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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36582
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36582
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Your premise is flawed: the characters that are killed are not _disposable_ in the sense that it doesn't matter whether they are killed or not. Quite often they are peoples favourites, which makes them perfect candidates to raise the stakes for the reader.

By making it harder to anticipate what characters are killed and at which point a character might get killed you are making every encounter with an enemy, every person sneaking around, everything nature has to offer that could kill someone far more interesting - because you never know if it will kill someone and if so, which character will get killed.

These characters are important to the story. They have already showed to the reader how important they were. They have fought battles, made alliances, struggled with their problems. And most importantly: they still have things to do from the readers perspective. They have plans. But the world just doesn't revolve any single one of them and everyone can get killed if he meets an opponent that is too strong or has bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

You should use character death in a meaningful manner. Most often this includes furthering the story, for example by allowing certain actions of other characters, showing their emotions and how they cope with the death, ... But it can also be used to provoke certain feelings in your readers and keep them interested in the story. You show how it can hit everyone, how nobody is safe, how even with all their good deeds they can still be the victim of the cruel world or other cruel characters. This isn't a nice feeling, but it makes those characters feel important.

Or you make them brutal, ruthless characters that people are supposed to hate, making it _satisfying_ when they are finally off the screen. They destroyed so much, they had caused so much pain _to the reader_ that it feels good for your reader to know that this horror has finally ended.

The last thing is that a character can be important even when he is not alive anymore. The last tricks of a master that he taught his student and which will save him in the final fight, the caring father or mother whose kind words are remembered years later, the king or queen whose leadership had helped the kingdom through a hard time or created the hard times, the evil witch that left the heroes some nasty _presents_ in case they would manage to kill her, ... _Dead_ doesn't mean that a character can't play a role anymore. The character can't play an _active_ role, unless you allow ghosts, but they can still be important and thereby meaningful, making their deaths feel important to the story.

* * *

If you want truly _disposable_ characters, whose deaths don't matter, you are in the territory where you should think about whether you really want to give them a name. It doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, so why spend time on telling the reader their names or talking about how they die. But then they are not interesting for the reader.

Truly _disposable_ characters simply don't matter. That's their definition.

Original score: 39