Game of Thrones is perhaps the most popular show in the world right now. Be it dragons or wars, the show has it all. Perhaps the one thing that the show got famous for was the number of deaths in the show.

When Game of Thrones started, everyone thought that Ned Stark would be the one to win in the end but was killed by the end of the season 1. Season after season, favorite characters were killed and people never understood why George R.R. Martin did that. Well he’s told now what made him toy with his reader’s emotions.

Gizmodo posted about a recent interview with George R.R. Martin about the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series being added to PBS’ “The Great American Read” collection. He revealed that Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings had a lasting impression on this career, specially the part when Gandalf dies in the Mines of Moria. He said:

“And then Gandalf dies! I can’t explain the impact that had on me at 13,” Martin told PBS. “You can’t kill Gandalf. I mean, Conan didn’t die in the Conan books, you know? Tolkien just broke that rule, and I’ll love him forever for it. “The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is a thousand times greater, because now anybody could die,”. “Of course, that’s had a profound impact on my own willingness to kill characters off at the drop of a hat.”

Martin also said that when Gandalf came back as Gandalf the White, he was not very happy about it. He said:

“What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he’s sort of improved,” Martin said. “I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.”