Line #44 Headscratchers/AssassinsCreedRevelations


1	'''Note:''' ''WesternAnimation/AssassinsCreedEmbers'' has its own [[Headscratchers/AssassinsCreedEmbers Headscratchers page]]. Please put Headscratchers for the movie there.
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3	New entries on the bottom.
4
5	[[foldercontrol]]
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7	[[folder: The Scar]]
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9	* Is there a reason Altair, Ezio and Desmond (and maybe others, I haven't played the newer games yet) all share the same scar on the right part of their lips?
10	** Maybe it's genetic?
11	** It’s never been revealed how Altair and Desmond got their scars, but Ezio got his from a rock thrown at him. RuleOfCool, maybe?
12	[[/folder]]
13
14	[[folder:Database entries]]
15
16	* So, the Assassins apparently do not realize that Desmond is reliving Ezio's escapades in the East. So why are there building descriptions apparently written in Shaun's trademark snarky style? Did he prepare those for every single landmark Desmond might run into in any city any of his ancestors may have visited?
17	** WordOfGod says that the Database entries for ''Revelations'' were written by Subject 16.
18	** Confirmed if you read Ezio's database entry. The writer explicitly says that "Eagle Sense was strong in Ezio, I got a little taste myself, in the short time I spent with him, but since my time went dark much sooner than yours did, I never got the full experience." There's no way ''that'' could have been written by anyone except Sixteen.
19	** The very first Database Entry (which you need to search since it won't show up in the HUD like the others) is about Subject 16, where he basically introduces himself.
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21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:Assassins versus Ottomans]]
24
25	* Why are the Assassins in Constantinople seemingly not at odds with the Ottoman regime? A militaristic, expansionist empire seems like something they would oppose.
26	** The Assassins view the Templars as a bigger threat than any non-Templar-controlled organization. The former is a far greater threat than the latter, as the former is actively crushing human willpower and freedom of thought, whereas the latter is Tuesday, and the Ottomans were actually a very progressive society in a lot of respects.
27	** This was actually discussed in the story: [[spoiler:one of the Multiplayer characters, the Sentinel (Vali cel Tradat) was actually a former Assassin from Wallachia that defected to the Templars in revenge for what he saw as betrayal by the Assassin Brotherhood since they were working with, instead of fighting against, the Ottoman oppressors.]]
28	** The Assassins have worked with otherwise unsavory sorts before. In the second game they were aligned with the Medicis, who shadow-ruled Florence, they worked with Caterina Sforza, who was a brutal ruler, and worked with a Barbarigo Doge in Venice who was utterly inept and corrupt. The Assassins working with the Ottomans to oppose the Templars is entirely in character for them.
29	** This is especially true for the modern day Assassins if you look at the ExpandedUniverse materials and all of Subject 16's messages. Seriously, their members and allies includes [[SarcasmMode charming]] individuals such as UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin, UsefulNotes/MaoZedong, [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Ho Chi Minh]], [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and]] UsefulNotes/AlGore. When the Assassins say that 'Everything is permitted', [[CombatPragmatist they really mean it]]. They are interested in preserving the free will of mankind in the long run by fighting against the Templars, but they are perfectly willing to [[NecessarilyEvil work with non-aligned organizations that violate the 'Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent' tenet on a daily basis]].
30
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Altair and the hidden blade]]
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35	* Another one of those "abstractions of the Animus" things: 82-year old Altaïr walks slowly and coughs and wheezes, yet his arms are still quick and dexterous enough to freely stab people with the hidden blade.
36	** I think that could be chalked up to Altaïr having an easier time performing an assassination than breaking into a run. Even in old age, while you probably can't usually break into a run that easily, quickly moving your arms to slide a blade between someone's ribs probably isn't that difficult. That said, I wouldn't know for sure, since I never attempted high-profile assassinations with Altaïr in his old age, just the quiet ones.
37	** TruthInTelevision. A good example of this would be Creator/ChristopherLee; he is noted as being an incredibly skilled swordsman, with lightning-fast arms and an agile upper body, but he's old and his legwork isn't anywhere near as good as his upper-bodywork. That's why in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequels, a lot of shots involving Dooku fighting were from the waist up. Altaïr is the exact same way.
