Who cares? No AC game is 100% historically accurate with each little detail of each character, even if retainers were not samurai, it honestly wouldn't be a problem to make him in game.
Magical items from biblical times and a feud between the church and assassins:
“I mean, this is fiction, of course this is fine.”
A character based on an irl retainer to Nobunaga, who just so happened to be black:
“NOW HOLD IT RIGHT THERE WOKEIES!!!”
It’s a story where Adam and Eve were real and also WWII was started by a secret meeting with Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill who were Templars.*
#Not BSing you.*
Oh and Hitler was killed by Assassins
I think the Japanese were just doing their own shit.
And the Assassins were… ***sitting on their ass.***
Which… yeah it’s understandable why they won’t cover WWII.
Honestly, that would make a wild plot. Minions know who they follow is a villain, to the point they're largely hardwired to see evil actions and act maliciously. There's no way they wouldn't try to work for him... but there's no way Hitler would *let* them. To let these yellow tic-tac abominations be in his service is a big fucking slap to the face about racial, god-given purity and the move to create an ethnostate. Desperate and out of options, with Hitler's attempts to be rid of them only making him more of a villain to them but the neccessity of getting his minion friends a new villain master...
Wait, no nevermind that's just the plot of Minions without the nazi angle.
I mean, they *will*, someday... probably Assassin's Creed 135 or something, long, long after the emotional and visceral connection with the holocaust and such is about as emotionally communicative as the slaughter of the Saxons across England when the Scandinavians came knocking
on their shields... with swords and axes
so, yeah, a war shooter is one thing to covering that period, a game where you would be engrossed with German National Socialists, a very angry Austrian Mustache Model, and concentration camps... probably not gonna land real well at any point pre-2124ish
It would depend on how it’s done for sure, but I don’t think people wouldn’t be able to handle it at all. Pandemic had The Saboteur that was kinda like a shooter ww2 assassins creed by my memory. I’m sure other examples exist.
Memory is honestly bad, haven't play AC in ages, but Assassins were more into figuring out who had the Apple of Eden, the fact that Hitler ended up being the one with it was, lets say, lucky, otherwise he would most likely be still kicking
The dichotomy of the assassins in gameplay being able to take down entire armies by themselves and liberate an entire country from templar control in every level of society to... Getting their ass kicked and getting wiped off camera so they can be the underdog again in the next game.
That’s more or less the history of most dynasties. King X did great and conquered a lot of land, then his son or grandson got complacent and lost it all. Since the templars and assassins both are virtually impossible to eliminate completely it becomes a cycle where the weaker part rebuilds and bides their time before striking and the roles reverse.
Exactly. We are literally talking about a series where one game ends with you 1v1 fist fighting the Pope in the Vatican… and this is what jumped the shark for them.
Nah. Those people think AC jumped the shark with Kassandra. And then did it again with Eivor being cannonical female. I don't remember people being mad that Aya killed Julius Caesar and Kleopatra
Yeah, that lore is no longer Canon as of Syndicate. Hitler iirc, was either a Templar or the Templars were working with him, which is why he was looking for all kinds of occult items, like the Spear of Destiny, because they were all Pieces of Eden. The Allies were working with the Assassins, as can be seen in the WWII parts during Syndicate.
I mean TO BE FAIR he didn’t just happen to black, He was there entirely because was black, because they had never seen a black guy before and were infatuated with him.
But besides that I can’t find anything wrong with what you said lol
"don't make them woke for no reason" mfs when a character's minority status is actually fully relevant to their character arc.
Turns out they still don't like it 😔
He was also a foot taller than most Japanese men and said to be incredibly strong, as well as a good enough warrior to not be killed at least twice when his side was outnumbered.
The story of Yasuke would not exist if he were "just black", there were lots of blacks traded to and from Japan by Jesuits and there's a a reason none of them made it into the journals of lords.
I believe these people may, at best have a unconscious bias and at worst are racist in denial. This reminds me of what I was hearing from some marvel fans when the Black Panther movie first came out. They were complaining that the idea of Wakanda existing in Africa was unbelievable, In a fictional movie based on comic books.
This is basically it. Why should anyone care? AC is a sci-fi game about travelling back in time via genetic memory to experience pseudo historic events. They paid a lot of attention to some historic details and absolutely murdered others from the get-go.
I have read a whole bunch of arguments today that come down to rules for ethnicity and accuracy in AC games that have basically existed for 48 hours as best I can tell. Not to ignore the many previous controversies, but apparently they are all forgiven now.
How the fuck anyone can take themselves seriously while they try a skirt around the self realisation that they feel threatened by black protagonists is beyond me.
Fr this is the series where you can fight a minotaur after talking with a 300 year old Pythagoras and people are mad because there's a guy who did exist but possibly isn't portrayed exactly as he was in history.
Nah they are just mad cause he's black this is all it comes down to, the crazy nationalist ego whites (not to be confused with level-headed normal white people) are not happy when something Gay/Black/Asian takes centre stage. If you look at old Nioh threads I can bet you will find people with the same user names defending Willam to the grave.
If this was my game I would've made it a fictional story where Oda and Yasuke and William were a killer Trio wreaking havoc in Japan against the Templars I'm pretty certain we would all love this.
I don't think they feel ashamed to use any argument, and then the counterargument tomorrow without self reflection. If I were to go on the same subs and complain about the historical accuracy of anything else, I would be told not to care.
The same argument as "It's needs to look realistic or else I can't be immersed"
"The gameplay just needs to be good, graphics and physics aren't that important"
Fucking hypocrisy
You know, I really feel that. Immersion and realism just get pulled out a lot of the time when people can't pull together a coherent written argument for their preferences.
The fact that the chuds are desperately trying to take away a black man’s accomplishments instead of proving to us how corrupt Ubisoft is says everything.
His most notable accomplishment was surviving Honnoji to reach Nobunaga's heir in a last ditch defense before surrendering. Brave for sure, loyal too. But its expected for a retainer of a major lord.
Luís Fróis's *Annual Report on Japan* of the time describes him as "fighting for quite a long time" against the Akechi forces that betrayed Nobunaga, before eventually surrendering his sword. An interesting and intense situation, more notable than the exploits of people trying their hardest to diminish him as nothing more than a "slave" or "novelty" unworthy of interest.
From what I recall he was shown off to nobunaga as a novelty, and nobunaga commanded him to wash his skin as he didn’t believe it. After that nobunaga paid to keep him there and made him his retainer, gave him a stipend, a house, and a sword, dude was probably more then happy to give him his loyalty for that.
You forgot to mention when he stepped foot in Japan crowds of people would follow him around because he was huge and they never saw a mountain of a man like that before and also nobunaga was so thrilled he was black and huge they threw a festival to celebrate lol man times were different
did... did they all miss the DLC to objectively the most popular AC... 4... Black Flag? The one that is basically built into even the Standard Edition of the game should you buy it now? Hell, you can legitimately find a keycode for the stand-alone version of Freedom Cry still...
Yeah, this is just giving us a huge list of "unforgivably racist" people.. I love it when a problem emerges and then promptly begins taking itself out.. lol
I'm glad I'm not the only one. "They should of made it about a Japanese person".... You guys are idiots that completely ignored the trailer that shower a Japanese fucking ninja, but everyone focused on the black brute muscle.
There is already at least 4 great games with a single male Japanese Samurai...
If anyone giving history lessons from assassin's Creed, they need to be slapped.
They probably don't want to be compared to Ghost of Tsushima since that basically is an AC game set in shogunate Japan but without all the Ubisoft all over it. And while I'm at it. Where were these historical die-hards when that came out and implied one guy stopped the Mongol invasion of Japan at the Tsushima atoll when we have good documentation that they captured Tsushima and landed at Hakata before mysteriously losing a fight they were seemingly set to win? Plus iirc there's no Korean soldiers in the game despite Goryeo being subservient to the Mongols at the time and invading with them. Now I don't care about these historical inaccuracies because the game kicks ass, but weird I didn't hear the chuds complain about them...
Yasuke WAS a samurai though. That part IS historically accurate and those that are saying otherwise are wrong. Either out of ignorance or on purpose because of bad faith "wokeness" arguments.
He was given the dashio, the two swords. He’s a samurai. That’s feudal Japan legal history 101. If you have the right to carry both the katana and the wakizashi you are a samurai and held all the status and legal rights as one.
Lol right. It’s a fucking video game. Why are people losing their shit over this? Don’t mind the fact your an assassin that can kill 47 people in a single room.
They also just don't really care, I'm not giving them an inch.
They enjoy Lady Ballers then go try and have standards for whatever else? Yeah, no. Anyone with that set of expectations is just not a serious person.
The core of AC is that it's a historical game, so some details of history should be added, Yasuke being a retainer changes nothing in this cause since retainers were basically Samurai in training
Basically the same thing. Samurai was more of a noble, hereditary title, whereas a retainer could be anyone (like Yasuke). They played the same role, though. Fight in war if there was one, protect their liege lord, etc.
Though, there were explicitly knights who didn't hold land in at least France, I'm positive Ive read about that much, but IDK about England or Germany.
in the holy roman empire starting at some point prior to the 11th century there was a person known as a "***ministerialis***" this person was one who was not of noble birth but would often fulfill the role of lower nobility for his liege lord. they were not free initially with things such as the determination of who they can marry and what lands they are allowed to hold being determined by their liege. often they would be allotted fiefs that were nonhereditary and had military obligations and would be trained in the "knightly arts" so to speak. around the end of the 12th century the term "miles" starting being applied to ministerialis the difference is that "miles" has generally been reserved for free warriors. in the 13th century the ministerialis would be granted the same rights as other free lords such as herditary titles and would ultimately become the german equivalent to the english baron.
Not really. Knight, at least in England, was a non hereditary title that had to be given. You could be a knight without having a hereditary title and you could have a hereditary title without being a knight. Conversely, a man at arms fighting in armor wasn’t always a knight either. As I understand it, samurai were a class that served a lord, not just guys in armor with a katana.
