Hard one. It's a tough sell and hard to get right as it requires a certain change of perspective. Using Benoch as an example, if that book had a sequel detailing her assignments in which she occasionally had to perform an assassination against an enemy of the empire or such like yet at the same time detailed life as a Blade complete with all that honour stuff, I probably would love it. The problem would arise if it were asserted that she was part of an elite unit specifically trained to perform those stealthy tasks alone. That kind of goes against the idea, you know?
As a field agent she would need to be have a versatile skill set due to often working alone in potentially hostile situations. So to me it's more like the order would consider her skillset an asset rather than needing to put her through an assassination training regime. It's hard to describe but I imagine she would have been recruited by spotters who saw she had a good and loyal heart but also possessed skills the Empire could benefit from. The distinction is subtle but fits the overall concept better I think.
I read a book series starting with Knights: The Eye of Divinity (it was a free kindle book about knights so I couldn't resist) and in that book the knighthood is broken down into colour groups: red are the heavy hitters, brown are the defenders and so on. Blue knights were trained in stealth and assassination and the main character's moral objections to being put into this group were vaguely interesting. Yet even though I understood the sense in the knighthood's desire to have such trained individuals, I never quite got over my revulsion.
See, the very word assassin brings with it particularly nasty connotations. In modern media they are seen as cool as shit, but mostly I view them as murderers with a fancy name. Needing to take out a powerful enemy for reasons of state may require the use of an assassin but it would probably be quite rare to actually do this. I think the lore will back me up on that. If Tamriel had as many assassins in it's province as we have on this site alone I'd wager there'd be no leader left to kill. Emperors and kings have been assassinated in lore of course, but in each case it is an event worthy of note as it happens infrequently at best. Why would the empire need a dedicated group to do it?
Yet if you were to present that idea in a way that doesn't just scream "if knights are cool and assassins are cool, how much cooler would a knight-assassin be?" I would be impressed. Unfortunately that was the trap the Eye of Divinity series fell into.
If you look at the Morag Tong you may see why I like that group but dislike the Dark Brotherhhod. For the Tong there is an element of honesty. Yet for the Brotherhood that honesty is hidden behind mental illness and sadism. Neither could be considered morally good groups, but at least the Tong have honour.
So yeah. Hard to answer, harder to present well and get right. It could be my British sense of politeness but even in the James Bond films there is an element of leaving the distasteful words unsaid. That Bond needs to infiltrate, secretly kill and withdraw is sort of left unsaid. Rather, he is an operative who is given wide operational freedom and told to get results. If that result is the death of an enemy to the crown then so be it, it was the only way. Yet he isn't trained to just get that one result. Make sense?
Hard one. It's a tough sell and hard to get right as it requires a certain change of perspective. Using Benoch as an example, if that book had a sequel detailing her assignments in which she occasionally had to perform an assassination against an enemy of the empire or such like yet at the same time detailed life as a Blade complete with all that honour stuff, I probably would love it. The problem would arise if it were asserted that she was part of an elite unit specifically trained to perform those stealthy tasks alone. That kind of goes against the idea, you know?
As a field agent she would need to be have a versatile skill set due to often working alone in potentially hostile situations. So to me it's more like the order would consider her skillset an asset rather than needing to put her through an assassination training regime. It's hard to describe but I imagine she would have been recruited by spotters who saw she had a good and loyal heart but also possessed skills the Empire could benefit from. The distinction is subtle but fits the overall concept better I think.
I read a book series starting with Knights: The Eye of Divinity (it was a free kindle book about knights so I couldn't resist) and in that book the knighthood is broken down into colour groups: red are the heavy hitters, brown are the defenders and so on. Blue knights were trained in stealth and assassination and the main character's moral objections to being put into this group were vaguely interesting. Yet even though I understood the sense in the knighthood's desire to have such trained individuals, I never quite got over my revulsion.
See, the very word assassin brings with it particularly nasty connotations. In modern media they are seen as cool as shit, but mostly I view them as murderers with a fancy name. Needing to take out a powerful enemy for reasons of state may require the use of an assassin but it would probably be quite rare to actually do this. I think the lore will back me up on that. If Tamriel had as many assassins in it's province as we have on this site alone I'd wager there'd be no leader left to kill. Emperors and kings have been assassinated in lore of course, but in each case it is an event worthy of note as it happens infrequently at best. Why would the empire need a dedicated group to do it?
Yet if you were to present that idea in a way that doesn't just scream "if knights are cool and assassins are cool, how much cooler would a knight-assassin be?" I would be impressed. Unfortunately that was the trap the Eye of Divinity series fell into.
If you look at the Morag Tong you may see why I like that group but dislike the Dark Brotherhhod. For the Tong there is an element of honesty. Yet for the Brotherhood that honesty is hidden behind mental illness and sadism. Neither could be considered morally good groups, but at least the Tong have honour.
So yeah. Hard to answer, harder to present well and get right. It could be my British sense of politeness but even in the James Bond films there is an element of leaving the distasteful words unsaid. That Bond needs to infiltrate, secretly kill and withdraw is sort of left unsaid. Rather, he is an operative who is given wide operational freedom and told to get results. If that result is the death of an enemy to the crown then so be it, it was the only way. Yet he isn't trained to just get that one result. Make sense?
I think Pelinal earns some points because he was honest and never pretended to be anything other than what he was. Unlike assassins.