Did anyone else think that the characters seemed to joke around a little too much?

[*Laurelindo*]

This is something that's always bothered me about this game - when something serious or tragic happens, the characters always seem to forget about in just a few seconds and instantly start joking and acting silly.
The first example of this is during the events at Doma Castle - while Cyan does have a very realistic reaction in the beginning, he seems to take pretty light on it far too quickly, and Sabin even cracks jokes about "starting to talk like Cyan".
It seemed a little off to me, given their situation.
Another good example of this is during the events in Thamasa at the end of WoB - this is probably one of the most tragic and overwhelming plot twists in the whole game, and yet it only takes a few minutes until everyone suddenly seems happy and cheerful again - (SPOILER)Cyan's reaction when he hears about Leo is also rather cynical, and can pretty much be summarized as "Wut?! He died? Oh that sucks, okay so be it then".
I was honestly expecting him to at least seem bothered by this for at least a little while.

(SPOILER)The scene that I found to be one of the more convincing ones was Celes' suicide attempt, she really seems to act exactly as someone who's just given up life and hope - there are no "cheerful" one-liners or joke attempts from her, she really seems distraught and altogether depressed.
I think the realistic seriousness of this scene is what makes it so powerful, and I wish more tragical and dark scenes could be treated the same way.

It seems to me like SquareSoft couldn't really decide whether they wanted to make a dark or comical story, and they switch between solemnity and comedy far too often.
Yeah it's cool when the party laughs at Ultros after beating him up at the Opera House, but that whole part of the game was never really supposed to be serious, so that works.

I guess what I want to earn from this thread is that I hope you can convince me that the "joke scenes" have a realistic point.
I would be very grateful if you could do that, since this is pretty much my only problem with this game.