Bioshock | A Sea of Hypocrisy 

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Nothing screams "freedom" louder than being in a building in a city trapped in the bottom of the ocean.

I've always loved the double meaning of "No Gods, No Kings, Only Man" in relation to the citizens of Rapture. There's nobody to tell you what you can and can't do, but there's also nobody to save you when everything goes to shit.

Me: Ha! I killed Cohen and took a picture of him for some sweet, sweet, irony~ Leadhead: Cohen wanted you to kill him and take his picture, you did exactly what he wanted. Me:......he played me like a fiddle....

I don't think a remorseful Ryan wanted to be killed by his failures. "But Atlas is out there, and he aims to destroy me, and destroy my city. To question is to surrender. I will not question." Rather, confronted by his inevitable assassin, he hands over his golf club, choosing the manner of his death, demonstrating a man always chooses.

Maybe the real parasites were the friends we made along the way?

5:30 Diana was not seeking reconstructive surgery to be a new person, if you listen to the audio logs, she was greatly injured in the attacks by Atlas' crew and this is the reason she got surgery.

Another thing about Ryan’s death is that Jack is his son. Ryan accidentally impregnated his mother. Jack’s mother then sold Jack’s embryo to Fontaine. So Ryan is being killed not only a slave but his own son. Ryan greatly valued freedom and the closest person to Ryan is the exact opposite a slave.

I think this is a critical misread of Ryan's death at least. His final speech expresses no remorese and if anything sounds triumphant. As far as he is concerned, he has destroyed rapture and proven that he is a man by selecting his own way of dying. These aren't the actions of a man who regrets enslaving a population

Another point regarding "The Great Chain": Ryan describes it as becoming more rigid and strong with everyone pulling it towards themselves in whatever direction they choose. But if you have a bunch of people pulling an actual chain every which-where, neither the chain nor any of the people pulling it go anywhere, they're just stuck in place until someone gives or something breaks, and then it all comes crashing down.

35 minute in depth analysis of a modern classic? Leadhead you spoil us

One thing I'm surprised didn't get mentioned: that line Ryan has about a time to live, a time to die. Yeah, it's from the song "Turn, turn, turn" (which came out years after Bioshock takes place), but the line is originally from the bible (specifically, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Ryan has strayed so far from objectivism that he's quoting the bible.

I don't really agree with the analysis of Ryan as penitent. Here are my reasons: 1. I think the only reason Ryan does not kill you once you get right up to him (which I have no doubt he could do - he's entirely in control of Rapture's security) is because he knows Jack is his son, and therefore has access to his personal Vita-Chambers - so killing him is useless. More, too, he likely feels disdain towards killing someone who has blood-ties to him, even if he probably feels more disdain for your being controlled by Fontaine. 2. Saying that Ryan wanted to die to atone for forcing the citizens of Rapture into servitude doesn't really add up. A similar situation is presented in one of the audio logs, where he has the beginnings of a qualm about the use of the Little Sisters - but he soon soothes his own fears by saying something akin to 'but we all pulled on the Great Chain, and her little hand was right next to mine'. If he's able to talk himself out of that moral qualm, it seems unlikely that he'd be self-aware enough to wish to atone for the brainwashing of the citizens of Rapture. I personally believe that the only reason he faces Jack as he does is because even if he is a hypocrite, he is still a brave man, and if there is truly no escape, he will face death coolly.

ryan- makes city free of government. ryan- also becomes government.

You missed the opportunity for a "HypocriSea" joke

I feel like this video can be summed up with one sentence, for both Andrew Ryan and just normal people in general when it comes to ideologies: "When a person cares more for an idea, than the actual living breathing people that make up said idea-the game"

I would say that Sander Cohen's craziness as an artist isn't due to lack of having an audience, but more to do with having the lack of duty to an audience. His madness, I think, will have begun long before the fall of Rapture, with his art getting more and more abstract, and less and less meaningful. Art is how a culture knows itself, and the artist that is an individualist (which Raptures is full of), and feels he has no responsibility towards his audience, will no longer be making art that someone can appreciate to know about the people of whom he is a part, something grounded in reality, and instead only makes art that comes from, and is about, himself. Cohen's art is a twisted expression only of himself.

