So I, like you probably feel pretty powerless these days.
It’s as if we’re tiny players who can’t make a dent against an overwhelming opposition
to our goals.
I imagine a lot of people feel this way from time to time.
But what does this have to do with Assassin’s Creed?
Well, it all fits into the story of a group of people who lived in the middle east back
in the middle ages.
This organization, later immortalized in culture as the Assassins, were the inspiration for
the secret Assassin organization in Assassin’s Creed.
How many more times can I say assassin in one paragraph?
So, let’s talk about this small group of Shi’ite Muslims who faced overwhelming enemies
on all sides, and how they still managed to take down powerful rulers, build a legendary
reputation which echoes to today, and how their example can show something a tad uplifting
and constructive for social movements or even in your life?
I know it sounds like a stretch, but hang on to find out how it all works.
Assassin’ s Creed, a game which has long enjoyed a prominent place on my unplayed Steam
list, mostly because it’s a bad console port, begins its long epic series documenting
a highly fictionalized battle between the Templars and the Assassins.
This story, while not the globe-spanning espionage war continuing today is rooted in one particular
conflict during the ages of the Crusader Kings.
No, not that Crusader Kings…
Well, yes that Crusader Kings but in real life.
So, let’s go to the medieval Middle-East and learn about who these Assassins really
were.
The word assassin comes from the Arabic term word asaseen, which is the plural word for
“people of principle”.
There’s a longrunning myth it comes from the word hashashin, which is a word for someone
who smokes hashish.
It was a myth I believed before I started researching this video.
See?
I am learning alongside you!
The Assassins were Shia Muslims, which says a tonne about their position in society in
the 11th century when they formed.
Shiites belong a branch distinct from the most populous form of Islam, the Sunnis.
These sects have a tonne of doctrinal differences and a history of division which results in
unrest in the Islamic world to this date.
To give it a fair shake, I would need to make it its own video (WHICH YOU CAN SUGGEST BY
GOING TO THIS WEBSITE) but to glaze over and give the bare basics, they’re divided over
a dispute over who was the right person to succeed Muhammad.
Was the caliph the religious ruler of the Islamic world a religious title passed on
through piety like a pope or something or is it a rulership title which should pass
down through Muhammad’s relatives?
Sunni’s go the piety route, Shiites go the legal route, and they tend to put a higher
value on things like legal rulings and following rules and legal decisions, BUT MOVING ON.
In this period, authority was dominated by Sunnis who to varying degrees wanted to destroy
the Shiites.
One movement within the Shiites was the Ismailis, and within that movement was the Nizari Islamilis,
which is the word the Assassins used for themselves.
Not much survives about the founding of the Assassins, but it seems to trace an origin
to the year 1094 to northern Iran.
They began as a cult formed around a powerful charismatic leader named Hassan-i Sabbah
Why he began the assassins is unknown, but he was able to leverage his power as a popular
celebrity within the Ismaili movement to gain fanatic followers.
The likely reason is he wanted to become a powerful political leader in a world where
so many were hostile to the Shiites.
The Assassins were surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Not only did they face Sunni rulers who wanted their order destroyed, but there was another
new thing disrupting the politics of the region [crusader kings clip]
Yes, the European Crusaders were coming to spread the peaceful word of Jesus at the tip
of the spear.
Among them, the special order of the Knight’s Templar, who might be a good video subject
of their own, and are surrounded by myth and mystery.
There are still more than a few conspiracy theories about them, and so just enough vaguery
to make it into Assassin’s Creed.
The Assassins settled in a mountain fortress in Alamut, which would today be in Iran.
There, they began to train some of the deadliest warriors in history.
These were fanatics who would go on suicidal missions, and fight using daggers.
Often they would spend years infiltrating orders to accomplish their goal, and were
like medieval commandos.
I can’t say for sure, but I’ll bet the Fremen from Dune were inspired by this, and
of course, their legendary prowess at infiltration and murder led to the creation of the popular
video game I’m ruthlessly milking for sweet sweet search traffic.
But hey, we’re learning something right?
So Assassin’s Creed fans don’t judge me too harshly.
Anyway, we have lots of story to go.
The Assassins were outgunned and outmanned.[clip from hamilton] They wouldn’t be able, even
with their badass commandos, take on the armies of the vindictive Sunnis or smelly Crusaders.
They needed to be clever, use their force carefully, surgically, and only when it will
move their cause forward.
They wanted a Nizari Ismaili state.
The Assassins were the masters of….
Assassination.
Through murder and psychological warfare (read terrorism) they were able to hold their own
against a superior foe.
I say terrorism, but they typically tried to terrorize individuals through intimidation
and seemed to have a distaste for indiscriminate killing.
Today, we call this method of fighting asymmetric warfare.
It’s why groups use terrorism at all; it works.
It led the Americans to victory over the British in the American revolution… then ironically
it led the Vietnamese to victory over the Americans almost 2 centuries later.
These weren’t fly by night assassinations either.
The Assassins killed their marks in broad daylight, and made their escape, though likely
not by jumping into a wagon full of hay.
Yeah I know something about the games, I’m not that out of tune.
At their peak, the Assassins took down two powerful Caliphs and even the soon to be Crusader
King[CK2 music] of Jerusalem Conrad of Montferrat.
Many tried to take down the Assassins, but they managed to hold on to their defences
for almost 2 centuries.
They didn’t fall until the thing which took down the entire Islamic golden age did…
the Mongols.[Crash course clip.]
However, their use of scare tactics and infamous murders turned the Assassins into the stuff
of legends.
Stories spread around the Middle-East and Europe about fanatic warriors who were masters
of infiltration, disguise, and murder at daggerpoint.
It’s this legend which inspired Ubisoft, and countless other artists ranging all the
way back to Dante.
I mean, if the series wasn’t a dud this would likely be the Know Your Fantasy video
for the Rogue.
It’s powerful stuff, and its what makes games like Assassin’s Creed so fun.
But I think there’s a lesson to learn from them.
In a world where we feel so overpowered by forces, we have no control over, think of
these people, and realize the rules we’re supposed to follow when fighting typically
were put in place to keep those overwhelming forces in power.
If you want to succeed despite the power imbalance, you’ll have to be creative and unorthodox,
strategic, and surgical.
By the way, before this gets taken the wrong way, I am in no way advocating murder and
terrorism.
Or am I?
No I’m not…
Or am-- Thanks to 12tone for the theme as well as
Don and Kerry Johnson, Michael Kirschner, Martin King, Scott Smith, Luis Eneas Guarita,
Mary D'Onofrio, James McNeice, and Garrick Kwan.
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