Edward Kenway for character asks!

ooooooo okay i should open this with a disclaimer: i have not finished black flag yet (about 2/3 of the way through i think? i need to level up my ship so i can beat the next story mission lol) so everything i'm saying here is based on the game up to thatch's death, and everything we know about edward in ac 3: forsaken and the comics that came out a couple years ago.

First impression

oh boy... to be honest, one of the reasons it took me such a long time to get around to playing black flag (it was one of the first ps4 games i bought when i got my console in 2016, and i didn't start until about a month ago) was because i didn't really feel particularly strongly about edward's character design. i was vaguely interested in That One Pirate Assassin Game after having watched (and loved) black sails, but was afraid i would be let down; to me edward just looked like Some Dude, and i was still hung up on the black sails gang. to me, black sails and its characters were so genre/time period-defining that any other piece of pirate media just seemed lackluster in comparison.

i'd also heard a lot of praise for edward and for ac4 in general so i was aware that it was a very popular and well-received game. but since i mostly heard that from reddit (didn't join tumblr ac fandom until odyssey in 2018) i kind of discounted it, bc gamer reddit tastes are... questionable at best.

Impression now

I LOVE HIM!!! i always think i want stories about virtuous characters who believe in goodness and kindness and aren't motivated by gold or glory but aren't afraid to do what needs to be done to help others who can't help themselves. and sometimes that's true (coughratonhnhake:toncough). other times i end up clowning on myself because i realize that it's so much fun when said good/kind character has a rough and rugged exterior, and is motivated by personal gain (i think edward and kassandra are kinda kindred spirits across time and space in that regard, but maybe that's another rant for another time). sometimes you just want someone to be a little bit of an opportunistic bastard, and boy does edward fit that to a T. he's an incredibly complex man, and i think what really got me was that even as he was impersonating assassins and then templars and then assassins again, all for personal gain (pickpocketing the templars in havana while he gains their trust and agrees to do their dirty work lmfao my beloved <3), his primary motivation for doing so was to prove to caroline and her family that he is someone worth a damn, that he is capable of great things and that he is worthy of their love and acceptance. and i know from ac forsaken that the marriage with caroline doesn't last (though i haven't played ac4 far enough to see if that happens on screen, or if it occurs between the game and the novel) which makes his backstory in the game all the more heartbreaking. but his optimism and perseverance and determination to prove himself are all what make me love him.

so that's edward the romantic. now let's talk about the way edward is with adewale, his crew, and his friends. and let's also put the rest of this behind a readmore bc girl i am RANTINGGGGGG

he has several lines that he says to adewale that make me physically cringe (namely: "many of [these men] wouldn't accept you as captain" or "what was it like being enslaved?" like i get that someone like edward would be asking that question in good faith and genuine curiosity but also JESUS CHRIST UBISOFT). but on the flip side - cringey as those questions are, he also takes the time to actually listen and learn, and i think he genuinely values the perspective that he gets from adewale allowing him to open these lines of trust and communication. there's a patience and mutual respect there that i adore.

i also love how much edward loves his crew and his other pirate friends. those scenes of him + kidd + thatch + adewale + hornigold (lol) drinking on the beach and having a grand old time and talking about establishing - to borrow one of my favorite chills-down-my-spine phrases from black sails - a nation of thieves, for people like them to live and prosper, free from the chokehold of civilization. and i know he's not as outwardly invested in counterculture/independence/anticolonialism as thatch and vane and kidd are, but the fact that he so wholeheartedly supports his friends' goals, lofty and impossible as they are, speaks volumes about his love for his friends.

Favorite moment

every scene he has with kidd when kidd casually and softly reminds him that they see that he is a good person beneath his opportunistic and rambunctious exterior. i especially love when they discover julien du casse's mansion containing orders for templars to go out and hunt down assassins: the way kidd immediately knows that edward wants to help the assassins as a way to make up for the damage he did while masquerading as a templar, even if he hasn't voiced it aloud himself. the way that they don't force edward to admit anything about himself before he is ready, but still constantly remind him that he has a good heart. they give him space to come to terms with his compassionate side in a world/environment that more often than sees compassion as something to be stamped out or cast aside. i don’t love when characters are forced to be the Moral Compass for a main dude character, but i think it works for edward and kidd.

