Hey guys. I dunno if I'm reading too much into this, but did anyone else get a sort of weird feeling about how the Vox end up being "worse" or "as bad" as Comstock?

At the beginning of the game we're shown that the racist white people of Colombia are oppressing all the black people and Irish people and everyone else because they think they are dirty rotten scumbags and savages and would just fuck everything up and ruin the purity. We hear whispers about the rebellion, etc.

Then we briefly meet (whatshername) the leader of the Vox for a second. Then later, we go through a tear to when the Vox take over the whole place and they are clearly making everything as bad if not much worse than original situation.

I just felt it was weird for two reasons:

1. We really don't know that much about the Vox or their leader. Their transition to evil scumbags feels really unearned; i.e. we don't really see what motivates them to become murderous assholes.
2. The whole idea of the unwashed masses being these sort of violent lawless brutes is a pretty common racial stereotype itself. It's kind of what those KKK Crow guys were all talking about closer to the beginning. I feel like the game just sort of plays right into this stereotype without putting it in any other context.

What do you guys think? Obviously race is a complex and controversial topic, so hopefully this thread doesn't get wacky.

Extremism is bad, no matter what side of the fence you stand on. That is one of the major themes of the story.

It's not like the rich folks or the police were particularly intricate or deep sets of characters, and you do get the entire Shantytown segment to sympathise with the plight of the Vox. Non-main characters in Bioshock are just written in broad strokes, it's the style.

I get the extremism is bad thing, that's clearly what they were going for with the Vox part of the storyline. I guess my point was for me it was a strange way to go because we don't really see why the Vox are (or become) so crazy. This is sort of what I was getting at in point (1) above.

Plus I found it a bit surprising given the heavy race themes at the beginning that the only minority characters in the game are the Vox, and they turn out to be the worst.

LackingSaint is right, the police and rich folks aren't particularly well set up specifically, but we do spend a good chunk of the beginning of the game getting to understand the society and the way it treats these people. I think because that part has a real world analogue (turn-of-the-century America taken to the max) we can sort of use that to draw on for our understanding of how the society gets so racist. I can't really think of a real-world analogue to the Vox that fits. It's certainly not representative of the actual civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s.

I should point out I'm not saying that Ken Levine / the game are racists or anything, I just think that these parts of the game were underdeveloped and I would have liked to explore it further.

You're not suppose to feel comfortable towards either side, both have the flaws, obviously if you feel towards one or the other, well that's probably not a good thing. You're supposed to be neutral towards both, if not - somewhat hostile. You're there for the girl, you're an outsider. This is also a different time, Just over a century ago, a lot has changed clearly. Just appreciate it for what it is, a game with some political and ethical background that puts the setting and mood. All being said, I would feel it would be ridiculous if everything was quite modernly appropriate in that setting.

It's pretty much fight fire with fight scenario, a theme that all bioshock games have, and somewhat of their previous entities had as well. If you're losing sleep over it, just wipe it all, its just a video game or a media, and you don't ever hear any brutally racist slander, except cracker once or twice - I never heard a big N or anything towards specific genders, except whore but I find it all acceptable, especially since I don't care.

@supapuerco said: