CloudAtlas said:
Legion said:
You are assuming that all people who play games with characters, play as them as though they are that character. For me personally I look at it the same way as I do a book. I am not that character, I am simply seeing the events from their perspective. The fact that I am the one controlling their actions doesn't make any difference. I am essentially the narrator the way I look at it.
I get your point. I'm not saying that all people who do that are perverts who want to... engage in generally not highly esteemed sexual practices (not sure how to describe it better without spoiler), just that I find it weird that such a romantic attachment comes to be in the first place since you experience this story through this specific lens. I don't think I want to dish out moral judgments in a thread about waifus...
I think it makes perfect sense to be attracted to Elizabeth. In hindsight it might seem a bit creepy, but as you're playing she's EXACTLY the kind of person people are going to be attracted to. She's designed that way. Your main goal at the outset is to track down and rescue a beautiful young woman trapped in a tower. When you get there she's well dressed, polite, intelligent, capable, and genuinely helpful in gameplay. She's super happy to see you, she's excited to be out of her tower, it's like a cliche romance story until the shooting starts up again. At that point, she very clearly has a father and you are there to rescue her from him. There is absolutely no reason to be suspect of any attraction you have toward her over the course of the game. It makes sense to the player that Booker would risk life and limb to save Elizabeth. Not only is she his meal ticket, she's also the love interest. That's why the ending is so effective, it's because an entire game's worth of buildup and sexual tension has been completely undercut by the realization that you are both her father
and the bad guy.
When I play games, unlike the both of you, I am neither a narrator nor do I assume the role of the main character. Instead, my consciousness inhabits the player character's body. I prefer the style of games like Skyrim and Fallout, because they allow me to control a blank slate. It takes me out of the game when I'm told that I am someone else. After playing Bioshock Infinite for a while, I got used to being addressed as "Booker" but at no point did I
become Booker. When I got to the end, I was shocked by and appreciated the ending, but
I'm still very attracted to Elizabeth. The feelings that I've cultivated for that character don't just go away because the shell I used to interact with the game fathered her.
I am not her father. I inhabited her father's body for a while, cultivated a relationship with her, and then she killed my avatar. From where I sit I'm still me, Booker's her dad (and out of the picture), and she's still a strong, attractive young woman of no relation to myself.
It certainly isn't creepy for a player to find Elizabeth an attractive character, any more or any less than any other character. She isn't off-limits because our avatar in her game of origin turns out to be her father. When we're here to discuss Waifus, we're talking about our attraction as an outside observer toward a specific character in a fictional narrative. As an outside observer, there's nothing wrong with anyone picking Elizabeth as their Waifu.
