Mentor
The title of Mentor was an honorific title given to leaders of the Assassin Brotherhood who had obtained an extraordinary amount of skill and wisdom, and subsequently used these skills to tutor aspiring apprentices.[1]
Originally, the title was bestowed upon Assassin leaders who headed different branches of the Brotherhood, after they had trained a specific number of apprentices and attained a high amount of skill and wisdom themselves. By the year 2000, the position had become official and singular, with one Mentor overseeing the entire Assassin Order and taking great measures to keep their identity and whereabouts secret at all times.[1]
Typically, the Mentor acted as a living conduit for all of their predecessors, possessing the sum total of all of their knowledge and experience, which was passed down from Mentor to Mentor. However, following the Great Purge, which saw the near-total eradication of the Assassins, leadership of the Order under a specific Mentor was waylaid in an effort to evade detection by the Templars.[2]
History[edit | edit source]
Ptolemaic Egypt[edit | edit source]
In 47 BCE, the Medjay Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya founded the Hidden Ones, the first incarnation of the Assassin Brotherhood, in Egypt.[3] The following year, during the hunt of the Ibis Reborn, the members of the Hidden Ones referred to Bayek as their Mentor, marking the first time that the title was used.[4] In 38 BCE, Bayek declared to a group Hidden One apprentices that Aya, recently rechristened as Amunet, was a Mentor of the Hidden Ones.[5]
High Middle Ages[edit | edit source]
During the 9th century, the Hidden Ones of Alamut were led by a council which was presided over by a Mentor. By the 860s, Rayhan had attained this position and led the council alongside the Master Assassins Roshan and Fuladh Al Haami.[6] He was responsible for maintaining the fragile alliance between the Hidden Ones and the Tahirids,[7] which eventually fell apart when the latter, influenced by the Order of the Ancients, launched an attack on the Hidden Ones' fortress of Alamut.[8]
Rayhan was rescued during the siege by Basim ibn Ishaq and allowed him to explore an Isu vault underneath Alamut to help repel the attack.[8] By 867, however, Rayhan had grown suspicious of Basim and secretly asked his apprentice, the acolyte Hytham, to spy on him.[9] Rayhan remained in contact with Hytham as the latter accompanied Basim to England to destroy the last remnants of the Order of the Ancients and establish a new Hidden Ones chapter.[10]
By 877, Fuladh had become a Mentor of the Hidden Ones based in the Justanid region of Persia and was set to host a council at Alamut Castle in two years' time. Rayhan invited Hytham to attend the council in order to be elevated to a new rank for his accomplishments, as well as to discuss the betrayal and fate of Basim,[11] who had turned on his allies Eivor Varinsdottir and Sigurd Styrbjornsson and was presumed dead.[12]
During the 10th century, Torgny the Lawspeaker, the advisor of King Eric of Sweden, was the Mentor of the Hidden Ones in Scandinavia. With his student Thorvald Hjaltason, he fought against the Templar-influenced Styrbjörn the Strong, who tried to invade Sweden.[13]
Crusades[edit | edit source]
When the Hidden Ones reorganized themselves as the Assassin Brotherhood with a state in Western Asia, the title of Mentor came to designate the head of the branch established by Rashid ad-din Sinan in Masyaf.[14][15] Sinan would from then on be known to the Levantine Assassins only by this title, which in Arabic was "Al Mualim".[16] When Al Mualim used his Apple of Eden to seize mental control of the Assassins in Masyaf, he was confronted and slain by his pupil Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, at which point the title passed to Altaïr.[17][18]
Such was the influence of the Levantine Assassins that to this day, when referring to Middle Eastern Mentors in other languages, such as English and French, the Arabic "Al Mualim" has been used in the capacity of a loanword.[19][20] Nevertheless, in these non-Arabic languages, the title remains most commonly associated with Sinan, even being treated as a name synonymous with him.[19]
With Altaïr's succession as Mentor, he enacted many reforms and innovations to the Assassin Brotherhood.[21] These changes along with his efforts to spread the influences of the Assassins made him one of the most legendary and respected Mentors in the entire history of the Order.[22]
In 1227, Altaïr's childhood rival Abbas Sofian staged a coup d'état against him, resulting in the Levantine branch falling under Abbas' leadership and Altaïr's self-imposed exile.[23] Usurping the title of Mentor,[24] Abbas tyrannically ruled the branch and its headquarters of Masyaf with a disregard for the Creed until he was finally killed by Altaïr in 1247,[23] marking the return of Altaïr's tenure as Mentor. Altaïr held this title for ten more years, until he disbanded the Levantine Assassins from Masyaf and passed away in his library during the Mongol attack on Masyaf on 12 August 1257.[25][26]
Song and Ming China[edit | edit source]
- "I will undo all that you have done. I will rebuild the Brotherhood and recruit those who wish to make our land a place of freedom, those ready to die to fight men like you. Your Templar world will not happen. The Assassins will rise again."
