The baptism is a symbol of how he dealt with his inner turmoil. The Booker that didn't go through with it chose to shoulder the guilt and blame himself but in the process spiraled into a depression of gambling and drinking. The Booker that went through with it chose to deny his fault and try to justify it,convincing himself that other races were lesser and vilified them in his own memories.
+Andy Semple Bingo. It's still a stretch that someone like Booker can become Comstock, but that it's not the act of baptism itself... it's what is represents, and all the divergences it implies in the future
SolidRoot I don't think it's that much of a stretch. Booker is a selfish person who is not only more than happy to kill but sold his own child for his selfish needs. Even through the first half of the game he's not trying to rescue Elizabeth, he's just stealing her for someone else. In the end it's the guilt after finding out she is his daughter that makes him even half way decent. If anything it's easier to see him as selfish and self-serving Comstock than the self-sacrificing Booker at the end of the game. I'd say Breaking Bad's Walter White's change is more unbelievable than Booker's.
+Andy Semple Fair enough. And a has been mentioned on (I believe) another video, you just need to believe that Booker can become Comstock in at least one "multiverse", out of basically infinity.
+Andy Semple Stretch? Booker is already a bad guy. Read his history. It's not a stretch at all. There were two choices. 1. Continue down the road he was going, being a terrible person (this leads to Comstock) 2. Stop...and change his ways (Booker) If anything, it's a stretch that he didn't turn out like Comstock every single time. Comstock is more plausible than Booker, considering the history of the character.
SLH86 The drawings are beautiful, but dear god the logic is shoddy. The entire point of the DeWitt/Comstack issue is that DeWitt realized what he did was wrong and decided to wallow in his guilt. Comstack on the other hand decided baptism was a get out of Jail Card and that by doing it he became as clean as snow... meaning he didn't have to stop being a massive douche. The ending therefore sits upon the fact that DeWitt embraces the actual spirit of baptism and admits to his sins before acting to rectify them via giving his life. The end result of this is that all the DeWitts who refuse to actually admit their sins are killed through the powers of Elizabeth and those who do admit to their sins are given the chance to raise their daughter Anna. Yay. Now how Burial At Sea fits into this I couldn't tell you, but I do enjoy the meta of a lighthouse, a City, and a Man (looking to save his little girl) (Hi Dishonored!).
Realispent Right, and suddenly the end location of game is magical nexus that can affect other realities. The whole 'city, man, lighthouse' does not work due to simple reason of how alternate realities work. They are alternate. I means that there is sometimes a man, a city and lighthouse. Infinite has a really bad writing, because all their efforts were put to create some shiny location and Elisabeth animations. Writing of this game sucks.
LavosCore The thing about alternate realities doesn't really work out, but the rest of the writing actually fits to their crazy idea of alternate realities. The problem with their idea though, is that Booker DeWitt seems to end at the baptism point after Wounded Knee, no matter what. It is inevitable. In "real" life, all sorts of stuff could happen in those atlernate universes/realities that made him skip Wounded Knee or simply never turn up at the baptism.
Ole Brian Every choice results in a separate branching reality. Obviously the realities where Booker never battled at Wounded Knee exist but are of no consequence to this game's narrative. There are realities where Booker's parents never had a baby, there are realities where Booker was born a girl, there are realities where he was killed before Wounded Knee, but all these realities have no impact on the character of Comstock. The baptism was his rebirth. You don't need to kill Booker when he's 4, you don't need to be concerned with whether his parents had sex on a Tuesday or Thursday, you don't need to be concerned with the life of his grandpa... while all these situations create alternate realities in different universes they don't decide on whether Comstock exists or doesn't. It is ultimately Booker's decision during the baptism in the river that determine whether Comstock is born or not. The realities where Booker never battles at Wounded Knee or where he never makes it to the baptism in the first place do not matter as Comstock would never have had a chance to be born anyway. All this doesn't really matter though. Because even without Comstock, the nexus of the Bioshock realities aren't dependent on certain specific individuals or their choices. Rather, they are dependent on the variables; a man, a city, and a lighthouse. In one reality you are Booker, in another you are Jack. In one reality exists Comstock, and in another Andrew Ryan. So while you may kill Comstock/Andrew Ryan in some realities, the truth is that this infinite loop will never end.
Not to mention that there are an infinite number of universes where Booker never travelled back in time to drown before he was baptized, or where someone other than Booker/Comstock started the crazy sky city cult. It's like Booker said, they should have just gone to Paris, because his sacrifice was completely pointless. Also, grandfather paradox.
You just keep saying that, but all you need to do is explain why Elizabeth and Booker going back to kill him before his baptism would not create a grandfather paradox, and why it would have any effect on the infinite number of universes where someone other than Booker/Comstock was the founder of Columbia.
That alternate idea for stopping Comstock from being born is hilarious, I just picture young Booker sitting in a tent when suddenly older Booker and Elizabeth burst in and shoot him in the foot and run away. "It's for your own good!"
I'm a bit late to the party, but I think at one point Rosalind Lutece says in a voxophone that she doesn't like Comstock, but has to work with him because he provides her funding. As you said, Comstock and Lutece start working together before she starts making progress with quantum particles, so when Comstock hires her, for all intents and purposes her resume is blank. Perhaps Rosalind decides to work for a religious fanatic because a religious fanatic is the only person crazy enough to fund her. Of course, this raises the question of how the heck Comstock out of nowhere became rich enough to fund Lutece's research AND build an entire friggin' city, but I digress.
〈-thatguyoverthere Columbia was funded by the government of America. Comstock became a well loved preacher and was able to use his popularity and charisma to win over the united states government in funding Columbia.
I dunno, it kinda makes sense. People do some real crazy shit when they unquestioningly believe in something. And his popularity would of course snowball once they make progress with the tears and he can accurately predict the future. Hard to argue with that. You'd probably be the odd man out to NOT be throwing your money at the guy if people all were scared and believed he could save them.
The comment section in a nutshell: Side A: No, it works, and here's how! Side B: He's right, I never thought about it like this before! Side C: I really love the artwork and how the video is made.
During the game, i was expecting an end where booker takes Elizabeth to Paris instead of New York and had a happy life together. It was shocking for me when the game reveals that she was actually his daughter, and i felt a bit disappointed
I had a friend who worked on art concepts for Irrational Games, and after Infinite's release he did his best to try and explain at least one of the first ideas for the game's story that he really enjoyed. I've seen other people spout this on their own, so I feel pretty good about sharing it, but I don't have links to old scripts or anything, so take it with a grain or skepticism. From what I understand, in the original concept it was something similar to the main story, but not quite. Comstock was not Booker, but someone who knew Booker in the past and who was shadowed by Booker's efforts at Wounded Knee. Booker was a war hero and eventually an accomplished politician/businessman or something of the like. With the help of the the twins (I say twins for simplicity. I don't know if they were like the Luteces we know, but they were Brother/Sister scientists, not cross-dimensional weirdos), Comstock goes about replacing Booker in his own timeline, which ends up with Booker being relegated to just being some peon soldier who became a Pinkerton after money got tight. Everytime Booker hears about stuff that Comstock did, he gets a nosebleed because his brain is trying to remember things that never quite happened. The game has had like four incarnations before release, so I doubt this was the only concept, but they all seem similar. In this one, the twins helped Booker at the beginning of the game because Elizabeth is their scientifically modified incest wizard baby, and when the twins stepped up to try and reverse all the evil shit Comstock did to make himself powerful, he took their child as a safeguard. They hire you to bring them Elizabeth (Who they never explicitly tell you is their babbler) by offering to pay off your debts. You would still see them throughout the game, but they're less obvious than walking up to you and handing you stuff. They'd be there to curve Booker's progress and make sure he's still looking out for Elizabeth even when the story diverges based on choice. When Booker's stuck in a cell, they'd bribe a guard. When Elizabeth runs away from Booker, they pull something crafty to force them to save each other and feel like they have to stick it out for their own sakes. There were still a bunch of plot holes. Time travel is a much bigger thing so you have that whole, "Why not travel to *blank* to stop *blank* from ever happening?" thing or "Doesn't going back in time wipe you and your timeline out entirely?" Columbia's history is still just as weird and vague and has to do with time travel or something. Because *SCIENCE* the twins are just magic and can seemingly do whatever, whenever. I'm happy with the game we got, but I feel like a lot of potential was lost. The ending the character's motivations were certainly more than a little skewed in the final product.
3 years late, but I can say that I agree with you, for the most part. I really take issue with the ending of the game, (mostly due to my personal attachments to Elizabeth and Booker) but for the most part I enjoyed the game. I just can't shake the feeling that what we got was only 75% of what the game COULD HAVE been.
6 year later, I'm wondering how the old man is able to hire scientist wizard alike when he is inferior to Booker in every way, businesss/polictian/military. I'm sure the writer will be able to figure it out. Regardless, I prefer Booker having Elizabeth as her daughter. As it creates a special relationship between them that a non-blood related cannot, connecting them in a way. But it does explain how Booker is able to become a One Man Army, because he already has the potential to kill his way to his goal, because he has already been through a tougher situation if not equally.
The problem I have is with the ending is that the Booker-Comstock connection feels like it is there just to provide a twist and set up the mindfuck ending. There is no intellectual satisfaction or emotional punch resulting from it because of how far-fetched it seems. Booker and Comstock are so radically different in their thinking that I cannot draw the line from one to the other with what the game provides. Neither does this knowledge really put anything that happened earlier in the game in a whole new light like the encounter with Ryan in the first Bioshock did.
Crowley9 Well there are some interesting bits. For instance early in the game Booker mentions to elizabeth that he never heard of Columbia before he arrived there. You don't think much of it at the time, but this actually a very bizzarre statement. The US created a flying city, sent it on a world tour, that city attacked the Chinese and then seceded from the union; That is the story of the century and a guy from New York never heard of it? This simple statement is actually a hint that Booker comes from another reality where Columbia does not exist and that's because Comstock does not exist in his reality. Then there's also Slate. He thinks that comstock wasn't at Wounded Knee and is telling lies about the battle, but he was there; Slate just doesn't realize that his old acquaintance changed his identity... And the racist society itself might be a reflection of how Comstocked coped with his sins; he came up with excuses. Instead of accepting he did something horrible he found a way to make his sins seem like there were something good, something that was in god's plan; and he did that by embracing white supremacy. Massacring men, women and children doesn't seem so bad when you believe them to be little more than animals. All the horrible things he does is part of how he copes with his past
+Crowley9 I also think that although we come to like Booker as a character, his life is very much prioritized around what needs to be done, not what the right thing to do is. I mean look at his main objective in the story: to go and kidnap a girl to wipe away a debt. Yeah we learn later that it's his daughter and the debt is his own wrongdoing in the past, but he doesn't know that. From what it seems he was going to get a girl and it didn't matter all that much where or why. His morality falls into a grey area, oftentimes where it suits him, and by the end of the story his epiphany about what he's done and the kind of man that makes him leads him to redemption (through "baptism" of sorts lol). Although we know little about Booker from the game up to the end, he isn't necessarily a hero throughout. We just think he must be because he's on a quest to find a girl and saves her once he finds she is in captivity, then defies the odds by killing everyone and looking cool while doing it, but the ending exposes some things we may have already thought about him, for example his ends-justify-the-means mentality that serves him more than others.
+Crowley9 The Booker-Comstock connection does provide some sort of punch if you look at it the right way, squint just right, and sort of ignore how Comstock could have been a competent preacher done everything with Rosalind and founded a floating city out of nowhere. The idea being that Booker and Comstock both show alternate really terrible ways of dealing with the guilt of what they've done. When Booker went to the baptism his intent wasn't entirely right. He wanted to be free of the burden of guilt, sure, but he wanted to find an easy way out of it; that's why when he chooses not to do it he's so incredulous about the idea that it would've had any meaning at all. When he does become Comstock, he doesn't leave the past behind; leave the old man of sin. He justifies himself in what he's done, decides that it was right and changes his worldview based on that (this part is pretty dang far-fetched, but there's a whole video above all about that). Meanwhile, if he hadn't gone through with the baptism, he lives on for years still haunted by the guilt, and it's only in the events of the conclusion of the game that he finds any closure to it all (maybe, hard to say, esp. with the dying and all). Honestly, you're right, it doesn't really hold a candle to the twist with Ryan in the first one, but it's not totally meaningless I feel, y'know?
+Crowley9 You just affirmed and agreed with literally everything Cyan said, which is the established lore. They are the same person, for all intents and purposes. In one reality Lutece was a male. In the other, female. They are by no means "radically different". It's showcased throughout the game itself one believes in one outcome, and the other believes in the opposite outcome, despite them both scientifically accepting the likelihood that they are wrong. The "encounter with Ryan" literally puts nothing in perspective, as it was a scripted event over which you have literally no control. He had almost 0 involvement with the plot until that point, and certainly never had any afterwards. Ryan was merely a plot device that existed to assist with backstory. Booker accepting or not accepting the baptism is the defining moment. It is the quantum event that defines the parallel universes in which Booker lives with his guilt and truly hates himself and what he has done, or embraces it and makes himself into a prophet, a religious figure, that can bury his own self-doubt, pity, and hatred as established in religious paradigms to the extent of becoming the "messiah" of a civilization. This quantum event is clearly the baptism. In the reality from which you, as Booker, originate, you have rejected the baptism. You remain a sinful person who has further gambled away his life to the point that he must unknowingly sacrifice his own daughter - to the alternate reality version of himself - in order to satisfy his own self-interests. In Comstocks parallel universe, he has fucked with reality-jumping (of Rosalind's design) to the extent that it fried his sperm. He never had a daughter. This quantum event was very clearly long before the game happens, as Anna has lived for at least 16 or so years in Comstock's reality before Booker's litany of failures leads him on a quest to unknowingly recover her ever begins. The Wounded Knee massacre was in 1890. Meaning he had a bit of time to stew before considering the baptism, and even if he did it immediately, there was time to dick around before having a child in either timeline. You also ignore then that Comstock enlisted the Lutece's help to abduct her, not long after she was born. Meaning the quantum event had already happened, which further hammers in that it was the baptism which is said quantum event. There would be no reason for him to abduct her except by knowing through his reality-jumping it was a possibility, stealing the child from his alternate self who wasn't sterile and could have had a baby.
Comstock may refer to the practice of comstockery which involves heavy censorship of something that is perceived as either immoral or obscenity. Very Victorian and the revisionism of Comstock in the game would have followed right along those lines.
kallistiX1 But I think you can agree somebody who believes they're acting in the interest morally purity would take on a name that basically connotates to being a skeevy dickhead? The main problem here is it suits the story, the not the plot. It has a dramatic appeal, but not a logical one.
This video makes allot of good points concerning narrative, but misses the mark on the time travel part. "Going back and shooting Dewitt in the knee" would not have changed all timelines, it would have merely created another. The only way to stop the cycle was to kill Comstock without affecting Dewitt. The drowning was a literal representation of killing all Dewitts that took the baptism, effectively "smothering Comstock in his crib" but leaving all Dewitts alive and well. Those timelines, where Dewitt did not take part in the battle of wounded knee, are not apart of this story but they still exist as part of the multiverse.
+Cési Junior I'm sorry but you are mistaken. The end of the game is very clear in showing Booker alive and well, and taking care of Elizabeth. I also believe the time line jumping was a fairly obvious plot point. The characters tried to change time but only found that all they where able to do is jump timeliness. The solution they found was that they had to effect an important event that took place in all timeliness in order to effect all Bookers. Allso what would have been the point of killing all Bookers? That would have just left Elizabeth off, at worst, an orphan, and at best dead. Hope I answered your questions. :)
Actually the Elizabeth becoming an orphan would not be an outcome. If it had happened the way you state Elizabeth would have no longer existed, because she was born after his baptism. So according to you this game essentially ended in a murder-suicide. :P
Well I think that the drowning of Booker was meant to kill off any Bookers that went to be baptized. As a way to just destroy any timeline where Booker would be come Comstock he was killed before he was able to make the choice. This gets very confusing though. As there is apparently a timeline where events proceeded much the same, but with Anna's head getting cut off through the tear instead of her pinky. (Oh sorry if you haven't played Burial at Sea. What are you doing looking at lore if you don't wanna hear about it?) The reality we originally went to also has to exist because the Elizabeth we journeyed with (or at least one that was practically identical to her.) still exists. My theory is that it simply breaks the progression of events in a large number of worlds. Enough that even though there are infinite worlds it does some good. I also see the sacrifices that they both made as a washing away of the sins that they committed. That pays off the debt they owed each other, and allows them to live happily in some other world. Its just a theory, but I do like to think that somewhere out there Elizabeth is living in Paris with all the boys trying to both woo her, and avoid her father throwing them into the river.
+Avarickan That was exactly my thoughts. Though I cannot comment on Burial at see as I have yet to play it. I did have a comment referring our detractor to a video showing Dewitt alive after the baptism at the end of the game but it does not seem to be there. How strange!
+Avarickan That was exactly my thoughts. Though I cannot comment on Burial at see as I have yet to play it. I did have a comment referring our detractor to a video showing Dewitt alive after the baptism at the end of the game but it does not seem to be there. How strange!
+Adam Jensen Rosalind was a genius, not a prophet to see the future, besides that, she didn't feel bad for steal anna, robert felt guilt and convinced rosalind to do the experiment.
Because Rosalind is a sociopath. she doesn't care one whit about anyone ideals or feelings or ideologies. she just wants her funding to run her experiments. it's her counterpart that is more...balanced and actually feels guilt over what he was convinced to do by his counterpart and then get her to agree to clean it up.
In a voxophone recording Rosalind says she chose Comstock specifically because he was wealthy. Rosalind didn't necessarily want to build a floating city. She wanted the funding to further her research into tears. She mentions in other voxophones how lonely she was until she met her brother across dimensions. In exchange for the money to research a way to bring Robert across dimensions, Rosalind was willing to give a pious megalomaniac the keys to a floating city of racists. Rosalind wanted companionship, and the only person whom she truly cares about is Robert. It goes to show how intelligence does not equal wisdom.
There is actually an explanation on why they can't kill booker before the baptism. Elisabeth calls it "constants and variables" as if some events in the universe are supposed to happen and cannot be altered. Or maybe they can but with some serious damage on the universe (like in the Doctor Who series and its fixed points in time). Therefore, the baptism is the key variable which Elisabeth chose to change in order to end the infinite circle of destruction that columbia was becoming or became or would become, as the Luteces would say.
Which is an extremely convenient way of saying 'We can't grab the problem by the root, because the universe says so.' However, the fabric of space and time seems to be a pretty moody lady considering both are alright with time-travel shenanigans without any actual reprecussions. From a story point of view it makes no sense to suddenly introduce these limitations for someone's who is implied to be limitless and all powerful at that point in the plot without establishing that as a plot point beforehand. "Elizabeth, can't you op-" "No." "But it would hel-" "Booker, no." "B-bu-" "I said, no."
***** No because in time theory the war would have occurred anyway or a paradox would have formed in which the eventual outcome would always be the same (or as infinite calls it constant and variables) if a person was supposed to die then even if you travel back in time to stop said death then they would in eventuality die anyway and your actions in trying to save them would probably cause the circumstances of their death. So if WW2 hadn't occurred then those people would have still died due to that being a fixed point within their timeline within this given universe (The Constant) its not quite as simple as go back in time and change something and events won't occur they will occur just the circumstances would have changed(The Variable) consider it like a maths equation, the answer will always be the same just how you reach it will be different theoretically anyway
Cheap or not, I agree that this explanation is why the third gaping plot hole explored in this video is not so gaping at all. This is acceptable for me because the game has obviously chosen this depiction of time and space over other possible variations and relays it to us on multiple occasions. Thus, this "constants and variables" explanation isn't merely a post-fact interpretation but a choice by the developers. An interesting one at that.
Don't forget how the whole grandfather paradox is the final nail in the coffin for the games storyline. How can Elizabeth go back in time to kill her father? Doing so would mean that she wouldn't even exist to be able to kill her father.
TheBestWatson You are confusing time travel on a single timeline with interdimensional travel between parallel multiverses. If this were Back to the Future, yes, she would be negating her own existence. But that is not the case at all here. Only one Booker in all the Bookers took the baptism as starting to become Comstock. But from that sole instance, many horrible realities with evil Comstocks began to manifest and ramify. That is why multiple Elizabeths appeared en masse to stop the pivotal point that they all had in common. He is not just vile in this reality but many others. Once they kill the only Booker who was the seed of all their rotten Comstocks, they wouldn't need to exist to kill him again because it is what breaks the infinite loop of the game. Comstock never funds Lutece, never goes sterile, never needs to buy his own child back from an alternate self, she never gets split between two worlds causing her abilities, the Luteces and her can't open tears, things never cycle over and over and over again. The game tells you (from the coin toss tally) that 120+ versions of Booker have been through the loop before, obviously unsuccessfully. The Luteces are trying to redeem themselves and Booker by breaking the nightmarish circle they are all trapped in by their own accord. That is why they keep bringing Booker back to the lighthouse. With Booker finally destroying the siphon, Elizabeth tells you see she can see all realities at all times. So she now knows the exact point that creates Comstock in all the parallels. She fixes it by killing that Booker before he turns. But that doesn't mean that there weren't Bookers who didn't drown - and who didn't go on to have Elizabeths. In fact, those Bookers are free to have her and live happily ever after now - without fear of future interdimensional bastard versions of themselves messing things up.
Booker selling Anna is a constant. He always will no matter what. Hence Elizabeth say "go ahead and wait as long as you want, eventually you'll give him what he wants.
***** yes I know this. But they are completely different pepole and there actions are completely different from the baptism on wards. Booker always has a child. Comstalk never has a child because hes infertile. Booker always sells Anna. Comstalk always takes her away. These are constants.
The biggest mistake is mixing single timeline theory with multiverse. Once you open the door (pun intended), to multiple universes, they don't have to make any sense or correspond to each other. The game wants you to have it both ways so your actions and more importantly, Anna/Elizibeth's actions have some meaning. But they don't, not at all. She might as well just visit some calm timeline and chill out cause she can travel between universes. What, is she going to save 10 Dewitt's and 4 Comstocks a month, take a week off and go back at it? Is she going to save 1 million Bookers? Now if you use Back to the Future timeline, the game would of made a lot more sense, or keep it to just 2 timelines, which it sorta wants you to believe it does, except for the constants and variables. By the way, the Luteces are the same person, one female version and one male version.
Agreed. Once the door is opened to infinite multiverses the whole story falls completely apart. Because then as the gamer playing Infinite, you don't know which timeline or characters to actually care about. Clearly, we were forced to play one timeline throughout the whole game, but at the end it's revealed there are infinite timelines all with infinite _constants and variables_. So, the big question is, which story mattered? Since we never get an answer to that question, the whole Infinite game was wasted effort. Oh, and to make matters entirely worse is that Infinite's multiverses, by extension, invalidate Bioshock 1 and 2 and relegate those stories to an inconsequential timeline in the sea of infinite multiverses. I think I'd prefer to believe that Dewitt was actually an unwitting "volunteer" for one of Comstock's experiments on Rapture. Basically, what we saw in Infinite was actually Dewitt in a delusional state. It wasn't exactly a dream, but it wasn't reality either. We were just seeing Infinite play out in Dewitt's head while on an operating table in Rapture. I'd prefer to just write Infinite off as a delusion and see Dewitt wake up on an operating table half bloody in Rapture at the start of Bioshock 3 with a nurse leaning over him, hypodermic needle in hand attempting to resuscitate him.
I also had this question in my head. Why should we save one fucked up world whereas there are infinite peaceful worlds out there? Then I realized that if Booker did not save Elizabeth, she would have been brainwashed by Comstock and continued to wage war on the "Sodom below" as we witnessed in the game. So what if conquering the whole world is not nearly enough for Comstock? I think he may try to use Elizabeth to somehow change the entire universe and turn all Bookers into Comstocks just to satisfy his tyrannical character and his lust for power. Maybe not in this world, but in another world he might be able to control Elizabeth. Imo, that's why she needs to smother him in the crib.
For every Booker that decided he was going to let himself get drowned, there would be an equal number of branches that go the other way. This is how branches work, for every choice, the world splits.
