Death unto Dawn page up

[StriderShinryu]

Except one of the main themes of the story is loss and learning to let go. It's disingenuous to make that a major factor of the narrative only to have everyone close to the main character survive everything all the time no matter the odds or how bad the situation is.
Would Thancred's arc in ShB work if Minfilia was still alive inside Ryne and could just speak through her whenever she wanted? Would anyone really care a fraction as much about Haurchefant if he was still just sitting in Camp Dragonhead making cameos during holiday events? You shouldn't just kill characters left right and center, but when it's narratively appropriate characters absolutely SHOULD die.

Absolutely. Though I will say I never really did care for Haurchefant at all at least in part because the writing tried too damn hard to make you like him and make him feel important to you in some way. The way the game forced you to interact with him in the way they did actually turned me off of liking him.

Anyway, yes, death isn't necessarily the be all and end all of storytelling. It's more that it's sort of the final cost and a form of ultimate consequence for the choices made by the WoL and others. The biggest issue with death in FF14, though, is that they have decided to play so fast and loose with it with way too many cases of characters "dying" but then coming back for one reason or another. I wouldn't personally feel that death is a necessity in the storyline if the writers themselves would stop bringing it up and using the potential of it as motivation/punishment. It's like when you're out with your friend and they keep talking about how amazing this new dessert restaurant is but they never say where it is or what it's called. You wouldn't care at all about the amazing desserts at this awesome new restaurant if your friend didn't keep bringing it up.

[Lauront]

Absolutely. Though I will say I never really did care for Haurchefant at all at least in part because the writing tried too damn hard to make you like him and make him feel important to you in some way. The way the game forced you to interact with him in the way they did actually turned me off of liking him.

Anyway, yes, death isn't necessarily the be all and end all of storytelling. It's more that it's sort of the final cost and a form of ultimate consequence for the choices made by the WoL and others. The biggest issue with death in FF14, though, is that they have decided to play so fast and loose with it with way too many cases of characters "dying" but then coming back for one reason or another. I wouldn't personally feel that death is a necessity in the storyline if the writers themselves would stop bringing it up and using the potential of it as motivation/punishment. It's like when you're out with your friend and they keep talking about how amazing this new dessert restaurant is but they never say where it is or what it's called. You wouldn't care at all about the amazing desserts at this awesome new restaurant if your friend didn't keep bringing it up.

I agree, and I also think the amount of baiting where it's expected there's not going to be any follow-through - and then there isn't - doesn't help, either.