May contain unmarked and/or Late Arrival Spoilers.
Edward James Kenway
Main Game Apperances: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Other Apperances: Assassin's Creed : Forsaken | Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (novelization) | Assassin's Creed: Memories | Assassin's Creed: Reflections | Assassin's Creed: Rebellion | Assassin's Creed: Freerunners | Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple
Voiced By: Matt Ryan (English)note
"For years I've been rushing around, taking whatever I fancied, not giving a tinker's curse for those I hurt. Yet here I am... with riches and reputation, feeling no wiser than when I left home. And when I turn around, and look at the course I've run... there's not a man or woman that I love left standing beside me."
The father of Haytham Kenway and grandfather of Connor Kenway, Edward was born to simple parents, and always struggled against his lower-class heritage, especially when he married Caroline, who was a member of high society. He decided to go privateering in order to gain money for the family and prove to himself that he was worthy of her. In the course of his travels he met Blackbeard, Benjamin Hornigold and Charles Vane, and started the Pirate Republic of Nassau with them.
Things really started for Edward, however, when his ship is attacked by another helmed by an Assassin. Both sink, and he eventually chases and kills the Assassin. He dons his robes and sets out for Havana to claim his reward, starting a chain of events that'll affect everyone in the Caribbean...
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- Animal Motifs: The Jackdaw, aka the crow. Aside from being the name of Edward's Cool Ship, it also takes from Aesop's fable of the eagle and the crow, in that he pretended to be an eagle, aka Edward pretending to be an Assassin. The other part of the story, the crow being captured and becoming a pet for the shepherd's children because he thought he was more powerful than he really was, becomes PAINFULLY true in the later parts of the game. The fable is even discussed during his Mushroom Samba.
- The Ace: Successful as a pirate and privateer, Kenway proves this trait by achieving the same skills and techniques as the Assassins without any training whatsoever.
- Broken Ace: Despite his skills and successes, Edward is far from a satisfied and happy man, with his story in the game being a steady Trauma Conga Line.
- Adaptational Badass: While he's already a badass in the game, he only starts out as a crew member at the beginning of the game. In the manga, not only does he start out as a captain, he starts out as a Hot-Blooded Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann-esque captain, standing on the bow with his arms crossed and then immediately taking out almost all of the opposing ship's crew on his own.
- Adventure Archaeologist: Rogue reveals that a lot of his Assassin career involved using his post-pirate life as a businessman as a front to travel across the world and discover Isu temples and sites. He was quite successful and prolific, discovering new temples in Italy and even travelled to Alamut in Persia. He wrote a Great Big Book of Everything about First Civilization sites including accurately locating the whereabouts of the Grand Temple. Reginald Birch indeed has him killed for this book, and later sends Haytham to America to uncover it, only for him to realize that he doesn't have enough to open the Temple yet.
- In Syndicate, his fame in the field led both Templars and Assassins to search his London mansion for clues to a First Civ artifact.
- Affably Morally Ambiguous: Even at his most ruthless and villainous, Edward's quite a jovial guy. His first reaction after washing ashore with an Assassin who tried to kill him earlier? Laughing and trying to defuse a fight between them.
- The Alcoholic: While described as a major drinker, he can only drink about five bottles worth before waking up in a bale of hay/pile of palm fronds. Also slips into a bad Drowning My Sorrows rut that extends even into his Animus loading sequence.
- Ambition Is Evil: Played with, Edward's yearning to provide him and his wife a better life and not being able to advance on account of his talents because of his class makes him very sympathetic. However the selfishness and lack of attention to the consequences his actions have on his friends pushes him on the brink of Villain Protagonist.
- On top of that, his archive entry points out that, in spite of his good intentions, he kept falling into the same trap of whiling away his time drinking and cavorting rather than working to provide for his family and, ultimately, his wife. He gets hung up on Get Rich Quick Schemes, choosing dangerous professions like privateering, in spite of the immense risk to life and limb, over what might be considered honest labor, even though Caroline makes it clear that she would be satisfied with the latter, even if the material rewards are not as grand. This translates over to his work as a pirate, as Edward prioritizes finding the Observatory above all else, even though others, like Benjamin Hornigold, point out that he'd be better off just plundering a few ships, something his crew would prefer, which is what leads to Edward getting deposed as captain. Twice.
- Anti-Hero: He may ultimately be a good guy, but he's also still a pirate with all that entails.
- Nominal Hero: Prior to his eventual recruitment into the Assassins, he's Only in It for the Money. Also the first Assassin who's a criminal, whereas Altaïr, Ezio, or Connor, despite committing crimes as Assassins, start out either as citizens or medieval equivalents of political revolutionaries.
- Unscrupulous Hero: After his Character Development and "true" recruitment into the Assassins.
- The Atoner: Following his Heroic BSoD, he joins the Assassins officially to atone for his past actions. More specifically, at the end of the game, Edward is visibly upset for leaving his wife, not knowing she was pregnant and being away from her when she died. At the end, he insists on settling his daughter and spending time with her before continuing his duties as an Assassin.
- Aura Vision: Edward possesses a variant of Eagle Vision that allows him to tag targets even when it's not active. Interestingly, unlike the previous protagonists, this wasn't a trait he inherited as a descendant of human/Those Who Came Before couplings; instead, James Kidd simply notes that Edward may have simply honed his senses finely enough to achieve his level of perspicacity.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: As The Captain of the Jackdaw, Edward commands from the front: he leads the Boarding Party, cuts off flags from the masts of ships, murders fort commanders and key officers and clears out plantations. He also dives down a diving bell. Say what you will, nobody can fault him for taking most of the hits and beatings for his crew and ship.