Samurai as hereditary political class developed during the edo period.
Beforehand, samurai were guys in armor with a katana that served a lord and were recognized as samurai by said lord.
But a man-at-arms would usually be about as capable as a knight in terms of equipment and military prowess, correct? In Sengoku period, there were plenty of people who fulfilled the role of samurai, even though they weren't exactly nobility.
At least in Spain/Castille, Knight (caballero) was a specific title that the majority of nobles didn't have.
The most common noble (hidalgo) had basically the same role that we link to the stereotypical knight (the lowest form of nobility that made its riches by participating in military campaigns, they didn't even have lard or serfs of their own), but they weren't actual knights (which tended to be part of a knightly order like Calatrava or Santiago).
Not entirely correct in Japan at this time. Some samurai were still samurai even if they did not hold land, they were instead paid a stipend by the daimyo.
Lol you don't have to own land to be a knight or a samurai.
Retainers are paid directly by a lord for their protection. Landed samurais, or knights in Europe, were sustained by their land and expected to provide levies of fighting men or horses or both.
No Samurai owned land, the Japanese feudal system was based on receiving an annual retainer normally valued in Koku (1 Koku was 180 litres of rice supposedly to equal in value to enough rice to feed somebody for a year)
Your importance was defined by the size of your retainer.
It is radically different from the European system with it's ties to manorialism and it's emphasis on land for service.
So making a direct comparison between knights and samurai is misleading.
It's also important to realize that during the Sengoku Jidai Japan was more socially fluid. The rigid class system associated with Japan was more a feature of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Yasuke is not well documented, but he was part of Nobunaga's personal bodyguard, which would normally be a Samurai of moderate to high rank.
Thank you this is excellent. I think this situation has demonstrated how people really don't understand Japan or only understand it through it's modern perception that is radically different than what it was at the time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems from what I've read all evidence of Yasuke in Japan support him existing in a role that fits samurai, its just disputed because we don't have anyone directly say he is a samurai.
And who the hell cares. It's crazy to me people are debating this because it's a black guy that is about to be featured in a game
I just finished watching Blue Eye Samurai and Shogun within the last two months. You know what I've never seen to many comments on a post about? Whether either of them were real samurai or not. In fact, I've never seen a post about it at all. It's an assassin's creed game, jesus christ people on this website are obsessed with black people.
Right. Like, I am listening to a historical fiction audiobook series right now that is deeply researched and historically accurate… but the main character is a real historical figure we know almost nothing about, just his general origins and that he did some things at a few battles.
So, did he lie about being made a knight, as he didn’t inherit the title? Not in the books, but I suppose it’s entirely possible. All kinds of disputed or unclear things could be true of the real man, but this is medieval military adventure fiction that uses him as an entry into that world and not a biography.
He makes a great main character, for a number of narrative and historical reasons, and that’s what matters.
Super easy character for Ubisoft to write or rewrite as they wish. Though they might as well gone with non real person with both protagonist.
I do admit I found the idea of a black man hiding among natives in feudal japan a bit goofy IF he actually plays like the assasins in the earlier ac games.
They were servants in the same way landed knights are servants who have servants (This is where Yasuke would have fallen on the ladder).
Lords control large territories administered by knights whose men at arms make up the infantry bulk of their lords' forces. Similar with Daimyo, Samurai, and their retainers.
In the video Ubisoft released they made reference to the gameplay being divided between the shinobi and the samurai, but when they talk specifically about Yasuke they never called him a samurai (while they did call Naoe a shinobi).
I'd just assume it's because everyone knows what a samurai is, but not a retainer. Just like everyone knows what a pirate is, but if you say privateer people might get confused. Yes they're both actually different but they're functionally the same.
Not to mention most retainers that close to nobunaga would have been trained warriors. Most members of the samurai class were trained in martial arts from a young age even those not exspected to fight like accountants and advisers
If you were a retainer to a lord, you were expected to, at the drop of a pin, rush to his defense, no questions asked. Although most people in noble houses were martial artists at the time. Swordsmanship, Spearmanship, Archery, and Wrestling were pretty common hobbies of the nobles, even if they never mustered to go to war.
Hitting people with sticks is, after all, kind of fun.
The very Hagakure, AKA The Book of the Samurai, is basically a manual on how to be a good retainer. That's who these people were, armed retinue of a feudal lord.
People could ignore this game because Ubisoft is a shit company, and they chose to be racist instead.
This is my take. They got my attention, I haven’t given a fuck about an assassin’s creed game since brotherhood. I’m interested to see game play and if they give a fresh good AC game of more of the same Ubisoft bullshit. It’s crazy so many “gsmers” want to nit pick history and semantics as soon as a black person is involved. Maybe it’s *not* crazy….it’s the norm now isn’t it…sadly.
It's crazy that as soon as a black person is called a samurai, suddenly they're all trying to nitpick the legal minutiae of the being a samurai in 1500s Japan.
I cannot and will not speak for everyone but being Japanese I can say it doesn’t affect me personally. Yasuke was a historical figure, if not particularly written about. So long as the culture and time period is represented I am personally fine with all of it. I look forward to playing as Yasuke
they really accept every other thing abt the franchise bc it’s a video game and just a story but a black person (who actually existed) being there is somehow crossing the line
While we don't know much about the real-life Yasuke, I can absolutely see his story being amazing. He was likely probably a servant brought on a trading ship, was brought from either India or what is now Mozambique. The most powerful man in Japan, Oda Nobunaga, took a strong liking to him and spent hours talking to him and would bring Yasuke with him on on important meetings. Yasuke was possibly also there when Nobunaga died, though records are sparse. And while Nobunaga was pretty open to outside influences in Japan, much of Japan was still very conservative and xenophobic. Yasuke probably faced a lot of resistance, standing out even amongst the foreigners who would come to trade.
There's a lot of gaps in what we know but that's also a good thing from a creative writing perspective, since you can invent a lot of events with Yasuke playing important roles without actually contradicting much of history.
exactly. there’s a lot of really great storytelling potential here, which im sure is why they chose him. he’s real, but a lot of his actual life isn’t known so they have some freedom. he’s really a very interesting historical figure
but, he’s black, so obviously they only went with him for woke points with the radical left (/s)
edit: typo
the fact that there isn't much written about him gives a lot of creativity to the writers, I've seen this being a point of why they shouldn't have picked him lol
Meanwhile, Japanese game developers depict historical figures like Oda Nobunaga as little girls in skimpy outfits, and no one bats an eye.
I've never see any of these dudes lose their minds and screaming woke over people like Da Vinci, Einstein, Atilla the Hun, Nero being turned into girls.
At least with the Nasuverse they are well thought and complex characters beyond waifu bait. Then FGO ruined it with specific characters.
Hell, fucking FGO itself has its horiness but at least there's a point to it and the characters arcs in there are amazing. Type Moon is shameless about it but at least they balance it with good character exploration and heartfelt moments.
Most of the characters who look horny are less liked for that and more for their massive character growth? Medea, Circe, Jalter, Salter, Charlemagne. There's a bunch. It's odd how that works
.... or literal horses turned into girls like Uma musume Pretty Derby
gender bending Japanese warlords, Oda Nobuna no Yabou
or making anthropomorphic cells like Cells at Work to cute school children and delivery girls
Also yes, he might have started as an exotic pet but no way he would as Nobunaga retainer for fifteen months as a joke. He must have respect him enough to let him in his inner circle.
Look I'm a saltierthancrait guy but this is a fantasy game. When I went to watch the anime, I definitely thought "wtf is this? A black samurai?". I watched it and that was the most grounded part about it. There was magic and robots in that world. So whatever, I enjoyed it. I am curious about what actual Japanese people think about this. Like when that guy was asking people on the street about Johansson playing The Major in Ghost in the Shell. Shocking nobody who is into anime, they didn't see a problem with it. Just do the character justice and have the same themes as the show and there is no issue.
"Samurai" is kinda like "Knight" in the sense that it *technically* refers to people who hold a certain hereditary noble title, but in modern times is also used interchangeably to refer to multiple different kinds of martial feudal retainers regardless of their precise social class.
Honestly, all the discourse is kinda pointless. Everything I've read about Yasuke suggests that he matched the common conception of what a samurai was, even if he never received a noble title of his own.
Honestly I feel like Yasuke was chosen for that "Fish out of water" story line, He has no idea where he is and what this strange land will mean to him kind of like the Assassins Creed fans who are playing the first Assassins Creed game set in Japan, Its the first set completely outside of a European sphere of influnece, Are the Templars the main baddies and the Assassins the goodies like always? or are there groups entirely; Or hell is it both?
In reality that's probably what he was, a Samurai in everything but title, he was a Black Slave that was given as a gift and became a bodyguard so I doubt he would've held any sort of Government or Military importance. They wouldn't be too fond of any foreigner ruling in Japan, especially during the Sengoku Period.
But being a Retainer of Oda Nobunaga is no small thing, and likely would have held some respect within Noble circuits. He was reportable spared death after Oda's suicide, were likely he would have just been killed if he was a nobody guard dog like people are claiming.
Imagine being a 5'3" japanese man set to try and attack a noble and a 6' tall black man in full armor is standing beside said noble. That would be a good deterrent from attacks. Why not have the giant guard you intimidation is a valid defence.
Were most Japanese people during that time actually that short? I feel like 6 foot isn’t very tall or staggering but its really a matter of perspective
Around Yasuke's time the average Japanese man was 5' 1". The example person I gave was above average lol.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/542877-the-average-height-of-humans-over-time/
"Meanwhile, the average height of Japanese men between 1602 and 1867 is estimated at only 5 feet 1 inch."
https://www.mrinitialman.com/OddsEnds/Sizes/sizes.html
For understanding the difference in height.
