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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36586
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36586
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In a way, **all characters are disposable; you are their god, you are free to kill characters or keep them alive, as suits your Grand Plan.** The question is rather _what_ suits your grand plan - what kind of story you're trying to tell.

For example, I am currently writing a war novel. In a war novel, you expect soldiers to die, right? I do not look at some soldiers as "disposable" and others as "not disposable". I look at what death would have most impact. In my story, no soldier "had it coming", and no soldier is "no loss to anyone", because such deaths would undermine my attempt to say that every dead soldier is a person, behind every KIA list there are people, with families and friends and comrades. I want every death to feel like a punch in the gut, so that's what I'm trying to write.

Readers have certain expectations regarding who is likely to die in a novel. TV Tropes calls it the "[sorting algorithm of mortality](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SortingAlgorithmOfMortality)". For example, a child is less likely to die than an adult, because a child's death is "too shocking", whereas an adult, especially male, is "more disposable". Further expectations are connected to the genre: in fantasy novels in particular, we do not expect the MC to die before the end, or at all. We do not expect the MC's romantic interest to be killed off in a skirmish that isn't the Big Battle of the book. Etc.  
G.R.R. Martin subverts all those expectations. His character do not wear [Plot Armour](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor). In real life, people die in the middle of their story, so to speak, and so do they in Song of Ice and Fire. Any time genre conventions say a character should survive despite making choices that realistically we'd call stupid, the character dies. Because those deaths are unexpected, they're shocking. Because they're shocking, people talk about them, and also re-evaluate their understanding of the fictional world: now anyone can die. Now we fear for all characters.

**So what is satisfying to the readers? It comes back to the story you're trying to tell.** G.R.R. Martin's readers expect shock and realistic consequences. The death of a character they hardly knew, some henchman in a raping-pillaging band, would not have that impact. On the other hand, if you were to kill a Star Trek MC in a similar manner, viewers would be extremely unsatisfied: Tasha Yar was an MC in the first season of Star Trek the Next Generation, and got killed off like a redshirt when the actress decided to leave. She had to be brought back in the 3rd season for a more satisfying self-sacrificing death.

As a general rule, I'd say **it's not just who dies, but how they die** that leaves readers satisfied or unsatisfied. The "[Dropped a Bridge on Him](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DroppedABridgeOnHim)" trope, where a main character's death is anticlimactic, is considered extremely unsatisfying because it is anticlimactic. When someone close to us dies, our whole world is shaken. Conversely, when a character we got to care for dies, we expect drama. So when you want drama, you kill a character for whom the readers care. When you don't want drama, you either kill a [redshirt](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedShirt), or you don't kill anyone at all.

Original score: 6