Darlings

(No politics at the moment; it's all a bit too much right now.)

A common bit of advice for writers is "kill your darlings"- don't be afraid to lead a character to his or her end should it fit the narrative, regardless of how much you've developed that character and how much you may like that character. It's a difficult piece of advice to follow, as any writer would attest- death, even of a literary character, isn't easy.
That doesn't include characters who are certain to die, of course, but they typically aren't the protagonist or any of the main characters, and their deaths are usually motivators to the plot. No, this is about killing main characters.
Death is random. One can just as easily get hit by a car or have a brain aneurysm while eating breakfast. Death is easy. Life is hard, death is a walk in the park. Fall down the stairs, dead; inhale carbon monoxide, dead; get attacked by a rabies-infected circus clown, dead. It happens to anyone and everyone, so when you're writing, it should be treated as such, especially if you're writing about battles, or fights, or running away from home.
Into the Wild was the story of a (frankly idiotic) boy who ran away from home and died because of his patent dearth of required knowledge about surviving in the wild. (Spoilers) Piggy's death in Lord of the Flies was a turning point in the story, and was very sudden. Even Dumbledore's death at the hands of Snape was a shock, especially in the way that he died.
Characters shouldn't be pigeonholed into surviving. It's a strange thing to write, believe me, but if your characters are marching off to the largest war the galaxy's ever seen, the chances that they all survive is nil. Serenity demonstrated as much.

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