Comments on: BioShock, Symbolism and Mind-Control

By: pavman

pavman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:21:53 +0000

Marcus has very valid observations, as in Bioshock 2 u actually see the veil lifted near the end of the game as u see the world from a lil sister. Also listedn to the lyrics of white rabbit by the band jefferson airplane, quite interesting to compare the 2 genres and the theme of alice in wonderland occuring in both of them. Never know what to expect through the looking glass.

By: Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:09:13 +0000

Apt comment, SeeJayRun. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

By: SeeJayRun

SeeJayRun — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:17:29 +0000

Pretty bang on. Also, the citizens of Rapture don’t have a choice either. The only way for them to survive in their world is to get Adam, and adapt. That form of capitalism is forced on them, which is similar to mind control. And how does rapture influence them? Ads! They’re all over the place in the game, telling people that they need genetic modifications. Rapture makes the product and then convinces people that they need it to survive. Sounds familiar…

By: Will

Will — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 01:25:11 +0000

No one that plays games reads or else they would realize that Bioshock is a satire of Ann Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Her novel vigorously promoted capitalism over any social responsibility or religion which is the main theme of Bioshock. Also Atlas was a characters name in Bioshock, Fountaine was another characters’ name (another of her books was called Fountainhead) and Andrew Ryan sounds eerily similar to Ayn Rand. Also wikipedia says that the lead designer was influenced by Ayn Rand.

By: Gina

Gina — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:44:57 +0000

This Comment contains major spoilers

Well, considering by the middle of the game it becomes clear that a main plot point of the game is that your character was being "mind controlled" by Fontaine all along I think Marcus has a point here...

By: Meaning in Movies and Media : The Thoughts

Meaning in Movies and Media : The Thoughts — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:05:22 +0000

[...] BioShock: Symbolism and Mind-Control? Fake News in the Media Battlestar Galactica: Symbolism and Mythology [...]

By: Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:01:40 +0000

If anything, I think I may have given the impression that I was drawing conclusions, when in fact I wasn't.

Regarding the symbolism in the game; I am not convinced that the developers had negative purposes for using said symbolism. However the fact remains that the exact symbolism as used in the game (rabbits, porcelain masks, running water etc) are all symbolism as used in mind programming. It's worth looking up if you are at all interested.

In terms of the game...I suspect the symbolism is merely being used to make the game feel more intense at a primal / subconscious level. And it *is* undeniably intense.

At the end of the day, this article, like all my others...isn't intended to draw conclusions - but instead make observations. Maybe it makes the reader aware of things they weren't previously aware of. But in either case, I encourage the reader to make their own conclusions.

But yes, I agree. Great game. I am playing the full version myself.

By: JoJo

JoJo — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:58:05 +0000

I think you may be takeing the symbolism a little too far, my inpression was more of borrowing or ispiration from the past, films and actual people.Ryan looked a lot like Orson Welles to me, the bunny masks a lot from the movie the shinning, which the developer even admitted getting inspriration from, art decco which is from the 20’s and 30’s been in this game dated to 1960, doesn’t matter great game.