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Judas

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Majora

Majora

Posted
Posted
vita-chambers aren't explained are they?

why doesn't Fontaine just power them all down?

Why didn't Ryan just turn them all off? Probably would have helped when he sent big groups of splicers and shit to kill you if you didn't have the ability to endlessly come back to life anyway. Seems like a silly oversight for such a clever man...

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Shindig

Shindig

Posted
Posted
The plot is full of holes

why would Atlas even bother with the charade of saving his family? He has you under his power anyway, why put all that effort into convincing you he's somebody he isn't?

And seeing as only you and Ryan can use the vita-chambers, why doesn't Ryan respawn when you kill him?

Why does Atlas/Fontaine bother trying to kill you when he knows you'll just respawn at a vitachamber anyway?

1. For your benefit.

To set Ryan up as the bad guy.

And...

Ryan may regen, just somewhere else in the map. Making a hasty escape.

Can't explain the third one, though. s'only a game, like.

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Ferine

Ferine

Posted
Posted
Why must I compare it to a good game plot? That's a pretty narrow soil to plow, you know. Am I barred from saying the plot's not as good as The Odyssey? Even if it's nonsense, it's still pretty much true.

I did say it didn't affect the game at all. I just couldn't help noticing that

you weren't 'ordered' to harvest the little sisters, despite it clearly being in his own interest which he had you favour the rest of the time. Not even Quake 4 had any howlers like that in it.

(I blacked it just in case.)

I'm not trying to make excuses here, but I don't think the game's ostensible plot holes have to be filled via direct exposition. Literature, as an academic subject*, often charges people with 'filling in the gaps' of stories by extrapolating hints found in the text or simply deducing probable scenarios using internal logic. I think BioShock gifts the attentive player with plenty of material with which to draw their own conclusions, and whilst many will be stretching plausibility to breaking point or making huge leaps of logic, that isn't to say that one or two might not be 'correct' — in reality it's quite possible the creator had no answers.

I'm not saying that all the story complaints aren't genuine plot holes, I'm simply saying that sometimes a bit of freedom for the imagination can be very enjoyable. Speaking of which...

Bonus post-completion wrist tattoo speculation:

As far as I know these are never explicitly commented upon, but I assume they are symbolic of the protagonist being a slave: they are manacles. I suppose it could also be to do with The Great Chain that Ryan's always going on about, but I'm not entirely sure what that refers to.

*Not that I'm a wordsmith of any kind; AS level was as far as I took it.

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Majora

Majora

Posted
Posted
1. For your benefit.

To set Ryan up as the bad guy.

And...

Ryan may regen, just somewhere else in the map. Making a hasty escape.

1. To whom? The player or the character? If it's for the character, why bother? If it's for the player then it's clumsy because there is no need in the actual story for it to be so.

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Ferine

Ferine

Posted
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1. To whom? The player or the character? If it's for the character, why bother? If it's for the player then it's clumsy because there is no need in the actual story for it to be so.

I think it's important to note that Fontaine is a conman. He enjoys playing people, manipulating people; he would probably see mind control as crude compared to his 'art', and he can only get off on others' obediance if it is unknowing. It's like he says in one of the audio diaries, "Never play a man for the short con when you can play 'em for the long one."

Yeah, my mind has touched on that possibility more than a few times.

It's a hard one to call regarding Ken Levine. From interviews it seems as if he could explain away all the trouble of Vita-Chambers by pointing to clues in the game world, or he'd be just as liable to point out that it's a game and they needed a way around player death. He seems like a really interesting person to interview.

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scottcr

scottcr

Posted
Posted

I'm a bit confused...

did Ryan not know that Atlas was Fontaine? Clearly, Ryan can also control our hero - so why can't he just say at the very beginning 'could you kindly not continue on this quest'?

Why does Ryan refer to Atlas as 'atlas' and asking about whether or not our hero is from the CIA - I'm confused...

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A Hen

A Hen

Posted
Posted
I'm a bit confused...

did Ryan not know that Atlas was Fontaine? Clearly, Ryan can also control our hero - so why can't he just say at the very beginning 'could you kindly not continue on this quest'?

