Bioshock Infinite Ending Discussion

[Snow1Wolf]

This was a great fraking game. The ending though, really really confuse me, but in the end it is the difference between a 99/100 game, or a 100/100 game, so don't worry about it being bad.

I will start my opinion when other people finish.

[V_]

Ahhhh!!! No! No! I haven't finished yet! No spoilers! Nooo!!!!!

On a serious note, if someone's going to include spoilers, please write than in the thread title. I'll post my own thoughts when I've finished some time next week.

EDIT: I'm not talking to you in particular, but rather people in general.

[Snow1Wolf]

That's why I didn't write ANYTHING....I am so scare of spoiling the AMAZING FUCKIGN STORY.

I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. FLAMING I LOVE YOU, FOR CONVINCING ME LAST SECOND TO BUY THIS GAME. No I mean, I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE.

[Snow1Wolf]

Oh and also, is there a way to do the spoiler tag like the ones on reddit?

[Jokerle]

Code: Select all

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I watched some of FrankieonPC1080p's walkthrough. Looks pretty cool, but I never was into bioshock

[Chemical2]

Love these sp games!

[Snow1Wolf]

Thanks Jokerle.

And this one isn't really like the other Bioshocks, I didn't really like fighting alone and in the dark, that was one thing that turn me off about Bioshock 1 and 2, but this one seem different, but, you know it is your choice =D

[zorplex]

I haven't read anything in this thread because I haven't finished the game and don't want spoilers. I'll check back later once I've finished.

I just wanted to stay wow, you guys are fast! The game just came out yesterday! Is it just that short? I might take a little longer than most since I like to look around these types of games (the art direction is fantastic!) but I've already put 6 hours in and don't think I'm anywhere near the end.

[Snow1Wolf]

No, I play on hard difficult mode for 12 hours straight, including 3 computer crushes and 2 replays because I missed a bit of story.

So it is about 10 hours of good quality content? (But I really explore everything the game shown until 3/4 of the storyline passed, because I thought

Spoiler: show

Elizabeth was going to die.

I am kind of just wondering, what is the season pass for?

Spoiler: show

I bought it because I thought there is addition to the story line, but I couldn't explain think of anyway there is addition to the story line.

[zorplex]

So I went ahead and finished it since I didn't want to accidentally suffer spoilers. I absolutely loved it! I'll need to mull it over a bit more, but I'm thinking it's on par with my love for Bioshock 1 which is among my top 5 games ever.

Spoiler: show

I called a couple of the developments early, the Luteces being the same person from different realities, Dewitt being Comstock (I thought he might have been the Songbird for a while) and Elizabeth's father, but the way it developed was quite surprising. There were several amazing moments toward the end like the Bioshock throwback (I was too busy watching the Songbird die until I looked around and realized where I was), the great visuals of the parallel worlds. The presentation was simply awe inspiring.

That said, there are of course a few loose ends that I might need to think about before sense can be made. I'm going to spend some time trying to piece everything together.

[Snow1Wolf]

Ok, cool, somebody finally finishes the game

I need somebody's help explaining this.

Spoiler: show

So Comstock and Dewitt is the same person. I really don't know how's that possible though. Here's why I don't understand:
He's born on 1875, and he steps on the Columbia on 1912, at least according to every source I can find. The way I understand the story Dewitt who steps on Columbia is the one who recently gives away Anna/Elizabeth. So he's actually not 37, but the difference that I don't understand is that. Elizabeth is 21 when he step on Columbia, so he got Anna/Elizabeth when he's 1891 when he's only 16? What? How could he be at every place at once? O_O
Ok that's Elizabeth's age, how about his own age. Comstock is only 37, but look way younger than my parents! And they are at their 50s.
I think that's the biggest thing and I don't understand.

Spoiler: show

And the last part, when I get to middle of the game, I started thinking that this game's objective is Saving Elizabeth, and when she disappear along the timelines I started crying uncontrollably.

[Snow1Wolf]

Zorplex, on the side note without spoiler for Infinite, why did you like Bioshock 1? I actually didn't like either 1 or 2.

[zorplex]

Spoiler: show

So Comstock and Dewitt is the same person. I really don't know how's that possible though. Here's why I don't understand:
He's born on 1875, and he steps on the Columbia on 1912, at least according to every source I can find. The way I understand the story Dewitt who steps on Columbia is the one who recently gives away Anna/Elizabeth. So he's actually not 37, but the difference that I don't understand is that. Elizabeth is 21 when he step on Columbia, so he got Anna/Elizabeth when he's 1891 when he's only 16? What? How could he be at every place at once? O_O

Ok that's Elizabeth's age, how about his own age. Comstock is only 37, but look way younger than my parents! And they are at their 50s.
I think that's the biggest thing and I don't understand.

Spoiler: show

The developers were quite loose on how they used time dimensional tears and time travel. According to the Bioshock wiki, Elizabeth was born in 1892 but didn't arrive in Columbia until 1897. However, she was taken to Columbia as an infant so she had to have been taken before 1894 or so. That means in 1912, she is actually somewhere between 15 and 19 years old depending on the date she arrived in Comstock's world. I've seen a few places online that say she is 19 which matches some of the in game charts that I remember seeing. Regardless, she was born 1892 which means that Booker was around 17 when she was born which is perfectly reasonable, especially for the time period. Birth control was virtually non-existant at the time.

I don't think we know the exact age of the Booker we play as. He could have been contacted any time between 1892, directly after Ana's birth/capture, to 1912 when BS:Infinite takes place or perhaps even later. So he's between 17 and 37 and looks to be at least 30. The random time travelling when jumping between dimensions in the game makes it very difficult to track the dates. We see some dates on his desk in his dreams, but I don't recall if they had a year and they may not have been showing the year he actually left for Columbia. I may play the game again and try to keep track of the years shown. You initially think he left for Columbia in 1912 since he isn't surprised by the date on the newspapers which would make him 37, but because his memories were compromised before the game started, we don't know for sure.

Again for Comstock, I don't think we can know exactly how old he is other than "very". He's at least 37 but because he has been playing with tears and dimensional jumping/time travel, he could either just be showing the signs of exposure to tears for long periods (the same reason he became sterile) or he may have actually spent some time in alternate timelines which would have added years to his age. Remember that he has made tonnes of prophecies which netted him so many followers which would have required at least some interaction with the future. It's a whole lot easier to travel to the future, gather intel, and return than to simply watch through a tear and try to make prophecies by watching.

Spoiler: show

And the last part, when I get to middle of the game, I started thinking that this game's objective is Saving Elizabeth, and when she disappear along the timelines I started crying uncontrollably.

Spoiler: show

I had the same feeling. I didn't mind the sad ending, but I was hoping that there would be a "good" alternate ending that you could reach by making the right choices in the game, but apparently there is only that one ending where Elizabeth kills Booker when he is baptized. Since the Wounded Knee massacre too place on Dec 29, 1890, he would have been baptized sometime in the year 1891 which is before Elizabeth's birth in 1892. That means killing Booker during the baptism would stop Elizabeth from being born. This is the same old "grandfather paradox" that the writers just kind of ignore for the sake of the story. By killing Booker, Comstock, Columbia, Elizabeth and the entire game of Infinity cease to exist. Some have theorized that she only killed the Comstock version of Booker who was going to be baptized which explains why, after the credits, we see Booker in his office hearing Ana (baby Elizabeth) crying in the other room. Killing Comstock would mean the entire Columbia time line wouldn't exist so neither would Elizabeth, so the paradox is still there. But she would instead grow up as Booker's daughter Ana. If this is true, it's not quite as sad as it first appears.

Interesting note about the single ending, the writers comment about it throughout the game. The characters keep talking about "constants" that remain unchanged even with other variables occuring. Elizabeth talks about how she has to stop the course of events before they were set in motion. Even the title, Bioshock: Infinite, makes sense when you think about how the game deals with an infinite number of parallel dimensions. We only see a handful of Elizabeth's at the end, but I think they were symbolic for Elizabeth from every path that could have been taken all going to Comstock's origin and stopping him before he existed.

Zorplex, on the side note without spoiler for Infinite, why did you like Bioshock 1? I actually didn't like either 1 or 2.

I never played 2 since it was by a different developer. I love the original mainly for its story and art direction. Even with it's stylized characters, Bioshock has some of the most stunning visuals of any game I've ever played. It may not be the most technically advanced, but the reimagined 1920s decor underwater is simply beautiful.

Then you have the story which, even without the amazingly well designed twist in the middle, is a solid sci fi story that is presented well with the voice recordings. (I've always been a fan of radio dramas, and the recordings you find in the Bioshock games are a good parallel to those. Instead of having to read flavor text, you get to know characters through these audio diaries. There have been a few other games that have copied the idea and I don't know which one was first, but I think Bioshock was the first game I played that had such a deep back story using them.) The amount of foreshadowing is a bit overkill, but in the end it all makes sense. And the way they reveal the twists during the game were pure genius. If you HAVEN'T had Bioshock spoiled for you, it can contain some of the most memorable moments in video games. And even if you have had it spoiled, exploring the city and revealing the subplots on your own can still be incredibly rewarding for people who like a good story.

Bioshock also introduced me and many others to Objectivism. While Ayn Rand doesn't have many fans, and those she has are often almost as crazy as Andrew Ryan, the way they took Objectivism and creating the city of Rapture was brilliant. I'm not usually a fan of horror, but they showed how philosophy, when taken to an extreme, can create a hell on Earth. I read a few of Rand's works after playing the game, and the added context just makes the game better. Not many games so willingly and successfully integrate topics worth talking about. Bioshock has philosophy taken to an extreme, class warfare, moral ambiguity, corruption through the pursuit of beauty, and on and on. These topics are usually reserved for high literature but Bioshock manages to incorporate them into a cohesive plot that is both fun as it is enlightening.

Bioshock is still an FPS, and a bit of a shallow one at that. Using plasmids, while fun at first, can start to become repetitive by the end of the game. And the ending itself was rather bland compared to the rest of the game. But taken as a whole, Bioshock presents a story that could only be fully realized as a video game. The way they comment on player choice and the results of their actions wouldn't work in any other medium. Aspects would be lost if the game were turned into a movie or book. While I think Bioshock is objectively great, for that reason alone, Bioshock is among my favorites of all time. I'm still contemplating Infinite, but the more I think about it, the more I'm seeing it as at least Bioshock 1's equal if not its better.

[Snow1Wolf]

Spoiler: show

The developers were quite loose on how they used time dimensional tears and time travel. According to the Bioshock wiki, Elizabeth was born in 1892 but didn't arrive in Columbia until 1897. However, she was taken to Columbia as an infant so she had to have been taken before 1894 or so. That means in 1912, she is actually somewhere between 15 and 19 years old depending on the date she arrived in Comstock's world. I've seen a few places online that say she is 19 which matches some of the in game charts that I remember seeing. Regardless, she was born 1892 which means that Booker was around 17 when she was born which is perfectly reasonable, especially for the time period. Birth control was virtually non-existant at the time.

I don't think we know the exact age of the Booker we play as. He could have been contacted any time between 1892, directly after Ana's birth/capture, to 1912 when BS:Infinite takes place or perhaps even later. So he's between 17 and 37 and looks to be at least 30. The random time travelling when jumping between dimensions in the game makes it very difficult to track the dates. We see some dates on his desk in his dreams, but I don't recall if they had a year and they may not have been showing the year he actually left for Columbia. I may play the game again and try to keep track of the years shown. You initially think he left for Columbia in 1912 since he isn't surprised by the date on the newspapers which would make him 37, but because his memories were compromised before the game started, we don't know for sure.

Again for Comstock, I don't think we can know exactly how old he is other than "very". He's at least 37 but because he has been playing with tears and dimensional jumping/time travel, he could either just be showing the signs of exposure to tears for long periods (the same reason he became sterile) or he may have actually spent some time in alternate timelines which would have added years to his age. Remember that he has made tonnes of prophecies which netted him so many followers which would have required at least some interaction with the future. It's a whole lot easier to travel to the future, gather intel, and return than to simply watch through a tear and try to make prophecies by watching.

Spoiler: show

Um I thought she was at least 17 + some by the time DeWitt got to her in the tower because the tower were wiped of human beings because of her abilities that wiped out everybody in her tower(?According that black guy's recording.) And so she was put under extended watch. Last time of her documentation was at least 17, and the tower seem to be abandon way even longer than that, so I assumed she was more than 17 years of age. So 19 sounds about right?

About Booker, there is no way he is 17, here is why. There are 3 events that he definitely remembers himself being there, Wounded Knee, Peking(Beijing) and the Homestead Strike. Last one being July 6, 1892. And the first recording I found regarding Comstock's existence is March 27, 1893. Wait a second......

So wait what? Booker is only 17-18 when he's on the Colombia O_O, no way
[image=]http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images ... mcover.jpg[/image]
Here it says he's 37 O_O. So is the Booker we play as, is a Booker that gives away Elizabeth and just didn't do anything with his life?
Arg I am more confuse now.

If this is the 37 year old him, why did he need to die?
I mean I get the reason why all the Booker that will become Comstock have to die, but why is the 37 year old failed father and a man Booker need to die? Did the tear kind of combine all of the fail 37 years old Booker and the 17 years old Booker who eventually becomes Comstock we see?

MY BRAIN!!! IT HURTS...I AM GOING TO RUN A MILE....THIS HURTS...TOO...MUCH...

[Wi1D_K4rD]

OMG I literally just wrote pretty much a fairly long essay on my theory of what happened and before I could submit I got logged out and when I signed back in everything was gone... So this is going to be hella short hand of my theory cause I really don't want to type it all out again. Not right now at least... And yeah I know it's still pretty long...

Spoiler: show

The first theory I want to provide is the entanglement theory. Not to be confused with quantum entanglement which is slightly different from what I understand. Whenever someone walks through to another universe they essentially replace their fundamental equivalents. As long as a version of themselves exists that is sufficiently similar both physically and spiritually they will essentially hijack that body. This causes the melding of memories causing the confusion among those affected. The reason it doesn't affect DeWitt as much is this is technically like his 122nd time of doing this so his mind has more or less gotten used to it. It still affects him but not to the paralyzing effect it has on some of the others who not only haven't experienced it but are also having to rationalize the memories of their own death.

Now Comstock while being the same person as DeWitt on a physical level on a spiritual level he is far different. Thus they are allowed to exist simultaneously. This of course implies an existence of a soul but that's kind of irrelevant for this topic.

So with that in mind we must also discuss a theory of time. In this game the events that happen are referred to constants and variables. The idea that everything that can happen has happened while simultaneously not happening while at the same time having no effect on the march of destiny. That no matter what has happened or hasn't happened certain things will always happen. Already confusing I'm sure... Anyways prior to the baptism no matter what choices Booker chooses he remains "spiritually" the same person. The infinite universes that plot his life intertwine around one major through-line. It isn't until his decision to go through with the baptism or reject it that it creates a truly parallel universe. One whose infinite decisions still all follow either one through-line, that of the creation of Columbia, or one whose major through-line is Booker's ever descending life of failure and regret. However this is in contradiction to how the nature of time "wants" to be so a cycle begins that is time trying to correct itself. A cycle occurs where Booker attempts to rescue his daughter with a bit of help from Lutece. Failing many times, as he had yet to learn what was needed of him, the cycle continued to repeat in an attempt to correct itself. It wasn't until the 122nd time that full realization occurred that he was Comstock and what needed to happen. By going back to just before the baptism, a time when on a spiritual level he was the same as Comstock therefore per my entanglement theory was at that point forced to inhabit the same body per se, he was able to undergo a new sort of baptism. I don't think he was actually drowned in the end. Instead he was able to get the closure he had needed to not become Comstock. Thus the timeline never diverged into two through-lines allowing time to reconverge into a singular natural through-line where Booker didn't become Comstock nor allow his grief to take over his life. The simplest way I can sum this up is that no matter how twisted the path may get with the variables, in the end it will always be the same.

I hope that makes sense... It was probably better explained the first time I wrote this down which is now forever lost in the past... Perhaps it always meant to be that way