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Jetrauben posted:The problem is that Daisy is given no real motive to be so cartoonishly malicious. She is instantly equivocated with the very worst of American racism. And Comstock needs a reason other than being a white man who likes thinking black people are subhuman? How nuanced does *his* character need to be? Why exactly does the Order of the Raven need to exist in a separated society where every single function of Columbia is about keeping black people down? What sense does it make to have an enormous statue of John Wilkes Booth in a dining hall where birds fly around making GBS threads on everything and picking through a dining table full of rot? I don't think the storytelling in Infinite is lazy. I think it just serves a different end than some people would like it to.
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Dec 15, 2013 17:33
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I don't see why people are moaning that the Vox have turned evil or are gunning down innocent civilians, anyone with half a mind could tell this was going to happen, Daisy only cared about bringing down the Founders, all of them, women and children included, its a real Us vs Them type scenario and I expected nothing less from her when she forced me to help her, Booker doesn't give a poo poo, and neither did I. 
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Dec 15, 2013 17:56
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Judge Tesla posted:I don't see why people are moaning that the Vox have turned evil or are gunning down innocent civilians, anyone with half a mind could tell this was going to happen, Daisy only cared about bringing down the Founders, all of them, women and children included, its a real Us vs Them type scenario and I expected nothing less from her when she forced me to help her, Booker doesn't give a poo poo, and neither did I. They aren't moaning because they're surprised, they're moaning because it is badly written.
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Dec 15, 2013 18:51
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The astonishing speed with which Fitzroy turned heel gave me whiplash, I think. Daisy really was the General Leo of this game, too interesting to allow continued life. Also, now Elizabeth is wearing her dead mother's dress. There's probably some symbolism there, but I can't help thinking that it's kind handy how she has the same measurements as her mother with the only alteration being a copious amount of cleavage. Now we're gonna visit Comstock to steal his loving creepy robot-head flute. Calling it now, Lutece is banging his/her alternate universe opposite gender self. Veyrall fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 19:13
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Judge Tesla posted:I don't see why people are moaning that the Vox have turned evil or are gunning down innocent civilians, anyone with half a mind could tell this was going to happen, Daisy only cared about bringing down the Founders, all of them, women and children included, its a real Us vs Them type scenario and I expected nothing less from her when she forced me to help her, Booker doesn't give a poo poo, and neither did I. That revolutions usually carry violent excess with them would have been a legitimate point, if that had been all there was to it. People get killed in revolutions. The children of people identified as oppressors among them. There's definitely romm for a work showing how oppressors, too, can be human, terrified and persecuted, a la Downfall/Der Untergang. It's hardly an original point, but it is solid. The problem is that the game seems to equivocate long-lasting, systematic oppression with an uprising against said system. If the game should later show the revolution come full-circle and start being as oppressive or worse as what came before, that would be one thing. But it hasn't, and yet the narrative suggests that we should consider the Vox as bad as the Bolcheviks and Stalinist Russia, without showing anything in the way of organized oppression. Which'd be like cutting short Animal Farm just after Snowball dies and the proceeding with the "looked from man to pig, and from pig to man" ending. It's badly written. It's nonsensical. That annoys me. I can't say it really makes me angry, because I'm not surprised, just disappointed. I'd have hoped that the game was better written than that, since the writers for the Bioshock games have aspirations to being deep. It would've been a pleasant surprise to see them pull it off.
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Dec 15, 2013 19:16
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J.theYellow posted:And Comstock needs a reason other than being a white man who likes thinking black people are subhuman? How nuanced does *his* character need to be? Why exactly does the Order of the Raven need to exist in a separated society where every single function of Columbia is about keeping black people down? What sense does it make to have an enormous statue of John Wilkes Booth in a dining hall where birds fly around making GBS threads on everything and picking through a dining table full of rot? Comstock's reasoning is "he's a loony so we don't have to explain it" an angel told him to build a floating city and repress everybody not white enough on it and he did it. The writing is lazy when it comes to anybody not Booker or Elizabeth.
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Dec 15, 2013 19:33
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Would it be too spoilery to ask someone to post a picture of the red-hatted handyman? The hat he's wearing reminds me heavily of the KKK hats, but it's really difficult to see in the video, and I've gotten into the habit of not googling games I don't want spoiled for me.
