Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea - Ending Explanation

Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea - Ending Explanation

Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea - Ending Explanation

After a few failed attempts to find a full explanation for the ending of Burial at Sea, I decided I will write my own for those also having trouble locating one. That being said, I am stating these as thoughts and opinion and NOT FACT. I do not consider myself an expert on trans-dimensional travel, nor do I believe I understand Bioshock’s timeline to the caliber of Ken Levine or the franchises most dedicated fans. This is merely a collection of ideas I picked up on and pieced together and there will be things I missed or misinterpreted and many details I forgot to mention, but I think this will provide many of you with a rough outline of the story. I am mainly going to focus on the story of what happened to Elizabeth, but I will touch on certain other aspects as well. I think it’s safe to say the majority of you can put the other details (like references between commonalities of Rapture and Columbia) together yourselves. I have only played through each DLC once so I encourage everyone to comment and contribute: fix my mistakes, tell me why I’m wrong, or tell me why I’m right. And play nice children, I put a good amount of work into this.

Let’s begin at the ending: Infinite left off with Elizabeth drowning Booker, effectively destroying all Comstock universes but killing Booker in the process. Once Booker dies, the Elizabeth duplicates fade away one by one because they will have no longer existed; except for our “true” Elizabeth who we soon learn (from being in the DLC) did not fade out of existence. After the credits we have a short scene of Booker walking into Anna’s room and Anna, as an infant, still there. This was the universe repairing any jumps between Booker’s and Comstock’s timelines. It cleaned itself up and resorted back to a time before any jumps and breaks occurred; to just before Booker would have given Anna to Lutece.

That is all happy and dandy, but it does not change the fact that our Booker still drowned to destroy the existence of Comstock/Columbia. The Booker featured after the credits was one of the infinite other versions of Booker that sold Anna, they resorted back because all of their timelines were destroyed. But our Booker’s wasn’t and he remains dead, because even if all the infinite Comstock/Columbia universes get destroyed there still has to remain a single timeline somewhere in space and time that lead to the destruction of the rest, that being the one route our Elizabeth and Booker traveled. If anyone has any questions on this post them and I’ll try and answer, but for the sake of this explanation I’m going to assume you already know all of this and spare further detail. In short terms, our Booker dies and our Elizabeth remains because their timeline always existed, always exists, and always will exist. With that being said, Elizabeth in Burial at Sea is THE ONLY Elizabeth left because the universe resorted all others back to Anna in the crib. Additionally, no Booker in any of the universes will remember Elizabeth because they would have never met her and they only know Anna since Anna was never sold to Comstock. The Columbia universe where our Elizabeth lived is gone, and the one Booker universe where she has a place she could belong no longer has Booker in it because she killed him. Elizabeth has no universe to call her own, none where she can consider herself at home.

Now we pick up in Burial at Sea Episode 1, where Elizabeth draws out an elaborate scheme against an escaped Comstock. This Comstock sought refuge from his memories because in his universe Anna had gotten her head cut off rather than her pinky. Riddled with guilt and depression and whatever else a Comstock feels, he runs away using a tear to become a citizen of Rapture. Rapture is in the 60’s and Infinite is 1912, that means that when this Comstock went through the tear it was 1912 and his universe was still intact (soon to be destroyed, but existed at the time), to the 60’s where his Columbia is long gone, and his “Comstock” memories no longer exist. Therefore, the Lutece principle of “creating memories where none exist” wiped Comstock’s memory of ever being Comstock because in 1960, having been destroyed by Booker’s drowning, Comstock/Columbia never existed in any timeline, all universes of Comstocks are gone. The memories he creates are of being Booker DeWitt the private detective, which is fitting because the universe reached back in time to retrieve those memories for him. The memories couldn’t come from a Comstock since none exist, so it came from a different representation of himself (Booker) and it had to pick Booker memories from before any holes/jumps existed so that would be “Booker Private Detective/Father”.

