Assassin's Creed III (2012 Video Game)

Danny Wallace: Shaun Hastings

Quotes 

• Shaun Hastings : So this is how it started...

  Desmond Miles : What are you up to?

  Shaun Hastings : Just brushing up on my American history, I... I say history. They certainly teach you strange things in the States.

  Desmond Miles : Like what?

  Shaun Hastings : Well-for all the talk of this being a "revolutionary" war, it was more of a civil one. Well, not THAT kind of civil. I mean there was no America versus Britain. It was Brit on Brit action. And you can clearly see how the whole thing got started: One war gave birth to the other.

  Desmond Miles : You mean the Seven Years War?

  Shaun Hastings : Exactly. Seems the Crown overspent in its attempt to keep the French out. Wound up with a great deal of debt. Believing that the Colonists should help to shoulder the burden, new taxes were created. It was a reasonable request-even if Parliament was rather, well, undiplomatic about it.

  Desmond Miles : It's not really fair to tax people for a war they didn't want any part of.

  Shaun Hastings : What? Didn't want any part of? Did you not notice George Washington with Edward Braddock? He was right in the middle of it! So here you have the Crown spending who knows how much money to secure a place for the Colonists to thrive-and then when they ask for a little bit of help... Right, look, think of it this way. King George and the Colonists, they all go out to dinner, right. And when the bill comes, George asks them to kick in and pay their share. Fair enough! But keep in mind, his family's been taking them out to dinner gratis for decades now. But the Colonists, oh no, they insist they only had a glass of water and a side salad. Never mind the table is full of half-eaten food and empty bottles of wine. And then when the King points this out, what do the Colonists do? Oh! They flip the table over and storm out of the restaurant-probably intending to return later and burn it down.

  Desmond Miles : You left out the part where the King pointed a gun at the Colonists and forced them to cover dinner for everyone at the restaurant.

  Shaun Hastings : Riiight. Right, yeah. Interesting take. If he pulled out a gun-and it's not fair to say he did-it would only have been after the 100th failed attempt at getting them to pay their fair share.

  Desmond Miles : But how do you define someone's fair share?

  Shaun Hastings : With a war, apparently.

• Shaun Hastings : We hear it today too, that matters of civil rights and equality must wait. There are conflicts to settle, economies to salvage. What do any of these things matter if the people are not free and equal? All of them?

• Rebecca Crane : Look on the bright side, no security to worry about.

  Shaun Hastings : And on the not-so-bright side, the slightest misstep means that you're effectively paste.