if you consider the ending to be good (because it is the true one), he died for no reason.
My vote is definitely for Arantir; I feel almost as sorry for Markel. The others, for the most part, don't matter much (except perhaps Ornella). It turns out that I feel the most sorry for the Necromancers, even though dying should be a common occurrence for them;
And the death of some of them was actually quite pleasing - Kurak and Biara.