The Big Picture: Shock Treatment

[conflictofinterests]

Bob, that was the best interpretation of this game I've heard. It seems like too many people, myself included, got hung up on all the supposedly-deep themes that were actually pretty damn shallow. But in the end, it's just one dude's failure to deal with his massive guilt. Beautiful.

I think maybe player Booker might have not become an emotionally crippled alcoholic with dangerous amounts of gambling debt if his wife, presumably a woman he loved, hadn't, you know, died in childbirth. In my mind, that was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. He might have been able to work through his guilt and forgive himself if he had any kind of support system.

 

[I.Muir]

Some of the mechanics they use to present the story I feel don't really work and it bugs me as much as time paradoxes. That being said I had a lot of fun playing it be more fun even discussing it with others and come to the conclusion that it tried to tackle theories it did not really understand and failed.

Mostly about how constants just do not fit in with multi verse theory at all. Liz suddenly becoming omniscient and some details about Booker being drowned. For instance: Liz drowned Booker thus removing Com-Stock and causing her to cease to exist. Why then wouldn't those events just loop anyway since she never existed to interfere with them.

Still good try.

There was another good post after the experienced points column about infinite explaining that.
I will try to recreate it, but if it doesn't work, go there.
So, in the End, after the cutscenes, you shortly play a few seconds of broker again, so he seems to be alive.
For clearance reason i will here refer to Anna and Elizabeth as two seperate persons.
In every Universe were Comstock comes out of the Baptism, he will steal an Anna from another Broker, thus creating an Elizabeth, which will consequently go back in time and kill all brokers before the baptism. But when Comstock isn't there, there also was no elizabeth to drown him so he does survive. Therefore: Any Universe that creates an Comstock, will also create an Elizabeth and therefore erase itself. Any Universe that makes Broker refuse the baptism, doesn't create Comstock, doesn't create Elizabeth and therefore stays in existence.
This way only the "Brokers" of the multiverse survive.

Yes but exactly why does the drowning of a Booker brought in from a different dimension who does not become com-stock remove com-stock? Wouldn't there be two Bookers present since they also went back in time to the same event in the one dimension. I mean the other Booker is still alive in the past, the one who becomes Com-Stock. I don't see how the Booker you are playing suddenly becomes the evil Com-stock just because you are brought back in time. If it is trying to tell me that event was somehow multidimensional then why would some Booker's survive the event at all and only the Com-stocks die.

It's also possible in some dimensions Booker just decided to be a better person and were not very interesting.

You didn't understand the ending right.
When you walk through that last door you BECOME past broker. The one from before the baptism and that past broker gets drowned.

Why did he become past Booker?
Why wouldn't there be two Booker's present?
Assuming Booker does not become evil for no reason past this point then his 'becoming' past Booker would have achieved the same thing as his drowning. I see they thought that they needed something more symbolic for Booker to face his sins but come on I don't need just accept it because they said so.
I know these things the games trying to tell me I just don't see why.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Bob....you DO realize that the Booker we see in the Stinger on the office is NOT the same Booker we play as, right?

The new timeline resets everything to the moment where Booker is STILL in debt and an alcoholic mass murderer. He doesn't have the character development he has when we play as him and reach the ending now. Meaning that he STILL can sell his own daughter, get to the baptism and become Comstock or just Booker.

The new timeline however, ensures that, as soon he becomes Comstock, the Elizabeths will appear and drown him ASAP. Because this mere act of BEING Comstock means that Columbia will be made, Elizabeth will be bought from another Booker, the entirety of Bioshock Infinite will happen, and Elizabeth will become omnipotent and drown the version of Booker that WANTS to be baptized and become Comstock. But the timelines with Booker rejecting baptism will remain intact.

Too bad that Booker is still and asshole. And even if he wasn't, where he will try to escape with the daughter and the debt?

 

[captaincabbage]

Always good to get this sort of thing summed up and explained, since Bioshock Infinite hits you out of nowhere so fast that it's hard to take it all in, or even believe what we just saw.

I like what I got out of this video though. The entire Mass Effect trilogy did the same thing as this, make itself out to be this giant, save-the-universe affair, when all along it's actually all about Shepherd and his own personal battle against the reapers. Well, that's if you believe in the Indoctrination Theory that is, which I do because it doesn't blow up the universe and makes sense.

 

[maximara]

Personally I thought the story was an absolute train wreck!

