I think so too 🙁
They kind of need someone to die to raise the emotional stakes after all the fake-out killings they’ve done. Season 1 was full of some emotional punches and I think Billy/Gus was really the last sort of non-villain who was named to actually perish. August was…reverted. Then we had Hopper, Neal, Charming, Blue and Rumple (fingers crossed!) all be dangled at death’s door but saved. There was a similar rumor about August’s actor not getting along too…but a dwarf seems more background scenery and more capable of being killed off unless its Grumpy.
Happy got a great line that one episode, but nothing that couldn’t be said by one of the other ones.
The other recurring character I could see them do this to is Whale/Frankenstein/Anders. I’ve looked a time or two at his twitter, and he’s a bit ..brash and outspoken, and quite possibly not all that invested in what they’ve done with his character because its sort of like what happened to Ruby. He was never promoted to main cast or anything but he had two episodes of backstory and possibly some arc planned for him that never materialized when the shift to NL came about. I know he’s gone to support the show at various conventions, so on the other hand, maybe not him.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass