[spoiler] Bioshock Infinite's ending is []

[gigastar]

You're trying to explain time travel bullshit.

You spend time trying to explain time travel bullshit, then we'll spend all day making straw diagrams.

Or worse, we could end up trying to map this.

 

[Robot Number V]

You know, if you pay attention to the Luteces' dialog at the very beginning, Rosalund talks about how she thinks their "experiment" is dumb and that it has already failed.
Skip to about 2:45. The REALLY important part is at 3:00. "One does not undertake an experiment knowing one has failed." Simply put, the paradox didn't work. The whole thing restarts and Booker wakes up in his office, probably about to sell Anna all over again.

 

[dunnace]

Right, if there's no Comstock there is no universe jumping or indeed floating city at all, so while there's no Elizabeth there's also no Columbia, and no misuse of the Lucedite's creation. Elizabeth may kill him, but she can travel to other universe's and affect them even if they affect her timeline, the same way Booker jumped to the universe with him leading the Vox. Despite the fact he died he was still alive, because he had come from another universe. I wonder if Elizabeth gets a nosebleed...

 

[Sajuuk_Khar]

Comstock used the Luteces machine to take Anna from an alternate universe in which he wasn't baptised (The Booker universe) 'wiping away' Bookers debt and creating Elizabeth. It's just after handing over Anna that Booker comes to regret his decision, with Anna losing her finger to the portal in his struggle to keep her.
At some point (most likely 20ish years to make Anna/Eliabeth being Bookers daughter more believable/easier for him to understand) Robert Lutece wants to use Booker as some sort of thought experiment, using Bookers desire to get his daughter back to entice him to particpate[footnote]As seen when the Luteces carry him to the boat after tearing through from Bookers office, as well as their conversation on the boat. I also found a voxophone from Rosalind saying that Robert wanted to send Elizabeth back. There may be other reasoning behind the decision that I have yet to see or find.[/footnote], taking him to Comstocks universe and setting him on the path to find his daughter. The alley scene and various cinema graphs show that Rosalind was from the Comstocks universe, while Booker and Robert are from the Booker universe, as both Booker and Robert had to adapt to being in another universe at the same time as their counterpart. (Robert and Rosalind effectively being fraternal twins)
Given the conversation on the boat it sounds like it's not the first time the Luteces have taken Booker to the lighthouse, and at the coin flip section the coin seems to have been flipped at least a hundred times, if you assume each marking on their boards is from Bookers tosses then it can be surmised that there has been a large number of repetitions of the experiment, all of which Booker had failed and died, with the gamers play through being the successful one that destroys the Comstock universes.
The baptism, handing over the baby and the alley scene all seem to be a combination of remembering and reliving the events that happened, as even though Elizabeth is present the events still unfold as they did, bar the baptism.
When Booker and Elizabeth go back the baptism site, it is a symbolic event throughout the multiverse of all the Comstock universes, meaning that any universe that contained Comstock would continue as if Comstock had died, but was otherwise the same. Bookers death before he becomes Comstock protects Anna from the Comstock universes and this is implied in the post credits scene, as they are a continuation of the universes where Booker remains unbaptised, without interference from other universes.

Bioshock Infinite seems to have some sort of cross dimensional symbolism where a number of iterations of someone can be condensed into a single 'averaged' figure which has an independent iteration in each universe[footnote]The policemen killed during the Finkton section are a simple example of this, being a combination of a single dead and living iteration. The Lady Comstocks apparition and the Luteces being three higher level examples, The Lady Comstock also including a piece of Elizabeths hate for her.[/footnote]This allows the supposedly dead Luteces to be able to wander around the multiverse at will actively changing it at will. This also allows for the single symbolic drowning of pre-Comstock Booker to prevent all Comstocks from existing. The symbolism only seems to work around the tears, as anyone who had died in an alternate universe(given the number of them, there would be at least one each) would get a bleeding nose, while it was only those who died near Elizabeth and Booker when they crossed universes who got the bleeding nose. I'm still unsure as to how the Luteces are unaffected by this, given that Booker got a nose bleed shortly after entering the universe in which he died as a Vox hero.

