Finale Fireworker
Member
First and foremost: We tricked you, monster.
You may have clicked this thread because, like many, you agree that Vigors feel misplaced in BioShock Infinite. It is a common complaint, a regular criticism, and something people cite as a weak point in BioShock Infinite's world. Vigors are only in BioShock Infinite because they had to be, because it's a BioShock game, and there is nothing more to it. Right? Not right. Because Infinite's Vigor system does make sense, is explained culturally, is explained historically, and are as naturally woven into the plot as BioShock's more famous Plasmids.
Part One of Five: What are Plasmids?
Rapture is a city where every variety of industry is allowed to flourish or fail without regulation. Andrew Ryan believes regulation is constraint and sits firmly opposite his beliefs as a visionary entrepreneur. Plasmids are the consequence of two fields, biology and industry, combining without regulation and taking overtaking Rapture's entire society and economy. Rapture was a city based on realizing the full potential of the idea and the individual, and Plasmids are an expression of that ideology. Rapture is filled with figures and icons that were good ideas taken to deadly extremes, and this tapestry of examples makes up one of BioShock's most obvious themes: the danger of progress without scrutiny.
Successful to a deadly fault, Plasmids are a metaphor for Rapture as a whole. The biggest ethical question posed by scientists, in all fields, is whether something should be done just because it can. This question can be difficult to answer without experimentation. Cloning extinct species, in vitrio conception of human babies, creating life in the form of microbes, or transplanting a human head onto another human body. This is the question that haunts all of progressive science, and careful consideration of consequences causes science to tread more carefully around its ambitions and helps separate discovery from ego. Nobody asked this question in Rapture, the very question was rejected, and Rapture fell. Plasmids are Rapture, and Rapture is Plasmids.
This is the part most people understand on their own and don't need to have explained. After all, Plasmids are literally in your face as Jack jams hypodermic needles into his veins over and over. And yet, even with this very clear imagery, another element of what Plasmids represent is usually overlooked. Because Plasmids aren't just biology gone wild, Plasmids are also heroin.
Rapture is a city where a popular new drug took over the market. It dominated industry, it was openly and heavily used, and ultimately caused major problems with Rapture's society and economy. Like heroin, Plasmids (or more correctly, Adam) are an intravenous drug that is highly addictive. Users need more and more to satisfy their cravings and splicers roam Rapture looking for their next fix. Anything to keep the rush going. They will kill, they will steal, and the image of the splicer is a severe and frightening dramatization of addiction.
The cultural and economic exploitation of Adam is vaguely reminiscent of the real-world history of opium in China during the 19th century, over which two wars were fought between China and British imperialists. This is alluded to by Dr. Yi Suchong, a Korean national who gained utility during WWII among his Japanese aggressors due to his opium. BioShock as a text does not subscribe to the ideals of Andrew Ryan and Ron Paul. BioShock warns that the accessibility of addicting and placating substances is dangerous for society, particularly when industrialized. Because once drugs become a business, it becomes the active and express economic interest of that business to make people want to do them. Plasmids in Rapture were heavily marketed, made to appeal to Rapture's inhabitants as consumers, and Rapture's entire social infrastructure collapsed.
BioShock encourages regulation. It encourages a cynical consideration of all things scientific and economic. Plasmids were an antisocial force that tore apart the city, and the sit as a cornerstone of BioShock's core narrative as a condemnation of objectivism.
NOTE: Some may say that Jack's use of Plasmids to increase his own utility and benefit his individual accomplishment argues against Plasmids as a dangerous, destructive force. In the past, this has been called ludonarrative dissonance. But players need to remember that Jack is a splicer too. He roams Rapture, hunting Adam, resorting to violence at any turn to feed his addiction. At the twist, BioShock famously condemns Jack (and the player) for their actions. Jack is not a hero. Jack is a slave to Atlas and to Adam, and his entire identity as an individual is completely predicated on his consumption of Adam. Who is Jack? Jack is a drug addict. His drugs dictate his entire personality and identity. The "Would you kindly?" scene (among other thematic meta) is indicative of Jack's rock-bottom epiphany to find something other than drugs to define himself. Like many recovering addicts, Jack is motivated to get better for the welfare of his children. This is not ludonarrative dissonance. This is literally the game's mechanical vehicle sewn inextricably into the themes of the narrative.
Now, all that said, what are Vigors?
Part Two of Five: Vigors; or Now for Something Completely Different
Throughout the 1800s and the first half of the 20th century, traveling salesmen claiming to be doctors (or at least wise travelers) would perform shows on small stages in an effort to peddle shady goods. These were called medicine shows. The specialty of these salesmen were their infamous supplies of "snake oil," or miracle elixirs, which promised incredible results upon ingestion. They would cure baldness, or make you stronger, or irresistible to the opposite sex. Representations of snake oil salesmen are common in popular culture, from Futurama to Sweeney Todd to Red Dead Redemption.
And BioShock Infinite.
These miracle elixirs didn't work. The successful sale of these products rested entirely on the deceit of the salesman. Through a combination of showmanship and tall promises, snake oil salesmen would push their product by any means necessary. It's perhaps no coincidence then that the salesman at the Columbian fair medicine show looks uncannily similar to Jeremiah Fink.
Science fiction is a genre built on What Ifs, and Infinite's question is "what if these miracle elixirs actually worked?" What if you could bottle miracles?
Part Three of Five: What are miracles?
A miracle is an occurrence that cannot be explained, and any possible explanation is contingent on the supernatural. Traditionally speaking, miracles are an act of God. God can perform miracles on his own, or perform miracles through his children, but a miraculous event is an act of God. In Exodus, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush, which does not burn. He allows Moses to turn the Nile into blood, and part the Red Sea so that the Israelites may walk across it. He turns Moses' staff into a snake, and summon frogs from The Nile, and sends a swarm of locusts across Egypt. Exodus is basically God telling Moses to go stand somewhere over and over again so he can perform miracles through him to convince the Pharaoh to free the Jews.
You may think of miracles as Jesus healing the sick, or walking across water, and these are certainly miracles. But it's important to remember that Biblical miracles are not always beautiful. They are often terrifying, even lethal, and easily confused for dark arts of magic.
When Booker consumes Vigors, he becomes capable of performing miracles. He gains control over fire, over water, and over beasts. Vigors, miracles in a bottle, enable him to conduct impossible, and frightening, magical talents. But Booker is not an agent of God. Because God is not the only one who can perform miracles.
In Exodus, Moses' miracles are continually replicated by magicians in the Pharaoh's court, causing him to not believe Moses is a messenger of God. These magicians, as agents of Satan, are capable of performing similar miracles to Moses. Their power, while finite, is convincing. Miracles, or false miracles, can also be performed by the devil.
Vigors are false miracles, also known as Satanic miracles, in a bottle. The game is pretty upfront about this. The medicine show features two performers dressed as devils performing their false miracles with Vigors. The ability to control fire is called Devil's Kiss. You gain the ability of Possession. Ravens and crows are the dark inverse of doves (Noah sent a raven and a dove to search for land), and usually interpreted as Satanic. In an overtly religious society like Columbia, Vigors are unappealing. The society at large does not use them, despite mild curiosity, and they are generally ignored despite Fink's attempts at temptation.
But those who do use Vigors, and there are surprisingly few, are transformed and suffer greatly. Firemen are in a permanent state of pain and burning (as indicated by their dialog), Zealots of the Lady are in a permanent state of pain and burden (as indicated by their dialog), and Slate is killed by his own obsession. Those led astray by Satan's temptation, Vigors, are led to pain, suffering, and death.
In summation: Vigors are false miracles and symbolize Temptation with a capital T. Jeremiah Fink, the great deceiver, peddles these Vigors in an attempt to earn customers, or followers. When the Vigor market flounders, he strikes a deal with Comstock to benefit his industry. Comstock makes a deal with the Devil, the great deceiver, and Columbia is doomed.
Fink is not literally the Devil, to be clear here. Fink becomes the Devil figure through the application of Christian scripture, and consideration of the Devil as a "man in a black suit," (also present in Red Dead Redemption). Fink's role as the supreme deceiver positions him as Satan's thematic surrogate in Columbia, but not Satan himself.
Part Four of Five: If Fink is the Devil, who is the Anti-Christ?
If you believe the propaganda in Columbia, Booker is the Anti-Christ, or the "false shepherd." Booker is the master of false miracles and is there as an opposite force to Columbia's pseudo-Christian fundamentalism. So yes, Booker is the Anti-Christ.
And so is Comstock. (Clarity spoiler: Booker and Comstock are literally the same person.)
