Character Death in the MSQ

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Also the quantitative route is doable but not really an option for the forums since there's a 3000-character limit.

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You can edit your posts to add more stuff, cutting down on the number of posts needed to make your entire point.

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Originally Posted by Shistar

You can edit your posts to add more stuff, cutting down on the number of posts needed to make your entire point.

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I'd also put forward that if you really want to do this, the optimal angle might be 'Google spreadsheet'. Chart every death by category and expansion, start graphing the results, you'll probably start to see patterns and conclusions you both will and won't expect, like an expansion having a higher or lower bodycount than expected, or like, an unnoticed spike in villain fake-out deaths.

This mode of thinking degrades your ability to examine texts critically. It's far more useful to identify the what and how of a piece of story in context instead of defaulting to mindless pattern recognition.

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Originally Posted by StormChase

This is just my opinion, but the MSQ's kinda weird with killing off characters.

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So writers kill off characters for narrative reasons? You've kind of described all of fiction.

As the others have stated, you're too busy trying to shoehorn everything into boxes that you neglect the context behind them and write off characters like Haurchefant and Papalymo as "people no one cared about" when people clearly do care about them to the point of ugly sobbing in public when talking about them. Colin Ryan, Alphinaud's voice actor, was at a complete loss for words when Haurchefant died despite having an understanding that Haurchefant was doomed from his past work on the game.

Even the writers argue over their usage of character deaths. Natsuko Ishikawa was peeved that three characters she created and wanted to develop, Moenbryda, Haurchefant, and Ysayle, all got killed off by Maehiro in ARR and HW before she could fully flesh them out. This seemed to make her take the opposite approach and become reluctant to kill off core members of the cast (which is honestly to the narrative's general benefit).

So what is your point exactly?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I'd also put forward that if you really want to do this, the optimal angle might be 'Google spreadsheet'. Chart every death by category and expansion, start graphing the results, you'll probably start to see patterns and conclusions you both will and won't expect, like an expansion having a higher or lower bodycount than expected, or like, an unnoticed spike in villain fake-out deaths.

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Off the top of my head I'm remembering there were at least four of those. A couple of them died for real later (Yotsuyu and Zenos) but a couple of them are still alive (Gaius and Calyx).

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Off the top of my head I'm remembering there were at least four of those. A couple of them died for real later (Yotsuyu and Zenos) but a couple of them are still alive (Gaius and Calyx).

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Also Sareel Ja, but you learn that in a sidequest.

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Also Sareel Ja, but you learn that in a sidequest.

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AND Solus. Okay damn, that's a lot.

You can just edit your posts rather than spamming posts on your own thread you know...

And what about them? What's your point that the writer did these things. Some actual analysis and reasoned opinion would be nice to foster discussion beyond "this happened".

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

You can just edit your posts rather than spamming posts on your own thread you know...

And what about them? What's your point that the writer did these things. Some actual analysis and reasoned opinion would be nice to foster discussion beyond "this happened".

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I'm noticing with the villain fake outs that several of them die for real later (Solus, Nidhogg, Yotsuyu, Zenos). So I think excluding Gaius, they're done to create a false sense of security before the fight continues.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

So writers kill off characters for narrative reasons? You've kind of described all of fiction.

As the others have stated, you're too busy trying to shoehorn everything into boxes that you neglect the context behind them and write off characters like Haurchefant and Papalymo as "people no one cared about" when people clearly do care about them to the point of ugly sobbing in public when talking about them. Colin Ryan, Alphinaud's voice actor, was at a complete loss for words when Haurchefant died despite having an understanding that Haurchefant was doomed from his past work on the game.

Even the writers argue over their usage of character deaths. Natsuko Ishikawa was peeved that three characters she created and wanted to develop, Moenbryda, Haurchefant, and Ysayle, all got killed off by Maehiro in ARR and HW before she could fully flesh them out. This seemed to make her take the opposite approach and become reluctant to kill off core members of the cast (which is honestly to the narrative's general benefit).

So what is your point exactly?

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I actually did list Haurchefant as one of the more exceptional deaths in a different reply. Part of the reason I put Papalymo (who I said is debatable) where I did was because of how sparsely he was mentioned in 4.0.

Also we don't know for a fact that Moenbryda and Ysayle are Ishikawa's, but the way she talked about her characters dying, they probably were. I got an idea of why that might've happened but that's another can of worms.