I'm not sure what you mean by "turn away." Who turns away, from what?
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SPOILER Bioshock Infinite SPOILER discussion
- Thread starter thomasmahler
- Start date
DyslexicAlucard
Member
Probably, though I went through every area multiple times trying to find them all.
Oh well, there's always YouTube or an easy playthrough just to get the rest and re-absorb the story. Though I honestly would almost find that tougher because the lack of challenge would only bore me.
Booker from the baptism. BI is based on the infinite timelines spanning from that decision, but once the loop is closed the universe rights itself again. No Lutece invention because no Comstock funding, no Elizabeth losing her finger to a tear granting her awareness and manipulation of all outcomes in the multiverse. It never happens in the final scene, at least to my understanding. Just deadbeat dad Booker with crying Anna that he can't sell to anyone if he wanted to.
I agree, stronger asymmetry between the Founders' and Vox's weapons would have been pretty cool.
Infinitemadness
Member
So, i get the whole Comstock and Booker being the same age and hinting they were the same, but why would he become so racist and religious. Especially religious if he was hesitant to be baptised as it is.
Apologies if this was asked before. 99 pages is a lot.
Apologies if this was asked before. 99 pages is a lot.
Which is why I can't understand how some people, especially that nbthedude (miss spelled probably) cry that the game ending felt shoe horned.
Just looking at the main narrative/theme of the game: 2 twins trying to serve redemption for the catastrophe they created upon a A man and his daughter...than saying the ending felt shoe horned is just ignorant.
There were hundreds of hints. The whole game, is just filled with details. From the music, and there lyrics to the dialogue, to the voxophones, to small things like the image above.
Infinite is the king of foreshadowing. To say the game had a shoe horned ending, well, that's just total disrespect to Levine and his writers. Just total disrespect.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Yeah. Every narrative strand was basically created in service of the big reveal at the end.
They certainly worked for it.
She holds the ponytail in her hand when she comes out.
They certainly worked for it.
She holds the ponytail in her hand when she comes out.
It seems like Levine doesn't understand the multiverse idea at all. Even if Booker is eliminated in one universe, by definition he still exists in the others, simply because that already happened at one point in time. How can the actions of one universe affect the others, when all universes are equally representative of different choices.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Justification for his actions in the battle on Wounded Knee? He could be baptised by a pretty racist Christian sect and believed that his actions were alright due to him being part of the much more 'superior' white man blood.
EDIT: Bioshock Infinite ending discussions has been really fun. At least it isn't End of Evangelion. That was a clusterfuck.
DyslexicAlucard
Member
I'll just copy and paste my thoughts from the last page for you.
"The multiverse idea" is whatever the author wants it to be. Any piece of fiction that deals with multiple universes and/or time travel will have some constraints to deal with paradoxes.
GenoZStriker
Neo Member
I did not exactly get what they were trying to show with the Rapture part of the ending. Was that part just to say that in another world, Columbia would be Rapture instead? Rather than a city in the sky, it'd be a city in the ocean?
ViewtifulJC
Banned
symbolic important haircut!
It's some pretty basic psychology, when confronted with yourself doing wrong, you can either change behavior or change your perception of right and wrong. Thus, Comstock creates a theology where only white men are worth salvation or God's grace, that justifies his murders and the whole American exceptionalisn thing, he committed atrocities in the name of America, he either messed up, or America is pretty great.
Comstock is one side of cognitive dissonance, rationalization, and Booker is the other, depression.
.
FlutterPuffs
Member
I think it was mostly symbolic of her changing from her Disney princess look to a much more serious/mature one.
His rules for how a multiverse works are not the standard one, but it is completely within his "right" as the creator of an universe to work out the rules. There's no particular reason why there are constants either, but there they are and you can't have the story without them. It's fair game, I think, there's a limit of how much hard science there is in science fiction.
There is a recording that I went over that I think he finally used to justify his racism.
He flat out says what he is doing is wrong but justifies it because God was cruel to banish Adam and eve, flood the earth etc.
DyslexicAlucard
Member
I think this, combined with my explanation, paints a pretty complete picture of why things turned out the way they did.
It's fun putting these pieces together!
Probably so it wouldn't get in the way/had blood all over it or something
FlutterPuffs
Member
Ah yeah thanks! God complex it is then.
The thing is at the end of the game a variable, that is Booker's choice at wounded knee, gets turned into a constant by Elizabeth killing him.
Of course the entire credits sequence puts the thing in doubt again, so it's very well possible that Elizabeth's actions changed nothing, and Booker still exists in another universe.
SammiiDoogles
Member
She was having her Max Payne moment.
Infinitemadness
Member
Fantastic.
Going off that, I think the way most will play, myself included feel that I am Booker, so naturally not being a racist in real life I clung to the idea that he somehow became one instead of being one all along. I didn't want him to be a bad guy in the end but it made for such a great ending.
DyslexicAlucard
Member
It's more than just that. Read Nicktock's and my posts above for further clarification.
Edit: Sorry, I mistook you for someone else.
Edit 2: Actually, the point still stands. Our explanations paint a clearer, and much more coherent, picture than a simple "god complex."
