The reason that the Volkihar don't transform into vampire lords is because they can't. Only Harkon, Serana, Valarica, and the Dragonborn can, because the Vampire Lord form is the Ultimate gift that Harkon can grant. When Harkon grants the vampire lord form, he is basically adopting you, making you family through his blood.

I see where you're coming from. I do wish they improved the story with these fairly minor changes for the better.

Makes me happy to see a dedicated video about AC2, my fav AC game. Well done!

Yeaaaah No.

This was such an interesting, nuanced, and insightful look at the actual story/narrative of this game; I applaud you! It makes me wish you’d break down the story of The Rings of Power too. But in any case, I’m off to watch every other video on your channel now 🫡

Criminal this has so few views

The timeline shenanigans seem like such an unforced error. They could have written plot elements like ciphers Leonardo has to spend years deciphering, moving fictional meetings around in the timeline, or maybe to have the Templars... like... actively resisting and complicating the Assassins' plans?

1:34:20 it has me somewhat disappointed and leaves me questioning the rest of your analysis that you would say this. This comes off as an over-reaction on my part to have this reaction after a nearly 2 hour video over such a small line, but the tyranny of the sun is literally the main plot of the DLC. It is what everything is leading to, the idea that Harkon wants Serana's blood to cast the world into eternal darkness. A basic understanding of it is in my eyes essential. It truthfully isn't all that relevant to most of what you talked about, but I think you can understand why I put so much weight to it. With that being said, the prophecy, and Harkon's intent is not just to "shed" Serana's blood. Its to kill her, and it confuses me that you seem to have missed this when you brought it up as a mechanic given you state his intent of sacrificing her over and over again. The reason why this is important, is that... this is an important distinction. Harkon seeks to kill Serana because it is a ritualistic sacrifice, it isn't just her blood its *HER BLOOD* it is a life taken. That has weight to it, where as just dipping an arrow in her blood... doesn't. You aren't fulfilling the prophecy when you craft blood corrupted arrows, you are just tainting them. The idea that that these two things are the same, sure are written in the literal sense to be the same(sacrificing her blood), but in my eyes it us abundantly clear that they are by no means equivalent.

Pausing the vid for a moment to say that Tbh i have to admit I enjoy the Greybeards acceptance actually, considering the fact that part of the reason you're meant to kill Alduin is the dragon Literally Stopped Doing His Job and started a cult in his + the dragons honor. Especially considering the fact we have no idea if the end of the world is something literal or more of a metaphorical end of an age. Which is also actually why I was surprised the first time I saw someone be confused why you couldn't absorb Alduin's soul at the end, because on my first playthrough I felt it was implied that Akatosh essentially scruffs him via the Dragonborn to go "my man. you had one (1) job. WHAT WAS ALL THAT ABOUT???" And your killing (or "killing" considering the fact he himself claims to be undying) is basically just you sending him home to go sit in timeout for awhile.

Quite the compelling video essay, but you lost me when you disliked the "It's a me, Mario", Joke. It still cracks me up decades later XD

Are you reading too much into these games? Most definitely. However, as a wise man once said, who give a fuck This is amazing. I love this series, I love the lore and the themes and I often wish it examined them deeper or, well, at all. Your videos are almost a glimpse into an alternative world, where Ubisoft is a more creatively focused and better managed company. Will be patiently awaiting the next videos while I chip away at this one during my lunch breaks (my work productivity may suffer, but the things we do for love)

If there's anything positive i can say about this game it's that i respect the artists going in their own direction with a lot of the character designs. It feels like they designed their Gandalf based on his description in the books instead of just being a retread of the Jackson films for the umpteenth time. I mean everyone looks like shit, but i respect the attempt i guess

This just came into my YT Suggestions and your critiques are dope. Keep em coming. PS. If you're the DUke of Whales, then I'm the Duck of Hungry, always hungry, never enough food. Quack quack motherfk*r.

This was great. Some of my random thoughts: I was way too young to understand the plot and the deeper meanings of the story when I played AC1 and the Ezio trilogy games for the first time. I adored AC2 and had a lot of fun (yes) running around and being a cool assassin and basically ignored all the modern day Desmond stuff. I am still somewhat lukewarm about it, but I can now kinda appreciate what they were going for originally. And yet, the ending for Ezio in Revelations still stuck out to me. While the game itself is not that great in my opinion, it was worth it to see Ezio in the library with Altair. Really looking forward to you discussing that moment, as I enjoyed a lot of your thoughts here. Great work, and thanks for making this. Cheers.

awww come on, I think the villain is compelling! he's saying some shit, he's trying, come oooooooon.

I really could not disagree more on the civil war topic. Your perspective is surface deep and relies on a complete ignorance of real world history, elder scrolls history, and the progression of morals. You look at the conflict as of its in a vacuum. You forget that the empire took all sovereignty from Skyrim after Talos integrated the province into the empire. You forget that Skyrim has been invaded by foreign powers multiple times and is under constant threat from Morrowwind. You act like nords weren't the key factor in repelling the thalmor from the imperial city. Literally every race in tamriel is shown as mostly racist but ONLY the nords are called out for this. The dark elves hold countless slaves in their cities and Cyrodil sends NO ARMIES to their lands. Conflicts like civil wars are rarely so simple as to be narrowed down to 1 issue. Skyrims civil war is not about racism. Skyrim has lost confidence in the empires ability to preserve their freedom and that's valid considering the empire outlawed worship of a God that is known to actually exist. The empire chose to cave to all thalmor demands and has become a client state of the thalmor. Skyrim logically would oppose that and they do. The thalmor benefit from the civil war but they DONT benefit from the dragonborn ending it. That's why the dragonborn needs to side with the nords and reclaim basic human rights to the nords. The dragonborn at the head of Nordic armies, in alliance with cyrodilic legions, could actually defeat the thalmor. But a conquered Skyrim that I'd forced to conscript unwilling nords into a foreign war is going to be of no benefit to the empire. It's actually more likely the nords would side with the thalmor to regain their independence if only temporarily. As far as racism goes, I think a more natural progression of morals through trade and soft domestic policy would encourage GENUINE change. Forcing nords to send their children to die for other races is never going to encourage a genuine change. I would start by enforcing the admission of other races into all cities and ports. This would allow for uncoerced interactions between races which would most likely lead to resolution. I can elaborate much more but I really just wanted to say I liked your story critique but your civil war critique is very misinformed.

Wisdom deserves excessive pillows, I don't understand how you don't know this. Perhaps...well, I don't need to say it, do I?

Something I always liked about Hadvar is that he does object to your execution by bringing up they aren’t in the list and is trying to be respectful about your final resting place. Then, as a Drsgon, the first of its kind in thousands of years shows up, breaths fire and summons a meteor storm on the town, he draws his sword and steps between you and Alduin. I had a lot of respect for him with that. He does risk his life for you as a prisoner, tries to save a child from getting burned, and for helping a prisoner escape, potentially seal his fate for treason in the empire. I would have really liked to have him as a follower.

That was Skyrims last good head crate

One of the problems I personally have with Bethesda games narratively - at least since Oblivion when I started - is that their stories so often feel at odds with the gameplay. They want to give you almost complete player freedom, but the plots are focused around elements that more or less strongly incentivize you to engage with them. Whether its a doomsday scenario, looking for a lost family member or getting strongarmed into joining a planetary exploration group, you're more or less obligated in some capacity by the urgency of the inciting incident. And that's not even factoring in the idea that most of their plots are designed to make you the most important figure in the world by sheer dint of being the main character. I feel like Bethesda are more at home with making digital theme parks than actual living, breathing RPGs. Personally, I think they should cut down the scope of their stories to smaller, more manageable, more personal plots. That seems like where their heart is at anyway IMO.