38	** Moving ~10 pounds of arm and blade is a lot less effort than moving 160+ pounds of an entire human body.
39
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Ziplines and hookblade]]
43
44	* I've been curious about something. Several of the locations you go to in order to find Altaïr's keys have ziplines. Now, I checked the wiki, and it says that the hookblade has been in use since the 1480s. If I recall, Altaïr gave the keys to Niccolò Polo at least 300 years ago, correct? It's also likely that no one has been down in those locations in that time. So, how would they have been able to design the locations in such a way that a hookblade would be necessary? Did Altaïr give them a glimpse of the future so that they'd be able to arrange for such a construction in anticipation?
45	** That's simply BenevolentArchitecture. In addition, note how ancient, unmaintained scaffolding and such only crumble after Ezio has jumped free of them, or they tumble down in a manner that benefits him.
46	** Ah, so I guess it's essentially segregating gameplay and story? Then again, I suppose that at the time they had designed the place, the ropes were much stronger so that an Assassin could just shimmy across (the one that passes through the waterfall not withstanding). I do recall that most of the scaffolding crumble only after Ezio gets away from them or ends up causing mayhem to his benefit, so I assume they had alternate routes set up?
47	** The hookblade is just a hook married to a hidden blade. They could just use ordinary hooks to get down the ziplines.
48
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Long jump and hookblade]]
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53	* Something about the hookblade mechanics. Specifically the function that allows you to perform a long-jump. How come Ezio is able to jump a long distance straight ahead if he uses the hookblade to grasp the corner chase-breakers, but can only swing his way around the corner if he uses his bare hands instead? From what I can see, it doesn't look like he couldn't do it. Is there anything that would make it more difficult for him without the hookblade?
54	** Not that I can see. Theoretically, he could achieve the same result by grabbing the hanging lamp (that's what they look like) in the middle with one hand. Another explanation would be that he wouldn't be able to make it across with just his hand and that the hookblade gives him the additionally torque necessary to propel him across the space.
55
56	[[/folder]]
57
58	[[folder:Driver]]
59
60	* So at the very end of the game, when [[spoiler:Desmond wakes up]], Shaun, Rebecca and William are all in the back of the truck. It seems like they just stopped, so who was driving?
61	** Another modern day Assassin?
62	** Possibly the other man heard at the end of ''Brotherhood''.
63
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Juno and Lucy]]
67
68	* I know the game was called Revelations (and to be fair we did learn a lot) but this game still didn't answer my most important question: Why did Juno make Desmond stab Lucy?!!
69	** The DLC The Lost Archives actually solves that one. [[spoiler: Lucy was a double agent working for Abstergo.]]
70	** All signs (from the red footprints circling Monterigioni to Lucy's past tenure with Abstergo) seem to point to Lucy being a Templar double-agent. Either that, or Juno thought she was and saw her as a threat.
71	** Note that one of the dossiers in the multiplayer [[spoiler:mentions that Abstergo has "sleeper agents," who used to work for Abstergo, underwent a memory-changing procedure, and now help Abstergo without knowing it. I'm thinking Lucy (or someone else) was one of those due to LawOfConservationOfDetail.]]
72	** The impression I got was that since Desmond has a high concentration of characteristics inherited from Those Who Came Before, they planned for him to help resurrect their race. But to do that, he needs to have a child with a woman of a similarly high concentration of TWCB genes. Desmond, contrary to that plan, is developing feelings for Lucy, an average human (and she for him). So Juno made him stab Lucy to ensure the bloodline was kept pure. Is that a really dickish thing to do? Yes. But these creatures were once humanity's slave masters, and they see Desmond as breeding stock (I get the impression she was really, ''really'' bitter about her race's death, actually, and blamed the humans and their weakness).
73	** Desmond already has a son, as revealed in Syndicate, who is a Sage, from her matrilinear line. Guess it already happened, before the Templars captured Desmond. He is 10 years old.
74	** Whatever the reason was, you'd think that the incident would give Desmond a few doubts about trusting TWCB. But he's still completely willing to listen and be their pawn.
75	** What's the alternative? Refusing to listen to them and let the world be destroyed? As for being their pawn, they are all dead.
