Whose Assassin's Creed? -- Looking at AC Origins

Having completed the main story in the new Assassin’s Creed Origins, I felt obliged to post my general impressions.  Please bear in mind that this is not a review so much as a collection of thoughts -- -- complete with spoilers.

The latest instalment of the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise has hit market and the consensus has been a positive one. I confess that I approached this game with some reservations.  I have written my own theory regarding the origins of the Assassins based on both the real-life history of the Assassin’s Creed and clues in the game, both of which consistently point to an origin in ancient Persia, not Egypt.  If I was expecting disappointment, then I was not let down.  From a gameplay standpoint the game was a very good game, but from a narrative and philosophical perspective the it failed.

One of the first essays written for this blog page looked at the idea of ritualising philosophy.  The Assassin’s Creed video game franchise was able to take an existing philosophy and create ritual, history, mythology, and symbolism around it.  For example, the phrase, “Nothing is true, Everything is permitted” first entered the English language in the 1960’s, French in the 1930’s, and German in 1818 where it was referred to as “the secret doctrine” of the Assassins.  The video game series gave this phrase a proper name, the Assassin’s Creed.  It is extremely likely that any future proper academic study of this phrase will refer to it as the Assassin’s Creed.  That is quite a contribution for a video game series.

I believe that Assassin’s Creed Origins in an attempt to provide an origin story undermined all that the series has accomplished thus far in creating this Existentialist lore.  The most obvious sins are the break from canon, the origin of the symbol, the devaluation of the Creed, and even a misrepresentation of the Templars.

Storytelling has been a means of illustrating philosophy since the beginning of both disciplines, but video games are not a storyteller’s medium.  A video game is first and foremost a game.  As I understand the process of video game production, the game is pretty much complete before the writers start and the writing must accommodate the game play.  This is in stark contrast with traditional storytelling where there is no film or play without a script.  These writers begin with a blank page, whereas video game writers have to work within an obstacle course to tell their story.  This is even more difficult with historical fiction where the story has to weave through established historical events.

Another obstacle for the writer is canon.  Remember the children’s game where everyone in a circle tells part of a story?  Now imagine the same game except this time the players are writers each telling their piece of the greater story over many years.  On the one hand they want to tell their own story, but on the other they are bound by the parameters established by previous writers.  

Maintaining a consistent canon has become important to fans in our age of franchise storytelling.  The Star Trek, Star Wars, and Marvel comics (not cinema) have all rubbed fans the wrong way this past year by releasing materials that contradict either canon or an individual's idea of how fictional characters and worlds should be portrayed.

I for one do not envy these creators.  Their work is judged by fans with strong feeling for these stories.  The feelings fans have for fictional characters, and to degree fictional realities, stem from what are known as parasocial relationships, where the relationship is one sided.  The fan knows all about Han Solo, but Han Solo does not know the fan exists. Or, to make it a bit more grounded, the person writing Han Solo does not know the individual fan exists.  The stories unfold independent of the fan and he has no power as to where it will go.  Captain America can be written to say, “Hail Hydra” and fans are powerless to stop it because they do not own these franchises, the corporations do.  As a result, fans feel betrayed.

The Assassin’s Creed franchise has a very poor track record when it comes to maintaining a consistent canon, and fans are often forced to do all sorts of mental gymnastics to keep the greater story consistent.  Assassin’s Creed Origins is no different.

Here’s an example of these gymnastics in action. In Assassin's Creed II there are seven statues of previous Assassins in the Sanctuary beneath Monteriggioni.  For those who pre-date the setting for Origins, the Assassin’s Creed Wiki has updated their status from Assassins to “proto-Assassins” to keep the canon consistent.  One might point out that these statues bear the Assassin symbol on their clothing thus making them true Assassins.  To fix this we now must call this artistic license on the part of the sculptor because according to the new story the symbol was not created until 44 BCE.  Fans should not have to work this hard to keep a story straight.

Before AC Origins, the oldest known Assassin in the canon (to my knowledge) was Darius, who killed King Xerxes I in 465 BCE in Persia.  According to the established lore, he was the first to use the hidden blade.  It has been speculated that this is the blade given to Aya by Cleopatra who in turn gives it to Bayek in AC Origins.  The path of the blade is easily speculated.  Alexander the Great found it in Persia and gave it to his general Ptolemy where it remained in his family until the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra, passed it on.  So, we can say that some effort was made to maintain canon.  Another connection to canon is the revelation that the assassin Amunet, depicted among the statues in Monteriggioni, is a pseudonym used by Aya.  Despite these attempts, I still believe that AC Origins should have been set in 6th century BCE Persia, perhaps with Darius as the protagonist, but this is not the story the game makers wanted to tell.  They wanted the Egyptian setting and the story was forced into the existing mould even if it broke the mould in the process.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag was accused of being a pirate game masquerading as an Assassin’s Creed game.  I found this not to be the case and consider it to be one of the best in terms of mythology.  Origins however really is just an Egyptian setting posing as an Assassin’s Creed game.  We see no progress of the ideological underpinnings of the Assassins Brotherhood.  There is no great change of character or discovery of purpose like we see in Edward Kenway. The game is played as Bayek the medjay until the very end when Aya, his wife, basically lays out the Assassin’s Brotherhood in full. It has been pointed out by fans that it is Aya who acquires the hidden blade, creates the Assassin’s symbol, and establishes the brotherhood, and yet she is not the central protagonist.  Bayak essentially just follows her lead.

