Bioshock and Child Murder

[Johann610]

Anyone who's played the game for more than the demo will tell you these "girls " are twisted beyond all recognition of "child" or "human". Like their opposite-gender and opposite-body-type bodyguard Big Daddies, the uncanny valley gets pretty dang deep. Depending on how you play, they register as little zombies more than anything. Note: I do not play this way, usually.

 

[Amnestic]

Anyone who's played the game for more than the demo will tell you these "girls " are twisted beyond all recognition of "child" or "human". Like their opposite-gender and opposite-body-type bodyguard Big Daddies, the uncanny valley gets pretty dang deep. Depending on how you play, they register as little zombies more than anything. Note: I do not play this way, usually.

But since you're able to return them to their child status, you are essentially killing a child. Because those are your two choices. Let them live or kill them forever.

This. You grab the child, the screen fades to black, then fades back in and you have some sort of slug in your hand.

If you chose to believe you murdered that child, that's all on you.

Pretty sure it's stated that the slugs form a symbiotic bond to their hosts which would kill said hosts if the slugs were forcibly removed like you do when you Harvest. So...yeah, you're still killing them.

 

[Vegosiux]

So...yeah, you're still killing them.

No, you aren't. Your character is. This is getting dangerously close to one of those "Videogames promote mass murder" discussions.

 

[Amnestic]

So...yeah, you're still killing them.

No, you aren't. Your character is. This is getting dangerously close to one of those "Videogames promote mass murder" discussions.

Your character is performing the action you choose.

And no, it's not. I don't think that at all. I just think we should accept what's in the game for what it actually is rather than dancing around it. I've not got a problem with that choice being in there.

 

[Vegosiux]

I've not got a problem with that choice being in there.

Me neither. But I'm also not going out of my way to announce it's there.

 

[Ruwrak]

Fallout 3: Nuke an entire town....
Noone brought this up yet? No?

Bioshock: I wouldn't call that a child really...
In skyrim they seem somewhat living breathing things (though still pixles so meh.)
Even if you rip out the parasite that which results in the host dying off, we get into the "Let it live on as a slave forever, not having a free will or remove the parasite granting the host final rest?" topic. It's a matter of perspective.

In skyrim however, an axe to the face got nothing to do with laying someone to rest who is only kept alive because of a parasite.

There is a difference people. (And not just the 'its friggen pixles')
To not sound like a hypocrit, I did try to set a child on fire in Skyrim, but it mocked me for beeing weak. That kinda hurt. And then the guards slammed me facefirst into the ground so.. And yes I did it out of curiousity how far Bethesda would go.

(btw, in skyrim kids are there for the atmosphere. They don't have a target painted on their back. What are you worried about. It's not like someone who has the mod and whacks a kid off to an early grave goes outside afterwards, screams "Dovahkiiiiin" and then plunges his kitchen knife into the nearest infant. That's just making assumptions that are not there. Like saying Cather in the Rye tells people to go murder John Lennon. >.>)

 

[DracoSuave]

BioShock made the option to kill or not kill a central part of its subtheme of the illusion of choice

As well, by showing the many ways objectivism actually works in practice where children are concerned, it acts as a criticism of objectivism itself; any philosophy about life that doesn't take the existance of children into account is not one applicable to the sum of humanity.

I see no problem with it in BioShock, as it's an integral part of the narrative. Killing a child in Skyrim isn't so much, and its only value is to be One More Player Freedom.

Now one may question if that's a good enough reason; I don't have an answer to that. But the most likely reason is that the idea, for some reason, displeased someone or someones at Bethesda enough that they made a decision not to include it. As it's non-essential, that's a reasonable stance to take. I can't fault them for it.

Nor can I fault anyone who wants to install such a mod so they can have that freedom. Maybe it gives them a more realistic sense of the world, better immersion. Maybe they want to do it for the lulz. Neither of those reasons are invalid.

 

[BRex21]

I think this is mostly an issue of "advertising" Bioshock left the fact that it forced you into choosing the life or death of a child relatively secret, you could very well get into the game and start playing before you realize that this is going to happen.
However sticking a label Like "child killing mod" on something however gets peoples attention.
Since the news media types don't usually bother to delve into the games and learn about them you really wont see much media attention for something like the first whereas the second will draw fire.

I may catch a lot of fire for this, but I never understood why the lives of kids, women and elderly people should be more important and "precious" than the life of an adult male.

Have you ever heard of Nome Chomsky, he wrote a book called Manufacturing Consent that says a lot on this subject. Our media is based on ratings so naturally they try to find "worthy victims" people who draw more sympathy from the public in order to get peoples attention. Sweet innocent children, frail seniors and virtuous women can get that sympathy, however men are generally seen as being privileged and therefore garner less support, they are also seen as being valued for their strength so a weak male, someone who can easily be hurt or killed is seen as less worthy of that media attention. Over the years this has a profound effect on the public's state of mind.
Think of it this way, I'm a pretty big guy, 6foot2 well over 200 pounds and fairly fit, If some guy half my size decided to attack me and wound up with a broken nose, people would probably laugh at him, I mean what was he thinking? However if that guy happened to be, say 10, and no less physically able, well I would just be a colossal douche now wouldn't I? Beating up a kid? I don't support this, but simply see it as the way of the world.
Now i don't intend to put words into someone else's mouth, I want to be clear, the above text is not in fact in the book but rather is my personal take on how it fits into this conversation.