76	** Here is a good question, if June wanted Lucy dead - why did she had to control Desmond into stabbing her, when she could've just nuked her head with the Apple! Sure it wouldn't be pretty. But is that the only reason? In any case i think that June didn't wanted for Desmond to have a way out of his, what's the word, Destiny. Besides, as i see it June is a Templar herself. And Lucy (not being Sleeper agent) was developing feelings for Desmond and, in turn, betraying Templars.
77	** She can't control the Apple since that's what is allowing her to control Desmond and keeping the others from moving. The worst we saw the Apple do was mind control people, so no head nuking. And III and IV josses the idea that Juno is a Templar, while the DLC josses the idea that Lucy is going to betray the Templars.
78
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Ezio and Altair's ghost]]
82
83	* [[WordOfGod According to Darby McDevitt]], Ezio is ''not'' a descendant of Altaïr. Yet at the beginning of the game, Ezio sees the 'ghost' of Altaïr in a fashion very similar to when Desmond saw Ezio's 'ghost' due to the bleeding effect.
84	** I also thought it was Ezio seeing his ancestor Altaïr in a similar fashion to the Bleeding Effect. However, if they aren't related by blood, at least at that point, then perhaps Ezio was seeing those ghosts because Altaïr was so closely tied to Masyaf? All of the memories from the five keys take place there, after all.
85	** Could be a variation of the Bleeding Effect caused by the keys, i.e. reliving Altaïr's memories through the keys leaves a "mental footprint" in Ezio.
86	** No, Ezio hasn't found any of the keys at this point.
87	** Maybe it's actually Desmond seeing Altaïr superimposed onto Ezio's memories of Masyaf because of the bleeding effect?
88	** Still not a good enough explanation to say that Desmond is seeing it. Ezio himself was distracted by Altaïr's image in the opening cutscene.
89	** Desmond, reliving Ezio's memory of the event, is distracted by an image of Altaïr. This doesn't mean, historically, that Ezio was, or that Ezio ever even saw the image (he makes no mention of it to anybody). Remember, the Animus does allow the subject to relive the memories a little bit differently than they actually happened, this just results in loss of sync. Since Desmond's plot revolves around his trouble syncing one ancestor apart from another, it makes perfect sense that Desmond's memory of Ezio would be distracted by Altaïr.
90	** Considering that Assassins are descended from attempts to create human/First Civilization hybrids, it is entirely possible that Ezio is actually seeing Altaïr himself. Remember that the First Civilization had the sixth sense of "knowledge" and could apparently see into the future, and Eagle Vision is an expression of that genetic heritage in genetic Assassins. Seeing Altaïr is likely an expression of that "knowledge" sense that Assassins possess.
91	** It is also entirely possible that seeing Altaïr is a direct result of Ezio having interacted with his Apple. Remember that the Apple explicitly lets he user view the future, and they don't know what the side effects of using the Apple would really be. It is possible that Ezio seeing Altaïr is one of the side effects of exposing himself to that technology.
92	** Except by this point Altaïr's Apple is still locked in his library. Ezio's Apple is a different Piece of Eden.
93	** And? The Apples let you literally see through time and space. It doesn't matter where one Apple is located when all Apples, particularly Ezio's, let you look past silly things like temporal and spatial barriers. Ezio even literally used his Apple to see the future and hunt down Cesare.
94	** The Eagle Sense lets you see the ghostly forms of people you're tracking. Could have been an offshoot of that.
95	** This is the reason. It's specifically stated that by Revelations' timeline, Ezio's Eagle Sense has drastically improved from what it used to be to now allowing him to see the movements of people, even if they're a fair ways away. It's also stated, I believe, that the world has memory imprints that TWCB and people with strong genetic make-up can detect (but I might be wrong on that particular front). So essentially, Ezio is able to see the memory of Altaïr, to an extent.
96	** Or maybe it was changed? [[WordOfGod Darby McDevitt]] said Ezio is not a descendant of Altaïr before ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' was completed.
