The Underlying Issue With All Of Assassin's Creed
Вставка
- Опубліковано 23 тра 2024
- The assassin and Templar conflict is an intriguing premise but also one that fails to address a fundamental core issue between the two ideologies. If you've never played these games or at least the games that I've played, it's essentially about the historical records of a forever war against two opposing sides. The assassins and the Templars. They've taken on different names throughout the years, they've each had the upper hand at some point, and at various points one has completely wiped out the other only for them to rise again because it's a natural conflict that arises between two diametrically opposed ideologies. However there are inherent issues with both assassin and Templar ideologies and while one ideology may obviously be better for an individual, they both result in long-term suffering and will no doubt result in a very similar endpoint, neither can ever work.
- Ігри
Fun fact, this video was actually being made a couple of days before Assassin's Creed Shadows was announced. So it was just really coincidental timing.
Here's my take on Shadows though. Don't buy it, because Ubisoft is a terrible terrible company. However the fact the game stars a black guy is absolutely NOT among the reasons you shouldn't buy the game.
the issue isn't that he's black, but that it's japan. ac fans have been begging for years for japan and the monkey's paw finally curled.
really though reason number 1 i'm not buying shadows is because the franchise has been dogwadah for years and ubisoft is a complete mem of a company at this point
I think the claim that people want to play as a Japanese Ninja or Shinobi in the first ever Assassin's creed taking place in Japan is valid.
@@Rengokuo4o6
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not that informed about the game
But isn't there literally another main character who *is* a japanese shinobi?
@@Jahlil.W Mirage did actually remove MOST RPG elements, and the story wasn’t bullshit. Still understand if you do not wish to play it as of other reasons, we all have our little things.
@@idonotknow2652I believe that's a girl character in the game
I think Ezio's sentiment says it best: Freedom of choice; not freedom from consequence.
Ezio is the best, period.
This slogan is way overused in liberal circles to shut down free speech.
Kind of hypocritical, though. It's easy to get up on your high horse and claim you love freedom, so long as everybody uses that freedom to do what you want them to do. "Abuse" your freedom, and you die. Is that really freedom?
That’s the same as having no choice. Ezio is full of shit.
@@TeenTyrantNo. You can still choose your actions. You can't choose how people react.
The one thing I disagree with is AC3's portrayal of Haytham. I don't think they treat him as unequivocally evil at all. He's the first Templar to have a direct familial relationship in the series and provides a level of charisma that hasn't been seen in the Templars before or since.
Especially considering Rogue followed it, a game all about the Colonial Assassins getting corrupted with power, I think Haytham's point *was* to be the voice of reason for the Templars, and to challenge our way of thinking.
Even ignoring that, we spend 3-4 hours playing as him at first too and build sympathy with him.
All that gets thrown out the window when he picks someone like Charles Lee in charge.
While I agree, these first hours when we played as him made no effect to me and left me annoyed in the end because I felt these hours were useless.
@@enzoamore8971 that was never to imply that he was even close to flawless or even a good person, just that there is far more nuance to him than just being "the bad guy."
@@p0werfu11 agreed, to a degree. I think it did wonders to add onto his character but *wow* is it hard mustering the patience for a 4 hour prologue before you even start playing as Connor on replay.
Assassins, Templars, bruh...
I always hated that fantasy side of AC. I want ONLY history!
10:32 No, you're right on the money. This is something that was acknowledged as early as AC2, in Altair's Codex.
"What follows are the three great ironies of the Assassin Order: (1) Here we seek to promote peace, but murder is our means. (2) Here we seek to open the minds of men, but require obedience to a master and set of rules. (3) Here we seek to reveal the danger of blind faith, yet we are practitioners ourselves.
I have no satisfactory answer to these charges, only possibilities... Do we bend the rules in service to a greater good? And if we do, what does it say of us? That we are liars? That we are frauds? That we are weak? Every moment is spent wrestling with these contradictions and in spite of all the years I've had to reflect, still I can find no suitable answer... And I fear that one may not exist.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Does our creed provide the answer, then? That one may be two things-opposite in every way-simultaneously? And why not? Am I not proof? We of noble intentions, possessed of barbaric means? We who celebrate the sanctity of life and then promptly take it from those we deem our enemies?"
I don't remember if the codex (or the series in general) ever provides some suggestion on how to resolve or reconcile this.
Altair was so underrated, and I actually kinda hated ezio until rev when he seems to realize in the end that altair was starting to question things. The only characters I really like are the ones that question the order, or just use them to their advantage, otherwise templars are far more reasonable and realistic, even desmond sided with them before they totally dropped that story line.
What the dude's talking about both Altair and Ezio realized. But Altair wanted to fix it and Ezio knew because of Altair's work it would not change so Ezio left that's one of the revelations.
Man…I miss this so much, that age from AC1-Black Flag, was just completely different from what we have now, it was creative, it took itself serious, it was telling an actual story. You’ve made me really nostalgic by just reciting ONE aspect of ONE of the games, I miss this, I miss Assassins creed.
I came here to expect a critique on the saga and i found an analysis of the problem of the two ideologies on assasins creed. 10/10
Wait is this really what the video is about?! I though hes also gonna talk about gameplay or something
Now stand next to this hay bale and tell us which group do you think is better, the Assassins or the Templars?
Rogue wanted to explore the hypocracy of the creed,but ubisoft gave them almost no time so they had to reuse black flag's assets VERY heavily
It did but instead it gave us a protagonist with his own hypocrisy.
@@ac_nerd9794Wdym?
@@EnnuiPilgrim Shay never really had his own Creed or moral code. After all was done, he became a templar hitman and as seen in AC III, he never tried to stop the Templars when they got out of control. That and he fiddled with the French Brotherhood which had nothing to do with the actions of the Colonial Brotherhood as far as I'm aware.
@ac_nerd9794 That's a very selective interpretation of his actions. He obviously had morals when he decided to stop the Assassins from causing more catastrophes, just because they wanted to 1up the Templars somehow.
