#this is why i hc the adrestian-almyrans as being so extremist btw

[slotumn]

(@dpsisquared replying to this in a separate post because this is another piece of meta I've Pondered™, hope you don't mind)

Also I always wondered if the "Southern church" was expelled from the empire if it was by the empire itself or the central church. Seemed like one of those things that could make or break Edelgard's claims but of course they don't explain it

Ok I actually have a pretty detailed headcanon about how and why the Southern Church insurrections happened, and it's something like:

Announcement of Empire helping build Fódlan's Locket, which is expected to be a long-term project, taking a few decades to complete

Harvests are bad and economy sucks, but Imperial house insists on spending a lot of money, because Fódlan's Locket is a joint effort between the three nations, led by the Church, and they think it's a good opportunity to flex on the Faerghans and Leicesterians by showing that they're still rich and powerful

People are fucking livid, because they can barely eat and the government is sending money and resources to build fortresses in another country

This combines with religion, and a popular fundamentalist (and reactionary) movement that says Adrestia and the emperor must RETVRN to its religious roots to make the country good again (with the implication being, "or else" for the emperor)

Southern Church of course gets onboard with this, Victoria von Hrym also gets onboard and promises them greater influence if she becomes minister of religion

Domestic escalation, armed insurrection

Imperial house is obviously not pleased and decide to dissolve the Church + execute + exile

As for the Central Church, they were the ones who suggested the whole Fódlan's Locket thing in the first place, but also, they weren't going to turn down a big religious revival in the Empire either, and they definitely didn't want the Imperial house outright dissolving and kicking out the southern branch

So this is a circular situation where it's like. Did the churches opportunistically and implicitly support a reactionary and fundamentalist movement in the Empire? Yes. Did the people have legitimate grievances, and was the Imperial house sucking and making their lives miserable the main fuel for the reactionary sentiments? Yes. Did the Church ever stop and consider that them using religious authority to push for big projects like Fódlan's Locket only contributes to regimes squeezing their citizens dry? No. Did the emperor crush the insurrection because his ideology and policies were any better than the fundamentalists? No. Did every authority involved make god awful decisions at the cost of the masses? Yeah.

Tl;dr Empire and Church are both a thousand years old at this point and are suffering from severe decay, my hc is that the Southern Church incident was just one of the many symptoms of it