Ratonhnhaké:ton, better known as Connor Kenway was an Assassin who worked for the Colonial Assassins, and later the American Assassins, from 1754 to 1865. He was also one of the longest serving and one of the oldest members of the Brotherhood of Assassins. He was born to a woman from the Kanien'kehá:ka Native American tribe, after she met a man named Haytham Kenway, a son of Assassin Edward Kenway and a member of the Templar Order. While he likely would never have become an assassin himself, after the Templars burned his village and killed his mother and everyone else he knew, Connor joined the Brotherhood to get revenge for his people's death, which eventually led him to a confrontation with his own father. While he initially intended on retiring from the assassins after he succeeded with his revenge, but by the end he decided that ending the Templars in the colonies wasn't enough and that the new fledgling nation still needed his services, so he kept working as an assassin and eventually rose to the rank of Master and even eventually became the Mentor of the American Assassins.
Connor was present for several other major events that America was involved in, the two biggest being the War of 1812, 29 years after the end of the American Revolutionary War, as a Master Assassin, and 50 years after the end of that war the American Civil War, as Mentor of the American Assassins. It's during this conflict he met his end at the hand of the British Templars who unofficially supported the Confederate States of America, but not before officially passing on the title of Mentor to his daughter, and charging her and his other children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to train up Emma Thompson to eventually become the Mentor herself.
In his younger years Connor never saw himself having a family of his own, as he dedicated so much of his life to the Brotherhood. However, in his mid thirties, he did eventually find a wife, who was a woman also part of the Brotherhood, Mary Smith, and they had six children. Only two of them survived childhood, Elizabeth Kenway and George Kenway. Beyond that, Connor ended up having twelve grandchildren, twenty great grandchildren, and thirty great great grandchildren. Many of them chose to follow in his and his wife's footsteps, but not all of them did. By the time of the American Civil War, many of the most skilled and famous Assassins in the Brotherhood, and feared by the Templars, were a part of the Kenway lineage, thanks to Connor. And in the present day he has hundreds of descendants, making his linage of assassins on par with the Auditore and Ibn-La'Ahad line of assassins.
Biography[]
Legacy[]
Personality and Traits[]
Trivia[]
Name[]
- Early on, several news media and publishers, including Ubisoft, gave Ratonhnhaké:ton's adopted name as Connor Kenway. In-game, Ratonhnhaké:ton was never shown to adopt his father's surname, which was later mirrored by Ubisoft's official Assassin's Creed Facebook page in 2013. However, this stance seems to have changed, as in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed: Rogue, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Assassin's Creed: Nexus VR, and the concept art entries in Assassin's Creed III Remastered, Ratonhnhaké:ton is consistently referred to as Connor Kenway.
- Unlike several known Assassins, including Aquilus, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Ezio Auditore, Aveline de Grandpré, and Nikolai Orelov, whose names were connected to avians, Connor is an Irish name originating from Conchobar, meaning "lover of hounds" or "wolves".
- According to Ubisoft, "Ratonhnhaké:ton" (pronounced Ra-doon-ha-ge-doon) means "life that is scratched", referring to his struggle to survive. "His spirit has emerged" or "he has begun to live" are equally valid but less poetic interpretations of his name; Haudenosaunee names are not meant to be literal and encourage one to think about how they want their name to shape them. Since every Mohawk name is unique, Ubisoft agreed not to trademark the name.
Personality and Relationships[]
- Series lead writer Corey May intended for Connor to be more thoughtful due to his upbringing, and to consider different perspectives. He added that Connor is motivated by a desire to fix the problems in the world that he feels no one else is willing to do anything about, and that this idealism "makes him a little bit naïve, that he thinks that one person can make a difference, but he clings to that belief and remains very firm in his convictions, so I think it makes him endearing in a way that previous Assassins haven't been."
- The developers considered giving the character a love interest in The Tyranny of King Washington and Aveline de Grandpré in particular for the role. However, it was decided the characters' motivations and personalities were too different from each other.
- Connor historically skinned every animal he killed, as leaving a hunted animal unskinned resulted in desynchronization.
Voice and Character Design[]
- Voice actor Noah Watts based Connor's voice on actor Wes Studi's portrayal of Magua in the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans, particularly his matter-of-fact delivery of the line "When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart." Watts also chose to emphasize the fact that English was the character's second language by avoiding the use of contractions early in the story. By the end of the main story, and certainly during the events of The Tyranny of King Washington, Ratonhnhaké:ton has increased his usage of contractions, such as when he yells "That's it!" before smacking a soldier.
- Connor's rock climbing animations were based on video reference of free solo climber Dan Osman.
- Lead Game Designer Steven Masters mentioned that Connor could originally scalp his opponents,, a feature that was seen in the demo footage where he scalps a Redcoat officer and gives the piece to Washington, but it was removed from the game since Ubisoft's Mohawk consultants felt that it was an unusual thing for their ancestors to do and Ubisoft agreed that it was too brutal for Connor's character.
- Character Designer Jeff Simpson expressed difficulty in creating Connor, as there were no Mohawk Americans in the development team, despite them being multi-cultural.
- Connor was initially meant to be purely Native American until the team chose to make him a British-American.
Others[]
- If Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is synched to Assassin's Creed III, the exclusive mission "Connor's Way" appears with Connor as the playable character. However, the reason why Desmond is unable to relive that particular memory is never explained. It can be inferred that this memory was not crucial to Desmond's efforts in obtaining the Grand Temple Key, with it being subsequently overlooked by the Animus.
- Connor was voted Best Game Character at the Virgin Media Awards, and was nominated for Character of the Year at the 2012 VGA Awards. In his nomination video, Connor thanked Ubisoft's developers for creating him and the world he lived in alongside the Easter egg of an Assassin Turkey. In his unused acceptance speech video, Connor thanked the fans, before using the award to counter-kill some British Regulars.
- Connor is unique amongst the ancestors that Desmond viewed, as neither of his parents had been Assassins. However, Connor did have ties to the Assassins, as his grandfather Edward Kenway became a member of the Assassin Brotherhood after his travels in the West Indies.
- Connor's stature, while not officially revealed by Ubisoft, can be easily determined by comparing him to George Washington during cutscenes. George Washington was historically 6'0 (1.83m) tall, which he reveals in a letter to his tailor Charles Lawrence on 20 June 1768, and given that both men are eye-to-eye, this also makes Connor stand at 6'0 (1.83m) tall.
- James Nadiger revealed on Twitter in March 2019 that Assassin's Creed: Initiates was initially supposed to feature more of Connor's story in his later life, as revealed through the perspectives of characters around him, like Eseosa. After creating a fake Abstergo Entertainment program called "The Sad and Lonely Death of Ratonhnhaké:ton", as shown in the Assassin's Creed Unity: Abstergo Entertainment – Employee Handbook, Nadiger wanted to slowly reveal Connor's real story through Initiates, showcasing that he became one of the greatest Mentors in the Brotherhood's history. This would have showcased Connor's family and friends alongside the role of the American Assassins in pivotal events such as the War of 1812 and would explain that the Davenport Homestead vanishing and Connor dying alone were ruses to elude the Templars. Initiates was cancelled before Nadiger could finish what he planned, although more of Connor's life was eventually shown in the fourth and final issue of the brief comic series Assassin's Creed: Reflections.