*SPOILERS* Terrified for the remaining Scions!

[Lanadra]

None of those are recent barring tesleen and again, we knew her for quite literally 5 minutes. It’s not just that i want them to die, i want there to be consequences for them to properly display the severity of the situation and the actual stakes in the story. It’s funny how no one can answer my question of why in the expansion against the strongest foes and with the highest stakes, it’s the expansion with the least amount of consequences for the protags. Again, keeping characters alive through plot armor only makes the story disjointed and jarring again, like what they did with Graha. When they start neglecting their own plot elements they raised up simply to keep a character alive, there’s a problem.

Simple, because SE decided so. And they are the only ones who make that call.

[ItMe]

None of those are recent barring tesleen and again, we knew her for quite literally 5 minutes.

Forgive me, but it seems like you've just moved the goalpost.
Now you're not just asking for people to die, but we need to have recently had characters with lots of build up behind them to die? For there to always be a recent death like this I guess there needs to consistently be deaths like this...
Yeah, hmm... we really don't have a precedent for that (especially in the series roots) so I'm not too sure why you are acting like we should be having a consistent stream of impactful major character permadeaths.

[shao32]

Personaly i won't care if some or even all of them die for once, and to be honest i would enjoy a lot they deaths if they happen and the end but i expect them to survive and have a happy ending with minimun consequences over the "good guys".

Im really tired of the minimun consequences and plot armor around all the good guys this game has imposing this last expansion and im really tired of the fake deaths everywhere. While i always been more atached to the empire and his awesome characters like Gaius, Regula and the god emperor Varis (i'll never forgeth the moment he roasted the whole alliance, my fav scene in the whole game but i hate how they literally kill them off-screen) for much i tried i never been able to conect with any of the scions or the alliance, well with S'thola at first but after holding the record of fake deaths in this game im really tired of her.

I expect better, HW is for me the peak of the story of the game so i hope EW reach that level of mature, but considering how it's going i expect nothing more that what others say average anime plot specially considering the villians we have.

anyway time whould tell so cheers.

[Hunky]

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.

You are right in that we only knew Tesleen for a short while.

However, I don't think we need a deep emotional attachment to a character that dies for a story to become high stakes.

Not knowing her for long doesn't take away from what happened to her was horrifying.

Tesleen's demise drove the point home very well that the sin eaters are a tremendous threat to the world. It was an excellent example of the terror and destruction these monsters inflict.

If the warrior of light fails, that spells the end of the world. That's definitely high stakes. Just the knowledge of what these people go through and what they have to endure was enough.

There's a story duty in which you and the Scions have to assist the Crystarium soldiers defeat the sin eaters when they invade Lakeland.

In one part of the duty, you and the Scions try to reach a group of soldiers to save them, but you can't reach them in time and they're all killed.

For me, that was a very "high stakes" moment and cranked up the emotional tension and sense of urgency.

As for emotional payoff, I thought it was extremely well thought out.

For example, when you beat Holminster Switch and the night sky is revealed for the first time, I felt that was one of the most life-affirming moments in the game, and it served a reminder of why these characters fight so hard and sacrifice so much.

We watched someone get skewered, turn into a sin eater before our eyes, and then we fought them in the first dungeon. That did pretty well to properly display the severity of the situation and the actual stakes in the story for me.

Agreed 100%

Shadowbringers especially did a great job in maintaining this sense of urgency throughout the story. The constant threat of the sin eaters (and the consequences their success would mean to the citizens of Norvrandt), as well as the lingering idea of absorbing too much light and its terrible consequence kept me from ever feeling "safe". I always had a feeling of dread whenever things seemed to "relax". And I think that's because the story established high stakes from the get go.

[Scryar]

It's honestly difficult to take the empire or the ascians seriously anymore. All they are doing is getting defeated by the WoL/Scions/Eorzia. It's ridiculous how all city states still have the same leaders, none of them ever being in real danger, while the Garleans lost one legatus after another and their emperor. No even to mention that we killed all three unsundered Ascians while the Scions have huge plot armor.
I don't have much hope anything will change in Endwalker. Anything other than a glorious victory against Zenos and Zodiark with minimal loses for the WoL and his team of goody good guys would surprise me.

[HollowedDoll]

Just cut the fakeout deaths, they're more than annoying at this point.

Something bad happens to X, they look dead...
cutscene ends.
WHEW THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE WASN'T IT HAHA

[StriderShinryu]

I think some people are getting too lost in the weeds on the need for characters to die. They can easily just be written out of the story as active players who have to be with the WoL at all times. Some of the Scions have basically finished their story arcs and their slot could be better served by characters who still have stories to tell, especially since it's pretty clear that there are a few characters at least who are almost guaranteed not to die.

[TeraRamis]

It's honestly difficult to take the empire or the ascians seriously anymore. All they are doing is getting defeated by the WoL/Scions/Eorzia. It's ridiculous how all city states still have the same leaders, none of them ever being in real danger, while the Garleans lost one legatus after another and their emperor. No even to mention that we killed all three unsundered Ascians while the Scions have huge plot armor.
I don't have much hope anything will change in Endwalker. Anything other than a glorious victory against Zenos and Zodiark with minimal loses for the WoL and his team of goody good guys would surprise me.

Yep. We never lose - not, at least, on a strategic level. Final Fantasy used to take risks - in FFVI, we were defeated; we killed Kefka, but it was heavily implied that millions perished, and the world was irrevocably altered. We won, but we lost... and our victory couldn't reverse what had occured on our watch: burned cities, continents sundered, and magic (and a race of ancient magical beings) snuffed out. We failed, and others paid. It made the payoff at the end as much about revenge as rejoicing - it was a hollow victory, and because of that, it felt real.

I'm still waiting for FFXIV to hand us a situation like that - where the WoL comes up short, and there is no easy recovery. Something tells me that I'll be left disappointed. This story is just so nonchalant when it comes to perils and penalties. We simply do not experience anything more significant than minor setbacks.

[RyuDragnier]

Yep. We never lose - not, at least, on a strategic level. Final Fantasy used to take risks - in FFVI, we were defeated; we killed Kefka, but it was heavily implied that millions perished, and the world was irrevocably altered. We won, but we lost... and our victory couldn't reverse what had occured on our watch: burned cities, continents sundered, and magic (and a race of ancient magical beings) snuffed out. We failed, and others paid. It made the payoff at the end as much about revenge as rejoicing - it was a hollow victory, and because of that, it felt real.

I'm still waiting for FFXIV to hand us a situation like that - where the WoL comes up short, and there is no easy recovery. Something tells me that I'll be left disappointed. This story is just so nonchalant when it comes to perils and penalties. We simply do not experience anything more significant than minor setbacks.

They may use Garlemald for that. We've managed to save it, only for some device to go off, killing all the people we just saved, using them as a sacrifice for a Terminus we then have to fight in a Trial.

[Almagnus1]

As long as we don't get a Victory Gundam on our hands, I think I'll probably be good with whatever MSQ comes down the line so long as it's well done.