Ethan Frye's Legacy: Exploring Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

It may come as a surprise to players of the game Assassin Creed Syndicate to know that the most pivotal character in the game does not actually appear in the game.  In fact, he is scarcely mentioned by name.  I refer of course to Ethan Frye, the father of the game’s protagonists, the twins Evie and Jacob Frye.

Our story begins in February 1868 with the inaugural mission of the twins.  They are filled with the hope of youth, having just turned twenty the previous November, and as their minds imagine the future possibilities there is a shadow.  Their father died of pleurisy less than a month earlier and his death is still fresh in their hearts as evidenced by their repeatedly references to him over the course of the game. What would father say?  What would father do?  It is what father would have wanted.  You sound just like father.  The ghost of Ethan Frye lingers throughout AC Syndicate.

The word syndicate means a joint collaboration, but also has certain criminal implications, such as the mob or a gang.  On the surface, the game invokes the underworld meaning, however the central theme and messages in the game indicate the former.  The collaboration is the union of Evie and Jacob as the two halves of Ethan Frye.  Each twin has a particular aspect their father.  Ethan was studious like Evie and impetuous and daring like Jacob.  In this singular person it worked, but in two different people we see division and hostility until the end when the two come together and vanquish the villain as one.  The name Syndicate works, but it could just as easily have been called Synthesis.  The story is about the reunion of Ethan Frye through his children.

THE FAMILY FRYE

One of the hallmarks of the Assassin’s Creed series is the use of names as Easter Eggs. For example, the names Altair and Ezio both refer to eagles. Edward Keyway’s pirate ship and Jacob Frye’s street gang are both named for members of the crow family, the Jackdaw and the Rooks.  In AC Syndicate, the name Frye comes from the Old English meaning free, as in free-born.  This is in keeping with the recurring theme of freedom throughout the series.

Evie’s name is of course a diminutive of the name Eve, from the Hebrew meaning life or to live, so Evie Frye literally means live free.  The name Eve appears also in the AC storyline pertaining to the human uprising against "The Ones Who Came Before” where Eve leads the rebellion with the implication that she was the basis for the Biblical Eve and the beginning of the Assassin lineage.  Whether the naming of the character Evie is intended to be a direct reference to the ancestral Eve is unclear, however I like to believe that Ethan knew the history and named his daughter after her.

Among of the most popular names in Western Culture are variations of James.  Jesus had a disciple and a brother both called James.  The name comes from the Hebrew name Jacob.  The original Jacob in the Bible was the son of Abraham’s son Isaac.  Like Jacob Frye, the Biblical Jacob was a second-born twin, literally grasping the heel of his brother Esau at birth.  The name Jacob means supplanter, someone who wrongfully takes the place of another.  Jacob was born clutching the heel of his brother, as if he was attempting to pull him aside to pass him in the birth canal to achieve first-born status.  As an adult, Jacob had a name change.  The story goes that he had a night long wrestling match with a mysterious stranger who renames him Israel, meaning “he who wrestles with God.” 

The names Jacob and Israel share a common theme.  Both infer a refusal to accept fate or one’s lot in life.  In this sense, the name reflects the second half of the Creed.  Everything is permitted.  We see this repeatedly in Jacob Frye as he is constantly pushing possibilities regardless of how impossible or crazy they seem to others.

Another recurring feature in the Assassin’s Creed series is this tendency to include ethnic or national heritage in their character creation.  Three of the Assassins featured in the games are of mixed race, Altair, Conor Kenway, and Aveline, while Arno is described as being half Austrian and half French.  We know that Edward Kenway is specifically Welsh but grew-up in England and of course Ezio Auditore is Italian.  Strangely, the ethnic or national heritage of the Fryes is completely missing. 

In examining these names, I discovered that the names Ethan, Evie, and Jacob are all of Hebrew origin.  Not to mention the choice to use the name Jacob rather than the more common James or Jim.  There is a Jewish name Frye, but that comes into Yiddish through Russian and refers to a sucker or a mark and does not fit the characters as well as the English origin of the name does.  However, it is interesting to speculate the possibility that Ethan’s wife Cecily was English and that Ethan was Jewish.  The twins would not technically be considered Jewish since their mother was not, but this would be in keeping with the mixed-race themes in the series and give us our first half-Jewish Assassins.  It would also highlight the important roles played by Jews in Victorian society, for example Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was Jewish, and hints at the rise of anti-Semitism that would come to London in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

Finally, we see in Evie and Jacob (and Henry Green) the first legacy Assassins in the series since Altair.  I coined the term legacy Assassins to describe Assassins who were born and raised within the context of the order by one or both parents and have full knowledge of the Assassins.  Ezio was raised by Assassin parents, but not within the context of the Order or with full knowledge.  Connor and Aveline came to the Assassins as children, but were not born into it or guided by their parents.  Edward Kenway, Adewale, and Arno Dorian all came to the Assassins as adults.  As for Haytham Kenway, his father Edward took a similar approach to child rearing as Ezio’s father, Giovanni.  The children were taught skills and concepts, but without full disclosure as to why they had sword training when other children did not.

