A Game of Lord of the Rings

If George R. R. Martin had written The Lord of the Rings:

It would not be a thousand-page tale divided into three books; it would be seven or eight 1200-page books that may or may not end with the downfall of Sauron and the sailing over the sea by the ring-bearers from  the Grey Havens.

Galadriel would have her throat cut at some point … by her husband, Celeborn, now in league with Saruman.

Eowyn would be raped by orcs, escape, be recaptured, be tortured, and escape again, only to fall into the clutches of an Uruk-hai band.  (Those are “super-orcs”.)

There’d be six alternating chapters detailing in extreme minutiae the atrocities that befall a Rohan village after falling to Saruman’s orcs.

Pippin would be exiled to the fiery deserts of Harad by Old Took, immediately after the old man informs poor Pippin that the young hobbit is a bastard.

Aragorn, as Elessar, king of the (re)united Kingdom, will die in agony at his coronation ceremony, shot through the throat with a crossbow bolt fired by Wormtongue.

They’d never quite get around to dropping that ring in the Cracks of Doom, nor would the armies of the elves, men, and dwarves ever quite get to Mordor, due to ceaseless internal bickering and strife.

My point is, though I loved reading through the first four hefty books of Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (of which A Game of Thrones is the first book), man does he put his characters – and readers – through hell.  It’s a soap opera for sadists.  Also, he’s wise enough not to kill a cash cow if you catch my drift …