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About

George Raymond Richard Martin (born 1948) is an American fiction writer best known as the author of the as-of-yet unfinished fantasy novel series known as A Song of Ice and Fire which in turn is best known for its extremely popular television adaptation Game of Thrones. Mainly since the emergence of his saga's TV incarnation, Martin himself has been the subject of numerous online jokes, most of which revolve around his habit of shockingly killing off characters and/or the fact that the sixth book of his series, The Winds of Winter, has been in writing-progress for many years with minimal updates and the consequent fear that it might never actually be released.

The most pronounced aspect of George R.R. Martin's memetic reputation is his perception as an exceptionally cruel/sadistic author who intentionally upsets invested readers due to the high mortality rate of protagonist characters throughout ASoIaF and its television counterpart. The first notable case of this is Eddard "Ned" Stark, who is unjustly executed at the end of the first book/season despite having been set up as the most prominent main character up until that point, while the most infamous incident of all is the "Red Wedding" in the third book/season, wherein Robb Stark (Ned's son whom had been set up as a seemingly obvious candidate to avenge his father and replace his heroic role in the series following his death), his mother Catelyn (who later comes back in an evil undead form in the books but notably not in the show), his wife, their unborn child, his dog and most of the soldiers in his employ are all brutally slain.

Jokes about Martin's character-killing habits peaked in 2013, after the episode with the Red Wedding aired on television to the utter shock of countless viewers (despite the fact that the book it was based on, containing the same event, had already existed for years prior). During this period, Martin himself participated in a video with Conan O'Brien wherein he is shown multiple reaction videos of fans in shock at the episode's horrific climax.

CollegeHumor meanwhile released a video in which a caricature of Martin reads angry fan mail about the Red Wedding which prompts him to rapidly derail into such depraved antics as openly reveling in upsetting his audiences, falsely "revealing" spoilers of all the remaining Stark children being unceremoniously killed in contrived ways, threatening to overeat himself to death before he can finish the series if such complaints continue, and declaring that he has murdered and cannibalized Ryan Gosling and Benedict Cumberbatch. CollegeHumor has since made multiple other videos poking fun at George R.R. Martin in generally similar ways.

In 2015, YouTube channel Nerdist released a parody of the song and music video "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift in which GRRM sings to his own lead female protagonist Daenerys Targaryen about writing extensive character development and story arcs for her only to begin threatening to kill her off on potentially any "Blank Page" in the books' progression.

In 2016, Epic Rap Battles of History released an installment of George R.R. Martin rapping against fellow fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien of Lord of the Rings fame. Like the other video parodies mentioned here, it prominently emphasizes Martin's character-killing tendencies.