This gives us an interesting picture of the Fryes as a family of Assassins.  Ethan was likely a legacy Assassin judging by how young he was on his first mission.  His wife, Cecily, was an Assassin, though she was not born into it.  The twins were raised as Assassins, and so was Jacob's son and his grand-daughter, Lydia.  There is no telling if the legacy continues after Lydia, but there is a passing reference to an Emmett Frye in the modern day. So there is the possibility that the Frye Assassins cover over two-hundred years of history.

Legacy Assassins pose an ethical dilemma concerning how we raise children.  For the Assassins, freedom is the highest value, and yet they raise their children in a way that removes their freedom.   As Altair points out, he never had a choice in becoming an Assassin.  It was all that he ever knew so he could not can compare other options.  Ethan describes it this way in the novel Underworld.

What we are doing is right. My doubt, lies in the application of that ideology, and this doubt is what keeps me awake at night, wondering if we fail our children by moulding them into our image, when in fact we should be teaching them to follow a path of their own.

Every parent wants to impart to their children the right way to live.  For a Christian parent, this means raising your child to be a Christian.  I never gave much credence to the let the children decide approach.  Without teaching religion at a formative age, the child would not have the capacity for faith later in life.  Second, if a parent truly believed, then choice is not an option.  If you believe a stove is hot, then you will teach your child to avoid hot stoves. If a parent believes in eternal hellfire, then they would raise their children to avoid it.  Giovanni Auditore and Edward Kenway chose to teach around the Assassin training without directly training their children.  This approach left both children vulnerable.  It worked for Ezio, but Haytham was much younger and fell into Templar hands to be raised.  In the end. Ethan raised his children to be Assassins, and this worked best for them because they were part of a community.

THE DIVISION OF LABOUR

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is touted as the first game set in the Modern Era.  For the majority of human existence not much had changed.  The big shift happened with the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent birth of the Modern.  The world changed dramatically.  One of the principle features of the Modern is the division of labour and this is a key theme in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.  Remember, a syndicate is a joint collaboration.  This is many parts working together, like cogs in a machine, to accomplish a shared goal.

Underworld gives important backstory to the events of the game.  Henry Green, the leader of the London Assassins, was born Jayadeep Mir, the son of Arbaaz Mir, the protagonist in the Indian chapter of the Assassin's Creed Chronicles game and originally featured in the comic book Assassin’s Creed Brahman. 

Needless to say, Arbaaz was proud of his son who proved to be a natural Assassin in terms of skill and technique, however Ethan Frye, Jayadeep’s teacher, saw something dangerous in the boy.  He lacked the killer instinct.  Unfortunately, his warnings went unheeded and Jayadeep went on his inaugural mission only to fail to make the kill.  To the Assassins, an Assassin who could not kill was of no use.  Worse than that, it meant death for poor Jayadeep.  Fortunately, Ethan intervened.

Ethan had a unique perspective.  He stood at the crossroads of the Pre-modern and the Modern.  The Assassins could be described as philosopher-warriors, but first and foremost, they killed Templars.  For the Indian Brotherhood, you could not be an Assassin and not be a killer.  However, the modern world would be characterised by the division of labour.  People of different skills working where their skills were of the most use for the benefit of the whole organisation.  Ethan saw that one need not be a killer to be an Assassin and recognised that Jayadeep’s skills lie in networking.  He may not be a killer, but he would be an excellent spy.

We see this division of labour in Ethan’s children.  Evie is the scholar and Jacob is the warrior.  Technically, Evie is the better fighter, but since this was a natural gift she never regarded it much.  She preferred learning.  Her fighting style is direct, calculated, and technical.  Jacob is less technical and more brute force.  His concern is getting the job done.

Evie represents the past.  She knows the history and folklore of the Assassins and can be both a philosopher and a warrior.  Jacob is the future.  His concern is with the now and accomplishing the mission at hand regardless of consequences. Evie is too enamoured with the past and Jacob is too concerned with the moment regardless of past examples or future consequences.  It is interesting to note that Evie believes in ghosts, remnants of the past, while Jacob does not.

