OSP reminded me of Netfix's Daredevil so I want to give Dimitri catholic guilt, or I suppose, Seirian guilt?
But outside of the "You shall not point your blade at the heaven" things, what exactly does Seiros teach her faithful?
One of the core beliefs within the Church is the notion that you must help your fellow men. You can see how churches often function as orphanage & asylum.
This duty to help is even more important if you are a noble and thus have Crest in your blood (insert here those spiels from Ferdinand & Lorenz about nobility).
(...) To face this evil force, the goddess created a new well of power. She gifted certain chosen individuals with sacred blood, allowing them to wield mystical weapons, that they may prevail against the darkness.
- The Book of Seiros, Part II -
While this tenet is not inherently bad, it would become the foundation for the social contract of Fódlan...
...aka the "Crest system" that Edelgard wished to tear down.
Another place where Seirian teachings can be found is in the Book of Seiros, Part V: the Five Eternal Commandments:
• Dare not doubt or deny the power or existence of the goddess.
• Dare not speak the goddess's name in vain.
• Dare not disrespect your father, mother, or any who serve the goddess.
• Dare not abuse the power gifted to you by the goddess.
• Dare not kill, harm, lie, or steal, unless such acts are committed by the will of the goddess.
The goddess cares for and protects all that is beautiful in this world.
The goddess will never deny the splendors of love, affection, joy, peace, faith, kindness, temperance, modesty, or patience.
Follow her example and, in doing so, abide her laws.
Ignoring the stuff about Sothis, basically, you should be respectful, loving & happy, and not bring harm to others.
🌲🌕🌲
For the most part, those all align with Dimitri's personal beliefs.
In stark contrast to his sister, he is of the opinion that Crests are a necessary tool to protect against threats, even if using them to measure one's merit isn't right.
Overall, Dimitri is rly devoted to the Seirian teaching of noblesse oblige, especially concerning his privileged self — a Crestbearing Crown Prince with the audacity to survive Duscur.
So a bad habit he developed is to make himself an instrument for others' will, though if you noticed, he is offering himself specifically as a weapon.
On to the other tenets from the Commandments...
Welp, he's immediately disqualified for doubting the power of the Goddess =))) "She would only watch over us from above" and whatnot. It's old news that Dimitri isn't particularly devout.
However, that doesn't mean he would deny their importance or stop finding solace in front of the Goddess's altar. Probably in large part because his homeland is a pious place.
Similarly, the fact that the Prince values the sanctity of human lives so highly might have more to do with him being a natural bleeding heart than any doctrine. One point that put him in conflict with the other Lords is how he refuses to be utilitarian. Killing is bad. Periodt. Nothing can ever truly justify it.
However, the reality is that Dimitri do harm people. As much as he might disagree with others about making sacrifices, he too thought that it was his only way out. Moreover, it's probably the only thing he could ever do well with his "blessed" strength.
Forcing himself to commit the unacceptable again and again, in the name of "helping" others, broke him. The sheer contradiction, the weight of his own actions, the solitude, the self-deprecation and all those bottled-up emotions would manifest into rage and bloodlust as he charged forward with wild abandon, hoping that his misery would end one day.
Even when the Savior King has found his way again, he would spend the rest of his life working to atone for his sins.
... At the end of the day, the problem is still that since Dimitri isn't rly religious, it'd be weird to say he has religious guilt (^～^;)ゞ
However, he does suffer from how his actions, in service of his own morality, not only fell short of what he sees as the noble standard, but also went directly against that morality.
Seiros, too, highly values the duty to help & protect, to cherish lives. But she has her great Goddess Mother to fight for, while Dimitri has no such higher cause, only his fellow men. That giant distinction is what ironically pushes him to embrace the Prophet's non-mythical moral teachings more than anyone else.
All things considered, it's still really easy to give Dima catholic guilt ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