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98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Crowds and killing]]
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102	* I don't know if this happens in the other games, since I haven't played them in awhile, but whenever you get into a fight with the guards and there's a crowd of people around, they cheer you on and everything. However, when you kill an enemy, they start freaking out. What's up with that? Is it that they're being drowned out by the people who're scared of Ezio? Them not realizing he was going to actually kill them? Or is it just because of how brutal their deaths are? If it's the last one, does it only apply with the Hidden Blade?
103	** For an ordinary person, seeing your hero fighting against the guards is one thing, watching him finish them off in a gory execution is an entirely different matter.
104
105	[[/folder]]
106
107	[[folder:Leonardo]]
108
109	* Whatever happened to Leonardo in between games? I haven't played the game but it looks like there are no mentions of him anywhere.
110	** Just looked it up on Wikipedia. He was still in Italy before and during this game.
111	** He was in Milan until 1513, then he went to the Vatican to work with fellow [[Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Ninja Turtles]] Raphael and Michelangelo. By ''Embers'', he's dead (since 1519).
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113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Piri Reis]]
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117	* In [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]] and Project Legacy, one of the contracts that you can send your recruits to do was to infiltrate Constantinople and steal Piri Reis' maps of the New World. However, now we know that he was actually an Assassin himself. So what is going on here? Did Ezio just ordered his recruits in Rome to steal from another member of the Order? Was it a case of poor communication between the Assassin branches? Were the Ottoman Assassins unwilling to betray their national secrets? Was this before Piri Reis joined the Assassins?
118	** Perhaps Piri Reis wasn't in a position to send the maps over -- say, in the middle of a Templar stronghold. Maybe what you're really doing is sending recruits to stage a break-in so Piri Reis won't look suspicious.
119	** This is [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the ''Assassin's Creed Revelations'' novel, where Ezio hopes, before meeting Piri, that he has forgotten about the time Ezio sent Assassin recruits to steal his plans.
120	** According to the wiki, the mission in question took place in 1503, but Piri Reis didn't join the Brotherhood until 1506.
121	** [[FridgeBrilliance Which may have been how he became associated with the Brotherhood in the first place.]]
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123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Coal Dust]]
126
127	* How is the coal dust a lethal bomb ingredient? I've tried every single combination of shells and powders available (not that many, admittedly), and I've only managed to kill three people with thunder bombs. Even then those three had to be caught unawares by a bomb using the British gunpowder. Everyone else just sort of coughed for a while, then went on trying to kill me. It seems more like a distraction ingredient than a lethal one.
128	** It's not. It's more of a crippling-type ingredient. It stuns and disrupts your opponent so you can get in close to stab 'em. The description says so, but I do wish they'd substituted a more lethal ingredient...[[KillItWithFire like Napalm]].
129	** Eh? The fact that you killed three people with the thunder bombs does not mean that they're lethal?
130	** I should've been more specific: I killed three separate people, each using a thunder bomb loaded with the strongest gunpowder. Everyone else in the blast radius just coughed and got ticked off. As mentioned, these three had to be caught off-guard. Compared to shrapnel and datura powder -- both of which will kill everyone within the blast radius regardless of whether they're caught unawares -- coal dust is hardly lethal.
131	** And yet it still kills. You just need to be precise and strike at the perfect time. Kind of like an Assassin.
132	** If you do the Piri Reis mission, it explicitly says its main purpose is to stun and distract. It can still kill though, so it gets classified as Lethal.
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134	[[/folder]]
135
136	[[folder:First Civ death]]
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138	* Why did the First Civilization have to die? [[spoiler:They were expecting a devastating solar flare, build vaults for Pieces of Eden testing and a whole town to help with research. They obviously knew what was coming and had the time. So, why didn't they build bomb shelters? In the "And Then the World Ended", we don't see any destruction worse than a bombing raid. The people died mostly because the city was built on a glass platform above an open magma flows. Oh, the magma flow was a result of an earthquake? Then build shelters away from seismic zones. I doubt a solar flare is capable of cracking tectonic plates. Plus, the war would be over, as the humans would not have built any shelters and be dwindled down to the few thousands mentioned.]]
139	** Think of it like that: They're the equivalent of mankind's gods. They are superpowered beings that can create reality warping objects just so they can enslave another races. Why would they think they could die? It's sort of like saying "The end of the world will strike at X date.". Normal people will get worried, but rich, powerful people with high chairs on the government will probably think "Hey, I think we can stop that. No way this disaster can actually destroy someone like me, right? [[TemptingFate Right?]]". They were probably too arrogant to think that any permanent harm could actually come to them.
