Character Assassination

Shelly de Killer is the most appropriately named character on this list, and he’s arguably the most considerate. His career brings with it great danger, but he comes from a long line of assassins and is a consummate professional who goes out of his way to ensure the safety of his clients. Shelly performs his jobs cleanly and even leaves his calling card by each of his victims to ensure that his clients won’t be suspected. He’s been known to disguise himself as ice cream salesmen, bellboys, and butlers, but he always retains his calm and collected personality. Shelly seldom shows his emotions, but he has little patience for betrayal. The safety of his clients is paramount, but Shelly will take appropriate measures against anyone who tries to cross him. He considers betrayal to be a crime deserving of death.

Nina was raised in Ireland and received training from her father – who was an assassin himself. At the age of 20, she was hired to kill a famous martial artist named Heihachi. Although she was unsuccessful, she was later hired to kill Heihachi’s son Kazuya. When her sister prevented her from completing the mission, Nina was captured and placed in cryosleep for 19 years. She awoke with a serious case of amnesia, but soon fell back into the role of an assassin. In a cruel twist of fate, Nina was contracted to kill her son who she unknowingly gave birth to via in-vitro fertilization while she was asleep. She had no emotional connection to him, but Nina’s maternal instinct kicked in and she opted not to let him live. I don’t know how Nina continues to find work despite her high failure rate. She puts the “ass” in assassin, in more ways than one.

Quiet is an elite assassin who gained notoriety in the Soviet–Afghan War by eliminating a large number of soldiers with extreme efficiency. Her vocal chords are infested with parasites that prevent her from speaking English, and her name is a reference to this infliction. She was hired by a covert military operation to kill Big Boss, but she jumped sides after she was captured and imprisoned. Quiet’s skimpy attire might seem out of place on the battlefield, but her fashion sense is informed by a parasite that somehow allows her to breathe through her skin and take in nutrients via photosynthesis. (Wearing too much clothing would lead to suffocation, so Quiet has no choice but to put the goods on display.) This parasite also gave her other superhuman abilities, including the ability to camouflage both her skin and her clothing.

After being framed for murder of the Empress he was hired to guard, Corvo Attano became an assassin as a means to seek vengeance on those who conspired against him. He’s assisted in his efforts by a resistance group looking to reclaim the plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, but he’s more than capable of handling things himself. Corvo’s stealth capabilities are legendary and his efficiency in battle is unrivaled. If that wasn’t enough, Corvo also has supernatural powers. He can teleport over short distances, possess other bodies, summon swarms of deadly rats, freeze time, and knock enemies down with powerful gusts of wind. He has access to an assortment of weapons and unusual gadgetry too, but it hardly seems worth mentioning his crossbow skills when you consider that the guy can literally turn his opponents into ash.

A lot of the assassins on this list are cold-blooded killers, but HK-47 is literally a killing machine. As a “Hunter-Killer” assassin droid, HK-47 isn’t motivated by vengeance or power like many others are. He was constructed by the Dark Lord of the Sith as a means to subtly eliminate perceived threats around the galaxy. HK-47 successfully assassinated countless targets, but his memory core was wiped after he was captured on one of his missions. HK-47 was then passed from owner to owner and assigned with various objectives, but his disdain for organic life forms never subsided. HK-47 is driven by a desire for violence in carnage, but he often has to show restraint due to his steadfast obedience to those he identifies as his master. It’s not uncommon for an assassin to face internal conflict, but HK-47’s struggle is uniquely his own.

Rumored to be the best assassin in the galaxy, Thane Krios prefers to get up close and personal with his victims rather than targeting them from afar. He’s a skilled sniper in his own right, but he’s also shockingly proficient at hand-to-hand combat. Despite his profession, Thane is a spiritual man who is not driven by greed or money. He prays for success before all of his missions and asks for forgiveness after each kill. Thane was trained to be an assassin from a young age, but he views himself as a mere tool for his employers. He considers his body and soul to be completely separate entities, an this allows him to retain his deep spirituality despite having a violent profession. Although he is able to rationalize his career choice, Thane takes great measures to prevent his son from following a similar path.

At the end of the 21st century, a plan is devised to destroy all nuclear weapons in a grandiose display of world peace. When a terrorist cell tries to use the event to gain power, an elite group of assassins called the “killer7” is called in to stop them. Garcian Smith is an African American businessman who acts as a cleaner, Dan Smith is an aggressive Irish American, KAEDE Smith is a Japanese American woman who is always covered in blood, Kevin Smith is an albino Briton who can turn invisible, Coyote Smith is a petty thief from Puerto Rico, Con Smith is a blind Chinese American, and MASK de Smith is a gigantic Mexican American luchador. The reason the killer7 are being grouped together as a single entry on this list is because they are all physical manifestations of a single wheelchair bound man named Harmon Smith.

I’d imagine a person’s conscious would be the biggest barrier of entry into the profession of contract killing. This isn’t really an issue for Agent 47 since he is a genetically-enhanced clone and the result of decades of research into gene augmentation. He was born in a Romanian asylum and trained to be an efficient killer from a young age, but individuality was a foreign concept to him since he was raise alongside 50 other clones. The number 640509-040I47 was tattooed on the back of his head in the form of a barcode, but he wasn’t even given a proper name. His defining trait as a character is the lack of emotion he shows while committing acts of murder. His ability to complete his assignments without prejudice or remorse lands him the most complex and difficult assignments that the clandestine International Contracts Agency has to offer.

After winning a beam katana in an online auction, Travis is hired to kill an assassin by a manipulative seductress. He is then ranked as the #11 assassin by the United Assassins Association. Being ranked by the UAA means that he’ll eventually be targeted by other aspiring assassins, so Travis is left with little choice but to kill all of the other high-ranked assassins himself. Travis is an otaku who spends most of his time with anime, porn, and pro wrestling. To that end, he’s a critique on the gaming populace. Travis represents the gamer while his hyper-violent missions represent the games themselves. His outside interactions and daily routines exist solely as a means for him to get back to his assassination missions. The sequel focuses on Travis’ quest to destroy the UAA, however, and he works on becoming a respectable person.

As the central focus of three Assassin’s Creed games, Ezio Auditore da Firenze is the most obvious choice for the number one position on this list. After witnessing the execution of his father and brothers at the hands of Templar conspirators, Ezio devotes his life to avenging his family and freeing Europe from Templar control. Ezio spends a lot of time sneaking around and stabbing people with hidden blades, but he also plays an important role in the Italian Renaissance and effectively rebuilds the Assassin Order. During his adventures, Ezio befriends Leonardo da Vinci, rescues Christopher Columbus, and gets into a fist fight with Pope Alexander VI. Altaïr deserves some level of credit for being the star of the first Assassin’s Creed game, but I’m pretty sure that he never punched the Pope in the face.