The Loot Adds Up

Feminina O'Ladybrain

Nov 29

Spoilers for some story and character in Assassin's Creed: Mirage

Butch:

OK, killed the warlord which took longer than expected both because of my stupidity and the game's.

For starters, I could NOT find the damn hole in the wall. I just could not find it. I ran around that damn place FOREVER. I eventually had to look it up. Damn it, game, I was looking for a HOLE, not a...whatever that was.

I was worried this would be another session of stupidity, but, after the delay in getting in, things went rather well. Until the game glitched.

I was escorting the cook. Everything was fine. We got to the end. RIGHT UP TO THE END. He wouldn't move. I hadn't been seen. I killed the last four or five guys. There was no one, not a soul, between the cook and me and the door and he WOULD. NOT. MOVE. I tried talking to him. Nothing. I tried pushing him. Nope. I hit him with my sword.

Would. Not. Move.

So, after doing that whole line of attack, which took a while, I had to abandon it and go find the key. I did the whole thing correctly, too! This particular delay was not my fault.

Then had to go get the key and all that.

But, eventually, I did it all. I was annoyed that the game made me do all that "fight my way out" crap. Game, there isn't that much sword fighting in this game. Don't add more.

Nehal raises an excellent point, doesn't she? Why kill them when you can question them. I expected Basim to say "But if we question them, how can they ask us cryptic bananas questions in the after kill cutscenes?" but he didn't. Even following with "Why don't you ask your friends, then?" More on the freedom. Not only is Basim doing what he is told (as Ali said) but doing it without even thinking of asking anything about anything.

It made me think of the Ali torture scene. Basim (and we, the players) are just fine with pointless violence, but violence to get information? We didn't like that, Basim didn't like that, the game did not make us want to like that. True, attacking a tied up guy is pretty sleazy, but then, isn't zapping a guy with a mind altering blowdart and watching him kill his friends until he drops dead pretty sleazy?

We believe in freedom, but we basically wrecked the "House of Wisdom" and chafe at getting any actual knowledge or answers. How can we be free if we know nothing? Don't autocrats and slavers want the people to be ignorant?

Hmm.

Feminina:

Oh man, you're not lucky with the missions lately. Following the cook was a pain! I died many times in the attempt. Sucks that it didn't even work in the end.

But yes, I also thought Nehal made a very good point, and the fact that Basim is shutting down the very idea of asking questions...it could conceivably be read in various ways, including him being genuinely all-in on unquestioning loyalty, but I think we probably concur that it's being presented more as "he has doubts but is pretending he doesn't because he doesn't want to shake up the comfortable foundations of his current life." Following on that, we can probably also say it's likely that this is all set-up for some later point where he'll say "you know what, I DO have questions" and...just maybe...will do something that could be perceived as a betrayal of the Creed.

Just tossing ideas around, here! Ha.

You also make an interesting point about violence to get information vs. violence just for the hell of it, and how we perceive these differently. I think there's an intriguing idea there about how maybe the game is taking advantage of the players' inclination not to ask questions about missions...

However, I'm not sure I'd agree with you entirely that we're fine with "pointless violence." Killing all the guards in sight has a perfectly rational point -- to make our lives easier by not having as many guards around to hassle us when we're trying to rob and murder. We can certainly debate about whether this is a GOOD point, or a morally justified point, or the sort of point that makes it totally fine not to ask any questions about our missions...but I don't think we can say that this is pointless violence.

Maybe the distinction isn't between "violence to get information" and "pointless violence," it's more between "violence against a helpless victim" and "violence against people who can fight back". And yes, "can fight back" is a bit of a fine distinction if you're making someone crazy with a poison dart. Or, indeed, stabbing them in the back while they're staring intently at a blank wall. They don't get much chance to fight in this case.

Hm. I think I would actually phrase it as "violence against someone who is NOT dangerous to you" vs. "violence against someone who IS dangerous to you."

Guards are dangerous to us. If they see us, they can and will attack (and will not-infrequently win when there are a lot of them). Hence, we have to stab them in the back before they notice us!

Some civilian tied to a chair is not dangerous to us. We therefore do not have this justification for doing violence to him.

Also, speaking of that, the game specifically identified the guy tied to a chair as a 'civilian,' and those are the people we know we should never, ever injure. Assassin's Creed games from the very beginning have stressed that WE DO NOT ATTACK CIVILIANS. If you accidentally kill one of them, you get a warning that you will desynchronize/die if this keeps up. Apparently this is an unspoken part of the Creed, and kind of contradicts the part that says "everything is permitted," but hey...that's how it works.

So, again, this is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that we object to torture because it's about getting information, although that would match up very neatly with the fact that Basim just doesn't want to know certain things right now and maybe therefore objects to anything that is likely to get information about anything.

Butch:

Dude, you died a bunch doing that? I didn't die, but that's because I took my time, like, A LOT OF TIME THAT THEN GOT WASTED I was so mad.

I think when we were running out, Ali noticed the cook, motionless, staring straight ahead at a door fifty feet in front of him, and was all "Who's that dude?" and Basim was all "Don't ask."

Really? Basim might....ask questions and that might be perceived as a betrayal of the Creed? Dammit, Femmy I said no spoilers!

I kid.

Very true that games have, since forever, made distinctions between violence against something threatening, or something that would threaten you if you didn't assassinate it first. That said, games have always, despite their heros' moral superiority, blurred that distinction. Is there really a difference between what Ali was doing and assassinating a guard who is not attacking you so you can get a key that leads to information? Not really.

