elizabeth – Who I want to Fuck Today

Happy 4th of July everyone. Elizabeth is on my mind for a few reasons today but I guess she works in pretty well here. I actually started to write this before bed but I was tired and it was sloppy and it got really dark, really quickly. The Bioshock series is so good because there is always something to talk about with the Bioshock series, be that fate vs free will, nature vs nurture, or you know, the twisting of the past to justify your present as represented by giant George Washington Robots that shoot machine guns and have american flags coming out of their backs. if there is a July 4th lesson in these games it is the dangers of the American Dream when it is controlled by one man. Or rather, when one man’s dream becomes the only dream that matters. It is of course, wholly undemocratic the way Andrew Ryan and the Prophet control their cities but they do wrap themselves int he trappings of liberty. Yet it is false because if there is one thing as Americans we should all know, truths that are entirely self evident, it is that all men are created equal and that we have the unalienable right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I could go on but I am willing to be no one wants that, me included cause I can get really circular and rambling when I am tired. I had a thought about Elizabeth in many ways representing the exploitation lf the less powerful and how unAmerican that is but in the end, I can’t see her as a victim, he is instead representitive of the power that even when suppressed we have given for people to rise up and become something great. Or she is a video game character. I enjoy thinking about her. Enjoy your 4th everyone. Today I want to fuck Elizabeth from Bioshock.

So I feel like I blew my intellectual load on the last time I posted Elizabeth. It was less than a week ago and yeah, I am posting a made up person two times in one week, I have a bit of a crush. I guess it never feels that odd to me, though it must to my followers because it always proves painfully unpopular. But like… I look back at my love life and most of what I fell for in real people ended up being a fiction, either constructed by them or me or some combination, so a made up character doesn’t seem that much of a stretch. Sorry, that was a little sad sack and morbid but it is a rainy Monday morning. Anyway, I keep thinking about Elizabeth because her character arc is fascinating but also just the deeper themes of the games. I want to feel like she won in the end. She did what she set out to do and in the long run she ‘won’. But maybe I am just convincing myself of that, which feels very appropriate either way, it’s all about what I want to believe, what I want to see really. Reality is more malleable than we want to accept. Anyway, that’s why she’s here. Today I want to fuck Elizabeth from Bioshock.

Perhaps the singular question of most Western Philosophy is if free will exists or not. Is there Providence in the fall of a sparrow? On a more personal level this often manifests itself in if we can ever truly escape our parent’s influence. Are we what they made us? Did they ruin us? Did they shape us? Do we want to be different? Can you ever truly be your own person or is even your desire to do so based on how they raised you? Is everything you do either how your father programed you or a rebellion to what he tried to do? I feel like these are the heady questions that Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea asks and tries to answer. There be spoilers ahead just so you know. I finally played this DLC, I don’t know why I waited so long given Bioshock is one of my video game loves. The real true star of it, and frankly the true star of all of Bioshock Infinite is Elizabeth. The ending can be seen as very depressing but ti does come across the questions of free will. Or at least can we escape our upbringing. What makes Elizabeth such a wonderful character is she is a very human person but she ends up with the powers of a God. Omniscience and Omnipotence are not really a thing she wants but it seems to be her only option. The game gave a lot to think about but with a day away from finishing it I am finding the most interesting questions have little to do with alternate reality, instead the it is the same fascinating question of the first game, is Free Will an illusion. Is Elizabeth doomed to repeat her father’s mistakes? Will she use people to achieve her ends? Even with all her power, or maybe because of it, will she fail to see the humanity in the least among us and simply make them pawns? As she died at the end of the game I felt great sadness. It was a death she knew was going to happen and yet she still walked forward towards it but with some distance my sadness is lessened. She chose this because she knew while the outcome for her was death it meant a brighter future for another. More importantly it meant she broke the cycle of violence that plagued her family. Her trip to Rapture was never about escaping Rapture. She could see the future, she knew the consequences going in. Her trip to rapture was about breaking a cycle of violence and asserting that she could be the person she wanted. She was not a puppet to how she was raised or the blood that moves through her veins. She was her own woman. It is still sad but it was also beautiful. It is what makes her one of the better video game characters in recent memory and why I adore her. Why I adore the game. Today I want to fuck Elizabeth from Bioshock.

What kind of nerd am I? I am the kind of nerd who almost didn’t post this today because there is no last name for the character and that frustrates me. But then the other nerd part of me was like, “my blog won’t be pure if that stops me!" Because the purity of pervity is very important to me. Anyway, I beat Bioshock Infinite back in… whenever it came out. But I just rented it. i regretted that when like a week later they announced the epic DLC. But steam sale yesterday so now I am the proud owner of it, on PC. It is not as good as the first game but it is still so good. And I really like the character of Elizabeth. She is obviously a bit damsel in distressy at the start but at least she has personality and it isn’t like some sort of Resident Evil 4 thing with helplessness embodied or anything, she can take care of herself. I guess I shouldn’t fret about agency in a series that famously highlighted that we have no free will, just the illusion of it. The concepts aren’t as heady in this game but it still is just… pretty and more thought provoking than most games. So I kind of wanted to just highlight the excellent work. Plus Elizabeth is just such a likeable character. And yeah, she’s pretty. And her choice in the end still fascinates me. Enough though, what I am saying is today I want to fuck Elizabeth from Bioshock.