Line #31 Fridge/AssassinsCreedSyndicate


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15	!! Fridge Brilliance
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17	* The high class Disraelis would never associate with low commoners, with criminals like the Fryes having even less chance of doing so. Except, Jacob meets the family by saving their lives from the Blighters. Likewise, he's only hired by Mary Anne as a guide because he 'looks' like a commoner of a 'rougher sort.' They only agree to meet with the Fryes on their train and that's a mobile mansion by Sequence 9. Mary Anne even says there's no way for the Fryes to ever be invited to Buckingham Palace.
18	* Lucy Thorne's Steampunk cosplayer outfit looks ridiculous but, of course, as a woman who does the same sort of stuff Evie does, it wouldn't be practical to wear a dress. She makes a outfit compromise to look like a woman's dress combined with functional pants. It's a bizarre fashion statement but a deliberate one. At least one permitted for a Templar assassin.
19	* While it's possible Maxwell Roth's farewell kiss was just him spiting Jacob, it's also equally possible his overtures are actual romantic ones. If he's is a gay man in Victorian London, his absolute disregard and hatred for society may have a FreudianExcuse. As a ManlyGay LondonGangster, he may also be overcompensating with TestosteronePoisoning. This would be doubly appropriate given [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kray_twins how some real life British]] gangsters have gone to AxCrazy levels to deal with prejudice.
20	* Henry's love of Evie Frye is interesting as while it would be incredibly difficult as an interracial couple in the time period (albeit not impossible even then), they're actually quite appropriate for each other in other ways. The Assassin order has a history of intermarrying with its members and as a Master Assassin, albeit a clumsy one, Henry is an ideal choice in some ways.
21	* The Frye twins' income to run their gang is questionable given they are presumably not engaging in any sort of behavior to harm the innocent as per the Creed. However, the factories the children they rescue are taken over by the Rooks and the Gang Upgrades include things like investing in pubs, bookmaking, and later legitimate large-scale investments like tea companies. Combine with their hijacking of Blighter merchandise for flat-cash payments, it's very likely the Fryes are extorting money from "guilty" factories and using their money from legitimate investments funded by their crimes to pay their members. We also know the Assassins don't have a problem with prostitution done by consenting adults either.
22	* The subject of Ned Wynert's transgender status never comes up in a potential case of PoliticallyCorrectHistory but, bluntly, ''why would either of the Frye twins bring it up?'' Neither of them are HeteronormativeCrusader types and even if they held values which were closer to the time period than liberal Modern Day, it's not exactly something they'd approach. Ned Wynert is their extremely valuable fence and underworld contact who is not someone they'd want to risk asking insulting questions of. The Assassins have been known to be fairly enlightened thinkers, centuries ahead of their time in their values and beliefs. Race, gender, class, none of that ever mattered. Remember that Altair was an atheist in a time where such a thing would have gotten you killed, and Ezio was supportive of Leonardo Da Vinci's homosexuality.
23	* Queen Victoria knighting the Fryes and Henry is a ridiculous thing given they're criminals, but becomes more understandable when you note they're ''knighted in secrecy'' with only Abberline as a witness; an actual knighthood would be conferred in a public ceremony. They're promptly dragooned into being the Queen's hatchetmen against the Templar Order, which the Queen clearly knows of. In all likelihood, she's well aware they're Assassins and this whole thing is a meaningless gesture meant to endear her to them.
24	* When Jacob asks who Henry Green is, Evie answers and then asks, "Did you not listen the first three times?" Then this troper remembered that in the OpeningNarration, Henry said to George that he has been asking for aid three times with no response. Evie, the smart one, actually heard about the letters George had been receiving!
25	* One of the character development points the twins learn in the main story is how they work best when they work together. This doesn't get fully realized until the final mission, but what's the one mission where they're actually seen cooperating side by side? The Crate Escape. It took just the right amount of collaboration between the twins that the mission ended up the way it did: Jacob offered to eliminate the snipers while Evie snuck down to search the chest, and then Jacob drove the cart away while Evie was left to defend them against the pursuing Templars. Evie would've wanted to keep the whole chest, but Jacob urged her to jump on the train to escape, and while Evie isn't content that they've only procured one journal, ''it's enough to actually kickstart her search for the Piece of Eden''. In-game, this is where the Evie's Notebook menu gets unlocked for the first time. If Jacob did that mission alone, he'd likely get distracted by the prospect of fighting Templars and not have the patience to dig through documents to find what they need. If Evie went solo, she'd have likely not gotten an opening to get the chest to herself, and would have likely spent too much time going through the same documents, even when she's about to be surrounded with no escape.
