... Like, if you want to kill them off, that's one thing, but give them some of the pathos you're trying so hard to swim in, you know? A heroic sacrifice, a tragic fatal wound, something. Then you can kill them off, make your overall story more serious because you shoo'd out the "non-serious" characters, and even weave their deaths into the narrative in a way that gets the grim and gritty mood over and makes them more effective at conveying seriousness in death than they were in life. That's what you so desperately wanted, right? But nah, you just interrupted and derailed your own entire slow burn brooding session just to throw a sudden Rocks Fall Those Exact Three Die in an obvious huff.

Hi, I'm not still boggling over a bad fanfic storytelling decision twenty years later or anything.