The Glyph Repels You!
Apr. 8th, 2015 07:26 pmThe worst thing about Assassin's Creed II, compared to the first one: the murders are far less romantic. The target still dies in your arms, but there are no implausibly long conversations in which you and your victim share a strange moment of connection as you hold each other. It is a loss I mourn intensely.
However, the second game has replaced a theme I love (romantic murder) with another theme I love (family), so I suppose perhaps it's a fair trade. My interest in the relationship between Ezio and his sister Claudia grows every time I visit her to check my income. The exchange they have - 'Salute, Claudia.' 'You here to look at the book?' - is two lines long and I must have heard it eight times by now, and yet it makes me smile fondly every time. I have no idea why.
(I'm going to assume that 'Salute, Claudia' is not great Italian, because it caused our new Italian-speaking housemate to shout 'DID SHE SNEEZE?' furiously at the screen. Then again, the game explains away the random Italian phrases scattered throughout as 'problems with the Animus's translation software', so any dodgy usage can probably be similarly handwaved.)
I'm also delighted by the bit in which Desmond comes out of the Animus to stretch his legs and hallucinate vividly. Everything I wanted! (Well, almost everything. I'm still holding out hope for a direct encounter with one of his ancestors, no matter how implausible that might be.)
I really like that Assassin's Creed II hasn't forgotten about Altaïr; he's still very much a presence in the game, even if time and protagonists have moved on.
At some point I somehow reached the conclusion that Altaïr was completely uninterested in sex or romance - it just didn't factor into his life - and so I was slightly saddened when Assassin's Creed II contradicted my headcanon. And then I felt ridiculous. Because the entire concept of Assassin's Creed is that you're living through the memories of your direct ancestors. Desmond is Altaïr's direct descendant. There's a lot I don't know about twelfth-century Syria, but I don't imagine artificial insemination was hugely popular.
I'm, er, being deliberately vague about how I came by this headcanon. Confession: it came about because I was trying to imagine the circumstances in which Desmond and Altaïr might make out, an effort tragically thwarted by my inability to picture Altaïr making out with anyone.
Desmond and Ezio, on the other hand...
However, the second game has replaced a theme I love (romantic murder) with another theme I love (family), so I suppose perhaps it's a fair trade. My interest in the relationship between Ezio and his sister Claudia grows every time I visit her to check my income. The exchange they have - 'Salute, Claudia.' 'You here to look at the book?' - is two lines long and I must have heard it eight times by now, and yet it makes me smile fondly every time. I have no idea why.
(I'm going to assume that 'Salute, Claudia' is not great Italian, because it caused our new Italian-speaking housemate to shout 'DID SHE SNEEZE?' furiously at the screen. Then again, the game explains away the random Italian phrases scattered throughout as 'problems with the Animus's translation software', so any dodgy usage can probably be similarly handwaved.)
I'm also delighted by the bit in which Desmond comes out of the Animus to stretch his legs and hallucinate vividly. Everything I wanted! (Well, almost everything. I'm still holding out hope for a direct encounter with one of his ancestors, no matter how implausible that might be.)
I really like that Assassin's Creed II hasn't forgotten about Altaïr; he's still very much a presence in the game, even if time and protagonists have moved on.
At some point I somehow reached the conclusion that Altaïr was completely uninterested in sex or romance - it just didn't factor into his life - and so I was slightly saddened when Assassin's Creed II contradicted my headcanon. And then I felt ridiculous. Because the entire concept of Assassin's Creed is that you're living through the memories of your direct ancestors. Desmond is Altaïr's direct descendant. There's a lot I don't know about twelfth-century Syria, but I don't imagine artificial insemination was hugely popular.
I'm, er, being deliberately vague about how I came by this headcanon. Confession: it came about because I was trying to imagine the circumstances in which Desmond and Altaïr might make out, an effort tragically thwarted by my inability to picture Altaïr making out with anyone.
Desmond and Ezio, on the other hand...
