Hey there!
I don't know if you take requests for character analyses (if you don't just ignore this), but I would really like to see your take on Desmond Miles since, for some reason, I can't really seem to wrap my head around him, which has resulted in me finding him almost boring, and I would like to remedy that.
I'm particularly interested in what you believe to be to be his biggest flaws and where they come from, since that's what usually compels me the most about a character, and also what I have trouble with finding in Desmond.
I’m fine with any analysis requests that get sent my way :)
Although, I do wonder if I’m the right person to analyze Desmond since character analysis is meant to be as nonbias as possible but I’m me and y’all know how much I love Desmond at this point. XD
I will do my best though but it is my duty to remind you that this analysis is written by someone who loves Desmond so, yeah, some of that love will bleed thru in this analysis.
Also, as this would get pretty long if I do a complete character analysis, I’ll focus on what compelled me to Desmond which, I believe, is connected to your question about what his flaws are and where they come from.
What compelled me to Desmond:
Nolan North’s Voice
He’s voiced by Nolan North and I’ve been in love with Nolan North’s voice since I played Spec Ops the Line. Haha, no, that’s half a joke and my obligatory “Nolan North fangirling” out of the way. Also, no joke, Nolan North was able to give Desmond a compelling voice that helped mold his character in my eyes and ears. I never once heard Desmond speak and thought "oh, that's Nathan Drake" which is funny since Nolan North uses similar voices for the two of them. With what he's given, Nolan North was able to make Desmond unique from his other characters, making him a charming and adorable dumbass with more depth than he usually shows.
Endless Potential
This was what compelled me to him because his part in the series felt like it was building for something more. If we were to believe what Nolan North said in this video (around the 33~34 minute mark), Desmond was meant to have a bigger part in the story. The ultimate Assassin with the ability to time travel, most probably to help change the past and tragedy of his ancestors and to usher in a brighter future for the Brotherhood and mankind. The one who will finally end the endless war between the Assassins and the Templars.
But then Ubisoft screwed that up and wasted Desmond’s potential.
But from their actions were born endless potential. For as long as there are fans who create new stories with Desmond in them, Desmond lives up to that endless potential. By destroying Desmond’s potential, Ubisoft unintentionally created a character with endless potential given to him by those who create stories where he is resurrected or never died in the first place.
And that endless potential is what brings new ideas and scenarios for our dear poor Desmond to get involved with. XD
Desmond and His Ancestors
Kenway-Patented Daddy Issues
So let’s start with Ratonhnhaké:ton because there are some people who say that Desmond and Ratonhnhaké:ton are quite similar to one another but, let’s be honest, most of those comparisons stem from their similar ‘tense’ relationship with their father. Desmond and Ratonhnhaké:ton mirror each other because of that relationship and they showed two contrasting ‘endings’:
Ratonhnhaké:ton had wanted to build a bridge between himself and his father but ended up killing Haytham because of their differences and their stubbornness to yield to the other’s wishes and demands.
On the other hand, Desmond let go of whatever animosity he felt for his father and made up with him in the end even though there have been hints of how deeply Bill mistreated his son (either thru neglect or actual abuse is up to interpretation) that should have been given more time to talk about than... two-ish voice messages.
This is more my opinion but Desmond forgiving his father and trying to make amends is because he wished to grant Ratonhnhaké:ton’s wish in some form. Perhaps even his Bleed of Ratonhnhaké:ton is the reason why he felt the desire to make amends because he’s seeing a lot of Haytham Kenway in Bill. In his Bleed-’corrupted’ mind, this could be counted as Ratonhnhaké:ton getting his wish.
The Legend Everyone Wants Him To Become
Lucy said it herself, they’re using the Bleeding Effect to jumpstart and cheat their way into making Desmond an Assassin. But is that really their end goal? Sure, Lucy had the ulterior motive of the Templars wanting to get the POE that had been under Ezio’s care but the Assassins themselves want Desmond to become an Assassin as quickly as possible.
We can even make an argument that they want Desmond to not be an Assassin like Ezio Auditore but to be Ezio Auditore.
Because Ezio Auditore was seen as a success story by the Assassins. They didn’t know how he had almost been so close to giving up the Creed during his later years, they didn’t know how he left the Brotherhood because he had enough…
They remember Ezio Auditore as this great man, this legend.
And the Bleeding Effect gave them the tool to try and recreate this legend in Desmond Miles.
Also, the way Lucy, Shaun, and Rebecca supported Desmond is similar to how Mario and the members of the Italian Brotherhood in AC2 supported Ezio.
In some ways, they were using Desmond/Ezio to get what they want. Desmond and Ezio are the ones risking their lives the most (either in the field where anything and everyone can kill him with Ezio or in a high-tech device that could destroy his mind with Desmond) while their allies kept information from them “until the time is right” (mostly Bill and, by extension, Lucy) and supported them from the shadows instead.
The Distorted Mirror
For me, Desmond is actually more of Altaïr’s foil and a distorted mirror image of Altaïr because:
Both of their mothers are quite the blank slate with Maud only known as a Christian member of the Levantine Brotherhood but never confirmed to be an actual Assassin while Desmond’s mother has never been officially called an Assassin, only a member of the Brotherhood like Maud.
Both were born and raised in Assassin ‘strongholds’, isolated from the rest of the world. How similar their upbringing was is open for interpretation but, considering how Desmond never talked about any specific children from the Farm and didn’t talk about his life as a bartender or any of his coworkers and the only person that treats Altaïr like an old friend was an informant in Damascus (if we do not count Rauf who looks like he’s friendly with everyone and Kadar who is more on the side of hero-worship for Altaïr than being a friend of equal grounds), we can safely assume they were both lonely (especially after Abbas and Altaïr’s friendship went to hell).
Both of them were trained to be Assassins at an early age but where Altaïr thrived and became one of the best Assassins in the Levantine Brotherhood (and, later on, in history), Desmond saw himself as a failure.
Speaking of which, they both have father figures who trained them to be Assassins but where Al Mualim succeeded in creating a valuable weapon, Bill failed.
Both of them, at some point in their lives, thought about running away. Altaïr had been ready to leave Levant with Adha but stayed instead after her death. Desmond, on the other hand, actually ran away and created a new life out of the reach of the Brotherhood.
Altaïr is known for saying “How can I regret the only life I have ever known?” which echoes Desmond’s regrets of running away from his Assassin lineage.
Desmond had talked about how he wished people had told him things, had explained things to him, and given him information that would have made him understand that the Assassins and Templars were real. He even tells Shaun that he would have loved to have been a know-it-all in the Desmond_01.WAV in AC Valhalla. Altaïr is known to hoard knowledge (his library) and is a scholar as well. They both desired knowledge but where Altaïr sought and hoarded it, Desmond simply… wished for it.
There are other comparisons of how similar they are but distorted in some way to make them unique from one another (like how their canon love interest (sorta in Desmond’s case) died because of them in some form or another) but those are some of the major ones in my opinion.
So, you might be wondering, why did I focus so much on Desmond’s ancestors when this is meant to be a character analysis of Desmond himself?
Because that is one of his flaws.
Desmond has and will always be compared to his ancestors, both in universe and in meta. One can only imagine how Desmond felt about being compared to his ancestors.
Well...
We can actually guess how he felt about that because...
Another one of his flaws is how he saw himself as a failure and his feeling of being never enough, of being a failure stems from, you guessed it, William Fucking Miles:
I—I had failed you, and you KNEW it. But you said nothing. I stayed mad. For weeks. I thought you were...you were patronizing me. I thought maybe you decided right there that I was never going to be the man you wanted me to be... (Noob’s Personal Files: "Subject Zero" - audio file 3)
The rest of the audio file talked about how Desmond had misunderstood Bill’s actions but what kind of upbringing would he have to have had that his first thought when he was praised was that it was a lie? Instead of immediately believing the praises given to him by his own father, he assumed that he had failed and his father had given up on him?
Desmond couldn’t even see his own accomplishment:
Desmond: I wanted out. I wanted my own life. To live my own way. Sixteen years old. And where was I going? No idea. Just away. That's it. That was the plan. Not much of one. They never guessed what I was doing, because I didn't know what I was doing. I just walked right out. Someone realized I was gone. They shouted. I started running.
William: Desmond! Desmond!
Desmond: I just ran and ran and ran. All that training was finally worth something. God, it was so dark when I left. And the forest... endless. I didn't dare take the roads.
Mother: Desmond, where are you?
Desmond: Mother, calling out. Begging me to stay. But I wouldn't. I followed the hills down. Down until I hit a stream. I followed that to a river, and from the river to an old access road. I walked for hours that day, the summer sun keeping me warm well into the evening. Found a clearing after dark. Fell asleep beneath the stars. Never had a quieter night. Not before or since. Walking, too scared to hitch a ride. What the hell was I doing? Lost in the badlands for a day. Felt like a week. Endless ocean of wrinkled earth. Can't believe a place could look so dead. (AC Revelations Escape)
A secured location run and protected by adult Assassins couldn’t catch a 16 year old kid? Even if it’s just his parents who went after him, two adults with more experience couldn’t catch him? This only shows that Desmond had the skills. A sixteen years old who had NEVER left the Farm further than what his training and his parents had allowed was able to evade those who were training him his entire life.
