1. If we are nitpicking this article, then castle is not a fort - it is an office, that houses ruler and his court. Castle is a residence to accept high flow of

1. If we are nitpicking this article, then castle is not a fort - it is an office, that houses ruler and his court. Castle is a residence to accept high flow of people and not planned for sieges. Castle also would have enough of army to defend it(and siege is not a defence - it happens when there is a lack of it!) - it really is not something that was planned to be sieged, not to mention any fights indoors. 2. What author meant was that 30% of them who were anti-clockwise clearly does not mean that those other 70% were projected by people who thought of using stairs as battle scene. 3. I've mostly visited early medieval castles, that had anti-clockwise stairs, so meh... it looks like a cultural thing. I even doubt that these were used when carrying sword, because those had not much space to have it there, so it looked like something to be used for practical everyday usage - not battles. 4. If a person was wearing armor in medieval times, he was like a tank. If there was a discussion among nobles and one of them got pissed and decided to wear an armor and return to continue discussion... well, pretty much the discussion was over for rest of party, regardless of presence of swords. Though, despite the trope used in cinema, I can't imagine swordfighting in medieval setting between armored opponents on stairs. If the one on top of stairs slipped, the opponent below would be disabled from the weight of opponent above him. They would also not be able to step on those stairs... and if it all comes to that, swordfight is not requirement to rat out enemy - for that was used fire and smoke. Pretty much it is what author was mentioning - if there is a breach, it is game over for defenders and no real reason to continue defending anymore. The only thing they can try is fleeing. Fighting, that involves swords and no armor is very late invention, where fortification defenses were useless and could be blown up by a powder and all the "strategical" stairs would be turned into a rubble.