Lilies on the grave... (HW-spoiler ahead!)

[Vidu]

While I was following this thread ofc I didnt had the time to answer anything by now - but let me get one thing clear: my intention never was or ever will be to revive Haurchefaunt - please dont make his dead even less meanigful then it already was. I just want a place to grief! So, Soldowner, if thats not your or your characters thing - thats fine tbh - my own character is pretty much "I dont care at all" (at least he does look like that...) - so I dont want that grave for RP-purpose but much more for my own grief - it would even affect your gameplay less if we would have that memorial! You can go there, but you dont have to!

The unrequited love-thing was kinda... obvious in german - or better: it was very easy to read a lot of his lines (not only in that scene) that way... so - whoever you lost, may it be a lover, a close friend or "just" a comrade - there is his grave...and I still got a bunch of lilies in my inventory hoping that one day I will be able to place them on it!

[Eilonwyn]

If we all pray and give Crystals to his grave, he'll come back, as a Primal.
But we fight Primals...
M-my heart, she would not take that pain! D:

[Ayuhra]

I will accept Haurchefant coming back from death and being truly alive again under one condition and one condition only: That we the Warrior of Light are the ones who bring him back through some long, tough, stupid chain of quests. Maybe we go into a meditative trance to converse with Hydaelyn herself or nearly put ourselves into a coma through intensive overuse of the Echo. Or....something. The Ul'dah reset button cheesed me off but if there were a dramatic story behind bringing someone back as well as losing them I'd be content. And that's the hard part. It would HAVE to be an intense, meaningful part of the overall plot to not make the death itself seem cheap.

Of course. I doubt any of that will happen.

Failing that I will accept the ability to bring flowers to his monument. I already find myself sitting there a lot....just....staring..... Might as well be able to do something when I'm there, right?

[Theodric]

I'd rather not see Haurchefant return. Just because he's a 'fan favourite' I think it'd do the story a major disservice. We shook up the entire core of Ishgardian society and such a thing should not happen without meaningful consequences. Haurchefant's demise is one of those meaningful consequences. FF7 wouldn't be the same if Aeris could be brought back from the dead, nor would Game of Thrones be as gritty if certain characters were brought back to life unscathed.

He had plenty of screen time and will no doubt be references in passing in the future. It's time to focus on building up other characters now - and after what happened with Nanamo I'd really, really dislike seeing another 'death' reversed.

[Vidu]

As I said - it was never my intention to bring him back I didnt liked the Ul'dah reset button either (as much as I hoped Nanamo wouldnt be dead... I was disappointed about her being all well again) - Haurchefaunts dead was stupid and meanigless. There was no reason to kill him - except to hurt us. Bringing him back would be wrong (and no, after talking to Tiamat about Bahamut I do NOT want to summon him as primal!). I got the impression that a lot of people were affected by his death (and this thread kinda proves it) - even though... getting to terms with his death is a very important step in healing the wound he left in our hearts! And to help that... please, let me bring him some flowers since I wasnt allowed to do that while he was still alive :'(

[Theodric]

Eh, his death served a purpose - setting the scene and tone of the threat that the Archbishop and his Knights presented. It'd make for a very dull story if they'd just been defeated without ever gaining a single meaningful victory - especially since they were more misguided antagonists rather than outright villains. Death is a realistic consequence of the events plaguing Eorzea. Obviously our character isn't likely to die (and if they do, they'll be brought back) and so having major characters perish in our stead is a solid compromise.

Not many will care if 'generic NPC#5667' gets killed off in a cutscene. It just lacks the same impact as a character we've come to know and love perishing before our very eyes.

[Ayuhra]

He had plenty of screen time and will no doubt be references in passing in the future. It's time to focus on building up other characters now - and after what happened with Nanamo I'd really, really dislike seeing another 'death' reversed.

I admit my reason for wanting him back on any level is gross selfishness. If I woke up in game one day and saw Haurchefant standing there smiling saying he lived but they had to keep it a secret for some reason, hence him not being buried where the monument is, I would be livid. A quest to get him back that I can interact with meaningfully, that had a lot of emotion in it, would set better. Again: I am NOT saying I necessarily want this, just if they went this route it would have be done well. Especially after the Ul'dah nonsense.

