User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 335: The Time of Life, Review and Commentary/@comment-4829046-20130614115508/@comment-1776824-20130614124120

Well, Gray dying might have been good for character development, but it wouldn't really set the plot forward. People would still be fighting the Dragons and Hatchlings, so what good would it do? Cloud your judgement and get yourself killed as well? Ultear dying was sad: she died feeling worthless, alone, and she was full of self-loathing. 1-minute can mean a lot, and in this case, it does, but how long is unknown.

Ultear's death opened the gateway for a different set of tragedies: tragedies that cannot be taken away. I mean, already, some people are dead and they can't come back. But I'd like to believe that this is Mashima's way of saying, "Alright, now there are no redos. It's 'do-or-die' from this point onward."

So...yeah. There.