Motivations

During our classes with Tiffany, I started thinking of one more aspect of my paper. One of the main differences betewwn dictators shown in both Assassin's Creed and Star Wars is their motivation.

In Star Wars, Chancellor Palpatine had varous reasons for gaining power. First of them was relligion and ideology. He was a Sith, which means he believed that the world should work with natural law of nature, were the stronger ones decide about the lives of the weaker ones. The democracy and the Jedi Order were institutions that tried to defy that law and they had to be eliminated.
His other motivation was racism. The Republic was about equality of all citizens and Palpatie was disgusted with most of them and also he believed in human supremacy. In the Empire, all important state postitions were held by people.
Apart from that, it was Palpatine's goal to gain power. He did not have to use it, but his desire was to simply have it.

Things are completly different when it comes to Haytham Kenway, leader of the Templar order in Assassin's Creed. His only motivation was ideology. We know he was not racist, as he had an affair with Native American woman and he was not led by any religious drives. He did not even want to have power - his only aim was for the rules of his view of the world tobe implied. He wanted the administration of a new country that was formed during the War of Independence to gain a strong controll over its citizens and limit their freedom in order to bring peace, justice and order.

This is an important issue, because it is obvious that Palpatines ways are bad and Americans would oppose such rule but Connor, who is like an embodyment of American way of thinking, also opposes Haytham's views. This is because Americans value freedom more than any of things Kenway proposed.

Bibliography

When it comes to bibliography, I managed to gather some materials. First of all, there are two really interesting articles on official Star Wars web page. One about the fall of democracy in the Qrequel Trilogy and one about the rise of the Empire. Both of them describe things I would like to mention in my paper and both use examples from our history.

http://www.starwars.com/news/corruption-exploitation-and-decay-the-politics-of-star-wars

http://www.starwars.com/news/from-world-war-to-star-wars-rise-of-an-empire

Also, I would like to add to the bibliography a fragment of the documentary I described last time.

Apart from that, I encountered a book with an interesting title: “Star Wars and History”. I found it on Google Books, but there were only some paragraphs of the whole text. Luckily, I found some chapters that might be useful in the table of contents. If I manage to get this book somewhere, I will probably use it in my paper.

Moreover, I want to use some entries from Wookieepedia, Star Wars wiki made by fans and Star Wars Databank from the official Star Wars web page.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Palpatine

http://www.starwars.com/databank/emperor-palpatine-darth-sidious

Army

 I was inspired to write this note by fragment of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0jkSZZW7rk&index=22&list=WL

1:00:59 – 1:11:52

In order to gain and sustain control over a state, the dictator often needs an army. In Star Wars, at the beginning of new trilogy, there was no army on the scale of the whole Republic – separate systems and great companies, like Trade Federation, cared about their own safety. In the situation of crisis, Jedi Knights were summoned. Jedi Order was an institution of wizard-like monks skilled in both fighting and diplomacy. Chancellor Palpatine knew Jedi would not serve his purpose so he needed to get rid of the Jedi and replace them with an army.

He prepared a plan of achieving it a long time before it was set in motion. He managed to manipulate one of Jedi Masters into creating in secret an army of clones for the Republic and then, he assured the Jedi Master is killed, so the army stays secret. But still, even as the Chancellor, he could not simply give clones an order to terminate all the Jedi and serve him only. He needed more power and some justification of his actions in order to achieve his goal.

In "Attack of the Clones", a Separatists movement is created. It was secretly inspired by Chancellor Palpatine himself. It is common in the history, that dictators gain their special powers during some crisis. And so it is at this case. Two attempts on the life of one of the senators and discovery that Separatists are preparing an army to threaten the Republic and make it fulfill their demands was such a crisis.

When the Jedi discovered the army of clones, they had means of defending the Republic. The set up for the war was done. In order to imply the clone army as the army of the Republic, Chancellor Palpatine was given special powers by the Senate for the first time. He did it and The Clone Wars began. Just after the first battle, where Jedi fought alongside with clones, Chancellor proposed them to became commanders of the army as they were the only ones skilled in fighting that Republic had. Thanks to that, some Jedi died during the war and the attention of the media was focused on the Order, not on the chancellor who was gaining more and more power during those three years of warfare.

In “Revange of the Sith”, Chancellor conducts his plan. He reveals his true identity to one of the Jedi and when they come to execute him, he manages to survive and then he had an evidence of Jedi treason. He used it to give the clone army all over the galaxy to execute all Jedi and than he uses his emergency powers to reorganize the Republic into the Empire.

Connor's speech and King Washington

When it comes to DLC to „Assassin’s Creed III” titled „Tyrany of king Washington”, I reconsidered using it at all in my paper. At first, after watching the whole plot of the game on youtube, I was willing to get rid of it completely, as you it was suggested to me. There are no wise discussions about dictatorship as those in the original game, it’s just some vision of alternative history. But then I realized I don’t have to analyse the whole thing in my paper. It appears to me that I may simply mention that such a game exists (and perhaps briefly explain the plot) in conclusion of 1^st chapter (the one about Star Wars). When I speak of G. Washington, comparing him toChancellor Palpatine. It might strengthen the argument George Lucas put in the prequel trilogy, but it might be just unnecessary giving too much attention to this part of the paper. I’m still not sure about it.

