The protagonist is too weak. He should definitely be stronger than his fiancée.
Are you talking about the duel? There is a purpose to that (and you see it in books enough that it's not uncommon).
- He is very new to using magic (already known).
- He is powerful in a sense - this is acknowledged both before and after the duel.
- But the knowledge of how to do it well is kept within the families (explained later, but can be assumed).
- It's easy to teach skills, but hard to discover (already noted by this point of the story).
- She has far, far, more training than him (known, but explained more later in the story).
- She is the 'jewel' of the generation (mentioned in both skills and for position).
- She's afraid of losing him (can be assumed, but how much so is explained much later).
The whole world is 'unfair' to people, and he receives some of it to make the point. The problem is that this isn't a book, and there should have been a branch where he could have avoided it.
Personally, I didn't enjoy that scene because the outcome was obvious. He never stood a chance, he knew it, and he was never going to try hurt her (which is where his limited skills are). You can't opt out, you have to be the idiot. It's inconsistent with him, and it's fairly inconsistent with what we know of Cerys (and Aine, who could have stopped it). There's enough in the story to demonstrate that he knew better, should have known better, and all of that. And a family of skilled magic users whose whole deal is 'reading people' wouldn't risk forcing him away, whether they care about him or not (where the latter would just be using him for his affinity). Despite her own insecurity about losing him again, she plays with him. She doesn't take it seriously. And when she does, it's over in an instant. You don't even get the chance to point that out and just end it quickly. The overwhelming skill/power gap is fine; him not being consistent with himself before, or after, is not.
In terms of him, taking the fight is a sign of insecurity: having the strength to say no, and then admitting he knows he can't win, and wouldn't learn much from it, would have been the better outcome. There's nothing to stop them re-using the same renders to 'teach' him the same skills he learns through a non-duel learning experience, which would have been far more in keeping with everything. There's still a chance they'll do that (it'd require some branching dialogue elsewhere), and it would have made more sense to do it because it could have been as a respect-increaser with people who hear about it. (Including for Cad.)
But they made a choice, and, IMO, it shows how little agency matters here. Other than romance options, and some minor dialogue changes to date, there is no real agency. I don't care if it's linear, but it makes the character (and story) inconsistent.
The second lack-of-agency issue is the end of the second update. If he has to end up in that position, there should have been different routes to it. It was clear that he'd worked out how to 'solve' it, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have just kicked something instead (breaking his leg and falling that way), allowing for his hotheadness to dictate his actions (possibly linked to the earlier duel choice?). Probably doesn't even need a render; breaking his leg(s) instead slamming into it with his head would be another character split. Cerys calls out his creativity, which is, at this stage, his strength. So him not using it doesn't add up. But I'll leave that to the devs to work out.