MovieChat Forums > BioShock Infinite (2013) Discussion > The chronology of the plot. (MAJOR SPOIL...

The chronology of the plot. (MAJOR SPOILERS)

posted 10 years ago by Littlebitsofgaming
3 replies | jump to latest

Seeing as this game is free on the 360, I decided to have another playthrough and still enjoyed it just as much as when I first played it.

The ending is one that always had me thinking and even originally, had to play through the game again and collect all the recordings to piece everything together.
Then they released the DLC and...WOW.

So I've been trying to connect everything together and even trying to put everything in chronological order.
Now these games are open to interpretation, but I thought I'd put down how I think it all works out and in the right order from the original BioShock, Infinite and the DLC.
I'm leaving out BioShock 2 as let's be honest, plotwise it has nothing to do with these 2 games, or at least it's not as closely connected.
Plus I'm only sticking to what "we" as the player witnesses in the games without trying to get into alternate possibilities in other universes.

Again...MAJOR SPOILERS.

So, here we go...

Let's start at what I perceive to be the "start".

Booker refuses the baptism after Wounded Knee and stays as Booker. Then several years later, Booker has a daughter named Anna which he gives away to settle his debts.
Booker (unknowingly) gives Anna away to an alternate universe version of himself, Comstock. Which is when Anna's little finger gets severed off and gives the baby Anna powers to open tears over various universes.
Comstock now raises baby Anna as his own daughter and renames her Elizabeth.

This is when the events of Infinite "begin" with the Luteces bringing Booker to Columbia where Booker is asked to find and bring back Elizabeth.
Fast forward the events in the game and Booker eventually kills Comstock.
Then just as Songbird is about to kill Booker, Elizabeth opens the tear to Rapture and this where she covers the whole infinite universes thing to Booker. Elizabeth then drowns Booker at his baptism which means Booker can not accept the baptism and is not "reborn" as Comstock.
Then all the alternate Elizabeths disappear (as they no longer exist) except for one...
This is the same Elizabeth that we the player experience the events of the game BioShock Infinite with. This Elizabeth is also the same baby Anna that Booker hears after the end credits of the game.
Plus this is also the same Elizabeth (the one that lost her finger) we play as in the DLC.

So seeing as the after credits scene at the very least hint at the fact "a" Booker and "a" Anna still exist...somewhere. This also means there must be another Comstock in another universe...somewhere.
We must assume that the one surviving fingerless Elizabeth also knows (via searching tears) this to be true. She finds the alternate universe where a Comstock is still alive.
So this also means that in the DLC we are dealing with the last Booker, Comstock and Elizabeth in all the universes.

Elizabeth first travels to an alternate Columbia and finds the very last Comstock where she tries to stop Comstock from taking baby Anna from Booker. As she tries to stop him, Comstock accidently kills baby Anna by cutting off her head. So this means in this universe Comstock never got to raise baby Anna as Elizabeth and so Comstock hires the Luteces to send him to an alternate Rapture where he lives his life in regret for over 10 years pretending to be Booker and adopts Sally the orphan.
Elizabeth sees all this through a tear and then goes to this alternate Rapture for revenge and this is where the events of the DLC take place.
Elizabeth then uses Comstock's close relationship with Sally, which in turn forces Comstock to relive the events of killing baby Anna. The end of which the final Comstock is killed by a Big Daddy.
So by the time the first part of the DLC ends, this now means there are no more Comstocks in ANY universe.

As part I ends, Elizabeth also ends up being killed by the Big Daddy too, and remember she was the last Elizabeth.
But very much like the Luteces, Elizabeth can actually return to alternate universes as instead of being at peace for finally killing all the Comstocks, she is in fact guilty for not saving and helping Sally the orphan and now in "debt". So Elizabeth hires the Luteces to bring her back to Rapture so she can settle her "debt" of helping and saving Sally.
This is when the Luteces explain that if she does this, Elizabeth will lose all her powers and Elizabeth accepts this fact. This is where part II begins and Elizabeth accepts her loss of powers.

So as part II begins Elizabeth wakes on the floor being questioned by Atlas and he steals Sally.
Elizabeth discovers that the quantum superposition did happen and she has lost all her powers and even has her finger back. But this now means she is just a mere moral now and also the very final Elizabeth in any universe.
By the time she does save Sally within the plot of the game, Elizabeth imprints a Big Daddy and even delivers THAT activation code to Fontane. By the end Elizabeth finally dies and she was the very last one, which means no more Elizabeths now either in any universe.
But her giving THAT activation code to Fontane is the catalyst to all the events of the original BioShock.

