The asymmetry is tactical and philosophical. The Borgia's power depends on visibility — the towers that dominate Rome's skyline, the guards on every corner, the public executions that make the cost of resistance legible. The fear requires the infrastructure of fear to function. Ezio undermining that infrastructure from the shadows is not just a tactical choice. It is a statement about what kind of power the Brotherhood represents and what it cannot afford to become.

Striking through shadows is the Assassin's method because the Assassin's cause cannot win a direct confrontation with the resources the Borgia command. But it is also the method because the alternative — becoming visible, becoming institutional, becoming the thing it opposes — would require becoming the Borgia. The shadows preserve what the Brotherhood is for.