Getting real tired of the AC fandom's attitude towards Ratonhnhaké:ton with their "he's just some angry guy" narrative (and by "getting tired" I mean I've been sick of it since Day 1, but I digress). AS IF HE ISN'T JUSTIFIED IN HIS ANGER THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GAME.
Like, his anger at Charles Lee is completely justified by him believing he was behind his mother's death for 15 years. He grew up with that in mind. Finding out one day that it was some other guy after all this time doesn't magically undo the hatred you hold for someone, especially if they traumatised you as a child. It doesn't undo the bit where Lee strangled him when he was just a boy and called his people dirty savages — just having this mentality makes him dangerous. Lee holds power, he's still a danger to his people, his focus won't be shifting away just because his mother was killed by a different Big Bad White Man™.
But more than that, Ratonhnhaké:ton works with people who keep using him as a tool by weaponising his fear of having his people genocided and displaced from their homeland. They make him false promises, and in the same breath they claim that the "colonists' struggles are his people's struggles too" (Achilles' own words), as if they think Ratonhnhaké:ton is too dense to realise that the situations aren't the same. But he's not ! He immediately calls Samuel Adams out on his bullshit when he has the absolute audacity to claim getting taxed by the British is equal to not even legally owning yourself.
No because for real, imagine having to work with people who are constantly trying to gaslight you into thinking their issues are just as bad as yours and helping them will help your people too because there's no other alternative. I'd be angry too ! Having your own mentor, the one man who should understand how you feel, feeding you this bullshit for years knowing damn well the allies he has you working with are just as dangerous to you is 100% something to be mad about !
Hell. Just having him tell you he's not even gonna try to pronounce your name and then gives you some random-ass name (which you later find out is the name of his dead son) from the people actively seeking to kill you and your people would piss me off. And I don't want to hear anyone bring up the "Achilles did that to help Ratonhnhaké:ton blend in with the Whites™" excuse because that's a load of horse shit, too. For one, Achilles says Ratonhnhaké:ton could pass for either a Spanish or Italian person, and then proceeds to give him the totally legit, 100% Italo-Spanish name "Connor". And for two, that's not even true, because every single time, Ratonhnhaké:ton gets IMMEDIATELY clocked as either mixed-race (he gets called a half-breed at different points during the game) or fully native. If people struggled to say his name, which is fair because the Kanien'kéha language has phonemes that are hard for people speaking other languages to pronounce, Achilles could've asked Ratonhnhaké:ton to come up with his own nickname. Ziio had one. Ratonhnhaké:ton is familiar with that concept.
AND THEN, THE FUCKING CHERRY ON TOP, Ratonhnhaké:ton finds out the guy he's been helping all this time, who's been so nice to him whenever he had favours to ask, is the one behind the attack on his village that killed his mom. AND NOT JUST THAT, but he fucking knew it was Ratonhnhaké:ton's village all along, AND HE PLANNED ON DOING IT AGAIN, WHILE HAVING HIM RUN ERRANDS FOR HIM.
Ratonhnhaké:ton is the only assassin we've had who's never actually had allies. Not true ones, anyway. Washington was using him to do his bidding while plotting to kill his people behind his back. Samuel Adams pretended to care about his struggles but dipped real quick whenever Ratonhnhaké:ton needed something that wouldn't directly benefit the revolution. Isaac Putnam used him as a war machine, he wouldn't have cared if Ratonhnhaké:ton died. He was just another man in his army to him.
And Achilles. Achilles, who only took him in because Ratonhnhaké:ton is the son of a man he had a personal vendetta against. Ratonhnhaké:ton was a way to get back at Haytham for what he did to his brotherhood all those years ago. He was a surrogate for him to process his grief for his son through. At every point, Achilles undermined Ratonhnhaké:ton's achievements. I'm thinking about this dialogue bit especially :
"Who are you to lecture anyone ? You locked yourself away in this crumbling heap and gave up on the Brotherhood entirely. Since the day I arrived, you've done nothing but discourage me. And the rare occasions you've chosen to help, you've done so little, you may as well have done nothing at all." — Ratonhnhaké:ton to Achilles
Achilles' only defence can be boiled down to "I gave you weapons and told you stories about the Assassins". But Ratonhnhaké:ton could've procured weapons on his own. He didn't need Assassin history knowledge to kill a guy. Achilles gave him a roof over his head and that's pretty much it. Was it helpful ? Sure. It was a real time-saver. But it was something Ratonhnhaké:ton could've achieved on his own. And then Achilles has the audacity to tell him he's doing things wrong ? To keep pushing him to kill his father, who he's started to bond with and has actual hopes of forming an alliance with once Lee is out of the picture ? Yeah. I'd be mad too. I wouldn't be doing my Assassin job with enthusiasm.
The only "ally" he's ever had who never hides his true motives from him is his own father, who isn't exactly the greatest man and doesn't just work for the Templar Order, he leads them. AND EVEN THEN ! I said "never hides his true motives from him" for a reason, because Haytham isn't above lying to him or hiding other information if it benefits him. Ratonhnhaké:ton can't even trust the ONE guy who was honest with him about working with him out of convenience because their "interests align" on this one thing (killing Benjamin Church). And I don't understand how this fandom apparently misses that part, because Haytham SAYS IT VERBATIM : "the only difference between myself and those you aid is that I do not feign affection". IT'S LITERALLY RIGHT THERE !!
No, actually, I understand how. It's because the people calling Ratonhnhaké:ton "boring" or saying they dislike him for "being too angry" are doing the same thing all of his "allies" have done. They just don't care. They don't even try to see things from his perspective. All Ratonhnhaké:ton wants to do is to prevent his people from getting murdered, a very real fear he grew up with. His village was attacked once before. His mother died. The British army has been doing this shit to other surrounding villages. Of course he's desperate. Of course he's going to work with people who are just as shitty because they're not an immediate threat like the British are. The continental army won't march on native land if they're busy fighting off the redcoats. And it's gonna take some time for them to reorganise once they win and gain their independence.
And if you STILL don't understand my point, here's a post that might help you understand why reducing Ratonhnhaké:ton to an angry dramatic boy with no personality is racist :)
janainaart
stormborns
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