And not only that, they shot themselves in the foot with the DLC. I could take the whole drowning Booker prevents all Comstocks in the multiverse (in a "It's time travel fiction, just accept what the plot says and move on" kind of way). But then they turn around and reveal it didn't work on that one Comstock for some reason, which I think by the game's own logic means there are still an infinite number of universes out there where Comstock survived rather than vanishing like most of the Elizabeths at the end of the main game. So yeah, pointless. Like the video said, it wouldn't be that big a problem if the game wasn't so intelligent in all other respects. As is, though, I think Kingdom Hearts kept a more consistent cosmology than Bioshock in some regards.
SkyOut Yeah, funny story, that: I hadn't actually played the DLC when I posted that (I'd read ahead, though. Having played it since, I think it actually raised more questions than it answered in some cases, but that's neither here nor there.) On this problem: they explicitly *called* him the last Comstock (which, again, I can take in an "Accept it for the plot and move on" kind of way), but I didn't hear them address how and why he survived the purge...unless you mean that its because he was in Rapture. Which if that's what you mean, then (a) his was the one and only world where Elizabeth tried to stop him (in a multiverse of *infinite* possibilities...sure, whatever) and (b) therefore, he was the one and only Comstock who went to Rapture. Which--and again, correct me if I'm wrong--you're saying that (c) being in Rapture shielded him from the ripple effect the wiped every other Comstock from existence? If so, how and why? Look, I can actually buy time ripple-proof existence if that's what you're saying--I'm a comic book fan, for crying out loud. But like I said, my problem isn't that the game is playing fast and loose with causality, my problem is that I expected better than such a cheap way out from a story that up to that point had been so intelligently written. Simple as that.
Also the fact that even if he's drowned in that universe in another he's still alive ultimately it accomplished nothing in the whole scheme of thing's.
***** No. It's one of the constants. Hence the added tragedy of their separation. How many numbers are there between 1 and 2? Do those numbers include 1? Or 2? Or 3? Infinity is just that; it is not all-encompassing.
I ALSO WOULD HAVE LOVED AN ENDING WITH THEM GOING TO PARIS. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TO ME MORE REWARDING THAN THE ENDING WE RECEIVED WHICH WAS JUST CONFUSING AS ALL HELL!!
Good points, but I feel that everyone has overlooked the major flaw with the story. When Elizabeth kills Booker she has only 'killed' Comstock in one universe, as we are led to believe that every decision creates alternate universes of different decisions. What about the universe that was created in the reality where the Elizabeth's decide, 'You know what? We wont drown you.' Drowning Booker was a decision, therefore a reality where it didn't happen was also created.
TheJackFroster That's why all the alternate Elizabeths come to help. In fact, it's implied that YOUR Elizabeth is not the one drowning you at all, as she will be wearing the pendant that you didn't chose (bird/cage).
DJMouthwash But there's millions of millions of Elizabeths, so even though you get a few of them, there's still countless of them that doesn't drown Booker
Yes, but THE booker is being drowned. The point in time where booker both became the game's protagonist AND the game's antagonist. It doesn't mater if EVERY possible Elisabeth is drowning him, because every possible Booker is being drown. Then again, Burial at Sea happened, so who knows.
The theory of alternative universes is that there's a universe for everything, so in a shitload of universes he is alive, because a shitload of Elizabeths didn't want to drown him.
I adored Infinite's artistic storytelling, but when the game was over, I started questioning whether the ending was plot-twist masturbation, just for the hell of it. Also, do *you* always have to be the answer? *YOU BECOME THE ---blank--- IN THE END; YOU WERE **---blank---** ALL THE TIME*... Wasn't Elizabeth's parenthood twisty enough? Did I also have to be Comstock? You do that in a film, critics eat your ending alive for the rest of eternity.
+Daniel Rosa Yeah, but gaming is on the precipice of great storytelling as it's a relatively new thing. A plot twist like that in a movie in the 30's would have gotten a lot of praise I think. I thought about this the other day as I'm always tearing plot holes apart in movies but allow them more in games, but at the end of the day I think the incredible world they created made me want to believe it was real and therefore I forgive a few problems in the narrative. Besides, it's multiverse theory, something we barely even understand so it makes sense that it would have problems. And overall, even games with great stories almost never take on themes the way that Infinite did. If nothing else, that deserves applause because I'd love to see better storytelling across the board in gaming. And even if it got a bit indulgent at parts, the added meaning to everything throughout the game after the ending was really worth it for me because it changes your perspective about even the little things throughout the game.
It was not just plot twists for the sake of having plot twists. Every single plot twist was built from the beginning, like how all great plot twists are; you sow the seeds earlier, it grows and builds up invisible to the reader (of a book), viewer (of a movie) or player (of the game), and then finally everything is revealed. Everything makes sense and adds up, like it does in the game. Play it again and you'll see for yourself. Plot twists for the sake of having plot twists is a movie like Now You See Me, where the twists are nonsensical, unnecessary and come out of nowhere. The fact that Bioshock Infinite's plot even works is absolutely incredible, considering the troubled development of the game leading up to its release.
I agree they come together, Prakhar Mishra, and for that, we start by the twists and then write brackwards. But for what point? For being ambitious. I remember how Final Fantasy VII's entirety led to _hearing the planet's cry for help._ Stanley Parable taught me about God and free-will. The first Kingdom Hearts taught me about keeping friends in my heart. What was the point of Infinite? The intention is too transparent, because there's nothing else to drive me to the end of the story. Well... The point was _playing a game's ambition of having all the plot-twists_ for playing a game's ambition of having all the plot-twists. And even in that, it managed to not surprise. Time-travel, parallel universes, indentity of self... I'm just tired. I am... just... very tired of this storytelling. Enough... It's everywhere. And kids are growing up with this and thinking: "That's storytelling". I'm 25 now, I'm not even that old. But I know of the things of old. Then I go back to a movie like Taxi Driver, or a novel like 1984. Great stories, down to Earth, that've taught me so much, with no time-bending plot-twists at all. Just a great story.
Thank you, when everyone was fawning over this I was ripping my hair out about this ending and how big the plot hole is: you have an infinity god with infinite power and instead of cutting off the exact 'cause of the infection' they decided to kill the whole patient. At that point I was sure they only did it for shock value because in the first game people were a little taken back by how simply everything worked out. And I kind of agree, it was a little convenient but you don't have to do a 180 to impress me, just something between 45 and 135 would have been good enough. The DLCs also hinted at something that I always suspected: that the twins were to blame for everything that happened and they were the real enemies or at least the other side that wanted to kill off Combstock but the game either didn't have time or were too heavily trenched in their own stories to figure it out and solve it. Alas even great stories aren't immune to stupidity every once in a while.
I'm late to the game, I know. I agree that the ending was so full of plot holes that it drove me mad and made me rank infinite as dead last in the entire series (which is saying A LOT since most people rank 2 that way.) However, I do not agree with your assessment of the twins. Yes, their time paradox experiments led to disaster on multiple timelines in multiple universes. But I never felt that either twin was truly evil or vindictive. It is pretty well explained, if you listen closely, that the twins doing their time jumping and multiverse jumping.. are really just doing it in an attempt to get back to each other again. I think you can call them extremely selfish.. but I dont think they ever do or did anything to directly harm themselves or anyone else for that matter. Without going into a whole ton of crazy physics and theories and using Elizabeth's mother, Annabelle, as an example .. think of the twins as both having every atom in their bodies split into super tiny pieces and then being reassembled (briefly) elsewhere. Annabelle (and her supposed ghost) are basically exactly this as well, except she is trying to get back to point A and twins are trying to get to each other on say .. line Z. Outside of the 2 or 3 dimensional confines of our universe. Anyway . I'll stop rambling about it
I was hoping for actual plotholes but was sad that you mostly just gave arguments from incredulity. So to address some 1 Yes cults work that way 2 Yes a small moment can lead a person down a path that changes their character considerably 3 Yes cultists/charlettons of all caliber often start believing their own rhetoric and find it hard to tell what even they believe 4 Yes there is literally infinite better solutions to any and every problem if you have limitless access to time travel. We generally just need to assume limited capacity to avoid that problem in any time travel story
One not so obvious point that OP seems to be missing is that the decision to take the baptism or not is not a small thing. The Booker Dewitt played by the character was a man who knew he could never wash his sins away and the Comstock version like a true psychopath took a dunk and forgave himself. Also the passing through lighthouses scene shows that the place they always end up at is the baptism thus the limitation mentioned in point 4.
about point 3 (from 1984) 'It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating...It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible. '
The way I see it there is no time travel in Infinite. There's travel between timelines, but not going back in time. So everything that happened already happened, but when you go to another timeline you can land at a different time from when you left. So everywhere you went was locked into a quantum state, but everywhere else was in a super position until you got there. That way what you did actually mattered, and since any world you observed was locked into it's state you made that one exist. That's why at the end of the game you see a world where Booker still had Anna. You saw the wounded knee baptism on that world, and Booker reacted the same way. Making that world. At the same time you made another world with Comstock. So that would be one of the Comstocks that Elizabeth was going after.
It's funny how people on UA-cam want to criticise BioShock Infinite, but in the end they have poorly arguments and don't point out arguments. "Why they don't travel back in time and shot booker in the foot, when he was fighting at wounded knee?" You don't know how time travel works. No one really knows, but in fact science proof, that there are CONSTANTS and VARIABLES. There are things you can't change by force. And when you do it, you'll never know the outcome. If they did this as you said, maybe DeWitt wouldn't marry his wife, who is giving birth to Anna, cause you try to force modifing constants. You people trying to sound logical and rational are pretty much obsessed to criticise a fictional work. In my eyes there isn't a real plothole, just ppl who pointing out their personal dissapoitment, because it's different to BioShock 1. BioShock Fan-Community is a piece of shit. I loved all BioShocks the way they are. For me it's art.
Regarding the issue over Comstock's celebration of Wounded Knee, despite Dewitt's guilt over it, you can look to Cognitive Dissonance Theory for an explanation. In Dewitt's timeline, he deals with the painful memory of Wounded Knee by overwriting his previous self image (good guy) with a new one (bad guy). He runs from the baptism saying that a dunk under water won't change what he did. He must be a bad guy, because he did a bad thing. In Comstock's timeline, he deals with the painful memory of Wounded Knee by redefining what happened there to preserve his self image (good guy). He must have done a good thing, because he's a good guy. He tells himself that what he did was necessary, because of white supremacy (to which he starts referring in a religious sense, presumably because his transformation took place during a religious ceremony). That's where his "White people are leaders, while the rest are followers" philosophy comes from. Since Wounded Knee was in large part a clash of races, Comstock rationalizes it by deciding that he must have been playing his part as a white man teaching native Americans about their ideal role in world society.
This is an interesting video, though it seems you don't understand religious fanatics. Comstock doesn't have guilt over what he did at wounded knee, because he feels he's "forgiven" for it. This is why he went on to commit even worse things latter on, every time he would do something messed up he would just forgive himself and move on. As for lying. The truth doesn't matter to religious zealots, only there dogma matters. See there dogma is the "truth", thus anything that contradicts it MUST be wrong. No matter how strong the evidence is. If they have to twist the facts or flat out lie, then that doesn't matter because the dogma is true. The only point I really agree with is that killing Booker would stop the creation of Comstock. Since the Booker that you play in the game has already rejected the baptism. So drowning him wouldn't erase the ones that did.
There's also a thing called the Grandfather Complex even if Booker became Zachary. If they drown Booker when he's about to make the choice to become Zachary, then he doesn't become Zachary or stay as Booker. This kills the events of the game, and such by paradox, Booker is never drowned. So there's a broken timeline, looping on itself, etc etc. People don't really notice this.
Yeah, is like the annas loop. If anna/elisabeth drown booker, then booker dies and comstock never live, so comstock never stole anna and anna never drown booker. Then booker, finnaly, transform into comstock, is so confuse lol. Best gane ever. Sorry for my bad english
I know this comment is from 4 years ago, but I gonna try to explain the ending anyway. In Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth explained us that the universes are constants and variables, that means that the universes come from others universes, so when Elizabeth drowns Booker, she eliminated the constant (The constant is the Booker who did not accept the baptism, and still being Booker and the variable is the Booker who accepted the baptism, becoming Comstock and the Comstonk's universe is created). Elizabeth drowned Booker and elimated the constant (Booker) and the varibles (Comstock's universes) at the same time, what she does affect the present and the future, not the past, so she prevents the others universes from being created because she elimated the constant, so the "grandfather paradox" hasn't been created beacause they never go back in the time, all the scenes in the game where Elizabeth explained us the truth are create by herself because she has the powers to create others universes, but not to go back in the time, so they can't go back in the time to shoots at booker's foot in wounded knee to prevents the baptism fron happening, because they can't, and if they could, they would create the grandfather paradox, the only way to stop the others universes from being create (that are the variables) is destroy the constant (that is Booker). When Elizabeth drowns Booker, the Elizabeths starts to disappeaer because their universes has been eliminated and with it, every Elizabeth, because Elizabeth is a product from the Comstock's universes, the last Elizabeth we see that doesn't disappear is because one last Comstock remains in Rapture's universe, Elizabeth doesn't go into the future to go to Rapture's universe because she goes to a universe where Rapture actuality exist, and may Columbia never even existed in this universe. When Elizabeth go to Columbia's universe to take the Lutece's particle where the events in the game are actuality happening, is beacause is a variable created from the last Comstock that is the new constant, Elizabeth and Comstock dies and the lasts Comstock's universes are eliminated, but Rapture's universe stills exist, the Luteces were not eliminated when Elizabeth drowned Booker because they died at a accident that makes him "omnipresent" acquiring the same powers as Elizabeth, so they can in so way "create" or "bring back" Elizabeth's existence back to the Rapture's universe so she can activate the Bioshock 1 events and this at the same time activate the Bioshock 2 events, and this is how the ending of Bioshock Infinite "really does works". And this is how I can explain the Bioshock Infinte ending, if a make a mistake or you have other point, you will be helpful if you said :D. And if you read all this, thanks :)
@@DiegoMarquez12 It still doesn't mak sense, because in order for Elizabeth to drown Booker, she would have to become Elizabeth. And in order for that to happen, Comstock had to have existed. Killing Booker there prevents both decisions of him accepting or denying the baptism. Anna had to become Elizabeth to get us to that drowning part in the first place.
@@videojuegos3dlocurasextrem949 Here is where it goes wrong for everyone... Anna is born AFTER he got baptized... So shes still alive after she "kills" her father...
@@sadjuliy9469 Rosalind is the main villian. Robert shows remorse, and guilt if you listen to his messages. Rosalind made the deal with Comstock and built the city in the sky.
@@oisavvy maybe but Rosalind also felt guilty and it's often said that they BOTH didn't like the future that will be if Elisabeth stays in tower. Moreover, i think that Rosalind had sincerely been convinced by her 'brother' that they had to help Booker so they did. Together. (sorry for grammar mistakes, i'm not native)
I wish this plot hole was more scientific, like how quantum particles do not move, they are suspended nut not like balloons even though the game suggests it. Or how Elizabeth would remain alive after killing her father before she was born. Also if their are infinite universes, wouldn't there be a universe where Booker survives the drowning, or someone else takes over as comstock and everything else happens anyway.
Just yesterday, I thought the same thing (the first thing you said). However, Elizabeth does explain that they are "quantum particles held at a fixed hight". But yea, the second part was confusing as well.
e gio and your ignorance is the produce of an immature insubordinate. It's a game about what wasn't even supposed to become because it already happened.
it is expressed by elizabeth that this whole "time travel/multiverse" things wasnt completely unlimited. they couldnt just do whatever/whenever/wherever they wanted. she says there are constants and variables. meaning that there are certain things that must and do happen in ALL universes and there are other things that differ. it is assumed that the baptism after wounded knee is a constant. meaning that in every universe there where actions in the life of booker which lead him to the baptism which he either rejects or accepts (variable). so they couldnt just simply "go back and shoot him in the foot".
I think the important thing, however, is that Dewitt was redeemed by sacrificing himself, or demonstrating unselfishness to a great extent. I will agree though, even from personal experience, feeling guilt for stuff like racism doesn't usually drive me to be more of it like Comstock.
10 years late but thanks. This really put into words a lot of the issues I had with bioshock infinite's plot. I guess it's just what happens when you give a guy infinite funding and he just faffs around doing whatever he pleases until the jig is up.
Watching this again, nice artwork by the way, I think the reason Rosalyn joined Comstock is because he was the only one at the time who was willing to entertain her ideas. So while he mightn't have been "the best man for the job", he was the only one available. Or at least the only one with the influence to get appropriate funding. Religious zealots can fund large scale projects if they want to.
In a voxophone recording Rosalind says she chose Comstock specifically because he was wealthy. Rosalind didn't necessarily want to build a floating city. She wanted the funding to further her research into tears. She mentions in other voxophones how lonely she was until she met her brother across dimensions. In exchange for the money to research a way to bring Robert across dimensions, Rosalind was willing to give a pious megalomaniac the keys to a floating city of racists. It goes to show how intelligence does not equal wisdom.
There is one thing you left out. Booker doesn't come up with the idea for Columbia. After he becomes Comstock, it is the angel Columbia herself, who gives him the idea and tells him who to talk to to make it happen. So to say he engineered the idea himself (you are correct) is crazy. The thing is....he didn't
I'm just gonna go ahead and write off the logical disconnect between Booker and Comstock as Levine making a satiric point about the influence of religion on very impressionable individuals, like a guilty veteran, and get on with my life.
At first, I was worried I stumbled into another rant, crying about how Infinite isn't as good as the original and how the story sucks, and the gameplay is plain/basic, blahblahblah. But this was actually very well done, clever, and made me really think into how the ending plays out; both how I saw it when I played it and how you see it yourself. I think you do in fact bring up some good arguments, and what is more you detailed why you thought they held up. Bravo, not many people do that on the Internet. I agree with you that some aspects of the ending do take some stretching on behalf of the player's interpretation to really hold weight, and when dealing with a story involving multiple universes and paradoxes it can lead to some messy inconsistencies. But what I think Infinite was able to do was mix those ideas on various universes as well as tackling philosophical/racial views without the two getting in each other's way. The game takes time to allow both aspects to breathe and have moments for the player to experience and see for themselves. It doesn't tell you how you are supposed to feel, it simply let's you see things both horrible/offensive as well as breathtaking and thought provoking and allows them to decide for themselves how they feel about them. Yes, the ending does lose merit if you really pick it apart, but the most important thing is with Infinite that I think many people overlook is that is presents itself in such a marvelous and creative way that you don't HAVE to play into it's ending to really appreciate the full game. Infinite isn't just a FPS, its an experience in storytelling, a work of art that challenges the paradigm of what conventional shooters follow and gives the players a means to live through the eyes of Booker DeWitt and his struggle through Columbia. :) I love Bioshock Infinite, flaws and all. But this video was still a delight to watch. Thank you, good sir.
Yea the story half baked shyamalan "what a twist" just felt like a slap in the face. Supposedly you can hear song bird in bioshock2. But it stills feels like they were HARD reaching for a connected world.
One paradox in the ending was that if there are infinite universes, one of them HAS to be one where Booker does not drown. And don't give me that "Constants and Variables" thing because infinite is ALL possibilities. Another paradox is the Grandfather Paradox. If our heroine kills Booker before he becomes Comstock, who buys Elizabeth as a baby who then grows up to kill Booker/Comstock?
Jass Jake You just said "No one killed him" and then "Elizabeth killed him." See the paradox? If a mad scientist assembles a gun to shoot himself one minute in the past, shoots himself one minute into the past before the gun was assembled, who assembled the gun to begin with?
TERDLINGS It appears to be a huge paradox, but some science fiction rules allow for it to work. After watching 'Doctor Who' for seven years, I've really just adapted to understanding paradoxes and timey-wimey stuff.
Your first point about how people become religiously enlightened is odd considering there are many people (some quite famous) who have suddenly, out of nowhere, gained religion when their life up to that point didn't include religion or factor it in much. You state that it's not possible which ignores these facts and you don't back up your own point. Your second point is also pure conjecture. You are trying to say that somebody who is intelligent but needs monetary and powerful backing wouldn't accept a funding source from somebody who is crazy? First off, there are, yet again, many examples in history of exactly this happening. Also, Comstock most likely didn't just walk up to Lutece with Doc Brown hair and start screaming religious fervor showing off all his crazy. Like many people who are crazy, psychotic, sociopathic, he could have easily been a high functioning person with those tendencies which is rather common and Lutece would have never known. Your third point basically says crazy people don't lie to themselves or simply make up their own fantasy world to deal with what they are feeling. I don't even have to go too far with that one as it all sort of falls apart on it's own. People who are crazy do exactly that and even people with multiple personality disorders do the same thing. Also, normal people lie to themselves every day and some even believe what they say and think. I know a number of people who do this. Also, the baptism is where all the timelines meet. He either becomes one of a million million Bookers as we know it or one of a million million Comstocks. They don't have a time machine take them back to before Wounded Knee and time "flows like water" and it has little meaning anyway. That baptism is one of the constants that are referred to in the game and is proofed in one scene when the coin is flipped with the Lutece's who are keeping score and it's always heads (IIRC). Meaning that with choosing not to be baptized you will always become Booker, always sell Anna and you'll always pick heads despite the fact that other things can change. Please don't be upset with my posting this as I really did enjoy your video. This is meant to be constructive criticism and I hold you in high regard for putting this out there. The presentation is amazing and it was fun to watch even if I didn't agree with the points. There are a lot of other things to pick on, nit pick or call out as a possible plot hole but most of your points really weren't points and are easily explained within the games narrative (especially the constants and variables part). Take care!
The idea that the baptism is a "constant" and that all combstocks were born from one single event doesn't make sense given that there are infinte universes.
Now that I think of it the game makes perfect sense. The previous BioShock games all start the same with him entering a light house. I think they are trying to tell us that they are all the same person just in alternate realities. In BioShock infinite it ended with how the original bioshock started leading me to believe that the events of BioShock infinite happened before the first. The original bioshock was just another alternate reality of Booker. As are all the other BioShock games. There are an infinite number of possibilities. Makes you question. What if we are just an alternate form of our previous self? What it there are 2 of us in this world but in just parallel realities and we don't even realize it? Makes you think doesn't it. Truly amazing game.
I haven't played the original game so by best guess, its optional that it's symbolically coincidental. Perhaps the lighthouse could represent an idol of the sorts for the franchise. Perhaps the lighthouse represents the interacting of all these universes into one universe.
Jack isn't an alternate Booker. He's the son of Andrew Ryan, genetically modified. However, the failed utopia, the city, and the lighthouse are constants acrosa the multiverse, you're right there.
Javier Sacristán But it's more than just that there's always a man as well: Jack, Delta & Booker. Always a girl(s) to save: Little Sister's (in bioshock 1), Eleanor (more important that the sister's in Bio 2) & Elizabeth. And always an extremist fanatic: Fontaine (taking over rapture), Sofia Lamb (trying to create a utopia) and Comstock (trying to burn & destroy New York). Then there's always a city and a lighthouse. I'm sure you could look even deeper and find ever more similarities.
May I just say that I love how everyone is so civil in all of these comments! No one is pointing out bad grammar and committing logical fallacies just to tell another person how stupid they think their opinion is like in every single other youtube video comments section. I am proud to be a part of the Bioshock Infinite fan group!
I don't understand how Booker was stuck in a loop. -He rejects a baptism -He gives away his daughter... -20 years later he is invited to go back and save her -Upon arriving he forgets who he is and why he is there -He meets Elizabeth -The events of the game unfolds -Old Elizabeth uses him to prevent herself from fulfilling Comstock's prophecy -He kills Comstock Then I get confused. -They destroy the siphon. Open up the multiverse. and Elizabeth says Comstock is still alive in a million worlds? So he has to never live in the first place. So they go to the baptism together and multiple Elizabeths come out of nowhere and kill the modern Booker that you play? They kill the Booker that already rejected the baptism years ago?? That's what it seems like...unless it's just symbolism?? Say it's just symbolism, and they really went back and killed the young Booker. How is Comstock still alive in a million worlds?? If you go back and kill the young Booker, Isn't there also a paradime where they don't kill Booker? Doesn't Booker need to reject the baptism in order for them to go back and kill him in the first place? How is preventing both worlds beneficial for anyone?? It essentially means nobody will exist and nothing will happen therefore not even this drowning. When Elizabeth says he is alive in a million worlds....does she mean Booker too? All of Bookers worlds?? So he has to die too, even though he was never Comstock? Comstock was never "born" in the first place if Booker rejects the baptism. How can killing him before that decision change anything? AND HOW IS HE STUCK IN A LOOP. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. AFTER THEY WON THE BATTLE, I DON'T SEE WHERE THE CONFLICT WAS. WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE VIDEOS ASK THE REAL QUESTIONS? I'M ALL FOR INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS, BUT THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Sorry for the shouting.