Yeah I always found it funny how Ryan's plan fundamentally doesn't make sense. His city was made to have no rulers, but a big part of his beliefs is that you own what's yours and by every definition Rapture.. the whole city IS HIS. It was his idea, his money and company funding it, and his will as he always states. I can see what he was trying to do. Created a top council to oversee the very basics of operating the city.. intentionally created to stay out of people's business as much as possible and it even seemed like Ryan was trying to keep himself out of the council and put himself down with everyone else.. starting out "buying fish futures" and the like.. creating his own businesses. It was only after he saw someone, Fontaine, becoming more successful then him that he started to turn on his own beliefs. He started taking the city being his to heart and eventually started to see the city and everyone IN it as his. Ryan: "At last I am alone, Fontaine is gone, Lamb is gone.. or close enough. At last I am alone, alone.. with MY city."

Good video! However I noticed one detail that was wrong. Diane McClintock went to Steinman because Diane was injured in the Kashmir Restuarant bombing not just because Ryan blew her off and didn't attend the ball. This is because her story is, she was injured in the bombing committed by Atlas and after she began seeing Ryan's flaws, Diane ironically joined Atlas' cause but then is ironically killed because she walked in on him talking in his regular Frank Fontaine accent.

Every time Suchong says 'very good' after the puppy dies, I feel genuine hatred, great voice acting.

The reveal that your a sleeper agent is one of the best memories I have gaming.

Hearing that puppy die like that still freezes my heart. I know no actual puppies died, but even the implication shakes me to my core and fills me with a teeth gritting rage. Fantastic video. Thought provoking and engagingly informative

It truly feels weird to watch such quality content with such little subscribers. Really interesting video and you kept me interested through the whole 33 minutes. great job! keep it up!

This one!... TOO SYMMETRICAL

I love all these takes on the game coming out a decade later. I was so young when I beat this game in 2007-08, I was about 11-12 years old so I was incapable of wrapping my head around the philosophical implications. It was just a scary undersea survival horror game to me back then. Really eye opening how much of a masterpiece this game is now that as an adult I have more of an understanding of religion, society, art, and the fundamental concepts of americana that inspired the storytelling. The first Bioshock is a true example of the video game experience, presenting itself as almost film in its ability to peel back layers of depth depending on level of understanding or age. A game that could be played by anyone once but analyzed a hundred times over for generations to come.

Damn, that opening scene where you first see Rapture accompanied by that epic music... gives me chills every single time. One of the best games ever made!

Ah Bioshock, I saw my friend playing it when I was 17. And now all got old, and watching this at early 30s. Even after almost 15 years, it is still a recommandable game for gamers. Its graphics aged well enough for newcomers to pick up and play.

this video was the first time i ever saw what it looked like to harvest a little sister

“There’s something admirable about that.” Only if you squint really, really hard. Ryan’s entire idea, that man only deserves what he fights for and builds with his own two hands, ignores the simple truth that we are social organisms, living in constant interconnection with others, and that most if not all inventions and conquests are, surprise surprise, *social* phenomena. The idea of the rugged industrialist alone inventing the lightbulb is a myth, as fictional as this very game. Ryan’s principles, being based on faulty premises, end up in hypocrisy and delusion. He burns down a forest he bought so the “parasites” couldn’t get it, but did he make the forest? Did he plant every tree, place every rock, dig every stream? No. He merely bought it. Or, that is to say, he stole a priceless resource from those who lived around it with the power of green paper. The parasite here was always Ryan. Remember that.

So, a channel that does analysis of games for an extended period of time, with a calming voice, and being perfect for background audio while still being engaging? Welcome to my, "Good Videos" playlist! Also, enjoy a new subscriber.

I always thought Ryan handing you the golf club and telling you a man chooses was him trying to break through the brainwashing command by trying to confront you with it. It just didn’t work and he was killed for it.

*17:10* The biggest proof that Sander Cohen was a man of art, was the number of coins he put in his music box.

It seems odd with the chapters about the faults of mixing Art with Science, and Industry with Science there isn’t one about mixing art with industry. They really could have furthered their meta commentary on games as a result.

