[Introduction]
There’s a scene that struck me as out of place in Bioshock Infinite. On the way to retrieve Chen Lin’s tools, Booker and Elizabeth visit a saloon in Shantytown. Upon entering its basement, Elizabeth notices a guitar. Booker picks it up and begins to strum, and Elizabeth sings a verse from the hymn ‘Will the circle be unbroken’. I wondered why Booker would start strumming the chords to a hymn, when he refused his baptism, but the importance of this moment is in the name of the song. Will the circle be unbroken? The hymn is about leaving the broken circle of pain and suffering on the earthly realm for something better in the sky. It’s a nice allegory to the purpose of Columbia itself (at least what its creators see it as) but here’s the problem. Before a circle can be unbroken, there has to exist a circle in the first place. After completing Burial at sea, the two final episodes of downloadable content for Bioshock Infinite, I wondered the point of what I had just played. Having written the video you are watching now, I have an answer. Irrational Games were trying to unbreak a circle, not just for Bioshock Infinite, but the franchise itself, and to do so, they needed to create a circle encapsulating their two games. The following video contains my thoughts and feelings regarding Burial at sea, and how I interpreted it. Enjoy.
[Story recap]
We’ll begin by going over what happens during Burial at sea. If you’d like to skip the story recap, you can head onto the next chapter of the video. Episode 1 starts in the office of Booker Dewitt during the heyday of Rapture. He is a private investigator. Elizabeth enters the office. Booker does not recognize her. She wants Mr. Dewitt to find a young girl named Sally who has gone missing. Booker was looking after her and lost her during a regular bout of drinking and gambling. To get a lead on Sally’s wearabouts, Booker and Elizabeth gain access to Sander Cohen’s party. Cohen agrees to share his information if Booker and Elizabeth will dance for him. Elizabeth is cagey about this, and Cohen picks up on her lack of honesty regarding her dance partner. He electrocutes them both, and sends them to where the young girl was taken, Frank Fontaine’s Department Store that Andrew Ryan sent to the bottom of the ocean.
Booker and Elizabeth find out Sally is in the vents, hiding from Fontaine’s mad splicer army. In order to coax the little girl out, they close the vents. The plan is to turn the heat up, causing Sally to exit through the final vent where they’ll be waiting for her. Booker is against this as it might hurt the girl, and Elizabeth responds that she will turn up the heat herself if he does not. Booker goes through with the plan. When trying to grab Sally, Booker realises she is now a Little Sister, as her screams call forth a Big Daddy. We help Booker put down her protector, but when he goes to grab Sally again, his memories return.
We are not playing as Booker Dewitt. We are playing as Zachary Comstock. This is a Comstock who when trying to pull baby Anna through the portal, had the portal close around her neck, decapitating the child. Disgusted with himself, he had the Luteces send him to Rapture, forgetting his sins through alcoholism, just like the Booker from Bioshock Infinite. One of the Elizabeths travelled to this universe and sought Comstock’s help in order to make him realise what he had done, and to then punish him for it. We find out the Big Daddy was not killed. As Elizabeth is admonishing Comstock, it gets up, and rams a drill right through Comstock’s torso, splattering Elizabeth with blood as she watches with satisfaction. This ends episode 1.
Episode 2 begins in Paris. We are playing as Elizabeth. She is enjoying the idyllic scenery and friendly atmosphere. This dream turns into a nightmare when Elizabeth comes across Sally. As she chases the small girl, the streets grow ever darker. Elizabeth chases Sally to Booker Dewitt’s office, opening onto the furnace where she insisted they turn up the heat to oust the little girl from the vents. Elizabeth wakes up next to Comstock’s corpse as Atlas and his splicers are searching it. The voice of Booker tells Elizabeth what she needs to say to Atlas in order to save her life. Elizabeth tells Atlas she knows Suchong, and can get Atlas and his army back up to Rapture, but only if he gives her Sally in return. Atlas agrees to these terms.