With his ability to see the future and travel between dimensions, Comstock is the master of time and space. Like Booker, because he is Booker, Comstock is the master of Satanic miracles. But the real mission of the Anti-Christ is to lead thepeople away from God, not do magic tricks. And that is exactly what Comstock does. "If a miracle worker is teaching something contrary to God's Word, then his miracles, no matter how convincing they seem, are a demonic delusion" (Benjamin Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles).
The population of Columbia believes Comstock, whom they worship as their prophet, to be a miracle worker. He made a city fly, he sees the future, and claims to carry out God's will. But Comstock knows that this is not true. Comstock probably does believe, on some level, that he is God's messenger, and it is God's will for him to raise Elizabeth to cleanse the world in flame. But whether he is simply falling victim to his own delusion or comfortable misleading his followers, his deification is problematic.
Comstock, by redirecting so much worship away from God and onto himself, is the true false shepherd. This is most clear when Chen Lin's statue of a Buddha is transformed into a statue of Comstock. In Columbia, Comstock is before God. Comstock is before Christ. Comstock is the false prophet, the false shepherd, and the Anti-Christ.
Booker's death, the simultaneous baptism of both Booker and Comstock ("I'm both"), is this realization. The baptism is the purging of their sins and their return to the bosom of God. But, as Neiteio points out, Booker does not emerge from the baptism. So rather than redemption, there is merely acceptance. But by stopping the Anti-Christ, Elizabeth prevents Armageddon, and the world is saved. Infinite does not end in fire, it ends in water.
Part Five of Five: So why the Resistance to Vigors?
The resistance to Vigors is explained by the ideology of Columbia's inhabitants, who would be brought up to resist and reject temptation. But there is also a wider, cultural reason for their widespread rejection.
Miracle tonics were infamous for their high content of drugs and alcohol. They were made with opium, or cocaine, or were very quick to get you drunk with their high alcohol volumes. This is portrayed humorously in a Red Dead Redemption propaganda film, which takes place somewhat anachronistically in 1911, one year before BioShock Infinite.
By 1912, no matter how naive the citizens of Columbia might be, the legacy of medicine shows and snake oil salesmen would have been known. While patent medicines were still successful up until World War II (Hadacol, sold throughout the war, was 12% alcohol by volume), people would still be dubious of Fink's claims of miracles. At the time of the Columbian fair, Vigors were still new, and citizens were hesitant to trust Fink's claims. An onlooker says he'll wait for Fink to "work out the kinks first," and obviously nobody is flocking to try out new Vigors.
Coupled with this is the cultural rejection of alcohol during the temperance movement. Vigors are bottled like spirits, and are drunk like spirits, and trigger brief hallucinations upon ingestion. As a drug, or even as a stand in for alcohol, Vigors would be unappealing to an elitist society growing up in the temperance era. The excess consumption of alcohol, or any form of stimulant, would be offensive to the sensibilities of the era.
William James, one of the most prolific and influential philosophers of the 19th century, describes drunkenness as a mystical vehicle for fantasy. This is taken to a whole new length with Vigors.
In a way that would certainly please Ron Paul, the legality of hard drugs and the accessibility of alcohol holds no sway over the people of Columbia's decision to abstain. Their rejection of stimulants is cultural, ideological, and not at all legal. But when we travel back to Rapture in Burial at Sea, the shift in ideology is almost immediately apparent.
The consumption of alcohol and stimulants in Rapture carries no cultural aversion. The people of Rapture, about as far removed from the petty morality of temperance as possible, encourage one's liberty to indulge in substances. Culturally, Rapture was a society that ate up Plasmids, and at the peak of the Plasmid boom nearly everyone took them.
But not in Columbia. Both Rapture and Columbia are cities where substances and industry grew without regulation, and both cities fell. But the cities did not fall for the same reasons.
Conclusion
BioShock has the invisible hand of the free market, and Infinite has the invisible hand of God, and both stories put blood on these hands in different ways. But the two stories will always be more different than they are alike, and truly understanding Infinite as a narrative about religious fanaticism requires letting go of the story we're told in Rapture. While both games contain similar narrative elements, these elements are not used to tell the same story. These elements are not used to explore the same themes. They are merely constants and variables.
BioShock Infinite disappointed a lot of BioShock fans because it was extremely different. It wasn't an Action RPG, Columbia was not an explorable open-world, it wasn't a horror game, and all things considered it wasn't very political. It is very difficult to set aside all expectations established by the original BioShock when playing or analyzing Infinite. This is especially so because, for a game that turned out so tangentially different from BioShock, Infinite can only wander so far before the tether of its plot yanks it back to inseparable comparison.