- Badass Family: The son of a sheep farmer, Edward Kenway becomes the founder of one. Himself a dangerous and daring pirate, his son Haytham, who he initially trained as an Assassin, becomes a dangerous Templar Grand Master, while his grandson Connor/Ratohnhaké:ton becomes an Assassin and a major player in The American Revolution. As per Forsaken, his own daughter Jenny, who he refused to train as an Assassin, ends up avenging her father's death by killing Reginald Birch, who orchestrated it.
- Badass Longcoat: In addition to his normal Assassin robes, Edward has several outfits that add a Badass Longcoat on top of them.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Edward's entire story is attempting to make a better life for himself and be more than the son of farmers. By the end of the game he has in fact become a man of class and wealth, but to get there meant losing his wife and abandoning his daughter for several years, losing several friends and battling his way through one fight to another. And then he's betrayed by a man he trusted who sends two nameless thugs to kill him, kidnap and sell his daughter into slavery, and who then trained his son to be a Templar. Haytham would go on to have very little respect for his father while fighting to undo all of Edward's achievements, before he's killed by his own son who while an Assassin seemingly only knew a little of Edward and having little in common with him. Ultimately, Edward's ambitions caused nothing but pain for those he cared about, and the only positive impact he had was that in the long term his descendant Desmond saved the world from destruction.
- Berserk Button: A more Hot-Blooded Assassin than his predecessors, Edward is very irritable and takes little crap from anyone (a trait that Haytham and Connor also picked up). Nonetheless there are a few things which enrages him. One is treachery, yelling furiously at Benjamin Hornigold for casting his lot with the Templars. The other is when Governor Torres reveals to him, that he knows who he is and where he comes from as well as his wife's name. Edward angrily yells at Torres to stay away from his wife.
- Been There, Shaped History: Like most Assassins, Edward had a front-row seat for important events in history. In this case, he participated in many events of the Golden Age of Piracy, including but not limited to, the Sinking of the Spanish Treasure Fleet, the Siege of Charles-Towne, the Fall of Nassau, Charles Vane's escape, the death of Blackbeard, Jack Rackham's mutiny, the death of Benjamin Hornigold, Bartholomew Roberts being nominated Captain and his later death, Mary Read and Anne Bonny pleading for their lives and so on.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: What the Kenways end up becoming. His daughter Jenny, a prized beauty, resents him for favoring Haytham as the heir of his Assassin heritage and becomes a spinster after having spent the entirety of her youth being a sex slave, having been sold to Ottoman slavers in Syria by Birch after her father's murder.. His own beloved son Haytham ends up becoming a dangerous Templar Grand Master, a pawn to the man who killed his father (and stayed so even after discovering the truth) and a scourge to the cause which Edward ended up adopting. Edward's grandson Connor eventually becomes an Assassin but has been raised in a culture far away from Edward's and ends up killing his own father, Edward's son Haytham. A far cry from the cohesive and loving Auditores of the previous era in the series.
- The Casanova: The game's promotions and trailer featured Edward as one, though it's less prominent in the game proper. He's decidedly less so compared to Ezio. He is estranged from his wife whom he still loved and remains mostly faithful to her, barring the occasional one-night standnote and drunken debauchery note which he doesn't take seriously. He also has Ship Tease with Anne and Mary.
Darby McDevitt noted this was more due to his estrangement from his wife, who had left him, and loneliness at the Caribbean rather than unfaithfulness.- When he discusses his marriage to James Kidd/Mary Read, the latter tells him not to discuss it with his crew, as a married man — much less one who actually intends to be faithful — doesn't fit the Pirate image needed to be a captain.
- At one point in the modern section, when discussing their upcoming product, the Abstergo Entertainment CEO lampshades the promotion of the game, noting that they need to make Edward a "ladies man", a James Bond type.
- Combat Pragmatist: Is probably the Assassin most prone to fighting dirty, including punching his opponent in the groin and stabbing them as they recoil in pain. After all, he is a pirate.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To his son Haytham and grandson Conner from the previous game. The biggest difference is that while Haytham does occasionally shown some dry wit, he and Conner are largely serious people with Conner at times coming across as stoic which makes sense since both see their work as too important to not take seriously. Edward however is very talkative with a tendency to make jokes, and unlike either of them entered the war between the Assassins and Templars simply for personal gain.
- Cutscene Incompetence: Happens quite a few times over the course the actual game. But, the biggest case of this is his death, featured in Forsaken, the novelization of Assassin's Creed III. This man who spent most of his adult life assassinating and massacring soldiers, major politicians, and famous pirates by the DOZENS... was ultimately overpowered and stabbed to death by two random, nameless men who broke into his home. What makes it worse was that he was only forty-two years old, while other Assassin's like Ezio and Adéwalé were shown to still be able to fight more skilled opponents while being over sixty years old.
- Deadpan Snarker: While generally amicable to his friends, he does snark from time to time.
- Death by Irony: Edwards shockingly abrupt death at the hand of mercenaries matches how his path to becoming an Assassin started, when he ambushed Duncan Walpole.
