Let's find the Foreshadowing! (Spoilers!)

Hey gang, so this game had a ton of foreshadowing, right? I'm playing a second time and finding out yeah, it really did have a ton of it. Let's find all the little bits!

• First thing you do when you enter the lighthouse is scoff at a bowl of water that claims to wash your sins.
• Duke and Dimwitt also may be the same person refer to the difference between Booker and Comstock. (Edit: Whoops, forgot the Duke and Dimwitt don't look alike)
• Booker is the False Shepard, Comstock is the Actual Shepard.
• The Millitary Dude didn't realize Comstock was Booker and thus took Comstock's claims of being involved to be bullshit. The Military dude was mistaken turns out.
• God Only Knows is about not being able to imagine an alternate reality where you weren't with a lady or whatever. Sort of relates.

That's just a few things off the top of my head and from starting a second play through. I bet there's way more to be found. Anyone else got things?

Edit: Here's a good one! "Annabelle? Is that you Annabelle?" "No, my name is Elizabeth!" "Are you sure?" And then there's a trap.

Very Interesting. This game is packed full of details and is wonderfully realized.

P.S. This should probably be in the Bioshock Infinite forums.

I'm going through my second playthrough now and this part really jumped out at me. Didn't even cross my mind the first time, but after knowing the ending and whatnot, that part really says a lot.

The first time Booker encounters Comstock, his nose starts to bleed.

I also started a second playthrough and I noticed the how the statue of Letuce changes gender in the very beginning (as they are the same person from different universes). Also every interaction of these twins makes nuch more sense now.

"What do you mean he doesn't row?"