At one end of a rope is BioShock, and at the other is Infinite, and even if they are charging in different directions they are forever a fixed distance apart. Infinite's failure to completely separate itself from BioShock is a curse that compromises the expectations of both gameplay and story. So when players are introduced to Vigors, of course they will relate them to Plasmids. I mean, they are Plasmids. But this is where the similarities end and everybody knows it. Vigors are not symbolic of any sort of ideological downfall, they are virtually meaningless to the people of Columbia who don't even use them, and retaining all the information one knows of Plasmids makes Vigors feel forced.
But with context and understanding of the Biblical backbone of Infinite's plot, they are not. The Anti-Christ narrative relies on the presence of Vigors to demonstrate its religious archetypes and parables. Even though Infinite doesn't want us to, try forget about BioShock when discussing it. Focus on Columbia and the kind of theocratic science fiction Infinite is based on. Let's pretend it's not called BioShock. Let's call it TheoShock.
A great comment by PBalfredo about this:
You may have clicked this thread because, like many, you agree that Vigors feel misplaced in BioShock Infinite. It is a common complaint, a regular criticism, and something people cite as a weak point in BioShock Infinite's world. Vigors are only in BioShock Infinite because they had to be, because it's a BioShock game, and there is nothing more to it. Right? Not right. Because Infinite's Vigor system does make sense, is explained culturally, is explained historically, and are as naturally woven into the plot as BioShock's more famous Plasmids.
Please do not use this thread as a platform to complain about how much you hate Infinite. If you feel that way, this thread obviously isn't for you. But thank you for stopping by anyway, and maybe you will still enjoy the read.
- This thread is a close reading of BioShock Infinite and I present it as a valid and factual breakdown based on the actual text of the game. I make these threads to prompt intelligent, analytical discussion about video games as narrative art and all comments pertaining to that discussion are welcome. If you disagree with something I assert, that's great, and try to keep in the spirit of the thread and contribute to the analysis in your own way.
- Untagged spoilers should be expected and uninitiated readers should be cautioned. It is impossible to conduct any sort of thorough analysis and conversation on a text without consideration of its entirety.
"Lacking its own ingenuity, the Parasite fears the visionary. What it cannot plagiarize, it seeks to censor; what it cannot regulate, it seeks to ban." -Andrew Ryan
Part One of Five: What are Plasmids?
Rapture is a city where every variety of industry is allowed to flourish or fail without regulation. Andrew Ryan believes regulation is constraint and sits firmly opposite his beliefs as a visionary entrepreneur. Plasmids are the consequence of two fields, biology and industry, combining without regulation and taking overtaking Rapture's entire society and economy. Rapture was a city based on realizing the full potential of the idea and the individual, and Plasmids are an expression of that ideology. Rapture is filled with figures and icons that were good ideas taken to deadly extremes, and this tapestry of examples makes up one of BioShock's most obvious themes: the danger of progress without scrutiny.
Successful to a deadly fault, Plasmids are a metaphor for Rapture as a whole. The biggest ethical question posed by scientists, in all fields, is whether something should be done just because it can. This question can be difficult to answer without experimentation. Cloning extinct species, in vitrio conception of human babies, creating life in the form of microbes, or transplanting a human head onto another human body. This is the question that haunts all of progressive science, and careful consideration of consequences causes science to tread more carefully around its ambitions and helps separate discovery from ego. Nobody asked this question in Rapture, the very question was rejected, and Rapture fell. Plasmids are Rapture, and Rapture is Plasmids.
This is the part most people understand on their own and don't need to have explained. After all, Plasmids are literally in your face as Jack jams hypodermic needles into his veins over and over. And yet, even with this very clear imagery, another element of what Plasmids represent is usually overlooked. Because Plasmids aren't just biology gone wild, Plasmids are also heroin.
Satirical depictions of libertarians loving heroin are common, because the legalization of drugs (among many "vice" industries, like prostitution) is something many prominent libertarians have been known to support. Ron Paul, for example, considers the illegality of vices to be anti-liberty, and opposes any sort of government regulation that dictates what choices people are allowed to make for themselves. The stance of libertarians, obviously, isn't actually that they love heroin. They hold the belief that people who don't do heroin (i.e. almost everyone) don't abstain because the government tells them not to. They don't do heroin because they don't want to do heroin.
