If you're here long enough, I bet you'll end up on a silly loss of your own at some point. I've gone months without being on one, I guess - but how long have you been here anyhow?

Anyway, the castle being sentient just makes sense to me, to be honest. It personalizes our losses and its games with us too well for me to think it could be otherwise. Unless, I guess, you want to argue that there's a force beyond the castle, letting us think that it's the castle at work.