Bioshock Infinite without Gravity pt.03

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CW: talking about racism

So here we are, finally at Monument Island, our first major goal of the game. And I gotta say... It's all really confusing.

I know Monument Island is used for containing the girl we're trying to get, who if I haven't mentioned yet is named Elizabeth, but then why does it look like a public attraction? I guess it's because everything looks like a public attraction at an amusement park, but there was even a robot saying Monument Island is closed to the public in a way that sounds like it's temporary. So why gives?

Another compliment for does greenery really well. All the plant
life feels lush and makes the environment more welcoming

Now according to the wiki it used to be a popular tourist attraction until it a series of mysterious event deemed the place unsafe, and so it's been abandoned for years and the vegetation has overtaken the place, but everything inside looks fine, barely looks like there's even any dust, and the girl is trapped upstairs, so it's not like she's cleaning the place with her animal friends. So again, I ask, what gives?

I'm guessing the only person who comes here anymore is Songbird, which raises a bunch of other questions, but I really have nothing interesting or insightful to say about Monument Island, and that shouldn't be the case! Because when I say "I've got nothing to say," that includes the story bits.

Here we meet Elizabeth, the deuteragonist of the story, and by all accounts its soul. The story revolves around this person and you, the player, will spend more time with her than anybody else. The scene where you meet her should be magical! Ok, maybe not too magical, considering later spoilers, but still.

This scene is utterly forgettable. The only thing worth noting is that Song Bird attacks Elizabeth and Booker from outside the building while you make a daring escape. And, again, on the subject of horror villains, being attacked by a creature you can't see but can tear through metal is horrifying, but we don't really have a reason to care about Elizabeth's safety because we don't really know her. Hell, we've been playing this game for 2+ hours now and we don't know anything about Booker either! That, along with this being a scripted sequence, means this scene where a monster is tearing apart a tower and flies through the air to kill you there is no tension, what-so-ever.

Still, there is a funny part where an elevator falls on Songbird, knocking him out. Which allowed me to make this image;

Eventually, you wake up to Elizabeth having pulled you out of the water (more baptism symbolism, I'm guessing) but she quickly rushes off to find the source of some music. What's odd about it is within the span of 5 seconds Booker's like "yeah, go chase the music" to "dang, where did Elizabeth run off to?"

But this beach scene is the scene that everyone who's played this game remembers. No, not Elizabeth dancing on the dock, a captive all her life experiencing freedom for the first time among people. No, I mean Book looting the entire beach! I mean, you just fell out of the sky, so you're low on HP. You're pretty thoroughly incentivized to start looting the place for healing items. And you can take it ALL.

Hotdog next to a couple? It's yours now! Popcorn you found laying in the shadowy part of the beach and has been there for God knows how long? Why not! Shove that into your mouth! Pack of cigarettes? Sure! Eat the entire package in a single bite! Hell, I found some coins next to some kids, and I pick them up and shoved them into my pockets (the coins, I mean). Yes, nothing is too good or too immoral for Booker "Raccoon Hands" Dewitt to do


The rest of the beach scene is pretty stock, honestly. I mean, it is nice to be on a beach, a rather peaceful environment after that supposedly suspenseful scene, but the racist town folx are still talking in a very racist matter. And again, it's very much in a "well, that's how people used to talk" way, which is still a dumb defense for trite like this.

Eventually we do find Elizabeth dancing on a dock, and Booker lies to her, telling her he'll take her to Paris on an airship. I'll admit, seeing Elizabeth utterly joyful to being out of her cage certainly has its charm.

It doesn't take long for the Lutece Twins to arrive again, and they offer Elizabeth one of two brooches; one with a bird or one with a cage. It's one of those moments where you have to stop and think about the impact of your choices, and think about what kind of consequences will fall upon you because of your choices. Or, you know, it would if it changed literally any single thing other than the picture of the brooch Elizabeth wears and nothing else then why do you bother, you worthless piece of trash I HATE THIS BLOODY GAME AAAAAAAAAA!!

I choose the cage because that's
what this game feels like

It's worth pointing out as you explore the level, Elizabeth does, too. Not only will you she toss you spare coins and other items she finds laying about, but she'll also interact with the environment. She'll look at things, sit on benches and chairs, sometimes give commentary on things she finds, and even take food from the venders, taking after ol' Racoon Hands.

If I'm being honest, it's the first thing I've found of Liz that I find endearing, and it finally tells me something about her character, which is that she's curious.

Also, before I move onto a more serious topic, I'm kinda confused here; the next place we enter is an arcade, but all it has is chuckee cheese style robot of Washington, a few kinetoscopes, and over two dozen things that look like arcade machines, but are actually propaganda puppet shows that play automatically. Now look, I get it, as much as I make fun of R~E~A~L~I~S~M! I get the people are suckers for technology. People used to pay good money to see the kinetoscope "Fred Ott Sneeze" because it was NEW and ADVANCED! And while I get that, I still don't get why there isn't like Skee-Ball here or something. Heck, Skee-Ball was made in 1908, so it could work in the timeline.