Had he more support, he may have stayed an Assassin, but considering the fact that Monro saved his life and befriended him, grooming him over the course of two years I think it was, he became a Templar instead. That was just the sensible thing to do at that point since it was people in general that he was most concerned about, not maintaining broken dogmas.
I mean he was actually more of an Assassin than the rest since he actually questioned things and didn't adhere to radical stances just to be blindly loyal. Altair was the same and was even outcast for years for thinking independently. If he was in Shay's shoes he would've done the same and Achilles would have ordered his death too.
@@EnnuiPilgrim Not really. Shay in the trailer and game talks about protecting the innocent, but he never really did. He served the lesser evil at the time to rid the world of the bigger evil. Considering he did everything to protect people, you'd think he would actually start questioning the Templars in everything he did. Of course, he acted more like an assassin than the assassins. That's what happens when the game tries so hard to reverse the roles that it's just bad. Shay is an awesome concept but his development never really bloomed and all I saw was a hypocritical hitman at the end. He was just following orders for the Templars and never questioned them it seemed. He had his own opinion, but a much better idea would have been taking Shay and making him follow his own Creed or the real Creed which has three tenants and starting over with the Colonial Brotherhood. That would have made sense because the Templars grew out of control afterward and Shay could have rebuilt what he destroyed to make it like it was supposed to be. And on the point of Altair. If he had been in Shay's shoes, he would have used the Templars to help him eradicate a corrupted Brotherhood and then he'd turn on the Templars. Altair actually grew and learned. Shay just listened and never grew.
Order without Freedom is Tyranny, but Freedom without Order is Chaos. You need both in balance. Adam Jensen says it best in Deus Ex Human Revolution; absolute freedom is no better than chaos. Ordinary men and women have to choose. Slowing down change when its negative, speeding it up when its good.
I haven't played any of the games beyond Black Flag (which I didn't finish, but did enjoy the pirate gameplay), but I've always viewed the Assassins as a sort of regulatory body. I don't think they want to outright dismantle society, otherwise your objective every game would be to slaughter every guard and leader figure that you run across.
I remember in Assassin's Creed 2, you protect a member of a noble family that the Templar's specifically targeted so they could usurp power. If the true goal was complete and total anarchy, I would assume that the entire royal family would be up for assassination. Hell, even when Rodrigo Borja takes control by becoming Pope, Ezio lets the miserable bastard live.
My take away is that the Assassins step in when the Templars start stomping on people below them and claiming power for their own gain. If society collectively agrees to democratically elect leaders, I don't see the Assassins going to oppose it, but there could be evidence to the contrary that I'm blotting from memory and I'm open to being wrong.
This is my belief as well.
Basically The Assassins are trying to safe keep the democracy and keep the person/organisation who is trying to oppress the innocent and weak in check so free will can be protected.
If they wanted anarchy then yes they would have attacked and dismantled every government body they came across but that is not the case, they do actively work with the system, where corruption hasn’t spread.
Yes there are instances where Assassins are corrupted themselves but that is the thing the person is the one who is corrupted and weaponising his beliefs, the Assassins ideology wants the people to have freedom and free will through fair regulation.
Templars wants peace by controlling it by the people who they seem to be fit, Assassins wants peace by maintaining an order in the society by democracy and free will.
This is the two ideology in my opinion, but sure for any person on both the side it can be used for bad or good. That is why this conflict is interesting to me.
Templars are not straight up wrong, but their methods by which they want to gain peace is problematic.
Thats a really interesing way to put it.
Maybe the assassins ideology is the natural barrier between those who want to rule and control and their objective, which surges in any point of history when someone realizes that they are under the thumb of someone else.
Take Edward Kenway for example. He did not start the game as an assassin, and even before embracing them he was a man that wanted freedom and ended up fighting those who seeked control, like a natural reaction.
Another example I would say is Kassandra from Odyssey. She was there before the hidden ones were even there, but she embraced that idea of freedom, and not allowing some to rule over the many. Thats why I feel like, even if we are not assassins, we are certainly upholding their mentality in this battle as old as humanity itself, in AC odyssey, so thats why at least story wise I can still feel it like an AC game.
Its always nice to find comments that make you think about stuff, so thank you
This is my belief as well.
Basically The Assassins are trying to safe keep the democracy and keep the person/organisation who is trying to oppress the innocent and weak in check so free will can be protected.
If they wanted anarchy then yes they would have attacked and dismantled every government body they came across but that is not the case, they do actively work with the system, where corruption hasn’t spread.
Yes there are instances where Assassins are corrupted themselves but that is the thing the person is the one who is corrupted and weaponising his beliefs, the Assassins ideology wants the people to have freedom and free will through fair regulation.
Templars wants peace by controlling it by the people who they seem to be fit, Assassins wants peace by maintaining an order in the society by democracy and free will.
This is the two ideology in my opinion, but sure for any person on both the side it can be used for bad or good. That is why this conflict is interesting to me.
Templars are not straight up wrong, but their methods by which they want to gain peace is problematic.
@@diegog5057yeah i like that thought process. Even though we are not playing assassins the story still has to do with the conflict as old as humanity , like you said.
It does seem like the Assassin ideology is something along the lines of defending the "consent to be governed," not the entire overthrow of all power and government. That is, they allow figures to stay in power if the largest volume of people accept their leadership of their own free will. It seems like the Assassins get stabby when the Templars attempt to steal or usurp power that they were never actually granted by the populations they want to rule over. Naturally there are still huge flaws with this ideology. Virtually all of human history is full of leaders that were never asked the consent of or were "elected" by the populations they ruled over, so in theory the Assassins would be completely opposed to all forms of government except for very direct democracy, which even to this day has only barely existed in small communities. Also what happens when virtually everyone consents to giving tons of power to a tyrannical figure, something that actually has happened many times through history?
"If I have absolute freedom, then I have the freedom to take your absolute freedom away."
The way the Assassin-Templar conflict is portrayed in AC2, Brotherhood, Unity, and Syndicate, is basically if they inversed the morality of the assassination targets from AC1.
