Why did they kill Ra-den?

[Aucald]

From a narrative standpoint, Ra-den was killed to legitimize Ny'alotha and N'Zoth as imminent threats in a direct sense - showing the effect of Ra-den, a powerful figure we'd ideally come to sympathize with, being corrupted by N'Zoth's power and having us being forced to kill him because of it. I personally don't have much of an issue with Ra-den being killed off, and I think the story surrounding his sacrifice, corruption, and death was one of the high points of the 8.3.x storylines (notable in that most of 8.3.x was, well, seemingly hastily cobbled together and poorly executed).

[loras]

They brought back quite a number of characters because they were killed off "unfairly" and/or didn't have enough screen time.
Gul'dan in WoD, Illidan in Legion, a whole bunch in SL, including Kael'Thas and Uther.
Why did they randomly kill off Ra'den in BfA? Did Ra-den have too much screen time?
I get that Odyn essentially replaced him as the Aman'Thul's watcher, but wouldn't it be interesting to see those two cooperate or maybe compete against each other?

Ra-den was killed because they saw fit to give him a tragic end, and that served the story. Hell if he had not died we would not have lost a single character to the awakening of an old god. Would be kinda weird, no?

As to why him: He was sufficiently powerful, in need of a new purpose and neither horde nor alliance.

And as Aucald notes, they didn't have much else going on in terms of engaging storylines during that patch.

[Garymorilix]

Ehm excuse me, you seem to be aplying "logic" to a magical fantasy story.
The Void Elven method could work if : blizzard said it does, that's it

Why does a magical cloak from a dragon works? Who cares, it's magic

Emrh, there was a whole questline explaining why it works mate, I'm not going to write it out for you.

Your argument makes no sense either, if your whole basis is "if blizzard said it does, that's it" then we could have had fucking mechagnomes making anti-corruption anal probes too and it would make just as much sense to you as anything else.
Or furbolg intestines used as shoulder pads or whatever.

Blizzard mostly tries to work some in-universe logic into the things they do, even if they are a stretch at times.
If you are unwilling to use at least some level of in-universe logic to your argument then I don't know why you are even arguing in the first place.
The options for you to argue for are basically infinite at that point and your contribution to the topic is null in a lore forum.

[Aucald]

True. But that became true now, I assume "Highkeeper" before Legion used to mean what "Prime Designate" means now.

Unknown. We know the Titans themselves chose Odyn as Prime Designate, which explicitly is the leader of all Titanforged on Azeroth. We have no idea what the title of Highkeeper means. Simply from observation it might be a second in command ranking, or a ranking meaning he was free to operate on his own far from the others.

"Highkeeper" and "Prime Designate" appear to be two different titles, each with its own meaning. Prime Designate was a position bestowed on Keeper Odyn as a reward for his valorous exploits during the conflicts against the Elemental Lords and Old Gods, the title made him the leader of the Keepers, basically their commander-in-chief, and obligated them to follow his command. "Highkeeper" seems like a more ceremonial position, and Ra or Ra-den himself seems more in line with the Keepers' chief lore-keeper and engineer of a sort, the one closest to the Titans themselves, and oversaw the various aspects of the Titans' powerful structures on Azeroth as opposed to Odyn's more strategic/tactical leanings as a military leader of the Titan-forged. Ra was the first to recognize and understand what had happened to the Titans on the occasion of their deaths at Nihilam when the Keepers received a portion of their essences.

[Steelangel]

Like Varian, Garrosh, or Vol'jin?

Varian, at least, died in an impactful way. It was a powerful start to Legion, a really badass cutscene, and we got to see a beloved character burn out heroically knowing that he was not coming back.

[Eosia]

Because not every character survives the story.

Because he was a more compelling tragic victim of circumstance than what you're suggesting.

Because they might have solo plans with Odyn in the future.

These are some of my speculations.

Ra-dens character arc was fine for what it was and he went out like a (raid) boss.

Exactly. It is kind of like how they pulled no punches in Legion too. Tirion didn't survive and, in fact, died rather gruesomely. Both faction leaders also died too and it was a hard hit for both of them since Vol'jin, for all intents and purposes, was brand new and was the best choice to be Warchief and would not cause problems like Garrosh or Sylvanas did. And on the Alliance side, Varian was a titanic figure that they had not had really all the long all things considered since he had only been back on his throne since the transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King.

My guess is they tried to make N'Zoth's re-emergence more meaningful to us by having Ra come out of his broken state (due to Lei Shen imprisoning him, torturing him, and stealing his power to create the Mogu Empire) and actually resume his mission to protect Azeroth, only to have him taken to Ny'alotha and then we're forced to kill him.

[Fistfighter]

Emrh, there was a whole questline explaining why it works mate

see? so they would have made a whole questline explaining why furbolg intestines work too
(and that's not even that far from blizzard's normal quest 'humor', something like that could easily be a 'plot' to a side quest and noone would bat an eye)

[Ragerre]

Except he really wasn't important to the Universe.

Azeroth, perhaps, but beyond that? Nah. And as we're learning, the Keepers are a very, very, very small part of a huge machine.

As cool as Ra-den's concept was (and I do believe he got a good, proper send-off in N'yalotha), he's really not special, unique, or cool enough. As far as writing's concerned, he played his part and that's all. All the other keepers played their parts too, sometimes they make appearances (Mimiron in the Legion BM artifact) if they survived the expansion. Ra-Den didn't.

And trying to debate circles around the topic by imposing your personal opinion on his worth won't go anywhere, i'm afraid.