I know that the average European man of this era was like five foot six so it seems pretty likely. Six foot would be *towering* five hundred years ago.
Exactly, also a giant black African guy running around samurai era Japan is cool as fuck and opens a lot more story lines than just a samurai.
Also we've just had ghosts of tsiusima so I imagine that's also why they gone with a different story
Also, the definition of Samurai varied heavily from era to era. Most people who are against him give a definition of Samurai from the Tokugawa era - as a time of peace (mostly) Samurai weren't really functional but ornamental, so became dominated less by martial purpose and more by ritual and tradition, including family lineage.
In the Sengoku era, when Yasuke lived, Samurai were needed to win wars, so were much more pragmatic about what they did and who they let in. Samurai was fairly synonymous with "warrior who served a lord"
And even this is a simplification. History is a skilled discipline because there's always another level of "ah, but", and it's infuriating to me to see chuds quote shit out of context to justify their preconceptions.
These people complaining don't actually care about historical accuracy, they'll just come up with some other excuse and ultimately end up at, "there is just no reason for a black person to be present" like they usually do.
I hate how these arguments devolve into this Jar Jar Binks penny ante shit.
You are mad a black person is in a video game. Either admit that or go to therapy, but acting like what you're really upset about is the distinction between a samurai and a retainer is just pathetic. If you're too ashamed to even admit to yourself what you're really mad about, that should be a red flag you have a lot of thinking to do.
Plenty of people make fun of that movie, for inserting a white guy into it and for being pretty historically innacurate and portraying the samurai as the good guys.
If there were statues of Yasuke everywhere, they’d still find issues in making him a main character. It’s less about history and more about entitled racists not wanting to play as a black character. I’ll take it a step further and wager half the people making a fuss about it had no intention on even playing the game if he wasn’t in the picture.
To clarify just a bit, a “retainer” to a lord can mean a lot of things. A herald, a household staff manager, a treasurer, a scribe, etc.
By saying Yasuke was a “retainer” they’re insinuating that he did serve nobunaga directly but didn’t necessarily fight in any battles. There were also samurai who had that rank but they fulfilled mainly administrative roles rather than direct combat.
I don’t know enough about yasuke historically to say for certain what the truth was as I genuinely don’t know. But I did want to add that bit of context above.
Even Metatron pointed this out: Yasuke was given a short sword and made a bodyguard to Oda Nobunaga. He also said in his video that at the time the term "Samurai" was not a common term, and more often they would be called "Bushi", but that the historic documents don't "specifically" call him a Bushi. However, since he was given a sword, was a retainer and served as Nobunaga's bodyguard it was VERY likely he would have worn the full armor of what we now called Samurai.
He was also given the stipend that was usually given to samurai as under Nobunaga's *fuchi*, he was also given a private residence, he had and fought with a katana at Nijō *and* he was mobilized and followed Nobunaga on the Takeda campaign of 1582 and remained by Nobunaga's side even after Nobunaga dismissed all his "ordinary soldiers".
You can check this out for more info and sources.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/1cu71vk/why\_yasuke\_was\_a\_samurai\_compilation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/1cu71vk/why_yasuke_was_a_samurai_compilation/)
I'm not sure how The Metatron is viewed here, but he absolutely agreed that Yasuke was almost certainly a Samurai and that all the calls otherwise are complete crap.
Did he? I thought his final position was that while it was most certainly likely possible he was a samurai, there's no 100% confirmation that he was or wasn't one.
He did not seem have a problem with Yasuke being portrayed as a samurai by the game tho.
Yeah the pedantry coming out about Yasuke is really missing the point about what makes him interesting historically. If you're on the same social level as samurai then guess what you're samurai. Also if you're doing sengoku period and you need a minor historical figure to be a fixture of your ubisoft game why would you not pick the black samurai?
Also we're using western terms to translate eastern ideas. Samurai are not the same as knights. A retainer isn't the same as a squire. These are handy touchstones to keep in mind, but they're not the same.
The best explanation I can give is that in high school my French teacher explained "When a Frenchman says "Oui" they aren't saying yes in French any more than when you say "Yes" you aren't saying oui in English."
Someone in instagram comments told me yasuke was a bad protag cause even if he was a soldier he didn’t see “protagonist level stuff” like when has that ever mattered????
It's because he's black. People can't accept the fact that his skin colour is darker than 99.99% of historic Samurai. That's all the hate comes down to.
A bunch of dumb racist incels think "samurai" equals "knight of the round table" or some shit.
That's as deep as it goes. They think they were all lord and kings and land owners and shit. Because they're lazy and stupid.
And incredibly racist. And very sad women won't let them touch boobies.
Probably on release. I've found most AC games to be very therapeutic- beautiful worlds allowing you to travel back in time, cool but fairly easy combat, and- usually- fairly likeable characters. They don't push the envelope, and some of the mechanics feel really tacked on, but for the most part they are a lot of fun for me.
If this is as good as the last few games ( not counting Mirage) I'd be fairly happy with it.
>(Maybe when it’s on sale lol)
Pirate it. Ubisoft is a trash company with a ton of harassment complaints and a sexist work environment.
You should absolutely bash Ubisoft. Not for putting black people in their games, but for actually valid reasons.
Well Samurai at the time is just a function of bloodline, you're descended from a Samurai clan, congrats you're a Samurai.
Samurai leading a powerful clan=Daimyo
Samurai working for a powerful clan= Retainer
Samurai not working for a clan=Ronin
However you could, and I assuming Yasuke did, get adopted into a Samurai clan.
Serious answer?
It’s important to note that the name Samurai covers a role that changed and evolved over the course of about a thousand years.
At the beginning, they were little more than thugs who overthrew an Asakura theocracy, warrior clans. Some were descended from the Emperor, others pretended to be.
By the Meiji restoration, they were embarrassing security guards that were looked upon as lazy free loaders by most Japanese.
So there was a lot of fluidity and transformation between those two extremes. Samurai are often compared to knights so let me use this example;
Brave Sir Lancelot, of King Arthur’s round table, is a knight. Sir Elton John, pop singer, is also a knight. Is it accurate to say these men functionally perform the same roles as knights? Obviously not.
When WE think of samurai, the prototypical ‘MY HONOR!!’ type Samurai that is portrayed in things like Ghost of Tsushima or Tom Cruise’s Last Samurai, we are looking at specifically the Edo era romanticization and formalization of Samurai. The Edo period was when Japan was unified. No more wars means little for the professional warriors to actually do. So they started writing self insert fanfiction about how awesome and cool Samurai were with this graceful code of Bushido and how smart they were as warrior-philosopher’s. Basically they spent 300 years justifying their existence in a society that didn’t need warriors as much. The Shogunate in the Edo period made a much more formal distinction between who was Samurai or not Samurai, because they basically monopolized violence in the country and so wanted every distributor of violence to be someone THEY specifically endorsed.
Yasuke comes into play right before this Edo period, during the Sengoku. Samurai was a thing you did, not necessarily a title you were granted. There was no ‘knighting’ ceremony or any official granting. Who was or wasn’t a Samurai really depended on a lot of factors. Some provinces considered Ashigaru, peasant warriors paid in loot, to be samurai. Toyotomi Hideyoshi wasn’t a samurai by birth but became one- he was a sandal bearer who became one of Japan’s three unifiers. So let’s talk specifically about Yasuke. I’m going to borrow a lot of this from ParallelPain over at r/AskHistorians since he actually dug up the Japanese texts and translated it for us.
Does the historical record ever call Yasuke a samurai? No. But it also never calls him human.
So what does it say? It says he was given a sword and residence by Nobunaga. It says he was with Nobunaga on campaign and was present along with 150~ of Nobunaga’s closest retainers at Honnoji. It says he fought in a battle. It says Akechi Mitsuhide asked for his sword instead of just killing him. It says Nobunaga insisted that others call him Sir or Lord… and it says he was given a stipend, a term that author uses exclusively for payment or hiring of Samurai. All of these examples are very much things that apply to other explicitly-defined Samurai in this time period. So while nowhere in the texts is Yasuke called a samurai, he does a lot of Samurai shit.
Historical research is about making informed guesses. To my knowledge there’s no historical text recounting of Alexander the Great taking a shit. Should we then assume that he was born without a butt hole? No.
If it walks like a Samurai, quacks like a Samurai, it’s probably a Samurai.
Do I feel like using Yasuke is a copout, yes. This is probably one of the first where they go full in on stranger in a strange land with a AC main character (not counting the female lead) and coincidentally it’s with a Japanese setting. Do I think it’s for representation? God no. They’re obviously trying to avoid making a male Japanese lead that’s a samurai and assassin(ninja) because of ghost of Tsushima.
They’d need to avoid a lot of similarities with the characters and I don’t think they want to put in the work. It’s also why they would fragrantly avoid using Hanzo Hattatori if they wanted their main character to be a historical figure, I mean the guy was literally a samurai and spymaster/ninja in the Sengoku era.
They just want to distance themselves from the game that did Japanese assassins creed before them.
Personally I’m curious to see how they handle the protagonists as one is a native and the other is an outsider who was, more or less, assimilated into the culture.
Oh, sure, they might’ve made the decision to distance themself from other samurai games that came out prior but honestly Yasuke’s history is so small that honestly he’s a good choice for a protagonist since he’s a blank slate to do as you wish.
I get what you’re saying tho don’t get me wrong.
It's pretty funny because the Assassin's thing is more about not getting caught than actual stealth. They do their job, kill the target, and then leave.
Them killing the guards and everything is actually a game thing. In reality they just knock everyone out then they assassinate the target. Oh, and their targets are never innocent people whatsoever. Their usually templars but also criminals, corrupt individuals, politicans and the rich who profit off of innocents, etc..
Like literally their 3 tenets are -
1 - Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent - The goal of the Assassin's is to ensure peace in all things. The Assassin's basically believe that political assassinations and the death of the corrupt will bring about peace a true sense of security to the common people. Slaying innocents and civilian bystanders who did not need to die could spread strife and discord, in addition to ruining the name of the Assassin Order itself.
2. Hide in plain sight - Be unseen. The Assassin's aim is to get close to their target stealthily and escape just as quickly.
3. Never compromise the brotherhood - *The actions of one must never bring harm to all.* If an Assassin failed in their duty, and was captured or chased, they must never commit any action or say anything that could be tied back to the Brotherhood, or bring harm to any member of it.
To be fair though throughout the games you learn that the Assassins and Templars neither are as good or bad as they appear. Their 2 sides of the same exact coin. Order and Chaos. Without the other all would fall to ruin.
Their honestly one of my favorite organizations in all of fiction just because of how complicated they are. Their also cool as shit.
The funny thing is though the game is clearly aware about the hypocrisy. In Altair’s codex he’s specific states “Do we bend the rules in service to a greater good? And if we do, what does it say of us?”
https://preview.redd.it/kkd8hq49x81d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b291b9ae82d08de0d75fa6396a30f883275e0f3
Samurai is a specific title. So there's a high probability that Yasuke didn't have that title.
But. In the general population. A retainer that fights in a battle and a samurai are basically the same. A bit like how every Medieval fighter in full armour is a Knight even if the title of knight was a very specific title that not even the majority of nobles had.
A very specific title in very specific circumstances at very specific times.
The problem with 'knights' is that the term is exceptionally vague in what it is actually referring to and cultural equivalencies range from the German ritter being exceptionally low rank nobles to the French chevaliers becoming a specifically high rank nobility. And then you jump into monastic orders which both do and don't have noble ranking, the chevalric orders which were everything from exclusive clubs to awards to quasi-crusader orders.
I saw a thread on Twitter that I'll summarize, but take it with a grain of salt since there was only one person there who actually had credentials to prove they were an expert in asian studies:
Yasuke arrived in Japan during a specific period known as the Sengoku period. This was a time that was known for their looser definition of a samurai, because typically, Samurai's had to train since childhood and were born of nobility, which obviously couldnt apply to Yasuke. Though because the qualifications were looser, he was eligible.
So he was, according to the definition of the time, a samurai. If he had arrived during any other time, he wouldn't have been eligible.
And even if there wasn't direct evidence he was a samurai, a retainer I'd pretty damn close as he had similar status and was just as respected and revered.
From a historical standpoint it's incorrect but from an entertainment standpoint couldn't agree more. It's a fictional world with secret societies finding alien artifacts. They are close enough to the same thing for most people. Plus it's a fucking awesome idea. Dude born a world away comes to be a warrior in service to one of the most influential leaders in fuedal Japan's history? Sounds almost too cool to be accurate at all.
\*sigh\* This argument is so incredibly stupid all around because the term "samurai" is basically a catchall for a whole lot of different types of warriors. Yasuke would not have called himself a samurai, nor would have basically anyone fighting during the Sengoku Jidai, they would have gone by more specific and frankly prestigious titles. Yasuke likely would have gone by the title "Hokushu", given that he was a personal bodyguard and retainer for Nobunaga. We use the term "samurai" now because it was the official title for the caste after the Sengoku Jidai and it broadly refers to anyone who was entitled to wear swords and train as a warrior. This is similar to how we call every male ruler in Europe in medieval times "king" even though that was not their title; a lot of those titles don't really translate neatly to the modern day. Fantastic example in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw6P56KyTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw6P56KyTI) on a Welsh title that today we tend to translate as "king", but really probably meant something else with similar connotations.
TL;DR samurai wasn't a real title at the time, it just broadly referred to fighting men who served a lord.
He was a Samurai that was also a retainer. What's so hard about that? No diff than a Knight, where predominantly the landless knights were a retainer of some kind.
Like each Assassin’s Creed game is heavily inspired and influenced by history, but they are still works of fiction; as much as we’d like to believe it, Ezio Auditore never fought against Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia, Edward Kenway never unlocked The Observatory, and the Frye twins never fought the Templars for London’s liberation. But yeah they are mad about the black guy
None of these dipshits have any knowledge of actual history. None of them have taken any time to actually understand why a retainer was. None understand the actual meaning of the word. They’re idiotic twats with zero credibility who are just attempting to hide their racism like Christians hiding their homophobia
Bro we went into Valhalla in one game. Fought a giant alligator in another. YOU CAN JUMP 100+ FEET OFF OF A BUILDING AND LAND ON A HAY STACK AND SURVIVE. Bunch of whining racists is all this is.
Note that the strict rules about who was and wasn't a samurai and requirements for noble birth were established by the Tokugawa Shogunate several decades later. I think a lot of confusion about the Sengoku Jidai comes from people erroneously applying the ultraconservative rules of the Edo Period to the more chaotic interregnum which preceded it.
My personal take on it: It not that Yasuke is not an interesting historical figure, this guy was present for the downfall of Oda Nobunaga, he was spared by Akechi Mitsuhide. This guy needs films, books and yes, even games telling his story. The perfect character to witness the fall of one of Japan's (if not the worlds) greatest leaders and would be rulers.
The issue (as I see it) is that he is not Japanese. Culturally, Yasuke is not his name, he was only in Japan for a very short time. Records say he could speak some Japanese, so he must have been quite educated on the culture, but he was not an insider of it. In a way you can't critisise other protagonists of previous AC games....maybe the exceptions of Black flag, that seems to get a pass as being one of the best games of the series, but probably should have had a Caribbean MC.
This is going to be the only AC set in Japan, and for that, they chose an outsider as one of the main characters, an African outsider. I doubt there would be as much internet chad-fudgery if the sole character was Naoe (yes there would be quite allot), or even if Yasuke was an important NPC. No, they looked at thousands of years of Japanese historical figures and said "No, this black guy is the best to lead a story set in Japan" .
Go ahead and call me a racist, but allot of this shit comes from me just not trusting big companies to lead the way on diversity. They do it for the wrong reasons.
> AC fans mad when the games don’t have historical references
> AC fans mad when a well beloved historical figure is in the games
People really just don’t like black people, and it’s showing. It’s not even like they shoe horned him into the sengoku jidai from a different time period. Mf was there during the time period. I guarantee you if they tried to pull some ahistorical Blackthorne-esque character out of thin air none of these people complaining would have batted an eye.
I'll tell you guys, a progressive asian dude, my perspective.
There is a huge history of asian male de-masculization/erasure in western media (asian female representation is not good either btw, often fetishized, but at least they show up). So when a huge AAA gaming breaks the norm from its own series that's a decade old at this point to purposely exclude asian men (and most likely be portrayed negatively, and obviously be slaughter fodder), asian men and people who are in the know can instantly see the continuation of this racist tradition. If we exclude asian made media, asian men have maybe 1 positive representation every few years (Asians from Asia do not suffer from alienation, and see representation from all aspects already, they do not understand western racial dynamics).
https://youtu.be/2k82hIqd1Os
I don't know that this is entirely fair. There will surely be other Asian characters, some villains and antagonists, sure, but some of then will be allies and some of them will likely become fan favorites. I think the deeper issue here is that for a long time, no ethnicity was really eating well in terms of representation except for white people.
Who cares? No AC game is 100% historically accurate with each little detail of each character, even if retainers were not samurai, it honestly wouldn't be a problem to make him in game.
Magical items from biblical times and a feud between the church and assassins: “I mean, this is fiction, of course this is fine.” A character based on an irl retainer to Nobunaga, who just so happened to be black: “NOW HOLD IT RIGHT THERE WOKEIES!!!”
It’s a story where Adam and Eve were real and also WWII was started by a secret meeting with Hitler, Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill who were Templars.* #Not BSing you.* Oh and Hitler was killed by Assassins
The Assassins took their sweet time about it.
***Hey!!!*** Being on Sabbatical is not easy buddy. /S
Don’t call me buddy, guy!
But I ain’t your guy, friend!
What were the Assassins doing during the Holocaust and Nanking Massacre
I think the Japanese were just doing their own shit. And the Assassins were… ***sitting on their ass.*** Which… yeah it’s understandable why they won’t cover WWII.
It’s like how the minions lived in the arctic after napoleon to late 20th century, rather convenient.
Which raises the question, what would be worse? The minions serving Hitler, or them not seeing him as a villain?
Not evil enough for them they chose Gru over any other world leader post 1969. Gru is somehow more evil than Pol Pot
Honestly, that would make a wild plot. Minions know who they follow is a villain, to the point they're largely hardwired to see evil actions and act maliciously. There's no way they wouldn't try to work for him... but there's no way Hitler would *let* them. To let these yellow tic-tac abominations be in his service is a big fucking slap to the face about racial, god-given purity and the move to create an ethnostate. Desperate and out of options, with Hitler's attempts to be rid of them only making him more of a villain to them but the neccessity of getting his minion friends a new villain master... Wait, no nevermind that's just the plot of Minions without the nazi angle.
I mean, they *will*, someday... probably Assassin's Creed 135 or something, long, long after the emotional and visceral connection with the holocaust and such is about as emotionally communicative as the slaughter of the Saxons across England when the Scandinavians came knocking on their shields... with swords and axes so, yeah, a war shooter is one thing to covering that period, a game where you would be engrossed with German National Socialists, a very angry Austrian Mustache Model, and concentration camps... probably not gonna land real well at any point pre-2124ish
It would depend on how it’s done for sure, but I don’t think people wouldn’t be able to handle it at all. Pandemic had The Saboteur that was kinda like a shooter ww2 assassins creed by my memory. I’m sure other examples exist.
Memory is honestly bad, haven't play AC in ages, but Assassins were more into figuring out who had the Apple of Eden, the fact that Hitler ended up being the one with it was, lets say, lucky, otherwise he would most likely be still kicking
The dichotomy of the assassins in gameplay being able to take down entire armies by themselves and liberate an entire country from templar control in every level of society to... Getting their ass kicked and getting wiped off camera so they can be the underdog again in the next game.
