In terms of Machiavelli’s influence, do you feel GRRM having a revisionist approach, that The Prince, as Rousseau pointed out, was the book of Republicans? I mean the real Machiavelli was closer to Ned Stark than anyone else (corruption free government, crushed by invaders, tortured by strapado and exiled from Florence) but everyone sees The Prince as a handbook of power-players rather than a parody of the existing “ruler’s advise” book that Machiavelli explicitly mentions.