I can see what you mean. I think the parts where we were hanging out with Alohinaud, Estinien and Ysale were great. I think ShB's characters' "chill"ness in part does stem from the Exarch being there for like 100 years doing damage control. I also just remembered how much I hated Werlyt so I think I'm gonna say that 5.0 is great but the trial series sucks. Sadly, the waifufication of G'raha Tia in the period past 5.3 didn't help. But I felt that way about all characters that have obvious crushes on the WoL...