Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Should Catholics be offended by Assassin's Creed now?

Awhile back I complained about the Assassin's Creed franchise's treatment of the Catholic Church.  Though I love all games in the series, I believe that Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, take too many gratuitous shots at the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion.  Though the Renaissance popes were often villainous (such as the Borgias) that should not reflect on the religion itself or on individual Catholics. 

Now I've just gotten Assassin's Creed Revelations, which takes place largely in Ottoman Constantinople about 60 years after the fall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) capital.  I've just started the game.  Interesting that so far in the game the Orthodox Christian Byzantines are resurrected as villains while the Muslim Ottomans are treated as heroes.  In Assassin's Creed Brotherhood the corrupt Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) and his son Cesare ruled Rome.  Since as the assassin you are trying to liberate Rome, in that sense making them villains makes sense.  In Assassin's Creed Revelations, even though Constantinople is the Ottoman capital, your goal is to liberate it from ... the Byzantines.  Huh?  It's like the designers of Assassin's Creed are determined to make Christians the enemy.

Some of it I get.  Some of it.  The underlying villain in the series, the Templars, are ostensibly an order of Christian warrior monks who became an international conspiracy.  However, the fawning treatment of the Ottomans in Assassin's Creed Revelations is a bit too much for anyone who has actually studied the Ottomans. 

The Ottomans were devotees of religious pluralism, the game says.  Indeed, becoming a Muslim was not required -- so long as you lived in special areas called millets (the Ottoman version of the dhimmi) and payed special taxes.  The Serbs and the Greeks in particular found the taxes crushing and the experience horrible.  The legacy of Ottoman rule and the determination of Christian Orthodox Serbs to never again live under the rule of Muslims (Such as the Bosnians and the Albanians) played no small part in the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.  The game says that upon the conquest of Constantinople the sultan loved the Hagia Sophia so much that he turned it into a mosque but otherwise left it largely intact.  Unfortunately, changing what was then the largest church in Christendom into a mosque doesn't exactly scream "religious tolerance;"  such tactics have been used by Muslims over the centuries to supercede other religions (think Dome of the Rock and al- Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and the Babri Mosque on the site of the Hindu Temple of Ram in Ayodhya, India).

Like I said, I'm early in the game, and the game is, all other things being equal, excellent overall, but I can't help but notice the politically correct disparity in treatment of religions here.

56 comments:

  1. Actually I had to agree with you, while I love the AC series and have no problem with the last few titles against Christianity since it all make senses give the history (Noted. I am not a Christian), I found the newest title with the Byzantines as the baddies to be absurd and weird.

    Lore wise, the Assassins were the enemies of factions who wished for total control; then the Ottomans should be cast as the enemies not the Byzantines in this period. I would probably have no problem with the Byzantines cast as enemies in earlier periods but during this time and liberating Constantinople (recently conquered by the Ottomans) from the Byzantines. It is just ridiculous.

    Personally, I found the AC writers either is casting the Ottomans as allies either because they were to avoid a political dispute or they simply don`t know much about history.

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  2. Most probably the developers and publishers were more interested in kissing some Turkish butt for more revenue (there are 70.000.000 + of them). I agree with the author of this article and being Greek I find it highly offensive to say the least, knowing what vile beasts the ottomans were. One who has a solid understanding of history should be able to realize that this game is all about brown lipstick. I've played 30 minutes of the game and I already feel discusted and probably will not play it any further. Too bad I spent my money on something so offensive to my nation and our history. But will the AC team care? No of course. They just want to sell more. Constantine the XI a templar and an evil guy???? The last emperor who fell valiantly against the hordes of savages? Uninstalled it and probably going to burn the disc for personal gratification.

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    1. See? People like you ruin everything in our world. It has a POSSIBLY different view, so you 'burn the disc for satisfaction'

      What the hell is wrong with all these idiots these days.

      You are such a tool for talkin shit about how you think a game plays, when you havent even PLAYED it.

      You know why your pissed? You didnt PLAY THROUGH THE GAME. Its offensive to you because you are a close minded tool.

      Wah wah my country this, they did that.

      It is a video game, talking about crazy conpsiracies, the END OF THE WORLD in 2012, ALIENS that came before and controlled humanity and you and half the world are worried about what its calling your group.

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    2. So for you every guy who is offended by this so-called game is a narrow minded tool?Guess what!I am offended too (even though I played the single player till the end)
      Be a grown up and try to respect the comments and opinions that differ from your way of thinking.After all it's Ubi's fault for bashing so many nations so blatantly!(not only Byzantines but also many Arabs suffered under the ottoman rule).Like honestly how you would feel if you were a Jew guy and the game was showing Nazis as the good guys in the holocaust era?! Would you buy it?
      Please try to understand this: It's almost the same thing.People suffered a lot back then and yet developers don't show actual respect for these lost lives.They were patriots,they were fighting for the stolen land!Is that a bad thing for you?
      I hope not!

