Do you think one of the Scions will die on Dawntrail

[Cleretic]

Honestly, after Endwalker I don't think they would ever kill someone from the main cast. And even if they would do it eventually, I think quite many people, me included, will look back at Endwalker and say "so, no one died during the fight with a universal level threat, but THIS is where you decided for them to meet their end?" Retirement is a much more feasible option, allowing you to leave your favorite characters dignified and give space to new characters.

Fun fact, Endwalker is only barely above Shadowbringers in named character bodycount. Like, it has one more death.

I think both Shadowbringers and Endwalker get by on the 'piles of anonymous bodies' factor; sometimes, throngs of nameless corpses set a tone of 'dark and serious and full of death' that the rest of the game just doesn't have to deliver on and people will still act like it did. I always think of Dragon Age Origins: people act like that game is a dark and serious game full of death, but the actually meaningful bodycount is so low that depending on your character origin and choices it might well be at one. Meanwhile, Dawntrail basically has the inverse; it actually is willing to kill characters. But it instead kills specific characters in one-off incidents, it doesn't pile on the bodies; and when it does, it doesn't discuss them. (The Solution Nine attack is the bloodiest it gets, but the focus afterwards is on supporting the survivors.) As a result people just act like it's bloodless and light, when it really isn't.

There's an amount of people that will only ever respond to the visceral; that the stakes are only dire and bloody if they look dire and bloody, damn all evidence otherwise.

All that said, I do think there's an element of truth in it not 'feeling right' if the Scions died in, say, Dawntrail, even if Dawntrail's meaningful bodycount was actually quite high. Because Dawntrail's deaths were meaningful; they affect the people and world around them. Gulool Ja Ja doesn't die for raw shock value, his death fundamentally changes the character relationships between Zoraal Ja, Wuk Lamat, Koana, and the city of Tuliyollal. In that context, one of the Scions dying would feel wrong, not because the space around them isn't dangerous, but because this isn't their story. Their death wouldn't affect anyone around them, because most of this continent doesn't know or care what a Thancred is; his death would be a meaningless speedbump, when he deserves more.

[Xrono_Amber]

All that said, I do think there's an element of truth in it not 'feeling right' if the Scions died in, say, Dawntrail, even if Dawntrail's meaningful bodycount was actually quite high. Because Dawntrail's deaths were meaningful; they affect the people and world around them. Gulool Ja Ja doesn't die for raw shock value, his death fundamentally changes the character relationships between Zoraal Ja, Wuk Lamat, Koana, and the city of Tuliyollal. In that context, one of the Scions dying would feel wrong, not because the space around them isn't dangerous, but because this isn't their story. Their death wouldn't affect anyone around them, because most of this continent doesn't know or care what a Thancred is; his death would be a meaningless speedbump, when he deserves more.

Nah, my reasoning is way more simpler. Endwalker has raised the stakes to extraordinary levels. And during the events of a burning skies, people turning into beasts from the despair and us traveling to the edge of the Universe to resolve said crisis, not a single Scion died. So my conclusion is simple, if this failed to killed at least some of them, nothing should be able to do so in the future. Because no threat can compete with Endsinger.

They had an opportunity to kill Thancred in Shadowbrigners. They didn't. They had an opportunity to kill Y'shtola in Heavensward and Shadowbringers. They didn't. They had opportunity to kill at least some Scions in Endwalker. They didn't. And when they killed Zenos, they had to go out of their way to say "no, he'll not return, he died for good". And I still wouldn't be surprised if he would return in some shape or form. They have written themselves into a sort of trap. Now, even if they want to kill someone, it will be a cheap death, no matter how they describe it.

And unnamed characters or characters with a name who are introduced to us? Yeah, they can and will die on a whim. During the first assault of Tuliyollal, if I'm not mistaken, only one old lady with the name died. I can't recall where we interacted with her, but she's basically not much different from an unnamed character. During the massacre in Solution Nine, the only meaningful death is Otis.

[Cleretic]

And unnamed characters or characters with a name who are introduced to us? Yeah, they can and will die on a whim. During the first assault of Tuliyollal, if I'm not mistaken, only one old lady with the name died. I can't recall where we interacted with her, but she's basically not much different from an unnamed character. During the massacre in Solution Nine, the only meaningful death is Otis.

Specifically, the death count in Dawntrail that I built up at the time:
-Sareel Ja (didn't turn out dead but we understandably thought so at the time)
-That elderly woman you mentioned (I know she had a name, but I don't remember it)
-Gulool Ja Ja
-Namikka
-Otis
-Zoraal Ja
-Robor
-Alayla
-Cahciua
-Sphene

You could understandably make some arguments around the Living Memory ones, but I'd argue that they did all have, for narrative purposes, on-screen 'deaths'. (I'm only counting Namikka and Otis once, though, I don't abide double-dipping.) That's actually a pretty hefty list as far as this game goes; again, the only one that can potentially beat it is Heavensward, which actually requires you get even more lenient on 'named characters' to get there; my personal definition is 'has a name and some level of on-screen defined personality', and most of the Heaven's Ward themselves don't even have the latter.

