A Million Lighthouses: Thematic Similarities Between Bioshock And Bioshock Infinite (SPOILERS)

“They’re a million million worlds. All different and all similar. Constants and variables…There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a man. There’s always a city…”

These words, spoken by Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite, explain the titular infinite universes present in the game, where the slightest decision sparks the creation of alternate realities. However, Elizabeth’s description of these worlds almost exactly describes the similarities between Infinite and its spiritual predecessor, Bioshock: while the two games are decidedly unique, both contain an astounding amount of shared themes, character archetypes, and motifs that connects them.

But first, in order to compare these games, we must establish a basic familiarity with them. Thus, here are two short plot summaries of the two games:

Bioshock explores the ruins of the 1960s underwater city of Rapture, an Objectivist dream-turned-nightmare where complete laissez-faire capitalism has led to complete depravity and insanity, as experiments with genetics have caused nearly all of Rapture’s inhabitants to go violently mad. The player assumes the role of the silent protagonist Jack, the sole survivor of an airplane crash who has found his way into Rapture. Befriended by Atlas, who appears to be the only other sane person in Rapture, Jack fights against Rapture’s founder Andrew Ryan, until a final confrontation in Ryan’s office gives Jack a shocking revelation: Jack is actually Ryan’s son, artificially aged and brainwashed to follow orders when given the trigger “Would You Kindly”, a la The Manchurian Candidate. After Ryan forces Jack to kill him, Atlas reveals himself to be the smuggling lord Frank Fontaine and that he has been manipulating Jack throughout the game using said trigger. After narrowly escaping Fontaine’s attempt to kill him, Jack eventually frees himself of his brainwashing and defeats Fontaine; based upon the player’s decisions in the game, Jack either returns to the surface and peacefully lives out the rest of his life with children he saved from Rapture, or he takes Fontaine’s place and turns Rapture into a military force ready to attack the surface.

Bioshock Infinite also explores a city, this time in 1912: Columbia, a floating city which worships the Founding Fathers and has fetishized the idea of America into a racist religion, all led by the mysterious Prophet, Zachary Comstock. The player assumes the role of Pinkerton detective Booker Dewitt, a down-on-his-luck private investigator who has been sent to Columbia with a single goal in mind: “Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt”. The girl in question is Elizabeth, a young woman locked away in a tower because of her ability to rip holes between alternate realities, allowing travel between universes. Booker and Elizabeth jump from one reality to another in their attempt to escape the city, which then becomes a hunt to kill Comstock. Eventually, Booker kills Comstock, but Elizabeth explains that Comstock still exists in numerous other worlds, and these tragic events occur in those places nonetheless. So, Booker and Elizabeth decide to “smother him in the crib” so that none of this will ever take place. However, in the process, several shocking revelations occur: firstly, Elizabeth is actually Booker’s daughter Anna, sold to Comstock across worlds twenty years beforehand; by bringing the girl, Booker has wiped away his debt. The second great revelation is that Booker, a resident of another reality, is actually Comstock in this one; that is, Comstock is a version of Booker that underwent a religious transformation and became the fanatical Prophet. In a final sequence, multiple copies of Elizabeth drown Booker at the baptism where he would have become Comstock, thus destroying all versions of Comstock. After the credits, there is a short scene in Booker’s office in New York City, where he may or may not find Anna in her crib; because Comstock never bought her, Anna is still with Booker.

The most obvious similarity between Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite is in the archetypes their characters adopt. Jack and Booker in particular share a great amount of character traits. Both are strangers in a strange land, thrust from the normal into the fantastic. Both have issues with memory: Jack’s memories of his family are completely manufactured, and, due to issues with dimensional travel, Booker’s fractured memories have blocked his sale of Anna and replaced it with a mission to find Elizabeth to wipe away his debt. Both possess an unknown but direct connection to their antagonist: Jack is Ryan’s son, and Booker actually is Comstock. Jack and Booker both carry physical markings of their past: Jack bears tattoos of chains on his wrists, and Booker has branded the initials “AD” on his right hand in regret for selling Anna.

The games’ antagonists also share a great deal of traits. Ryan and Comstock are both zealots; Ryan is a devotee of Objectivism and Comstock one of American exceptionalism. Both are responsible for the creation of society separated from the rest of the world, and both wish to preserve their creation at any cost.