Why does Ryan refer to Atlas as 'atlas' and asking about whether or not our hero is from the CIA - I'm confused...

Ryan didn't know who you were until quite late on. Initially, he thinks you've been sent by the CIA, or similar, to sabotage/spy on Rapture. The photos and scrawl on the noticeboard in his office suggest he doesn't know who you are, or about the trigger words, until he figures it all out during the game.

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scottcr

scottcr

Posted
Posted

hmmm

I thought the photos and stuff on the wall were indication that Ryan had it all sussed - photos of my family, the connections.

Also - Ryan has the dancer girl killed because she's pregnant - I'm assuming it was Ryan... but that doesnt' *seem* to have any bearing on the overall story?

Or was it Fontaine who set it up to make it look like Ryan... (btw - one of the better and deeper moments in the game, I wish it had more bits like that).

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RFT

RFT

Posted
Posted
I'm a bit confused...

did Ryan not know that Atlas was Fontaine? Clearly, Ryan can also control our hero - so why can't he just say at the very beginning 'could you kindly not continue on this quest'?

Why does Ryan refer to Atlas as 'atlas' and asking about whether or not our hero is from the CIA - I'm confused...

Ryan doesn't know at the start and only works it out not long at all before you meet him. he says as much: "now I know who you are..." just before the confrontation

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A Hen

A Hen

Posted
Posted
hmmm

I thought the photos and stuff on the wall were indication that Ryan had it all sussed - photos of my family, the connections.

Also - Ryan has the dancer girl killed because she's pregnant - I'm assuming it was Ryan... but that doesnt' *seem* to have any bearing on the overall story?

Or was it Fontaine who set it up to make it look like Ryan... (btw - one of the better and deeper moments in the game, I wish it had more bits like that).

Yes, he did have it all sussed - but only fairly shortly before you get to his office (I've only played it once, and not sure how shortly before). Before that, he kept speculating about you being a CIA spy, etc.

I think the implication is that the dancer is your mother, and Ryan your father. I'm not clear on the specifics - I think Fontaine engineered the liason between the two, and then took control of their baby, brainwashing it, etc., so he had a stooge with Ryan's DNA. Ryan needn't even have known he had a son, until he figured it out during the game.

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robdood

robdood

Posted
Posted
hmmm

I thought the photos and stuff on the wall were indication that Ryan had it all sussed - photos of my family, the connections.

Also - Ryan has the dancer girl killed because she's pregnant - I'm assuming it was Ryan... but that doesnt' *seem* to have any bearing on the overall story?

Or was it Fontaine who set it up to make it look like Ryan... (btw - one of the better and deeper moments in the game, I wish it had more bits like that).

Yeah, he did have it sussed, but he worked it out DURING the game, silly!

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A Hen

A Hen

Posted
Posted
ah - must've missed that bit.

so - he didn't know that Atlas was Fontaine then? Who did he think Atlas was? There's Atlas warning messages daubed on the walls...

... how did he know to use 'Would you kindly'?

I guess he heard the phrase being used by Atlas, plus he had that tape in his office of the boy being forced to "kindly" kill the puppy, so he'd somehow got hold of this information about the whole brainwashing thing [shrugs].

I'm not sure if he knew who Atlas was, but he doesn't seem to have let on publicly if he did.

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scottcr

scottcr

Posted
Posted

Yes, he did have it all sussed - but only fairly shortly before you get to his office (I've only played it once, and not sure how shortly before). Before that, he kept speculating about you being a CIA spy, etc.

I think the implication is that the dancer is your mother, and Ryan your father. I'm not clear on the specifics - I think Fontaine engineered the liason between the two, and then took control of their baby, brainwashing it, etc., so he had a stooge with Ryan's DNA. Ryan needn't even have known he had a son, until he figured it out during the game.

I kind of assumed the dancer was my mother after the reveal - but the ages don't add up. Was she going to have another child and that's why she was killed?

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