- ―Shao Jun vowing to rebuild the Chinese Brotherhood as its Mentor, 1532.[src]-[m]
By 1259, Kang was the Mentor of the Chinese Brotherhood of Assassins during the twilight years of the Song dynasty. He recruited an officer of the Song army who died at the Siege of Diaoyu Castle. Kang initially took the officer's orphaned daughter Zhang Zhi under his wing but ultimately expelled her after she assassinated Möngke Khan without his permission.[27]
Over two centuries later, the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming held the title of Mentor in China. As the core group of Chinese Templars, the Eight Tigers, led another Assassin purge during the Great Rites Controversy in 1524, Yangming hid from them, and Zhu Jiuyuan became the new Mentor.[28] With his apprentice Shao Jun, they fled to China to seek help from the retired Mentor Ezio Auditore in Italy. When they arrived in Venice, Zhu Jiuyuan was killed by Templar agents who had followed them.[29]
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After her training with Ezio, Shao Jun returned to China in 1526 and contacted Wang Yangming, then still acting as the branch's Mentor. By this point, they were the last two remaining Chinese Assassins, and they embarked on a mission to eliminate the Eight Tigers.[30] Yangming was killed by their leader Zhang Yong in 1529,[31] but Shao Jun assassinated Zhang Yong in 1532 and revived the Brotherhood, becoming the new Mentor.[32]
Ottoman Empire[edit | edit source]
At the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Ishak Pasha became the Mentor of the Ottoman Assassins. Up until his death, he tried to establish an alliance between the Ottoman Empire and the Assassin Brotherhood.[33] Later, his apprentice Yusuf Tazim took his role as the leader of the guild without pretending to the title of Mentor.[22]
Renaissance Italy[edit | edit source]
During the late 15th century, the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins was led by Mario Auditore from Monteriggioni until his death during the Siege of Monteriggioni on 2 January 1500.[34] Niccolò Machiavelli subsequently became the de facto Mentor of the Brotherhood and worked alongside Mario's nephew, Ezio Auditore, to build a new Assassin guild in Rome and recruit citizens to fight against the power of the Borgia.[35]
In August 1503, in recognition of Ezio's accomplishments, Machiavelli elevated him to the rank of Mentor while he himself took a position as Ezio's closest advisor.[36] Ezio held the title for a decade, and also acted as a leader and teacher to the Ottoman Assassins during his time in Constantinople while his sister Claudia led the Assassins in Italy.[22] Ezio resigned as Mentor upon returning to Italy in 1513, and assigned Lodovico Ariosto as his successor.[37]
Spanish Inquisition[edit | edit source]
By 1491, the Spanish Brotherhood of Assassins was led by the Mentor Benedicto. In 1492, he was captured by the Spanish Inquisition led by the Spanish Templar Tomás de Torquemada. Branded as a heretic, he was burned at the stake in Seville before King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.[38] Years later, Aguilar de Nerha, who had been captured alongside Benedicto and escaped from the pyre, became the new Mentor of the Spanish Brotherhood.[33]
Mamluk Sultanate[edit | edit source]
As of 1511, a descendant of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Iskender, held the position of Mentor of the Egyptian Assassins. Around this time, Iskender received aid from Ezio Auditore, who sent several of his Assassin recruits to free the Mentor after he had been arrested and imprisoned. The Levantine Mentor Mujir was also rescued by Ezio's recruits when he was arrested by the Mamluks in Jerusalem.[39]
West Indies[edit | edit source]
By 1673, the Mayan Bahlam was the Mentor of the West Indies Assassins based in Tulum.[40] He tried to locate a Sage to protect the Observatory from the Templars. By 1713, his son Ah Tabai took the mantle of Mentor after Bahlam's passing and continued his work.[41] He made the Observatory's protection the primary objective of the West Indies Brotherhood, but was betrayed by the Assassin Duncan Walpole, who defected to the Templars and helped them locate the Brotherhood's bureaus.[42]
After withstanding multiple attacks on the Assassins' headquarters in Tulum, Ah Tabai decided to relocate their base of operations to Great Inagua, once Edward Kenway gifted the Mentor his hideout on the island to make amends for unwillingly aiding in Walpole's treason.[43] Ah Tabai continued leading the West Indies Brotherhood for the rest of his life, sending his Assassins to help the native Guardians protect the Observatory,[44] and training a number of students, including Achilles Davenport.[45][46]
In the 1730s, the Assassin and former slave François Mackandal founded his own Brotherhood as a splinter faction of the West Indies Assassins on the island of Saint-Domingue. He liberated slaves to recruit them into his Brotherhood and collected different Pieces of Eden, while also planning to poison all the white colonists of the island. In 1758, the Templars captured and burned Mackandal at the stake under the orders of Madeleine de L'Isle, leading to the collapse of his Brotherhood.[47]
Georgian England[edit | edit source]
- "We, all of us, work in the dark to serve the Light. We don't get our names engraved on plaques, or statues erected in our honor. Those trappings are for the Templars, and well do we know such frippery is transient and hollow."
