Re: what is with martin and killing of characters *spoilers*
Interesting subject. Side issue first of all:
Robert, Joffrey, Viserys, Drogo, Renly and Balon are all monarchs and thus central to the themes of the titles of A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, yet we never got their POVs.
GRRM has said that he doesn't like to write POVs for monarchs and rulers as a general rule, he finds it more interesting to write the 'little people'. IIRC, this was why he created Davos, because he didn't want a Stannis POV.
(The obvious exception is Dany, but c'mon, no way to avoid that one.)
There is a quote about this somewhere, I'll try to find it.
ON the subject of killing characters in general, GRRM has commented a couple of times to this effect:
http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1436/
GRRM said a couple of interesting things about killing off his main characters. First, he mentioned killing them early so that his reader knows that his story is very real, and that his heroes are not immortal and can easily slay 150 orcs single-handedly. He said this lets the reader know that no one is safe, and that it helps build up the tension in a novel. Secondly, when asked if he regretted killing anyone off or if he wished he hadn't because he could use them later on, he basically said no.
The quote GRRM usually deploys is 'playing for keeps'.
Ned's death was very much in this vein. Meant to show readers, not so much that no-one is safe (it's impossible to do that: you can't doubt, for example, that Dany will make it to the end), but that very few people are, and they are not necessarily the ones you assume.
In a sense there is a bit of sleight of hand here - we assume Ned is a main character in the series because he
is a main character in AGOT. But we're wrong in that assumption. Even Cat and Robb's deaths in ASOS aren't 'main character' deaths, to be strictly honest. At this stage, the main characters are clearly Jon, Bran and Dany: it's no longer possible to disguise the fact that they are safe at least until the last book. Their plotlines are too obviously going to form the spine of the series.
But the Ned, Cat and Robb deaths do make us restrict that list of 'safe' characters. Can we really say he wouldn't kill Arya, Sansa, Jaime, or even Tyrion? Let alone Sam, Stannis, Sandor, Varys, Jorah, Melisandre, or LF? He
probably wouldn't: but
definitely?
As well as the main characters, of course, there's a healthy attrition of 'secondary' characters such as Tywin, Joff, Viserys, Drogo, and Jeor, which makes us wonder about the fate of people like Margaery and the other Tyrells, Asha, the Reeds, or Barristan. And the same for 'minor' characters too. Just enough attrition to make things uncertain. Not a bloodbath, by any means: no killing for the sake of it, either. But just enough to make us realise he's playing for keeps.