You know how in AC1 how most of the targets were ruthless, but somewhat well-intentioned extremists? Majd Addin is the exception, as he's just a power hungry maniac with no redeeming qualities or noble intentions.
AC2 and Brotherhood decide to flip it on its head and make the majority of the targets like Majd Addin, and very few of them are genuine extremists or sympathetic.
Two notable exceptions in AC2 are Uberto Alberti, if you read his letter in the database, and Dante Moro, if you watch his database entry video and read the letter from his ex-fiance.
Ubisoft never cared about the ideology conflict of Templar and Assassin. In most game, it's Assassin good, Templar bad, because we play as Assassin. When they made a game that we play as Templar, it's Templar good, Assassin bad, because we play as Templar.
I'm pretty sure they did care. It's only when bad scripts and time constraints fuck it up. Only look at Rogue or even 2.
People ignore one aspect of the story despite saying It's their favorite. Ezio HAD to be a very safe character and the Templars had to be cartoonishly evil. The reason why is because in the first game, both Orders were morally grey but Altaïr as a character was "flat" and "had no personality". I like those kind of people, but it's not what people want. People want a Superman who make things right, a Goody Two-Shoes.
"Hmmm...An AC video right after the latest twitter drama? I dunno, I like TBP a lot but-"
TBP: This video isn't about Yasuke
"OH THANK GOD!"
There is no drama surrounding the latest. Except for the lower IQ citizens crying about fantasy video game having a weemonz and a POC as the main characters. And nobody with any real intelligence cares about those people who constantly cry about weemonz or POC, the grifters only jump on it because they know if they tell their lower IQ audience how they're replacing the white man in da vidja gaemz they'll make with Paymetons and Super chat donations
I was so scared he was gonna say some DEI bullshit tbh
@@cyrus6461?
@@monnijr9446 DEI is shorthand for essentially announcing yourself as a racist. It means "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion"
So if someone starts sprouting "this is DEI" I know they're probably racist
12:26
This sentence alone says it at all.
Egregious oversimplification inbound, but I've often felt it boils down to
Templars: We have power of control, and so we can control whatever we want.
Assassins: We have power of freedom, and so we are free to kill whoever we want.
Both are motivated by immense levels of self-righteousness, and that is why they are both flawed.
This is going to be good. I loved the series when it felt like they wanted to tell an interesting story in modern day to balance the individual stories in the past. Each ancestor added as a way to develop Desmond. Even 4 was good. But they seem to be floundering. There's no modern day story and the ancestors don't feel like they connect in meaningful ways. The stories themselves just seem to be unconnected attempts at keeping the franchise alive because the developers have no idea what it should be after 3 and 4.
This is my belief or how I see this conflict:
Basically The Assassins are trying to safe keep the democracy and keep the person/organisation who is trying to oppress the innocent and weak in check so free will can be protected.
If they wanted anarchy then yes they would have attacked and dismantled every government body they came across but that is not the case, they do actively work with the system, where corruption hasn’t spread.
Yes there are instances where Assassins are corrupted themselves but that is the thing the person is the one who is corrupted and weaponising his beliefs, the Assassins ideology wants the people to have freedom and free will through fair regulation.
Templars wants peace by controlling it by the people who they seem to be fit, Assassins wants peace by maintaining an order in the society by democracy and free will.
This is the two ideology in my opinion, but sure for any person on both the side it can be used for bad or good. That is why this conflict is interesting to me.
Templars are not straight up wrong, but their methods by which they want to gain peace is problematic.
Rogue and Unity showed that neither one is better than the other. Their actions depend on who's the leader in charge, and they both fight for the same outcome
The Templars are simply too idealistic. They want to make humanity progress as fast as possible, maybe even faster, but to do that they need power.
Assassins creed had a vision in the first and second game. the first game has the most social stealth aspect to it with you having to plan out every assassination and plays almost like a medieval hitman game, it can also be very punishing if you get spotted. Though it is a flawed game, what's there is very solid. It's hard to pin point where the series got hijacked, but it's likely the end of brotherhood with the stupid ending. In fact I still debate if brotherhood and revelations were planned or if it was Ubisoft being greedy. Don't get me wrong, BH,Rev,3 and 4 are really good games, they probably were not planned though. I do know that 3 was always planned and the games were building up Desmond being the ultimate assassin with the abilities of all 3 assassins. It's probably the most unfortunate video game series of all time, because when it was good, it was really good. It's pretty much become the video game equivalent of The tv series Lost.
You left something out that I think is very important and integral to these games. Correct me if I'm wrong but the driving conflict of both the Assassins and the Templars is that they have been given a prophecy that the world will end in the year 2012.
So the groups are both polar extremes for the same purpose. Which is that they are both seeking to somehow stop the end of the world and allow for the survival of mankind. Within that context it makes the Templars themselves so much more interesting in my opinion. Because for a lot of people it makes their actions much more palletable.
They beg the question "what would you do to save the world? How far would you go?". Would you commit acts of evil and work with evil people? Would you decide that in order for humanity to survive it must be forced to surrender it's free will? It's a hard question to answer for a lot of people but it's one that ties the two groups together inexorably.
They're both groups willing to do certain things that could be called evil or immoral for the greater good and their conflict (as you correctly pointed out) mirrors the conflict between democracies and dictatorships all throughout history.
As for your assertion that the Assassins essentially inexorably represent anarchy I both agree and disagree. There are times in the series where they are supportive of and friends with people in positions of the existing power structure such as the Medici. So they support organization and existing power structures to a certain extent.
The issue with them is that they essentially deem themselves the sole deciders of who is or who isn't benefitting the people. Which they enforce at the point of a blade. The hypocrisy then as you pointed out is that how are you not a totalitarian at that point?
You're concentrating power within a small group of people based on the assertion that it's justified because your power structure should be trusted to be a better judge of character. And that's an awfully thin line to be the only thing that is supposed to stop you from being that which you are supposedly fighting.
