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Character Info
NAME & AGE: Élise de la Serre, 23 24
CANON & CANON POINT: Assassin’s Creed: Unity, after witnessing the fight to the death between Arno Dorian and Pierre Bellec inside the Sainte-Chapelle chapel in 1791. The main canon is a video game, but I also include knowledge and history from the novelization that depicts much of her life pre-game.
CANON INFORMATION: Élise de la Serre was born in 1768 as the daughter of a noble house of France and an old Templar family. In the Assassin’s Creed universe, the Templar order was first publicly known as the medieval Knights Templar, but was actually an organization that sought to create a better world based upon the principles of order and control. (It should be noted that the specific tactics used by the Templars at different places and times varied, and while some sought to enforce peace and order through literal mind control, others sought to achieve their means through more benevolent practices.) As the daughter of the French Templar Grand Master, Élise was intended to one day lead the order in France, and was given a suitable education and combat training to facilitate this.
When Élise was eight years old, she came face to face with violence for the first time when a pair of of men attempted to mug Élise and her mother Julie, who fended off the attack by killing one man and wounding another with a hidden knife she carried. It was after this incident that her parents told Élise about their identities as Templars, and about the Assassin brotherhood, which fought for the principles of freedom and the growth of knowledge. As the Assassins and Templars had been engaged in a secret war for centuries, it was thought that they could have been responsible for the attempted mugging. From then on, Élise’s Templar education and training formally began alongside her standard schooling (though it was interrupted for a period of mourning when her mother died of consumption when Élise was 10.) The same year as the attack, Élise visited Versailles Palace with her father and befriended a young boy named Arno Dorian. When Arno’s father was found murdered in the palace halls, her father Francois took Arno in as his ward and saw to his upbringing from then on.
When she was 20, Élise was in her final year of education at a boarding school, which she found to be severely disagreeable and restrictive, and she was often punished for acting out. When her fencing teacher Frederick Weatherall came to reprimand Élise for her behavior on behalf of her father, he also informed her that he had learned the likely identity of the surviving attack from years ago: Bernard Ruddock, an ex-Assassin who had long since been cast out of the order for certain transgressions and was now living in London. Eager to finally determine who wanted her and her mother dead years ago, Élise attempted to blackmail the school’s headmistress into letting her leave the school with a cover story of finishing her education in London. The blackmail attempt failed, but her headmistress allowed her to leave anyway.
Élise managed to get to London on her own through the help of a smuggler sailor and a peasant girl named Helene, whose life Élise saved along the way. She found a very surprised Weatherall at the home of the Carrolls, a British Templar family. In exchange for the use of their network of spies and informants to discover Ruddock’s exact location, the Carrolls asked Élise to infiltrate the home of the elderly Jennifer Scott, who was the daughter of the Assassin Edward Kenway and older sister to past Templar Grand Master Haytham Kenway, both long-dead.
The Carrolls provided Élise with a cover story and false identity and sent her to the home of Jennifer Scott in search of a packet of letters written by Haytham before his death. However, Jennifer was suspicious of Élise and confronted her four days into the visit, having interrogated Helene to learn Élise’s true identity. Jennifer had also sent men to check on the family of Élise’s alias and discovered that they had been murdered, much to Élise’s shock.
Despite this, Jennifer freely gave Élise the packet of Haytham’s letters, on the condition that she be left out of the war between Templars and Assassins, as well as the condition that Élise’s fellow Templars read the letters and think about the idea contained within them: that Templars and Assassins could possibly find common ground and work together, instead of against each other.
Back at the Carrolls’ house but before seeing her hosts, Élise learned from Weatherall that Ruddock had been located. She arrived to confront him but was interrupted by the Carrolls, who had intended to kill him in order to hide the fact that they were actually the ones who had secretly hired him years ago. Back then, they wanted to silence Julie, whose ideas for the Templar Order they deemed too radical. They wanted to find and destroy Haytham’s letters for the same reason. As Élise had learned the truth, they now wanted to kill her, too. They forced Élise into a duel with May, their daughter who had been brought up similarly to Élise, but before it could begin, Élise attacked May from behind and killed her in one blow, then fled with Weatherall.
Once they made it back to France, Élise returned to her school and went to the headmistress for medical help; thereafter she finished her schooling with a new respect for the woman, and spent her remaining time there living in separate on-campus housing with Weatherall and Helene.
