Three Kingdoms/Three Musketeers

I'm only seventeen episodes into the 2010 TV version of the classic Chinese epic 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' (about 16% finished), but already I have that feeling again. I first felt it, I think, towards the end of a Dumas novel. I was about half way through his 'Man in the Iron Mask' when I realized, a surprise for some reason, that the musketeers were growing old and would almost certainly die within the next hundred pages or so. I was about to finish the multi-book 'Romance of D'Artagnan', and I remember wanting to put the book aside to somehow prolong the lives of my favorite characters. It's early on still, but a similar feeling has crept into my watching of the RoTK.