Bedameister
Member
Dead People
Replaying the DLC just now. The scene where "Booker" tells Elizabeth that she went to Rapture with Booker in 1960 and killed Suchong got me pretty confused. Just another multiverse thing?
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BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode Two - Spoiler OT
- Thread starter ElzarTheBam
- Start date
Dead People
Replaying the DLC just now. The scene where "Booker" tells Elizabeth that she went to Rapture with Booker in 1960 and killed Suchong got me pretty confused. Just another multiverse thing?
SoraanTribal
Member
Are you asking why she had tear powers in Infinite? The most accepted theory (which is based off a voxophone by Lutece) is that she can open tears because of her missing pinky. She's technically existing in two universes at the same time which allows her to open the tears.
I can't find what you're referring to... D: Are you just teasing us?
Is it directly in the water or off in the distance?Bedameister
Member
Still there is the question where that Elizabeth came from, from what universe was she from
edit: Ok I just got back to Columbia and I maybe got an idea there
In Infinite Booker and Elizabeth went into another universe, another Columbia. In this Columbia Booker didn't rescue Elizabeth and instead helped Daisy and the Vox right? And he died. So in this universe there should be a Elizabeth left I guess.
And this is exactly the universe Elizabeth goes to in BaS2 and it's the same that she came from in BaS1 meaning the Elizabeth from BaS1 must be the one from the universe in Infinite where Booker didn't rescue her. Oh man this shit is confusing
In Infinite proper? She's from the/a universe where Booker gives up her kid, to a universe where Booker became Comstock and sterile, aka the universe we visit.
As to who she is in BaS? I have no clue. I don't see how she can exist.
Alec
Member
Not Suchong, Songbird. "Booker" was referring to the end of Infinite when Elizabeth teleports Songbird beneath the ocean to kill it.
Bedameister
Member
Oh right right, that makes sense.
ElzarTheBam
Member
Masha, the little sister.
Was it the little girl that's went missing in BS1?
Also what a sombre end to Elizabeth.
Was it the little girl that's went missing in BS1?
Also what a sombre end to Elizabeth.
Yes.
Bedameister
Member
whoa shit yes indeed. Playing BS1 again will be so great now.
I feel the same way. In my mind, this will be a "What-If?" sidestory because I think the overall plot of the DLC does no good by the original plots of either game, and I prefer to remember those games for how they were prior to my experience playing Burial at Sea.
Bedameister
Member
Posting baguette boy here since the background is a spoiler for the main thread.
He's so happy.
The whole Paris Intro made me so happy myself
great gif
DoctorPayne
Banned
Played through it this afternoon. Hmm. I really do feel that Irrational devalued the characters of Booker and Elizabeth by effectively retconning their entire existences to be lead-in to Bioshock 1. I mean... Bioshock 1's story (not the setting, not the concept, not the twist, but the STORY), particularly the ending, is really pretty terrible. Can anyone who cares about the character of Elizabeth be satisfied with the notion that she sacrificed herself to set up a fight between nameless white sweater guy and JRPG final-form-reject Fontaine?
Lots of other issues as well. Why does Elizabeth come back to life after being impaled? Why was that concept even included, since it seems so unnecessary for the plot? Why does she mention being in Rapture in 1961 when that's not explained/expanded upon whatsoever? Why did Elizabeth feel that she needed to punish the Comstock from BaS Ep. 1 in such an elaborate and vindictive way when that's seemingly totally out of character for her?
Lots of other issues as well. Why does Elizabeth come back to life after being impaled? Why was that concept even included, since it seems so unnecessary for the plot? Why does she mention being in Rapture in 1961 when that's not explained/expanded upon whatsoever? Why did Elizabeth feel that she needed to punish the Comstock from BaS Ep. 1 in such an elaborate and vindictive way when that's seemingly totally out of character for her?
Played through it this afternoon. Hmm. I really do feel that Irrational devalued the characters of Booker and Elizabeth by effectively retconning their entire existences to be lead-in to Bioshock 1. I mean... Bioshock 1's story (not the setting, not the concept, not the twist, but the STORY), particularly the ending, is really pretty terrible. Can anyone who cares about the character of Elizabeth be satisfied with the notion that she sacrificed herself to set up a fight between nameless white sweater guy and JRPG final-form-reject Fontaine?
Lots of other issues as well. Why does Elizabeth come back to life after being impaled? Why was that concept even included, since it seems so unnecessary for the plot? Why does she mention being in Rapture in 1961 when that's not explained/expanded upon whatsoever? Why did Elizabeth feel that she needed to punish the Comstock from BaS Ep. 1 in such an elaborate and vindictive way when that's seemingly totally out of character for her?
Plot. And reasons.
Honestly playing through all these it's clear they didn't have the story for BaS envisioned when they did Infinite, and given how haphazardly Episodes 1 and 2 go together, I'm not entirely sure they had an endgame for this when they started. Elizabeth has to have a sudden change of heart apparently after she died randomly the first time.* It's not in character at all.
*On that note, I'm still confused about that playing through it again. How did Elizabeth get herself boned by the Big Daddy? Why wouldn't she just tear out of there? And why is the big daddy belligerent towards her again? Shouldn't the Big Daddy's just be repairers, then, since there's no protection bond at this point? I feel like the two episodes alone don't make sense together.
Noticed all the corpses in the water on the second playthrough, pretty obvious if you turn your head... but don't understand the point of it either.
ElzarTheBam
Member
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
I hadn't seen Hannibal and it was the most excruciating torture scene that I've witnessed in a game. Never have I felt so stressed about only having collected 3 of 4 collectables which I assumed gave you the location of the ace in the hole at the time.
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
Posting baguette boy here since the background is a spoiler for the main thread.
He's so happy.
He just loves that bread!
That whole paris scene was amazing. Felt straight out a disney movie. And you felt so happy for Elizabeth cause you wanted her have this, but you knew it was a facade. So good.
SoraanTribal
Member
Posting baguette boy here since the background is a spoiler for the main thread.
He's so happy.
lol, I don't think I've ever seen someone love bread as much as that kid. He must have a simple, but happy life.
This kind of bugs me because wouldn't Elizabeth have known that would happen with her "seeing behind all the doors" thing she has going on? Seems like she would have known she would die because of the Big Daddy.
Yeah, there are some plot holes mentioned here are really bothering me and I'd love to hear more analysis and explanation of them. Specifically, how does the climax of Episode One even occur (granted, I'm hazy on the details) if it's pretty definitively established that at that point in Rapture's history, Big Daddies are ambivalent toward Little Sisters? Furthermore, how does Elizabeth (be it an Elizabeth or the Elizabeth -- this is a larger, and more frustrating, challenge) dying at the hands of that Big Daddy result in a mortal Elizabeth spontaneously appearing at the exact same site?
Another question I'm not seeing discussed is how Elizabeth could possibly prognosticate Sally's rescue at the hands of Jack. Sally is with Fontaine, who's clearly about to go on an ADAM bender; why on Earth would he not just split the girl open right then and there and harvest her? I can understand the moral victory of knowing Jack will save the rest of the Little Sisters lucky enough to be under the protection of Tenenbaum or quickly bond to a Big Daddy before being found by Splicers, but knowing that Sally will be saved specifically? I don't see how it's possible, bearing in mind that it's implied we're literally watching the bonding process spread throughout Rapture in real time, unless I've misinterpreted.
Another question I'm not seeing discussed is how Elizabeth could possibly prognosticate Sally's rescue at the hands of Jack. Sally is with Fontaine, who's clearly about to go on an ADAM bender; why on Earth would he not just split the girl open right then and there and harvest her? I can understand the moral victory of knowing Jack will save the rest of the Little Sisters lucky enough to be under the protection of Tenenbaum or quickly bond to a Big Daddy before being found by Splicers, but knowing that Sally will be saved specifically? I don't see how it's possible, bearing in mind that it's implied we're literally watching the bonding process spread throughout Rapture in real time, unless I've misinterpreted.
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
I think it's pretty difficult to tell stories with omniscient entities without plot holes. I mean why would she still put the little sister through the vents if she knew what would happen? Why wouldn't she just leave the code in Atlas' office. In this case I think the best explanation is that Liz didn't like what the murder of infinite Comstocks had turned her into and knew she had to die in order to die. On one hand that wouldn't explain her surprise at the Big Daddy turning on her, on the other there's a parallel between the acts she committed in episode one and those Fitzroy commits. Both women hate the idea of what they're doing but know that truly they're only sacrificing themselves and not their victims in order to set the only positive end in motion.
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
It's shocking how sometimes the canon is so underdeveloped, it can come off like the ravings of a madman. Not that Ken Levine is mad. But pseudo-science fiction plots need their own solid ground to work. You go throwing around bizarre ideas like.. well.. Infinite's DLC has, just abstractly floating out there, and it really starts sounding bonkers.
SoraanTribal
Member
Yeah, I suppose you are right. Might be part of the reason why they took away her powers in the beginning of this episode (so that they wouldn't have to work around the story of her knowing everything that would happen).
I didn't even think about the Fitzroy parallel, interesting.
Nah. They took her powers away for two reasons.
1. Not enough time to create a game based around Elizabeth's powers.
2. Elizabeth's powers would make the game really easy if you just made her godlike.
Probably not a lot to do with story. Some, but not much.
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
Artistically this game is so amazing
SoraanTribal
Member
Yeah, it affecting the gameplay was probably the biggest reason, but I do suspect the story was also another reason.
@Fixed2BeBroken - totally agreed. The Bioshock games are truly gorgeous because of their amazing art style.
Ironically one of the reasons I didn't like BaS for going back to Rapture is the Rapture we see in BaS looks nothing like the one in BS1 or 2. The engine lost the cruddy Unreal Engine feel of the previous games, but because they improved on it so much and the environmental art style changed so much (more glass, more curves, and a lot more open environments) it never really felt like I was visiting the same place...
How do we know one of the little sisters is Masha?
How do we know one of the little sisters is Masha?
Atraveller
Banned
No, I remember that. According to Infinite's ending every Elizabeth other than prime Elizabeth disappeared, where did the one from the first episode come from?
Yeah, true, older Bioshock had a more machine feel to it, like Rapture was crafted in a giant 50s workshop by a bunch of lower-class sweaty film noir fellas. Lots of rivets and harsh edges. You know, really hard art deco, surreal, almost pushing into Giger or something. BaS Rapture seems to almost have more of a.. space age influence, if that makes any sense. Still roughly the same time period, but...
Bedameister
Member
That's one of my biggest problems with it.
I was thinking it was the Elizabeth from the parallel universe from Infinite. The one where Booker couldn't rescue Elizabeth from the tower and dies. The one which Booker and Elizabeth visit in the main game.
But then the question ist how she'd escape the tower herself and why she didn't die like the other elizabeth's in the end of Infinite
Part 2 really just doesn't make much sense. It's a grab bag of cool concepts or images that really have no ground beneath them. That'd be totally fine if still wasn't being presented as this super profound and intellectual Bioshock thing. But it is. So it's kind of perplexing... like, there's a bunch of ta-da moments, but after the initial feeling wears off, it's like, "wait, hang on, what?"
Then the game progresses and lots of concepts are never brought up again. It's almost like fast food intellectualism or something. But that's incredibly cynical, so I'm gonna chalk it up to Ken just not having enough time to write the story.
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
Honestly While playing through the ending of BI, and then playing through BaS1 and 2....before I could put everything together....This was me basically...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okSbhtjK2EU
still love it after putting it all together though.
Atraveller
Banned
The ending eliminated all the Comstocks that gone completely mad, well, so should all the Lizs, but since prime Elizabeth is practically a god right now, so I could give that a pass.
ElzarTheBam
Member
Subtitles. I play with subtitles.
One of them is named Masha. Specifically, one of two that are afraid of the big daddy lurched in Elizabeths way at the end.
Ah, okay.
(Subtitles are the devil. Spoil the delivery of great lines. On the other hand some games are mixed so badly that you need them. Luckily Infinite is not one of them.)
"Space age" is a good descriptor of it, actually. I've always thought Bioshock's art deco influences were kind of interesting, seeing by the time they were building the city, art deco as an architectural movement was well on its way out the door in the real world. And it's certainly not bad--the environments are pretty cool. They're just not the Rapture I remember, even if as realized in Bioshock 1 it was bizarrely tiny in some ways (such as the Kashmir--BaS (and, sorta kinda, BS2) retconned it into a massive place with a view, which does make more sense than its cramped confined with a glass wall facing a building ten feet away outside. They definitely outsized it in BaS--even down to Suchong's clinic, which besides not having the room in the first game for all those secret rooms, the room where Suchong dies is basically half the size.
EDIT 2: Two nice things I noticed this playthrough: all the hypos in the Suchong clinic are the announcement trailer-styled syringes for plasmids. And Cohen writes a piece for Elizabeth that you can hear playing on the radio in the locker room of the repair bay.
Yeah, sometimes the dialogue can be slightly TOO loud and you have to turn it down. I noticed that after playing 3 or so hours of BaS2 and my ears starting feeling fatigue from it.
The other is Leta. Any Rapture historians know if there's a significance to that?
As a side note, is there anything in either Burial at Sea episode which contains even the slightest implication that BioShock 2/Minerva's Den is canon? 2K Marin's additions seem pretty well disregarded by the Irrational team.
Don't you visit a vastly different Fontaine's office
ElzarTheBam
Member
Ignoring everything else. Whats everyones thought on how Irrational treated the development of Elizabeth, from Infinite to EP2?
From her Disney-esque personality in Infinite, to her eventual demise in EP2?
From her Disney-esque personality in Infinite, to her eventual demise in EP2?
Bedameister
Member
The only reference to Bioshock 2 I found was Adonis Luxury Resort. It was a possible target for Atlas men and there was also a picture of it. Other than that no, Bioshock 2 is totally disregarded by Burial at Sea. I wish they would have put at least some refernces into it. But I still see Bioshock 2 as a part of the series. I just see the actions of BS2 a consequence of Jacks actions in BS1 and so Elizabeth probably wanted it to happen as well. Even more since Minerva's Den had a positive ending for Rapture.
And jeah they also could have put some more focus on Tennenbaum
And jeah they also could have put some more focus on Tennenbaum
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
It was pretty awesome imo. especially how they revisited her "Disney-esque" dreams with the paris intro...only to bring her back to the cruel reality of things and her eventual downfall. It's very pessimistic in that regard though. It's also interesting cause all through out Infinite she made judgemental comments about the lengths that Booker would go, to move forward......only to end up doing the samethings for her own cause.
I thought it was monumentally sloppy. Her development in Infinite sort of made sense, though it felt contrived at times.
But the DLC was wild. It almost felt like it wasn't the same character. And not in a good way, like Game of Thrones does it later down the line, but just... what was going on here? What was the thinking? Especially with making Elizabeth's entire existence out to being a plot tool for Bioshock 1. Levine loves to use his human characters as tools for plot, but what he did to Elizabeth really took the cake, I think.
Very unsatisfying, and I think a character that beloved deserves much better if you're going to give her a second chance after a pretty depressing ending.
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
It wasn't just the elizabeth that we "knew" in Infinite though. It was like a collective elizabeth with a bunch of experiences wrapped in one. so, the "wild" makes sense in that regard.
Then I think you'd have to step back and think about whether it's a good idea to rewrite your protagonist as someone is completely confused and insane.
Please, such apologies are unnecessary in a series with so many Tomato Reveals.
I thought she was handled really well in Infinite, and by the end of it her character arc felt complete so I never really saw the need to take her in this direction with the DLC. To me, her involvement in Burial at Sea felt far too forced for the sake of bringing the story back to Rapture, and in the end it didn't really add anything to her character that I thought was missing from Infinite. Episode 1 in particular she felt out of character given how drastic of a departure it was for her to be playing the role of a cold and calculating person bent on revenge by systematically destroying the alternate Comstock both emotionally and by luring him into a trap. I think Episode 2 redeemed her a bit in that regard between the incredibly well executed Paris scene to her conversations with "Booker" but overall I think the dark path Elizabeth was taken down was already old news after parts of Infinite such as Daisy's death at her hands along with her prolonged torture from Comstock. Elizabeth's fate in particular felt extremely forced in order to end her character in time for the start of the original Bioshock, and that remains one of my largest problems with the story of the DLC aside from several plot inconsistencies that have been discussed. I think I would've appreciated the Burial at Sea storyline as a whole if it wasn't treated as a bridge between Infinite and Bioshock, but rather a separate tale taking place in another part of the multiverse.
I guess what I'm saying is, I really don't think any connection between Infinite and Bioshock should have been made beyond Infinite's ending acknowledging the two take place in the same universe. The story of Booker and Elizabeth felt complete to me, and I think by bringing Elizabeth back and forcing her into this role (and taking large measures to ensure this by muddying up Infinite's storyline with numerous retcons) it diluted the impact that Infinite had as a standalone game hence my comment earlier about wishing to treat BaS as an interesting side story rather than actual canon. I think that had Irrational not been on a strict deadline due to the nature of season passes and DLC, they would have been able to create a storyline that would have been more satisfying, complete, and a logical extension of Bioshock Infinite. Instead, what we got felt rushed and incomplete in how it tried to tie up loose ends, hence some of the "fanfic" comments about the writing.
SoraanTribal
Member
I kind of agree. I wasn't particularly happy with how they handled Elizabeth's character arc in the DLC. And she died in such an unceremonious way. Her death didn't even really serve the plot in any real way besides "well, she's trapped here in Rapture because reasons we made up at the beginning of the episode, so let's just kill her off." Booker's death in Infinite's ending had real meaning to it and directly served that story. The execution was perfect as well. This... well... a lot less so unfortunately.
It is kind of amusing to me how in all the playable Infinite-related games/DLC, the character we controlled ended up dying by the end. Booker in Infinite, Comstock in BaS1, and then Elizabeth in BaS2.