Ratonhnaké:ton facts for kids

Ratonhnaké:ton, also known by his adoptive name Connor, is a fictional character in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video game franchise. He is the protagonist of the 2012 installment Assassin's Creed III, where he is portrayed by Native American actor Noah Watts through performance capture. Since the game's release, the character has made smaller appearances in several other works within the franchise and various merchandise of the character, as with the series' other protagonists, has been released.

Within the series' alternate historical setting, Ratonhnaké:ton is an assassin who was active during the American Revolutionary War. A member of the Kanien’kehá:ka Tribe, he joined the Assassin Brotherhood in order to protect his village from the Templar Order, led by Charles Lee, training under assassin mentor Achilles Davenport and assuming the more Western-sounding pseudonym of Connor. During his hunt for the Templars, Connor unwittingly became an important figure in the American Revolution after aiding the Patriot movement and saving the life of George Washington, though he later learned that Washington, not Lee, was responsible for burning down his village and becomes disillusioned with the movement. He is the son of one of the game's antagonists Haytham Kenway, the grandson of pirate assassin Edward Kenway, the protagonist of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and an ancestor of Desmond Miles, the protagonist of the modern-day portions of the first five main games in the series.

Creation and development

Ratonhnaké:ton, also known as Connor, was conceptualized as an individual with mixed Mohawk heritage to fill the role of an outsider for its American Revolution setting. In developing Connor and the other Mohawk characters of the game, the team worked with the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk community near Montreal, contacting some of the residents to help translate Mohawk dialogue, and hired a Mohawk cultural consultant from the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, who ensured the characters were authentic and the team avoided stereotypes. In spite of the extensive research they have conducted into Mohawk culture and language, the team did not want Connor to be defined solely by his heritage. Alex Hutchison, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed III, said in a 2012 interview “I think that’s what attracted a lot of the groups to work with us. We had this idea that we’re just going to have a character, he’s a real character, he’s part of a 30-hour story, and you follow his whole life–and he’s also Native American [...] It’s not a cardboard cutout.”

Name

"Ratonhnhaké:ton" (pronounced Ra-doon-ha-ge-doon) means "life that is scratched", referring to his struggle to survive, though "his spirit has emerged" or "he has begun to live" are equally valid but less poetic interpretations of his name. In the early life of the game, 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. However, this stance seems to have changed, as in Black Flag, Rogue, Unity, and the concept art entries in Assassin's Creed III Remastered, Ratonhnhaké:ton is consistently referred to as Connor Kenway.

Portrayal

Connor is voiced by Noah Watts, who also physically portrayed the character in a motion capture studio. Watts originally got a call from his agent about an unnamed film set during the American Revolution and, eager to star in a period-piece film, went to the audition, unaware it was actually for Assassin's Creed III. He began his work with Ubisoft for the title in January 2012. Despite his Native American heritage, Watts is not a fluent speaker of the Mohawk language as he is a member of the Blackfeet Nation, and required a language consultant to help him get Connor's lines in Mohawk correct. Watts, a fan of the Assassin's Creed series, enjoyed his time voice acting and performance capturing for the game, and appreciated the opportunity to portray a Native character in such a public platform.

Watts explained that he based his portrayal of Connor on Cherokee actor Wes Studi's work in the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans, particularly his matter-of-fact delivery style. He also chose to emphasize that English is the character's second language by purposefully not using contractions early on in the story and by implementing them towards the end of the game to signify how Connor's vocabulary has improved and developed over time.

Appearances

Assassin's Creed III

Ratonhnaké:ton was born to Kaniehtí:io, a Native woman and member of the Kanien’kehá:ka Tribe, as the result of a brief relationship she had with the British Templar Haytham Kenway. Raised in the village with his mother, Ratonhnaké:ton was attacked by a group of Templars lead by Charles Lee when he was four years old who were seeking an Isu site which was rumored to be nearby. After being knocked unconscious, Ratonhnaké:ton awakens to find his village in flames and witnesses his mother's death, leading him to believe Lee and the Templars are responsbile and later prompting him to seek justice for his people and fight tyranny whenever he came across it. When he was thirteen, the clan mother confessed that their tribe had been tasked with protecting a piece of the Apple of Eden, an ancient Isu artifact, which gave him a vision in which he was told to seek out the assassin's and prevent the Templars from gaining access to the Grand Temple. Explaining this vision to the clan mother, she directed him to a homestead east of the village.

Crossing the American fronteir, Ratonhnhaké:ton eventually reached the home of Achilles Davenport, a former Master Assassin, who was initially resistant to training him, though relented after Ratonhnhaké:ton helped him to fend off a bandit attack. Achilles gave Ratonhnhaké:ton some assassin robes and a hidden blade and told him of the conflict between the Assassin's and Templars, highlighting the leaders of the Colonial branch of the Order: Thomas Hickey, John Pitcairn, William Johnson, Nicholas Biddle, Benjamin Church, Charles Lee and Ratonhnhaké:ton's father Haytham Kenway, their Grand Master. As Achilles began to train him, he suggested that Ratonhnhaké:ton take on the name of his late son Connor in order to more easily move through Colonial circles.

Other appearances

In addition to his appearance in Assassin's Creed III, Watts also portrays Connor in the 2012 spinoff game Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, the events of which occur concurrently with III, and in the Assassin's Creed III downloadable content Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington which was released in 2013. Watts also portrays Connor in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Connor is also an unlockable playable character in the mobile game Assassin's Creed Rebellion.