Discussion VideoGame / BioShockInfinite

I don't understand your simile, but your idea makes sense. They seem like they're going to be pretty different.

Though we may want to hold off in case there are particular similarities/trope reuse that we'd want to be able to directly contrast with vanilla Infinite.

Similar thing was done for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, so it's not a bad idea.

I'm actually considering splitting off Burial At Sea to it's own page, VideoGame.Bioshock Infinite Burial At Sea. It might be as bit overkill, but it's such a Genre Shift and has only a few tenuous connections to the main game (plot-wise; obviously, as a DLC, it has a couple big connections to the main game) that it is an option.

I really don't think that's necessary, especially since it's actually pretty heavily connected to the plot of the main story. At the very least, it's more or less meaningless unless you've finished the main story.

Well, I haven't actually bought it yet, so I guess I just have to take your word on that.

Oooh, glad I didn't say more. But I get the feeling that Episode 2 is going to be even more closely tied to Infinite.

Gonna get the Season Pass? It's a great deal if you're going to get both episodes.

That's the plan. I just heard that the cost to hours ratio wasn't very good, and I have enough of a backlog right now as it is that I can wait a couple months.

Yeah, it's not a good ratio. Honestly, I'd be bitter about spending $15 on it. I'd say $10 is... about fair, so getting both episodes plus some extras for $20 works for me.

Actually, I just checked, and the page is at 393617 words. Pages break at 500000, so we split them at 400000. I guess Burial at Sea is getting its own page pretty much by default. I'll do that shortly.

Split, indexed, and submitted custom title requests.

I think that Burial at Sea can warrant a separate page if someone is interested.

^ Yeah it's so big that it could be made into page like Bioshock Burial At Sea and move the content from the sub-pages could be a good idea

Maybe he had his shields down? Maybe the magnet shield the Lutece's give you is only activated reflexively in battle and he was caught unawares.

Theory: Given the fact that the Vigors are based on syphoned Elizabeth energy, it stands to reason that, for some reason or another, Elizabeth is immune to their effects. Also explains why you can't affect her with the Vigors in gameplay.

That said, it doesn't explain (spoilers for Burial At Sea) the fact the Bouncer's drill doesn't activate your shield. I mean, given how weak the shield is in the DLC it wouldn't have done anything, but it's still a bit odd.

That's one interpretation... but it's almost definitely untrue. It wasn't a time loop at all, Comstock just has Accelerated Aging due to messing with the tears so he looked a lot older.

See, that's what I thought, which is why this entry confused me. Oh well, just leave it deleted, then.

This was something that was supposed to be implemented in the final game, when Songbird had a MUCH bigger role. The devs talked a lot about how Elizabeth was going to be like this whenever you clashed with Songbird, and how their relationship was very much like a woman in love with a domestic abuser. It's not the case in the final product, what with Songbird's role decreased and Elizabeth only speaking fondly of Songbird once.

Feel free to cut it (I'll do it if no one takes a hack at it tomorrow, I'm very drowsy at the moment).

Seconded.

OK, it's now been almost a week and no response to this. If there isn't one in a day or so, I'm going to remove the link.

There's a mindfuck moment at the end of NGE where all the character stand around the main character and each say congratulations while clapping.

OK. Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it.

But I just watched the entire ending sequence, and no one used the word "congratulations." Nothing like the scene you described happened. There's the scene where all the Elizabeths say "smother," but that doesn't seem all that similar.

It's an imperfect comparison, but the principle is the same. It's just NGE is the only thing that's ever come close to the sheer balls-to-the-wall lunacy of the scene.

I guess, but without anything resembling Word of God that seems like a heck of a stretch.

That's just plain Fridge Horror, and I think it's on the Fridge Horror page.

That said, Booker's life is probably a little bit better without the interdimensional Jerkass version of himself breathing down his neck pressuring him to sell his daughter. I'd venture a guess that Comstock had something to do with how dire Booker's situation was.

