(SPOILERS) Elizabeth as the villain

[DuperMan]

While the Comstock iteration of DeWitt made choices that ultimately led great international strife and sponsored scientific research that endangered not only his world but a nice fat bunch of universes, he isn't depicted as doing wrong for it's own sake. He comes off as oblivious to the true harm the Luteces' research might cause (entire worlds collapsing instantly as deliberate intervention in their common past-state undone their very being, past present future and Platonic Idea).

The Luteces and Elizabeth on the other hand make a moral choice, undoing the good and the bad. Elizabeth is the worse offender as she does it purely for personal gain (while the Luteces worked under the veneer of scientific pursuit at first, then once transformed to purely transcendental beings, intellectual pursuit). It is hinted she allowed her father to kill himself dozens of times (either spiraling down due to her loss or his iterations as Booker and Comstock destroying one another. Heck, you must kill yourself to finish Infinite in a sense) and she appears perfectly appreciative of this fact when at her creepy little doorway universe (yes, one filled with doors and lighthouses).

Are we to take it at face value that the Randian objectivism from the first Bioshock is valid and absolves her of any responsibility for the great grief she caused knowingly time and again under the stated intent of moving to another city?
How is she not a literaly world shatteringly spoiled brat?

The Luteces are nearly on par with the monster as they see nothing unreasonable about living as a universe collapsing abomination (by the nature of Lutece's union with him/her self the must weaken or even collapse any particular reality upon which they inflict themselves. I refer to Lutece in the Plural form for clarity but Lutece are different aspects of one person, insofar as same reading can be applied to DeWitt/Comstock). The common good dictates both Lutece must terminate itself.

One last thought: Was I the only one who found the game inconsistent about agency/selfness?
Some people are morphed into a normal part of the universe either Liz or the Luteces kidnap them into, effectively becoming their doppelganger, while others are inexplicably immune to this effect. Curing nosebleeds with willpower doesn't cut it.
That is my argument. My opinion is that the multiverse presented is a landscape whose dimensions correspond to choices, decisions, regret and one's curiosity regarding the paths he or she did not take rather than the height depth width and time composing our space. a bit of a "take a left at one o'clock". Still, to settle this view, the sci-fi aspect must imply at quantum consciousness (since Lutece difference of gender is a matter of chance, not of choice). This mushing together the multiple-universes interpretation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle with Randian individuality (a.k.a Mill's Utilitarianism) as well as - well - garden variety Deepak Chopra style misunderstanding of quantum theory (a.k.a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about quantum consciousness) degrades the science fiction aspect a lot.

Oh well :)
Your opinions?

[senseidongen]

I'm not sure about Elizabeth being the villain - you make a valid point but I'm not convinced that every universe they visit will collapse and that the consequences would be exactly as you imagine, but I'd be interested to hear more...

Also, with regard to the idea of selfness and so on, Infinite is definitely narratively ambitious and I like the following quote from a different ongoing thread about this game

Originally posted by Otherhand:

How dry would it be if, for instance, all sci-fi stories about time travel had to comply with the rules of one fiction? Suppose the academic world liked Primer's version best, and every time travel story had to follow its rules - so no Doctor Who, no Star Trek, no "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells, no "All the Time in the World" by Arthur C. Clarke, no "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury? Each creates its own parameters and then plays within them for entertainment, some more satisfying than others. Never mind scientific rigour: Doctor Who clashes with its own narrative quite often, but it's okay. We roll with it for other rewards than slavish persistence. Each fiction includes the handwaves it needs, but God knows there are worse offenders. Looper was total crap in terms of mechanical narrative *and* it failed to be entertaining. Science is a vehicle for sci-fi plots, but its not the most important thing.

Inconsistent at times, possibly, but definitely unique and interesting (in my view).

[riftmagik]

That make sense

[tspendragn]

Elizabeth is not so much a villian as she is unable to see all the doors shes opening before she does it. It isn't until the siphon is destroyed that she can see where she is going. With each door, she enters another universe which gets progressively worse for everyone except for the Vox. She gets them the weapons by opening holes that make them more heavily armed and destructive, while the Founders become unable to fight effectively against the Vox. The end result is the destruction of Columbia. The Luteces on the other hand have a pretty good idea where their tears are going, since they know how to get to the universe where Comstock can get his hands on Anna.

[DuperMan]

Originally posted by tspendragn:

Elizabeth is not so much a villian as she is unable to see all the doors shes opening before she does it. It isn't until the siphon is destroyed that she can see where she is going. With each door, she enters another universe which gets progressively worse for everyone except for the Vox. She gets them the weapons by opening holes that make them more heavily armed and destructive, while the Founders become unable to fight effectively against the Vox. The end result is the destruction of Columbia. The Luteces on the other hand have a pretty good idea where their tears are going, since they know how to get to the universe where Comstock can get his hands on Anna.

I like this. You let me keep my paradigmatic liberal/humanitarian "no gods/tyrants are good" knne-jerk reaction while absolving the hot girl and hinting at a notable infinity (obviously smaller than the majority but still infinite by definition) of non-daughter-selling DeWitts :)
senseidongen: Personally I could do with less Bradburry ;) but good point all the same.I find answering the first part of your reply harder as the game just didn't make it clear enough to me wheather a collapsed universe undoes unique self-aware agents or rather melds their psyche with other iterations of them. I would consider the first option an imperative, objective "evil", the very definition of morally wrong (unless done for pragmatically maintaining a greater good.Yup. Good Intentions without a beneficial outcome won't sway my halfassed objective absolutist moral judgement). The second option leads to a more lenient (i.e hardly any harm done) conclusion, but the game just wasn't clear enough to make a ruling. It's narrative remains inductive of either or a finer "per case" happenstance. I sure hope future entries into the franchise coup out - were we not in agreement about the game's narrative being compelling I'd have been daft to write such screeds :)
I disagree about science being only a vehichle in sci-fi though. I consider sci-fi that's too much in the realm of "soft sci-fi" to inspire equal amounts of kids to dabble in fiction as it entices to become scientifical researchers to be science-themed fantasy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

zardzei: I concur. I rock. :)

[senseidongen]

Haha well I wasn't vouching for his taste in sci-fi :P I understand where you're coming from and you're quite right, I think it just it bothers me less perhaps... I'm happy to assume (until told otherwise) that each world they visit isn't destroyed. I do agree that the quality of the narrative (and game overall) does help me overlook some of the dodgier sciency stuff.

[Mr. Big]

Very Good but I didnt find elizabeth to be a brat. But hell some people thought she was annoying while others thought she was helpful so I wont critic it. But I must say I honestly thought when she drowned you was kind of meh. There could have been a lot of emotion between the 2 a lost daughter and father hugging right before the drowning. But I must say Bravo to you.

[Ivlichnov]

*major Spoilers ahead.*

Booker is desperately just trying to keep up with events. For most of the game Elizabeth is swept along by events and is just learning about the perils of going through tears. The Lutece's are the ones trying to engineer an ending. They have already been scattered across time and space by Comstocks meddling.

It’s difficult to make moral judgements because when Comstock is removed from the timeline, then presumably, so is the city of Columbia and so all the people on Columbia would presumably have lived different lives elsewhere.

And you have got to look at what Elizabeth went on to become when/if she became Comstock’s heir. The Lucets saw that coming with the line “The girl is the flame that shall ignite the world” and were trying to prevent the "mountains of man being drowned in flames."

And as for the ending, It was a very somber Elizabeth that lead him to the door and then asked if he really wanted to go through with this.

[DuperMan]

Pardon my slight hiatus - I'll be back spread tentative fud in full force around midway next week minions :)

[Ivlichnov]

*Major Spoilers*

Also, this you tube video nicely tells a story of Elizabeth’s development through the game. I’m not sure if the troubled former soldier Booker was such a great role model for Liz.

Bioshock Infinite : Constants and Variables : Music video / Tribute (warning spoilers).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRz3QCYY0pE

[tspendragn]

Awesome video, Ivlichnov! It captures the spirit of the whole story, without giving away the story. I had to go back three times to take it all in!

Elizabeth is growing, developing throughout the story. By the end, she is no longer an innocent in a tower, but someone who has experienced the wickedness of the world. By the end, Booker isn't trying to rescue Elizabeth as much as Elizabeth is trying to rescue Booker. Theres a strange dichotomy in that Booker kills Comstock to save Elizabeth, and then Elizabeth in her many guises have to kill Booker to rescue him, sacrificing herself in the process.

The whole story is part morality play, part Greek tragedy, and a complete challenge to the way we tend to think of right and wrong. In the end, nobody is a saint, but no one is any more or less sinful than anyone else because of the things we allow to happen, or do to save ourselves. The choices we make, the actions we do, change everything whether we want it to or not. In the course of the game, everyone makes choices, and those choices create new worlds or destroy old ones. It is only our values that make us any better, and how we choose because of those values.

[kroosh]

I like that idea

[Ivlichnov]

Yeah, some nice thoughts there tspendragn.

I am interested to see where they take the character in the upcoming Burial at Sea DLC.

This appears to be an older Elizabeth, who I'm guessing like Booker before her, has had to learn to live with the things she has seen and done. I said that Booker wasn't a great role model.

[DuperMan]

Too late to start a "free season pass for those who bought Ultimate Songbird Edition" petition? ;)

[Dinerenblanc]

Originally posted by Ivlichnov:

Yeah, some nice thoughts there tspendragn.

I am interested to see where they take the character in the upcoming Burial at Sea DLC.

This appears to be an older Elizabeth, who I'm guessing like Booker before her, has had to learn to live with the things she has seen and done. I said that Booker wasn't a great role model.

Liz has matured a lot in the last few levels of the game, so it's not really surprising to see her the way she is.

[goishen]

I always hate these threads, and I always avoid them like the plague. If DeWitt had gone and lived in another dimension (let's call the dimension he came from dimension A and the one he went to dimension B) then there would be a whole yet of another universes that would spawn simply out of him being in dimension B and from him not being in dimension A.

It's way too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up for even theoretical physcists to talk about. Much less us.

There are 10^nth of available expressions of ourselves.

Even ones where we don't exist. Even ones where we're considered gods among men. Same with DeWitt. Same with everybody.

This is why I hate these kind'a threads. I s'pose the message of the game is... "Do what it takes to succeed. It doesn't matter if you ♥♥♥♥ over all your friends and family, as long as it makes you happy, go for it." Ya know? ♥♥♥♥ morality. Morality will take care of itself, just like it does in the game. Morality is a constant. Sure. Whatever you say, chief.