Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
The narrative purpose would be the supposed themes of Endwalker. The game preaches about embracing suffering as a grim necessity and then not only tries to justify the genocide of the Ancients but shrouds many major and minor characters in immensely thick plot armour to the point where they're bragging about walking away with not even a single scar.
I disagree that it would have contributed to narrative themes that much. I think it would just upset the tone of 'staying hopeful in face of darkness' way too much. That, and again, I do believe character death should serve a point not just in grander story, but in character's personal arc, and only Urianger fit the bill in Endwalker, with both his resolution post-Lopporits and meeting with his dead gf's parents happening. For genocide of the ancients, while I will preface this by saying that I do agree with general narrative portrayal of it as the lesser evil and more correct option, I do also agree that when looked at from complete outsider's critical lens perspective, the story doesn't do much to make it seem justified either (which is one of the things that I kinda wish was touched upon further, although the way I would have liked that would not be really fitting into eisting narrative well without just being stated explicitly). And, unlike Shadbowbringers that did it twice, not once in Endwalker did I feel like "this character should have died there" myself, although that is a much more subjective metric of plot armor.