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Dec 15, 2013 19:55
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If the game had handled the idea of a revolution becoming overtly excessive in a sensible, paced way, this game could have been fantastic, story-wise. The idea that anyone should be... unnerved re. Fink's end is so eye-rolling dumb at best, flat-out BAD in all other considerations. Esp. considering they have the Lutece two-some and their commentary in the game makes me think the writers of this game are NOWHERE near as smart as they think they are. Which is rich, coming from me of all people.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:23
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J.theYellow posted:And Comstock needs a reason other than being a white man who likes thinking black people are subhuman? How nuanced does *his* character need to be? Why exactly does the Order of the Raven need to exist in a separated society where every single function of Columbia is about keeping black people down? What sense does it make to have an enormous statue of John Wilkes Booth in a dining hall where birds fly around making GBS threads on everything and picking through a dining table full of rot? You are, again, conflating Comstock and Daisy. Here's the thing. Comstock's views aren't ahistorical. They are chillingly real and reflective of historically popular American views of race for the most part. At most, they are mildly exaggerated. Daisy, though? Sorry, nope. The United States has never had an influential worker's rebellion reflective of the Vox. American worker's and oppressed peoples' political activity has been largely peaceful; at most, it was lightly armed and quickly failed. As said earlier, the game is thoroughly conflating and equivocating between the people abused and oppressed by American racism and classism and the victims of said abuse. That's pernicious. At this time and place, where accusations of "reverse racism" and anti-union sentiment are on the rise, Infinite has no right to do that without being criticized. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 20:36
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Jynxite posted:Would it be too spoilery to ask someone to post a picture of the red-hatted handyman? The hat he's wearing reminds me heavily of the KKK hats, but it's really difficult to see in the video, and I've gotten into the habit of not googling games I don't want spoiled for me. Sure.  Also here is a stupidly high resolution image of him in a more sterile environment. Neither image spoil anything.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:40
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Is the evacuating barge driver not supposed to be Comstock? I thought it was a nice touch to show how he'd been reduced to fleeing with whatever he could grab, but then I watched it again and the subtitles just say 'Driver'. Are we supposed to pretend that we don't recognize him there, or is it just lazy use of voice actors?
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Dec 15, 2013 20:41
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Kangra posted:Is the evacuating barge driver not supposed to be Comstock? I thought it was a nice touch to show how he'd been reduced to fleeing with whatever he could grab, but then I watched it again and the subtitles just say 'Driver'. Are we supposed to pretend that we don't recognize him there, or is it just lazy use of voice actors? That's not Comstock, its just some guy, until you mentioned this, I'd never given it a thought, its just his VA doing voices for other characters if anything.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:58
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Sundowner posted:Sure. Oh sweet tittyfucking Christ, I think I understand why they sound so tortured now. I'm having difficulty looking away from the hands and seeing the flesh turn into machine and urgh it's really quite disturbing. As for the hat, the similarities are there, but I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence because it would be much more obvious otherwise. Thank you kindly for the picture. This picture does make me wonder how much of the handyman is machine and how much is man. I'm hoping we'll get to see a handyman-in-process at some point, but I really doubt we will considering what the story is currently focusing on.
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Dec 15, 2013 22:24
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Jetrauben posted:You are, again, conflating Comstock and Daisy. Here's the thing. The world is a bit larger than the USA, though. And the developpers openly admit that the Vox are inspired from the October 1917 revolution more than anything else (if that wasn't already really obvious with them having "people" in their name and draping everything related to them in red).
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Dec 15, 2013 22:45
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Iceclaw posted:The world is a bit larger than the USA, though. And the developpers openly admit that the Vox are inspired from the October 1917 revolution more than anything else (if that wasn't already really obvious with them having "people" in their name and draping everything related to them in red). Of course the world is bigger than the USA. But Infinite made such a big deal about drawing on American Exceptionalism, so I think you could argue that bringing in European politics is...a little disingenuous? They also claimed the Vox were partly inspired by Occupy protests, which is if anything even more ridiculous.
