Analyzing Evil: Andrew Ryan From Bioshock 

Bill Sykes from Oliver musical 1968. please 😊

Trevor phillips from GTA

Sofia Lamb would be a interesting video or Zachary Hale Comstock

johan liebert from "Monster", I'm dying to see your analysis of this character.

Could you do Clu from tron legacy??

Yup, a tower always has a base, even if the tower is made of pure gold and silver you still have to stick something in the ground to build it in the first place. Or as the saying goes, someone always has to be at the bottom of the totem pole.

I clean toilets; proverbially.

Last words Frank Fontaine's earthly form heard was Little Sister screaming "KILL HIM" and last thing he saw ADAM-syringe's sharp end approaching his eye. He deserved worse.

Most do. In fact, in some professions, you're still "cleaning toilets" despite being the top of your game.

Ancaps in a nutshell.

Like the ocean

Hehe I see what all of you did there... hol' up!

That theory holds water

I sea what you did there

@@brainrich1358 water you doing with these puns?

Bro really could have just saved so much money and trouble if he just hired an accountant

Yeah but who HASN'T created a utopian underwater city because they don't wanna pay taxes? We've all been there, ammaright?

Lmao libertarian brain rot to the extreme, Andrew Ryan is just a satirical parody of Ayn Rand-like ideology and modern neoliberalism

@@Tommcginnwe can all dream, but unfortunately the taxes taken mean we can’t afford the underwater cities, and our government can’t afford to fix potholes but can afford to shove lots of money into the pockets of those running it.

@@quickdrawmcgraw3567how can it be a mockery with such extreme range as to fit Ayn Rand with today’s neo-liberalism and Marxist infestation?

Too many crusty jugglers….

Looking at hot fuzz with Frank and the NWA it was clear Frank was just a sad old man who needed help as it was clear he was trying to honour his wife death but fail to realize that killing people would never bring her back or make his village great as flaws are everywhere and not everything has to be perfect as sometimes being to perfect can lead to problems

*The Tau Empire would like to know your location "

*"A GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARD!"*

"You just used one" "Did i?" "Yea IT is a pronoun" "What is?" "IT" "Is it?" "Christ!"

In the beginning yes, but the moment Fontaine started using physical violence heft left Andrews philosophy.

@@TravistheGREAT03 I’d say he left Ryan’s philosophy by ensuring other businesses couldn’t compete. Ryan tells the other business owners to offer a better product to compete with Fontaine, who knows he can’t let that happen and completely corners the market through any means necessary

@@dr.k8610 Take for example the example with the grocer and the garbage collector. Ryan refused to intervene then, and obviously he didn't feel the need to outlaw what Fontaine was doing either.

Fontaine is the embodiment of self interest. He refuses to invest in making Adam safer because having it be addictive makes him more money. He can corner the market, so why should he not? Would his competitors given the advantage he has not exploit it to its fullest extent? He invests in more businesses with his profits ands starts an empire to compete with Ryans and does so with no organized opposition. Fontaine has no ideals besides self interest and it manifests in greed. Capitalism naturally trends towards authoritarianism as those with an advantage press it and gain control of the market.

@@henrykanning245 you’re missing one major fact in regards to Fontaine and Adam. Adam was only discovered in Fontaine’s fisheries in the bodies of sea slugs native to the area rapture is in. Some other fishing company could have discovered it but the reason Fontaine was able to corner ADAM. Was because most of the labs weren’t interested in Brigid Tennenbaums research or in funding it. Fontaine funded her researched and provided means to capture sea slugs not just because of the fishery but also because Fontaine was involved in the only illegal trade rapture. smuggling.

Thanks my friend for saying my quote when my son Jack enters my city I do say that and with the sweat of your brow rapture can become your city as well.

@@andrewryan7310 I hope I did right by you, Mr. Ryan

@@traviscummings9178 you did

The writing in this game set the bar so high for me. It’s hard to play games that aren’t on this level 😫

So this means employers have to give exactly what an employer contributes as wages. Businesses have to run as co-ops w/profit sharing and ownership sharing. Otherwise the business owner who owns the equipment and place of work, is stealing the sweat on the brows of his workers. Hes just as bad as the man in russia or the man in Washington. Right?

choice he regreted later

I think his specific rationale was that Atlas would do the same action with the plasmid and steal individual choice. Ryan then could delude himself that him doing it was somehow less worse

@@TheAxel999 atlas already had done it, Ryan just stooped to his level, which condemned Ryan

Ryan- Government control is a detriment to a person's free will. Also Ryan- People need me to take away their free will.

@@nathanhall2012 That's the thing about Bioshock. It's a critique of Objectivism and throws various problems at it that can't be solved within the framework of it. But at the same time, they did the same thing to the polar opposite of objectivism in Bioshock 2, where Sophia Lamb represented socialim/communism.

Still the best part in all of gaming. That and the end of The Last of Us.

Armin Shimmerman is amazing.

And the reveal of rapture and the music that plays immediately just adds to it.

“My name is Andrew Ryan and I am here to ask you a question…”

I also like Bioshock Infinity's ascension to Columbia .. the rising above the clouds timed with the "hallelujah" just when you see the city for the first time .. gives me chills even when I think about it. Bioshock series one of my two all-time favorite series (the other is Mass Effect minus Andromeda).

Well yeah, that's because the Dark Side can rationally be justified. It leads to more power; simple. So you'll get very far in the Dark Side if you simply think rationally. It's when morals and other such fairy tales come into play that the justification becomes muddy; but looking at it from a purely rational perspective of furthering your own self-interest as an individual organism, the Dark Side is without a doubt the best path.

just like forgivenes

Just curious, where you couldn't come up with justification?

@@KevinJohnson-cv2no Andrew Ryan, that you?

My darker impulses take the from of a Sexy Cyclops Sorceress with a cake like Betty Crocker. What makes the dark side bad is because it's a short cut. Vengeance and Mayhem are fun.

He was always a hypocrite, capitalists always are, they think they are entitled to sweat of their workers brows

he already betrayed his idea when he ban trading with the surface. If he allows that all the problem with economic and Fontaine would not be a big deal at the first place

@@donnguyen3795 True free trade is honestly impossible unless you paradoxically becoming a global authoritarian and force every nation to play by the same rules, because if you allow an unfree rigged market to interact with a free one it will be subverted. It's a self defeating hypocritical position where embargos against other unfree markets that don't hold the same values and rules is ironically the lesser evil and get closer to the ideal in practice than on paper true free trade which is really just monopoly by whatever country decides to cheat the supposedly free market the hardest in practice. With Rapture in particular Ryan (correctly) assumes that if the world at large knows about it they will come knocking demanding "their share" too so there's that to consider.

There was also the fact he murdered a singer that was making fun of him, despite him saying the artist was safe from the censor in Rapture.

Ryan's the biggest hypocrite because overall he wanted to be seen as the one, a person to be adored than followed.

*would you kindly*

A man chooses...a slave obeys.

He failed himself and his beliefs

@@johnnydeerfist3727 Not entirely. He made a choice at the end, still having the freedom of choice he thought would be taken away by the outside world. He chose to die instead of having some puppet kill him from the shadows. It's why his last quote is so powerful, "A man chooses, a slave obeys". He as a man chose his own way of death instead of it being taken by a slave.

@@grizzakaful yes

to me Andrew ryan fatal flaw was forcing his views and ideals without realizing the downside of those things as you need to offer to help people in baby steps and show theme a better path without making it your own views and ideals but show something better than something you want

But if the point was noble?