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    3. As a Greek I have to state that wasn't highly offensive. If you are offended by a fictional story then I should highly recommend you to get outside to see the sunlight of our world and stop using cunning strategies. Ottomans were vile beast I agree, but obviously you never heard of Byzantine atrocities such as the Butchering of Latins and you are just a classic oversensitive adult with all-knowing boastfulness. The term patriots is also commpletely untrue since the definition of the nation didn't even exist back then and sorry to wake you back to reality.
      It's just a game, so propaganda is still irrelevant since nobody claimed that's historical accurate game. By the way not every Byzantine was totally evil and supporter of Ottoman. They show us the high ranking members of Byzantine class as Ottoman allies and the attempt to fool us with pseudo-intellectual words full of absolutism that don't even make any logical sense( "narrow-minded" tool and "patriot")
      You just came here to pass your hypocritical propaganda. How in the world do you believe the game is "narrow-minded" when at the same time the opposite OPEN-MINDED part of your points is actually proving you wrong that the game is giving Ottomans the "good guy" outlook. You are overconfusing your own points. The game is actually providing a vast open-minded view with high class Ottomans being the bad guys too and couple of Byzantines being the good guys of the game. You obviously don't know the game and you never actually played it!!!
      And you obviously didn't bron back then when you already made up your mind about people suffering. Also if they suffered, I don't think they ever called you for expressing your fake sympathy over them and then sold them this kind of junk food of cool-aid product. I am sure that they wouldn't want your fakery.
      Don't make fun of yourself again with those cunning simple strategies.

      P.S: The land isn't stolen since it belong to itself and you have no right to call it "stolen" that's a very arrogant and icorrect term since you can't buy a land. God didn't made you an owner. You are sharing the land called GREECE. That's your legalized land and MINE by the means of moral global code and the basic laws, not Constantinouple since no global social law existed back then to confirm Constantinouple under Byzantine Greek legal property confirmed by universal global means, so no it was a long lost land belonging to no one until the vile Turks find the chance to legalize the land afterwards. You can't just invade and kill just because you one upon a long lost time it was yours. Still Britain didn't claim Scotland as "stolen" and Germany didn't claim the land "stolen" after Prussia fell off.
      Byzantines were mostly Hellenes, but their politics, their state and their civilization isn't a direct successor of our heritage, but an INDERECT one so we bare an INDERECT resemblance and in cuncusion we can't regain the land back anyway, but we can still REGAIN Cyprus since it was actually STOLEN by disgusting Turks in 1974, so we have every logical right to get our legal land back!!!

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    4. Accomplished to be perfectly trolled by a simple fictional story with limited basis on reality to the point where you must BURN THE HURR DURR DISC is already extremely humiliating. You a church boy, aren't you?

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    5. @AnonymousJuly 5, 2013 at 9:54 PM
      I think you didn't read carefully my comment ,did ya?! I didn't say that the game is narrow-minded! I just hate people like the guy above me who like calling others tools just because they have different opinions on a specific subject!
      ALSO: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Aderdunn_3/
      This is my steam profile! Go check my acr playtime before you say anything random again! Thanks :S

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    6. He's certainly smarter than you Anonymous July 5, 2013 at 10:50 PM.

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  3. I agree with all of your posts, however, I do want to point out that Ubisoft doesn't make the Ottomans "allies" per say. I think that the story line is very focused on the Templars. Since the Ottomans are not Christians, then they had to either find a past rulling body in the area of Catholics, or change the area of play (if this is true, they obviously chose finding a past ruling body of Catholics). In my opinoin, this is why the Byzantines were chosen as the primary antagonist. I try not to see it as a "shot" towards any religions. On top of all of that, we need to remember that it's just a game, it shouldn't be taken seriously.

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    1. That's a complete mistake, and a cop out: It's sad, but people get "educated" and "informed" more from entertainment like this than anything else. So on this kind of issue, I think it's important to give it as much serious contemplation that the game itself merits by what it puts forward.

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    2. Serious? Bahahaha. It's a GAME.
      There's no need to rage over it.

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    3. Well then if it is just a game and no religious offense is to be taken about it,then what do you have to say about the Muslims rampaging over the cartoon of Mohammed? In my opinion a cartoon be it anything cannot instill corrupt ideas in the disguise of truth. Which is mostly the case with AC series especially AC2. So it is clearly a christian offense.

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    4. I wouldn't care honestly.

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  4. way to go ubisoft.where do u get your history books?from turkish shcools?but i guess it's ok to offend a religion that has no dangerous,fanatic followers and leave the muslims alone.i would do the same if i was a coward.multinational team with various beliefs...really?much more like multicoward team with intend to offend the peacefull...and i am an atheist...

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    1. So, you are offended by fiction? Funny that you already have so much in common with the religious. XD

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    2. It is fiction based on real people and historical facts. Yet it creates a negative feeling for the people of that era who just lost their country and had to live through the horrors of ottoman rule. What would you think if they made a game portraing the Nazis as the good guys and heroes and all the people they killed as thugs? Or like the african slaves as thugs and the slave traders as good??? It's not just fiction. Star Trek is just fiction. Messing with peoples history (especially the darkest of its times) is plain offensive...

      I am Greek but i wouldn't mind seeing Byzantines as the bad guys in Italy for instance, or Egypt... but in their home city? WTF???

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  5. Jeff, thank you for this blog post. I have never read this blog before, but found it randomly on Google, because I wanted to see if I was the only one irked by Ubisoft's depiction of the Byzantine Empire.

    As a Catholic and Medieval/Byzantine historian I have been spouting a mantra in the lead up of this game:

    I can look past AC1 for making the Templars (who have largely been proven innocent by historians) evil
    It took a long while, but I could forgive them for making my beloved Church evil in ACII & ACB.
    ...But making one of the greatest civilizations this world has ever seen. A devoutly religious society, and one who out of conviction fought purely and only defensive wars for over 1000 years the enemy is unforgivable.

    Even worse, casting the Ottomans who raped, enslaved, and murdered the people of Constantinople, erased nearly 2000 years or Roman history and culture; and used a gradual program of ethnic cleansing to dechristianize their empire as the defenseless victims of the true victims is astonishingly offensive and incomprehensibly ignorant of history.

    I see nothing wrong with making the Ottomans "good guys". The problem is making them "good guys" in the light of the very people they massacred and oppressed.
    For various reasons we do not learn much about the Byzantine Empire in the West (in fact they called themselves the Roman Empire, we made up "Byzantine Empire"). Despite this cultural oversight they offer a fascinating continuation of Ancient Rome's culture, emerging religion, language, arts, and architecture. To completely rewrite their role in history as evil villains in the only platform of modern entertainment they have ever appeared is a travesty to any student of history... as well as to the Greek people.

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    1. Please,

      You don't know a lot about Ottoman.

      Rape?
      No, they didn't, after beated the byzantine, ottomans let the people of Constan to choose as leave or go.

      Beside that, it's normal, not just the ottoman, many of "Christian" empire do the same, even worse maybe, like the crusaders.
      They come to the Middle East just for Christian's access to the JERUSSALEM?No, they didn't, they do that for the Money,Business, and many of Crusaders make a muslim as a slave.


      Just think dude, You know it, European people have a bad behavior, they like to colonize other country. And in crusade, they make a reason to strike the muslim countries for RELIGION.



      Enslavement is a NORMAL in war.

      But, ottomans didn't make the serbians as a true Slave.They made them as a Jannisaries, or another ottoman soldier.


      As a muslim, a big mistake that ottoman did to the serbians and bosnians were converting them into Islam with coercion.That's it, Islam forbids it.


      Thanks

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    2. You are aware why the first crusade started, right? The Byzantines asked the pope for help with the saracens, because the holy land had been under Roman rule for hundreds of years,next thing yoy know hostile Muslims are marching into you land and claiming it as their own. Then with the ottomans taking over, they make it so your not allowed to own weapons to protect themselves and a special tax on them for being a Christian, then the if you were a Muslim convered to Christianity that act could be punishable by death. And the devsirme system, oh yes very righteous taking boys from their families to study to be a warrior, and it was only done to Christian families, edging out the copetition, very righteous.

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    3. (Part 1)Hmm... yeah they are such heathens for charging a tax, it would be better to slaughter every man, woman, child and animal in the city, right? Like the Europeans did in Jerusalem, right ? But paying a tax was so inhumane... (Thank God we have gotten past that practice as humans, not like states making smokers pay for highway repair) How about the cannibalism practiced by the Francs, on there way to Jerusalem? (look it up, not just Muslim sources, but also records of letters sent from accompanying Bishops to the Pope) When the Muslims took Jerusalem, the Christians had it for less than 300yrs, before that it was under Pagan-Roman rule, and the Islamic leaders left the Church of the Nativity and Holy Sepulchre unscathed. Saladin let all those whom were in the city without arms, or surrendered theirs, to leave or stay as they chose. Now in modern terms, radical Islam is a cancerous sore on the world, just like radical Christianity, Judaism and even Hinduism (most of you idiots didn't even know they existed, right? They are called "The Tamil Tigers" look it up)

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    4. (Part 2)Prior to 1948 in Palestine, Arabs and Jews had no issues, then the Jews stole other peoples land, using the holocaust as an excuse, both Christian and Muslims were killed, expelled, and imprisoned, the Christian Arabs just found it easier to leave for the west and assimilate. Today, what remains of them in Palestine, still live side by side with the Muslims. I am the child of a Muslim Palestinian refugee father, and a post-war immigrant Catholic German mother. I have seen both sides, i have traveled the world too. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. all hated the Turks, because they occupied their country too, but they treated them better than the Brits or Israelis did. When the Moors were driven out of Spain, and the Turks from Eastern Europe, the Jews and Orthodox Christians there fled with them, because they were scared of persecution under the inquisition of the Catholic Christian rulers and popes. Muslims were the saviors of these faiths historically, giving them protection and aid. This image has only changed recently, just like the idea that Christian and Jews are now allies and brothers. Real orthodox Jews hate Christians, and that Christians blamed Jews for Christ's crucifixion up until Vatican II, another post holocaust change in ideology.

