6.0 Story Speculations

[Fenral]

FFIV is full of character death fake-outs; FFXIV has a much higher actual bodycount, while still being comparable with the number of "oh no, this character has sacrificed themselves in a way that surely they cannot survive, even if nobody has seen the body".

Outside of endings, Final Fantasy has never actually been that bloodthirsty with party members (aside from FFII), opting to focus instead on their reactions to the death around them. Granted, we didn't even have real "party members" until 5.0.

Maybe the devs like targeting the sort of player who sees things go horribly wrong and believes the worst till they get proof the worst hasn’t happened. But the first bodies to drop were permanent (the tempered Flame Soldiers, Noraxia, Moenbryda), and every now and then we still get a death, so how are we to know?

You have to ask yourself if the emotions you feel in the moment are invalidated by a positive outcome. A lot of people these days seem to think so, because it's better to get angry than admit you're invested in fictional characters (or something). Me, I still find myself asking, "Wait, is that really it?" even for characters that "obviously" can't be harmed like Y'shtola and Thancred.

I think 6.0 will give us just one death (maybe not a party member) where the usuals will inevitably insist they feel nothing because survival is guaranteed, only for reality to finally set in much later. Like this latest season of Lucifer...