Part 14: Episode 14: Damascus - The Rich District

Episode 14: Damascus - The Rich District

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Notes -
- If you want to see the general layout/names of the seven major gates of Damascus, look here!

- I mention the Citadel of Saladin being misnamed in this video, and didn't get in to all the details on why. Firstly, there's the location. The real one is off by its own, in the middle of nowhere, and is built in to a heavily-defensive, mountainous location. Second off, the look. Just from seeing photos of its ruins, this Citadel is not the one of Saladin. While on that topic, though, the Citadel of Saladin has some pretty impressive defensive fortifications. One of which happens to be a *28 METER DEEP* trench along its eastern face. That's right around 90 feet, and this is carved in to hard, stone earth. The trench itself is around 500 feet (150m) in length, to boot. Anyhow, if you looked at pictures of the Citadel of Damascus, it seems more similar to what is in-game (albeit not perfect). Adding to that, its location (NW Damascus) fits nicely. Now, they could've been trying to refer to this as Saladin's Citadel (meaning the one he owns personally or tends to reside in). This could fit (largely because it was a common base of operations as well as his local residence), to some degree. Regardless, Saladin called for a pretty large overhaul and re-structuring of the Citadel and this region in general. You'll notice a rather large concentration of scaffolds which could be inferred as a reference to that. But I may be grasping at straws by this point He did take it not too long after 1174, and this is over sixteen years later; you'd think he would be satisfied with the taupe paint on the living room wall by this point.

- As neat as the Souk Sarouja looks in-game, it is looking rather slummy these days I ran a Google image search on it, and it looks pretty dodgy.

- A bit of info on the topic of Nur ad-Din's Madrasa. I tried looking in to photos, but I'm getting some conflicting photographs I wish I got a better shot/angle on the doorway, because I think it has a pseudo-iwan of sorts.

- Though I mis-spelled it in-video, the second Informant refers to someone named Adha. There are a few details that I'd rather not get in to until the end of the LP, because explaining her importance at length would spoil a few plot devices we have yet to come across. Something else I seemed to mess up is that the Informant references Alep. I thought he was referencing a major city in Syria, but apparently I was mistaken. He was referencing a place from the DS game (which I have not played), that takes place in 1190. Alep was a previous Assassin fortress. Adha is also a major character in the DS game, and was Al's first love interest that we know of.

- Once the LP is wrapped up, I plan on ending the final update with a brief summary to condense the goings-on in the DS prequel, as well as the PSP sequel.