I see a lot of people who think that the show and novel are the same thing, right, and then try in vain to fit the very different things together

Yes, me too! Several new fans I know have had this issue recently; they either tried to apply novel explanations to the series and ended up completely frustrated because everything made even less sense - or thought the characters were completely incomprehensible because it was impossible to see both the novel and the series versions in them at once.

So I thought it might be helpful to write a note about this. ;-) I'm glad you like the post!