Talk:Trinity (Survivor Timeline)/@comment-2602:304:B34B:A940:2507:CAA3:A224:AD0-20181022202937

The "ideological" section here is a pleasant surprise (inner motivational factors in "foes" are not usually thoughtfully dealt with, if it all) but honestly, incoherent, needs depth, contextualization and sourcing. The writer is clearly at least capably familiar with the relevant religio-philosophic tradtions but the simplifications, omissions, etc. in the "belief system" section ideally should be tackled, and everything meticulously sourced, if possible. (The subtly anti-Judeo-Christian and/or anti-Catholic sub-tone of some of the sentences, is also, unnecessary.)

The ideological synopsis section would lead one to believe practically, these Trinity cultists are somehow remotely still adhering to Catholicism in some way, if distantly, in their paramilitary, criminal/psychopathoic and occultic activities. Traditional conservative Catholics themselves would have been the first to zealously eradicate these guys, if they had ever existed historically...

The heresiologists of Catholicism would have torn these guys to shreds according to what is stated about Trinity's peculiarly distorted view of the biblical Flood alone, and then probably obtained Roman-Imperial military aid in systematically eliminating them, as was exactly done with the Donatist sectarians, who were not nearly as extreme as Trinity in their chiliastic, quas-gnostic, nihilistic mentality, at least according to what is stated here...

Trinity should be described as a DEVIATED OFFSHOOT of an INTERNAL HERETICAL MOVEMENT within normal Catholicism, or something along those lines, to be integral here...

No, Trinity is not like the original Knights Templar - except as a demonic mimesis or counterfeit, as Rene Guenon (DO LOOK HIM UP ON GOOGLE!) discussed in terms of this Kali-Yuga.

For Gosh sake, the first humble Templars were the direct source of what came to be known as the "Rosary" - as reverentially Mariologically normative, anti-Gnostic and fidelity-minded to Catholic orthodoxy as imaginable.

SOTTR describes Trinity as "Illuminati-like" etc. - the Illuminati of Weishaupt and co. were/are fanatically anti-Catholic and their end-game was/is the total purgation of planet earth of specifically CATHOLIC Christianity. The vision fo monotheism and Catholicism of Trinity's High Council is a Guenonian counterfeit and aping of the actual content of that wisdom-tradition.

The only valid similiarity is the irregular military role. Even here, there is barely commonality: Trinity is a "para-Masonic" entity with no structure of regulatory law as far as I can tell, no legitimate inheritance from anything but their own Catharii-like ancestors in heresiological gnostic-dualist apocalyptic chiliastic nihilism; Trinity only interacts with governmental corporal organs selectively, selfishly and deceitfully, perhaps comparable to the hybrid Mafia-Masonic P2 Lodge of Italy from the 1970's; Trinity, in its millenarian extremist gnostic-nihilist tendencies, as the alibi of its criminal military "operations", approximating maybe, some of Julius Evola's (LOOK HIM UP TOO!) wilder imaginings (organizationally and ideologically - Evola was Catharist, dualistically apocalyptic, etc.); in modern military, national and international, law, Trinity exists as a criminal mercenary or brigand organization by definition whose participation in "guerrilla warfare" and whose "operations", legally, exist on the same plane as the Mafia or street gangs, whose only legitimation is self-arbitrarily fabricated, accepted in no manner similar to the Templars of old; moreover, contrastingly, there was authentic metaphysical spirituality (minimally), at the foundational origins of the Templars (citing how they were the literal creators of the Catholic Rosary prayer-tradition is only the most exoteric example), and their ethos was specifically, aggressively "anti-mercenary" as a point of emphasis; the Templars received complete "social ratification" from all sides, existed as fully legitimated in Weberian terms, and their practition of violence was not only governmentally legal in the age relevant, but canonically defended and publicly praised when even questioned by certain intellectualists (see Bernard of Clairvaux, De Laude de Novae Militia).

The first Templars were mainly ex-criminals, whose protective "para/"military activity was limited, morally-centered and part of penitential practices too complex to go into here; these humble ex-"cons" and other social misfits were idealistically protecting pilgrim routes from Arabic (not identical to "Muslim"/"Islamic") raider gangs and other lowlife bandits, unrewarded, refusing materialistic rewards initially on principle, protecting innocent life purely as penitential volunteerism stemming from actual Catholic belief in innocent right to life of the human soul ("corporal works of mercy", in Catholic terminology)...historically, far later, eventually a few monetarily far more well-positioned, to all appearances like-mindedly idealistic European noblemen became aware of them and joined the informal confraternity, leading in time to official governemental and papal "licensure"  and Bernardaine-Cistercian "laudation" even, as a religious military order.

The mundane truth about the Templar downfall is their was no theatrical Dualist-Gnostic conspiracy inside the group, no outlandish Davidic bloodline nonsense involved period; the tiresomely, all-too-human reality is the French monarchy of the time manipulated events suavely in order to loot them amorally, as opposed to facing a deserved banktruptcy.

In any case: I am not sure if the writers themselves intended this, or subconsciously laid the seeds, but this strange "anti-Monotheistic" "anti-Catholic" "anti-Roman" stuff in the game sub-text apparently in certain parts, and logically outflowing into the fan-base understanding, certainly adds or added nothing to the very well-done rebooted iteration fo the Croft story...