I realized that Ratohnhaké:ton's story is another level of tragedy and trauma, but he had encouraging figures along the way. AC3 is as much a story of community and the village raising the child as it is about fighting to protect that village (figuratively and literally).
Imagine watching your mother burn to death in front of you after being attacked by a bunch of men in the woods when you're fucking four years old; that alone would have me killing and eating people. That level of trauma is enough to set anyone on a maladapted path rife with severe emotional development roadblocks.
But no. He grew up to be -- yes, stoic, traumatized -- driven for the rest of his life by tragedy, but instead of becoming numb to it or becoming part of it, he fights to prevent it. He keeps an open mind toward others' ideology. It doesn't stop him from forming meaningful bonds. Knowing that Haytham sent him to die didn't stop him from wanting the chance to work with his father.
It's because of those around him.
It's in the narrative from before he speaks his first word. Kaniehtí:io shares her fear that her clan would treat him differently because of his heritage, because his existence is formed on taboo that she broke -- but they don't. They love him all the same. The first inkling of his existence is unconditional love.
After she dies, we don't see the rebuilding of the village, but we do see his candid conversations with Kanen'tó:kon and Oía:ner. Once more, nothing about their interactions conveys anything but trust. He shares his fears with them. Oía:ner agrees that he find Achilles, despite her wariness of breaking their semi-isolationist policy. Kanen'tó:kon keeps his spot in the longhouse open for him. A longhouse they rebuilt from the ashes of their burned kin. All signs of people who held each other up as they recovered from a tragedy.
Even up until Ratohnhaké:ton starts attacking his clanmates, Oía:ner greets him with nothing but welcome, and expresses that she considered and followed his direction by letting Kanen'tó:kon work with Charles Lee.
Don't get me started on Achilles. I know parts of the fandom talk about how he discourages Ratohnhaké:ton at several points, might have manipulated him by getting him involved with the Assassin-Templar conflict, and how they can't go through a single scene without arguing, but the one thing that transcends every one of them is that Achilles does treat him as his own son. Lessons, guidance, discouragement against what he thinks is folly, keeping the door open for him -- all of it.
And Robert Faulkner taking his kid under his wing and teaching him the ropes, entrusting his Aquila with him into adulthood. Sailing with him through a war, even when the fucker wants to ram a bunch of man-o-wars and bombard a goddamn fort. What a madman, Robert Faulkner probably thinks, let's fucking GO. He helped groom this kid into leadership, with a whole-ass crew that would readily follow him into the madness.
(Also, I don't like praising white people for doing the bare minimum of not treating BIPOC like shit, but like. In a world where it inevitably happens and the colonists know Ratohnhaké:ton on sight as "half-breed," Faulkner did That too.)
Ratohnhaké:ton is met with tragedy from young in so many ways that could have easily turned him into someone who's like Haytham at best. He could have been a master manipulator, a man who follows the Order even after losing his faith in it, the kind of man who kills in front of children, whose greatest act of kindness was not letting his son die. Or God forbid, something worse. But because of the village, what came out was compassion.
