Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
For starters him taking over Estinien was a pretty cool moment but...it ended up being yet another 'fake out' by the end of it all.
I didn't really feel like this compared to Nanamo's situation at all. For Nanamo, we were given every indication that she really was dead and gone, all they way up to the "whups! Nope, just kidding!" moment when we learned that it wasn't lethal poison. We, as the main character, never made it our mission to save her as, as far as we knew, there was nothing to save. All we could do was mourn and press on, much as with Haurchefant - except all that mourning was made a mockery when it all turned out to be a lie.

Estinien, on the other hand, from the moment he was possessed, there was always hope that he could be saved. It was never a sure thing, and we had to consider the possibility that he couldn't be, but finding a way to save him was one of our goals - and, as it happens, we succeeded. Really, it could have gone either way. Estinien, a character whose "usefulness" had ended, was in a perfect position to be conveniently written out of the story by tying his death to Nidhogg's (maybe even in a trite, "I've temporarily regained control of this body, finish us off, please!!!" cliché moment), but SE decided to make this seemingly hopeless case one that we were actually able to accomplish.

That's the biggest difference in my mind; in Ul'dah, our character was a helpless passenger on an emotional rollercoaster with an empty payoff, while in the case of Estinien our character was actually an agent in the whole process. I didn't feel like saving Estinien was a cheap cop-out at all, not like I did Nanamo's revival.

On the topic of Characters Who Could Die Off In 3.5-4.0, I actually think that Yda is a contender. It was brought up in the last patch that she has something she's hiding, she's got close ties to the Ala Mihgan conflict... I'm expecting her to attempt AT LEAST once to go out in a blaze of glory. Whether this actually results in her death or not remains to be seen. Heck, she even apparently has a sister who could conveniently be brought in to replace her if Yda bites it. In fact, I'm guessing that if Yda doesn't die, her sister will.