 

[Ruwrak]

Fallout 3: Nuke an entire town....
Noone brought this up yet? No?

Bioshock: I wouldn't call that a child really...
In skyrim they seem somewhat living breathing things (though still pixles so meh.)
Even if you rip out the parasite that which results in the host dying off, we get into the "Let it live on as a slave forever, not having a free will or remove the parasite granting the host final rest?" topic. It's a matter of perspective.

Maybe you should actually play the Game you are talking about? If you save them in Bioshock they are changed back to normal and you actually take them with you to the surface at the end.

How about you read the argument before you start accusing me of not playing the game guv'ner. I have played the games (both of em yes.) and I am aware you turn them human again. Except that at the moment of harvesting they ain't human. But apparently you misread the point so what's the use of discussion here.

I harvested the sisters because I did not want them to be slaves to their parasites. So the game considers that the wrong option and gives me the evil ending. Though you can wonder if giving someone death over slavery is more of a good option but that's a different discussion.

 

[Oirish_Martin]

So I made a couple of posts in the Skyrim Child Killing Mod [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.325418-Skyrim-Child-Killing-Mod?page=1] thread about Bioshock, but no one really tackled it so I thought I'd make a thread of its own.

For those not in 'the know' about it, players in Bioshock are at intervals given the choice between 'Harvesting' (killing) or 'Saving' (...saving) Little Sisters [http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/2/2c/BS2LittleSister.jpg]. Normally this choice is entirely optional - except for once, I believe. When you first encounter the mechanic, you are forced by the game to make this choice: Kill a little girl, or let her go.

From a balance perspective, the ADAM disparity between the two is largely negligible by the endgame - less than 300 according to the Bioshock wikia. That means very little on the whole. Even with the ~300 fewer ADAM my last playthrough had me wasting ADAM on things I never used.

True, although it may have been there more for (admittedly limited) role-playing. The third choice of ignoring the Little Sisters isn't really as viable from a gameplay point of view though.

Now anyone who knows me will know I do my research. And by 'research', I of course mean 'look at google for five minutes'. So I did so. You know what I found? Very little. A Joystiq article about the child murder was top of the list, but it was reporting on a The Patriot Ledger article which doesn't even seem to exist anymore.

Very little hey-ho was made about Bioshock from what I can tell. The vast majority of controversy surrounding it comes from gamers and objections to its (now removed) DRM. Medal of Honor's 'Taliban', Modern Warfare 2's 'No Russian', Mass Effect's 'Sex Scene'...all recieved far greater attention from the press than this.

So what's the bottom line? Well mostly that "It's possible to have child murder in a game without getting an AO rating", and that it's weird that so many people (looking at the Skyrim thread once more) are object so...vigorously when it's already been in a game which many people were all too ready to call their GOTY.

Do you think Bioshock should have had more controversy for its child murder? Do you think it was right for the developers to include it in the first place? For those of you in the Skyrim thread who jumped over here: Did you have the same opinion on the mod as you did Bioshock? If not, why?

....

You're basically asking us - should we expect a bunch of reactionary fuckwits to be consistent?

As for the Skyrim mod - it's not really that surprising to me and doesn't change how I feel about the game. People complained about it in Fallout 3, it invariably got modded the same way. I don't know about the history of the Elder Scrolls series, but certainly in Fallout the older games did let you kill kids, and the disapproval of the devs was registered via a gameplay mechanic of having people react to you negatively and ending up being pursued by a gang of bounty hunters. Much more innovative than the usual BAN THIS SICK FILTH NOW knee-jerking.

 

[Amnestic]

No, the choice is save her or let her go, same as it is every other time you encounter a Little Sister.

I'm...confused. There's either kill (Harvest) or save (turn her back into a little girl). That first choice is forced upon you, you can't skip it. Harvesting kills them.

I suppose if you wanted you could interpret killing them as saving them, but a) you're still killing them and b) they seem quite content with Mr. Bubbles. Sure, they're brainwashed, but they're still content in their existence. Hell, it's almost a paradise for them if that scene from Bioshock 2 where you see the world as Little Sisters do is to be believed.

....

You're basically asking us - should we expect a bunch of reactionary fuckwits to be consistent?

Consistency is always nice. Part of this thread was bringing attention to the fact that you've got this thing as a key mechanic in the game and that people sort of glossed over it, and yet seemingly lesser controversies (like the kid being blown up by evil terrorists in MW3) got far more.

Maybe this thread would be better directed at the media itself, but sadly my little red phone has stopped working.

 

[Oirish_Martin]

I'm...confused. There's either kill (Harvest) or save (turn her back into a little girl). That first choice is forced upon you, you can't skip it. Harvesting kills them.

No, my bad, you're completely right - that room is locked until you pick either save or harvest. I misread and thought you meant that the game forces you to choose one of save or harvest - and for some reason the board is being really slow for me so couldn't edit promptly to correct.