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Dec 15, 2013 22:59
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The problem here is that the game has not really sourced it's material well. In that the entire game is "'MERICA" over and over again. American flag on the logo, mechanized George Washingtons with chainguns, a river of racial undertones drawn directly from American history. The only hint of Russian we get is the constant red that the Vox wave around. Vox Populi is a phrase from Latin, and to a lesser extent English, history. Daisy Fitzroy is a loving black woman. There is nothing wrong with using other culture's history to make analogies, but when you give the audience 15 hints that you're talking about X, and people get mad that you're talking about X, so you say "Well, really we were talking about Y" that's either disingenuous, or stupid of you. Daisy Fitzroy and the Vox embody a lot of elements of American history, and then in the second part of the game it turns those elements around into terrible, ahistorical stereotypes. If the game designers wanted to reference different revolutions, or avoid those kind of negative connotations, then they should have done a better job of adding in elements that do so. As it reads, the Bolshevik defense comes off as bullshit. And also, a hearty "gently caress You" to everyone saying "It's just a game!" Games are a part of our cultural cognizance, and as every form of media the themes and ideas spoken through them need to be addressed. Whether intentionally or not, to some degree the various messages carried through games help to shape the minds and culture we live in. As others have pointed out, a game like Bioshock which is so focused on the message it sends should have been thought out a lot better than this was. In other news, wasn't Fink talking about Songbird? He mentions that the melding of man and machine was the girl's guardian, it might have been a reference to Big Daddies, but what if he was actually talking about his plan for Songbird? Elizabeth's guardian?
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Dec 15, 2013 23:10
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Captain Bravo posted:The problem here is that the game has not really sourced it's material well. In that the entire game is "'MERICA" over and over again. American flag on the logo, mechanized George Washingtons with chainguns, a river of racial undertones drawn directly from American history. The only hint of Russian we get is the constant red that the Vox wave around. Vox Populi is a phrase from Latin, and to a lesser extent English, history. Daisy Fitzroy is a loving black woman. There is nothing wrong with using other culture's history to make analogies, but when you give the audience 15 hints that you're talking about X, and people get mad that you're talking about X, so you say "Well, really we were talking about Y" that's either disingenuous, or stupid of you. Well, what more do you want from the Vox so that they look more like the russian revolution? Them talking in goofy russian accents? They dress in red, strap it onto everything, talk a lot about class, moreso than race, really, and have "People" in their name. Maybe that's a case of cultural bias as I'm european, but I just don't see how do can someone miss the obvious parallels with Red October.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:18
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Iceclaw posted:Well, what more do you want from the Vox so that they look more like the russian revolution? Them talking in goofy russian accents? They dress in red, strap it onto everything, talk a lot about class, moreso than race, really, and have "People" in their name. Maybe that's a case of cultural bias as I'm european, but I just don't see how do can someone miss the obvious parallels with Red October. I think you're missing the point. The point is not that it's hard to tell that the Vox are drawing on parallels to the Russian revolution. The point is that it makes very little sense for the oppression to be based on American history, for Fitzroy to be based on American history, and then have the revolutionaries be based on Red October. Which hasn't even happened ITTL, because it's still 1912.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:22
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Captain Bravo posted:In other news, wasn't Fink talking about Songbird? He mentions that the melding of man and machine was the girl's guardian, it might have been a reference to Big Daddies, but what if he was actually talking about his plan for Songbird? Elizabeth's guardian? I think Songbird is just a more awesome Handyman. Caustic Soda posted:Which hasn't even happened ITTL, because it's still 1912. ...In The Time Line? Is that what that means?
