I agree with a lot of this, especially "oh wow that character's gender is completely unsurprising", can't we just switch all of them around? That'd be a lot of fun. And supernatural origins of WWII bug me too. (I read a story once where a lot of wars in history were started by supernatural beings/events, but then WWII wasn't and everyone in the supernatural world suddenly realized that humans are dangerous, I liked that take on it more.)