Wow dude; no analysis has made me realize the relevance and genius of Bioshock more than someone simply explaining it as well as you did. I think I want to share it with my father now. We’ve been distant as of late but we bond over storytelling. I think having him try Bioshock might bring us closer together despite our religious differences. Thank you for helping me realize this.

Honestly, I saw Ryan's death as a desperate attempt to save his son. He's not just ordering Jack to kill him, he's testing if Jack can break his programming. If his son has the choice. If he is a MAN, in Ryan's terms

Even though Jack had been bio-engineered by Suchong...how could they guarantee that he would be the only survivor of a plane crashing into the ocean? Granted he has an above normal physicality...that is still a huge risk to take by Fontaine, and something that has nagged at me since wayback.

the greatest nuance of bioshock is that while rapture is definitely a dystopia, it is a BEAUTIFUL one

The whole Bioshock franchise is my most favorite video game of all time.

0451. Possibly the single most important lineage in story driven video games. I actually met some of the crew that worked on Bioshock infinite, the lead UI programmer is a family friend, very interesting conversations were had. Irrational Games was basically just down the street from where Looking Glass was as well, and I have been past the former Looking Glass offices many times.

Rapture was utopia and like every utopia it was destined to fail. Ryan saw necessary safety nets as parasitism and when his own "philosophy" came to bite his own arse he couldn't handle it. He also did not see that organized cooperation is necessary for "the great chain" to pull things forward. Frank Fontaine decided to pull that chain to his direction and even that proved Ryan's ideology flawed. Frank Fontaine was obsessed about becoming head honcho of Rapture and he failed to see that unleashing all those pent-up forces he would become head honcho of smoldering heap which has no value at all left. In the end he could have just taken a recliner (a comfy chair) and declared himself a King of Rapture wearing a crown made of lampshade. I went to rescue Little Sisters and as Fontaine so much threatens to kill them just to spite Jack. It is just so right that those who actually have reason to fear Fontaine get to show that they are better than he or Ryan were. Only Little Sisters are innocents in Rapture and they do not have a choice in that matter either.

Atlas: “Take the L Ryan!” Andrew Ryan: “I choose the Win.”

i absolutely love this entire concept. the time setting, to the gene-altering, to the unique designs of everything, that fact that such a unique environment has gone downhill, everything is just so damn good.

Damn. watching this reminded me that I never actually completed this game, despite loving it, mainly at the time for its visuals and setting. but since I started reading philosophy, I realised theres a lot in this game too.

You are far, far more optimistic about Ryan than I am. Ryan is no better than Atlas, and their philosphies of freedom are gilded words covering up rotted souls.

What about Bioshock 2? I love that game, I don't understand why people hate it, it was awesome. It also has the most fun and best gameplay out of all three

"While we don't know at this point in the game-" Tip for essay writing: Don't tease something for half the essay, either tackle it there or avoid mentioning it again until you're actually ready to talk about it. Through sheer repetition I remember your promise to later explain your points more than your actual points.

One thing that I love about Bioshock is that the levels have names of Greek/Roman Gods in them: Apollo, Neptune, Hephestus, Prometheus, Olympia etc. Many of these Gods tie in with the levels too, like Prometheus sacrificed himself to give humans freedom, Hephestus is the god of fire and industrialism.

You know how you can tell a video game is a classic? People are still talking about it over a decade after release.

I was really confused seeing "Leadhead" in game and then I remembered that was also the name of the channel I was watching.

Odd not to have seen much discussion on this game as a deconstruction of Ayn Rand and the morality of Objectivism / Libertarianism (Andrew Ryan ~=~ Ayn Rand). That's what the explicit sub-text of the game is about, and while I didn't listen to everything; Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead wasn't mentioned once as far as I could tell.

I just love the look and feel of BioShock. It’s just perfect for setting up an uneasy dystopian too perfect to be real feeling.

