Thank you for the kind words! I sometimes feel self-conscious reminding people that A Song of Ice and Fire is, in fact, a serious heartwrenching story where you're supposed to root for some people and hate others and cry when some people die and contend with your mixed feelings when other people do things and make up your mind and change it. Whether or not it succeeds at these things is a different question, but I hear a lot of "LOL ASoIaF is so gritty! Everyone dies!" No, everyone does not die. Some people die, just enough to make you fear. And that's the difference, I think.