GEORGE R.R. MARTIN SHOULD be at home writing "Game of Thrones" . . . but of course he isn't. He's out giving INTERVIEWS about "Game of Thrones".
In a recent one, he was asked why he isn't afraid to kill off so many characters . . . and he said he learned it from "Lord of the Rings", when Gandalf died.
He said, quote, "The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is 1,000-times greater. Because now anybody could die. Of course that's had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters at the drop of a hat."
(Here's video)