Better late than never

We are slowly running out of time, we have to take action. We have to demand, we have to scream. There was time to be polite, but It’s over now.

Haytham talks like a Templar, there's no denying that, but his actions don't match his words like, at all. He claims to want "order, purpose and direction" but he's even more unpredictable than Edward was when he was younger. He always runs head first into danger without thinking (which always gets him in trouble and he has to be saved by someone else), killed a Templar grandmaster for personal revenge (revenge is an Assassins trope - see for instance Ezio, Connor, Arno, Kassandra, the beginning of Eivor's story, and most importantly Bayek and Aya), went against Lee's decision to have Connor executed at the last minute and saved him without anyone ever knowing, dropped off the face of the Earth to go on a camping trip with his girlfriend and had to be tracked down and pestered by Lee to focus on his damn job, heck even his endorsement of Lee is practically a whole façade. He says he supports him but in his journal he literally wrote that Charles doesn't have what it takes to be in Washington's place (he also says he's "too British to get the support of the American people" which is hilarious coming from him) and he honestly sounds so done with the Order as a whole. And one of the most un-Templar things he did was to drop the search for the Precursor site after he realized he didn't hold the right key, and literally no other Templar Grandmaster would've ever done that. The Borgias, Vidic, Germain, the Order members of Bayek's time, heck even Torres (who's the only grandmaster other than Haytham I actually like as a character) were ready to kill anyone standing in their way to access whatever precursor site / Isu artefact they were after. Haytham was sent to the Colonies to get to the Temple. He found it, realized he didn't have the key, and instead of causing unnecessary bloodshed trying to find whatever would open it, he dropped the whole thing and left the site untouched.

And oh, he's the one who had to tell Connor that the "freedom" Washington and the Founding Fathers were promising only concerned white men (or as he calls them, "privileged cowards") and not the natives, and he was mad that Connor couldn't see that. But the Templars are meant to operate in the exact same way, so why speak of the concept of oligarch government with so much bitterness and vitriol ? If his problem was with the Founding Fathers themselves, he would've said so, like he initially did with Washington and his lacklustre battle record. But he didn't. He talked about privilege. His issue was the fact that they didn't give a shit about anyone other than themselves. WHICH AGAIN, is literally Templar ideology, but apparently Haytham doesn't subscribe to that.

haytham spent his entire life acting like a walking contradiction because that's exactly what he was. being bred for a certain future from a young age, only to be ripped from that and groomed for a very different kind of future. he was failed by his primary caregiver**, then deliberately isolated from anyone else who ever knew or genuinely cared about him. poor baby never had a chance in hell.

(**and i know there's the debate of 'did reginald threaten tessa into giving up haytham or was she genuinely traumatised by haytham taking someone's life in front of her' , but either way, to me it's a failure on her part)

haytham doesn't truly know who the real him is, and by the time he starts to realise that this is the case (ie, when he learns the truth about birch and kills him), he's much too old and alone and psychologically worn down to change it.

There's a lot of talk going around about Haytham letting Connor kill him. Not only do I think it's 100% a fact, I think this is one of the reasons he did it. Not because he knew death was his only way out, but because he saw in Connor what he knows deep down he should've been. Connor is his legacy — not the American rite. I don't think Haytham sent Lee away to protect him. I think he sent him away to make sure Lee wouldn't kill Connor.

His last words to Connor are also telling. "I won't caress your cheek and tell you I was wrong, I'm sure you understand." I don't think Haytham is saying that to make Connor believe he has no regrets — if that was the case then he wouldn't have left him his journal, because that thing made it pretty clear that he's at the very least very unhappy with how his life turned out. Haytham can't bring himself to admit that his whole life was a lie. That's a reality he's just unable to face. It's too hard for him to admit that he's been the puppet of the man who killed his hero, his father, this entire time. I think he clings onto the Templar Order partly as a way to prove to himself that no, he wasn't manipulated — that he has made his own mind, that this is his own choice, that he's doing exactly what Edward taught him to do. That way it doesn't feel like he's failed his father by serving the monster who betrayed and killed him.

Denial is his only coping mechanism because facing the truth would probably break him apart. The void inside of him is already crushing as it is. So his only way to move forward is to stick to what he knows, even if his values are in complete opposition with it.

No more " you can choose" . Give me a woman born in the brotherhood like the frye but let me see her grow up in it. Childhood training mission. First kill. Introduction to the council and the creed. Being "brainwash" in believing she is doing good.

Or make her a commoner, a child brought into the creed and who realize that all the people at the top of the brotherhood are often aristocrats who never had to let go of their freedom to live the next day.

Let her be devoted to the cause let me see her be even a bit naive in what she believes.

Then let her grow like you let ezio and altair do. Make her cocky but also wise. Not just a living punchlines machine or a disapproving female figure. Do not make her relation to a man the core of her story.

Show her question what she is doing. Make her afraid of being shun by the brotherhood, the only thing, the only rules and life she ever knew. Let her fight for what she knows is a good cause but not what she believes in anymore. Let her loose and get hurt.

Let her rebuild herself. Let her be friend with historic people who are more than cameo and merchants npc and show her what fighting from freedom can mean. What living for yourself can mean.

Show her habits. Show her discovering small pleasures in life that are seen wasteful as an assassin : Her favourite food. Her favourite book.

Make her assassin robes evolve as her fashion tastes and identity evolve too.

No more " you can choose" . Give me a woman born in the brotherhood like the frye but let me see her grow up in it. Childhood training mission. First kill. Introduction to the council and the creed. Being "brainwash" in believing she is doing good.

Or make her a commoner, a child brought into the creed and who realize that all the people at the top of the brotherhood are often aristocrats who never had to let go of their freedom to live the next day.

Let her be devoted to the cause let me see her be even a bit naive in what she believes.

Then let her grow like you let ezio and altair do. Make her cocky but also wise. Not just a living punchlines machine or a disapproving female figure. Do not make her relation to a man the core of her story.

Show her question what she is doing. Make her afraid of being shun by the brotherhood, the only thing, the only rules and life she ever knew. Let her fight for what she knows is a good cause but not what she believes in anymore. Let her loose and get hurt.

Let her rebuild herself. Let her be friend with historic people who are more than cameo and merchants npc and show her what fighting from freedom can mean. What living for yourself can mean.

Show her habits. Show her discovering small pleasures in life that are seen wasteful as an assassin : Her favourite food. Her favourite book.

Make her assassin robes evolve as her fashion tastes and identity evolve too.

If during the strike, it's announced about AI generated shows. We are not watching them. Not even out of curiosity. Let them fail every AI generated show they try make.

Codextober Day 18: Novice

death to fascists. capitalism is a tool designed to subjugate the masses. corporate monopolies are inherently evil. do not trust the government. the laws of man are not reflections of morality. respect life but don’t be afraid to take it. make sure that in slaying monsters you do not become one.

assassins creed games now:

And I can fight you on this