Having just been released last Tuesday, the first wave
of players will be watching the credits roll in Bioshock Infinite about now,
and I assume for the most part their faces will be slack with confusion as they
attempt to piece together the events that transpired over the course of the
game. I don't intend to give my review of the game here, though suffice to say
I found it entrancing enough to warrant a lot of thought, nor do I intend to
work through the many mechanical ambiguities of the dimension traversing
narrative (by the very nature of the story it's excessively hard to tell what's
a plothole and what isn't). Rather, what I recognized to be the most compelling
component of the game wasn't the admittedly uneven plotting and characterization;
it was the degree to which these things actually fit into an overarching
metaphor. Despite what appears to be evidence of the plot of the game changing
significantly over the course of its development, all the pieces end up fitting
together into an incredibly pleasing thematic whole, and I feel like both the
degree to which the choices made in the design of the game are influenced by
the intended social commentary and the originality of the presentation are both
completely unprecedented in games as a medium.
WARNING: SPOILERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN
THE GAME.
I've already witnessed a number of complaints from
people who seem to believe that the social commentary aspect of Columbia is
dropped half-way through the game when it begins to shift its focus onto the
more personal story of Booker and Elizabeth. I'd argue that the first half of
the game is simply setting the stage for the actual social commentary to
follow. I imagine that many, if not the majority, of people who play through
the game will fail to understand what Bioshock Infinite's message is. The game
has a number of very clear and jarring statements that it makes, particularly
concerning racism and wealth inequality, but the threads that actually tie
these various aspects together into a cohesive message are orders of magnitude
more subtle. I don't think that this is necessarily a failing of the writers
and artists; the fact that the message is subtle and that you're never beaten
over the head with it is a virtue, and I have an inkling that making this
message overt would have possibly damaged the studio's reputation due to it
rather directly attacking a modern political movement. There is, of course, the significant possibility that I'm reading too much into the story that we're
presented with, but I hope to produce enough textual evidence to convince you
that if this message wasn't explicitly intended by Ken Levine, that it might as
well be safe to evoke death of the author.
To stop beating around the bush; Bioshock Infinite is
an indictment of modern conservative thought that glorifies an idealized
American past that never existed, and does so to the detriment of America's
future. This political message is, however, interwoven with a deeply personal
tale of redemption and the human desire to take the easy way out of facing the
sins of your own past.
To explain, I'll start where the game both starts and
ends: baptism. Baptism is the central recurring motif throughout the game; the
gorgeous introductory scene to Columbia is centered around a baptism that all
who enter the city must go through, upon rescuing Elizabeth for the first time
Booker is plunged beneath the water in battleship bay, Comstock's plan is to
use Columbia to baptize the world in fire, Daisy baptizes herself in Fink’s
blood, Booker kills Comstock by drowning him in a baptismal font, songbird is
killed by being drowned deep beneath the sea at Rapture, and of course the
final moments of the game reveal that the deciding factor in Booker becoming
Comstock was whether or not he accepted the baptism after Wounded Knee.
The use of religious symbolism here is blunt, but the
intended message is perhaps less so. I have seen a number of people mistake
Bioshock Infinite’s message for a blatant denouncement of religion. I disagree.
The fact that accepting the baptism turned Booker into a
monster is contrary to what one would expect, but deeply tied into Infinite's
central theme. Booker sought the baptism because he was haunted by the ghosts
of those he killed at Wounded Knee and those he oppressed as a Pinkerton. In
accepting the baptism, a symbolic gesture of rebirth, the Booker who became
Comstock was able to distance himself from his own actions. What Booker was
seeking from the baptism was not a way to atone for his past actions, but
rather a way to relieve himself of guilt. Free of remorse, the baptized Booker
went on to look back at these events in his life not with pain and regret, but
with solemn necessity or even glory. They were idealized in his mind, and
rather than horrific atrocities they became exemplary feats to which he
constructed monuments. It's for this reason that he would go on to found a city
that would accentuate all the worst aspects of his own past. Free of regret,
Comstock became a monster. In one of Comstock’s voxophones he asks “When a
soul is born again, what happens to the one left behind in the baptismal water?
Is he simply … gone? Or does he exist in some other world, alive, with sin
intact?” Comstock intends to reference the Booker who was not baptized, but
unwittingly references himself: he fails to understand the notion that merely
accepting a baptism does not make one pure, that the sinner continues to exist
inside of him. You should note that outside of the Wounded Knee baptism scene,
Jesus or Christ are never mentioned in the game, nor is there a cross to be
found anywhere in Columbia. This is to distinguish between Christianity and the
superficial, warped religion of Comstock. To the religion of Comstock, baptism
is simply a way of white-washing your past.
The Booker that rejected the baptism recognized that
such a symbolic gesture would do nothing to free him of guilt for his past
actions. He views himself as completely irredeemable. He would go on to live
the rest of his life dwelling on past mistakes and digging himself into a hole
of debt and alcoholism, until he is given another chance to "bring us the
girl and wipe away the debt”. As with the baptism, Booker is initially seduced
by the offer but at the last second tries to back out. This time he fails,
however, and is further forced to spend his days steeped in regret for his
mistakes. Until, finally, the Luteces come back to give Booker one last chance
at redemption.
The inscription you see as you’re lowered into the
chapel at the beginning of the game reads:
“Why would He send His savior onto us,
If we will not raise a finger for our own salvation,
And though we deserve not His mercy,
He has led us to this new Eden,
A last chance for redemption”
Booker is transported to Columbia, a monument to his
sins, and forced to relive them. Each area is a mirror into Booker’s past: Monument
Island reflects his neglect of his daughter, the Hall of Heroes reflects his
past of violence and racism, Finkton reflects the economic oppression that he
took part in. One issue that many have with the game is that the amount of
violence that Booker perpetrates in pursuit of his goal of rescuing Elizabeth
is excessive. I would argue that this is an intentional reflection of his own violent
past, and is meant to strike the player as just as disturbing as it strikes
Elizabeth. There is perhaps a bit of meta-commentary going on when Booker makes
a statement to the effect of “It’s one thing to hurt someone because you need
to, it’s another thing to enjoy it”; possibly a direct stab at the player who’s
gleefully eviscerating their foes with flaming crows.
Many have also found it questionable that the final
battle of the game is not against Comstock, but against the Vox, in a way that
discordantly seems to suggest that they are the greater rather than lesser
evil. I’ll get into how the Vox fit into the overall theme later, but I should
point out that the final battle may not be what it seems. Note that the “big
bad”, Comstock, is already dead, and yet the game goes on. Instead, for the
final fight you are standing in Comstock’s place, using Comstock’s tool of
subjugation (the songbird) to defend Comstock’s airship from the people who are
revolting against Comstock’s oppression. It’s meant to illustrate that for all
the differences between Booker and Comstock, they’re both fundamentally the
same person. Just because Comstock is dead doesn't mean things are over,
because Booker and Comstock are one in the same, and both men were created by
the same evil past.
Finally, Elizabeth reveals the secrets of the
multiverse to Booker, leads him to realize the truths he was trying to suppress from himself, and drowns him to prevent Comstock from ever existing. What many
might not realize about the final scene of the game is that this is Booker’s
true baptism. Booker accepts that he would rather face oblivion than allow the
future sins that he would later commit to come to pass. He is willing to die,
and does not resist as he allows Elizabeth to dunk him under the water (for
this baptism she serves as his priest).
There’s many ways to interpret the after-the-credits
scene. This is how I prefer to view it: due to this final act of true remorse, Booker
experienced a true rebirth. He has awoken in another timeline and is given the
chance to live out his life with Anna, and to do things right this time.
Now, how does this tie into the political commentary
that I am claiming exists behind the plot of Infinite? Booker and Comstock
represent two different ways of looking at the American past. Comstock
represents an America that has forgotten to regret the atrocities of its past.
Booker represents an America who has clung to regret and allowed it to consume
them. The fact that they inhabit two entirely different parallel universes is
no mistake. They reflect the different schools of thought in American politics
that are so separated in perspective that they appear to inhabit entirely
different worlds.
Columbia is Comstock's creation, and it, itself, is an
idealized version of turn-of-the-20th-century America. Our introduction to
Columbia up to the raffle is a fantastic example of the game's message in
microcosm: You walk through gorgeous vistas set on cobbled streets in the sky,
a quaint town fair awash in symbols of a simpler time. The world seems wholesome,
and is a joy to explore; all up until the raffle. Then the curtains are drawn
back and the entire picture falls apart: suddenly you realize this world is
brutal and unjust. The entire sequence is an incredible gut-punch. It's because
you've forgotten; the American past hides a rotten underbelly. I might also add
that it may be no mistake that the imagery used to deliver this blow is one of
marriage inequality.
The mainstays of Columbia are meant to reflect on the
beliefs of modern conservatives. Their religion is a cult of personality based
around worshiping modern political leaders and in deifying the founding
fathers as infallible. It borrows aesthetics from Christianity while ignoring
the messages of tolerance and kindness found in the New Testament in return for
Old Testament morality and the apocalyptic imagery of Revelations. They glorify
war, xenophobia, isolationism, and American exceptionalism. They accept
economic inequality as just, even explicitly deserved. They've even seceded
from the actual political entity of the United States because of their “more
American than thou” attitude.
Columbia is the idealized world of white picket fences
that embodies the conservative dream. The fact that one must be baptized (in
this game, symbolic of white-washing your own past) in order to even enter
Columbia emphasizes its status as the image we create when we attempt to
envision a bygone America but forget the pain of its past.
Moreover; Comstock's grand plan for Columbia is to
bring it into the future, and there rain down fire upon modern America. Those
who were paying attention will note that when a brain-washed Elizabeth uses
Columbia to attack New York, she does so in 1984. It could be an errant
reference to Orwell, or, as I'd like to believe, a reference to Ronald Reagan's
landslide victory over Walter Mondale: the point signifying the absolute height
of GOP power. Columbia, this idealized conservative past, seeks to break
through to our present day.
Which brings me to Elizabeth: Elizabeth represents
America's future. Booker and Comstock struggle over who will get to control her
and thus America's fate. She was the child of Booker, but Comstock lays claim
to her as his own, and in a moment of weakness Booker gives her to Comstock in
order to "wipe away the debt" (I shouldn't have to expand upon why
debt is an important concept for the relationship between American political parties). Some small part of her was left with Booker, however, and thus she
became caught between worlds. This gave her an amazing power; because she exists
in both worlds at once she is able to pass between them at will: to see the
world from many different possible perspectives. This is the foundation of
Bioshock Infinite’s multiverse: each world contains a lighthouse, a man, a
city. Each universe centers around a city founded on the principles of one man’s
ideology, with a beacon that draws others towards it (but, rightfully, should
warn them away from it). As Rapture explores objectivism, and Columbia explores
American conservatism, each universe represents the natural extension of one
perspective towards viewing the world.
The game opens with the exchange “Are you afraid of
God, Booker?” “No, but I’m afraid of you.” Both Booker and Comstock fear Elizabeth’s
power. Comstock so much so that he has gone out of his way to try to limit her
ability to peer between worlds; to prevent her from seeing perspectives he doesn't want her to see. Despite this, he can’t prevent her from finding and
pulling open “tears” in his reality; literal holes in the universe in which
Columbia resides. Each of these serves as a “what if?” for Columbia’s fate
driven by Elizabeth’s wishful thinking. The universe in which the game starts
shows us a Vox Populi that is hounded by Comstock’s forces and not equipped
enough to fight back, allowing Columbia to remain a relatively stable
oppressive society. However, step through a tear and you see a Columbia that is
being razed to the ground by bitter, ruthless revolutionaries whose burning ire
was created by Columbia’s unjust system.
I should take a moment to address the Vox Populi,
which I feel tie into the greater theme of the game but were still somewhat
clumsily handled. Daisy Fitzroy’s arc is truncated, and the game’s statements
suffer for it, but I don’t think the game was intending to just blindly
equivocate the cause of the Vox with the cause of Comstock. Rather, Daisy is
intended to be another example of how absolving yourself of guilt can come to a
destructive outcome. Daisy’s cause is fundamentally just, but she uses this itself
as an excuse not to feel remorse for her actions. Daisy baptizes herself in
Fink’s blood, and symbolically she means to indicate that any sins on her part
are justified by the sins on his. Using this logic she can rationalize any crime.
It’s in this manner that she’s a fitting counterpart to Comstock. The Vox
Populi are also meant as a reminder that such revolts in the past have often
shared horrible atrocities with their oppressors, and we shouldn't white-wash
the actions of progressives either.
For Booker, his trip through Columbia is a journey
through his past sins so that he might ultimately seek redemption. For the
American player, then, this trip through Columbia is a journey through the past
sins of our nation so that we might ultimately seek redemption as well. Your
final act is to destroy the siphon, the device that limits Elizabeth’s powers
to view alternative worlds: allowing her to see through every door, to see the
infinite paths that America may be led down as a nation. The millions of other
Bookers and Elizabeths you see going through the same experience are
representative of the millions of other individual Americans who must follow a
similar, but different path with their own daughters (and sons) to come ultimately
to the same conclusion. The final revelation that the player must experience is
the truth that Booker and Comstock are ultimately the same man. While they view
it from opposite perspectives, they share the same history, and America’s
future isn't safe while it’s still allowed to be controlled by America’s past.
Booker recognizes his sins and allows Elizabeth to drown him, just as the yoke of America’s past must be thrown off by America’s future, breaking the “Unbroken
Circle” of history.
Then, following this rebirth, America’s past may be
given a second chance to influence America’s future in a positive way.
