Why play 3.5 anymore?

[AMFV]

By one guy, with a plot device arrow. Not by the militia.

A regular non-magical arrow, with no special properties, no elvish enchantments. It's just as easy to surmise that the one guy was only able to defeat him because of all the other ones. Just because somebody gets a killing blow doesn't mean that they alone were the victors in a conflict.

Because he's a dragon fighting peasants and why should he need to?

I don't know, why do people need support fighting bees? Or ants? Enough of a small number of things can kill you? Also why is the Dragon fighting peasants? That doesn't seem to have much value. I mean historically dragons such as Smaug have died against peasants, so that seems like a losing game, particularly without any real gain from it.

Yes, and Batman spends lots of Batman stories not killing the Joker, despite the fact that doing so is logically and ethically the correct choice.

That's certainly a debatable point. Probably why most people have reacted strongly and negatively to stories where he has. Because they don't agree with you.

Yes, when you try to oust the current king without enough force to do it, you fail. Because the king has more force and is therefore more legitimate. Not a hard problem.

The thing is, the King rules because the people don't rise up in rebellion, and the nobles don't. The king doesn't have enough force to stop everybody, there's never been an Empire where that's been the case. He just needs enough to keep enough people happy that they'll back him. That's where the support and politics come in.