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Dec 15, 2013 23:24
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The Bolshevik revolution, in addition to happening in Russia, occurred less than a year after a less-successful revolution, happened with the support of the military, occurred in conjunction with mass strikes of the labor force, and carried with it a lot of significant ideas about communism and socialism. The Vox revolution occurs independently of a small military kerfluffle, does not carry even the idea of striking, despite the fact that the main loving character is a goddamn Pinkerton, is the first ever such event to happen in Columbia, and has never once had a single person talking about the rise of the workers, the bourgeoisie, or any writings by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, or any of the other prominant communist theorists who had published material in 1912. If the Russian Revolution is what you're more familiar with due to where you were raised, I can see how you might easily draw more parallels to it than America. But the simple fact is the game is breathtakingly American in it's themes, setting, and ideas; if the developers wanted to convey any other kinds of ideas they failed to do so very thoroughly.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:31
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Captain Bravo posted:The Bolshevik revolution, in addition to happening in Russia, occurred less than a year after a less-successful revolution, happened with the support of the military, occurred in conjunction with mass strikes of the labor force, and carried with it a lot of significant ideas about communism and socialism. Yeah. There are definitely elements of "Workers' rights" in the Vox revolution, but they're not Bolshevik. They're playing off the same late Gilded Age/fin de sicele themes as the game itself, an era that saw no shortage of strikes and violent suppression thereof in America as part of a general (and largely peaceful) retaliation by working-class folk for decades of capitalist and racial exploitation. And race is definitely more paramount thus far. And making the hero a disgraced Pinkerton, an organization that began as one of the first private detective agencies but quickly became known for being hired as mercenaries to strike-break and oppress and harass labor activists...no, that's not an accident. That is very deliberate, I suspect.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:36
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Caustic Soda posted:I think you're missing the point. The point is not that it's hard to tell that the Vox are drawing on parallels to the Russian revolution. The point is that it makes very little sense for the oppression to be based on American history, for Fitzroy to be based on American history, and then have the revolutionaries be based on Red October. Which hasn't even happened ITTL, because it's still 1912. Pardon me for being obtuse here, but why does it make very little sense? We're in some alternate history where the USA have, or had the means to build a flying city, and two major events at least didn't happen how they happened in real life. It's a work of fiction, after all. While it may borrow heavily from a certain place and time, it's also free to draw inspiration from somewhere else as well. I think you overestimate how much the revolution was supposed to be in the narrative here, the game does not try to be a study of american exceptionnalism, no more Bioshock 1 tried to be a study of libertarianism. e: Captain Bravo posted:The Bolshevik revolution, in addition to happening in Russia, occurred less than a year after a less-successful revolution, happened with the support of the military, occurred in conjunction with mass strikes of the labor force, and carried with it a lot of significant ideas about communism and socialism. Iceclaw fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 23:37
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Iceclaw posted:Pardon me for being obtuse here, but why does it make very little sense? We're in some alternate history where the USA have, or had the means to build a flying city, and two major events at least didn't happen how they happened in real life. It's a work of fiction, after all. While it may borrow heavily from a certain place and time, it's also free to draw inspiration from somewhere else as well. I think you overestimate how much the revolution was supposed to be in the narrative here, the game does not try to be a study of american exceptionnalism, no more Bioshock 1 tried to be a study of libertarianism. If Infinite was just going to be a romp through a weird fin de sicele steampunk setting with lots of quantum-physics shenanigans, then it would probably have done better A: not to market and heavily play up the "'MERICA!' themes, and B: to have stuck entirely to Elizabeth and her plot arc, not evoking the toxic imagery it has. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as hostile, but I feel very strongly that for all its good writing of Elizabeth and Booker as characters this is the moment where the game reveals the reactionary fantasy at its core. There's still a lot to like about Infinite, and it's genuinely not a bad game, but its politics are at best a mess and at worst actively contradictory.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:42
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Really I think my problem with this part of the game is that the entire setup up until now from the Comstock side is "Absent of their rightful masters, the lesser races will pillage, loot, and kill, unthinkingly". And then this happens and they're basically portrayed as being right. The thing that the game skipped isn't the violence - that's understandable, to an extent. I can even buy Daisy killing kids. What's annoying about the whole thing is that we don't even get to see any kind of planning or intelligence or anything other than swarm/death/kill among the risen Vox. This is a universe in which there must have been cunning and patience in order to get things like the Handymen or the flying police vehicles. Where Daisy and a still not-that-bothered Booker managed to cooperate for some time. But all we get to see is a zerg rush of enemies against Comstock and then against us (and as pointed out, every Vox immediately turns on us at Daisy's word despite us being a symbol of resistance). Violence isn't the big problem here; mindless violence is the problem. When I first played this game, I honestly assumed that Booker starting up with the "they're just the same" bit so early was so that he could then be shown to be wrong, leading to character development on his part. If anything, it's Booker's regret towards Wounded Knee and the like and his apparent change of character from there that's suggested to be wrong. \/ Don't forget the Columbian's conversations back when we saw civilians around. And Fink. I'm assuming the voxaphone you mean is the Comstock one that springs to mind about his views of fairness. There's that "Meet the Vox" scope. And the Wounded Knee/Boxer Museum. Revenant Threshold fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 23:50
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Revenant Threshold posted:Really I think my problem with this part of the game is that the entire setup up until now from the Comstock side is "Absent of their rightful masters, the lesser races will pillage, loot, and kill, unthinkingly". And then this happens and they're basically portrayed as being right. And by "entire setup" you mean "one voxaphone in a bathroom"
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Dec 15, 2013 23:52
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If you don't understand how referencing American history, and using American ideas to create a situation which is supposed to reference a portion of Russian history is obtuse, I don't really know what else to tell you Edit: Holy gently caress. Bruceski posted:And by "entire setup" you mean "one voxaphone in a bathroom" Did you not even see the Museum?
