NPCs with plot armor, does it bother you?

[MuseTraveller]

SPOILERS TO HEAVENSWARD AND STORMBLOOD ...obviously
(apologies for any poorly worded English ahead!)

There is something I've noticed for my humble two years of playing FF14.
Plot Armor spoils a good story.

I noticed that if Character A is tied to a quest line (job, trial unlocking process, raid) which's not tied to the MSQ progression and can be done anytime, then they are carrying the almighty plot armor of invincibility!
They may have a death scare scene and such but ultimately they will go back to their previous status and self you will see in the quest prior to whatever MSQ have thrown at them.

Example:
Yshtola is tied to the Alexander raid in HW, she doesn't die in SB
Krile is tied to the Triad Storyline, nothing happens to her in SB despite being kidnapped.
Nanamo is tied to the CUL questline, yes time bubble, events happening before 2.55 but she follows this pattern, she survives the banquet. Later tied to the GSM quests.
Lolorito, same as above.
Alisaie/Alphinaud both tied to the Coils storyline, Alisaie got a hit and blood moment in the SB teaser trailer, but she survived.
Estinien is tied to the Dragoon job quest, he lives at the end of the Nidhogg arc.
Urianger is tied to the extreme primals in ARR and start of Coils (if my memory serves me right), nothing ever happens or will happen to him. You need the NPC to unlock these fights.

And I can probably list more. But the simple fact I noticed this pattern for a while strips any urgency or concern I could have for these NPCs. I don't care what happens to them anymore cause I know they will be alright. I don't feel worried in fact I feel annoyed when I have to save or rush to their aid. Krile being one in SB. I knew she will be fine. The whole "oh she got kidnapped, I hope she is ok!" made me roll my eyes more than anything. Same for Yshtola. Now that I know of this pattern, I feel way less immersed.

Yes, I know job quests and trial quests and such follow said time bubble frame - they all have occurred before any current thing is happening but as they all have followed, nothing ever changes to them and they survive just fine to return to their self as we'll see them in said quests.

Does this bother anyone else? :/

[Beckett]

The constant bait and switch with character deaths is really starting to grind my gears, but I don't think they couldn't permanently kill off any of these characters, if they wanted to.

The time bubble applies to more than just whether a character is alive or dead. The Nanamo in the CUL quest acts completely different from the Nanamo we know in 4.X. I don't think breaking immersion in quests like this would keep them from killing off a character, since that immersion already gets broken depending on the order you do the quests in.

Urianger being a permanent NPC quest giver for several side quests is some pretty good plot armor. Theoretically they could add in a new NPC to take his place if he's dead in your game, or maybe have Urianger's Notes where he used to be standing or something, but that would take some effort, whereas all these other NPCs appearing in cutscenes can be handwaved away with the time bubble, with no additional work required by the devs if they did decide to kill them off.

I don't think these characters won't die because it'll cause issues with sidequests, they won't die because the devs don't want to kill off popular characters.

[Jandor]

As far as I'm aware ARR, HW, SB are all locked in separate time bubbles. If an NPC appears in an ARR or HW sidequest should have no bearing on whether they live or die in SB, in theory at least, in reality they seem pretty averse to ever killing anyone.

[Iscah]

I don't think Estinien is permanently covered by plot armour just because of ARR. If he hypothetically died later in the story, and someone plays to that point before starting the ARR dragoon quests then yes it might be jarring to see him alive again, but it's only going to be slightly moreso than it would be anyway - with him being back to his pre-Heavensward self and treating you as a stranger. (And for that matter, the involvement of Nidhogg and the Eye, and Ishgard still at war with the dragons... there are plenty of things that lock those quests into a set place in the game's timeline regardless of when you undertake them.)

[MuseTraveller]

Technically Ishgard still fights dragons in FATEs or such despite the war ceasing, but yes seeing Estinien alive and well would be jarring if something happened to him. But again, following this trend, I've noticed no one tied to a quest ever dies. Not that SE is killing people off back and forth but beyond Haurchefant every death has either been a joke or rushed to move a plot point. I think death is a very strong tool to use in a story but it's usually executed very poorly with very little lasting impact or done as a joke that started to grind my gears.

I'm not hungry for blood, don't get me wrong (tho a good emotional death would be good for a change) but it's like - Hey, hey guys look! This character may die, what will happen next!?
No, no they won't. They will survive like everyone else did.

[KageTokage]

Maybe they'll surprise us in 4.3 somehow.

The only one I'm 100% expecting to not survive is Yotsuyu though, considering Asahi's little spiel about avenging a fallen foe.

[Kallera]

snip....

I'm not hungry for blood, don't get me wrong (tho a good emotional death would be good for a change) but it's like - Hey, hey guys look! This character may die, what will happen next!?
No, no they won't. They will survive like everyone else did.

Yeah, I agree with you, OP. The plot armor can be incredibly annoying, especially for characters like Thancred and Estinien, who are used as deus ex machinas, now it may be the case that Thancred can still buy it(oh gods I hope he gets it) but being able to tell who will survive in whatever battles are left to fight before they start by virtue of programming code difficulty cuts out the stakes, it greatly affects a war story and can make what is supposed to the underdog seem the boring invincible hero.

[Derio]

Urianger is also tied to the Warrior of Darkness arc. But there are key characters in the game that stay alive as they are crucial to the main plot.

There are key characters ie.Yshtola who we know will never die simply because she is the face of this game and is the representation of this game in other games crossovers.

Thancred is also slowly becoming more popular.

At this point I think they would create new characters build them up in SB, and kill them off at the end of SB or the start of the next expansion.

I still think Yugiri might die protecting Hein someday since Goesetsu didnt die.

[SannaR]

Urianger almost never leaves the waking sands until he needs to hand someone a shiny gift that will help us defeat our foes. They put an illusion on the waking sands so that no one wants to go in there. He would either have to A) die off screen or B) die while he's around us. The man is like Batman popping up from out of nowhere and leaving just the same. You'd think he was the one who studied with the rogues guild and not Thancred.

[Iscah]

Technically Ishgard still fights dragons in FATEs or such despite the war ceasing, but yes seeing Estinien alive and well would be jarring if something happened to him.

The thing is, it's still jarring even if he is still alive at the current point in the story, because Estinien-in-the-dragoon-quests is clearly not the current rogue adventurer who's trailing us in Stormblood, but a past version - the Azure Dragoon wielding the Eye of Nidhogg, even if we've 'already' seen him abandon that title and the Eyes have been destroyed. We've stepped back in time while we're playing this part of the story.

At the point of the story where Estinien was possessed by Nidhogg and we were potentially going to have to kill him, I wouldn't have thought "that can't happen because he needs to still be around for the ARR quests that happened earlier". The time bubble makes things a bit flexible but you can still say that some events definitely take place before others, and I would expect that a character is really only 'shielded' if they need to remain permanently in place somewhere to give optional quests - and Estinien doesn't, as far as I can remember. I don't think there's any point in the dragoon quests where he's left to stand around or give you quest objectives - he'll arrive for a scene, leave again and then you talk to Alberic or do some other objective to progress the quest.

(On a similar track - yes, Nanamo ultimately survives that assassination attempt, but you could still complete the Lv50 CUL quest at a point where she's allegedly dead / actually in a coma and definitely not available to come for lunch either way.)

Overall I wouldn't see any character's involvement in a quest plot during Expansion A as any guarantee of their safety during the events of later Expansion B. It's only if they need to be available to give out quests that can be picked up at any point, like Urianger, that I'd expect them to definitely survive in other storylines.