It's an arcade, I feel like it should be more interesting for the player. But, whatever. That's small potatoes, really, especially since we've finally stumbled upon colored bathrooms.

So, yeah, there's a lot to digest here, both from what happens here and things that accorded to me when I got here. For starts, why isn't Elizabeth racist? I know that might seem like an odd question, but she's supposed to be Comstock's heir, why didn't he teach her to be super racist like he is? And make no mistake, Comstock IS super racist. You even find a voxaphone here where he compares black people to dogs, which again is really uncomfortable hearing from people who don't seem to get oppression at all.

Though to be fair, you do get the reason why he didn't teach her to be super racist; Elizabeth has never met Comstock. Oh, yes. Elizabeth, who is both Comstock's daughter and heir, has never met him before. Heck, she didn't even know he existed until she saw posters of him plastered in a shop in Battleship Bay. How Comstock expects Elizabeth to be his loyal servant having no emotion ties with her I'll never know, but that's a stupid we'll have to deal with another day. Let's go back to talking about oppression.

I'll be real with you here; the American education system sucks, and I didn't really learn about Irish oppresion in the states. But it's brought up here! A lot. So I'm going to have to talk about it, and taking my best guess I'm going to say it wasn't the same kind of oppression the black folx face.

Don't get me wrong, I read a little to give me an idea of what they went through, and it was utterly nightmarish and terrible and something no human being aught to face, but it also wasn't the same, just like the prejudice that white LGBT+ folx face is different, and I don't think this game gets that.
No, let's cut to the chase. The reason that Irish prejudice exists here is to very subtly show how WhItE PeOpLe aRe oPpReSsEd tOo! And they go pretty hard on the Irish oppression, too.

For example, they need to use the "color" bathroom along with black folx, despite the fact that I couldn't find evidence of that actually happening when I went looking for it. Also, the sign on the door says "colored & Irish washroom," but what about Italians? Because guess what─there was also anti-italian sentiment when they immigrated from the US, too. And yet, there are no Italians to be seen anywhere.

I mean, it's almost as if this game, which is purportedly about racism, doesn't care about the nuences of oppression different groups of people faced. In fact, I dare say, it's almost as if the only reason the Irish are here is because they wanted to take one specific group and make a point with that because that's all they needed. Gee, I wonder why they chose the Irish for that? That was a joke, of course; I don't actually wonder─5t's because they're white.

Well, I guess that's not entirely true. It's also because anti-Irish sentiments aren't nearly as popular in the US as they were once (at least, I assume so. But then just a few years ago I thought nazis were exctint, so maybe anti-Irish folx still exist, too) But what's important is that it seems extinct. As in, a thing of the past. You know─the same way slavery is a thing of the past. Or colored bathrooms. Or RACISM, IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT.

These things don't happen nowadays, so it's okay to use them! But the thing is, they still do happen. America's legal system has loopholes that effectively make slavery legal, just so long as they're prisoners. And who cares about those animals, am I right? (this is a call back to Comstock's voxaphone, if you didn't notice.)

Let us never forget this monstrousity

And for the game to make this juxtaposition it feels like the game is saying Lincoln and MLK ended racism forever? And if that's what it's actually trying to say, then "yikes" doesn't even begin to describe it.

 Also, it's worth noting that this game keeps bringing up the oppression of black folx, the Irish, and later Native Americans and Chinese folx, and yet it's only ever brought up Jewish people once, on a voxaphone, with a white man saying (racists crap ahead) "I'm half a jew when I smell silver," because this game needed to be even more uncomfortable then it already was, apparently! I reiterate─AAAAAAAAAA!!

So here's another part I like; when you walk up to the ticket booth for the airship, the guy at the counter is really suspicious. Now you can either choose to pull your gun on him or wait for him to finish being suspicious, but if you wait he'll stab your hand with a knife! Also, all the nearby citizens were actually working for Comstock, and you've fallen into their ambush! It's, for once, an actually exciting moment since you don't know what will happen next.

After the encounter you'll find that Elizabeth has run off, because for whatever reason she has a problem with you killing a whole bunch of people (I know. Weird, right?). You find her on a monorail where the two have a discussion which boils down to it was either that or Liz goes back in her cage. If you got the knife in your hand Booker says it's the last time Comstock will get the drop on him, and Liz patches up Booker's hand. If you pulled the gun he'll say sometimes you either pull your gun first, or not at all. Then Liz takes care of some unseen facial damage of Booker's. 

At this point we walk into another area, but I think the discussion for the place is best left to its own article. So that'll do it for now. Tune in next time, where we'll talk about propoganda, more about racism, and why I suspect people loved Bioshock Infinite's gunplay at the time despite it not being very good. Thanks so much for reading, and until next time, take care 💜

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