Gamma Ray Burst Could Help Martin's Characters

I've just begun reading A Storm of Swords, the third volume of George R.R. Martin's projected (at present) seven-volume A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy saga.  It didn't take very long for me to quickly come to the conclusion that the overwhelming preponderance of characters in this series are so incredibly miserable in their despair that everyone's interests would probably be best served if a gamma ray burst from a nearby supernova explosion didn't just sweep over and instantly sterilize the entire blasted planet, which doesn't really exist anyway.  This feeling came to a head for me when I started reading a chapter in which Davos, a captain in one of the warring kingdoms' navies, finds himself shipwrecked and dying, imploring death to come and rescue him from his suffering. And then the damned fool goes and gets himself rescued...no doubt to despair and suffer even more down the line.

I get it: the author has to keep the story tight...no slackening...and accomplishes this by placing the various protagonists in a chronic state of peril and suffering.  But I have to admit that while I suppose this helps to sustain my interest in those characters, I'm starting to suffer from empathetic suffering pangs.

In the first book, A Games of Thrones, Martin smartly put the "bite" into everyone's peril by unceremoniously knocking off what was reasonably understood then to be his chief protagonist.  After this, it became clear that NOBODY was safe!  It reminds me of what Hitchcock did in the movie Psycho, when Janet Leigh's main protagonist character was murdered early in the story in the motel shower.  After that, the movie was almost unbearably frightening as I followed the remaining "survivors",  anticipating similar outcomes for them.

But I think there's something more to this dreariness that I detect in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I detest his fantasy world and its society...and the insensitivity and brutality of its people, especially those in positions of leadership.  I suppose that this is probably all allegorical, though, and I could apply some of the social models and problems that Martin reveals to our world today.  That doesn't make it any more pleasant to read, though...