140	** Actually, that sounds pretty good.
141	** They were currently at war with their human slaves when the disaster hit. There probably wasn't a ton of spare infrastructure to use to protect themselves, especially if they thought the Triune would handle the problem. Also, some of the first civilization survived the flare, though they did die out for unknown reasons later.
142
143	[[/folder]]
144
145	[[folder:Books on Marco Polo]]
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147	* On the mission where you find those books, I just found a book narrating the travels of Creator/MarcoPolo. Weren't those books brought there by his father? Before he had adventures? Or is my memory horrible and someone said those books are hidden for random reasons?
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149	[[/folder]]
150
151	[[folder:Altair's name]]
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153	* Altaïr's name is Altaïr Ibn Al'Ahad, or Altaïr, son of Al'Ahad. Yet in the first Maysaf memory, he introduces himself as Altaïr, son of Umar. Why the inconsistency?
154	** His last name means "son of none", and it's probably symbolic.
155	** Altaïr's fathers name is Umar Ibn La'Ahad.
156
157	[[/folder]]
158
159	[[folder:Lucy (DLC)]]
160
161	* So Lucy [[spoiler: was a double... triple... quad... agent?]]
162	** Triple? Quad? I haven't played DLC, but I can say that she was only a double agent.
163	** Double. She was an assassin who went to work for Abstergo as a spy (single) who later "returned" with Desmond (still single). However, during her time at Abstergo, she became a Templar spy and was reporting on Desmond after her return (there be the double).
164	** Another possibility is that she was originally a Templar and honestly switched to the Assassins, then later on Warren Vidic convinced her to join ''his'' side, without the knowledge or approval of the other Templars...in effect making her a triple agent. The official guidebook actually supports this view, and given Abstergo's rather callous attitude toward Vidic in later games, it's certainly plausible.
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166	[[/folder]]
167
168	[[folder:First game Apple]]
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170	* I just beat Revelations last night and am confused by something; so the Apple from the first game WASN'T the same Apple the Templars retrieved from Cyprus in the second (which I guess is a Headscratcher in and of itself), because Altaïr hid the first Apple in the library beneath Masyaf just before he died. Ezio finds Altaïr's corpse and the first Apple in said library at the end of Revelations, but refuses to take it. Okay, fair enough. Some additional research I've done seems to point to the first Apple staying beneath Masyaf until Abstergo retrieved it, and subsequently ended up destroying it in the Denver experiment. My question is...why didn't the OTHER Assassins ever think to remove the Apple from Masyaf instead of letting it sit there for the Templars to just walk in and pick up centuries later? Did Ezio never even bother to try to get word to the Constantinople Guild there was an Apple down there they might want to at the very least keep an eye on? They had access to the library thanks to Ezio retrieving all of Altaïr's discs, so...it just seems weird to me that, given the sheer power of the Apples, the Assassins would just let one sit beneath Masyaf for so long and not at least try to guard it, especially since it did eventually end up in Templar hands.
171	** I have to imagine that Ezio (rightly) deems that it is far too dangerous for ANYONE to have, or even know about. Better in his mind to leave it forgotten behind a nigh-indestructable barrier (it is implied that the door is made of the same material as the Armor of Altaïr) and conveinently misplace the keys. Obviously technology progressed to the point that Templars were able to breach it, but at the time...
172	** Well, forget what I said, I just replayed II and Elizabeth I came into possession of Altaïr's Apple, barely a half-century after Revelations ends. Granted, she wasn't a Templar (though apparently Mary was, according to Project Legacy).
173	** So as an addendum to this question, just how many "Apples" are there anyway? And how many artifacts?
174	** At least 34, going by the numbering in ''[=ACII=]'''s glyph puzzles.
