I am German so yeah the german version hurt a lot because it felt like there was more going on and even guys who only saw him as a friend where like "woah that sounded like he wanted more from us" so it seems they intended for it to be taken that way. And I agree that his death seems to be meaningless other than being dramatic..they could have easily made it so that the attack misses us and before we are able to stand up and go after them the ship escapes..Other people will say that we need the death of main characters or it would not feel like there is a war going on or something like that but I feel that we already have all of these side quests which are full of death and tragedy to show us how horrible it is. This is only the start of 3.x and I already feel a little tired of all this drama. Yes it would feel strange if everything was all full of sunshine and rainbows in the main quest but its not like we already lost people in 2.x..It would have been nice if we finally had been able to protect the people near us and not lose them right in front of our eyes. Maybe this is the reason why I love Hildibrand that much. Finally a quest where you can truly laugh and feel good. (But even Hilidbrand has his sad moments..)

I am also quite the Haurchefant fangirl. He only needed our help once and after that he completely was on our side and wanted to help us all the way. He took us in, when everyone was after us, eventhough it could have been bad for him too. He tried to cheer us up after everything that happened with his words and his warm drinks and he was really worried about us all the time. Haurchefant also gave us the black chocobo as a present. No other character was that nice to us and you got the feeling that he truly cared for you and not see us as some kind of weapon or a solution for the many problems like others did. (I mean what did the great heads of Limsa, Gridania and Ul`dah give us after we took care of all these primals and other threats? Nothing much, only more problems we have to take care of..and yet here he comes and just presents us this chocobo which he raised up..)So losing such a character feels even worse.

I dont want him to come back as a primal. It will only mean that we have to destroy "him" again and no I dont want to go through that again..And we learned in Heavensward that its not even the true person that comes back as a primal. Its only how we wish them to be so its not like we will see the true Haurchefant again.. I am kinda afraid what SE has in store for him because its like Ayuhra said really strange that after you think that everything about his part is over we suddenly get his shield and later place it at his memorial..

My next point will sound a little uhm strange but I am also quite sad that he died because the way the afterlife in this game is means that my character wont be reunited with him even after death..(correct me if I am wrong about this ) If I remember right the person that died will become part of the lifestream and the person himself wont exist anymore.

Who knows maybe they will give his minion some nice side story where it will gain some of his emotions or something like that. With that they would not need to do anything with his true self anymore and we still have him at least in some form with us..but this will probably not happen. (I am still happy that we will at least get a minion of him )

I am not really sure why I wrote all of this and I know that all of this is off topic (sorry Vidu) but at least the thread stays on the front pages and maybe if we gather enough people that like your first post we will change the mind of SE and maybe they will at least put in some features to place some flowers on the ground infront of his memorial.