The varying endings of Bioshock 2 have already been talked to death; while I discuss them briefly, I primarily analyze the gameplay systems of Bioshock 2 in the context of Subject Delta as a narrative entity, as well as his relationship to Eleanor and Sofia. Additionally, I treat the “merciful” choices as canon and the neutral/evil choices as alternate timelines.
Fair warning: I spoil multiple moments of Bioshock 2 and Bioshock for the purposes of this analysis. Additionally, the opening cutscene of Bioshock 2 (discussed below) depicts forced suicide and violence. If that is something that makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you skip this article. No judgement!
Synopsis
Bioshock 2 is a singleplayer first-person shooter/immersive sim where players assume the role of Subject Delta, a genetically-coded protector whose adoptive daughter, Eleanor, has been stolen by her biological mother, Sofia Lamb. Players are tasked with fighting through what remains of Rapture—the underwater, gleaming art deco city even worse for wear than it was in the first game. No corner is untarnished; no surface is free from puddles, barnacles, or rust.
At every corner, Delta is assaulted by disgraced citizens of Rapture, called “Splicers,” under Lamb’s control whose minds have snapped from overuse of genetic modifications. To fend them off, Delta wields an arsenal of oversized firearms and powerful genetic modifications, allowing players to shoot, blast, skewer, zap, and fry enemies in their way as they choose.
Beyond fighting Splicers, Bioshock 2 places emphasis on moral choices. Players meet people from Delta’s past, all at least partially to blame for his genetic alteration and/or the abduction of his daughter. Players must make a moral choice of showing forgiveness and sparing them or killing them out of revenge. Additionally, Delta encounters little girls genetically coded to gather blood from deceased Rapture citizens. These “Little Sisters” present another moral choice to the player, as they must choose whether to break them out of their genetic conditioning or harvest all the blood they have gathered. While these moral choices may be chalked up to a surface-level quandary of “good vs. evil,” Bioshock 2 goes above and beyond by having these choices not only affect your ending, but also your active gameplay.
Background
To understand some things about Bioshock 2, it is important to explain the game world. The city of Rapture, in which both games take place, was created by a wealthy, objectivist egomaniac named Andrew Ryan. It was advertised as a haven for artists and industrialists, free from censors, socialized services and freeloaders. In Rapture, citizens are entitled to everything they create, all the money they earn, and all the property they own… unless Ryan says otherwise, which he often did.
Shortly after its inception, the scientists of Rapture found a powerful substance called ADAM present in local sea slugs. This allowed them to develop genetic modifications called Plasmids and Gene Tonics, both delivered via injection. This, combined with ADAM’s addictive properties, ultimately caused Rapture’s entire society to revolve around producing as much of it as possible. This led to the creation of Little Sisters, young orphan girls (who were often actually kidnapped from their families) with ADAM slugs embedded in their stomachs, as doing so yielded roughly twenty to thirty times as much of the stuff when harvesting.
Using Little Sisters as hosts yielded the most ADAM, but as public demand skyrocketed, the scientists decided to begin “recycling” ADAM from the now-plentiful number of corpses addled with it. They sent Little Sisters out to gather, but many of them were ambushed by addicts and killed for the ADAM they were carrying. Rapture needed a solution, so they turned to “Big Daddies.” Modeled to look like hulking divers, these suggestively-named tin men served as Rapture’s maintenance personnel. “Rosie” models riveted leaks and windows shut, and “Bouncers” drilled through rocks to make way for new districts. The Protector Program repurposed both of these models, but also created an all-new line of Big Daddies, called the Alpha Series, which were the first to be bound to Little Sisters via genetic programming and chemical alteration. This caused Alpha Series Big Daddies to develop an emotional bond to their Little Sisters which, while genuine, was completely artificial. Subject Delta is no exception, for he was the line’s first success.
Delta the Man vs. Delta the Monster
The game opens on New Year’s Eve, 1958. Delta begins his duty as a Big Daddy: He bangs on a decorated vent and out comes a young Eleanor. She goes to gather ADAM, as Little Sisters do, while Delta protects her. Standard fare. However, things go wrong very quickly (see Video 1).
Video 1: Bioshock 2 intro, © 2010 2K Games
Ten years later, Delta reawakens to a ruined Rapture, and the player is thrown headfirst into the underwater world once more. Take note of the religious allusion; it won’t be going anywhere (Photo 1).
