And here we are at last
-- the ending. Where to begin, where to
begin.
Warning: it all ends here, folks. If you’re ready to take the plunge, read on.
19) The ending, and everything it entails.
All right. Let’s start with Comstock. Booker and Elizabeth finally have their big
face-off with the guy on his personal airship, and as you’d expect, it doesn’t
go well in his favor. Booker bashes his
head in and drowns him, but not before Comstock can smugly suggest that
Booker’s keeping a secret from her and that neither of them know the truth; the
crux of all this, of course, is the mystery of Elizabeth’s missing finger. Granted my instinctual reaction was calling
Elizabeth out for starting to mistrust the guy who’s solely responsible for
letting her free, saving her life on more than one occasion, and allowing her
to see her “parents” in full, but I’ll let it slide for now. There’s a battle to be won, and truth to be
had.
So the duo uses the
airship to head for The Siphon, the destruction of which will apparently allow
Elizabeth to know what’s really going on.
The Songbird swoops in to try and beat them down, but thanks to a
last-minute save by Elizabeth, its loyalties change and it becomes a weapon on
your behalf. And you use The Songbird to
strike down any enemies coming your way in airships, in what one could
charitably call the final boss fight (congratulations! You get to fight some more dudes…except
there’s A HUNDRED OF THEM!). Once you
get through that, you order The Songbird to strike down The Siphon, so that
Booker and Elizabeth can get to the bottom of this and ensure that Comstock’s
plans are 100% ruined instead of a paltry 65%.
So the next thing you
know, Booker and Elizabeth, and even The Songbird, aren’t in Columbia anymore. They end up in a new area. Or relatively new, at least.
They’re in Rapture.
The Songbird -- whose
weakness is water, and water pressure -- ends up outside the safety of the
city, and has no choice but to welcome death.
With that done, Booker and Elizabeth head on their way and end up at a
lighthouse…and not long after, a sea with hundreds upon hundreds of
lighthouses. This, to some extent, is a
plot twist: the “Infinite” in BioShock Infinite refers to the fact
that there are infinite worlds out there, with each one related by certain
connective tissue: “a man, a lighthouse, a city”. It’s a bit of fourth-wall interaction, I’d
argue, in the sense that the game is implying that there’s potential for as
many BioShock games as the devs can
think up. They have the grounds to spin
what was once a self-contained adventure into a full-on franchise. (In your face, Beyond Good and Evil!)
That’s a twist that I can deal with, buuuuuuuuuut that’s not the full
extent of it.
In addition to multiple
worlds, there are also multiple versions of multiple worlds; in fact, while
Booker is having this explained to him by a fully-clairvoyant Elizabeth outside
a lighthouse, you can see another Booker having the same conversation with
another Elizabeth outside another lighthouse.
So in other words, there are multiple Columbias, multiple Elizabeths,
and multiple Bookers. And by extension,
there are multiple Comstocks -- so just because one of them is dead doesn’t mean
that all of them are. They have to
strike at the root. They have to find
the point where Comstock was born and do what needs to be done…even if that
comes down to smothering his newly-born self instead of an old man with a righteous beard.
Okay. If you’ve made it this far and you haven’t played
through the game for yourself, I’ll give you one last chance to back away. If you have any intention of playing the game
for yourself -- if you want to go through it, then come back here for the rest
of the discussion -- then do so now.
This is the point where I reveal the real plot twists…and the point
where Infinite, in my eyes, very
nearly turns into a joke.
If you want to turn
back, turn back. Close the page. Maybe go find some improbably buxom women
online…or in real life, for that matter.
Go. Get outta here.
…
…Are you still here?
Are you ready?
Okay. Here it is.
This is what I predicted as a joke, and this is what happens in the
game.
Booker DeWitt is really Comstock, and Elizabeth is Booker’s daughter
Anna.
This is what really happened. Booker DeWitt was, at one time, standing at a
point of divergence. That is, shortly
after committing atrocities at Wounded Knee, he decided to opt for baptism to
be purified, forgiven of his sins, find redemption, and be born again. In one instance -- the Booker you play as --
he chickens out at the last minute. In
another instance -- in another parallel world with the exact same circumstances
-- Booker goes through with the baptism, and ends up being born again and
adopts the identity of Comstock. And
Comstock (at least one of them, though I’d guess others did as well) ends up
discovering the research of the Luteces and uses it to start harnessing the
power of multiple universes to become a prophet and rise to power.
You with me so
far? Okay.
There’s an unintended
side effect to Comstock engaging in space-time shenanigans, though: he ends up
becoming sterile. He does his best to
cover up the secret (by any means necessary), but in the end he decides to opt
for extreme measures. If he can’t have a
child, then he’ll just have to take the child from one of his alternate selves
-- so the whole “bring us the girl and
wipe away the debt” bit is actually one of the Luteces (under Comstock’s
orders) telling Booker to hand over his then-baby daughter Anna. In the midst of an ensuing struggle, Anna
ends up getting dragged out of Booker’s reach, and pulled into a tear; it
closes on him, separating the two and chopping off one of the baby’s
fingers. So with a little help from the
Luteces, Booker ends up going on a mission to reclaim his daughter, but under
the guise of a simple bounty -- because Booker, either through his own
space-time shenanigans or his own grief-bred denial, deludes himself into
thinking it’s as simple as that.
Still with me? Good.
By this point, it’s
safe to assume that Booker’s figured out what’s really going on, even if the
player hasn’t. He’s still eager to
smother the life out of Comstock, even though he knows what’ll happen. So he ends up at the site of his purification
-- Comstock’s birth -- but doesn’t run his elderly alter ego through the
water. Instead, it’s Elizabeth -- and
multiple versions of her, no less -- that do the deed. They drown Booker, killing him and bringing
his life, and Comstock’s, to an end. So
one by one the Elizabeths that have shown up start disappearing one by
one. And with that, the game ends with a
sudden cut to black…outside of a later cutscene where Booker walks through a
door in his office and asks for Anna.
Okay. Did you follow all that? Read it again if you didn’t. Or just find a video of it on YouTube,
because even I’m not sure I’ve got all the particulars straight. I think I have just enough of it straight,
though. I know, because this ending is…
Well, I won’t say it’s
a bad ending, because it isn’t. It’s just extremely problematic, and I can
understand why people might take issue with it.
One of my issues with it is a fairly simple one: doesn’t it mean that the entire game was completely pointless?
I hope you’ll forgive
my two-dimensional thinking here, but wasn’t I supposed to be accomplishing
something here? Well, to be fair I do,
but I didn’t want to accomplish something like this. Killing Booker might kill off an incalculable
amount of Comstocks (and an incalculable number of Elizabeths by extension),
but doesn’t that mean that an incalculable number of Columbias have immediately
been erased as well? What about the good
those cities might have brought, even underneath all the horror and racism? It’s a nightmarish place, yes, but it’s a
world that’s significantly more advanced than its 1912 contemporaries. What if its presence and its isolation ended
up being the key to creating a brilliant new world or technology? What if one of the Comstocks wasn’t a madman
-- and what if the utopia he created ended up pretty cool?
It gets worse. The Booker at that divergence point was
responsible for giving birth to Comstock (potentially). Okay, THAT I get. But what about the other Bookers? They might have refused the baptism, yes, but
they’re still carrying the potential to be self-destructive, self-deluded
agents of chaos and upheaval. What if
there was another trigger that could turn Booker into Comstock -- or maybe
someone even worse than Comstock? What
about them? Why is one Booker killed,
while all the rest are allowed to keep living and make ruinous decisions?
Furthermore, the idea
is that every time you respawn it’s supposed to be a new Booker that’s gone
through the exact same motions to get to that point in the game (but makes a
different decision that lets him survive)…but if that’s the case, then doesn’t
that mean that Booker is entirely expendable?
I’m not saying he has to be some kind of chosen one, but isn’t that a
little extreme? What purpose does this
character serve in the grand scheme of things if he’s just a replaceable
murderer who loves bad decisions and guilt trips? Is he just there to put his daughter through
hell?
And with that in mind,
what does that mean for Elizabeth? I’m
thankful that there’s no romantic tension between the two of them (though
that’s probably debatable), but as a father-daughter team doesn’t that make
things incredibly complicated? How many
Elizabeths ended up getting put through hell because of Booker’s reckless
decisions? How many different forms of
torture did she end up enduring -- and how many of them died before Comstock
got a preferable result? Even if one of
the Bookers ended up keeping one of the Annas, what’s stopping a
clearly-irrational, clearly-irresponsible father like him from screwing up his
daughter with drunken violence? By
extension, how many Elizabeths ended up getting their minds warped by the
violence dear old dad exposed her to on a regular basis? Can you really say it’s a surprise for
Elizabeth to think that backstabbing Daisy Fitzroy is the only option when
Booker thinks that grinding up the face of an innocent police officer is A-OK
and devoid of consequences?
And again, all of this
business not only complicates Comstock, but makes him look like an idiot. What the hell was his plan throughout all
this? If his plan was to have Elizabeth
discover the truth and kill ALL the Comstocks (or at least try to), what was
the point of Columbia? What was the
point of building up the world, the ideology, the technology, all of it? If Comstock just wanted to die, then why
didn’t he do so himself? Why take the
most circuitous path possible? And if he
DIDN’T want to die, then why would he ever bring up the possibility of the
truth to Elizabeth? If he’s a genuine
prophet, why did he let everything play out exactly as he hoped? What DID he hope for? If he knew about multiple worlds, why not
just jump into a world where everything was up to his standards? Why not off one of the Bookers and take his
place? Come to think of it, what was the
thought process that led Comstock from “born again man” to “LAMB LAMB PURITY
PROPHET FAITH PROPHET DEVIL LAMB BLOW UP THE WORLD?” Is it just because Booker was an inherently
violent person, and that carried over to Comstock? Wouldn’t being born again at least help remove those thoughts?
This is starting to
make my head hurt.
All right. I’ll admit that there’s probably a lot of
content I’m missing here. I’m almost
certain I didn’t get all the audio logs, and even then I only remember so much
from those I did collect. I’ve only
played through the game once, and if I went through it again I would be able to
pick up on details I missed earlier.
Motivations, interpretations, all that and more. And even then, it’s very likely that this
isn’t the kind of ending you’re supposed to nitpick. This is the reveal, and you’re supposed to
live with it. Don’t think too hard about
it.
Except there are two
problems with that mindset. First of
all, you have to think too hard about
it because the rest of the game encourages, invites, and rewards thought. As it should; you’re supposed to think for
yourself and come up with some sound conclusions -- about the world, the nature
of man and society, of politics and personas.
Shrugging off all the particulars and going “Huh-hyuk, you sure fooled
me!” is antithetical to everything Infinite
stands for. There’s some futility to
thinking too hard on the particulars, but they’re all more than justified.
The second and biggest
problem is one that I have to frame as a question: are the plot twists for this
ending really necessary? Is the ending
as it is really necessary? As it stands,
I’m inclined to say no, it isn’t
necessary. BioShock and BioShock
Infinite are games about “a man, a lighthouse, and a city”. You’re hardwired to expect a twist, yes, but
the focus -- the entire reason for playing the game -- is being able to explore
and engage with the world on display. And
for 99% of Infinite, you do. That’s what we wanted. That’s what we needed. The motif is not “a man, a lighthouse, a
city, and a plot twist that potentially renders a good dozen hours of effort
and exploration pointless”.
The game is about the
flawed but fascinating world of Columbia, but the fact that we don’t even get
to see what becomes of it thanks to Booker and Elizabeth’s space-time
shenanigans is jarring. The same goes
for Elizabeth, for that matter; have all those moments between her and Booker,
even those within the last five minutes of the game, been invalidated? What about Booker, and what he’s learned and
been through? What about Comstock? What about Fitzroy, Slate, Fink, The
Songbird? Am I just supposed to believe
that they’re all in a better alternate universe now?
I don’t buy it. Not in the slightest. I’m not saying there has to be 100% narrative
closure, or some kind of goofy “where are they now” montage; I’m saying that if
you’re going to provide a strong context -- one of the most intriguing worlds
around with one of the best characters gaming has had in a while -- then you start in that context, and you finish in that context. The first game had that right; even with the
whole “would you kindly” twist, it existed with, and worked alongside the
narrative. It changed your perception of
events, but it did so without booting aside the context of the game.
Rapture was still a key
player, as were the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters, and all the rest. For Infinite
to skip merrily away from that lesson seems ill-fitting. Sure, it’ll probably make more sense if you
play through the game and find all the audio logs, but what if you don’t want
to? What if you liked the game as it was
so much that you stopped caring about the plot twist -- that Columbia and its
characters as they appeared were all you wanted? How would you feel if you were enjoying and
digesting a book in one way, but then when you reach the final pages the text
says “Nope, sorry. You’re wrong, and
here’s why. But don’t worry -- if you go
back and look over everything again with this
and this and that in mind, you’ll appreciate the ending a lot more. Trust me on this.”
You went too far, Infinite.
You went too far. Don’t pull
me out of the world to get metaphysical on me, and then show me that it was not
only pointless for my Booker to do anything in the game, but that it’s
pointless for thousands of other Bookers to do the same. Otherwise, people are going to get mad at you
and say the ending sucks.
But in spite of that
little spiel --
Hold on, I need to go
smoke a McMansion’s weight in cigarettes.
In spite of that little
spiel, I still don’t think that Infinite’s
ending is worth any hate. It’s
irritating, sure, but again, it all comes down to a matter of preference. I know what I prefer, and what I got with Infinite isn’t it…but damned if I’m not impressed. It takes guts and ingenuity to make an ending
like this, and in that regard I can’t help but applaud. They took a risk, and while I don’t think it
worked as well as the developers might have hoped, I still think it’s
serviceable. It’s still more than enough
to get people thinking, and talking, and posting glowing praise or blind fury
on their blogs.
…It still pisses me
off, though.
20) You can probably do better than
this…but not for a while.
I hope they don’t make
any more BioShock games.
Okay, that’s not
entirely true. I will gladly accept one more game in the franchise -- one
that manages to fix the perceived shortcomings of the gameplay, if nothing
else. They really have done a great job
with this game, but I’m worried the developers only have so much steam in
them. Where are they going to set the
next city, if not under the sea or in the sky?
Underground? On a mountain? A volcano?
You can only get away with so many analogues to established characters; Infinite cribbed off of Big Daddies and
Little Sisters and Andrew Ryan, but if they do it a third time without a sense
of awareness then the veneer will start to wear down. We got our second verse. If they do a third, it either has to be
significantly different or have its references so subtle that it’s difficult to
draw the parallels.
But the reason I say
“no more BioShock games” is because
Ken Levine and company have real talent.
Foresight, reason, creative vision, the works; they’ve done some good
work here, and as such they’ve more than earned the right to branch out. In making Infinite,
my fear is that they’ll be forever constricted to the franchise label, and
their eventual successors -- or the team itself -- will run the name into the
ground. Essentially, I think it’s time
for them to move on. Make something
new. What would be their take on
fantasy, for example? A game set in the
seventies, maybe? I don’t know about
you, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them dipping into some kind of high school
comedy (assuming they don’t make a Big Daddy a star player…no wait, that’d
actually be kind of awesome).
The point is that these
guys and these games have shown us the power of creativity. Granted that creativity can go a little
haywire, but for what it’s worth the product they’ve offered is more than
satisfactory. I’m satisfied, and
thankful that it exists. Is it
perfect? No. Not even close. But I like it a lot. And so do others. Intellectual bankruptcy isn’t even a concern,
so long as a game like this exists.
Then again, this isn’t
the only game that encourages thought and dissection. Nor is it the only game that’s worthy of
accolades. It’s the newest, yes, but
it’s not the greatest. What is the greatest might be subjective --
and spark lots and lots and lots of
arguments -- but I’m guessing you’ve already have an example in mind. There’s a game out there that got your mind
whirring, and whirring even more than Infinite
ever could.
But even with that in
mind, Infinite is an important
game. I’ve played thoughtful titles
before, but I suspect that there are those that haven’t. There are those that haven’t embraced the
potential of video games -- those who think they can only be a certain way, or
do a certain thing. And I’m not just
talking about eight-year-olds who con their parents into grabbing them the
latest version of CoD; I’m talking
about people from all walks of life with even the vaguest connection to the
industry. If you’re reading this post,
there’s no doubt you’re doing so with an open mind, because by default you have
an open mind. But the key to opening
one’s mind is a spark. In a lot of
cases, all it takes is one powerful moment.
A shining example. A good story.
And BioShock Infinite provides in full. But don’t take my fifteen thousand words for
it. Try it out. Try it again.
And most of all? Think for
yourself.
Do it for her.
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