Assassin’s Creed and the re-creation of history

Assassin’s Creed is a series that generally tries to accurately re-create history (or at the very least, to make it relatable and believable), but still manages to take flak for things like inaccurate costumes or architecture, characters that are substitutions or amalgams of real people, and portrayals of historical figures that are more villainous than they maybe deserve.

But there’s one sticking point in particular that we want address, and it has to do with the Assassins themselves. Specifically, the game’s depiction of Assassins might lead some to believe that they were a sect of altruistic philosopher-superninjas – and the truth, while clouded by centuries of widespread misconceptions and untrustworthy stories, is a bit less glamorous.
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In reality, the Assassins had a bit more in common with suicide bombers, only without the indiscriminate killing. More properly known as the Nizari Ismailis, a Shiite Islamic sect that operated mainly out of a series of fortresses (including Assassin’s Creed’s Masyaf), the Assassins mainly targeted Sunni Muslim leaders that they saw as threats. While they had armies of their own, their most infamous tools were the fedayeen (or “those who sacrifice”), young men who’d been trained to use disguises, trickery and mastery of different languages and customs to get close to their targets.

Once they’d achieved that, they’d strike with a dagger or knife in the most public and visible place possible – and then, as a rule, would make no attempt to escape, having been promised a place in Paradise on the completion of their mission.

That’s it. No Hidden Blades. No fancy hooded robes. No atheistic humanism (the “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” motto was actually a secret revelation reserved for the very highest levels of Ismaili initiates). And most importantly, no daring escapes across rooftops. Real Assassins (rumors of drug use and youths tricked with secret gardens notwithstanding) were patient, methodical spies who planned for their own deaths on the completion of a mission, and who saw that mission and subsequent death as the greatest religious sacrament they could undertake. But then, a game whose main characters are killed horribly and replaced after each successful murder probably wouldn’t be quite as much fun.


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