On the origins and possible meanings behind the name of Askin’s Völlstandig
The following is more the result of a collaborative effort we had on the Quincy discord server years ago in trying to figure the meaning behind Hasshein - Askin’s Völlstandig. It started from someone online saying that it's related to the Middle East and Assassins. We looked into that. We had an Arabian friend that helped out a lot with translations and more, and reached out to various connections in areas that were above us.
Askin's Völlstandig was originally written in japanese - 神の毒見 (ハスハイン), romanised they wrote it as Hasuhain, then someone changed that to Hasshein and then an English translation of the manga had it as God’s taster.
神 - is Kami (God), の - no (its a link word showing connection), and 毒見 - dokumi (must be taken together here and means taster - the actual job of someone tasting food/drinks to make sure its not poisoned), so God's Taster (as in for food safety, check for poison) is indeed the Japanese meaning - Kami no Dokumi. From here to Hasuhain and Hasshein is more than a long road though.
Hasshein does not exist as a word in Arabic, but we tried several paths. In Arabic, حاش (Hash) has many derivatives and meanings so it took a while to find a good translation for it. حاشين, حسين, حَسُين were some options. It is also difficult to write it with roman letters, we went through Hassuhain, Hashin, Hasine.
By the way, the noun for a taster is ذَواق (douaq), poison is سُمَّ. (sm, with an o sound between s and m), so no chance of these words standing as Arabic origins. Perhaps little relevant but my friends pointed out Japanese sounds more clear in Arabic than English, and the Japanese ‘ha’ can be ‘ha’ in Arabic too, a soft one, هـ instead of حـ. But the Japanese language tends to add extra vowels, while Arabic not so much, so they are not compatible. There is also the way Kubo likes to play with words. If there is any possible relation here I can guess, it is if Kubo saw some Arabic word, and changed it to the Japanese characters that were visually similar to the Arabic ones. Might also be just a word Kubo liked how it sounds. It wouldn’t be the first time he goes on vibes.
We also looked at the German word Hassen (hate), Grim reaper Hater, personification of death but that only led to a dead end (bad dum tss). We even looked into Hebrew until someone mentioned a story about a First Assassin named Hassan and hashish eaters.
It seems in Arabic there is no “assassin” word per se, but words like killer, butcher, homicide (سفاك or safak), BUT there is the word حشيش (hashish) which means drugs. There's also this word حُشاشة (hushasha) which is what little is left of a person in the process of dying.
The story about Hassan however, opened a door. While there is a real history of Hassan I Sabbah of Nizari Ismaili state and the Alamut Castle, there is also a lot of myth and folklore. The following shouldn’t be taken as a certain truth but it makes a beautiful connection to Askin’s character.
As one of our collaborators mentioned, a quick search of the etymology for the English word ‘Assassin’ traces back to Arabic language referring to hashish eaters and the story of Hassan I Sabbah. The words show various corruption of hasisi, al-Hashushuyyun, hashishin.
Entry of OED for ‘Assassin’ gives - *offensive. Usually with capital initial. A member of the Nizari sect of the Ismaili branch of Islam, which was founded by Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ in the late 11th Century and was renowned for murdering political and religious adversaries. historical. Various myths have been perpetuated about this sect, for example that their main victims were Christians, and that they became intoxicated with hashish before carrying out their assassinations.
This clicked a bell for our Arabic friend, sharing the word الحشاشون which they considered weird as most authentic sources don’t refer to them by that name. It revealed however that ‘assassin’ is taken from three arabic words
first is حساسان/hasasan for their leader's name
second is عساسون/assason which is a derivative of العسس who are vigilant protectors of castles and strongholds
and the third is أساسين/assassin who are the founders of the army in the "death castle"
So one could call assassins in arabic الاغتياليون taken from the word اغتيال which is basically assassination.