26	* Wanna know why all the events in the story took place in one year? Jacob's desire to take action meant Starrick's inner circle was eliminated ''that'' quickly! Compare with Evie, who said during their first argument, "It's not time for that!" She ''did'' want to take down the Templars as much as Jacob did, but her priority was finding the Piece of Eden first, while Jacob wanted to find their targets straight away. One of the contrasts between the two is how Evie prefers tactics and strategy, but this can make her slow to act, while Jacob is prone to charging in recklessly, but it gets the job done. If Evie went her way, then the story might've spanned more years than one that would involve the inevitable TimeSkip of previous ''Assassin's Creed'' stories.
27	** This might also explain why the death of Templars sometimes lead to a power vacuum or a social/economic crisis. Since Jacob was moving so fast, they didn't have time to cultivate alternative relationships the same way Ezio or Conner did to create alternatives to the Templars. So when the Templars did fall, there wasn't as many people to help.
28	* ''Syndicate'' brings back an element of Assassin lore that hadn't appeared since the first game: taking a swipe of their target's blood to prove their action. (On a handkerchief rather than a feather due to changing times) But why would these assassins bring this back? Because these are assassins from the British Empire. Although older assassins would have passed on some measures of tradition, the Victorian era had a greater desire to focus on historical accuracy what with their many expeditions to "retrieve" artifacts from around the globe. Given that assassins would likely be somewhere in there too, it's possible that the British assassins managed to "recover" that part of assassin tradition during this time.
29	** In addition, like Altair, Jacob and Evie were born and raised in the order, being taught the traditions of the Creed in a way the other protagonists who were all inducted as teens, adults, and as such were not taught the deeper traditions of the brotherhood, particularly the likes of Ezio or Arno, who, at least to an extent, were initially using the brotherhood for vengeance against Templar enemies and will have been more interested in the skills than the traditions.
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31	!! Fridge Horror
32	* One of the Templar Hunts has two targets called the Slaughterhouse siblings. But the optional constraint to kill them? "Have the sister kill her brother." And your player characters are exactly brother and sister. Ouch...
33	* Assassins and Templars through the ages:
34	** One disturbing bit seen in ''Syndicate'' as continued from the series is that it's becoming harder and harder for the Assassins to actually make headway against Templar strongholds without accidentally making things harder for the people they swear to protect. In the first game, the Templar order kept sending up scabs to take high positions in both Crusader and Saracen societies, but their elimination just allowed the highest leaders of either faction to bring in new appointees. In Ezio's time, the Templars were strong leaders as well, but thanks to the Assassins' cultivated relationships with rival families, their downfall didn't mean the cities collapsed. In Edward Kenway's time, the Templars were leaders in colonial governments, but due to general apathy to central law in the Caribbean, their deaths didn't signal the end of imperial colonies. For Connor, the Templars again had hands in all sides, but thanks to a rash of new blood in leadership for America, their defeats were mere footnotes in the grand scheme of the American Revolution. In the French Revolution, the Assassins ran into serious trouble, and despite their best efforts, were unable to stop the Templars from instituting the Reign of Terror. The Templars were stopped, [[BittersweetEnding but the damage was done]].
35	** But in ''Syndicate'', [[NecessarilyEvil the Templars' positions]] make it so that with each kill, somehow a part of London's vital infrastructure [[NiceJobBreakingItHero utterly falls to pieces]], whether it's a medical, a transportation, or a fiscal crisis. As if it's getting harder to find others sympathetic to the Assassins to take the place of the Templars once they're gone.
36	*** Hell, this has a visual RuleOfSymbolism cue in the game: loads of buildings have the [[SigilSpam Templar Cross and Crawford's business logo]] all over them. As Rupert Ferris tells Jacob at the very start, London has become a Templar mechanism. Killing the current Templars won't eliminate the socioeconomical infrastructure and political influence that inevitably allows new ones to come and quickly rebuild once the Assassins get complacent or distracted again. The business owners and politicians of London will prefer to side with newcoming fellow industrialists and politicians rather than [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters the local gangs and their weirdo hooded troublemaking leaders talking about freedom and whatnot]]. Especially since Evie rejects an alliance with Queen Victoria and British imperialism; the Templars would work for decades to get this kind of position where they can subtly bend things to their cause, but Evie rejects it out of moral concerns. Even after killing all Templars, the Fryes have no true hold or agency over British politics at the end, being just another pair of petty criminals in London.
