Uncanny Chemistry, Mysterious Energy

A most unexpected character match made in Heaven happens in Assassin’s Creed Rogue as late as in Sequence 5 (given that the game comprises of just 6 sequences), which is I think one of the story’s biggest highlights, because it brings together and ties with an uncanny chemistry the mysterious protagonist Assassin-turned-Templar Shay Cormac and our most favorite villain, Haytham Kenway. 

When Shay becomes officially a Templar, he participates in an initiation ceremony led by the Grand Master himself and this is where the two of them meet for the first time in person. This is apparently a routine ritual, carried out for every new recruit, but you can tell how Haytham is instantly intrigued by Shay due to his ex-Assassin status, as he subsequently goes on to treat him with a curious and occasionally hilarious mix of respect, caution and a kind of twisted flirting – if deliberately splattering that poor guard’s blood on Shay’s face with his known murderous grace is not that exactly, then I don’t know what it is.

This intriguing chemistry between Haytham and Shay is due partly to the fact that they have a lot of things in common, the most obvious being that both are in a place for which they were not originally destined. For another part, however, it is their personalities that match so perfectly, although their idiosyncrasies do have their differences. Having passed through Assassin training himself, albeit for a brief time and at a very tender age, Haytham watches Shay as a sensational curiosity, undoubtedly thinking how it would have been for himself had he become an Assassin instead of a Templar, and wondering what could have happened in Shay’s life that made him switch sides so dramatically and devote himself to the Templar cause with such passion. Of course with time he had the chance to get to know more details about Shay’s past, possibly noticing common patterns with his in the course of the events. 

Haytham’s path in life had been somehow predetermined, but all was violently changed the night that Edward was murdered. Witnessing his father’s death at such a tender age was a huge shock from which he needed a lot of time to recover, something that gave Birch the chance to corrupt the young boy’s heart. In Birch’s hands, Haytham was a white canvas; and the ruthless man succeeded in giving him an upbringing that would perfectly place him in the highest Templar ranks. Growing up, however, a man with Assassin roots and Templar beliefs, like he describes himself in his journal, Haytham was able to form a mind of his own, in spite of Birch’s inevitable brainwashing, and he could discern the grey areas in the ideology of the Templars, just like Edward before him was able to discern the grey areas in the creed of the Assassins; as well as several points where the two opposite sides overlapped. 

 

By the time that Shay and Haytham are about to cross paths, Haytham had just gone through a most dramatic succession of events, culminating in facing Birch and subsequently killing him with Jenny, thus finally avenging Edward’s murder. Earlier, he had already left behind the – very unlikely anyway – possibility of a more normal life with Ziio, something that he does not regret, however. In her own brief interlude speech in Assassin’s Creed III, Ziio confesses that she doubted if Haytham even loved her; and if he did, it was in his own way, because he always had his eyes set to the future where there was no room for a conventional family life. In spite of how he chose to present himself, Haytham shared Edward’s free spirit and also that tendency to gain experience from everything and everyone that crossed his path. 

A similar free spirit he saw in Ziio, and this was what attracted him, as well as her uncorrupted heart; but most of all he was led by his own curiosity to see how it would feel like to live free of strict rules of any kind, in a possible attempt to somehow relive Edward’s constant longing for absolute freedom. Haytham was never inherently evil; Ziio, a woman with great instinct and insight, fell in love with him because she did discern the good in him after all. Not to mention his physical charm, to which noone could resist anyway; he admits himself in his journal that he enjoyed being compared to his father, because Edward was so striking. Haytham is an English rose, like Jacob and Evie, although one with many thorns, and many lethal thorns as well. In the first sequences of Assassin’s Creed III, when he is younger, we can literally see him switching between his more human self and the cruel Templar persona in seconds. Maybe as an instinctive way to protect himself by keeping a distance from everyone around him. That phrase that he says to Ziio, “you showed me great kindness” is revealing and heart-wrenching, if you think about it: the strict upbringing that Birch offered him had definitely been a struggle for Haytham in his childhood and teenage years, especially after all the love and tenderness that he had received from his father. Growing up under Birch’s surveillance made him a cold and ruthless murderer, practically eliminating almost all of his good elements. He is just like Estella, the beautiful and cold-hearted heroine of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, who had been trained by Miss Havisham to be a heartless destroyer of men, but she did have some kindness which needed the right trigger to come to the surface. 

 

Shay, for his part, had been an Assassin for all his early youth, but was forced to abandon the Brotherhood after the disastrous events in Lisbon which made him realise that sometimes the decisions and actions of the Assassins do not lead to the best possible outcome and are not always for the common good. His dramatic confrontation with Achilles and his fellow Assassins resulted in him feeling betrayed by the very people that he used to love and care about, and nearly led to his own death. Being orphaned as a child, and in spite of being self-sufficient and resourceful on his own, he was emotionally vulnerable for a good part of his life, and was in need of someone with authority to guide him. His childhood friend Liam first served as an older brother figure, and then Achilles assumed the role of a father figure, offering him a safe haven in his homestead. 

After the tragic events that forced him to escape, hunted by Achilles and his former associates, he found a much stronger and much more emotionally powerful father figure in Colonel George Monro, whose demise took a very heavy toll on Shay. So when he was officially accepted in the Templar Order, he saw in the compelling and brilliant Grand Master the older brother figure that he so much needed in his life. Being young enough to be considered a trusty companion but at the same time intimidating enough to be seen as a symbol of power and order, Haytham became a beacon of balance for Shay, in spite of and contrary to his own marginally unhinged personality.

Carrying his emotionally heavy past as a burden and a constantly open wound, Shay is often overwhelmed by melancholy; but he is charming, trusty and efficient, giving off a mysterious energy that makes him fascinating – it is not random that this is the last thing that Hope says to him before leaving him to die in the poison-filled room. These are elements that Haytham appreciates in a man, especially a Templar under his command. He listens to Shay, respects his decisions, follows his advice without objection, accompanies him on difficult missions. Partly to make sure, at the beginning at least, that Shay will remain loyal to the Templar cause, but also partly because he sees so many elements of himself in Shay. His bloodthirsty side enjoys how Shay mercilessly kills everyone, from random gang members to ex-colleagues, but his more human side is thrilled to have found a partner in crime, close to his age, with a calm, unaffected mind, albeit more compassionate than himself. Being a gifted former Assassin and a promising Templar, Shay is literally the best of both worlds; and he is also experienced enough to treat Haytham with due respect - he is the Grand Master, after all - but without sucking up to him, something that Haytham undoubtedly admires a lot.

What Shay experienced in his early youth was like a distorted version of what Haytham experienced in his childhood: Haytham adored Edward, like Shay looked up to George Monro; Haytham’s father and Shay’s father figure were murdered, and they were both (Haytham as a child and Shay as a young man) left lost and numbed for some time. But while Shay consciously enrolled in the Templar Rite, Haytham was literally forced into it when he had no say in this decision, and there seemed to be no way out of it. He learned to adapt to his new life as the only way to make it through, and even made some good out of it. Unsuspecting about Birch's true nature and the fact that he was the mastermind behind Edward's murder, Haytham was able to make use of the good elements from his new mentor's teachings, although he would always recall what Edward had taught him and treasure all that past knowledge while still learning new things, confident - and rightly so - that Edward would be proud of him for questioning his ideals and carving his own path. This is a confession that he makes in his journal, and an acknowledgement that he prefers to keep to himself, choosing to snap back at the world with a cynicism that is indeed a most prominent part of his temperament, but it is not the only one; his bitter-sounding replies against Adewale's scathing comments during their face-to-face confrontation is maybe the most characteristic instance of this, as he seems to deliberately respond in a provocative way, knowing that he will infuriate his enemy, thus distracting him and making it easier for Shay to kill him.

This cynicism, however, was never part of his interactions with Shay, whom he apparently viewed as a friend and a trusty ally, and obviously admired for his skills. Although we do not have the chance to witness the full blooming of their alliance, it is certain that it lasted for a long time, as we see Shay ultimately retrieving the much sought for precursor box years later after killing Arno's father in Versailles, and was cut abruptly only because of Haytham's untimely death. When their parallel paths crossed for the first time back in New York, it was in a conjuncture that – we could say poetically – was written in the stars. We do not have evidence about how Haytham generally dealt with other recruits, but it is obvious that Shay stood out among the rest with his personality and his qualities, which is why the Grand Master held him in such high esteem; and vice versa, for similar reasons.