"No, I mean he doesn't row."

~~~

If you stay in the boat they say something about how you will.

Booker saying that he has never heard about Columbia before - which foreshadows that he's from a timeline where Columbia doesn't even exist.

Robert Lutece painting Rosalind, only to reveal that the painting is of himself. This is both a good gag and a subtle revelation that they are, essentially, the same damn thing.

And a fun Chekhov's gun: Songbird getting his eye cracked underwater near the beginning.

I'm pretty sure that's just Booker getting overly excited. He's just like Kanji.

Most of the beginning audio recordings take on a new meaning once when you know what's going to come.

Almost the entire game is foreshadowing. But here are bits that I found especially relevant.

On the boardwalk, Elizabeth asks Booker if there's a woman in his life. Booker says: "I had a wife. She died in childbirth." Liz: "Do you have a child?" Booker: "No." At that point I figured Liz is Booker's daughter.

In Hall of Heroes, when they see a statue of Comstock that claims he led the 7th (Booker's unit) during Wounded Knee Booker says something like "I don't even remember the guy, he sure as hell didn't lead the 7th". Later on Slate says "If you erase all the parts of Booker DeWitt you tried to erase, what's left?"

Of course, everything involving the Luteces, the coin flip especially.

Also all the signs in the lighthouse. One says something like "I will take you to your own city" or something like that.

And of course the baptism when you first get to Columbia.

2 audio logs:

One where Comstock complains that he was subject to racism because of it was suspected there were "teepees" in his family's bloodline, and in another, a guy sent to kill Booker says he didn't because Booker's Indian language helped him save someone. That was when I saw the twist as a possibility (since these were found after you jump between worlds anyway, so it was kind of late).

Started replaying through again yesterday, the "Is that you Anna?" was a good one, looking back on it.

There are Vox recordings where Duke talks about a meet he had with Booker, so no they are not the same person.

The marking on Booker's hand, AD, Anna DeWitt but also A.D, Anno Domini. How we measure time after Jesus' return to the land of man, according to the bestselling book, "The Holy Bible". Booker is essentially a saviour and a tyrant, different sides of the same coin.


The very title of the game "Bioshock Infinite" as we've seen from the ending sequence there are literally infinite amounts of realities that contain Bioshock experiences.

Duke is an actual person? I thought he was a cartoon character. Anyway yeah, that one was a reach even before I realized the struck out part was obviously false.

@themasterds: Sorry I was confusing duke with Downs, the guy with the bullet bandolier on his Fedora.

He's talking about the two propaganda characters. You are talking about Preston E. Downes, the bounty hunter sent to kill Daisy Fitzroy who is persuaded by martyr!Booker to join the Vox Populi.

Turns out if you buy Hotdogs (or was it icecream?) on the main street of Soldier's Field the dude says "For you and your daughter." Which prompts Elizabeth asking how old Booker is to which he answers.

REALLY? Because this is my biggest problem with the game.

I had no idea booker was supposed to be, like, 40. I assumed he was supposed to be the same age as Elizabeth.

I don't know if this is foreshadowing, but I figured it out so i'm proud of it.

In Battleship Bay, where Elizabeth dances on the boardwalk, the song that is playing is a carnival-ized version of "girls just want to have fun". It threw me for a loop. Later on in the game, when you walk by Alan Fink's apartment which now has a gaping hole in the side and a tear inside, you hear the actual Girls Just Want To Have Fun track spilling out. Elizabeth states "Alan Fink! I love him! I wonder if he's inside". Which he is, dead. A voice recording from the ohter Fink, to his brohter, comments on how they've both been stealing ideas from what they see and hear inside the tears.

In the beginning of the game, there's a quote that says "The seed of the Prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountain of man" which is obviously referring to Elizabeth destroying New York.

He is pretty grey and grizzled on the box art

I'm not positive, but I think when you look past the baptist in the first part of the game, you can see the place where Booker was baptised/not baptised after Wounded Knee. It doesn't look anything like where Booker ends up after he wakes up from the vision of New York being attack after being baptised.

An 18 year old PI and war vet known to be in a battle that took place in 1890 and the game takes place in 1912? Granted you do not know about his past about Wounded Knee until later you should at least put Booker in his 30's with him being in debt from gambling and being a PI.

Right. When I say "same age" I mean "within the age where they are contemporaries and not of different generations." I assumed Booker was in his early thirties and Elizabeth was in her twenties. Certainly not father/daughter material.

The bottom line is that, specifically with lines like "so is there a woman in your life mr. dewitt?" I thought there was supposed to be a romantic angle brewing between them right up until they're like "Booker is her dad!". It was Star Wars all over again.

Well it's not like this is the first time in the Bioshock franchise when the assumed age of characters threw off suspicions. Few would guess that Jack was a 4 year old.

@themasterds: Well he didn't have the body of a 4 year old at least.

There's a Comstock voxophone near the beginning where he says something like "I was reborn in the waters of baptism, but who is that sinner that was submerged?" which is some insanely significant foreshadowing that I didn't even register on the first playthrough.

The opening quote is

"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist..."

Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel - R Lutece, 1889

@damswedon: Yeah, crazy I as the player didn't put 2 and 2 together and realize the box was full of false memories, same as the box from Bioshock Original. It's just that this time it was a self delusion.

There's a lot of talk between people about washing away, forgetting what you've done. Slate asks Booker that and Booker assumes he's referring to the drinking. Later when Elizabeth asks how one washes away what they've done Booker delivers what for him was the answer. You don't. You just learn to live with it. Those moments and others, such as the "A choice is better than no choice Mr DeWitt" scene, just gain a lot more punch when you understand what decisions he made wrong and how he forces himself to live with it.

I thought it was nice that the gun Booker has in his little case in the beginning is the exact gun Jack has at the start of Bioshock 1.

exept it wasn't. The only reason the bounty hunter/assassin calls Elizabeth by another name is to verify that she's really the girl they're looking for. The Anna/Annabelle thing is just a dumb coincidence. Think about it for 2 seconds, how would she know the real name of Elizabeth when I'm not even sure Comestock is aware of it. What would the assassins gain by calling her by her real name aside from blowing their cover?

@pyrodactyl: In fairness I'm sure they were aware of it when writing the scene. They probably thought of it as a hilarious coincidence.

I think your confusing the meaning of the word foreshadowing

@pyrodactyl: True that the assassin definitely didn't know she was really Anna and just said a random name, but I'd bet the writers chose the name "Annabelle" as a sort of foreshadowing of what you find out at the end of the game.

Meta-forshadowing is kind of a dumb concept when you think about it. In this particular instance, the forshadowing only works if you analyse the game from the writer's perspective and also say ''well Annabelle kind of sounds like Anna so it must mean something''. Diving that deep into theory and meta-meaning that soon into the game is kinda weird and I would say it's a weak point of the writing if it's intensional.

From pretty early on they kinda drop hints as to watch the Lutece "Twins" are, or at least that they're not what they seem. For instance when you receive the telegraph from Lutece, there's a telescope to the left and if you look at the platform below you there's nothing there, but once you look through the telescope you can see them both there while Robert is juggling. And once you exit they're no longer there, even if you re-enter the telescope. And also if you attempt to shoot either of them while in the Blue Ribbon bar they have dialogue about you missing up to six shots, then they say "We can afford to do this all day." "The question is, can you?". Granted, you can't kill anyone that's central to the plot but I believe they're the only ones with witty dialogue about it.

There's a lot of foreshadowing involving them referencing the fact that they've done this before. From their whole exchange in the boat. "One doesn't go into an experiment knowing one has failed." to "No, he doesn't row.". And then then you ringing the first bell once and the second and third twice (1-2-2), and then there being 122 counts of heads on the blackboard.

And the song "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" playing when you enter the church and Elizabeth singing it when you played the guitar.

Wow, this went on for longer than I wanted. Sorry, I just love this game lol.

@btothedon: I never understood why they emphasised on the word 'doesn't' in the sentence "No, he doesn't row".

One little detail I really like is in the boat in the beginning, you don't wear a raincoat. At first kinda obvious, of course the wouldn't model a raincoat for your character for the opening couple of minutes but as it turns out, you've been pulled from another reality straight into a rainy night.

@jazgalaxy: Kinda late to this thread but there's some nice foreshadowing in the lyrics of Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun, even if they're not in the instrumental in-game version:

"Some boys take a beautiful girl

And hide her away from the rest of the world

I want to be the one to walk in the sun

Oh girls they want to have fun"

Not so much "foreshadowing" as a nice description of Elizabeth as the game progresses.

@probablytuna said:

The most brilliant line in the game. Here's the dialog from that specific part:

ROSALIND: Perhaps you should ask him. I imagine he has a greater interest in getting there than I do.

ROBERT: I suppose he does, but there's no point in asking.

ROSALIND: Why not.

ROBERT: Because he doesn't row.

ROSALIND: He doesn't row?

ROBERT: No, he doesn't row.

When Robert says that line the first time, Rosalind assumes that he's describing some fact about Booker in general. Similar to saying, "He doesn't drive." When he repeats himself with the added emphasis, Rosalind then understands that he's not describing a characteristic of Booker's, but rather describing how that exact scene has played out before.

Their whole conversation in the boat is about how Rosalind thinks the "thought experiment" is futile, but Robert is hopeful, thinking that something could make the timeline change. So they've seen this scene play out before, and all those times, Booker didn't row.

Ok gotcha, thanks.

One of the very first voxophones you find from Comstock come from one of his sermons or whatever, and he's talking about how men become entirely different people after a baptism, and he even makes a reference to the version of Booker that WE know, in saying that the original man still exists in sin in another world, or something to that extent. That was a pretty amazing realization on my second playthrough.

@themasterds said:

• God Only Knows is about not being able to imagine an alternate reality where you weren't with a lady or whatever. Sort of relates.

I take it to be about Booker's feelings about having his daughter kidnapped. I kind of imagine that song going alongside the visuals of baby Anna being taken away from Booker, through the tear, and she's lost to him. Also 'God' could be the player because we are the only ones who could know about it at the time the song is heard, on a second playthrough

i didn't notice that thing about her being called Annabelle though, that's a good one

I noticed this. When Booker is inside the monument

and first sees Elizabeth through the glass, she turns toward him then acts like she got a paper cut on her finger (and she's holding a piece of paper). So I assumed it was a paper cut. Now I see it's her thimble finger, and it was hurting her because, unknown to her, she had first near proximity with Booker in that world

When you choose the bird, the female Lutece said she expected the cage because in her world Comstock is bad and keeps her caged, but the male Lutece says he expected the Bird because his Booker is good and is trying to free Elizabeth

Vaauge one, but Elizabeth says something about how positive it would be if the people armed themselves and had a revolution, 'just like in Les Miserables!' but in Les Miserable that does not work out and most of them end up dead...the parallel world levels confused, me but I think it doesn't end well, also all of Columbia ends up burning anyway. Maybe in that world Les Mis had a different ending but so Elizabeth hoped it would go well.

Not really foreshadowing but, if she likes Victor Hugo, maybe she's a fan og to his other work 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' because she also outcast being raised from a baby in a tower above the city by an overzealous 'father'.

In the Welcome Center, right after your arrival, you see a big statue of Comstock with open arms. He is wearing the same tie/scarf thingie as Booker. You can also see part of his vest underneath his coat. It's so obvious I can't believe I didn't recognize it the first time...