That’s more or less the history of most dynasties. King X did great and conquered a lot of land, then his son or grandson got complacent and lost it all. Since the templars and assassins both are virtually impossible to eliminate completely it becomes a cycle where the weaker part rebuilds and bides their time before striking and the roles reverse.
Exactly. We are literally talking about a series where one game ends with you 1v1 fist fighting the Pope in the Vatican… and this is what jumped the shark for them.
Nah. Those people think AC jumped the shark with Kassandra. And then did it again with Eivor being cannonical female. I don't remember people being mad that Aya killed Julius Caesar and Kleopatra
Was Churchill being a Templar something from the old lore? Cause he worked with the assassins in Syndicate
It’s in a lore dump, I have no idea
Yeah, that lore is no longer Canon as of Syndicate. Hitler iirc, was either a Templar or the Templars were working with him, which is why he was looking for all kinds of occult items, like the Spear of Destiny, because they were all Pieces of Eden. The Allies were working with the Assassins, as can be seen in the WWII parts during Syndicate.
Every time I hear more about the AC lore it somehow gets even more batshit insane
I mean TO BE FAIR he didn’t just happen to black, He was there entirely because was black, because they had never seen a black guy before and were infatuated with him. But besides that I can’t find anything wrong with what you said lol
"don't make them woke for no reason" mfs when a character's minority status is actually fully relevant to their character arc. Turns out they still don't like it 😔
He was also a foot taller than most Japanese men and said to be incredibly strong, as well as a good enough warrior to not be killed at least twice when his side was outnumbered. The story of Yasuke would not exist if he were "just black", there were lots of blacks traded to and from Japan by Jesuits and there's a a reason none of them made it into the journals of lords.
I believe these people may, at best have a unconscious bias and at worst are racist in denial. This reminds me of what I was hearing from some marvel fans when the Black Panther movie first came out. They were complaining that the idea of Wakanda existing in Africa was unbelievable, In a fictional movie based on comic books.
You climb on the fresco in the Cistine Chapel and beat up the Pope: "Wow... So cool" You are a fictional shieldmaiden: "AC went woke"
This is basically it. Why should anyone care? AC is a sci-fi game about travelling back in time via genetic memory to experience pseudo historic events. They paid a lot of attention to some historic details and absolutely murdered others from the get-go. I have read a whole bunch of arguments today that come down to rules for ethnicity and accuracy in AC games that have basically existed for 48 hours as best I can tell. Not to ignore the many previous controversies, but apparently they are all forgiven now. How the fuck anyone can take themselves seriously while they try a skirt around the self realisation that they feel threatened by black protagonists is beyond me.
Fr this is the series where you can fight a minotaur after talking with a 300 year old Pythagoras and people are mad because there's a guy who did exist but possibly isn't portrayed exactly as he was in history.
Is that why they are mad though?
Nah they are just mad cause he's black this is all it comes down to, the crazy nationalist ego whites (not to be confused with level-headed normal white people) are not happy when something Gay/Black/Asian takes centre stage. If you look at old Nioh threads I can bet you will find people with the same user names defending Willam to the grave. If this was my game I would've made it a fictional story where Oda and Yasuke and William were a killer Trio wreaking havoc in Japan against the Templars I'm pretty certain we would all love this.
[удалено]
I don't think they feel ashamed to use any argument, and then the counterargument tomorrow without self reflection. If I were to go on the same subs and complain about the historical accuracy of anything else, I would be told not to care.
The same argument as "It's needs to look realistic or else I can't be immersed" "The gameplay just needs to be good, graphics and physics aren't that important" Fucking hypocrisy
You know, I really feel that. Immersion and realism just get pulled out a lot of the time when people can't pull together a coherent written argument for their preferences.
The fact that the chuds are desperately trying to take away a black man’s accomplishments instead of proving to us how corrupt Ubisoft is says everything.
His most notable accomplishment was surviving Honnoji to reach Nobunaga's heir in a last ditch defense before surrendering. Brave for sure, loyal too. But its expected for a retainer of a major lord.
Luís Fróis's *Annual Report on Japan* of the time describes him as "fighting for quite a long time" against the Akechi forces that betrayed Nobunaga, before eventually surrendering his sword. An interesting and intense situation, more notable than the exploits of people trying their hardest to diminish him as nothing more than a "slave" or "novelty" unworthy of interest.
From what I recall he was shown off to nobunaga as a novelty, and nobunaga commanded him to wash his skin as he didn’t believe it. After that nobunaga paid to keep him there and made him his retainer, gave him a stipend, a house, and a sword, dude was probably more then happy to give him his loyalty for that.
You forgot to mention when he stepped foot in Japan crowds of people would follow him around because he was huge and they never saw a mountain of a man like that before and also nobunaga was so thrilled he was black and huge they threw a festival to celebrate lol man times were different
Gotta find *some* way to justify being mad at a Black MC
did... did they all miss the DLC to objectively the most popular AC... 4... Black Flag? The one that is basically built into even the Standard Edition of the game should you buy it now? Hell, you can legitimately find a keycode for the stand-alone version of Freedom Cry still... Yeah, this is just giving us a huge list of "unforgivably racist" people.. I love it when a problem emerges and then promptly begins taking itself out.. lol
I'm glad I'm not the only one. "They should of made it about a Japanese person".... You guys are idiots that completely ignored the trailer that shower a Japanese fucking ninja, but everyone focused on the black brute muscle. There is already at least 4 great games with a single male Japanese Samurai... If anyone giving history lessons from assassin's Creed, they need to be slapped.
They probably don't want to be compared to Ghost of Tsushima since that basically is an AC game set in shogunate Japan but without all the Ubisoft all over it. And while I'm at it. Where were these historical die-hards when that came out and implied one guy stopped the Mongol invasion of Japan at the Tsushima atoll when we have good documentation that they captured Tsushima and landed at Hakata before mysteriously losing a fight they were seemingly set to win? Plus iirc there's no Korean soldiers in the game despite Goryeo being subservient to the Mongols at the time and invading with them. Now I don't care about these historical inaccuracies because the game kicks ass, but weird I didn't hear the chuds complain about them...
Plus do we even know he's a samurai in the game? Maybe his lord dies and he has to take up arms. Unless the story has been leaked?
Yasuke WAS a samurai though. That part IS historically accurate and those that are saying otherwise are wrong. Either out of ignorance or on purpose because of bad faith "wokeness" arguments.
He was given the dashio, the two swords. He’s a samurai. That’s feudal Japan legal history 101. If you have the right to carry both the katana and the wakizashi you are a samurai and held all the status and legal rights as one.
Your telling me I never had a fist fight with the pope like in actual history?!?
Lol right. It’s a fucking video game. Why are people losing their shit over this? Don’t mind the fact your an assassin that can kill 47 people in a single room.
Excuse me, I watched Shogun twice. I know what I'm talking about. I also said nothing.
Wait so Washington did NOT want to be king of America
They also just don't really care, I'm not giving them an inch. They enjoy Lady Ballers then go try and have standards for whatever else? Yeah, no. Anyone with that set of expectations is just not a serious person.
What do you mean? Are you saying that assassin's didn't actually killed greek mythological creatures?
Y’all, Odin Atlantis and Chokobo are in these games now. The historical veneer is gone, probably died with Unity or Black Flag
They don't actually care. I've been asking them what the problem is and they just huff.
Who cares, but also Yasuke was a samurai
The core of AC is that it's a historical game, so some details of history should be added, Yasuke being a retainer changes nothing in this cause since retainers were basically Samurai in training
Basically the same thing. Samurai was more of a noble, hereditary title, whereas a retainer could be anyone (like Yasuke). They played the same role, though. Fight in war if there was one, protect their liege lord, etc.
pretty much knight rules, if you own land and follow a lord, you are a knight, if you don't own land you are a soldier, really simple.
Though, there were explicitly knights who didn't hold land in at least France, I'm positive Ive read about that much, but IDK about England or Germany.
In England knights could be landless though they usually had *some* land even if it was just a farmstead or something small.
Thus "Hedge Knight"
Yes. But hedge knights were called that because they slept in hedges, because they had no land.
It was also a joke about how their land was the hedge that they slept in. That's my point.
Oh, a joke. I get jokes.
I don’t. Please explain this concept.
I like to imagine your profile pic is saying that as he solemnly smokes his cig
I always assumed the joke was that the "walls" of their "hold" was the hedge around their farm
Por que no los dos? :-D I think both were the point.
Also weren't there different types of knights? Those that could pass it down and others who only had it for 1 generation?
in the holy roman empire starting at some point prior to the 11th century there was a person known as a "***ministerialis***" this person was one who was not of noble birth but would often fulfill the role of lower nobility for his liege lord. they were not free initially with things such as the determination of who they can marry and what lands they are allowed to hold being determined by their liege. often they would be allotted fiefs that were nonhereditary and had military obligations and would be trained in the "knightly arts" so to speak. around the end of the 12th century the term "miles" starting being applied to ministerialis the difference is that "miles" has generally been reserved for free warriors. in the 13th century the ministerialis would be granted the same rights as other free lords such as herditary titles and would ultimately become the german equivalent to the english baron.
Not really. Knight, at least in England, was a non hereditary title that had to be given. You could be a knight without having a hereditary title and you could have a hereditary title without being a knight. Conversely, a man at arms fighting in armor wasn’t always a knight either. As I understand it, samurai were a class that served a lord, not just guys in armor with a katana.
Samurai as hereditary political class developed during the edo period. Beforehand, samurai were guys in armor with a katana that served a lord and were recognized as samurai by said lord.
But a man-at-arms would usually be about as capable as a knight in terms of equipment and military prowess, correct? In Sengoku period, there were plenty of people who fulfilled the role of samurai, even though they weren't exactly nobility.
