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Do Not Go Gently was a virtual representation of one of Edward Kenway's genetic memories, relived by a research analyst at Abstergo Entertainment in 2013 through the Animus Omega.[1]

Description[]

Edward sailed north to persuade Thatch into returning to the West Indies, but a sinister surprise awaited them.

Dialogue[]

Edward woke up on the Great Inagua.

  • Edward: Ahoy, Kidd. You missed quite a time.
  • Kidd: Aye. Pity about Nassau. And Blackbeard flying the coop.
  • Edward: Oh, we'll see about Thatch. Vane's off to see him now, and I'm following soon.
  • Kidd: This is what's left of your experiment in democracy?
  • Edward: Aye, we do as we please here. And take our time doing it.
  • Kidd: For Christ's sake, Edward. Don't anything but the stink of riches wrinkle your nose?
  • Edward: What's got into you, man?
  • Kidd: Reality, mate. Reality.

Kidd turned to Adéwalé.

  • Kidd: See that you ain't pulled into the drink by this drowning rat.
  • Edward: Oy! I've lived longer than most men who trod this path!

Edward boarded the Jackdaw and set sail for Ocracoke. There, he saw Vane and Thatch on the beach in heated discussion around a table.

Do Not Go Gently 3

Edward and Thatch discussing the Sage

  • Vane: A great disappointment you are, Thatch! His mind's made up to stay, he says. So sod 'im! And hang all of you lot that follow this sorry bastard into obscurity!

Vane left and Thatch spat at his departure.

  • Thatch: That man's a prick.

Edward sat in nearby chair.

  • Thatch: I know you've come to call me home, Kenway. And your faith in me is kind. But with Nassau done in, I feel I'm finished.
  • Edward: I'm not of the same mind, mate. But I won't begrudge you the state of yours.

Thatch walked back to the table.

  • Thatch: You still looking for that Sage fellow?
  • Edward: Aye.
  • Thatch: Taking a prize a month back, I heard a man named Roberts was working a slave ship called the Princess. Might want to see about it.

He sat in a chair opposite Kenway.

  • Edward: The Princess. Cheers, Thatch.
  • Thatch: Now don't stand there like a barrel of wet fish. We're celebrating my retirement!

He and Kenway chuckled.

  • Thatch: Uncork this man's breakfast!

Edward frowned upon seeing a shifty-looking man in the crowd push a lady and spill her drink in his rush to escape. He turned back to Thatch.

  • Edward: Save us a few bottles, eh?

He tailed the man into the jungle and eavesdropped on a conversation he had with Royal Navy personnel.

  • Jenkins: Lads? Lieutenant? You out here?
  • Maynard: Stay here. Shoot anything that moves. Jenkins. What's the news?

A flock of startled birds took flight.

  • Jenkins: What was that?
  • Maynard: You certain you didn't bring some of those sand rats in tow, Jenkins? Look sharp. Stevens, make certain there's no surprises.
  • Stevens: Aye, sir.
  • Maynard: Secure the other side and watch the path.
  • Stevens: Aye.

Stevens left to guard the path. Kenway covertly killed him and silently approached the pair while they walked ahead.

  • Jenkins: There was a deserter among them who recalled my face. I sliced into his gullet before any word left his lips.
  • Maynard: Anybody see you?
  • Jenkins: Don't think so, sir. But I reckon Kenway suspects something. He don't miss much.
  • Maynard: Tell me about the beach.
  • Jenkins: A fair gathering, sir. Most too drunk to stand.
Do Not Go Gently 6

Edward tailing Jenkins and Maynard

  • Maynard: That will suit our purpose. Tell me about Edward Teach. What sort of man is he?
  • Jenkins: It's Thatch, sir. Least, that's what he calls himself. But he's a mad bugger, he is. Cracked as a glass teapot, sir.
  • Maynard: Details man! Stop talking in gibberish.

The two walked through a ruined fort with stairs.