+Josh McLendon Basically. If the luteces never invented that device there wouldn't be infinite universes right? It really starts off by two different bookers. No matter what they will always take the same but different paths. Constant and variables. -The one we played rejected the baptism and carried on with his life but however comstock literally 'invaded' his life by really asking for his daughter when it isn't his (Although it is biologically is...). -The reason why Booker doesn't remember anything is because he created his new memories as soon as he entered that tear (When the luteces told him to come). You know, 'Bring us the girl' that's the only thing he remembers from his old memory. If our booker stop existing, then comstock would stop existing too so that's why booker was killed... to stop nearly all comstocks that were living in other verses. Constants and variables. That's why you see all the other elizabeths disappearing too because there's no comstock. That booker who entered the tear denied every other possibility. Killing that booker would also mean Comstocks wont look for his 'Heir'. It is really difficult to explain. However though if you watched the end of the main story mode, The 138th booker (I think) wakes up out of nowhere and checks if 'Anna' is there which she is likely to be there. SO really they fixed things back to normal?
Miguel Ángelez El Romanardo I feel like they may be parallels of the same person but they're from two different universes killing booker wouldn't kill comstock because they're both on two different timelines. The booker in the other universe that turned into comstock was on his own timeline. Thus decisions made by Booker from his universe wouldn't affect comstocks universe at all. Though I suppose in a way it's symbolic of comstocks universe being created when the decision was made in Bookers universe. Assuming he was the original booker. But really time is happening all at once from a non subjective view point and thus nothing would disappear more likely they're personal timelines are just messed up so much their universes both would be unraveling from interacting with eachother as well as going back on ones timeline.
It was four years ago but now I finally know why our Booker is need to be dead. Back in a Finkton, when we first start to go travel in other realities - we did not met other version of Booker or Elizabeth. Why? Because once we get in this world our entity will be united with original person from this reality and we get her memory(Elizabeth is not facing this effect because of her powers or siphon. Example: two Liz in a Finkton one from original line(Bioshock infinite) and second from Rapture(EP2 Burial at Sea)). When Elizabeth do teleporting Booker to the location where Comstock was baptized our protagonist join body with Comstock because in a moment of baptism we almost a same person. So to strangle Comstock in a crib we have to be killed anyway.
I HAVE A FEW THINGS TO TELL YOU! Firstly, your speaking voice is very pleasant to listen to. Second, your sketches are really well-done. Thirdly, you bring up some very excellent points, and I commend you for bringing them to light for discussion. Thank you for posting this video! :)
8 years later, and YT recommendations hit again. Original Bioshock had some interesting and mature themes, but Infinite absolutely pales in almost every regards to it. The world building ideas crumble even if you only take a cursory look at it.
its a good thing the illustrations were captivating because the commentary was certainly not. any game as cognitively intriguing as bioshock infinite is sure to have loop holes aplenty. constants and variables one might say
I think the narrator makes this point at the very beginning. He says that Bioshock Infinite is a fantastic game and while he doesn't say it verbatim he basically describes it as "cognitively intriguing". He then makes the point that since its a "cognitively intriguing" game that when there are flaws in it they should be noted. You are basically discrediting the "cognitively intriguing" nature of this game by putting it on a pedestal and saying that its flaws are irrelevant. In science if a hypothesis is proven wrong that isn't bad. The good thing is that the hypothesis promoted discussion, experimentation, and a search for truth the same goes for this game. After all one does go into an experiment knowing one might fail
What? Plot holes in a story with time travel? Naawwwwwww... Also, I kind of assumed that the reason Rosalind worked with Comstock was because he was the only one who would fund her. As a female scientist with ideas that subverted long held scientific theories, she likely would have faced serious challenges in funding her work. But a religious visionary flush with cash from his ministries would be keen to fund such a project. It was probably a partnership of convenience. The baptism is symbolic to Booker. If he can forgive himself once, he can continue to absolve himself of anything and everything. I think Comstock started out as a charlatan who confused the things he saw in the tears with prophecies. Like the religious tend to, he took what he saw and interpreted it in a way that satisfied his beliefs. Believing himself chosen by god, he naturally assumed that all his qualities (including his racism and xenophobia) were good, and that he was meant to serve as an ideal. I'm actually starting to see some dark correlations to the Wizard of Oz, particularly the evil one from the Wicked books.
And hey, wait a minute... If the choice is a variable, but the babtism is a constant, why the hell do they drown Booker in the first place? The constant can not be the choice, since it varies, and the only way for the babtism is, that there is a priest to perform it. She should have just drowned the damn priest! No babtism, no Comstock, no problem...
Alien00000origin yeah no matter what she does, she cannot stop all of the comstocks as there are infinite universes. unless the infinite universes stem off of that point in time, which even in the context of this game does not make sense, she would have to go into every universe and drown booker, which she could never accomplish because there are infinite universes.
I don't think Booker drowning himself was quite what the Lutece's had in mind. Robert's stated goal was to return Elizabeth to her (and his technically) reality to undo the damage they had caused. The Twins knew their discovery of the tears was a universal constant, and their current state of existing across all realities insulates them from being erased from existence like we see happen to the different versions of Elizabeth at the end. And as the after credits scene suggested, even after his "drowning" there is still a reality where Booker never gave up Anna and none of this ever happened.
arbitterm "As a female scientist with ideas that subverted long held scientific theories, she likely would have faced serious challenges in funding her work" You mean like Marie Curie? Oh wait, she was awarded the Nobel prize....
Oliver H She also had plenty of critics for being a female scientist. But her work was a little saner than building a floating city or working on interdimensional portals.
To be honest, I can think of one other reason why the ending doesn't quite work (which wasn't mentioned here.) If we are to assume that this baptism is at very least the starting point that puts Booker on the path to being Comstock, we have only seen the stopping of one Booker from becoming one Comstock. It is mentioned in the beginning of the ending that there are many Bookers and many Comstocks. Are we to believe that the murder of this one Booker will stop all of the Comstocks from coming into being? Sorry, but the math doesn't add up here, not by a long shot. Loved the game, by the way, but it does have a few teensy airship-sized plot holes.
But at that point, technically, the baptism only has two variables (that are known of) which is Booker rejecting the baptism and staying Booker or Booker taking the baptism and becoming Comstock. So technically, there are only two events which come from this section of the game. As this is where Comstock is born, there are technically no variables at this point, therefore no split in dimensions. If Comstock is to die here, it could be considered a constant, meaning he dies in all universes. It's quite complicated but it does work.
You have to think of the universes as a sort of 'tree'. Booker being baptised is the trunk of the tree from which all the universes with Comstock grew. By killing Booker before the baptism, you are essentially cutting down the tree and all the branched universes that have come from it.
***** I can see your point and I guess it does make some sense, but it does leave us with another problem. We've already seen that the player-guided Booker (whom I'll refer to as P-Booker hereafter) is not the Booker who became Comstock but the one who rejected the baptism. In addition, when jumping realities, he doesn't jump directly into the shoes of the Booker of that dimension, illustrated by the fact that in one, he was already dead. Yet, when the final drowning occurs, it is P-Booker (who has been through the events of Infinite and has already passed the moment of the baptism and rejected it) who is drowned, and knows it to be the case, otherwise he wouldn't allow himself to be drowned. If that is the case, then the drowning would have no effect on the Comstocks or the Elizibeths come to that. It could have worked if P-Booker saw the Booker of that dimension and perhaps assisted the Elizibeths in drowning him. Then P-Booker would have just faded away with the other Elizibeths (as Booker died before he could become P-Booker or Comstock.) A little complicated I know, and I understand that the way that Infinite did it worked better cinimatically, but logically it doesn't quite work even given their own paradigm. Just a thought.
Kevin Fischer Don't I wish. Unfortunately I think that Irrational folded. A real pity, I had me some great ideas for a fourth Bioshock game set in Cold War era Soviet Union. Ah well, maybe one day someone else will take up the Bioshock franchise.
There are so many other major timeline issues... but this was a big question I had yes. What kind of baptism makes a well grounded character like booker go BAT SHIT insane and build a floating city.
It's not just a sudden thing. It happens over a 20 year period. Booker accepts the baptism and believes his sins have been erase. He does have good intent and becomes a fundamentalist and gains influence in government. He then supports Lutece's experiments and is able to go through time and space. Going through "tears" have a mental and physical effect on Comstock, which was shown in the game. And Booker was never a "well grounded" character. All his timelines, he has been a violent man. Just different motivations to be violent.
Well grounded, the man sold his daughter, for money. FOR MONEY, you've probably not had kids yet, but when you do, you probably won't sell them for money.
One question that came up in my mind regarding the whole Booker having the possibility of turning into Comstock thing. After going through all the events in the game alongside Elizabeth and knowing exactly who Comstock really is and why, after going through nearly the whole game wanting to kill him after everything he had seemingly caused...why would he choose to turn into Comstock again? He has the knowledge of the upcoming possible events, why willingly repeat them? And that's not even getting into why Booker, as he was at the end, would even decide to undergo a baptism in the first place.
I think you misread my comment...or I just worded it badly. Anyway... If Booker lived (wasn't drowned by Elizabeth), why would he choose to eventually be baptized (the deciding focal point where Booker turns into Comstock) when, at that point, he would know exactly what it would entail? That's what I'm asking.
shadowmaksim well, what his death is implying is that each universe has an effect on the others. if booker is killed in one, then he is killed in all of them.
A different way to look at it would be that Elizabeth *couldn't* kill Booker. That would be a paradox. Thus, by doing so, she created a bubble multiverse which was cut off from the main multiverse. A bit like Donnie Darko.
I was expecting cientific reasons not psychological reasons, you should do a video about the sociopolitical formation of the mushroom kingdom from mario.
Respect your opinion but I disagree after the baptism it's not like he changed into comstock overnight his whole mindset changed and he felt like a new man it probably was many many years later when he formed Columbia when he had gone a complete different path from booker of course he would have changed as a person much different then booker
Comstock is actually the same age as Booker. His appearance is due to the amount of time he spent traveling through tears. So Booker died and was reborn again as Comstock.
but what about his daughter? anna still existed regardless of having the baptism and name change. it makes no sense that he would have to time travel to kidnap his own daughter. the game's premise was broken from it's inception.
he had to. comstock is booker. booker had his child at a younger age. booker and his daughter pre-dates the comstock persona. so comstock's daughter should've existed regardless either way, unless there was an alternate reality where comstock (booker) never had a child in the first place.
because if he doesn't take the baptism he has a daughter. As Zachary Comstock, he doesn't decide to have a child until after he has already become sterile.
What I still don't get is the Burial at Sea DLC. How tf is there still another "Comstock"? Shouldn't the ending of Infinite erase all the post-baptism Booker? But doesn't that also mean that Elizabeth (whom would only exist in a post-baptism timeline) wouldn't exist, so the many Elizabeths wouldn't be there to drown Booker. So is the whole Bioshock Infinite thing is just a time loop created by the Luteces? This leaves me with an infinite amount of questions 😅.
They implied that it doesn't quite work the way they think it was because no one can know how far back they really are. Which is stupid, as it is like the game itself has just realized how idiotic it sounds and didn't plan far ahead in this crusade of being smart.
The main problem I have with this game is that the racist cult seemed a bit too cartoony. Like someone took every negative stereotype of what Hollywood thinks a Republican is like and built a villain around it. There's very little nuance. The villains and setting just seem like cardboard cutouts that exist solely to provide a backdrop for the main character's personal story.
Its cartoony because it's what Comstock is lying to himself about. He builds this horrible cult to justify the guilt he still feels for Wounded Knee, guilt that was supposed to be washed away. He's supposed to be "pure" but he knows he isn't, Colombia is the manifestation of his lie (too himself) that he is not a sinner.
+Cameron Yourston Fair enough, Comstock decides to go all cartoony but it still looks like the setting is a cheap jab at White Republicans. Also, I find it hard to believe that a place that's capable of all sorts of steampunk technology - including the ability to construct ROBOTS that perform complex tasks, would need to import a huge slave class from a race/people that the residents of the city would naturally hate and fear. I know having a bunch of inferior proles to lord over might appeal to the egos of those living on Columbia, but surely the fear that they would revolt and kill you in your sleep PLUS the cost of keeping them housed and fed and making sure they all had jobs would quickly destroy any Return of Interest.
+theproplady Good point. I guess the game is taking a bit of artistic licence with that. Irrational Games tend to be on the nose, like the Ryan the Lion school in Burial at sea XD
Nobody said anything about Republicans. Think you might be projecting. And the racist cult really isn't that cartoony unfortunately. Having black grandparents that lived in the Jim Crow-era south, I can tell you that the views expressed by the people of Columbia aren't far off what they experienced just 60 years ago. Hell, I've met my share of people that still think like this. When you consider Infinite takes place 50 years before THAT, none of what happens (besides the steam punk floating city) is all that hard to believe.
They never said it was the baptism specifically that found Columbia, just the name "Comstock" simply put there are strings leading to other events that all end up in either the floating city or the office.
Considering the game borders the subject of quantum theory and paradox, I feel like they COULD of made the story more logical, considering how you could bend and twist things on the subject. Maybe they worried their game would turn into an over-complicated paradoxical algorithm that overshadowed the game itself. I'm happy with the game and story, one of my favorites, but yeah, it has its silly moments in the story line.
I think I can take the logic leap that Booker's baptism turned him into Comstock. I have no problem with that. But, the "just shoot him in the foot before Wounded Knee" argument is pretty solid. For me, the ending fits together nicely enough. It seems to do it a bit better than most games. A theory: Booker always had dormant powers similar to Elizabeth and the baptism allowed him to tap into them as Comstock, as Booker was too filled with guilt and shame to bother trying to tap into his inherent power. That's why Elizabeth has powers, Booker just past that magical gene on to her. That and she was taken to another dimension as a baby, which seemed to have had adverse effects on other people, namely Chen Lin.
no dude Anna got her power to open tears when the teleporter thing closed in and cut her finger off Booker never had any real powers he only had the drinks that give you powers
Kritical Beating But if that was true, how do you explain the random visions of future New York being destroyed by Elizabeth that Booker has throughout the game? If Booker does have some of Elizabeth's powers, then his visions make sense.
he gets the visions because he forgot his past somehow and has flashbacks because it already happened not because he has powers btw that's also why Booker cant remember who Anna is
Kritical Beating I'm not talking about his flashbacks. I'm talking about his visions of New York burning decades in the future. Booker isn't remembering an event of the past with those; he's seeing a possible future.
Kritical Beating Just want to point out, that your idea of Anna/Elizabeth getting her powers from loosing her finger in the tear makes no sense. If she didn't already have those powers, then why would Comstock even want her? She was only really useful to him with her powers.
The ending of this game got twisted and weird really fast. I was completely mindf*cked when I played it. The game's story and setting is already complex with all those tears and alternate universes, the ending made it way worse. Don't get me wrong, I like complex and multilayered stories and endings but this was too much. Why we couldn't just go to Paris?
This isn't what I expected to hear. I thought he was gonna talk about how they destroy alternate realities and time travel principles. The writers couldn't decide whether they really wanted infinite timelines or a single one that shifts. Throughout the game you jump between a bunch of different outcomes, many of them not stemming from Booker being baptized, but tons of events before and after that event. Drowning Booker shouldn't do anything to Elizabeth in any timeline but the one the now drowned Booker was in. And when you add Burial at Sea to it, it just makes it so much more of a mess.
I know that I'm extremely yet fashionably late, but this being my second time through BSI, I decided to see what other people thought of the game. I have to hand it to you, you did a fantastic job with the narration, and the drawings were amazing. I think you have a very unique approach, and just wanted to say thank you for the quality content. I hope you and yours are all well during these hard times. Quarantine has been rough, but it's videos like yours that get me through it. Again, thanks a million.
I feel you. To be honest, the only thing I wanted throughout the whole game was to see Booker take Elizabeth to Paris. I wanted a cute little cutscene of Elizabeth just being happy, but we got drownings and now I'm super sad. Great game though.
"How about just going back and shooting Booker in the foot so he can't participate in the Wounded Knee massacre":1. That would only create another *variable* that seperates between an infinite number of universes where Booker De'Witt was shot in the foot and and sat out Wounded Knee and an infinite number of universes where he wasn't shot in the foot and everything unfolds as planned.2. The only way to stop this is at *constants* because these are miraculously the *same* in every universe (this is the magical part if you will). The baptism scene is explained to be such a constant. Changing this constant in one universe will change it in every universe ever created (it's not called a "constant" for nothing). Kill Booker at the baptism means in no universe will he ever have the choice of becoming either Comstock or not.The only problem is the paradox of Elizabeth, but there's a few possible explanations (though none of them are very good).
If the constant cqn be changed, then it become just an another variable... and for the baptism to take place, Booker has to bear the guilt of wounded knee. So if he sit out wounded knee and the guilt that led him to seek answer in faith, how can the baptism still be a constant?
1) Really? You're hung up on the name? Comstock had political influence. Lutece had ideas, but she needed funding. Comstock secured funding from Congress to construct Columbia. Afterward, Comstock amassed a huge following, took over the city, and seceded. 2) Actually, in all of the timelines we see Booker in, he was a very violent person, being a Pinkerton agent (a strikebreaker), prophet, and a revolutionary. That being said, while Booker the Pinkerton agent considered the baptism because of remorse, it is unclear if Booker the prophet had the same motives. He may have decided at the time that his participation at Wounded Knee was providential. Also, the reason why they don't go back to shoot Booker in the foot before Wounded Knee was because they likely could not determine the consequences of the action.
They couldn't determine the consequences of shooting someone in the foot but they could determine the consequences of drowning someone? What would prevent Lutece from just finding someone else to fund her project?
His. Lutece is a man in the Booker timeline, and while he was a physicist, he was also a man, and he unlikely faced the same challenges and went to the same extremes as his alternate self. Anyhow the goal was not to prevent the construction of Columbia. It was to kill Comstock. Shooting him in the foot and preventing him from participating in the Wounded Knee massacre may or may not have done this. As I stated, we have have no idea what motivated Comstock to accept the baptism; this Booker was different BEFORE the baptism--the water doesn't change anything. Then there is the grandfather paradox. Keep in mind that drowning Comstock restores Booker, Anna, and Robert to the correct timeline. Lutece remarked in a Voxophone that the universe constantly seeks to restore itself to its original state; the analogy was along the lines of "it doesn't like it when we mix the peas with the porridge."
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I still feel the ending is disatisfactory though--as endings often are when time travel hijinks are involved. For all we know they could have just had a more evil person than Comstock create another hidden city.
mhswlee Can you please explain to me this.. why is booker going to get the girl and still has debt? ... if he doesn't have the girl then he has no debt right? because he sold her to pay it off..
the game has booker use weapons with his right hand and vigors with his left hand, and that is why your image of him fighting a patriot "Really Doesn't Work"
Well.... Maybe Comstoack wasn't that bat shit at the time. Her certainly gained a following and I'm sure money to employ Lutece. This guy's video doesn't make sense. It's just full of "what if's".
Here's why the ending DOES make sense in terms of why Comstock created Columbia after the baptism. The video mentioned how both Comstock and Booker have guilt, but that's all they have in common. Columbia wasn't a society to repent for his sins, it was built to glorify all of them. He turned to propaganda and an excuse for his actions instead of alcoholism.
Well that is actually pretty correct. Booker was never one for religion so it was hard for him to believe. So in the end he could only try to glorify what he did. He did it because it was right and just. Because he was told to do it. All the others were full of sin.
Hezigrimm That makes sense when you look at the racist society he created. He said only the white man have rights so that it can justify his killing of the indians.
PaperClipEntertainme An other important fact, that is often overlooked, is that according to the dates in the game, Booker is 16 years old at the Battle of Wounded Knee. While it would be a bit weird if a 40-year-old Booker suddenly flipped to a different personality just because of a baptism, I can pretty much see how a traumatised 16-year-old teenager, who just went through a massacre, could end up at totally different points 3 years later based on the way of life he chooses.
PaperClipEntertainme It also makes sense if you think how he buys Elizabeth from the alternate Booker. The way he treats his alternate self basically says: "You got drunk, in debt and are willing to sell your daughter? Great! Your reward is to get all your debts paid!" I think, if he truly were a believer, he would just steal her from this "morally bankrupt" version of himself. Instead, he gets rewarded for his bad behaviour.
You raised some great points (and your art is amazing and funny), but I got the answer to your "why would Rosalind help Comstock" question. If you buy and play the "Clash in the clouds" DLC and buy both Rosalind and Robert's character models, you'll be able to go into their apartment, where a bunch of voxophones voiced by Rosalind are scattered around. One of them says that when Rosalind first met Comstock, he was nothing more than a well versed preacher who was able to influence members of his flock and congressmen alike. At the time, no one gave a fuck about any of Rosalind's discoveries except for Comstock himself, and, since he was interested in those discoveries, the Prophet, with the help of his flock, was able to fund Rosalind in her endeavors, and in return, she develloped the technology to make a floating city. So, the reason she didn't go with anyone other than Comstock wasn't because she wanted to, but because she had no other choice.
Yeah I think they definitely jumped the shark when it came to the story. It's like they were trying wayyyy harder than they needed to in order to make it compelling, like they tried to top Bioshock, when they didn't even have to do that. Ridiculous. The story makes no fucking sense. And an energy shield? What bullshit is that? If I want to play Halo, I'll play Halo. Why is that even in there?
I enjoyed this video quite a bit. I was quite disappointed with Bioshock Infinite. It's a game which relies heavily on story and yet gives the player no opportunity to ever make a single meaningful choice that actually affects the story. Simply put, this is not a game, but a clever, pretty movie that you walk through. Sure, you get to do lots of fighting, but none of it matters because you are immortal and will be given perpetual ammo, health and salt. My big mistake was starting the game thinking I was going to play an RPG, when I'm simply watching a movie that stops from time to time to tell me "push this button", or "time for a shooting interlude, back in ten."
You're disappointed in the game because there's not many morality choices? That's an odd principle to judge a game. There's many fully linear video game stories that offer one strict timeline that I am completely happy with, so long as those linear stories are good. 'BioShock Infinite' has a fantastic premise, a beautiful story, and a wonderful execution. If you can get your head around that ending, then it's truly an extraordinary game all around.
Rhain Radford-Burns No, I'm disappointed that none of the choices you make in the game have any effect whatsoever. I replayed the game in an speedier fashion, not exploring anything that wasn't part of the plot. It's amazing how many times in this game when it gives you control but only one button to push, or a single option to select. And choosing not to push it only stalls the game. There's a scene, early on, where a woman dressed as a nun drops a torch and sets the blimp on fire. In my replay through, as soon as I saw her, I shot her in the head, and the bullets went through her like she was air. Bioshock to BS 2 to BSI got more and more linear. BSI is an interactive movie, that from time to time lets you shoot things, click on things. It's a more railroaded experience than any other game-driven story I've played.
Ghostplops I could be wrong, but I think that's the point though, constants and variables, you can pick the bird or the cage, variable, as you mentioned though no impact at all. It would've been nice to have made some choices, in the end though, none of it would've really mattered. No matter which path you trot, it always leads to taking a dunk in the river.
Here's how I disagree with the video. 1) It's not that hard to get a change in name legally, for any reason whatsoever, whether it's religion, or you just plain want to. My grandfather changed his name (first and last) to something that sounded less German and more Anglicized leading up to WWII. You have to take your desire to go by a different name up with the courts. 2) Rosalind Lutece had ideas that sounded insane, and would sound insane even today. Lutece hadn't done the transcendance to see prophetically that Comstock would betray her yet. For all we know, people in Britain probably wouldn't buy her idea, and thought her crazy, and a man who bought her ideas and supported her experiments turned out to be Comstock. Even nowadays, there are points where people would think you insane in the academic community, transdimensional travel of a human being and not subatomic particles or photons, would be one of them. 3) Booker, as you come to know him over the course of the game, is exactly a person you wouldn't trust in a position of power. He's not that much of a polar opposite of Comstock. Being a street thug for the Pinkertons is not a person I would make a national leader. It's not someone I would trust as a father either, for all that it's worth, it's key that Booker lost his daughter to make him think, sort of like Scrooge had the visions in "A Christmas Carol", to offer a chance at rethinking his life.
Randy Parsons Not really, power does a whole lot more. The vast majority of people secular or religious, never kill anyone. However, I don't care if someone believes in God or Denies he exists, I wouldn't grant a whole lot of power to them. In a lot of ways, the Luteces and their scientific breakthroughs ARE THE PROBLEM with the fact that they gave Comstock the power of transdimensional travel. They aren't even part of his religion in the first place, but they gave him something that shouldn't be entrusted to just one person, regardless.
suemorphplus2009 Yeah, I like to think even myself that religion is the sole cause of many wars, while in reality, it is much more often the power that some RECEIVE from it that corrupts them and causes them to become power hungry. I suppose it is more of a gateway into bloodshed than it is a direct causation.
Well, you have the Crusades. You have the fact that many Americans do not like or even hate Muslims. These may not start wars but they sure keep them going. And if you take the Christian bible you find absurd numbers of murders, including an entire flood designed to kill thousands or millions of people. War not linked to religion? Really? You can't be serious. Many religious texts say its your DUTY to kill those who don't believe your particular God.
Randy Parsons And how many people, of the billions that practice the very religions that have texts commanding them to kill others actually do that hmm? Americans weren't too fond of the English or the French or the Spanish at one time and they all practiced basically the same religions. Religion itself is not evil. The Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas; they say lots of things that many people don't follow because by today's standards they're barbaric. Religion and it's rules tends to change with society. Society is influenced by religion yes, but religion is influenced by society as well. Now, the way religion is used can be very problematic. Do you think the Crusades were really an attempt to reclaim the "holy land?" Do you honestly think that's what the Church really had in mind? Do you think these extremist Wahhabi fundamentalist leaders really think they're doing God's will? Was it a religious motivation that drove Stalin to murder millions? How about the genocide of the Native American people? The Khmer Rouge massacres? No, it was power and a thirst for resources. Religion is a tool for the powerful to send the faithful to do their bidding. The Saudi elites sit comfortably on piles of cash and oil by funding Wahhabi fundamentalism that nurtures extremist Islam all over the world. They find poor farmers who only know what they're told about God and heaven and they convince them to take up arms and kill their enemies for them. The Catholic church wanted territory, they wanted land and resources and open routes to the riches of the East. They claimed the land was their Christian God's land and that they had to reclaim it. I'll admit there have been wars and conflicts throughout time centered on religion and they certainly are fuel for the fire but when it boils down to it, it was always only a tool or an excuse. If there was no such thing as religion, had human's never conceived the idea of higher beings, we would find something else to fight over and we all know it. History wouldn't be any more peaceful. There are billions of religious people everyday that practice their faith in peace. Corrupted and perverted bastardizations of various faiths are but a single and very small branch of the tree of problems that plague humans. You need to get to the roots. The want for power, given by control of resources and capital. The drive to hold a position of command or a safe distance between one people and another; yours and theirs, that is a much larger problem that religion only plays a part in. Hell, maybe that's not even the root. If you can find the root of all evil then you'll be a very popular man. My point is there's far too many facets of existence to lay such heavy blame on religion the way you are. Even within the universe of Infinite there's so many factors, Comstock's ideals and this new religion of Columbia are but only a small piece.
You assume that the Baptism alone was enough to transform Booker into Comstock. The choices he made from than onward is what really made him into Comstock. Remember how they say that things get set in motion, but how far would you need to go? They needed to go back to a single point where his life changed. I say picking up a new religion and thinking all your past sins were cleansed a pretty big moment in someone's life. Except doing what Booker had done and accepted his actions, Comstock tried to justify his actions with religion. This leads him down a road where he gets too caught up in his own world and thinks himself as a prophet.
That's probably the best rebuttal to the baptism argument I've read. I think it's odd to assume that the game expects you to think the baptism was the key event that led to Booker's transformation into Comstock. When we see Comstock for the first time he's an old man with all the characteristics of a long weary life. Obviously, a lot happened after the baptism that had an affect on Booker's ideology, religious beliefs, and views on social hierarchy.
The ending implies that it was Booker's choice not to walk away from the Baptism that determined his becoming Comstock. Listen to the words of one of the Elizabeths. If this isn't the case, then it's another massive plot hot and failure in storytelling.
***** The moment he chooses to take the baptism and change his name to Comstock is the beginning of a long road of choices he would've never made if he had not been baptized. This doesn't refute the words of Elizabeth.
"You assume that the Baptism alone was enough to transform Booker into Comstock" No, I don't, at least not that it was strictly sufficient condition. I infer, (and the narrative implies), that event this was the initial cause and commencement of Booker's transformation into Comstock. Surely, this most common interpretation doesn't deny that the appearance of the angel of Columbia to Comstock was necessary for his deification of the Founding Fathers, otherwise Comstock might have become a zealous Christian as opposed to a zealot Founder. The game does suggest that his acceptance of the baptism was a necessary and sufficient cause of his transformation. Obviously, for him to turn into Comstock, various constants wold have to arise, (the angel would have to appear to him, he would have to have been never disabused of his racist and jingoist notions, he would have to avoid dying of some physical calamity until his personality was completely changed, etc.) Really, I might have misspoke, but I meant to have only stated- and the game virtually spoonfeeds this as a plot mechanic- that the event that sets Booker's transformation in motion is his acceptance of the Baptism in some realities, and he remains as the Booker we know if he rejects it. "This doesn't refute the words of Elizabeth." I've never contradicted her words. Neither does the video, which only attempts to evince the implausibility of Booker's transformation merely from this event. You may say that other factors most certainly were involved and other events transpired that were necessary for Booker's transformation into Comstock, but the only event aside from the Baptism in the game which is explained is the apparition of the angel.
Don't you know what the angel of Columbia is? There was no angel, it was a lie manufactured by Comstock to justify his position of a prophet. In reality, he uses tears to see the future and other realities. The tears are the angels. He opened the tears to give himself the advantage and to win over the public. It was his decisions to abuse the tears for his own benefit. This is more of another action Comstock took which leads him closer to the person he is in the game, than a point which he decides to do Comstock-like things since he would've already started building Columbia.
Seems I'm a little late for the party (6 years to be exact), but since I only recently played through all the Bioshock games I thought, for what it's worth, I'd chime in anyway. While I agree that the conclusion to the Bioshock Infinite story doesn't make sense when looked at from a literal perspective I don't think that really matters much in the context of the narrative. One of the main, if not THE over arching theme of the Bioshock series seems to the relationship between choices and consequences. The first game dealing with the question of free choice (do we actually make decisions and do they matter), the second game dealing with how our choices affect those around us (and vice versa), and the last game dealing with how our choices affect ourselves and our dealing with them beyond the moment they occur. Granted, these themes are not exclusively dealt with in each game, but that appears to be the focus of each game respectively. I don't look at Bioshock Infinite as being a kind of literal telling of events, but as a metaphorical sequence of events from which generalizations can be drawn. For example, rather than looking at Comstock as an alternate version of Booker it's more practical to interpret Comstock as being an extension of Booker's consciousness. With this interpretation the conflict between Comstock and Booker isn't so much about Booker trying to rescue his daughter from a different version of himself, but rather Booker trying to resolve the conflict of his guilt (the reason for the guilt being irrelevant). Granted, this mode of analyzing the game leaves us with far more questions, but they're the types of questions that can potentially bring us to a far greater understanding of our own reality even if it leaves the story of the game with a few plot holes. For example, what's the significance of Elizabeth losing a part of her pinky even if we're not talking about the physical loss? Obviously a stale comment section of a youtube video isn't a great place for this discussion, but I couldn't resist an opportunity to discuss the issue even if only for my own satisfaction.
It's based on a sci-fi novel written by Robert Heinlein; By His Bootstraps A man in front of a hole to the future is asked by one man to not enter. The man enter and find that he want to change the future for the better. He change the future by replacing a man in the future with himself in the past. He goes back to the future and nothing has changed
These are all very weak reasons on the basis that nobody knows the true impact choice makes on our character, because none of us can go back in time and live an event differently and observe the outcome, thus its very open ended, making the story plausible. As for the twins siding with Comstock, Comstock was a peoples man, almost like a politician, he could rally, he could get funding, this is the primary reason. Scientists cant do those things, they dont have the personality or charasima.
Well, not much of this game could happen in real life, since we're talking crazy ideas such as multidimensional superposition, nihilistic multiverse mechanics[note], and quantum levitation of an entire city, to name a few. The plot making sense hinges upon suspension of disbelief. You have to allow for the assumption that this is possible, that this technology can be made, and that one random moment can entirely change one's personality, for example. If you think within the bounds of reality, it won't make sense. note: multiverse theory speculates that our choices create alternate universes where we made the opposite/alternative choice, and some proponents believe that this effectively renders our choices purposeless (nihilism). I see the attitude in the game as nihilistic because Elizabeth essentially tells Booker that no matter what he does, the only way to neutralize Comstock is to kill himself at his "prime" (the moment before he was/wasn't baptized), otherwise, nothing he does will make a difference.
''The game was great?'' Let me stop you right there, because if you had played the original Bioshock, it's sequal, and most importantly, System shock, the game this entire frachise was based of, you'd have a much different opinion. Bioshock Infinite can't even be considered as the shadow of the previous games, Gameplay is 100% linear, and totally trashes what Bioshock was all about, which is scavenging, taking care of your inventory, EVE and Health kits so the enemy doesn't screw you over. Not to mention being careful when using ADAM as it can make things easier or harder for you depending of what you choose, that's what made Bioshock so magical, because every decision you make changes the gameplay on each player, so, every time you play the game, it will be a totally different experience, you can get different plasmids, upgrades, find different diaries or simply get a different ending. In Bioshock Infinite this is not existant, no ADAM, no EVE, no taking care of your items or where to use 'em, Elizabeth will always find a way to make it easier, pulling Salts or Health kits out of her ass and making everything monotone to play, as the challenge element gets completely destroyed. This was a huge disapointment, one step forward and three steps back, hopefully, if they ever make a new game, they won't turn Bioshock into Call of duty: Sky warfare.
I think they had to make those changes for the narrative to work. They aren't in Rapture anymore & shoehorning ADAM into the game wouldn't make any sense for the story. The challenge element is absolutely there if you up the difficulty, and I'd arguer more so since there is actually a penalty for death this time around. Don't really see where your getting at with the game play being different with different play throughs since Infinite also had different powers, upgrades, and diaries. As for the endings, the first two didn't feel like there was all that much choice in my opinion. It seemed to clear cut multiple choice for me so I didn't miss them all that much. I'll agree that the old health system, that could have been reimplemented without problem. As for simply how the game controlled I though it was a lot better. Just felt a lot smoother & natural moving around the environment. As much as I liked Rapture, they were pretty much as done with it as you can be in the universe they set up. This game reopened that for them to do what ever they like in the future. All in all it was different then the first, but still good. Just a different kind of good.
why does it have to be a "shadow" of the previous games to be good ?..it''s just fun get over it.. why do you MUST compare it with the other bioshocks ?...it's not even relevant
The artwork is nice, but your points don't stand. You're making way too many assumptions as if you believe humans don't have free will and wouldn't do something that doesn't make 'sense' based on your own arbitrary standards.
Hmm, with the floating city you have a really big point but i think you're wrong with almost all the rest. It's not that a baptism can turn you a crazy fanatic but it's implied that Booker had free will to choose his his destiny and in some universes he decided to leave religion and in some universes he decided to embrace religion just like every fucking soldier ever after a traumatic experience. In some of the universes he choose to follow religion he achieved to ascend to a great position and transform into Comstock. Comstock indeed believes that he has the truth but as many others manipulate the facts that happen or even manipulate insconsciously his memories (you don't need to travel through a tear to have your brain change your memories, it happens in real life all the days)to convince other people of it.
Why would Lutece give Comstock the technology for the floating particle?... Well maybe because Comstock had a lot of influence and trust at the time. Not to mention ideas and money to fund Lutece's research. Research requires $$$$$$. And if somebody with a lot of power, influence, trust, and money chooses to find my research... well then :)
Why would Booker embrace religion after the Battle of Wounded Knee? In most cases, soldiers forsake God and even point out "where was God when I needed him?" I think this guy had some pretty valid points but I mostly agree with you.
***** I'm not a soldier but i could understand(and i'm repeating myself) that especially if you weren't religious you could turn to religion. For example, a lot of people that know that they're going to die in hours seek redemption by converting to christianity. If you kill many people on battle you may need someone to say that it happened and you are forgiven. If your were already religious, then losing many friends on a war could make you think you were punished by God...
Carlos Bautista I understand an although I'm an atheist I think that if I were drawing my last breaths, knowing it was the end and I was going to die, I think I might pray just in case because as a man of science and reason, I can safely say I don't know for certain that there is no God, I just see no reason for there to be one. Also, the veterans I've talked to turned away from the idea of God. I don't know your scenarios and every situation is different but a majority either became atheists or became extremely apathetic towards religion.
You know that Star War's T-shirt that's says "I went to the Dark Side but all I got was this dumb T-shirt" I want one that says "I got baptized but all I got was my dumb soul saved"
however constants and variables are distinguished if you went back and shot booker in the foot that is only him in one world the constant is that booker is at the baptism area and chooses to be baptized.
Then what's the purpose of killing Booker, the main character? If Elizabeth wasn't sure the main character was Comstock then there's no point in killing the Booker at the end. On the other hand if she was sure, or was capable of killing an infinite number of Bookers then it stands to reason that Booker needn't be killed anyway.
tonton9598 So then they do have the ability to prevent Comstock from existing while not killing Booker. Any way you slice it, the ending doesn't make logical sense. But that's fine, Ken Levine is a game designer first, writer second. He just overreached his capabilities of a writer.
you would need to go to every multiverse and keep comstock from existing. or the constant where booker gets baptized and takes the name comstock. if you killed booker at the baptism it would keep comstock from existing
I disagree. The entire point of a baptism is to wash away your sins and your past life and allow you to start "new" before God. For someone as delusional and motivated as Comstock, I could easily see the baptism as the first in a long line of steps toward Columbia. Now, what REALLY doesn't work, is the idea of drowning him. You have a series of a "million million" worlds in which he has existed, is existing, and will exist and drowning him in one does not affect all the others. It affects only that one world. So they would need to go to every world/universe and drown him there. But that still wouldn't affect the universes he already exists in.
+JACCO20082012 somehow the idea hinged on his choice to go through with the baptism, meaning that even though those universes existed, by returning to the point before he made the choice, his death would prevent the existence of all of the universes in which he made the choice (either one), I realize why that doesn't make sense though because, as the game explains in this case, time is referred to as an ocean, meaning it is happening in ALL time, where as if time was looked upon as a river, it would be linear and open to paradoxes, where time could be altered by changing events before they occur, like Anna/Elizabeth killing Booker would mean he would no longer exist, but then would also mean she could have never existed in the first place, unless you believe in predestination. Now Anna/Elizabeth is unique in the sense that she can exist in multiple dimensions and traverse and even manipulate space/time, so the only way to explain what happens is that she essentially saw into all the universal possibilities simultaneously, which they do hint at a bit, when she says things like "Comstock is still here, he still exists through at least one door" and I'm paraphrasing there, but it's something to that effect. Basically, she had to know beyond doubt, that killing Booker would kill Comstock in that particular instance, and for good. That still doesn't explain the ocean analogy very well, but I've had to live with it.
+JACCO20082012 About that drowning thing : she said, if Comstock never lived in the first world, he couldn't live in another worlds. Everything started with baptism. Then probabilities were created. In one probability, Booker didn't accept baptism, but in second, he accepted and became Comstock. So they went to the place when he became Comstock, and killed him, where he "born". So there can't be probabilities if Comstock never lived in "first world" Something like that
+JACCO20082012 But why would he make an entirely new identity while still claiming credit for all the accomplishments he only had during his own lifetime? Anyone (outside of Columbia, where he controls media) could just go find the truth about him.
Daughter universe theory states that when we make a choice, two or more alternate universes are created to accommodate alternate choices. None of the infinite number of Comstock universes can exist if he is killed at the baptism where he chooses to embrace "forgiveness" rather than accept his guilt.
+The Merc With a Mouth Yet at least one apparently does- the one who's the protagonist in Episode 1. Maybe there is at least one universe where he goes back to the revival multiple times?
I don't quite agree with a lot of your points. I got the feeling that the baptismal split was just the split between OUR Booker and Comstalk, and as such, the easiest point for Elizabeth to prune the tree of reality. There are plenty of religious figures who booth appear truly devout, and yet preach things they know not to be true. It's called cognitive dissonance, and something a lot of people don't seem to have a problem with.
The problem isn't the plot hole in itself, because all time travel stories have gaping plot holes at some point. Especially if time travel is THIS important in the story's narrative. But people can accept them if the overall theme of the story is interesting. Which I don't think it is. It is a twist, yeah sure, but what exactly does this change for the characters? Booker is still Booker and Comstock is still Comstock. Just because they have similar origin with a splitting point doesn't make them the same person. If your theme was how easy it is for a good person could change and nearly destroy the world then it isn't really working because we see the story from Booker's perspective and not from Comstock's for the most part. Take Bioshock 1's twist as an example. It works because it includes the medium "game" into its story and therefore does something no other medium can do. You do what Atlas says because that's how a game works. The interesting twist isn't that Atlas is Fontaine, the interesting twist is that you've been mind controlled the whole time without noticing. The developers put you into a situation where you think following orders is the normal way to progress and barely any player even questioned it. And this can be a story of how easy it is for someone else to just tell you what the right thing to do is. Even if you think yourself of being not easily controlled, the correct envoirenment and you wouldn't even question it. And that is ultimately why Infinit's ending fails. If it wanted to show you how similar and yet apart these two characters are, what they should have done is play with the medium again. It's a first person shooter and as such, you are not able to actually see what you look like. Which means, in a story with rifts being opened and your memories even being rewritten when you enter other worlds, there is the easy chance of you actually playing Comstock for certain parts of the game and not Booker. Yes, this would have been harder to write around, but it would have definitely been possible. In this case, you, as the player would maybe accept that killing yourself and by that all possible variants is the only way out, because even yourself weren't able to tell the difference of when you were Booker and when you were Comstock.
@@EggEnjoyer Well, I guess the game around you being transported to different times, sometimes the future and sometimes the past and where the finale is you killing your former self to make sure nothing of this happens, is not a time travel game. Good thing EggEnjoyer is such a masterful mind when it comes to analyzing stories. But hey, if you can't even read my comment to understand what it's about and assume it's about the game being a time travelling game, then I guess it's hard to assume you can read a more complex story
@@Modie No because you are not killing your former self. You kill a parallel reality version of yourself. There is time travel, but it is not a time travel plot. The plot is about parallels realities. That’s why there’s no time paradoxes nor should there be any talks of any. The game ends with you, not just going back in time, no. Instead you’re destroying a moment in the multiverse that affects all realities from coming into being. It’s just not a hard plot to comprehend
Are you saying that Booker could have avoided Wounded Knee... with a wounded knee?
I used to be a soldier like you then I took an arrow to my knee
If he would have taken an arrow to the the knee he would have just hung around talking about it and none of the craziness would have ensued.
@@AimLessAlien No then he would walk around whiterun and would be a deal til lvl 8
No lollygagging!
Yo, make this guy the new script leader for Irrational Games!
Should've just gone to Paris ;-;
The Deer That would of been amazing
Song Bird would have found them no matter what.
owen west at least they would of had a nice time :)
owen west You're fun at parties :)
The Deer just saying why they couldn't have gone to Paris
The baptism is a symbol of how he dealt with his inner turmoil. The Booker that didn't go through with it chose to shoulder the guilt and blame himself but in the process spiraled into a depression of gambling and drinking. The Booker that went through with it chose to deny his fault and try to justify it,convincing himself that other races were lesser and vilified them in his own memories.
+Andy Semple Bingo. It's still a stretch that someone like Booker can become Comstock, but that it's not the act of baptism itself... it's what is represents, and all the divergences it implies in the future
SolidRoot
I don't think it's that much of a stretch. Booker is a selfish person who is not only more than happy to kill but sold his own child for his selfish needs. Even through the first half of the game he's not trying to rescue Elizabeth, he's just stealing her for someone else. In the end it's the guilt after finding out she is his daughter that makes him even half way decent. If anything it's easier to see him as selfish and self-serving Comstock than the self-sacrificing Booker at the end of the game. I'd say Breaking Bad's Walter White's change is more unbelievable than Booker's.
+Andy Semple Fair enough. And a has been mentioned on (I believe) another video, you just need to believe that Booker can become Comstock in at least one "multiverse", out of basically infinity.
+Andy Semple you said it pretty well.
+Andy Semple Stretch? Booker is already a bad guy. Read his history.
It's not a stretch at all. There were two choices.
1. Continue down the road he was going, being a terrible person (this leads to Comstock)
2. Stop...and change his ways (Booker)
If anything, it's a stretch that he didn't turn out like Comstock every single time. Comstock is more plausible than Booker, considering the history of the character.
Those drawings are beautiful man.
SLH86 The drawings are beautiful, but dear god the logic is shoddy. The entire point of the DeWitt/Comstack issue is that DeWitt realized what he did was wrong and decided to wallow in his guilt. Comstack on the other hand decided baptism was a get out of Jail Card and that by doing it he became as clean as snow... meaning he didn't have to stop being a massive douche.
The ending therefore sits upon the fact that DeWitt embraces the actual spirit of baptism and admits to his sins before acting to rectify them via giving his life. The end result of this is that all the DeWitts who refuse to actually admit their sins are killed through the powers of Elizabeth and those who do admit to their sins are given the chance to raise their daughter Anna. Yay.
Now how Burial At Sea fits into this I couldn't tell you, but I do enjoy the meta of a lighthouse, a City, and a Man (looking to save his little girl) (Hi Dishonored!).
Realispent Right, and suddenly the end location of game is magical nexus that can affect other realities. The whole 'city, man, lighthouse' does not work due to simple reason of how alternate realities work. They are alternate. I means that there is sometimes a man, a city and lighthouse.
Infinite has a really bad writing, because all their efforts were put to create some shiny location and Elisabeth animations. Writing of this game sucks.
LavosCore The thing about alternate realities doesn't really work out, but the rest of the writing actually fits to their crazy idea of alternate realities.
The problem with their idea though, is that Booker DeWitt seems to end at the baptism point after Wounded Knee, no matter what. It is inevitable.
In "real" life, all sorts of stuff could happen in those atlernate universes/realities that made him skip Wounded Knee or simply never turn up at the baptism.
Ole Brian And that's exactly the problem.
Ole Brian Every choice results in a separate branching reality. Obviously the realities where Booker never battled at Wounded Knee exist but are of no consequence to this game's narrative.
There are realities where Booker's parents never had a baby, there are realities where Booker was born a girl, there are realities where he was killed before Wounded Knee, but all these realities have no impact on the character of Comstock. The baptism was his rebirth.
You don't need to kill Booker when he's 4, you don't need to be concerned with whether his parents had sex on a Tuesday or Thursday, you don't need to be concerned with the life of his grandpa... while all these situations create alternate realities in different universes they don't decide on whether Comstock exists or doesn't. It is ultimately Booker's decision during the baptism in the river that determine whether Comstock is born or not. The realities where Booker never battles at Wounded Knee or where he never makes it to the baptism in the first place do not matter as Comstock would never have had a chance to be born anyway.
All this doesn't really matter though. Because even without Comstock, the nexus of the Bioshock realities aren't dependent on certain specific individuals or their choices. Rather, they are dependent on the variables; a man, a city, and a lighthouse. In one reality you are Booker, in another you are Jack. In one reality exists Comstock, and in another Andrew Ryan. So while you may kill Comstock/Andrew Ryan in some realities, the truth is that this infinite loop will never end.
Not to mention that there are an infinite number of universes where Booker never travelled back in time to drown before he was baptized, or where someone other than Booker/Comstock started the crazy sky city cult. It's like Booker said, they should have just gone to Paris, because his sacrifice was completely pointless. Also, grandfather paradox.
DukE_HenrY Can't help but notice you didn't address my criticisms of why the sacrifice wouldn't work.
My point is that the sacrifice shouldn't work, and that distracts me from the beauty/tragedy.
+Cési Junior It made sense.
redhood420 Only if you accept it at face value and don't think about it too much.
You just keep saying that, but all you need to do is explain why Elizabeth and Booker going back to kill him before his baptism would not create a grandfather paradox, and why it would have any effect on the infinite number of universes where someone other than Booker/Comstock was the founder of Columbia.
That alternate idea for stopping Comstock from being born is hilarious, I just picture young Booker sitting in a tent when suddenly older Booker and Elizabeth burst in and shoot him in the foot and run away. "It's for your own good!"
It would be better than murdering Our protagonist and let Elizabeth die later due to her envy and hate to Comstock's variant that didn't succeed.
@@wojtekreliga3881 Yeah burial at sea was terrible.
I'm a bit late to the party, but I think at one point Rosalind Lutece says in a voxophone that she doesn't like Comstock, but has to work with him because he provides her funding. As you said, Comstock and Lutece start working together before she starts making progress with quantum particles, so when Comstock hires her, for all intents and purposes her resume is blank. Perhaps Rosalind decides to work for a religious fanatic because a religious fanatic is the only person crazy enough to fund her.
Of course, this raises the question of how the heck Comstock out of nowhere became rich enough to fund Lutece's research AND build an entire friggin' city, but I digress.
〈-thatguyoverthere Columbia was funded by the government of America. Comstock became a well loved preacher and was able to use his popularity and charisma to win over the united states government in funding Columbia.
I dunno, it kinda makes sense. People do some real crazy shit when they unquestioningly believe in something. And his popularity would of course snowball once they make progress with the tears and he can accurately predict the future. Hard to argue with that. You'd probably be the odd man out to NOT be throwing your money at the guy if people all were scared and believed he could save them.
Cumshot Kenny ^Correct it's stated in a Voxophone.
+HoodieSticks
Maybe in this alternative timeline where Brooker becomes Comstock he actually wins all those horse-racing bets XD.
I dunno, you've ever seen rich white folks attend church with the notion their pocket-books entitles them to a place in heaven???
The comment section in a nutshell:
Side A: No, it works, and here's how!
Side B: He's right, I never thought about it like this before!
Side C: I really love the artwork and how the video is made.
I like you, your sarcasm makes sense. (unlike most trolls)
+Lee None why, thank you! Have a great day.
i'm b and c
D: I hate Bioshock Infinite
I'll take C for 500, please!
I love the artwork in this video.
i found the art work more interesting 😂
+CapsLockKeyon It's very reminiscent of Borderlands.
Any word on who did it?
Anybody figured out who did the artwork?
He did it himself.
I think I would love goin to Paris with Elizabeth more than the actual ending.
The sexual tension, if there was any, probably got really weird after the endgame reveal.
I thought I would get to take this broad to Paris for finishing the game but instead I gotta sacrifice myself in the name of erasin realities?
@@SolarDr3w Works better if you read it in a New Yorker accent kek.
Brings a whole new meaning to the term daddy in the bedroom.
no
During the game, i was expecting an end where booker takes Elizabeth to Paris instead of New York and had a happy life together. It was shocking for me when the game reveals that she was actually his daughter, and i felt a bit disappointed
I had a friend who worked on art concepts for Irrational Games, and after Infinite's release he did his best to try and explain at least one of the first ideas for the game's story that he really enjoyed. I've seen other people spout this on their own, so I feel pretty good about sharing it, but I don't have links to old scripts or anything, so take it with a grain or skepticism.
From what I understand, in the original concept it was something similar to the main story, but not quite. Comstock was not Booker, but someone who knew Booker in the past and who was shadowed by Booker's efforts at Wounded Knee. Booker was a war hero and eventually an accomplished politician/businessman or something of the like. With the help of the the twins (I say twins for simplicity. I don't know if they were like the Luteces we know, but they were Brother/Sister scientists, not cross-dimensional weirdos), Comstock goes about replacing Booker in his own timeline, which ends up with Booker being relegated to just being some peon soldier who became a Pinkerton after money got tight. Everytime Booker hears about stuff that Comstock did, he gets a nosebleed because his brain is trying to remember things that never quite happened.
The game has had like four incarnations before release, so I doubt this was the only concept, but they all seem similar. In this one, the twins helped Booker at the beginning of the game because Elizabeth is their scientifically modified incest wizard baby, and when the twins stepped up to try and reverse all the evil shit Comstock did to make himself powerful, he took their child as a safeguard. They hire you to bring them Elizabeth (Who they never explicitly tell you is their babbler) by offering to pay off your debts. You would still see them throughout the game, but they're less obvious than walking up to you and handing you stuff. They'd be there to curve Booker's progress and make sure he's still looking out for Elizabeth even when the story diverges based on choice. When Booker's stuck in a cell, they'd bribe a guard. When Elizabeth runs away from Booker, they pull something crafty to force them to save each other and feel like they have to stick it out for their own sakes.
There were still a bunch of plot holes. Time travel is a much bigger thing so you have that whole, "Why not travel to *blank* to stop *blank* from ever happening?" thing or "Doesn't going back in time wipe you and your timeline out entirely?" Columbia's history is still just as weird and vague and has to do with time travel or something. Because *SCIENCE* the twins are just magic and can seemingly do whatever, whenever.
I'm happy with the game we got, but I feel like a lot of potential was lost. The ending the character's motivations were certainly more than a little skewed in the final product.
3 years late, but I can say that I agree with you, for the most part. I really take issue with the ending of the game, (mostly due to my personal attachments to Elizabeth and Booker) but for the most part I enjoyed the game. I just can't shake the feeling that what we got was only 75% of what the game COULD HAVE been.
Holy hell that's fascinating
6 year later, I'm wondering how the old man is able to hire scientist wizard alike when he is inferior to Booker in every way, businesss/polictian/military.
I'm sure the writer will be able to figure it out.
Regardless, I prefer Booker having Elizabeth as her daughter. As it creates a special relationship between them that a non-blood related cannot, connecting them in a way.
But it does explain how Booker is able to become a One Man Army, because he already has the potential to kill his way to his goal, because he has already been through a tougher situation if not equally.
The problem I have is with the ending is that the Booker-Comstock connection feels like it is there just to provide a twist and set up the mindfuck ending. There is no intellectual satisfaction or emotional punch resulting from it because of how far-fetched it seems. Booker and Comstock are so radically different in their thinking that I cannot draw the line from one to the other with what the game provides. Neither does this knowledge really put anything that happened earlier in the game in a whole new light like the encounter with Ryan in the first Bioshock did.
Crowley9 Well there are some interesting bits. For instance early in the game Booker mentions to elizabeth that he never heard of Columbia before he arrived there. You don't think much of it at the time, but this actually a very bizzarre statement. The US created a flying city, sent it on a world tour, that city attacked the Chinese and then seceded from the union; That is the story of the century and a guy from New York never heard of it? This simple statement is actually a hint that Booker comes from another reality where Columbia does not exist and that's because Comstock does not exist in his reality.
Then there's also Slate. He thinks that comstock wasn't at Wounded Knee and is telling lies about the battle, but he was there; Slate just doesn't realize that his old acquaintance changed his identity... And the racist society itself might be a reflection of how Comstocked coped with his sins; he came up with excuses. Instead of accepting he did something horrible he found a way to make his sins seem like there were something good, something that was in god's plan; and he did that by embracing white supremacy. Massacring men, women and children doesn't seem so bad when you believe them to be little more than animals. All the horrible things he does is part of how he copes with his past
+Crowley9 I also think that although we come to like Booker as a character, his life is very much prioritized around what needs to be done, not what the right thing to do is. I mean look at his main objective in the story: to go and kidnap a girl to wipe away a debt. Yeah we learn later that it's his daughter and the debt is his own wrongdoing in the past, but he doesn't know that. From what it seems he was going to get a girl and it didn't matter all that much where or why. His morality falls into a grey area, oftentimes where it suits him, and by the end of the story his epiphany about what he's done and the kind of man that makes him leads him to redemption (through "baptism" of sorts lol). Although we know little about Booker from the game up to the end, he isn't necessarily a hero throughout. We just think he must be because he's on a quest to find a girl and saves her once he finds she is in captivity, then defies the odds by killing everyone and looking cool while doing it, but the ending exposes some things we may have already thought about him, for example his ends-justify-the-means mentality that serves him more than others.
+Crowley9 The Booker-Comstock connection does provide some sort of punch if you look at it the right way, squint just right, and sort of ignore how Comstock could have been a competent preacher done everything with Rosalind and founded a floating city out of nowhere. The idea being that Booker and Comstock both show alternate really terrible ways of dealing with the guilt of what they've done. When Booker went to the baptism his intent wasn't entirely right. He wanted to be free of the burden of guilt, sure, but he wanted to find an easy way out of it; that's why when he chooses not to do it he's so incredulous about the idea that it would've had any meaning at all. When he does become Comstock, he doesn't leave the past behind; leave the old man of sin. He justifies himself in what he's done, decides that it was right and changes his worldview based on that (this part is pretty dang far-fetched, but there's a whole video above all about that). Meanwhile, if he hadn't gone through with the baptism, he lives on for years still haunted by the guilt, and it's only in the events of the conclusion of the game that he finds any closure to it all (maybe, hard to say, esp. with the dying and all). Honestly, you're right, it doesn't really hold a candle to the twist with Ryan in the first one, but it's not totally meaningless I feel, y'know?
+Crowley9 You just affirmed and agreed with literally everything Cyan said, which is the established lore. They are the same person, for all intents and purposes. In one reality Lutece was a male. In the other, female. They are by no means "radically different". It's showcased throughout the game itself one believes in one outcome, and the other believes in the opposite outcome, despite them both scientifically accepting the likelihood that they are wrong.
The "encounter with Ryan" literally puts nothing in perspective, as it was a scripted event over which you have literally no control. He had almost 0 involvement with the plot until that point, and certainly never had any afterwards. Ryan was merely a plot device that existed to assist with backstory. Booker accepting or not accepting the baptism is the defining moment. It is the quantum event that defines the parallel universes in which Booker lives with his guilt and truly hates himself and what he has done, or embraces it and makes himself into a prophet, a religious figure, that can bury his own self-doubt, pity, and hatred as established in religious paradigms to the extent of becoming the "messiah" of a civilization.
This quantum event is clearly the baptism. In the reality from which you, as Booker, originate, you have rejected the baptism. You remain a sinful person who has further gambled away his life to the point that he must unknowingly sacrifice his own daughter - to the alternate reality version of himself - in order to satisfy his own self-interests. In Comstocks parallel universe, he has fucked with reality-jumping (of Rosalind's design) to the extent that it fried his sperm. He never had a daughter. This quantum event was very clearly long before the game happens, as Anna has lived for at least 16 or so years in Comstock's reality before Booker's litany of failures leads him on a quest to unknowingly recover her ever begins. The Wounded Knee massacre was in 1890. Meaning he had a bit of time to stew before considering the baptism, and even if he did it immediately, there was time to dick around before having a child in either timeline.
You also ignore then that Comstock enlisted the Lutece's help to abduct her, not long after she was born. Meaning the quantum event had already happened, which further hammers in that it was the baptism which is said quantum event. There would be no reason for him to abduct her except by knowing through his reality-jumping it was a possibility, stealing the child from his alternate self who wasn't sterile and could have had a baby.
+OhShootKid L2antihero.
Have you ever BEEN to a southern baptist picnic? Because I have, and you see things, man. You SEE things.
what sorts of things man?
leek67
home made apple pie dude!
***** Yes i love it!oh that kinda things lol!
Stop taking LSD Venom.
like pedofilic priests?
Comstock may refer to the practice of comstockery which involves heavy censorship of something that is perceived as either immoral or obscenity. Very Victorian and the revisionism of Comstock in the game would have followed right along those lines.
kallistiX1 But I think you can agree somebody who believes they're acting in the interest morally purity would take on a name that basically connotates to being a skeevy dickhead?
The main problem here is it suits the story, the not the plot.
It has a dramatic appeal, but not a logical one.
This video makes allot of good points concerning narrative, but misses the mark on the time travel part. "Going back and shooting Dewitt in the knee" would not have changed all timelines, it would have merely created another. The only way to stop the cycle was to kill Comstock without affecting Dewitt. The drowning was a literal representation of killing all Dewitts that took the baptism, effectively "smothering Comstock in his crib" but leaving all Dewitts alive and well. Those timelines, where Dewitt did not take part in the battle of wounded knee, are not apart of this story but they still exist as part of the multiverse.
+Cési Junior I'm sorry but you are mistaken. The end of the game is very clear in showing Booker alive and well, and taking care of Elizabeth. I also believe the time line jumping was a fairly obvious plot point. The characters tried to change time but only found that all they where able to do is jump timeliness. The solution they found was that they had to effect an important event that took place in all timeliness in order to effect all Bookers.
Allso what would have been the point of killing all Bookers? That would have just left Elizabeth off, at worst, an orphan, and at best dead. Hope I answered your questions. :)
Actually the Elizabeth becoming an orphan would not be an outcome. If it had happened the way you state Elizabeth would have no longer existed, because she was born after his baptism. So according to you this game essentially ended in a murder-suicide. :P
Well I think that the drowning of Booker was meant to kill off any Bookers that went to be baptized. As a way to just destroy any timeline where Booker would be come Comstock he was killed before he was able to make the choice. This gets very confusing though. As there is apparently a timeline where events proceeded much the same, but with Anna's head getting cut off through the tear instead of her pinky. (Oh sorry if you haven't played Burial at Sea. What are you doing looking at lore if you don't wanna hear about it?) The reality we originally went to also has to exist because the Elizabeth we journeyed with (or at least one that was practically identical to her.) still exists.
My theory is that it simply breaks the progression of events in a large number of worlds. Enough that even though there are infinite worlds it does some good. I also see the sacrifices that they both made as a washing away of the sins that they committed. That pays off the debt they owed each other, and allows them to live happily in some other world. Its just a theory, but I do like to think that somewhere out there Elizabeth is living in Paris with all the boys trying to both woo her, and avoid her father throwing them into the river.
+Avarickan That was exactly my thoughts. Though I cannot comment on Burial at see as I have yet to play it. I did have a comment referring our detractor to a video showing Dewitt alive after the baptism at the end of the game but it does not seem to be there. How strange!
+Avarickan That was exactly my thoughts. Though I cannot comment on Burial at see as I have yet to play it. I did have a comment referring our detractor to a video showing Dewitt alive after the baptism at the end of the game but it does not seem to be there. How strange!
i thought the two luteces were the same person from different realities
+HawkKD21 they are, this video has a lot of flaws and the creator seems to have missed a few crucial details.
+Adam Jensen Rosalind was a genius, not a prophet to see the future, besides that, she didn't feel bad for steal anna, robert felt guilt and convinced rosalind to do the experiment.
+HawkKD21
they are.
Because Rosalind is a sociopath. she doesn't care one whit about anyone ideals or feelings or ideologies. she just wants her funding to run her experiments. it's her counterpart that is more...balanced and actually feels guilt over what he was convinced to do by his counterpart and then get her to agree to clean it up.
In a voxophone recording Rosalind says she chose Comstock specifically because he was wealthy. Rosalind didn't necessarily want to build a floating city. She wanted the funding to further her research into tears. She mentions in other voxophones how lonely she was until she met her brother across dimensions. In exchange for the money to research a way to bring Robert across dimensions, Rosalind was willing to give a pious megalomaniac the keys to a floating city of racists. Rosalind wanted companionship, and the only person whom she truly cares about is Robert. It goes to show how intelligence does not equal wisdom.
There is actually an explanation on why they can't kill booker before the baptism. Elisabeth calls it "constants and variables" as if some events in the universe are supposed to happen and cannot be altered. Or maybe they can but with some serious damage on the universe (like in the Doctor Who series and its fixed points in time). Therefore, the baptism is the key variable which Elisabeth chose to change in order to end the infinite circle of destruction that columbia was becoming or became or would become, as the Luteces would say.
Which is an extremely convenient way of saying 'We can't grab the problem by the root, because the universe says so.' However, the fabric of space and time seems to be a pretty moody lady considering both are alright with time-travel shenanigans without any actual reprecussions. From a story point of view it makes no sense to suddenly introduce these limitations for someone's who is implied to be limitless and all powerful at that point in the plot without establishing that as a plot point beforehand.
"Elizabeth, can't you op-" "No." "But it would hel-" "Booker, no." "B-bu-" "I said, no."
***** No because in time theory the war would have occurred anyway or a paradox would have formed in which the eventual outcome would always be the same (or as infinite calls it constant and variables) if a person was supposed to die then even if you travel back in time to stop said death then they would in eventuality die anyway and your actions in trying to save them would probably cause the circumstances of their death. So if WW2 hadn't occurred then those people would have still died due to that being a fixed point within their timeline within this given universe (The Constant) its not quite as simple as go back in time and change something and events won't occur they will occur just the circumstances would have changed(The Variable) consider it like a maths equation, the answer will always be the same just how you reach it will be different theoretically anyway
that is a rather cheap explentaion to it all
Cheap or not, I agree that this explanation is why the third gaping plot hole explored in this video is not so gaping at all. This is acceptable for me because the game has obviously chosen this depiction of time and space over other possible variations and relays it to us on multiple occasions.
Thus, this "constants and variables" explanation isn't merely a post-fact interpretation but a choice by the developers. An interesting one at that.
Connor Calder
we wouldnt have had the "grand parents boom", that is for sure :)
Don't forget how the whole grandfather paradox is the final nail in the coffin for the games storyline. How can Elizabeth go back in time to kill her father? Doing so would mean that she wouldn't even exist to be able to kill her father.
TheBestWatson You are confusing time travel on a single timeline with interdimensional travel between parallel multiverses. If this were Back to the Future, yes, she would be negating her own existence. But that is not the case
at all here.
Only one Booker in all the Bookers took the baptism as starting to become Comstock. But from that sole instance, many horrible realities with evil Comstocks began to manifest and ramify. That is why multiple Elizabeths appeared en masse to stop the pivotal point that they all had in common. He is not just vile in this reality but many others.
Once they kill the only Booker who was the seed of all their rotten Comstocks, they wouldn't need to exist to kill him again because it is what breaks the infinite loop of the game. Comstock never funds Lutece, never goes sterile, never needs to buy his own child back from an alternate self, she never gets split between two worlds causing her abilities, the Luteces and her can't open tears, things never cycle over and over and over again. The game tells you (from the coin toss tally) that 120+ versions of Booker have been through the loop before, obviously unsuccessfully. The Luteces are trying to redeem themselves and Booker by breaking the nightmarish circle they are all trapped in by their own accord. That is why they keep bringing Booker back to the lighthouse. With Booker finally destroying the siphon, Elizabeth tells you see she can see all realities at all times. So she now knows the exact point that creates Comstock in all the parallels. She fixes it by killing that Booker before he turns.
But that doesn't mean that there weren't Bookers who didn't drown - and who didn't go on to have Elizabeths. In fact, those Bookers are free to have her and live happily ever after now - without fear of future interdimensional bastard versions of themselves messing things up.
Booker selling Anna is a constant. He always will no matter what. Hence Elizabeth say "go ahead and wait as long as you want, eventually you'll give him what he wants.
***** thats because comstock doesn't sell Anna. Comstalk buys her. Booker always sells her.
***** yes I know this. But they are completely different pepole and there actions are completely different from the baptism on wards. Booker always has a child. Comstalk never has a child because hes infertile. Booker always sells Anna. Comstalk always takes her away. These are constants.
+owen west yeah and when the comstock universes are destroyed booker doesnt sell anna because he never gets the offer from him
The biggest mistake is mixing single timeline theory with multiverse. Once you open the door (pun intended), to multiple universes, they don't have to make any sense or correspond to each other. The game wants you to have it both ways so your actions and more importantly, Anna/Elizibeth's actions have some meaning. But they don't, not at all. She might as well just visit some calm timeline and chill out cause she can travel between universes. What, is she going to save 10 Dewitt's and 4 Comstocks a month, take a week off and go back at it? Is she going to save 1 million Bookers? Now if you use Back to the Future timeline, the game would of made a lot more sense, or keep it to just 2 timelines, which it sorta wants you to believe it does, except for the constants and variables. By the way, the Luteces are the same person, one female version and one male version.
Agreed. Once the door is opened to infinite multiverses the whole story falls completely apart. Because then as the gamer playing Infinite, you don't know which timeline or characters to actually care about. Clearly, we were forced to play one timeline throughout the whole game, but at the end it's revealed there are infinite timelines all with infinite _constants and variables_. So, the big question is, which story mattered? Since we never get an answer to that question, the whole Infinite game was wasted effort.
Oh, and to make matters entirely worse is that Infinite's multiverses, by extension, invalidate Bioshock 1 and 2 and relegate those stories to an inconsequential timeline in the sea of infinite multiverses.
I think I'd prefer to believe that Dewitt was actually an unwitting "volunteer" for one of Comstock's experiments on Rapture. Basically, what we saw in Infinite was actually Dewitt in a delusional state. It wasn't exactly a dream, but it wasn't reality either. We were just seeing Infinite play out in Dewitt's head while on an operating table in Rapture. I'd prefer to just write Infinite off as a delusion and see Dewitt wake up on an operating table half bloody in Rapture at the start of Bioshock 3 with a nurse leaning over him, hypodermic needle in hand attempting to resuscitate him.
I also had this question in my head. Why should we save one fucked up world whereas there are infinite peaceful worlds out there? Then I realized that if Booker did not save Elizabeth, she would have been brainwashed by Comstock and continued to wage war on the "Sodom below" as we witnessed in the game.
So what if conquering the whole world is not nearly enough for Comstock? I think he may try to use Elizabeth to somehow change the entire universe and turn all Bookers into Comstocks just to satisfy his tyrannical character and his lust for power. Maybe not in this world, but in another world he might be able to control Elizabeth. Imo, that's why she needs to smother him in the crib.
For every Booker that decided he was going to let himself get drowned, there would be an equal number of branches that go the other way. This is how branches work, for every choice, the world splits.
And not only that, they shot themselves in the foot with the DLC. I could take the whole drowning Booker prevents all Comstocks in the multiverse (in a "It's time travel fiction, just accept what the plot says and move on" kind of way). But then they turn around and reveal it didn't work on that one Comstock for some reason, which I think by the game's own logic means there are still an infinite number of universes out there where Comstock survived rather than vanishing like most of the Elizabeths at the end of the main game. So yeah, pointless.
Like the video said, it wouldn't be that big a problem if the game wasn't so intelligent in all other respects. As is, though, I think Kingdom Hearts kept a more consistent cosmology than Bioshock in some regards.
SkyOut
Yeah, funny story, that: I hadn't actually played the DLC when I posted that (I'd read ahead, though. Having played it since, I think it actually raised more questions than it answered in some cases, but that's neither here nor there.)
On this problem: they explicitly *called* him the last Comstock (which, again, I can take in an "Accept it for the plot and move on" kind of way), but I didn't hear them address how and why he survived the purge...unless you mean that its because he was in Rapture. Which if that's what you mean, then (a) his was the one and only world where Elizabeth tried to stop him (in a multiverse of *infinite* possibilities...sure, whatever) and (b) therefore, he was the one and only Comstock who went to Rapture. Which--and again, correct me if I'm wrong--you're saying that (c) being in Rapture shielded him from the ripple effect the wiped every other Comstock from existence? If so, how and why?
Look, I can actually buy time ripple-proof existence if that's what you're saying--I'm a comic book fan, for crying out loud. But like I said, my problem isn't that the game is playing fast and loose with causality, my problem is that I expected better than such a cheap way out from a story that up to that point had been so intelligently written. Simple as that.
Also the fact that even if he's drowned in that universe in another he's still alive ultimately it accomplished nothing in the whole scheme of thing's.
I believe the point of that scene is that it is done so in every universe where it matters, by every LizAnna combined.
Ah, ok...
DamazViccar but there has to be a universe where it didn't happen.
exactly
***** No. It's one of the constants. Hence the added tragedy of their separation.
How many numbers are there between 1 and 2?
Do those numbers include 1? Or 2? Or 3?
Infinity is just that; it is not all-encompassing.
Why couldn't they just go to France? That would have been a better ending.
EXACTLY !!
What if it is an easter egg for an alternate ending?
The Dead Skelee what if you never played the game?
@@chip6933 I have. It's a good game, the story is ok (there are some stuff that feels really out of place).
I ALSO WOULD HAVE LOVED AN ENDING WITH THEM GOING TO PARIS. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TO ME MORE REWARDING THAN THE ENDING WE RECEIVED WHICH WAS JUST CONFUSING AS ALL HELL!!
Didn't get anything of that, but the paintings were rad
Drawings
this is me rn. I'm not an English native speaker, some of the words are out of my vocabulary and I couldn't understand shit
Good points, but I feel that everyone has overlooked the major flaw with the story. When Elizabeth kills Booker she has only 'killed' Comstock in one universe, as we are led to believe that every decision creates alternate universes of different decisions. What about the universe that was created in the reality where the Elizabeth's decide, 'You know what? We wont drown you.'
Drowning Booker was a decision, therefore a reality where it didn't happen was also created.
***** No one else understands the truth...lets go...
TheJackFroster That's why all the alternate Elizabeths come to help. In fact, it's implied that YOUR Elizabeth is not the one drowning you at all, as she will be wearing the pendant that you didn't chose (bird/cage).
DJMouthwash But there's millions of millions of Elizabeths, so even though you get a few of them, there's still countless of them that doesn't drown Booker
Yes, but THE booker is being drowned. The point in time where booker both became the game's protagonist AND the game's antagonist. It doesn't mater if EVERY possible Elisabeth is drowning him, because every possible Booker is being drown. Then again, Burial at Sea happened, so who knows.
The theory of alternative universes is that there's a universe for everything, so in a shitload of universes he is alive, because a shitload of Elizabeths didn't want to drown him.
I adored Infinite's artistic storytelling, but when the game was over, I started questioning whether the ending was plot-twist masturbation, just for the hell of it.
Also, do *you* always have to be the answer? *YOU BECOME THE ---blank--- IN THE END; YOU WERE **---blank---** ALL THE TIME*...
Wasn't Elizabeth's parenthood twisty enough? Did I also have to be Comstock?
You do that in a film, critics eat your ending alive for the rest of eternity.
+Daniel Rosa Yeah, but gaming is on the precipice of great storytelling as it's a relatively new thing. A plot twist like that in a movie in the 30's would have gotten a lot of praise I think. I thought about this the other day as I'm always tearing plot holes apart in movies but allow them more in games, but at the end of the day I think the incredible world they created made me want to believe it was real and therefore I forgive a few problems in the narrative. Besides, it's multiverse theory, something we barely even understand so it makes sense that it would have problems. And overall, even games with great stories almost never take on themes the way that Infinite did. If nothing else, that deserves applause because I'd love to see better storytelling across the board in gaming. And even if it got a bit indulgent at parts, the added meaning to everything throughout the game after the ending was really worth it for me because it changes your perspective about even the little things throughout the game.
I think it wasn't just a twist for the hell of jt ending. Ken ken levine took months creating the ending and focused on creating the end first
Looking at you terminator...
It was not just plot twists for the sake of having plot twists. Every single plot twist was built from the beginning, like how all great plot twists are; you sow the seeds earlier, it grows and builds up invisible to the reader (of a book), viewer (of a movie) or player (of the game), and then finally everything is revealed. Everything makes sense and adds up, like it does in the game. Play it again and you'll see for yourself.
Plot twists for the sake of having plot twists is a movie like Now You See Me, where the twists are nonsensical, unnecessary and come out of nowhere. The fact that Bioshock Infinite's plot even works is absolutely incredible, considering the troubled development of the game leading up to its release.
I agree they come together, Prakhar Mishra, and for that, we start by the twists and then write brackwards. But for what point? For being ambitious.
I remember how Final Fantasy VII's entirety led to _hearing the planet's cry for help._ Stanley Parable taught me about God and free-will. The first Kingdom Hearts taught me about keeping friends in my heart.
What was the point of Infinite?
The intention is too transparent, because there's nothing else to drive me to the end of the story.
Well... The point was _playing a game's ambition of having all the plot-twists_ for playing a game's ambition of having all the plot-twists.
And even in that, it managed to not surprise. Time-travel, parallel universes, indentity of self... I'm just tired.
I am... just... very tired of this storytelling.
Enough...
It's everywhere.
And kids are growing up with this and thinking: "That's storytelling".
I'm 25 now, I'm not even that old.
But I know of the things of old.
Then I go back to a movie like Taxi Driver, or a novel like 1984. Great stories, down to Earth, that've taught me so much, with no time-bending plot-twists at all. Just a great story.
Thank you, when everyone was fawning over this I was ripping my hair out about this ending and how big the plot hole is: you have an infinity god with infinite power and instead of cutting off the exact 'cause of the infection' they decided to kill the whole patient.
At that point I was sure they only did it for shock value because in the first game people were a little taken back by how simply everything worked out. And I kind of agree, it was a little convenient but you don't have to do a 180 to impress me, just something between 45 and 135 would have been good enough.
The DLCs also hinted at something that I always suspected: that the twins were to blame for everything that happened and they were the real enemies or at least the other side that wanted to kill off Combstock but the game either didn't have time or were too heavily trenched in their own stories to figure it out and solve it. Alas even great stories aren't immune to stupidity every once in a while.
I'm late to the game, I know.
I agree that the ending was so full of plot holes that it drove me mad and made me rank infinite as dead last in the entire series (which is saying A LOT since most people rank 2 that way.)
However, I do not agree with your assessment of the twins. Yes, their time paradox experiments led to disaster on multiple timelines in multiple universes. But I never felt that either twin was truly evil or vindictive. It is pretty well explained, if you listen closely, that the twins doing their time jumping and multiverse jumping.. are really just doing it in an attempt to get back to each other again. I think you can call them extremely selfish.. but I dont think they ever do or did anything to directly harm themselves or anyone else for that matter.
Without going into a whole ton of crazy physics and theories and using Elizabeth's mother, Annabelle, as an example .. think of the twins as both having every atom in their bodies split into super tiny pieces and then being reassembled (briefly) elsewhere. Annabelle (and her supposed ghost) are basically exactly this as well, except she is trying to get back to point A and twins are trying to get to each other on say .. line Z. Outside of the 2 or 3 dimensional confines of our universe. Anyway . I'll stop rambling about it
"I used to be a Booker DeWitt like you, then I took a Wound to the Knee."
Comstock.
I was hoping for actual plotholes but was sad that you mostly just gave arguments from incredulity. So to address some
1 Yes cults work that way
2 Yes a small moment can lead a person down a path that changes their character considerably
3 Yes cultists/charlettons of all caliber often start believing their own rhetoric and find it hard to tell what even they believe
4 Yes there is literally infinite better solutions to any and every problem if you have limitless access to time travel. We generally just need to assume limited capacity to avoid that problem in any time travel story
One not so obvious point that OP seems to be missing is that the decision to take the baptism or not is not a small thing. The Booker Dewitt played by the character was a man who knew he could never wash his sins away and the Comstock version like a true psychopath took a dunk and forgave himself. Also the passing through lighthouses scene shows that the place they always end up at is the baptism thus the limitation mentioned in point 4.
about point 3 (from 1984) 'It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating...It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible. '
The way I see it there is no time travel in Infinite. There's travel between timelines, but not going back in time. So everything that happened already happened, but when you go to another timeline you can land at a different time from when you left. So everywhere you went was locked into a quantum state, but everywhere else was in a super position until you got there. That way what you did actually mattered, and since any world you observed was locked into it's state you made that one exist. That's why at the end of the game you see a world where Booker still had Anna. You saw the wounded knee baptism on that world, and Booker reacted the same way. Making that world. At the same time you made another world with Comstock. So that would be one of the Comstocks that Elizabeth was going after.
Yeah, this is just a really poorly argued video.
It's funny how people on UA-cam want to criticise BioShock Infinite, but in the end they have poorly arguments and don't point out arguments.
"Why they don't travel back in time and shot booker in the foot, when he was fighting at wounded knee?"
You don't know how time travel works. No one really knows, but in fact science proof, that there are CONSTANTS and VARIABLES. There are things you can't change by force. And when you do it, you'll never know the outcome. If they did this as you said, maybe DeWitt wouldn't marry his wife, who is giving birth to Anna, cause you try to force modifing constants.
You people trying to sound logical and rational are pretty much obsessed to criticise a fictional work. In my eyes there isn't a real plothole, just ppl who pointing out their personal dissapoitment, because it's different to BioShock 1. BioShock Fan-Community is a piece of shit.
I loved all BioShocks the way they are.
For me it's art.
Regarding the issue over Comstock's celebration of Wounded Knee, despite Dewitt's guilt over it, you can look to Cognitive Dissonance Theory for an explanation. In Dewitt's timeline, he deals with the painful memory of Wounded Knee by overwriting his previous self image (good guy) with a new one (bad guy). He runs from the baptism saying that a dunk under water won't change what he did. He must be a bad guy, because he did a bad thing.
In Comstock's timeline, he deals with the painful memory of Wounded Knee by redefining what happened there to preserve his self image (good guy). He must have done a good thing, because he's a good guy. He tells himself that what he did was necessary, because of white supremacy (to which he starts referring in a religious sense, presumably because his transformation took place during a religious ceremony). That's where his "White people are leaders, while the rest are followers" philosophy comes from. Since Wounded Knee was in large part a clash of races, Comstock rationalizes it by deciding that he must have been playing his part as a white man teaching native Americans about their ideal role in world society.
This is an interesting video, though it seems you don't understand religious fanatics. Comstock doesn't have guilt over what he did at wounded knee, because he feels he's "forgiven" for it. This is why he went on to commit even worse things latter on, every time he would do something messed up he would just forgive himself and move on.
As for lying. The truth doesn't matter to religious zealots, only there dogma matters. See there dogma is the "truth", thus anything that contradicts it MUST be wrong. No matter how strong the evidence is. If they have to twist the facts or flat out lie, then that doesn't matter because the dogma is true.
The only point I really agree with is that killing Booker would stop the creation of Comstock. Since the Booker that you play in the game has already rejected the baptism. So drowning him wouldn't erase the ones that did.
There's also a thing called the Grandfather Complex even if Booker became Zachary.
If they drown Booker when he's about to make the choice to become Zachary, then he doesn't become Zachary or stay as Booker. This kills the events of the game, and such by paradox, Booker is never drowned. So there's a broken timeline, looping on itself, etc etc. People don't really notice this.
Yeah, is like the annas loop. If anna/elisabeth drown booker, then booker dies and comstock never live, so comstock never stole anna and anna never drown booker. Then booker, finnaly, transform into comstock, is so confuse lol. Best gane ever. Sorry for my bad english
I know this comment is from 4 years ago, but I gonna try to explain the ending anyway.
In Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth explained us that the universes are constants and variables, that means that the universes come from others universes, so when Elizabeth drowns Booker, she eliminated the constant (The constant is the Booker who did not accept the baptism, and still being Booker and the variable is the Booker who accepted the baptism, becoming Comstock and the Comstonk's universe is created).
Elizabeth drowned Booker and elimated the constant (Booker) and the varibles (Comstock's universes) at the same time, what she does affect the present and the future, not the past, so she prevents the others universes from being created because she elimated the constant, so the "grandfather paradox" hasn't been created beacause they never go back in the time, all the scenes in the game where Elizabeth explained us the truth are create by herself because she has the powers to create others universes, but not to go back in the time, so they can't go back in the time to shoots at booker's foot in wounded knee to prevents the baptism fron happening, because they can't, and if they could, they would create the grandfather paradox, the only way to stop the others universes from being create (that are the variables) is destroy the constant (that is Booker).
When Elizabeth drowns Booker, the Elizabeths starts to disappeaer because their universes has been eliminated and with it, every Elizabeth, because Elizabeth is a product from the Comstock's universes, the last Elizabeth we see that doesn't disappear is because one last Comstock remains in Rapture's universe, Elizabeth doesn't go into the future to go to Rapture's universe because she goes to a universe where Rapture actuality exist, and may Columbia never even existed in this universe.
When Elizabeth go to Columbia's universe to take the Lutece's particle where the events in the game are actuality happening, is beacause is a variable created from the last Comstock that is the new constant, Elizabeth and Comstock dies and the lasts Comstock's universes are eliminated, but Rapture's universe stills exist, the Luteces were not eliminated when Elizabeth drowned Booker because they died at a accident that makes him "omnipresent" acquiring the same powers as Elizabeth, so they can in so way "create" or "bring back" Elizabeth's existence back to the Rapture's universe so she can activate the Bioshock 1 events and this at the same time activate the Bioshock 2 events, and this is how the ending of Bioshock Infinite "really does works".
And this is how I can explain the Bioshock Infinte ending, if a make a mistake or you have other point, you will be helpful if you said :D.
And if you read all this, thanks :)
@@videojuegos3dlocurasextrem949 PD: de donde eres xD
@@DiegoMarquez12
It still doesn't mak sense, because in order for Elizabeth to drown Booker, she would have to become Elizabeth. And in order for that to happen, Comstock had to have existed.
Killing Booker there prevents both decisions of him accepting or denying the baptism. Anna had to become Elizabeth to get us to that drowning part in the first place.
@@videojuegos3dlocurasextrem949 Here is where it goes wrong for everyone... Anna is born AFTER he got baptized... So shes still alive after she "kills" her father...
That comes to show that the Real villain of the game is R. Lutece.
Which one?
@@sadjuliy9469 Rosalind is the main villian. Robert shows remorse, and guilt if you listen to his messages. Rosalind made the deal with Comstock and built the city in the sky.
@@oisavvy maybe but Rosalind also felt guilty and it's often said that they BOTH didn't like the future that will be if Elisabeth stays in tower. Moreover, i think that Rosalind had sincerely been convinced by her 'brother' that they had to help Booker so they did. Together.
(sorry for grammar mistakes, i'm not native)
I wish this plot hole was more scientific, like how quantum particles do not move, they are suspended nut not like balloons even though the game suggests it. Or how Elizabeth would remain alive after killing her father before she was born. Also if their are infinite universes, wouldn't there be a universe where Booker survives the drowning, or someone else takes over as comstock and everything else happens anyway.
Just yesterday, I thought the same thing (the first thing you said). However, Elizabeth does explain that they are "quantum particles held at a fixed hight". But yea, the second part was confusing as well.
Dude... quantum physics aren't even a reality. It's not like they were completely wrong. It's a game. Chill.
Emmanuel Takahashi Ur stupidity knows no bounds
e gio and your ignorance is the produce of an immature insubordinate. It's a game about what wasn't even supposed to become because it already happened.
fiskefyren yeah i was really into the game when I wrote that and over time ive thought exactly what you said. sorry for overreacting
it is expressed by elizabeth that this whole "time travel/multiverse" things wasnt completely unlimited. they couldnt just do whatever/whenever/wherever they wanted. she says there are constants and variables. meaning that there are certain things that must and do happen in ALL universes and there are other things that differ. it is assumed that the baptism after wounded knee is a constant. meaning that in every universe there where actions in the life of booker which lead him to the baptism which he either rejects or accepts (variable). so they couldnt just simply "go back and shoot him in the foot".
I think the important thing, however, is that Dewitt was redeemed by sacrificing himself, or demonstrating unselfishness to a great extent. I will agree though, even from personal experience, feeling guilt for stuff like racism doesn't usually drive me to be more of it like Comstock.
10 years late but thanks. This really put into words a lot of the issues I had with bioshock infinite's plot. I guess it's just what happens when you give a guy infinite funding and he just faffs around doing whatever he pleases until the jig is up.
Just got recommended this after watching Judas preview. Shame this guy stopped making videos.
Watching this again, nice artwork by the way, I think the reason Rosalyn joined Comstock is because he was the only one at the time who was willing to entertain her ideas. So while he mightn't have been "the best man for the job", he was the only one available.
Or at least the only one with the influence to get appropriate funding. Religious zealots can fund large scale projects if they want to.
thank you. saves me from having to point that out.
because resons,
In a voxophone recording Rosalind says she chose Comstock specifically because he was wealthy. Rosalind didn't necessarily want to build a floating city. She wanted the funding to further her research into tears. She mentions in other voxophones how lonely she was until she met her brother across dimensions. In exchange for the money to research a way to bring Robert across dimensions, Rosalind was willing to give a pious megalomaniac the keys to a floating city of racists. It goes to show how intelligence does not equal wisdom.
Donny Card Or how our personal desires can override our better judgement.
There is one thing you left out. Booker doesn't come up with the idea for Columbia.
After he becomes Comstock, it is the angel Columbia herself, who gives him the idea and tells him who to talk to to make it happen. So to say he engineered the idea himself (you are correct) is crazy. The thing is....he didn't
I'm just gonna go ahead and write off the logical disconnect between Booker and Comstock as Levine making a satiric point about the influence of religion on very impressionable individuals, like a guilty veteran, and get on with my life.
its been a while since i saw a gorgeus comment like this
I like this one.
At first, I was worried I stumbled into another rant, crying about how Infinite isn't as good as the original and how the story sucks, and the gameplay is plain/basic, blahblahblah.
But this was actually very well done, clever, and made me really think into how the ending plays out; both how I saw it when I played it and how you see it yourself. I think you do in fact bring up some good arguments, and what is more you detailed why you thought they held up. Bravo, not many people do that on the Internet.
I agree with you that some aspects of the ending do take some stretching on behalf of the player's interpretation to really hold weight, and when dealing with a story involving multiple universes and paradoxes it can lead to some messy inconsistencies. But what I think Infinite was able to do was mix those ideas on various universes as well as tackling philosophical/racial views without the two getting in each other's way.
The game takes time to allow both aspects to breathe and have moments for the player to experience and see for themselves. It doesn't tell you how you are supposed to feel, it simply let's you see things both horrible/offensive as well as breathtaking and thought provoking and allows them to decide for themselves how they feel about them. Yes, the ending does lose merit if you really pick it apart, but the most important thing is with Infinite that I think many people overlook is that is presents itself in such a marvelous and creative way that you don't HAVE to play into it's ending to really appreciate the full game.
Infinite isn't just a FPS, its an experience in storytelling, a work of art that challenges the paradigm of what conventional shooters follow and gives the players a means to live through the eyes of Booker DeWitt and his struggle through Columbia. :)
I love Bioshock Infinite, flaws and all. But this video was still a delight to watch. Thank you, good sir.
Yea the story half baked shyamalan "what a twist" just felt like a slap in the face. Supposedly you can hear song bird in bioshock2. But it stills feels like they were HARD reaching for a connected world.
This was refuted with one line of dialogue at the end, "... Things get set in motion" - Lutece.
One paradox in the ending was that if there are infinite universes, one of them HAS to be one where Booker does not drown. And don't give me that "Constants and Variables" thing because infinite is ALL possibilities. Another paradox is the Grandfather Paradox. If our heroine kills Booker before he becomes Comstock, who buys Elizabeth as a baby who then grows up to kill Booker/Comstock?
The answer is no one. That's the whole point why the Elizabeth killed him.
Jass Jake You just said "No one killed him" and then "Elizabeth killed him." See the paradox? If a mad scientist assembles a gun to shoot himself one minute in the past, shoots himself one minute into the past before the gun was assembled, who assembled the gun to begin with?
TERDLINGS It appears to be a huge paradox, but some science fiction rules allow for it to work. After watching 'Doctor Who' for seven years, I've really just adapted to understanding paradoxes and timey-wimey stuff.
Play the DLC Burial at Sea...
In the end the Elizabeths begin to disappear after they drown Booker since Comstock never existed, so they no longer exist.
Your first point about how people become religiously enlightened is odd considering there are many people (some quite famous) who have suddenly, out of nowhere, gained religion when their life up to that point didn't include religion or factor it in much. You state that it's not possible which ignores these facts and you don't back up your own point.
Your second point is also pure conjecture. You are trying to say that somebody who is intelligent but needs monetary and powerful backing wouldn't accept a funding source from somebody who is crazy? First off, there are, yet again, many examples in history of exactly this happening. Also, Comstock most likely didn't just walk up to Lutece with Doc Brown hair and start screaming religious fervor showing off all his crazy. Like many people who are crazy, psychotic, sociopathic, he could have easily been a high functioning person with those tendencies which is rather common and Lutece would have never known.
Your third point basically says crazy people don't lie to themselves or simply make up their own fantasy world to deal with what they are feeling. I don't even have to go too far with that one as it all sort of falls apart on it's own. People who are crazy do exactly that and even people with multiple personality disorders do the same thing. Also, normal people lie to themselves every day and some even believe what they say and think. I know a number of people who do this.
Also, the baptism is where all the timelines meet. He either becomes one of a million million Bookers as we know it or one of a million million Comstocks. They don't have a time machine take them back to before Wounded Knee and time "flows like water" and it has little meaning anyway. That baptism is one of the constants that are referred to in the game and is proofed in one scene when the coin is flipped with the Lutece's who are keeping score and it's always heads (IIRC). Meaning that with choosing not to be baptized you will always become Booker, always sell Anna and you'll always pick heads despite the fact that other things can change.
Please don't be upset with my posting this as I really did enjoy your video. This is meant to be constructive criticism and I hold you in high regard for putting this out there. The presentation is amazing and it was fun to watch even if I didn't agree with the points. There are a lot of other things to pick on, nit pick or call out as a possible plot hole but most of your points really weren't points and are easily explained within the games narrative (especially the constants and variables part).
Take care!
In short, the game story is a mess
The idea that the baptism is a "constant" and that all combstocks were born from one single event doesn't make sense given that there are infinte universes.
Now that I think of it the game makes perfect sense. The previous BioShock games all start the same with him entering a light house. I think they are trying to tell us that they are all the same person just in alternate realities. In BioShock infinite it ended with how the original bioshock started leading me to believe that the events of BioShock infinite happened before the first. The original bioshock was just another alternate reality of Booker. As are all the other BioShock games. There are an infinite number of possibilities. Makes you question. What if we are just an alternate form of our previous self? What it there are 2 of us in this world but in just parallel realities and we don't even realize it? Makes you think doesn't it. Truly amazing game.
Dude... Woah O.O
I haven't played the original game so by best guess, its optional that it's symbolically coincidental. Perhaps the lighthouse could represent an idol of the sorts for the franchise. Perhaps the lighthouse represents the interacting of all these universes into one universe.
Jack isn't an alternate Booker. He's the son of Andrew Ryan, genetically modified.
However, the failed utopia, the city, and the lighthouse are constants acrosa the multiverse, you're right there.
Javier Sacristán But it's more than just that there's always a man as well: Jack, Delta & Booker. Always a girl(s) to save: Little Sister's (in bioshock 1), Eleanor (more important that the sister's in Bio 2) & Elizabeth. And always an extremist fanatic: Fontaine (taking over rapture), Sofia Lamb (trying to create a utopia) and Comstock (trying to burn & destroy New York). Then there's always a city and a lighthouse. I'm sure you could look even deeper and find ever more similarities.
^ BUT ELIZABETH HAS A LINE IN BURIAL WHERE SHE SAYS "CONSTANTS AND VARIABLES" SO IT COUNTS!!
May I just say that I love how everyone is so civil in all of these comments! No one is pointing out bad grammar and committing logical fallacies just to tell another person how stupid they think their opinion is like in every single other youtube video comments section.
I am proud to be a part of the Bioshock Infinite fan group!
I don't understand how Booker was stuck in a loop.
-He rejects a baptism
-He gives away his daughter...
-20 years later he is invited to go back and save her
-Upon arriving he forgets who he is and why he is there
-He meets Elizabeth
-The events of the game unfolds
-Old Elizabeth uses him to prevent herself from fulfilling Comstock's prophecy
-He kills Comstock
Then I get confused.
-They destroy the siphon. Open up the multiverse.
and Elizabeth says Comstock is still alive in a million worlds?
So he has to never live in the first place. So they go to the baptism together
and multiple Elizabeths come out of nowhere and kill the modern Booker that you play? They kill the Booker that already rejected the baptism years ago?? That's what it seems like...unless it's just symbolism??
Say it's just symbolism, and they really went back and killed the young Booker.