- The Determinator: Edward is interesting because he shows the ambiguous side of single-minded obsessive pursuit against every impossible odd that life throws in your way. His pursuit of his "elusive fortune" comes at the price of his marriage and the alienation of his friends and his few allies. That said, the fact that he survives shipwrecks, treacherous seas, psychotic pirates, and the odd Humanoid Abomination, in addition to mutiny and time spent in prison in search of what he wants, is nothing short of heroic.
- Edward dutifully sends a letter every year to his wife, never losing hope of reuniting with her and rebuilding their marriage.
- Didn't Think This Through: Let's see: Disguising yourself as someone you don't know to meet up with a group of powerful people you don't know to collect a reward for a situation you're not familiar with. How else did Edward expect this to go?
- Disappeared Dad: To Jenny, unknowingly. As per ''Forsaken" he ends up becoming this to Haytham after his death, when the latter was ten years old. The lack of a father figure in his teenage years led to Haytham latching on to Reginald Birch, his father's property manager, who he later learns orchestrated both his father's demise and his indoctrination to the Templar Order.
- Distressed Dude: How he met Caroline.
- Doomed by Canon: Next to everything about Edward's post-Assassin life including how and when he dies was revealed in Assassin's Creed Forsaken, the novelization of III.
- Downer Ending: The events of Assassin's Creed: Forsaken, the tie-in novel by Oliver Bowden, subsequently shows this to be what it actually is, as Edward dies and loses his family. Even his son, Haytham, grows to hate him, considering him a man without shame or principles. Then there's how that same son goes on to spend his life wiping out everything Edward worked to build....
- The Dreaded: Even the likes of Blackbeard and Calico Jack are afraid of him.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After Mary Read dies, all the guilt of his past actions catches up to him and he drinks himself to Mushroom Samba levels, even stumbling around and being passed out in the Animus loading sequence.
- Dual Wielding: Like son and grandson, like father. Edward wields two swords.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: He has two Hidden Blades, though Julien du Casse, a Templar, implies that it's actually become customary for the Assassins by the events of the game.
- Guns Akimbo: Much like Connor, though Edward can carry up to four pistols, thereby letting him deliver four shots at once before reloading.
- Sword and Gun: As seen on the game's cover art.
- Walking Armory: Much like all other assassins, with four pistols, two swords, a blowpipe, two Hidden Blades, rope darts and smoke bombs.
- Easily Forgiven: Subverted. At the start of the game, Edward usurps the life and identity of a treacherous former Assassin named Duncan Walpole. By completing Walpole's assignment he compromises the Brotherhood, violating a major tenet of the Creed. Then he kills several Assassins in his brief time among the Templars. These actions are Forgiven, but Not Forgotten by the Caribbean Brotherhood, who only spare Edward's life because Mary Read vouches for him and for his skill in battle, his possession of the Eagle Sense and his nature as a Wild Card, equally damaging to Templars as he is to their cause. It is only years later and much Trauma Conga Line before Edward becomes Older and Wiser and finds his place among the Brotherhood.
- On the other hand, Edward himself bears no grudges to Adéwalé, when he up and runs off with the ship, abandoning him with Black Bart and his crew, even telling him that he's glad to see him, even if he should be angry.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In Black Flag this is the case. Edward braves the wonders and terrors of the Caribbean, losing nearly all his few gains, only for his wife to die of sickness back at home. However, he finds a new purpose in his daughter Jenny and subsequently marries again and gains his "elusive fortune", becoming a "man of quality" and a loving father to his son and raising his daughter Jenny to be a renowned society beauty.
- Even Wild Card Anti-Heroes Have Standards: Edward is firmly opposed to slavery and is upset when Adéwalé assumes that they will be dealing in human cargo when he tells them they will chase down a slave ship. Even before his Character Development, he's visibly shaken whenever somebody shows how his actions brutally affect others."Jaysus, Adé, you know me better than that."
- Exceptionally Tolerant: Leaning into the above example, Edward at his lowest may be a self-interested scoundrel, but he's not a racist. This runs counter with some of his contemporaries who are pretty blatantly racist. Similarly, Edward's attitude towards James Kidd does not change even after learning that she is actually a woman. He even makes Anne Bonny his new quarter master in the final act of the game. Given the sexist streak of pirates at the time, this is doubly surprising.
- Expy: He's one for Long-Dead Badass Domenico Auditore and Giovanni Auditore in Assassin's Creed II. Like Domenico, he was a poor sailor who got wound up in the Assassin-Templar conflict and ended up going from Rags to Riches and establishing the family fortune and its Assassin lineage. He's also a doting father to Haytham, much like Giovanni was to Ezio.
- Eyepatch of Power: Included with the unlockable "Edward the Legend" outfit, which he canonically wore at the height of his career as a pirate.
- A Father to His Men: Edward has been described as having a very close relationship with his crew, as evidenced by them cheering whenever he comes aboard. It helps that he recruited a good amount of them by rescuing them from the seas or from guards, and the initial crew of the Jackdaw were the latter.
- Inverted in the actual game however. Adéwalé frequently warns Edward that his selfish and mysterious actions are making the crew angry and upset. The biggest red flag that something's going wrong happens following the Principe sequences, where Edward takes the helm and no-one cheers. He ends up being mutinied against twice, first by Jack Rackham and then by Bartholomew Roberts, who hijack his crew and ship while he's away. However, both times, the crew comes back and returns him to the helm, preferring a competent and sane captain over Rackham and Roberts.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Edward's selfishness leads him to acquire this reputation throughout the game. He drives everyone away, including his wife, his first mate Adéwalé, James Kidd, his own crew, the Templars and the Assassins, as well as fellow pirates Charles Vane and Benjamin Hornigold. The latter even warns him that the course he's walking will leave him alone. It is only when he realizes how much his actions have hurt other people and how much he depends on them that he starts to change."I'm not an easy man to call a friend, am I?"
- Freudian Excuse: His major character flaw of being obsessed with becoming "a man of quality" and his main motivation of Only in It for the Money is caused by growing up poor and being married to the daughter of a wealthy family. His focus on improvement of station over improvement of self brings life-long ruin and suffering to those around him, especially those he is doing it for (his family). It does not really stop after he realizes it, and even his death is defined by it and the consequences his children faced.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: A rare semi-heroic example. Born poor, Edward Kenway starts as a simple sailor and privateer and is merely a member of a crew of the ship in the first sequence. Initially dismissed as a mere thug and mercenary by the Templars and the Assassins, he and his ship become the most dangerous force in the Caribbean, lasting longer than the famous real-life pirates and defeating Bartholomew Roberts. By the end of the game, Edward is the only pirate left; though once he meets his daughter, he no longer regards himself as one.
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- Generation Xerox:
- Subverted retroactively. Haytham fights very similarly to his father Edward, the ancestor in this game. However, they ended up taking opposite sides.
- Played straight with Connor, however, as he fights (and sails) much like his grandfather but did join the Assassins.
- Good Parents:
- Resolves to become this to Jenny when he meets her and is shown as a loving father to little Haytham at the end of the game. Assassin's Creed: Forsaken reveals that Haytham loved his father and regarded his childhood as the happiest time of his life, noting that Edward had taught him to think for himself and that, despite the secrets he kept from him, never lied to his son. As such, Haytham sought to preserve this same tradition for his own son Connor, via the journal he receives after Haytham is assassinated by his own hand.
- It's zizagged however, in that Jenny grew to resent her father due to him raising her like a woman of the time and wanting to marry her off to a rich colleague (even though he clearly means well). Not to mention the lack of training left her unable to defend herself when the time came and she was sold to Turkish Slavers by her father's killer, ending up a concubine for the entirety of her youth until being discarded once she grew too old. However despite that her main motivation in killing Birch is to avenge her beloved father's murder.
- Great White Hunter: Considering Edward upgrades his gear through hunting marine animals such as sharks and whales, it's no surprise.
- Guile Hero: Ranging from Dead Person Impersonation to his skills as The Ace, he's a pretty clever guy. A surprisingly large amount of the optional objectives (which by their nature are supposed to reflect the canonical sequence of events) involve not getting spotted by enemies or not starting fights even when doing so would be fairly easy and efficient, or otherwise the logical option. It seems Edward prefers sneaking around to getting in fights.
- Happy Ending Override: After retiring from piracy, Edward returns to England with his daughter to start a new family and strengthen the British Brotherhood. However, all this comes to an end when the man who courted his daughter turns out to be a Templar who has him killed, sells his daughter into slavery, turns his son into a Templar, and essentially destroys the Assassin's influnece in England for more than a hundred years. While his children do eventually kill his murderer, they continue to live apart from each other while hating him. The only consolation Edward has is that his grandson will idolise him and proudly exclaim that he inherited Edward's love for sailing, not to mention that Connor eventually eradicates the Templars from Colonial America.
- Hero of Another Story: From Haytham's point of view in the Forsaken novel, Edward's adventures are this as he doesn't get the chance to tell Haytham about his past. In the wider franchise, Rogue reveals that Edward spent his time after Black Flag working for the Assassins by searching down old Precursor ruins like an old-fashioned Indiana Jones.
- Heroic BSoD: After Mary Read dies, he mentally breaks down and drowns his sorrows until Adéwalé finds him in Kingston and returns the Jackdaw to him.
- The Hedonist: Presented as this in the game's promotions and his default attitude in the game. On hearing the Creed, "Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted" he immediately thinks its license to do whatever he wants, much to James Kidd/Mary Read's displeasure. That is until his Character Development.
- Heel Realization: The game is a slow, drawn out realization of this for Edward."For years I've been rushing around, taking whatever I fancied, not giving a tinker's curse for those I hurt. Yet here I am... with riches and reputation, feeling no wiser than when I left home. Yet when I turn around, and look at the course I've run... here's not a man or woman that I love left standing beside me."
- Horrible Judge of Character: His closest friends amongst the pirates are Blackbeard, James Kidd, and... Charles Vane. Edward greatly regrets his friendship with Vane when both of them are stuck on an island and Charles undergoes Sanity Slippage and decides to start Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, Kenway himself.
- He also has absolute trust in Reginald Birch above all people in Assassin's Creed : Forsaken. He approves Birch's engagement to Edward's daughter Jennifer, over the latter's considerable objections, only for it, to well... read that book.
- Within the game, his partnership to Bartholomew Roberts reeks of this. This is a man who in Edward's own phrase has a "peculiar aversion to kindness", whom Adéwalé immediately senses is very bad news. Edward not only helps him become The Captain and gather his own crew, he even participates in a heist of a Portuguese Man O'War which becomes his flagship note . To the surprise of no one, Roberts knocks Edward off the side of a cliff after they approach the Observatory, mocks him for thinking that they were actually equals and then decides to send the bruised and battered Edward to prison for the bounty.
- Hypocrite: Somewhat retroactive, but Forsaken paints him as one. After retiring, he becomes a stereotypical nobleman, who doesn't give the same training and attention to Jenny as he does to Haytham. He seeks to marry his daughter to a suitor and admirer she doesn't want, even though in his life as a pirate he had fought with the likes of Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Towards the end of the book, Jenny notes that for all his talk of freedom, he proved to be a chauvinist in his treatment of his daughter. This may stem more from his trauma over the death of Mary Read (whom he continued to respect as an equal, even after learning her true gender), who ended up dying in his arms as he was trying to rescue her from imprisonment and execution, than it does outright chauvinism. A good example of this is the epilogue scene where Edward good-naturedly acknowledges and accepts the fact that Jenny uses her mother's surname, rather than his own, which definitely would not be the behavior of an out-and-out chauvinist.
- In the Blood: Edward doesn't actually become affiliated with the Assassins until late in the game, and never really receives formal training from them, at least until relatively late in his life. All his skills are largely self-taught (including his Eagle Sense, as James Kidd hints). Similar to his son, Haytham (who, as revealed in Forsaken, never actually received formal Assassin training, either). However, Edward did intend Haytham to become an Assassin and was training him how to use a sword in the years before his death.
- Similarly, it seems that Connor picked up his grandfather's talent as a naval captain. He lampshades the same in the The Tyranny of King Washington DLC for Assassin's Creed III where he tells Robert Faulkner that he seems to have inherited his love for the sea from his grandfather who he affectionately noted, "sailed for himself" rather than the Royal Navy.
- In the Hood: Like all Assassins. Though in his case he got the costume from Duncan Walpole, whom he killed and tried to disguise himself as.
- Subverted in that, of all the playable assassins so far, Edward spends the most time with his hood down. The Templar armor netted by completing the Templar key side missions and the armor earned by finding all the Mayan keystones don't even have hoods.
- Indy Ploy: A lot of Edward's gambits features him making it as he goes along. This in fact is how he becomes an Assassin, learning their techniques from Rogers and du Casse's instructions and figuring it out. This is actually a problem later on, since this works well in some cases but not so in others and Edward's successes gives him false confidence when confronted with his Always Someone Better, Bartholomew Roberts.
- Irony: Edward, as a small-time pirate, was able to kill a skilled, fully-trained Assassin. Years later, Edward, a skilled, fully-trained Assassin, was killed by a pair of nameless mooks.
- It's All About Me: While he is kind at heart, a major theme of the game is Edward's inner turmoil between his inner selfishness and the selflessness demanded of Assassins.
- Edward's obsession with becoming a "man of quality" despite his wife loving him for who he is, ultimately leads him to the Caribbean to search riches which he initially justifies as providing a better life for his wife and any children they would have as he tells Jenny. In the Mushroom Samba sequence, he realizes that he wanted this for himself more than Caroline. At the end, he admits to his daughter Jenny that he had abandoned his wife for selfish reasons and he's uncertain if the fact that she was pregnant would have made him stay.
"If I had known earlier... I don't know. I might have come home. I hope that I would have." - Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As befitting a pirate, he's a lot more mercenary than previous protagonists, and one of the most ruthless and somewhat amoral ones as well. Still, at his heart he's a "good man" (as noted by Anne Bonny and more sarcastically, Bartholomew Roberts) whose conscience prevents him from crossing certain lines.
- Edward is opposed to slavery, which one of his targets noted is both legal and more profitable than piracy itself, and there are certain lines he won't cross to get what James Kidd sarcastically calls "your elusive fortune". Likewise he promotes Adéwalé as his quartermaster and acknowledges how his own fair skin gives him an advantage over a sailor every bit as good and slightly more experienced than himnote , showing rare sensitivity and honesty for a white person of that time, and being humble enough to admit that he's but only a "tyro Captain" in comparison. It's this honesty that earns him Adéwalé's loyalty.
- Edward is also a good friend; for example, rather than hijack and shank Stede Bonnet too under the guise of the now-late Duncan Walpole, Edward instead sails with him, a genial honest sailor bullied by the navy in good faith, even going so far as to drop the act and tells Stede his real name out of camaraderie, despite having no reason to. He also cares greatly for James Kidd and Blackbeard regarding them as True Companions.
- Karma Houdini: Although an anti-hero with a good heart. Edward Kenway makes a living on piracy and plunder and not only goes unpunished by the Assassinsnote , he ends up becoming a nobleman with a vast mansion and estates in England. While Assassins are deliberate outlaws, Edward is the first protagonist to profit from his actions. Inverted in the end, where Edward's life ultimately is a Downer Ending. See "Shaggy Dog" Story below.
- Kick the Dog: Edward Kenway occasionally reaches Grand Theft Auto levels in terms of cruelty:
- He kills surrendering enemy fort commanders even when they have their hands in the airnote
- Though you can simply knock them out, meaning he could have done that too. You're unlikely to do this without a pacifist run.
- The number of sailors he's killed by the end of the game both in personal combat and in naval combat will easily number in the hundreds. Though that's Protagonist-Centered Morality, since Altaïr, Ezio, and Connor also murder soldiers and sailors on official government service.
- After chasing the attackers out of Tulum, he continues dismissing the Creed and defends his Only in It for the Money mentality to James Kidd while the Assassins are gathering the bodies of and mourning the lives of their comrades who died as a consequence of his actions, cementing his callous indifference and the Assassins' incredible self-control to not murder that selfish jerk then and therenote . Later on, Kidd is flat out ashamed of Edward and his pretension to wear an Assassin's robesnote .
- While he's usually a competent captain, he's fully willing to endanger the crew in crazy schemes... something that Adéwalé takes into account later on.
- Lovable Rogue: Though Edward IS a pirate, his fun-loving persona and his standards make him harder to dislike. He even mischievously steals wallets right under people's noses! Later in the game though, his friends fail to see the lovable part.
- Lower-Class Lout: A mix of this and Working-Class Hero. He used to be one until he met Caroline and relapsed into his behaviour in a year and even as a pirate, he's still this, though he aspires to be more.
M-Y
- Master Swordsman: Downplayed in-game, where he is portrayed as a rough and tumble Combat Pragmatist, but he's clearly quite skilled. As with Ezio, Connor, Haytham and, to a lesser extent, Altair, Edward is easily a One-Man Army with blades, but what sets him apart is his Dual Wielding. Dual wielding two small weapons takes immense coordination, reflex and dexterity, and wielding a smaller weapon in your off-hand with a larger one in your dominant is quite a feat as well. But fighting with a large, long, heavy cutlass or sabre in each hand requires immense strength and balance to even be viable, let alone effective. Even in Real Life, most warriors throughout history avoided this style because the difficulty and risk outweighed any advantages, of which there were only a few at best, but Edward pulls it off with ease.
- Meaningful Name: "Edward" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name "Eadweard" which means "guardian of wealth and fortune". Extremely fitting for a character whose goal is to earn enough to become a man of worth.
- The Millstone: He becomes this over the course of the story to his very few friends. James Kidd warns Adéwalé that Edward is reckless and obsessive and will eventually get him and his crew killed, and that Adéwalé can do better than hang around with such a Jerkass. Adéwalé agrees eventually and he and the Crew vote Edward out and pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here when Edward partners with the Obviously Evil Bartholomew Roberts, saving their lives from his Ax-Crazy crew. Something that Edward, post-Heel Realization, admits was the right call.
- My Girl Back Home: Edward's wife Caroline Scott who he writes letters to at least annually. He hopes to make a fortune and rebuild their strained marriage. This leads to a Bittersweet Ending since his wife dies of illness but she leaves behind a daughter Jennifer, and the chance to atone by being a good father to her.
- Multi-Melee Master: In addition to his Dual Wielding.
- Neutral No Longer: The game deals with Edward finding this moment. It takes him until the very end of the game to get there. The death of Mary Read, the woman he had the greatest esteem for after his wife is the main turning point.
- New Child Left Behind: He unknowingly fathered his daughter Jenny before sailing for the Caribbean in 1713, not discovering this until the end of the game. Consequently, she doesn't identify as a Kenway, but by her mother's surname.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Spends almost the entire game doing this. It's not until the last act that he realizes what his choices have cost both him and the world, and resolves to right all his wrongs.
- Specifically, the Assassins point out that, by usurping the Asshole Victim traitor Duncan Walpole and completing his assignment by giving the Templars the intelligence he gathered, he jeopardized the lives of the entire Order and brought Templar mercenaries to their bases, the damage caused by this continuing for several years, with all the lives lost being a direct consequence of Edward's admittedly unintentional action.
- Edward abandoning his wife and not giving her a specific return address leaves her incapable of telling him that he has a daughter and that her health was weak. As such he is unable to be there to take care of his wife when she succumbs to her fatal illness and raise his daughter during her childhood.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
- Edward's background is similar to the real-life pirate Edward Low, who he actually meets and fights against in the third issue of Assassin's Creed: Reflections. Notably his threat to Torres to cut off his lips and feed it to him, is an action which Edward Low actually performed on one of his captives. Also, Edward Low suffered a failed marriage to a long-suffering wife who left behind a daughter that Low doted on. The real Low disappeared from history books in 1724 around the same time which Kenway returns to England with his daughter Jenny. One major difference is that Edward Low was The Sociopath who specialized as a Torture Technician and was renowned for being among the more cruel pirates of the era, which Kenway, thankfully is not.
- He also bears some resemblance to the historical pirate Black Sam Bellamy. Like Edward, Sam was involved with a lady above his station (one Mary Hallett)note , spent time hunting for the remains of the 1715 treasure fleet, and was acquainted with Hornigold, Blackbeard, and possibly Vane and others from the Nassau Republic. Supplemental material confirms that Black Sam exists in universe, however.
- "Not So Different" Remark: As a pirate, Edward never misses an opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of his pursuers. A trigger-happy Naval Commander considers pirates to be parasites preying on honest people. Edward notes that the English King and other Royals do the same.
- Edward is disturbed however when Laurens Prins, a slaver, justifies his own career in human trafficking as being Only in It for the Money — the same justification Edward gives to people who criticize him.
- Not in This for Your Revolution:
- How he feels towards the Assassin's cause initially. When collaborating with Anto, the Maroon Assassin, he admits to being indifferent towards the slave rebellion while personally against slavery. He is merely after his own interests. This changes of course.
- Similarly, he makes it clear that he doesn't care about the Templars or Assassins and is only looking out for himself. After the death of Mary Read however, Edward finally joins the Assassins.