There's a big difference between different timeline and alternate reality.

It's not Supergirl vs Powergirl

It's HULK vs Maestro!

ALSO the hero fails to grasp the most obvious way of averting the evil future is to go back to his own time and be a better person; AKA the REAL T2 ending.

But that kind of ending doesn't sell many books.

The thing is there is a _second_ ending at the end to the credits which hints that none of it mattered.

Of course the whole Elizabeth drowns Booker thing is effectively Grandfather's paradox in mile high letters. Never mind it is not exactly clear why you wind up in Rapture.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Moviebob, you it it right on the head with why I like this game so much. Bioshock 1 took narrative structure and turned it on its head: Bioshock Infinite took what Bioshock 1 did and turned it on its own head. I also like what they did with Elizabeth: her story was very much a coming of age one, as she realizes who and what Booker is and grows up to help him grow out of his problems. It becomes very much a symbiotic relationship between the two.

 

[Amaror]

snip

Why did he become past Booker?
Why wouldn't there be two Booker's present?
Assuming Booker does not become evil for no reason past this point then his 'becoming' past Booker would have achieved the same thing as his drowning. I see they thought that they needed something more symbolic for Booker to face his sins but come on I don't need just accept it because they said so.
I know these things the games trying to tell me I just don't see why.

I thought because there can only be one Broker.
Now let me explain a bit. After the baptism there were two versions of Broker. That's the reasen why both were able to exist in the same universe. Because both versions were different. Even though there were thousands of Comstocks, No one of them could go into a Comstock universe without becoming the comstock of that universe.
That's why The professor whatshername could only get another version of herself into the same universe, namely the version of her, where she was born as a boy. She wouldn't be able to pull a never-ending amount of herself into one universe, because only one of each person can be in one universe. But because Broker and Comstock took so different routes, they essentially became different persons and thus could live in the same universe. But when broker went back in the time were there was only one broker, both brokers couldn't live exist together in that universe and thus merged with oneanother.

 

[I.Muir]

snip

Snip

I thought because there can only be one Broker.
Now let me explain a bit. After the baptism there were two versions of Broker. That's the reasen why both were able to exist in the same universe. Because both versions were different. Even though there were thousands of Comstocks, No one of them could go into a Comstock universe without becoming the comstock of that universe.
That's why The professor whatshername could only get another version of herself into the same universe, namely the version of her, where she was born as a boy. She wouldn't be able to pull a never-ending amount of herself into one universe, because only one of each person can be in one universe. But because Broker and Comstock took so different routes, they essentially became different persons and thus could live in the same universe. But when broker went back in the time were there was only one broker, both brokers couldn't live exist together in that universe and thus merged with one another.

So they merged because of plot and still would have become Com-Stock because of plot.
Eventually I'm just going to reach that wall of they just do ok so we might as well end this here.

 

[jimClassic]

Bob! WHY?! I can't watch your video; I haven't played the game yet!

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Also I take issue with Bob's statement that the focus on the Booker/Elizabeth relationship makes the story "darker and bleaker". Surely the fact that the game renders a righteous rebellion against racist oppression a heinous act of barbarism which 'never should've happened' and proceeds to assume moral stances *for* the player is the darkest and bleakest and most depressingly cynical aspect of the game.

Well, it really never should have happened, the folk of the Vox were murderous thugs, there are multiple instances of them just murdering unarmed people because they are a bit annoyed.

But that's the problem. The game embarrasses itself trying to be "balanced". It paints the rebels - the enslaved, disenfranchised, tortured and oppressed - as though they were no better than Comstock's racist status quo. Booker and Elizabeth both make comments that amount to drawing direct moral equivalences between the two. It's disingenuous, and it's blatant intellectual cowardice on display. Daisy Fitzroy's characterisation (what little there was) goes out the window entirely in tandem with this painfully forced objective stance the game demands the player to assume, and then she's fridged for the benefit of Elizabeth's character development.

BioShock: Infinite is a neoconfederate racist theme park which never attempts to address or take responsibility for the issues and imagery it invokes. Worse, it outright misrepresents them.

I always find it surprising that people have problems how the Vox are portrayed.
1) Elizabeth jumped us through 2 tears before things got out of hand.
2) Given what has historically happened during these kinds of populist uprisings ... its pretty spot on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_family

3) Daisy Fitzroy was never the point to begin with - the point was to show the results of Elizabeth mucking around with space-time and jumping through tears as any easy way to get what she wants.

