system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Zelda] Why do some towns/settlements appear to completely lack any way to defend themselves against the wide variety of extremely dangerous threats that roam Hyrule?

This mostly applies to the newest Zelda game but there are examples in other games as well. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that basically all the towns occupied by Hylians are dangerously vulnerable. 

Take Hateno Village for example; it has no walls, like one guard, and is located terrifyingly close to a large population of incredible dangerous monsters. Kakoriko and Lurelin Village are other examples as well. 

So my question is why? Aren't the residents of these towns worried about being raided and slaughtered by a smorgasbord of lethal enemies? This has always bothered me particularly given the fact that Hyrule's central government (and presumably its army) has collapsed and everyone's sorta fending for themselves. And it’s not like they are oblivious to these threats, several people in the game have noted how dangerous Hyrule is, yet they’re still content with living totally exposed in a perilous world. 

You would think that the first thing the villagers of Hateno or Kakariko would have done was build walls to prevent a marauding band of lizalfos or a stray guardian from totally wiping the city off the face of the earth.  

Even more baffling is the fact that everyone else seems to appreciate the dangers of the world around them and have taken the necessary steps to defend themselves. Gerudo Village was smart enough to build walls and Goron City has boiling rivers of molten lava to protect it. Rito Village, Zora’s Domain, and Tarrey Town are built on strategically defensible sites with steep cliffs and moat-like lakes. So why didn't the other towns follow suit and sure up their defenses and how is it possible that they haven’t already been totally ravaged by the one of the variety of threats that exist in Hyrule?
gpt
Regular folks are actually pretty adept at defending themselves against low-level monsters and high level monsters don't start showing up until well after Link wakes up. Maybe they just never needed extra precaution for the past century or so.

Also, the monsters we do see are all territorial. They don't really seem interested in traveling or expanding, which is why they're only threats to travelers who cross monster-infested lands.