How is Comstock still alive in a million worlds?? If you go back and kill the young Booker, Isn't there also a paradime where they don't kill Booker?
Doesn't Booker need to reject the baptism in order for them to go back and kill him in the first place?
How is preventing both worlds beneficial for anyone??
It essentially means nobody will exist and nothing will happen therefore not even this drowning.
When Elizabeth says he is alive in a million worlds....does she mean Booker too?
All of Bookers worlds?? So he has to die too, even though he was never Comstock?
Comstock was never "born" in the first place if Booker rejects the baptism.
How can killing him before that decision change anything?
AND HOW IS HE STUCK IN A LOOP. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
AFTER THEY WON THE BATTLE, I DON'T SEE WHERE THE CONFLICT WAS.
WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE VIDEOS ASK THE REAL QUESTIONS? I'M ALL FOR INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS, BUT THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.
Sorry for the shouting.
+Josh McLendon
Basically. If the luteces never invented that device there wouldn't be infinite universes right?
It really starts off by two different bookers. No matter what they will always take the same but different paths. Constant and variables.
-The one we played rejected the baptism and carried on with his life but however comstock literally 'invaded' his life by really asking for his daughter when it isn't his (Although it is biologically is...).
-The reason why Booker doesn't remember anything is because he created his new memories as soon as he entered that tear (When the luteces told him to come). You know, 'Bring us the girl' that's the only thing he remembers from his old memory.
If our booker stop existing, then comstock would stop existing too so that's why booker was killed... to stop nearly all comstocks that were living in other verses. Constants and variables.
That's why you see all the other elizabeths disappearing too because there's no comstock. That booker who entered the tear denied every other possibility. Killing that booker would also mean Comstocks wont look for his 'Heir'. It is really difficult to explain.
However though if you watched the end of the main story mode, The 138th booker (I think) wakes up out of nowhere and checks if 'Anna' is there which she is likely to be there. SO really they fixed things back to normal?
THANKS! Exactly what I think.
WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE DAMN VIDEOS ASK THE REAL FKNG QUESTIONS?!
Hahaha
Miguel Ángelez El Romanardo I feel like they may be parallels of the same person but they're from two different universes killing booker wouldn't kill comstock because they're both on two different timelines. The booker in the other universe that turned into comstock was on his own timeline. Thus decisions made by Booker from his universe wouldn't affect comstocks universe at all.
Though I suppose in a way it's symbolic of comstocks universe being created when the decision was made in Bookers universe. Assuming he was the original booker. But really time is happening all at once from a non subjective view point and thus nothing would disappear more likely they're personal timelines are just messed up so much their universes both would be unraveling from interacting with eachother as well as going back on ones timeline.
It was four years ago but now I finally know why our Booker is need to be dead.
Back in a Finkton, when we first start to go travel in other realities - we did not met other version of Booker or Elizabeth. Why? Because once we get in this world our entity will be united with original person from this reality and we get her memory(Elizabeth is not facing this effect because of her powers or siphon. Example: two Liz in a Finkton one from original line(Bioshock infinite) and second from Rapture(EP2 Burial at Sea)).
When Elizabeth do teleporting Booker to the location where Comstock was baptized our protagonist join body with Comstock because in a moment of baptism we almost a same person. So to strangle Comstock in a crib we have to be killed anyway.
I HAVE A FEW THINGS TO TELL YOU!
Firstly, your speaking voice is very pleasant to listen to.
Second, your sketches are really well-done.
Thirdly, you bring up some very excellent points, and I commend you for bringing them to light for discussion.
Thank you for posting this video! :)
8 years later, and YT recommendations hit again. Original Bioshock had some interesting and mature themes, but Infinite absolutely pales in almost every regards to it. The world building ideas crumble even if you only take a cursory look at it.
I bet this video brought up some great points, I was just too distracted by the drawings.
its a good thing the illustrations were captivating because the commentary was certainly not. any game as cognitively intriguing as bioshock infinite is sure to have loop holes aplenty. constants and variables one might say
'Cognitively intriguing'
It was an okay game but good lord your use of language is as pretentious as the game's plot was.
all pretentions aside, go fuck yourself
Nathen Colberg
Hahah
Nathen Colberg He's right though, absolutely no need to say "cognitively intriguing."
Nice try.
I think the narrator makes this point at the very beginning. He says that Bioshock Infinite is a fantastic game and while he doesn't say it verbatim he basically describes it as "cognitively intriguing". He then makes the point that since its a "cognitively intriguing" game that when there are flaws in it they should be noted. You are basically discrediting the "cognitively intriguing" nature of this game by putting it on a pedestal and saying that its flaws are irrelevant. In science if a hypothesis is proven wrong that isn't bad. The good thing is that the hypothesis promoted discussion, experimentation, and a search for truth the same goes for this game. After all one does go into an experiment knowing one might fail
What? Plot holes in a story with time travel? Naawwwwwww...
Also, I kind of assumed that the reason Rosalind worked with Comstock was because he was the only one who would fund her. As a female scientist with ideas that subverted long held scientific theories, she likely would have faced serious challenges in funding her work. But a religious visionary flush with cash from his ministries would be keen to fund such a project. It was probably a partnership of convenience.
The baptism is symbolic to Booker. If he can forgive himself once, he can continue to absolve himself of anything and everything. I think Comstock started out as a charlatan who confused the things he saw in the tears with prophecies. Like the religious tend to, he took what he saw and interpreted it in a way that satisfied his beliefs. Believing himself chosen by god, he naturally assumed that all his qualities (including his racism and xenophobia) were good, and that he was meant to serve as an ideal. I'm actually starting to see some dark correlations to the Wizard of Oz, particularly the evil one from the Wicked books.
And hey, wait a minute... If the choice is a variable, but the babtism is a constant, why the hell do they drown Booker in the first place? The constant can not be the choice, since it varies, and the only way for the babtism is, that there is a priest to perform it. She should have just drowned the damn priest! No babtism, no Comstock, no problem...
Alien00000origin yeah no matter what she does, she cannot stop all of the comstocks as there are infinite universes. unless the infinite universes stem off of that point in time, which even in the context of this game does not make sense, she would have to go into every universe and drown booker, which she could never accomplish because there are infinite universes.
I don't think Booker drowning himself was quite what the Lutece's had in mind. Robert's stated goal was to return Elizabeth to her (and his technically) reality to undo the damage they had caused. The Twins knew their discovery of the tears was a universal constant, and their current state of existing across all realities insulates them from being erased from existence like we see happen to the different versions of Elizabeth at the end.
And as the after credits scene suggested, even after his "drowning" there is still a reality where Booker never gave up Anna and none of this ever happened.
arbitterm "As a female scientist with ideas that subverted long held scientific theories, she likely would have faced serious challenges in funding her work"
You mean like Marie Curie? Oh wait, she was awarded the Nobel prize....
Oliver H She also had plenty of critics for being a female scientist. But her work was a little saner than building a floating city or working on interdimensional portals.
I watched this video to learn a flaw in Bioshock Infinite's quantum physics thingy ending. Instead I learn some drawing technique.
To be honest, I can think of one other reason why the ending doesn't quite work (which wasn't mentioned here.) If we are to assume that this baptism is at very least the starting point that puts Booker on the path to being Comstock, we have only seen the stopping of one Booker from becoming one Comstock. It is mentioned in the beginning of the ending that there are many Bookers and many Comstocks. Are we to believe that the murder of this one Booker will stop all of the Comstocks from coming into being? Sorry, but the math doesn't add up here, not by a long shot. Loved the game, by the way, but it does have a few teensy airship-sized plot holes.
But at that point, technically, the baptism only has two variables (that are known of) which is Booker rejecting the baptism and staying Booker or Booker taking the baptism and becoming Comstock. So technically, there are only two events which come from this section of the game.
As this is where Comstock is born, there are technically no variables at this point, therefore no split in dimensions. If Comstock is to die here, it could be considered a constant, meaning he dies in all universes. It's quite complicated but it does work.
You have to think of the universes as a sort of 'tree'. Booker being baptised is the trunk of the tree from which all the universes with Comstock grew. By killing Booker before the baptism, you are essentially cutting down the tree and all the branched universes that have come from it.
***** I can see your point and I guess it does make some sense, but it does leave us with another problem. We've already seen that the player-guided Booker (whom I'll refer to as P-Booker hereafter) is not the Booker who became Comstock but the one who rejected the baptism. In addition, when jumping realities, he doesn't jump directly into the shoes of the Booker of that dimension, illustrated by the fact that in one, he was already dead. Yet, when the final drowning occurs, it is P-Booker (who has been through the events of Infinite and has already passed the moment of the baptism and rejected it) who is drowned, and knows it to be the case, otherwise he wouldn't allow himself to be drowned. If that is the case, then the drowning would have no effect on the Comstocks or the Elizibeths come to that. It could have worked if P-Booker saw the Booker of that dimension and perhaps assisted the Elizibeths in drowning him. Then P-Booker would have just faded away with the other Elizibeths (as Booker died before he could become P-Booker or Comstock.) A little complicated I know, and I understand that the way that Infinite did it worked better cinimatically, but logically it doesn't quite work even given their own paradigm. Just a thought.
Solidfact42 That actually would have made a lot more sense to me if it ended your way. Have you ever considered working at irrational games? :)
Kevin Fischer
Don't I wish. Unfortunately I think that Irrational folded. A real pity, I had me some great ideas for a fourth Bioshock game set in Cold War era Soviet Union. Ah well, maybe one day someone else will take up the Bioshock franchise.
There are so many other major timeline issues...
but this was a big question I had yes. What kind of baptism makes a well grounded character like booker go BAT SHIT insane and build a floating city.
Because God, Noe, Apoclypse, Schizophrenia and people thinking that flying cities were cool, until gravity nation came and everythign changed.
It's not just a sudden thing. It happens over a 20 year period.
Booker accepts the baptism and believes his sins have been erase. He does have good intent and becomes a fundamentalist and gains influence in government. He then supports Lutece's experiments and is able to go through time and space. Going through "tears" have a mental and physical effect on Comstock, which was shown in the game.
And Booker was never a "well grounded" character. All his timelines, he has been a violent man. Just different motivations to be violent.
idontlikeyouyo
so i guess you can say that this story was man against himself?
Well grounded, the man sold his daughter, for money. FOR MONEY, you've probably not had kids yet, but when you do, you probably won't sell them for money.
Sorry I wasn't paying attention to the narrative. The drawing animations are just too awesome...
Same here
I Sketched out some of em
One question that came up in my mind regarding the whole Booker having the possibility of turning into Comstock thing.
After going through all the events in the game alongside Elizabeth and knowing exactly who Comstock really is and why, after going through nearly the whole game wanting to kill him after everything he had seemingly caused...why would he choose to turn into Comstock again? He has the knowledge of the upcoming possible events, why willingly repeat them?
And that's not even getting into why Booker, as he was at the end, would even decide to undergo a baptism in the first place.
At the end Booker was drowned, to death.... by Elizabeth. He was not baptized
I think you misread my comment...or I just worded it badly. Anyway...
If Booker lived (wasn't drowned by Elizabeth), why would he choose to eventually be baptized (the deciding focal point where Booker turns into Comstock) when, at that point, he would know exactly what it would entail?
That's what I'm asking.
shadowmaksim well, what his death is implying is that each universe has an effect on the others. if booker is killed in one, then he is killed in all of them.
Ir0nF1st924 then what about the last scenes where booker in his office with anna ?
DID YOU REALLY PLAY THE GAME? READ EVERY RECORD AND SEARCH EVERYTHING. I GUESS NOT BECAUSE IF YOU DID YOU WOULDNT ASK THIS STUPID QUESTIONS.
A different way to look at it would be that Elizabeth *couldn't* kill Booker. That would be a paradox. Thus, by doing so, she created a bubble multiverse which was cut off from the main multiverse. A bit like Donnie Darko.
I was expecting cientific reasons not psychological reasons, you should do a video about the sociopolitical formation of the mushroom kingdom from mario.
~Opera voice~
Whooo-CAAAAAAAAAARRREEESSSSS!!
Auzep Me too, so I just don't believe it
Auzep Psychological reasons are scientific you moron.
DARTHMPK NOT in this case, it's not.
Narred Darr Psychology is a science, therefore these reasons are scientific. As long as they have evidence behind them then they should be acceptable.
Respect your opinion but I disagree after the baptism it's not like he changed into comstock overnight his whole mindset changed and he felt like a new man it probably was many many years later when he formed Columbia when he had gone a complete different path from booker of course he would have changed as a person much different then booker
Comstock is actually the same age as Booker. His appearance is due to the amount of time he spent traveling through tears. So Booker died and was reborn again as Comstock.
but what about his daughter? anna still existed regardless of having the baptism and name change. it makes no sense that he would have to time travel to kidnap his own daughter. the game's premise was broken from it's inception.
Did she though? Was there proof that Anna was even born before he had the opportunity to find religion?
he had to. comstock is booker. booker had his child at a younger age. booker and his daughter pre-dates the comstock persona. so comstock's daughter should've existed regardless either way, unless there was an alternate reality where comstock (booker) never had a child in the first place.
because if he doesn't take the baptism he has a daughter. As Zachary Comstock, he doesn't decide to have a child until after he has already become sterile.
Appreciate all the sketching and the imitation of the recording from the actual game. Really cool!
What I still don't get is the Burial at Sea DLC. How tf is there still another "Comstock"?
Shouldn't the ending of Infinite erase all the post-baptism Booker?
But doesn't that also mean that Elizabeth (whom would only exist in a post-baptism timeline) wouldn't exist, so the many Elizabeths wouldn't be there to drown Booker. So is the whole Bioshock Infinite thing is just a time loop created by the Luteces?
This leaves me with an infinite amount of questions 😅.
They implied that it doesn't quite work the way they think it was because no one can know how far back they really are.
Which is stupid, as it is like the game itself has just realized how idiotic it sounds and didn't plan far ahead in this crusade of being smart.
The main problem I have with this game is that the racist cult seemed a bit too cartoony. Like someone took every negative stereotype of what Hollywood thinks a Republican is like and built a villain around it. There's very little nuance. The villains and setting just seem like cardboard cutouts that exist solely to provide a backdrop for the main character's personal story.
It's funny because in real Revolutions do work that way exactly as you said them to be.
Its cartoony because it's what Comstock is lying to himself about. He builds this horrible cult to justify the guilt he still feels for Wounded Knee, guilt that was supposed to be washed away. He's supposed to be "pure" but he knows he isn't, Colombia is the manifestation of his lie (too himself) that he is not a sinner.
+Cameron Yourston Fair enough, Comstock decides to go all cartoony but it still looks like the setting is a cheap jab at White Republicans. Also, I find it hard to believe that a place that's capable of all sorts of steampunk technology - including the ability to construct ROBOTS that perform complex tasks, would need to import a huge slave class from a race/people that the residents of the city would naturally hate and fear. I know having a bunch of inferior proles to lord over might appeal to the egos of those living on Columbia, but surely the fear that they would revolt and kill you in your sleep PLUS the cost of keeping them housed and fed and making sure they all had jobs would quickly destroy any Return of Interest.
+theproplady Good point. I guess the game is taking a bit of artistic licence with that. Irrational Games tend to be on the nose, like the Ryan the Lion school in Burial at sea XD
Nobody said anything about Republicans. Think you might be projecting. And the racist cult really isn't that cartoony unfortunately. Having black grandparents that lived in the Jim Crow-era south, I can tell you that the views expressed by the people of Columbia aren't far off what they experienced just 60 years ago. Hell, I've met my share of people that still think like this. When you consider Infinite takes place 50 years before THAT, none of what happens (besides the steam punk floating city) is all that hard to believe.
I was wondering what was bothering me about the ending. Something felt off. Other than that odd feeling at the end, though, the game was fantastic.
They never said it was the baptism specifically that found Columbia, just the name "Comstock" simply put there are strings leading to other events that all end up in either the floating city or the office.
Considering the game borders the subject of quantum theory and paradox, I feel like they COULD of made the story more logical, considering how you could bend and twist things on the subject. Maybe they worried their game would turn into an over-complicated paradoxical algorithm that overshadowed the game itself. I'm happy with the game and story, one of my favorites, but yeah, it has its silly moments in the story line.
I think I can take the logic leap that Booker's baptism turned him into Comstock. I have no problem with that. But, the "just shoot him in the foot before Wounded Knee" argument is pretty solid. For me, the ending fits together nicely enough. It seems to do it a bit better than most games. A theory: Booker always had dormant powers similar to Elizabeth and the baptism allowed him to tap into them as Comstock, as Booker was too filled with guilt and shame to bother trying to tap into his inherent power. That's why Elizabeth has powers, Booker just past that magical gene on to her. That and she was taken to another dimension as a baby, which seemed to have had adverse effects on other people, namely Chen Lin.
no dude Anna got her power to open tears when the teleporter thing closed in and cut her finger off Booker never had any real powers he only had the drinks that give you powers
Kritical Beating But if that was true, how do you explain the random visions of future New York being destroyed by Elizabeth that Booker has throughout the game? If Booker does have some of Elizabeth's powers, then his visions make sense.
he gets the visions because he forgot his past somehow and has flashbacks because it already happened not because he has powers btw that's also why Booker cant remember who Anna is
Kritical Beating I'm not talking about his flashbacks. I'm talking about his visions of New York burning decades in the future. Booker isn't remembering an event of the past with those; he's seeing a possible future.
Kritical Beating Just want to point out, that your idea of Anna/Elizabeth getting her powers from loosing her finger in the tear makes no sense. If she didn't already have those powers, then why would Comstock even want her? She was only really useful to him with her powers.
The ending of this game got twisted and weird really fast. I was completely mindf*cked when I played it. The game's story and setting is already complex with all those tears and alternate universes, the ending made it way worse. Don't get me wrong, I like complex and multilayered stories and endings but this was too much. Why we couldn't just go to Paris?
Baptism is symbolic rebirth, he is ‘born again’ into Zachary Comstock. He becomes a new man.
He wanted to erase he's past as Booker or change and twist it
This isn't what I expected to hear. I thought he was gonna talk about how they destroy alternate realities and time travel principles. The writers couldn't decide whether they really wanted infinite timelines or a single one that shifts.
Throughout the game you jump between a bunch of different outcomes, many of them not stemming from Booker being baptized, but tons of events before and after that event. Drowning Booker shouldn't do anything to Elizabeth in any timeline but the one the now drowned Booker was in.
And when you add Burial at Sea to it, it just makes it so much more of a mess.
I know that I'm extremely yet fashionably late, but this being my second time through BSI, I decided to see what other people thought of the game. I have to hand it to you, you did a fantastic job with the narration, and the drawings were amazing. I think you have a very unique approach, and just wanted to say thank you for the quality content. I hope you and yours are all well during these hard times. Quarantine has been rough, but it's videos like yours that get me through it. Again, thanks a million.
me and my naiveness... i thought that in the ending, they would go to paris and live happy ever after.
I feel you. To be honest, the only thing I wanted throughout the whole game was to see Booker take Elizabeth to Paris. I wanted a cute little cutscene of Elizabeth just being happy, but we got drownings and now I'm super sad. Great game though.
Wasn’t Elizabeth born after he refused the baptism? Doesn’t that mean killing Booker caused a paradox ?
"How about just going back and shooting Booker in the foot so he can't participate in the Wounded Knee massacre":1. That would only create another *variable* that seperates between an infinite number of universes where Booker De'Witt was shot in the foot and and sat out Wounded Knee and an infinite number of universes where he wasn't shot in the foot and everything unfolds as planned.2. The only way to stop this is at *constants* because these are miraculously the *same* in every universe (this is the magical part if you will). The baptism scene is explained to be such a constant. Changing this constant in one universe will change it in every universe ever created (it's not called a "constant" for nothing). Kill Booker at the baptism means in no universe will he ever have the choice of becoming either Comstock or not.The only problem is the paradox of Elizabeth, but there's a few possible explanations (though none of them are very good).
If the constant cqn be changed, then it become just an another variable... and for the baptism to take place, Booker has to bear the guilt of wounded knee. So if he sit out wounded knee and the guilt that led him to seek answer in faith, how can the baptism still be a constant?
1) Really? You're hung up on the name?
Comstock had political influence. Lutece had ideas, but she needed funding. Comstock secured funding from Congress to construct Columbia. Afterward, Comstock amassed a huge following, took over the city, and seceded.
2) Actually, in all of the timelines we see Booker in, he was a very violent person, being a Pinkerton agent (a strikebreaker), prophet, and a revolutionary. That being said, while Booker the Pinkerton agent considered the baptism because of remorse, it is unclear if Booker the prophet had the same motives. He may have decided at the time that his participation at Wounded Knee was providential.
Also, the reason why they don't go back to shoot Booker in the foot before Wounded Knee was because they likely could not determine the consequences of the action.
They couldn't determine the consequences of shooting someone in the foot but they could determine the consequences of drowning someone? What would prevent Lutece from just finding someone else to fund her project?
His. Lutece is a man in the Booker timeline, and while he was a physicist, he was also a man, and he unlikely faced the same challenges and went to the same extremes as his alternate self.
Anyhow the goal was not to prevent the construction of Columbia. It was to kill Comstock. Shooting him in the foot and preventing him from participating in the Wounded Knee massacre may or may not have done this. As I stated, we have have no idea what motivated Comstock to accept the baptism; this Booker was different BEFORE the baptism--the water doesn't change anything.
Then there is the grandfather paradox. Keep in mind that drowning Comstock restores Booker, Anna, and Robert to the correct timeline. Lutece remarked in a Voxophone that the universe constantly seeks to restore itself to its original state; the analogy was along the lines of "it doesn't like it when we mix the peas with the porridge."
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I still feel the ending is disatisfactory though--as endings often are when time travel hijinks are involved. For all we know they could have just had a more evil person than Comstock create another hidden city.
mhswlee Can you please explain to me this.. why is booker going to get the girl and still has debt? ... if he doesn't have the girl then he has no debt right? because he sold her to pay it off..
There's...no time travel? But what about the time where elizabeth goes back in time to kill booker before he can become comstock?
Really loved the illustrations in this video.
Trust me, I've seen people do 180s after going through a baptism. Hence the term "born again."
the game has booker use weapons with his right hand and vigors with his left hand, and that is why your image of him fighting a patriot "Really Doesn't Work"
Well.... Maybe Comstoack wasn't that bat shit at the time. Her certainly gained a following and I'm sure money to employ Lutece. This guy's video doesn't make sense. It's just full of "what if's".
Here's why the ending DOES make sense in terms of why Comstock created Columbia after the baptism. The video mentioned how both Comstock and Booker have guilt, but that's all they have in common. Columbia wasn't a society to repent for his sins, it was built to glorify all of them. He turned to propaganda and an excuse for his actions instead of alcoholism.
Well that is actually pretty correct. Booker was never one for religion so it was hard for him to believe. So in the end he could only try to glorify what he did. He did it because it was right and just. Because he was told to do it. All the others were full of sin.
Hezigrimm
That makes sense when you look at the racist society he created. He said only the white man have rights so that it can justify his killing of the indians.
PaperClipEntertainme An other important fact, that is often overlooked, is that according to the dates in the game, Booker is 16 years old at the Battle of Wounded Knee. While it would be a bit weird if a 40-year-old Booker suddenly flipped to a different personality just because of a baptism, I can pretty much see how a traumatised 16-year-old teenager, who just went through a massacre, could end up at totally different points 3 years later based on the way of life he chooses.
PaperClipEntertainme It also makes sense if you think how he buys Elizabeth from the alternate Booker. The way he treats his alternate self basically says: "You got drunk, in debt and are willing to sell your daughter? Great! Your reward is to get all your debts paid!"
I think, if he truly were a believer, he would just steal her from this "morally bankrupt" version of himself. Instead, he gets rewarded for his bad behaviour.
My god the drawing art is amazing.
You raised some great points (and your art is amazing and funny), but I got the answer to your "why would Rosalind help Comstock" question.
If you buy and play the "Clash in the clouds" DLC and buy both Rosalind and Robert's character models, you'll be able to go into their apartment, where a bunch of voxophones voiced by Rosalind are scattered around. One of them says that when Rosalind first met Comstock, he was nothing more than a well versed preacher who was able to influence members of his flock and congressmen alike. At the time, no one gave a fuck about any of Rosalind's discoveries except for Comstock himself, and, since he was interested in those discoveries, the Prophet, with the help of his flock, was able to fund Rosalind in her endeavors, and in return, she develloped the technology to make a floating city.
