For the repeated heroic sacrifices, I'm chalking it up to the fact this is a Japanese game. Even though the setting is quite Western (I think? Ul'dah definitely is... and Ishgard is quite English... the other two I'm not too sure), the collectivist social attitude will still bleed through by virtue of this and as such heroic characters will never put their own interests ahead of the collective (a.k.a. greater) good.

Nearly every hero that has died has done so in defense of the greater, collective good. "Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after," after all. No sacrifice is too great in the name of the greater good... even though "sacrifice" is often tantamount to suicide and the repeated sacrifices are slowly shredding up the hearts of those who still live. The WoL's PTSD is borderline canon at this point... even though we managed to save Estinien, there's no telling how long that brighter mood will last if 4.0 is going to be war for Ala Mhigo's liberation.

The one exception to this may be Haurchefant, who seems to have taken the bullet for you out of personal affection and nothing more, and his death was completely senseless. No doubt why it had such a bigger impact on me compared to the others...


As for why half-elves (human / elf) are the only biracial... race? Characters? Ahh, whatever... half-elves show up instead of anything else because they're the easiest to model. Take elf ears or pointy human ears and stick them on a human model. That's all they did for Hilda - besides the pseudo-elezen ears, she's got a normal Midlander Hyur female model. And that's assuming they bother with a unique model for half-elves at all - Arator the Redeemer, the half-elf son of Turalyon and Alleria from World of Warcraft, just uses a normal elf model. It should also be noted that half-elves are a Dungeons and Dragons staple, from which a lot of fantasy games draw inspiration, so there is precedent for it. (Half-elves make great spoony bards!)

A biracial character from most any other coupling would require either a unique model or genetics to be handwaved and just saying "[Race A] x [Race B] always produces [Race (A/B)]," i.e. "Roegadyn x Lalafell always produces Lalafell."