 

[bootz]

I played the game. I thought the end was ok. I just wanted Elizabeth to see Paris.

 

[conanthegamer]

Cinematics and preview material from before the release. I get the impression they iterated a decent number of details between then and now. Like Elizabeth coming across as more of a telepath than dimension hopper.

That's probably why I don't watch game trailers, or care very much about anything that's written or shown before the actual release of a game. The question is, why did Bob use this footage, when it's not actually representative of the game as it was released?

Notice how you barely mentioned the Fitzroy narrative of freedom fighter turns into a blood lusting gang. i.e. Che, Sandinista's, Russian Revolution, etc.

Or, perhaps significantly more relevant to the topic at hand, the American Revolution.

I don't remember any massacres of the British after we gained our independence from them.

 

[babinro]

As someone who has never played the game, I am asking this out of ignorance. Wouldn't going back and stopping Booker from fighting in Wounded Knee make more sense than killing him?

Maybe it would. But imagine all the variables that would happen if they did that. For all we know Booker might not have had his baby, or maybe he'd be depressed over NOT fighting. Who knows.

But good point.

Of course killing him at the point of the baptism has it's own flaws. It means that Booker goes on to have Anna while becoming a depressed alcoholic father potentially willing to give his child away to solve his problems. This new beginning starts with all the flaws that led to these problems initially since he's never had a chance to grow or change as a person.

The odds of Anna or Booker living a 'normal' life in this 'happy' ending are remote.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Notice how you barely mentioned the Fitzroy narrative of freedom fighter turns into a blood lusting gang. i.e. Che, Sandinista's, Russian Revolution, etc.

Or, perhaps significantly more relevant to the topic at hand, the American Revolution.

I don't remember any massacres of the British after we gained our independence from them.

Why does it have to be against the British? After all, in Bioshock Infinite, Daisy Fitzroy attacks Booker, who was trying to help them. Also mentioned in the game is Wounded Knee, where Americans turned into a bloodthirsty gang.

How about the years of slavery, lynchings and oppression that followed the American Revolution? Or the internment of Japanese civilians during WWII? Or the Vietnam war and the horrific actions committed there by American troops? Or the current killings of hundreds of innocent civilians and children by Americans in retribution for 9/11?

Just this week, I have seen comments on message boards about how due process should be suspended, and that we should basically just lynch or torture anybody suspected of the bombings in Boston. A bloodthirsty mob, indeed.

Since you mention the British, isn't it also interesting that America still practices the death penalty, while England and most other civilized countries have banned this as an abhorrent practice? I'm not saying that the American Revolution shouldn't have happened - but to pretend that Americans haven't acted in bloodthirsty ways since then is just ignoring reality. America became a world "superpower" - just like England was at the time, only then it was called "Empire." America has simply taken the role that the British Empire had.

EDIT: Just to make it perfectly clear, have you not noticed that the Bioshock series is all about ideologies (of all stripes) gone horribly wrong? And Bioshock Infinite is specifically refers to the ideals of the American Revolution gone horribly wrong. I really don't understand how somebody could play the game and not pick up on that theme.

In any case, the point of my reply was that I was replying to someone who was only mentioning "Communist" atrocities, while there are just as many examples from the other end of the political spectrum, including some rather notable examples from the 20th Century (which I hardly need mention).

Everybody thinks they are a freedom fighter, or on the side of "good" - but what consequences does the fight for your idea of "freedom" have?

 

[search_rip]

ALSO the hero fails to grasp the most obvious way of averting the evil future is to go back to his own time and be a better person; AKA the REAL T2 ending.

But that kind of ending doesn't sell many books.

Totally agree, they are dealing with multiple realities/universes and the best solution he found was suicide :S


Captcha: Change the world... really !!!

 

[Saibh]

I'm impressed. B:I is the It game of the moment, which means amongst gaming circles, it is generally untouchable. I can appreciate that this is a commentary coming from a place of admiration that still acknowledges the flaw-that-works-for-some-people.

That said, I don't think it was dog-dog-dog-dog-ELEPHANT. It was dog-dog-dog-otter-otter-otter-ELEPHANT. The first half and the second half of the game are an incredible disconnect with each other. The problem is not that the game was always about one thing and then became about something else right at the end, it's that it was one thing, became a second thing, and then did a backwards somersault flip into a third thing that only sorta tied the first two together.