Rapture is a city where a popular new drug took over the market. It dominated industry, it was openly and heavily used, and ultimately caused major problems with Rapture's society and economy. Like heroin, Plasmids (or more correctly, Adam) are an intravenous drug that is highly addictive. Users need more and more to satisfy their cravings and splicers roam Rapture looking for their next fix. Anything to keep the rush going. They will kill, they will steal, and the image of the splicer is a severe and frightening dramatization of addiction.
The cultural and economic exploitation of Adam is vaguely reminiscent of the real-world history of opium in China during the 19th century, over which two wars were fought between China and British imperialists. This is alluded to by Dr. Yi Suchong, a Korean national who gained utility during WWII among his Japanese aggressors due to his opium. BioShock as a text does not subscribe to the ideals of Andrew Ryan and Ron Paul. BioShock warns that the accessibility of addicting and placating substances is dangerous for society, particularly when industrialized. Because once drugs become a business, it becomes the active and express economic interest of that business to make people want to do them. Plasmids in Rapture were heavily marketed, made to appeal to Rapture's inhabitants as consumers, and Rapture's entire social infrastructure collapsed.
BioShock encourages regulation. It encourages a cynical consideration of all things scientific and economic. Plasmids were an antisocial force that tore apart the city, and the sit as a cornerstone of BioShock's core narrative as a condemnation of objectivism.
NOTE: Some may say that Jack's use of Plasmids to increase his own utility and benefit his individual accomplishment argues against Plasmids as a dangerous, destructive force. In the past, this has been called ludonarrative dissonance. But players need to remember that Jack is a splicer too. He roams Rapture, hunting Adam, resorting to violence at any turn to feed his addiction. At the twist, BioShock famously condemns Jack (and the player) for their actions. Jack is not a hero. Jack is a slave to Atlas and to Adam, and his entire identity as an individual is completely predicated on his consumption of Adam. Who is Jack? Jack is a drug addict. His drugs dictate his entire personality and identity. The "Would you kindly?" scene (among other thematic meta) is indicative of Jack's rock-bottom epiphany to find something other than drugs to define himself. Like many recovering addicts, Jack is motivated to get better for the welfare of his children. This is not ludonarrative dissonance. This is literally the game's mechanical vehicle sewn inextricably into the themes of the narrative.
Now, all that said, what are Vigors?
Part Two of Five: Vigors; or Now for Something Completely Different
Throughout the 1800s and the first half of the 20th century, traveling salesmen claiming to be doctors (or at least wise travelers) would perform shows on small stages in an effort to peddle shady goods. These were called medicine shows. The specialty of these salesmen were their infamous supplies of "snake oil," or miracle elixirs, which promised incredible results upon ingestion. They would cure baldness, or make you stronger, or irresistible to the opposite sex. Representations of snake oil salesmen are common in popular culture, from Futurama to Sweeney Todd to Red Dead Redemption.
"If I told you a man could shoot lightning from his fingers now, would you believe me? If I told you a man could hoist a one-ton stallion straight into the air, would you believe me?" -Vigor barker
And BioShock Infinite.
These miracle elixirs didn't work. The successful sale of these products rested entirely on the deceit of the salesman. Through a combination of showmanship and tall promises, snake oil salesmen would push their product by any means necessary. It's perhaps no coincidence then that the salesman at the Columbian fair medicine show looks uncannily similar to Jeremiah Fink.
Fink is Columbia's biggest and most successful snake oil peddler. He steals his goods, he manipulates his customers, he maintains his theatricality and leans on his persona as a superior, learned manufacturer. "Who needs competition when you have quality?"
Science fiction is a genre built on What Ifs, and Infinite's question is "what if these miracle elixirs actually worked?" What if you could bottle miracles?
Part Three of Five: What are miracles?
A miracle is an occurrence that cannot be explained, and any possible explanation is contingent on the supernatural. Traditionally speaking, miracles are an act of God. God can perform miracles on his own, or perform miracles through his children, but a miraculous event is an act of God. In Exodus, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush, which does not burn. He allows Moses to turn the Nile into blood, and part the Red Sea so that the Israelites may walk across it. He turns Moses' staff into a snake, and summon frogs from The Nile, and sends a swarm of locusts across Egypt. Exodus is basically God telling Moses to go stand somewhere over and over again so he can perform miracles through him to convince the Pharaoh to free the Jews.
