Scarlet_Wildfire

I like Claude and everything he did was pretty in line with his character. Probably due to your initial dislike of Claude, you never actually dug deeper into his character because most of the things he does in Golden Wildfire are things that were set up for his character in Three Houses

They set up the marriage idea for a direction it could go in......so I'm just going to assume it's how Scarlet Blaze's timeline goes at least in my head

Shahid exists in Three Houses or rather Claude having asshole half-brothers exists. They mention in Golden Wildfire's prologue that Shahid made his move because they heard all the way in Almyra that Faerghus and Adrestia are unstable as they went through recent rebellions which is why Shahid thinks it's the perfect chance to attack

The more I think about the good ending's Scarlet Blaze text about Leicester and Adrestia Unification via marriage. A valid tactic. It worked out for Spain at least.

Hilda doesn't actually like Dimitri in Azure Moon nor is she a big Church defender, she only comes with because of Byleth and she says as much. She doesn't go with Edelgard because Hilda has a bigger distaste of Edelgard than her like for Byleth, simple as that. Also in Hopes, there is no Byleth-equivalent to lead her away from the Church and her strongest relationship in the game is with Claude to the point that she's his his implied love interest in Hopes and as a result would never betray him.

Yes the game agrees that Fodlan needs a more centralized government. That's why Three Houses always ends with the Alliance gone and Fodlan united with a supreme monarch. Even Verdant Wind Claude has him talk about what they'll do with Fodlan afterward right before the final Edelgard battle and Claude mentions that Fodlan needs to be united with a single monarch. In Azure Moon, Claude also destroys the Alliance and elects Dimitri king rather than himself. And in Verdant Wind, he disintegrates the Alliance and creates the United Kingdom of Fodlan for Byleth run See here: