Beliyal said:
I somehow got the idea that, as Desmond is the main protagonist, we'll be exploring what matters to him. So if Ezio matters to him (and his gang), we get more Ezio. Of course, we can argue that they could've thought of a way to involve someone else.
The thing is, from what i remember of the plot (it's been ages since i played any of the AC games so bare with me and my poor memory) there were all sorts of... things left behind by those alien beings, after all, don't Desmond and the Scooby Doo gang have to travel half way around the world in order to visit some sort of temple to prevent the End of Days? Something about the world going supernova?
The point is that the Apple isn't the only thing these aliens left behind when humanity had its little uprising. They have every reason to explore all corners of the earth, and assuming this brotherhood is / was a global organisation, there is no reason why Altair or Ezio or anyone else connected to Desmond's ancestry wouldn't have ties with agents across the globe. The animus might relive memories of Ezio's best mate Rupert, for example, because he may have been an important part of Ezio's life. As for explaining it, you could say that the animus pieces together the missions and exposition purely from what that person had told Ezio / whoever. It's just an idea, and it's a rough one, but i don't see why that sort of thing wouldn't be feasible.
Not to mention isn't there something like an 800 year gap between the setting of AC1 and the present day? 8 centuries is an awfully long time to be able to explore all sorts of other progenies in the Desmond family line. You can absolutely squeeze 3 or 4 other characters through all sorts of periods of history who may have been involved in the Brotherhood. After all, Altair (if i remember rightly) knocked up a Christian girl, so who's to say the same wouldn't occur numerous times in other locales? Though i will concede that, more than anything, the Animus was really a tool designed to teach Desmond how to be an Assassin rather than be a probe for finding and explaining these 'divine' artifacts, and we've seen that he's already pretty much learned everything there is to learn, as seen during the moments you actually get to control Desmond and parkour your way to the chamber with the aliens and essentially follow in Ezio's footsteps. Though it really begs the question; if Desmond has learned how to be an Assassin, what's he doing back in the Animus
yet again for Revelations? And if it's just to sniff out more of these 'divine artifacts' and deal with the Templar, doesn't that reinforce the idea that they could do a bit of globetrotting rather than return to old stomping grounds?
Edit: I also meant to tackle the issue about characterisation. Yes, it's a good thing that we got a fully fleshed out protagonist, but some of the most impacting characters can be ones who get barely any screentime at all. One example is the Mass Effect series. People often say how a minor character who gets barely any screen time is one of their favourites, purely on the basis of their personality within five short minutes, or a line they come out with. Another example is from The Culture novels i read. One chapter may be devoted entirely to introducing a character, giving him or her a backstory, some dialogue, only to have them killed off at the end of the chapter. They might get as little as five pages of introduction and conclusion, but because of the nature of their character, they stick in your mind. You feel like you knew them to a degree despite the fact you barely knew them at all as opposed to the protagonist(s). Going back to the Mass Effect example again, look at Joker. Joker has a rabid fanbase and yet he's not exactly integral to the main plot. He's merely a plot device (flies the ship) and doesn't get much dialogue, and yet it's him that people remember over blank slate Shepard or one-note Ashley. The point being that you wouldn't
need three games to tie up Ezio's story and character if you had tighter narrative and storytelling. That's not to say i don't appreciate a fully fleshed out character - of course i do - but it could be done with a much clearer approach. After all, a lot of the experience is mostly fluff (go follow this guy, go stab this person, go hear about influential individual X who you'll never see again for the rest of the game) until you finally get to something
relevant to the character and the main plot.
Also, it's "Grazie" and "Requiescat in pace"
Thank you, the spelling had been driving me NUTS since it's been forever since i played and i'm sure it was without subtitles.
Palademon said:
I just can't shake the feeling that the only reason Brotherhood exists is because at the end of AC2 Ezio thought "Hmm, actually I won't kill him.". I think they could've avoided Brotherhood by merely setting the end of AC2 when the Pope's death actually takes place.
You could say that Ezio didn't kill the Pope because he felt some sort of otherworldly compulsion not to. After all, if he killed the Pope, we wouldn't have had the whole confrontation that led to the returning of the Apple and second meeting with Juno / Minerva / the alien chicks. Think of it as some sort of 'divine plan'. In fact, the way i see it is that Ezio himself is sort of aware that he's being controlled by the "powers that be", something beyond his grasp. We see this in the way he ever so slightly breaks the fourth wall at times during the interactions with the aliens. There's a sort of helplessness about his actions, that he's guided by the unseen hand of destiny. It looks like a stupid contrivance at first glance, but look past that. After all, even if you dismiss the whole "hand of destiny" argument, how else were they meant to connect the aliens to the plot? The logical thing would be to directly influence an event in history in order to steer it back towards that end-game. That's my theory anyway.
