Although this is in Scientific American, it's an informal article about an informal pop-culture topic. However, I'd still prefer it to make its claim, and make

Although this is in Scientific American, it's an informal article about an informal pop-culture topic. However, I'd still prefer it to make its claim, and make its case. Here, that means first defining "sociological/institutional storytelling" and "personal storytelling", then arguing that GoT is the former and not the latter, by reference to the source material (i.e. examples). I can only infer these definitions: "sociological" means reacting to circumstance; "personal" means agency. If we take the first season, the climax shows the two main actors acting with agency - against sociological forces: Ned chooses honour, against all circumstance, advice, sense and customs of the world. Joffrey chooses execution, again against all circumstance (protocol, advice, expectation of others - even self-interest). The article mentions another aspect, of characters being killed off, and that this shows the story is sociological rather than personal. But not all characters have been killed off, notatable, the Stark children have only been top-and-tailed (Robb and Rickon), leaving Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran. They were present at the very beginning; they are present at the end. The story is about them. The standard argument is that character deaths make us fear for the main characters, instead of assuming plot armour. Minor and major characters routinely die. Even within the family, Ned, Cat, Robb and Rickon die. Further, Bran and Jon also appear to die, though live on. But most of the children, the core, remain. The claim of sociological storytelling would have more support if all major characters died, and were replaced with other characters, who behaved in similar ways under similar forces. Then the story would be about those forces. Therefore the story is personal, not sociological. Of course, the world is deep and interconnected, and makes sense. In this sense, the novels are "sociological". But the story itself is not. It is not a story about circumstance and institution forces, but a story about personal agency.