*SPOILERS* Terrified for the remaining Scions!

[Hunky]

Lack of stakes? I don't understand.

What about when Tesleen was horrifically turned into a sin eater?

Or when you entered Holminster Switch for the first time and witnessed all those innocent villagers being victimized by the sin eaters?

Or when the sin eaters invaded Lakeland at night and decimated the Crystarium army?

Those are just a few examples from Shadowbringers. Yes, they are all minor characters, but I personally felt for all of them. All of these parts of the story definitely established high stakes, at least for me.

I didn't have to know these characters to feel bad for things I saw on the screen. It made the threat of the sin eaters very real.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the main characters should always be invincible. I'm just trying to argue why the current story has been phenomenal in terms of building up high stakes.

Shadowbringers did a great job in building up tension, suspense, and drama that eventually led up to an excellent emotional payoff.

Establishing high stakes is important, but it can be done without killing main characters.

Killing off a character just for the sake of being subversive can end up having the opposite effect (like Star Wars: The Last Jedi).

There are lots of fantastic stories out there that don't kill of their main characters, like Lord of the Rings.

Again, I'm not saying I'm opposed to a main character being killed off (as long as it's done well). I just don't understand how people can claim that this story has been "low stakes" so far.

[Theodric]

There's also various other JRPG's that have killed off party members:

- Shadow Hearts
- Legend of Dragoon
- Grandia 2

To name but three. It isn't anything new. Which makes it all the more baffling that FFXIV decides to play things so safe.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Aria in FF3 is a side character.
If we count these side characters then people should be satisfied with FF14 thanks to Papalymo, Moenbryda, and co.

Oh snap though I forgot about Tellah.



And as I mentioned the main characters that died turned out to have either faked it or they come back to life.


FF2 did not kill of any of their 3 main characters. They had a revolving door of side characters temporarily join your party and die, but the main cast? No.
For side characters see what I said about FF3.


I suppose Galuf dies, that's true.


Yes, I acknowledged this.


No playable characters are dead by the end. After you kill Necron everyone comes back to life.


Wait... (checks notes), I thought we were talking about the series roots...
Some of those games are a bit older by this point, but calling them "roots" is too strong a term. Heck, you're bringing up things that came out after FF14 did.

Looking at 1-9, one main characters dies in 4, one in 5 and one in 7. That's hardly establishing it as a (in Kizuya's words) "common thing."
If you count games were main characters die and stay dead, then people should be more appreciative of all the hard work Y'shtola is putting in lol.

It doesn’t matter if 15 came after 14, point stands that it came out before ShB which is what this topic is about. You can nitpick all you want, but the main thing is, death has always been a part of final fantasy. Type 0 had the entire main cast die which was around 8+ people. 13-2 had the main character die and the antagonist actually won. Someone does die in 9 although it happens after the final boss. The ff2 characters were major characters, so much so they literally got an entire separate game version dedicated to them. Someone else mentioned someone from ff3 as well, ff4 was tellah, ff5 galuf, ff6 shadow etc etc.

snip

We knew tesleen for like 5 minutes. I heavily disagree with ShB having an excellent payoff. While they did have suspense with the scions being on a time limit, nothing came from that. No consequences whatsoever. One of the things they had built up, which was the fact Graha was weaker the farther away he is from the tower, had no payoff because they completely ignored that plot point at the end of ShB and gave him immense plot armor. As i've said many times before, look at HW. We didnt face crazy mighty foes, but we still lost people. But look at ShB, where we face the strongest foes yet, literal demigods, and its the sole expansion where we come out unscathed. Its dull. I already feel heavily detached from the scions as it is, but them just having immeasurable plot armor and messing up the story with plot holes out of nowhere is detrimental.

[Lauront]

The twins won't die. I bet my account on it.
They will pick one of the easier targets like Thancred (his development is pretty much resolved) or Estinien (hasn't been around as long and was a jerk for most of his screentime) and avoid those they know would generate the most fan fury (G'raha, Y'shtola)

Sadly, I think you're right about that.

[LisSquid]

Lack of stakes? I don't understand.

What about when Tesleen was horrifically turned into a sin eater?

death only matters if the character is introduced in the same patch they die in.

They kill off so many characters they introduce for the expressed purpose of emotional impact that I have stopped paying attention to new faces until they've been around for a while. They use "death" of the scions too many times for the same reason. Y'shtola is kind of a meme with this.

There are no stakes because you already know who the canon fodder is before they load the lead.

[TeraRamis]

Sadly, I think you're right about that.

Honestly, I feel quite the contrary. My time with Alisaie has left me with an overwhelming sense that she is marked. Now, maybe that's a red herring - who knows. But, of all the Scions, I feel like you could kill a twin and life would just go on.

[BaconBits]

Plot twist, Y'shtola knows she has plot armor, and she keeps pulling increasingly more dangerous stunts just to see what she can get away with.

Calling it now, she's gonna reveal she knows how to perform Louisoix's sealing technique and will not only survive using it, but regain usage of her eyes.

[ItMe]

It doesn’t matter if 15 came after 14, point stands that it came out before ShB which is what this topic is about. You can nitpick all you want, but the main thing is, death has always been a part of final fantasy.

Nitpick nothing.
We are explicitly talking about main character deaths in the roots of the franchise.

There's also various other JRPG's that have killed off party members:

Other things did other things. I don't understand how this is relevant. That's like saying DC has published some comics where the main character died, so why aren't there more main character deaths in this other series they're publishing.
These things aren't really related.

[RyuDragnier]

ff4 did it,ff2 did it, ff5 did it, ff7 did it, ff9 did it, ff10 did it, ff12 did it, ff13 did it, ff type 0 did it, ff15 did it. I have no idea where you’re coming from when you say they don’t generally do this. It’s literally a common thing.

Let me break it down comparing 14 to other games in the franchise. I'm going to put all this as a spoiler, since this is spoilers for a lot of FF games.

FF2: No main series game has matched its death toll for main cast.
FF4: Tellah only.
FF5: Galuf only
FF7: Aerith only
FF9: Vivi, only after final boss
FF10: Auron (and technically Tidus, but he was only a dream)
FF12: Nobody who was a main character technically died. Just a guy who showed up near the latter part of the game and didn't have much backstory to him.
FF13: Cid only
FF Type 0: Highest death toll in franchise.
FF15: Noctis and Luna.

Of those, FF14 beats out every other main series game other than FF2 in terms of main characters dying. We've had at least 3 main characters die over the course of the expansions.

[TaleraRistain]

I never like the idea of killing someone to "raise the stakes" because then you get stupid deaths like Papalymo. It's also ironic that many here are arguing about old games and killing off characters when those were most often guest or ally characters, but then are complaining when XIV has done the same thing. Noraxia, Moenbryda, Haurchefant, Ysayle, Meffrid, Conrad, and Tesleen were ally characters. And losing them was still a punch. Especially Meffrid for me when you realize the Revolutions trailer directly foreshadowed it in the trailer and the song but because they threw in that misdirect with Y'shtola we didn't catch on.

We don't have to lose major characters for it to hurt and drive home the severity of events.