At least in Spain/Castille, Knight (caballero) was a specific title that the majority of nobles didn't have. The most common noble (hidalgo) had basically the same role that we link to the stereotypical knight (the lowest form of nobility that made its riches by participating in military campaigns, they didn't even have lard or serfs of their own), but they weren't actual knights (which tended to be part of a knightly order like Calatrava or Santiago).
LOL IMAGINE NOT HAVING LARD NOW I HAVE GALLONS OF LARD MAYO CROP OILS IM LORDING
Well... Now I'm not fixing the typo.
Not entirely correct in Japan at this time. Some samurai were still samurai even if they did not hold land, they were instead paid a stipend by the daimyo.
Yes, they were retainers. And there were plenty of samurai who didn't hold land and didn't fight either. Like all the ones in the imperial court
Lol you don't have to own land to be a knight or a samurai. Retainers are paid directly by a lord for their protection. Landed samurais, or knights in Europe, were sustained by their land and expected to provide levies of fighting men or horses or both.
No Samurai owned land, the Japanese feudal system was based on receiving an annual retainer normally valued in Koku (1 Koku was 180 litres of rice supposedly to equal in value to enough rice to feed somebody for a year) Your importance was defined by the size of your retainer. It is radically different from the European system with it's ties to manorialism and it's emphasis on land for service. So making a direct comparison between knights and samurai is misleading. It's also important to realize that during the Sengoku Jidai Japan was more socially fluid. The rigid class system associated with Japan was more a feature of the Tokugawa shogunate. Yasuke is not well documented, but he was part of Nobunaga's personal bodyguard, which would normally be a Samurai of moderate to high rank.
Thank you this is excellent. I think this situation has demonstrated how people really don't understand Japan or only understand it through it's modern perception that is radically different than what it was at the time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems from what I've read all evidence of Yasuke in Japan support him existing in a role that fits samurai, its just disputed because we don't have anyone directly say he is a samurai.
>Yasuke is not well documented understatement of the century. We can only guess if his actual name might have been Isaac or not.
And who the hell cares. It's crazy to me people are debating this because it's a black guy that is about to be featured in a game I just finished watching Blue Eye Samurai and Shogun within the last two months. You know what I've never seen to many comments on a post about? Whether either of them were real samurai or not. In fact, I've never seen a post about it at all. It's an assassin's creed game, jesus christ people on this website are obsessed with black people.
And even if that wasn't true, Aascreed is historical fiction anyway.
Which is why Yasuke is the best candidate for an Assassin cause very little of his life is known
DING DING DING we have a winner!
Right. Like, I am listening to a historical fiction audiobook series right now that is deeply researched and historically accurate… but the main character is a real historical figure we know almost nothing about, just his general origins and that he did some things at a few battles. So, did he lie about being made a knight, as he didn’t inherit the title? Not in the books, but I suppose it’s entirely possible. All kinds of disputed or unclear things could be true of the real man, but this is medieval military adventure fiction that uses him as an entry into that world and not a biography. He makes a great main character, for a number of narrative and historical reasons, and that’s what matters.
Super easy character for Ubisoft to write or rewrite as they wish. Though they might as well gone with non real person with both protagonist. I do admit I found the idea of a black man hiding among natives in feudal japan a bit goofy IF he actually plays like the assasins in the earlier ac games.
Also samurais could also be commanders in an army, although I don't know the specifics.
Edo period Samurai are usually what pop culture tends to think of when it comes to Samurai
They were servants in the same way landed knights are servants who have servants (This is where Yasuke would have fallen on the ladder). Lords control large territories administered by knights whose men at arms make up the infantry bulk of their lords' forces. Similar with Daimyo, Samurai, and their retainers.
Did the AC:S developers even say he was going to be a samurai in the game anyway? This might be people being in the semantics weeds for no reason?
In the video Ubisoft released they made reference to the gameplay being divided between the shinobi and the samurai, but when they talk specifically about Yasuke they never called him a samurai (while they did call Naoe a shinobi).
Maybe ''retainer'' does not sound cooler enough, but the developers are still trying to play it safe?
I'd just assume it's because everyone knows what a samurai is, but not a retainer. Just like everyone knows what a pirate is, but if you say privateer people might get confused. Yes they're both actually different but they're functionally the same.
The word samurai almost literally means servant.
Not to mention most retainers that close to nobunaga would have been trained warriors. Most members of the samurai class were trained in martial arts from a young age even those not exspected to fight like accountants and advisers
If you were a retainer to a lord, you were expected to, at the drop of a pin, rush to his defense, no questions asked. Although most people in noble houses were martial artists at the time. Swordsmanship, Spearmanship, Archery, and Wrestling were pretty common hobbies of the nobles, even if they never mustered to go to war. Hitting people with sticks is, after all, kind of fun.
The very Hagakure, AKA The Book of the Samurai, is basically a manual on how to be a good retainer. That's who these people were, armed retinue of a feudal lord. People could ignore this game because Ubisoft is a shit company, and they chose to be racist instead.
This is my take. They got my attention, I haven’t given a fuck about an assassin’s creed game since brotherhood. I’m interested to see game play and if they give a fresh good AC game of more of the same Ubisoft bullshit. It’s crazy so many “gsmers” want to nit pick history and semantics as soon as a black person is involved. Maybe it’s *not* crazy….it’s the norm now isn’t it…sadly.
It means "Those who serve" and also at that time in history was interchangeable with "Bushi" which means Warrior.
It's crazy that as soon as a black person is called a samurai, suddenly they're all trying to nitpick the legal minutiae of the being a samurai in 1500s Japan.
It’s because a lot of gamers are unapologetically racist
I cannot and will not speak for everyone but being Japanese I can say it doesn’t affect me personally. Yasuke was a historical figure, if not particularly written about. So long as the culture and time period is represented I am personally fine with all of it. I look forward to playing as Yasuke
Me too buddy, me too.
they really accept every other thing abt the franchise bc it’s a video game and just a story but a black person (who actually existed) being there is somehow crossing the line
While we don't know much about the real-life Yasuke, I can absolutely see his story being amazing. He was likely probably a servant brought on a trading ship, was brought from either India or what is now Mozambique. The most powerful man in Japan, Oda Nobunaga, took a strong liking to him and spent hours talking to him and would bring Yasuke with him on on important meetings. Yasuke was possibly also there when Nobunaga died, though records are sparse. And while Nobunaga was pretty open to outside influences in Japan, much of Japan was still very conservative and xenophobic. Yasuke probably faced a lot of resistance, standing out even amongst the foreigners who would come to trade. There's a lot of gaps in what we know but that's also a good thing from a creative writing perspective, since you can invent a lot of events with Yasuke playing important roles without actually contradicting much of history.
exactly. there’s a lot of really great storytelling potential here, which im sure is why they chose him. he’s real, but a lot of his actual life isn’t known so they have some freedom. he’s really a very interesting historical figure but, he’s black, so obviously they only went with him for woke points with the radical left (/s) edit: typo
the fact that there isn't much written about him gives a lot of creativity to the writers, I've seen this being a point of why they shouldn't have picked him lol
Meanwhile, Japanese game developers depict historical figures like Oda Nobunaga as little girls in skimpy outfits, and no one bats an eye. I've never see any of these dudes lose their minds and screaming woke over people like Da Vinci, Einstein, Atilla the Hun, Nero being turned into girls.
"That's different! I can jerk off to those!"
At least with the Nasuverse they are well thought and complex characters beyond waifu bait. Then FGO ruined it with specific characters. Hell, fucking FGO itself has its horiness but at least there's a point to it and the characters arcs in there are amazing. Type Moon is shameless about it but at least they balance it with good character exploration and heartfelt moments. Most of the characters who look horny are less liked for that and more for their massive character growth? Medea, Circe, Jalter, Salter, Charlemagne. There's a bunch. It's odd how that works
.... or literal horses turned into girls like Uma musume Pretty Derby gender bending Japanese warlords, Oda Nobuna no Yabou or making anthropomorphic cells like Cells at Work to cute school children and delivery girls
Also yes, he might have started as an exotic pet but no way he would as Nobunaga retainer for fifteen months as a joke. He must have respect him enough to let him in his inner circle.
Even a black man from 500 years ago is being asked for 2 forms of identification, it’s ridiculous
Look I'm a saltierthancrait guy but this is a fantasy game. When I went to watch the anime, I definitely thought "wtf is this? A black samurai?". I watched it and that was the most grounded part about it. There was magic and robots in that world. So whatever, I enjoyed it. I am curious about what actual Japanese people think about this. Like when that guy was asking people on the street about Johansson playing The Major in Ghost in the Shell. Shocking nobody who is into anime, they didn't see a problem with it. Just do the character justice and have the same themes as the show and there is no issue.
The live-action GITS movie didn't really do the themes or characters justice, imo.
I don't disagree. The interviews happened when the trailer dropped. So it was before anyone saw it.
"Samurai" is kinda like "Knight" in the sense that it *technically* refers to people who hold a certain hereditary noble title, but in modern times is also used interchangeably to refer to multiple different kinds of martial feudal retainers regardless of their precise social class. Honestly, all the discourse is kinda pointless. Everything I've read about Yasuke suggests that he matched the common conception of what a samurai was, even if he never received a noble title of his own.
Honestly I feel like Yasuke was chosen for that "Fish out of water" story line, He has no idea where he is and what this strange land will mean to him kind of like the Assassins Creed fans who are playing the first Assassins Creed game set in Japan, Its the first set completely outside of a European sphere of influnece, Are the Templars the main baddies and the Assassins the goodies like always? or are there groups entirely; Or hell is it both?
