Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-5899967-20141107212749/@comment-24674051-20141107215437

If it wasn't for the fact that almost every main character has "Died" at some point, I'd put more validity into that statment. As it is, if I recall the interview (which was one of the Hot seat Inteviews), the question was if there would be any major deaths, and the answer was something along the lines of "I Hope So". Very non-commital, imo.

Now let's look back at previous seasons and see the deaths and near deaths (only a couple of which have stuck).

Season 1 - Graham (First semi-important character to be lost for good); David (Pretty much killed in the pilot, but obviously not fully dead), Kathryn Nolan (Murdered, but was a hoax that lasted several episodes), Henry (flatlined at the hospital, but was revived with TLK).

Season 2 - Cora (First of many villians to bite the dust), Gus the Mouse (aka Billy the mechanic), Neal (NOT really dead, but shot and fell through portal, left to be thought as dead for a little while, longer by the cast). Gold (almost died from dreamshade poisoning at the hands of Hook), Belle (seriously injured when shot by Hook), Archie (Fake killed by Cora).

Season 3 - David (almost killed by Dreamshade, and momentarily killed when Snow crushed his heart), Snow White (No Place LIke Home, incinerated, almost), Rumple (died when he killed Peter Pan), Peter Pan (killed by Rumple), Greg Mendell (Killed by Shadow), Tamara (killed by Rumple), Zelena (killed by Rumple), Henry (almost killed by Peter Pan), Hook (almost drowned by Zelna), Blue (shadow stripped), and last but definitely not least, Neal (died as a result of resurrecting Rumple).

Season 4 - Hans (I consider ice statue as death, though I suppose it could be reversed at some point), Marion (she's not quite dead, but pretty darned close).

As you can see, they toy with us on death, but with the exception of Neal, the only deaths that stick are the villians. And that is even after teasing us with character deaths (I would consider Snow's death as having been teased during one of the earlier hot seat interviews, though they never actually said who was going to 'die'.)  So, I take any comments of a character death with a huge dose of cynicism.

And for the record, the only main cast characters that have not had at least very near death experiences are Emma and Regina. and I highly doubt they will toy with either one of these.