Yet, he still thought that he had been a failure. That memory of Bill praising him for doing a good job and him believing that Bill had given up on him stayed with him and made him believe he was a failure for a very long time.
And this was a man who stayed out of the whole Assassin and Templar business for nine years until he grew complacent and tried to treat himself with a motorcycle license (which might show how bored he was with his life as a bartender and wanted some excitement in his life… like a really fast vehicle)
Bill described Desmond as:
This... boy had no ambition. No direction. No plans for the future. What he DID have was a heritage. One he chose to deny. (AC3 Intro)
But then you get to Desmond’s audio files in AC Valhalla where he talked to Shaun about what the Creed means and he says this:
Anyway, my dad has mellowed over the years. But he was strict when we lived on the Farm. He ran a tight ship. I never got the impression that I was free to choose my path forward. Our creed, our tenets, they were drilled into my head. By the time I was a teenager, I was following these rules out of a sense of duty. This was... just what we did. (Layla Hassan’s Personal Files Desmond_01.WAV)
Just like Altaïr, the life of an Assassin was the only life Desmond had and he felt like he never had a choice. He was envious of Shaun who decided to become an Assassin out of his own free will.
But running away?
Denying his lineage?
That was the very first ‘choice’ he ever made for himself.
And this brings us to what Desmond desired most of all:
His “I wanted my own life.” in AC Revelation’s Escape is another excuse he tells himself. Because what he truly wanted was:
A Place to Belong.
After nine years of being away, my old bitterness was back. I was tired again. I didn't want to admit that moving forward might mean taking a step back. But the shine of the city had faded. The freedom I felt was hollow without old friends, without family. (AC Revelations Regret)
But then Desmond started saying these lines:
And suddenly, I wanted it all back. All that training, all that time. But I couldn't. Those days. They were gone. (AC Revelations Regret)
Not until you guys found me. Yeah. It wasn't until I met you and Becs and Lucy that I knew... I knew I wanted to be an Assassin. (Layla Hassan’s Personal Files Desmond_01.WAV)
I know my easiest days are behind me. But I don't want them back. Not now. My name is Desmond Miles... and I am an Assassin. I AM an Assassin. (AC Revelations Regret)
But then compare that to how Desmond was in AC1:
Lucy: Why'd you run away?
Desmond: I could never leave the compound. You have any idea what it's like being trapped in a place, knowing there is a whole world out there I'd never get to see?
Lucy: Don't you miss your parents?
Desmond: No. Far as I'm concerned, they weren't my parents. They were my wardens and I was their prisoner.
Lucy: It sounds like they only wanted to protect you.
Desmond: With all that's happened... I don't know. I guess they were right. (AC1, after the first memory block)
What changed?
Is it because Desmond knew what it was like to be part of a team? Of what it’s like to be an Assassin?
Yes but it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
Desmond felt like he belonged with the Assassins but he made one big mistake: he thought he meant the Assassins as they were are right now.
But what he truly desired, the place that he believed he could belong was the Brotherhood of olds.
The Levantine Brotherhood under Altaïr as the mentor.
The Italian Brotherhood under Ezio as the mentor.
Those were the 'memories' he had of what it meant to be part of a Brotherhood.
Then he started reliving Ratonhnhaké:ton’s life (one who did not have a Brotherhood, instead a village that left him behind and an old man too jaded to truly guide him without letting his past and guilt drive a wedge between them) and those messages he left for Bill? The acceptance? The forgiveness?
They were created after experiencing the pain and loneliness that Ratonhnhaké:ton went thru. It was created after he felt the sorrow of having a father that will never accept him for who he was.
They were left by a man who felt the regrets of someone close to him, could feel himself be him at times, and wished for another ending.
A… happier one.
Desmond’s line of
My name is Desmond Miles... and I am an Assassin. I AM an Assassin.
Becomes bittersweet because, yes, he had accepted who he was meant to be from the start but, thanks to the Bleeding Effect, we never got to know if the kind of Assassin he was ever meant to be was one that was truly Desmond Miles or…
Someone trying to live up to the memories of his ancestors.