You may think of miracles as Jesus healing the sick, or walking across water, and these are certainly miracles. But it's important to remember that Biblical miracles are not always beautiful. They are often terrifying, even lethal, and easily confused for dark arts of magic.
When Booker consumes Vigors, he becomes capable of performing miracles. He gains control over fire, over water, and over beasts. Vigors, miracles in a bottle, enable him to conduct impossible, and frightening, magical talents. But Booker is not an agent of God. Because God is not the only one who can perform miracles.
In Exodus, Moses' miracles are continually replicated by magicians in the Pharaoh's court, causing him to not believe Moses is a messenger of God. These magicians, as agents of Satan, are capable of performing similar miracles to Moses. Their power, while finite, is convincing. Miracles, or false miracles, can also be performed by the devil.
Vigors are false miracles, also known as Satanic miracles, in a bottle. The game is pretty upfront about this. The medicine show features two performers dressed as devils performing their false miracles with Vigors. The ability to control fire is called Devil's Kiss. You gain the ability of Possession. Ravens and crows are the dark inverse of doves (Noah sent a raven and a dove to search for land), and usually interpreted as Satanic. In an overtly religious society like Columbia, Vigors are unappealing. The society at large does not use them, despite mild curiosity, and they are generally ignored despite Fink's attempts at temptation.
But those who do use Vigors, and there are surprisingly few, are transformed and suffer greatly. Firemen are in a permanent state of pain and burning (as indicated by their dialog), Zealots of the Lady are in a permanent state of pain and burden (as indicated by their dialog), and Slate is killed by his own obsession. Those led astray by Satan's temptation, Vigors, are led to pain, suffering, and death.
In summation: Vigors are false miracles and symbolize Temptation with a capital T. Jeremiah Fink, the great deceiver, peddles these Vigors in an attempt to earn customers, or followers. When the Vigor market flounders, he strikes a deal with Comstock to benefit his industry. Comstock makes a deal with the Devil, the great deceiver, and Columbia is doomed.
There is some great discussion on this part beginning at post #59 between Reebot and myself.
Fink is not literally the Devil, to be clear here. Fink becomes the Devil figure through the application of Christian scripture, and consideration of the Devil as a "man in a black suit," (also present in Red Dead Redemption). Fink's role as the supreme deceiver positions him as Satan's thematic surrogate in Columbia, but not Satan himself.
Part Four of Five: If Fink is the Devil, who is the Anti-Christ?
If you believe the propaganda in Columbia, Booker is the Anti-Christ, or the "false shepherd." Booker is the master of false miracles and is there as an opposite force to Columbia's pseudo-Christian fundamentalism. So yes, Booker is the Anti-Christ.
And so is Comstock. (Clarity spoiler: Booker and Comstock are literally the same person.)
With his ability to see the future and travel between dimensions, Comstock is the master of time and space. Like Booker, because he is Booker, Comstock is the master of Satanic miracles. But the real mission of the Anti-Christ is to lead thepeople away from God, not do magic tricks. And that is exactly what Comstock does. "If a miracle worker is teaching something contrary to God's Word, then his miracles, no matter how convincing they seem, are a demonic delusion" (Benjamin Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles).
The population of Columbia believes Comstock, whom they worship as their prophet, to be a miracle worker. He made a city fly, he sees the future, and claims to carry out God's will. But Comstock knows that this is not true. Comstock probably does believe, on some level, that he is God's messenger, and it is God's will for him to raise Elizabeth to cleanse the world in flame. But whether he is simply falling victim to his own delusion or comfortable misleading his followers, his deification is problematic.
Comstock, by redirecting so much worship away from God and onto himself, is the true false shepherd. This is most clear when Chen Lin's statue of a Buddha is transformed into a statue of Comstock. In Columbia, Comstock is before God. Comstock is before Christ. Comstock is the false prophet, the false shepherd, and the Anti-Christ.
Booker's death, the simultaneous baptism of both Booker and Comstock ("I'm both"), is this realization. The baptism is the purging of their sins and their return to the bosom of God. But, as Neiteio points out, Booker does not emerge from the baptism. So rather than redemption, there is merely acceptance. But by stopping the Anti-Christ, Elizabeth prevents Armageddon, and the world is saved. Infinite does not end in fire, it ends in water.
