Y'shtola's "Marketing Armor"

[rachcouture]

If the intention is to tell a serious and compelling story, then character death is a necessity.

If you're a poor excuse of a writer that can't come up with a more creative way of ending a story arc than pulling a tired George R.R. Martin.

For people who are invested in the serious aspects of a story, it negatively impacts the story to know that there is no tension at all

And there's a thousand ways of building tension that don't involve killing off key characters like a literary sociopath.

The thing about tensions outside of death is that they are usually far less permanent.

Death is quick and final. Outside of those left mourning, there's nothing to go forward with. It's a dead end narrative street. Compared to something like exploring a character's deep-seated trauma and/or existential crises, it's a bargain bin option largely reversed for hack creators with little in the way of imaginative agency. This is the exact reason why I was so upset with how they handled Yotsuyu; killing the darling was a waste of a much better story to tell.

So you think that any of the examples you listed really ripple outwards as much as death? Guess you don't get impacted the same way by death in the real world either. You can always focus in more on a bad thing happening, and make it the pivotal element in your story, but death sticks around, even without you writing more on it. We don't dwell on death overlong in the story, because it is depressing by nature. The game doesn't like to keep a gloomy tone.

I've lost a number of loved ones over the past several years. Yes, it hurt, but I know they're at peace now, and don't have to experience any more pain, rather it be physical or emotional. You know what still hurts, though? The state of the world today, and being powerless to do anything about it in the face of wannabe authoritarians with more money than good intentions. People that might be homeless soon—family and friends included—courtesy of a virus that could have been largely avoided if actual action had been taken. World events like the above adding to an already extensive rapsheet of emotional trauma, chipping at mental health so poor that some days, I tell myself I don't want to wake up, because I'm so exhausted of all the hate, the violence, the disregard for the lives of others because they're not white, or straight, or masculine, or financially privileged, or whatever non-issue someone heartless and cruel decides to turn into a societal pinata; things I, my loved ones, and admired idols have been flogged for at one point or another.

There are things far more painful than death regardless of how much you want to trivialize them.

Anyway, Y'shtola is fabulous, and she isn't going anywhere as the game's mascot character. None of the other scions are, honestly. No amount of backseat writing is going to change that.