Let's Discuss BioShock Infinite (HUGE SPOILERS)

I thought they did a very good job of foreshadowing that Booker was Comstock when he killed him. It was rather elegant, as at that point I shared in Booker's unease and growing sense of dread as he and Elizabeth drew closer and closer to the truth of it all. Because the game wasn't just spelling it out to me, I was able to do a lot of the leg work, piecing it together as the clues kept coming and coming so in the end I was able to accept the final revelation and Booker's ultimate demise. Rather than a shocking moment, it was a mournful one.

@naru_joe93: The thing is though is that the story ended up being so much more than that one twist, that as Jeff said just knowing that alone won't spoil it, and just that alone didn't make the ending great.

@starvinggamer: Yeah I looked it up later and she does sing it. The voice actor for Booker is actually playing the guitar on that track too, which is pretty cool.

The game explains it, at least the way I interpreted it, as that moment in time being a "constant"- just as there's always a lighthouse, and a girl, and a scruffy ass dude, at some points things always turn out a certain way- when Booker flips the coin it will always be heads in every universe, and Booker will always go to the baptism, so drowning him there drowns every Booker in every universe. I think that the explanation for Booker always being drowned can go two ways- either him realizing that he needs to be drowned is a constant much like always picking heads is a constant, or the multiple Elizabeths hold him down and forcibly drown him in the universes where he doesn't go along with it. I'm leaning towards the former, just based on the way that Booker reacts to Elizabeth showing him all he's done and shit.

@dystopiax: Haha, I was just thinking to myself, "But did Troy Baker actually play the guitar!?" It's extra awesome that he did.

@starvinggamer: Yeah it's dope.

Just started the game again and was checking my phone while the Lutece brother was rowing the boat. After we pull up I'm still checking my phone so after awhile female Lutece asks

"Is he going to get out of the boat"

To which he replies

"He will, he always does".

That would be such a HUGE hint if you're playing it for the first time and don't know what's going on, but man I was so amazed when that happened on my 2nd playthrough.

Does anyone know what's up with the Lutece's? Cause I don't know what they argued about, they had some kind of quarrel, and the Lady Lutece agreed to do what the man Lutece asked her to do. She said it would end in tears. Does she mean that their invention will be erased because they will help Elizabeth and erase Comstock? Also, from what I understand, there can be only one Lutece in a non altered timeline (perhaps they are twins, but one died, and one lived, and they invented the machine to meet), so that would mean that without the machine, they would never reunite, and that's what she meant. Also, if they are indeed so keen to help Elizabeth and get rid of Comstock, why in the hell did they not do all of this themselves? They have the power to control time/space, or so it would seem. Why do they need Booker and Elizabeth?

Questions, questions. Maybe it's those audiologs I've missed.

Or hell, they may be even the same person, only gender-bent because of some dimension fluctuations or some shit. Maybe that's why they can--

--finish each others sentences? In that case, it would be strange if they couldn't. They're the same person in one dimension.

Started the game again and I've noticed a nice little detail

If I remember correctly at the start of Bioshock 1 the splicer who attacks the bathyshpere says "Is it someone new?" Then in Infinite the priest at the beginning says the exact same thing.

Some things are constant across all universes.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned I just thought it was an interesting detail. Also enjoying this discussion very much this is the only game where I've felt the need to discuss it with people :D

@twolines: I think she said it would end in tears because in most realities Booker fails, and you see Columbia destroying NY and presumably all of Earth's major urban centers. Even in the one universe where Booker succeeds and drowns himself it's still not a happy ending for him or for Elizabeth.

@mostunfurrowed: i think they just kind of did that with Comstock's appearance to give him the whole old fire-and-brimstone preacher look so i'm guessing that was just an aesthetic choice not a story choice

They are just two different versions of Lutece from two different dimensions. One where Lutece was born a woman and in the other born as a man. The female version brought over the male version to columbia to I think help with her experiments.

(Sorry if this has been covered already)

I might have just missed a line somewhere but at what point does the Booker you play as show up in the version of the world where he founded Columbia?

...and THEN ask why the player's character is the only one in the game that can manifest spells by drinking these tonics and the whole thing comes crashing down.

Yep, that's what I thought.

That's obviously not true. The Fireman and the Crow cultists both use vigors against you. However, considering that vigors were just being introduced to Columbia at the fair on the day you arrived, it makes perfect sence that they're not widespread, and the chaos you cause overshadows them to the population of Columbia.

@darkshaper: Booker's Comstock, Comstock founded Columbia, the Luteces bring him to the Comstock world. (It's shown at the end of the game)

@sin4profit: Nah man, there's the fireman, the crow guy, people are drinking the tonics and making weird shit happen all over.

2/3rds of my way through the game, I got to the point where you meet the older Elizabeth, and I've come to this conclusion. This game is basically a JRPG in terms of plot, which leads me to be rather surprised at the generous reception it seems to be getting from many people. (I'm personally enjoying it quite a bit despite it being of a gameplay genre I will never enjoy on a fundamental level.)

@twolines@sin4profit: Also forgot that Slate drinks all that Shock Jokey before you fight him.

@turambar: I enjoy JRPG plot lines when they are done well and I imagine the reason that people are latching on to this game more has a lot to to with the art style and protagonist being much more palatable to western audiences as well as the game only being 12 or so hours long.

@turambar: There's a depth and a nuance to the writing and world-building that set it starkly above the JRPG drivel out there. I mean, it's got some pretty detailed layers of reflexivity to it, and it's highly self-aware.

This just seems like the ending of Virtue's Last Reward but stupid.

I love, LOVE JRPG plots, but this is quite different. JRPGs make their plots way more convoluted and abstract (they're more about philosophy and existentionalism, like LOST, somewhere along the way they don't care about what's rational, you're just along for the ride), while this is a mind bender (as convoluted as, let's say, inception was, which is to say VERY, but it's coherent in a weird way) with two well written main characters, and a self-aware world. It's also more down to earth with racism and industrialism, it gets into some nasty stuff that I've never seen to be displayed so flat out in front of the player anywhere else.

The more I think about it the more I wonder what the Twins where? They seem to be MUCH more then just two scientists. They appear to be the ones pulling the strings in all cases. Is it ever stated why they are doing what they are doing? It almost seems to be for their own fun.

When you first meet them the sister is arguing about how she does not believe in the conducting a experiment in which they have already failed. When you meet them next they ask you to flip a coin which is always heads implying they/Booker can not change fate. I forget how many tallies are on the board. I want to say 5x10 on the back, and 6+1 on the front showing that you have gone threw the game 57 times with the same result.

@pudge: @twolines: fair point, but the design of the fireman (with the tank) implied a fuel source other then manifestation. Though it could just as easily be his supply of salts just as the coffin supplies the Raven dudes. I missed the part where vigors were a newly introduced thing.

Approaching pretty much all fiction with this mindset allows me to enjoy it in a way I would not coming at it with an analytical mind. Plus, free wizard.

Was there anything cool to do in rapture? I didn't really take the time to thoroughly explore the area.

I can't find a picture and I don't remember when it was but at the start of the game (before you find Elizabeth) you can sneak into a house where a couple of cops are interviewing a lady so they can create a likeness of Dewitt. I might be misremembering but I remember thinking that the painting the cops had made looked ALOT like Andrew Ryan, even though the lady had been describing Dewitt...

@sin4profit: To be fair, the part about Vigors being newly introduced is my own speculation. That initial vigors showcase with the carnival barker looks like an exhibit at the World's Fair, so I would imagine that even if vigors were made well before that point, there were still in an experimental stage. Like how some people today are getting Google Glass, but they're not out till next year.

I can see why Jeff gave this game a 5 star rating. Damn good game and the story moved me as much as Telltale's Walking Dead did.

I don't feel I understand the game very well so if anyone can confirm or deny any of these, that'd be much appreciated.

COMPLETE spoilers ahead:

I will definitely do a second playthrough but this is definitely one of my favorite games of all time. I'm so glad I didn't pass it up as just another cookie-cutter sequel. Any help understanding this game's complicated story would be much appreciated.

I think that you might be over-reaching a little bit, they may just be introducing or exhibiting some new vigors at the fair. Later you see vigors being mass-produced and you do find them literally everywhere in Columbia so it seems unlikely that they are all newly introduced - and then there's the Hall of Heroes bit with a bunch of doors and switches running purely on Shock Jockey instead of the power supply.

The vigors are one of Fink's products, there's no logical reason why Comstock's police would be outfitted with them* and there are several strong and obvious reasons why the Vox Populi would avoid them.

*Comstock is only interested in "protecting" his ward and he has the Songbird for that. He also has the knowledge that Booker always fails to free Elizabeth so there's no reason for him to take extraordinary measures, becoming more reliant on Fink, especially as he "owes" him for the Songbird.

I don't think people have a problem with JRPG stories on a fundamental level. I think the problem stems from (at least for me) the really poor writing that the games are often plagued with this.

Holy crap! On my second playthrough. When you're going through the arcade a woman notices Elizabeth and exclaims "Annabelle?!". Elizabeth says "you must have me mistaken for someone else".

Love that the answers are right there from the beginning, but we all just glide on right past it.

Huh, yeah I remember that now. But that begs the question, who is that woman and how does she know about Anna?

@naeblis213:

• No, not sure where you're getting the idea that he's absorbing anything. If you're talking about how he's living in the shoes of himself in different time periods, it has more to do with the fluid nature of time and memory. Dies, died, will die. It's less that Booker's body is time traveling to these past events and more that his mind is being allowed to remember the future as the past through Elizabeth's powers.
• Not every dimension. There are implications that dimensions are not infinite, and that instead there are junction points where they diverge. Therefore it is conceivable that only a limited number of realities exist where Booker becomes Comstock. Going back and killing Booker at the moment of his baptism in one dimension (or multiple as the multiple Elizabeths may indicate) would likely cause a dimensional disturbance powerful enough to prevent Booker from going through the baptism in any dimension. Remember how killing soldiers in one dimension would affect them when you traveled through a tear into a dimension where they were still alive. Majorly brainfucked for that moment in time.
• He's crazy. He did plenty of crazy shit before Elizabeth ever entered the picture. He attacked China or something. He seceded from the United States. He was already not well.
• Until the very end, Elizabeth just thinks that Booker is there to rescue her. There is no reason for her not to revive you.
• The Luteces talk about inevitability of certain events. Certain things always happen in every dimension where they are a possibility. The coin is always heads, for example. Elizabeth makes reference to this as well when visiting Booker's memories of giving away Anna. She says something about taking as much time as he wants, but that he always gives Anna away in the end. This implies that any dimension where Lutece comes asking for Anna, that specific Booker always gives in.

The girl who you were trying to protect in Bioshock 2 was named Eleanor Lamb who was being groomed by her mother to become a messiah for a communist utopia.

Here we have Elizabeth who is being groomed by Comstock, her "father", to become the messiah for his American Christian Fundamentalist utopia and is referred to as the Lamb.

In B2 Eleanor looks to Delta as a father figure while she is in opposition to her biological mother and even calls him 'father' whereas in Infinite Booker is literally Elizabeth's father and is opposed to Comstock who is not actually her father.

So going by Elizabeth's statement there there is always a man, a lighthouse and the two of them it fits that in the Bioshock 1/2 universe Booker and Elizabeth's equivalents would be Delta and Eleanor.

Also Booker Dewitt's initials are BD which could also stand for Big Daddy.

Another thing I don't get: Why are those dudes singing The Beach Boys in 1912?

@milkman: You can find the conductor's house when you are looking for the three tears to combat Mrs Comstock. It is connected with the tears. Remember how some of them would have music playing when opened? He would just take those songs, and make them more fit for the era.

@milkman: Same reason there's a record playing a 1912 version of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun". Probably has some convoluted reason to do with tears.

Because Fink's brother is using tears to listen in on popular music and creating horrible, atrocious turn-of-the-century versions of them?

There's a joke in one of the audiologs that if the composer that he's stealing from is as awesome as the scientists that Fink is stealing from then Fink's brother could become the Mozart of Columbia. At the time you find the audiolog, the song playing through the rift is "Girls Just Want To Have Fun."

Really enjoyed the game & the story but as someone who watches a lot of sci-fi shows like Sliders & Dr. Who, thought that the ending will have to sink in some for it to unravel enough to make sense of it. Highly recommended & definitely worth playing.

@runcrash: Think you might be wrong about the scientists being the same person, though it could be possible with all the time travel, but there was one of the audio logs of Lutece where she talks about her brother so it leads me to believe that for the timelines in the game that they are brother & sister.

They are the same person, though from different dimensions. The idea that they are brother and sister is the explanation for the second Lutece's appearance in Columbia.

Hmm, I guess I didnt notice she used her real name. Not sure what that means, but I always took her as a plant that warned the others they found Elizabeth. Right as you walk past they say the park is shutting down over the speaker. Then the ticket taker makes a phone call saying they have you.

@starvinggamer: Thanks for clarifying a lot of my questions. I was really confused around the last 1/3 of the game.

No, not sure where you're getting the idea that he's absorbing anything. If you're talking about how he's living in the shoes of himself in different time periods, it has more to do with the fluid nature of time and memory. Dies, died, will die. It's less that Booker's body is time traveling to these past events and more that his mind is being allowed to remember the future as the past through Elizabeth's powers.

About the idea of Booker 'absorbing' other versions of himself, I thought that each time he got a nosebleed, reality shifted or something so that an alternate dimension was destroyed and the Booker from that dimension got absorbed by our Booker. I still don't fully understand your explanation of Booker's mind "being allowed to remember the future as the past." O_O

Not every dimension. There are implications that dimensions are not infinite, and that instead there are junction points where they diverge. Therefore it is conceivable that only a limited number of realities exist where Booker becomes Comstock. Going back and killing Booker at the moment of his baptism in one dimension (or multiple as the multiple Elizabeths may indicate) would likely cause a dimensional disturbance powerful enough to prevent Booker from going through the baptism in any dimension. Remember how killing soldiers in one dimension would affect them when you traveled through a tear into a dimension where they were still alive. Majorly brainfucked for that moment in time.

Oh yeah, I remember killing soldiers in our dimension caused them to have a seizure and be covered in static. I thought they turned into ghosts when I first saw it.

Also, I'm assuming we're left guessing whether Elizabeth is erased from existence or not but any ideas if she stays or not? The after credits scene seems to imply that Booker and Elizabeth may have a chance to continue existing but...

I have mixed feelings on these short clips after the credits. I never liked them when Pirates of the Caribbean did it and I really disliked it when FFX-2 took FFX's scene and just turned it into a full blown resummoning(?) of Tidus.

The Luteces talk about inevitability of certain events. Certain things always happen in every dimension where they are a possibility. The coin is always heads, for example. Elizabeth makes reference to this as well when visiting Booker's memories of giving away Anna. She says something about taking as much time as he wants, but that he always gives Anna away in the end. This implies that any dimension where Lutece comes asking for Anna, that specific Booker always gives in.

Wait...what? That really boggles my mind. So certain events are inevitable right? Remember the reality where Elizabeth was brainwashed and destroyed New York? She gave Booker the letter explaining how to control the Songbird because Booker could never stop it in any reality right? Does that mean that events CAN be changed or they CAN'T? O_O;; I think it was around that scene when I just lost it and decided I'll just blow everything up and ask questions later.

@rebgav: You're right, I like that reasoning better than mine. I still think it makes sense that it was new to the general public, but that doesn't really matter considering they disappear for the most part after the intro.

I finally beat the game and I'm safe from spoilers. I'll have to get back to this thread once I collect my thoughts to see how many people had enough of an understanding of quantum mechanics (that video that explained how the city flies was the first proof I saw) to see the infinite (get it?) dimensions reveal at the end. I myself didn't know they were going to go all the way multiverse so I was surprised when I saw they did it.

This game is giving me the biggest post-game-depression ever. This game was really fucking good.

I literally just finished it and:

1) My mind is blown.

2) I'm glad smarter people than I are here to help me sort this shit out.

I still liked the original game better in pretty much every way - story, setting, characters, gameplay - but this one is still a great game and still a very, very good shooter.

I believe the nosebleeds in Booker's case signify his mind's attempt to reconcile his existence out of dimension. As far as remembering the future as the past, it has something to do with the Luteces and Elizabeth as quantum beings. We perceive space as three dimensional beings. We can go forwards and backwards, side to side, up and down. However, we lack the capability to perceive the dimension of time properly so we experience it in a linear fashion. The Luteces and Elizabeth became able see through time and dimensions, moving beyond the distinctions of dies, died, will die as they are one and the same. By taking him through the doors Elizabeth allows Booker to experience something similar in a limited way.

I believe that while the specific Booker and Elizabeth from the game ceased to exist, their past selves had their path reset and were allowed to continue on their lives. Dimension A Booker and Elizabeth go back to stop Dimension B Comstock from being "born" meaning Lutece never takes Anna from Dimension A Booker meaning she never becomes Elizabeth meaning Dimension A Booker never goes to Dimension B. Or something.

That's why they had to go back in time and stop Comstock from ever being born. Once a dimension has shifted down a specific junction, specific events will always happen as long as they are allowed to happen. If Booker was allowed to keep trying to reach Elizabeth on his own, he would never succeed. Only by taking him out of that reality and reinserting him at exactly the right moment was future Elizabeth able to avoid that eventuality. Similarly no matter how many times he lived/relived it, Booker would always give Anna to Lutece and always fail to rescue her at the last moment. This is how Booker realizes the only way to prevent this eventuality is by stopping Comstock from ever being born and cutting that juncture from any dimension completely. Elizabeth asks him if he is sure because even though he isn't fully aware of it at the time, he is tacitly agreeing to his own murder.

She's a secret agent working for Comstock as part of the ambush. She, herself, doesn't know the significance of the name Annabelle. Rather, it was the way she was ordered to confirm the target and set the trap in motion. Comstock is tipping his hand in a way that only gains relevance upon the second viewing.

EDIT: And because I feel it bears repeating, Jennifer Hale was Lutece!

Of course there are always dimensions where things still happen despite what Elizabeth said unless she gained god like powers over the multiverse. It was my understanding that she could perceive all possibilities, but does that mean she exists as a single mind across every possible variation? The ending suggests she isn't a single being across every dimension.

There will always be a reality where things don't go according to Elizabeth unless the fiction sets up a "Columbia Prime" that is the true version, but that usually pops up in time travel stories and not alternate dimension stories.