- Older and Wiser: Eventually becomes this in the course of the game and the tie-in novel Forsaken.
- One-Man Army: Like all AC protagonists, Edward can clear a large amount of enemies by himself in no time.
- Blackbeard claims to have seen him clear the deck of a Spanish galleon "like it weren't nothing." It is entirely possible for a player to do this in-game. It's tricky due to how fast the ships are moving, but you can forego naval combat and instead have Edward board a Man o' War by himself and slaughter the entire crew singlehandedly. When you return to the Jackdaw, the ship will surrender after a single volley, and you automatically capture it without having to complete the usual objectives.
- His combat style appears to be specifically tailored towards fighting multiple opponents at once.
- Only in It for the Money: For the grand majority of the game, practically flaunting it whenever he gets a What the Hell, Hero?. The Assassins and even the Templar Julien du Casse call him out because of this; for example, when Anto asks him to name his price for supporting Anto's efforts, he explains that since Kenway's a man without principle, coin will have to do.
- Pirate: Started out as a privateer, but turned to piracy and sticks with it through the story's campaign.
- Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot: A Pirate Assassin, therefore.
- Pet the Dog: Edward Kenway's rescue of drowning sailors and A Father to His Men qualities. This includes buying a brothel for his men at considerable personal expense.
- Edward's treatment of his daughter at the end, also helps redeem him in many players' eyes.
- Polymath: A weird example. Edward Kenway displays the skills of a ship's lookout, navigator, helmsman, and later (of course) Captaincy. All of these were highly specialized skills and, together, are what allow Edward to mimic the skills of an Assassin.
- Pride: A major thing that drives Edward is a great belief in his own abilities and qualities which is not entirely false or wrong but it does lead him to overreach and step beyond his limits, leaving it open for him to fall flat on his face.
- Privateer: Edward started out as a privateer for England, but quickly turned pirate when peace broke out.
- Rags to Riches : Edward's ultimate goal in life is to rise from his roots as a shepherd's son in Wales to become a "man of quality". He succeeds in the end, becoming an English nobleman with a wealthy wife and children raised in the life of aristocratic privilege. The Edward in the scene after the credits speaks with poise and dignity as compared to the one we see throughout the game. Though he still uses words like "posh gig" to his son, retaining a hint of his former self.
- Retired Outlaw: What he aspires to be, earn a big enough score for him and his wife and quit the pirate's life. He does eventually.
- Shadow Archetype:
- Several of the characters in the game serve as parallels or counterparts to Edward. Edward starts out as a sailor turned privateer turned pirate (Benjamin Hornigold), becomes a pirate with his own ship by chance and coincidence (Bartholomew Roberts) and spurns honest living and conformity in search of the big score (Charles Vane), but ultimately hopes to retire (Blackbeard).
- Edward also has much in common with Woodes Rogers, who also suffers a failed marriage because of his work.
- The story of Edward's redemption, his slow understanding of the purpose of the Brotherhood and the true meaning of its Creed also parallel the transition of Altaïr from Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy to The Hero in the first game.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story:
- Edward's quest in the Caribbean turns out to be this. His search for the Observatory does not give him the fortune he sought. His wife, whom he hoped to reunite with, dies of illness. However he does make money in his maritime career and returns home with a new-found purpose and sense of hope as well as a daughter.
- The events of Assassin's Creed: Forsaken shows Edward's entire life as a Shoot the Shaggy Dog since a little over ten years after his retirement, he's betrayed by an employee who's revealed to be a Templar, and dies in a home invasion. Edward's hopes for his son Haytham are twisted and he becomes a Templar while his daughter becomes a Sex Slave, and his second wife dies alone of an illness just like Caroline.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: He doesn't cuss up a storm or anything, but he does have a regular Precision J-Strike in the form of "Jaysus." He also uses the F-word far more frequently than any other hero; though the game itself has the most uses than any other title. (It should be pointed out, however, that Ezio was just as swear-happy only most of it was in Italian and so less noticeable.) He's definitely a major contrast to his son and grandson.
- Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: Justified for the most part in that Edward mainly uses backswords, like cutlasses and hangers, which are meant for hacking and slashing. Played straight with the small variety of rapiers and smallswords Edward can wield. In Real Life, these were thrusting swords, and though some had sharpened edges for part of the blade to facilitate cutting, they were ill suited to cleaving and would not hold up to the same chopping abuse you could give a cutlass. The fact that narrow court swords share the same heavy slashing animations and kills of hefty scimitars is some serious Artistic License.
- Society Is to Blame: Edward believes that society is so unfair that someone of his considerable talents will never be given real opportunities on account of his class. In the Navy, lower-class sailors will get thin wages and no meritorious advancement, and at home, working at a farm for low pay is near robbery in his eyes, with barely enough to sustain their poor home.
- Spanner in the Works: Edward serves as this to the Assassin-Templar Conflict in the Caribbean — for both sides. James Kidd notes that the Assassins (for once, as normally in the games they were on the backfoot whenever the main character enters the conflict) had the upper hand until he compromised the Brotherhood by unwittingly passing intelligence on their bases to Governor Torres, while the Templars expected more information from the defector that Edward was impersonating and are disappointed with a mere pirate who'd decided to hijack their plot for his own interests because he'd felt that he wasn't paid enough. Whatever plans and ideas both factions had in place gets upset because of Edward's unexpected entry into their conflict.
