A review by tjlcody
Assassin's Creed Vol. 1: Trial by Fire by Anthony Del Col, Conor McCreery
1.0
I need to stop reading supplementary AC stuff. It's only working on my blood-pressure.
So I took a chance on this one, and now I'm regretting it for a few reasons:
One: You can tell whoever wrote this meant to write Charlotte as a Strong Female Character(TM). She threw around some buzzwords around ("Misogyny", she calls the Templars the "old white men brigade" or something similar), and is very clearly meant to be an action girl: "Whoo-hoo! Look at me! I'm not even blinking at the fact that the Assassins and Templars are real and jumping into things without thinking EVEN SLIGHTLY CRITICALLY ABOUT ANY OF THIS."
I mean for fuck's sake, people whine about Desmond Miles all the time and at least he actually had the sense to be freaked out and ask a lot of questions when Abstergo kidnapped him (and HE was actually aware already on some level about the Assassins and Templars.) But you expect me to believe that an otherwise normal woman with little experience beyond a normal life just jumps in and says "HELL YEAH" without being freaked out??
Theory: Whoever wrote this wanted to address the (constant, headache-inducing) whining about "HOW COME THERE NO STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS IN AC????" And so like everyone who tries to pander to the "WE WANT STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS(TM)" demographic, they came up with a clusterfuck of a female character because they were more concerned with checking off boxes on their "Politically Correct(TM) Story-Writing" Checklist.
But wait, you say! A buzzword-toting female lead isn't necessarily an indicator that the story overall was intended to be Politically Correct(TM) bullshit!
And you would be right! Except that Charlotte isn't my only complaint here. Oh no.
Two: The Salem Witch Trials.
I am- to put it gently- titchy about the Salem Witch Trials. I've done loads of research on them and I've read a lot of books, played games, and watched movies that have used them for fictional purposes. And see, people using the trials for fictional purposes doesn't bother me, generally speaking (I highly recommend Adriana Mather's [b:How to Hang a Witch|27405351|How to Hang a Witch (How to Hang a Witch, #1)|Adriana Mather|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1502061057s/27405351.jpg|43145978].
No, see, there's one very common way that the trials are spun, whether it's a reference to them, or a book or movie, or someone just talking about it in person, that bothers me:
It was spun into "The Salem Witch Trials were a persecution exclusively of women. It was 100% driven by misogyny and a desire by the Puritans to punish women who dared to have OPINIONS."
Look. I acknowledge to some extent that misogyny was a factor in the persecution of witches historically. Obviously it was a factor because misogyny was very prominent back in the day.
But I have said this a hundred-FUCKING-times, and I will say it again:
THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS DID NOT JUST TARGET WOMEN.
OF THE TWENTY PEOPLE EXECUTED IN SALEM, SIX WERE MEN.
LOADS OF MEN WERE ARRESTED AND SUFFERED IN PRISON.
LOADS OF MEN WERE OSTRACIZED OR PERSECUTED BECAUSE THEY WERE ACCUSED OR RELATED TO ACCUSED PERSONS.
IT WAS NOT JUST WOMEN ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT, AND IT WAS NOT JUST WOMEN WHO SUFFERED DURING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS.
I do not, CANNOT, handle media that tries to spin the trials as "War on Women" bullshit. Are y'all FORGETTING that the people doing the accusing were YOUNG GIRLS? Are you FORGETTING that the court actually declined to find Rebecca Nurse guilty, BUT THOSE GIRLS SCREAMED AND CRIED UNTIL THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS?
That did me in. The bad characterizations for EVERY character, the irritating lead, the utter lack of imagination with the story-telling (For fuck's sake, how do you mess up one of the most interesting periods in early American history), those were bad- but the fact that this story-line plays this BULLSHIT out like the Trials were a war on women rather than a hysteria that affected ALL PEOPLE? That made me furious, because it is so disgustingly obvious that the writers were choosing to pander to a VERY SPECIFIC demographic of readers by doing it.
And they chose to ignore the real victims of a real tragedy in the process. There were real men who died or suffered immensely because of the Trials, but- naaaah, ignore them, we have a chance to turn women into the Eternal Victims of the World; who cares if Giles Corey was pressed to death with stones because he refused to testify, or that five other men were hung right along with the women?
So screw this series. I've already gotten a feel for how Charlotte's going to be for the next few books, and I am disgusted and outright livid about how said series kicked off by pretending that the male victims of a senseless tragedy basically didn't exist, and I have no intention of giving this series or its writers anymore time, attention, or money.
