YMMV / Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

• Accidental Aesop: The first Cristina mission. After Cristina rebuffs Ezio's clumsy advances, he follows her to her house. Coincidentally, Vieri is waiting for her there in order to rape her. Ezio beats him up, and Cristina rewards him with "a second chance" and a Smooch of Victory. What have we learned? That if a beautiful girl ignores you, you are justified in stalking her; that this is for her own good anyway, since her beauty will naturally attract possessive creeps from whom she will need defending; that intervening when someone is about to be sexually assaulted is "very kind" (as opposed to "the least anyone should do for any fellow human"); that in your crush's eyes, this act will completely cancel out the fact that you followed her without her knowledge or consent; and finally, that instead of being freaked out by these events (and by men in general) for a while, she will instead suddenly desire you and invite you to court her favour. Kinda like The Twilight Saga.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Yes, Leonardo da Vinci designed a tank and a machine gun. And, if you haven't played Assassin's Creed II, a flying machine now equipped for aerial bombing.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Like his father before him, Cesare is a letdown gameplay-wise. He's essentially a reskin of the Longsword-wielding Papal Guard with extra Health but no unique abilities or moves of his own, and while he can deflect Ezio's grab attempts, and is immune to executions or counter kill attempts, he doesn't perform the grab or sand toss that regular guards do use from time to time, nor does he counter Ezio's attacks (like guards in AC2 could) or kick to break Ezio's defense (like Ezio's apprentices can). As such, the battle amounts to whittling down his Health, interspersed with two or three QTEs (just button mash the Weapon Hand button) while small groups of Regular guards, Agiles (rarely) or Brutes (somewhat more so) spawn with increasing frequency.
  • Taken to new heights with Ercole Massimo, Big Bad of The Da Vinci Disappearance DLC and leader of the Hermeticists. You don't even have a proper swordfight with him. You kill a bunch of his disciples, and then he cowers on the floor in front of you offering weak excuses for his actions before you kill him. To add insult to injury, he's not even the final encounter of the DLC, as there's an extensive platforming section afterward.
• Camera Screw: Usually you can turn your camera with the mouse, and move Ezio by issuing commands relative to the camera. However in some platforming situations the camera will fixate at a specified angle, which is deliberately done to give you a clear view of where you're supposed to jump. This in turn leads to situations where the command for "going forward" from Ezio's point of view is now "right", because you cannot turn the camera, and input is relative to it. Especially annoying in situations where you're under pressure, because it might lead to you suddenly jumping in the wrong direction. The PC-version suffers the most from this, because you have no analogue stick to fine-tune your directional commands, and have to very carefully adjust your directions with the keyboard.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Somewhat muted compared to the AC2 example. On the plus side, the beggar women from AC1 return in addition to the Minstrels from AC2, so you can pummel them as well. On the minus side, while the guards still don't mind if you start a fist fight, it isn't completely penalty-free as doing so raises your notoriety.
  • The level in which you take control of Leonardo's tank and cut down vast swathes of troops, taking down many of the Goddamned Bats in the process. Even Ezio agrees. (Averted if you go for Full Synchronization, which requires taking no damage while controlling the tank, making the memory a great deal more annoying.)
    Ezio, to the tank: I wish I could keep you.
• Complete Monster:
  • Il Carnefice (''The Executioner") is an executioner in the service of the Borgias who expresses brutality and enthusiasm in his work. Given a list of people to execute by Fiora Cavazza, he tells her a sick joke that she is on the execution list, leaving her horrified; since Il Carnefice is illiterate, he doesn't go over the list and just executes who he wants, regardless of guilt or innocence, displaying the chopped body parts of his numerous victims to the crowds. He would also rape an innocent women before hanging her, and sends his men to kill her grieving husband when he tries to remove her corpse from Il Carnefice's noose.
  • Brotherhood novelization, by Oliver Bowden: Cesare Borgia is the sadistic son of Rodrigo Borgia, who manages to surpass him in wicked ambition. After Cesare kills his brother to take his position as Captain General of the Papal Armies, Rome runs rampant with murder, slave trading, and chaos under his watch while he plans to expand his tyranny over all of Italy. Hearing about Rodrigo's defeat by Ezio Auditore, Cesare attacks Monteriggioni, killing hundreds, including Ezio's uncle. Cesare also forces Ezio's friend, Leonardo da Vinci, to build him destructive weapons, which Cesare uses to conquer regions throughout Italy, killing thousands. Cesare later murders his own father before brutalizing his sister to learn about the Apple's whereabouts. Arrested for his crimes, Cesare later kills his most loyal ally after he breaks him out of prison, before commanding a king's army to lay siege to Viana.
