Yeah. Fantasy is generally a positive-in-the-end genre. Some people here apparently think horror = fantasy, but people read horror for the horror, they don't say, "I want to read a horror book today, let's head for the fantasy section", lol.

I don't mind if writers do this if they find a way to acknowledge that they're not really writing within the typical norms of the genre. The good ones use blurbs from reporters and the like which give a strong indication of the deviation from genre norms.

The rest just seem to think they're being clever or innovative by hiding it.

You're exactly right that in most books there are those who can be killed off without completely destroying the narrative. Secondary and tertiary characters who are well built can still make you cry. (I know, I've both read it and written it).

Main character deaths just aren't done in certain genres. You don't write a romance and then kill off a main character or a main character's family/ best friend/ pet/ etc. It just isn't done because people are reading romance for positivity.

People read Fantasy by and large for escapism to a heroic world where things work out.

There's plenty of horror, suspense, etc. out there. And there are even sub-genres of "dark" Fantasy, but the normal convention for over a century is that those are 'horror-fantasy' (Frankenstein's Monster), not Fantasy [ps, with lots of painful-to-the-reader deaths, lols!].