They were known by this because of their methods of killing leaders of opposing kingdoms by enlisting "martyrs" who would murder these leaders with no regard for their own lives. Marco Polo wrote a story titled Legend of Paradise about it. This is pretty much fiction based on the fact that the castle was burned in 1256, and Marco Polo was born in 1254, so he couldn't have possibly seen this castle of death himself.
The story is pretty much about how the leader had this huge garden that's filled with trees and fruits of all kinds, and rivers of alcohol, milk and honey, and all kinds of beautiful women playing with musical instruments, singing and dancing. All this to make this garden seem like actual paradise to the leader's subordinates. Entrance was limited to whoever was deemed to be a part of this faction and forbidden to anyone else. The leader would order them to enter in groups, drug them with hashish, leave them sleeping, and order for them to be carried into the garden, so that when they wake up they would think they're in paradise. After they took their fill of desires and all that, they would be drugged once again and taken out of the garden to be sent to the leader of the mountain. They would kneel and he would ask "Where did you come from?" and they would answer "From paradise.", and so the leader would send them to assassinate their targets, promising them that if they succeeded in their mission they would be taken back to paradise again, and that, if they were to be killed doing their duty, angels of death would come to them to take them to paradise.
More about the Hassan, the group and their HQ - the Alamut Castle can be found here but I extracted a bit that sheds more light on the context of this tale.
“The Fidais' apparent lack of fear of personal injury or even death could not be understood by the Crusaders, who propagated the black legends of the so-called Assassins. According to Daftary, these were "fictions ... meant to provide satisfactory explanations for behavior that would otherwise seem strange to the medieval Western mind". These black legends were then further popularized in the Western world by Marco Polo, the Venetian storyteller who had, in fact, never investigated Sinan, in contradiction to his claim that he had. Polo asserted that Sinan fed hashish to his drugged followers, the so-called Hashishins (Assassins), so as to fortify them with the type of courage to commit the assassinations of the most intrepid kind.
This tale of the "Old Man of the Mountain" was assembled by Marco Polo and accepted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, a 19th-century Austrian orientalist responsible for much of the spread of this legend. Until the 1930s, Hammer-Purgstall's retelling of Marco Polo's fiction served as the standard description of the Nizari Ismailis across Europe. "The Russian orientalist Vladimir Alexeyevich Ivanov ... gained access also to Nizari literature preserved in Central Asia, Persia, Afghanistan and elsewhere ... compiled the first detailed catalogue of (Nizari and Fatimid) Ismaili works, citing some 700 separate titles attesting to the hitherto unknown richness and diversity of (Nizari and Fatimid) Ismaili literature and literary traditions".
Also interesting fact our Arab friend that did most of the research there said - the word for Alamut there written with arabic letters reads "Eagle's nest" in Persian, but in Arabic it reads as "death", so that would be quite the fit for Sternritter ‘D’ - The Deathdealer.
My thoughts after reading the story are that while Askin wasn't kidnapped and drugged to kill for a fake paradise, he was sort of promised a New World (heaven), and his power of manipulating substances was given by Yhwach, which he had to use for him if he wanted to enter the said New World. It loosely fits Askin’s motivation from canon. Also the second Arabic word makes sense as a vigilant protector of castles and strongholds, Askin being in the Royal Guard, his final task being to protect Yhwach's Royal Palace which became a Castle of Death. Also, as Askin pointed out to Grimmjow, his intention is not to fight but to kill quietly, giving him a strategy more fit for an assassin. There is also Askin's poem, a translation being "Doesn't all that venom make you dizzy?" making a connection with a psychoactive drug/poison (not necessarily hashish).
The word was probably changed to ‘Hasshein’ so it wouldn't be so obviously related to this, 1 - probably because it sounds cool and Kubo liked it, 2 - to avoid any offense like with Yhwach's name that Kubo confirmed it was supposed to be Yahweh.
*A bonus found while researching this is that you can play as one of these assassins in Assassin’s Creed :)