When leaving the scene of Comstock’s death, Elizabeth comes across her own corpse. Her memory returns. The Big Daddy that had killed Comstock killed her as well, but she wanted to come back to this universe. Maybe it was the guilt of using an innocent girl to get revenge. It would explain why she agrees to help Atlas if it will keep Sally safe. Regardless, her memory includes a warning from the Luteces. If she returns to this reality, one in which she died, it will erase her powers. She won’t be able to open tears, and she will have no more access to, or knowledge of the multiverse. Elizabeth understood these terms and chose to return anyway. As Elizabeth had the power to see all potential outcomes, she has to trust her past self that this trip was made for the right reasons.
Entering Suchong’s restaurant, Elizabeth discovers a Lutece machine. She repairs it and finds that it leads to Columbia. Jeremiah Fink and Yi Suchong were sharing technology through the tears. It’s how they developed both Plasmids and Vigors. Songbird was built from the technology of the Big Daddys. Elizabeth travels to Columbia to obtain the device enabling the buildings to float. This is what will allow Atlas to return to Rapture. Before she can return however, Suchong wants her to obtain a DNA sample from Fink’s private lab.
The tear in Columbia opens up on Fink’s headquarters, after the Vox Populi have overtaken it. While crawling through a vent Elizabeth comes across Daisy Fitzroy. She has captured Fink and his son. The Luteces are there too. They are asking Daisy to threaten Fink’s child in front of Booker and Elizabeth. To force Elizabeth to take action, kill Daisy, and harden her for the future they desire to bring about. Daisy is reluctant. The Luteces ask “What is more important? Your part in the play, or the play itself”? Keep this question in mind. It has greater relevance later.
On her way to find the DNA sample, Elizabeth learns more about Songbird. How Suchong and Fink could not get either Songbird nor the Big Daddys to imprint and protect their charges. Songbird’s devotion to Elizabeth was almost a fluke. Songbird injured itself when Elizabeth came upon it as a small child. She showed it kindness, and in turn it showed her protection and devotion. Around this time Elizabeth also comes to terms with the Booker in her head being her own subconscious. The path forward being dictated by the echoes of future memory before she cut herself off from infinity. Having obtained the DNA sample (a lock of her own hair, of course), Elizabeth returns to Rapture.
Making her way to Atlas’s office, Elizabeth installs the flotation device and is knocked unconscious by Atlas’ goons. Tied to a chair, a doctor asks her where the “ace in the hole” is. Atlas was never going to keep his end of the bargain, but he does want more from Elizabeth. The doctor overdoses her with truth serum. Elizabeth wakes up 2 weeks later, with the Rapture civil war in full swing. The war isn’t going as well as he’d hoped and Atlas wants his secret weapon. He thinks Elizabeth must know what it is. He starts to administer a transorbital lobotomy. The icepick pierces her above the eye, and it’s only going to take a few taps to crack through the skull and into her brain. Elizabeth welcomes oblivion, as she knows Atlas will never get what he wants if he destroys her mind. Enraged, Atlas then threatens Sally with the same procedure. This spurs Elizabeth to action. She tells Atlas the “ace” is in Suchong’s office, and she’ll get it for him if he lets Sally go. Atlas agrees, but we know just like the first time, he’s not going to honour the deal. Elizabeth knows this too.
In Suchong’s office, an injured Big Daddy is blocking the doorway. The Little Sisters are scared of it. Remembering how Songbird was imprinted on her, Elizabeth coaxes the little girls to show the monster kindness. They do, and both form an attachment with each other. Now if you’ve played Bioshock, perhaps you remember the audiolog in which Suchong is killed by a Big Daddy. He was lamenting not being able to get the Big Daddys and Little Sisters to imprint on each other. Two Little Sisters start clamoring for his attention. Distracted, he smacks one to get her to go away. An enraged Big Daddy bursts into the room and disembowels him with a drill. The Big Daddy the two Little Sisters just saved.
The “ace in the hole” turns out to be a simple phrase on a piece of paper. It’s encoded, and unlike the previous moments where Elizabeth looked at Suchong’s ciphers, this one is not translated for the benefit of the player. Don’t worry, if you didn’t realise what it was yet, like me, it becomes all too obvious soon. Elizabeth returns to Atlas. She hands him the piece of paper saying they both know how this is going to go down, so just get it over with. Atlas obliges and hits Elizabeth in the head with a wrench. Before her dying breath, she tells Atlas what the message says. It says, “Would you kindly?”. It’s a trigger word for Atlas’ secret weapon. For Jack. The man who is going to come back to Rapture, and lead to Atlas’ downfall. Elizabeth saw all this, including her own death going in. Atlas does keep his end of the bargain this time. He leaves Sally with Elizabeth. Soon Jack will rescue Sally along with the other Little Sisters and they will all have a good life on the surface. This is the reason behind Elizabeth’s sacrifice, to put into effect the events of the first Bioshock, in order for Sally to be saved.
[Changes to Bioshock Infinite]
Burial at sea spent most of its time in Rapture with the player controlling Infinite’s main characters. Irrational Games wanted to link the two together. Like a circle perhaps. Let’s begin our analysis by looking at how Burial at sea changes what we know about this universe after playing Bioshock Infinite. The tricky part of a story involving multiverse theory, is every permutation of said story is possible. This means anything is possible. A question I still have is, if the entire plot of Burial at sea (and thus the entire plot of Bioshock) is a result of Elizabeth’s guilt at having mistreated an innocent girl for the purpose of her own vengeance, where did the Elizabeth the player controls in Burial at sea come from? Multiverse theory says many Elizabeths could have been killed in Rapture by the Big Daddy, but also, many Elizabeths could have travelled back to Paris celebrating a job well done until the guilt gnawed away at them, leading to the events of episode 2. But what about Comstock?
In my Infinite video, I said that in a multiverse, Elizabeth’s solution of drowning Booker to erase the possibility of Comstock seemed too easy. There would have been plenty of Booker Dewitt’s who survived, or became Comstock in another way. The problem with the multiverse is if anything is possible, then nothing is permanent. Every possibility has to be accounted for. The ending of Infinite works as a sacrifice on the part of the Booker Dewitt we were playing to atone for his sins, but only for that Dewitt. Sure his sacrifice would have prevented a score of Comstocks from inflicting their horrors on the world, but there still would be plenty out there, just like there are other Elizabeths out there as well when all this is said and done. It’s the versions we are playing that are important, this Booker, this Comstock, and this Elizabeth, which I feel is the one we spent the most time with in Infinite.
A change to Bioshock Infinite that sparked discussion is the retconning of Daisy Fitzroy. No longer is she an example of the oppressed becoming an oppressor, but she is instead a pawn in the Lutece’s game. It is felt this removes agency from the character, while she didn’t have much to begin with based on her behaviour in Infinite. I feel this humanises Daisy a bit more, that she was willing to become a martyr for her cause when it came down to it, even if the road taken was one she could never have foreseen. I also like it as a parallel to Elizabeth’s sacrifice, and the reason for the whole story in the first place. As the Luteces said to Daisy, “What’s more important? The play itself, or your part in it?”
With Elizabeth being able to see all potential futures, she chose this one for herself, with all the torture, the suffering, and finally her own death. It is a painful, unglamourous way to end one’s own story. It reminds me of the end of Marvel’s Infinity War, where Doctor Strange looks through millions of possible futures before he finds the one in which they achieve victory, even if victory comes at a high cost (and geez, I can’t believe I made a flipping Marvel movie reference in one of my videos). Why did Elizabeth choose this path? For the same reasons her father went to Columbia in the first place, guilt over the treatment of a little girl. Using Sally for her own vengeance ate at Elizabeth, who chose to walk down the one path in which not only Sally, but other exploited innocents got the chance for a happy ending, even if she wouldn’t be there to see it. Elizabeth wanted to unbreak the circle of exploitation rampant in the objectivist utopia of Rapture. She felt that the play was more important, than her part in it.