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Dec 15, 2013 23:53
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No, indeed, I don't understand how it's a problem to mix together different historical elements in a work of fiction, like the game does with american views on races and the workin class' plight that gave rise to communism. Regarding the museum, if you are referring to the scalps, let's just say it's the modus operandi of a certain guy we'll hear more about later, and not the Vox in general. Iceclaw fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:03
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The Museum Booker fights through? The one dedicated to Wounded Knee and China? Where the theme is "Ungrateful savages rise up against their rightful masters, and proceed to slaughter because they're barbarians?" This is a big theme of the game, guys. And every element you've mentioned has a distinctly American root. For gently caress's sake, you actually called it "Fordism". If they wanted to mix elements, then they should have actually mixed elements. Not just said that, and then do none of the actual work in putting those other, non-Amerocentric elements into the game.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:06
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Guys maybe the direct textual reference to the French Revolution should have clued you in to what they're referencing. 
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Dec 16, 2013 00:08
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Arglebargle III posted:Guys maybe the direct textual reference to the French Revolution should have clued you in to what they're referencing. No, no. We know they're referencing the 1832 June Revolution of France. What we're saying is that is a lousy, misleading and reactionary reference that's grossly out of place when the primary (political) subject of the game so far has been American politics.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:12
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Captain Bravo posted:The Museum Booker fights through? The one dedicated to Wounded Knee and China? Where the theme is "Ungrateful savages rise up against their rightful masters, and proceed to slaughter because they're barbarians?" This is a big theme of the game, guys. Except Fordism didn't stay an american only problematic for long? Or is Marxism an american idea as well, considering how a lot of it is a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, of which Fordism is an logical conclusion? And regarding the museum, if you draw parallels between that and the Vox uprising, well done for disregarding both that the Museum is a fine exemple of history being written by the winners and how much the game is rubbing into your face that the Founders are reaping what they sowed! Iceclaw fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:15
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Also, right now we're talking about the Designers saying that they wanted to reference the 1812 revolution as well, and quantifying how well or poorly they achieved that goal. I'm sure they looked to a lot of different revolutions to come up with how they wanted to act, but however much of that actually plays out in the themes and elements they present is a different story. That being said, I would love to see Daisy Fitzroy putting Comstock into a guillotine.  "Let Them Drink Tonics!"
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Dec 16, 2013 00:16
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Iceclaw posted:the Museum is a fine exemple of history being written by the winners You're so close! The museum is an example of history being written by the winners. It's a distorted, racist charicature of the events that actually happened. And, so, when the game proceeds to tell us that the exact same thing is actually occuring in front of Booker and Elizabeth's eyes, that means... Edit: I will give you, however, that this does add an interesting wrinkle of "Reap what they sowed". Despite many of the troubling ideas the game is giving off here, the idea that a society's downfall is directly correlated to their crimes is a good one. The idea that, by painting all revolutions as bloody, savage affairs, Columbia insured that it's own would be so is pretty interesting. I don't know that it's what the designers were going for, but if they were, kudos on that. Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:17
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Okay, exact same thing? Did you even watch the game? Do you really think that if the game wanted you to think that the Vox are ungrateful, it would take you to through the scenic route accross both the factory and the slums? Do you think that if the game wanted you to think the Vox were more barbarious than the Founders, it would show you countless exemple of the Founders being savage fucks? You are basically disregarding how much the game shows you about the horrible effect of the Founders's system while the game litteraly slaps you with it at every turn, so you can pretend the game is actually serious about about Comstock's propaganda.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:26
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No. I think the game is being too hamfisted in it's message, and in immediately turning around and painting Daisy as a bad guy. Maybe not the baddest guy, but as an antagonist. Part of it is from universe-switching, I'll grant you that, but either way the game throws the people you're supposed to be supporting and commiserating with immediately into a "THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR" role with no warning. It immediately takes the undertrodden, class and racially-oppressed, and has Booker killing them by the dozens while Elizabeth cries that they're monsters. It's a classic genre move "Your allies have betrayed you!" with no lead-in, no justification, and a shitton of troubling ideas. The game literally says Fitzroy is just as bad as Comstock, and yet you're defending it, while arguing that we shouldn't be thinking the Vox are just as bad as the Founders. Do you see now why people are saying that the game was not executed very well, and has conflicting ideas and mixed messages?
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Dec 16, 2013 00:36
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In regards to Daisy and the Vox, I think a lot of people are forgetting that the Daisy in the new dimension isn't technically the same Daisy as the one you just left. In the "original" universe, Daisy was a genuinely caring revolutionary with a coherent moral system...which is why Vox didn't originally get the guns. When you switch to a different universe in which Vox does have the guns, the easiest way to make that happen is for Daisy to be completely different, which in turn changes everything else. To be fair the game is really, really bad about making this apparent at first. Booker and Elizabeth treat her like the same Diasy because at this point, they don't really understand what they're doing when they switch realities yet. We do, because we're familiar with the idea of multiple universes, but they just think they're magically making everything fine. PsychoInternetHawk fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:42
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The game gives you decent reason, though? Booker Dewitt, a confirmed martyr to the cause of the Vox, that Fitzroy saw die, just reappeared. To anyone not in the know regarding dimension jumping, an imposter is the only logical explanation. She even tells you so. And the game says no such things. Booker says it, and Elizabeth says it, the first one because he's a cynic rear end in a top hat, the second because she's an idealist that just realized that what she thought would solves everything perfectly is actually pretty grim. Being horrified and disappointed is undertandable. Don't think that either Booker or Elizabeth are always the game's mouthpiece, because they probably never really are. e: V Wrong again, Booker joined the Vox only to get close to Elizabeth, he himself says so in his Voxaphone: "Looks like I got a friend in town after all... Slate. He's fell in with these "Vox Populi." And for irregulars, I will say -- they are loaded for bear. Problem is, I got to help them with their drat revolution first...then we take Comstock House by storm. I do that, I get the girl." Iceclaw fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:44
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This might just be due to the fact that we haven't seen enough into the game to fully understand everything, so maybe this discussion should be postponed, but right now the game have given us no reason to doubt either Booker or Elizabeth as unreliable. If it wants us to think that they are not accurately describing the events of what's happening, than it needs to provide evidence of that. Instead, it has the two main characters, the player stand-ins, describe Fitzroy as just as bad as Comstock, and then leads us into a scene where she smears blood on her face and menaces a small child with a handgun. And, again, the universe-jumping only makes sense if it gives us evidence of the differences. Know what the difference in this universe was? Booker signs on with the Vox. He doesn't waste time with Elizabeth, he gets Slate to join, and the two go straight for Finkton. Daisy in this universe trusted Booker, and he trusted her. That does not sound like a much more bloodthirsty Daisy Fitzroy.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:50
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Yeah, the problem with it being a different Daisy is that we know that she was, at one point, willing enough to accept Booker (and a Booker we know from his voxaphones to be basically as uninterested in the actual cause as our Booker) as an actual subordinate and/or partner in their schemes. And to set him up, or to acknowledge, his martyrdom. The problem with Daisy specifically isn't that she's a bad guy, because she isn't. She has no character post-revolution. You could replace her with any random Vox member in the story and there would be zero difference. The one interesting thing she does is the lift phone call where she says that Booker being alive disrupts the narrative - that's an interesting point which doesn't get any time to actually get looked at. It shows a political awareness, or a fear that she'll be thought a liar because she's told everyone he's dead, or concern that someone else might be seen as a Vox leader, or just that she thinks Booker serves the cause better as a dead symbol to rally around rather than as a foot soldier. But we don't actually get any of her reasoning post-revolution. We don't get any of her thoughts post-revolution in any more detail than "gently caress 'em; all of them." A little bit more time actually with the Vox and Daisy in revolution mode could easily have solved this problem, frankly. I wonder if it was just time restraints. Revenant Threshold fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:52
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 11:37 |
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And, let me clarify. The game does, kind of, give us reason to doubt Booker and Elizabeth's judgement. It paints him as a PTSD cynic, who's been through a lot, and it paints her as an idealistic innocent, who is only exposed to the world through books. We do have reason to believe that maybe they're taking this a little out of hand. But the game then justifies them, with a maniacal Daisy Fitzroy. When the person you are supposed to empathize with wipes a bloody handprint on her face, something has gone pretty wrong here.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:57
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