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Bioshock Infinite - the $200 million 6 hour literally on rails interactive movie with guns thread
- Thread starter Suchy
- Start date
Name
Cipher
Booker and Elizabeth exist in multiple dimensions, thus the DLC with the two of them in Rapture - this is a standard MCA motif, ie his description of Ravel existing on multiple planes simultaneously.
Elizabeth's relationship to Booker is the classic estranged, sexually frustrated daughter-father pairing Ken Levine loves - and so does MCA, see Annah in PST.
For that matter, Elizabeth's 'true name' IS Anna - a reference to MCA.
Indeed, the central motifs of both BIS and PST are the same - what can change the nature of a man?
Best of all, Avellone, spelled in reverse, is Eno Lleva - slang for awesome Levine.
Conclusion: Ken Levine is MCA.
I see. So everything in game is actually true. MCA and Ken Levine are twins just like Lutece. Which one is the original one in our universe, which one comes through a tear?
MCA has to be from another universe with that sweater.
Luzur
Good Sir
we need to send a Codex agent into the multiverse to free the real MCA.
Name
Cipher
Bring us the MCA and wipe away the decline!
Yeah, because the game is shit.
pocahaunted
Arcane
Dexter
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
- Messages
- 15,655
Please, someone, make a picture of Ken Levine fucking Elizabeth and show it to him. Bring a camera if possible, I want to see his reaction.
Huh? But whole design of Elizabeth is like Nabokov + disney princess + incest hentai. She is like a perfect doll who teases player with her cleavage, placing Booker's hands on her neck, getting half naked in torture machine, and so on. If Levine wanted players to think about her as a daughter, why didn't he make her more, well, daughter like, like Clementine from Walking Dead? Or at least gave her a normal dress and an awkward, difficult character like she should have from living a life locked in tower with crazy metal bird and books on quantum physics?
The answer to those questions is painfully obvious. I hope Levine doesn't have any daughters...
He has an imaginative fuckdoll whom he shown to whole world. You either admit the truth about such a thing or just stay silent. Can't stop people drawing Rule34 on a stacked loli with cute lamb eyes.
Game designers are weird.
I'll give Levine the benefit of a doubt for a moment. Maybe he doesn't have an incest fetish, and just sexualized Elizabeth in order to get sales, knowing that no one would call misogyny on such a pretentious game. Either way, though, it doesn't reflect well on him.
I dunno, to "sexualize" character usually means getting a few items of clothing off, like putting everything on a female knight on cover of the game except breast plate. But Elizabeth is also written that way, and it is done a little more subtle than just making her a sexy witch. There are characters like Morrigan Aensland, and there is writing where female character does a lot of things which seem like subliminal messages (I already named a few).
Maybe I am harsh, but it troubles me when writer creates a "princess" and makes her walk through violent world where her clothes slowly get torn, where she gets tortured ect., but still pretends she is some gentle flower of a character who should be looked upon as a daughter figure. Feels like creepy anime if you ask me. Also makes me think writer has something wrong going on with his head.
Maybe I am harsh, but it troubles me when writer creates a "princess" and makes her walk through violent world where her clothes slowly get torn, where she gets tortured ect., but still pretends she is some gentle flower of a character who should be looked upon as a daughter figure. Feels like creepy anime if you ask me. Also makes me think writer has something wrong going on with his head.
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It makes me wonder if Levine has a kawaii Elizabeth love pillow. We really need to get an interview with this guy, ask him the questions that really matter.
Ken Levine needs to put Ellen Page into his next game, then the creep-circle-jerk is complete.
baturinsky
Arcane
Man, jailbait and zombies seems to be a popular game setting nowadays.
sea
inXile Entertainment
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,698
To be fair, the writing does try to actually show her transformation and does so in a fairly effective way. BioShock Infinite is in some respects a coming of age story for Elizabeth, and shows here turning from a naive girl into a hardened woman. The problem is that time compression (especially in the game's final act) makes this come on really sudden, where she goes from being still mostly the same normal old person, to some sort of fucking psy-ninja in about an hour's time.
I don't think the sexualizing of her was done specifically by Ken Levine, it probably has its roots more in the publisher's influence and/or the artists themselves. The themes and content of the game don't really support making her out as some sort of sex object, and even her cleavage outfit (Lady Comstock's dress) is obviously meant to have far more narrative repercussions than fan service ones. Making Elizabeth Booker's daughter and combining it with subtle romantic undertones may also have been intentional subversion and done to make the audience feel a bit uncomfortable.
In other words, I guess I think Ken Levine is a smart enough guy with enough integrity to not feature a blatant creepy sex doll character just to get his fans hard. I can see why it'd be read that way but I'm not so cynical that that was the intention. You can make similar arguments about any other female character in games, and with those the arguments are more compelling the less complexity and growth those characters have (i.e. the girl rival trainer from the Pokemon games, pretty sure Nintendo wasn't trying to turn her into loli bait, but that doesn't stop the Internet).
"In some respects" is an understatement, she is a hero of the game, and anything which happens with her is made to feel most important than anything in the game.
They could have done anything with the narrative, it wouldn't mater how Lady Comstock's dress would look like. They choose what they choose, and they used the sweet pretty girl to promote their game. If I would make a character whom player should care about and think about, I would make someone a lot less obnoxious, perfect diabetes-sweet doll than Bioshock did.
Subversion? Subversion is not a positive thing by fact, it's just a trick.
All Bioshocks have some sort of creepy father/daughter thing going on, so it's kinda Levine's schtick. Maybe it's his way of doing horror, I don't know.
But I do know when there's Mary Sure on the horizon, and I can see when character is built in a Cute factory from specific parts to get specific reply from the audience. And that creeps me out.
They could have done anything with the narrative, it wouldn't mater how Lady Comstock's dress would look like. They choose what they choose, and they used the sweet pretty girl to promote their game. If I would make a character whom player should care about and think about, I would make someone a lot less obnoxious, perfect diabetes-sweet doll than Bioshock did.
Subversion? Subversion is not a positive thing by fact, it's just a trick.
All Bioshocks have some sort of creepy father/daughter thing going on, so it's kinda Levine's schtick. Maybe it's his way of doing horror, I don't know.
But I do know when there's Mary Sure on the horizon, and I can see when character is built in a Cute factory from specific parts to get specific reply from the audience. And that creeps me out.
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,395
I really wasn't impressed by Elizabeth, one bit. They appeal to male protecting instincts to make people care about her, but they have to avoid being labeled sexist, so they make her a damsel in distress that is a demigod and can manipulate time and space but for some reason , never did so to get to a reality where Booker doesn't become Comstock. The plot is full of random things that never connect , they are just plot hooks that are used then forgotten, it was like Ken Lavine just said: "Fuck it, the average player has the attention spam of a hamster, they aren't going to notice those inconsistencies.If people start questioning I can always use the 2Deep4You card." Judging by the Citzen Kane of the games bullshit, he was right.
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,395
He got away with the gaping plot holes and gracelessly demolished theme in Bioshock, so why change his methods? It works, it gets the money and the reviews.
I don't think people like these games for the core narrative, or call them story masterpieces for it either. They're usually referring to exploration and the narrative told by the place, the details, the environment. None of the 'Shock games have had an amazing core narrative, IMO.
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