In the end I think it's these moral dilemmas that were at the heart of what fans of the series would call the "good" Assassins Creed games. I think recently they've focused so much on gameplay systems and there's been such a lack of identity since the end of the Desmond arc that it feels like they've kind of lost a lot of this narrative dynamic.
I completely agree. Flawed characters set against a backdrop of historical struggles between flawed philosophies worked alongside a story progression in the modern day to give AC its identity. And since 3 and 4, AC just hasn't had an identity beyond being a nearly annual franchise. It feels as if the struggle doesn't mean anything because we don't see how it impacts the modern day in the franchise. And focusing on gameplay too much just makes AC like any other open world game.
Thats not the driving conflict between them. The conflict is because templars want control and assassins want freedom. You don't even hear much about 2012 outside of Desmond's sections.
TLDR?
@@MyGuidingMoonlight55 TLDR both the Assassins and the Templars are trying to save the world which makes people ask themselves if they would do something evil to save the world. And the lack of this narrative is one of the things the new games are missing.
@@MyGuidingMoonlight55 TLDR: Read the comment. AC is about competing philosophies about society and peace.
As a fan of every AC game the one thing I've learned is that life is about balance. Both the Assassins and Templars are wrong. But the two together are the great societal balance throughout the ages. It's not the best but it's what we've got. That's what I love about the AC series, no good guys, just ideologies.
Same "left wing vs right wing" situation across multiple countries, as far I understand it at least. We got one side parading compassion and rejecting any solution, that doesn't fit their ideoligies and we got the other side, which demands efficiency and the maintainance of stablished order, taking less to none consideration to individual nuance and open mindness. Both parties are flawed, because the take their agendas too extreme and miss the flexibility to find solutions, that accomodate the many, but with enough room to offer support for the few.
Iron does not mix with clay my friend.
Didn’t Ubisoft address this problem in Assassins Creed Odyssey? After you defeat the cult of Kosmos, Pythagoras tells Kassandra in some kind of Isu technology vision that she has set in place the start to a never ending conflict.
With total control comes Authoritarian totalitarianism, and with complete freedom comes chaos. The assassins are set to be “the never ending sand in the Templars shoe” and with this conflict strikes a balance. With neither complete chaos or complete order taking the reigns for human civilisation. Humanity won’t fall to the fate of either as a result.
So Pythagoras caused a Jojo situation: A familial generation stopping threats while the threats are related to the familial generation in some ways?
@@battlion507 it’s basically a self-regulatory conflict. They both stop humanity from falling to the extremes because they’ll never let each other have their way.
This was very interesting, one of the most interesting video I’ve seen in a while on UA-cam. So thank you sir ❤
Yeah, the Assassins only really work as the protagonist because they are the underdogs, and Ubisoft doesn't has any interest in exploring that side of the Creed
It's the same thing with the mandalorians in Star Wars now. Since they're the underdogs in the newer shows, people think they're the good guys. The underdog role is easy to do for the writers.
The Assassin's are *not* always the underdogs. The Templars were the underdogs in Blackflag as Mary Read pointed out when she said, "Before you [Edward] came along it was us chasing them." In AC: Rogue the Assassin's were completely more powerful than the Templars.
Did you play Rogue?
@@EnnuiPilgrim Yeah, I know and I did, what I meant was that it was really not properly explored, I liked the characters in and on itself, but the overall story really did not made a good job exploring what the Assassin's wanted, it kinda just switched Templars bad and Assassin's good to Templars not so bad and Assassin's bad
Hey I’m not a big AC fan but now that I think about it, could you say that they have power? They have a near army of skilled assassins that can kill you as they please in the shadows if you are a bad person, or as the OP said, if you disagree with them. They are ‘underdogs’, but are a big hidden creed with a long history and culture of silencing others, with many people being in that creed, no? Am I wrong, cuz like I said, I’m not a big AC person, so do correct me, I know it’s likely more complex than I make it out as far as I know, but yeah your right, they seem to only be portrayed as hidden lownumber ‘underdogs’
I know you said you haven't played Unity, but I just want to point out that a huge part of the experience for me was playing through it with friends. It was extremely fun with 2-3 friends running around causing havoc
I know you usually don’t do videos like this, but this is definitely one of the most interesting subjects you’ve discussed. Great video.
6:27 No. The doctor behind the French model of that machine was not contracted. He wanted a method of execution that would be as quick and painless as possible. He only suggested doing something similar to the Italian patibulo or the Scottish maiden or the halifax gibbet and had absolutely nothing to do with the actual construction (be it physical or even just by means of supervision). In fact, he was horrified when he later learned that, since nobody really wanted any part in it, they named it after him. Also, another reason for the French version to exist is the fact that it would make every person condemned to death face the same means of execution, independently of social status. And this also seems like a good opportunity to debunk the myth that its inventor ended up being beheaded himself. It never happened. 1: Doctor Guillotin was not the inventor. 2 : It's another doctor with the same name who was beheaded. Still, that's a very good video. Keep them coming. 😎
Except the person who invented it was a French doctor. And it was named after him too when it was invented, the louisette. It was later that it got renamed to the guillotine.
@@tinkerer3399 La luisette was named after Luison, who worked on it and was not a French doctor.
@jackwilliam4436 Could I ask for a source? I have two sources here which say the *louisette* was named after Antone *Louis* the *doctor* who helped invent the guillotine. I tried looking up the person you mentioned and didn't get anywhere on either their name or the alternate spelling of louisette that you mentioned. Even double checked my hard copies.