Just as Booker was exposed to brief nightmares of past and future events he experienced but could not remember, so does Rapture-Comstock. Elizabeth shows up in an effort to spark Comstock’s memories of having killed her as a baby and make him remember that he is not truly Booker. From Elizabeth’s fierceness and lack of mercy, it is apparent that she has changed. Vengeful and angry about having killed her father and having no “home” universe, she has been busy eliminating loose ends of Comstock’s that escaped extinction. (And keep in mind, she is THE ONLY Elizabeth, all others were either wiped from existence or resorted back to infancy with a Booker that only knows her as Anna.) Elizabeth kidnaps Sally and sells her into becoming a little sister and then nudges Rapture-Comstock in the direction of finding her, a giant ploy that was brilliantly maneuvered to spark the full memory of his being the Comstock that got Elizabeth/Anna beheaded. But as brilliant as it was, it was undeniably evil and entirely unlike Elizabeth. She kidnapped and doomed a child, just so she could taste the full effect of her revenge. She could have just killed Rapture-Comstock in the first scene at the P.I. office, but she sold out a little girl so it would be sweeter. Ultimately the plan succeeded and Elizabeth then kills Comstock.

Which finally brings us to Episode 2. If you all recall in Infinite, Elizabeth stating that she has the power to not only open tears to other universes, but she can create them. This was demonstrated with the Siren of Lady Comstock being revived, but as a mixture between a Lady Comstock from another universe and Elizabeth’s own feelings toward her. Basically, she created a new non-existent version of Lady Comstock.

My reason for mentioning this is the opening seen of Episode 2, Elizabeth finally in a utopian Paris. Beautiful, friendly, full of music and love. Without a doubt, this is a universe which Elizabeth crafted by her own hand (will explain further later). But Sally appears, a dark memory of her evil actions bleeding through into her reality (like Lady Comstock) and suddenly Paris becomes a scene of chaos and destruction as Elizabeth chases Sally through the streets. (Sidenote: on the signs of one of the buildings is featured a Lobotomy doctor). She follows Sally through a door and wakes up in Rapture, and we soon find out that Elizabeth died immediately after killing Comstock and that Elizabeth no longer has the power to “see behind all the doors” and open/create tears.

Now here is where things get interesting: As I have said multiple times, the Elizabeth that killed Comstock in Rapture was our ONLY Elizabeth. So, you ask, how does she exist to return to rapture? If you recall the voxophones throughout Infinite that explain what happened to the Lutece’s, Comstock sabotaged there trans-dimensional device while the Lutece’s were operating it. Rather than killing them, it scattered them into the possibility spectrum, spread throughout every possible location of space and time. Now the closest reasoning we are given to why Elizabeth is able to create tears is 1) Exposure to the machine and 2) Losing her pinky in one universe and being alive in another (“The universe doesn’t like its peas mixed with its porridge”). Elizabeth is a human incarnation of the Lutece’s machine, she has a non-linear existence in a timeline and has no native universe. She has contributed to timelines in an infinite number of universes, and I’m not merely referring to the Comstock ones but whatever else she has opened as well. For that reason, killing Elizabeth (THE ONLY ELIZABETH) had the same effect as the Lutece’s dying in their machine, it scattered her among the possibility spectrum.

