This discussion can't really be had without involving major spoilers for Bioshock Infinite. Don't keep reading if you haven't finished it, you poor soul.
I loved Bioshock Infinite. The more I play it, the MORE I love it. I did, however, have a moment when I just had to sit and think about something.
So, sure, Comstock was a bad guy. A really bad guy. He bought a baby girl, promoted violent racism, and tried to commit mass genocide. In the end, Booker sacrificed himself to prevent Comstock from ever doing any of it.
However, Booker and Elizabeth end up committing that mass genocide anyway. Oh, not in the traditional sense, of course. They don't try to kill all of "them" and leave only "us". In my opinion, they did something much worse. They prevented a million million worlds from ever existing in the first place.
By killing Booker, all of the worlds where he was Booker and all of the worlds where he was Comstock never existed. That's a million million lives that will never be lived, in the hopes that the other million million realities where Booker never existed turned out any better than the ones where he did. Isn't it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Who would chose non-existence over a life and an eventual death? By preventing all these worlds, they did not prevent the existence of racism, they did not prevent the existence of famine or war or chaos; they completely erased a million million worlds and a million million innocent people for no reason other than to prevent some bad things from happening in those realities. It did nothing to prevent bad things from happening anywhere else. It would be like completely wiping Japan off of the map because they have earthquakes sometimes. Sure, it prevents the suffering of those people, but it also prevents their happiness, and does nothing to prevent earthquakes in California. In the end, nothing is better. There's just a huge, gaping hole in the Earth.
Though I don't personally agree with what those characters did, I understand why they did it. I don't want to say it was absolutely 100% wrong, and that there's no moral grey area. Of course there's grey area. It's open for discussion and interpretation, but this is just my opinion, that maybe Comstock wasn't the only bad guy.
No game makes me think so much as Bioshock does.
What do you think, Escapist? Did Booker and Elizabeth have the right to erase all those people? Or perhaps they were being a bit selfish? Let's talk about it.
I loved Bioshock Infinite. The more I play it, the MORE I love it. I did, however, have a moment when I just had to sit and think about something.
So, sure, Comstock was a bad guy. A really bad guy. He bought a baby girl, promoted violent racism, and tried to commit mass genocide. In the end, Booker sacrificed himself to prevent Comstock from ever doing any of it.
However, Booker and Elizabeth end up committing that mass genocide anyway. Oh, not in the traditional sense, of course. They don't try to kill all of "them" and leave only "us". In my opinion, they did something much worse. They prevented a million million worlds from ever existing in the first place.
By killing Booker, all of the worlds where he was Booker and all of the worlds where he was Comstock never existed. That's a million million lives that will never be lived, in the hopes that the other million million realities where Booker never existed turned out any better than the ones where he did. Isn't it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Who would chose non-existence over a life and an eventual death? By preventing all these worlds, they did not prevent the existence of racism, they did not prevent the existence of famine or war or chaos; they completely erased a million million worlds and a million million innocent people for no reason other than to prevent some bad things from happening in those realities. It did nothing to prevent bad things from happening anywhere else. It would be like completely wiping Japan off of the map because they have earthquakes sometimes. Sure, it prevents the suffering of those people, but it also prevents their happiness, and does nothing to prevent earthquakes in California. In the end, nothing is better. There's just a huge, gaping hole in the Earth.
Though I don't personally agree with what those characters did, I understand why they did it. I don't want to say it was absolutely 100% wrong, and that there's no moral grey area. Of course there's grey area. It's open for discussion and interpretation, but this is just my opinion, that maybe Comstock wasn't the only bad guy.
No game makes me think so much as Bioshock does.
What do you think, Escapist? Did Booker and Elizabeth have the right to erase all those people? Or perhaps they were being a bit selfish? Let's talk about it.
