The Main Character of The Novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 17.2 Nopember 2016: 218 - 227
The Main Character Of The Novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag
Putu Gede Budiartha1*, Ketut Artawa2, Nyoman Udayana3 123English Department Faculty Of Arts, Udayana University 1[[email protected]] 2[[email protected]] 3
Corresponding Author
Abstract
Penelitian ini berjudul The Main Character of the Novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengidentifikasi kualitas sebuah karakter terutama karakter utama dalam novel dengan menganilisa karakter tersebut dengan 3 aspek dimensi yakni phisiologi, sosiologi dan psikologi serta menjelaskan masing-masing aspek dari karakter tersebut. Sumber data diambil dari novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag novel yg memiliki judul yang sama dengan game yg dibuat oleh Ubisoft Entertainment. Teori-teori utama yg digunakan dalam penelitian ini diadopsi dari teori 3 dimensi karakter yg dikemukakan olen Fulfer (1996) dan Kretschmer (1925) dalam aspek phisiologi, oleh Egri (1987) dalam aspek sosiologi, dan oleh Bernhardt (1953) dalam aspek psikologi. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode laporan kualitatif. Diawali dengan membaca novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag dan memilih beberapa kalimat yang mengandung nilai ketiga aspek tersebut.. Setelah itu, mencatat data yang berhubungan. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa karakter utama dalam novel tersebut memiliki nilai ketiga aspek tersebut dan memiliki jalan kehidupan yg unik dan kompleks dalam cerita novel tersebut.
Kata Kunci: Novel, Karakter utama, 3 aspek dimensi karakter
Literature has three major genres; they are drama, prose fiction, and poetry (Wellek and Warren, 1962:229). Novel is fictional process that mostly describes character and introduces more than one impression, effect or even emotion. Furthermore novel accumulates incident and illustrates character overtime and allows a slower unfolding of character, incident and ideas for the reader. It is considered to be interesting since it presents many things about real life experience.
Novel is a kind of literary works besides play and poem. As the others it produced by human mind and soul. It depicts all about human life whether about intrapersonal or
interpersonal relationship. “The novel is a picture of real life and manners and of the time in which it was written” (Clara Reeve, 1785). In the imagination process of making novel, the author never leaves his/her background of life as the important element. Therefore, actually novel is one of the ways for human revealing his/her story of life, whether it’s about love, hate, sadness, loneliness and friendship.
Character is all the qualities and features that make a person, groups of people, and places different from others (Hornby, 2010: 234). In other words, a character is one of the most important aspects of prose which expresses author’s thought with the degree of morality in behavior and role (Reaske, 1970: 40). Character can be discovered the writer’s feeling of love, scorn, distrust, and hatred of various features of real world (Reaske, 1970:174). On the other hand, it has a potential to arouse fresh opinion, emotion, and good feeling. In addition, there are a number of characterizations in presenting the character, which are: discursive, dramatic, character on other characters, contextual and mixing method.
In this writing a novel entitled “Assassin’s Creed Black Flag” was chosen to be analyzed. It was a fiction-fantasy novel written by Oliver Bowden. His novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag turns out is commercially very successful. It was a best-seller in US and many other country, all thanks to the game with the same name developed by Ubisoft Entertainment. This study focused on Edward Kenway as a fiction main character and other supporting characters that coincidentally have a non-fiction or real world history counterparts such as Blackbeard, Benjamin Hornigold and etc.
Based on the background mentioned above, there are two problems formulated, as follows:
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1. How is Edward Kenway as a fiction main character described in terms of physiological, psychological, and sociological dimensions?
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2. How is the struggle for survival on the part of the main character presented in the novel?
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1. To analyze the physiological, psychological and social dimension of Edward Kenway as the fiction main character.
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2. To find out what Edward Kenway did to survive in the novel.
