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Is A Better Home Awaiting In The Sky? [Bioshock: Infinite]
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We've had two games about Rapture.
I don't feel we need to really revisit it, and would rather further delve into Columbia.
But as long as it's good, I'll probably buy it anyway. :P
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I think I may do a first round the whole run with mostly just the sniper rifle.
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And how did Elizabeth maintain memory of booker after the NYC / saved by tornado scene?
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Your nose is bleeding
By accepting responsibility for the sins he's already committed, as well as the ones he may/will commit as Comstock, he helps close one of many causal loops.
Honestly, that's a little too steeped in bullshit time travel shenanigans, but there you go.
Stop it there and you stop it everywhere
That's as near as I can figure it and
Also I'm pretty sure that that scene is metaphorical.
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Meta-for-real-ical.
Yeah. Its
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But the Comstock baptism was given to 16 y/o Booker, so I struggled with how they managed to kill "16" by drowning "38".
I tried coming up with ways they could be drowning 16, but something like "transfer of consciousness across universes" was inconsistent with the coexistence of Booker/Comstock, or Rosalind/Robert. It would involve a replacement instead of a duplicate.
Well, now I think that I was taking the ending too literally. They are drowning 38, but it's not meant to prevent Comstock's birth. Instead, the ending is purely symbolic, and a proper send off for 38.
After the destruction of the Siphon, she could just have easily flashed back to Wounded Knee and killed 16 herself. That'd be an awfully abrupt ending to both the game and their relationship...
Instead, she gives Booker the opportunity to understand the mess created by Comstock, and agree to his demise to spare Anna her fate as Elizabeth. He accepts that he is both, and wishes to atone for the actions of both.
Presumably, what we see as the ending is just her way of honoring her father. Even though he condemned her, he saved her too.
That seems like a bit of a stretch, to me. I can't see that as being a "reference".
After seeing it mentioned in the last couple pages, I read the analysis by @poorochondriac and I actually have to disagree as it seems to overlook the Vox Populi sub-plot. It may end up being just a semantic issue, but I think it's a big one.
-Booker is what happens when you can't forgive yourself of your mistakes. He spirals into self-destructive behavior because his sins weight him down and he desperately tries to drown them out through gambling and alcohol.
-In contrast, Comstock is what happens when you forget your mistakes. He claims he has forgiveness, but authentic self-forgiveness must come with change. By forgetting his past sins, he repeats them over and over again.
-Finally, in my theory, the post credits Booker is the one that forgives himself and moves past his sins. He's the one who never went to be baptized (and therefore didn't drown), because he didn't need to.
But that meshes pretty well with poorochondriac's reading if you swap the words forgive and accept. To a large extent, self-forgiveness is acceptance. It doesn't work so well with the Vox Populi plot however.
The Vox Populi, like Booker, are separated into two realities. In neither are the acts of Fink forgotten - they're separated differently.
In the first world, before you enter the tear, the people of Shantytown are accepting their fate. They are beaten and broken. Fink treats them brutally, but they do nothing about it. To an extent, this isn't their fault as they don't have the tools to adequately do so
But in the final world, after you enter the tear that gives the Vox Populi guns, you see the danger of not forgiving those who hurt you. The Vox Populi have not forgiven, forgotten, or accepted what happened to them. Instead, they seek vengeance in blood. I would argue that they become WORSE than the Founders, but that isn't critical to my point.
In a way, the message of the game could be that violence and oppression beget violence and oppression. You must not accept it and stand against it, yet you have to eventually move on and forgive it. Booker didn't move on, Comstock didn't stand against it, and Fitzroy didn't forgive. All became monsters in their own way, but Booker eventually chooses to right his own wrongs and so becomes set on his path of redemption.
Even Elizabeth gets into this as she too holds hatred for her "parents". But she forgives her "mother" and pleads for Booker to not kill Comstock, therefore providing the template for us to emulate. And in the end, she forgives her real father for abandoning her and takes the action necessary to prevent the suffering.
Killing Booker/COmstock at the Baptism causes Elizabeth the God to never come into being but instead of a time loop Booker is put on a different path via the memories inherited when Elizabeth changes reality in a way that kills you or brings you back.
Our Booker and all Bookers for whom the Nexus of their life is the Baptism are drown by Elizabeth instead.
Our Booker then comes back to life because Elizabeth doesn't exist
Our Booker wakes up having experienced his own death and the life that led to it and in fear goes to check on his child.
Our Booker finds his daughter safe and presumably doesn't give his child to Comstock.
The Circle is broken, Doomsday averted and in saving his daughter Booker finds redemption. Presumably the Lutuce's still exist since they are a universal constant.
Maybe Elizabeth too if she pulled a Modoka(sorry Anti).
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You may be right, but I'm not even sure that
I've read theories that suggest the Booker we play as at the start of the game was the 122nd or 123rd Booker that the Luteces brought to save Elizabeth. This is backed up by the fact that the code to activate the lighthouse is 1-2-2 and that the coin flip test at the beginning was Heads #123.
So what happens to Booker in those scenes where he drowns or falls or gets attacked by Songbird? Or when you die and respawn when you're not with Elizabeth? He appears back in his office , acts confused, and then steps through a door back into Columbia.
To me, this suggests that the Booker you were playing has died and you're now playing as a new Booker. But, then, why do you remember what happened? It's the same mechanic as when you jumped to the reality where Booker died for the Vox Populi! The memories of the physical Booker merge with the memories of the Booker of that reality.
So the final Booker is a Booker who never went to be baptized, but has somehow picked up some of the memories of "our" Booker.
Booker #123 flips the coin.
After that, anytime you die without Elizabeth you respawn as the next Booker, so you finish the game as Booker #x where x is a number between 123 and infinity.
All the subsequent Bookers have an identical journey as the previous one, except they don't die at the moment the previous Booker died. The game just skips ahead.
That's how I see it (unless there's a more natural point prior to the coin-flipping for Booker #122 to die).
Oh no, I didn't die here because Elizabeth injected me with magic life formula, I remember now.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Otherwise, while death in the first Bioshock was a story element, here it's just a gameplay mechanic with an ambiguous tease.
Then some stuff makes it sound like there are "previous Bookers" while other quotes imply infinite, simultaneous Bookers, some subset of which manage to free Elizabeth.
Everything that happened after the point that Elizabeth got her god like powers was done for the benefit of other people
First, she killed songbird in such a way that he ultimately accepted. She let him know that she forgave him, that it wasn’t his fault (he was a slave to the music, for whatever the reason), and Songbird finally let go of her.
Rapture was chosen as the setting for this purely for the (meta) benefit of us, the players (in a wink-wink / nudge-nudge ‘Oh hey this is neat!’ kind of way – they could have had him drown anywhere).
Finally, the ‘place’ that she took Booker to next was done purely for his benefit. A world filled with an infinite number of trans-dimensional lighthouses was used so that she could have Booker understand how she saw the universe(s) now. She created this for him. It seems that her original idea of the tears being a form of ‘wish fulfillment’ wasn’t so far off base. She wanted Booker to understand, and then accept. She wanted to give him what he had been craving ever since he rejected his baptism – absolution of his sins through self-forgiveness. She walks him step by step through a series of major events in his life to make him understand things as she sees them, and finally gives him the choice (“Are you sure you want to do this?”) before drowning him. She didn’t need to do this – again, she could have just plucked Comstock out of all realities (Hell, she could have jammed them all in there with Songbird if she felt like it). But she wanted, more than anything, to give Booker what he was looking for. A way for him to ‘undo’ everything he has done. A way for him to let go.
That’s why she had to do it to 40 year old Booker and not 16 year old Booker.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!