User blog comment:Madman97/You know what really grinds my Wabbajack's? S3E1: I can't kill these guys/@comment-25109952-20131025182427/@comment-13446185-20131106210822

You're driving this off my point. I'm saying that they could have made NPCs "protected" instead of "essential". Not some wierd killable at some point mumbo-jumbo.

Doing this would be just as easy as setting them to "essential" so it wasn't an act of Bethesda's laziness, which I am already aware of.

Making some NPCs "protected" would be just as bug free as making some "essential".

The reason why Bethesda set NPCs to "essential" is for stupid people who would kill needed NPCs and then complain about it.