As for the Scions: while I had a thing here explaining that I genuinely don't think any Scion that survived ARR will ever die... honestly, the reality is something you got close to, but didn't quite say.

They don't want to kill the Scions; ergo, they don't have to. Everything else we're saying is just dancing around this point. Yes, they 'had the opportunity' to kill a few in Endwalker: they didn't, because they didn't want to. I can talk all I want about why Dawntrail's the wrong time to kill a Scion and that G'raha's an extremely safe kill if they ever want to... but they don't want to.

I'm completely fine with that, provided they don't try to milk death scares for tension, and thankfully they've grown out of that since Shadowbringers. Endwalker found some juice in a couple 'how are we gonna save them' sequences, which I personally count differently, but even that can't be a common go-to.

[Dikatis]

-That elderly woman you mentioned (I know she had a name, but I don't remember it)

Peschiva. I kind of wish that Wuk Lamat had found her body but had no time to mourn her during the MSQ because of how many people she had to tend to.

G'raha's an extremely safe kill if they ever want to... but they don't want to.

This I disagree with. G'raha's whole thing at this point is living on and helping others live on after living through two apocalypses and being burdened by the weight of duty for several centuries. He's an old man in a young body with a second lease on life and it'd be frankly insulting to suddenly kill him for shock value. He may not be "necessary" for the current plot, but killing him now would spit on his arc in Shadowbringers. Besides, if we're doing Meracydia in a future expansion, his Allag expertise is second-to-none and he'd be pretty much the perfect companion for it.

[Fenral]

This I disagree with. G'raha's whole thing at this point is living on and helping others live on after living through two apocalypses and being burdened by the weight of duty for several centuries. He's an old man in a young body with a second lease on life and it'd be frankly insulting to suddenly kill him for shock value. He may not be "necessary" for the current plot, but killing him now would spit on his arc in Shadowbringers. Besides, if we're doing Meracydia in a future expansion, his Allag expertise is second-to-none and he'd be pretty much the perfect companion for it.

There's also Corvos, which he dropped by name during Endwalker (he's the first person to namedrop it, I think) stating an intent to return someday for closure and... hasn't really brought up since. The main purpose there was probably to give us the tiniest bit of emotional investment once it became an off-screen casualty of the Final Days, and it got namedropped again in the Role Quest capstone, but it still hasn't been visited since by any Scion besides Thancred and Urianger.

My assumption is that it would have been one of our six zones in the (imaginary) Garlean expac between Shadowbringers and Endwalker, but for the time being it remains one of the few named locations on maps of Ilsabard, albeit still covered by the eternal fog of war. So long as we haven't been there, there's still a possibility we could go there, and there really isn't a good reason to kill him off before then.

I'm still kind of surprised the writing never leaned more into the adventurer-archaeologist archetype he was introduced as, though. Or played up the Bard aspect a bit more: he could and should be our chronicler. Also that he hasn't touched a bow since his first cutscene appearance despite caster DPS already being covered by, well, everyone but Thancred and Estinien at this point. At least he has a hair color.

[Cleretic]

I'm still kind of surprised the writing never leaned more into the adventurer-archaeologist archetype he was introduced as, though. Or played up the Bard aspect a bit more: he could and should be our chronicler. Also that he hasn't touched a bow since his first cutscene appearance despite caster DPS already being covered by, well, everyone but Thancred and Estinien at this point. At least he has a hair color.

I feel like there's an argument to be made that Shadowbringers was the worst thing to happen to G'raha Tia as a unique character. Because all of those things are there from his inception in the Crystal Tower storyline... and they all just get subsumed by Shadowbringers going 'actually he's a super-old but also super-young wizard who's weirdly parasocial towards your character'. Like, none of these unique elements of him actually retain after that point aside from him being able to occasionally cite Allagan tech.

His run as the Crystal Exarch is actually really good, I like that part of Shadowbringers (although I don't think any of it aside from the Crystal Tower connection needed or used G'raha as he already existed), but the G'raha they left behind afterwards isn't Crystal Tower G'raha by any metric except appearance; he's a male Backup Y'shtola. Which is a huge waste, because we've got like, three Backup Y'shtolas and the first one's still perfectly good at her job.

[Fenral]

I feel like there's an argument to be made that Shadowbringers was the worst thing to happen to G'raha Tia as a unique character. Because all of those things are there from his inception in the Crystal Tower storyline... and they all just get subsumed by Shadowbringers going 'actually he's a super-old but also super-young wizard who's weirdly parasocial towards your character'. Like, none of these unique elements of him actually retain after that point aside from him being able to occasionally cite Allagan tech.

I... can't really argue with that actually. I still like the G'raha we have, but the original appeal of male Miqo'te in their debut "expansion" was their whole playful trickster vibe that set them apart from the other playable options we had at the time (also that there were less than 10 of them in all of 2.X). They were the truest of catboys: boys who act like cats. One moment they want attention, but look away for a second and they're up on the cabinets. It's definitely something I miss from the old days.