That Garlean guy, what was his name? Gaius Van Baelsar

[Knahli]

Namamo's death was a big "hold the phone" moment anyway that had many (including me) calling BS immediately.

Most of us knew she didn't die. Y'shtola, Thancred, Yda, and Papalymo we knew were alive because The Braves were still looking for them.

Lord H's Death was a Prema-Death because our character litterally held him during his last breaths.

Iceheart and Moenbryda we know are dead because we watched them turn into Aether and disapate out selves.

Louisoix as well for any who bested Coil

So Gaius, we didn't see him die, we didn't recover a corpse, so he can't possibly be Prema-Dead. Not until we drag a corpse out of the Pretorium ruins will I buy it. Even his Helm and Gunblade won't convence me unless his skill is in the helmet.

As far as I can tell, Nanamo was an expendable character as far as dramatic, pre-expansion, plot cliff-hangers go, so I think ruling it out was no more than personal speculation on your part. A whole lot of people, if not the majority, had presumed her dead.

Yda and Papalymo pretty much never had any suggestion of death surrounding them to begin with, so I don't know why anyone got that impression. Papalymo very clearly intended to survive and fight on another day and the look on their faces after annihilating the force of Blades before them only proved that they had succeeded in their intent and that nothing had gone wrong in the process. It'd be a ridiculous thing to say if they had full-well planned on taking everyone out with them through their final attack.

Thancred and Y'shtola were the only Scions who were 'owed' a death as there was no conceivable escape for them outside of a cop out excuse which, I am afraid to say, is the resulting aftermath - that is to say, UNLESS Minfillia played a hand in it which so far has not been shown to be the case. That said, it was my impression that Thancred and perhaps Y'shtola were too popular to kill off, so I was ready for such a thing to happen.

[Theodric]

I never really bought into the idea that Nanamo would survive. I very much thought that the developers killed her off - along with many of the Scions - because they were keen on seeing through their promise of a 'darker' expansion. They delivered on that regard to some extent but until they stop shrouding the Scions and City State leaders in plot armour I fear they'll just build up side characters purely to kill them off instead. Death doesn't bother me when it's done well - I just dislike 'fake' deaths in excess which is why I don't want Gaius to return even though I love all things Garlemald.

I fell out of love with WoW's storytelling for precisely this reason - again and again the same select characters would defy all logic and consequences whilst the more fleshed out and arguably intriguing characters would be killed off instead.

[Frederick22]

As far as I can tell, Nanamo was an expendable character as far as dramatic, pre-expansion, plot cliff-hangers go, so I think ruling it out was no more than personal speculation on your part. A whole lot of people, if not the majority, had presumed her dead.

Yda and Papalymo pretty much never had any suggestion of death surrounding them to begin with, so I don't know why anyone got that impression. Papalymo very clearly intended to survive and fight on another day and the look on their faces after annihilating the force of Blades before them only proved that they had succeeded in their intent and that nothing had gone wrong in the process. It'd be a ridiculous thing to say if they had full-well planned on taking everyone out with them through their final attack.

Thancred and Y'shtola were the only Scions who were 'owed' a death as there was no conceivable escape for them outside of a cop out excuse which, I am afraid to say, is the resulting aftermath - that is to say, UNLESS Minfillia played a hand in it which so far has not been shown to be the case. That said, it was my impression that Thancred and perhaps Y'shtola were too popular to kill off, so I was ready for such a thing to happen.

Seriously? Not this again.....

If you look carefully at the cutscenes of 2.55. You will see small tips, situations that doesnt close with the rest and actions that doesnt make sence ( for ex: Lorolito killing Namamo would not have being good for him at a long term, he is bad, but not stupid. )
It seems everyone is forgetting the fact of the terrible loss we suffered on the Vault, that situations compense any kind of "reset - plot armor"things as you may call.

Also trust me, there was a lot of people that saw this and knew that Nanamo may not haven being died after all.

[Theodric]

It's still a cop out. Especially since a large part of the speculation was due to Nanamo being tied to many quests and flavour text; thus she wouldn't easily be killed off. If we see Raubahn become unhinged and we put him down, however, then it won't be so bad - but if we don't then we literally lost nothing at all during 2.0's finale. I mean, we didn't need to be 'driven' to Ishgard to take refuge because...we would have gone there anyway due to the story progression.