No it's not actually, someone should put it up.

Huh. I'm sure someone's mentioned it somewhere on one of these... but yeah, put it up, definitely.

Basically, my interpretation is that Booker was a bad person before his baptism. Period.

Being born again meant that Comstock was "cleansed" of his sins and thus felt no need to actually change his wicked ways. But the Booker that rejected that cleansing actually faced his guilt and became a better person for it.

Then the Booker that became Comstock never really repented of his sins, which is part of what being born again entails...not just an erasure of past sins, but also a willingness to forsake a life of sin.

Exactly. I don't see it as Religion Is Evil because it's obvious that Comstock didn't follow the religion. He wasn't truly born again (I'm fairly certain that the game itself only uses the the word baptized, anyway)

In his mind, the baptism didn't cleanse him of his past sins so much as cleansed the "sin" from his past, if that makes any sense. It's why he glorified his role in Wounded Knee: to Comstock, what he did wasn't "sinful" anymore. In his mind, God gave him a thumbs up for what he did.

Plain and simple, you're wrong. You go to new dimensions. That's the way it's presented in the story, and that's the way we're keeping it. Elizabeth refers to it as going through the tear, not making changes/bringing things through.

Plus, the changes are way, way, WAY to severe to claim localized changes. What with the 2nd reality having the Vox being fairly underground (you haven't even seen a Vox yet) and the third being an all out open civil war.

The reason that there's no Elizabeth is because you're in a fourth dimension. You heard Old Elizabeth: it's too late for her. She can't send you back to her past, but to another, similar past.

Nope. Plain and simple, you are the one who is wrong. It is not presented as travel in the story, and Elizabeth refers to it as "opening" a Tear, not "going through" (or perhaps "going through with it", which has another meaning if I know my English). Please present reference (gameplay videos will do) if you are going to claim otherwise.

The massive changes that take place when Liz opens the tears with the weaponsmith or his tools are clearly foreshadowed by Booker: "you can't just bring one dead man back to life". It would have been ideal to do so, but at that point she wasn't fully in command of her powers, so she brought back more that they wanted. As a consequence, the Vox was not a small resistance movement because they had weapons. They had weapons because the smith was safe. He was safe because his white wife's brother was Chief of Security at FinkTech.

Old Elizabeth is a future version. She is "our" Elizabeth from the future, not the AltElizabeth that Comstock moved from the tower and thuse never met Booker. After Songbird captured her ("our" Elizabeth) and took her there, he also stopped Booker from saving her every time he tried, and as such she remained captive and was eventually indoctrinated. The implication for the shift that takes place on the bridge to Comstock House is one of time travel: after her siphon "collar" was turned off and she destroyed the world, "our" Liz reached back in time, plucked Booker out from 1912, brought him to 1984 (if memory serves), and showed him the Bad Future, then sent him back to 1912 inside Comstock House (thus bypassing Songbird completely).

Now, if she were a different version of Liz as you say, I think the writers would have given us a visual cue (Viewers Are Morons): different Elizabeths have slightly different appearances, as is made clear from a narrative standpoint in the ending sequence.

And before you say that Elizabeth cannot time-travel, I'd like to remind you that un-siphoned Elizabeth takes you on a tour of your own history. Old Elizatbeth is un-siphoned as well.

I can't understand why people claim "travel between universes" over "bringing pieces of them to here", when, during combat, Liz does the exact same thing as a game mechanic. The developers have clearly used it as a storytelling tool as well (no Gameplay and Story Segregation, I think).

Whoever wrote the Wikipedia article seems to agree with me.

And how does you version explain the half-dead-half-alive people?

Also, "that's the way we're keeping it"? Is there some sort of discussion or consensus on the matter? Or are you perhaps the bloody king o' TvTropes?

... yes, Old Elizabeth is a future version. No one said otherwise. However, my idea is that Old Elizabeth doesn't just send you back to her past, but a similar dimension, hence the changes.

The massive changes that take place when Liz opens the tears with the weaponsmith or his tools are clearly foreshadowed by Booker: "you can't just bring one dead man back to life". It would have been ideal to do so, but at that point she wasn't fully in command of her powers, so she brought back more that they needed. That goes both ways. That's foreshadowing that there is more different between the universes than just "Chen being dead vs Chen being alive." Like the Vox revolution.

I can't understand why people claim travel between universes over "bringing pieces of them to here", when, during combat, Liz does the exact same thing as a game mechanic. The developers have clearly used it as a storytelling tool as well (no Gameplay And Story Segregation, I think). That's exactly why people claim travel between universes (well, that and the fact that's what the characters said they're doing). We see Elizabeth bring things over from alternate universes all the time. Every time she opens a tear, that's what happens. What she does at the dimension-hopping points are clearly different.

And how does you version explain the half-dead-half-alive people? How does yours? It's that their (dead) selves in the original dimension gets sucked through the tear with Booker and Elizabeth and they begin to sync up. It happens to Booker himself when he begins to remember things that happened to Universe-3 Booker. This is also what's happening in your theory, except there's also massive, sweeping changes to all of Columbia as well.

Your theory just doesn't jive with the game. Occam's Razor is at work here. The characters explicitly mention going into the tear into the alternate realities, and that they won't be able to come back. Not "undo the changes," but come back. The narrative treats it as going to a new dimension, the vast majority of players see it as that. The burden of proof is on you. So to answer your question... yes, there is some kind of consensus on the matter.

Your theory seems logically inconsistent.

For instance, if the gunsmith jumps were just "pulling something in" instead of "walking into a new universe" why was there a massive change when you get to the "Martyr Booker" universe, and yet no such changes whenever you pull a "decoy Booker" in during a battle?

Why is the tear shown closing around you when you "jump", unlike when you open a battle tear? Why does the Rapture jump use the exact same animation of a tear closing around you? If Elizabeth is just pulling it in, why isn't Rapture falling out of the sky?

We see from the ending you can both pull something through a tear Like Robert Lutece or Anna or walk through a tear Like Comstock walking through to Booker's universe to take the girl. So why can't Elizabeth both pull something through a tear and walk through one herself?

There is no consensus. That is the point of this discussion. I am very upset about your deleting all of my changes to suit what is, at best, you own theory on the matter. Now, if you're the "creators" of the article or wrote most of it, you can say I did the same to you, but you deleted all of my changes while I made a proportionally small change to your vast (and well-written, for the most part) article. What you did was in very bad taste, ashlay.

If Old Liz sends you to another universe, then the Liz you've been fighting for all game and are meant to save is a monster who will die after killing everyone. That is insane, from a writing standpoint, it cancels out everything you did for "our" Elizabeth.

I don't think she can travel between realities, because she's crippled by the siphon.

A difference of special effect is not a proof of a different event taking place. "What she does at the dimension-hopping points" IS NOT "clearly different". I think it is the same thing, but Columbia-sized. The BIG TEAR doesn't "close around you"; it expands and overlaps a parallel Columbia over the one you're in. Little tears (combat ones) only open to let one small, causally insignificant thing through. Think of it as bringing a really big object into the world. OR, and this makes no sense whatsoever, if you're dead-set on this travel theory, then at least accept that the old 'verse ceases to exist. Think about it: we have no stake or emotional involvement in what happens in other Universes, so why should Liz (or we) care about the people there? Your article states that by point the focus of the story shifts from Columbia politics to Booker and Liz's story, but that does not mean that we're no longer involved with the Columbian's lives emotionally. Gamers might still care about that, and the writers would acknowledge that, not put us in a new reality and tell us "welp, it's not your problem anymore".

"How does yours? It's that their (dead) selves in the original dimension gets sucked through the tear with Booker and Elizabeth and they begin to sync up. It happens to Booker himself when he begins to remember things that happened to Universe-3 Booker. This is also what's happening in your theory, except there's also massive, sweeping changes to all of Columbia as well." How? What? Sucked through? Why would the tear suck others through and synch them up if it's just Booker and Liz who go through, leaving Old Reality behind? It is your theory which is logically inconsistent.

The massive changes are due to causality, and Liz not being able to bring one dead man through alive without also bringing in the events that led to that man being alive in the first place.

Liz might say "come back", and that might be an indicator of travel, but that may also be a figure of speech. From where I stand, the plot evidence of her bringing things in as opposed to travelling is overwhelming: what you propose is to make one superpower (bringing in, big & small) into two (bringing in & travel). That complicates the premise: Occam's Razor cuts both ways, so to speak.

The Rapture tear might be a recycled effect; at that point it is obviously clear that you're travelling, not bringing things in (it's actually the first instance of such), so I find your question about Rapture falling from the sky to be patronizing.

Decoy Bookers make little sense to me no matter how you look at it, so they're not an argument against my theory. Just what is she bringing in? An image, it seems, since it doesn't move around and just sits there looking clever.

"We see from the ending you can both pull something through a tear Like Robert Lutece or Anna or walk through a tear Like Comstock walking through to Booker's universe to take the girl. So why can't Elizabeth both pull something through a tear and walk through one herself?" BECAUSE OF THE SIPHON.

Also, for God's sake don't add spoiler marks. The discussion is hard enough to follow as it is. If a neophyte comes into the discussion section and hasn't finished the game they deserve to be spoiled.

I've asked Levine about the matter on Twitter. I doubt he'll answer a random nerdy tweet but I can't see any other way of settling the issue definitively. If he's as thorough as he seems with his story writing he'll have an answer. If you have another way to ask him, like an email adress, please give it to me and I will ask again.

Frankly, I think neither of you cares about article and story consistency (i.e. writing the truth), only about having what you wrote appear for everyone to see. Thus you deleted my edits. I urge you two to watch this video, which discusses some of the things we're talking of here. I don't think you will watch it though, because I don't think you don't care.

Any way you cut it, reverting your edits were justified. You made unilateral changes based on your theory that directly contradicts the general consensus. The fact there's already so many examples about how there are alternate timelines and the fact you asked permission to make the changes shows that the general belief is that they're dimension-hopping.

Elizabeth says when you go through the first tear "it's another world. Another Columbia." Not "things have changed in Columbia," but that it's another one. Both times Elizabeth specifically refers to "going into the tear," not just "opening" it or changing Columbia. After you go through the second tear, she says "in this world, you're a hero of the Vox." That's fairly cut and dry on the matter, in my personal opinion.

I say that what she's doing at the tears is different because the game and the narrative treats it as different. Elizabeth can tell that it's different and she's pushing her powers to do it. You say she can't dimensionally travel because she failed to do so to Paris in the beginning? That was within the device designed solely to contain and absorb her powers. Since leaving it (and/or Songbird wrecking half of it), it's explicitly stated that her powers have been growing. They're still limited by the siphon, but she is stronger.

I do agree that we can skip the spoiler tags. Especially since it's not like it was the longest game in the world.

"and the fact you asked permission to make the changes shows that the general belief is that they're dimension-hopping" Are you actually using my politeness to justify your point of view??

Consensus =/= truth.

No. I just used it to answer your question as to whether or not there's a consensus. You obviously know that there is.

I do not. I only acknowledged the article's viewpoint in its existence, I do not validate it as consensus. The article is not written by consensus (not that consensus validates falsehoods in the first place), it was written by one or two editors. Probably you two. I offered you the courtesy of defending your viewpoints in a proper discussion. You use that as validation for your viewpoint because, quite frankly, there's not much else you can use for argumentation.

I've presented ample evidence while you simply said "that's how we're keeping it because that's what everyone (read: I) thinks".

Do you really think the page was written by "one or two editors"? That's... out there. You can look at the page's history yourself. The fact that at least the dozens of editors on this page (and Headscratchers, etc), the Bioshock Wiki, and The Other Wiki (despite your claim earlier, it says "One tear leads them to a world where..." I only bring it up because you brought it up first, naturally) all seem to agree on the "you go through to other Universes" idea speaks more to a consensus than anything else. Any message board, any Let's Play, will mention you going through the tears to a new world. Why? Because that's what in-game characters explicitly say that you're doing.

I don't care about consensus, I only brought it up because you asked about it.

Honestly, you don't get extra benefit of the doubt from me for the way you've handled this. You unilaterally changed the page for what is, for all intents and purposes, a WMG (seeing as it directly contradicts the page itself, the wikipedia, and the current page). And you honestly lose massive points for your "CAPS LOCK EQUALS IMPORTANT" bits in your initial post.

Look, we've got to agree to disagree in the sense that I think I've made good points, you think you've made good points. But the tiebreaker here? It isn't consensus (... though that would be on my side), it's that the game blatantly says you go to new worlds and never questions that. It never does anything to suggest that that idea is wrong.

Technically she is because you could replace Elizabeth with a different character (say a small boy) with similar powers and the plot wouldn’t be much different. Not that anyone would want to but still.

It's not the 'she's a girl' that razorrozar7 is questioning, it's the definition from 'Living Macguffin'. Replacing Elizabeth with a different character with the same powers means that the new character is still affecting the plot by using the powers. Living MacGuffin has a quote saying "She could have been a briefcase and nothing would have changed in this movie."

If you took Elizabeth out, the game would be vastly different (and poorer) in result. She is definitely not a MacGuffin by the 'replace with any other object' test. "The Living MacGuffin isn't an inanimate MacGuffin made flesh (that's MacGuffin Girl), or a kidnapped Damsel in Distress or President's Daughter; what the Living MacGuffin is is a character who is quite free, in little to no danger, desperately sought after and out of the hero's reach. " She fights (Or did in the trailer, generally too busy DURING a fight to see what she's doing), she finds supplies for you during a fight, she revives you in a safe place if you go down. Definitely not inanimate or inactive.

I agree that if you lose Elizabeth that the game losses a lot, and there’s nothing saying a Living MacGuffin can’t be a character in their own right. But a Living MacGuffin is also something purely to be quested after and, ideally, remain out of the hero's reach until the climax. So no, Elizabeth isn't like that.

I'd say that she starts out as Living MacGuffin, but that's quickly dropped when you meat her and you start working together. Considering the plot is almost entirely about her and she and her actions do move the plot forward she’s really more of a heroic Heavy than anything. Is there a Trope for that?

Sorry messed up where to post.

Feel free to remove it if you don't think it applies. It was originally a Thread Mode-ish entry in Artistic License – History anyway.

I'm just throwing it out there. I kept seeing it pop up but I'm not sure what the Columbia Silver Eagles actually even look like, aside from being huge.

It's entirely possible to have done several of those things at the same time - gambling, alcoholism, Pinkerton detective agent...ing, and grieving. I'm not sure that Elizabeth's line about "grieving for twenty years" is wholly about Anna's loss. The Tears are between times as well as universes. And Booker's office says on the door that he's a Pinkerton Detective; he didn't start his own business. He would have had to have worked unlicensed, for one thing, and where would he have gotten the money?

...Also it occurs to me that this should probably be in Headscratchers, not Discussion.

I'd say yes, or at least move them all under the Trailers always Lie trope.

No worries. :D

Seems to be about the same as Eve. Each vigor uses more or less of the available Salt, (Possession you can use twice with your starting amount (before upgrades), Satan's Kiss you can use 4 times) The one you have ready will occasionally show a display of some sort. (Satan's kiss turns your hand into glowing coals, possession has a small ghost flit around it) So I'd say they do change your biology.