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    5. (Part 3)Muslims too did not tear down a church or synagogue to build their mosques in Jerusalem, they built them on the ruins of the temple destroyed by the Romans, which the majority of the stones were gone, repurposed for other buildings. The Crusaders, however, did turn the mosques into churches and painted over the Islamic motifs (in the case of the Sultan , Mehmet II, showing respect to the Hagia Sophia, that is true, but it was not him who turned it into a mosque, it was a later sultan that did, after an earthquake, and in that case, i do not agree with that, churches should be left to be churches) Under the Romans, and then later, the Crusaders, Jews were banned, they were only allowed back to Jerusalem after Saladin’s victory. The Crusades were about control of trade routes to the Pope, Kings and Nobles(also absolution of their previous sins and atrocities, was also a good bonus), it was only about religion to the poor, to trick them into fighting and dieing. Also the people of Turkey were already in large part Muslim, and the rulers of Constantinople were Roman, and there were many Christians fighting along side the Ottomans at the time, to evict rulers of foreign decent. As far as the Devshirme system goes, that was kind of screwed up, but it was a whole lot better than what usually happens with slaves taken from conquered populations, they were not forced to convert, many did so on their own accord. They were raised alongside the Ottoman Princes and treated like family, they also were paid very well to be soldiers, whether there was peace or war, and after their service they were freed, most then stayed, holding high ranking adviser positions to the royal court, becoming land owners, merchants, and an unequaled noble class and political force all their own. History is screwed up, every single culture did their own dirt to other, committing atrocities to both friends and foes alike. Do yourself a favor next time, and get your facts straight before you type, and pick up a freaking book every once in a while…

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    6. Good grief, where do you get your history? Some Christians perpetrated atrocities, therefore centuries of Muslim conquest, forced conversions, 2nd class citizenship or outright slavery are therefore justified?

      "Muslims were the saviors of these faiths historically" you have to be kidding! Those "Martyrs of Córdoba" had it pretty sweet! Thank you Muslim ruling class!

      Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in bucolic peace in "Palestine" prior to 1948? You missed those few centuries of pogroms, I guess.

      What a pile of unadulterated, apologetic crap. History doesn't equate to some giant tu quoque fallacy. You can't say "This was messed up, but it wasn't as bad as...." blah, blah, blah.

      You end your silly screed with the open ending: "History is screwed up, every single culture did their own dirt to other, committing atrocities to both friends and foes alike. Do yourself a favor next time, and get your facts straight before you type, and pick up a freaking book every once in a while…"

      I would suggest you do the very same. "You did some bad stuff, I did some bad stuff, so it's okay" is a pretty foolish worldview. I would say do yourself a favor, and pick up a reputable history book sometime, and stop justifying evil.

      I realize this is a pretty dated blog, but I found it hard to pass up such blatant falsehoods without a response.

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    7. ^

      I'm guessing he's Muslim?

      "Everybody does bad stuff, so here's how I rationalize centuries of Muslim oppression...."

      Ever hear of a tu quoque fallacy?

      Unfortunately, that's cold comfort for Islam's millions of victims (including Catholic and Orthodox martyrs).

      I realize this is a 1+ year old post, but couldn't let such abject falsehoods go unchallenged.

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  6. I agree with you. I'm Greek and I've played this game for about 40 minutes and I'll be returning it tomorrow. The Ottoman Empire is one of the darkest chapters in history and I feel deeply offended with the game's positive portrayal of them. I know it's been 500 years and you might say it's time Greek's let it go but to completely rewrite history and mislead is unacceptable.

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    1. You are forgetting it's a fictional story and you still take it autistically serious like those laughable strict-looking history teachers in the Boarding Scholl. I am Greek too, but obviously you belong back to 80's and 70's period riding a motorcycle and speaking those psudeo-intellectual biased words which don't even make logical sense, not in the 21th centurty. Sorry to burst your little fantasy, but Ottoman Empire wasn't potrayed as something positive and in fact they made it quite bad and sinister, not even good.
      The video game by logical definition can't rewrite history since it's just a fictional piece of work, but you are unable to realize that. Still even if you played the game, you didn't realize its concept and you are spreading propagand even if you don't know it and that's the truth.
      The game didn't even insult the Byzantines. "Murderer" isn't an insult it's a legal declaration, "poor" isn't an insult it's an economical category, fish "merchant" isn't an insult it's a simple job which requires skill( Byzantine merchants are shouting "Fresh FISH!!" during the game with passion and skill). You are confusing the terms to your own opportunity. As I roved you are out of reality and from another age. The game isn't for you and so it's not the Internet.

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    2. Anonymous July 5, 2013 at 10:12 PM, he's entitled to his opinions and beliefs. If you can't take them then perhaps the internet is not for you...

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  7. I do not feel that it is about the religions, although there is the connection that the Templars are a Christian organization. It is stated, in the game, that the Templars want to restore the Byzantine empire. It is not expressly stated that all of the Byzantines are, themselves, Templars. In fact...

    **SPOILERS** the Templars are being led by one of the Ottomans, not a Byzantine. **END SPOILERS**

    Additionally, the Byzantine/Ottoman struggle is actually the secondary story line. The primary story line, and in fact the whole reason that Ezio is there, is to search for the library keys.

