I've read the rules but haven't played the game yet, so forgive me if the answer to this would be apparent during gameplay...

If a unique character is killed and placed in the "dead" pile, you're not allowed to play that character again. But what if you have duplicates of that character in your hand or you draw duplicates from your deck? Do you discard those duplicates and draw new cards to replace them?

Jenna said:

They just sit in your hand as dead weight. If you're lucky, they'll get chosen for claim in an Intrigue challenge, or you'll use them for some other effect that requires you to discard cards. There are a few cards capable of moving cards out of your dead pile that you could also use. Before the unique character does die, you could attach those copies to it as "Duplicates" (game terminology). The process for attaching duplicates is explained in the rule book, but ask if you want that explained as well.