I think Basim might, maybe not in this game, come around to Ali's way of thinking. You gotta admit, it was pretty cold what he did to Layla, there. Layla wasn't a threat to him and yet he happily trapped her in the radioactive world tree prison for all of eternity just so he could go learn more stuff. OK, he didn't commit any violence towards her, and she was, apparently, happy in the end, but dude. Cold.

Feminina:

Dude. Yes, there is a difference between torturing a guy to death for information and assassinating a guy to get information.

The difference is called torture. I mean, yeah, in both cases you have a dead guy and some information, so I suppose you could argue the material outcome is the same, but...torture. We're against it.

Certainly games have us drawing some really fine lines and getting really creative in our interpretations of what constitutes moral behavior, and I'm not about to argue that most of the characters we play aren't absolute monsters by any reasonable assessment.

But there's a line between torture and not-torture that I think we can still draw.

Not that they felt nearly the same about it in cultures where torturing people to death was wholesome entertainment for the masses, but I don't think this game has put in the background work to make that something we just accept as cool because of the historical context. (Nor, really, do I think it should.)

However, I am totally with you that Basim's treatment of Layla was ice cold, and I'm not sure how well he's going to fit as even a creatively interpreted 'good guy' once he's Loki. His relationship with the Assassins is bound to be interesting.

Butch:

True. Torture is bad. We don't like torture.

(Insert joke about recent four and a half day weekend for kids here).

I'm not at all sure we're supposed to see Basim as a good guy at the end of ACV. Even when we're playing as Basim in that, I certainly got the sense that this was not a "he must be the good guy cuz you're controlling him" deal. There may well be a redemption arc, but, at this point in the story (that is, Basim chilling in present day Concord), I don't think he's a good guy at all.

Time will tell.

Feminina:

It will. Maybe, in 10 more games. But I'm with you...I think he's more interested in his own goals, whatever they may be (maybe freeing his wife and child from imprisonment, based on the snippets of conversation we had in ACV, but those were vague and we can't really draw many solid conclusions), than he is in the present-day Assassins.

Which, you know -- can't entirely fault him. People are allowed to have their own priorities. Loki presumably doesn't know the Assassins at all (unless we find out he was already previously reborn as one, and I stress this is pure speculation I have not gained any information suggesting it's the case), and Basim only knows the ones from the 9^th century and apparently had a bit of an issue with them. Expecting either of them to feel any particular loyalty to William Miles or the group as it is today would be asking a lot.

But even if we can't fault him, that doesn't mean we're going to think whatever he wants to do is a good idea. I could totally see us working hard to stop him in future games.

If literature teaches us anything, it's that plans to free people from the bounds of death and/or time are rarely problem-free.

Butch:

So true. It's why I never do it. That and it seems like a fuck ton of work.

But did I miss something? After all that, I find myself back in Anbar. There doesn't seem to be anything to do, but the quest objective is really, really far away. Is the game telling me to magpie or something? There's nothing around!

What do I do?

Feminina:

That's where you wake up with your nightmare again, and Nehal comforts you? Flashback to early in the game?

Yeah, I sent Enkidu around to see if there was anything else going on (just soaring around looking at things is kind of peaceful and meditative...I did it for like 15 minutes straight last night), but I think they really just sent you back to Anbar because it was important to Basim's history, not because there's anything you really need to do there.

And I suppose, if you hadn't already collected all the gear chests and artifacts in the city and wanted to look for them, this would be a good chance.

But you have to go right back to Baghdad to move forward with the actual story. It would be more annoying without fast travel.

Butch:

Oh it would be rage quit without fast travel.

No offense, Enkidu, but I think I'm going to go to that cartographer and just get the damn map.

I also backtracked and found a note written by Nehal about "remembering" the cave under the oasis (with the shards) even though she swears she's never been there. I could bring that up, but you'd have to be all coy so I won't.

Feminina:

But we have it on the record that you found it!

I don't actually remember that bit, so I may not have found that note myself. That's interesting...we'll talk later, if we remember.

I finally got around to going back there for the rest of the gear, speaking of that place. (I figured there was no point making more than one trip, so I waited until I had all the shards. Then waited a while longer because I had forgotten how many I needed and thought there were more to find.)

That armor is...really something, isn't it? Very subtle. Going to blend in very well on the streets of Baghdad.

I mean, no one ever seems to care what you're wearing unless it's a plot point (like when you specifically dressed up as the research subject), so probably they wouldn't even notice, but...yeah. That is some armor.

Butch:

I don't have it! I want it!

It's bananas, huh?

Feminina:

Oh, I thought at some point you mentioned this amor, sorry.

It's...it's just pretty dramatic. You'll enjoy it when you see it.

Butch:

Nah, I was talking on the sword.

Which I still haven't used. I was going to ask you what you thought about a sword that gives you a damage bonus at the expense of max health. I want max health, really.

I dunno. You use it? Am I missing out?

Feminina:

I have not used it either. Doesn't seem like a good trade off, and I do fine damage already. I like the Rostam sword, that increases the damage with every consecutive hit.

Butch:

Oooo! Do I have that?

I have no idea what I have.

Feminina:

I have no idea where I got it, so...maybe?

Butch:

You know, that seems to be true of everything I own in real life, too. Where'd I get this? What is this? Why do I have this?

When you're our age, man.

Feminina:

Man, is that ever the truth.

Why is this damaging my max health? Is it any good? Can I sell it to any local merchants?

Butch: