Why The 'Assassin's Creed' Hidden Blade Is Stupid As Hell

Ironically, the secret blade is the foremost thing that people know about the members of the Brotherhood of Assassins from the Assassin's Creed series. The hidden blade is the assassin's traditional go-to weapon when it comes to taking down targets, and even though it looks pretty cool, the stupidity of its origins pales in comparison only to that of its inner workings.

If you look closely at Altair in the image above, you'll notice that this very inconspicuous man's ring finger is missing. While you shouldn't put it past Ubisoft to just forget how many fingers a character has, the absence here is due to how the hidden blade canonically required the amputation of one of its owner's fingers to extend properly. The Brotherhood dodged any sort of criticism for poor craftsmanship by saying that using the blade is actually a ritualistic thing, and the sacrifice required to wield it properly proves that its user can carry the burden of being an assassin. 

Too bad that brings about many problems, even if you forget this lore is clearly just a writer's desperate attempt at trying to justify the dumb inclusion of the most unnecessarily edgy weapon imaginable. I don't know many assassins, so I can't really confirm that they enjoy having fingers, but it is safe to assume they come in handy when you spend most of your life doing parkour. Also, how is the lack of a specific finger not going to render all of an assassin's ultra-cool attempts at blending in absolutely obsolete?

To its credit, the series goes on to mostly shift the attention away from the blade, but not before one hilarious final insult. At some point, Altair does end up realizing that the blade as it was (for centuries) was pretty dumb and ends up designing a new version that's not designed to maul its wielder. The blueprints end up finding their way to Leonardo DaVinci, who ends up using them to create his own improved version. Because one of the most brilliant people who has ever lived certainly would have needed the advice of a video game character to figure out that a wearable SAW trap wasn't too good of an idea.

Top Image: Ubisoft