The Life Aquatic might feature a morally questionable lead, but retains a reassuring sense of quirky otherworldliness.
Considered as holy wars the Crusades must be interpreted by the ideas of an age which was dominated by the spirit of otherworldliness, and accordingly ruled by the clerical power which represented the other world.
The Crusades had sprung from the policy of a theocratic government counting on the motive of otherworldliness; they had helped in their course to overthrow that motive, and with it the government which it had made possible.