BruceLeeRoy
Banned
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The FAQ
- OMG 0_0 WHAT DID I JUST WATCH!?
Using her ability to see through 'all the doors' (all realities) Liz brings Booker through a tear back to a 'focal' point that symbolizes/acts as a funnel for all possible outcomes based on the 'choice' of baptism acceptance or denial, since that is the spot which leads to Comstock's origination and Liz destroying the world. This focal point is his baptism.
Liz then guides Booker to realize that he is Comstock (in an alternate dimension), and says that in order to kill Comstock, she must kill the Booker who exists before the choice is made, for as long as a choice is present, some universe will end with Booker picking baptism and eventually becoming Comstock.
She then kills him before the choice can be made, and as Booker dies, since Liz can no longer be alive, she disappears as the screen fades to black. The different Elizabeth's fading are all the Elizabeths across all the dimensions fading out of existence as Booker is killed since if Booker doesn't exist neither can the Elizabeth of Columbia.
This leads to several possible 'conclusions' that can be drawn based on the post-credits scene.
DONT LIKE TO READ? HERE IS A GOOD VIDEO THAT BREAKS IT DOWN.
- IN ENGLISH DOC!
Okay here is a good quick step by step breakdown from The One Who Knocks- Booker sells Anna to Comstock and Comstock pays off his debt (probably using Robert Lutece to pay whoever Booker owes money to).
- Comstock renames Anna to Elizabeth.
- The male Lutece becomes guilty for taking Anna and meddling in the multiverse. Both he and the female Lutece (who he forces to help her) decide to reset things.
- Comstock orders the Luteces to be murdered. They get scattered in the probability space.
- The Lutece's, now scattered among the probability space, and appear to Booker, offering him the chance to take back Anna.
- Booker crosses through the Luteces' tear to the set of universes where Elizabeth is. Booker forgets everything almost everything after crossing over (Comstock's memories conflicting with his own) and he invents new memories around 'bring us the girl, wipe away the debt'. He doesn't actually have any debt at this time.
The One Who Knocks said:
The One Who Knocks said:
XAL said:
- Booker sells Anna to Comstock and Comstock pays off his debt (probably using Robert Lutece to pay whoever Booker owes money to).
- WHO ARE THE LUTECES?
The Luteces are the same person, from different universes, of a different gender; their only genetic difference. The female Lutece belongs to Comstock's universe. She discovered a method to prevent a particle from falling and this was utilized in the founding of Columbia.
Luteces Timeline
The One Who Knocks said:
Luteces Synopsis
The female Lutece, at an unspecified time yet before the founding of Columbia, was measuring a particle. Simultaneously, an alternative Lutece was measuring the exact same particle. This led to the discovery that the Luteces were able to communicate through universes by altering the Lutece field.
Female Lutece discovered that tears could be created which allowed for the viewing of alternative probability spaces. Sometime after this discovery, female Lutece met with Comstock, who saw his seed drown in flames the mountain of man within a tear which leads to him founding Columbia.
In addition to this, Comstock used these tears to make his prophecies. The use of the machine rendered Comstock sterile however and thus, he could not naturally produce a child. The female Lutece and male Lutece, both in alternative universes, solved this problem. The male Lutece with Comstock's funds (or, perhaps, his own which we then repaid in Columbia) wiped away Booker's debt by buying Anna. After going through the tear with Anna, the male and female Luteces were united. The notable figures in Columbia used the Lutece's machine/tears to become incredibly wealthy by plagiarizing items from alternative realities via the tears. Jeremiah Fink developed the Vigors and Songbird by observing tears, his brother, Albert Fink, copied music that he heard through the tears, while Comstock used them to make prophecies. The male Lutece became increasingly guilty about his part in their meddling of timelines and met with the female Lutece and presented her with an ultimatum to reset what they had done.
This plan was halted when Comstock ordered Fink to sabotage the Luteces' machine. By sabotaging the machine in order to make it look like an accident, Fink botched the murder attempt and scattered the Luteces amongst the probability space. As usual, the female Lutece was unfazed while her brother was displeased.
This is where Robert Lutece, and Rosalind Lutece, are crucial to the understanding of the game. The entire game is the Luteces' attempt to reset the timeline, to prevent what they have started, by manipulating events so that Booker can reset the timeline. These are the male and female character that seem to talk in riddles and present us with the armour Vigor, ask us if it's heads or tales and meet us/appear to follow us throughout the game.
- WHERE DID ELIZABETH GET HER POWERS?
The game heavily hints that this occurs because Liz's pinky is cut off as she is taken by Comstock, remaining in one reality while her body is in an alternate universe. Alternatively, it could be the cut itself that causes the powers to manifest. This is made reference to in a Audiolog from Lutece:
- WHY DOES KILLING BOOKER AT BAPTISM STOP ALL VERSIONS OF COMSTOCK?
This is a topic that, for many, may be extremely complicated and, in addition, has several prominent theories. One thing, that must be noted, is that it is stated in the game, that Elizabeth murders every Booker "before the choice is made before [he is] reborn".
The first theory, that I believe is this(SEE BELOW GRAPH)
Elizabeth murders every Booker (not just every Booker that accepts, EVERY Booker). Bookers that attend Wounded Knee and survive always go to the baptism, this is a constant. There are no relevant Bookers to the story that don't go to the baptism. Because Elizabeth murders every Booker, she creates a paradox. The paradox that exists is that:
A single Booker must accept the baptism so the probability of Booker becoming Comstock exists so that the probability of buying Anna exists so that the probability of Elizabeth becoming omnipotent and murdering every Booker exists which means a single Booker must accept the baptism so the probability of Booker becoming Comstock exists so that the probability of buying Anna exists so that the probability of Elizabeth becoming omnipotent and murdering every Booker exists and so on. It's all one big paradoxical loop. A look at this loop through what Booker sees is this (EatChildren's timeline with Zkylon's green edit):
To escape the paradox ever existing, it means that every Booker that ever attends/attended/will attend the baptism must always reject it. If even a single Booker out of an infinite Bookers accept, a paradox is created where every Booker is murdered by their in conceived daughter before making a choice. As a result, a destruction resolution to the paradox occurs, where the probability of any Booker accepting the baptism is removed, and every Booker must reject the baptism
To put it very simply:
Before the events of the game
Constant:
The Baptism
Variables:
Accept = Probability of Comstock = Probability of Elizabeth
Reject = Probability of Booker selling Anna to Comstock.
After the events of the game
Constant:
The Baptism.
What used to be variables becomes certainties (rejecting baptism) and impossibilities (accepting baptism):
A Single Booker Accepts = Paradox in every timeline.
If even a single Booker can ever accept, the paradox exists where Booker died before making the choice. The probability of a paradox is zero percent. It's an impossibility, not a probability. As a result, the probability of any Booker making this choice becomes 0%. If not every Booker was murdered, this wouldn't be a paradox, it would just be another timeline, but that's not the case. Something that occurs 0% of the time is an impossibility/improbability. It never happens. Therefore, Booker can never accept.
Every Booker Rejects = Nothing unusual.
Booker lives out his life as he normally would. This choice never leads to a paradox. Because the probability of the other variable is 0%, the probability of this variable becomes 100%. Something that occurs 100% of the time is no longer a variable, it is a constant. Booker rejecting the baptism becomes a constant.
Now, you may think, "but how can Booker always reject if every Booker is already dead!? Surely this means you're saying only those that accept are drowned?" and this is the easiest way to explain how this can happen: Think about what would happen if, before the game, every single Booker rejected. What would happen? Nothing, Booker would live out his life with Anna, because since we are imagining the events of the game didn't happen, and we're imagining rejection is a constant already, then Comstock can never exist and thus Elizabeth can never drown every Booker before the baptism. This is the situation that the end of the game forces and that's what we see in the after credits sequence, the blue line, the line that doesn't lead to the looping paradox.
In addition, every Booker killing himself is not the same thing as every Booker being drowned by Elizabeth. The former would become a constant and would contradict the after credits scene, no Booker could ever survive the baptism, and every relevant Booker goes to the baptism. If every Booker is drowned by Elizabeth, that is a paradox and a paradox cannot exist.
The second theory is, almost exactly the same as the above, but it has a slight difference. The second theory is that only the Bookers that accept the baptism are drowned. The reason this is believed by some is that Elizabeth takes you to a second pond. One thing this contradicts is the line "before the choice is made, before [he is] reborn" but otherwise ends up in the same result; the probability of Booker accepting is zero so Booker must always reject. This differs from the first theory only slightly and arrives in the same conclusion, but it does slightly contradict a line.
The third theory is that every Booker dies at the baptism and the after credits scene if from a completely different set of timelines. This has the problem that, until that point, this entire universe is irrelevant and would have existed throughout the game's events anyway.
The fourth theory is that time 'resets' upon the creation of the paradox. That is, that rather than a destruction resolution occurring, the universe 'respawns' to the last time it worked before the paradox and the events of the game repeat infinitely, and the circle is never broken, it repeats indefinitely.