The game starts out very Bioshock 1 like. It seems to be about Columbia, about political narrative. About extremism and ideologies. Then, after the first reality shift, the game stops being about that. Elizabeth stops really noticing the world around her, Booker doesn't really comment but to say the obvious cynical stuff, and the game instead focuses on Booker and Elizabeth as characters and their relationship together. I don't think the big thematically important message we learn about Booker justifies the game's lack of continuity. It weakens it significantly.

THEN it becomes about the whole billions of lighthouses, baptism, Comstock-is-Booker thing.

That's my issue. It strikes me that this game had the same issue Pixar's Brave did: it wanted to be one thing, it became another, so when it tried to be both, it could only half-succeed, despite doing these disparate things very well.

 

[conanthegamer]

Notice how you barely mentioned the Fitzroy narrative of freedom fighter turns into a blood lusting gang. i.e. Che, Sandinista's, Russian Revolution, etc.

Or, perhaps significantly more relevant to the topic at hand, the American Revolution.

I don't remember any massacres of the British after we gained our independence from them.

Why does it have to be against the British? After all, in Bioshock Infinite, Daisy Fitzroy attacks Booker, who was trying to help them. Also mentioned in the game is Wounded Knee, where Americans turned into a bloodthirsty gang.

How about the years of slavery, lynchings and oppression that followed the American Revolution? Or the internment of Japanese civilians during WWII? Or the Vietnam war and the horrific actions committed there by American troops? Or the current killings of hundreds of innocent civilians and children by Americans in retribution for 9/11?

Just this week, I have seen comments on message boards about how due process should be suspended, and that we should basically just lynch or torture anybody suspected of the bombings in Boston. A bloodthirsty mob, indeed.

Since you mention the British, isn't it also interesting that America still practices the death penalty, while England and most other civilized countries have banned this as an abhorrent practice? I'm not saying that the American Revolution shouldn't have happened - but to pretend that Americans haven't acted in bloodthirsty ways since then is just ignoring reality. America became a world "superpower" - just like England was at the time, only then it was called "Empire." America has simply taken the role that the British Empire had.

EDIT: Just to make it perfectly clear, have you not noticed that the Bioshock series is all about ideologies (of all stripes) gone horribly wrong? And Bioshock Infinite is specifically refers to the ideals of the American Revolution gone horribly wrong. I really don't understand how somebody could play the game and not pick up on that theme.

In any case, the point of my reply was that I was replying to someone who was only mentioning "Communist" atrocities, while there are just as many examples from the other end of the political spectrum, including some rather notable examples from the 20th Century (which I hardly need mention).

Everybody thinks they are a freedom fighter, or on the side of "good" - but what consequences does the fight for your idea of "freedom" have?

Got it, America's only country or group of people with blood on it's hand.

America = BAD Everyone else = GOOD

 

[klaynexas3]

As someone who has never played the game, I am asking this out of ignorance. Wouldn't going back and stopping Booker from fighting in Wounded Knee make more sense than killing him?

Technically speaking wouldn't that still allow him the chance to make a monstrously horrible decision that would lead to him needing some form of self-destruction? I'm not saying that all universes would act like that, but killing him is a definite solution, while only stopping him at wounded knee opens many variables that could still lead the whole story back on the same track.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Got it, America's only country or group of people with blood on it's hand.

America = BAD Everyone else = GOOD

What the hell? When did I ever say that. I specifically pointed out that it applies to pretty much everybody. I don't know how you managed to get that interpretation from my post. I mean, who do you think I was referring to with my "notable examples from the 20th Century"? Hint: they were involved in perhaps the most famous war of all time.

Or do you really believe that America is totally innocent and free of the excesses that come with ideology?

 

[LetalisK]

Huh. Never thought about it like that MovieBob, that's actually quite interesting. I doesn't change my opinion that the game was overall decent at best, but it's something to think on.

I find it curious that in a game where you can fly around on sky rails, shoot crows from your hands, and there is an entire floating city, that when it's revealed that Booker sells his child because of gambling debts(though the male twin makes it sound more like spiritual debt), that's when I throw up my hands and yell "Bullshit! That wouldn't happen!" That's one thing among all that other fantastical nonsense that I could not accept.

Then again, perhaps the reason the ending didn't jive with me is because I generally do not like time travel/interdimensional plot devices in my stories.

I would never be able to get into comic books. >.<