@@tinkerer3399 Hi. Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, my comment (posted an hour or two ago) has been deleted (maybe because of the 'less than family-friendly' theme it covered ?). Anyway, here's the extra short version : First of all, thank you for politely asking for a source. Far too many people simply aggressively dismiss other people's arguments, instead of discussing like functioning adults. Second of all, I am not going to go through the entire ordeal of copying paragraphs from my books again, but I will give you my sources : 1000 Years Of Annoying The French, by Stephen Clarke and Une Histoire De La Peine De Mort, by Pascal Bastien. Third of all, your comment has made me read some passages from those books again and I must admit my memory did need to be refreshed : Although the initial doctor (Joseph-Ignace Guillotin) after who the machine was named only proposed the use of a machine (whose well-known purpose I am not going to write, lest this comment gets deleted, as well) and took absolutely no part in its actual construction or supervision, it is another doctor (Antoine Louison) who made it possible (with help from other parties). The initial doctor was even terrified to learn that the machine had been named after him, without his consent - then again, he did make a bad joke which led to everyone consider it as 'his' machine, prior to its construction. Those books also mention other names, such as la louisette and le louison and tell how (the initial) Dr Guillotin barely saved his own neck, during the French Revolution and it is another Dr Guillotin (from Lyon) who did not get to keep his head.
Such and important video for our time. Why as a legend would you make it so short? You’re awesome man, looking forward to the next one.
In my opinion, Assassin’s Creed should’ve ended after 3. The whole story ended with Desmond sacrificing himself at the end of Assassin’s Creed III, so there was no point in continuing the story unless Desmond survived his death. Assassin’s Creed IV is what I feel like started the downfall, due to it being Assassin’s Creed III again, but explores Connor’s grandfather instead of Connor himself. And without Desmond, there was simply no way to explore more Assassins without the original audience sergeant. It’s Assassin’s Creed lost it’s mojo.
They did end Desmond’s story’s. They just wanted a new story for the games.
@@Jahlil.W they did do it in ac 3.
Assassin's Creed IV and Rogue are best described as "fan service games":
Ubisoft saw how much people loved the naval combat and how much they loved playing as Haytham Kenway in III so they made a game with naval combat as the primary focus (Black Flag) and a game where the protagonist was a Templar (Rogue) as an easy way to make money. Rogue had the potential to be as good as the previous games but it seemed like Ubisoft didn't give the team behind Rogue enough time to realize the game's potential and Ubisoft's higher ups were probably more interested in Unity which had been in development for a long time. Plus Ubisoft is a French company so making a game about the French Revolution must have filled them with nationalistic pride. When the game received backlash for being a buggy mess Ubisoft halted the season pass and offered the only DLC for the game to everyone for free and they even gave their customers the choice of a free game as well. That's how much Unity meant to them compared to Rogue. Sadly modern day Ubisoft would never do something similar to gain the trust of their fan base back.
I still think Ubisoft were cowards for not just having a game set in the middle east and went with the whole scifi plot
Complete opposite actually. It wasn’t something common back then so having an underlying scifi theme would risk convoluting the story. In fact if you simply wanted a game set in the middle east you had prince of persia
@@hafluq2979 exactly, I was also going to bring up Prince of Persia but you beat me to it
A Scifi plot that doesn't come into play till the end of the Game. I mean I suppose there is the Animus and Genetic memory but that is more of the megguffin for telling the story not the plot itself. So in reality yeah you do have a game that is simply set in the middle east
@@ConnorLonerganthe animus is a framing device, not a mcguffin. The Apple of eden can be thought of as a mcguffin, but they find it right in the beginning
@@ofAwxen Fair enough point is the scifi elements are minimal in the grand scheme of things
Haytham isn't the villain of AC 3. That's the best part abt that game. There's only one villain and that was Charles Lee. Other characters are neither good nor evil. Characters like Haytham, George Washington and even Achilles are shown as morally gray characters.
Whereas, Connor is the only main character in AC 3 who is a good hearted person. His biggest weakness is his Naivety. After all he was raised as a native American until he was 13 years old and ventured beyond the frontier to Homestead.
Haytham was actually right about everything he said. But the problem was, he was way too loyal to the templars. That was the whole plot of AC 3.
Haytham was trying to earn his trust to his son. And when the truth came out, Connor was confused. Just like the audience on whom to root for.
When it was revealed that George Washington was responsible for Connor's mother dying. That's the moment we the audience realized, THERE'S NO GOOD VS EVIL AND EVERYONE ARE MORALLY RIGHT AND WRONG.
This game was the first Assassin's creed game which is close to a realistic approach of telling an Assassin vs Templar story.
3, rogue and unity criticize the creed but outside of rogue the stakes are more personal
Haven’t played AC1, but I hear that that game also does as well, or at least paints the conflict in a more nuanced way than “ASSASSIN GUD, TEMPLAR BAD”.
Would you declare this to be true?
Great video, awesome analysis. However, I would have liked you to add some comments about the Assassins' perspective on Templar philosophy. For example, Edward Kenway's words to Governor Torres:
"You would see all of mankind corralled into a neatly furnished prison, safe and sober, yet dulled of reason and sapped of all spirit."
It’s stated in universe even by assassins that Haytham had a point. Problem was that most assassins weren’t too keen on listening to the words of a Templar.
Additionally it’s stated in the lore that during the Wild West to WW2 eras, the Assassins actually worked for various governments even under Templars, keeping them in check to make sure things never boiled over. But each of the aforementioned wars were the result of that system backfiring.
I know a few fan stories that attempt to explore this, but those aren’t canon so unless you’re interested in that I won’t bore you with it here.
I dont know if its intentional, or if it meant to be an issue that affects the series, but this doesn't feel like an issue. This feels like it can be used as a more nuanced story of the flaws between two ideologies.
cool video, changed the way i looked at the series. i feel like the series started with the acknowledgement that both sides were equally flawed but ended up losing its original goal and making whichever side the main character is on the good side. hope to see an assassins creed game in the future actually take into account the flaws of both sides.
Great video. I didn't expect to hear about the "Metal Gear Solid 2 solution" here unironically though. 😅
Revelations was peak in story. Felt so epic and cinematic/endgame like
It gets a lot of hate, but it definitely has the best story and city
Wow, all of your points are fantastic. Yes, true the brotherhood are supposed to be the “underdog” but they never really had an organized end goal when it came to their freedom plans. It was just take down tyrant and that’s it. The only one that did have a bigger picture in mind was Connor. It would’ve been cool if George Washington and other patriots helped Connor rebuild everything(with Connor & his team being the hidden guardians of the USA or something). I mean, we have other famous historical characters, helping Ezio & Ed Kenway with a lot of things but they really dropped the ball with this in AC3. A lot of the historical characters in the third game felt so distant and The majority of it was just bad writing(including false advertising ) from Ubisoft. Also, this is my hot take: I don’t think the protagonists it should be “assassins”. They should’ve been given a different name.
I always felt that after 3 Ubisoft didn't have much of a plan for the series and each subseuqnet entry is treated as it's own enclosed story with very little to branch off of. I still have fun with the games but it's hard to look back at what was a large scale story across multiple games with interesting themes on humanity.
I agree, the perfect solution is a middle ground between total freedom and control. You can't have Yin without Yang, balance is the answer.
That's without taking into account the fact that those in a position of power will always want total control over others. You can't have large-scale, long-lasting balance between anarchy and totalitarianism. The best thing seems to be revolutions each time leaders get out of control. The next best thing would be anarchy - even with its flaws. Totalitarianism is, by far, the absolute worse. The middle ground would seem to be perfect, but it will never be realistically sustainable, because people with power will always bend rules in their favor, until they must be stopped. Again, the best thing is for the people to be powerful enough to overthrow their rulers, each and every time they become too corrupted. An endless cycle of renewal.
@@jackwilliam4436 I agree with you and you said it balance would be the best option. Of course like with everyone option it has is flaws and it depends on us humans if we can execute it or not. Totalitarianism is almost never good for the small citizens, total anarchy is also not great, it could work but we humans are the problem same goes for balance but yeah once the ruling position goes way too far, us citizens should put them down and vice versa if we citizens take too much power and liberty, the government should step in and solve the issue.
Every option is flawed, we are just searching for the best middle ground that would benefit our society the most.
Wrong, that hindustic babbling about "balance" is just as unsustainable as the other two, and funnily enough the Darksiders games acknowledge that the "Balance" between the opposite forces of Heaven and Hell is utterly impossible and a orchestrated lie. The hard truth is that two polar opposites like iron and clay, does not and will never mix; no matter how hard you or anyone tries to make it work; human nature is inherently corrupted and conflict will always rise again because we cannot rule by our own means.
Saying that "balance" is possible or the right way is deceiving yourself and others.
This is one of your best vids buddy
So it's basically Law / Order VS Chaos ? Assassin's Creed is secretly a Shin Megami Tensei spin off !
?
@@TreyH.006What do you mean ? They said it's like a Shin Megami Tensei spin-off as a joke
Essentially lmao
Hoping to play a REAL SMT GAME some day.
Oh my god! I've been an SMT fan longer than I realized😂
SMT is equally garbage when it comes to depth and understanding of reality. It literally contradicts itself, has a useless alignment system that is often rejected because "MUH Newtroll", and it sounds like a racist game ngl...
I only ever played Syndicate, and then I only played the gang conquest portion. Once I got Jacob to level 10 and 100% London I didnt feel compelled to keep playing: mandatory stealth in games is one of my biggest pet peeves, AC combat is turn-your-brain-off easy, and the vaunted "parkour" just felt so slippery that I almost was tempted just to walk everywhere.
Reminds me of the law vs chaos of Shin Megumi Tensai, both sides benificial but not without It's major flaws.
An AI Goverment does sound appealing since It has no material/wealth desire, but will humanity listen, or defy It out of personal views or through Influence of others who want to gain the system? We're all screwed no matter what.
Right now AI is based on human data, so it will still follow some desires. No corruption from bribes, but from within there is still possibilty of corrupted data
Yeah true SMT has a lot of endings what are total chaos and "freedom" or ultimate control but even in SMT you sometimes get a 3rd option a middle ground as a secret ending you can unlock and that one is usually the best solution but even so even that option isn't perfect.
Yet SMT treats both as a joke, has a clear bias against Abrahamic religions (no wonder Japan massacred tons of Christians), and generally fails at writing believable characters.
great essay! I can totally agree. in the end it all comes down to the core: balance. the constant balance of "good, evil", chaos, order. absolutes never worked and never will (in the long term)
what is that game you show at 10:21 and also at 10:08 it looks like a remake of Assassin's Creed 1. i do not know what this game or games are.
A very well articulated, interesting discussion and thought provoking conversation. 😄👌
That could be a cool gam if the Assassins conquered the modern world and turned it into a hellhole. You play as the surviving templars, ironically saving the world from the Assassins. This would result in an equilibrium, bringing up a new golden age before humanity inevitably forgets the lessons they learned, causing the cycle to begin again. I feel like the city of Rapture from Bioshock would be similar to an Assassin-controlled world.
What gave you the idea that the assassins would implement extreme capitalism?
Assassins exist to prevent templars from getting their hands on ancient artifacts left by the first civilization that allow to literally control people's minds, since initially people were slaves of the Isu and they wanted a way to control them. As I understand, assassins do not necessarily want anarchy, they just serve as guardians to make sure people leave in peace and no one takes totalitarian control over them.
Part of why i love Assassin's Creed Rouge was because Shay realized that the Assassin's were becoming no better than the Templars in fact at that point of time the Assassin's were doing more harm than good Achillies only realized that too late when they were at the sight in the arctic.
You are wrong about power. Power doesn't corrupt. Power reveals. Only when someone gets the power to do what they want it will be shown true intent
Fun fact: In Arabic there is a word Jinn which refers to spirits but it translates to hide or to adapt so spirits are called hidden ones. Jinn in Hebrew is Shedim. Shedim means demons. So not sure if it was on purpose or not but that makes it seem that Assassins are the bad guys. Also those who came before humans was Lilit or Lilith which means night creatures or night monsters. Not sure if its on purpose or not but at one point there might have been an idea where you would find out that Assassins are manipulated by demons because it seems like too many coincidences and it might have been just abandoned. Also you can turn the phrase "we work in the dark to serve the light, we are assassins" Satanic very fast.
