How is the hidden blade supposed to work?

[TheFinkinator]

Yes I understand this is a video game, but how the hell is Altair or any of the assassins in the series supposed to control the deployment of the hidden blade?
It always shows the entire mechanism as being on their forearm well below their rist, so there's no way they could touch it with their hand, and they're obviously not touching it with their other hand, because you can see they're not doing that. So that leaves 3 concievable options.

1. It's activated by some hand motion. But that doeant make sense, because altair likes to pull out his blade with his fist closed, hence the missing finger, and I think he sometimes does it with an open hand too, which is what all the other assassins love to do. And Altair also fights with regular nonlethal fists, so a closed hand can't be what deploys it, even just for him.

2. It's activated by some flexing of the muscles in the forearm. This is just listed to cover all possibilities, because it's totally inpractical considering all the ♥♥♥♥ assassins do with other weapons or with their bare fists.

3. It's magic. I reareally don't see how they can concievably, with 12th century technology, deploy and retract that blade only when they want to.

Yes again I know it's a video game, and it's fictional, and physics dont need to apply, but doesn't this bother anybody else?

[SillyWalk]

There is conceptual art about the hidden blades mechanisms in the different AC games, just search "hidden blade mechanism" in Google. How realistic is that conceptual art? I can't say for sure.

As for the Altair hidden blade, there is a ring connected to the blade that goes in the pinky.

http://imgur.com/a/WEL5P

http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Hidden_Blade

[BloodyMares]

The blade is triggered by a string. You can't see that in the game but in the concept art it's how it is. The string that activates the blade is attached to a ring and when an assassin extend his finger with the ring on it, the blade comes out. It's certainly possible and has a ton of proof on YouTube. The developers were just lazy/smart about actually showing the process in the game because the amount of details that animation would need is incredible.

[TheFinkinator]

Originally posted by BloodyMares:

The blade is triggered by a string. You can't see that in the game but in the concept art it's how it is. The string that activates the blade is attached to a ring and when an assassin extend his finger with the ring on it, the blade comes out. It's certainly possible and has a ton of proof on YouTube. The developers were just lazy/smart about actually showing the process in the game because the amount of details that animation would need is incredible.

If it's activated by pulling a string, then how would you get the blade tI quickly retract on demand like they do? It's not like you could push the string back in. Unless they had a separate string for retraction.

And this still doesn't explain the problem. The ring would be pulled by closing the hand. So what would stop the blade from deplying every time you closed your fist? It's not like the assassins are beating people up with their pinkies sticking out.

[SillyWalk]

Originally posted by TheFinkinator:

And this still doesn't explain the problem. The ring would be pulled by closing the hand. So what would stop the blade from deplying every time you closed your fist? It's not like the assassins are beating people up with their pinkies sticking out.

http://imgur.com/a/WEL5P
http://imgur.com/a/Xisnx

Look at the image I posted, it actually works the opposite way, the blade shows/hides when you open the hand a lot, since you get the ring further away from the part I circled in blue and they seem to be connected by a cord or something. Notice how Altair opens the hand before making a fist.

https://youtu.be/GjoYoJKvzsM?t=9m27s

Originally posted by TheFinkinator:

If it's activated by pulling a string, then how would you get the blade tI quickly retract on demand like they do? It's not like you could push the string back in. Unless they had a separate string for retraction.

I doubt that the force you make when pulling the string is what directly makes the blade show/hide, it probably just prompts an internal mechanism with springs or something, which is the one that actually makes the blade appear or dissapear.

[tagus100]

I believe in the novelisation of Black Flag, in the scene where Edward meets the Templars in Havana & is given the blades by du Casse, he narrates that he doesn't know how to work them and is in over his head. He therefore goes to punch du Casse and escape, and as he raises and clenches his fist, the blade pops out. So I think it's to do with number two on your list: flicking the wrist & clenching the forearm would activate a mechanism.