: All of the answers are good. I will add that safe and nurturing places also help. Positive traditions--traditions of light--these help. Minor characters who are only good also help. So build

@Sent2472441

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All of the answers are good. I will add that safe and nurturing places also help. Positive traditions--traditions of light--these help. Minor characters who are only good also help.

So build that in. Have a place in your world that offers respite. It has fantastic food. It has a kind person or two. There s wisdom there, for the heroes' inner journeys, if not for their external journeys.

Add in a holiday in recognition of something that all comers value. On this day, there is no bloodshed by custom.

Add in moments of promise and peace. A sunrise, where your protagonist sees the world anew and all that it can offer that is hopeful.

FWIW I found my story full of issues like this in early drafts. But a story can be like a fabulous croissant--you keep folding it and rolling it, adding more butter, getting another layer, another delicious layer, fold again, add more butter, roll it out again, another layer--and it will melt in your reader's mouth. Each draft you add more of whatever it is that you are missing. You know you're missing light. Now you have the task of adding that in. You can do it through people, tradition, place, moment. You can even research death and find the peace that some feel at that final moment--perhaps you can add those moments to your deaths. And so on. Light is everywhere. Find it and add it.

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