• Creator's Pet: Salai, Leonardo's lover in the DLC. He's lazy, spoiled, spends Leonardo's money, can't keep his mouth shut, isn't helpful in a fight or for finding Leonardo. But at the end Ezio tells Leonardo that he thinks Salai fits Leonardo.
  • On the other hand, however, he WAS the one to think of Leonardo's possible use of Invisible Ink and suggest that Ezio use his Eagle Vision to find hints of it in the recovered paintings (which earns a funny "he told you about that, too?" from Ezio). Salai can be just as smart as Leonardo when he chooses to apply himself. The problem is that most of the time, he chooses not to.
• Die for Our Ship: You wouldn't think it; but Caterina and Cristina have received flak from certain fans who preferred the idea that Ezio was more intimate with Rosa (even though Caterina/Ezio was more Friends with Benefits, and Cristina/Ezio were Starcrossed Lovers, meaning neither of those pairings worked out). It doesn't help that Rosa is absent from the events of Brotherhood (save a passing mention in the novel). Unfortunately, the real reason Rosa was never mentioned was due to the death of her voice actress, Lita Tresierra, before the game was released.
• Even Better Sequel: Assassin's Creed is a good game, Assassin's Creed II is a great game. Brotherhood is awesome. It polishes and refines the gameplay of the second game while adding property management, better customization, the possibility of silent range kills with a crossbow, a vast recreation of Rome to explore and take over and most of all, the chance to recruit and upgrade your own squad of Assassins that you can call in at any time for backup or to assassinate someone for you.
• Game-Breaker: All of the Game Breakers from AC2 can still be used in Brotherhood. In addition, the new executions/kill streak and Assassin recruit mechanics can make combat significantly easier. However, there are certain conditions that diminish or negate their usefulness.
  • Kill streaks are somewhat mitigated as enemies being able to end the kill streak such as by hitting Ezio during his execution animation against someone else, grabbing him, dodging, being immune to counters mounted on horseback or just being far enough away.
  • Killstreaks become even more broken when you realize that if you're wielding a sword or a knife, holding the attack button after a kill results in an animation where Ezio kills the next guy and another one with the gun/knives - and can do it again immediately afterwards. The virtual training Kill X amount of enemies levels become a breeze when you can kill 2-3 enemies at a time, ad nauseum.
  • Assassin recruits of sufficient level can take out large crowds of guards without Ezio's assistance but even an Assassino can be (theoretically) killed in combat, if they fall off of a high-enough ledge/rooftop, or if they're sent out on a max-difficulty mission without enough support (100% success probability is only confirmed with three or more Assassini).
  • The Crossbow may be the game's best new weapon — it locks on very quickly, it can be used for quick "snapshot" kills at even melee or point-blank (grabbing) ranges, it has an extremely high starting capacity of fifteen bolts (upgradeable to twenty-five), it can be aimed from most angles (such as over-the-shoulder or behind Ezio), it is quieter than the Hidden Gun (no Notoriety increase just from firing and less likely to draw attention towards Ezio), it can be used for counter kills in melee, and its shots are a One-Hit Kill against all enemies except Borgia Captains, the bosses and Papal Guards.
  • The timing for the counter-kills with the Hidden Blades has been made noticeably easier (perhaps representing Ezio's decades of experience wielding them). Combine that with kill streaks and still being able to counter any melee attack from any guard, one wonders why Ezio carries any other blades. On the other hand, the longsword/bludgeon ("Medium Weapon") seems to have an even more generous window of opportunity for counters, and both the Medium Weapons and Short Blades can integrate the Pistol and Throwing Knives respectively into their kill streaks. Moreover, Borgia Captains and Cesare Borgia are immune to counter kill attempts, though only Cesare is immune to kill streaks.
  • The Dagger of Brutus. Has the largest window for counter-kills in the entire game, hits for huge damage, and has an increased chance of making enemies break and run, has its own unique and incredibly brutal kill animations. There's a reason why it is the Infinity +1 Sword.