- ―Phillip Randall reiterating the Brotherhood's ideals to Duncan Walpole, 1714.[src]
By 1714, the British Brotherhood of Assassins was led by the Mentor Phillip Randall, who was responsible for the training of several Assassins, including Duncan Walpole. Although Randall cautioned Walpole about the dangers of pursuing glory and recognition, his advice was ultimately ignored, as Walpole defected to the Templars after being promised the fame and riches he had not attained while serving the Assassins.[48]
Following his return to England from the West Indies in 1723, Edward Kenway joined the British Brotherhood and eventually became the co-leader of the branch with Miko. However, neither of them was officially appointed Mentor, as they both disliked the formality that came with the title.[49]
Qing China[edit | edit source]
By 1725, the Chinese Assassins were led by the Mentor Xiao Han,[50] following the death of his predecessor during the Qing Empire's purge of the Brotherhood.[51] As one of the last surviving Assassins of the guild, alongside Liu Qing and Xue Yan, Xiao Han endeavored to overthrow the Qing dynasty and avenge his fallen kin. To this end, he searched for a set of three Pieces of Eden spread across Southeast Asia.[52]
However, Xiao Han's efforts were opposed by Edward Kenway, who believed that using the Pieces of Eden would only lead to chaos and destruction.[53] The two Assassins subsequently clashed with each other, as well as other enemies, during their race for the artifacts, which came to a head inside the Forgotten Temple in Angkor. There, Xiao Han, through the encouragement of Liu Qing and Xue Yan, who had become disillusioned with their Mentor's brutality, finally saw the error of his ways and renounced his quest for the Pieces of Eden,[54] vowing to rebuild his Brotherhood while upholding the Creed.[55]
Colonial America[edit | edit source]
In 1740, Ah Tabai sent the Assassin Achilles Davenport to the Thirteen Colonies to found a new Brotherhood. There, Achilles met John de la Tour, an Assassin from Canada who searched for Isu temples.[45] Working together, they arrived in Louisbourg in 1745, during its siege by the British Army. John gave the title of Mentor to Achilles, and sacrificed himself to buy the Assassin enough time to escape the city.[46]
During the mid-18th century, Achilles recruited many apprentices to his newly-formed Colonial Brotherhood and constructed a powerful fleet that kept Templar influence in the colonies at bay. He also endeavored to find various Isu temples and retrieve the artifacts they housed,[56] though in 1755, this quest inadvertently resulted in the destruction of Lisbon when one of Achilles' apprentices, Shay Cormac, was sent to explore a temple in the city and triggered its defense mechanism.[57]
A traumatized and guilt-ridden Shay lost faith in the Assassins and defected to the Colonial Templars, who rescued him after the Brotherhood left him for dead.[58] From there, Shay helped the Templars dismantle the Colonial Assassins, killing their high-ranking members, though Achilles himself, after sustaining a crippling injury, was spared by Grand Master Haytham Kenway, who no longer saw him as a threat.[59]
By 1763, most of the Assassins in Colonial America had been wiped out, leaving Achilles as the sole survivor. During the time before the American Revolutionary War, he was hesitant to train new Assassins, due to having lost faith in their cause after his personal experiences. Eventually, though, he trained Haytham's son Ratonhnhaké:ton as a member of the Brotherhood,[60] serving as his Mentor up until his death in 1781.[61] Under Achilles' leadership, the Colonial Brotherhood regained its strength, and the fight led by Ratonhnhaké:ton greatly diminished the Templars' influence in the colonies.[62]