In this research, the data were taken directly from the Novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag is a novel written by Oliver Bowden, released in the UK on 7 November 2013 and the US on 26 November 2013. The novel focuses on the events of the game of the same name. His novel is very well known and have a good response from the Assassin’s Creed series fans and even the common reader. The data collection of this paper was done by using library research. First, the novel was read and then the data was collected by marking/quoting the sentences in the novels which are related to topic. Second, the data was written on a paper and then it was classified based on their relationship to the theory.
After the data were collected and classified based on their relationship, then all the data was analyzed qualitatively by using the theories of Lajos Egri in “The Art of Dramatic Writing”. According to Egri, well defined characters will drive the plot themselves, and so the foundation of character is the essential germination of a well-crafted story. Then, the data was analyzed by supporting theory which proposed by Wellek and Warren (1976)“The Theory of Literature” in order to support analysis and obtain conclusion.
This part deals with the result and discussion of the analysis of Main Character of the Novel Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. The data were taken directly from the novel itself. There were three aspects of character dimensions.
In this session, the main character that is mentioned above is analyzed based on the three dimensions or aspects such as the physiological, psychological and sociological aspects.
Physiological aspect regards with physical appearance of the characters.
The initial appearance of Edward Kenway is described as a typical Pirate man, with a rough face, blond hairs, and brown skin but he is quite handsome and charming. Look at the following description:
Father and Mother used to say I had the gift of the gab, and Mother in particular used to tell me I was a good-looking young man, and that I could charm the birds off the trees, and it’s true, even though I do say so myself, I did have a certain way with the ladies. Let’s put it this way, dealing with the wives of the merchants was a more successful hunting ground than having to barter with their husband. (Page 10-11)
And later with a little touch of Assassin’s style after he wear Duncan Walpole’s outfit or robes specifically. Look at the following description:
I buried Senor Duncan Walpole. I owed him that much at least. He went out of this world the way he’d arrived-naked-because I needed his clothes in order to begin my deception and, though I do say so myself, they were a perfect fit. I looked good in his robes. I looked the part. (Page 156)
Sociological aspect is anything from the environment that gives feedbacks to the development of one’s character which based on social background namely social activity, religion, nationality, race, occupation, environment and other.
Edward lived in Kenway’s family in a village called Hatherton, Bristol England. He came from a quite famous and rich enough family in Bristol. The wealth came from his family smallholding keeping sheep and livestock. His father also entrusted him to make a trip to the town with the merchandise, haggling with merchants and traders, bargaining and cutting deals.
Home was on the outskirts of a village called Hatherton, seven miles outside Bristol, where we ran a smallholding keeping sheep. Father’s interests lay in livestock. They always had, so having me on board had freed him from the aspect of the business he most despised, which was making the trips into town with the merchandise, haggling with merchants and traders, bargaining, cutting deals. As soon as I’d come of age , by which I mean, as soon as I was enough of a man to meet the eye of our business associates and trade as an equal, well, that’s what I did. And father was all too glad to let me do it. (Page 10)
Hetherton was described as the place of Edward Kenway where he spent his life as a farmer. It was an ideal place and families for the most part managed their own affairs. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations. Below is the following example of it:
In the autumn we’d bring the rams through to the pasture to graze with the ewes, so that they could get on with the business of producing more lambs for the following spring. Fields needed tending to, fences and walls building and repairing. In winter, if the weather was very bad, we brought the sheep into the barns, kept them safe and warm, ready for January when lambing season began.(Page 12)
