I found the Lutecia (plural?) to be the highlight of the game as well. At first I thought they were just local colour... but I still really enjoyed their interludes. I thought the coin flip at the start was goofy, and perhaps a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but as with the rest of the Lutecox (plural?) interactions, it all made sense (well... sorta) once the later game reveals were had. The game definitely turned a corner when I found a vox-o that included some of Rosalind's past. I was much more excited and interested in her mystery than I had been in much up til then.
I've read theories that Rosalind is from Comstock's reality (I think this one is pretty much obvious) and that Robert is from Booker's. I don't know that there's enough evidence to determine if that's true, or that it really matters... but I guess I figured that Robert was more accomplished in his own reality before jumping into Rosalind's. We don't know that much about Booker's world outside his office, but I think we can assume that there is no Columbia... so I'm not sure what Robert would be working on. I guess it could be anything...
More of a stretch- I read that some people decided that Robert (and Booker) must also be from the reality where Rapture is built. Which makes even less sense to me, but whatever. Further, people have speculated that Booker is a blood relative to Ryan, but if you remember Ryan's background, that makes very little sense. But still, Booker can use the Bathysphere, which was locked down to Ryan's genetics... so perhaps that's a clue that they're related... or maybe interdimensional traveler's get a pass. Someone else argued that just like Robert and Rosalind are the same person, minus the cause-and-effect that determined gender... that perhaps Booker/Jack/Comstock/Ryan are the same person, minus the cause-and-effect that caused their exact birthdays.
Which brings me, Johnny, to one of your points, that Comstock and Ryan were too similar. Which really strikes me as odd. I guess the method is similar, but the madness is so not.
I love BioShock (in all of its manifestations (so far)) and yet perhaps I shouldn't. Because I guess I identify more closely with the villains, if villains they truly be. I am not an Objectivist, but I like more of Objectivism than I don't. I have my few nits to pick with Objectivism, but I don't think it's flawed from the ground up. The way I see Ryan and Rapture is not that it was a bad idea doomed to failure, but that it was not quite a complete idea and that Ryan's succumbed to the pressures of leadership that turned him into the very tyrant he sought to escape from the surface. But it, apparently, worked for some amount of time, so it can't be completely broken. Had Adam not been discovered, who knows how the history of Rapture would have gone differently??? My experience, which I would like to assume is pretty universal, is that Ryan seems like a really bad dude when you first enter Rapture, but by the time you club him to death, you mostly feel for him. And then when you find out that Atlas/Fontaine has been turning your screws, I really wished I hadn't killed Ryan. In fact, had the game not wrested control from me, I very much doubt I would have killed him in the first place.
However bad Ryan was, I think we were supposed to think that Fontaine was worse. Ryan's motivations were pure, even if his execution of them wasn't. Fontaine's motivations were evil from the start- though that's the kind of selfishness that opponents of Objectivism claim it props up.
I think I posted it in this thread, but I read a whole conversation over at the Cult of Rapture forums where people referred to Rapture as a "Failed Communist Utopia". I think they either skipped every audio log or they think anything bad can be called "communist" without it necessarily making sense.
- Hey man, did you see that traffic on the 10 this morning?
- Yeah man... communist.
Back to the subject- I similarly identify with Comstock and the people of Columbia more than I don't.
- I am deeply religious.
- I believe the Founding Fathers of the US to be inspired men who did God's work in setting up my country.
- I believe that making myself and my country the best it can be is a good thing, as long as neither are done at the expense of anyone else. I believe it's possible to do this and not at the expense of anyone else.
- Though I am a patriot, I fear for the direction this country is taking and would sadly leave it behind for one more in line with my ideals if it existed.
- I believe in secure borders.
- I have a daughter that can control space/time rifts and takes me to realities with better Star Wars movies.
- I like old timey renditions of modern pop hits. Apparently... this is something I just learned about myself.
All of that said, I never quite found Comstock sympathetic the way I did Ryan. Which makes me wonder if that sympathy I found for Ryan was unintended and something Irrational sought to fix for their next despot.
However, I do seem to be on the politically opposed to many who played the game, because I have read several people say how much they liked/identified with the Vox generally and Fitzroy specifically. I thought she was exactly like Fontaine- a rat in sheep's clothing that only fools the naive. When the naive help her obtain her objectives, her true purposes are revealed and some of the naive are filled with regret... the rest still have no clue what happened.
I think it's possible that the moral here is "be careful what you wish for" and that the revolutionaries are usually worse than the status-quo. But I have seen that people don't take it that way. Several people think that Fitzroy was pure and honest until you go into the reality where she is not.
This would be a natural segue to talk about my perspective on the racism as presented in the game... but that's going to have to be a topic for another day.
Sooo... that's enough for now.
