BioShock, part one: Tension is Abound!

What first caught my interest are the polarities in BioShock: stasis versus progression, perpetual celebration versus a pragmatic need for rescue, permanence versus the possibility of permanence.

(For the Introduction to this series, click here)

BioShock’s setting does a fine job of establishing these polarities from the get-go, which is something I feel need to mention because it authenticates the dramatic value. Yes there’s drama in the plane wreck and the haphazard (perhaps even momentarily jubilant) discovery of Rapture, but these are devices, and its the opposing forces that give credit to these devices, making them effective, not flat and uninspired.

To establish a clear set of tensions is to set the narrative boundaries of a story and give us reasonable expectations on its trajectory. In Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance” opposing forces exist within the first sentence: “In the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard.” Here we have the displacement of furniture. What should exist in one place exists in another, signaling a failed marriage. And so it seems perfectly unavoidable that the people who eventually buy his belongings are a young couple at the tip of carving out their own lives together. With BioShock I’m expecting a story floating within the moral ambiguities of creation, aspirations to godliness, and unhindered progression. I know from the beginning that Rapture is an ultimate failure, and so making the player witness and then act within morally-charged scenes seems highly appropriate for what is shown at the opening. When I meet my first Little Sister, I am awe-struck on both her diminutive presence and the presence of her Big Daddy. None of this seems misplaced, since this pre-established framework makes the Sister-Daddy mechanic seem integral to Rapture’s universe, not tacked on for effect.

One of the broadest examples of this tension comes from the general premise of most any game. We are the protagonist against a world of overwhelming odds. Our desires to beat the game sort of mutates into the protagonist’s desire to best his challenges. In BioShock, we are the protagonist from a world much like our own (albeit a fictive past), yet we are privy to the unfolding of a constructed utopia. Being untouched by these elements, we are of this world but not of Ryan’s construct. Atlas, who seems most aligned to our predicament and moral direction, needs our help. Our ability to save him influences our ability to save ourselves and, to an extent, the player’s notion of the values that define what human beings are.

Much of this is bound to change, of course, and I’m simply speaking of ideas that surface as I play — not retrospectively. At the beginning we are not familiar with Ryan’s polarizing ideals. We are flawed because we are human, but not compared to Rapturians who are somewhere near the far end of corruptibility’s spectrum. It seems like I’m pandering the obvious, and that’s partially true. But to create conflict and validate its existence, one needs opposing forces, not simply dramatic episodes. BioShock establishes these forces in the rather short introductory period between game load and first combat. I expect it to continue, and it looks as if it doescontinue through the radio communications, tape recorders, and the simple act of observing rooms as they were left during what could arguably be the pinnacle (and immediate destruction) of Rapture and Ryan’s values.