Poll: Is Burial at Sea part 2 anti-Feminist? (spoilers)

[psijac]

After murdering the last Comstock Elizabeth returns to Rapture to stop the exploitation of children except she doesn't just open a tear in the city and Flood the place, like the Biblical plague she can be. She chooses a different door

Some people say Flooding Rapture is out of character for her, but she has already has killed them. Every single one life Jack took to include Atlas and Andrew Ryan were the results of her choosing that door. Metaphorically speaking. She was at the Switch Board to control a train track, Sally was on that track and a train was coming. She hit the switch and Sally was saved but the train derailed and every single person on that train died. In her omniscient state, she knew the actions and motivations of these men and knew the constants and variables she knew these men would kill. Micheal Vick knew what would happen when he introduce one viscous dog to anther and our system of justice put the moral burden on him not the Animals. While Atlas and Ryan are human not animals from the perch of Omniscience they might as well be.

It is possible you feel that because Elizabeth didn't get her hands dirty, she is completely absolved of the death count that Ryan, Atlas, and Jack racked up. If that is the caase then from your point of view I am completely wrong. and I can accept that.

She is constantly reminded she isn't as strong as her father and never will be. Even the entire game play is changed to suit a non confrontational role. This did serve the game play so I am not terrible upset about it, however the game does remind you, "You are not booker...Niether am I" many times, It came off hamfisted after the 6th time

The door she ends up choosing is the one where she gives up all her powers and unleashes Atlas so Jack can kill him

Submitting yourself to an abusive man in hopes of protecting a child while waiting for another man to solve your problems is not a heroic action. This isn't a Lifetime Movie

Eidt: to clarify the morality of flooding Rapture

 

[Dragonlayer]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

 

[JacksonDemolition]

After murdering the last Comstock Elizabeth returns to Rapture to stop the exploitation of children except she doesn't just open a tear in the city and Flood the place, like the Biblical plague she can be. No she gives up all her powers and subjects herself the whims of an abusive man(Atlas) to set in motion a chain of event that will allow another man(Jack) to break the cycle of abuse.

She is constantly reminded she isn't as strong as her father and never will be. Even the entire game play is changed to suit a non confrontational role

Spoiler: Turn back now if you didn't play it!

Why would she do that? The Elizabeth I know would never do that. She knows there are innocent people in rapture.

She didn't go back to stop the exploitation of children. That will always happen in the world. She came to end the cycle of blood and death that Rapture and Columbia started.

Yes, she is not as strong as Booker. But she is smart enough to adapt. She reminds herself she is not like her father. "Just because your father did it one way, doesn't mean you have to."

She went back knowing what would happen after she died. But ultimately forgets the reason she came back. Before that she knew Jack would end up ending the cycle because OF HER ACTIONS. She started the end. No matter how you SPLICE it (lol kill me for making that pun), she made the events of BioShock 1 happen. She chose the best door.

Atlas is an asshole. Are you really surprised he hurt Elizabeth?

Expect hate, loads of it.

 

[JacksonDemolition]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

 

[Dragonlayer]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

 

[JacksonDemolition]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

I also bet only MEN had anything to do with Jacks creation! I also bet Zach was the one who forced Lady Comstock to put Elizabeth in that tower!

 

[Dragonlayer]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

I also bet only MEN had anything to do with Jacks creation! I also bet Zach was the one who forced Lady Comstock to put Elizabeth in that tower!

Goddamn MEN! Clearly at fault for everything negative in the Shock universe! It's only Big DADDIES who enslave the Little Sisters after all!

 

[JacksonDemolition]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

I also bet only MEN had anything to do with Jacks creation! I also bet Zach was the one who forced Lady Comstock to put Elizabeth in that tower!

Goddamn MEN! Clearly at fault for everything negative in the Shock universe! It's only Big DADDIES who enslave the Little Sisters after all!

There is only MEN in Atlas's army! Sofia Lamb? BIOSHOCK 2 NEVER HAPPENED. ONLY MEN CAUSED RAPTURE TO FALL.

 

[Zhukov]

Are you being sarcastic? Or perhaps making fun of the industry's and its audience's sudden awareness of gender politics?

I honestly can't tell.

In the absence of any clear evidence to the contrary, I shall assume you are being straight faced.

a) Why she doesn't just destroy the city has been adequately addressed. In short, it would be incredibly stupid, cruel, of no help to those she wishes to help and of insufficient cruelty to those she wishes to punish.

b) She did not give up her powers. She was killed and importing another version of herself to finish the job from another universe into a universe in which she had been killed caused the other her to become normal. (The explanation for this is an arse-pull on the part of the writers. It was presumably governed by gameplay requirements. Playing as God Mode Elizabeth as a cross between Doctor Who and an avenging angel, while undeniably cool, would not be challanging and, more to the point, would require a complete reworking of gameplay. It's also rather dubious that a regular big daddy could kill God Mode Liz. But the fact remains that she did not willingly give up her powers.)

c) "I'm not Booker", did not mean. "I'm not as strong and awesome and badass as Booker". It meant, "I'm not a vicious bastard who will kill in cold blood without hesitation or remorse like Booker was, and if I have become or am becoming that then I'm not happy about it."

d) She "subjected herself to the whims of an abusive man" because she knew it would bring about the salvation of a person whom she had wronged.

Y'know, I actually think there are questions that could be asked and a discussion that could be had about the use of a female protagonist in Burial at Sea. However, sadly your questions are not those questions and this discussion is not that discussion, at least not yet.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

I also bet only MEN had anything to do with Jacks creation! I also bet Zach was the one who forced Lady Comstock to put Elizabeth in that tower!

Goddamn MEN! Clearly at fault for everything negative in the Shock universe! It's only Big DADDIES who enslave the Little Sisters after all!

There is only MEN in Atlas's army! Sofia Lamb? BIOSHOCK 2 NEVER HAPPENED. ONLY MEN CAUSED RAPTURE TO FALL.

Goddamnit MEN, when are you going to get your shit together!?

 

[JacksonDemolition]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

100% agree. Yes kids and innocents might be rising up to the surface! But at least MEN (because Tenenbaum didn't have ANY involvement with the little sisters!) won't exploit them anymore!

I bet MEN forced her to willingly go along with all those amoral experiments she conducted on orphans! And I definitely know no MEN ever risked their own lives to rescue Little Sisters from insane and murderous hordes of genetic mutants!

I also bet only MEN had anything to do with Jacks creation! I also bet Zach was the one who forced Lady Comstock to put Elizabeth in that tower!

Goddamn MEN! Clearly at fault for everything negative in the Shock universe! It's only Big DADDIES who enslave the Little Sisters after all!

There is only MEN in Atlas's army! Sofia Lamb? BIOSHOCK 2 NEVER HAPPENED. ONLY MEN CAUSED RAPTURE TO FALL.

Goddamnit MEN, when are you going to get your shit together!?

I bet never!

 

[psijac]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

And how many well adjusted happy healthy individuals did you run into while playing Bioshock one? Even if you suppose they where there just hidden behind the scenes. Many, many innocent people had to die during the Atlas/Ryan civil war. Little sister have incredible regenerative powers they might have survived rapid decompression.

 

[psijac]

Are you being sarcastic? Or perhaps making fun of the industry's and its audience's sudden awareness of gender politics?

I honestly can't tell.

In the absence of any clear evidence to the contrary, I shall assume you are being straight faced.

a) Why she doesn't just destroy the city has been adequately addressed. In short, it would be incredibly stupid, cruel, of no help to those she wishes to help and of insufficient cruelty to those she wishes to punish.

b) She did not give up her powers. She was killed and importing another version of herself to finish the job from another universe into a universe in which she had been killed caused the other her to become normal. (The explanation for this is an arse-pull on the part of the writers. It was presumably governed by gameplay requirements. Playing as God Mode Elizabeth as a cross between Doctor Who and an avenging angel, while undeniably cool, would not be challanging and, more to the point, would require a complete reworking of gameplay. It's also rather dubious that a regular big daddy could kill God Mode Liz. But the fact remains that she did not willingly give up her powers.)

c) "I'm not Booker", did not mean. "I'm not as strong and awesome and badass as Booker". It meant, "I'm not a vicious bastard who will kill in cold blood without hesitation or remorse like Booker was, and if I have become or am becoming that then I'm not happy about it."

d) She "subjected herself to the whims of an abusive man" because she knew it would bring about the salvation of a person whom she had wronged.

Y'know, I actually think there are questions that could be asked and a discussion that could be had about the use of a female protagonist in Burial at Sea. However, sadly your questions are not those questions and this discussion is not that discussion, at least not yet.

For all intents and purposes the City is still destroyed by her choices. Her action enabled others to start a Civil war. No matter the outcome people who did not deserve to die still do. Look at all the wars in the middle east. Her actions are as morally just as George W. Bush invading Iraq to save one orphanage.

She foresaw the arrive of Jack as a possibly clearly saw the bloodshed involved to get there and she still felt that was the best possible path for her to take.

So she felt that the society that enabled the exploitation of little sisters needed to fall, and has place a death sentence on them. Fine, if you believe silences is consent. What about the people on the Airliner that Jack "Borrowed" There lives were completely unaware and unlinked to the choices made in rapture. Who gave Elizabeth the right to judge their lives as unfit for continuation. But hey if you want to start a war in another sovereign nation sometimes you have to crack open a few passenger vehicles, right? Flight "Would you Kindly" was an inside job.

 

[JacksonDemolition]

I haven't got the DLC (but I do have a friend who has it, so I suppose I can grill him over this point) but wouldn't flooding the city to stop exploitation of children just kill EVERYONE, innocent and guilty alike? The children may be slowly floating up to the surface as bloated, water-logged corpses, but at least men can't exploit them anymore!

And how many well adjusted happy healthy individuals did you run into while playing Bioshock one? Even if you suppose they where there just hidden behind the scenes. Many, many innocent people had to die during the Atlas/Ryan civil war. Little sister have incredible regenerative powers they might have survived rapid decompression.

We are talking about Burial at fucking Sea. Not the original BioShock.

Even if the Little Sisters survive its going to take a hell of a lot of time before they end up on the shores of some country/island.

Even so. Weren't there little boys in Rapture? Heck even the novel mentions kids other then Little Sisters.

Plus her doing that would be out of character. Do you imagine Elizabeth killing everyone without remorse?

Also, where is it in BioShock Infinite that she is an extreme religious person?

You are still yet to respond to my original post.

 

[JacksonDemolition]

Are you being sarcastic? Or perhaps making fun of the industry's and its audience's sudden awareness of gender politics?

I honestly can't tell.

In the absence of any clear evidence to the contrary, I shall assume you are being straight faced.

a) Why she doesn't just destroy the city has been adequately addressed. In short, it would be incredibly stupid, cruel, of no help to those she wishes to help and of insufficient cruelty to those she wishes to punish.

b) She did not give up her powers. She was killed and importing another version of herself to finish the job from another universe into a universe in which she had been killed caused the other her to become normal. (The explanation for this is an arse-pull on the part of the writers. It was presumably governed by gameplay requirements. Playing as God Mode Elizabeth as a cross between Doctor Who and an avenging angel, while undeniably cool, would not be challanging and, more to the point, would require a complete reworking of gameplay. It's also rather dubious that a regular big daddy could kill God Mode Liz. But the fact remains that she did not willingly give up her powers.)

c) "I'm not Booker", did not mean. "I'm not as strong and awesome and badass as Booker". It meant, "I'm not a vicious bastard who will kill in cold blood without hesitation or remorse like Booker was, and if I have become or am becoming that then I'm not happy about it."

d) She "subjected herself to the whims of an abusive man" because she knew it would bring about the salvation of a person whom she had wronged.

