The Assassin’s Creed series has had many protagonists, but the most popular is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Players followed his journey from a wise-cracking young man to a legendary Assassin. Along the way, Ezio accomplished a lot of good things, like killing dangerous templars or empowering innocent groups of people.

But despite being a good man most of the time, there were some occasions when Ezio wasn’t perfect. He hurt people, destroyed things, and even had a questionable relationship with women. Here are several occasions in Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations when the usually heroic protagonist wasn’t so honorable.

Updated February 17, 2022 By Ben Jessey: Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection is now available on Nintendo Switch. So, you get to relive the adventures of one of the most popular Assassins in the series. In AC2, he starts as a young nobleman but quickly grows into an important member of the Assassin Brotherhood and a major player in the war with the Templars.

While he does good things throughout those games, he’s still not a perfect individual. At times, the man makes some morally questionable decisions. However, his peers never really call out his bad behavior. But not everyone has overlooked his problematic moments, as we put the biggest ones in this list.

10 Destroyed The Great Chain

The purpose of The Great Chain is to stop enemy ships from easily entering the harbor. When Ezio wanted to leave Constantinople, Janissaries raised the chain so the Assassin couldn’t leave. They couldn’t stop Ezio though, as he retaliated by blowing up the giant chain, giving himself a chance to leave (after setting fire to some ships first).

Without the chain, the harbor was completely unprotected, if somebody had attacked after Ezio left, countless innocent lives would’ve been lost, and Constantinople could’ve been ripped apart. Luckily the game makes no mention of that happening, yet that doesn’t make the assassin’s actions any less irresponsible.

9 Put Civilians In Jeopardy

At one point during Revelations, Ezio and Yusuf need to get into a place called Arsenal to see what Manuel Palaiologos is up to. To do that, they decide to rile up the locals to start a riot, which caused numerous highly trained Janissaries to attack the civilians.

Ezio does what he can to assist them, but even he can’t save them all, as some of the residents get slaughtered. The plan works, as the rioters do end up destroying the gate, however maybe the hero could’ve come up with a plan that didn’t risk a group of innocent lives. After all, he’s not far from being among the smartest characters in Assassin’s Creed.

8 Killed Tarik

A failed assassination attempt on Prince Suleiman led to an investigation on who was behind the attack, with Tarik being the prime suspect. Ezio was put on the case, and he concluded that Tarik was working with the Templars and helped orchestrate the attack.

Unfortunately, as the Assassin was killing him, Tarik revealed his actual plot was to ambush the Templars, not help them. Perhaps Ezio should’ve interrogated the suspect before branding him a traitor and delivering him his punishment. Ezio does deserve a bit of sympathy for this one as it was a mistake. Yet, killing a man that was not only innocent but actively trying to bring down the evil Byzantine Templars isn’t the noblest thing to do.

7 Constantly Helped Known Thieves

Multiple times throughout the series, Ezio and his fellow powerful Assassins worked with thieves to achieve their goals. Before retrieving their help, the Assassins would usually have to assist the thieves in regaining some of their influence in the city.

Their rise in power was useful in taking on the Templars, but it would’ve also assisted in them pickpocketing all the innocent people that lived in the cities they operated in. They did seem to be Robin Hood types who didn’t steal from the poor. However, just because somebody is wealthy doesn’t mean they deserve to have their money stolen.

6 Used Yusuf’s Death To Rally The Assassins

After Ezio found Yusuf’s body, he delivered a powerful speech to the rest of the guild, motivating them to fight with him to show what happens when you cross the Assassins.

This all seems fine except when you realize that Yusuf’s death had nothing to do with him being an Assassin. Yusuf was killed because he was protecting Ezio’s love interest Sofia. The other assassins would’ve likely wanted to avenge their former brother anyway, but Ezio’s speech made it seem like someone was targeting the guild, and they were setting up for a war. In reality, they were only really targeting Ezio, who needed the Assassins’ help to get Sofia back after Yusuf’s killers had kidnapped her.

5 Followed Cristina Home

The Cristina memories in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood didn’t always portray Ezio in a great light. One depicted their first meeting when a nervous Ezio attempted to flirt with Cristina, who then rejected his advances and left without even telling him her name.

That didn’t deter Ezio though, as he decided to follow the woman he’d just met to, in his words, “see where she lives,” which is an incredibly creepy thing to do. Ezio lucked out though, as Vieri (an even bigger scumbag), was waiting for Cristina and intended to physically force the woman into being with him. So Ezio then beat him up, and Cristina gave the future assassin a second chance. But just because it worked out, it doesn’t make Ezio’s actions any less horrible.

4 Kissed Cristina While Posing As Her Husband

Another one of Cristina’s memories here, as a long time after their questionable first encounter (and some other less problematic ones), Ezio and Cristina met once again during Carnevale. By this point, Cristina was a (seemingly) happily married woman, yet that didn’t matter to Ezio as he creepily stated, “It’s Carnevale! With this mask, she need not even know it’s me.”

Then Auditore orchestrated the disgusting act by slipping a note into her pocket, indicating a place to meet. When they met up, they shared a passionate kiss until she realized that it was not her husband and pushed him away (how she didn’t notice he had a different voice is puzzling).

3 Murdered People Who Were Being Controlled

During the Bonfire Of The Vanities DLC, Ezio had the idea to kill nine lieutenants to clear a path to their boss Girolamo Savonarola. The problem is that most of those targets were being controlled by the Apple of Eden, so they weren’t acting through their own free will.

Ezio knew they were being manipulated, especially after almost every single one of them told him that as they died, but that didn’t stop him. If he needed the lieutenants out of the way so bad, he could’ve knocked them unconscious or captured them instead, then at least the ones who regretted what the Apple made them do could live on.

2 Killed Countless Guards

As the Templars are a (mostly) secretive order, they likely don’t tell the patrolling guards what all their heinous plans are, or even which of them are Templars. These poor people get a job protecting an important person like a government official or the Pope just to earn some money.

The idea that some Guards might not be morally corrupt never weighed on Ezio’s mind when he used his unique fighting style to kill an abundance of them during the series. Some of the guards probably deserved a blade to the throat, but plenty were just doing their jobs.

1 Ruined Cappadocia

When he was in the underground city of Cappadocia, Ezio destroyed the city’s supply of gunpowder, which caused a city-wide panic. He then used the explosive distraction to eliminate Manuel Palaiologos. The gunpowder explosion led to the entire city being engulfed in smoke.

The game didn’t show the fate of the people in the city. However, many of them probably suffocated or were crushed in the rubble. Ezio never warned the residents nor helped them escape, and he didn’t even show remorse for his actions. Truly an evil act from the usually virtuous Assassin.

NEXT: Assassin’s Creed: Every Main Assassin’s Greatest Failure