Here is where the division of labour falls apart.  It is important for each part to value the other parts.  The spy, the philosopher, and the warrior all have value to the whole and none is more important than the others.  This mutual respect for the talents of others on your team is necessary for the division of labour to work.  Eventually, the twins learn to work together through mutual respect for each other’s unique perspectives and talents.

 THE DIVIDED CREED

Another division in the twins is the Creed itself.  Evie has set herself on a critical pursuit of the Truth, as dictated by the first part of the Creed, “Nothing is True”.  Jacob is a man of action representing “Everything is Permitted”.  During the course of the story both characters conflict with their evil counterparts who represent these areas of focus taken to extremes.  Evie has Lucy Thorne and for Jacob its Maxwell Roth.

For Evie, the purpose of knowledge is enlightenment, but for Lucy knowledge is power to be utilised for her ends.  Instead of being a light to share, it is a light to be kept and exploited.  In Aristotelian ethics, vices are the extremes of virtues.  Courage is a virtue but in its two extremes we find the vices of cowardice and rashness.  The pursuit of wisdom could be called a virtue.  Evie often mocks Jacob, first in jest and then seriously, for what she perceives as foolishness.  That is one of the extremes and the one most are familiar with daily, but what would the other extreme look like?  Is it possible to be too wise?

Wisdom is not possible without the capacity for abstract thought.  People who use too little abstract thought only see the concrete in front of them at the moment.  They do not consider things like underlying principles, potential consequences, or implications.  These people are commonly deemed fools.  Those at the opposite end are the “intellectual morons”.  The have too much abstract thought.  These are the people with all brains and no sense.  They only see the concepts in their minds and miss the concrete right in front of them.  We also see this with people with book knowledge but no experiential knowledge.  Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a handy word for this vice.  There is foolishness at one end of the spectrum, but nothing for the opposite end.  I have chosen to call this fancifulness. 

Granted, the word fanciful has a light air about it and hardly seems appropriate to describe a villain like Lucy Thorne.  She is cold, arrogant, and cruel.  These attitudes are symptomatic of a defensive posture.  It is not difficult for people with a large capacity for abstract thought to view others as stupid and to feel outnumbered by them.  There is a tendency to become impatient with fools and to develop an arrogant stance towards them.  For those who take abstract thinking to the extreme, people, things, and events are all secondary to the person’s idea of them which can lead to the objectification and exploitation of others.  An example that comes to mind is the way wealthy politicians, who have no direct experience of poverty or the poor, will exploit the idea of the poor to justify policies that will ultimately benefit themselves.

Lucy is quick to tell a henchman that a chest containing research documents is of more value than his life and the life of his family.  Once Evie obtains the chest, she is forced to abandon it to save herself and Jacob from their pursuers.  Jacob sees the adventure as a bit of fun, but for Evie this is the beginning of the wedge that will separate them because she blames Jacob for the loss.  So were the contents of the chest more valuable to Evie than her relationship with her brother, or did it simply confirm her perception of him as a meddling idiot?  Later, Evie bemoans the loss of artifacts in Edward Kenway’s mansion.  Here, Henry Green provides balance by reminding her that they could come back for it or perhaps find something better. 

Several times Evie repeats the mantra, “Do not allow personal feelings to compromise the mission”.   She learned this from her father.  It is only later that she discovers that Ethan adopted this stance as a response to grief following the death of his wife Cecile in child birth.

I love the character of Evie Frye.  She is filled with delight at learning something new possessed of a childlike enthusiasm.  Yet, as the game proceeds we see her become colder and colder as if she is on the path to becoming her shadow, Lucy Thorn.  Fortunately, Evie learns that her brother is not a fool.  He just has a different perspective and sometimes he is right.  Sometimes you have to act on the fly and there is no time to plan.

“Nothing is True” should serve as a warning to Evie against fancifulness and intellectual arrogance.  No matter how knowledgeable or enlightened we think we are, there is always the possibility that we will be proven wrong.  Also, no matter how much we know, someone with less knowledge may know things that we do not.  Ignoring the Creed in this instance would lead Evie to disaster, but in the end it saved her.

Critics have described AC Syndicate as Victorian Arkham City.  I don’t see that as a negative.  If this is true, then Maxwell Roth is the Joker.  He takes the literal interpretation of “Everything is Permitted” to its extreme and forces Jacob to face it.

