I use the dictionary example because I was a very advanced reader. In Kindergarten the others were sounding out "Cat in the Hat" and I was made to sit in the corner silently and read my
National Geographic magazines.
By fifth grade I was plowing through the "People of...." series by Kathleen and W. Michael Gear. By sixth grade I had devoured everything Stephen King up to his current publishing. Seventh grade I started digging into Charles Dickens.
Without doubt I was exposed to ... .interesting situations... that I often had to ask my mother about. I learned pretty quickly that asking questions resulted in whatever book series it was being taken away from me. So I defaulted to carrying a thesaurus and a dictionary with me so I didn't have to have awkward conversations with adults.
No I didn't have the emotional experience to understand what the characters were going through until many years later, but I definitely understood the implications and the historical context! And my mother realized that she could not control my content but she COULD control the system of values I was taught. I like to think the values stuck with me, but my interest in a LOT of franchises & series with graphic content appeal to me less and less.
Personally I feel that the Torture Gore genre has done more damage to society's psyche than any violent war scene or sexual encounter. Really how could one even begin to call the "Saw" movie franchise
entertainment? YMMV!
My mileage doesn't vary much from yours, on this topic.
I think, however, that GofT is fine for your typical sixteen year old. Possibly a couple years younger, depending on the child. But it would not be fine for a five year old, regardless of whether they could read the books or not.
The thing that made the Lord of the Rings acceptable to me was the moral clarity of the story. There is good and evil and the distinction between the two is very clear. Her kindergarten teacher disagreed, telling me that the child should not be reading stories with adult characters. Then she went up to the sixth grade classroom to find a more "appropriate" book. She came back with "The Afternoon of the Elves", and gave it to my daughter. Unfortunately, she clearly hadn't read the book herself, and was just going off the fact that it was a Newbery winner. Sad to say, it had no elves and was actually about child abuse and mental illness and it made my daughter cry. Buckets. I was highly irritated with her teacher, because the truth was my daughter could happily handle epic fantasy battles, but she was in NO way ready to contemplate her mother having to be sent away to a mental institution.
GofT is a gorgeous piece of storytelling, and definitely not "Torture Gore". But it also spends a great deal of time exploring morally grey areas, and most of the characters are complex and not easily defined as either good or evil, which is what in my opinion makes it inappropriate for children (far more than the fact that it contains violence or sex).
(Best "ridiculously early reader" moment? When my daughter suddenly exclaimed at her Grandma's breakfast table, while reading an Anne Macaffrey novel, "Oh, so THAT's what an orgasm is!" She was eight.
)
I don't agree with the idea, however, that society's psyche has been damaged by movies. I've seen what passed for entertainment, historically speaking, and it hasn't changed much. Heck, people used to create implements of creative torture, claiming they were used in medieval times, and would charge folks admission to their "museums". Very popular entertainment in the 1800's! (Edit: For example, there's no evidence the Iron Maiden was ever used.
http://www.medievalists.net/2016/03/why-medieval-torture-devices-are-not-medieval/)