Edward is a kind young man and quite friendly to those who understand him most like his family and his fellow shipmates. He always respectful toward anyone else and very polite indeed. He also have a gift that makes him quite easy to make a friendly relationship with anyone he met even though it was just for his own profit and advantages but nevertheless he never look down on friendship and loyalty. Here is the example when he firstly met Stede Bonnet:
Stede Bonnet it turned out, had not only lost his crews but had no skill sailing. I had saved him from having his ship commandeered by the English, but to all intents and purposes I had commandeered it myself. We had one thing in common. We were both heading for Havana, and his ship was fast and he was talkative but good company, so we sailed together in what was a mutually beneficial friendship – for the time being at least. (Page 161)
Even though he always want to gain profits for helping someone else like with Stede Bonnet did, Edward never turn blind eyes on someone else even if the situation is bad enough for him as well. Like his encounter with his first Quartermaster Adewale in the Brig that belongs to Torres as a fellow prisoner:
His name was Adewalé he told me as he opened the shackles. I thanked him quietly, rubbing my ankles and whispering, “Now, what’s your plan, mate?” “Steal a ship,” he said simply. I liked the sound of that. First, though, I retrieved my robes and hidden blade and added a pair of leather braces and a leather jacket to my ensemble. Meanwhile my new friend Adewalé was using the keys to release the prisoners. I snatched another set from a nail on the wall and joined him. (Page 212-213)
The term psychology is related to that branch of knowledge investigating and studying human behavior and activities in which the behavior and activities are the manifestation of the psychological state. Psychology is a part of the scientific attempt to understand the world in which we live and ourselves and other people as a part of that
world. It is also closely related to the social sciences. (Bernhardt, 1953: 6-8)
Personality deals with qualities of a person. It is that which permit a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation. As a young farmer boy back when he was still in Bristol with his parent, Edward always felt different and want to be someone else because he always believed that he is destined for a great things but he cannot express his thought back then.
Because the truth was, I thought I was different. No, I knew I was different. There were times I’d sit by myself at night and know I was seeing the world in a way that was all my own. I know what it is now but I couldn’t put it into words back then, other than to say I felt different. (Page 13)
Despite the vested interest of both the Assassins and the Templars in the veteran pirates, Edward remained steadfastly focused on his own goals: power, infamy and proof that he was better than he was born to be. Edward was also one to take any advantage afforded him, twisting the meaning of the Assassins' Creed to suit his own ends. Only after losing his friends and compatriots to greed and glory-seeking did he recant his previous behavior, and come to realize what the Creed truly promised: the power to make himself better than he was.
I shook my head. ‘For years I’ve been rushing around, taking Whatever I fancied, not giving a tinker’s cuss for those I hurt. Yet here I am…with riches and reputation, feeling no wiser than when I left home. Yet when I turn round, look at the course I’ve run...there’s not a man or woman I love left standing beside me.’(Page 393)
After the price that he must pay for his own greed and profit, he was determined to put an end for all of the problems that he caused and did it in Assassin’s way which is shown below:
Now was the time to start putting things right. It was time to tie up loose ends, to take care of business; it was time to begin wrecking my revenge: Rogers, Torres, Roberts. They all had to die. (Page 397)
Behavior was the way of treating others, namely manners. It can be explained by motive and intention that support the action (Hornby, 1980, 96). Over the next few years, Edward struggled with the internal conflict that arose from his desire for fame and riches - through finding the Observatory - and his duty to his friends. After losing nearly all of his closest friends, he realized the folly of his quest for glory. He then joined the Assassin Order, hunted down the Templars in the region and entrusted the Observatory to the Assassins.