At first, there was a certain comradery between Jacob and Roth.  Jacob had not long been in London before he began recounting his dream of becoming a “firm but fair” gang leader, and now he was in the presence of the actual leader of the London gangs.  Roth was equally impressed with Jacob’s accomplishments, despite these being at the expense of his own self-interests.  This mutual respect came to a sudden end when Jacob realised that for Roth everything being permitted included killing children as collateral damage.  Soon after, Roth set a trap for Jacob where he happily set fire to his own theatre.  In the wake of the chaos, as Roth lay dying from Jacob’s blade, the Assassin asks him, “Why did you do it?  All of it?”  Roth answers with a crazed smile, “For the same reason I do anything.  Why not?”

For those encountering the Creed for the first time, their immediate fear is that “Everything is Permitted” is a licence to anarchy and hedonism.  Throughout the game series, we see that this is not the meaning.  However, only now do we have a character who lives by the literal interpretation.  Roth is a monster.  The word monster is from the Latin meaning, “a warning” and serves as a moral example in narrative fiction.  Frankenstein’s Monster is a warning against meddling with powers beyond your control.  Maxwell Roth is a warning about literally interpreting the Creed.

As with Evie’s encounter with her shadow, Jacob’s youthful devil-may-care attitude could easily have evolved into Roth’s dark take on the Creed.  Jacob had the potential to become Roth.  Fortunately, Jacob recognised the warning.  He learned that everything is not permitted and came to realise what he already knew and what Evie tried to remind him.  That actions have consequences and to deny this will lead to madness.

FORMING A SYNDICATE

How does it feel to be wrong?  It feels exactly like being right.  People do not go through life thinking that they are wrong.  They may well be wrong, but they don’t know that.  So how do we get better at being right?

One of the problems faced today is what can best be called a lack of diversity.  True diversity is a variety of points of view, not a variety of skin-colours and gender representations.  Through the internet we are able to surround ourselves with people and information confirming what we already believe to be true and protecting our sensibilities against disagreement.   As a result, we are never challenged with new and different ways of seeing the world.  We are never placed into a position where we realise that we are wrong.

It is said that friends are God’s apology for family.  The difference is that we can chose our friends as people that we perceive to be like us.  They confirm our biases whereas family is more inclined to call us out.  They have nothing to lose because they are family and will always be family.  It is this familial bond that forces Evie and Jacob together even when they want to go their separate ways.  They are united as the children of Ethan Frye.

Diversity is not as advertised with people of all races, genders, social classes, and creeds sitting around in a grand love fest.  True diversity is about conflict and power.   Prior to the Eighteenth Century, the word diversity meant to be contrary to what is agreeable or right, often interpreted as wickedness.  A society had to work together to survive and diversity was contrary to that necessary unity.  With the advent of Classical Liberalism, the word took a positive turn.  Concentrated power was seen as a negative and the will of the social whole as expressed through democracy as being mob rule, therefore a danger to individual liberty.  Diversity became a sort of balance of power within society itself.  If no one group held absolute power, then liberty could be protected.  Diversity was seen as a safeguard against group-think and the herd mentality.  Ideally, it is through the conflict born of diversity that the stronger ideas rose to the top.

Imagine if the friendship between Jacob and Maxwell Roth had blossomed.  After all, they had much in common.  Evie and Lucy Thorne got off on the wrong foot, but they also had similar interests.  Relationships with these people would have been terrible for the twins.  Instead, they had each other to force themselves through conflict into the realisation that they were wrong.  Well, not wrong per se, rather to see the value of another person’s mode of action.

Just as diversity was seen originally a balance of power, so too are our beneficial relationships those that balance us out to make us better people.  Jacob helps Evie to let go and live a little, while Evie teaches Jacob the importance of taking responsibility for the consequences one’s action.  Through their syndicate, they let go of their pride and their prejudices to become more complete people.

In this sense, the idea of Ethan Frye becomes a goal symbolising balance and completion.  The last mention of Ethan Frye is in the very last scene where Evie turns to Jacob to say, “Father would be proud of you.”  In the context of the story, this is the highest compliment she could pay her brother.  He responds by saying, “Race you to the train” and she answers, “You’re on.”  They dash off leaving a bewildered Henry Green.  In the face of their great achievement, the twins are still challenging each other through competition to achieve more together despite their differences.  

If we see the twins as an example to follow, then we should not be afraid to have diversity in our lives and to form syndicates with those people.  There may not be agreement, but that is okay.  Nor do we have to compromise ourselves.  What we do need to do is to have mutual respect for each other despite our differences and hopefully learn to become better people through the experience.