Well...let's just say that's not how it goes down at the table. There is some artistic license that is being taken in the retelling, to be sure.
So you didn't go into the castle ballroom and kill everyone straight up?

Keeping people alive means you can torture them later. Or bribe them, annoying when that works better than the torture. You can't have tortured them though, that would have made the page. Or a charm spell.. Damn wizards, taking all the work from the normal classes.