Y'know, I actually think there are questions that could be asked and a discussion that could be had about the use of a female protagonist in Burial at Sea. However, sadly your questions are not those questions and this discussion is not that discussion, at least not yet.

For all intents and purposes the City is still destroyed by her choices. Her action enabled others to start a Civil war. No matter the outcome people who did not deserve to die still do. Look at all the wars in the middle east. Her actions are as morally just as George W. Bush invading Iraq to save one orphanage.

She foresaw the arrive of Jack as a possibly clearly saw the bloodshed involved to get there and she still felt that was the best possible path for her to take.

So she felt that the society that enabled the exploitation of little sisters needed to fall, and has place a death sentence on them. Fine, if you believe silences is consent. What about the people on the Airliner that Jack "Borrowed" There lives were completely unaware and unlinked to the choices made in rapture. Who gave Elizabeth the right to judge their lives as unfit for continuation. But hey if you want to start a war in another sovereign nation sometimes you have to crack open a few passenger vehicles, right? Flight "Would you Kindly" was an inside job.

She doesn't go FUCK IT. EVERY SINGLE PERSON, BEE AND BUNNY HAVE TO DIE. She simply chose the best door possible. Where Sally can be saved.

 

[sXeth]

They did have to take her powers out somehow, to make something resembling a challenge in the game. Granted, it felt a bit hamfisted, wasn't really clearly explained, and would've been much simpler to suggest that she'd given up using them after seeing how screwed up she was making the realities by merging/altering them (even back in Infinite, all those guys going insane from criss-crossing with their dead selves).

"You're not Booker" is more or less a factual statement, that doesn't require gender being inserted. Elizabeth is a 20(?) year old girl, with no combat training whatsoever (unless she was doing a pile in her weird time compression Paris place, which seems unlikely), and no pseudo-science magic forcefield either. To say nothing of Booker's bloodlust/rage/whatever. By comparison, Booker is a veteran soldier with more combat experience years then Elizabeth has probably been alive. The game doesn't even entirely enforce this statement, as Elizabeth can fairly readily kill people with guns. Its more in melee that the difference shows up, which would be a big role for combat training to show up in.

 

[Artemicion]

Her opening the flood gates and killing everyone in rapture would have been a more satisfying end to the story arc than what we got :\. I would have liked to see Liz coming to terms with the fact that she and her lineage is soaked in blood.

As for being anti-feminist, sarcastic op or not, i don't really think so. Her guilt over what she did to Sally for her own benefit is what drove her to give up her powers for the chance to redeem herself, and she remained strong and independent throughout the DLC - that is, up until the end, where

Spoiler

she lets herself get brained with a monkey wrench not once but twice by Atlas for reasons I'm still trying to figure out.

While I have little doubt that the Sarkeesians are going to leap down Levine's throat for portraying Elizabeth in a state of relative powerlessness compared to Atlas and Ryan, there wasn't really any gender discussion to be had.

 

[JacksonDemolition]

Her opening the flood gates and killing everyone in rapture would have been a more satisfying end to the story arc than what we got :\.

That wouldn't make sense in the timeline.

 

[Artemicion]

That wouldn't make sense in the timeline.

What's your point? It's a story about multiple realities, multiple doors and multiple timelines. Her actions at the end aren't even a single timeline, there's no fewer than two and up to twelve different timelines available from her actions. Why should BAS cover a single timeline shown in B1? Why not strike out and make a new ending instead of treading on the old ones?

 

[JacksonDemolition]

That wouldn't make sense in the timeline.

What's your point? It's a story about multiple realities, multiple doors and multiple timelines. Her actions at the end aren't even a single timeline, there's no fewer than two and up to twelve different timelines available from her actions. Why should BAS cover a single timeline shown in B1? Why not strike out and make a new ending instead of treading on the old ones?

Mister Levine said himself that BaS is in the same universe as BioShock 1. Before the episode was released.