Assassin's Creed

The term "Assassin's Creed" is a modern coinage, originating within the context of the 2007 video game series. It is not an ancient esoteric term but a descriptive title for the fictional order and its guiding principles within the game's narrative universe.

Assassin's Creed is a historical action-adventure video game series and media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May, the Assassin's Creed video game series depicts a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Knights Templar, who desire peace through order and control. The...

While "Assassin's Creed" itself is a product of contemporary digital storytelling, its thematic resonance taps into ancient currents of thought concerning agency and destiny. The fictional Order of Assassins, as presented in the game series, embodies a philosophy of free will that echoes, however distantly, the existentialist leanings found in certain mystical traditions. Mircea Eliade, in his studies of shamanism and archaic religions, often highlighted the human impulse to transcend mundane limitations and exert a form of control over one's fate, a drive that can manifest as both liberation and, paradoxically, a new form of bondage. The Knights Templar, conversely, represent the allure of order, a desire for a predictable universe that can easily calcify into authoritarianism. This dialectic between freedom and order is a recurring motif in human history and spiritual inquiry.

Consider the Sufi concept of fana, annihilation of the ego, which can be seen as a radical act of self-liberation from the constraints of individual identity. Yet, the path to fana is not one of unbridled license but of disciplined surrender. Similarly, the Kabbalistic notion of Tikkun Olam, the mending of the world, implies active participation and choice in the cosmic drama, a responsibility that demands both wisdom and free will. The "Assassin's Creed" narrative, in its fictionalized portrayal of a hidden war, invites contemplation on the nature of power, the ethics of intervention, and the profound responsibility that accompanies the exercise of free will. It prompts us to question whether true peace is achieved through imposed uniformity or through the messy, often challenging, cultivation of individual autonomy. The series, therefore, acts as a modern parable, reflecting timeless questions about the human condition and our perpetual striving for meaning and self-determination in a complex world.

RELATED_TERMS: Free Will, Determinism, Order, Chaos, Gnosticism, Existentialism, Agency, Self-Determination