The perfect RU-vid video doesn't exi-

Unrestricted artistry always devolves into unrestricted perversion and depravity.

great and very interesting video, i finished bioshock like 20 times but this video still contained some details i never noticed

"A sea of hypocrisy" you say? Well I guess You could call it... ...A *hypocri-sea* :DDDDDDDDDDD im dead inside

After all these years I have just now seen Fontaine and the ending of Bioshock

I'm astonished you made it through a half hour video on the philosophy of Bioshock and didn't once mention Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' lol

I love that this game still has people talking about it, got me feeling happy.

I didn't think I would watch the whole video, because I've only played Bioshock Infinite. But I loved every second of this video.

Within the first thirty seconds I have already gone to redownload bioshock

This video seems to have overlooked one thing that permeated the story of Bioshock: Fontaine is the ENTIRE reason Rapture went to a watery Hell in a soggy handbasket. Every problem mentioned in the video that Rapture had, Fontaine had direct or indirect involvement with it. Andrew Ryan's downfall was trusting that Fontaine held the same ideals he did. At the very first sign Fontaine didn't, Ryan should have had Fontaine either exiled from Rapture or executed as the parasite that he was. Instead, he took it on the chin and let Fontaine do as he pleased. I really think Andrew should have vetted his business partner much more closely and gone with someone else. Also, my interpretation of the giant head of Andrew Ryan when you first enter Rapture isn't him thinking himself as a god, but as a representation of what man when thinking for himself could become. Which, if you think he imagined men as gods, could mean every man is his own god and nothing is beneath him. As a man, he chose. As a slave, you and Fontaine obeyed. You obeyed by playing through the game and Fontaine obeyed by becoming the very parasitic being he always was but deluded himself into thinking he wasn't. I know I'm just a trollfacing Wario, and this is just a theory (perhaps even a GAME theory), but it makes sense considering what was shown in this video.

When I played this game I was too busy trying to stay alive. I guess that's the price I paid for choosing the hardest difficulty. Great for involving yourself in the gameplay, but distracted me from the depth of the story. I'm sure there are seasoned gamers who will say the difficulty wasn't that hard, but considering that the only FPP games I played were the original Doom, Halflife and then Bioshock, in that order, I am not a seasoned player. I never wanted to be brainwashed into someone who sees killing humans as a normal everyday action.

I loved how you explained the story, as well the twist of it. I'm going to go back and play Bioshock to see this for myself. I would really like for you to do something similar with Bioshock 2.

Looking back on this now this is still so good and I think the most satisfying explanation and breakdown given about the philosophy of the first bioshock game and I have to say as someone who played all bioshock games when they came out as a kid, religiously, I'm very happy with this.

God I replayed this like 2 months ago and missed so much of this depth ... there will have to be another playthrough soon

"Break that puppy's neck" Fyah fi yuh, Dr. Suchong.

I love the detail of the giant Ryan statue looking down on you, like HE is the god here, even when entering the sphere you can see him looking down on you like some kind of peasant or bug

"0451 games" is such a good term and I want it to catch on

"i chose what was impossible to capture... i chose... rapture" - dan bull

Well done video...I look forward to watching your channel grow.

this is one of the best bioshock analysis videos i've seen! I really liked how you talked about each location, and you mentioned a lot of details I missed

Interesting analysis. Reminds me that I was told each book of the Old Testament is a theme on one of the 10 Commandments.

How can you write such an eloquent and well thought out analysis of Bioshock and completely fail to mention that Rapture was a critique of Ayn Rand's Objectivist "philosophy"? That's a pretty important aspect of the game.

This is my favourite world of all time, I truly wish it existed. Just.. minus the anarchy. I wish they did a prequel where you actually lived as one of the residents during it's golden period.

Simply amazing my friend! Your analysis highlighted new themes and points of attention even a long time fan such as myself hadn’t really considered all that much yet. You have earned a subscriber, and I look forward to whatever future content you may provide- I even ordered Prey midway through the video because you made it look good.

I remember playing this game for the first time. It was a family trip to my mom's best friends house and our defacto cousins, they always did pizza parties on Fridays where we did LAN parties in a bunch of different rooms on call of duty 2 and 3. The cousin who was my age was playing this game when we visited their house and I gave him my cousin a hard time about playing this game and that it's a silly game but then he let me play some and I got hooked and beat the whole game on his computer in a couple days. We went to the mall later that week and saw Bioshock 2 and bought it for his computer and we beat that one too. Such a fun game and unfortunately I don't remember anything from it but that memory

How do you do a 30 minute long video on Bioshock and it's philosophy, without mentioning Ayn Rand once? Huge oversight...

05:12 - "Artistry should never be mixed with medical science". I have to disagree completely. A very obvious example is plastic surgery, where the surgeon needs to have a feel for aesthetics in order to do good work on his customers. It's a very superficial statement. The splicers in Bioshock are in no way a good representation for that, since they are obviously demented and insane. The root of the gore happening in the medical pavilion lies in the insanity of them, not because art and medical science are mixed here. What even is that statement supposed to mean. 32:40 - Ryan selling addictive Substances to the population of Rapture is in no way the same as taxation. He didn't force them to buy them, whereas taxation uses the threat of force to coerce you into obeying. That is a big difference. It sure doesn't sound to me like you have actually thought philosophically about that statement. I liked the part about sander cohen, since that was the one that was the most consistent and had the least statements that sound smart but really aren't. All in all, good video, though it would be nice to have less superficial statements like the two above.

I just found your channel and this instantly hooked me up with your content. I'll be watching your latest video next. It's always the ones with little subscribers who had the most interesting content.

Thanks for this! I've always wanted to know what it was all about because I was never able to grind through the game. Loved this video, well done!

I loved Bioshock. Equal best-game-ever for me, together with TLOU. Honourable mentions to System Shock II and Alone in the Dark (the original version). Thanks for you work. Agreed with most - but not all - of it.

Raycevick and mandalore are good creators worth a watch

This video opened my eyes to a lot of smaller details that didn't hit me at first. Thanks.

This is most fine-styled video ever I've seen. It fits most well with Bioshock's story and feeling.

"I wanna create a capitalist paradise." "I'm also gonna ignore the most basic rules of economics and turn this place into a dystopian hellhole." Basically, Andrew Ryan.

An interesting take, but some criticisms of your interpretation of the game. -Frank Fontaine always was a subversive, corruptive element in the setting. He was a career criminal well before he even heard of Rapture. He did not share Andrew Ryan's ideals, and was in fact an embodiment of the "The Parasite" that Ryan's beliefs warned of. He didn't come to Rapture to create and rise up on his own merits, he only lied, cheated, and stole what he gained, and intended to make it the "biggest score" in history. Even his business empire was a fraudulent construct at its root, acquiring most assets illegitimately or having businesses be fronts for dishonest activities. Ryan was quite aware that Fontaine was not adhering to the moral rules of Rapture, but much like Mob Bosses of the real world, he was very good at remaining unconnected to the illegal dealings, and this is what Ryan was so frustrated with. Fontaine was not beating Ryan in the open market, he was undermining everything from the start. -You are not far off from the potential hypocrisy of Ryan in how he was portrayed as a 'superior' in society. But it actually does adhere to his beliefs. He built Rapture, it was his financial empire he used, and ultimately cannibalized, to create the city. So, yes, within the preview of his ideology, the physical structure of Rapture was very much his. But from the story presented, he initially tries to 'rule' minimally outside of his few rules for people to live there, it's only with Fontaine subversive intrusion into the city's society that things begin to turn away from the original ideals. -The ideological warfare that Fontaine, and then "Atlas", introduced to oppose Ryan was not merely religion. The elements of religion lingering you see, do feel more like the resurgence of organic remnants from people who came to Rapture, likely fed by the smugglers. What Fontaine specifically introduced, was the polar opposite of the principles of Ryan's Objectivism; Socialism. He was not a religious figure-head in either persona, however he was certainly portraying a Socialistic one, blaming the successful and turning the poor against them, all the while intending to use the downtrodden as pawns for his own ambitions. Comparing his propaganda to socialist forms matches far more closely than anything religious. An aside, but this is touched on again in Infinite with the Vox Populi, only more blatantly. -In the audio-logs, it is made clear that they were aware of the dangerous, addictive nature of the first generation of plasmid's defects. But as they were being made in Fontaine's criminal empire, he actually prevented that from being corrected, despite that Dr. Tenenbaum came forwards with a fix to make them function as advertised without the corrupting side-effects. Fontaine wanted it to degrade the minds of his customers, knowing it would give him control over them. The mind control additive was just an extra measure added later; which Ryan clearly had to make a very pained, similar decision with his own plasmids later on when he learned of Fontaine doing so. The review was quite interesting, I just think overlooking these facets of the plot skewed the presentation in a few odd ways.

Man, you're an artist yourself. I appreciate that you covered topics in this video alone that many would've broken into many smaller videos. Everyone is right, you deserve more subs than you have

I played this about a decade ago, and all this flew over my head at the time. It's kind of ironic - understanding these topics in games takes a bit of maturity and life experience, but those same qualities convince people to spend their time elsewhere instead of on playing games. I recently fired up my steam account for the first time in years, so I could be projecting.

Man Bioshock 1 really does carry on the PC gaming tradition of having really interesting highs, weird lows, and kinda weird, disappointing endings. Good stuff.

God, I need to play this game again. Any plans for a Bioshock 2 video at all?

I love how you think of this video as an essay not a video for money but a video for informational purposes

I always vaguely got the symbolism and the messages behind the game but you go so in depth and really analyze things so brilliantly that this fresh, deeper perspective makes me want to pick up the game for the first time in Y E A R S. Great stuff. Thank you.

I feel Like Neil Druckman, wishes his game had a message as potent as Bioshock did, hell he even included a 9 iron scene.

I’ve played the game multiple times, immersed myself in the lore, and every time I come back I learn something new. It’s art.

This is a fantastic video filled with great points, however one sentence sticks out like a sore thumb to me: "Fort frolic is a level more linear than the rest". I think that's wrong, I think it's the opposite. While the level may have a linear introduction, as soon as you have placed the first photo on the masterpiece, the level is totally free after that. The biggest tell of this freedom is that this is the only level where the, after that point, the quest arrow disappears completely. It is up to you to explore Fort Frolic, collaboraitng with Sander, in any order you choose or discover. You can collect all the photos at once or do them one at a time, you can do them in different orders, explore any of the shops you choose. The only restrictions on this level are the walls themselves (or Cohen yelling at you to get out of his dressing room).

Great video essay. I just finished the game for the first time and all I can say is just 'wow'. Such a gem with writing that evokes dialogue that could fill it's own philosophy book.

Thank you for uploading this. You're a great youtuber, i appreciate you.

This was a half hour video that basically told me I'm unobservant as hell. I went through the entire game in I think two goes, that were split by probably half a year of not touching it, taking in total maybe two whole days to complete. I guess my brain turns off when I play games because I missed basically all of the nuance of the *entire* story save for the _smack-in-your-face_ brainwash reveal. Didn't connect that the chain tattoos reflected "The Great Chain" or even that THE ENTIRE PLOT revolved intricately around industry, art, and science that made the great chain. I remember very keenly at some point in the story Ryan says "I think it's time I gave the great chain a tug" in response to something Fontaine did and I noticed a statue of the great chain ONCE later and thought "oh, that's cool, it's the thing he said." I'm an *IDIOT!* Since I don't remember ANY of the audiologs, I'm guessing what happened was anytime I listened to one, I immediately forgot whatever it said because I was on-edge THE ENTIRE GAME. For me, there were such ENORMOUS periods of silence where any enemy suddenly scared the bujeezus out of me. In retrospect, even though I was playing on hard, I should have loosened up once I realized I was never dying (don't think I did the entire game actually... probably from how much of a bitch I was being throughout the entire thing) and also never finding myself short on health or eve. I guess that's also a testament to its atmosphere though. Watching this gameplay, I was also WAY too frugal, being I'm one of those gamers that always saves the super weapon for the big bads and then never uses them in those fights anyways. I did the same thing in infinite goddammit, maxed out upgrades on the starting pistol and then just used that the entire game (though it's really good and actually continues to be my favorite gun out of any game ever). Good video, I liked it.

"Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul" F. Rabelais Never saw anything that is a better explanation of this quote.

16:20 There's something subtly hilarious about him talking about art while treading through garbage.