The constant is going to the river, the variable is the decision. They very precisely kill him before he makes a choice or as he is making it. As symbolized by the two Elizabeths who say "You are Booker DeWitt" and "You are Whatever Comstock", she kills him at a specific moment when the timelines are to be formed, but not quite there yet.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
That... was a hell of an ending. I got spoiled that Booker = Comstock, so I wish I experienced that first hand 
But the rest of it... wow... the lead-up to the reveal was excellent and ominous. And the entire sequence after hand was great. Great job by the actors.
I think I've wrapped my head around most of it. Absolutely loved the "There's always a man, a girl, a lighthouse, and the city beyond" twist. That was truly excellent. My only questions are, why is Comstock so much older, and is basically what happened that they killed all the Comstocks of the multiverse, leaving only Booker and Anna?
I need another Bioshock that starts with the journey to the Lighthouse.
But the rest of it... wow... the lead-up to the reveal was excellent and ominous. And the entire sequence after hand was great. Great job by the actors.
I think I've wrapped my head around most of it. Absolutely loved the "There's always a man, a girl, a lighthouse, and the city beyond" twist. That was truly excellent. My only questions are, why is Comstock so much older, and is basically what happened that they killed all the Comstocks of the multiverse, leaving only Booker and Anna?
I need another Bioshock that starts with the journey to the Lighthouse.
Raitosaito
Member
Why did you have to grace us with such an amazingly awful comic?
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Fuck you, Tim Buckley. You're still terrible and unfunny.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
But going by nature of infinite universes, there are also Booker's who never made the choice to go to the river. Everything is only 'constant' insofar as to how the 'constant' qualifiers for certain events apply to the universes that we/Liz care about preventing from happening.
By preventing any and all Bookers from ever making the choice to get baptized or not (i.e. right before Booker decides to go through with it or break away), the only Bookers left in the universe can be those who never went near / considered the baptism event as absolution for his sins in the first place.
Or at least, that's one possible way to mesh the post-credits scene if you do use this interpretation.
In no universe is that funny.
DyslexicAlucard
Member
We need to go back and drown the Tim Buckley that decides to become a webcomic artist.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Didn't he quit or something? His character killed himself in the comic, right?
close your mouths! Jesus...
And yet, if the universes are truly infinite, then that means there are universes where Comstock came into existence outside of the baptism, and therefore the ending accomplished nothing because Comstocks still exist. If the ending is going to make any sense, we have to accept that all universes involving Booker converge at the baptism scene, and therefore there are finite universes.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
It's frustrating because the point of multiverses (physics) is to explain apparent indeterminacy or contradictions in a deterministic way. Rather than one universe with random outcomes, you get one universe per possible outcome. The introduction of time travel into a multiverse setting allows for the creation of events that seem to be a paradox, but actually aren't, because the original timeline is preserved and you are traveling to other (also deterministic) worlds where a time traveler intervened. Thus, a well constructed multiverse allows time-travel without either Closed Loops (phenomena that are their own cause) or Loose Ends (phenomena that prevent their own cause)!
Here is text taken from the SF Chronophysics page:
As presented in BS:I, though, you get the worst of both worlds. Time paradoxes are still in, but now with the added unnecessary convolution of multiple realities everywhere. People saying that Elizabeth did not actually destroy all Comstocks and that reality was indeed deterministic is reading something into the text that was not present, as far as I am concerned.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
is this the universe where buckley didn't commit charity fraud
I think it's pretty obvious that Levine's version of multiverse theory is pretty much tailored to support the story he wants to tell. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it falls apart under even the slightest scrutiny.
Even if Booker deciding to be drowned isn't a branching point that creates alternate realities, then certainly Elizabeth's decision to drown him would be a branching point. I suppose that's the reason for the epilogue after the credits. She can eliminate Comstock in many universes, but not all of them.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
Right, I agree with the first part. As to the second, Ken's playing around with multiverse theory, but in a seemingly limited application in a way that fits his story with all the constant narrative elements in each universe. He's basically utilizing Liz to exercise authorship.
Theoretically, all Liz's 'paradox' of killing Booker during the baptism event accomplishes is getting rid of that particular Comstock decision. It is also possible that there are other Liz's doing the same thing across other variable timelines to stop Booker at those points in time as well.
Agreed.
But also theoretically, due to Liz's interference and omniscience among the time waves, she is equally capable of sorting out all of these other Comstocks and stopping their 'decision' as well, or any other circumstance which would foresee someone like Comstock rising up. (This is all contingent on Comstock behaving in an extremely similar way to the events in Infinite though, which limits the potential for the those specific universes in which he is able to fulfill his dream through Liz's abilities)
That was the least funny thing I've read today.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
Nothing definite, but a few years ago to compete with Penny-Arcade's own 'Child's Play' charity (starting a competing charity to a rival is shitty in-itself) Tim made his own charity. It sort of floundered and it only reached a few thousand dollars so he called it off, but instead of reimbursing people back with the money they'd donated he suddenly wound up with a new several thousand dollar Wacom tablet despite CAD supposedly being his only source of income.
go on...