Y'shtola's "Marketing Armor"

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

What is with the forums and wanting to kill off the Scions lately? This is like the 4th or 5th thread I've seen like this.

Why is death the only way for these characters to exit a story? Can't they just simply retire or take on a more passive role? I could see Y'shtola taking on a researcher role like Urianger used to.

Because people in general are disillusioned by the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones: The idea that character deaths make a story deep, engaging, and meaningful. That works in some cases, but it's not an absolute. Deaths can be meaningless and be executed poorly. If they ever decide to kill of a character, it has to mean something significant to the story and the characters who knew them. Otherwise, it's just shock value (Season 8).

[Valic]

NGL, I think Y'shtola NEEDS to die.... After the stunt she pulled in ShB, I'm still a bit peeved. She does something reckless and giggles like "wew that was a thing huh?".... Mrs. I'm so Careful about balance and aether launches herself into the pit without any thought or plan... I could see her coming back as a "we found a path" or something but she straight up repeats what she did in the end of ARR?... No, I'm ready for her to die, her writing has been used up. Something to note as well, no Scion that is linked to a raid or piece of content can really "die". They can be incapacitated or so on but as far as it goes... the twins are untouchable, Thancred and Urianger now too... Y'shtola is still able I believe though. After being blind and using her aether as is, then getting sliced by Zenos, then the stunt she pulls in ShB.... yeah, she needa go. I'm ready for a replacement on that note, that isn't just another female miqo'te(the idol race).

[Mansion]

While I'm not a big fan, I still think Y'shtola is a great character because she is more than the RPG type she would fall under. Yes she is somehow doomed and the "she died oh no she did not" is getting old right now. But she has some sense of humour, which is cruelly lacking in certain characters in my opinion and it helps make it feel more natural and not to "JRPG archetypical" if that makes sense.

I agree that as of now, Thancred has quite outlived his purpose (if he had any), and his 5.X growth was awkward for me (especially because it is hard to make us fell that he has lived 5 years more, grown attached to Ryne etc. when we saw nothing of that) and bound to be over soon with him returning to the Source. It's okay to have more surface characters when there are a lot of them which was the case in ARR, but now that we only have a few of them around us it can lead to an odd feeling compared to other characters. Urianger has the "mystery" trait that pretty much allows anything though.

In any case, I hope 5.3 shakes things up. I don't need blood and deaths though, just making new choices in the writing before it feels some characters are dragged along because they need to fill one role or because they are fan favourites.
We could send Thancred back as a spy / rogue in Illsabard and that would be fine for instance.

[Vyrerus]

Game of Thrones

I've never watched any Game of Thrones. For me, character death is way to remind the audience that there are stakes for the protagonists. And if it's a sudden, shocking death from something unexpected, then it's usually to instill in the audience that the characters aren't beyond the mundane ways to die.

Not so much in Final Fantasy, but in something like say... Blue Gender, where the military members that pick up the main guy at the start mostly die due to not being properly secured in their seating or from not wearing helmets etc. Just whoopsie doopsie, my chair fell backwards from a shockwave and I snapped my neck! Real world example was, a guy I knew from Scouts slipped in the shower and broke his neck when his head collided with his towel rack.

Obviously not asking for shock value/mundane death, not with how invested in these characters a lot of people get, but at a certain point we need stakes raised and the air of uncertainty let into the story.

[Edax]

I've never watched any Game of Thrones. For me, character death is way to remind the audience that there are stakes for the protagonists. And if it's a sudden, shocking death from something unexpected, then it's usually to instill in the audience that the characters aren't beyond the mundane ways to die.

Not so much in Final Fantasy, but in something like say... Blue Gender, where the military members that pick up the main guy at the start mostly die due to not being properly secured in their seating or from not wearing helmets etc. Just whoopsie doopsie, my chair fell backwards from a shockwave and I snapped my neck! Real world example was, a guy I knew from Scouts slipped in the shower and broke his neck when his head collided with his towel rack.

Obviously not asking for shock value/mundane death, not with how invested in these characters a lot of people get, but at a certain point we need stakes raised and the air of uncertainty let into the story.

The pitfall Game of Thrones books was that too many interesting character died and you just didn't care about the random grab bag of character that showed up in their place. That's one of the reasons you don't kill off character in a story, because your lose character relationships, story threads get broken and potential character arcs get cut short. Game of Thrones did it well at first because it was entirely logical that the effective protagonist was executed in the first book / first season but it started to turn the story into swiss cheese by book 4-5 seasons 4-5. Killing the character known as Tywin was it mistake, it just removed a very interesting character from the story and made the killer far less interesting.

[Theodric]

People often bring up excessive character death as a bad thing, though the opposite is just as bad - if not worse. If barely any characters of note are dying in a story that is supposed to give the impression of high stakes, then things get boring very quickly.

The number of major characters who have perished in FFXIV is very small. Most of the deaths consist of antagonists or minor characters that have otherwise become irrelevant or have just temporarily stepped into the spotlight to give the illusion that they're more important than they actually are.

We've yet to see someone on the same level of importance and influence as, say, Raubahn or Nanamo die. I'd be very impressed if we saw one of Eorzea's leaders die - especially if it led to a period of chaos afterwards due to a lack of an obvious successor.

For a game that tries to put forward political intrigue as a major plot point, it so rarely has it result in lasting negative consequences. Too often everything is wrapped up so cleanly that any sense of loss is immediately cast aside.

I'd also note that FFXIV has an unfortunate habit of killing a character off and then bringing them back, often at the expense of more engaging characters who could otherwise be standing in the spotlight.

[Ammokkx]

Something to note as well, no Scion that is linked to a raid or piece of content can really "die". They can be incapacitated or so on but as far as it goes ... Y'shtola is still able I believe though. .

By that line of thinking Y'shtola will never die. She's involved in a few cutscenes of the Alexander raids.

[Theodric]

By that line of thinking Y'shtola will never die. She's involved in a few cutscenes of the Alexander raids.

Easily remedied by making them mandatory.

[Valic]

By that line of thinking Y'shtola will never die. She's involved in a few cutscenes of the Alexander raids.

That's why I'm afraid tbh. Unless they actually go back and consider adding in some form of tweak that happens if you don't do that raid by then... Or as someone said, they become mandatory like the crystal tower raid.

[WhiteArchmage]

Because the CT series is now mandatory, I guess we could see more characters die or come back. Which honestly, I'd like it better that way, means the dev team can stop doing double or triple work making different dialogues for characters you're supposed to know but don't "officially" know yet, or write themselves in circles trying to make the raid stories self-contained.