Reading more comments here, still has me scratching my head at all the fuss.

I still don't think a child character can kill off a franchise. Not when entertainment has been making a fortune off of young characters for years. Jurrasic Park has plenty of scenes where the kids are seconds away from being eaten alive by dinosaurs. Harry Potter has forever thrown the main character, face first, into all sorts of chaos. And then there's series like Twilight that follows a teen falling in love with vampires whos looks don't really age. It is like, if every other form of entertainment can pull this off and not deal with any backlash, I highly doubt this game will all of the sudden go up in flames. At worst we will see some naysayers say their piece but eventually, they will get bored and move on to the next thing that's bugging them.

I mean, people were trying to argue that Alisaie was coming off too strong towards the WoL but in the end, just as many argued that they did not see it that way. The same can be said for the Exarch, Aymeric and Hauchefant. Not everyone saw them as a flirty bunch. I took them as big brothers and overly protective little sister and that was it. I mean has no one ever asked their sibling (if you have one)to grab a bite to eat to catch up with one another or something?

I'm not in the camp that specifically cares about the age of a character. For me, it's about aesthetics. But at the same time, I wouldn't care if they did add one in. The stories I grew up with from both American pop culture to anime made me practically immune to a kid going through life or death situations. Instead, my emotions during those stories focused more on the "just because you're a kid, does not mean you can't achieve the unexpected". And I love it when stories use that, or something like it as the drive behind the story. It definitely helped me realized that somewhere out there in the real world kids have to deal with this all the time from diseases to war. No one wishes a life of war or disease on anyone but if you have to go through it then you can only learn to be brave and people will cheer you on or help if they can.