28. The Myth of the Ninjas
Mention the word “ninja“, and one usually evokes images of masked warriors, all in black, scaling building walls and assassinating people all over feudal Japan. In popular culture today, people think of ninjas as covert killers, using exotic blades, throwing stars, and smoke bombs to carry out assassinations, all while locked in a feud with the more honorable samurai.
That is pure fantasy and myth. In reality, those kinds of super cool ninjas never existed. The ones who did exist looked and acted nothing like the popular perceptions of how ninjas looked like and acted. Far from having any feud with the samurai, many ninjas were actually themselves samurai.