Heavensward was sublime... I miss it already! Give me hope for Stormblood please!

[Harmonea]

OP, you need to understand that this game does not shy away from the realistic period-typical traumas a character in this setting would experience. While nothing of that sort of trauma is directly portrayed on screen, characters do discuss traumatic backstories as a way of establishing how they came to be who they are today. This is not just the case with Arenvald, as you've seen, but with a second character you will learn more about later in SB.

If your coping mechanisms are damaged due to some past trauma, you need to consider this a standing "trigger warning" and carefully consider whether you can deal with playing a game with characters who have had such things happen to them.

The cultures included here wouldn't feel nearly as real or relatable without a darker side to them, and for many of us who have faced such traumas, it's therapeutic to see how a character who has faced such events grows and what questions a society asks about the role they played in that character's journey.

That said, I can assure you that there is a more fantastical element simmering away in the background. It will reemerge in full force when you deal with Doma, and SHB focuses on much larger scale threats.

[Omedon]

OP, you need to understand that this game does not shy away from the realistic period-typical traumas a character in this seeing would experience. While nothing is portrayed on screen, characters do discuss traumatic backstories as a way of establishing how they came to be who they are today. This is not just the case with Arenvald, as you've seen, but with a second character you will learn more about later in SB.

If your coping mechanisms are damaged due to some past trauma, you need to consider this a standing "trigger warning" and carefully consider whether you can deal with playing a game with characters who have had such things happen to them.

The cultures included here wouldn't feel nearly as real or relatable without a darker side to them, and for many of us who have faced such traumas, it's therapeutic to see How a character grows and what questions a society asks about the role they played in that character's journey.

I'm not one of the people that requires a trigger warning, I assure you. I'm surrounded by them in my circle of RL friends, so maybe my sense of audacity at these devices is heightened. There's also the fact that I've been telling fantasy stories for over three decades myself and have had a standing rule to never "go there," and yet no one has ever complained that my worlds are shallow or that my invented cultures or characters lack depth.

It's a shortcut, an ugly one, and one that doesn't age well in the telling as we evolve as a society. It's not a dealbreaker for me personally, but I feel a medium and a work of art hoping to be enjoyed by the largest possible audience does itself a disservice to "go there" when it pointedly does not have to. Because it doesn't.