Wow. That was great. And yes, I did watch all of it, but just not in one sitting. Overall, I think I do agree with you on pretty much everything you say. I must admit I haven't played AC1 yet but the combination of what Nolan North said as well as finding AC3 a bit underwhelming compared to the Ezio trilogy (with its flaws and all) seeing that 6 game arc (or what it was supposed to be) would have been great. It's a shame that such elements of the game are just lost because one decision here and another there is changed. But either way, great video. Looking forward to the Brotherhood one now.

An instresting video, but I must say that the civil war part was quite weak and pro Empire.

I choose to believe that the Serana Dialogue Add On is canon

2:19:33 actually based on a random event a gaurd can force you out of that uniform or fight you

3:06:16 just want to timestamp my favourite bit bc I know I will be returning to this video to find it

imma tell my kids this was joesph anderson

First off, huge respect for the insane amount of work that you put into this video. At first I wanted to just listen to it and/or have it in the background or on the second monitor but the editing and visuals support the voiceover so well that I decided to watch the entire thing instead. There is a lot of video, so obviously there is lots to talk about which I might do another time but for now I'd just like to mention that I appreciate the addtional research that you put in to have a better picture of the real historical people, politics and events and sprinkling them into this analysis really elevates these scenes. I also like that you do not hide your opinion about stuff that doesn't make sense and don't talk around retcons but just call them what they are. It's refreshing and gives a lot of character to your work and even though I might have some differing opinions, I see where you're coming from. I also like the idea in general to critique the narrative and not the game itself, as you said the game is fun but the story judged separately mostly doesn't hold up. Two things I'd like to address, especially since you had the part about you mispronouncing various terms in the video. One of which is basically irrelevant but the other one bothered me and I'd rather mention it than stay silently annoyed. 1. The word is "asterisk" not "asteriks". 2. Not sure why you pronounce "Altair" the way you do but the name is supposed to be pronounced "Alta-eer", not "Alta-air", "Alta-ehr", "Alta-yehr" or other variations that one can come up with. I'm not sure if you are aware of this because your pronounciation is inconsistent throughout the video with 5:15:43 being especially bad and 5:43:44 being fine. If you decide to not change it or if it's so ingrained already that you have a hard time changing it, that's fine but now I will at least not be bothered by myself not bringing it up when I had the chance. Looking forward to the Dragonborn DLC and future AC titles and depending on how long the Oxenfree video will be, also to that one. Cheers

So much time & effort & BSW when arriving at confrontation or profound moments almost always goes for the stupid. The only answer I can think of is "snow blindness" & internal critiques by yes men. They're either terrified of offending anyone or in such a rush that giving the player any agency in dialogue what so ever might potentially open up incrementally wider pathways to infinity. Which is just not true as you've proven in this video. You covered about half of the instances where 2 or 3 more lines would settle the hallow feeling one gets when completing a chapter in SKYRIM & FallOut. Far as "excuses" for Ulfric & Galmar's racism ; has there ever been a territorial war that wasn't xenophobic ? As the player your hearing directly from the leader of the uprising. I imagine very similar slurs/sentiment if you listened in on the counsel in Cyrodiil. I for one can separate & appreciate contemporary enlightened norms from historic clannish beliefs for the sake of accuracy. If you could talk w/your great, great grandfather on social issues would you be shocked ? Probably. Does this make him wrong or you pompous ? (I think a little of both) American entertainment is highly sought after world wide for a reason. It's got nothing to do w/censorship, in fact it's the opposite. Good video, only hope Todd watches it & takes heed for ES VI Mass Effect, only game I've played where I had a little something in my eyes every couple of hours or so. Brilliant game

Who told you, you don't have a soothing voice? Excellent video mate! Really well articulated! I felt exactly how you described so many times. The point about it being a land you want to defend. The moral issues with doing anything other than the main quest in FO4. Subscribed! 1st time viewer btw

I do not care much for fast travel system in Oblivion and Skyrim, honestly. I try to limit my use of it, but it is hard, and I often feel like I'm missing out on the handcrafted world. It was forgivable in Arena and Daggerfall, since the world space is a flat void interspersed with tree sprites (Plus fast travel had tangible gold costs and outcomes). Morrowind's fast travel i liked the best, honestly, since it's fully diagetic and gradual. You can zoom to your destination in seconds, but that requires access to several different spells and intimate map knowledge.