Why him though? For me....I am a Haurchefant fangirl I'll admit it. Estinien is my favorite character but I talk less about him because it is plainly obvious the plot is going somewhere with him. Haurchefant's death was brutal because outside of making us sad it didn't service the plot. Had he lived things would have played out in pretty much the exact same way. The only thing that might have been different is we might have been able to intercept the Soleil before it took off, but that could have been solved by....the Soleil just taking off while ran towards it. His death set up Thordan VII as a more significant threat, sure, but Thordan had just put his own son in a dungeon to be tortured. I kind of wanted him dead already. Plus he was carrying on lies and knew it much to the detriment of his own people. And his Ward tried to execute Alphinaud and Tataru. Also I think it was mentioned that while Aymeric was imprisoned the Ward was to sniff out and execute anyone else who knew the truth. I wouldn't say he was in any position to NOT be taken seriously by the time of the Vault. I'm not opposed to dramatic deaths for the sake of dramatic deaths, those happen in fiction, but so far in FFXIV this is the first one that seemed to be for drama and nothing else. If Haurchefant had fought off and killed a member of the Heaven's Ward only to die right after from his wounds I think people would be less upset. (Not saying that's what should have happened, but it would have been more in line with the self-sacrifice we see from Ysayle, Moenbryda and the Scions.)

Something about the aftermath of Haurchefant's death makes me wonder if he'll come back as some sort of horrible monster. I don't honestly think he will but the game kept reminding me he was gone long after the fact (giving me the shield, showing me by his memorial, the folks at Dragonhead are now miserable husks...) It could have been to fuel my desire to kill Thordan, sure, but.... I can tell when the game is manipulating me. It manipulated me into loving the character and now it is manipulating me into missing him in a way it never did with Moenbryda, Ysayle or the Scions (though the Scions have pretty much been assumed alive this whole time). It might not mean anything, of course. My more practical reasoning on him dying is he was set up to be loved so he could get us into Ishgard but beyond that had no purpose. Having served the plot he was axed for drama and that will likely be the end of it. A sad end, too, for one of my favorites.

Maybe his death will serve the story of House Fortemps going forward and make them slightly unhinged. Not to the Summon a Primal extreme but his father and brothers have to be shaken by it. Father especially. Daddy Fortemps we know is important. He has his own character model!

All of this breakdown of his death does lead me to one thing though that I earnestly have to point out: They made me care about a character who at first did nothing for me, then they made me angry he died. Obviously whatever it is they were going for WORKED or I wouldn't have had a reaction to the Vault at all...Other being sad and tired because I'd just done the Vault.

[Echofalls]

I still wonder about Ixion, or at least something to do with Haurchefant though... (A pity, we won't have his antics for any more events) That's what my intuition is telling me, or at least something like this:

"They held the broken shield tightly, staring at the image of the horse upon its surface, the crest of House Fortemps...
Then they sensed something behind them and turned sharply, there stood a knight atop the mountain, mounted on his steed and silhouetted against the moonlight. The Warrior of Light squinted, confused, mind conjuring thoughts of Odin appearing here of all places. Yet there were clear differences, even from this distance; this knight bore no aura of malice, only one proud horn sprouted from their helm, angled skywards, jagged like a lightning bolt. Giving out a loud bellow, the knight threw his arms out, steed rearing up.. How he was not thrown from his mount eluded the Warrior of Light. Then they came cantering down the slope, powerful hooves churning up the snow as they went. The Warrior of Light gave pause as the figure became clearer.
... Where was the horse's head-?
Only then did he realise the knight and steed were one entity.
The armoured centaur clattered to a stop, sleek metal etched with gold. The Warrior stood on their guard, expression fierce as the the being reached out with one clawed gauntlet, fingers resting under their chin and tilting their head to look into those icy blue eyes from within the helm, the prickle of energy crackling from where they was touched.
'Smile...' The Primal rasped, a trace of longing lingering in that word.
'What?'
'Smile for me...'
Upon seeing them stand firm, Ixion made to speak again before it gave a groan of annoyance, hands fussing with the helmet, trying to remove it. When it finally came loose, the Warrior's expression melted and reformed somewhere between joy and shock.
'This helmet does terrible things to one's voice, I fear.'
The face of Haurchefant Fortempts beamed at him playfully. A second later, the crunch of snow was accompanied by the Warrior of Light fainting.
'...Now, what could have caused that...?' "

As I said when Midgardsormr went through his growth spurt:
"Oh, so we can ride him now for a change?"
Or perhaps something even more bonkers, knowing Haurchefant...
(We never got to say we loved him...)

[Alleo]

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.

[Theodric]

I feel like it does a major disservice to the writers for people to claim that his death was 'meaningless'. People have a habit of becoming quite nasty when their favourite characters are killed off, or they sink into a state of denial. It would have made for a very dull story if we waltzed into Ishgard, changed the way the city and culture operated and then killed any and all who stood in our way. We needed to lose something precious - especially since the Archbishop and his companions were not outright villains and actually had misguided motives that could be sympathised with to some extent.

Killing off a generic 'red shirt' that we didn't care about wouldn't leave a lasting impact. What would it accomplish, exactly? Now, killing off Haurchefant...that accomplished something. People got angry, upset, some even felt happy! The fact that there's such a strong emotional connection to the character suggests that the writers did, in fact, do an excellent job.