I'm right at the part where I'm about to meet Elizabeth, so no spoilers please. The game looks beautiful and the sound design is awesome, but something is kind of bugging me (not to the point that it's ruining the experience). Booker gets the possession vigor easily from a girl giving them out of a basket full of those things. If it's so easily acquired, why can't someone possess Booker and make him commit suicide?

Other than that, I've been noting all the strange things being said, mentions of this Lutece that seem interesting, the interactions with the two...I dunno, guides? It feels cool trying to keep all of this gathered info in your head and trying to fit the pieces together somehow.

Something interesting that I noticed,which a lot of people probably missed, is that the dude who baptizes Booker is saying a prayer which is actually a parody of a Hebrew prayer, called Dayenu, which is said during Passover (the game came out on Passover). If you don't remember what it was, it's the one where he's shouting out the deeds of the "Prophet", followed by "that alone would have been enough".

Hmm, I can't figure out how to answer this question without spoilers. Sorry.

Because ghosts are like dogs and just sort of do things arbitrarily.

Ok, knowing that there's an explanation is good enough. One of the very first things said to Booker while on the boat to the lighthouse makes it sound like it's an "all in your head" situation, but I doubt that's the case.

Are you asking why enemy AI don't use the vigor against you? There's no reason that I can think of other than obviously it would end the game if you got hit with that vigor.

Don't expect to be given an explicit reason for that in the game. You can kinda logic it out as you play the game.

Fairly sure there's a bit of ambient dialogue where someone says something to effect of "I don't want to use vigors until someone proves they're safe"

Because video games. There really is no actual reason given in game. You'll quickly notice that close to no one in the game actually uses vigors in combat.

The fireman and zealot crow dude obviously use them. Those are the only vigor users I've run across in my short time with the game.

Better question: why the fuck are they just giving the power of possession away?

The fireman and that one boss is whom I'm thinking of. The crow zealots don't exactly use Murder of Crows though.

They're giving away samples of Possession which allow you to possess machines. You have to buy the good stuff.

Because the citizens of Columbia are too civilized to possess other humans. That's the devil's work, you know. Only a False Shepard would utilize such blasphemy. (In all seriousness, that is probably the reason.)

Pay close attention to information about the Luteces. They get much more interesting down the line. Also, did you notice the statue before the raffle change from male to female Lutece? I didn't on my first playthrough.

As far as I could tell, the general public of Columbia hasn't really bought into Vigors. There are only a few Vigor-using groups you encounter; one works for the Enforcers, and another is part of a cult.

They're trying to get people to try them out by handing out free samples of Possession at the fair, but even there you come across a trio of citizens discussing how they don't want to use them until Vigors have been proven safe.

Of course, there's always the other (I think, perfectly acceptable) explanation: it's a game. You also find money in trash cans. You eat food out of trash cans. Eating a banana suddenly makes you more healthy. Eating a rotten banana suddenly brings you closer to death. At some point it's all in the name of fun.

They do, he's possessed throughout the entire game into murdering people and finally when it wears off he kills himself.

Also he's Decoy Octopus.

Then why is there a booth babe with a basket full of them trying to seduce walkers by to try a sample? And why does that free sample give you the power forever? Kind of a dumb way to sell a product by just giving it away. It's really no more complex then because that would end the game. Pretty much all media has these points that don't make sense because they are not thought out.

But possessing machines means free money forever, so buying the good stuff is no biggie. :P Possession definitely breaks the fiction if you think about it too hard.

Then again, it's not uncommon to find good chunks of cash just tossed into trash cans, so I don't think the citizens of Columbia are all that bright. (or maybe there's a Robin Hood type duder just going around putting money in trash cans for the poor to find while they scrounge for hot dogs and popcorn)

A lot of companies give out their products for free to try to get people to encourage buying the product through word of mouth. One could argue that's the reason.

But it is simply done because it is a good first vigor to introduce the player too. The reason to can't get possessed is because that would end the game pretty damn quick. Some things, like this, just aren't worth going into the details about.

@crusader8463: Possessing humans requires a purchasable upgrade, as in its base form only machines can be controlled. Also, that lady was kind of in the shadowy dark section of the fair.

As for the free sample giving you possession abilities permanently, that is kind of dumb. Maybe the real profits come from selling salts, like a "give away razors and sell the blades" strategy. I don't know. Early in the game's development, vigors used to be temporary powers akin to ammo that you would pick up along the way, but this was scrapped in favor of giving you all the powers and refilling them with salts. My theory is that they could not find a new story reason for the change.

If you think about it too hard, the story reasons for a lot of game mechanics don't make sense. My favorites include tons of money in trash cans and gaining health from eating cake on rotting corpses, which were in the other Bioshock games as well.

It turns out Booker is actually a pineapple disguised as a human, and pineapples can't be possessed.

All of the vigors are potential breaking points if you think about them in the context of the story. "It's a Bioshock game so I guess you need magic and resources," is pretty much the only justification for them. At least they got rid of the ammo types, that aspect seemed completely needless in the original game. Maybe next time they'll ditch the passive buffs too, that would probably make the game a bit less of a cakewalk (and, seriously, talking about gameplay mechanics breaking the fiction, who is making these magical hats?!).

@rebgav: Exactly. No matter how well-written the game, ya gotta break logic a bit for the game to actually work.

@rebgav: I just told myself that all the magical hats and such were what was making all of the enemies bullet sponges.

It only works if they are scared of ghosts, Booker doesn't get scared so it doesn't affect him.

Wouldn't that be as dumb as the Control ending of Mass Effect 3?

That would certainly explain why you randomly find actual vigor bottles (other than Return to Sender, which can legitimately be found in three places for some reason...can any other vigors be missed like that? I suppose you could probably outright miss Charge, right?) lying around in the streets, rather than the regular salt phials and coffee.

When that cutscene of the woman drawing an imaginary green love symbol in the air started playing I had a feeling that it would come back to haunt him later in the game. But nope, searching for twists where they weren't one.

Because in booker 123's world, the people of columbia are only comfortable with using murder of crows and devil's kiss