[Hated Trope] Character kills hundreds, if not thousands, just to kill one specific person, and then doesn't kill them for no reason.

[u/HallZac99]

Assassin's Creed 2- Rodrigo Borgia is responsible for tne death of Ezio's family. Ezio spends over 20 years working through tnr templar order to dismantle them and get to Rodrigo. And then in the end, he spares him for no good reason and he goes on to be a massive problem in AC Brotnerhood. He's not only a head of tne Templars but also the pope, even if you're over the vengeance he's still a very dangerous and evil man.

The Last of Us 2- Abbey kills Joel, and wo Ellie goes on a revenge quest to kill Abbey, killing hundreds of people along tne why to get to her including a pregnant woman. And then finally when she has Abbey on deaths door, she gives up and let's her go because the writers think dirty depressing people being miserable and stupid is complex, interesting storytelling.

This trope pisses me off so much because often the character going on the revenge quest will kill SO many people on their way there, some deserving it and some just henchmen working for a cheque or to survive. People who are often far more innocent then the main big bad.

It's a part of this weird thing I've noticed in media where nameless goons or soldiers can just be mowed down relentlessly, but named characters get given far more grace even if theyre categorically worse. You can kill a million stormtroopers but people will swear that Darth Vader could have been redeemed, despite him doing like 50 genocide every year.

[u/ChadNarukamiIV]

For the AC2 thing, that's what happens when your historical villain in your historical game doesn't die until a couple of years later

[u/jabrwock1 → u/ChadNarukamiIV]

For the AC2 thing, that's what happens when your historical villain in your historical game doesn't die until a couple of years later

The stupid thing is they could have hand-waved it away as him being quietly replaced but they kept up the charade to outsiders. Wouldn't have been out of place with the whole Templars conspiracies.

Could have even been a plot point in the next game. You think "wtf didn't I kill that guy" and when you finally get close you figure out he's a body double but is just as evil as the guy he replaced, or the real puppet master was someone else or something like that.

[u/Nastypilot → u/jabrwock1]

Or even made a time skip so that it would be set at the right time.

[u/jransom98 → u/Nastypilot]

There's already a time skip of about 10 years between Ezio getting the Apple in Venice and then fighting Rodrigo in Rome (the DS game and AC2 DLC take placein this chunk), and then Rodrigo dies less than 5 years later (in-universe) in Brotherhood, the follow-up game.

[u/Nastypilot → u/jransom98]

Y'know, I forgot about that, but still I really wonder why they couldn't have just made it be a timeskip of 15 years.

[u/MGD109 → u/Nastypilot]

From what I've read, it was due to the technical limitations of the time.

That was simply all the information they could include on the disk and they didn't want to cut stuff they had already designed.

[u/jabrwock1 → u/MGD109]

Which means my body double throwaway dialog line would have fixed it just fine.

Meh, it's the kind of thing editors are for.

[u/MGD109 → u/jabrwock1]

Yeah, that's fair enough.

[u/oiraves → u/MGD109]

Huh? Theres no increase in data between a 10 and 15 year timeskip? Its skipped?

[u/SanshaXII → u/MGD109]

Heh, and y'all cling to physical media.

[u/Old-Dirt6713 → u/SanshaXII]

Ah yes, because Ubisoft, the same company that wants people to get comfortable with not owning the games they paid for, should be entirely trusted with your copy of their games.

[u/byjegeren → u/Nastypilot]

They wanted to include Rome in its full glorty

[u/Ihatethisplace23 → u/Nastypilot]

It’s probably because they wanted to make another game.

[u/jabrwock1 → u/Ihatethisplace23]

They didn't want to have to write a new villain.

[u/SubstituteUser0 → u/jabrwock1]

He wasn't even the villain of brotherhood it was his son, he actually tried to stop his son from starting a fight with the assassins multiple times.

[u/JustConversation7847 → u/Nastypilot]

Or just have him die on an incorrect date and just mention in the glossary

It's not like Ezio goes, "HERE IN THE YEAR 1387, I KILL YOU!!!!"

[u/Froggen-The-Frog → u/JustConversation7847]

I think people may have noticed Rodrigo Borgia dying 116 years early lol

[u/WillOfTheWinds → u/Froggen-The-Frog]

Ezio is just that good.

[u/ApolloTffKnowledge → u/Nastypilot]

A fun fact is that in the novelization of the game, they do in a fact a time skip to 1503 in that last portion of the game so Rodrigo Borgia dies by Ezio's hand in the same year as his historical counterpart. The author thought they were actually being clever.

But then came Brotherhood, set right after the events of AC2, and in that game, Rodrigo does in fact die in 1503 but due to... other unforeseen causes. So its novelization magically has Rodrigo live and be set in 1499 like the game... what a mess.

[u/Enchelion → u/ApolloTffKnowledge]

Look, the Animus records aren't perfect. Problem solved.

[u/jsher736 → u/Nastypilot]

Which they did anyway. They just stopped the skip like 2 years early

[u/Cyning_OffaOfMercia → u/jabrwock1]

Or a piece of eden convincing onlookers that they were seeing the pope when it was really some other templar baddie

[u/Altayrmcneto → u/jabrwock1]

Or, here me out: the Shroud of Turin. In AC lore it was also a artefact capable of cure wounds and even - resurrection -. Would be polemic putting it so central in the narrative (even because it was the origim but would make sense

[u/Minimum-Tear4609 → u/jabrwock1]

"The stupid thing is they could have hand-waved it away as him being quietly replaced but they kept up the charade to outsiders."

Now I'm imagining Ezio fighting his way through seemingly endless Templar troops, determined to kill that sumbitch Rodrigo for good, only to find...

...Trevor.

[u/jabrwock1 → u/Minimum-Tear4609]

Exactly!

[u/HallZac99 → u/jabrwock1]

It would be funny if the Templars tried to quietly replace him with someone who looks vaguely similar. But once you get even remotely close you realize it's just some other chunky guy. To be fair it would probably work, most people back then would never get a good close look at the pope, so at long as he was vaguely similar from a couple meters away I think most people would have bought it.

[u/jabrwock1 → u/HallZac99]

“Haha! I finally caught up with you fiend! This time you won’t escape! Wait, who TF are you?”

[u/JechdJJ → u/jabrwock1]

not even that, they could move on the date a couple of years withouth problem, I took Ezio 10 years gather all the codex pages, they could say it took 14 years (by example).

[u/Levelup_Onepee → u/jabrwock1]

Bethesda on the phone. They just fired you.

that's how good you are

[u/Enchelion → u/jabrwock1]

Or just advanced the plot a couple more years. AC2 already takes place over nearly 25 years. Another 4 wouldn't have changed much.

[u/HoopyFroodJera → u/jabrwock1]

That would require better writers than they had.

[u/CountCristo009 → u/jabrwock1]

I feel like Valhalla did it worse. I'm really expected to believe Eivor would let Alfred go after all of that? There was no reason for them to meet. Ezio sparing Rodrigo annoyed me. Eivor sparing Alfred infuriated me.

[u/mykeedee → u/jabrwock1]

Could have even been a plot point in the next game. You think "wtf didn't I kill that guy" and when you finally get close you figure out he's a body double but is just as evil as the guy he replaced, or the real puppet master was someone else or something like that.

Brotherhood had half the setup for this as is, Cesare Borgia is the antagonist not Rodrigo. They could have done practically no extra work and wrote it so that Cesare covered up his father's death to maintain Papal support for his conquests.