Truthfully, that J.K. Rowling‘s “reveal” of more deaths in the final installment of the Harry Potter series (as reported by Reuters) is more indicative of a slow news day than anything else, but she does at least get into why writers have an urge to kill their darlings – especially beloved characters.
“I’ve never been tempted to kill him [Harry] off before the end of book seven, because I always planned seven books and that’s where I want to go,” Rowling said. “I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, ‘Well, I’m going to kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels … so it will end with me, and after I’m dead and gone they won’t be able to bring back the character.”
But looking for cluse in that answer? Don’t bother. It’s not worth it.