Part Five of Five: So why the Resistance to Vigors?
The resistance to Vigors is explained by the ideology of Columbia's inhabitants, who would be brought up to resist and reject temptation. But there is also a wider, cultural reason for their widespread rejection.
Miracle tonics were infamous for their high content of drugs and alcohol. They were made with opium, or cocaine, or were very quick to get you drunk with their high alcohol volumes. This is portrayed humorously in a Red Dead Redemption propaganda film, which takes place somewhat anachronistically in 1911, one year before BioShock Infinite.
By 1912, no matter how naive the citizens of Columbia might be, the legacy of medicine shows and snake oil salesmen would have been known. While patent medicines were still successful up until World War II (Hadacol, sold throughout the war, was 12% alcohol by volume), people would still be dubious of Fink's claims of miracles. At the time of the Columbian fair, Vigors were still new, and citizens were hesitant to trust Fink's claims. An onlooker says he'll wait for Fink to "work out the kinks first," and obviously nobody is flocking to try out new Vigors.
Coupled with this is the cultural rejection of alcohol during the temperance movement. Vigors are bottled like spirits, and are drunk like spirits, and trigger brief hallucinations upon ingestion. As a drug, or even as a stand in for alcohol, Vigors would be unappealing to an elitist society growing up in the temperance era. The excess consumption of alcohol, or any form of stimulant, would be offensive to the sensibilities of the era.
(The Drunkard's Progress - 1846)
"The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes." -William James (1842 - 1910)
William James, one of the most prolific and influential philosophers of the 19th century, describes drunkenness as a mystical vehicle for fantasy. This is taken to a whole new length with Vigors.
In a way that would certainly please Ron Paul, the legality of hard drugs and the accessibility of alcohol holds no sway over the people of Columbia's decision to abstain. Their rejection of stimulants is cultural, ideological, and not at all legal. But when we travel back to Rapture in Burial at Sea, the shift in ideology is almost immediately apparent.
"You imagine having a beer with Andrew Ryan? Probably some teetotaler..."
"Don't trust a man who don't drink at least time to time..."
The consumption of alcohol and stimulants in Rapture carries no cultural aversion. The people of Rapture, about as far removed from the petty morality of temperance as possible, encourage one's liberty to indulge in substances. Culturally, Rapture was a society that ate up Plasmids, and at the peak of the Plasmid boom nearly everyone took them.
But not in Columbia. Both Rapture and Columbia are cities where substances and industry grew without regulation, and both cities fell. But the cities did not fall for the same reasons.
Conclusion
BioShock has the invisible hand of the free market, and Infinite has the invisible hand of God, and both stories put blood on these hands in different ways. But the two stories will always be more different than they are alike, and truly understanding Infinite as a narrative about religious fanaticism requires letting go of the story we're told in Rapture. While both games contain similar narrative elements, these elements are not used to tell the same story. These elements are not used to explore the same themes. They are merely constants and variables.
BioShock Infinite disappointed a lot of BioShock fans because it was extremely different. It wasn't an Action RPG, Columbia was not an explorable open-world, it wasn't a horror game, and all things considered it wasn't very political. It is very difficult to set aside all expectations established by the original BioShock when playing or analyzing Infinite. This is especially so because, for a game that turned out so tangentially different from BioShock, Infinite can only wander so far before the tether of its plot yanks it back to inseparable comparison.
At one end of a rope is BioShock, and at the other is Infinite, and even if they are charging in different directions they are forever a fixed distance apart. Infinite's failure to completely separate itself from BioShock is a curse that compromises the expectations of both gameplay and story. So when players are introduced to Vigors, of course they will relate them to Plasmids. I mean, they are Plasmids. But this is where the similarities end and everybody knows it. Vigors are not symbolic of any sort of ideological downfall, they are virtually meaningless to the people of Columbia who don't even use them, and retaining all the information one knows of Plasmids makes Vigors feel forced.
But with context and understanding of the Biblical backbone of Infinite's plot, they are not. The Anti-Christ narrative relies on the presence of Vigors to demonstrate its religious archetypes and parables. Even though Infinite doesn't want us to, try forget about BioShock when discussing it. Focus on Columbia and the kind of theocratic science fiction Infinite is based on. Let's pretend it's not called BioShock. Let's call it TheoShock.
A great comment by PBalfredo about this:
I honesty never noticed that very few other people in Columbia used Vigors.
