Talk:Chinese Brotherhood of Assassins

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Name change?

I noticed that at the beginning of AC Chronicles China this group is called the Chinese Brotherhood of AssassinsHugues de Payens (talk) 22:20, January 4, 2016 (UTC)

Every Assassin branch is called "[nationality] Brotherhood of Assassins". This does not warrant a name change. -- Master Sima Yi _Talk 22:30, January 4, 2016 (UTC)

Were there Chinese Assassins before the Hidden Ones?

I would like to leave a notice here for all editors regarding the status of Chinese Assassins and their relationship with the Hidden Ones. I would do this on the forums, but I know that our editors patrol Recent Changes more than they do the forums, so I hope posting it here would give it more visibility.

There is some lingering confusion regarding whether the Five Assassins mentioned by Sima Qian in the Records of the Grand Historian were Assassins with a capital ⟨A⟩ or just assassins generically, particularly since we know from Assassin's Creed: Origins that the Hidden Ones were not founded until 47 BCE by Bayek and Aya, and the Assassin Brotherhood is the organization with clear continuity from the Hidden Ones. There has also been some confusion regarding whether the vault beneath the Mohist village in Qinghe in Assassin's Creed: Dynasty belongs to the Assassins since it would seem to be separate from and predate the Hidden Ones' arrival in China via the protagonist Li E.

We have held extensive discussions here and there on this topic already in several different places, particular on Discord. The conclusion is that everyone should take care to treat Wei Yu, first mentioned in Assassin's Creed II as the killer of Qin Shi Huang, and five pre-Qin Assassins extolled by Sima Qian as Assassins with a capital ⟨A⟩. Here's a quick summary of the reasoning:

• A hard retcon has never been confirmed, and our role is to document sources at face value.

Editors should take to remember that Ubisoft has never released an official statement that Origins explicitly declaring an all-encompassing and definitive retcon of all lore about the Assassins from early media like AC2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Our work acting as though Origins has enacted this retcon is by deduction only, but it is really a soft retcon at most. I will cite the principle Zero-ELEC raised that sourcing policy mandates that we treat both the lore given to us in AC2 and in Origins at face value. We are not the arbiters of canonicity. We do not have the right to declare it incorrect to describe individuals like Wei Yu, Iltani, etc. as Assassins when this has never been explicitly said in the media and can only be inferred by omission in the latest media. As a matter of fact, if we commit this fault, we can even inadvertently make a stronger retcon claim about the history of the Assassins than Ubisoft has intended. Taking Origins and AC2's lore at face value, we can only say that Wei Yu et al. predates the formal founding of the Assassins/Hidden Ones, but they were honoured as Assassins centuries later in Italy. This was our community determination by consensus several years back.

• The concept of the Chinese Assassin is a mantle, and our role is to report this as it is.

This hints at a more malleable definition of the term, concept, and identity of "Assassin", which is taken upon by Xu Xianzhe, the author of Dynasty. In his Q&A with Citingate (一个赛艇门), administrator of the Chinese wiki, he describes the Chinese Assassins as a "mantle" inherited by Li E. Whether or not we believe that this comports with Origins lore about Assassins, our place is to document the lore as written for us. Even if Xu Xianzhe's work amounts to a soft retcon of Origins in turn, it is not our place to determine that such a retcon would be invalid by dismissing it. It is clear from Chapter 34 now that Jing Ke, Zhuan Zhu, et al. are being talked about as Assassins with a capital ⟨A⟩, and we have to report this as is.

• Individuals may be retrospectively celebrated as Assassins, so there is no real contradiction.

None of this lore in fact has so far been irreconcilable with Origins lore because of the in-universe possibility of later generations retrospectively treating individuals like Darius, Wei Yu, etc. as Assassins despite these individuals not calling themselves as such in their own time. While this may seem like a factual error, another way of looking at it is the way the concept of the Assassin has evolved to the present day. Whether or not we agree with anachronistic projections into the past like this, our role is only to document faithfully how these terms are used in the sources.

• The term used for Chinese Assassins is not actually "Assassin" but translated as such by later generations.

Finally, we should all bear in mind that the term used here for the Five Assassins is not actually the Persian name Assassin or Ḥaššāšīn (حَشّاشین), but the Chinese term 刺客 (Mandarin: cìkè, Cantonese: ci³ haak³). This is the final nail in the coffin showing that Xu Xianzhe's work does not conflict with established lore. The term cìkè that became the name of the Chinese Assassins was not imported from the Assassins of Alamut, or otherwise it would be a phonetic transliteration like 阿薩辛 (Mandarin: Āsàxīn) or something. Rather, we can explain the development from the in-universe perspective as the Cike being a group (or mantle) indigenous to China that coalesced by the end of the Warring States period and which predates the Hidden Ones. After the Hidden Ones were founded in the 1st century BCE, their influence into China likely arrived in different waves over the following centuries, following a similar trajectory and tempo of transmission as Buddhism. Earlier Hidden One influence than Éléna's group via Li E brought the Hidden One symbol to the Cike and fused with them. Li E only represented the latest wave of Hidden One influence that made contact once more with the Hidden One/Cike tradition that had already developed in China. Centuries later, the Hidden Ones changed their name to the Assassins (حَشّاشین) and due to merger with the Cike, Cike also was translated into Assassin in addition to cike also being the common Chinese word for assassin. Although the terminology is a more recent development (I'm still speaking from an IU-perspective here), it makes sense then why Cike even of the pre-Qin period are retrospectively translated as "Assassin". While for clarity's sake, we might argue that Chinese Assassins prior to Hidden One influence should be called Cike, this is not the usage in the Assassin's Creed sources. The fridge brilliance of all of this is that it's a perfect reconciliation for the lore conflict between AC2 and Origins. Although Assassins remain primarily defined by membership in the actual organization that used to be called the Hidden Ones, conceptually the identity of Assassin, like a "mantle", also broadened to include groups that contributed or merged into the Hidden Ones their own way.

I said that this would be a brief summary, but as always, I do not know how to summarize. I hope this clarifies the matter for everyone, and please feel free to add any comments or questions. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 00:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)