- Sparing Them the Dirty Work: Edward does this on two occasions:
- Edward assassinates Hilary Flint so that his Assassin lover Rhona doesn't have to.
- When Vance Travers is revealed to be an Assassin turncoat, Edward does the deed of assassinating him so that Upton doesn't have to kill his own brother.
- Stay in the Kitchen: According to Forsaken, despite fighting alongside women during his time as a pirate, Edward chose to raise his daughter Jenny like a proper lady and wanted to marry her off to a wealthy suitor while raising Haytham as his successor. This treatment caused Jenny to resent him.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Edward and his son and grandson differ in race and hair color, but share a distinct facial resemblance.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Edward basically ad-libs his way through his entire discussion with the Templars when impersonating Duncan Walpole. To his credit he lies convincingly.
- Tattooed Crook: Picked up a number of tattoos sometime between leaving Bristol and the start of the game.
- Theme Naming: Not Edward Kenway so much but the name of his ship Jackdaw continues the bird theme of the series. In the drunken Mushroom Samba sequence, Roberts retells Aesop's fable of The Eagle and the Jackdaw, which serves as an allegory of Edward's overreaching struggle to rise to something better, a Jackdaw "who'd have you believe he's an Eagle." Which fits his distant, not direct connection to the Assassins. Furthermore, Edward's son who he hoped to raise as an Assassin is called Haytham, Arabic for "young eagle".
- Too Dumb to Live: Edward in Assassin's Creed : Forsaken: Edward is determined to marry his daughter to a Templar. One who eventually has her sold into slavery and kills him. Plays into Horrible Judge of Character.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Until his Character Development, Edward is this to his family and friends. As the game and the tie-in novel explain, he has loving parents, a devoted wife who is a good woman and he still preferred to sail as a Privateer, even after coming to the West Indies, he spurns the Templars money since its below his pay and he mocks the Assassins despite their exceptional mercy and understanding for his difficult personality, and then takes the friendship of Adéwalé for granted by refusing to listen to his very good advice.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Throughout his life he unknowingly screws the Assassins over on three different continents. Let's recap:
- By unknowingly completing Duncan Walpole's betrayal, Edward delivered a map of Caribbean Assassin Order hideouts to the Templars, turning the war in favor of the Templar Order until Edward helps the Assassins retake control of the region.
- Trying to set his daughter Jennifer up with Reginald Birch, a Templar leader, eventually results in the events that lead to Edward's own death. This causes the Assassins to lose control of London for a century until Syndicate takes place.
- As a result of the above, Edward's own son, Haytham, becomes an extremely dangerous Templar Grand Master who drives the Colonial American Assassins to the brink of extinction. Thankfully Edward's grandson turns the tide and restores Assassin control of the United States.
- Villain Protagonist: Edward is the closest the series comes to this until the introduction of Shay Cormac: His main desire is to better his lot by compiling a sizable fortune, and he's prepared to abandon his wife and endanger his friends and his crew in pursuit of his obsession. Even after joining the Assassins, he admits that he has a long way to go before he can truly feel committed to the ideals of the Creed, despite his newfound convictions. Heck, other than Haytham Kenway this game is the first time where you're playing someone who in prior games would have himself been a target of the Assassins. Heck, he knowingly and willfully joined the Templars and only got kicked out when they realized that he wasn't Duncan Walpole, and he tried to swindle them by kidnapping the Sage for his own interests!
- What the Hell, Hero?: Seems to get this a lot from various people, ranging from the Templars for their usual reasons, to James Kidd and the Assassins for his Only in It for the Money mentality, and even low-key ones from Adéwalé when Edward puts his ambitions before his crew. In particular, after Kenway participates in the defense of the Tulum hideout, James Kidd subsequently leads him to the central courtyard... where Assassin corpses (whether fallen defenders, slain hostages, or both) are piled atop a carved-out Assassin insignia and the survivors are mourning. When Kenway then proceeds to be amused at the Assassins' continued displeasure at him and even throws the second half of the Assassin's Creed — "everything is permitted" — in their faces, he's told in no uncertain terms that he's not an Assassin, he's not welcome with the Assassins, and he deserves scorn.
- Wild Card: For much of the game, Edward is unaligned with both the Templars and the Assassins, interested in the Observatory solely for his own benefit. Unwittingly, he becomes embroiled in their conflict and seeks to use both factions for his own ends until Mary Read and all his friends start dying around him.
- Working-Class Hero: Writer Darby McDevitt pointed out that Edward is technically the first recognizably working-class Assassin in the franchise. This extends to his manner of speech as well as his own identity as a poor farmer's son who wishes to find a standing true to his ambitions.
- Would Hit a Girl: Assassinates both Lucia Marquez and Jing Lang.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Wrestling moves are evidently genetic to the Kenway line since like Conner and Haytham, he can bust out DDTs and suplexes as unarmed finishers.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Mary Read believes that Edward Kenway is a better person than he appears to be and this belief goes far in convincing the Assassins to spare his life for the harm he caused the Order. It would be many years however and her death before Edward is convinced to live up to her faith in him.
- Younger Than They Look: The game and novel cover Edward's life from 22 to 30, but he looks like he could be in his mid to late 30s for the entirety. This is justified in that as a son of a sheep farmer and poor sailor living at length in near constant sunlight in the West Indies not to mention as a regular alcoholic, Edward would show signs of aging faster than usual.