Upon finishing school, Élise was formally inducted into the Templar. The night of her induction ceremony, a grand ball was held in her honor in Versailles. She and Arno were romantically involved by this point, and though he was not invited to the party, he snuck in and the two shared a romantic moment together. Tragically, it was shortly after this that Arno stumbled upon her father Francois being murdered in the courtyard. He was immediately blamed for the crime and tossed into the Bastille prison. Soon after the murder, Élise discovered a letter written to her father warning him of treachery and danger. It was to have been delivered to Francois by Arno, who was unaware of its contents, but Arno chose to slip it under her father’s door and sneak off to the party instead of doing so.
Élise spent a considerable amount of time in deep mourning instead of attending to her suddenly-inherited duties as Templar Grand Master. She began to act again in July 1789, when an angry mob stormed the Bastille, setting prisoners free. An attempt to reach Arno failed, and she returned home to find that her house had been ransacked. Soon after, Arno arrived, desperate to assure her that he had not killed her father, and she revealed to him that she had known of both their Templar and Assassin heritages, and that she placed responsibility upon him for her father’s death as he had not delivered the warning letter.
Soon after this Élise attempted to take control of the Order, only to find that her supporters had either been murdered or "intimidated into silence," and she barely survived a murder attempt by the supporters of the new regime, led by an usurping new leader who had killed her father as part a coup. After this, she spent months recovering from injuries sustained in the attempted murder, and more months trying to work out what she could possibly do next.
Around two years later, Élise went to meet Lafreniere, a leader in the Order who wrote to her professing his continuing loyalty, only to walk into an ambush set by others. Arno, now an Assassin, arrived to stop the ambush and tell her that Lafreniere was dead. The two escaped together, bringing up old memories and prompting Élise to privately reflect that she could forgive him after all, and they met for coffee the next day.
Despite her mistrust of the Assassins, Arno persuaded Élise to meet with the Brotherhood’s leader Mirabeau, who been ready to initiate talks of a truce with her father before his murder. Some Assassins objected to the meeting, but Mirabeau indicated he would support a new alliance with Élise before retiring to discuss the matter in private.
While this discussion took place, Élise learned from Arno that in their time apart, he had met a silversmith named Germain who claimed to be held hostage by Templars and forced to craft items for them. In reality, Élise knew that Germain had once been her father’s lieutenant, but had been exiled from the Order for his "heretical" ideas. They went to Germain’s residence and found proof in a ledger that the hostage situation had been a lie, and Germain was both her father’s murderer and the new Templar Grand Master.
More Templar hit men interrupted their reconaissance, and the two arranged to flee separately and meet up at Mirabeau’s estate. Élise arrived there first and found the Assassin leader dead; when Arno arrived, he expressed his trust in her and the two investigated the murder themselves. Despite Mirabeau being poisoned with aconite, a popular method of murder for Templars, the attempt to implicate Élise failed and they discovered the true killer was Pierre Bellec, Arno’s mentor within the Brotherhood, who did not support an alliance with Élise. Arno then fought Bellec and killed him in defense of himself and Élise.
A note: This is the point at which I will be taking Élise, but I’m including an explanation of events that follow, as they clarify her state of mind even at her earlier canon point and will be relevant to the personality section of this app.
Élise and Arno continued to work together to hunt down Germain, tracking him through the workings of his inner circle Templars. Things came to a head at the execution of King Louis XVI, the favorable votes for which had been guaranteed by the Templars in order to give power to the people of France, who would be easier to control. Germain escaped, leaving them to deal with his guards; when Arno refused to chase Germain in favor of fighting beside and protecting Élise, she shouted at him that if he didn’t have the stomach for revenge, she didn’t need his help, and they parted ways on unhappy terms.
By the time her anger at Arno cooled, the period of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror was in full swing, thanks to Germain driving those involved to "greater heights of depravity" from behind the scenes. Arno was living in the ruins of the de la Serre house in Versailles, having become the town drunk there after being expelled from the Assassin Brotherhood for his unsanctioned actions regarding Germain. Élise went there and convinced him that he was better than the way he was living, and the two returned to Paris, where they managed to discredit and interrogate Maximilien Robespierre, who was a Templar agent and a primary instigator of the Terror under Germain’s orders.
