Is it better to let the council die or save them in ME1?

I let them die. Focus on the reaper. The other thing is the destiny commander. I fault her for putting the council in harms way. Once the council is onboard, why didn't she have the ship fly away from the battle?

The ship the Council is on carried more crewmembers and had working guns to fire at Sovereign. Didn't need to save the Council for their sake to justify saving the Destiny Ascension.

The destiny ascension was running you don’t pack the council on to fight. They weren’t going to do shit for the battle.

The main drive was down, barriers weak even if they stuck around what would they do.

Oh definitely. My point was there is no mechanical advantage either way. A few points. Either you have destiny ascension or a bigger fifth fleet.

It’s just roleplaying effects. Roll with it, live it up even. Tell that turian gun dealer off that he better give you guns so you can kill geth and protect his bitch ass.

While I always say focus on sovereign I do feel those were the 3 heavily implied arguments from the few lines they give.

Proof??... for how I roleplay my individual Shepards?  That's an odd request.  I use "Let the Council Die" when my Shepard is taking a very pro-human stance and when he/she supports Terra Firma when asked to do so on the Citadel.  He/she will then also likely recruit Wrex and not Garrus (since he/she has to recruit one of them).  As for Tali, he/she will refuse to take her, but then Udina will force the issue.  Of course, all of it is within the range the game will allow... and sometimes that means that those Shepard's can't come across as racist as I would like to play them out to be... but I make do.

I save them Most of the time.
But I will admit, I mostly do it for Joker’s epic “cavalry is here” moment and because I know that in the end, it really doesn’t make that much difference in ME2/3.

Ditto!

The simplest answer is that it doesn't matter at all unless you are trying to roleplay. So in that case, what would your Shepard do? I would argue that the most responsible decision is to "focus on Sovereign". Now this is not the same, in terms of mentality, as "let them die". If Sovereign is not destroyed it will open the relay and the Reapers will pour into the galaxy. That's it. Everyone will die and resistance will be impossible. The Reapers win. So if you lose firepower saving the Council then you might not be able to destroy Sovereign in time if at all.

The mission comes first, remember?

Now of-course we, the players, know that Shepard can do either and will still succeed. However Shepard wouldn't know that in-universe. The choice to save the Council is framed as a morale choice with some long-term considerations, but I would argue that if you lose the battle NOW that there won't BE any long term. I've also seen this debate taken into detail about whether saving the Destiny Ascension would free up other turian ships to aid you or whether it is better because you eliminate a bunch of geth ships, and those are all reasonable arguments, but it is clear from a narrative standpoint how the writers are framing the dilemma.

Mission first, eliminate the threat, worry about the cost later

Or

Duty and consideration to the Council first, regardless of the risk

When the survival of all intelligent life is at stake I always ere on the side of caution.