tried to spoiler tag this, but I don't think I can make this point about ASOIAF without giving away a key plot element from that story.)

I've always assumed that the conclusion of The Mystery Knight foreshadows something that will happen in the larger ASOIAF series. That story involves dwarfs climbing up the privy chute to steal a dragon's egg, the mysterious disappearance of which caused the major conflict in the story. I thought that the corresponding event in ASOIAF had not yet happened, but the parallels (cited in previous comments in this thread) between Tyrion climbing the ladder to Tywin's chamber and Dany becoming a dragon rider at Daznak's Pit help me to realize that the Dunk & Egg story may have been alluding to Tyrion's scene in Tywin's bedchamber.

Tyrion climbs up a chute. (Thankfully, not the same chute on which Tywin is attempting to have a bowel movement.) He doesn't hatch a dragon or obtain a dragon's egg, as the mummer dwarfs do and as Dany figuratively does when she becomes the dragon rider. But Tywin's demise at the top of the privy chute is linked to the well-known saying about him "shitting gold" - he is the goose that lays the golden EGG. Tyrion kills him, but notes that the voiding of Tywin's bowels at the moment of death proves that he didn't shit gold. I.e., If there was an egg, Tywin didn't have it.

Like Dany's earlier scene at Drogo's funeral pyre, Tyrion kills his lover, Shae, as part of his revenge upon his father. I do suspect that there will be a revelation about Shae's secret past and hidden motives late in the series, and that Tyrion will regret killing her, just as he regrets participating in the violence wrongly inflicted on Tysha. It could be that Shae herself is the egg, the prize more valuable than gold.

Symbolic elements indicate that the theft of the dragon egg in The Mystery Knight could be linked to Tyrion's continued journey with Varys and Ilyrio, however. It seems most likely that Tyrion himself is the egg at the top of Tywin's chute, as he is hidden in a barrel and hatches when he reaches a safe point in Ilyrio's property. Varys plays the role that Bloodraven plays in the Dunk & Egg story, sending the dwarfs to get the egg. Those of us who study the Targaryen succession know that the Dunk & Egg stories tell important things about the unexpected rise of Aegon V, Aegon the Unlikely. Bloodraven seems to be stage-managing that rise. Varys and Ilyrio seem to be doing the same thing for Tyrion. (But also for Dany and Young Griff / fAegon?)

Fwiw, Ilyrio married a former sex worker and, when she died, he kept her disembodied hands. (Maegor's Holdfast = Game of Rats Holds? She contracted an illness brought to shore from the rats in the holds of ships.) This fits with the "hands of gold are always cold but a woman's hands are warm" lyrics that haunt Tyrion in his relationship with (and murder of) Shae.

But I've wandered away from steps. The point here is that the "Chutes and Ladders" and "Snakes and Ladders" connections are major clues about a central metaphor in the series: the "game" of thrones. The rules of the game keep changing, or are different for different people, but the object of the game seems to be always to obtain and hatch an egg. Preferably a dragon's egg.

[LynnS]

49 minutes ago, Seams said:

The rules of the game keep changing, or are different for different people, but the object of the game seems to be always to obtain and hatch an egg. Preferably a dragon's egg.

What an interesting read Seams!  Is the objective to hatch an egg or crack open the third eye?  I hear eggs improve eyesight.

[Seams]

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 10:34 AM, LynnS said:

Is the objective to hatch an egg or crack open the third eye?

If you believe in the wordplay around egg = Ei (the German word for egg) = eye, then those objectives could be related, if not identical. Here's Jon moving toward getting his third eye opened (a process that comes to full fruition in his wolf dream in the Frostfangs, I think) while Mormont and the raven show him how to crack eggs:

When day broke, Jon walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn. Three-Finger Hobb said nothing as he gave him the Old Bear's breakfast. Today it was three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried bread and ham steak and a bowl of wrinkled plums. Jon carried the food back to the King's Tower. He found Mormont at the window seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth across his shoulders, muttering, "Corn, corn, corn." The bird shrieked when Jon entered. "Put the food on the table," the Old Bear said, glancing up. "I'll have some beer."