@@comicbookreviewer4856he made it well known that living in rapture must hold his views. But in the end despite agreeing to it and moving there they corrupted the entire city

@@truelies9187That the thing the people living in Rapture thought it was going to be a god send but the fatal flaw was with Andrew ryan was that people living down there was not like him and not realizing If his views and ideas would've made any real difference as wanting to help people you need to see and think if forcing things onto people will really accomplish anything as you can do more harm than good if something goes wrong

A slave chooses to obey.

So who was sent to kill a slave… or a man

Ayn Rand using her philosophy of Objectivism to be Pro Genocide of the Native Americans ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GPC7lCSI5Cg.html Edit: TheVileEye is incorrect in his assessment that the problem in the game is that Objectivism gets mixed with the philosophy of Nietzsche. We can clearly hear Rand as provided in said clip link make such vile and evil claims of pro-genocide and land theft using nothing but Objectivism. It gets even worse when you look up her unapologetic pro-rape stances which she makes using Objectivism. Modern day Objectivist will tell you there are key tenants of Objectivism that don't sound so bad at a glance. What they will not do is tell you about the tenants of Objectivism that most people will clearly reject. Modern day civilizations understand that a mix of Capitalism and Socialism works better than just Capitalism. Public; Fire Departments, Police Departments, street repair, your average Western Military are all socialist institutions that all people benefit from regardless if they pay taxes or not. The west already tried private police, private fire departments, private militaries, etc. The West learned that these private Objectivist institutions suck ass. Because lets say you have a private Fire Department that you have to pay out of pocket for and there is no public Fire Department. A house in your neighborhood catches fire. Only you have Private Fire Department service because no one else could afford it. The Fire Department saves your house and lets the rest of the neighborhood burn to the ground. Sure your house is saved but now you live on a hideous burned out block with toxic fragrances wafting heavily in the air for weeks from all the plastic and chemicals that were lit up from the fires. The problem with Objectivism is its naive outlook upon life which assumes that things will just work out for itself via tools like a free market. History has shown us that if given the opportunity to pollute drinking water to save money that industries and corporations will do so, that if constructing buildings by cutting corners for home owners is allowed then construction companies will do so and buildings will collapse and kill people, etc,etc. We known that an unregulated market and an unregulated society creates nightmare scenarios. The answer to curing said problems is a not so Objectivist selfish socoety but instead a regulated society with socialized solutions. A balancing act of capitalism and socialism. TLDR: Fuck Ayn Rand and Fuck Objectivism. There is a reason why philosophy and economic academics treat Objectivism like a bad joke.

Ryan wasn't technically the antagonist since the game's "protagonist" was a sleeper assassin for Fontaine (aka Atlas), the ACTUAL antagonist. I mean, come on!

@@animeAJproductions The game can have more than one antagonist

the beast example of good intentions that came with a Price is Magneto in the x-men movie as he wanted to make the world better for human only to realize the horrors of his actions or Kyle mom in south park as she means well but never thinks of her actions or Superman in injustice as he wanted to do the right thing but become a monster but people using him as Good intentions always come with a deadly Price

It depends if you don't necessary agree with libertarianism or objectivism. Andrew Ryan is somewhat tragic, a idealistic man of principle who wanted to achieve a individualistic utopia, not realizing that someone like the opportunistic Frank Fontaine would fall into that society as well.

HE was selfish at heart.No good intentions just the urge to do what he wanted.

@@thisismyboat That's not entirely true. If Ryan was simply out for himself, he would've been like a frontier homesteader. But he wanted to build a community of like-minded individuals. I don't necessarily agree with his philosophy, his means to achieve his ends, or his administrative approach. But there is no doubt that, at least in his mind, he was setting out to create an ideal society.

@@enzoofelba to me Andrew Ryan is the opposite extreme of communism.

