see her refusal to kill characters just floors me. And if someone says, "thin the herd" she's all like "you hate mes! WAH!"... I just don't understand.

Character death can actually further a character and give them depth. Many of my most beloved characters from various books/comics/movies have DIED, it made their "life" all that more vibrant and added a poignancy to their memory. It also forced the other characters to face certain truths either about life, themselves, or the world... they grew in depth, and the story grew in depth all by taking away one ficticious life.

As a writer who likes to push the envelope on her own comfort zones, you'd think she'd have the gusto to face that one personal squick factor she has in Character Death. Or at least have the presence of mind to know that when someone says "thin the herd" that it's not meant to be cold-hearted, but as a means to truly make these tragic, tragic character that are oh so tragic and REAL actually come off as TRAGIC and REAL by throwing their mortality into the faces of the readers as well as the other characters involved.

Wow, that was a run-on of a run-on for that last sentence.