Speaking of “Assassins Creed”, I rediscovered an epilogue speech delivered by the main protagonist, Connor. It is available on youtube, but doesn’t actually appear in the game itself as it was deleted from it. Luckily, some fans discovered audio file with it, and finally it appeared in the book adaptation titled “Forsaken”. I find this speech an important asset to my hypothesis that the Assassins have no argument against the dictatorship in a form that the Templars wanted to imply it. Just listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59vyPocZQQ

P.S. I did not change the layout of the blog, but everything apperas to be fine on my computer. I suggest trying to zoom in or out or opening the blog on other explorer if adding comments still doesn't work. I have no ideas what else might be done. 

Dictatorship

Dictatorship. That concept has been thought provocking to me for a long time. It all began when I saw how many weaknesses the democracy has. When I saw how minority becomes a majority and gains rights thanks to politicians who need as much support as they can obtain, I started to wonder for how long will the people agree for that. When we hear about immigrants in western countries who gain more and more citizenships and get right to vote, they grow in power. When their number reaches at least a few percent of the society it becomes easy for politicians to lure them and make them vote for them. If any politician doesn't promise anything special for immigrants, he has no chance of gaining their support so his chances of winning elections get lower. In Poland, we don't have many immigrants yet but we suffer the same problems as we are ruled by politics who will never do anything that would solve Silesian problem. If anybody tried it, they would certainly loose all the support from Silesia and its inhabitants would make as many protests and strikes as possible.
Not so long ago, famous Polish journalist - Mariusz Max Kolonko - published a video where he says about how weak is the democracy in Poland and that what we need is a good dictator (watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6oKzHQG3tY). As I am raised on Star Wars I would strongly disagree with that opinion. I even had an opportunity to write an artictle about it (watch here: http://sw-extreme.com/article,4612,dyktatura-w-odleglej-galaktyce.html).
Also, Max Kolonko speaks that Americans are unaware that George Wahhington was - in a way - a dictator. That is not entirely true either. As a proof I could speak of a DLC (Downloadable Content) for a video game "Assassin's Creed III" titled "Tyranny Of King Washington" (official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3_LmgbYvWo). Trailer speaks for itself - Americans know that who has the complete power and loalty of the army, could rule the country. We saw it in our history as well. The role of Wahsington was indeed vital as he created an important tradition of limited number of terms in office which is now used worldwide.
When it comes to Assassin's Creed, where are also some more and less important dialogues about both democracy and dictatorship as the game is about the struggle between Templars who want to give peace and sefety to the society by ruling it with tyrannious ways and Assassin's who see freedom as the only way of achieving peace. The plot of third part takes place in America. It begins at the time of French and Indian War and ends just after the War of Independence. One dialogue between half-Indian Assassin and his Templar father struck me really strong:

[T]emplar: We worked to see this land united and at peace. Under our rule all would be equal. Do the Patriots promise the same?
[A]ssassin: They offer freedom.
T: Which I've told you - time and time again - is dangerous! There will never be consensus, son, amongst those you helped to ascend. They will each differ in their views of what it means to be free. The peace you so desperately seek does not exist.
A: No. Together they will forge something new - better than what came before.
T: These men are united now by a common cause. But when this battle is finished they will fall into fighting amongs themselves about how best to ensure control. In time it will lead to war. You will see.
A: The Patriot leaders do not seek control. There will be no monarch here. The people will have the power - as they should.
T: The people never have the power. Only the illusion of it. And here's the real secret: they don't want it. The responsibility is too great to bear. It's why they are so quick to fall in line as soon as someone takes charge. They WANT to be told what to do. They YEARN for it. (...)
A: So if we are inclined by nature to be contrled, who better than the Templars? It is a poor offer.
T: It is thuth! Principle and practice are two very different beasts.
A: No, father... You have given up - and would have us all do the same.
T: Even when your kind appears to triumph... Still we rise again. And do you know why? It's because the [Templar] Order is born of the REALIZATION. We require no creed. No indoctrination by desperate old man. All we need is the world to be as it is. This is why Templars will never be destroyed!

For now, we know no other alternative to democracy other than dictatorship. That is why I think American democracy is so strong - it is (in a way) close to dictatorship. The President is quite powerful in USA. That is why the concept of democracy is so important there - they are close to dictatorship and they have to be carefull not to get too close. This is also an important plot of Star Wars, so I could use some of it.

I have two main concerns:
- I need at least 2 books for my paper. I have no idea what to use. If I get desperate, I could use book adaptation of Assassin's Creed but I hope I will find something better.
- I neet to form some topic. Something that would make sense and connect all those things I spoke of above and mix them into one argument.