[Changes to Bioshock]
While Burial at sea changed how we perceive aspects of Bioshock Infinite, what about our perception of the original game? Elizabeth’s actions set in motion the events of Bioshock. It was Elizabeth who allowed Atlas and his forces to attack Rapture, and it was Elizabeth who retrieved the “ace in the hole” for Atlas, sealing his own fate at the hands of Jack. In my video on Bioshock, I called the “bad ending” of the game, where Jack leads a splicer army to wage war on the surface more resonant to its themes, but because of Burial at sea, we know the “good ending” of Bioshock is the canon ending. Aside from making Atlas out to be an even bigger piece of garbage, all Burial at sea does to our perception of Bioshock is how it intertwines with Bioshock Infinite. Both games are now not just linked by a franchise name, but one couldn’t have happened without the other.
[The reason for linking the games]
Why link the two games like this? In the DLC no less? When Elizabeth took Booker and Songbird to Rapture, it was a nod to the lineage of the series, a shocking moment emphasizing that Bioshock was one possible story that could happen in this multi-verse of stories. Burial at sea changed this. No longer can we say “It was cool how Elizabeth opened a portal to Rapture”. Instead it’s “Columbia couldn’t have happened without Rapture, and vice versa”. What is the point in doing this? The answer I have may sound cynical.
Linking the end of Bioshock Infinite to the beginning of Bioshock unbreaks yet another circle. Even though Infinite alludes to unlimited possibilities for new stories and games within the Bioshock franchise, this is Irrational Games lowering the curtain on their involvement with it. The stories of Rapture and Columbia are complete. Zachary Comstock, Andrew Ryan, Frank Fontaine, Booker Dewitt, and Elizabeth are dead, or at least the versions we care about. Jack and the Little Sisters got to grow old and have a life. Sure the cities can house new stories (like Bioshock 2), but it won’t feel the same.
In December 2019, 2K games announced the development of Bioshock 4. When the announcement happened, I had little excitement for the prospect of a new Bioshock game. Even before playing Burial at sea, what the Bioshock series was felt concluded. Now after Burial at sea, the announcement seems even sillier. If the game connects itself to Rapture and Columbia, it will feel like Bioshock 2 trying to connect itself to the first game, and if it takes place in a new location, with no connection whatsoever, why call it Bioshock? I know, I know, branding, but they could always do what Ken Levine did when he took the “shock” from System Shock for his spiritual successor.
It feels like the point of Burial at sea was to end the Bioshock franchise for good, and considering my feelings regarding a new game in this multiverse, I’d say it was successful. Elizabeth was able to unbreak - to transcend - the circle of the exploitation of innocents, atoning for her own actions, just like her father at the end of Infinite. Irrational games created a circle between Infinite and Bioshock, unbreaking their involvement with the series as a whole, finally being able to move onto something else. The circle Irrational created in Burial at sea to link the two games still remains, and we’ll have to wait to see what is done with it as the series continues.
[Thoughts and sources]
But what are your thoughts? What are your feelings about the changes Burial at sea made to your understanding of Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite? Do you feel it’s a fitting end for these characters? What happened to the Luteces? They’re still out there you know. I wonder if they’ll appear in the new game. I’d love to hear all about these ideas and more down in the comments. While Bioshock Infinite had too much research to thank everyone individually, I found only 2 pieces written on Burial at sea to be of use. I’d like to thank Stephanie over at Ludogabble for her commentary on Burial at sea episode 2, and Noah Caldwell-Gervais for his video on all of Infinite’s DLC. Links to both these pieces are in the description. And look at that, I’ve finished my series on all of the Bioshock games. Thank you for watching not only this video, but the others in the series as well. I put a lot of work into these. I like to think I’m getting better at this whole videogame critique thing, and I appreciate your time and feedback. The next critique is a milestone. It’s number 50. I alluded to having something special lined up in the last video. Let me tell you what it is. I’m going to be covering Dark Souls. I don’t want to give a timeframe, because I have no idea how long it will take me to play through the game, let alone research and write about it, but I’m aiming for by the end of the year. I hope to see you all then, and I hope you’re all having a wonderful day.
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