Quote Originally Posted by Kesey View Post
But to play devil's advocate, let's think of this way: If we don't loose a member of the main cast so they can all face the grittiest and darkest expansion together against a godlike foe, then they all can experience it differently and create many avenues of storytelling instead of pigeon-holing some of the cast and limit their ability to tell the story.

I would argue that keeping them alive will present the best option for the storytelling to not be boring.
To play devil's advocate's advocate, what if they kill someone old to make room for someone new, while also presenting us with better fleshed out shows of grieving from those we know will feel it most? No story is really diminished by character death, only by the writer's ability to tell around and beyond it with who remain.

When you write in death, it's to show that there are consequences for the heroes. Lasting ones. You get to write things like trauma, heartbreak, sorrow, recurring dreams, and the like. You also get to show the death, honorable or otherwise. Sudden or sacrifice. With your boots on, or quietly in the middle of the night.

I suspect we're in for a couple, because it will allow them to write the protégé style characters as the mentors come 6.1. If none of the characters we have now ever die, then how are we going to take whatever new threat that comes our way seriously, at all? Because they exposit that we should? Because they blow up towns that we've seen blown up by lesser threats? Make us feel the threat.