[Atoli]

I never assumed Nanamo dead and never assumed the Scions dead either. As Frederick said, there were enough subtle hints against it.
Especially anyone who paid attention to Lolorito throughout the course of the game already knew that it went completely against his character.

For Gaius, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure he's over for real.
Partially because of his own last words (he basically accepted the end), but also because he is still one of those relicts from 1.x.
ARR still heavily tied into what 1.x left us, discovering Bahamut, finding out about what happened to Louisoix and Nael, defeating the big bad of the original 1.0 scenario (Gaius), and so on.
But there's a point where you have to say "Okay, we finished this story, it's time to start a new chapter now.", and they did; they even killed off the old leader of Garlemald and crowned a new...whatever it's called..xD, Varis.

That said, Regul..us? Regula? (that closet Ravana fan, you know who I mean! xD) is not even remotely as charismatic as our former Garlean leaders .-.
I remember back when I first had defeated Ifrit, still all happy and suddenly Nael walks in and just obliterates everything in his path..not to mention just how crazy and creepy he turned out to be later on.
Gaius, still shuddering at how he singlehandedly defeated the whole Ala Migho resistance army, and still being this guy you can't hate because he IS the voice of reason in the whole scenario °-°
Nero and his stupid but somewhat endearing rivalry with Cid who you befriend in the end, and even Livia, with her weird love/fangirl(?) relationship with Gaius - all of them really felt like interesting characters one could care about.

Regulus is more like..that Roebro dude nobody ever remembers from the ARR scenario xD
He feels really cannon fodderish right now ._. No interesting character, no cool intro feats..heck, we know more about Varis and his values already even before entering Ishgard than we do about Regula/us after fighting him and meeting him again and again.

But still.
I want well-written new villains, not the old ones reappearing. Gaius is a great guy, but it's good that he's dead.

[Fenral]

if we don't then we literally lost nothing at all during 2.0's finale.

Just to be devil's advocate for a moment, Raubahn hasn't exactly regrown his arm. I'd rather not have someone Die For Real to make up for the fact that the writers have no idea how to handle a capable warrior (and a bodyguard, no less) becoming irreparably handicapped.

Or maybe that's this next patch. It kinda needs to be addressed soon.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Just to be devil's advocate for a moment, Raubahn hasn't exactly regrown his arm. I'd rather not have someone Die For Real to make up for the fact that the writers have no idea how to handle a capable warrior (and a bodyguard, no less) becoming irreparably handicapped.

Or maybe that's this next patch. It kinda needs to be addressed soon.

Being a Retired Gladiator, EX member of The Ala Mihgan Resistance Army (along side Illberd), General of The Immortal Flames, AND surrogate Father/Bodyguard to Nanamo, I don't think losing his arm is going to slow him down much. He seemed to dual Illberd with only one arm for quite a while to stall for our escape. And likly only lost due to blood loss.

[VargasVermillion]

I have a feeling we will learn more about the fallen legates eventually, either through sidequests or a garlean focused expansion. Gaius especially has played a big part in garlemalds mission and we will likely hear more about him later on as he would be regarded as a hero in the empire (more from the people and military than the upper class however), even eorzean leaders recognized his abilities.

[Cilia]

I've just watched enough Anime to know a villan walking slowly towards the camera as his HQ blows up behind him rarely means they were defeated let alone killed. The fact that we don't know what he looked like under his helmet just proves we could still run into him. I'm still betting he's retreated to Ala Mihgo to resume his role as Imperial Vicroy. Possibly going compleatly Rouge [sic] and declaring himself King of Ala Mihgo.

OK, but... this isn't an anime?

They probably just cut the camera off when they did as a matter of discretion (and engine limitations). I'm pretty sure you don't want to watch Gaius get blown into charred chunks of meat, which, engine limitations aside, is likely what happened. So there probably isn't an identifiable corpse to recover, because he's... you know. Charred chunks of meat.

Seriously. I thought we had moved past the "Bring me his head!" that was so prevalent in MMOs for the longest time.

Now, I'm not ruling out the possibility that he survived and proceeded to [do whatever]. Just saying it's highly improbable. Very highly improbable. "Requires a deus ex machina" improbable.

[Phyllo]

Until it's revealed that Gaius is, in fact, alive (which would be a deus ex machina), he is in fact dead. Just like Lahabrea.

Err, lahabrea isn't dead, he's locked inside thordan's sword that's all.