  • The Poison Dart Launcher makes poison so much more useful. You can now poison enemies from afar, with almost no chance of a hostile spotting Ezio, unlike the poison blade where you had to get into melee range. Furthermore, any hostiles around will be distracted as they watch the victim's throes, allowing you to slip by. Contrast with the Hidden Gun, which almost certainly will give Ezio away, and the crossbow which is also likely to be detected. Also, it's always a One-Hit Kill, even on Brutes/Almogavars and Praetorian Guards/Janissaries.
  • ARROW FREAKIN' STORM. Have a full Assassin Signal bar and hold down the signal button for a few seconds and then every guard who has the misfortune of being in the area DROPS DEAD. ^note  On the other hand, this can be incredibly satisfying. Been frustrated by a previous mission, and facing a ton of guards? You could kill-streak through them all, sure. Or you could just go "oh, I so don't have time for this," and hammer that Arrow Storm button.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • The bards from AC2 are back and as annoying as ever. This time they are supplemented by groups of beggars that basically do the same thing in groups. Thankfully the beggars stop spawning as you renovate sections of Rome. The bards, not so much.
  • Rome is much more crowded than either Florence or Venice, and the streets are generally smaller. The player better prepare to use the "push aside" key a lot lest he wants to roll on the ground a lot.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When lowering them into the Temple of Juno via a hidden mechanism, Shaun jokingly tells Desmond; "If you're trying to kill us you're gonna have to do better than that". Moments later, Juno takes control of Desmond's body and forces him to stab Lucy.
  • Shaun saying that the UK is not part of Europe is either this or Hilarious in Hindsight in light of Brexit.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Shaun asks the team in an email chain if they want to go drinking and Rebecca is the only one who agrees to go, joking that it's a date. Come Valhalla, Shaun and Rebecca are married.
• Jerkass Woobie: Lucrezia Borgia is this in her backstory. She winds up getting pregnant by an Assassin, and even though the baby lives thanks to the Shroud of Eden, she's forced to play with the kid while being unable to reveal that she's his mother. After she tells her son "I don't know where your mother is but I know that she loves you" it's kind of hard not to want to cuddle her.
  • Then there's her appearance in The Da Vinci Disappearance. Her whole family is dead, she's lost her homeland, her title is by marriage only, she's an exile in a place where no one loves her, and then she tries to seduce Ezio to make the pain a little less. Even Ezio feels sorry for her.
    Ezio: No man can heal your pain. You must do so on your own.
  • Lanz could count as well, since his reason to being a thief of Cento Occhi was losing his child at birth. And according to Project Legacy, Gaspar de la Croix seems to be one, too, albeit the reason for such is unrevealed, but also seems related to the death of a loved one. By the time he faces Ezio, he's become a wild shooter, firing at anyone who passed by his aim.
• Memetic Badass: The Cardinal you chase in the final Romulus Lair mission is slowly becoming this. A GameFAQs user sums him up pretty well:
  An old man who is agile enough to jump around on rooftops and on scaffoldings while wearing those silly clothes and never lost his breath; who had the balls to just stand there while Ezio screws up a jump and falls; who pushed another loser to his death with a nice taunt; and then finally decided to knife-fight Ezio just for the lulz. And, last but not least, had the best death scene in the game if you threw him off the ledge. Man, I loved that guy.
• Narm:
  • Cesare in general, but especially his so-called Badass Boast when he kills his father.
  • When Stephen Georg played the game and had beaten all the Subject 16 missions, the game glitched. So the characters asked Desmond if he was okay, and he calmly answered he's fine. But actually, he was shaking like crazy, bouncing back and fourth, until he got stuck inside the Animus chair. So even everyone in-game was calm, it was just weird, and their "thank goodness you're fine, now back to work" was just funny, for Desmond was definitely NOT OKAY.
  • While to many they fall into Narm Charm^note They're his Iconic Outfit for a reason, after all, to others Ezio's outfit in this game is excessively ornate - it's a bit more difficult to take the Hidden in Plain Sight gameplay seriously when Ezio is wearing what resembles a pimp's bathrobe.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • A big part of the Multiplayer, since all the players are potentially hiding in plain sight and visually indistinguishable from NPCs. Somewhat mitigated in Alliance and Manhunt modes where the pursuer and target teams are clearly defined, but in full effect during Wanted mode, and possibly more so in the Advanced Wanted mode (which unlike regular Wanted has a less accurate Compass indicator). A major strategy/tactic is to get as close to this ideal as possible, as the player gets more points when they don't use High Profile much or at all while within line of sight of a target.
