Theorycraft

[Hawki]

It cost her her humanity and any lingering connection she still had to her past life. I mean she gave it up willingly and she wasn't sorry to see it go, but she still had to give it up. And (mostly) innocent people died as a result.

Kerrigan's lost humanity gets two brief mentions and one of them is in epilogue text. And the deaths of innocents aren't a loss to her, nor are they individuals who can't do her harm. The deaths of Fenix, DuGalle, Raszagal, etc., may hit the player, but they're still individuals who pose a threat to Kerrigan.

Every campaign has 'dead soldiers' as a cost. WoL was just the first campaign to draw attention to them for whatever reason. (Soldiers dying was played for laughs in SC1 most of the time.)

And I praise WoL for that. In BW, we feel for the terrans in the trenches. In WoL, we feel for the terrans on Char and Tychus. In SC1, every time a death is in a cinematic it's played for laughs except for Tassadar's. Heck, even Fenix is killed off for the sake of comic relief.

It was even worse in HotS where they were trying to get me to care about even the Zerglings it seemed. And then Tychus was just a traitor. Who Raynor didn't even seem to really care all that much about. I liked Tychus, but his death was cheap. Only Tychus seemed to care and even then... I dunno.

I never felt sorry for zerglings or anything. Did feel sorry for Tychus though - luckily the moment is given emotional weight, is brought up again in HotS, and still haunts Raynor in Flashpoint.

[Turalyon]

Kerrigan's lost humanity gets two brief mentions and one of them is in epilogue text. And the deaths of innocents aren't a loss to her, nor are they individuals who can't do her harm.

Any mention at all is better than nothing. It's hard to feel for someone who willingly throws their humanity away but the sense of loss is not for Kerrigan to notice but for the audience. She is still pitiable even though she may not want or deserve it.

Heck, even Fenix is killed off for the sake of comic relief.

I thought he was killed off for plotting reasons.

[Hawki]

I thought he was killed off for plotting reasons.

Sort of...if Fenix hadn't died there's no reason to assume the story wouldn't have gone differently. The executor would have still gone with Aldaris to Char, Fenix would have still aided Tassadar and co. on Aiur, only there, he'd still be a zealot. You can infer that Fenix's death influences Artanis to side with Tassadar, but because he's a player character, inference is all we have.

But going by the cinematic alone, it's a death for the sake of comedy that could have been filled by any protoss redshirt. If Fenix hadn't been brought back as a dragoon, chances are he'd be remembered as "the guy who died due to faulty psi-blades" rather than anything else. While I like Fenix as a character, and him being brought back as a dragoon adds to that character to an extent, the death itself doesn't influence the plot.

[Turalyon]

^ I was kinda joking there because though the scene is somewhat absurd, I wouldn't call it comedy (because it would be if the cinematic continued and showed Fenix then moving forward only to trip on a loose cobblestone, impaling himself on the approaching Hydalisk's claw or something) or that it was intended, as you imply when you say, "for the sake of comedy".

As for assuming the story wouldn't have gone differently, well, not all plotting needs to have rhyme and reason for the continuation of the plot (Wol does this too). The plot wanted (I hesitate to say 'needed') to show what the possible stakes were for the Protoss and what better/ manipulative way for writers to do that? By writing off/pretending to write-off a named character who also happens to be a "buddy" with the intended effect of making people thing "Geez, this Fenix guy was kinda swell for an alien. Man, I don't think I'd like to imagine every Protoss dying if each were like Fenix". One of the oldest tricks in the "learning to write narrative" book.

[Aldrius]

It was mostly done to show what a dragoon was with a character we cared about.

Kerrigan's lost humanity gets two brief mentions and one of them is in epilogue text. And the deaths of innocents aren't a loss to her, nor are they individuals who can't do her harm. The deaths of Fenix, DuGalle, Raszagal, etc., may hit the player, but they're still individuals who pose a threat to Kerrigan.

Yes, and they were still sacrifices that Kerrigan made to achieve victory. The fact that she was sacrificing other people doesn't change that.

And I praise WoL for that. In BW, we feel for the terrans in the trenches. In WoL, we feel for the terrans on Char and Tychus. In SC1, every time a death is in a cinematic it's played for laughs except for Tassadar's. Heck, even Fenix is killed off for the sake of comic relief.

I'd say even in Brood War, while it's not COMEDIC, the soldiers in the trenches are portrayed as insignificant and pathetic. That's one thing I think is missing in WoL and HotS, how pathetic everyone in this universe is. I mean some of them are heroes, but Raynor? Kerrigan? Zeratul? They have admirable qualities, but for the most part they are very hard-done by and pathetic people. And I guess that's KIND of there for Raynor and even Kerrigan, but the way people almost point it out seems very transparent to me.

[Eligor]

SC & BW had this nice sense of the characters as part of a larger tapestry, Kerrigan, Zeratul, Raynor & Mengsk are all significant actors on the stage of history, but they can only do so much. You can say that SC & BW had a certain sense of Fate (which even the most powerful cannot thwart).

WoL and by extension HoTS started to treat the main characters not just as actors but Superstars, they're central to the story and the Universe revolves around them. Like the titular superhero of a comicbook, they can't die or get marginalized even if that made them more interesting. Even when they are in peril, they're saved not by the virtue of their own resources but because the writer makes them be (of course he does either way, but making it not feel that way is an essential ingredient of good storytelling). Raynor & Kerrigan have become the victims of unconditional favouritism and as such much less interesting or unpredictable.