...

"We've seen the dead come back, you and me, and it's not something I care to see again." He ate the egg in two bites and flicked a bit of shell out from between his teeth. "Your brother is in the field with all the power of the north behind him. Any one of his lords bannermen commands more swords than you'll find in all the Night's Watch. Why do you imagine that they need your help? Are you such a mighty warrior, or do you carry a grumkin in your pocket to magic up your sword?"

Jon had no answer for him. The raven was pecking at an egg, breaking the shell. Pushing his beak through the hole, he pulled out morsels of white and yoke.

The Old Bear sighed. "You are not the only one touched by this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in your brother's host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in men's mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters." Frowning, Mormont took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist until the shell crunched. "Or perhaps it does. Be that as it may, I'd still grieve if she were slain, yet you don't see me running off. I said the words, just as you did. My place is here … where is yours, boy?"

...

"... And that beast of yours … he led us to the wights, warned you of the dead man on the steps. Ser Jaremy would doubtless call that happenstance, yet Ser Jaremy is dead and I'm not." Lord Mormont stabbed a chunk of ham with the point of his dagger. "I think you were meant to be here, and I want you and that wolf of yours with us when we go beyond the Wall."

AGoT, Jon IX

Notice that the author gets in the obligatory reference to steps, perhaps indicating that we are seeing the game being played (or about to be played). In the same scolding, Mormont says to Jon, "When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?" He doesn't actually say that the occupant of the Iron Throne is unimportant, but he is trying to convince Jon to stay with the Night's Watch instead of going off to help Robb. The Night's Watch war (against dead men who hunt in the night) is important, is Mormont's real point.

The raven pecking at the egg is like the crow that pecks at Bran's forehead to open his third eye. (Perhaps also comparable to the crow that pecks out the eye of Crowfood Umber.)

That Sansa and Dontos passage cited earlier also fits the "chutes and ladders --> hatching dragon" pattern:

They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper. They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the taper's light made the shadows of each scale stretch and twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she thought.

ASoS, Sansa V

The empty suits of armor are like egg shells; the scales tell us these are dragon eggs. The fire of the candle causes the shadows of the scales to come to life again, much like flames used to hatch a dragon egg. And sure enough, the hollow knights become dragons (in Sansa's mind, at least).

Although Ser Dontos changes from a fool back to a knight who has three crowns on his surcoat, I do not suspect him of being a hidden Targ. The clues we have about his identity and function in the story come from the Defiance of Duskendale incident. The Hollards helped the Darklyns, who had been ancient kings before Aegon the Conqueror arrived. My guess is that his function is another of these "guide" characters, and that we can number him among the kingmakers in the stories. (Although maybe Dontos takes up the Darklyn function as the only survivor of the Defiance of Duskendale? Sort of like the succession of Lords of Harrenhal?) Dontos was a big fan of Renly, and I suspect that Renly is represented after his death by the character of Ser Garlan Tyrell, who wears Renly's armor. I further suspect that Ser Garlan will emerge as a supporter of the Targaryen restoration in the last two books. Which is my convoluted way of saying that there may be a reason that Dontos the kingmaker was "hatching Targaryen eggs" with his candle inside the long gallery.

But the Defiance of Duskendale raises the issue of Ser Barristan the Bold, who freed the king (hatched a dragon egg?) by climbing a wall instead of entering by conventional methods, such as a set of steps. This chutes and ladders game is complex, isn't it?

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 10:34 AM, LynnS said:

I hear eggs improve eyesight.

Yes but lemons improve teeth.

 

[LynnS]

36 minutes ago, Seams said:

Yes but lemons improve teeth.

Thanks you Seams.  It's fascinating to read your threads and something I would never notice otherwise.