My Favorite Masks

I’ve always found masks fascinating. To me, they seemed like cheat codes that let you become someone or even something else. The first mask I recall is from my school days. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the last game in the Sands of Time trilogy, had just come out. The game’s story revolves around darkness unleashed inside the protagonist, the Prince. The darkness transformed him into the Dark Prince. To me, this new personality represented freedom to express suppressed anger and anxiety. I did not play the game since I didn’t have a good enough PC. But I read as many reviews as I could and watched a lot of gameplay videos. Prince of Persia evolved into Assassin’s Creed, and so did the focus of my fascination. By now I was in college and had a good computer, so I played the first Assassin’s Creed. There was a lot to like! A cool costume, a secretive brotherhood, and a cool-sounding creed: “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.” The second game in the series, Assassin’s Creed…