So how did Elizabeth come back to life and return to Rapture? In Episode 2, a voxophone can be found in the “Sleep” corridor of the Finkton clock. The voxophone is Rosalind Lutece, she explains that her brother feels unfulfilled with what they are and wants to return to being human. She acknowledges that it is possible for them to return to their former selves, but in doing so would forget everything they learned, lose the power to see behind doors, and be once again exposed to the mortality factor of being human. Which brings us to Elizabeth who is now in “Limbo” with the Lutece’s. She knows she died, and in reflecting on her lasts moments she sees the monster she became: traveling from universe to universe killing Comstock’s in cold blood, but mainly she is haunted by selling out Sally – a girl who’s exact situation reflects what was done to her in youth. (Girl sold out against her will, tamed and forced to keep quiet, nurtured to contain great power, exploited, lacking childhood and companionship). She can’t stand what she has done, and would rather die making things right than go on living forever in her fabricated utopias of Paris. Still having the ability to see behind all the doors, she can see her opportunity for redemption by returning to Rapture for a final time as a human and spurring the events with Atlas that would lead to the introduction of Bioshock One. She saw how Atlas will die as a result of the actions she undertakes in Rapture and Sally will be saved, but Elizabeth also knows that she is sending herself on a mission that will end in her death. And even worse she knows that she will not have any memory of losing her powers, what path she has to take, or what her purpose of returning is. When she does return, her memories pick up where the dead Elizabeth’s leave off, making her confused as to how she got there and how she died. She too witnessed the nightmares of past and future that plagued Comstock and Booker, and the Paris introduction that she experienced is most relatable to Booker’s office/home in the “Bring us the girl” cut scenes of Infinite. Not to mention, Elizabeth has an inexplicable connection to Sally the same as Booker’s to Elizabeth and Rapture-Comstock’s to Sally. Booker crossed into Columbia to save his daughter, but his lack of memories rewrote it into “Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt”. This altered his reality for the mission but did not take away from the father-like connection he felt for Elizabeth the entire game. Rapture-Comstock was grieving his dead daughter when crossing into Rapture, so when his memories are erased he still has the lingering feeling of guilt (doll head he carries) and the father-like connection to a daughter-like figure who he substitutes with Sally. Now in Burial at Sea 2 Elizabeth enters Rapture as a human and loses her memory, but as confused as she is about why she is there she never loses that devotion and connection to restore Sally’s life even if she doesn’t know why it’s so important to her. Whenever memories are created, apparently intentions remain intact.

Back to the flashbacks/flash-forwards Elizabeth sees: These are not entirely the same as Booker’s or as Rapture-Comstock’s. Booker’s were due to his relentless loop of saving Elizabeth from Columbia and seeing the beginning and end over and over and Comstock’s were of a forgotten past. Elizabeth’s, however, were of the original path she set herself on before entering Rapture and losing all memory. These flashes provide her with a bare amount of insight on what to do next, but nevertheless they prove to be enough. Also, Booker on the radio is meant to imply his being dead because each time she talks to him, he reminds her he is not there. Plus, her mission is an echo that’s almost identical to Booker’s. Guilt leads to redemption leads to inexplicable connection leads to saving the girl leads to dying. She used everything Booker did in Infinite and applied it to saving Sally, and on top of that she asked him for guidance the entire time while unknowingly acting like him.

At the ending of the DLC, Elizabeth’s insight fully returns as she approaches certain death at the hands of Atlas. She hands him the “ace in the hole” and assures Atlas that he is the one being used, not her. She tells him to get it over with and Atlas kills her, she dies knowing that Atlas believes he won but she set forward the events of Bioshock One that will inevitably lead to his death and Sally’s rescue. Meaning that although Bioshock was the first game released, the series went in a circle that identified it as the ending, the finale of Elizabeth’s dying legacy.

With Ken Levine leaving/shutting down Irrational Games and washing his hands of the two games that together took him over 10 years to create, I couldn’t (nor can I, even now) have imagined a more satisfying ending to Bioshock as a whole. It was his creation and he received endless criticism, but it always seemed he knew what was best for the series even if it meant bad news for him/the players. He supplied a real ending, not a strange twist or “open for interpretation” mess. No matter how you rationalize Infinite or Burial at Sea 1 and 2, the undeniable and undisputable ending of Bioshock is Elizabeth’s sacrifice for Sally’s behalf leading to the saga of Jack taking down Atlas.

As I stated in the beginning, I’m certain I forgot some crucial details/explanations because I wrote this all nonstop in a single sitting and there’s no way I’m going to proofread it (sorry guys). Any additions, criticism, comments, and questions feel free to share. Hope you guys enjoyed the game, and hope this will help a few of you sleep easier at night. 

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