 

[upgrayedd]

Anything with alternative universes/time travel ect. are bound to have plot holes depending on what you would believe what would happen compared to the story-writers opinion. You cant really argue with plot-holes but take yourself to believe the events of the story-writer

 

[Judas_Iscariot]

They disappear because the reality they originated within (Which therefore includes them) has ceased to exist, taking them with it.

It's "them" who make the reality cease to exist. And "them" only exist if the realities they originated within DO NOT cease to exist.

I can't understand why you don't see the problem.

Because they existed at the moment they turned off the "Switch" so to speak, and nothing exists to turn the switch back on and recreate them.

It's not a loop at all, they don't have to exist NOW to have existed THEN, and them not existing now does not change the fact that when they did exist, they altered reality so that they would not exist.

I can feel myself struggling to articulate this, and I apologize. But essentially during the time in which "Elizabeth" (All the versions of her) existed, she put in motion events which caused her not to exist any longer. That's the end. There is no more loop after that, because she does not exist. It doesn't begin again because "Now she doesn't exist, so it will all start over" because when she did exist, she altered reality in such a way (Drowning every booker which accepted baptism) to ensure she never would exist. Thus there is no circle. It just ends with her not existing, and the possibility of her existing being wiped out. It doesn't, with her no long existing, somehow undo the work she did in altering reality, because her alterations are not dependent on her existing now. Once they are made they are made.



The coin flips/Lutece dialogue is a very compelling point though, but my response would be that all of the experiments /before/ our player character failed. Those were the men we saw running to the other lighthouses, men who did not in the end make the same choice to "smother him in the cradle" and thus failed. Each universe has some difference from the next, even if it is trivial, and the difference between ours and theirs was that in ours it worked. She says they have already failed, and they have. The infinite number of times they tried before with the other Bookers.

 

[The Madman]

I like to think there's at least one universe where Elizabeth and Booker are sitting in a diner in France, enjoying a pleasant meal and reminiscing about how good of an idea it was to get out of that city when they had the chance instead of pursuing vendetta for multiple timeslines they have no responsibility for.

Tis' a nice parallel dimension.

 

[crazypinkyluv]

Spoiler

1. The Luteces are quantum physicists of beyond genius intelligence and were able to create a device to allow them to travel through the tears where they met the Booker we play. Comstock knew of their technology and used the Luteces to get Anna/Elizabeth from Booker. He then tried to have the Luteces killed but the assassin made a hash of it damaged the Luteces machine which gave them the ability to travel the multiverse.
2. Elizabeth loses her pinky when a tear closes which apparently allowed her to open them.
3. Lady Comstock in all the multiverses that are visited in game, I think you cross three, Lady Comstock had always been killed by someone hired by Comstock to silence her about Elizabeth not being Comstocks child.

*spoilers for those who dont already know*

Theres still abit unexplained like how it is what we actively play ingame is a lie made up by past Bookers imagination, how the whole dock thing never happened and you were dragged by them, but then you were boat rided by them, but that never happened because you spent 20 years in a drunk coma then walked through a rift instead, but instead took a boat ride and were told to wipe away the debt and given a box...

Also I want to know how it is Future Booker(Comstock) and past Booker can physically interact (and kill) one another but not cause space time paradox from two planes of existence existing in the area of space. If you touch yourself in another dissension isnt that suppose to rip space time according to space magic (quantum mechanics)

And how does liz rapidly age from changing her cloths into what appear to be to devs quarreling over art design? Why does song bird attack liz through a space rift in the elevator if she isnt the liz from that dimension?

Why is it we actively travel dimensions but never see or catch word of the current dimenisons liz (save the end) For instance what happens to liz when booker dies a martyr? Where is she even at when that all is happeneing? Hope she wasent still in the tower when songbird blew it up at the end.

Lets just be honest as much as we want to explain away the space magic its really just a dev nightmare being glued together (rather tactfully I might add) and sold into a workable game. There is a notable divide between devs from the second that liz changes outfits and songbird crashes the ship. and it dosent take much to see how gameplay feels different between the two parts, almost as if made entirely separately (yet the game is being actively played and no rifts are stepped through when this occurs) making a bizzar 90 degree turn mid game that almost under-minds character arcs.

This isnt like bioshock 1 which was explained genetics and fontains master plan, or inception which is coherent and planned this feels tactfully glued together.

1.-OK that statement hurt my brain but I think I get what you?re saying. Basically here is what happens- ?Bring the girl and wipe away the debt? actually happened when he first gave his baby up. He lived with regret for 20 years. When he went through the rift with the Luteces, his brain adapted by thinking that ?bring the girl and wipe away the debt? referred to him finding Elizabeth
2-Comstock never had a child because he became sterile because of all the dimensions travel. So to get a child, he traveled to a dimension in which he had a child and took that child. The two Bookers interacting are not from the same dimensional timelines, so that ?interacting with your past messes up your future? thing doesn?t apply because the two Bookers involved have different pasts, presents, and futures because they are from different timelines
3-The bird probably wasn?t attacking her. She probably just so happen to open a tear that was in his flight path
4-Considering the circumstances of their relationship throughout the game, Im sure any situation crazy enough to kill Booker would have probably killed liz also
And to be honest, anytime you have a story with time travel and a multiverse, there will ALWAYS be plot holes/things that don?t make since. Its just inevitable

 

[flarty]

Spoiler

1. The Luteces are quantum physicists of beyond genius intelligence and were able to create a device to allow them to travel through the tears where they met the Booker we play. Comstock knew of their technology and used the Luteces to get Anna/Elizabeth from Booker. He then tried to have the Luteces killed but the assassin made a hash of it damaged the Luteces machine which gave them the ability to travel the multiverse. 2. Elizabeth loses her pinky when a tear closes which apparently allowed her to open them. 3. Lady Comstock in all the multiverses that are visited in game, I think you cross three, Lady Comstock had always been killed by someone hired by Comstock to silence her about Elizabeth not being Comstocks child.

*spoilers for those who dont already know* Theres still abit unexplained like how it is what we actively play ingame is a lie made up by past Bookers imagination, how the whole dock thing never happened and you were dragged by them, but then you were boat rided by them, but that never happened because you spent 20 years in a drunk coma then walked through a rift instead, but instead took a boat ride and were told to wipe away the debt and given a box... Also I want to know how it is Future Booker(Comstock) and past Booker can physically interact (and kill) one another but not cause space time paradox from two planes of existence existing in the area of space. If you touch yourself in another dissension isnt that suppose to rip space time according to space magic (quantum mechanics) And how does liz rapidly age from changing her cloths into what appear to be to devs quarreling over art design? Why does song bird attack liz through a space rift in the elevator if she isnt the liz from that dimension? Why is it we actively travel dimensions but never see or catch word of the current dimenisons liz (save the end) For instance what happens to liz when booker dies a martyr? Where is she even at when that all is happeneing? Hope she wasent still in the tower when songbird blew it up at the end. Lets just be honest as much as we want to explain away the space magic its really just a dev nightmare being glued together (rather tactfully I might add) and sold into a workable game. There is a notable divide between devs from the second that liz changes outfits and songbird crashes the ship. and it dosent take much to see how gameplay feels different between the two parts, almost as if made entirely separately (yet the game is being actively played and no rifts are stepped through when this occurs) making a bizzar 90 degree turn mid game that almost under-minds character arcs. This isnt like bioshock 1 which was explained genetics and fontains master plan, or inception which is coherent and planned this feels tactfully glued together.

1.-OK that statement hurt my brain but I think I get what you?re saying. Basically here is what happens- ?Bring the girl and wipe away the debt? actually happened when he first gave his baby up. He lived with regret for 20 years. When he went through the rift with the Luteces, his brain adapted by thinking that ?bring the girl and wipe away the debt? referred to him finding Elizabeth 2-Comstock never had a child because he became sterile because of all the dimensions travel. So to get a child, he traveled to a dimension in which he had a child and took that child. The two Bookers interacting are not from the same dimensional timelines, so that ?interacting with your past messes up your future? thing doesn?t apply because the two Bookers involved have different pasts, presents, and futures because they are from different timelines 3-The bird probably wasn?t attacking her. She probably just so happen to open a tear that was in his flight path 4-Considering the circumstances of their relationship throughout the game, Im sure any situation crazy enough to kill Booker would have probably killed liz also And to be honest, anytime you have a story with time travel and a multiverse, there will ALWAYS be plot holes/things that don?t make since. Its just inevitable

I didn't post that.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Comstock used the Luteces machine to take Anna from an alternate universe in which he wasn't baptised (The Booker universe) 'wiping away' Bookers debt and creating Elizabeth. It's just after handing over Anna that Booker comes to regret his decision, with Anna losing her finger to the portal in his struggle to keep her.
At some point (most likely 20ish years to make Anna/Eliabeth being Bookers daughter more believable/easier for him to understand) Robert Lutece wants to use Booker as some sort of thought experiment, using Bookers desire to get his daughter back to entice him to particpate[footnote]As seen when the Luteces carry him to the boat after tearing through from Bookers office, as well as their conversation on the boat. I also found a voxophone from Rosalind saying that Robert wanted to send Elizabeth back. There may be other reasoning behind the decision that I have yet to see or find.[/footnote], taking him to Comstocks universe and setting him on the path to find his daughter. The alley scene and various cinema graphs show that Rosalind was from the Comstocks universe, while Booker and Robert are from the Booker universe, as both Booker and Robert had to adapt to being in another universe at the same time as their counterpart. (Robert and Rosalind effectively being fraternal twins)
Given the conversation on the boat it sounds like it's not the first time the Luteces have taken Booker to the lighthouse, and at the coin flip section the coin seems to have been flipped at least a hundred times, if you assume each marking on their boards is from Bookers tosses then it can be surmised that there has been a large number of repetitions of the experiment, all of which Booker had failed and died, with the gamers play through being the successful one that destroys the Comstock universes.
The baptism, handing over the baby and the alley scene all seem to be a combination of remembering and reliving the events that happened, as even though Elizabeth is present the events still unfold as they did, bar the baptism.
When Booker and Elizabeth go back the baptism site, it is a symbolic event throughout the multiverse of all the Comstock universes, meaning that any universe that contained Comstock would continue as if Comstock had died, but was otherwise the same. Bookers death before he becomes Comstock protects Anna from the Comstock universes and this is implied in the post credits scene, as they are a continuation of the universes where Booker remains unbaptised, without interference from other universes.

Bioshock Infinite seems to have some sort of cross dimensional symbolism where a number of iterations of someone can be condensed into a single 'averaged' figure which has an independent iteration in each universe[footnote]The policemen killed during the Finkton section are a simple example of this, being a combination of a single dead and living iteration. The Lady Comstocks apparition and the Luteces being three higher level examples, The Lady Comstock also including a piece of Elizabeths hate for her.[/footnote]This allows the supposedly dead Luteces to be able to wander around the multiverse at will actively changing it at will. This also allows for the single symbolic drowning of pre-Comstock Booker to prevent all Comstocks from existing. The symbolism only seems to work around the tears, as anyone who had died in an alternate universe(given the number of them, there would be at least one each) would get a bleeding nose, while it was only those who died near Elizabeth and Booker when they crossed universes who got the bleeding nose. I'm still unsure as to how the Luteces are unaffected by this, given that Booker got a nose bleed shortly after entering the universe in which he died as a Vox hero.

very good sir thank you.

I know this. I wont be able to pick this game back up for a few days. My mind = BLOWN!

 

[the clockmaker]

On the day that we have function time travel, we can start making comments about what is and is not right with regards to time travel. In Bioshock infinite's universe, time travel works by the non-paradoxical method of what the travelling actor does stays done, the 'overwrite' method as opposed to the 'rewind' method that you are proposing. We have proof that these are the rules that Infinite uses because those are the ones shown to work.

We know that Elizabeth drowning baptised Booker causes him and her to fade leaving Booker and Anna to go on with their lives because that is what we see happen.

Again, until time travel is actually invented, what the author says are the rules are the rules and to argue otherwise is as pointless as arguing about whether elves have pointed ears or not.

 

[Luiz Ferrarezzi]

"The impulse to accept the experience as real is so strong the dreamer will often invent a memory or a story to cover up an incongruous or unrealistic event in the dream." McLeester, Ed (1976). Welcome to the Magic Theater: A Handbook for Exploring Dreams. Food for Thought.
everything was Booker's dream or a lucid dream because if you look at the big picture it has all his fears and insecurities mixed with a lot of ideias that are not compatible with each other like quantum physics and back to the future time travel. Everything was his subconscious telling him to get his shit together and take care and respect Anna.( when Booker tells "I'm afraid of you" to Elizabeth, he is afraid of the responsabilities of taking care of her alone being poor and how his decisions are going to affect her in the future. And lutece says it was a thought experiment in the beginning and in our thoughts is the only place the Schrodinger's Cat experiment really works. the sky lines are a reference to dreams that you can fly because a lot of them dont connect to any place they are just circular. When Booker falls or dies its a False Awakening.)

 

[Steven Finkelstein]

The person drowned at the end was a Booker version that did not take the baptism. He is 20 years in the future with this brand from the point of the baptism. Therefore, if you just kill him off, you are only killing him. If you go back in time to a conjoining point in which he is both Comstock and Booker and kill him, then you have killed both Booker and Comstock, thus preventing any Booker or Comstock (Anna or Elizabeth) futures from occurring. In order to only kill the multiverse Comstocks, you would need to travel back in time with a version of Booker who would only ever choose the baptism, who is a totally separate incarnation from the Bookers that do not take the baptism, thus leading to the Anna only future. It would be a crazy mixture of time travel and selective universe travel. But the game has Booker dying, and even if it is "symbolic" (which makes no sense to me), it would be either all Bookers die since its booze cruise Booker who eats it, or both Bookers and Comstocks die. That would lead to no Elizabeth and no Anna, even if there is some sort of "symbolic simultaneity" going on with the story. It would also then reject the ending of the credits.

I like the "it was a dream" theory of a drunken ass man who has seen a lot of war, did horrible things, lost his wife, is in a drunken stooper, and is thinking of selling off his child to pay for debt. Still wouldn't explain how he would be able to dream about Rapture though....

 

[Steven Finkelstein]

OR the ending is of a universe in which Booker doesn't take the baptism, but that is because he is never given the opportunity in that timeline to have a baptism due to differing variables. This would still lead him to his drunken/Anna having state. If there is no Comstock in any connected universe in the multiverse, then Anna should still be in her crib since there is no Comstock looking to take her, assuming previous events in this universe have not prevented Anna from being there.

 

[lechat]

this is standard grandfather paradox stuff and unlike stuff like back to the future we can fill the plot holes here

in short
standard multi demensional story stuff with the time line split at the point of baptism. a third (or more) time line exists in which booker, commstock and elizabeth exist in the form the hold for the majority of the game and that universe is un changed

Also I want to know how it is Future Booker(Comstock) and past Booker can physically interact (and kill) one another but not cause space time paradox from two planes of existence existing in the area of space. If you touch yourself in another dissension isnt that suppose to rip space time according to space magic (quantum mechanics)

yeah van-damme neglected to explain why "the same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time" but assuming that is true, in the case of biological matter (ignoring decay) it ceases being "the same matter" in a matter of minuets/hours and the entire human body is replaced by new cells after 7 years
a physicist prolly knows more but i can not see why there should be any difference between touching (not that you can) 2 separate iron atoms together or 2 identical time traveling iron atoms

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Oh hell no.

You are attempting to give credibility and logic to the cesspit of a writing mechanic that is psuedo-physics. By trying to find an explanation to an element of the story that the writers never gave an explanation to because they didn't want to or they don't understand it themselves, you are giving more controversy to the legitimacy of your theories (which creates stupid interpretations of other people's perceptions of psuedo-physics and nobody wins and nobody agrees), and you are trying to justify that the ending of Infinite actually wasn't a shot glass of dog slobber.

Well actually, you are saying that the ending is more of a dismal insanity than people think, but look at what you've started! Now people are going to be quoting Stephen Hawking, Back to the Future, and hell, even the Da Vinci Code if it goes on long enough.

 

[MPerce]

In the immortal words of a certain time-traveler when asked to explain how the hell multi-dimensional time travel works:

"It's a big ball of whibbly-whobbly, timey-whimey....stuff."

Logical storytelling and parallel universes cannot exist together. They never have and probably never will. The best that stories like Bioshock Infinite can do is provide an emotionally and thematically satisfying conclusion that ties up at least the surface plot lines (which, in my opinion, is exactly what Infinite did).

So I say screw the science behind it, because going down that path will lead to nothing but sadness and straw men.