Skyrim is shit lmao

This is an amazing analysis. I actually love the way you dont shy away from any topic, and you think far deeply about most things and every detail a majority of players would completely overlook, forget, or never even notice to begin with. Youre not judgemental, rather explorative and curious. You spent like 40 minutes discussing sex and religion in such a thorough and open minded fashion, and i really appreciate that kind of healthy open ended discussion. You definitely deserve more subs because you took so much time to do a proper deep dive on everything in the story. I love this kind of content, and its super refreshing to see others who actually think deeper about things and question everything. After all to question everything is part of the real assassin creed. (Also, i dont think the dlc is bad at all, its just the placement. Each part of the dlc should have been installed into a completely different part of the game.) (Also also im happy you called out machiavelli, hes one of the most intriguing, compelling and contoversial historical figures of all time, to see him Reduced to a figure head who does essentially nothing other than save ezio at the villa and somehow name him Íl mentore, he should have been such an interesting addition,with his radical political views and philosophical views on people and rule)

It's quite funny how much the game dances around the themes of religion, politics, governance, class issues, and the likes. It's almost like it trying to emote something, but just can't quite muster the courage to say anything too insightful. Feels like another example of where the corporate incentive for moneys and not offending anyone meant the topics needed to be skirted around rather than touched. Ezio being an avatar for the player, thus likely couldn't express his thoughts, so nobody gets brought out of the illusion of being Ezio by hearing something that contradicts their own beliefs and thoughts. Funny thing with that is Ezio is clearly supposed to be his own character. It is amusing AC went with the angle of being the games they are (historic dramas touching on many topics interwoven with modern day threads) yet doesn't have the guts to go all in on it. Zooming away from AC and looking at gaming as a whole, I find it fascinating how killing and violence (sometimes to copious and obscene amounts) is perfectly ok and common play. But characters meaningfully (which is to say, not just doing the bare minimum lip service thing) talking even briefly about religion? Politics? Beliefs? Class issues? Paradoxes in their actions crossed with their beliefs? That gets the corporations spooked, and they don't want to do it. I'd find it quite interesting how Ezio would react to encountering a grieving family member of one of the nameless guards that are cannon fodder. Has the AC series ever danced with the assassin MC encountering such? Specifically, not a named character's family and loved ones, but just a random guards ones.

I'd never call it "forgettable". I do acknowledge that Bethesda's writing is pretty lacking, but I like Oblivion's story. The entire concept behind it is a good one, as far as I'm concerned. You start off in *prison* and are subsequently released as the bizarre and cryptic emperor tells his bodyguards that you're supposed to come with them. He gives you his amulet, lets himself die and then you're off through the sewers to find your way out to a massive breath of fresh air and a pretty beautiful sight. It's no coincidence they put the exit right near the water with that scene of rolling hills and trees in the distance. Then you're off to do a few boring things like telling people the Emperor's dead before being sent off to Kvatch, one of the most interesting parts of the story where you have to literally reclaim a burning city from Daedra and get the Emperor's illegitimate child to safety. Which isn't so safe at all as it seems, since the cult that killed the Emperor has now found the abbey and murdered its way through it, looking for the amulet. Afterwards you're taken to a massive fortress to keep the Emperor's heir safe and admittedly this is where I started to lose interest. Reclaiming an amulet you already had because the leader of the Blades was too brain-dead to always keep it in his possession is not what I'd call an ideal task and there's a lot of fluff that I barely remember for this section because it's been a while since I've played. It does all end pretty well, though, with you and a small army taking on Daedric forces outside the fortress and you invading a weird Daedric realm for a narcissist and his children who you summarily kill. Then the final mission, which leads you into the Imperial City while it's under attack by a literal giant walking Daedric Prince (who melts if you force kill him via console because he has no death animation, fun fact). At any point the heir could die and you have to restart from a previous save, but once you get inside, BAM. Giant dragon. I think where Bethesda fails isn't necessarily on the ideas so much as the execution, because all of that is very fun to me and very memorable. I don't deny they have trouble writing things out properly and Oblivion is full of bad voice acting (mostly direction, I think, as a few of the voice actors were in Morrowind and other previous games and did alright there), script errors and strange bugs. This was definitely in Bethesda's... well I don't want to say "golden" era because as much as I love Oblivion particularly for its setting, I think it's more like silver that tarnished a bit on the side. Beautiful from one angle, but don't turn it around or you'll see how ugly it is.