Regarding the Assassin’s symbol, I have argued that it is likely a negative space image of a flame rising from an oil lamp called a diwali.  The flame representing enlightenment and the pursuit of wisdom, a common theme among the Assassins throughout the series.  While researching this I came upon another theory suggesting that the symbol is a representation of the palate bone of an eagle.  I dismissed this as nonsense and never added it to my essay on the subject, but lo and behold this is now the canonical meaning.  

In AC Origins, Bayek wears an eagle skull around his neck.  When he rejects his position as medjay he throws it onto a beach. To this point in the story we are not told why he wears this skull.  It is certainly not shown to be the symbol of his position as medjay.  Then Aya, for some unknown reason, lifts the skull to find the Assassin’s symbol imprinted on the sand and adopts this imprint as the symbol for “the Hidden Ones”.  We the audience are being told that this is its origin.

When people unfamiliar with Assassin’s Creed see this “logo”, some assume it to be the Masonic compass. Other’s simply ask me what it means.  People expect symbols to have meaning.  I was comfortable to tell them it represented the flame of enlightenment rather than something so trivial as a video game logo.  With the first interpretation I was identifying myself as someone committed to the idea of enlightenment, but the second meaning trivialises it saying that I am a fan of a corporate product.  

According to the new official meaning the symbol does not mean enlightenment.  It is not symbolic of a flame or even an eagle.  It is the representation of an eagle’s skull.  Now it is simply a mark that refers to the Brotherhood of Assassins.  It is effectively now just a logo that means nothing.

There is another scene that bothered me where a member of the Order of Ancients says that Julius Caesar is the Father of Understanding.  Before Origins, the Templars would refer to the Father of Understanding as a sort of vague higher power.  This is in keeping with the conspiracy theory stating that the Masons are the modern Knights Templar.  To be a Mason, the only religious requirement is a belief in a higher power no matter how vague.  This being is sometimes referred to as the Supreme Architect, or creator.  Ultimately, the Father of Understanding is a god of order. It is right that the Templars refer to themselves as an order with the word’s double meaning as both a group of individuals and the concept of order itself, as opposition to the chaos bred by freedom.  Now Origins would have us believe that their “god” is Julius Caesar, a great general but not a great philosopher and hardly a father of understanding.

This trivialisation continues with the Creed itself.  For a series that calls itself Assassin’s Creed, it is amazing how inconsistent the series is regarding the Creed.  As mentioned in previous posts of mine, the series presents us with two versions and again the fans have to bend over backwards to make it consistent.  One version I call the Assassin’s Code for clarification.  A code is a standard of behaviour whereas a creed is a belief.  The Assassin’s Code is described in the three tenets: hide in plain sight, do not harm the innocent, and do not betray the brotherhood.  What I see as the Creed is, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

As with many games before, the characters in AC Origin refer to the Creed, but never actually speak it, so it is never clear whether they are referring to the Code or the Creed.  The games seem to indicate that the original Creed was the Code, but after the reformation of the Brotherhood by Altair it was changed to the Creed, but this is never confirmed in the games.  This leaves us wondering because some games say the one, some games say the other, and some say nothing at all. In AC Origins we have a scene with Bayek declaring his commitment to his new creed, but he never actually says what this new creed is.  In another scene, Bayek and Aya speak of protecting the people and remaining hidden, so it seems their new creed is the Assassin’s Code. This seems to be consistent with the canon, but we are never told what this creed is.

As for the Assassin’s Creed, this is mentioned in two side missions. In one, Bayek helps a stutterer who later has no stutter.  When Bayek asks about this he is told that the speaker only stutters when he is nervous.  Bayek responds by saying, “I suppose nothing is true”.  The other scene involves a storyteller who tells a highly embellished story which he claimed to be true.  When Bayek questions this he is told that when telling a story “everything is permitted”.  These two scenes felt like being struck in face by a contrived Easter egg that trivialised the philosophical importance of the Creed.

With what I have written thus far it may seem that I did not like the game.  I did like it, but only as video game.  I felt that not only did it fail to contribute any meaning to the lore, it completed disregarded or trivialised it.  It highlighted the divide between the Assassin’s Creed franchise and the philosophy that once supported it.  Ubisoft owns the rights to Assassin’s Creed and they are the ones to decide the story and the meanings.  

The human soul is essentially made of story.  Stories are the language of consciousness.  Our past and future are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves.  The same holds true for our hopes, dreams, and fears.  Therefore, we form an affinity for the stories that resonate with us, but sometimes that we forget that they are not our stories and we are left disappointed when the storytellers remind us of that fact.

The stories of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Sherlock Holmes are part of our collective culture.  Sure, King Arthur and Robin Hood are from legends, but a character like Sherlock Holmes only entered the public domain in 2014.  If not for countless court cases, characters like Superman, Batman, Mickey Mouse, and Bugs Bunny would all be public domain characters by now.  Star Trek just turned 50 and traditionally copyrights expired after 35-70 years, but I doubt very much that the Enterprise crew will become public domain after 2037.

So, we find ourselves in an interesting position.  On the one hand we psychologically bond with these stories, but on the other, they are not our stories with which to bond.  It is kind of like renting your home instead of buying it.  You have an emotional attachment to the place, but ultimately it is not yours.  

Ubisoft is a games company and they are in the business of making entertaining video games.  If the trend means having the Assassins wear pink tutus they will do it.  It just so happens that at present they are aligning their stories to existent history and philosophy that forms a core belief system that transcends into the real world, and yet I feel Origins took a major step backward in that regard.  In other words, it was a great game but not a great story from the lore perspective.  

I was reminded that Assassin’s Creed may be owned by Ubisoft and as the owners and caretakers of that lore they decide its origins, however, before there was Assassin’s Creed, there was the Assassin’s Creed and that belongs to us all.