  • Subject 16's puzzles are chock full of this. "Have a nice day, Mr. Jameson" indeed.
  • Assassins are everywhere. That pile of hay? It's got an Assassin in it. That rooftop garden stall? Assassins. That well? TWO of them. And if you're in the middle of a field with nowhere for them to hide? Sometimes they'll bother riding on horseback or running, other times they teleport in to kill you. Nowhere is safe from the Assassins. Being a soldier for the Borgia had to be a scary job when Ezio was in town.
    • No wonder there's probably more Seekers in Centro District alone than in all of Venice! For all the good that does the Borgia troops when the Assassins can simply shoot them from out of nowhere.
    • Almost as scary as being a Borgia courier, who wasn't even armed — and had probably already heard about their hapless counterparts in Florence and Venice.
  • Try going out with Desmond while he free runs Monteriggioni. Play around with the Eagle vision. It's not like you will see any—wait, are those red footprints? They weren't there before. Holy shit, they lead to the only accessible entrance of the Villa. The Templars are here! Oh shit! It gets worse; those footprints came from the sewers and lead directly to where Lucy stands after talking to her once in that segment.
    • And then it gets even worse at the end when Juno claims, "The cross is obstructing our path," then forces Desmond to kill Lucy. Considering the cross is the symbol for the Templars, and Juno knew everything down to the exact moment when Desmond would resist… can you really rely on Eagle Vision any more? That includes the allegiance of Desmond and Ezio. What. The. Fuck?
    • Still, if you're paranoid enough, there's a lot of what could be subtle hints that Lucy is a double agent. She was able to transfer Abstergo data even though it's not supposed to be possible because "she has her ways", and can still access some of the Abstergo files because "some old passwords still work"? Yeah, that doesn't seem to fit the type of security that, according to AC1, would go into lockdown if Vidic misplaced his password pen. Additionally, during one of the modern day sequences when you leave the Animus, you just can't find Lucy. At all. Where did she go?
    • Even the story set-up for the multiplayer option in the games lends some credence to the possible theory that Lucy was a Templar double agent. What is that set-up? That Abstergo have been using Animus to give Templar agents the abilities of Assassins.
    • Averted: Word of God says that the red footprints have nothing to do with Templars, and are just there to help players find their way back to the Villa. The red color is merely an oversight.
  • As of Revelations, Lucy is revealed to have switched sides, after feeling abandoned by William Miles and the Assassin Order. The only reason she still shows up as blue is because she DOES care about Desmond and didn't intend for Clay/Subject 16 to die. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. As long as the enemy cares about you, Eagle Vision CAN'T detect him/her.
    • As of Assassin's Creed III, a new Fridge Horror is in session: The Apples are sentient and under Juno's control, so they influence everyone holding them and everyone around them subconsciously a la the One Ring, and the commands linger on even if one is away from the P.O.Es. EVERYTHING YOU SEE AND HEAR AROUND OR AFTER COMING IN CONTACT A PIECE OF EDEN CAN BE JUST ILLUSION MADE BY JUNO. So yeah, high are the chances you just killed a innocent Love Interest under control of an Abusive Precursor and her Artifact of Doom, and it keeps inducing illusions to make sure you believe you did the right thing. Oh, and that also means lots of Templars you killed could have just been Brainwashed due to having been in the presence of a Piece of Eden, for years perhaps. That's right, Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia were justk mind-controlled slaves of Juno, and that also applies to Al Mualim.
• Player Punch: The game starts off with the villa and mansion you spent all that time sprucing up being bombed and blown up by catapults and cannon fire. "No, not my roof! Not my art gallery! Not my brothel!"
  • Forget the brothel, that Borgia bastard killed Uncle Mario! No way he lives!
  • Being forced to stab Lucy.
  GO! ALONE!
  • When playing the second Cristina Mission, "Last Rites", when picking up the corpses of Ezio's father and brothers, walk onto the stairwell (below the guards' line of sight) and then turn the camera to 'zoom in' on the faces...