This is where the original BioShock begins with Fontane using THAT activation code which brings Jack to Rapture. The events of the original game take place and leave Fontane and Ryan dead. So in at least one alternate universe, Jack saves all the little sisters and ends up rescuing Sally. Which in turn means Elizabeth finally settled her "debt" vicariously through Jack which she instigated by delivering THAT activation code to Fontane.

So I think I covered everything important and put it into chronological order.
But as I said, the games are open to interpretation so it would be interesting to see what others got from it...

And so, God came forth and proclaimed widescreen is the best.
Sony 16:9

[–] pharrington1982 10 years ago

Thats about as good an explanation as I've seen, and the conculsion I came to (with a few questions which I doubt can or even should be answered). I too have recently replayed it due to it being free on Gold, and throughly enjoyed it again. The end sequence is one of the best, or at least the most interesting I have seen in a video game.
The only problem I had with it, and its as much a problem with quantum theory as anything else, is how are we supposed to know which Booker we are controlling. I mean, why can't he remember anything and how does he get planted in as the Booker who turns into Comstock.
I'm not sure I've put my point across very well, I haven't really studied this kind of thing since my early twenties.

[–] bobbykanae 9 years ago

He loses his memory because tear-jumping can addle the brain, the male Lutece mentions going through it himself.

He's a Booker who turns into Comstock because that's kind of the point of Bioshock Infinite, that every kidnapping in every universe results in Booker becoming Comstock and jumping into some other poor Booker's universe 20 years later.

[–] bobbykanae 9 years ago

The assumption that there's only one last Booker, Elizabeth, and Comstock (and the assumption there are no more Comstock's after 'Burial') in any universe is wrong.

I've noticed people get the wrong idea about how the "universe(s)" are being handled in Bioshock Infinite. We're dealing with a single loop, a loop that has continued to go on infinitely. It's also not time-travel. What changes within the loop is the Lutece's, like they mention in Burial they have become 'unthered', these twins most likely come from somewhere else in the vast multiverses and thus have the power to help this Booker and Elizabeth close their loop. You have to realize closing the loop is simply that - it closes when Booker decides to kill himself, so that he could never steal Anna and start the cycle again. There is no more "Comstock" in their loop because Booker drowns the Last Comstock and then Booker gets drowned himself. It's a loop that went on countless times until the "unthered" Lutece's intervene and help them discover a new path.

Another point you got wrong, The Elizabeth who drowns Booker - the Elizabeth who Booker meets inside the Lighthouse is not the Elizabeth that was following him all this time, he even says it himself. Our Elizabeth doesn't go inside the lighthouse, and the other Elizabeth's are not wearing the Pendant Comstock gave her. This was intentional because our Elizabeth remains untethered in the Tear-universe while Booker successfully collapses their loop by sacrificing his life. Obviously Elizabeth knew what he would choose when he went into the Lightouse - but she probably couldn't bear to drown him herself - so she sent him somewhere he could do it without her. I also think the 'merging' images of the many Elizabeth's is more symbolic than anything, he's being shown all the possible Elizabeth's he could create - instead they merge into a single final one to show those other sad Elizabeth's that he could have created will not exist. I think the place he goes to drown is similar to the Paris that Elizabeth goes to, it's not a place that exists within the functional universe because they're very similar in tone - almost dreamlike. Remember Elizabeth talks about seeing "behind all the doors", I think this place Booker dies in is very similar, an untethered space outside the Multiverse. So his dying doesn't 'fix' anything except stop him from becoming Comstock and preventing the next loop.

The Comstock that Elizabeth kills in Burial At Sea is part of a 'different' loop. We know it's a different loop because Anna dies - directly from her own intervention by distracting Comstock during the kidnapping - which never happened in her own loop. This new loop probably ends there because that same Comstock goes back to take that same Booker's life, so that Booker never becomes Comstock to repeat the cycle. It's essentially the same conclusion as Infinite because pre-comstock Booker dies.

Realizing she could travel to a thousand different universes and try stopping a thousand different Comstocks only to create new terrible cycles and become the same monster as her father - So instead she chooses to do what Booker did and finds the way she can most be at peace.