Originally Posted by
Ratman
That'd mean staining the premise of Ruler Jeanne as the pure and blameless saint of Mark Twain, who did her job without prejudice, did not doubt her purpose, and accepted her fate of a martyr without complaints.
Dealing with Hussites is much tougher theologically, because she'd be inevitably explained the background of it in detail, and would have to deal with the moral implications of it. Thing being that the Hussites were pretty much totally justified in their stance against the Church, but their methods were destructive and ruthless to the point of making them pretty much professional banditry down the line. Of course, if not for that, they wouldn't have repelled four crusades, but fact stands that the central Europe missed out on renaissance and had its population reduced by more than half by just how savage the war was. By the end of it nobody in Bohemia tended to fields because everyone needed to take up arms, and so they got food by raiding Germany and Austria, wherin nobody tended to the fields because what's the point, right?
So Jeanne would have to reconcile the purity of her faith with the concept of a Church itself. While dealing with these jackasses was probably the right thing to do, it wouldn't have escalated to this point if the Church wasn't arrogant, and all in all, the result of resolution with force was inevitable: except that the Empire did not expect to actually lose, over and over and over, holding onto sheer petty arrogance until the end.
It presents a deep historical conundrum to a character that is shallow - or rather, pure, a saint, an icon, more than a real person. By having her deal with it, she would have to become not shallow, and this would pretty much make our ol' Ruler Jeanne a different character entirely. So, I propose making her yet another character: Jeanne as the girl who became a warrior, who is not a saint for all the carnage she wrought, but who is not a cartoonish villain either. Jeanne as the person she most likely really was in the first place.
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Zizka himself wasn't very big on religion at all, by the way, but it was a pretty helpful thing for him to unite people - and he certainly did hate the Church. Much rather than being a religious leader, he bore the spite of folk towards the Church on his shoulders. His main class is obviously Rider and I don't think he was physically strong enough to be anything else, but he'd definitely qualify for Avenger, imo.
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