    Finally, I would hardly say that the games treats Ottomans with a "fawning" attitude. With the sole exception of Suleiman, none of the Ottomans are looked at positively or act nice towards you or the Assassins at all. They will kill you just as fast as the Byzantine guards, faster in fact because there are a lot more of them and they have the toughest enemy, the Jannisary.

    In the end, the snarkiness of the database entries are supposed to be coming from Shawn in AC2 and ACB, and from subject 16 in this one, not necessarily from any of the developers. Yeah, they wrote all of it, but they also wrote that Adam and Eve were not the first people, just two humans who likely got busy with or had a parent who was one of The Ones Who Came Before, and that Jesus was not the son of God, just someone who had managed to get his hands on several Pieces of Eden. If you can chalk all of that up to just "video games making stuff up," why do you choose to let the rest bother you so much?

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  8. I understood the antagonists in AC2 and Brotherhood. Yes, the Borgia family was indeed corrupt and opportunistic, as they were in reality. But portraying a minority whose land had been brutally pillaged and stolen by Ottomans as thugs and criminals? That's just Turkish revisionism to me.

    Ubisoft probably did this on purpose. Maybe because portraying the true face of the Ottoman Empire would be so controversial in this day and age the criticism would never end.

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  9. Imagine how things would be if Ezio had as primary mission to kill Suleiman and protect Manuel Palaiologos!
    Day 1 Ban in Turkey lol
    Stupid 'game'! I threw it in my neighborhood's recycle bin...Hope it becomes sth more useful than this, sometime soon :)

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  10. Maybe you should all take into account that no matter who would be depicted as antagonist there would be complaining. if Byzantines were the villains all Muslims would be upset. and for historical accuracy? it's just a game, in movies, books and so on literary license is never an issue. calm down and just take it as what is, a game. guess that unisoft never wanted to upset anyone but just make the game more exciting.

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    1. If there is no way around without being subjected to complaints, then it would be better to stick to historical accuracy so at least you are blamed for saying the truth.

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  11. I completely agree with the writer of this article. The game play and many features like counter kill free roaming hack and slash genre etc. are good part of the game, but it is really anti-catholic as well as anti-Christ.

    I find even the AC1 and AC2 quiet enraging. They have intentionally taken up the Templar s as the bad guys because this order underwent many accusations and due to the rumors build up around them it is very difficult to ascertain whether they were good or bad. This has inspired many writers to make up fictions of their own. The net result being "Any one can say anything about the Templar s".


    Very well be it. No offense taken but ubisoft have stretched this Templar stuff and connected it to the Pope. Well Rodrigo Borgia was not a good man in history but still many who do not know history well may take it as the true face of Catholic Popes, which is intolerable.

    More over the franchise have made its story line very near to real history while at the same time twisted the truth to a great extend under the cover of it being a fiction. True it is a fiction but I have read many comments in the net where people consider this story line to be a unravel of truths forgotten or a correction of the history itself.

    So ubisoft should either make it a historical fiction unbiased to all religions or make it a pure fiction rather than giving a hint that history has been edited and they are correcting it.


    "Hats off to the author of this article to have shown interest to address this ethical issue".

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  12. I'm so glad I chose to buy a used game of Brotherhood over Revelations. As a Serbian I know I would have been pissed off about the whole Ottomans portrayed as heros and the Orthodox portrayed as villains. I'm not religious at all- mind you. However, it's just fcuking wrong (on all levels) because the Serbians were enslaved by the Ottomans for over 500 years- yup it's a fact. I'm a history major (and part Italian) and I know of some of the atrocities committed by the catholic church which is why I find brotherhood quite amusing. People that are ignorant about History might believe that the Ottomans were "heroes." That is wrong- shame on Ubisoft for misleading people.

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  13. In all of these games there is an annoying message pointing out that this game was designed by designers of varius different faiths and backgrounds(blah blah- who cares). Judging how this game portrays all of the knights of the templar as brutes I seriously doubt that any of these designers are christian. Yes, there has been some greedy and divisive popes such as (Anti-)Pope clement V11 and of course Rodrigo Borgia. But the templar knights who fought against the Ottomans in Malta and Hungary were heroic and prevented the Ottomans from piercing into the belly of europe.

    The Serbs and Greeks were subjugated by the Ottomans to second-class citizens and then there was the Armeniens. 1.5 million Armenians were indiscriminatly slaughtered by the Ottomans in 1915. The Armenians were proud of their Christian heritage. Christianity was the glue that binded together their culture and their identity and they were slaughtered for it. This was genocide but because the Ottomans are muslims that is conveniently swept under the carpet. Does this strike you as an empire that was tolerent and multicultural?

    I wanted to enjoy this game but because of this 'fawning' don't offend the Muslims attitude I can not which is a shame. After all Constantinople was a beautiful example of Byzantine culture and it was taken from them in the most shameless manner. I might just trade this game back for assassins creed 2 because I am not prepared to be brainwashed by lies and historical inaccuracy.

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  14. I just bought this game yesterday in a steam sale then I felt the same way as you guys. Good points all around, but in this case they seem to be protecting the catholics a little bit in this game too by pretending the romans were catholic.

    I swear it seems as if the entire world wants to pretend that the 4th crusade never happened and that the pope just created the church one day when he was bored. Romans were ORTHODOX. Orthodox is therapeutic where catholocism is repressive. This was a BIG deal to the romans, and they did not get along with the papacy. So suggesting that they were some kind of catholic templar puppet is just offensive.

    Neverminding that, just addressing the 4th crusade and other crusader conquests against roman lands would quite clearly make the romans and templars as the most unlikely of alliances in the history of the world.

    Rome was fighting defensive wars with muslims for hundreds of years before huge crusader armies come smashing through roman lands.

    I'm not saying that romans were good guys, just that romans being associated with templars = LOL

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  15. yes it is offensive in some way,but it's a game,I'm a muslim,and most of other muslims -except for open-minded ones like me- find offence in everything...literally,I even read a something about Coca Cola being offensive, and ironically some muslims find assassin's creed offensive for various reasons,one of it is counting Salahuddien as an enemy to assassins (which is historically true) but in their POV he was a hero who saved Jerusalem from the crusaders,but anyways,it's all about POV,so please don't feel offended by the game,I don't feel offended by BF3 even though the enemies are muslims.and BTW Ubisoft knows alot about history because the assassins did exist and they were allies to the ottomans (for sometime) they were enemies of Byzantines and Templars,the only thing that's not true is the assassins spreading around the world but this was from the creators imagination and not totally false actually,and the game has more offence as you may name it than that,it denies the existence of god,it denies the powers of the prophets,it denies the bible and the Qur'an and every religious book (even though it didn't mention them but it denies their stories) so if you're so religious that you get offended just for playing a game against Christians you shouldn't play this game,actually you shouldn't play any games except for call of duty and battle field,but from my experiences conspiracy freaks will find offense in anything.

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    1. As I said to the Greek guys above since I am Greek, you belong to backward era of 60's and 70's with a motorcycle and you didn't even realized the fictional story. It's a MYTH, a fiction, a little fairytaile. Still you are taking it more autistically serious than the above guys. The fictional story doesn't have anything offensive, you just have to spread some propagand even if you don't even know it.
      If you are being offended by the fictional story then don't play it. Also yeap, conspirancy theorists are very annoyingly arrogant and overemotional,you are right, but you are wrong about the game being offensive. It never denied the existence of the Father at all, you obviously didn't realize it's concept. It had to do mostly with politics, freedom, philosophy, justice, conspirancy thoeries and little with religious and historical facts.
      It represents some individuals which are by the fictional story are considered evil, depreved, mad and stupid, not a religious or ethnical identity. The myth isn't supposed to have any resembence with the truthful history of my kind or your kind, it's just nonsense for the most part.

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  16. Look quit being offended Cathlics were super evil back then. Ur so sensitive its a game cry to ur mother. Serously its socially acceptable to throw a blow at muslims but not at cristians?

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    1. i believe its the other way around, try to speak bad about islam and see the middle east blow up with the scream of revenge, make fun of christian and nothing happen.amazing isn't it the power of suicide bombing.

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    2. I couldn't play this game either, the further I went through it up until about 10 hours I just had enough of the negative portrayal of Greeks and Byzantine Orthodox Christians. The Armenian genocide, the Pontian genocide, plus the massacres and other genocides of ethnic Greeks and Orthodox Christians did happen, and as such, Ubisoft should have known better to portray the Byzantines as the antagonists. Yes, there were revolutionaries and rebels- but you know how the Ottomans responded to these rebels and revolutionaries? They committed war crimes and genocides and slaghtered whole villages and set fire to whole communities.

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  17. I played the whole game and I'm really confused. It seems like everything that has something to do with Christians is bad and should be destroyed. It is offensive indeed. I thought that Templars should be those who always wanted to have all the power for themselves and that they wanted to conquer the world. But it seems that I was wrong. How the hell are the Ottomans good guys all of a sudden? Everyone knows what they did to all those nations they managed to conquer! And when did they show any respect to enslaved people? They tore them from their families, religion and everything that was worth living for and made them do such awful things. Ottomans will NEVER be forgiven!

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  18. You might have wanted to wait until you'd finished playing the game before proclaiming the "Byzantines are evil and Ottomans are the heroes in this game" stuff, since a lot of commenters have now happily taken as doctrine despite not having played the games themselves.

    Ezio does not ally with the Ottoman Empire in general, he allies with ONE Ottoman prince, Suleiman, against a rival for the throne. Similarly he does not fight the Byzantines in general. He fights Templars both on the sides of the Byzantines and the Ottomans. The Byzantines are portrayed as sympathetic in a number of ways, as you actually visit Capadoccia on one occasion and see how they have literally been driven underground. One of the great tragedies of the game is when Ezio sets off an explosion in Capadoccia and inadvertently kills a large number of Byzantines and drives the rest out of their homes.

    Oh, and SPOILER: The main antagonist in this game is an Ottoman prince. Half of the enemies that you fight are Ottoman Janissaries.

    If you actually pay attention to the games, you'll realise that the Assassins do not side with people in wars, and the writers make every effort to portray a balanced picture of history. In the first game you assassinate both Christian and Muslim leaders during the Crusades. In ACII and Brotherhood, you do not attack the church in general but the Borgias, who were an unbelievably corrupt and cruel family. In ACIII the antagonist finds himself fighting on the side of the Patriots, but (SPOILER) later finds out that his mother was killed and his entire village burnt down as part of George Washington's scorched earth campaign against the natives, and there's even a line that goes something like, "The revolution is very beneficial, if you are a rich white man."

    It's not the fault of the writers that some of you are unable to think in terms more complex than "a character from this group is portrayed as evil, therefore the games are biased against that group."

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  19. I still can't understand why Ezio would team up with an intolerant monarch who sent troops to eliminate every christian out there.I don't like the fact that he (Suleiman) is depicted as a good and peaceful guy in this game.Were his war/religious atrocities against Armenians,Greeks & Serbs ,part of his peaceful and gentle manners too?! *rolls eyes*
    AC devs seem to deliberately 'forget' some of the Ottomans'Empire well-known cruelties, so it would be better if they could reattend some history class to fill their gaps in the aforementioned issue...

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  20. Suleiman lived from 1494 until 1566....

    The so-called ''genocides'' you talk about were in 1915-1920...

    I don't say the Ottomans have never done something bad, but according to you the only thing they did was BAD.

    If the Ottomans wouldn't destroy Byzantium another nation would. The Byzantine Empire was already dying and it only existed of the city of Constantinople. Probably the Italians, Venetian and Genoese, would have destroyed it. Would you then hate them for the rest of your life?
    Do you hate the pagan Romans because they ruled over your nation?

    Seriously you are talking about how muslims get offended by everything. But look at yourself : You are filled with hatred against Ottomans.

    You cannot deny history. Instead of seeing the Ottoman rule in your country as a big black 500-year dark hole, you should realize that during this supposed horror rule somehow all of the christian subjects were still christian at the end + they still spoke their own languages and had their own culture.

    We can't say the same about where Christians went, can we? (America, Australia, Africa, Siberia)

    Maybe your so blinded with hate that you do not realize, in nearly Western all literature, movies etc. the Ottomans/muslums are depicted as terrible people. This time it may have been the other way round (I didn't play the game).

    Conclusion : Ottomans did terrible things, Greeks did terrible things, Armenians did terrible things, Serbians did terrible things, muslims did terrible things, christians did terrible things...

    Are you now going to hate them (their descendants) forever?

    GROW UP

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  21. Playing the game may help you realise that most of OP's points are completely justified!

    The so-called genocides (as you say) were about 1914-1923!Don't forget the Greek & Assyrian genocides in Turkey my friend!

    No I don't think that OP says that Ottomans were only BAD. It just seems weird to him and lots others that the game focuses too much on praising Ottomas and Suleiman and demonizing Byzantines as they were the worst civilization.

    "You cannot deny history"- Exactly!That's why people shouldn't whitewash history in favour of other nations or religions! Ex. Just because I don't hate modern Turks, doesn't mean I should ignore some of the most important facts that happened in the past.

    "Seriously you are talking about how muslims get offended by everything" Another good point! Some muslims can rage over every little stupid thing! I do realise how unfair is the unjustified western criticism against muslims but their overreactions to things like a cartoon or a videogame's song don't really help their image.

    "Are you now going to hate them (their descendants) forever?" As I said before: There is no reason to hate their descendants!It's really dumb to think in a way like this! But it's also dumb to try to cover up the terrible things their ancestors did in fear of touchy , ill-tempered religious people!(I am referring to the game)

    "Conclusion:..." Your statement does have a general application but many times generalisations can be wrong if not dangerously dumb. Of course every nation did mistakes -and still does.So what?! That doesn't negate the fact that some empires were more barbarous than others.

    IT'S NOT ABOUT GROWING UP! IT'S ABOUT GETTING YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!



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    1. ^ Somewhere in my comment I say:"...Suleiman and demonizing Byzantines as *IF* they were the worst civilization." Υeah, I forgot to add "if" :P

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  22. Stumbled upon this as I've recently started playing Revelations (my first *stab* at the AC series). I sensed the implied anti-Catholicism in the game but it wasn't until I read a few prequel game summaries that I realised how blatantly anti-Catholic the series is. Yes, the writers have *tweaked* history in order to do this and, yes, they do it at the expense of a generation that receives its entirety of history lessons from television and pop culture, ironically.

    The portrayal of the Ottomans as such merciful and pluralistic people is downright bullshit though. Reading some of the comments left by Muslim apologists in this combox is even worse. The level of denial is insane only matched by current day when internet Muslims proclaim that those guys recording themselves chopping off heads, ripping hearts out of enemy soldiers then eating them, systematically executing rows of bound men with AK-47s, rioting in the thousands causing harm and death to innocent people every time some dumb as draws a comic of Muhammed... all while shouting that they do it for Islam and "Allahu Akbar" aren't really Muslim... riiiggght. Religion of peace... riiiighhht.