Acting on information Robespierre provided after Élise shot him in the mouth, Élise and Arno infiltrated Germain’s lair inside the Temple fortress. A battle ensued, the two of them versus Germain, who wielded the Sword of Eden, a strange blade with the ability to project energy blasts. Arno found himself trapped under a piece of rubble, and when faced with a choice, Élise decided not to take the extra time to help Arno out and instead ran to fight the fleeing Germain by herself. The unstable sword let off another energy blast that injured Germain and killed Élise; shortly after her death, a now-freed Arno executed Germain.
PERSONALITY:
Élise de la Serre is a leader, through nature and through nurture. When she’s a little girl and meets Arno in the halls of the Palace of Versailles, she immediately takes control of their encounter, egging him on to chase her, steal from the guards and run away giggling, despite his promise that he would sit and wait for his father to finish his business. It’s not abnormal for a child to enjoy a bit of mischievous play, of course, but it sets a pattern that lasts for the rest of her life: Élise is not afraid to make her own decisions about what to do, to behave differently than is expected of a ladylike noblewoman, to risk getting into trouble.
This is convenient, because as the intended heir to the leadership of the French Templars, Élise is expected to be a leader one day, and as such is trained and educated to hold such a position. She is expected to be intelligent, strategically minded, politically savvy, canny in the ways of murder if necessary—some of these lessons have sunk in better than others, but at the very least she has the rudimentary skills she needs.
That doesn’t mean it all comes naturally to her, however. As Élise learns herself, particularly when she makes some retrospectively obvious rookie mistakes during her venture to London, leadership and the cunning her position will one day require also come from experience, not just lessons, and experience is what she doesn’t have. She is sometimes overly judgmental of others, and she can be overconfident in herself, occasionally bordering on arrogant, and when trapped in a situation that is especially displeasing inconvenient, she sometimes lets her long-term goals fall out of sight.
Élise wants to be Grand Master of the Templars for a reason, not just for power. From her perspective, they are doing grand works to make the world a better place, and leading them is an exciting and effective way to help with that. But inexperience, a bit of immaturity and her taking her future for granted mean that she is not yet a great leader—not yet.
She takes her first real steps toward becoming one when she returns from London having killed for the first time, and having learned more about the real dangers of her world (from strangers and allies alike) as well as the effect that the Templar-Assassin feud can have innocent people who aren’t part of it—innocent people like Jennifer Scott, who suffered greatly and came away from her experiences wanting nothing to do with either side and not caring how they might change the world. This journey doesn’t completely prepare her for leadership, but it leaves her a bit more mature and definitely more thoughtful about the path she wants to take the Order down.
This is all very serious, of course, and Élise takes it seriously, but that’s not all she’s capable of. Though we don’t get to see her adolescent years, characters make multiple references to the trouble she was capable of getting into in search of amusement, especially when she and Arno teamed up.
While Élise has much more going on in her life than romance, her love for Arno and his for her can’t be overlooked when considering the person she is and who she grows to be. Although her father takes Arno in as his ward after Arno’s own father is murdered, they don’t grow up as siblings. But they are fast and devoted friends. Élise is even a little possessive, thinking of him as "hers" from a young age and never really stopping. When they fall in love, their romance grows out of that friendship.
In some ways, Arno is a refuge for a young woman faced with a serious duty from a young age. With him, she can be herself, not the future Grand Master. For a while, she wants to keep him away from her Order and ignorant of his Assassin heritage, so he can be himself as well. Eventually, she starts to think about what it might mean if they both embrace their birthrights and still dare to love each others. What would it take to find common ground and unity instead of eternal conflict? Her love for Arno exists for its own sake, but it is also one of the things that pushes her to consider what might be possible instead of what simply is. And in contrast to her relentless quest to avenge her father’s murder, it shows that she’s capable of forgiveness of those she cares about; Ano might be partially culpable for her father’s murder thanks to his carelessness in not delivering the letter, but she is able to quietly forgive him and be his friend again even before they renew their romance.
