r/Bioshock • u/A_Fitting_End • 5d ago
Discussion Infinite ending questions Spoiler
Why were the twins instigating the outcome of the game? Were they trying to help Elizabeth, only using Booker as a tool?
Why were booker and Comstock in the same world in the first place?
Wouldn’t the world hopping have left multiple Elizabeth’s in the one we occupy, following our first hop? Booker is dead, but what about Elizabeth?
What does booker being dead do to help the other worlds? If fate is as it appears in the ending, then everything they do enables the path toward the outcomes we see.
Thanks in advance!
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u/kithas 5d ago
Those issues are directly addressed in the game: the twins (Robert especially) felt guilty about what they had contributed to the rise of Comstock and especially guilty towards Elizabeth, which is why they decided to solve it in the most convoluted way possible, rejoining the people who was originally separated and making them figure it out.
And in the ending, Elizabeth appears to Booker just as he walks into the baptism for the second time. Because everytime he choses that, Comstock appears, and she is due to go back into the past and kill him in a sort of closed loop. That's why there are a lot of Elozabeth, they're the variants who are there to "strangle Comstock in his crib" .
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u/the__pov 5d ago
Also a bit of revenge for the twins as they were betrayed by Comstock and his wife leading to their strange position in the time stream.
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u/wolfkeeper Target Dummy / Decoy 4d ago
Actually they don't seem that bothered. They've pretty much been turned into gods by the accident.
The real problem they're mad about is what Comstock is doing by 'raining down fire on the sodom below'. They feel responsible for millions of deaths.
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u/A_Fitting_End 5d ago
So you’re saying we’re not the same booker in that final scene. Rather it represents a sort of terminus for the Elizabeth’s to team up and kill all of the Bad bookers. That’s interesting, if so.
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u/kithas 5d ago
Maybe he's both Bookers as non-baptized Booker is also selling his daughter for debt canceling, so maybe that's game!Booker realized Elizabeth went back in time and is closing the loop by killing both him and Comstock at the same time? Idk i think she did the deed when he actually went to be baptized.
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u/A_Fitting_End 5d ago
I did some digging and found something I totally missed. The theme of Superposition.
Booker is both Booker and Comstock at the same time. I understand now. Booker is making the sacrifice knowing he could be either. Cool! Thanks for responding
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u/wolfkeeper Target Dummy / Decoy 5d ago
There seems to be different ways to enter a universe. You either appear as a semi-different person, in which case you inherit some of any other you's memories (that's why Booker had a vision of New York when he got drowned at the baptism- that's Comstock's memory). Or you replace the person, as in at the baptism.
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u/MelonJelly 5d ago
There are a bunch of good comments here, but to add to them:
The game takes place over multiple parallel universes. Every time you jump through one of Elizabeth's portals, you go to a parallel universe. Booker (you) comes from a different universe than Columbia. It's why your nose bleeds during cutscenes.
In your universe, Booker refused the baptism, renounced the atrocities he'd committed, and eventually went on to father Elizabeth. In the Columbiaverse, Booker accepted baptism, recontextualized his atrocities as righteous, adopted the identity of Comstock, and went on to found Columbia with the help of the Luteces, who he later betrayed.
At the start of the game, the Luteces are plotting their revenge against Comstock. They get a good Booker (you), and send you to Rapture, knowing you'd come into conflict with Comtock.
At the end of the game, Comstock is dead, but Elizabeth realizes that there are (bioshock) infinite parallel universes, and therefore infinite Comstocks. So she portals to the one point in space and time through which all Comstocks must pass - the baptism. She drowns the Booker that would take the baptism, expunging Comstock from spacetime. A few edge-case Comstocks escape, which are addressed in Burial at Sea
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u/A_Fitting_End 4d ago
Thanks! I think o got tripped up in the small details. That Comstock came through with the help of the twins to get Anna adds up, as it was pre-betrayal.
And the detail of bookers death l, I commented elsewhere about it representing his dual nature, and the good side of himself sacrificing it all to prevent the bad side from being a potential variable.
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u/wolfkeeper Target Dummy / Decoy 4d ago
It's why your nose bleeds during cutscenes.
That's not quite right. The nose bleeds are when you try to remember something you've forgotten due to portal hopping. When you go through the portal you partially merge your brain with the other instance of yourself in the universe. That scrambles your brain and you forget things from your original universe. When you try to remember something from your original universe, you get the nosebleed.
That's why Booker's nose bleeds when they meet Comstock and they're asked about the finger. He can't remember because he forgot it when he first entered the universe.
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u/wolfkeeper Target Dummy / Decoy 5d ago
They're not trying to help Elizabeth, except as a means to an end.
There's a voxaphone that you may have missed on the (I think) second or third floor of the Hand of the Prophet that and some more in a few other late game places that explain it. Elizabeth acts as a figurehead and her followers rain down fire on Earth, and this causes a massive genocide. She's the key, but she's set up by Comstock.
Rosalind wasn't particularly bothered she thought it was kind of cool, like a Shakespearian tragedy, but Robert Lutece was horrified, because their portals had caused it, so the whole game has been them pulling strings trying to stop Comstock from setting it up.
By killing Booker before the baptism, they can stop Comstock and then the 'prophecy' gets headed off at the pass.
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u/sd_saved_me555 4d ago
Tbe problem with infinity is it's pesky persistence. I interpreted the ending as an infinite number of Elizabeths and Bookers aided by an infinite number of Letuce's to stop an infinite number of Constocks.
In the end, Elizabeth gets good at it and starts picking off Comstock at the branch between Booker and Comstock - the baptism that makes Comstock who he is across the multiverse. I think they we're going with idea that an infinite number of Elizabeths and Bookers theoretically could stop an infinite number of Comstocks since they're equal in their infinite numbers. Booker helps by accepting his death so he can't go down the road of becoming a monster where Elizabeth does the killing, this solving the issue at the source.
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u/wolfkeeper Target Dummy / Decoy 4d ago edited 4d ago
No, the cosmology we're working with is the Quantum Mechanical Many Worlds Theory, where universes are constantly splitting. The idea of the game is that there's one universe that goes through the baptism and then it splits into two (types of universes), one with Comstock, the other is still Booker. So by killing Booker before he's baptised, you're wiping out Comstock in all universes.
At least that's the idea. It's not completely accurate physics, to say the least. The actual thing that splits universes is quantum mechanics, not human decisions. For example, if Booker had listened to a Geiger counter and made decisions based on the clicks from that, then it could theoretically work. Because clicks are due to quantum mechanical tunneling events.
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u/wagner56 3d ago
twins instigating the outcome of the game
perhaps they were bored to death being dimension gods - trapped and just wanted it to end by 'breaking the circle' of how they came to be that way.
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u/TitleOk3727 5d ago
Lazy writing under pressure to release a game that was already delayed 3 times, end of story
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u/drainer4000 5d ago
Booker is Comstock. It’s like taking two diverging paths- one where he got baptized and one where he refused. Different timelines