How's that a personal opinion? His power was given to him by the Head of the Pantheon. While he's just one of the main watchers, he is very significant.
I should have said "Azeroth", but seeing how they always make characters from Azeroth the center of the story does it really matter.

As far as writing's concerned, he played his part and that's all.

Well, some characters keep getting revived and reused, playing their parts again and again.

From a narrative standpoint, Ra-den was killed to legitimize Ny'alotha and N'Zoth as imminent threats in a direct sense - showing the effect of Ra-den, a powerful figure we'd ideally come to sympathize with, being corrupted by N'Zoth's power and having us being forced to kill him because of it. I personally don't have much of an issue with Ra-den being killed off, and I think the story surrounding his sacrifice, corruption, and death was one of the high points of the 8.3.x storylines (notable in that most of 8.3.x was, well, seemingly hastily cobbled together and poorly executed).

While his "one way ticket" wasn't executed badly, it seemed unnecessary to me.
Threat is perceived mainly through faction lense here. Visions implied N'Zoth could threaten main cast in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, yet none of those were affected in any way. Not a single faction character was retired. They just wanted to safely get rid of N'Zoth and at least someone else. This someone turned out to be Ra-den, right before the expansion featuring watchers and their lore.
If they were not ready to sacrifice faction characters, maybe they should have waited with N'Zoth as an antagonist.

[Reinhart11]

I think it's a complete waste. Especially without any proper replacement, as the Watchers, especially the big named ones can't be replaced without the Titan Pantheon or potentially Azeroth. And we already have lost a bunch of the important named Watchers.

Only good thing is probably is that it frees the Rajani Mogu hopefully for the future, so they become a playable race on the Horde side.

[Magical Mudcrab]

From a narrative standpoint, Ra-den was killed to legitimize Ny'alotha and N'Zoth as imminent threats in a direct sense - showing the effect of Ra-den, a powerful figure we'd ideally come to sympathize with, being corrupted by N'Zoth's power and having us being forced to kill him because of it. I personally don't have much of an issue with Ra-den being killed off, and I think the story surrounding his sacrifice, corruption, and death was one of the high points of the 8.3.x storylines (notable in that most of 8.3.x was, well, seemingly hastily cobbled together and poorly executed).

That's part of the problem. Ra-den was a significant Titan Keeper of Azeroth and was just kinda thrown away with no explanation regarding the expected fallout. For instance, what happened to the Mogu that were following him? Who has taken up his duties? What do the other Titan Keepers think? Were they even aware? etc.

It seems as though they didn't know what to do with Ra-den and so they threw him in as a boss. I guess at least they weren't as lazy as they were with Wrathion, who kinda just gets MC'd off screen.

[Aucald]

That's part of the problem. Ra-den was a significant Titan Keeper of Azeroth and was just kinda thrown away with no explanation regarding the expected fallout. For instance, what happened to the Mogu that were following him? Who has taken up his duties? What do the other Titan Keepers think? Were they even aware? etc.

It seems as though they didn't know what to do with Ra-den and so they threw him in as a boss. I guess at least they weren't as lazy as they were with Wrathion, who kinda just gets MC'd off screen.

Ra sort of abandoned his duties as Keeper long ago, not to mention that he was Lei Shen's prisoner for thousands of years, languishing out of sight in the Throne of Thunder before we found and freed him in MoP. The only Mogu who followed him were the Rajani, a smallish group all told, and for the majority of his appearance in BfA he was similarly inert and didn't believe that the Azerothians could take the fight to N'Zoth and win. It would be interesting to find out what the other Keepers know or think of his demise, though.

Wrathion also wasn't MC'd in Ny'alotha, that was actually a faceless one named Ki'merax pretending to be a corrupted version of Wrathion. You don't encounter the true Wrathion until after the encounter when you enter the Annex of Prophecy.

- - - Updated - - -

While his "one way ticket" wasn't executed badly, it seemed unnecessary to me.
Threat is perceived mainly through faction lense here. Visions implied N'Zoth could threaten main cast in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, yet none of those were affected in any way. Not a single faction character was retired. They just wanted to safely get rid of N'Zoth and at least someone else. This someone turned out to be Ra-den, right before the expansion featuring watchers and their lore.
If they were not ready to sacrifice faction characters, maybe they should have waited with N'Zoth as an antagonist.

I'm not really sure about the whole "faction lens" idea above, WoW has always been pretty unwilling to sacrifice main characters like that - at least not ones already pre-set to take a villain turn with lengthy foreshadowing. The only example I can readily think of is Varian and Vol'jin in Legion, which again was necessary to position the Legion as a true threat, which was pretty successful in terms of the narrative of that expansion. None of the other Old Gods had a main character be sacrificed to leverage them, either; the only one who came close was Y'Shaarj with Taran Zhu sacrificing himself in the beta version of MoP, although that story changed in the live version with Taran Zhu remaining alive today.

I think Ra got sacrificed due to the body-swerve nature of BfA's final content patch, in which there was a hard pivot away from the faction conflict that had underpinned BfA up until that point to the B-plot with N'Zoth and his threat. Which I would agree was hastily done and not executed well for the most part. I maintain N'Zoth would've been better served by a more significant story arc as the head of his own expansion, and not a veritable stumble between the actual close of the Fourth War in BfA and the events of Shadowlands.

[Jester Joe]

He already played that part before.

He was a bonus boss that a very small percentage of players actually saw. It's not like he was some major character until BfA.

[Sorrowseer]

They killed Amber Keenan in the fucking rogue specific campaign in Legion, thats the real tragedy, and Gul'dan was overrated should not have been reused, should have been a elite mob you kill in WoD at best.