Despite her inexperience with the political intrigues of actually leader or Order or cultivating alliances within it, when Élise turns her mind to avenging her father and taking her rightful position back, she’s an extremely practical person. As she tells Arno, she doesn’t trust the Assassins, but she’s also not stupid; she’s aware that her father considered trucing with them before his death, and that Arno himself is a sign that it is not impossible to find common ground with them. And to be blunt about it, she has few allies and an excellent chance at dying before she can achieve anything. Élise is a proud person, but she’s not too proud to seek help...though she’s not very good at acting humble in order to get it. Then again, maybe it’s that straightforwardness that works for her.
But her practicality just grows into a deep determination to achieve her goal no matter what:
Élise loves Arno, and Élise wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. But when push comes to shove, she wants revenge for her father’s murder more than anything else, and she’s not willing to substitute anyone else’s priorities for her own—she’s not willing to accept that Arno’s love means he will put her safety above her revenge.
I am taking Élise from before this point in time, but there is no difference in sentiment, only in the amount of desperation she feels. From the beginning of her quest to the end, she is willing to make the hard choices to do what she believes must be done. It’s admirable in a way, but not necessarily a good thing—she even acknowledges herself that she’s in a dark place by the time she shoots Robespierre, but she’s come too far to turn back, and she’s too driven to stop.
Ultimately, even her love for Arno and her duty to the Templar Order fall to second place. She doesn’t want to lose either, but she’s at peace knowing that if it comes to that, it’s worth it as long as she avenges her father. This can be seen as a tragic waste of promise or an admirable show of being true to herself—or possibly both at the same time. But the one thing that is absolutely certain is that Élise is a person who decides her own path; she will not allow others to decide it for her.
COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING: Seelie. Like many people, Élise shows certain elements of both courts, but ultimately she agrees most strongly with this court. Her own canon alliance, the Templar Order, seeks to maintain order in the world and protect the people...whether or not they want to br protected, for the Templars believe that strong minds know best. Additionally, it is the honor of her family and her father that drive Élise to seek revenge against Germain so relentlessly, and the need to pay him back for what he did that she decides is worth even her life. Finally, while Élise chose revenge over love, she died believing that the love she and Arno shared could conquer the restrictions of doctrine and unite their feuding orders.
ABILITIES:
Swordplay: From a young age, Élise was trained in swordplay, and canon word-of-God says that she became extremely skilled, moreso than Unity’s playable protagonist Assassin, relying on strategy when she lacked the advantage in strength or other aspects of combat.
Knowledge of poison: Élise is never depicted using it to kill, but she is immediately able to identify aconite as the poison that killed Mirabeau after examining his wine glass, and later on she spikes a case of wine with a substance that causes hallucinations, though not death.
Élise is otherwise a vanilla mortal human with no supernatural powers.
INVENTORY:
One sword and sheath
One pistol and a small amount of ammunition
Five smoke bombs (used for distraction and concealment, not destruction)
One necklace in the shape of the Templar cross
All three items can be seen in this image.
CANON & CANON POINT: Assassin’s Creed: Unity, after witnessing the fight to the death between Arno Dorian and Pierre Bellec inside the Sainte-Chapelle chapel in 1791. The main canon is a video game, but I also include knowledge and history from the novelization that depicts much of her life pre-game.
CANON INFORMATION: Élise de la Serre was born in 1768 as the daughter of a noble house of France and an old Templar family. In the Assassin’s Creed universe, the Templar order was first publicly known as the medieval Knights Templar, but was actually an organization that sought to create a better world based upon the principles of order and control. (It should be noted that the specific tactics used by the Templars at different places and times varied, and while some sought to enforce peace and order through literal mind control, others sought to achieve their means through more benevolent practices.) As the daughter of the French Templar Grand Master, Élise was intended to one day lead the order in France, and was given a suitable education and combat training to facilitate this.
When Élise was eight years old, she came face to face with violence for the first time when a pair of of men attempted to mug Élise and her mother Julie, who fended off the attack by killing one man and wounding another with a hidden knife she carried. It was after this incident that her parents told Élise about their identities as Templars, and about the Assassin brotherhood, which fought for the principles of freedom and the growth of knowledge. As the Assassins and Templars had been engaged in a secret war for centuries, it was thought that they could have been responsible for the attempted mugging. From then on, Élise’s Templar education and training formally began alongside her standard schooling (though it was interrupted for a period of mourning when her mother died of consumption when Élise was 10.) The same year as the attack, Élise visited Versailles Palace with her father and befriended a young boy named Arno Dorian. When Arno’s father was found murdered in the palace halls, her father Francois took Arno in as his ward and saw to his upbringing from then on.