I took the Jackdaw in pursuit, my heart sinking as with each passing hour there was no sighting of Torres, and with each passing hour we grew closer to Tulum. Would he find it? Did he already know where it was? Had he found another poor soul to torture. An Assassin? We came around the coast of Tulum, and there was Torres’s galleon at anchor, smaller consorts bobbling by her sides. We saw the glint of spyglasses and I ordered hard port. (Page 413)
Emotion deals with strong feeling of any kind: love, joy, hate, fear, and jealousy (Hornby, 1989: 394). Anger motivates individuals to fight, to hurt, to attack and to say things that would be beneath their dignity if they were not dominated by emotion. The novel described that Edward Kenway both as a pirate and assassins had passions and ambitions to fight the whole things that related to the enemy. He became an addictive person to whatever that caught his eyes such as gold, treasure, and the prize for those who can win the cold fight between the Templar Order and Assassin’s Brotherhood, the Observatory. He always curious about something that smell like a treasure. Below is the example of it:
“Have you ever heard of a place called The Observatory?” I asked them. I’d been thinking about it a lot. At its mention there was a flicker in James Kidd’s eyes. I shot him a glance. He was young—about nineteen or twenty years old, I’d say, so a bit younger than I was, and, just like me, a bit of a
hothead. So as Thatch and Hornigold shook their heads, it was he who spoke up. “Aye,” he said. “I’ve heard of The Observatory. An old legend, like Eldorado or The Fountain of Youth.” I ushered them to the table where, with a look left and right to see if any of the king’s spies were in residence, I smoothed out the picture purloined from Torres’s mansion and placed it on the table. A bit dog-eared but still—there in front of us was an image of The Observatory and all three men looked at it, some with more interest than others and some who pretended they were less interested than they really were. (Page 222)
Motive is something which causes somebody to act in a particular way, reason (Hornby, 1989: 808). For Edward, everything that he did had a motive. He sail to the sea, leaving everything that his parents work for behind, and even his wife because he saw something in the sea, something that he believe can grant him wealth, fame and honor as a great person. It was so strong that it overcome his fear. Only prize and treasure that motivates him the most from the first until the middle chapter within the novel, but after so many betrayal and conflict that cause him suffered enough until he lost so many friends and comrades that he finally knew what motivates him the most is the creed as an assassin and as a honorable person to solves everything right and avenge his friend’s death.
I had suggested it to Caroline, of course. Me becoming a privateer. While she hadn’t said no—she was still my wife, after all—she hadn’t said yes, and in her eyes was the doubt and worry. “I don’t want to leave you alone, but I can leave here poor and come back rich,” I told her. Now, if I was to go, I went without her blessing and I left her alone in a farmyard shack. Her father would say I had deserted her, and her mother would despise me for making Caroline unhappy. I couldn’t win.(Page 62)
When he finally settled everything, by killing Robert and Torres, his only motivation is to live the rest of his life with his daughter Jennifer Scott who arrived in his settlements from England to see his one and only father. Caroline was passed away in recent years and that is what motivates him to look after his one and only daughter and swore to protect her and live normally in England. Here is the example:
A little vision, you were. Jennifer Kenway, a daughter I never even knew I had. Embarking on a voyage, which went against your grandfather’s wishes but had your grandmother’s blessing, you’d sailed to find me, in order to give me the news. My beloved was dead. (Did you wonder why I didn’t cry, I wonder, as we stood on the dock at Inagua? So did I, Jenny. So did I.) On that voyage home I got to know you. And yet there were still things I had to keep from you because I still had much I needed to do. Before, when I talked about having loose ends to tie, business to take care of? Well, there were still more loose ends to tie. Still more business to settle. (Page 422)
Based on the analysis above, Edward’s character was not absolutely bad, he also had some good qualities. As a human being, sometimes he made mistakes because his pride, ego, greed and even his emotional feeling. Instead of his bad qualities, Edward also had some good aspects. He sacrificed his own dream and goal to avenge his friend and choose to serve the Assassins Brotherhood to put an end to the war which he was in. The quest to prevent the Templar to obtain the Observatory had a deep influence on the Main character. Physically, he lost his life as a privateer and pirate. Sociologically, he lost his family and his companions who always stand beside him but he still had a few of friends to help him for survival during the quest. Psychologically his personality, behavior, emotion and motive of doing something had changed because of the price that he must paid for his own ego and greed. He even had power and ambition to destroy the Observatory or claim it for himself but decide to give it to the Assassins Brotherhood to safeguard it as a wise man he already become in the end of the story.
Bowden, O. (2013). Assassin's Creed Black Flag. United Kingdoms: Penguin Books.
Kenney, W. (1966). How to Analyse Fiction. New York: Monarch Press.
Warren, R. W. (1955). Theory of Literature. London: A.W Bain.Co. Ltd.
Wood, J. (2008). How Fiction Works. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. p. xiii.
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