No wonder why Connor is so emotionless: Imagine watching your mother dying in the burning down of your village and doing everything to help your people, only to get screwed over, deceived, manipulated and betrayed at every turn (with one of those people being your father, who deliberately hid the information of your mother's death so he could manipulate you to his side), with finally your people being expelled regardless by the people you thought you would help them (and finding out they don't give a shit about your platitude.)
My point: Fandom should stop hating Connor because he isn't Ezio.
The problem was never that Connor isn't Ezio. The problem is that we, as Western audiences, have been conditioned to reject characters who don’t conform to a familiar, Eurocentric mold of storytelling. Ezio is charming, charismatic, and effortlessly likable. He flirts. He jokes. He grows in ways that reflect our favorite power fantasies: freedom, control, and self-actualization. He’s the kind of hero we’ve been taught to root for, over and over again. He fits the mold.
Connor isn’t here to dazzle you. He doesn’t joke to put you at ease. He doesn’t flirt to win you over. He’s blunt. Angry. Grieving. And rightly so. His world is one of broken promises and stolen futures; he has no time or space for charm. He doesn’t perform vulnerability for our comfort. He is vulnerable, raw, young, and cracked open by the world, but never in a way that flatters the viewer’s ego.
Ask yourself: Would Connor have been more “acceptable” if he’d laughed more? If he'd made his trauma easier to swallow? If he'd flirted with Myriam or Ellen or softened his convictions for the sake of pacing?
That’s not a flaw in Connor. That’s a flaw in us.
We’ve been trained to celebrate protagonists who slot neatly into stories built on Western values of charisma, triumph, and emotional legibility. When a character refuses that mold, when he challenges us instead of charming us, we call him “boring.” Or “too serious.” Or “hard to like.”
But Connor is none of those things. Connor is essential.
Because where most protagonists in this series survive, Connor learns. He doesn’t blindly follow the Creed; he interrogates it. He studies the systems around him. He saw what gave the Templars their power, and why the Assassins keep losing ground. And even after betrayal, disillusionment, and unimaginable loss, he chooses to stay with the Assassins not because they’re flawless, but because their path is the right one.
He’s also the only Assassin to ever sincerely question whether reconciliation with the Templars is possible. He doesn’t just kill Haytham and move on; he listens. He hopes. He tries. That quiet dream of peace, followed by the heartbreaking realization that it cannot be, is unlike anything else we’ve seen in the series.
Connor isn’t just another blade in the dark. He’s the conscience of the Brotherhood.
Fandom didn’t reject him because he was poorly written. Fandom rejected him because he made injustice uncomfortable and because he refused to entertain us while doing it.
No, Connor isn’t Ezio. He was never meant to be. And that’s not just the point. That’s what makes him unforgettable.
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