When she was 20, Élise was in her final year of education at a boarding school, which she found to be severely disagreeable and restrictive, and she was often punished for acting out. When her fencing teacher Frederick Weatherall came to reprimand Élise for her behavior on behalf of her father, he also informed her that he had learned the likely identity of the surviving attack from years ago: Bernard Ruddock, an ex-Assassin who had long since been cast out of the order for certain transgressions and was now living in London. Eager to finally determine who wanted her and her mother dead years ago, Élise attempted to blackmail the school’s headmistress into letting her leave the school with a cover story of finishing her education in London. The blackmail attempt failed, but her headmistress allowed her to leave anyway.
Élise managed to get to London on her own through the help of a smuggler sailor and a peasant girl named Helene, whose life Élise saved along the way. She found a very surprised Weatherall at the home of the Carrolls, a British Templar family. In exchange for the use of their network of spies and informants to discover Ruddock’s exact location, the Carrolls asked Élise to infiltrate the home of the elderly Jennifer Scott, who was the daughter of the Assassin Edward Kenway and older sister to past Templar Grand Master Haytham Kenway, both long-dead.
The Carrolls provided Élise with a cover story and false identity and sent her to the home of Jennifer Scott in search of a packet of letters written by Haytham before his death. However, Jennifer was suspicious of Élise and confronted her four days into the visit, having interrogated Helene to learn Élise’s true identity. Jennifer had also sent men to check on the family of Élise’s alias and discovered that they had been murdered, much to Élise’s shock.
Despite this, Jennifer freely gave Élise the packet of Haytham’s letters, on the condition that she be left out of the war between Templars and Assassins, as well as the condition that Élise’s fellow Templars read the letters and think about the idea contained within them: that Templars and Assassins could possibly find common ground and work together, instead of against each other.
Back at the Carrolls’ house but before seeing her hosts, Élise learned from Weatherall that Ruddock had been located. She arrived to confront him but was interrupted by the Carrolls, who had intended to kill him in order to hide the fact that they were actually the ones who had secretly hired him years ago. Back then, they wanted to silence Julie, whose ideas for the Templar Order they deemed too radical. They wanted to find and destroy Haytham’s letters for the same reason. As Élise had learned the truth, they now wanted to kill her, too. They forced Élise into a duel with May, their daughter who had been brought up similarly to Élise, but before it could begin, Élise attacked May from behind and killed her in one blow, then fled with Weatherall.
Once they made it back to France, Élise returned to her school and went to the headmistress for medical help; thereafter she finished her schooling with a new respect for the woman, and spent her remaining time there living in separate on-campus housing with Weatherall and Helene.
Upon finishing school, Élise was formally inducted into the Templar. The night of her induction ceremony, a grand ball was held in her honor in Versailles. She and Arno were romantically involved by this point, and though he was not invited to the party, he snuck in and the two shared a romantic moment together. Tragically, it was shortly after this that Arno stumbled upon her father Francois being murdered in the courtyard. He was immediately blamed for the crime and tossed into the Bastille prison. Soon after the murder, Élise discovered a letter written to her father warning him of treachery and danger. It was to have been delivered to Francois by Arno, who was unaware of its contents, but Arno chose to slip it under her father’s door and sneak off to the party instead of doing so.
Élise spent a considerable amount of time in deep mourning instead of attending to her suddenly-inherited duties as Templar Grand Master. She began to act again in July 1789, when an angry mob stormed the Bastille, setting prisoners free. An attempt to reach Arno failed, and she returned home to find that her house had been ransacked. Soon after, Arno arrived, desperate to assure her that he had not killed her father, and she revealed to him that she had known of both their Templar and Assassin heritages, and that she placed responsibility upon him for her father’s death as he had not delivered the warning letter.
Soon after this Élise attempted to take control of the Order, only to find that her supporters had either been murdered or "intimidated into silence," and she barely survived a murder attempt by the supporters of the new regime, led by an usurping new leader who had killed her father as part a coup. After this, she spent months recovering from injuries sustained in the attempted murder, and more months trying to work out what she could possibly do next.
