Brutality in Bioshock Infinite

Booker's very first kill is an astonishingly brutal one. Credit: Gameranx

Well, I recently finished Bioshock Infinite, probably one of the best games I've ever played. I enjoyed the game for many reasons, among them its commentary on violence and brutality, particularly in video games.

In the first two Bioshocks, every enemy the player faces (not the Little Sisters or Bioshock 2's still-sane inhabitants) is either a crazy, tortured drug addict, or some poor sucker bonded to a diving suit and reduced to subhuman intelligence. The weapons given to the player may inflict much pain and suffering, but the actual act of killing these enemies is quite justifiable - think of it as particularly merciless euthanization.

Bioshock Infinite also provides some put-them-out-of-their-misery enemies: the Firemen and Handymen seem to be in a great deal of pain at every passing moment. However, the vast majority of enemies are just schmucks from the Columbian army and police force, or ordinary citizens from the Vox Populi.

Living in a Fireman suit must be hell - Booker's probably
doing these guys a favour, at least. Credit: Bioshock Wiki

On the other hand, your enemies display little morality themselves; the police's first response upon your discovery is to attempt to saw your face open, and the Vox Populi's wanton destruction of Columbia reveals them to be morally lacking as well. Atlas pointed out in Bioshock 1 that Rapture isn't like the real world - barbaric violence is considered normal down there. Such is the case with Columbia - Booker and his enemies dish out violence as casually as characters in a Tarantino film.

Elizabeth at first questions Booker's actions. After an early melee with some Columbian police, Elizabeth is horrified at what Booker's done, having killed so many people. To the player, its a moment of complete surprise; they've likely been killing schmucks and not thinking twice about it. It's like the moment when your mother first realizes all the crap you've been doing in your M-rated game. Then, it's like your Mom sits down and plays that M-rated game when Elizabeth starts to procure turrets, weapons, and other offensive tools for Booker to use, (spoiler alert!) culminating in her (justified) murder of Daisy Fitzroy.

Elizabeth gets damn scary near the end of the game. Credit: Video Lithium

But then, Elizabeth comes full circle. Near the end of the game, Elizabeth asks Booker if he thinks there is any way they can possibly atone for their actions, having killed so many people. This was an interesting comment on a common trope in games: Practically speaking, it's often doubtful that the player character's end goal truly justified all their murder.

Of course, Elizabeth finds a method of redemption - one brutally efficient in and of itself. I'll talk a bit more about the ending in a later post, but it adds interesting fodder to a thought experiment someone else has no doubt conceived, but which has also occurred to me: if you torture someone and then erase their memories of it, were they ever tortured? If you cause death and destruction to the world, and then use dimension-bending powers to erase your actions from history, did they ever occur?

A reviewer once derided Infinite for attempting to criticize video game violence using video game violence, which is true enough, but the fact is, Infinite has some interesting things to say.

Knights in the Nightmare Analysis 2: Destined for Brutality

An adorable witch's last words.

Wisp, you are a heartless b*****d.

As peachy as restoring the kingdom sounds (see my last post on Knights in the Nightmare), ultimately, the Wisp is a floating ball of light devoid of any apparent personality. Yes, the game later reveals that the Wisp (spoiler alert!) is in fact King Wilmgard's soul, but this is not reflected in the dialogue. The Wisp blankly listens to things being said, offering no opinion. It can hear the souls of the kingdom's dead knights, prepare them for battle, and even sacrifice them to strengthen others, but it cannot hold a conversation with them.

The Wisp's lack of thought translates into a total lack of agency for the player. Oh, there's plenty of choice - different items to use, and knights to train - but these actions are all done for the purpose of killing. Knights takes a step back from the moral choices of Mass Effect and Bioshock, deliberately placing the player in a situation where their only power is to destroy, perhaps akin to Hotline Miami. While his subjects lauded him with praise, Wilmgard is seen as a tyrant by the Mehse and Tiamat peoples, and this aspect of his personality becomes his defining characteristic as the brutal Wisp.

Mass Effect: Terribly difficult moral choices.

Knights: See a general? KILL.

The player has two duties as the Wisp: restoring order to the kingdom as its former king, and maintaining dimensional boundaries as the divinely-appointed Arbitrator. I remember feeling this sense of purpose while playing, which added to the visceral thrill of butchering traitors and sending demons back to where they came from.

But then, the game takes a different direction: it sends the player off to the western lands in search of Wilmgard's body. Here, you encounter the disheveled, sometimes-undead Mehse people, whose lives have become defined by their oppression by Wilmgard's kingdom. The game offers no chance to make amends - instead, you must plough through every Mehse who stands in your way. During one instance in particular, the happy victory music seemed unsettlingly out-of-place as I watched a little Mehse witch I had just defeated take her final breaths. Suddenly, I didn't feel so good about my senseless slaughter of the aforementioned traitors.

The fate of the Tiamats doesn't look good either, considering they're keeping Wilmgard's own body away from him (and thus sealing their doom).

The game even taunts the player, posing scathing questions about how far they will go to take back their kingdom. These are made all the more meaningful by the fact that even in-game, the Wisp can offer no reply.