Y'shtola's "Marketing Armor"

[Vyrerus]

I

It's always death or the threat of it that puts tension in the air, at least with regards to stories that involve war or combat. You can make a tense story about piano recitals with a stringent mentor figure. Hell, you can write the extremes of just about any dang thing, and put some kind of tension into the air.

The thing about tensions outside of death is that they are usually far less permanent. Nothing bites as hard as losing someone forever.

1: Jill is killed
2: Jill is not

1: Other people have to make up for and get over the loss of Jill. One of them has to get over losing the love of their life. The blood of the villagers is on their hands. The blood of some of the party's family members are on their hands. They were the groups' in at the village. Overcoming the mental trauma, emotional trauma, and physical wounds is going to take time, and some won't recover. Those that do are galvanized to forge onward, to do better, to be better. Those that aren't show us the reality of many people who go to battle. That it's something that may ruin your life, if not take it. Those few who do come out the other end with stronger resolves still aren't sure if they can take on the bad guys.

2: Everybody's hurt. Homes are destroyed, but hey, you can replace those. Everyone has a shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on, and getting through the struggle is no harder than before once everything's healed up. Some crack and walk away, but at least they're walking away, instead of lying in another shallow, unmarked grave. The situation is dire, but it was merely that the bad guy got the drop on us, not that we weren't up to the task of defeating them. Jill and Co. will do much better next time.

While death's not the only way to add tension to the story, it ripples outwards into the story affecting nearly everything, whereas other vehicles for gravitas don't. Within the context of the story of FFXIV, while death is present, it is never present for those who are deemed to be the closest and strongest among us. The lack of death for these characters also ripples into the rest of the story, again, making the villains seem like all talk and no show.

There's a reason that character death is talked about for years and years and argued over if it's left the slightest bit ambiguous. Example: Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop. It's this sort of thing that makes it a stronger, better element to use within a story, as well as why it's so commonly used. When death's used it doesn't necessarily make the story better, but it makes it more memorable, and memorable stories are the ones that get repeated.