Bioshock Series Discussion Thread (SPOILERS)

[LoA]

I have been reading the thread, but I've only played the first Bioshock, so, personally, I appreciate the spoilerization.

That said, I do admit I'm not getting terribly much out of it, so I could just stop paying attention to the thread too. :grin:

You know what, you're right, too much attention to Infinite.

So I began replaying the first one on Survivor mode, without vita-chambers, and with the darkness turned all the way down to pitch black. Eventually I had to turn the light back on  a couple of notches, because I couldn't see two inches in front of my face. Which you really should do sometime by the way, because the Gatherers Gardens statues look even more horrifying than usual, which I didn't even think was possible...

It's remarkable how will Bioshock has aged. I think the AI in Infnite is going to make that game not age well (along with the buggy plot), but the AI in the first one really works to the games advantage.

[Steerpike]

Alright, spoilers it is!

My interpretation:

[spoiler]We do not play a consistent Booker throughout the game at all; every time Booker's nose bleeds, those are alternate memories seeping into Booker.  Booker's memories are in a constant state of flux.  In the very first scene of the game, Booker's memories are already being revised.

When Elizabeth drowns Booker, he is in a state of uncertainty at the moment where he either could be or could not be Comstock.  As Comstock espouses in a voxophone: "One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps the swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man."  By drowning Booker at the moment in time before he chooses whether or not to accept baptism, Elizabeth destroys both the version that accepted baptism (Comstock) and the version that didn't (Booker); all versions of Booker at the point of baptism at Woudned Knee have been drowned, and the timelines they would spawn are thus aborted.  It's not one individual that's drowning at Wounded Knee, it's a multiplicity; all possible Bookers at Wounded Knee are being killed at the same time.  We see evidence of this: for example, another Elizabeth/Booker pair wandering the lighthouse/dock labyrinth-of-forking-paths.  If I'm understanding Elizabeth and her powers correctly, she's coordinating a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism.  As a result, versions of Elizabeth begin winking out of existence.  One lingers, perhaps suggesting the possibility of a timeline in which Booker never reached Wounded Knee and never faced the choice of baptism.

If I'm understanding you correctly, SA, your criticism is partly about how this act is presented and the way that the mechanics of time travel seemed changed in the ending scene: that is, at the ending we are not Booker watching his past self from afar receiving or rejecting baptism (or being drowned by Elizabeth), we are actually in the body/mind of Booker/Comstock at the moment of baptism, which jars with the way interdimensional travel has been presented before, where you can meet yourself (or brutally murder yourself!).  Is that correct?  If so, I chalked this up entirely to Elizabeth's effective near-omnipotence after the siphon's destruction.  What we're experiencing at the end isn't a normal "through the tear" form of time-travel but more of a "rewind through time" form.  I think, really, the reasoning behind this is to justify the spectacular visual of half a dozen Elizabeths drowning you in first person.[/spoiler]

[sparkletwist]

I love the quotes from the one upper class woman splicer.
"Stop wasting my time, you horrid monster! I'm going to send the boy out to give you a good thrashing!"

[LoA]

I love the quotes from the one upper class woman splicer.
"Stop wasting my time, you horrid monster! I'm going to send the boy out to give you a good thrashing!"

My favorite splicer was the Frat boy Houdini guy down in Arcadia.
"Hey there, beautiful"
Or it's the high school jock one.
"Dad's gonna be so mad at me..."

I've always wanted to see a DLC or some mod that tells the story of a little sister post-Rapture. It would be a first person point and click adventure that shows an ex little sister dealing with her traumas from before she returned to the surface.

[SA]

your criticism is partly about how this act is presented and the way that the mechanics of time travel seemed changed in the ending scene

Spot on. This is as problematic for me as the ending of Mass Effect 3, where an entirely new antagonist/agent is introduced at the climax of the narrative and throws out all the pre-existing rules and expectations created by the events so far. Omniscient/omnipotent super-Elizabeth is pulled out of the writers' butts after the game itself is completed. The major issue is not that it's inconsistent, but that it's arbitrary.

Given that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.

[LoA]

Given that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.

I think it depends on what you mean by "Elizabeth not existing". If you mean the shut-in, adorkable twenty year old we all grew to know then yes. But I still maintain that universes exist where Booker never went to a baptism, and just went on to the pinker tons like in the old life, and therefore got married, wife died in childbirth, and Anna is still in his custody.

[SA]

I should clarify: dimension-hopping Elizabeth does not exist. I doubt that Booker-without-baptismal-choice would still marry the same woman who still dies in childbirth while still producing a child genetically identical to Anna, but it's neither here nor there. What's important is that the Elizabeths that remain cannot create tears and are consequently totally unlike the Elizabeth(s) of the narrative.

I won't speculate whether this constitutes an ontological paradox because that would assume the story has both consistent and intelligble metaphysics.

[Steerpike]

Given that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.

[spoiler]There's some truth to this charge!  One way of describing Bioshock Infinite could be "the most elevated form of the Shaggy Dog story ever conceived."  At least so I'd claim.  It's also one of the few cases where I feel the deus ex machina ending is, perversely, earned.  Elizabeth effectively becomes God at the end of the game, but I'd maintain this development isn't actually "pulled out of the writers' butts" but foreshadowed rather strongly, so much so that I'd have been disappointed if she didn't actualize the divine potential the game invests her with throughout.  The first words of the game:

"Elizabeth: Booker?  Are you afraid of God?
Booker: No... But I'm afraid of you."

Elizabeth is characterized from the begining as the "Lamb," an obvious reference to Christ; that she sacrifices both herself and her father(s) at the same time furthers the Biblical parallel.  The game is suffused with references to her messiahnic potential, with Booker/Comstock playing the role of both God-the-Father (as the bearded, Biblical patriarch) and Satan (the false shepherd), figures which the game deconstructs as two sides of the same coin (coin imagery and doubling being another major motif throughout the game). [/spoiler]

[SA]

It's all well and good that the ending itself is foreshadowed. Unfortunately, the narrative still fails to make its climax consistent with the events that precede it.

I get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics. It is, indeed, pulled out of a butt.

The fact that the writers forced an ending that was consistent with their symbolic foreshadowing is not the same as those events being logically entailed by their antecedents. Nor is it a substitute for coherence.

[Steerpike]

I get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics.

[spoiler]I'd argue the inter-dimensional collaboration of the Luteces establish the idea of transdimensional coordination between selves across time and space.  We see the Luteces appear and disappear throughout Columbia, having been scattered throughout time and space by Fink's sabotage, and we see and hear them constructing elaborate plans, engineering schemes through multiple realities, from the first scene of the game in the rowboat onwards.  I'd argue that Elizabeth's abilities are effectively the same thing writ large.[/spoiler]

[SA]

Rosalind first encounters Robert by opening up a tear and saying "hello". Prior to Fink's sabotage there is no evidence to suggest that they are anything other than human. After the sabotage, they are not indicated to have done anything like symbolically destroying an ur-event in order to eliminate its possible occurrence anywhere else in the multiverse. Let alone something on a comparable scale.

[LoA]

It's all well and good that the ending itself is foreshadowed. Unfortunately, the narrative still fails to make its climax consistent with the events that precede it.

I get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics. It is, indeed, pulled out of a butt.

The fact that the writers forced an ending that was consistent with their symbolic foreshadowing is not the same as those events being logically entailed by their antecedents. Nor is it a substitute for coherence.

I agree with this. Really the whole game kind of feels like a butt pull. If you go back to the original demo video it was an entirely different game.  There was Murder of Crows in the demo, but it functioned differently. It gave you three or four shots of crows, but then you had to go off and find new bottles of vigors to give you more of that ability. EVE- I mean "Salts" were probably added later to make it feel like plasmids. Crowds were supposed to get up in arms whenever you went gun crazy, but in the game, they just stand around with there arms in the air cowering. Elizabeths abilities were different as well. She could shoot lasers out of her hands, she could use telekinesis, and she had control over the weather. And I personally thought the handlebar mustached handymen were cooler.

When you look at what they tried to do in the beginning, with the final product, you're left with no choice but to admit that they had big ambitions and they fell flat, and they took what was left over, and tried to make a decent game... And to be fair, Bioshock Infinite is not a bad game at all, in fact it's pretty darn good. But when I play Bioshock 1, I can't really say that Infinite is as solid or polished. The story of Bioshock 1 is tight and airlock. The more you think about the first game the more brilliant it becomes, the more I think of Infinite, the more it falls apart.

[SA]

The multiverse is a heavy concept to stick in a narrative of any kind. It should be handled with kid gloves.

The best I've ever seen it handled was Chariots Chariots.

... and in my upcoming RPG. /plug

[Steerpike]

After the sabotage, they are not indicated to have done anything like symbolically destroying an ur-event in order to eliminate its possible occurrence anywhere else in the multiverse.

I agree that's the case - Elizabeth isn't exactly the same as the Luteces by any stretch.  But the Luteces give precedent to the idea of someone being scattered thoughout time and space and collaborating across dimensions.

I loved the original Bioshock as well, but I probably like Infinite slightly more, even if it's sometimes a bit bewildering.

[LoA]

I loved the original Bioshock as well, but I probably like Infinite slightly more, even if it's sometimes a bit bewildering.

You know, I kind of feel the same way. My favorite anime of all time is Castle in the Sky, and it inspired me to become an artist, and I loved the idea of a game set in a flying city, but that it was going to be a Bioshock game? Sign me up! I still feel like the game had too much going on for its own good though.

Another big thing I don't like about Infinites story is how little the environment tells the story. Just going through Rapture and looking around you, you can see the big picture. This place was Ultra-capitalist, then superpowers got on the market, and everything went to heck. Then the plot got more filled out with audio logs. With Infinite....

"Yeah we've got enough fireworks to blow Peking up... Again!"
I'm sorry, Peking? Did you guys go to war with China? What did China do? What did you blow them up with? Dynamite, cannons, does this place have lasers or something I'm not seeing? Where you there for the war? How do you feel about it all?
If you had no prior knowledge of the Boxer Rebellion, then this game left you in the dust.
With all of the people just standing around looking at you, they should at least have them talking about things that would help you fill in the blanks about this world.
There are some instances of this, but not nearly enough. There should be mothers and widows weaping over lost loved ones at Peking, or even the men that you killed in this game. There should be way more talk about the dangers of Karl Marx and the radical Vox Populi, so on and so forth.