The One Who Knocks
Member
Here they are so you can hear the exact dialogue:
Ultimatum
Time is an ocean/we must undo what we have done.
Trapped in the timeline.
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SPOILER Bioshock Infinite SPOILER discussion
- Thread starter thomasmahler
- Start date
Here they are so you can hear the exact dialogue:
Ultimatum
Time is an ocean/we must undo what we have done.
Trapped in the timeline.
AHA-Lambda
Member
oh cool, thanks
Actually, this might be a dumb question now, but how exactly did Elizabeth get her powers to bend reality then? From experimentation by the Lucetes I assume?
Apophenia Overload
Member
Yeah, the problem with the portrayals aren't historical accuracy, but how he insists that each side is the same.
GoddyofAus
Banned
oh cool, thanks
Actually, this might be a dumb question now, but how exactly did Elizabeth get her powers to bend reality then? From experimentation by the Lucetes I assume?
No, her finger being cut off by the portal and being left behind in a different universe. A piece of her in two different places. An "atom" across the universes, if you will.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Oh I see. I really feel the need to replay this again already to pick apart the minutiae of all the stuff I've missed, but I imagine that is part of the intent of the creators.
giancarlo123x
Banned
So what was up with the random red tears across Columbia that played music from the future?
I find the Lutece's mention of Booker not rowing, the coin flip ... As an interesting way to break the fourth wall. The big Bioshock reveal got me thinking about it years ago. In my mind - Andrew Ryan's speech and the Lutece's actions - is a neat way to provide a sort-of meta-commentary about games and the people that play them.
Like Elizabeth said, there are multiple doors, multiple cities, multiple stories being told all at the same time. As a gamer, we are those stories. I opened one door when I played the game, as did everyone else who played and finished the game. Yet, as Elizabeth goes on to mention, there's ultimately one way for the story to end - one way for the game to end - and in that we don't have a choice. The player doesn't have a choice.
At the end of the day - We're the constant - the player is the constant. How we interact with the game and the memories we develop through the course of playing the game, those are the variables.
The One Who Knocks
Member
oh cool, thanks
Actually, this might be a dumb question now, but how exactly did Elizabeth get her powers to bend reality then? From experimentation by the Lucetes I assume?
This too is mentioned in a Voxophone (I just realised I've been spelling that wrong the entire time) but the Voxophone doesn't really 'make sense' until after the reveal so it is an understandable question (I had completely misinterpreted it the first time:
The universe does not like its peas mixed with its porridge
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
Let you know some shit was gonna happen in the future.
GoddyofAus
Banned
Yeah. She essentially discovered what the Luteces discovered by accident. Same principle, different method.
ThusZarathustra
Member
Really, if you want to get hardcore about your interpretation of possibility space (and you're taking the worldview of the Male Lutece, that is that the possibility of fixing things and removing the whole probability chain of Booker-as-born-again-christian DOES stop the infinite iterations of Comstock and prune back that possibility space wholly) you can say that the entire game actually doesn't even happen.
You actually prevent the events of the game from happening by playing through the events of the game.
The entire game is an exercise in creating its own non-existence.
You actually prevent the events of the game from happening by playing through the events of the game.
The entire game is an exercise in creating its own non-existence.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
So at the very end when he's drowned, the two "Elizabeths" on the sides are noticeably taller. Are they supposed to be "Lady Comstock" and whatever Booker's Wife's name is in those realities?
GoddyofAus
Banned
Precisely. Which makes it one of the best mind fucks in the history of videogames.
No, they're still Elizabeth, however their physical appearances are circumstantial differences between the different universes. One Liz might be 6 feet tall, another might have Dwarfism. Variables.
In that scene, have a close look at the Elizabath in blue at the far back, far left. It is the original character model for Elizabeth in that famous E3 demo.
I was a bit surprised he didn't get stabbed when drawing his weapon. "If you don't draw first...you don't get to draw at all."
Loved the mini-narrative about Esther in that scene.
Personally, my favorite scene in the game that doesn't get much attention is the combination Ella Fitzgerald and the photos in the dark room. It's wonderfully haunting. They really created great scenes with their musical selections.
Loved the mini-narrative about Esther in that scene.
Personally, my favorite scene in the game that doesn't get much attention is the combination Ella Fitzgerald and the photos in the dark room. It's wonderfully haunting. They really created great scenes with their musical selections.
The One Who Knocks
Member
Yep, and this was the male Lutece's goal in the first place. By creating a paradox you make it impossible for the universe to create the situation in which the paradox occurs (it's like you create a feedback loop and thus 'blow' these sets of universes), eliminating one of the two choices at the baptism so that Booker must always reject redemption (because, if he can make the other choice, a paradox in some timeline will occur and a paradox is a paradox, it can't occur) preventing everything from occuring and allowing Booker to wake up naturally on the date that Anna was taken, with no memory as to what's occured.
GoddyofAus
Banned
He's referring to the two that walk into frame on either side of Booker and grab his arms.
ThusZarathustra
Member
Quite true, though admittedly, it's really just the same old mind-fuck that most classical paradoxical sci-fi stories operate on. Levine just found an excellent way to use the hand-holding and repetitious structure of videogames in conjunction with that old idea to do what is probably one of the best-implemented narratives in gaming.
it'd kinda be interesting if the game was just the post-credits scene
Oh, right. Huh. That does seem strange, but I don't think there's any deeper meaning to it.
GoddyofAus
Banned
Bioshock Digit
I think of it as more of a Memento or inception where you go what the fuck and everything you were shown is now kind of up for debate.
AHA-Lambda
Member
The twist in this is way more impressive than 6th sense's :lol
Yeah, that's why I felt that the drowning of Booker, was not just killing that one Booker that became Comstock, but a symbol to stop that chain.
Apophenia Overload
Member
What? No. The twist is pretty much on the same level as Fight Club's.
:lol
Ha, I don't consider that particularly deep (in it's-actually-Lady-Comstock terms).
And that's not the prototype model, or not exactly at least - that's clearly the current Elizabeth's face.
jacksepticeye
Member
Yep, technically you were controlling a Booker that I wasn't. We were both playing the game from different dimensions if you will, and it further drives home that point that no matter what either of us chose as variables, the ending was a constant and something that had to happen. Your booker was drowned at the end as mine was and everyone else in this thread.
It's pretty damn deep and really is expertly thought out.
On a side note, anyone know what the old timey song in the lighthouse at the start was? You can hear it here: http://youtu.be/r5qMxuQAEFg?t=3m3s
Edit: NVM, Shazam got it on my phone lol. It's called "Old time religion". I really love these kinds of songs
There's a lot of volumetric fog in Bioshock Infinite.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
This is what I was getting at, including a paradoxal universe that instantly collapses or never existed at all because of the paradox. Which sounds totally insane to a conscious being, but only because they're forced to find patterns and perceive time as a measurable, linear sequence of events. It's like trying to understand what came before the big bang. Or better yet, what comes after the collapse of our own. The universe and time itself cease to exist and by all accounts never did, as time itself creased to be. Yet here we are still perceiving it.
ThusZarathustra
Member
That is his goal, but it's up to the player whether that goal is reached or not. It's up to the player whether or not things continue forever in all possible iterations, as the female Lutece seems to think, or are ended for good, the Pandora's Box of horrible possibilities closed forever, as the male Lutece seems to think.
The final variable, the only choice that matters: the choice of meaning, is left to us.
Yup, yup. And these paradoxes, at this level, are as old as thought and have been used to prove the limitations of human perception since time immemorial. Levine and Irrational did an excellent job.
"What was there before there was anything?"
Yea now that I think of its more a mix between fight club and inception/memento. 6 Sense was the first thing I could think of at the time lol
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Everyone knows the proper course of action to get out of a time loop is to decompress the main shuttlebay.
I went on media blackout after the trailer came out with Elizabeth doing the "Return/Revenge of the Jedi" tear. I didn't want anything else like that disappointed for me. That's probably my main complaint with the game, I really wish the tear ability had been explored more. Perhaps insert more tears that have pop-culture references to slightly modified versions of the past/present/future.
The One Who Knocks
Member
Oh right! Very good, I had never considered the possibility of the simultaneous existence of an infinite set in which he succeeds and an infinite set where he fails. As in, while there is the infinite set of universe in which Booker succeeds in erasing the alternative timelines, there is simultaneously the infinite set of timelines in which Booker fails and all events repeatedly continue. If the timelines are as the male Lutece sees it, as you've mentioned, then the infinite set of timelines are the only possibilities. If it's as female Lutece sees it, then the set of both sets are occuring. Do I have that correctly or have I just convinced myself of something completely different?
EDIT: If this is what you mean, I think I was focusing too much on a Fringe (and the episode "White Tullip")-like view of the multiverse (which is much more like the male Lutece's). I wish to thank you for broadening my view of the ending (if this is what you are referring to).
jacksepticeye
Member
Watching anything like LOST or Fringe would make you see some twists a mile away, especially when you know time and tears was involved.
jacksepticeye
Member
Well you did have all those songs made into old timey versions because of tears. And The return of the Jedi was in French this time lol
Well as the thread has shown the twist, while pretty major, is kind of really half the fun of why the game was so good and for some may have been kind of expected. The story and characters effected by the twist is really what is blowing everyone away and driving discussion. Hell I want to know more about the one girl who got a chance to visit Elizabeth. I want to learn more about Daisy and is that one viewfinder thing was propaganda spread after the murder of Lady Comstock or if she was really sky hooking around causing mischief. I want to know more about why/who/what songbird is. Were the boys of silence a creation made by Future Liz or remnants of Comstocks old guard? How many realities do we really pass through in the story to reach the conclusion? What was the importance of ticking clocks that show up all over the place besides being a meter for workers on the docks? What happens to Finks brother? How much does Bioshock 1 influence the world of Columbia and vice versa? Do you ever pick tails?
Tons of questions with the twist being relatively simple compared to the amount of questions brought to the table.
Yeah, but I thought it might have been interesting to have you and Elizabeth thrown into some really out there scenarios. Dance club? Aircraft carrier flight deck? Modern day operating room? Morning talk show? I mean... If IG put the work in to create a tear showing a Star Wars reference, I think it would be hard to make a tear that would ruin the vibe. They've really got all of history to throw in here.
that and the horse made me really excited for the game but that kind of pathos was never really explored
Marsipolami
Member
I don't understand how Liz drowning one Booker turned Comstock kills all of the Comstocks. Since there is one world for every single variant and constable wouldn't there be an infinite amount of worlds where Booker accepts the baptism and turns into Comstock?
I think you were meant to have a chance to figure most of it out if you were finding all the audio logs and such. I didn't see the whole picture or the resolution coming until the end though, which was nice. It's nice to be left in a thoughtful place after finishing a game.
Actually, I think it will be left to DLC