175	** OP here. Just getting back to a point I made earlier...so, if the Apple from the first game did stay in Masyaf, then where DID the Apple from II and Brotherhood come from? The Codex says it was the same Apple from I (though that does turn out to have been a deliberate attempt at misinformation by Altaïr to keep the Apple safely locked away in Revelations), which should mean there wouldn't have been anything at the old Templar archive in Cyprus for them to find during the Renaissance...except they then come back with an Apple anyway! So where did that one come from and how did it end up in Cyprus? I get the problem most likely stems from the fact that in Assassin's Creed II, the Apple the Templars retrieved from Cyprus was actually intended to be the same Apple from I, and the series has gone in a slightly different direction since Patrice Desilets left the series (like Altaïr and Ezio no longer being related), but Revelations doesn't really provide a good answer as to how the second Apple actually got to Cyprus for Rodrigo to get his hands on.
176	** The Codex ends with Altaïr contemplating looking into the Apple again. Which indicates that it's with him at Masyaf, just as in Revelations. The Cyprus Apple must've been in Cyprus to begin with. Remember that map at the end of ''1''? Altaïr probably used that map or something similar with the Apple to track down another Apple on Cyprus, and make sure it was hidden. The Codex doesn't say he hid the Apple on Cyprus, only that there was a 'movement' and that he must go. So what likely happened was that a Templar or someone got a hold of the Apple on Cyprus, Altaïr took care of it and hid the Apple somewhere on the island, then Rodrigo dug it up. It's likely Altaïr's Apple never left Masyaf.
177	** The Apple from 2 and Brotherhood was used by Mehmed II during his conquest of Constantinople and when his son Cem failed to take the Ottoman throne he kept the apple and left it in the Templar Archive on Cyprus before he went to Rhodes.
178
179	[[/folder]]
180
181	[[folder:Snow in Masyaf]]
182
183	* Excuse my geographical ignorance but does it actually snow like that in Masyaf?
184	** Masyaf is in the country of Syria, it snows very lightly there. Up in the mountains, however, the climate is high enough that snow can last longer, there does appear to be a rather large mountain range surrounding Masyaf so its high altitude may explain why it is snowing.
185
186	[[/folder]]
187
188	[[folder:Poison blade]]
189
190	* In II, the Codex states that one must hollow the hidden blade to fill it with poison, thus creating a poison blade. Okay. Ezio can, however, fight with both his blades, despite the fact that one should be hollow and filled with poison. But all right. In ''Brotherhood'' he adds darts to the Hidden/Poison Blade, but we never really see where does the dart comes out. It's not from the same hole as the hidden gun, that's for sure. But in Revelations he has a whole new blade, the hook blade, that he had never used or seen before, but that can still be used as a poison blade. And as a hook. The ''hollow blade can be used as a hook and a small weapon''. Can someone please explain how this works? Or I don't know... at least how Ezio can ''change'' from a normal hidden blade to a poison blade and then shoot darts seamlessly.
191	** Fighting and hooking (hee hee) with a hollow blade is reasonable if you assume magic metals (the Apple taught Leonardo how, I guess). The dart would be handled like the gun: Mounted a bit higher up. As far as triggering it: I guess the same way Spider-Man triggers different webs? Magic or slightly different hand gestures.
192	** The hook blade is actually an entirely separate blade that attaches to the normal hidden blade design. As for the poison blade, I always assumed it was the same as the hook blade. Not actually a modification of the hidden blade, but a separate blade entirely (more like a long metal syringe needle really) that was retrofitted onto the normal hidden blade. The reason I assumed this was because I couldn't figure out how Ezio could use the hidden blade but ''not'' the poison blade in a fight if the poison blade was just a tube running down the length of the hidden blade. But a long hollow needle that extends slightly to the side of the hidden blade? That I could understand. As for how the poison darts are fired, it's probably some sort of spring mechanism. In fact (and I admit this is WMG-ing it a bit) it's possible the poison blade ''always'' fired out these little darts (how else would you have a precise ammo counter for the poison blade) but in ACII the mechanism wasn't powerful enough to shoot long distances. Then in Brotherhood Leonardo dreams up a more powerful launch device that can shoot darts further. Sort of like going from a close-range stun gun to a long-range tazer.
193	** Actually, the poison darts are loaded into the hidden gun and fired, and the hidden blade IS hollowed out. Leonardo says so in ACII when you're first given the poison blade, saying that it took him a while to figure out how to hollow out the blade without compromising its integrity. As for Ezio not using the poison blade in combat, he does, but he uses it like a regular hidden blade. He doesn't exactly have time to prick a specific artery/vein with a tin point of a blade in the middle of a fight.
