Haytham is the GOAT

Haytham is still one of gaming’s best characters, and I can prove it!

Haytham Kenway is one of those characters that stick with you, even decades after his initial appearance… Even when said appearance is in a rather mid tier game that came out in a decade of straight bangers.

Unlike most hapless bastards who profess wisdom throughout history, only to crash and burn shortly after, Haytham tried a 3 pointer, with a couple of morons blocking him, one of which being his own son, and missed by a couple of inches of rim, all while being one of the most complexly written characters ever brought to light.

Haytham´s core belief was informed by that of the Templars’: Humanity cannot be trusted to rule themselves, not in a macro, or individual level, for if they did, chaos would ensue, followed by tyranny and suffering. As a prognosis, the Templars believed in the need for a strong and enlightened ruler to guide them. This by itself, is not an uncommon belief. Plato in his work Republic, already professed a similar belief, conceptualising an utopia ruled by a virtuous philosopher king.

In game, that core fear of the Templars is more than realised, when the Revolutionary War broke off, and the ideals of liberty and self actualisation led the people to not only fall into the same sort of barbarism they fought against, but to quickly fall behind General George Washington, which in game, is just as much of a clueless tyrant as his British counterparts.

In that much Haytham was more than right. The by the end of Assassins Creed 3, the United States of America became just another on a long string of centralised states that professed liberty but offered force. On the other hand, though, he missed when it came to a viable solution. Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were among the most enlightened people in history, even more so than most 20th century so called thinkers; not only in reality, but even in the game universe, and even so, the USA became an issue the Templars had to solve.

If Washington as seen by Haytham as unfit to rule, his candidate, Charles Lee, was even more of a miss. Even by his own admission. A brash, xenophobic individual, that had more of a hand in shaping Connor than Haytham and Achilles combined.

Haytham saw measured brutality as a pragmatic tool, needed to keep those who didn’t heed reason in line; and cruelty as a herald of chaos, not only staining the soul of he who followed it, but creating enemies, like Lee’s cruelty created Connor, like Reginald Birch’s created Haytham… Like Braddock’s created his own demise.

Ah, General Edward Braddock. Ubisoft’s mirror to Haytham.

Braddock was everything Haytham despised. Mindless cruelty, signalling virtue when near his superiors, and devolving into a monster by the shadow. Braddock, much like the USA was the logical conclusion of the Assassin’s Creed, was the logical conclusion of the Templar’s Creed. Someone gifted with power, unapologetically devolving into his worst traits, that amplified by his position, crush everyone caught beneath.

Through the game, Lee’s shadow was only kept in check by Haytham, all the while shoving his own deep down, refusing to admit to himself that some of the brutal deeds that he’d done were not justified, but in fact cruel, projecting that aspect into Braddock, then Birch, then Benjamin Church, then ironically, circling back into Washington.

In the end, Haytham was just as compassionate as Connor, and intelligent as Edward, but no less evil Rodrigo Borgia, for he was faced with an infinitely huge dilemma: Let Humanity walk free towards chaos, or guide them towards the light with an iron fist. Every human answer to it, both in the AC universe as well as irl has led to cruelty, bloodshed and strife, for humans are finite creatures with finite thoughts; and thought incredibly intelligent men, such as Haytham, have offered solutions to that dilemma, those men end up walking down the path of evil, or no path at all, for a comprehensible solution to an incomprehensible problem is just as bad as no solution at all.