  • Jenkins: Well sir, he likes his drink for instance. Only he makes 'em queer. Takes the usual rum flip, and fills it with half a weight of gunpowder to top it off.
  • Maynard: Did I hear you aright? He DRINKS gunpowder?
  • Jenkins: Aye, sir. Just for show. And only last week he rounded up a score of his crew and bade us sit in the hold of his ship while he burnt off sulfur and other sickening minerals. We just sat there like it was one of a million pits of hell, and nothing less ordinary.
  • Maynard: Good GOD. What the hell for?
  • Jenkins: Likes to test his crew is all. Tease out their fitness and what. 'Course it always turned out he was the fittest of the lot. Thought for a moment I'd die there. Bloody savages.

They came to an unguarded broken balcony overlooking the beach. A flare was positioned near the balcony railing and aimed out to sea.

  • Maynard: Have no fear, soldier. This will be the end of them. Come on. It's time. Quickly, send the signal. And remember always this day.

Jenkins ran forward and fired the flare, then ran off with Maynard once it was in the air.

  • Edward: What the devil...?

Several ships opened fire on the harbor. Edward returned to the Jackdaw, where Thatch had taken position beside the wheel.

  • Thatch: Where the hell is Kenway? Note the day, lads! Today we send the King's finest to their graves!

Edward and his men boarded the Man O' War.

  • Thatch: We've knocked them on the heads except three or four. Let's jump aboard and cut 'em to pieces!
    Bury the lot, boys. Take no guff!
    I'll cleave ye lengthwise, maggots!
    How you be doing, Edward m'lad?
    I'll not fall here today, bastards! Come at me!
    Can you fight free, lad? Can ye make it clear?
    Here's the path to perdition!

Despite their best efforts, Thatch was soon overwhelmed. A soldier he had knocked over drew his flintlock pistol and shot Thatch's left shoulder, making him spin and drop to his knees before another man who cut him across the chest.

Do Not Go Gently 10

British soldiers killing Thatch

  • Thatch: Kenway!

Edward ran to help but was restrained by a navyman. He punched the man in the gut, stole his gun, and tossed it to Thatch.

  • Edward: Here!

Thatch caught the gun and fatally shot the next soldier who was about to cut him.

  • Thatch: In a world without gold, we might have been heroes!

He used his sword as leverage to stand then swiped at an oncoming soldier, but the man ducked under his swing and slashed his back from behind. Thatch stopped and staggered at the wound.

  • Edward: THATCH!

The first soldier who had shot Thatch returned to his feet with sword in hand, ran up behind him, and cut across his back, killing him. At the same time, a brute knocked a stunned Edward overboard.

  • Edward: Devil curse me... Where's the Jackdaw...!

Edward reached his ship and escaped into the open sea.

  • Adéwalé: What of Thatch, sir? Did he fall? Captain?
  • Edward: He drinks damnation.

Outcome[]

Edward Thatch was killed by the Royal Navy forces lead by Lieutenant Robert Maynard, and Kenway barely managed to escape. He also learned of a ship called the Princess, aboard which he might find the Sage.

Behind the scenes[]

The name of this memory references Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' famous 1947 villanelle poem "Do not go gentle into that good night". In a similar manner, Thatch's last words to Kenway, about how different circumstances could have lead society to see them as heroes, also echoes a literary work. The sentence loosely resembles how Captain Charles Johnson described Thatch's passing in his 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, writing "Here was an End of that couragious Brute, who might have pass’d in the World for a Heroe, had he been employ’d in a good Cause".[2]

This memory featured as a 5-minute gameplay demo for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag at E3 2013. However, it differed in several ways from the final version. To start, it begins with Kenway on the beach torturing a restrained British soldier for his contact's identity by throwing knives at his head while Thatch and the pirates watch; this scene is not in the final memory. Jenkins in the demo wears a coat and has a full head of black hair instead of the game's depiction of him as bald and sporting a goatee with two earrings in his left ear. His conversation with Lt. Maynard keeps most of the final dialogue, but occurs in the jungle instead of in a fenced-off area just outside the pirates' encampment. The flare is guarded instead of being a deserted spot and Maynard could be killed here, which would have anachronistically prevented his later appearance on his ship. The demo stops just after Thatch and Kenway board the Man O' War and are outnumbered, preserving the nature of Thatch's death for the main game.

In the memory presented in the game, players can swim back to the Jackdaw and sink the Man O' War that Thatch was killed on, but cannot damage or sink either of the two frigates accompanying it. 

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
  2. Johnson, Charles (14 May 1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates. p. 84. Charles Rivington, J. Lacy, and J. Stone. Retrieved on 1 September 2023.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag memories
Main memories
Sequence 1: Prologue
Edward Kenway
Sequence 2: The Spanish Main
Lively Havana - ...And My Sugar? - Mister Walpole, I Presume? - A Man They Call the Sage - Claiming What's Due - The Treasure Fleet
Sequence 3: The Republic of Pirates
This Tyro Captain - Now Hiring - Prizes and Plunder - Raise the Black Flag - Sugarcane and Its Yields - Proper Defenses - A Single Madman
Sequence 4: Retribution
This Old Cove - Nothing Is True... - The Sage's Buried Secret - Overrun and Outnumbered
Sequence 5: Mistaken Motives
The Forts - Traveling Salesman - Unmanned
Sequence 6: Shifting Sands
Diving for Medicines - Devil's Advocate - The Siege of Charles-Towne
Sequence 7: The British Invasion
We Demand a Parlay - The Gunpowder Plot - Commodore Eighty-Sixed - The Fireship
Sequence 8: No Regrets
Do Not Go Gently... - Vainglorious Bastards - Marooned
Sequence 9: Muddied Waters
Imagine My Surprise - Trust Is Earned
Sequence 10: Dead Reckoning
Black Bart's Gambit - Murder and Mayhem - The Observatory
Sequence 11: To the Lees
To Suffer Without Dying - Delirium - ...Everything Is Permitted
Sequence 12: The Eagle and the Jackdaw
A Governor No Longer - Royal Misfortune - Tainted Blood - Ever a Splinter
Sequence 13: Epilogue
The End - How Grand, Master Kenway!
Templar hunts
Opía Apito
The Taíno Assassin - Templar Ships - Right-Hand Man - The Trail of Lucia Márquez
Rhona Dinsmore
Bureau Under Attack - A Thief in the Market - Arms Race - Flint's End
Antó
The Maroon Assassin - Recruiting Maroons - Under Attack - The Commander's Ruse
Vance Travers
Oh Brother... - The Other Brother - Upton's Sorrow - Queen of Pirates, King of Fools
Assassination contracts
The Plantation Master - The Guard Post - The Slave Traders - The Judge - The Weapons Smugglers - The British Captain - Beach Bonfire - A Shipment of Powder - The Spanish Commander - Unlicensed Dealer - No More Taxes - A Botched Escape - The Pirate Captain - The Outlaws - Tomb Raiders - A Last Drink for the Road - Castaway - The Unworthy Brother - The Poachers - The Deserter - The Twin Dilemma - The Dreaded Pirate - The Expedition - The Slave Master - A Slaver's Business - The Informant - The Treasure Hunter - Shady Business - The Smuggler's Squat - The Outlaw's Cave
Naval contracts
An Eye for an Eye - The Law of the Ocean - A Spanish Plague - Driftwood - Silk on the Waves - Contraband - Private Escort - Blind Justice - The Realities of War - Hunter Gatherer - Papers, Please - Weathering the Storm - Smuggler's Den - A Personal Matter - The Final Contract
Aveline missions
The Rebel Camp - The Fort - The Tower
Freedom Cry missions
The Calm Before the Storm - A Common Enemy - Laying the First Brick - A Ship of His Own - Lifting the Veil - A Scientific Inquiry - Plant the Seeds - Down with the Ship - De Fayet's Last Stand
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