I can believe I forgot to talk about one of the most interesting parts of the game: "You got your Science in my Fiction!" "No, You got your Fiction in my Science!" discussions that have sprung up around it. As I mentioned before, some of the biggest idea's talked about were the more complicated timey-wimey, parallel worlds things, but a couple of people have actually touched on the subject leading up to and after it's release, so here you go!This came out only a few days after the game, but still helpful to the many, many people who, like Booker, can't quite wrap the concept of parallel universes around their heads.
First time the explanation of Shcroedinger's Cat made sense to me.
If you haven't already subscribed to Minute Physics yet, you totally should.
And last time I was only able to talk very briefly about my experiences with the Lutece twins, the time and space defying scientists behind not only the technology of Columbia, but also the ability to go between universes. Something that I think helps them make a special impact on the player is that every time the Luteces show up unexpected, the first thing you notice is a musical cue that's kind of playful, but kind of creepy at the same time.
Another thing of interest is the very begining of the game. When you first play this, it's kind of hard to decypher what the heck their saying, as while they're spouting stuff that holds no meaning for you, you're too busy trying to assimilate all of the info from the box that was handed to you. But if you listen closely, it's implied that early on that this is not the first time this has happened, particularly the part about him not rowing. It's not that you can't row or that you won't row, it's that you just don't. In every single universe, every attempt that has been made to free Elizabeth, you never rowed once. A strange constant in a sea of variables, but the fact that they point it out this early and that almost every single person would miss it's significance until much later on is a good indicator of how much work went into setting up the "holy crap, alternate universe" stuff that get's set up in the middle, and what eventually get's paid off in the most interesting yet grimmest of ways at the end.
My personal take on the science at the end is that when Booker allows himself to be drowned at baptisim, this creates a universal self healing, where all of the possible Elizabeths wink themselves out of existence due to the "Kill your Grandfather, you were never born" paradox. When this first happened, shortly after picking up all the pieces of brain that blew out of me, I was actually kind of OK with that. I wasn't happy, but the knowlege that Elizabeth was sacrificing herself as much as Booker was let me know that the end result was not to live happily ever after, but to break the circle so that none of the insanity, horror and loss that the characters had felt would ever be repeated.
This suddenly brings an interesting question that I refuse to believe hasn't been covered before, and will possibly be of special interest to people of my faith, if not others: What happens to the soul of someone who ceases to exist? In my religion, we belive that everybody started out as a spiritual being, no body, no experiences, no nothing. And then every soul gets born into a body to live in, have experiences, learn stuff, etc. until they die, at which point they then go off into the big waiting room in the sky. Using that model, if somebody (like Elizabeth) was born, grows up, can bend the fabric of space and time, kills her father before she was born, and then winks out of existence, does she "die," her probationary stage over with and goes to the Spirit World, another soul being born into the anna that we see in the end credits? Or does her soul do a ret-con with the rest of the universe, and now she get's to be "born again" so to speak? Does her soul still remember that stuff, or does it pass through the veil of forgetfulness again on her way to being born? (it's a mormon thing. I think there's something similar in buddhism or taoism or something, where a soul forgets any knowlege they had before to begin life on earth with a clean slate)
Which then brings me to after the credits roll and an amazing arrangment of old-timey Tears For Fears is followed by an equally beautiful youtube video of the Voice Actors for both Booker and Elizabeth playing the guitar and singing "Will the Circle be Unbroken," respectively. Booker finds himself back in his office the day that he's supposed to give up Anna, but no one is knocking on the door, and tinkle of a lullabye and a baby cooing is heard in the background. Booker opens the door and we see the cradle but it cuts to black before we see the baby. My interperetation of this is that Anna IS there, and is well and Booker doesn't sell her to pay off his debt. Thus allowing booker and anna to finally be together, even at the cost of losing elizabeth. When I saw that, I felt like everything was going to be OK, though as mentioned by Digital Gonzo, it's a truly bittersweet ending. The reasoning for it, on the otherhand, implies that, if there is a universe where everything that can happen, does happen, even with cross-dimensional travel, that one of the few Booker's that are left afterwards is one that either never agreed to sell the baby, or never went to be baptised in the first place. That could be interpereted as all of the booker's who refused baptism as the ones who survived, but that would undermine booker's sacrifice. I think that with that reasoning, smothering Comstock in his crib allowed what few universes that there were where booker could have been a completely different man from what we've seen in the game, and those booker's and anna's will now never have to deal with the crap that the booker's and elizabeth's that we've seen had to go through. It's as intricate as it is messy, and it has more than it's fair share of brains to even propose such an unexplored concept in video games, let alone have some semblance of pulling it off.
I think this will be the last of it, (my desire to write it came from watching the most recent minute physics episode) but remember, if you wan't to talk about what you thought of it, my Twitter, Facebook and the comments below are always open.
And lastly, here's that song from Miracle of Sound I was talking about yesterday.
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