Why does everyone have to die?

Spoilers here for Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series.  If you don’t want to know how it ends, don’t
read on.  Well, not so much how it ends, but
who survives.

Jim Butcher’s first book in the Codex Alera was on sale for US99c
(about A$1.50). I bought it, and even though my TBR pile is enormous, I started
to read it.

At 11:00pm that night, I bought the second book.

Oh, it’s a slippery slope when you start on a series you
enjoy.

I was part way through the second book when I told Sherylyn,
“All I can say is, they’d better not kill Frederic.”

They didn’t kill Frederic, much to my relief. And, in fact,
most of those who survived the first book also survived the second.

I haven’t read any further. Two books in two days. I’m stiff, I haven’t moved.  I need to walk around a bit.  But, I did jump onto Goodreads and read the synopses of the next four books.  And, let’s be honest, I read a few reviews, too.

Spoiler coming … be warned, stop here if you don’t want to
know.

I don’t know if Frederic survives to the end of the last
book. I hope he does.  He’s only a
secondary character (minor secondary, at that). 
But everyone else survived. All the main characters lived.

I read a few reviews where readers were critical of this.
They felt that some of the main characters should have died.  That it was unrealistic. 

Of course it was unrealistic, but that doesn’t mean it
couldn’t happen. Why can’t the story follow only the survivors? Why is a book only
realistic if people die?

Other reviewers were happy the characters survived, and I
confess, even though I haven’t read the other books yet, so am I. I was
dreading learning that one of my favourite characters being killed.

I’m a lot more inclined to read the other four books now.