One important thing to note is that it is heavily implied the 8th October 1893, the date of the after credits sequence occurs, is the date that Anna is sold to the Luteces. The evidence towards this is the following:
A Window
One And The Same
The female Lutece, on the 15th October 1893, is making Voxophones for the male Lutece, which tells him events that have happened in the past, as he is suffering cognitive dissonance which happens when you travel through timelines. According to the propaganda, Lady Comstock delivered Elizabeth in only seven days, during which Comstock cared for her every night. The more likely explanation is that Robert Lutece and Anna travelled into the Comstock set of timelines on the 8th October 1893 (which is the date the after credits scene takes place in, and is in the black and white office). Anna (now renamed Elizabeth) was cared for consistently to prevent her from dying as a result of the physical reactions that occur due to the cognitive dissonance when one travels through timelines.
- IM STILL CONFUSED ABOUT THIS WHOLE DROWNING BOOKERS / ELIZABETH THING
Don't worry it can sound confusing. Here are some other gaffers thoughts:
- WHO/WHAT IS SONGBIRD?
Songbird is a creation by Jeremiah Fink that is some part organic, some part mechanical. The technology used to create Songbird was taken from an alternative universe that was observed through a tear. It is a possibility that this was stolen from the technology used to create the Big Daddies yet this seems extremely unlikely. There are an infinite amount of universes and an infinite amount of universes will possess similar technology; the Songbird's technology could originate from any one of them. The Songbird is vulnerable to high pressures as it was built for use in Columbia which, due to the height, has a low pressure.
- WHY DIDN'T BOOKER SAVE OLD ELIZABETH?
Old Elizabeth explains that everytime Booker tried to rescue Elizabeth, Songbird prevented him from doing so. Unable to save Elizabeth, an operation was performed on her that made it extremely painful to open tears, creating an association between opening tears and pain. This, combined with the passage of time, broke Elizabeth's hope, and turned her into the cold, Old Elizabeth that leads the assault on New York. As the siphon was never destroyed, and she was rendered almost unable to open tears, it took 'everything she had' to bring Booker to her and then send him back to before the operation.
To save herself and Booker, She gives Booker a note for Liz containing the control song C-A-G-E to finally stop Songbird from stopping him.
- WHEN WAS ELIZABETH PUT IN THE TOWER?
Her whole life as she doesn't know who Comstock or his wife are.
There's a scientifically themed graph or chart that shows when Elizabeth had her first period, that her power grew exponentially. And once her powers entered a certain threshold, no one could be in or work in monument island.
The time when anyone but Elizabeth was banned was almost immediately after she had her first period, which leads me to believe that Comstock was worried about Elizabeth getting attached to anyone that entered the tower, the girl hasn't had social interactions with a male or female ever, she could easily become infatuated with anyone that would give her the time of day.
Her getting pregnant would probably taint Comstock's reputation as being a pure and morally driven leader, not to mention he would have to deal with a plethora of potential problems that would arise.
It is interesting Elizabeth became much more powerful when she got the bodily functions of a woman.
- WHO IS ANNA?
Anna is Elizabeth. Booker sells Anna, his child, to Comstock to remove his debt. He immediately regrets his decision but fails to prevent her from being taken through the tear. Anna is renamed Elizabeth by Comstock. As a result, Booker brands himself with her initials, AD (Anna Dewitt) as some form of penance, which is then used as the symbol for the False Shepard.
- HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE BOOKER GAVE ANNA TO COMSTOCK BEFORE HE ENTERS COLUMBIA?
Almost twenty years; we are told this in the ending, that Booker lived in regret for almost twenty years and branded himself with AD during that time period.
- IS COMSTOCK WHO BOOKER OWES HIS DEBT TO?
Not likely and almost presumably no. In the flashbacks you clearly see he has been involved in gambling and states that he owes "the wrong kind of people".
- BOOKER AND COMSTOCK ARE THE SAME AGE! HOW DO WE KNOW THAT?
Both Booker and Comstock are 37/38 in 1912, the time period in which the game occurs. Comstock's age, and thus Booker's is visible due to the date of birth in the Hall of Heroes which states Comstock was born April 19, 1874, therefore he is 37/38. To conclude, both Bookers are the same age.
- WHY IS COMSTOCK SO MUCH OLDER THAN YOU IF HIM AND BOOKER ARE THE SAME AGE?
Elizabeth destroy New York himself anyway), and aging rapidly. In short, the Luteces' machine is extremely hazardous to one's health. The Voxophones related to the sterility, tumors and, finally, rapid aging are:
