Politics behind Assassin's Creed

[DROSL]

So here it comes, I'd like know what you think about Assassin's Creed. Some of you may not know it, but primarily here comes the entire plot in a few lines (taken from Wikipedia)


The Assassin's Creed games take place in 2012, and feature Desmond Miles, a bartender who is a descendant of several lines of prominent Assassins; though raised as an Assassin, he fled his nomadic family to seek out a more common lifestyle. He is initially kidnapped by the megacorporation Abstergo Industries, the modern-day face of the Knights Templar who are aware of Desmond's lineage. Desmond is forced to use the "Animus", a device that allows him to experience his ancestral memories. Abstergo is seeking to discover the location of several artifacts, or "Pieces of Eden", that hold great power, to control mankind and alter its fate, bringing humanity into a single unified group. Desmond also encounters a small team of modern-day Assassins; agreeing to work with them, Desmond uses their version of the Animus (the Animus 2.0) to continue to experience the memories of his ancestors to discover the locations of additional Pieces of Eden so they can be recovered before Abstergo can do so. While experiencing these memories, some of their abilities are genetically leaked into Desmond, known as the Bleeding Effect, giving him some of the Assassin skills of his predecessors at the cost of living with multiple sets of memories and personalities in his mind.
Within the Animus, Desmond explores the memories of Assassins Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, an initially disgraced Assassin working to redeem himself during the Third Crusade; Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Assassin in Italy during the late 15th and early 16th centuries of the Renaissance; and Ratohnhaké:ton, otherwise known as Connor, a half-Mohawk, half-British Assassin during the American Revolution. Throughout these events, Desmond learns of allusions to the prophetic end of the world in 2012 from a former Animus test subject, Subject 16, as well as from holographic figures of a species pre-dating humanity. Many years ago a massive solar flare nearly wiped out all life and a second threatens to do the same. With the second solar flare fast approaching, it is up to Desmond to use the memories of his ancestors to acquire their knowledge, learn the truth and find the Pieces of Eden to save humanity.


Now, I'd like to know, for those of you who played it, what you thought about it.

I personally thought it was liberal and borderline anarchist.

I think it's a positive discussion to have concerning what kids are watching can change their perspective on life.

What I found cheesy was that everything bad in life is the completely created by Templars. (the bad guys)

Basically the fight between the two can be resumed like this: Assassins (freedom) and Templars (control)

[Red Commissar]

Basically the fight between the two can be resumed like this: Assassins (freedom) and Templars (control)

Yeah, that's pretty much the whole theme of the series there. The Assassins broadly believe in a form of enlightenment through education while the Templars take a more Hobbesean view of society that they have to guide it to that point or humanity will cannibalize themselves. And then...



Plus all that jazz about the First Civilization or what ever. That was veeeery weird but I guess they were heading in that direction anyways seeing as the Eden tools were basically filling the whole "something so futuristic seems magical" trope.



And I agree, the dichotomy is cheesy, I think sometimes they made the story run around itself too much. Thankfully, they were good at designing the environment, cities, and the atmosphere- it was nice just to explore the regions.

One thing that I found amusing was their spin on 1800s and onwards. They basically position that the Templars in effect were the driving force behind capitalism's spread and that many of the captains of industry were among their ranks. Interestingly the left-wing in Russia were where the assassins operated strongly and Lenin's executed brother was recast as an assassin. Lenin himself was a sympathizer as a result.

The series takes the position though that after Lenin the Soviet Union was gradually subverted by the Templars to the point that Stalin was in effect a Templar plant. Pretty much all the powers in dubya dubya too were templar plants and they maintained control over USSR and China, both as an experiment in centralization as well as basically to make their capitalism look good by comparison.

One of the odder things they have is that the Templars and Assassins got involved in the 2000 US election, with the Templars backing Bush and the Assassins backing Gore. So yeah they have a liberal flair.

That being said sometimes (american) libertarians try to assume exclusive bragging rights to the idea of liberty and cast everyone else as authoritarians so I'd be interested in seeing if they've tried to recruit this for their own weird interpretations.