I’m not certain what direction the door symbols are stating which direction they open. The note in the book is not very helpful. “The direction in which each door opens is shown on the map of each level, from which the side on which they are hinged may be deduced.”
Example the double doors on the south wall in room 1 of level 1, do they open into the room or out into the hallway? Thanks.
My interpretation is that the trapezoidal symbols indicate what the door does when pushed on from each side:
When you push on those doors from the north side, the center swings away, while the outer ends stay in place.
When you push from the south side, the doors remain in position, with neither the center nor the ends moving.
So, therefore, the doors open out from the room, into the hallway.
nDervish’s idea makes sense. Unfortunately my interpretation is the reverse - I figure that the slanted side is equivalent to the curved side of a real estate floor plan door. No idea which is correct, although I suspect either is fine as long as you’re consistent.
From the description, I think DDogwood is correct. It looks like a combination of the ‘classic’ door symbol with a real estate door symbol. The lower side of the slanted side is the hinge of the door, the higher side is de edge of the door swinging into the room.
You might check this by seeing if it made sense in the maps. Barring doors is only useful on the side the door opens to, so that might give a hint.
Assuming that by “lower” you mean “thinner” and “higher” is “thicker” (i.e., you’re looking at the door symbol oriented such that the flat side is on the bottom and the top is slanted), then this would mean that all double doors on the map are hinged in the center and open away from the wall on both sides, rather than being hinged at the wall and opening in the center like, well, every set of double doors I’ve ever seen IRL. (If the flat side is on the bottom, the top side of the double doors make a shallow “V” shape with the upper end of each door’s top line at the wall and the lower end in the center.)
The one thing I’m very confident of here is that the hinge is definitely on the thicker end of the door symbol, because double doors being hinged in the center makes no sense.
I stand firmly corected, then! You’re right, if double doors look like that, it would make no sense to have the thinner side be the hinge.
nDervish,
This is how I went ahead and interpreted the symbol, based on that same reasoning. The closest thing to double doors with hinges in the middle would be a set of swinging doors at a restaurant between the dinning area and the kitchen, where one side is for entering the kitchen and the other for exiting the kitchen. But I doubt that is what was intended here.
I agree that the doors have to be hinged on the thicker side of the symbol (i.e. the outside edge of the double doors). That only makes sense. The real question is whether the doors swing towards the flat side of the trapezoid shape, or towards the angled side.
Looking at it more closely, I think it only makes sense if the doors swing towards the angled side of the symbol. This fits with my “real estate symbol” theory, and it also makes the vast majority of doors wing into rooms and out from corridors, which is the normal way that people build doors in real life.
For example, the double doors in Room 1, Level 1 open swinging into the room, rather than swinging out into the hallway. Likewise, all the doors into rooms 2, 3 and 4 swing into the rooms.
Another bit of evidence - Room 43 on level 2B states that the door is “unbarred from inside this room”. It wouldn’t make sense to specify that the door was barred/unbarred from the INSIDE unless it swings inward, which is consistent with my theory.
In regards to Room 43 on level 2B, when I read “unbarred from inside this room”, I assumed they were referring to the magical barring that was discussed in rooms 40-44. Plus that door has an M on it. Which brings up that the map legend is missing several items.
Anyway, so when room 43 states “The door to the Chamber of Healing and
Song (Room 42) is unbarred from inside this room.” In order to open door from from room 42 would require magic, but to open it from room 43 does not.
Of course that is an assumption and could be utterly wrong.