Fiction against Utilitarians: Bioshock 2
Dec. 1st, 2020 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariAll I can do is summarize this, because it’s the perfect way to take a metaphor and make it absolutely literal.
Eleanor Lamb is a sweet, bright girl with an amazing (if morbid) ability: she can read people’s memories by drinking their blood. Her mother Sofia, a fanatical Utilitarian, sees her as the ultimate leader who can learn to see the world from all different kinds of perspectives in order to make fair judgments. But Eleanor doesn’t want Sofia’s plans. She doesn’t want to be forced full of so many different memories she won’t even know which ones are hers. She wants to be free, and playing as her long-lost adoptive father, you fight through hordes of Utilitarian fanatics to release her and let her decide for herself what to do with her life.
Yeah, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the whole “the only way forward is to murder all these Utilitarians” thing.
Anyway, at the end of the game, you’re mortally wounded, and Sofia is helpless at Eleanor’s hands. Eleanor may spare or kill her, depending on the choices you’ve made and the example you’ve set throughout the game. Then she comes up to you and drinks your blood, and suddenly the perspective switches to her. Though you died to save her, she’ll always carry you with her. Your lessons will guide her as she sets out to make the world better in her own way.
Eleanor Lamb is a sweet, bright girl with an amazing (if morbid) ability: she can read people’s memories by drinking their blood. Her mother Sofia, a fanatical Utilitarian, sees her as the ultimate leader who can learn to see the world from all different kinds of perspectives in order to make fair judgments. But Eleanor doesn’t want Sofia’s plans. She doesn’t want to be forced full of so many different memories she won’t even know which ones are hers. She wants to be free, and playing as her long-lost adoptive father, you fight through hordes of Utilitarian fanatics to release her and let her decide for herself what to do with her life.
Yeah, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the whole “the only way forward is to murder all these Utilitarians” thing.
Anyway, at the end of the game, you’re mortally wounded, and Sofia is helpless at Eleanor’s hands. Eleanor may spare or kill her, depending on the choices you’ve made and the example you’ve set throughout the game. Then she comes up to you and drinks your blood, and suddenly the perspective switches to her. Though you died to save her, she’ll always carry you with her. Your lessons will guide her as she sets out to make the world better in her own way.
