Bioshock Infinite Themes

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In the world of video games, there are many games that use elements from real world history to help create an amazing story. One series of games that manages to help bend and warp past history is the Bioshock series, and the third installment of the series, Bioshock Infinite, takes the idea to new heights (literally). Bioshock Infinite tells the story of Booker DeWitt, a down on his luck private detective as he journeys through the mysterious floating city Columbia in order to find a girl named Elizabeth and bring her to New York to wash away his debt. The game is full of historical references that help add to tell Booker’s incredible journey through Columbia. The first historical element found in Bioshock Infinite is the way certain historical…show more content…
In the middle part of the game Booker DeWitt goes to a place in Columbia known as the “Hall of Heroes” which is a place dedicated to American battles that had been won thanks to Columbia. The first display that Booker views in Columbia is in memoration of the Wounded Knee Massacre, and it is then revealed that Booker had been a veteran of the same battle and he had killed many Native Americans during the fight. The Battle of Wounded Knee was fought in South Dakota on the date of December 29, 1890 and it was between the tribe of Lakota Sioux and the U.S military, and the battle ended up costing hundreds of lives (IGN). The actual Battle of Wounded Knee was not aided by Columbia or their leader Zachary Hale Comstock (who is the self-proclaimed hero of Wounded Knee) because both of them don’t exist, and there was no other outside help. In Bioshock Infinite there is also a monument honoring the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxer Rebellion was a very bloody and brutal struggle that occurred in multiple parts of China in the years between 1898 and 1901 and a group involved was the Righteous Harmony Society which was a radical group that opposed things such as Christianity and foreign imperialism (IGN). The Boxer Rebellion was depicted as a bloody and savage uprising and many people became numb to the violence around them such as B. L. Putnam Weale, who recounts that “...a perpetual, aggravating, insolent silence is worse than noise…” (O’Connor, 202). Bioshock Infinite also includes events that really did not happen during the Boxer Rebellion. In the game, the city of Columbia tries to help the U.S by attacking Beijing with hordes of cannon and gunfire, killing hundreds of citizens below. The U.S government than states that Columbia had no right to get involved in the conflict and as a result, Columbia secedes from the U.S and disappears in the sky. Again, Columbia

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