Character Death in the MSQ

[Cleretic]

For the record, that poster wasn't just broadly wrong about 'fridging' there, but they were wrong in a very specifically bad way that defeats the very real purpose of the term. 'Fridging' is specifically when a female character is killed anticlimactically and abruptly for no reason but to emotionally motivate a male character. Gender is important here, because it is very specifically a misogynist cliche; the woman is reduced to a shallow plot beat, a thing to motivate a man. Even if you do theoretically disregard gender, Haurchefant and Gulool Ja Ja don't really scan for it, because their deaths are quite significant story moments for all involved, act as the culmination of the characters' own arcs, and affect a lot more than just a single character's feelings.

There aren't really examples of fridging in FFXIV, but I can't necessarily say that as a positive, because there's a few deaths that don't even reach that bar. Minfilia and debatably Ysayle would plausibly be fridging if anybody in the story even cared, but in both cases the overwhelming response was 'damn, that sucked, let's keep going'. It took until Shadowbringers for either one to have any meaningful impact on others.