Sometimes the characters surviving over dying could be as simple as because the CEO or boardroom people said to keep them alive for merchandise reasons. I could fully believe that some of the cast was written to die and that some supervisor was like, "but that would hurt our merchandise sales". Sometimes, the situation for story weirdness is as simple as that. The companies are always willing to make the story janky if it makes them more money in other departments. I think we sometimes forgot that businesses such as SE will do this. Products don't usually sell as well if the character is dead. Just how marketing works.