This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.
As a moments page, all spoilers are unmarked.
While the series overall leans more towards the sweet side of things, there are reminders of how cruel and harsh the world can be, whether it be from backstory and worldbuilding elements, or just the characters themselves.
The Anime
- Adelheid has some sort of sickness that caused her to be isolated, only ever seen by her family and her loyal servants, confined to short walks around the castle gardens or short, easy trips to the Nekoya.
- It's elaborated on in the light novels that the disease (pauper killer's disease), causes the body to become extremely ill, and while it can be survived, it forces the patient to remain bedridden and alone to minimize the disease spreading for at least two years. Because it's so contagious, and because the average medieval peasant can't afford to rest, they often times end up causing the illness to get worse and eventually succumb, hence the name. While Adelheid is extremely lucky due to being royalty, and thus able to afford to rest, her extreme loneliness in the empty house and being treated as a contagious invalid by her servants only further highlights how miserable the disease really is.
- Even though Alexander is kind of a dick and a womanizer, you can't help but feel for the guy as his true love died long ago and his son as well, who practically disowned him as a parent. It gets much worse when you realize that Alexander's vagabond ways are probably because of half-elf discrimination, belonging to two worlds but vilified and shunned by both. Would he even have been able to settle down and raise his son without them constantly being harassed?
- Because of her Half-Elf atavism
, Victoria has resigned herself to a life as a spinster, which isn't all that bad given that her priorities lie in magic study and helping her family. The sad part is that her brother's wife is shown to be very racist to her brother's beloved sister, telling their children to stay away from the tower or they could be gobbled up by the Witch that lives there. She is referring to Victoria here and the tower is her home and research lab. This is also apparently a common sentiment held by others in the castle as no one bothers to tell the kids the truth. It really highlights that as much as Victoria might not mind her situation, just how poorly treated even incredible fortunate half-elves are. - Alice was abandoned by her village and left to die in the forest all because her village couldn't handle her after her parents died of illness. This is on top of being the elven equivalent of a child, due to mentally aging much more slowly than half-elves. Thank the White Dragon that Fardania was close by.
- Kuro’s Power Incontinence is such that she can’t be in the world in her true form without killing everyone and everything around her, so she exiled herself to the moon. Fortunately she has Aletta, the Master, and Alphonse as friends now, and can be around people safely at least for one day every week.
The Light Novels
With the light novels being much darker than the anime, there is a much greater sense of melancholy and sadness that isn't present as often in the adaptation.
- There's very much a consistent sense of aging and the sense of people slowly losing their strength as they grow older. Tatsugoro notes that he's becoming less spry in battle, and that regulars that he used to see around the restaurant have disappeared. Mako (The Master's real name) notes that even as he's become wiser and more experienced, that he's also gotten much slower and has less stamina than he used too, finding it difficult and more exhausting to do what he was able to do very easily as a younger man. Melissa (A half-elf in Volume 3), ends up noting how one of her dear friends Daiki (Mako's grandfather) has gotten older. The narration especially notes that this would be the last time she'd ever see the old man again. It's a surprisingly melancholic feeling that girds quite a few stories.
- The truth about why all half-elves are treated so poorly is also quite saddening, especially since much of it boils down to bad decisions made by one extreme distrustful man. An Ancient King of a prosperous nation ruled for centuries due to being a half-elf, which caused issues when he outlived his intended heir, and a complete stranger was to take the throne at the end of his life. Unwilling to trust someone he knew nothing of, and unable to contend with the possible loss of his kingdom's prosperity, he tried to make himself immortal by invoking a Dangerous Forbidden Technique left by the elves. The end result was the kingdom falling into ruins, all of its people turned into undead, and the King becoming a lich. Because of his foolishness, all half-elves end up paying the price from the catastrophic fallout.
- Alice's mistreatment stings much worse in the light novels, where Alice's "issues" comes off as being akin to an adult with development issues or a disability; while she is loved by her parents regardless, she is basically derided by just about everyone else in her village for her inability to fit in because they don't recognize that she's actually mentally younger than everyone else despite her physical age due to the disconnect in half-elf and elven aging/culture. But once her parents died, the village (even more specifically, her siblings) decided that they'd rather let her perish alone and abandoned than make any effort to help her. And unlike her anime counterpart, she's entirely aware that she's been abandoned and that her remaining family view her as nothing more than a burden. In that regard, it's a sheer miracle that she stumbled on Fardania, who despite her own lack of experience due to being an only child, is far better able to help Alice's growth and help her bloom into her protege in the future.
