MSQ

[BlitzAceRush]

The thing with character deaths is that this is a long-running story and "characters who have been with us since the beginning" are a finite resource. They can't just kill one off every time the story needs drama.

This to me is one of the biggest points, this is a long running narrative, it takes a lot of time to give even front line cast members enough room to grow. Take Estinien for example, if they killed him in 6.0, that's growth all the way from ARR gone, anyone who would replace him would need time to get there, if characters died as often as some seem to want them to, the WoL would be surrounded by people they barely know, trying to carrying the scenes themselves with no voice acting while all our cast members are stuck in their "growing" phase because most of them just joined an expansion ago.

Even using the TV series example, before GoT tried to make it cool to kill nearly everyone (which to me only made it more obvious who was shielded) most long running shows still didn't have that many deaths, you had one or two really "big" ones of long running cast members that hit you hard, but that was it, the others you could tell they were being groomed to die later or built up for a death so the mains didn't have to. Most of the other surprise deaths often end up being outside factors, an actor/tress wanting to move on, contract disputes or other real world stuff.
I remember watching 24 and being shocked when Jack killed Curtis, it was so sudden and so painful, then I found out it was because of the actor not liking how they were using his character and them effectively writing him out, kind of took all of the punch out of it.

They've done a better job showing how horrific war can be in Fordola and how growing up in an occupied country, being forced to live by your conquers doctrine, to chose between holding onto your peoples ideals and suffering or trying to integrate into a people who don't really accept you while making yourself a traitor to your own. Then, the "hero's" years later march in and "save the day", she having to come to terms with what she's done and us having to realize that it's not always as "easy" as arriving and beating the bad guys and making everything better. Than killing Thancred and everyone is sad because he died in a battle.
There's also a place for realism and the "horrors of war" and it doesn't have to be in every work of fiction, 14 still lets there be weight to events, the main cast losing members isn't the only metric of cost, the MSQ is long, but it's only got so much room, when bad things happen, there is only so long the main characters can dwell on something, even one of their own dying before they have to move on.
As far as all of the Scions's are concerned, Minfilia is gone, dead in body long ago but her soul is finally at rest too, and yet her send off was done in a side quest with just you and F'lhaminn, the other Scions barely mention it outside of passing if the topic draws a parallel to something relating to her, not because they don't care but because there just isn't room for it.