Do Character Deaths Add Value to Costume Dramas?

I was inspired to make this post because of the recent slew of costume dramas with half the cast being killed off and their deaths adding no value to the plot. There’s so many such dramas in recent years ( >! A Journey To Love, Fangs of Fortune, The Story of Pearl Girl, Moonlight Mystique etc. !< ) I can’t even begin to count the number of character deaths there were and when I look at the bigger picture, they ultimately didn’t end up contributing much to the plot development and were mainly there just for the theatrics? And to add a much needed “tragic” element to the show.

Building on to tragedy I feel like a lot of drama creators think of tragedy as synonymous to character deaths when it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to kill off half the cast to portray a beautiful tragedy. Let’s look at Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, it’s the most viewed xianxia ever and it’s painfully tragic too but there’s no unnecessary character deaths to achieve that. Same with Ancient Love Poetry, people have divided opinions about the drama because of the cast, acting etc. but plot-wise it’s one of my absolute favourites and it’s heartbreaking. But the essence of the tragedy in the drama lies in sacrifice and not killing off characters just for the sake of it. Same can be said for Lost You Forever. I’ve never cried watching a drama as much as I cried watching LYF but not once did I feel that the character deaths were pointless or served no purpose, they were vital to the plot. Tragedy can be beautiful when done right.

I was extremely excited for both Fangs of Fortune and Moonlight Mystique but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when they ended because of how poorly executed the tragedies were.

I feel like this is especially applicable to xianxias which is strange because some of the most popular xianxias (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Ashes of Love, Love Between Fairy and Devil and Legend of Shen Li) are so well-rounded when it comes to both the love and tragedy aspects. They don’t have any meaningless character deaths. So, I keep wondering why so many newer ones seem like they’re written in such a sloppy manner with barely any character or plot development and adding as many plot-twists as they want hoping something sticks.