I'm curious what people's reactions are to the main message of the game which seems to be, in short, "You're a horrible person, trying to be better only made you worse, do the galaxy a favor and kill yourself."

Black people are bad.

What about that everyone can redeem them self? But the price may sometimes be to high?

interesting. I can see that.

That's really not the message of the game.

I just was listening to Sessler talk about it and he had a very intersting kind of take on the main message: controlling narrative.

So much of Columbia is built on that, from Comstock, Booker's mission, Daisy (the Vox message and how she handles Booker) and in the end, how Elizabeth controls the very world. There's a lot of meta aspects of it too.

You can read that into it, but regardless, Booker's story is that of a man who was known to be "bad."

He was a note-worthy killer at Wounded Knee who was called the white engine because he took grisly trophies from his kills. He tells elizabeth that he enjoyed it. He lies to elizabeth as easily as saying "good morning". He tricks her in an intent to kidnap her to hand her over to people he doesn't know to so they can do he-doesn't-know-what to her. He, if you choose to, murders people grizzly with his skyhook. He is completely unsympathetic to the the Vox or to the Founders. He gambled so much he can't pay back his debtors. He, if you choose to, steals anything he can get his hands on. There's very little redeeming about him aside from apparently being good looking, charismatic, and having sharp wit. Other than that, he's a complete monster and he feels that way about himself, too.

He wants to be forgiven so he accepts Christ and gets baptised. Or not. If not, he spends the next 20 years in his room drinking, gambling and stepping on workers for money as a pinkerton until he sells his own child. If he does get baptised, he becomes the world greatest evil and plans to destroy the entire planet. He can't even be good right.

And so in the end, his solution to everything is to go back and kill comstock as a baby. He was going to smother a baby in it's crib. then he realized that the person he needed to kill was himself.

His whole arc is basically that he was born evil and the only good thing he could ever do is kill himself.

Don't sell your kids or shit will go down.

If I were to say there's a message I would say it's more like 'Live with one's mistakes and use them to help you move forward. Don't rely on outside sources to ignore what has made you who you are.'

But I also don't think there's meant to be a message. It just is.

:O

If it says it will give you superhuman powers, chug it.

After everyone copied our moral choice system without improving on it at all we decided to say fuck all that and take away all the choice.

or shoot it into your veins

republicans and liberals are evil.

@jazgalaxy: I think it's "white injun," not engine. Injun was a racial slur against natives. He's being called a savage like the natives. And I think the game is also saying something about the cycle of violence and trying to stop it at its source (or whatever). Look at Booker and Comstock, the Founders and the Vox, etc.

I sort of agree with you. I think it's based a bit on the existential idea that you're responsible for your decisions. Booker knew he did wrong and knew he was wronging and knew he would wrong. He accepted responsibility and ended the cycle and he did it by killing himself. So I suppose I agree with you. You just make it sound really depressing lol.

<p>I thought the driving point of the whole game was regret and the lengths one will go to fix those mistakes.</p><p>Comstock achieved all these amazing things but the cost left him cancer ridden and unable to have an heir to his legacy.</p><p>Booker traded his child to clear away debt and spent the next 18 years or whatever of his life agonizing over the decision.</p><p>Even the the luteces (atleast the male) seemed to regret his decision in helping comstock and it cost him his life.</p><p>I'm still digesting the ending and am about to start a second play through, I just felt an overwhelming feeling of regret throughout the game.</p><p>I can't think of another game I have thought so much about, loved every minute of it.</p>

The Spanish and Indian home, who ran the iron horse?, culminated ruins domino, and come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave. Something about...she'll return in love with her liberty, just away from the non-believer.

Why are you paraphrasing SMiLE lyrics? And it's "columnated ruins domino".

I guess the good news is that the message of the story isn't at all political in nature. I entered the game thinking whether the game was going to be too preachy, but that never really happened.

Baptism may cause death.

If you become unstuck in time with an alternate-universe version of yourself, you can manipulate the whole of time itself. You just need to convince a sucker to do your work for you.

That religious beliefs are the root of all evil?

Personally, I think the game is about probabilities, the What If's. Look at the difference between Booker's life and Comstock's. Booker is a nobody and Comstock created Columbia. Everything that happens in Bioshock Infinite is only there because Booker decided to get baptized. In the timeline where he didn't get baptized, he turned into a poor drunk that amounted to nothing. One timeline had Columbia, the other had Booker's office.

This idea plays on the notion that even insignificant things can change everything. But we will never know what could have happened if we did this instead of that. I think the actual timeline in the game is that of Booker choosing not to be baptized. Perhaps he wishes he did, since he missed out on the salvation that eventually would have led him away from the poor state he was in. But in the end, Comstock's timeline caused so much pain and suffering, that the epilogue scene could be viewed as a happy ending despite Booker still being in a very bad state. We all know what could've happened or rather, what happened.

'Cause they remind me of BioShock Infinite. :)

I feel like if the Bioshock series has any political message specifically, it's one of rejecting people who promise utopia, and rejecting the political extremes of all sides, preferring, rather, a sort of mildly social democratic approach to society.

White people suck

Baptism's will cause you to sell you daughter to yourself, and steal her back from yourself.

That's a part of it, but not the real focus. Ultimately it's the story of Elizabeth with suggestions that America was never as great as people think, and that power and religion is bad. All the interdimensional travel stuff is really just there to create a more interesting story and to accommodate game mechanics while addressing plot problems.

MP gaming can take an unconventional form and even have meaning in a single player experience without ever being connected "in-game". Infinite is so meta...

The message of Columbia (and Rapture as well): The downfall of taking any idea/philosophy to it's extreme.

@jazgalaxy said:

His whole arc is that there is redemption - but it requires not just acknowlidging your fault, but also repentance and acceptance. Both Comstock and Booker don't realize it - Comstock believed in "cheap grace" and thought that the baptism will wash everything away. When that didn't happen, he slowly became consumed by self-loathing and created himself a philosophy where he could be justified and excused for everything. Similarly, Booker knew that the baptism wouldn't do shit and that he's a fundamentally bad man, but he never accepted himself for what he is nor tried to do anything about it, believing that there is no such concept as "grace".

Him saying that "he's both" is not just a tomato surprise moment, it's also acceptance. He accepts himself as a sinner and does the first step at making amends - a sacrifice. This concrete Booker stops existing, but he ensures that all the Comstock bullshit will never happen and that the resulting Booker will receive a crash-course on his mistakes after the universe sorts itself out.