@@christianweibrecht6555 out of curiosity what kind of extreme communism? Cuz to me that would be anarcho communism A stateless classless egalitarian society, collectively owned and democratically operated.(preferably through a confederation of municipalities mutually working together) Where the means of production is owned by those who toil collectively and democratically.(through union or worker co-ops, From each too Their ability to each their own need.(mutual aid, mutual benefit.) Intersectional (there is no race but the human race, however rich and powerful people like to devide and conquer, Housing and food being a human right (and preferably through housing co-ops.) Also trains.(choo choo mothafuckas!)

Even worse is that his own father was arrested for refusing to pay taxes, and probably died in prison.

Ooh, yes

Shep controlled the garbage picking in the entire area, he was demanding Gravenstein to pay 10 times for the garbage pickup, and he was letting the garbage pile up right next to Gravenstein's store, and most of said garbage wasn't even Gravenstein's. The first is ok, the second is somewhat morally shady and the third is downright petty. All Gravenstein wanted was a public garbage picķup, but Andrew instantly saw this as a communist policy.

Of course Ayn Rand's novels were huge influences. Andrew Ryan is clearly based of Ayn Rand's idealized man, named in homage of her, and Rapture is Galt's Gulch underwater with ADAM serving a role similar to Rearden Metal or the static electricity machines in Atlas Shrugged. Levine and any other writers clearly thought it wouldn't play out the way Rand thought it would.

@@carloscaro9121 he also said that Bioshock wasn't a criticism of Ayn Rand or objectivism, which I respected a lot. It would make the story quite shallow if it was a critique of one philosophy

Objectivism sounds nice in theory but in reality it leads to shit like this

Ayn Rand was a terrible person, and objectivism was something she made up to excuse herself being a terrible person.

@@Danny2113182 you can make a lot of things sound good if you start with some untrue premises to make your arguments in favor of Or you refuse to ground your ideas in reality in the first place Logical consistency and a visible pattern is all we require to see something as appealing. Consistent and visible tells you nothing of truth.

Ignored key tenants of what she argued so it’s hardly “to their logical conclusions” when it doesn’t even include huge core ideas. It’s a good game that makes you think, even makes you think about flaws in Objectivism, but don’t make biased assertions and state them as objective truths.

@@Danny2113182 I’d be shocked if you’d ever even read Rand

That sounds really interesting. How can a follower of "The Prince" be a villain?

@@schwarzerritter5724 it’s not so much she’s/the character has read it. It’s that you can tell the character is a follower of it. From her clothing to her mannerisms to how she looks our for her own preservation. Of all the nemesis that have been on 24 she is definitely the most likely into that category

@@jasongreathouse6661 Yes, exactly. The point of The Prince was not to teach the powerful, but to reveal the tricks of the powerful to the masses.

In my opinion, he represents those good-natured business men that doesn't want to elevate himself at the expense of others. It can also be said that he isn't that ambitious nor skilled to build it. After reading the Rapture novel, it becomes pretty clear that, in Rapture, the most successful business men are those willing to use morally-shady practices.

It is always funny that capitalists hate big governments. The government's job is to save capitalism from itself. The government knows the dirty poors are many, so you have to be willing to compromise. The alternative would be revolt, which means losing resources, I mean people. People are more important than profits.

@@undeadblizzard I would argue that it makes sense for capitalists to hate BIG governments. As, if the government becomes too big, and begins its own enterprises, the inherent power vested in it supercedes the will of any company, entrepreneur, or group that opposes them for any reason. That said, I think your analysis holds true for capitalists who hate government period.

What destroyed Rapture was the restrictions. There is a point in which someone created plasma without side effects, so competition could be maintained. As for government vs capitalist the reality is a balancing act. Too much government business dies and innovation dies. Examples of to much governments is cities like Detroit, Saint Louis, and countries like Greece. A better approach would be Taiwan or before the communist scum bags took over is Hong Kong. Organized labor like unions are another death blow to capitalism. If the city of Rapture became public knowledge and was ran more openly it could have been a massive economic hub. Would the US or other counties attack rapture? Sure and that would be one reason Rapture would need it’s own military. I believe any new nation that emerges would need at least a nuclear warhead to survive. A few years ago a few people designed a small floating city, and a new by coast guard of another country began to attack the installation. The moral of the story is if you are going to start your own country you need weapons. A nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it are critical.