194	** Also, the Hookblade is attached to the right Hidden Blade, whereas all the other upgrades Ezio acquires (Hidden Gun, Poison, etc) are attached to the left Hidden Blade.
195	** The inventory in II shows the poison blade as a separate attachment to the hidden blade.
196
197	[[/folder]]
198
199	[[folder:Shahkulu]]
200
201	* How did Shahkulu survive both his stabbings?
202	** MadeOfIron. He was just that tough.
203	** Ezio says his armor was too good to simply shoot him, that probably helped his resistance to being shanked.
204	** Also remember that Dante Moro from the second game survived getting stabbed in the head (which happened in real life) so it's not all that far fetched that a guy in super tough armor can survive less
205
206	[[/folder]]
207
208	[[folder:Niccolo and the keys]]
209
210	* Did Niccolo build, or hire someone to build, all the places where the Masyaf keys were hidden?
211
212	[[/folder]]
213
214	[[folder:Bill training Lucy and Desmond]]
215
216	* Bill said he trained both Lucy and Desmond, right? How the hell does that work?
217	** Simple. Desmond was his son and lived at the Farm with him until he ran way. Lucy also lived there until she was 17, at which point he set in motion the plan to get her to infiltrate Abstergo.
218
219	[[/folder]]
220
221	[[folder:Languages]]
222
223	* What language are they speaking? Does everyone in Istanbul speak Italian? Ezio says his Turkish is "absurd" and that his Greek is "non-existent", but he conveys a lot of ideas.
224	** Kostantiniyye was and still is a major city and centre of trade between Europe, Asia, and Africa. The various peoples of the Ottoman Empire spoke [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Ottoman_Empire lots of different languages]]. Presumably the Assassins are at least passably familiar with the major trade tongues and the Animus translates for its subjects. Venetians do a lot of business here, after all, and Venetians speak Italian.
225
226	[[/folder]]
227
228	[[folder:Sofia and murder]]
229
230	* Does anyone else find Sofia's interaction with Ezio and reaction to everything that happens to her a bit unrealistic? [[http://ladyve.deviantart.com/art/A-Minor-Change-for-Ezio-and-Sofia-291562046 This]] deviantart post shows what I mean better then I can describe. I mean, she doesn't even seem all that shocked or traumatized about her bookstore being destroyed and herself almost getting killed by her sort-of boyfriend's enemies!
231	** Ezio, graybeard or not, is one of the deadliest fighters who've ever lived, has even more weapons than he did in Brotherhood, and has repeatedly displayed absolutely zero compunction about clobbering irritating women. Plus he just saved her life. ''You'' think in that situation keeping your feelings to your damn self wouldn't be a good idea?
232	** And more than that, considering the nature of the Ottoman/Byzantine rivalry AND the Janassaries elite soldiers, having guards do cruel things to the people wasn't too far-fetched. It's very likely Sofia knew this risk, and what would happen; she just kept her wits about her after Ezio saved her. And it's very likely the adrenaline was still pumping, keeping the 'realistic' thoughts at bay while on-screen.