Around two years later, Élise went to meet Lafreniere, a leader in the Order who wrote to her professing his continuing loyalty, only to walk into an ambush set by others. Arno, now an Assassin, arrived to stop the ambush and tell her that Lafreniere was dead. The two escaped together, bringing up old memories and prompting Élise to privately reflect that she could forgive him after all, and they met for coffee the next day.
Despite her mistrust of the Assassins, Arno persuaded Élise to meet with the Brotherhood’s leader Mirabeau, who been ready to initiate talks of a truce with her father before his murder. Some Assassins objected to the meeting, but Mirabeau indicated he would support a new alliance with Élise before retiring to discuss the matter in private.
While this discussion took place, Élise learned from Arno that in their time apart, he had met a silversmith named Germain who claimed to be held hostage by Templars and forced to craft items for them. In reality, Élise knew that Germain had once been her father’s lieutenant, but had been exiled from the Order for his "heretical" ideas. They went to Germain’s residence and found proof in a ledger that the hostage situation had been a lie, and Germain was both her father’s murderer and the new Templar Grand Master.
More Templar hit men interrupted their reconaissance, and the two arranged to flee separately and meet up at Mirabeau’s estate. Élise arrived there first and found the Assassin leader dead; when Arno arrived, he expressed his trust in her and the two investigated the murder themselves. Despite Mirabeau being poisoned with aconite, a popular method of murder for Templars, the attempt to implicate Élise failed and they discovered the true killer was Pierre Bellec, Arno’s mentor within the Brotherhood, who did not support an alliance with Élise. Arno then fought Bellec and killed him in defense of himself and Élise.
A note: This is the point at which I will be taking Élise, but I’m including an explanation of events that follow, as they clarify her state of mind even at her earlier canon point and will be relevant to the personality section of this app.
Élise and Arno continued to work together to hunt down Germain, tracking him through the workings of his inner circle Templars. Things came to a head at the execution of King Louis XVI, the favorable votes for which had been guaranteed by the Templars in order to give power to the people of France, who would be easier to control. Germain escaped, leaving them to deal with his guards; when Arno refused to chase Germain in favor of fighting beside and protecting Élise, she shouted at him that if he didn’t have the stomach for revenge, she didn’t need his help, and they parted ways on unhappy terms.
By the time her anger at Arno cooled, the period of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror was in full swing, thanks to Germain driving those involved to "greater heights of depravity" from behind the scenes. Arno was living in the ruins of the de la Serre house in Versailles, having become the town drunk there after being expelled from the Assassin Brotherhood for his unsanctioned actions regarding Germain. Élise went there and convinced him that he was better than the way he was living, and the two returned to Paris, where they managed to discredit and interrogate Maximilien Robespierre, who was a Templar agent and a primary instigator of the Terror under Germain’s orders.
Acting on information Robespierre provided after Élise shot him in the mouth, Élise and Arno infiltrated Germain’s lair inside the Temple fortress. A battle ensued, the two of them versus Germain, who wielded the Sword of Eden, a strange blade with the ability to project energy blasts. Arno found himself trapped under a piece of rubble, and when faced with a choice, Élise decided not to take the extra time to help Arno out and instead ran to fight the fleeing Germain by herself. The unstable sword let off another energy blast that injured Germain and killed Élise; shortly after her death, a now-freed Arno executed Germain.
PERSONALITY:
Élise: You’d rather sit with that old prune? Come on! Aren’t you coming? Quickly, quickly!
[pointing to an apple] Bet you can’t steal one!
[Arno steals an apple and escapes the guards]
Did you see their faces when we stole those apples?
Arno: I’m Arno.
Élise: Élise.
Arno: I’m here with my father.
Élise: So am I. He has "important business with the king."
[They chat, before a great outcry is heard in the distance.]
Let’s see where they’re going!
-Élise meets Arno, 1776
Élise de la Serre is a leader, through nature and through nurture. When she’s a little girl and meets Arno in the halls of the Palace of Versailles, she immediately takes control of their encounter, egging him on to chase her, steal from the guards and run away giggling, despite his promise that he would sit and wait for his father to finish his business. It’s not abnormal for a child to enjoy a bit of mischievous play, of course, but it sets a pattern that lasts for the rest of her life: Élise is not afraid to make her own decisions about what to do, to behave differently than is expected of a ladylike noblewoman, to risk getting into trouble.