    That's the biggest elephant in the room. Catholics have no problem admitting their wrongs. It comes with being honest, which comes from truth.

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  23. while i agree with you guys (i am a muslim) i am actually the nephew of the executive creator of assasin creed i believe in that time perooid chathlic indevudals were the viillians it depends wich point of view you look it at and i am sorry on behalf of the assasin creed company sorry for any inconvience in offesive gestures and but i stay true on my statement

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  24. This game take place in 1509 . Byzantines ARE REBELS WHO TRYING REBUILD THIER EMPIRE

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  25. Assassin creed is Fictional Game......it come along with some true story...but not mean the game is offensive because its fiction game. Wow...and a lots of comments say 'all Muslims were bad'...we know from he 9/11 tragedy make Christians really hate Muslims...but not mean Muslims are terrorist.....you should look at your 'Human Criminals' country and religion.....look at the America military...they bombed Arab and attack with drone...they involved in war...they support Israel to conquer Palestine....wow....actually....Christians are 'really bad' actually and blame Muslim to cover their mistake and criminals....9/11 tragedy just killed severals people...but the America killing innocent people more times than Muslims....not including another Christian country...wow...'The Christian are so good'.........and mostly movies from the America only are offending Muslims....WOW......good religion......idk why America support a country who crux their God...wow....a supporter of who killin the God....gj to who covers all the 'Good Guys' crminals......You guys just trap in a 'chamber' and hole or door to get out...and just have a solution......blame and make the other religion looking so bad in eyes of the world...while make your religion the greatest and 'the good one' in the world

    Im not Anti-Christ...but I hate their way treat other people......
    Remember..the game mayve offend Muslims and Christians...but...we never 'adding offensive' things to make the issue hot than Jalapeno.......

    Game = To Play
    FICTION = your imagination

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  26. The game is 17+ or so, it implies that you are a mature individual. That being said it is a GAME, and is purely for entertainment, irrespective of religion or race. Even if the games are historically incorrect it doesn't matter much, I again remind you it is just a GAME.

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    1. Ahh the old typical nerd way, back off and claim "ITS ONLY XXXX" learned that from being shoved into a locker by the jock in middle school I bet.

      The nerd is the cancer of society, weak, craven, duplicitous. He must attack everything his betters have: religious beliefs, money, women (nerds and misogyny are like peanut butter and chocolate). My only solace is that so few of them reproduce, their ideas vanish after a scant few generations.

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  27. You all make good points. But the game is kind of sucking off the Ottomans in that they chose their best leader ever (Suleiman the Great) and had Ezio befriend and mentor him. Suleiman is shown as a saint with no bad qualities. He is never shown conquering his way to the gates of Vienna, treating women like objects (all Sultans did), etc.

    And to paint the Byzantines as evil, barely decades after them being conquered is just wrong. I am not saying the Ottomans were evil and the Byzantines were saints. But you dont go and make an AC game in Hellenistic Persia and make the Persians the bad guys and the Greeks the noble people who took out the Templar Persian kings.

    That's the issue here. And despite this being a game "made from a team of polyethnic background" or whatever they say at the start, i'm lead to believe Turkey had a finger in this. Perhaps in the negotiations to giving them the right to use their city, to measure it and such stuff, they did demand certain things from the story.

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  28. Also, i have always been asking for Rome and Constantinople to feature in the games but both have been disappointments. Rome was one because we got to see it in the interim period between the two golden ones. The Roman and the Papal. We are caught in the era after the ruin of the Roman city (to the south) and before the Popes commision all the great Renaissance masterpieces that feature in the new (at the time) northern part. What's the point of giving us Rome but not St Peter's, the bridge of Angels, the piazzas, etc? I guess it had to do with Ezio's timeframe.

    As for Con/ple, i think they should have shown it before even the 4th Crusade. When it was a city of nearly a million people and a vault of ancient artifacts and treasures. Statues of Phideas, a statue of Hercules by Lysippos (Alexander's personal sculptor), a piece of the True Cross, and of course the largest library in the world (or was it the House of Wisdom in Bagdhad?), the Imperial Library which housed all the texts from ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium.

    To all the people saying the Ottomans were evil, i'd say they were pretty fine for conquerors. Read up on the 4th Crusade and what it did to the city, its treasures and its people. It was Europeans that destroyed both Romes. Read about how the Franks scorned the Byzantines using diplomacy over combat, the fact that they eat with silverware and that most of the city's inhabitants could read and write.

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  29. Wow. To everyone saying, "It's fiction. Calm down!" What the hell is wrong with you? Fiction can 100% be offensive! If someone wrote a story about an idiotic, gun toting, black guy and his smart successful white friend who helps him out of trouble, and the author said, "Don't worry! Its fiction! You have no reason to be offended!" Nobody would go along with that bullshit. In the same way, trying to portray an oppressive, wicked group of people as the good guys when compared with the ones they're oppressing is disgusting and wrong.

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