Consistency is always nice. Part of this thread was bringing attention to the fact that you've got this thing as a key mechanic in the game and that people sort of glossed over it, and yet seemingly lesser controversies (like the kid being blown up by evil terrorists in MW3) got far more.

Maybe this thread would be better directed at the media itself, but sadly my little red phone has stopped working.

Consistency is nice indeed. I'm just saying if we're talking about popular perceptions of gaming in the last few years, expecting them to actually know what they're talking about and be consistent is massively optimistic.

Although MW3 is courting controversy in the UK at the moment....something about a London level, I 'unno....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/23/modern-warfare-3-tom-watson-keith-vaz

 

[Mirror Cage]

I dunno, I'm not sure why anyone would want MORE controversy for a game.

But anyway, I think that the child-killing in Bioshock was perfectly acceptable, as weird as that sounds. It had meaning in the experience beyond just being something else to kill.

Heres how I thought it through the first time I played:
I had heard beforehand that not harvesting the girls would give you less Adam. I didn't know how much, but I assumed that the gap between harvesting and not would be significant. The game was telling me that I needed every advantage to survive, and that harvesting the sisters would give me the best chance. It would be an understandable evil to kill them, especially with Atlas and the audio logs telling me they were monsters. Made me paraphrase: character is what you are when you know you can get away with it.

Thats what I thought. It was a difficult choice for me, going into the game ignorant.

 

[Oirish_Martin]

Also Bioshock at least had a vaguely plausible reason for the girls not taking damage outside of the scripted death sequences started by the PC choosing to harvest - the slugs produced ADAM which healed them instantly.

There's no such equivalent in Fallout, unless the combination of radiation and being under 18 makes you magically immune to 20 Fat Man rounds to the face.

 

[Amnestic]

Although MW3 is courting controversy in the UK at the moment....something about a London level, I 'unno....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/23/modern-warfare-3-tom-watson-keith-vaz

Vaz "further notes that there is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users"

Huh. I'm curious if he actually has anything new. I'ma e-mail him and ask him about it. Thanks for the article

Also Bioshock at least had a vaguely plausible reason for the girls not taking damage outside of the scripted death sequences started by the PC choosing to harvest - the slugs produced ADAM which healed them instantly.

There's no such equivalent in Fallout, unless the combination of radiation and being under 18 makes you magically immune to 20 Fat Man rounds to the face.

True, though if you saved them and extracted the sea-slug safely, you still couldn't harm them on their way back to the vents even though you really should have been able to.

 

[Keymik]

In defense of the child killing mod in Skyrim. Those kids in Skyrim look more like teenagers than children to me, around the 14-16 age. And you could actually kill 16 year olds in Fallout 3. They were slightly smaller than the usual adult model, but they were still 16 years old.

Though I will most likely not use the mod, let people have it. As long as people don't run out and attack children in real life.

 

[Ruwrak]

No need. Care to explain where the fuck you are getting this Slave bullshit from ''guv'ner''?

Well if you played the game and paid attention you'll notice the 'kids' are no longer kids by the time they get brainwashed into doing the bidding of the bigger powers behind Rapture. Literally they are no longer kids, more like trained professionals to do one single job. They are a product, to be used and discarded when they have no more use. If you did not catch that, you'll need to replay the games for a tad. That is why I call em slaves of the parasite. They didn't have a choice and are forced to do that work or be killed.

It is made clear that they will quite litterally be saved, they aren't slaves then, so where the fuck are you getting this from?

Slavery is beeing forced to do an unpaid task you don't want to, with the premise of serious injury when failing said task. Take another look at the routine the gatherers do and how they are brainwashed to do so. If that is not slavery, then what is?

Though in hindsight (Been a rather long while since I last even looked at bioshock)I admit it had slipped my mind you give them a tossle over the head and they magically turn from yellow eyed freak to child. I'll admit that I'm wrong about the part where they instantly turn back into a identical brownhaired child no different then from the next one. So I stand corrected to that.

Ofcourse it's the ''wrong'' option. The game asks you, would you rather get less and save the little girls or be a selfish dick, get more adam but kill them in the process. You fabricating some bullshit about them remaining slaves to the parasite doesn't mean you actually have a arguement, you know, because you made that shit up.

With regained knowledge of the process I'll give you that you're correct. Though the tone of your writing is not a pleasant one but f it. Who needs to be calm and nice on the internet right? They won't -remain- slaves to the parasite and as such my previous argument makes less sense (Even though the argument was about a choice between (when I had things at the wrong end), harvest them and put them out of their suffering or save them and god knows what happens if you leave them with 'her'.)

Anyway, what are you getting so annoyed about? You think I -want- kids to be able to die in a game? If you do, take a hike man and while you're at it stick yer head in the snow to cool off. Yes I chose the evil option. Why? Because it was easier and I care not for the death of pixels.

Hmm does that satisfy you? Or am I supposed to know everything 100% by the sheer power of the mind of every plot and every game I ever played? It's human to make mistakes, and also human to know when you need to stand corrected. Point still stands: "It's a game, who cares?"