Assassins - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Hashashins has been part of Medieval culture, either demonized or romanticized. Hashashins appeared frequently in art and literature of the Middle Ages, sometimes being illustrated as one of the knight's archenemy and a quintessential villain during the crusades, with both the knight and hashashin being constant opposite to each other. The knight being an honorable soldier of Christianity, symbol of honor and heroics, while the hashashins are seen as a bloodthirsty cutthroats of the Muslim world. In 1332, when King Philip VI of France was conversing with the German priest Brocardus for advice and guidance, their topic shifted to the assassin. Brocardus described them as "devils" and "secret murderers" who "sell themselves and are thirsty for blood". These description of the assassins and other of the Muslim elites were common after the crusaders went home bringing their stories of the war.

By the thirteenth century, the word Assassin, in variant forms, had already passed into European usage in this general sense of hired professional murderer. The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, who died in 1348, tells how the lord of Lucca sent `his assassins' (i suoi assassini) to Pisa to kill a troublesome enemy there. Even earlier, Dante, in a passing reference in the 19thcanto of the Inferno, speaks of `the treacherous assassin'(lo perfido assassin); his fourteenth-century commentator Francesco da Buti, explaining a term which for some readers at the time may still have been strange and obscure, remarks: 'Assassino è colui che uccide altrui per danari' (An assassin is one who kills others for money).

Assassins also appeared in many video games, often put in RPG and MMORPG games. They appeared in RPG games as a character class or job common to many games. Such characters typically combine elements of combat gaming with emphasis on stealth skills, and specialise in defeating an enemy without becoming involved in a close-quarter battle. They are seen as the "fragile, but deadly" ninja-esque character class and are usually recommended to more experienced players in the game. Assassins have appeared in games like Diablo 2, Ragnarok Online, Lineage II, World of Warcraft, MapleStory, Guild Wars, and Conquer Online. Assassins appear in the Final Fantasy games series, such as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, as well as the Fire Emblem game series. In the 1996 adventure game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, the main antagonist of the game best known as Khan is a hassassin.

In the Assassin's Creed series of historical action-adventure video games, the first game followed a fictional version of the Syrian wing of the sect, while subsequent games and Assassin's Creed media would depict its successor organizations opposed to a Templar conspiracy. The series imagines the Assassins as being active in various eras and locations: from 12th-century Syria during the Third Crusade (this incarnation depicted in the first game and the one recorded by the Polos in-universe), 15th-century Renaissance Italy and Turkey, 18th century North America during the American Revolution, and up to the 21st century. Despite the fact that the Assassins probably only existed up until the late 14th century or early 15th century at most (under Taqq'iya), content within Assassin's Creed, such as assassination targets, methods of assassination, symbolism, and Templar enemies, does not coincide with the factual history of the Assassins. An earlier video game series based on the Assassins is the Prince of Persia series of Action-adventure games, as well as assassins appearing in other video games like Dante's Inferno and the Prince of Persia series.