I was hankering for some Assassin's Creed and all I got was a headache and a massive sense of regret. I'm going to go play Origins, where the characters are actually well-developed and the story is actually well-written.
So I took a chance on this one, and now I'm regretting it for a few reasons:
Spoiler
One: You can tell whoever wrote this meant to write Charlotte as a Strong Female Character(TM). She threw around some buzzwords around ("Misogyny", she calls the Templars the "old white men brigade" or something similar), and is very clearly meant to be an action girl: "Whoo-hoo! Look at me! I'm not even blinking at the fact that the Assassins and Templars are real and jumping into things without thinking EVEN SLIGHTLY CRITICALLY ABOUT ANY OF THIS."
I mean for fuck's sake, people whine about Desmond Miles all the time and at least he actually had the sense to be freaked out and ask a lot of questions when Abstergo kidnapped him (and HE was actually aware already on some level about the Assassins and Templars.) But you expect me to believe that an otherwise normal woman with little experience beyond a normal life just jumps in and says "HELL YEAH" without being freaked out??
Theory: Whoever wrote this wanted to address the (constant, headache-inducing) whining about "HOW COME THERE NO STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS IN AC????" And so like everyone who tries to pander to the "WE WANT STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS(TM)" demographic, they came up with a clusterfuck of a female character because they were more concerned with checking off boxes on their "Politically Correct(TM) Story-Writing" Checklist.
But wait, you say! A buzzword-toting female lead isn't necessarily an indicator that the story overall was intended to be Politically Correct(TM) bullshit!
And you would be right! Except that Charlotte isn't my only complaint here. Oh no.
Two: The Salem Witch Trials.
I am- to put it gently- titchy about the Salem Witch Trials. I've done loads of research on them and I've read a lot of books, played games, and watched movies that have used them for fictional purposes. And see, people using the trials for fictional purposes doesn't bother me, generally speaking (I highly recommend Adriana Mather's [b:How to Hang a Witch|27405351|How to Hang a Witch (How to Hang a Witch, #1)|Adriana Mather|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1502061057s/27405351.jpg|43145978].
No, see, there's one very common way that the trials are spun, whether it's a reference to them, or a book or movie, or someone just talking about it in person, that bothers me:
It was spun into "The Salem Witch Trials were a persecution exclusively of women. It was 100% driven by misogyny and a desire by the Puritans to punish women who dared to have OPINIONS."
Look. I acknowledge to some extent that misogyny was a factor in the persecution of witches historically. Obviously it was a factor because misogyny was very prominent back in the day.
But I have said this a hundred-FUCKING-times, and I will say it again:
THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS DID NOT JUST TARGET WOMEN.
OF THE TWENTY PEOPLE EXECUTED IN SALEM, SIX WERE MEN.
LOADS OF MEN WERE ARRESTED AND SUFFERED IN PRISON.
LOADS OF MEN WERE OSTRACIZED OR PERSECUTED BECAUSE THEY WERE ACCUSED OR RELATED TO ACCUSED PERSONS.
IT WAS NOT JUST WOMEN ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT, AND IT WAS NOT JUST WOMEN WHO SUFFERED DURING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS.
I do not, CANNOT, handle media that tries to spin the trials as "War on Women" bullshit. Are y'all FORGETTING that the people doing the accusing were YOUNG GIRLS? Are you FORGETTING that the court actually declined to find Rebecca Nurse guilty, BUT THOSE GIRLS SCREAMED AND CRIED UNTIL THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS?
That did me in. The bad characterizations for EVERY character, the irritating lead, the utter lack of imagination with the story-telling (For fuck's sake, how do you mess up one of the most interesting periods in early American history), those were bad- but the fact that this story-line plays this BULLSHIT out like the Trials were a war on women rather than a hysteria that affected ALL PEOPLE? That made me furious, because it is so disgustingly obvious that the writers were choosing to pander to a VERY SPECIFIC demographic of readers by doing it.
And they chose to ignore the real victims of a real tragedy in the process. There were real men who died or suffered immensely because of the Trials, but- naaaah, ignore them, we have a chance to turn women into the Eternal Victims of the World; who cares if Giles Corey was pressed to death with stones because he refused to testify, or that five other men were hung right along with the women?
So screw this series. I've already gotten a feel for how Charlotte's going to be for the next few books, and I am disgusted and outright livid about how said series kicked off by pretending that the male victims of a senseless tragedy basically didn't exist, and I have no intention of giving this series or its writers anymore time, attention, or money.
I was hankering for some Assassin's Creed and all I got was a headache and a massive sense of regret. I'm going to go play Origins, where the characters are actually well-developed and the story is actually well-written.