He may seem to delight in traumatizing fans by murdering their favorite characters in gruesome ways, but even George R. R. Martin won’t stoop so low as to kill an innocent 13-year-old boy. Not for a mere $250, anyway.
Martin recently spearheaded a Prizeo campaign to help Santa Fe’s Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, and one of the Kickstarter-style rewards for donors was the opportunity to be brutally slaughtered in an upcoming Song Of Ice And Fire book. An anonymous woman and some dude who works at Facebook both coughed up the $20,000 necessary to receive such an honor, but 13-year-old Jack B. from the United Kingdom, presumably banking on the fact that kids with British accents are the cutest thing ever, decided he’d try to game the system. He sent a letter to the campaign donating his allowance/life savings of £153 (between $250-$260) and telling Martin that, although his parents won’t let him watch the naughty bits of Game Of Thrones, wolves are his favorite animal, and could he please die a “gruesome grizzly death” in an upcoming book.
Touched by the boy’s love of animals and shameless fame-mongering, Martin declined Jack B.’s offer, but donated $10,000 to the UK Wolf Conservation Trust in his name instead. And he also wrote his precocious young fan a letter, explaining why he just couldn’t kill him.
Dear Jack,