The Colonial Brotherhood was not the only Assassin guild operating in North America during this period, as the Louisiana Brotherhood of Assassins was founded in 1759 by Agaté, a former pupil of François Mackandal. He was responsible for the recruitment and training of the Assassin Aveline de Grandpré,[63] but eventually came to blows with his apprentice over their clashing ideologies and methods. This culminated in Agaté attempting to kill Aveline after believing she had defected to the Templars, and his subsequent suicide when Aveline defeated her Mentor.[64]
Medieval, Bourbon, and Revolutionary France[edit | edit source]
During the Middle Ages, the Mentor of the French Brotherhood was Guillaume de Nogaret, who most notably influenced King Philip IV of France into declaring the Templar Order illegal and assigned Master Assassin Thomas de Carneillon to lead the assault on the Templar headquarters.[65] The raid was successful, with the Knights Templar disbanded and their Grand Master Jacques de Molay executed. Carneillon himself took the title of Mentor sometime after de Molay's execution.[66]
During the Hundred Years' War, Queen Yolande of Aragon, the mother-in-law of Charles VII of France, became the Mentor of the French Brotherhood. She prevented the Templars in England from retaking control of France and financed the army of Jeanne d'Arc, whom she later recruited to the Assassin Order.[67]
At the end of the 17th century, another Mentor led the French Brotherhood. He tasked Louis-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes to recruit Julie d'Aubigny into the Brotherhood but his attempt failed.[68]
During the French Revolution, the title was held by Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, a noted and venerated public speaker and one of the most famous contributors to the Revolution. He was at the head of the French Assassin Council, which included four Master Assassins: Pierre Bellec, Guillaume Beylier, Hervé Quemar, Sophie Trenet.[69]
Mirabeau's tenure as Mentor saw two ultimately unsuccessful attempts to secure peace between the French Brotherhood and the Templars, the second of which resulted in Mirabeau's fatal poisoning by Bellec, who opposed any such truce.[70] Bellec was later killed by his former apprentice Arno Dorian, leaving only three members in the Council.[71] Though leadership of the Brotherhood fell to Sophie Trenet, it would appear she did not take the title of Mentor as she was never addressed as such.[69]
Sikh Empire[edit | edit source]
- "Arbaaz. Take care. The diamond... The transcription reads: 'He who owns this diamond will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God, or a woman can wear it with impunity.'"
- ―Hamid warning Arbaaz about the Koh-i-Noor, 1839.[src]
During the mid-19th century, the Mentor of the Indian Brotherhood was Hamid, under whose leadership the Assassins held a strong presence in Amritsar. In 1839, Hamid instructed the Assassin Arbaaz Mir to retrieve a powerful Piece of Eden known as the Koh-i-Noor, which was under the protection of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, before it fell into the hands of the Templars.[72]
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Following Arbaaz's successful mission, Hamid took the Koh-i-Noor for safekeeping, but in 1841, he was captured by the Templars, who interrogated him to unravel the artifact's secrets. Hamid was eventually rescued by Arbaaz,[73] who later recovered the Koh-i-Noor from the Templars.[74] Hamid still served as Mentor in 1860, when he sentenced Arbaaz's son Jayadeep Mir to death for failing his first assassination and breaking the Creed's tenets in the process, though he was later convinced to banish him to England instead.[75]
Modern times[edit | edit source]
At the turn of the 20th century, the Russian Assassins were led by a Mentor who sought to acquire various Pieces of Eden to gain an advantage over the Templars by any means. After the rise of Joseph Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union, the Mentor went into hiding, but continued giving orders[76] until his death in 1953.[77]
During the Cold War, the Mentor of the American Brotherhood was responsible for overseeing the various Assassin cells operating in the United States, and issuing internal punishments in the event of a cell's members becoming corrupt.[78]
In the latter half of the 20th century, the entire Assassin Brotherhood was united under a single Mentor.[1] By 1998, an individual known only as "the Mentor" led the Brotherhood, though his name and location were always kept secret – even from the Assassins themselves – for safety concerns, and he always stayed mobile to avoid being located. In November 2000, the Mentor invited Daniel Cross into his secret Dubai headquarters after having monitored his actions for two years, believing him to be a worthy apprentice.[2]
However, Daniel, whose brain had been unknowingly experimented upon by Abstergo Industries and imprinted with an impulse to kill the Mentor, assassinated him after having been rewarded with a Hidden Blade. Following this, the Assassins were thrown into disarray and forced underground,[2] and the mantle of leader was eventually taken by William Miles.[22]
Despite this, some Brotherhoods around the world continued to be led by their own individual Mentors, such as the Japanese Brotherhood, which was led by Kenichi Mochizuki and then his wife Saeko after Kenichi's death in 2013; and the Russian Brotherhood, which was headed by Medeya Voronina up until an accident with an Animus in 2014 that resulted in the near-total destruction of the branch.[79]
Known Mentors[edit | edit source]
![Bayek[4] Egyptian Brotherhood (47 BCE)](/wiki/File:ACO_THO_Hidden_One_Bayek.png)
![Aya[5] Roman Brotherhood (46 BCE)](/wiki/File:ACO_Aya_render.png)
![Rayhan[6] Alamut Brotherhood (c. 860s)](/wiki/File:ACMirage_DB_Rayhan.png)
![Fuladh Al Haami[11] Persian Brotherhood (c. 870s)](/wiki/File:ACMirage_DB_Fuladh.png)
![Torgny[13] Swedish Brotherhood (c. 984)](/wiki/File:Wiki_noimage.jpg)
![Al Mualim[16] Levantine Brotherhood (1162 – 1191)](/wiki/File:ACR_Al_Mualim.png){kind=small}
![Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad[22] Levantine Brotherhood (1191 – 1227; 1247 – 1257)](/wiki/File:ACR_Altair_Render2.png)
![Malik Al-Sayf[23] Levantine Brotherhood (1217 – 1228)](/wiki/File:AC_Malik_render.png){kind=small}
![Abbas Sofian[22] Levantine Brotherhood (1227 – 1247)](/wiki/File:Abbas_Sofian_render.png)
![Thomas de Carneillon[69] French Brotherhood (until 1323)](/wiki/File:ACU_De_Carneillon_Render.png){kind=small}
![Ishak Pasha[33] Ottoman Brotherhood (c. 1490s)](/wiki/File:AC_Twelve_Trials_Revelations_Q3_Ishak_Pasha.png)
![Benedicto[38] Spanish Brotherhood (until 1492)](/wiki/File:ACM_Benedicto_3.jpg)
![Aguilar de Nerha[33] Spanish Brotherhood (until 1526)](/wiki/File:ACMovie_Aguilar_full_body_render.png){kind=small}
![Niccolò Machiavelli[81] Italian Brotherhood (1500 – 1503)](/wiki/File:ACB_Niccolo_Machiavelli.png)
![Ezio Auditore da Firenze[82] Italian Brotherhood (1503 – 1513)](/wiki/File:ACI-Ezio.png)
![Zhu Jiuyuan[28] Chinese Brotherhood (1524)](/wiki/File:ACCC_Zhu_Jiuyuan.jpg)
![Wang Yangming[28] Chinese Brotherhood (until 1524; c. 1526 – 1529)](/wiki/File:ACCC_Wang_Yangming.png)
![Shao Jun[28] Chinese Brotherhood (c. 1532)](/wiki/File:ACCC-Shao_Jun_Render.png)
![Ah Tabai[83] West Indies Brotherhood (1713 – c. 1745)](/wiki/File:AC4_Ah_Tabai_render.png){kind=small}
![Xiao Han[84] Chinese Brotherhood (c. 1725)](/wiki/File:ACFT_Xiao_Han_render.png)
![Achilles Davenport[62] Colonial Brotherhood (1746 – 1763)](/wiki/File:ACRG_Achilles_render.png){kind=small}
![Agaté[47] Louisiana Brotherhood (1759 – 1777)](/wiki/File:AgateDatabaseHD.png)
![Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau[69] French Brotherhood (until 1791)](/wiki/File:ACU_Mirabeau_Render.png){kind=small}
![Hamid[72] Indian Brotherhood (c. 1839 – c. 1860)](/wiki/File:ACCI_Hamid.png)
![The Mentor[2] Worldwide (until 2000)](/wiki/File:MentorTheFall.png)
![William Miles[87] Worldwide (c. 2000 – 2013; 2015 – present)](/wiki/File:ACO_DT_-_William_Miles_render.png){kind=small}
![Saeko Mochizuki[79] Japanese Brotherhood (2013 – present)](/wiki/File:ACInitiates_-_Saeko_Mochizuki.png)
![Medeya Voronina[88] Russian Brotherhood (until 2014)](/wiki/File:ACi-Matricide.jpg)
References[edit | edit source]