This is convenient, because as the intended heir to the leadership of the French Templars, Élise is expected to be a leader one day, and as such is trained and educated to hold such a position. She is expected to be intelligent, strategically minded, politically savvy, canny in the ways of murder if necessary—some of these lessons have sunk in better than others, but at the very least she has the rudimentary skills she needs.
That doesn’t mean it all comes naturally to her, however. As Élise learns herself, particularly when she makes some retrospectively obvious rookie mistakes during her venture to London, leadership and the cunning her position will one day require also come from experience, not just lessons, and experience is what she doesn’t have. She is sometimes overly judgmental of others, and she can be overconfident in herself, occasionally bordering on arrogant, and when trapped in a situation that is especially displeasing inconvenient, she sometimes lets her long-term goals fall out of sight.
Mr. Weatherall: You would have been expelled from the Maison Royale. Your education—delayed. Your induction—delayed. Your ascendance to Grand master—delayed. Exactly what would that path have achieved, eh?
Élise: I really don’t care.
Mr. Weatherall: You don’t care, eh? you don’t care about your father anymore?
Élise: You know damn well I care about father.
Mr. Weatherall: And I know damn well you care about your mother, too. And the family name, come to that. So why are you so intent on dragging it through the mud? Why are you seeing to it that you never get as far as Grand Master?
Élise: It is my destiny to be Grand Master.
Mr: Weatherall: A destiny can change, child.
-Élise’s tutor comes to deal with her insubordinate behavior at school on behalf of her father, 1788
Élise wants to be Grand Master of the Templars for a reason, not just for power. From her perspective, they are doing grand works to make the world a better place, and leading them is an exciting and effective way to help with that. But inexperience, a bit of immaturity and her taking her future for granted mean that she is not yet a great leader—not yet.
She takes her first real steps toward becoming one when she returns from London having killed for the first time, and having learned more about the real dangers of her world (from strangers and allies alike) as well as the effect that the Templar-Assassin feud can have innocent people who aren’t part of it—innocent people like Jennifer Scott, who suffered greatly and came away from her experiences wanting nothing to do with either side and not caring how they might change the world. This journey doesn’t completely prepare her for leadership, but it leaves her a bit more mature and definitely more thoughtful about the path she wants to take the Order down.
This is all very serious, of course, and Élise takes it seriously, but that’s not all she’s capable of. Though we don’t get to see her adolescent years, characters make multiple references to the trouble she was capable of getting into in search of amusement, especially when she and Arno teamed up.
Élise: You seem to have caused quite a commotion.
Arno: What can I say? You were always a bad influence.
Élise: Oh, you were a worse one.
-Élise and Arno after he sneaks into her induction party, 1789
While Élise has much more going on in her life than romance, her love for Arno and his for her can’t be overlooked when considering the person she is and who she grows to be. Although her father takes Arno in as his ward after Arno’s own father is murdered, they don’t grow up as siblings. But they are fast and devoted friends. Élise is even a little possessive, thinking of him as "hers" from a young age and never really stopping. When they fall in love, their romance grows out of that friendship.
In some ways, Arno is a refuge for a young woman faced with a serious duty from a young age. With him, she can be herself, not the future Grand Master. For a while, she wants to keep him away from her Order and ignorant of his Assassin heritage, so he can be himself as well. Eventually, she starts to think about what it might mean if they both embrace their birthrights and still dare to love each others. What would it take to find common ground and unity instead of eternal conflict? Her love for Arno exists for its own sake, but it is also one of the things that pushes her to consider what might be possible instead of what simply is. And in contrast to her relentless quest to avenge her father’s murder, it shows that she’s capable of forgiveness of those she cares about; Ano might be partially culpable for her father’s murder thanks to his carelessness in not delivering the letter, but she is able to quietly forgive him and be his friend again even before they renew their romance.
Arno: They're a touch paranoid when it comes to security.
Élise: Two right turns, seventy-three steps, then down a flight of stairs, a left, and another right. Did I get all that?
[Arno and Élise approach the Assassins' Council.]
My name is Élise de la Serre. My father was Francois de la Serre, Grand Master of the Templar Order. I've come to ask for your help.
[A brief aside as the Assassins argue whether to listen to her.]
