Back in 2010, a trope exposition already gave lot of expectation of Belkar's imminent death.
When the fight occured, expectation grew (oh, there's a copyright typo!)
Belkar Mr. Scruffy won the fight, but the speech between Belkar and him gave expectations that this was a farewell.

Then, I think things went quite quiet for a while, until Belkar got lost and faced Malack. With Malack revealing being a vampire, the lack of knowledge of how vampire works at this time and Belkar's hate for undeads (that do not feel fear), expectation was once again high.

Then, Belkar spent some time with a huge CON drain, weaker than weak. And managed to survive through this.

I can't say if there were lot of expectations of Belkar's death during the Mark of Justice thing, since it was very close of Oracle's reminder, but after like 5 years expecting most of the time that Belkar will die, I don't expect it anymore. Guess Giant will manage to surprise me easily then!


I should use this as an example of why spoilers aren't necessarily bad. Oracle spoiled us Belkar's death and the expectation of it brings suspense to the story that wouldn't exist otherwise.