I'm suddenly having a hard time with this new story and I need some advice. It's an isekai story, which, for those not into the anime/manga/light novel culture, consists of someone from the modern world being somehow transported to a magical Medieval world, and have to make sense of the new world while applying their modern thinking and knowledge. They're my favorite storyline, and in Asia, they're a dime a dozen right now.
The problem is that isekais are breeding grounds of cliches, and on one hand, I want to be original and not just use the same ideas over and over again, but on the other hand, simply subverting expectations isn't necessarily good (The Last Jedi would be a perfect example of that). Right now the main character is in a group, and I want to kill a character off, and I want their death to matter, but it's kind of a situation where someone is expected to die, and I feel like if I give them backstory or try to get to know them, I'll just be raising a giant flag to the readers that they're going to die. I've actually been trying to limit the amount of backstory and development the other characters get, because they're throwaway characters and I feel like I'd just be shoveling drama on for the sake of drama, and I really want to avoid the whole "emotional journey" schtick, but then I can't really make them "real".