So, the reason she didn't go with anyone other than Comstock wasn't because she wanted to, but because she had no other choice.
Dude your drawings were gorgeous. Is there any name for that style of drawing I can learn or follow? Looks like the style used in comic books
I think the name is paper style but maybe not xddd.
@@videojuegos3dlocurasextrem949 bruh, this was 5 years ago
Shame about how he said overall the game is great, when it isn't.
Yeah I think they definitely jumped the shark when it came to the story. It's like they were trying wayyyy harder than they needed to in order to make it compelling, like they tried to top Bioshock, when they didn't even have to do that. Ridiculous. The story makes no fucking sense. And an energy shield? What bullshit is that? If I want to play Halo, I'll play Halo. Why is that even in there?
well, it's all about personal opinion.
So it's a shame that you don't agree with him.
@@patrickw.4422 No, it isn't.
@Adam Thompson (claps) +1 Internet for you. No one has ever said that before. You must be highly educated, and have very original things to say.
I enjoyed this video quite a bit. I was quite disappointed with Bioshock Infinite. It's a game which relies heavily on story and yet gives the player no opportunity to ever make a single meaningful choice that actually affects the story.
Simply put, this is not a game, but a clever, pretty movie that you walk through. Sure, you get to do lots of fighting, but none of it matters because you are immortal and will be given perpetual ammo, health and salt.
My big mistake was starting the game thinking I was going to play an RPG, when I'm simply watching a movie that stops from time to time to tell me "push this button", or "time for a shooting interlude, back in ten."
You're disappointed in the game because there's not many morality choices? That's an odd principle to judge a game. There's many fully linear video game stories that offer one strict timeline that I am completely happy with, so long as those linear stories are good. 'BioShock Infinite' has a fantastic premise, a beautiful story, and a wonderful execution. If you can get your head around that ending, then it's truly an extraordinary game all around.
Choice is an illusion, simply play all 3 Mass Effect games for reference.
Rhain Radford-Burns
No, I'm disappointed that none of the choices you make in the game have any effect whatsoever. I replayed the game in an speedier fashion, not exploring anything that wasn't part of the plot. It's amazing how many times in this game when it gives you control but only one button to push, or a single option to select. And choosing not to push it only stalls the game.
There's a scene, early on, where a woman dressed as a nun drops a torch and sets the blimp on fire. In my replay through, as soon as I saw her, I shot her in the head, and the bullets went through her like she was air.
Bioshock to BS 2 to BSI got more and more linear. BSI is an interactive movie, that from time to time lets you shoot things, click on things. It's a more railroaded experience than any other game-driven story I've played.
Ghostplops I could be wrong, but I think that's the point though, constants and variables, you can pick the bird or the cage, variable, as you mentioned though no impact at all. It would've been nice to have made some choices, in the end though, none of it would've really mattered. No matter which path you trot, it always leads to taking a dunk in the river.
Bioshock Infinite was a great game and the reviews speak for itself. But the series has never been about "choices". This isn't Mass Effect
The Daughters only killed the one that would become The Prophet, there are still millions of Booker's in the Infinite.
Here's how I disagree with the video.
1) It's not that hard to get a change in name legally, for any reason whatsoever, whether it's religion, or you just plain want to. My grandfather changed his name (first and last) to something that sounded less German and more Anglicized leading up to WWII. You have to take your desire to go by a different name up with the courts.
2) Rosalind Lutece had ideas that sounded insane, and would sound insane even today. Lutece hadn't done the transcendance to see prophetically that Comstock would betray her yet. For all we know, people in Britain probably wouldn't buy her idea, and thought her crazy, and a man who bought her ideas and supported her experiments turned out to be Comstock. Even nowadays, there are points where people would think you insane in the academic community, transdimensional travel of a human being and not subatomic particles or photons, would be one of them.
3) Booker, as you come to know him over the course of the game, is exactly a person you wouldn't trust in a position of power. He's not that much of a polar opposite of Comstock. Being a street thug for the Pinkertons is not a person I would make a national leader. It's not someone I would trust as a father either, for all that it's worth, it's key that Booker lost his daughter to make him think, sort of like Scrooge had the visions in "A Christmas Carol", to offer a chance at rethinking his life.
Also, religion tends to mess up people in many different ways and acts as a very good excuse to go to war.
Randy Parsons
Not really, power does a whole lot more. The vast majority of people secular or religious, never kill anyone. However, I don't care if someone believes in God or Denies he exists, I wouldn't grant a whole lot of power to them.
In a lot of ways, the Luteces and their scientific breakthroughs ARE THE PROBLEM with the fact that they gave Comstock the power of transdimensional travel. They aren't even part of his religion in the first place, but they gave him something that shouldn't be entrusted to just one person, regardless.
suemorphplus2009 Yeah, I like to think even myself that religion is the sole cause of many wars, while in reality, it is much more often the power that some RECEIVE from it that corrupts them and causes them to become power hungry. I suppose it is more of a gateway into bloodshed than it is a direct causation.
Well, you have the Crusades. You have the fact that many Americans do not like or even hate Muslims. These may not start wars but they sure keep them going. And if you take the Christian bible you find absurd numbers of murders, including an entire flood designed to kill thousands or millions of people. War not linked to religion? Really? You can't be serious. Many religious texts say its your DUTY to kill those who don't believe your particular God.
Randy Parsons And how many people, of the billions that practice the very religions that have texts commanding them to kill others actually do that hmm? Americans weren't too fond of the English or the French or the Spanish at one time and they all practiced basically the same religions. Religion itself is not evil. The Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas; they say lots of things that many people don't follow because by today's standards they're barbaric. Religion and it's rules tends to change with society. Society is influenced by religion yes, but religion is influenced by society as well. Now, the way religion is used can be very problematic. Do you think the Crusades were really an attempt to reclaim the "holy land?" Do you honestly think that's what the Church really had in mind? Do you think these extremist Wahhabi fundamentalist leaders really think they're doing God's will? Was it a religious motivation that drove Stalin to murder millions? How about the genocide of the Native American people? The Khmer Rouge massacres? No, it was power and a thirst for resources. Religion is a tool for the powerful to send the faithful to do their bidding. The Saudi elites sit comfortably on piles of cash and oil by funding Wahhabi fundamentalism that nurtures extremist Islam all over the world. They find poor farmers who only know what they're told about God and heaven and they convince them to take up arms and kill their enemies for them. The Catholic church wanted territory, they wanted land and resources and open routes to the riches of the East. They claimed the land was their Christian God's land and that they had to reclaim it. I'll admit there have been wars and conflicts throughout time centered on religion and they certainly are fuel for the fire but when it boils down to it, it was always only a tool or an excuse. If there was no such thing as religion, had human's never conceived the idea of higher beings, we would find something else to fight over and we all know it. History wouldn't be any more peaceful. There are billions of religious people everyday that practice their faith in peace. Corrupted and perverted bastardizations of various faiths are but a single and very small branch of the tree of problems that plague humans. You need to get to the roots. The want for power, given by control of resources and capital. The drive to hold a position of command or a safe distance between one people and another; yours and theirs, that is a much larger problem that religion only plays a part in. Hell, maybe that's not even the root. If you can find the root of all evil then you'll be a very popular man.
My point is there's far too many facets of existence to lay such heavy blame on religion the way you are. Even within the universe of Infinite there's so many factors, Comstock's ideals and this new religion of Columbia are but only a small piece.
Awesome art.
You assume that the Baptism alone was enough to transform Booker into Comstock. The choices he made from than onward is what really made him into Comstock. Remember how they say that things get set in motion, but how far would you need to go? They needed to go back to a single point where his life changed. I say picking up a new religion and thinking all your past sins were cleansed a pretty big moment in someone's life.
Except doing what Booker had done and accepted his actions, Comstock tried to justify his actions with religion. This leads him down a road where he gets too caught up in his own world and thinks himself as a prophet.
That's probably the best rebuttal to the baptism argument I've read. I think it's odd to assume that the game expects you to think the baptism was the key event that led to Booker's transformation into Comstock. When we see Comstock for the first time he's an old man with all the characteristics of a long weary life. Obviously, a lot happened after the baptism that had an affect on Booker's ideology, religious beliefs, and views on social hierarchy.
The ending implies that it was Booker's choice not to walk away from the Baptism that determined his becoming Comstock. Listen to the words of one of the Elizabeths. If this isn't the case, then it's another massive plot hot and failure in storytelling.
***** The moment he chooses to take the baptism and change his name to Comstock is the beginning of a long road of choices he would've never made if he had not been baptized. This doesn't refute the words of Elizabeth.
"You assume that the Baptism alone was enough to transform Booker into Comstock"
No, I don't, at least not that it was strictly sufficient condition. I infer, (and the narrative implies), that event this was the initial cause and commencement of Booker's transformation into Comstock. Surely, this most common interpretation doesn't deny that the appearance of the angel of Columbia to Comstock was necessary for his deification of the Founding Fathers, otherwise Comstock might have become a zealous Christian as opposed to a zealot Founder.
The game does suggest that his acceptance of the baptism was a necessary and sufficient cause of his transformation. Obviously, for him to turn into Comstock, various constants wold have to arise, (the angel would have to appear to him, he would have to have been never disabused of his racist and jingoist notions, he would have to avoid dying of some physical calamity until his personality was completely changed, etc.)
Really, I might have misspoke, but I meant to have only stated- and the game virtually spoonfeeds this as a plot mechanic- that the event that sets Booker's transformation in motion is his acceptance of the Baptism in some realities, and he remains as the Booker we know if he rejects it.
"This doesn't refute the words of Elizabeth."
I've never contradicted her words. Neither does the video, which only attempts to evince the implausibility of Booker's transformation merely from this event.
You may say that other factors most certainly were involved and other events transpired that were necessary for Booker's transformation into Comstock, but the only event aside from the Baptism in the game which is explained is the apparition of the angel.
Don't you know what the angel of Columbia is? There was no angel, it was a lie manufactured by Comstock to justify his position of a prophet. In reality, he uses tears to see the future and other realities. The tears are the angels.
He opened the tears to give himself the advantage and to win over the public. It was his decisions to abuse the tears for his own benefit. This is more of another action Comstock took which leads him closer to the person he is in the game, than a point which he decides to do Comstock-like things since he would've already started building Columbia.
2:13 question
What is the big stuff of this dilemma
I wanna read up on it for a story idea but I cant find anything about it anywhere
Shame this channel disappeared. Your art is beautiful......
Seems I'm a little late for the party (6 years to be exact), but since I only recently played through all the Bioshock games I thought, for what it's worth, I'd chime in anyway. While I agree that the conclusion to the Bioshock Infinite story doesn't make sense when looked at from a literal perspective I don't think that really matters much in the context of the narrative. One of the main, if not THE over arching theme of the Bioshock series seems to the relationship between choices and consequences. The first game dealing with the question of free choice (do we actually make decisions and do they matter), the second game dealing with how our choices affect those around us (and vice versa), and the last game dealing with how our choices affect ourselves and our dealing with them beyond the moment they occur. Granted, these themes are not exclusively dealt with in each game, but that appears to be the focus of each game respectively.
I don't look at Bioshock Infinite as being a kind of literal telling of events, but as a metaphorical sequence of events from which generalizations can be drawn. For example, rather than looking at Comstock as an alternate version of Booker it's more practical to interpret Comstock as being an extension of Booker's consciousness. With this interpretation the conflict between Comstock and Booker isn't so much about Booker trying to rescue his daughter from a different version of himself, but rather Booker trying to resolve the conflict of his guilt (the reason for the guilt being irrelevant).
Granted, this mode of analyzing the game leaves us with far more questions, but they're the types of questions that can potentially bring us to a far greater understanding of our own reality even if it leaves the story of the game with a few plot holes. For example, what's the significance of Elizabeth losing a part of her pinky even if we're not talking about the physical loss? Obviously a stale comment section of a youtube video isn't a great place for this discussion, but I couldn't resist an opportunity to discuss the issue even if only for my own satisfaction.
It's based on a sci-fi novel written by Robert Heinlein; By His Bootstraps
A man in front of a hole to the future is asked by one man to not enter.
The man enter and find that he want to change the future for the better.
He change the future by replacing a man in the future with himself in the past.
He goes back to the future and nothing has changed
These are all very weak reasons on the basis that nobody knows the true impact choice makes on our character, because none of us can go back in time and live an event differently and observe the outcome, thus its very open ended, making the story plausible.
As for the twins siding with Comstock, Comstock was a peoples man, almost like a politician, he could rally, he could get funding, this is the primary reason. Scientists cant do those things, they dont have the personality or charasima.
Well, not much of this game could happen in real life, since we're talking crazy ideas such as multidimensional superposition, nihilistic multiverse mechanics[note], and quantum levitation of an entire city, to name a few.
The plot making sense hinges upon suspension of disbelief. You have to allow for the assumption that this is possible, that this technology can be made, and that one random moment can entirely change one's personality, for example. If you think within the bounds of reality, it won't make sense.
note: multiverse theory speculates that our choices create alternate universes where we made the opposite/alternative choice, and some proponents believe that this effectively renders our choices purposeless (nihilism). I see the attitude in the game as nihilistic because Elizabeth essentially tells Booker that no matter what he does, the only way to neutralize Comstock is to kill himself at his "prime" (the moment before he was/wasn't baptized), otherwise, nothing he does will make a difference.
''The game was great?'' Let me stop you right there, because if you had played the original Bioshock, it's sequal, and most importantly, System shock, the game this entire frachise was based of, you'd have a much different opinion.
Bioshock Infinite can't even be considered as the shadow of the previous games, Gameplay is 100% linear, and totally trashes what Bioshock was all about, which is scavenging, taking care of your inventory, EVE and Health kits so the enemy doesn't screw you over. Not to mention being careful when using ADAM as it can make things easier or harder for you depending of what you choose, that's what made Bioshock so magical, because every decision you make changes the gameplay on each player, so, every time you play the game, it will be a totally different experience, you can get different plasmids, upgrades, find different diaries or simply get a different ending. In Bioshock Infinite this is not existant, no ADAM, no EVE, no taking care of your items or where to use 'em, Elizabeth will always find a way to make it easier, pulling Salts or Health kits out of her ass and making everything monotone to play, as the challenge element gets completely destroyed.
This was a huge disapointment, one step forward and three steps back, hopefully, if they ever make a new game, they won't turn Bioshock into Call of duty: Sky warfare.
I think they had to make those changes for the narrative to work. They aren't in Rapture anymore & shoehorning ADAM into the game wouldn't make any sense for the story. The challenge element is absolutely there if you up the difficulty, and I'd arguer more so since there is actually a penalty for death this time around. Don't really see where your getting at with the game play being different with different play throughs since Infinite also had different powers, upgrades, and diaries. As for the endings, the first two didn't feel like there was all that much choice in my opinion. It seemed to clear cut multiple choice for me so I didn't miss them all that much. I'll agree that the old health system, that could have been reimplemented without problem. As for simply how the game controlled I though it was a lot better. Just felt a lot smoother & natural moving around the environment. As much as I liked Rapture, they were pretty much as done with it as you can be in the universe they set up. This game reopened that for them to do what ever they like in the future. All in all it was different then the first, but still good. Just a different kind of good.
why does it have to be a "shadow" of the previous games to be good ?..it''s just fun get over it..
why do you MUST compare it with the other bioshocks ?...it's not even relevant
Mohammed jawahri
Because it is in the same series. If they had named it simply Infinite or something, no one would care how it is.
First of all, Bioshock Infinite was a prequel not a sequel, miss know-it-all. Of course there's no EVE or ADAM. This is Columbia!
Misanthropic Marshmallow hey! the AI in the first game wasn't perfect either.
The artwork is nice, but your points don't stand. You're making way too many assumptions as if you believe humans don't have free will and wouldn't do something that doesn't make 'sense' based on your own arbitrary standards.
He's not talking about humans tho.
Hmm, with the floating city you have a really big point but i think you're wrong with almost all the rest. It's not that a baptism can turn you a crazy fanatic but it's implied that Booker had free will to choose his his destiny and in some universes he decided to leave religion and in some universes he decided to embrace religion just like every fucking soldier ever after a traumatic experience. In some of the universes he choose to follow religion he achieved to ascend to a great position and transform into Comstock.
Comstock indeed believes that he has the truth but as many others manipulate the facts that happen or even manipulate insconsciously his memories (you don't need to travel through a tear to have your brain change your memories, it happens in real life all the days)to convince other people of it.
Why would Lutece give Comstock the technology for the floating particle?... Well maybe because Comstock had a lot of influence and trust at the time. Not to mention ideas and money to fund Lutece's research. Research requires $$$$$$. And if somebody with a lot of power, influence, trust, and money chooses to find my research... well then :)
Why would Booker embrace religion after the Battle of Wounded Knee? In most cases, soldiers forsake God and even point out "where was God when I needed him?" I think this guy had some pretty valid points but I mostly agree with you.
***** I'm not a soldier but i could understand(and i'm repeating myself) that especially if you weren't religious you could turn to religion. For example, a lot of people that know that they're going to die in hours seek redemption by converting to christianity. If you kill many people on battle you may need someone to say that it happened and you are forgiven. If your were already religious, then losing many friends on a war could make you think you were punished by God...
Carlos Bautista I understand an although I'm an atheist I think that if I were drawing my last breaths, knowing it was the end and I was going to die, I think I might pray just in case because as a man of science and reason, I can safely say I don't know for certain that there is no God, I just see no reason for there to be one. Also, the veterans I've talked to turned away from the idea of God. I don't know your scenarios and every situation is different but a majority either became atheists or became extremely apathetic towards religion.
***** Most soldiers do not forsake god. You have no sources to back up that claim. You are just stating your belief.
You know that Star War's T-shirt that's says "I went to the Dark Side but all I got was this dumb T-shirt"
I want one that says "I got baptized but all I got was my dumb soul saved"
however constants and variables are distinguished if you went back and shot booker in the foot that is only him in one world the constant is that booker is at the baptism area and chooses to be baptized.
i agree, but on the more practical side, hes talking about whats happening in the game
Then what's the purpose of killing Booker, the main character? If Elizabeth wasn't sure the main character was Comstock then there's no point in killing the Booker at the end. On the other hand if she was sure, or was capable of killing an infinite number of Bookers then it stands to reason that Booker needn't be killed anyway.
Orphansmith
they killed booker on ALL of the universes, so he theres not even 1 universe that he existed, thats what ends the story
tonton9598 So then they do have the ability to prevent Comstock from existing while not killing Booker. Any way you slice it, the ending doesn't make logical sense. But that's fine, Ken Levine is a game designer first, writer second. He just overreached his capabilities of a writer.
you would need to go to every multiverse and keep comstock from existing. or the constant where booker gets baptized and takes the name comstock. if you killed booker at the baptism it would keep comstock from existing
I disagree. The entire point of a baptism is to wash away your sins and your past life and allow you to start "new" before God.
For someone as delusional and motivated as Comstock, I could easily see the baptism as the first in a long line of steps toward Columbia.
Now, what REALLY doesn't work, is the idea of drowning him. You have a series of a "million million" worlds in which he has existed, is existing, and will exist and drowning him in one does not affect all the others. It affects only that one world. So they would need to go to every world/universe and drown him there. But that still wouldn't affect the universes he already exists in.
+JACCO20082012 somehow the idea hinged on his choice to go through with the baptism, meaning that even though those universes existed, by returning to the point before he made the choice, his death would prevent the existence of all of the universes in which he made the choice (either one), I realize why that doesn't make sense though because, as the game explains in this case, time is referred to as an ocean, meaning it is happening in ALL time, where as if time was looked upon as a river, it would be linear and open to paradoxes, where time could be altered by changing events before they occur, like Anna/Elizabeth killing Booker would mean he would no longer exist, but then would also mean she could have never existed in the first place, unless you believe in predestination.
Now Anna/Elizabeth is unique in the sense that she can exist in multiple dimensions and traverse and even manipulate space/time, so the only way to explain what happens is that she essentially saw into all the universal possibilities simultaneously, which they do hint at a bit, when she says things like "Comstock is still here, he still exists through at least one door" and I'm paraphrasing there, but it's something to that effect. Basically, she had to know beyond doubt, that killing Booker would kill Comstock in that particular instance, and for good. That still doesn't explain the ocean analogy very well, but I've had to live with it.
+JACCO20082012 About that drowning thing : she said, if Comstock never lived in the first world, he couldn't live in another worlds. Everything started with baptism. Then probabilities were created. In one probability, Booker didn't accept baptism, but in second, he accepted and became Comstock. So they went to the place when he became Comstock, and killed him, where he "born". So there can't be probabilities if Comstock never lived in "first world" Something like that
+JACCO20082012 But why would he make an entirely new identity while still claiming credit for all the accomplishments he only had during his own lifetime? Anyone (outside of Columbia, where he controls media) could just go find the truth about him.
Daughter universe theory states that when we make a choice, two or more alternate universes are created to accommodate alternate choices. None of the infinite number of Comstock universes can exist if he is killed at the baptism where he chooses to embrace "forgiveness" rather than accept his guilt.
+The Merc With a Mouth Yet at least one apparently does- the one who's the protagonist in Episode 1. Maybe there is at least one universe where he goes back to the revival multiple times?
I don't quite agree with a lot of your points.
I got the feeling that the baptismal split was just the split between OUR Booker and Comstalk, and as such, the easiest point for Elizabeth to prune the tree of reality.
There are plenty of religious figures who booth appear truly devout, and yet preach things they know not to be true. It's called cognitive dissonance, and something a lot of people don't seem to have a problem with.
The problem isn't the plot hole in itself, because all time travel stories have gaping plot holes at some point. Especially if time travel is THIS important in the story's narrative. But people can accept them if the overall theme of the story is interesting. Which I don't think it is. It is a twist, yeah sure, but what exactly does this change for the characters? Booker is still Booker and Comstock is still Comstock. Just because they have similar origin with a splitting point doesn't make them the same person. If your theme was how easy it is for a good person could change and nearly destroy the world then it isn't really working because we see the story from Booker's perspective and not from Comstock's for the most part.
Take Bioshock 1's twist as an example. It works because it includes the medium "game" into its story and therefore does something no other medium can do. You do what Atlas says because that's how a game works. The interesting twist isn't that Atlas is Fontaine, the interesting twist is that you've been mind controlled the whole time without noticing. The developers put you into a situation where you think following orders is the normal way to progress and barely any player even questioned it. And this can be a story of how easy it is for someone else to just tell you what the right thing to do is. Even if you think yourself of being not easily controlled, the correct envoirenment and you wouldn't even question it.
And that is ultimately why Infinit's ending fails. If it wanted to show you how similar and yet apart these two characters are, what they should have done is play with the medium again. It's a first person shooter and as such, you are not able to actually see what you look like. Which means, in a story with rifts being opened and your memories even being rewritten when you enter other worlds, there is the easy chance of you actually playing Comstock for certain parts of the game and not Booker. Yes, this would have been harder to write around, but it would have definitely been possible. In this case, you, as the player would maybe accept that killing yourself and by that all possible variants is the only way out, because even yourself weren't able to tell the difference of when you were Booker and when you were Comstock.
This game isn’t a time travel story. You are slow
@@EggEnjoyer
Ehm, yes it is. But more importantly, that's not what my point is even about. You are not reading.
@@Modie No it’s not
@@EggEnjoyer
Well, I guess the game around you being transported to different times, sometimes the future and sometimes the past and where the finale is you killing your former self to make sure nothing of this happens, is not a time travel game. Good thing EggEnjoyer is such a masterful mind when it comes to analyzing stories.
But hey, if you can't even read my comment to understand what it's about and assume it's about the game being a time travelling game, then I guess it's hard to assume you can read a more complex story
@@Modie No because you are not killing your former self. You kill a parallel reality version of yourself. There is time travel, but it is not a time travel plot.
The plot is about parallels realities. That’s why there’s no time paradoxes nor should there be any talks of any.
The game ends with you, not just going back in time, no. Instead you’re destroying a moment in the multiverse that affects all realities from coming into being.
It’s just not a hard plot to comprehend