@Dr. Van Hellsing A lot. First 1985 isn't a critique of communism. It is a critique of totalitarian governments. Communism is a Stateless Moneyless Classless Society where the means of production is controlled by the people. How can you have Government if there is no state ? Basically prioritiing People over Profit. Capitalism can not exist without the State. The role of Government is save capitalism from itself. Capitalism is highly unstable. It creates poverty, not lift people out of it.

@The Key and the Gate The Founding Fathers didn't have a beef with government. They wanted to be the government so they could make the laws and pay less in taxes. FDR said his job was to save capitalism look it up.

i guess he could have simply refused to offer his service

@@testaccount4191 the point of objectiveisim at a fundamental level is "only look out for number 1" anything you do for self gain is moral in an objectivist world virw

Everything works in cycles, including markets. When a market gets monopolized, like garbage disposal, the prices will rise and the quality will drop. This will attract competition, either by another investor or by a worker cooperative. Monopolies are not sustainable, except through force. In the case of Rapture, the limitations of the underwater city made free markets pretty much impossible. Basically every resource was limited.

Anarcho-capitalism should just be called neo-feudalism. If you hear many of them speak they begin to start sounding like Ryan after awhile.

And yet anarchism leads to hirarchy of power, were the weak are controlled by the strong. The formation of a sociaty is natual and will always happen. The question is: what laws shoud it provide? We must be mindful and provide laws which protect the freedom of the individual. In a way laws can make you more free than no laws at all. Wierd huh?

@@MCKevin289 lol, so true. You're basically having, instead of 1 country with borders and "dictators" a 1000 orso.

@@rotschadel3574 Human beings are intrinsically hierarchical. This is why anarchy in no form is compatible with humanity. Its also worth noting that objectivism isn't anarchical in nature. but rather advocates for a nightwatcher government

Infinite has a DLC called Burial At Sea. You play in Rapture during 1958, one year before the fall of Rapture

We're all the John Galt of our own story until one day we realize we aren't.

All of them are hypocrites, most rich people and corporations are in some way subsidised, either through the work of their employees or through state cheques in times of bailouts. Remember, privatise the profits and nationalise the losses, kids.

Their are hypocrites on all sides. Most people who cry about global warming Are the worst people for the environment take more gas guzzling planes on holiday than everyone else use cars instead of a bus or train because of convenience. Life is filled with irony.

@@rhysoneill7399 i dont do these things, im poor

Another fun fact: She took back the money she previously was forced to pay in. 🤷‍♂️

Desty Nova from Battle Angel Alita is even worse. Even in the end, Andrew Ryan got his kid to destroy Fontaine, who was another sick monster and Doom Rapture to its own destruction. Desty Nova’s scheme: Destroy everything, even himself. Nothing is more scary than a villain whose own goal is to destroy everything, even himself, from the get go. Andrew Ryan is one thing, where he tries some wierd utopian ideal. Desty Nova OTOH is completely disillusioned and even more evil because his goal is to carry out a full blown equivalent of Ragnarock and send the world into anarchy because advanced society with big states creates bigger, bloodier evil, so Desty Nova figured sending everything back to the Stone Age is the best way.

Do you refer to moral actions as good or bad, or evil. If so this is Incredibly hypocritical

I always thought the word objectivism refers to objective. Like a goal or something you want to achieve. Kinda like strive for your objective and damn everyone else

@@richfoster4369 you can believe in right or wrong acts without calling them objective. Otherwise known as subjective morality

Objectivism doesn’t refer to the objective correctness of the philosophy. It means to put forward one’s personal, individual objective as opposed to “the common good” or “the greater good”