Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Part 1-4
So maybe our little get-rich-quick scheme didn’t go according to plan. Maybe he were taken prisoner by the people we intended to rob.
No worries. We’ll just keep stealing until it sticks. We’re pirates, after all.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
I don’t think I could ever reasonably call Ubisoft socially conscious, especially in light of recent legal troubles. And yet, every now and then they touch on some interest facet of history that reaches into the modern day. This is one of those times.
Most pirates were ordinary people who signed on to perform service in the Navy. When their service was over, and their home country refused to pay the commission they were due, these people, already armed with weapons and ships, turned to piracy as a way to get by. They were turned criminal out of necessity.
And for this reason, since most pirate crews were just trying to survive, it wasn’t unusually to see people (usually, not always men) of minority groups among them. Adewale’s entry into the pirating life was fairly common for real people in his situation: Slaves who escaped and found opportunity among those pushed out into the margins.
By the laws of the age, all of these people were criminals. As depicted in fiction, pirates are romantic freedom seekers playing by their own rulebook to cut their own slice of heaven out of whatever opportunity arises. Both of these interpretations have merit, but the actual history is far more complicated than either viewpoint would lead one to believe.
It’s part of why piracy has maintained its luster in the realm of fiction for as long as it has.
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