I Literally Got Finger Cramps Writing This Because I Typed So Fast - Tumblr Posts
A little rant...okay I got carried away so it's kinda long... apologies divine readers
Am I the only one that has noticed a rather....toxic pattern in Assassin's Creed romantic relationships?
In Unity the "relationship" between Arno and Elise is...very one sided when I take a deeper look at it. I'ma be fr here...I hated her character. I didn't revel in her death, but the game certainly felt more enjoyable without her presence and without Arno's lovesick puppy act of following her around.
She didn't stand up for him or even question the accusation of him being framed for her father Francois' murder. No 'Hey I know Arno. I love him. I trust him and I know he did not kill my father' or anything. She LEFT HIM TO ROT IN THE BASTILLE??? QUOI?? I AM CONFUSION. She was mad at him for not going after Germain because he wanted to PROTECT HER because he LOVES HER - when they got the chance to meet and kill him again later. And then THE BIG ONE - she abandoned him under that rubble to take Germain on by herself. All she had to do was take a few extra seconds to free Arno, they could have fought him together, and maybe - JUST MAYBE - she wouldn't have died. And it's not just that either it's the leaving him under that rubble for me. She was supposed to 'love him' and she left him under something that was hurting and trapping him? If it were me, I wouldn't stop until he was free Germain be damned. I will free my baguette boy and then we ferry onward to glory!
It seemed like a lecherous kind of situation where Arno gave and gave, and Elise just took and took. I felt like she hardcore used him because she knew how much he loved her, and she fully used that to her advantage. Maybe she did it on purpose, maybe it was unintentional but either way...it had me shaking my head and waving my red flag like I was in the color guard.
The same thing occurs again in Origins with Bayek and Aya. Bayek seems to love Aya a whole lot more than she loves him, and I even get the vibe that she just stayed with him because she got pregnant. I mean...she rejected his proposal because SHE wanted to go back to Alexandria to follow her dreams, SHE didn't want to be the wife of a Medjay, she was what I believe could be termed an 'absent mother' as Bayek spent more time with Khemu than she appeared to, and then she left Bayek to go off on her own and they wound up separated for a year not too long after their son's death. Bayek had to grieve alone while she seemed to just...refuse to grieve. It was strange. She never wanted to discuss Khemu even though Bayek was emotionally available for her to do so (which I loved about him because most men don't do the 'emotionally available' thing as they think it makes them seem weak). The one time I remember in the game when Bayek said that he wished not to be separated from her again after Khemu's death, she shut him up with sex...and then left again not too long after that. Then she eventually separated (read: pretty much divorced him imo) from him to go do her own thing in Rome. I mean...it certainly benefitted the Brotherhood in the long run...but it seems to me like she ran from her grief, left Bayek behind, shut herself down to all discussion of Bayek and then she even changed her identity. Reference to the Aya - Amunet transformation.
Their relationship was just tragic overall to me and the shutting down a conversation with sex, was a major red flag to me that their relationship was not going to survive the death of their son. I do think that Aya had...a type of love for Bayek. A fondness. A feeling of loyalty and a high-level trust. But I do not think for a second that Aya loved Bayek as much as Bayek loved her. Man would have gone to hell and back for her.
Why is the 'men being absolutely whipped for a woman who doesn't appreciate them' a recurring thing in the Assassin's Creed games?
I know I probably read WAAAYY too much into this but as someone who's bigtime into psychology I just - OOF. These were not some healthy fully functioning relationships. And I did not care for either of them in the long run.
Arno deserved better as did Bayek. I think they're both sweethearts - that each have their own faults and flaws of course because they're human beings - but they deserved more.