Killing Off Characters In Your WIPs

After reading this entry by the lovely Kelsey Sutton, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about this subject with you. 

Kelsey says:

"So today while I was baking cookies I began to wonder, Do we kill off characters because it's really essential to the plot? Because we hate this character we've created? To mess with the reader's mind? Or just because we love that we can?

My answer to that is:

Because I love that I can.

I love creating tension between characters, building up the story and then killing off a character. Not my main ones, but a secondary one. 
It's that "WTF???" thing about it that I love!

Then again, I don't think I'd be so drastic as to kill a loved secondary character. Take Fred Weasley, for instance. We all loved him and were really sad to see him die. I'm still sad about it, but I think J. K. R. made the whole ending a lot more realistic in doing this. It can't all end in fairy tale endings.

In my case, if I kill off a character it's not always essential to the plot. It's basically to mess with the reader's mind. And I wouldn't kill a character I hated, I'd bring it more into the story! I love bad guys!

I guess I could say, I like killing off my MCs best friends. 

How about you?