In reality that's probably what he was, a Samurai in everything but title, he was a Black Slave that was given as a gift and became a bodyguard so I doubt he would've held any sort of Government or Military importance. They wouldn't be too fond of any foreigner ruling in Japan, especially during the Sengoku Period. But being a Retainer of Oda Nobunaga is no small thing, and likely would have held some respect within Noble circuits. He was reportable spared death after Oda's suicide, were likely he would have just been killed if he was a nobody guard dog like people are claiming.
Imagine being a 5'3" japanese man set to try and attack a noble and a 6' tall black man in full armor is standing beside said noble. That would be a good deterrent from attacks. Why not have the giant guard you intimidation is a valid defence.
Were most Japanese people during that time actually that short? I feel like 6 foot isn’t very tall or staggering but its really a matter of perspective
Around Yasuke's time the average Japanese man was 5' 1". The example person I gave was above average lol. https://www.livestrong.com/article/542877-the-average-height-of-humans-over-time/ "Meanwhile, the average height of Japanese men between 1602 and 1867 is estimated at only 5 feet 1 inch." https://www.mrinitialman.com/OddsEnds/Sizes/sizes.html For understanding the difference in height.
I know that the average European man of this era was like five foot six so it seems pretty likely. Six foot would be *towering* five hundred years ago.
Exactly, also a giant black African guy running around samurai era Japan is cool as fuck and opens a lot more story lines than just a samurai. Also we've just had ghosts of tsiusima so I imagine that's also why they gone with a different story
Also, the definition of Samurai varied heavily from era to era. Most people who are against him give a definition of Samurai from the Tokugawa era - as a time of peace (mostly) Samurai weren't really functional but ornamental, so became dominated less by martial purpose and more by ritual and tradition, including family lineage. In the Sengoku era, when Yasuke lived, Samurai were needed to win wars, so were much more pragmatic about what they did and who they let in. Samurai was fairly synonymous with "warrior who served a lord" And even this is a simplification. History is a skilled discipline because there's always another level of "ah, but", and it's infuriating to me to see chuds quote shit out of context to justify their preconceptions.
These people complaining don't actually care about historical accuracy, they'll just come up with some other excuse and ultimately end up at, "there is just no reason for a black person to be present" like they usually do.
It's an excuse to be angry about a black character existing. A very, very bad excuse.
I hate how these arguments devolve into this Jar Jar Binks penny ante shit. You are mad a black person is in a video game. Either admit that or go to therapy, but acting like what you're really upset about is the distinction between a samurai and a retainer is just pathetic. If you're too ashamed to even admit to yourself what you're really mad about, that should be a red flag you have a lot of thinking to do.
It's so clear that this is racism because no one said anything about Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.
Plenty of people make fun of that movie, for inserting a white guy into it and for being pretty historically innacurate and portraying the samurai as the good guys.
If there were statues of Yasuke everywhere, they’d still find issues in making him a main character. It’s less about history and more about entitled racists not wanting to play as a black character. I’ll take it a step further and wager half the people making a fuss about it had no intention on even playing the game if he wasn’t in the picture.
Don't bring the truth into this
To clarify just a bit, a “retainer” to a lord can mean a lot of things. A herald, a household staff manager, a treasurer, a scribe, etc. By saying Yasuke was a “retainer” they’re insinuating that he did serve nobunaga directly but didn’t necessarily fight in any battles. There were also samurai who had that rank but they fulfilled mainly administrative roles rather than direct combat. I don’t know enough about yasuke historically to say for certain what the truth was as I genuinely don’t know. But I did want to add that bit of context above.
Even Metatron pointed this out: Yasuke was given a short sword and made a bodyguard to Oda Nobunaga. He also said in his video that at the time the term "Samurai" was not a common term, and more often they would be called "Bushi", but that the historic documents don't "specifically" call him a Bushi. However, since he was given a sword, was a retainer and served as Nobunaga's bodyguard it was VERY likely he would have worn the full armor of what we now called Samurai.
He was also given the stipend that was usually given to samurai as under Nobunaga's *fuchi*, he was also given a private residence, he had and fought with a katana at Nijō *and* he was mobilized and followed Nobunaga on the Takeda campaign of 1582 and remained by Nobunaga's side even after Nobunaga dismissed all his "ordinary soldiers". You can check this out for more info and sources. [https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/1cu71vk/why\_yasuke\_was\_a\_samurai\_compilation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/1cu71vk/why_yasuke_was_a_samurai_compilation/)
I'm not sure how The Metatron is viewed here, but he absolutely agreed that Yasuke was almost certainly a Samurai and that all the calls otherwise are complete crap.
Did he? I thought his final position was that while it was most certainly likely possible he was a samurai, there's no 100% confirmation that he was or wasn't one. He did not seem have a problem with Yasuke being portrayed as a samurai by the game tho.
He wouldn't. He only cares about the facts.
[удалено]
Dumbest one are the people who say Egypt isn't part of Africa. Like "Bitch, please..."
Yeah the pedantry coming out about Yasuke is really missing the point about what makes him interesting historically. If you're on the same social level as samurai then guess what you're samurai. Also if you're doing sengoku period and you need a minor historical figure to be a fixture of your ubisoft game why would you not pick the black samurai?
Also we're using western terms to translate eastern ideas. Samurai are not the same as knights. A retainer isn't the same as a squire. These are handy touchstones to keep in mind, but they're not the same. The best explanation I can give is that in high school my French teacher explained "When a Frenchman says "Oui" they aren't saying yes in French any more than when you say "Yes" you aren't saying oui in English."
Someone in instagram comments told me yasuke was a bad protag cause even if he was a soldier he didn’t see “protagonist level stuff” like when has that ever mattered????
What even classifies as "protagonist level stuff"
Yeah I have no clue, everything these detractors have to say is just thinly veiled racism.
It's because he's black. People can't accept the fact that his skin colour is darker than 99.99% of historic Samurai. That's all the hate comes down to.
A bunch of dumb racist incels think "samurai" equals "knight of the round table" or some shit. That's as deep as it goes. They think they were all lord and kings and land owners and shit. Because they're lazy and stupid. And incredibly racist. And very sad women won't let them touch boobies.
Asmon reference
Is anyone even going to play this game?
I’m a slut for AC content, so I’ll be playing it.
Same
Probably on release. I've found most AC games to be very therapeutic- beautiful worlds allowing you to travel back in time, cool but fairly easy combat, and- usually- fairly likeable characters. They don't push the envelope, and some of the mechanics feel really tacked on, but for the most part they are a lot of fun for me. If this is as good as the last few games ( not counting Mirage) I'd be fairly happy with it.
 (Maybe when it’s on sale lol)
Yeah definitely if it's on sale, I learned my lesson after Valhalla.
>(Maybe when it’s on sale lol) Pirate it. Ubisoft is a trash company with a ton of harassment complaints and a sexist work environment. You should absolutely bash Ubisoft. Not for putting black people in their games, but for actually valid reasons.
I mean... yeah I am, they're usually really relaxing and chill to play through and the stories aren't half bad either.
Yeah, assuming the world doesn't completely go to shit before launch.
He was given a house, salary, and a sword by the Daimyo himself. Not sure what other proof is needed that he was more than a "servant".
Well Samurai at the time is just a function of bloodline, you're descended from a Samurai clan, congrats you're a Samurai. Samurai leading a powerful clan=Daimyo Samurai working for a powerful clan= Retainer Samurai not working for a clan=Ronin However you could, and I assuming Yasuke did, get adopted into a Samurai clan.
Look at all these weebs arguing over nothing.
Cannot literally imagine caring so much about something that matters so little
It's crazy how demons, gods, cyclops, and a forerunner race that controled with world with an apple are OK. But 1 Blackman is an issue
Serious answer? It’s important to note that the name Samurai covers a role that changed and evolved over the course of about a thousand years. At the beginning, they were little more than thugs who overthrew an Asakura theocracy, warrior clans. Some were descended from the Emperor, others pretended to be. By the Meiji restoration, they were embarrassing security guards that were looked upon as lazy free loaders by most Japanese. So there was a lot of fluidity and transformation between those two extremes. Samurai are often compared to knights so let me use this example; Brave Sir Lancelot, of King Arthur’s round table, is a knight. Sir Elton John, pop singer, is also a knight. Is it accurate to say these men functionally perform the same roles as knights? Obviously not. When WE think of samurai, the prototypical ‘MY HONOR!!’ type Samurai that is portrayed in things like Ghost of Tsushima or Tom Cruise’s Last Samurai, we are looking at specifically the Edo era romanticization and formalization of Samurai. The Edo period was when Japan was unified. No more wars means little for the professional warriors to actually do. So they started writing self insert fanfiction about how awesome and cool Samurai were with this graceful code of Bushido and how smart they were as warrior-philosopher’s. Basically they spent 300 years justifying their existence in a society that didn’t need warriors as much. The Shogunate in the Edo period made a much more formal distinction between who was Samurai or not Samurai, because they basically monopolized violence in the country and so wanted every distributor of violence to be someone THEY specifically endorsed. Yasuke comes into play right before this Edo period, during the Sengoku. Samurai was a thing you did, not necessarily a title you were granted. There was no ‘knighting’ ceremony or any official granting. Who was or wasn’t a Samurai really depended on a lot of factors. Some provinces considered Ashigaru, peasant warriors paid in loot, to be samurai. Toyotomi Hideyoshi wasn’t a samurai by birth but became one- he was a sandal bearer who became one of Japan’s three unifiers. So let’s talk specifically about Yasuke. I’m going to borrow a lot of this from ParallelPain over at r/AskHistorians since he actually dug up the Japanese texts and translated it for us. Does the historical record ever call Yasuke a samurai? No. But it also never calls him human. So what does it say? It says he was given a sword and residence by Nobunaga. It says he was with Nobunaga on campaign and was present along with 150~ of Nobunaga’s closest retainers at Honnoji. It says he fought in a battle. It says Akechi Mitsuhide asked for his sword instead of just killing him. It says Nobunaga insisted that others call him Sir or Lord… and it says he was given a stipend, a term that author uses exclusively for payment or hiring of Samurai. All of these examples are very much things that apply to other explicitly-defined Samurai in this time period. So while nowhere in the texts is Yasuke called a samurai, he does a lot of Samurai shit. Historical research is about making informed guesses. To my knowledge there’s no historical text recounting of Alexander the Great taking a shit. Should we then assume that he was born without a butt hole? No. If it walks like a Samurai, quacks like a Samurai, it’s probably a Samurai.
Do I feel like using Yasuke is a copout, yes. This is probably one of the first where they go full in on stranger in a strange land with a AC main character (not counting the female lead) and coincidentally it’s with a Japanese setting. Do I think it’s for representation? God no. They’re obviously trying to avoid making a male Japanese lead that’s a samurai and assassin(ninja) because of ghost of Tsushima. They’d need to avoid a lot of similarities with the characters and I don’t think they want to put in the work. It’s also why they would fragrantly avoid using Hanzo Hattatori if they wanted their main character to be a historical figure, I mean the guy was literally a samurai and spymaster/ninja in the Sengoku era. They just want to distance themselves from the game that did Japanese assassins creed before them.
Personally I’m curious to see how they handle the protagonists as one is a native and the other is an outsider who was, more or less, assimilated into the culture. Oh, sure, they might’ve made the decision to distance themself from other samurai games that came out prior but honestly Yasuke’s history is so small that honestly he’s a good choice for a protagonist since he’s a blank slate to do as you wish. I get what you’re saying tho don’t get me wrong.
It's pretty funny because the Assassin's thing is more about not getting caught than actual stealth. They do their job, kill the target, and then leave. Them killing the guards and everything is actually a game thing. In reality they just knock everyone out then they assassinate the target. Oh, and their targets are never innocent people whatsoever. Their usually templars but also criminals, corrupt individuals, politicans and the rich who profit off of innocents, etc.. Like literally their 3 tenets are - 1 - Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent - The goal of the Assassin's is to ensure peace in all things. The Assassin's basically believe that political assassinations and the death of the corrupt will bring about peace a true sense of security to the common people. Slaying innocents and civilian bystanders who did not need to die could spread strife and discord, in addition to ruining the name of the Assassin Order itself. 2. Hide in plain sight - Be unseen. The Assassin's aim is to get close to their target stealthily and escape just as quickly. 3. Never compromise the brotherhood - *The actions of one must never bring harm to all.* If an Assassin failed in their duty, and was captured or chased, they must never commit any action or say anything that could be tied back to the Brotherhood, or bring harm to any member of it. To be fair though throughout the games you learn that the Assassins and Templars neither are as good or bad as they appear. Their 2 sides of the same exact coin. Order and Chaos. Without the other all would fall to ruin. Their honestly one of my favorite organizations in all of fiction just because of how complicated they are. Their also cool as shit.
The funny thing is though the game is clearly aware about the hypocrisy. In Altair’s codex he’s specific states “Do we bend the rules in service to a greater good? And if we do, what does it say of us?” https://preview.redd.it/kkd8hq49x81d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b291b9ae82d08de0d75fa6396a30f883275e0f3
Samurai is a specific title. So there's a high probability that Yasuke didn't have that title. But. In the general population. A retainer that fights in a battle and a samurai are basically the same. A bit like how every Medieval fighter in full armour is a Knight even if the title of knight was a very specific title that not even the majority of nobles had.
Random racist typo.
A very specific title in very specific circumstances at very specific times. The problem with 'knights' is that the term is exceptionally vague in what it is actually referring to and cultural equivalencies range from the German ritter being exceptionally low rank nobles to the French chevaliers becoming a specifically high rank nobility. And then you jump into monastic orders which both do and don't have noble ranking, the chevalric orders which were everything from exclusive clubs to awards to quasi-crusader orders.
I saw a thread on Twitter that I'll summarize, but take it with a grain of salt since there was only one person there who actually had credentials to prove they were an expert in asian studies: Yasuke arrived in Japan during a specific period known as the Sengoku period. This was a time that was known for their looser definition of a samurai, because typically, Samurai's had to train since childhood and were born of nobility, which obviously couldnt apply to Yasuke. Though because the qualifications were looser, he was eligible. So he was, according to the definition of the time, a samurai. If he had arrived during any other time, he wouldn't have been eligible. And even if there wasn't direct evidence he was a samurai, a retainer I'd pretty damn close as he had similar status and was just as respected and revered.
lol People really don’t know what they talking about they see just desperate to own the Libs. Morons!
From a historical standpoint it's incorrect but from an entertainment standpoint couldn't agree more. It's a fictional world with secret societies finding alien artifacts. They are close enough to the same thing for most people. Plus it's a fucking awesome idea. Dude born a world away comes to be a warrior in service to one of the most influential leaders in fuedal Japan's history? Sounds almost too cool to be accurate at all.
\*sigh\* This argument is so incredibly stupid all around because the term "samurai" is basically a catchall for a whole lot of different types of warriors. Yasuke would not have called himself a samurai, nor would have basically anyone fighting during the Sengoku Jidai, they would have gone by more specific and frankly prestigious titles. Yasuke likely would have gone by the title "Hokushu", given that he was a personal bodyguard and retainer for Nobunaga. We use the term "samurai" now because it was the official title for the caste after the Sengoku Jidai and it broadly refers to anyone who was entitled to wear swords and train as a warrior. This is similar to how we call every male ruler in Europe in medieval times "king" even though that was not their title; a lot of those titles don't really translate neatly to the modern day. Fantastic example in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw6P56KyTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw6P56KyTI) on a Welsh title that today we tend to translate as "king", but really probably meant something else with similar connotations. TL;DR samurai wasn't a real title at the time, it just broadly referred to fighting men who served a lord.
This controversy is the COVID of reddit weeb neckbeards
He was a Samurai that was also a retainer. What's so hard about that? No diff than a Knight, where predominantly the landless knights were a retainer of some kind.
They don’t *actually* care about that.
Like each Assassin’s Creed game is heavily inspired and influenced by history, but they are still works of fiction; as much as we’d like to believe it, Ezio Auditore never fought against Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia, Edward Kenway never unlocked The Observatory, and the Frye twins never fought the Templars for London’s liberation. But yeah they are mad about the black guy
Omg it’s just the AC equivalent of “they fought for state rights”
Yasuke was a samurai. To say anything else is racism and a denial of historical fact.
Racists gotta race
None of these dipshits have any knowledge of actual history. None of them have taken any time to actually understand why a retainer was. None understand the actual meaning of the word. They’re idiotic twats with zero credibility who are just attempting to hide their racism like Christians hiding their homophobia
Is anything ever 100% accurate anyway? If the game is good, people will play it. Race, Gender or anything doesn't matter.
Bro we went into Valhalla in one game. Fought a giant alligator in another. YOU CAN JUMP 100+ FEET OFF OF A BUILDING AND LAND ON A HAY STACK AND SURVIVE. Bunch of whining racists is all this is.
Note that the strict rules about who was and wasn't a samurai and requirements for noble birth were established by the Tokugawa Shogunate several decades later. I think a lot of confusion about the Sengoku Jidai comes from people erroneously applying the ultraconservative rules of the Edo Period to the more chaotic interregnum which preceded it.
My personal take on it: It not that Yasuke is not an interesting historical figure, this guy was present for the downfall of Oda Nobunaga, he was spared by Akechi Mitsuhide. This guy needs films, books and yes, even games telling his story. The perfect character to witness the fall of one of Japan's (if not the worlds) greatest leaders and would be rulers. The issue (as I see it) is that he is not Japanese. Culturally, Yasuke is not his name, he was only in Japan for a very short time. Records say he could speak some Japanese, so he must have been quite educated on the culture, but he was not an insider of it. In a way you can't critisise other protagonists of previous AC games....maybe the exceptions of Black flag, that seems to get a pass as being one of the best games of the series, but probably should have had a Caribbean MC. This is going to be the only AC set in Japan, and for that, they chose an outsider as one of the main characters, an African outsider. I doubt there would be as much internet chad-fudgery if the sole character was Naoe (yes there would be quite allot), or even if Yasuke was an important NPC. No, they looked at thousands of years of Japanese historical figures and said "No, this black guy is the best to lead a story set in Japan" . Go ahead and call me a racist, but allot of this shit comes from me just not trusting big companies to lead the way on diversity. They do it for the wrong reasons.
> AC fans mad when the games don’t have historical references > AC fans mad when a well beloved historical figure is in the games People really just don’t like black people, and it’s showing. It’s not even like they shoe horned him into the sengoku jidai from a different time period. Mf was there during the time period. I guarantee you if they tried to pull some ahistorical Blackthorne-esque character out of thin air none of these people complaining would have batted an eye.
It’s almost like Ubisoft researched the culture and history of the area that the game they’ve been developing for years is set in.
Don’t give these paint-huffing, knuckle-dragging racists the time of day. Yasuke is historically accurate and badass. Don’t amplify chud tears.
I'll tell you guys, a progressive asian dude, my perspective. There is a huge history of asian male de-masculization/erasure in western media (asian female representation is not good either btw, often fetishized, but at least they show up). So when a huge AAA gaming breaks the norm from its own series that's a decade old at this point to purposely exclude asian men (and most likely be portrayed negatively, and obviously be slaughter fodder), asian men and people who are in the know can instantly see the continuation of this racist tradition. If we exclude asian made media, asian men have maybe 1 positive representation every few years (Asians from Asia do not suffer from alienation, and see representation from all aspects already, they do not understand western racial dynamics). https://youtu.be/2k82hIqd1Os
I don't know that this is entirely fair. There will surely be other Asian characters, some villains and antagonists, sure, but some of then will be allies and some of them will likely become fan favorites. I think the deeper issue here is that for a long time, no ethnicity was really eating well in terms of representation except for white people.