Andrew Ryan: The Hero of Bioshock. SPOILERS!!

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A Weary Exile

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If you haven't played Bioshock and intend to, turn away now.

I've heard many people say that Andrew Ryan is the villain in Bioshock but I have a different theory on his character if anything he is a tragic hero. Ryan was a hard-working individual who rose above hardships to become greatly successful by his own merit, not through cheating or manipulation, but by pure hard work. When he found that his philosophy was seen as greedy and self-righteous he decided to build Rapture where he could coexist peacefully with other like-minded people. He truly realized the laissez-faire society, everyone was free, worked hard and lived peacefully for the most part.

Then enter Frank Fontaine who, unlike Ryan, is willing to use fear and violence to get what he wants and does so leading to chaos in Rapture. Ryan is hesitant to restrict Fontaine because, even though he is obviously dangerous, that would be a violation of his freedom and of Ryan's values. He does not realize how much of a threat Fontaine is to Rapture until it is too late. Ryan knows that sticking to his usual values will not save Rapture so he hesitantly abuses his power to try and save his city but he fails and ends up as a totalitarian dictator in the process. The whole game Ryan is trying to save his utopia but Rapture can never return to the way it was after the irreprable damage Fontaine has dealt it which Ryan doesn't seem to realize. Ryan's philosophy is a good one but Bioshock shows what happens when people don't abide by it and instead choose to resort to force to get ahead in life.

Now I'm sure people will say that Jack is the protagonist of Bioshock but hear me out. Jack works for Fontaine most of the game (Granted it is without his consent) and when he realizes that he was being manipulated he only kills Fontaine to save his own neck, if Fontaine didn't have the "Kill switch" programmed into him Jack could have just left Rapture after Tenanbaum saved him. He's more of an opportunist than a hero in my opinion.

Thoughts?
 

Sable Gear

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Jark212 said:
I would have to say that is a brilliant analysis...
ditto'd, I feel bad that I've never really looked into the philosphy of BioShock.

Props, cheers, and now want to replay that game XD
 

ShankHA32

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I thought of it that way, but only after i killed Andrew Ryan and things just started to become clear to me.
 

GyroCaptain

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Well...
There's a reason the trope Alternate Character Interpretation exists. Not saying that Ryan is the biggest a-hole in the game, but from the get-go there was the approach that any things from outside were "bad" and an embargo to thwart, with increasing severity to the final death penalty. Fontaine getting a power base from providing movies, bibles, and whatever else they wanted goes to show how flawed things were. His criticism that Ryan was ignoring the fact someone still had to clean toilets is completely valid.
 

Clashero

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I've always thought that Ryan was the unsung hero. Something like a benevolent tyrant, if you get my meaning. He meant well, he felt he should, he must, defend his city from the "incorrect" ideas, even if that means bending your principles a bit to get the job done. It's completely understandable, though. You can't create such an ideal, laissez-faire, peaceful society without having a bit of pragmatism in your character.
 

Velarus

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Well said! I don't know if I could convince myself that he's a hero so much, even in the end. Even after I found out the "truth", I still thought his journal entries showed a slightly warped, bitter side. And I really was looking to redeem him, as I was finishing the game.

Nevertheless, Ryan's story is most certainly a tragic one. Like you said, he's just a man trying to protect his life's work.
 

T3h Merc

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He's a great character if a bit of a megalomaniac (Burning down a forest to keep it his, calling everyone else Parasites, and Threatening you with vicous agressors to keep Rapture as his and his alone.). He really seems to want the best but may be mentally ill.
 

A Weary Exile

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GyroCaptain said:
Well...
There's a reason the trope Alternate Character Interpretation exists. Not saying that Ryan is the biggest a-hole in the game, but from the get-go there was the approach that any things from outside were "bad" and an embargo to thwart, with increasing severity to the final death penalty. Fontaine getting a power base from providing movies, bibles, and whatever else they wanted goes to show how flawed things were. His criticism that Ryan was ignoring the fact someone still had to clean toilets is completely valid.
I agree when Fontaine says something like "They think they're all going to be captains of industry but they forget that someone's got to clean the toliets." He was dead-on but you don't have to be a business magnate to be an honest hard-worker. Fontaine didn't want to make an honest living he wanted to have power by any means necessary. I think the embargo thing was more to keep Rapture safe from discovery rather than censorship, but that's me. What Objectivist needs a bible anyway?
 

shwnbob

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Wow I'll never look at that game the same way. Now I want to play it again and I want Bioshock 2 so bad.
 

j0z

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A great observation, an I agree with you 100%
If you have read any of Ayn Rand (which Bioshock draws heavily from) then you will see the parallels between Andrew Ryan's ideas and that of Rand's, in fact, Ryan is almost certainly an Objectivist. Even his name is very similar to Ayn Rand (Andrew Ryan, get it?) the character "Atlas" is in reference to Rand's Masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, and could be in reference to The Fountainhead, another one of Rand's greatest works.
I agree with Ryan's ideas, and I think he did mean the best, and that he was merely trying his best to stop a very destructive force in his city, first from Fontaine and later from the player under the control of Fontaine.
I am looking foward to seeing and learning more of Ryan's vision in Bioshock 2, let us hope that it has the same atmosphere and storytelling of the original.
 

A Weary Exile

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j0z said:
A great observation, an I agree with you 100%
If you have read any of Ayn Rand (which Bioshock draws heavily from) then you will see the parallels between Andrew Ryan's ideas and that of Rand's, in fact, Ryan is almost certainly an Objectivist. Even his name is very similar to Ayn Rand (Andrew Ryan, get it?) the character "Atlas" is in reference to Rand's Masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, and could be in reference to The Fountainhead, another one of Rand's greatest works.
I agree with Ryan's ideas, and I think he did mean the best, and that he was merely trying his best to stop a very destructive force in his city, first from Fontaine and later from the player under the control of Fontaine.
I am looking foward to seeing and learning more of Ryan's vision in Bioshock 2, let us hope that it has the same atmosphere and storytelling of the original.
I LOVE YOU RIGHT NOW!!!

Yes I've read Atlas Shrugged (Extremley boring book, but good philosophy) and I'm finishing The Fountainhead (Also sort of boring) and I can't wait to see where the story will go in Bioshock 2, I just have no idea what will happen and that's a good thing.

You are about to be friended!
 

Aqualung

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Woah. Woah. WOAH, woah, woah.

You found The Fountainhead boring?

You can't be reading it correctly.

Judging by your name, your avatar, and your topic... You like Bioshock a bit much, non?

Anyway, I couldn't even complete Bioshock, but I know what you're talking about. Andrew Ryan is really just another archetype, nothing too special. Not sure my AP English teacher would have thought too highly of that short analysis. But you are right.
 

ReincarnatedFTP

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Yeah, I think the whole point was to show that Objectivism would fail in action, despite it's noble goals, much like communism.
For starters, they couldn't be discovered or messed with because not everyone is going to accept their ideology (like anarchism) and the economics of paying for a standing military defense would not work out, considering the people attracted to this society are most likely not going to want to pay taxes.
Since they had to keep it secret, or just economic idiocy, they enforced an embargo. This creates an unregulated black market, in which there is no legal infrastructure set up to rehabilitate them, and competitors can compete through violence unchecked, since they're breaking the law anyway and can't report each other.See:The War on Drugs
Also in an Objectivist society, you need morally upstanding people (not in a religious sense, in a societal contract sense) because unchecked, unregulated, and unethical procedures would be done without any punishment, AKA corporate abuse of workers, rich and poor divide.Especially since there's no cooperative safety net, and charities don't solve the problem.

I always saw it as more of a struggle between two "good" people. Fontaine, though a mobster, was providing services that the oppressive rulers wouldn't and helped the lower class. However, he wanted to tear everything down and brutally murder the ruling class. See Russia, and the French Revolution.He has a sort of "propaganda of the deed" reasoning to get his ways.
In the same way, Andrew wanted an Objectivist paradise, but was forced to face its failing and refused to take action.When he did try to stabilize Rapture in the wake of Fontaine's revolution, he had to violate his principals. He reminds me of Abraham Lincoln in some ways.
 

WhiteTiger225

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Jark212 said:
I would have to say that is a brilliant analysis...
I would to until he said the moral of the story is obviously "Keep to your values". What truly happened is we had seen that a dictatorship with a good leader will not last forever without keeping a leash on his people. He let one potentially violent, greedy individual enjoy the same freedoms everyone else did, and in turn that greedy individual used his peaceful and prosperous ways against Andrew, who was not so sure about fighting back. It wasn't until fighting fully broke out that Andrew stepped in, and by then, it was too late. The Moral here is "Evil can only suceede when good men do nothing". You cannot keep peace, without some violence, which is a sad, universal truth.

Edit: Called him Adam retardedly twice in my rant XD
 
Sep 5, 2009
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Good points all, but I have to ask: what makes you so sure that Ryan earned everything he had from hard work? It's been a while since I've played Bioshock, so I can't really remember if we ever got some kind of background on Andrew Ryan other than "Eccentric, objectivist, built underwater utopia."
 

A Weary Exile

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Aqualung said:
Woah. Woah. WOAH, woah, woah.

You found The Fountainhead boring?

You can't be reading it correctly.

Judging by your name, your avatar, and your topic... You like Bioshock a bit much, non?

Anyway, I couldn't even complete Bioshock, but I know what you're talking about. Andrew Ryan is really just another archetype, nothing too special. Not sure my AP English teacher would have thought too highly of that short analysis. But you are right.
I can see where the plot is going from a mile away and the book takes forever to get there (Same for Atlas Shrugged) I didn't read these in school or anything, I just wanted to learn about objectivsm. Rand needs to cut down on the wordiness and write more like Albert Camus, who is ironically more to the point than Rand.

I could've written more but I didn't want to scare away people with short attention spans (Didn't seem to work too well) plus it's the internet, I'm not writing a thesis paper.

EDIT: And yes I did enjoy Bioshock quite a bit[/understatement].