Ryuu96 said:
We disagree on a lot when it comes to these issues but thanks for being actually sensible in this scenario. It's fucking Assassin's Creed for fuck sake, it hasn't been historically accurate since AC2 and it delved into Sci-Fi nonsense starting with AC2 as well and full-blown whacko mythology starting with AC Origins. Even AC1 got historical dates completely wrong. For the love of fuck I can't with people being mad about this, Lmfao. Every single Assassin's Creed has featured a completely made up protagonist who have large impacts on history, for fuck sake Edward Kenway would have been written down in history books alongside Blackbeard and the like but he's completely made up in AC. People demand not to race swap characters, not to shove characters in "where it doesn't make sense" AC decides to feature for once a real fucking person who has been written about multiple fucking times including by many Japanese developers, manga artists and anime writers and people still lose their shit. Nobody would be bitching if this was fucking John Blackthorne. Some historians have said he was a samurai, some have said he wasn't a samurai, direct descendants of his Nobunaga say he was. Seems to me like nobody fucking knows for sure so I think we can stop losing our shit at Assassin's Creed taking some liberties can't we? You want to whine about him not being a samurai then moan about all the other historical accuracies and made up bullshit that AC has, including every single character starting with AC1. |
Well to be fair, we know substantially more about the real world historical figure that John Blackthorne was based on, William Adams, than we know about Yasuke. William Adams spent 20 years aligned with Japan and achieved significant rank and status there. William achieved the rank of Hatamoto, a high ranking samurai position directly under Tokugawa Ieyasu within the newly formed Tokugawa Shogunate, and was put in charge of shipbuilding and eventually naval expeditions into Southeast Asia. He was paid 10,000 Portuguese Reals for his 1600 participation in the Battle of Sekigahara. By 1603 he had been promoted and given a mansion in Edo with housekeepers, a daily allowance of 1 KG of Rice, and a monthly allowance of 50 Ryo. By 1605 he had been promoted to Hatamoto and in addition to his mansion in Edo was granted a feudal domain and estate in present day Yokosuka that was valued at 250 Koku, as well as 100 servants and slaves to work and care for the estate. He spent the remainder of his life working for Japan, married a Japanese woman and had 2 kids with her, and died in Hirado Japan in 1620.
By comparison we really don't know that much about Yasuke. A substantial amount of the Japanese records from that time period were lost in a fire, so most of the information we have on Yasuke comes from records of the Portuguese Jesuits in Japan. What we do know is that he arrived in Japan under service to the Jesuits in 1579, spent 2 years with the Jesuits in Japan, and then when the Jesuits visited Kyoto in early 1581, Oda Nobunaga summoned them because Nobunaga wanted to see if the reports of a black skinned man were accurate. Nobunaga became enamored by him and requested that the Jesuits hand the black man over to him. He was given the Japanese name of Yasuke and granted the position of sword-bearer. A year and 3 months after he entered the service of Nobunaga, the Honno-Ji incident happened where Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his own men Akechi Mitsuhide. Yasuke fought alongside Nobunaga in his final battle there, and was present when Nobunaga committed Seppuku rather than be captured. After Nobunaga's death he found Nobunaga's son and continued to fight alongside his son's men. During the fight he was said to be approached by one of Akechi Mitsuhide's men, who told him he would be offered protection if he laid down his sword. Yasuke surrendered, and Mitsuhide handed him over to the Jesuits for medical treatment of his battle wounds. After that we have zero records about what happened to Yasuke, some believe the Jesuits removed him from Japan to protect him.
Ubisoft seems to have used this gap of knowledge about Yasuke's life to imply he stayed in Japan and ultimately allied with the ninja woman Naoe, who Nobunaga and Yasuke (in-game at least) had previously fought during the Second Tensho Iga War in 1581. The implication seems to be that these two former enemies, Yasuke and Naoe, will end up working together to take down whoever the Templar is in Japan who orchestrated Nobunaga's downfall. Ubisoft likely specifically chose him because he is a blank slate they can do whatever they want with after 1582, because all records of him from that time period were lost in the fire, if there were any records at all.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 22 September 2024
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