User talk:Evangelos Auditore da Venezia
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Feel free to contact me on my talkpage if you need anything. -- Amnestyyy (Talk) 12:36, January 5, 2013
Greetings from Liendax[edit source]
Hello there Evan. I've noticed your recent edit on William Johnson's page and message on Amnestyyy's page. You propose an interesting idea in outling the "faults and merits" of the major characters, however I think that it's a rather biased take and seems a little opinionated. Don't take this as criticism, because I think you did a good edit Johnson's personality section. I think that's where you speciality lies, providing a balanced anaylsis and understanding of the characters. Liendax (talk) 22:28, January 16, 2013 (UTC)
Talk:Assassins[edit source]
Think you ought to take a look at Talk:Assassins#Controversy section = purely subjective. --Alientraveller (talk) 20:15, April 15, 2013 (UTC)
For clarification, I wrote the aforementioned section in the discussion of the "Assassins" article although as an anon. While I respect your desire for this wiki to present a balanced perspective in regards to the Assassins and the Templars, such balance must be accomplished via objective reasoning and impartiality. In fact, I would do well to construe to you that one of the core principles of Wikipedia and its derivations is in fact the advocacy of a neutral point-of-view. This would agree with your stated purpose of ensuring that the "main characters are not entirely portrayed as saints, and the Templars are not mindless monsters." Unfortunately despite your adherence to this fundamental philosophy of Wikipedia, your methods of enforcing this standard is incorrect.
I have reviewed many of your edits to the articles of this wiki, though I have yet had time to rectify them, and ironically your edits are predominated by bias and lack of circumstantial evidence. Many of your assertions are decisively one-sided, and while you are welcome to hold to your own interpretation of the characters, the Assassins, and the Templars, please be mindful that your interpretation is not necessarily the "right" one and therefore should not be so blankly and boldly edited into the articles as though they were unquestionably correct. In many cases, there is no "true" interpretation, as is the nature of literature. However, there are, of course, always certain interpretations that are "more correct" than others. As scholars, we understand this and strive to seek out and present the "more correct" interpretations, but as interpretations vary between individuals and as rarely is there a "true" interpretation, we are compelled to thus employ objective reasoning and evidence to support our assertions and the interpretation that we present. To be honest and frank, this you have not done. To reiterate, your edits consist chiefly of your own interpretation of the Assassins, of Haytham, of Ratonhnhaké:ton, etc. and by modifying the articles in such a way as to present your interpretation, you make it as though your interpretation is the "true" interpretation when it is not.
This, interestingly enough leads into my second point.
When I mentioned that there is often no true interpretation in the realm of literature (and yes for all purposes, Assassin's Creed is fundamentally literature produced in a different format), this same applies to the Assassins' philosophy. However, I also did not fail to mention that there are some interpretations that are more correct than others. For instance, if a random player was to state that the Assassins' core belief is... say... that dinosaurs became gods of the universe after their extinction, this would be a far less correct interpretation than to say that the Assassins' core belief is to murder for the sake of murder.
To say that the Assassins' core belief is to murder for the sake of murder, however, is also a less correct interpretation than to say that the Assassins' core belief is liberty.
But from this point onward, it becomes far more contentious: yes the Assassins believe in liberty, but is liberty their core belief? Some like me would in fact say that Assassins also value peace; some would assert that Assassins value peace more than liberty, others will argue that the murders that the Assassins have committed strongly reveal the Assassins' disregard for societal peace. Thus, then we begin to ask, which interpretation is the more correct one? Or perhaps in this grey area, there is not true interpretation. Perhaps they are all right? Or perhaps there is a singular, "right" interpretation, but we lack the evidence to prove that that interpretation is the "true" one.
In that whole paragraph, I have described to you the first half of the Assassins' maxim: "nothing is true." It is ironic for me to express this, but to say that "nothing is true" is to merely assert the Assassins belief of reality: that there is no "true" way and no true intepretation. This may apply to religion and culture, but it also applies to something such as editing a wiki article: there is no true interpretation. We work under the assumption that no individual holds that absolutely perfect answer to these characters' personality traits and these two factions' ideologies. That is what it means to say "nothing is true." In adopting this assumption, we thus open our minds to the perspectives of others and the possibility that the perspective that we ourselves harbor or the perspective that a source offers is biased or one-sided. And it is this theory of reality that has lead the Assassins to adopt liberalism and ideals of freedom; the Templars oppose this because they believe there is a "true" answer to society, and they assume that Assassins inclination towards liberty is chaotic and detrimental to society. But I stress that to the Assassins, liberty is not their core belief, liberty is merely the means to their belief in open-mindedness. The fundamental contrast between the Assassins is not freedom/anarchic chaos vs. order/stability. The real difference is the idea that one must be impartial, the idea that oneself must be wrong vs. the assumption that oneself is correct. It is a matter between open-mindedness vs. single-mindedness.
Now, having said all that, you may verily disagree with my interpretation, and as I said, no interpretation should ever be the correct one. So I will not be a hypocrite to assert that my interpretation is the correct one. However, I do think that it is more correct than most other interpretations? Why? Because I can support it with factual evidence, with quotations from the characters, with deep and thorough analysis on each of their actions and the possible motives behind them. It is thus an interpretation formulated objectively; it cannot be proven, as no interpretation can be proven, but it can be supported. (I would not present my evidence unless asked so as to avoid making this longer than it already is).
And to sum it all up in a single point: I appreciate your goal to remedy any bias in the portrayals of the Assassins and the Templars, but I hope you realize that unfortunately, you have only exacerbated the issue by giving nothing but the bias borne from your favoritism of the Templars. Many of the claims you have made fly in the face of factual evidence. I do not mean to come off as offensive or patronizing, but I do mean to be honest. Whether or not you agree that there is no true interpretation, this is technically the assumption maintained by not only Wikipedia but by most academic institutions as far as I have experienced: that the "answer" is questionable and thus any argument must be backed-up by supporting evidence. We do this in essays we write in school, we do this in debates, and we do this on any wiki.
If you disagree and/or wish to elaborate, then I respectfully ask you to, before replying, thoroughly read the discussion that was directed to you by Alientraveller several months prior. In that section, I elaborated on how some of the claims you made contradicted factual evidence. Sincerely, Sol Pacificus (talk) 13:45, November 10, 2013 (UTC)
- Could you not have just put this simply, instead of writing a whole essay? Slate Vesper (talk) 02:51, November 11, 2013 (UTC)