Assassin's Creed 2 had a relatively quiet launch this week most likely from all the hype being sucked up by Modern WarFEAR 2. So, why would anyone want to boycott both it and its predecessor? Perhaps because IGN called it the greatest disappointment of our time? Perhaps because the combat was uninspired and bland? Because of the disjointed incohesive story? Good reasons but what about religious reasons? Wait WTF, rel-ig-ion what? Yes, that's right, I am boycotting AC and AC2 based on the gross historical confabulations by the developers. I am talking about the fabled Knights Templar, the sworn defenders of the Christian pilgrims in the conquered Jerusalem during the crusades.
I have been fascinated with Templar history for a while now, even to the point where I actually considered membership. Yes, the Knights Templar exists today as a spiritual caucus, of course, without the swords and horses, and all of that. In AC1, the Templars are traduced and vilified to no end which is why I couldn't play for more than a few hours before selling my copy. I was disappointed with the lack of historical insight produced by the developers despite claiming valid source attribution in their preamble.
Dude..wait! Not cool
If you look around, you won't find much credible evidence to validate the claim that the Temple Order was a murderous cabal. In fact, the Templars were persecuted by King Philip who tortured and burned them at the stake after producing their false confessions. Thus, the virtual killing of an honorable organization is to me a despicable act. What's next, AC3 set in post-WW2 India where Mother Theresa is the evil crone who dispatches her fledgling nuns to kill the protagonist? I understand there is a great deal of truth to the word "fiction" but there is a difference between fiction and perversion. Then again, we're talking about a video game and the usual "who cares dude"
Historical inaccuracies? Defamation? Insensitivity? Oh shit, look over here, a hot chick made the game!
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And a note towards your opening paragraph, IGN speaks quite highly of AC2, giving it a 9.2 and going so far as to say "No matter what your preconceptions are about Assassin's Creed II, the game is well worth your time and money."
THe real templars were a group of knights with strong religious ties (they had black templars who were regular templar knights and white templars who were celibate 'warrior monks') who often protected the roads to jerusalem. They excavated the buried solomon's temple and found something. In exchange for keeping quiet about it, they were allowed to charge interest when dealing with money (something forbidden by the church at the time, also reason why anti jewish sentiments started spreading quite rapidly during this period). Along with this, they became the first to set up what we recognize today as banks, with savings, checks, statements and the like. Through this system they became the richest groups of knights in the world (they controlled malta as well). the king of france, who was running dry from his constant wars and unnsuccessful ventures wanted their money. the pope said no, so he kept having them assassinated until he got a pope that would be his proverbial bitch. He then had them arrested on friday the 13, convicted, tortured and murdered and took all their money. The last surviving templars are believed to have escaped to england for protection and there they disbanded.
And no, I'm going to clear something up right now. The templars are dead. DEAD. As in they don't fucking exist anymore. there hasn't been any REAL templars for over 700 years. There is freemason offshoot known as the templars. But morons don't realize that it's NOT a spiritual caucas. And anyother group that does is are new age bull shitters talking out of their asses while veiling in swath of occult mystery (occult means hidden knowledge by the way, not cult).
As for the freemasons and their templar offshoot. They really aren't a spiritual caucas at all. They exist as a group of men who get together and take part in old looking rituals. Some religious aspect is in it but not much. It's literally a men's club where they get together and do something 'cool'. And they do have swords for ceremonial purposes.
I know this because my dad's a mason and I've met 'templars.' I don't complain when every jackass on the internet accuse him of secretly running the world or portrayed as such in film and literature. For them it's the use of a no longer existing group in order to provide a protagonist with an opposition. Unfortunately, real history is far too muddled and grey to get any real bad guys out of it. So creators have to take liberty with the source material. While I think they could have picked a better group (hospitaliers again), they needed something clearly recognizable as such.
So your just as ignorant as everyone else. Your just ignorant for them instead of against them. So don't wander around acting like your king shit defending them when your hurting them with clearly misinformed positive statements.
In other words do some Bloody research before your gab hole, doofus.
Like I said to RPG I'll say to you again. If you don't know what the hell you're talking about, then shut fuck up!
Her name was Shirley. The went on to name libations after her.
Actually, that's not true. I thought that too! But when I beat the game, she was the Executive Producer in the credits.
It's called "Fact-ion" (Fact and Fiction: ho-ho!). It's just an entertaining take on a historical group/event. It's entertaining to see a big historical group as an evil entity: hell, even Gargoyles (the Disney cartoon) did it with the Illuminati! It's just interesting to watch.
It has to be them or general public would be scared off at the prospect of learning something new.
My point is that there is no point in getting offended over a matter artistic liberty. Do you know that 'modern templar groups' who watch and play stuff like this and find it hilarious. you are, literally, the only one being offended by this.
Yes it's a shame most people are goddamn idiots and buy into an innaccurate description of a relatively benign group of knights because 'the tv told them what to think'. But imagine people who are just above the worker drone public and use these innacurrate medium to inspire them to do REAL research on the templars and even get them interested enough to research medieval history (though you obviously hadn't at the time you wrote this article despite your 'interest' in them.)
http://tedsstudio.com/resume.py
That's badass!
Though one could then assert that implying that the Templars were able to be manipulated is itself a bit derogatory.
Worth noting also, I think, is that Assassin's Creed's gameplay takes place in a construct world born of memories from someone in the assassin clan. To this effect, I think its reasonable to infer that something silly like in game bonuses for killing X number of full armored templars is a manifestation of the hateful memories or desires being passed through the ages.