I think you mis-remembered. You always start of with 3 brothers you can control. And I had thought that they can’t die in the tutorial, until robc04 had a different experience.
Edit: Ah I get it now, maybe robc04 was confused about the numbers in the tutorial? The one who gets the head lobbed off was part of the tutorial script. You always end up with 3 characters you can control. And they cant ever die in the beginning tutorial.