233
234	[[/folder]]
235
236	[[folder:Subject 16's Blood Writing]]
237	* This is something that's been bothering me for a while now: how the hell did Subject 16/Clay Kaczmarek make so very, very many pictures/words/etc. using only his own blood? ''And'' apparently remain conscious/coherent enough to do it with accuracy and general neatness? I mean, Christ, [[http://images.wikia.com/assassinscreed/images/f/fa/Abs_Room.png look at the Asian text]]. Considering it was finger-painted in blood by a lunatic, it's ''gorgeous''!\
238	\
239	At the risk of sounding totally nuts myself, the last time I ended up bleeding, I swiped some of the blood across my fingers and tried to write with it to test this. It didn't work very well. Yes, the human body has a good amount of pretty red stuff in it, but it takes ''a lot'' of that to paint clear pictures. And you have to frequently load up the brush, so to speak. Those were pretty large and thick messages, too. I can't imagine being coherent -- or, hell, ''conscious'' -- long enough to cover a good chunk of a floor and an entire wall with my own blood.\
240	\
241	Early on in the series, there's a bit of an implication ("''She sees me raise the knife''") that he killed someone ''else'' to paint the walls with, which would have made a lot more sense considering the volume of blood. But it's confirmed now in Clay's database entry that it was just Clay, who slit his wrists. I'll grant that he's only going by the reports he gleaned after uploading himself, but it was specifically mentioned that he slit his wrists, so I'm relatively certain that those same reports would have mentioned him killing someone. On top of that, the timeline of the only other mentioned death in Abstergo doesn't line up with Clay's, and the name of the man who may or may not have been connected to that incident was 'Neumann'.\
242	\
243	I considered the possibility that Clay did it a little bit at a time, but I'd imagine that Abstergo would have taken note of fancy new artwork suddenly appearing on the floor and the walls and taken steps to make sure Clay ''stopped doing that'', even if they had to induce a coma. After all, at the time, he was the best lead they had. So how the hell did Clay do it? Am I missing something?
244	** They couldn't put him in a medically-induced coma because they needed him to go into the Animus, which required him to be conscious. So the only way they could possibly prevent him from breaking his skin on something and painting the walls with blood is if they had someone chaperone him 24 hours a day. And if that were the case he would never have been alone long enough to kill himself.
245	** They could have restrained him; straightjackets are pretty good at keeping people from hurting themselves, and that wouldn't have required a 24-hour guard. I've just read over his bio in ''Revelations'' again, though, and it seems that he did it all in one shot when he killed himself -- the virtual Clay has no memory of doing any of it, though he ''does'' remember all of the planning that the original did before uploading a copy of his mind and then killing himself. Maybe the "children of two worlds" have an inhuman ability to tolerate blood loss?
246	** They could have restrained him, but obviously they didn't, or he wouldn't have been able to slit his own wrists and paint the walls in blood. Obviously the real answer is the developers didn't consider/didn't know how debilitating it would've been to let out that much blood at once. But if you really need an in-universe explanation, just assume that during his free time hours he covered, say, a few square feet of wall/floor every day for several days in a row and cleaned it up before Abstergo found it. The stains would then be invisible to the naked eye but not to Eagle Vision (which no one at Abstergo has, apparently). ''Then'' he slit his wrists and killed himself, and possibly used the blood to put in whatever "finishing touches" he saw fit.
247	** Maybe he went across the street rather than down the block and got a slow welling of blood, rather than arterial spurting, and he just refused to let it scab over and spent the whole night doing that before finally succumbing to shock.
248	** Except there's just not enough blood in the human body to do all that writing.
249	** Alternatively he did indeed paint this all over time and with his own blood. His Eagle sense would allow him to complete drawings that were already cleaned up. Heck, he could work one line at a time every hour for every drawing and the cleaning crew wouldn't have wondered any more than "his nose must bleed a lot". Also he didn't even need then to wait for anyone to mop up the blood, he could do it himself, progressively completing the drawing that is already no longer there. Only another person with eagle sense would ever know.
250	** Except what was he going to do with the mop and whatever he used to soak up the blood?
251	** Given that Eagle Vision appears to be able to pick up strong mental images (see the discussion about Ezio seeing Altair's 'ghost' above), maybe Desmond is just seeing what 16 wanted to write. Perhaps he really only left an illegible bloody mess, but was so focused on it that he imprinted his message on the room, allowing someone similarly attuned to see the intent rather than the reality.
252	[[/folder]]
253
254	[[folder:Ezio & Desmond]]
255	* During the ending cutscene, Ezio says to Desmond, "I do not know where you are, or by what means you can hear me." A little bit later, he says, "Who are we, who have been so blessed to share our stories like this? ''To speak across centuries?''" How did Ezio know that Desmond is from centuries in the future? Was it ever explained or hinted at in earlier dialogue?
256	** Ezio has been experiencing Altaïr’s memories all through the game, a man who died centuries before Ezio was born. If he’s not referring to that in specific, it still allows him the awareness that his experiences can and will be shared in some way in the future.
257	[[/folder]]

Context Headscratchers / AssassinsCreedRevelations