Did I say Joyce's parallax is a central issue in the series? Well, this chapter gives us some key evidence for that statement. Words, lines and scenes are doubled, offering two interpretations or takes of the same event or thing. If you're going to write thousands of pages of text using the point of view structure, you have to show that points of view differ, that they matter. George does some of that work in this chapter. And Joyce isn't the only work alluded to here. Robert and Ned's descent down into the crypts is evocative of other well known journeys down into the land of the dead--in Homer, Virgil and Dante. But above all, the language in this chapter most closely mirrors the descent down into Plato's Cave. The Allegory of the Cave is so important to GRRM's series that I did an entire special episode on it. That's because while we formally encounter it here, we are going to be dealing with this issue for all five books, so best come to grips with it now. For our purposes here in the re-read, it's enough to note the links, the suggestion that we are operating in Plato's Cave of shadow reality. And if that's correct, then it should color our understanding of everything that passes between Ned and Robert in this chapter.