6:41 😢 i love you!! Ive been saying the same ever since, Templars ACTUALLY make sense unlike Assassins.
A student of mine was.shocked when i said this in class, after explained why law and order matters, he understood my position
I've played Assassin's Creed, AC2, Brotherhood, Revelations, AC3, Black Flag, Freedom Cry, Rogue, Liberation and I think halfway through Unity. As I look back on what those characters' explanations on their reasons for fighting, to me it all boils down to these facts:
1) There will always be conflict so you should prepare for it
2) If you are done fighting for whatever reason, take an apprentice to ensure your line of work is continued
3) Beliefs taken to the extreme results in destruction
Basically, we are in a never-ending cycle, or more likely a roller coaster ride that goes up and down in random directions when you least expect it. To fight against that system is to fight nature at your own peril.
I took the freedom the assassins were talking about is freedom from artificial restraints. Also there is no AI that could ever be created to run things like that. AI/Machines are forever at the mercy of human corruption emotions and bias. And Ubisoft's writing for the games took a dive after Black flag.
If you are wondering how a world run by assassins looks like, look at AC Rogue. In that game the Assassins control the cities through crime syndicates, spy on the public, mass produce poison and kill anyone who is a potential threat to their cause. Don't forget meddling in things that are essential to the world and screwing it up. The Brotherhood in North America could have been tyrannical, if it wasn't destroyed by Shay and then later rebuilt by Connor.
They basically couldn't care less for Lisboa being destroyed
Shame Ubisoft gave them almost no time to make that game
yeah, colonial brotherhood is quite objectively the most flawed one we've had. They're just reskinned renaissance templars at that point
I’m so glad you made this video. I loved the games until Odyssey, but I always laughed at my friends who were rooting for the assassins. If they won, all that would do is create a power vacuum which would eventually return things to the way they were before.
"Before a society can move forward, all must agree on the rules" Galvatron, G1 Transformers episode "Fight or Flee"
This was an excellent video. Since you're so interested in this topic, you absolutely need to play Deus Ex (the one from 2000). The game hits on exactly the points you make. Don't be fooled by the age of the game, it's a timeless masterpiece that still hasn't been bested in my eyes. I played it in 2020 for the first time and it's been my favorite game since.
Cannot stress enough how much the game hits every single point you've made across the board.
I feel people look at life in a way that blinds them in different ways and this if reflected heavily in AC, imo the reality is that life is many things for us, hypocritical, beautiful, and painful all at the same time, Christianity i feel like answers this best, life is hypocritical because it is with sin, we are constantly battling our desires. I feel like when one recognizes this life becomes easier to mentally handle, recognize what you cant control, recognize that everything is hypocritical, and nothing is perfect but life itself. Its sad AC has strayed so far imo from its nuance and morals, and maybe some will call me naive or foolish for this but i feel like the Assassins are most definitely the good guys its just as with everything touched by humans there is sin and therefore bad, but in principle free will and the responsibility of consequence isnt a bad thing its when anarchy which i dont think is an Assassins goal is when things get bad because chaos only begets chaos, even in the Bible God speaks of order, law, and justice. And obviously there are bad people who are corrupted by power and positions of it regardless or even because of intentions.
I love Altaïr and Ezio, but Edward is my personal favourite protagonist.
As for the antagonists, Haytham is a no brainer, but Al Mualim is a close second.
Not really about the issue of Assassin's Creed but this made me open my eyes to the fact that there could never be a perfect society. Someone is always gonna trampled over or left out. No matter how hard we try to include everyone
also a big problem with haythem is that he's talking about one of the most ordered honorable and clean revolutions ever that still required force of arms soo it's kinda bs when you remember he talks about the chaos when no the congress just argued alot
Haytham is not meant to be presented as "obviously evil." He IS, don't get me wrong; it should never be forgotten what the Templars actually want. But that rooftop conversation is my favorite dialogue in all of Assassin's Creed. It's the moment where, if it hasn't clicked already, we realize that these Templars-the ones that the game took a full three sequences to properly introduce and set up at the beginning of the game (something that current AC has forgotten how to do)-are _not_ explicitly evil in this game. These aren't the mustache-twriling villains of Ezio's games. _These_ Templars have nuance, and understandable, realistic motivations. They're not even the same level of good/evil as each other: Pitcarin, in particlular, is presented as "a good man in a bad cause," while Dr. Church, ostensibly motivated purely by money, sees the British cause as having real merit, and the Colonists as being ungrateful and selfish (which is dripping with irony, considering everything we see Church do in AC3). It's one of the major reasons why AC3 is my second-favorite game in the series, and probably my favorite if just talking about the story.
Don't get me wrong, when I look at the story front to back he's obviously evil. But when taken in isolation, you can't help but see his side. And you can see plain as day that if this were another life, he could have been one of the good guys.
@@TBP If you haven't already, you should check out the endgame monologue that Connor gives, but was cut from the game for whatever reason. It really puts into perspective this whole idea of understanding Haytham more deeply.
4:00 Totalitarianism is beneficial in time of war. They cease to be beneficial when the dictator dont let go their power in time of peace.
A number of issues:
1. In many assassin's Creed games they support a form of government contrary to what you indicated. AC 2 they support the ruler of Venice revelations they support Suleiman, AC Syndicate they support the Queen etc.
2. The French Revolution in AC Unity (spoiler alert) was instigated and created by the Templars.
3. Within both the Assassin's and the Templars there have been different factions. A good example is AC unity where both sides have different factions. Even in Brotherhood Machiavelli clearly didn't think much of the common ppl.
3. For about 90 percent of AC history the Assassin's have tried to avoid anarchy not cause it.
4. The Assassin's were initially started as (spoiler alert) the hidden one's. They were never supposed to be in the public eye which is why its founder was not among the statues at the villa in monteriggioni.
5. Also it is important to note that the creed has been interpreted differently among different assassins. Please let me know your thoughts.