Idea for a story

not an edward story per se, but there are 2 povs into edward's life that i would cut off (someone else's) limbs for:

jenny's pov growing up in the kenway household. from haytham's pov it seems that she knows way more about his past than haytham ever did (it was hinted at that there are rumors about edward’s past as haytham was growing up that he wasn’t privy to, but i don’t think at any point in the novel does haytham ever find out definitively that his father was a pirate) and i want to know how she knew so much, and more into what her life was like - through her eyes rather than haytham, who is like 10 years younger and by his own admission barely understands her and barely has a functional relationship with her. i'll expand further on edward and jenny in the next question/prompt/bullet point, actually, bc i have a LOT more to say.

connor's pov learning about his grandfather from... idk? who's around to tell him? what's so goddamn sad is that by the time connor rebuilds the colonial brotherhood he's kinda the only one left. sure there's aveline down in louisiana, but as far as we know everyone who was around in edward's generation is dead now, and i'm not sure how much of the kenway saga is preserved for connor to discover, or if all this information about their family line was discovered in the modern-day, by your abstergo employee character, and later by osto berg in the comics. which is why i so badly want a revelations-style game where connor traces his assassin heritage back to the caribbean, relives some of edward's memories, and then makes the trip to london to see his aunt jenny. it would have been such a cool way to round out the kenway saga.

Unpopular opinion

idk how popular or unpopular this is bc i rarely see other in-depth posts about it on my dash, but edward was a terrible father to jenny. he was every bit the wonderful and loving father to haytham for the 10 years that haytham had a father, but i wish we'd seen more of jenny's perspective than just a few lines of dialogue in haytham's diary: i hate the way edward sidelined her and raised her in the same manner that any other wealthy person of the time would have raised their daughter - that is, for the sole purpose of sitting pretty and marrying her off in an arrangement that would benefit the family. it's especially hard to reconcile because in ac4 there are female assassins in the americas, and there are female pirates in the caribbean, so it's not like edward isn't aware that women have as much right as any man to live life on their own terms. it just seems like by the time he returns to england and settles down with his family, he's reverted back to the societal norms and gender roles that the pirates fought (and lost) against, and it's hard not to be deeply disappointed by that.

to be clear, i don't begrudge edward settling down and becoming a Rich Society Man. dude deserves to live comfortably with his loving family. he has every right to dote on his wife and children, and leave behind the hardships of being a pirate. but i think "fightning against deeply-ingrained cultural norms/expectations is a long and bloody struggle, and after losing so many people he cared so deeply about, i think it's understandable that edward wouldn't want to continue that fight alone (and also adewale is still fighting the good fight) (do NOT @ me about ac rogue I Pretend I Do Not See It)" and "i don't love the way edward sidelined his daughter into societally-expected gender roles she did not want; it makes me think that he did not continue drinking his Respect Women Juice as much as i thought he did/wanted him to" are two opinions that can coexist.

Favorite relationship

i don't know that i ship edward romantically with anyone, actually. i thought he and caroline were cute in the beginning, but it's hard to want to ship them knowing that she leaves him eventually. and ofc there'd edward/tessa in ac forsaken, and we know they were very happy together and that he loved her so so much. but we don't see that relationship except through haytham's eyes.

as for non-romantic relationships, i already talked at length above about his relationships with adewale and the other pirates and kidd, and i'll just leave it at that. i'm also vaguely aware that edward's got some upcoming scenes with anne bonny, but i'm not at that point in the game yet so i don't have much to say about the two of them. so far i've only seen them say a few lines to each other at the nassau tavern.

Favorite headcanon

kassandra absolutely rubbed shoulders with edward at some point during his time in the caribbean; i like to think that she needed to lie low for some reason (maybe she was with the assassins idk) and joined his crew. i just need my best stabby gal and my second-favorite stabby dude to be pals!

finally, this isn't a headcanon per se but it is obligatory that any time i talk about kenways i yell for a bit about the fact that EDWARD WOULD HAVE LOVED CONNOR SO SO SO MUCH AND I'M FOREVER DEVASTATED THAT HE NEVER GOT TO MEET HIM. at the same time, if edward hadn't been murdered and haytham not been indoctrinated into the templars the way he had, i'm not sure connor would even have existed. and in a way i'm glad that edward wasn't around to see how broken and cynical and depressed haytham became, because i think that would have absolutely broken his heart.

send me a character!