  • The final Cristina mission. You know what's coming, but still…
• Polished Port: The Ezio Collection Remaster enhances the game's visuals as expected from a port from PS3 and Xbox 360 to PS4 and Xbox One, but the real star of the show is when the game is played on Xbox Series X or Series S where it runs at 60 FPS through the FPS Boost program.
• Quicksand Box: Not a serious example since the game does have a fairly well-established goal, but the fact that it has more side quests than a JRPG does give some players a sense of not knowing what to do next, although throughout the story the "next" memory has a specific icon.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Getting 100% sync rate in missions, due to how they tend to demand perfect play in situations where it's just painful to accomplish, and failing requires restarting the entire mission. The most hated are timed parkour dungeons and "Don't take any damage" challenges because some of them are at least partially luck-based, depending on enemy spawns and parkour control oddities.
  • Shop Quests, while a neat idea in theory, often amount to "Find a bunch of randomly dropped items and take them to the shop", which is just fairly obvious Padding. The fact that the game doesn't prevent you from selling these items makes them especially frustrating for first-time players who aren't deep enough in the story to know they're important.
• Shocking Moments: The start of the game. The villa is under attack by the Borgia, cannon fire is ripping the town apart, there's an epic horseback sprint through the city to reach the walls as buildings fall around you, you take command of the cannons to fire back on the massive army the Borgia have sent against you, Mario is killed by Cesare Borgia, and Ezio is shot and, unable to fight properly, forced to flee with his family as the town is destroyed. All bets are off — the Borgia are done playing around.
• Tear Jerker: "Requiescat in pace… my love."
• That One Level: Potentially every mission that requires no damage taken or detection throughout the mission for Full Synchronization. This is especially annoying if the requirement is something that could only happen later in the Memory, since if you get the "full sync failed" notice, to try again for full sync you must play the entire Memory over from the beginning. Also, some people have had Ezio get attacked right after a cutscene in a Memory with a "no damage/don't lose any health" full sync requirement, or even during the cutscene itself (while the screen is still all-white).
  • Conversely, if the requirement is for something early in the Memory, the Chariot Machine Gun (no detection and no killing anyone until after you burn the blueprints) and the Naval Cannon (open one of the three gates yourself instead of the Brute doing so), after completing it you keep the "full sync" even if you get desynchronized afterward, since the checkpoint that you resume from is at or after you met the requirement.
  • It's even worse if there are cutscenes in the memory. You CAN skip them, but if you do the game has to temporarily exit you back to the "White Void" loading space and load up the stage all over again! (At least in the PS3 version) Sometimes its faster to just watch the cutscene than attempt to skip.
  • The part in Sequence Eight where you need to get to the courtyard in the Basilica di San Pietro within a time limit is also very annoying due to its Full-Synch requirement of not killing anyone, combined with the guards getting on your case with abnormal speed. Moreover, to complete that memory you need to be anonymous, and by the time you reach the place there will likely be a lot of guards after your head.
    • To make it worse, you can't hide from the guards to lose your notoriety while en-route. If you manage to hide from them, the instant you lose them, more will suddenly spawn, knowing exactly where you are. You can't actually shake off the guards until you've made it to the courtyard, where you have to be anonymous, meaning you may have then backtrack and make the guards lose sight of you before you can go back… all within that damn time limit.
  • The following mission requires you to complete it without losing any health. You start with dozens of guards closing in, and you're armed with the Apple… which prevents you from using other weapons and depletes your health when used! Meaning that running is your only option. Just hope that you're able to avoid the archers on the rooftops and the agile guards that can just catch you no matter how fast you run.
  • The "Take no damage" requirement is especially irritating in the Tank level of the War Machines missions, where you are required to take absolutely no damage while piloting the tank. In addition to being the later half of the mission (meaning you have a lot to work through again if you fail), you also have to skulk around while piloting the tank itself, turning what should have been a fun rampage into something more like a cover-based shooter. Worse still is the last section where you face not one, but two enemy tanks, meaning you have to dodge both their attacks in order to get the 100% sync requirement.
    • Subverted by the fact that there are only four things that can give you damage: The static cannons (which are fairly inaccurate especially if you don't stay in one place too long, plus they have a 3 second wind up time and a line to tell you where they'll shoot)), running into explosive barrels (which is your own fault), splash damage and/or ramming (shooting an enemy tank while you're right next to him). And the other tank's weapons, and of the four the real threat is the tanks (and only because they're harder to dodge and take longer to kill, they're only slightly more accurate than the static cannons and have the same 3 second wind up time per shot while you only have 1) even then only because Anything else (IE the soldiers trying fruitlessly to shoot you with their guns) doesn't count.