You are not men with whom I would normally parlay, sir. But my father is dead, as are my allies within the Order. If I must turn to the Assassins for my revenge, so be it.
-Élise meets with the Assassins, 1791
Despite her inexperience with the political intrigues of actually leader or Order or cultivating alliances within it, when Élise turns her mind to avenging her father and taking her rightful position back, she’s an extremely practical person. As she tells Arno, she doesn’t trust the Assassins, but she’s also not stupid; she’s aware that her father considered trucing with them before his death, and that Arno himself is a sign that it is not impossible to find common ground with them. And to be blunt about it, she has few allies and an excellent chance at dying before she can achieve anything. Élise is a proud person, but she’s not too proud to seek help...though she’s not very good at acting humble in order to get it. Then again, maybe it’s that straightforwardness that works for her.
But her practicality just grows into a deep determination to achieve her goal no matter what:
Élise: He's gone. Dammit! Our one chance.
Arno: It's not over. We'll find another lead.
Élise: No, we won't! You think he'll be so careless now, knowing how close at heel we are? You were given a golden opportunity to end his life, and you refused to take it!
Arno: To save your life.
Élise: It isn't yours to save!
Arno: What are you saying?
Élise: I'm willing to risk everything to put Germain down. If you don't have the stomach for revenge...then I don't need your help.
-Élise and Arno narrowly miss the chance to kill Germain, 1793
Élise loves Arno, and Élise wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. But when push comes to shove, she wants revenge for her father’s murder more than anything else, and she’s not willing to substitute anyone else’s priorities for her own—she’s not willing to accept that Arno’s love means he will put her safety above her revenge.
I am taking Élise from before this point in time, but there is no difference in sentiment, only in the amount of desperation she feels. From the beginning of her quest to the end, she is willing to make the hard choices to do what she believes must be done. It’s admirable in a way, but not necessarily a good thing—she even acknowledges herself that she’s in a dark place by the time she shoots Robespierre, but she’s come too far to turn back, and she’s too driven to stop.
Ultimately, even her love for Arno and her duty to the Templar Order fall to second place. She doesn’t want to lose either, but she’s at peace knowing that if it comes to that, it’s worth it as long as she avenges her father. This can be seen as a tragic waste of promise or an admirable show of being true to herself—or possibly both at the same time. But the one thing that is absolutely certain is that Élise is a person who decides her own path; she will not allow others to decide it for her.
Tomorrow is the day, it seems—the culmination of five long years, our moment of revenge. So why can I not quiet this part of me which fears that, at the tipping point, you will flinch? Is it that I fear you loved my father less than I? Or do I doubt your resolve to strike the killing blow? I do not think so. Rather I fear that you have lost so much already that you cannot bear to lose more. I think that you would let Germain rule France if you thought it would "save" me.
Have you ever known me to need saving? Have you ever had cause to think that I would accept it if it were offered? My fate is my own. My choice is my own.
-Excerpt from a letter Élise wrote to Arno the night before they faced Germain
COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING: Seelie. Like many people, Élise shows certain elements of both courts, but ultimately she agrees most strongly with this court. Her own canon alliance, the Templar Order, seeks to maintain order in the world and protect the people...whether or not they want to br protected, for the Templars believe that strong minds know best. Additionally, it is the honor of her family and her father that drive Élise to seek revenge against Germain so relentlessly, and the need to pay him back for what he did that she decides is worth even her life. Finally, while Élise chose revenge over love, she died believing that the love she and Arno shared could conquer the restrictions of doctrine and unite their feuding orders.
ABILITIES:
Swordplay: From a young age, Élise was trained in swordplay, and canon word-of-God says that she became extremely skilled, moreso than Unity’s playable protagonist Assassin, relying on strategy when she lacked the advantage in strength or other aspects of combat.
Knowledge of poison: Élise is never depicted using it to kill, but she is immediately able to identify aconite as the poison that killed Mirabeau after examining his wine glass, and later on she spikes a case of wine with a substance that causes hallucinations, though not death.
Élise is otherwise a vanilla mortal human with no supernatural powers.
INVENTORY:
One sword and sheath
One pistol and a small amount of ammunition
Five smoke bombs (used for distraction and concealment, not destruction)
One necklace in the shape of the Templar cross
All three items can be seen in this image.
