WARNING: This post contains spoilers. The biggest spoilers are hidden but there are still some minor plot spoilers.
When we last left our hero, I had just returned the oxygen to Rapture and was continuing on my path towards killing the underwater city’s founder, Andrew Ryan. I was temporarily detained by local entertainment superstar Sander Cohen and when the way back towards Ryan is opened up, something new happens: I’m given a choice. Upon completing Cohen’s tasks, he lets me go, freeing me to continue towards Ryan, but I’m not prevented in any way from attacking Cohen if I so choose. I chose to, and it was a bit of an anti-climax. Still, this new ability to choose didn’t sit well with me. Something wasn’t right.
When I eventually reach Ryan, he’s started Rapture’s self-destruct sequence, but he has something new to tell me about myself. Something I really didn’t expect.
I knew there was a plot twist coming but I’d managed to avoid spoilers along the way. I had imagined the twist would be that Ryan’s nemesis, Frank Fontaine, wasn’t dead at all, but just in hiding. Or that he would be resurrected towards the end of the game. I had imagined that perhaps Atlas was steering me along the wrong path and that Ryan was really the good guy, painted as a bad one to me by Atlas so that I would give him his revenge. Ultimately, I was prepared for the twist to be something I’d already figured out or accidentally read. I was quite surprised to discover the truth.
The truth is … Show ▼
that I am a slave. I was always from Rapture. I am Jack Ryan, the son of Andrew Ryan and exotic dancer Jasmine Jolene. I was sold by Jolene to Fontaine while I was in an embryonic state and my growth was accelerated from infant to adult size in just over a year. My memories of a farm, of a family, of the air crash accident that landed me in Rapture, were implanted into my mind by Fontaine’s creepy scientist, Suchong. Oh, the air crash happened, but it was my fault: I hijacked the plane and ditched it into the Atlantic Ocean near Rapture’s lighthouse. Fontaine made me, implanted me with a form of mind control, and brought me back to Rapture to assassinate Ryan. Whoa! The mind control turns out to be multi-faceted but the key phrase used throughout my time there is what made me do the things I did. That phrase: “Would you kindly”. Ryan himself uses it to end his own life – “Would you kindly kill me” – which I have no choice but to obey. And immediately after this, once I’ve cancelled Rapture’s self-destruct processes, I discover a new horror: the person helping me along the way, Atlas, used that phrase regularly too: “Would you kindly help me save my family”, “Would you kindly kill Andrew Ryan!”. And that’s when Atlas reveals that he isn’t Atlas at all – just an alias. Atlas is Fontaine! Unwittingly and uncontrollably, I have handed the keys to Rapture over to Fontaine.
Fontaine tries to kill me but I am saved by the Little Sisters who I saved earlier in the game. Which immediately reminds me: I had free will all along. I chose to rescue the Little Sisters instead of harvest them. And so I am rewarded for doing so as they rescue me in return. But then, I wonder, what if I hadn’t rescued them? What if I had harvested them? How would I get out then? How would I have known about the ventilation shaft through which I escaped?
For now, I’m in a grim position. Tenenbaum and her Little Sisters have rescued me from immediate death, and “would you kindly” no longer works on me. But there are other commands that Fontaine can use to make me suffer. I’m searching for an antidote so that I can be free of his control entirely.
Before, I was working for Fontaine without realising it. Now, partially free of his control, I’m working against him.
But, either way, I feel I was always fighting for Rapture.
