This is *the* problem with the film Kingdom of Heaven.
All the set pieces, actors, soundtrack, and interesting characters can barely hold up the fact that it’s a film made deliberately to convince White people that they “started it” after 9/11.
In addition to the poor writing choice to kill off all of the most interesting characters by the midway point, the film also commits gross character assassination of Bishop Heraclius, Guy de Lusignan, and Raynald de Chatillon. In reality, the films villains were, of course, actually heroes.
Heraclius co-led the defense of Jerusalem with Balian, insisted upon Balian being put in charge, sold all of his Church’s property to pay the ransom of the citizens Saladin enslaved, and along with Balian offered himself as a hostage to buy the freedom of other residents of Jerusalem.
(Oh, yes, Saladin enslaved a huge portion of the city’s population. They didn’t put that part in the movie…)
Raynald was guilty of the crime of seeing that Saladin was uniting the Muslim world specifically to invade Jerusalem and trying to stop him before it was too late. You might compare him in the modern day to Pat Buchanan.
It’s such a well made propaganda piece. It makes me very happy to see how much of it has been repurposed to tell the truth now two decades later.