There is a difference between the "realism" you're talking about and things like logic, sense and believable story telling. I assume he's talking about this.
And in this case, yes, the ritual of Avion doesn't really made any sense, or in other words, it was way to staged to be a "realistic" scenario.
If it only was to punish Sabia for letting the girl escape, yes, sure, it's a matriarchal world shes currently in and if shes not behaiving well, she has to deal with the consequences.
But the spiritual ritual, like the 2 for the Shaman, are just dull writing without any sense of beliveable storytelling.