Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Very few characters of note have actually died during the story and the fact that we had to have flashbacks to characters who died nearly ten years ago should say it all, really.

Perhaps more people should simply admit that they aren't able to handle anything bad actually happening to even minor characters that they like and as such falsely claim that a story would be 'bad' if it actually had some meaningful stakes across the board.

Let's also not forget that the game has an incredibly bloated cast and this is the second expansion in the row where very few new characters emerged to stand in the spotlight and persist. Worse yet, we had the opportunity to have a Raen guy step into a major role and yet he was unceremoniously killed off instead of being allowed to stick around.
They also killed a Garlean general who wasn't allowed to shine. He was just fodder to communicate the despair in Garlemald.
Due to the game being MMO, it's difficult to kill important characters.
They appear in previous quest, we know that they're supposed to be from a past time but it seems SQEX absolutely wants to keep them, even if Estinien is present in DRG quests in old armor.

Also, let's not forget that the Scions are quite powerful, now. Thancred is very unlikely to die, he 1v1 the top 1 pvp player in Norvrandt.
Estinien is, based on MSQ, much more powerful than the WoL.

IMO, it would have made no sense that a Scion would die, it would've been forced in this kind of "humanity versus monsters" situation when we already understand the sense of despair.
"We have no use for this character anymore, die please". Killing for the sake of killing would've made things worse, like a horror movie where the most experienced guy die.