19 actually means 4

"Kill your darlings" means "if something is holding you back, get rid of it, even if it sounds pretty."

That's it! That's all it means! It means if you're stuck and stalled out on your story and you could fix the whole block by removing something but you're avoiding removing that thing because it's good, you remove that thing. That's the darling.

It does NOT mean

That you have to get rid of your self-indulgent writing

That you should delete something just because you like it (?wtf?)

That you need to kill off characters (??? what)

That you have to pare your story down to the absolute bare bones

That you have to delete anything whatsoever if you don't want to

The POINT is that you STOP FEELING GUILTY for throwing out good writing that isn't SERVING THE STORY.

The POINT is that you don't get so HUNG UP on the details that you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.

recycle your darlings

and it really got me thinking like

He's hesitant to advise the party to go to Moonrise Tower through the Underdark, the place he was captured. He is not a playable party member in the Underdark.

His issues with romantic commitment are extremely profound in his epilogue. He accidentally wildshapes before sex. He subconsciously uses a combat tactic before sex. The majority of drow slaves are goblins and he kills goblin children at the Goblin Camp while he's in wildshape, after being captured by them and held by them for months, after being subdued by goblins, which surprises the playable character enough to have a line about it.

He says that the scar on his face is from a she-bear that did not react well when she was in heat and he was not interested. Scars can be healed by greater potions. I do not think that scar is from a bear.

He vaguely mentions his time in the Underdark before the Drow twins encounter. Then expands on it after. Jokes that it wasn't all bad.