my guy john candleman is standing in a position of authority in mordor, openly actively intentionally working for manifestation of pure evil sauron, overseeing the slave pits even, and he's worried that some random elves might find out that he sucks. what a motivation!

RE: the templar "revelation" i remember playing this game at launch, the marketing very heavily featured the templar knights and so obviously you knew that, at least in some capacity, the templars were the enemy. i dont agree however that you knew all of these people were templars, yes you fight Robert at the start but the man in the asylum is very explicitly a hospitaller, not a templar, and most of the targets in damascus and jerusalem arent military targets at all, it's merchants and thieves and various people doing various things, at no point is it made clear all of them are templars. you mostly just think they're a loose variety of people doing evil deeds in the land, and as some sort of instrument of justice or freedom or whatever, your job is to end them. i dont think its apparent that most of these schemes play into a larger picture until the game actually tells you, and even then its not always easy to see how some of them would benefit the templar order at all. what it actually felt like, regardless of whether you knew that the PRIMARY enemy were the templars, was a sort of neutrality-balancing, if i remember correctly al-mualim repeatedly states the goal is to keep some sort of equilibrium because if the crusaders or the saracens win decisively theres going to be even more bloodbath, which is reinforced by the idea of 3 cities, one for the arabs, one for the crusaders, and one thats depicted as being somewhat a contested territory, jerusalem. it felt like, at the time, picking the weights off the scales that were weighing things down in one direction or the other, while stopping any evil schemes that would oppress the population.

One thing that never gets pointed out but i want to highlight is the art-style. The designs in this game are so unique, strange, and beautiful - but they're so wasted on this game.

If I had two nickels for every time I heard "If I had two nickels..." about Oblivion, I'd have two nickels...

i hope you cover brother hood and 3 one day 🥲 this is the best videogame narrative analysis !!

This video is simply fantastic, the passion and the will to deliver a well thought analysis are evident and i already watched it twice. My only regret is that as someone who was horribly disappointed with the finale of ac3 and stopped following this series completely with that game (and would only return for a reboot in the original spirit by some great writer - i know it won't happen) and has completely stopped caring and playing these games i am unable to start an interesting conversation about the series due to more than ten years having passed, erasing a good chunk of my memories about the story. Still, i am looking forward for a video on ac brotherhood, revelations and 3. Grazie e ciao from Italy!

It's a shame you can't marry Serana, but I find it cute they become good friends and she cares about you as the first friend she's had

Great video.

I'm fairly certain Ubi moved away from the modern day plotline in Brotherhood because they started getting accused of stealing the whole idea from some dude's book, and whether true or not they wanted to move away from that rumor. I remember that happening pretty distinctly but remember almost no details...

Just here for something in the background while I collect the feathers in Assassin's Creed II

Fun fact about the Deep Ones: their bible is actually the Daedric-translated version of a book called “N’gasta! Kvata! Kvakis!”, a book from Morrowind that was written by a Sload, one of the race of slug people that inhabit the island of Thrass. The contents of the book are actually in Esperanto, and can be translated to English, in which they describe a Sload newsletter and the pros and cons of publishing it physically vs on the internet. Yes, the Sload canonically have access to the internet.