Side antagonists also fit into archetypes. Frank Fontaine of Rapture and Daisy Fitzpatrick of the Vox Populi are both potential allies of the protagonist who eventually betray them. Fontaine attempts to kill Jack, and the Daisy of an alternate reality attempts to kill Booker because of what he represents to her — in her reality, Booker died on behalf of the Vox Populi, and his reappearance threatens to destroy the figure of martyrdom Daisy has built around Booker’s death.

There is also a strong correlation between the mad artist Sander Cohen and the war-obsessed soldier Cornelius Slate. Both are hell-bent on their goal: Cohen yearns to see his sick masterpiece–a collection of pictures of his dead ex-disciples–completed, and Slate and his men desire to die “a soldier’s death” at the hands of Booker, rather than of Comstock.

In addition, both games have a strong archetype of the scientist searching for redemption for the horror caused by their creation. In Bioshock, Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum is the scientist responsible for the creation of ADAM, the material which allows for the gene-altering plasmids to exist. However, this ADAM must be grown within Little Sisters, orphaned girls whose minds are twisted by the ADAM-producing sea slugs that live inside them. Tenenbaum spends the entirety of the game attempting to save the Little Sisters, giving Jack a special concoction that frees them from their altered state. Similarly, the Luteces–two versions of the same person from two realities–attempt to set right the mess they’ve created by allowing Comstock to take Anna from Booker’s reality. To accomplish this, they bring Booker to the reality of Columbia to save Elizabeth.

With all of these similarities, at first the character of Elizabeth seems to stick out as an unmatched character. However, upon scrutiny one realizes that Elizabeth is actually a variation of a Little Sister: she is involuntarily given certain abilities, and she is watched over by a mechanical monstrosity–Songbird. Songbird is heavily reminiscent of the Big Daddies which protect the Little Sisters in Bioshock; a few voxophones in Infinite even imply that the creators of Songbird and the mechanical Handymen of Columbia were inspired by images of Big Daddies seen through tears inadvertently caused by Elizabeth.

As for the themes of the games, the questioning of memories and identity are obvious ones, as well as how societies are created and destroyed, often with consequences of experimentation reminiscent of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein thrown in. However, perhaps the most poignant of the themes present in these games are the depictions of patricide and impersonal suicide.

In both games, the protagonists are either the cause of or victim of patricide, where the victim is a somewhat willing party. In Bioshock, Jack kills his father Andrew Ryan by his own orders, for Ryan would rather die of his own free will than at the hands of Atlas. In Infinite, Booker appears to allow Elizabeth’s drowning of him so that Comstock will never come to be (it should also be noted that the threat of drowning is a nice bookend to both games: Bioshock begins with Jack frantically struggling to reach the surface of the ocean after his plane crashes, and Infinite ends with Booker’s drowning).

Both protagonists also commit a sort of indirect, symbolic suicide. It is implied that Jack is not only Ryan’s son, but almost a clone of him, making his patricide also a sort of suicide. In Infinite, Booker kills Comstock, his alternate self, in a fit of rage. Of special note is the method of murder: Jack kills Ryan by bludgeoning him in the head with his gold club, and Booker slams Comstock’s head on a baptismal font several times before drowning him. In both cases, the antagonist is slain due to blunt force inflicted on the head through a personal object–Ryan’s golf club and Comstock’s baptismal font (Booker’s drowning of Comstock also serves an effective foreshadowing of Booker’s future drowning).

But while these two games share a large amount of themes and archetypes, they are decidedly different. Bioshock is the story of a city gone mad, where its citizens will commit any act to come out on top. It is dark, gritty, and horrifying, with the protagonist utterly alone under the ocean. But where Bioshock is dark, Bioshock Infinite is bright, contrasting the idyllic land of Columbia with the disturbing belief system it supports; where Jack is alone, Booker is aided by Elizabeth, creating one of the greatest player-to-NPC relationships in recent gaming memory. Whatever the next Bioshock game is about, it is guaranteed to be its own game, while still reflecting the themes established by Bioshock years before.

Erickson Bridges, aka Indraklyr, is a book-, movie-, and game-loving classicist and RPG fanatic who just started writing for the Red Shirt Crew. He thinks Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite have advanced the whole medium of gaming in game design and storytelling and are awesome in general. Until he gets around to getting a twitter, tell him your thoughts in the comments below.