One of the problems with Assassin order is that they are somewhat detached from the struggles of a common man. The order gives these men tools and skills to outlive chaos of absolute freedom. The common folk are not so lucky. Power vacuums so often lead to spilling of blood, subjugation and the destruction of any level of trust between those holding power and the subjects. And thus the cycle of totalitarism can begin anew.
Discussions like this are why I enjoy watching UA-cam.
12:43 Congratulations, you have discovered Scythe
I could call myself AC fan, but yeah, Assassin's just make a vacuum of power templars eventually take once again. They are poetically balancing eachother, making history go in spiral. It's a shame that there is no proper Templar game about regaining order and peace in chaos and anarchy assassins made
Because that would require the assassins to actually cause that kind of chaos.
the problem with personal freedom all costs as a ideology is somebody has to be in charge for society to function. if libertarians got their way and we dissolved the government, we just have rule by the wealthy. well, more direct rule by the wealthy than we already have anyway
Very true. Even if wealth was taken out of the picture, someone will step up to fill in the power vaccum.
13:15 reminds me of that Tommy Lee Jones quote from Men in Black
10:24 Hierarchies are natural and will always occur in humanity. It is inevitable.
A group having a leader doesn't mean the group cannot value freedom. Leaders can be in that position for a variety of reasons. They are the most experienced, wise, or maybe they keep the group well organized.
A leader or organizer does not necessitate that the members of the group not be free. I think a lot of this video makes the assassins' ideology a straw-man argument. But that is likely because, as you said, the exact details of what kind of system the assassins would like has not been expanded upon.
I'm sure if some writer in modern times were to try, they'd make the assassins just have a really dumbed down ideology, so I'd rather they not touch that at all. It's better to leave it up to speculation rather than ruin it.
Do have to love this dude forgets to mention about the Templar plot to launch a Piece of Eden into the atmosphere to try to mind-control the entire Earth on a mass scale.
Order, purpose, direction! No more than that.
I mean freedom is great, but at a certain point, someone really needs to call the shots.
May the father of understanding guide us.
We have seen when assassin ran the city.. It was in Nassau in ac4 black flag.. It didn't end well
No, that was run by pirates up until where Sequence 7 takes place, when the British started to take control.
The corruption among assassins was literally seen from the first game, where your Mentor is a templar
He said AI to govern humanity and my first thought went to AM. Then again, humans messed that one up to get it like that.🤔
IMO is that you get the most freedom and equality when you're living in a small independent community, where direct democracy is feasible. However, the standards of living of the modern world are only possible in large communities.
I'm only half way through the video, but everything you talked about so far is in Karamora - russian miniseries from couple of years ago. It is set in pre revolutionary russian empire and it is about the conflict between anarchist terrorists and ruling elite who are secretly vampires. It is a better live action Assassins Creed than the movie was.
8:03 - this might be an interesting take but I think we do. The entire "Assassin's Creed" history, from AC1 IS indeed the world what Assassins fight for. Back to the Isu age, people were created as slaves, to do Isu's bidding. They were controlled, by the artefacts of Edan, to not think for themselves but to do what their masters wanted. After the humans broke the control, people got the freedom. Freedom to do what they wanted.
Well said
This is the kind of discussion that has been forgotten from current AC. The philosophical discussion about freedom itself. It's a shame that the series has gone for so long, it was pretty clear that the series was supposed to end a long time ago. Now the point of what these plots were supposed to be has faded away due to Ubisoft being Ubisoft. If you ever want to continue with the series, I recommend to stop at AC Origins, since it's when the series started to fall off for me. Not that this points of discussion isn't debated about (in fact, in Valhalla you can find audio files by Desmond actually debating these points while in the Grand Temple), but it is so hidden in the background that it might as well not be there.
I miss the games being about this.
Pricey
IMO, every point has been made already in AC-III and the fact is that the ubi should've moved on at that point instead of bragging us to prove a point which is totally pointless...
Haythem was spittin on the rooftop🔥🔥
Are we like 20 games into this series? I am literally incapable of conjuring any emotion for it other than indifference.
This is how i see it from an in-universe perspective:
Both Templars and Assassins know about the Precursors, and want humanity to reach that level of progress, they differ however in how they want to do make that happen.
The Templars have a very heavy handed approach, they'll make the change happen no matter the cost, the Assassins on the other are more subtle, and want to make the progress to be natural and not forced. Here's an example: we're in the 19th century, there is an island in the pacific inhabited by an isolated nation, they have a slavery and a caste system, their religion also practices human sacrifices;
The Assassins would infiltrate that island and start spreading new ideas, creating the conditions for change, and possibly a revolution;
The Templars would simply use the military might of the british empire to wipe out the local nobility and religion.
Good video
There's an important phrase to keep in mind
"There are two opinions: Mine, and the wrong one"
I agree, let’s say the assassins got what they want would they immediately assassinate anyone who comes into power? Essentially keeping the world in chaos, a comparison would be the new WHO zygon episode ms in particular the ones involving the 12th doctor. He gives a very similar take to haytham but in a different delivery. I’d like to see a game where the assassins get their utopia and where the hypocrisy of the creed is finally revealed.
Tbh the only one I liked was black flag, the other is was bored minutes in because I had to do a lot of sneaking, and black flag let me be a murder hobo or pirate in this case and because rich before I got the Jackdaw
I think the Assassins and Templars work well as an example of a conflict based on extremes. Or at least it did before everything went weird.
The first game was amazing the second also was a good game.
never went back to the series
There is always a particular magic in the origins of a video game series that first initial experience in that unique world was pretty special at the time after they redo and remastering essentially the experience reskinned 25 times over it's not as special anymore
A.I WILL END UP LIKE METAL GEAR SOLID 4
they are not even bothered to change the horse voices from 2017 with bayek
7:33 That was the point of the game😹. 3 was to show that the Templars were not unequivocally evil and that Connor had a very naive worldview.
I feel like both sides being flawed has always been acknowledged throughout the games.
Why does this video teach about history better then schools does
I've always thought AC's Assassin X Templar conflict was boring and juvenile in its presentation, which is why I loved the games that don't focus on it as much like IV