YOU CAN SKIP THE SECOND FLIGHT???

One thing that really stuck out to me as a major theme is "Judgment". Both inward, and outward. Obviously guilt is a form of negative self judgment, so that was touched on plenty in the video. However, I also think Henry is kind of a judgey person at the point that you begin the story. It actually didn't seem OOC or weird to me that he doesn't respond to Delilah's confession about Javier. After all, this is a man who either took care of his ill wife or had to make the devastating decision to put her into a facility. I can see how he might find himself really put off by her avoidance tactics and the way that she is sometimes inherently dishonest. Julia is a chronic liar. She lies to everyone about Ned and Brian, she lies to her sister about what happened with Javier, she lies about the situation with the two missing girls to the police, and at the end if you press her, she lies to you about staying at Thoroughfare Lookout. Julia lies to avoid her problems, and Henry just can't do that. Some amount of resentment over that, particularly when her avoidance COST her a relationship while he lost his relationship because he had to face his problem and came up short of a real solution... it's more than reasonable. Henry doesn't respond because anything he has to say is negative. She tried to relate their situations, but he doesn't feel they are all that similar. All Delilah had to do was show up for the person she loved and she might still be with him- No amount of "showing up" for Julia will save her. That is a lot of deduction for what amounts to 10 seconds of silence, but it was what I thought at the time. He literally couldn't avoid his problems and was forced to make a judgment call and live with the consequences of his choices. This entire job is a result of those consequences. Henry also judges the girls at the lake (lightly) for doing stupid things, he judges Ned for his care of Brian, and he has a pattern of being a bit harsh to both others and to himself about choices- fairly reasonably give the circumstances and his experiences. Of course, this kind of judgement is up to interpretation. The girls were drinking and setting off fireworks in an area with high fire risk- that is something that DESERVES judgement, according to most people. However, in my opinion that doesn't change the way he's somewhat fast to make decisions about someone, good or bad. The man watching him is a "Creep", the girls are "vandals", etc. By the end of the story, Delilah and Henry have swapped places. Delilah can't let go of her judgment of Ned, continually accusing him of killing Brian (Even if you insist you think it was an accident at both opportunities). Meanwhile, Henry comes around to understanding and seems to be letting go of some of his judgment- both of himself through his guilt, but also of Ned and of Delilah. I played the story where Henry is still hopelessly devoted to his wife. I shot down Delilah every chance I could, I picked up Julia's photo and put it back whenever possible, I put his ring back on every chance I got, etc. However, in the end... I invited Julia back to Boulder. My intent was not to invite her as a romantic overture, but instead as a friend and someone who is moving on, to someone who never had moved on even after 10 years at the job. Henry did in a single summer what Delilah hasn't been able to do in a decade of them, and now, I feel SHE resents HIM for it. Maybe this is nonsense, and I only played it once (And definitely missed some interesting lines by either not responding/reporting to Delilah or choosing suboptimal options) but to me, this idea of escapism and the judgment from society on the concept of escapism is really important to the story. The ways in which Delilah judged Ned, Henry judges Delilah, and the way Julia's family judges Henry all feel strangely in tune with each other. As a last note... I think all this is narratively well and good, but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that the conspiracy wasn't real. A dead kid at the bottom of a cavern and his veteran father not being able to handle it is an inherently less interesting story to me than the one where Henry and Delilah are part of some kind of crazy kooky social experiment run by a Korean War vet, or even a "Henry was actually in a coma the whole time" type story. (Which was my working theory for a while after our nasty fall down the hill to the lake- I thought it was going to be a "it was all a dream/hallucination" plotline.) The real ending is very poetic, but ultimately I've always chosen the action adventure story set in space over the literary classic coming of age story, to put it in novel terms. And that's okay- I want more games to get recognition for going outside the box, even if I'm pretty happy in the box myself.

1:41:36 realest part of the vid

I needed something to listen to in the background while I collect everything in Assassin's Creed.

Small mistake I picked up on, Jacopo is Francesco's uncle not his father