    • If the tanks at the end are too much trouble, there's also a glitch you can use to prevent them from shooting at you.
  • Not to mention that the whole idea of the mission is to destroy the tank, as Ezio indeed does in the final cutscene, so all your efforts are in fact completely pointless.
    • And this isn't half as bad as the Bomber mission with the same requirement. It takes plenty of concentration just to avoid crashing the thing and hitting all the targets (some which are moving and on time limit), let alone dodge the arrows shot at you at the same time. At least with the tank you can stop to take a breath every once in a while.
    • To be fair, crashing or failing to hit your moving target does not effect your full synchronization. Only getting hit by arrows do.
    • The Bomber mission is infuriating to complete without full sync.
    • Attack the wooden guard towers (the sole source of the arrows) as far away as possible (you ARE in the air after all) and never fly straight at the towers. Also, Make sure you kill all the towers first and NEVER get caught in between two of them.
• That One Sidequest: All the Collection Sidequests for the shops are pretty annoying, but getting the two rare Shrunken Heads for the blacksmith beats them all, as one of them is in a Lair of Romulus, and selling either of them will make it impossible to complete that quest, obtain its reward, and thus to 100% complete the main story — which is required for an achievement/trophy.
  • If you have enough patience, you can chase after robbers and Borgia messengers who have random loot. Eventually you may find a Shrunken Head, even though it takes very, very long time. Or you can reactivate the thieves sidequest where you have to beat up members of a rival gang over and over again and loot their pockets every time, thus "farming" until you find what you are looking for.
    • Shrunken heads (and Aconite, which is otherwise only randomly dropped by Borgia messengers) can be obtained if you invest enough gold in certain shops. It takes one million florins to get a shrunken head, and you can only invest in 1 shop every 20 minutes, so you might just want to let the game run and collect money while you're out doing other things..
  • Getting Gold rank on the Virtual Reality missions ranges from moderately difficult (complete an obstacle course in a certain amount of time or complete a course without being detected for example) to "Oh God why?" (get 20 kills without being hit. Yes. 20.)
  • Any Lair of Romulus and/or Templar Lair that requires you to complete it in a certain amount of time for 100% Synchronization. Which, let's face, it, is all of them. In order to make it under the time limit, you have to know 100% where you're going (which is especially troublesome since a lot of them require you carefully gauge your surroundings), not miss ANY jumps or platforms AT ALL, avoid all combat, and add to this the occasional dose of Camera Screw just to piss you off even more.
  • 100% synchronization of Hell on Wheels. This is an optional mission and 100% synch is extremely hard. You have to drive a tank and not take ANY damage. The last sequence requires you to fight two other tanks. What's worse about this is if you take damage even once, you have to start the ENTIRE MISSION over. Not just that part. And that mission is really long, and has numerous points where you will instantly get desynchronized if you get detected.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Cristina missions are meant to portray Ezio and Cristina as Star-Crossed Lovers as she is his Old Flame and the subject of his repressed memories. Unfortunately, they have the unintended side effect of making Ezio come off as quite the scumbag. Despite Cristina supposedly being his One True Love, Ezio has quite a few flings through the years he's separated from her. And while he does encourage Cristina to go through with her new engagement to keep her out of danger, he then proceeds to give her a Big Damn Kiss before cutting off all communication from her for 8 years. And then does it again, only this time making her believe that he is her husband.
• The Un-Twist: Machiavelli turning out not to be a traitor can be this to some, as there was never a real motivation for him to switch sides in the games. It can still be pulled off for the history-knowing players, as Machiavelli's personality, in reality, fell more in line with the Templars and his book The Prince is considered to be about Cesare Borgia.
  • Although the untwist does fit with the theory that The Prince was meant as a satirical Take That! to the Borgias.
    • Whether satirical or just plain pragmatic, Il Principe is only one part of Machiavelli's canon and certainly not the most emblematic of his beliefs. Discourses details the difficulties of trying to run a free republic, and by all accounts both is closer to his actual ideology and disqualifies him from being closer to the Templars ideologically.

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