37	** This can also be extended to the modern era, as thanks to "the Truth" minigames and the dialog in the "today" section, killing Templar leaders hardly makes a dent at all in their work, and the Templars even managed to instigate a World War despite the best efforts of the Assassins. Almost like the ''Assassin's Creed'' series is building up to be a ShaggyDogStory about the futility of the Assassin cause.
38	** Borders on fridge brilliance when you reflect on every Templar's dying speech. Every criticism they made of the Assassins is essentially true. Assassins don't build, they destroy. Assassins are reactive, not proactive. Assassins squander every opportunity available to them because they fear the long-term ramifications of their meddling or because their views on what counts as freedom are very naive or shortsighted. Even when a cause is tailor-made for them, Assassins balk at throwing themselves behind it until it's almost too late to stop the Templars (and often because, many times, it's not the Templars behind it, such as the Ottoman wars and conquests in 15th Century). How has every game started in the past? The Assassins '''starting from square one''': the current protagonist having no resources (money, equipment, etc.), no infrastructure to rely on, having to build up the Assassins ''again'' just to stand a chance of fighting the Templars on somewhat even footing... and then the Assassins let all this collapse to nothing once more within the span of a few decades or a century at best, after they've beaten the Templars of their time. And now the long term effects of each philosophy is being seen, as the modern Assassins are scattered and essentially being wiped out to a man due to their total lack of influence and resources. In a marked contrast, the Templars have grown into an almost unstoppable global force precisely because their predecessors' efforts have been built upon and expanded with each new generation.
39	*** It also explains why Altair and Ezio were the pinnacle of the Assassin Brotherhood. Altair and Ezio weren't just about killing Templars for the sake of it; after they purged Templars in a territory, they invested on improving society through education and business. However, once the Assassins adopted a vengeful guerrila mentality dismissing anyone trying to build and manage things as "impairing freedom" and relying on indirect or unwitting allies, they stopped building powerbases with which to oppose the Templars. In contrast, we actually see [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII the points]] [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag in time]] [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity where the Templars realized]] that relying on religion, the aristocracy and military isn't enough and started using the same tactics Altair and Ezio did. The whole point of Subject 16's messages was revealing the Templars learned their lesson.
40	* Jack The Ripper's memories. Where did they come from? After all, one needs to have a living descendant to survive to this day for them to be gathered, AND those events can't obviously be gathered that occurred after the descendant was sired. And the last memory of the Ripper we view is just shortly before his death. Seems like there are two options: One is that Evie killed a decoy - and the real one got away. The other... {{squick}}.
41	** Pieces of Eden can also record memories, like Altair's discs in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations''. But are there any indications that Jack is possessing precursor technology?
42	*** FridgeBrilliance: Could explain his advanced use of all the fear tactics.
43	** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' reveals that Animus technology can draw genetic memory from corpses, it's possible someone found Jack's body and is sequencing DNA from it.
44	*** Actually, it's been made clear since ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'' that Abstergo has developed the Animus technology to extract the GeneticMemories from anyone (alive or dead), allow non-relatives to relive those memories through Data Dump Scanner (later Helix) cloud-based software and upload those memories into the Abstergo Cloud. That's how they had Sample 17 Project to examine Desmond Miles' Genetic Memories and research Edward Kenway, and how the [[PlayerCharacter Helix Initiate (AKA You)]] got to look through [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity Arno Dorian]], Jacob & Evie Frye and Jack the Ripper's Genetic Memories. It's also how Project Legacy (from the Facebook game) and the Animi Training Program (the Multiplayer mode from AC II-through-IV) worked, so Abstergo could have their agents use the Animus to research and training using the memories of past Assassins and Templars (many of whom probably didn't have children due to being killed).
45	* A minor one but still: according to ''Assassin's Creed'' lore, genetic memories of person go through from birth to conception of a child who's bloodline will lead to a person used to extract such memories. In the game we can play both Evie and Jacob, who are siblings. This could mean that they have a shared progeny.
46	** Or that twins are close enough to each other on a genetic level that they are indistinguishable on the genetic scale.

Context Fridge / AssassinsCreedSyndicate