Alt text: The first area of Rapture the player sees, partially flooded and in extreme disrepair. Note the text scrawled onto the wall stating “FALLEN, FALLEN IS BABYLON”
The fact that Delta is a Big Daddy is very narratively significant for several reasons. In the first game, the protagonist Jack becomes a Big Daddy to protect what remains of Rapture and its Little Sisters from devastation. He willingly mutilates himself and gives up some of his humanity to protect the vulnerable girls, and in the final moments of the game, they save him from death and later, in the ending cutscene, visit him on his deathbed.
Subject Delta does not have the luxury of being a hero; before he was turned into a Big Daddy, he found Rapture in its infancy. Ryan suspected he was a spy, so he was kidnapped, stripped of his identity, and made into the monster he is now. Even his bond with Eleanor was forced upon him, as his body is genetically coded to enter comatose if they are apart for too long. He may love Eleanor as a father loves his daughter, but in truth he is obligated to her.
In a more directly gameplay-oriented fashion, everything Delta does is bigger. Instead of a wrench, he swings a motorized drill mounted over his hand. Instead of a pistol, he uses a rivet gun. Instead of a tommy gun, he uses a .50 caliber gatling gun. Where Jack had to switch between weapons and plasmids, Delta uses them together, at the same time. From the first moment the player sets foot in his lumbering metal boots, Bioshock 2 makes them feel like a hulking, metallic monster (Photo 2).
Alt text: Delta wielding his signature Mining Drill and carrying a Little Sister, presumably Eleanor
However, despite being obligated to care for Eleanor, players have the agency to dictate the kind of person Delta is. Throughout the game, like Bioshock before it, Bioshock 2 has Delta encountering other Little Sisters. Other daughters. And like Bioshock before it, Bioshock 2 gives the player a choice: Harvest or Rescue?
Except, as Delta, Rescue is a little different. Rescue becomes Adopt (Photo 3).
Alt text: Delta looking at a lonely Little Sister, with the options “ADOPT” and “HARVEST”
Whereas Delta is obligated to Eleanor, he chooses to care for the Little Sisters. He carries them through Rapture as if they are his own. The player is incentivized to protect them through gameplay, taking them to specific bodies around Rapture to gather ADAM for Delta to use in order to purchase more plasmids and upgrades. However, just as Delta may choose to protect and care for the little sisters, he can take the easy way out and Harvest them for more ADAM up-front. This kills them, and proves to the Rapture Family that he is the monster Sofia makes him out to be.
Regardless of how Delta treats the Little Sisters and the people from his past, his violence echoes throughout Rapture like a terrible storm. Despite showing mercy to these girls and forgiving the people who turned him into a monster, he’s still carving through Splicers with a mining drill, riveting them to death, incinerating them, zapping them with lightning, swarming them with bees… the list goes on. It can easily be chalked up to disregarding the importance of these Splicers’ lives as their minds are horribly broken, destroyed from years of ADAM use, but at the same time, this indifference cements Delta as a destructive, violent father who destroys everything in his path to further his personal goals, regardless of whether those goals are altruistic or retributive. Kill Screen puts it best in their article The cycles of violence in Bioshock: The Collection: “…if you choose to protect the Little Sisters, you also have to stand watch and mow down addicts while narco-Sis feasts on the local corpses. In the end, the choice to save or devour these children is simply a choice between two kinds of slaughter.” Delta is paternity, caring-yet-callous.
Sofia Lamb: Messiah First, Mother Second
Sofia Lamb (Photo 4) rose to power in Rapture following Andrew Ryan’s death in Bioshock. She uses her psychiatric skills to preach her over-the-top, radically collectivist ideals to the people of Rapture, converting them into her followers. She primarily believes in serving “the common good” over the individual, standing in stark contrast to Ryan’s objectivist, capitalistic ideals. Additionally, she claims to be “mother to the people,” painting herself as Rapture’s savior, yet she strikes down any attempt at self-improvement or escape made by her people. They shouldn’t be helping themselves, they should be helping the Family.
Sofia claims to be mother to the people, and lauds her status as Eleanor’s rightful mother over Delta throughout the entire game, yet never actually embraces the role with Eleanor. Through audio diaries, Delta hears Sofia state the following:
Furthermore, as Delta makes his way closer to her, he may find this audio diary:
Sofia still views herself as Eleanor’s mother, in an intellectual way, and by biological right, she’s correct. But what she feels for Eleanor is not love. She views Eleanor not with a mother’s love for her child, but with the possibility of creating the “perfect” person, someone who can be anything and everything as necessary for the people. Hence, “The People’s Daughter.” She would sooner martyr her own flesh and blood to serve her collectivist beliefs and her self-centered messiah complex then care for her.
Moreover, Lamb initiated a new project to convert post-pubescent Little Sisters into her own Protectors known as Big Sisters. They stand in stark contrast to Delta and other Big Daddies; sleek and gangly, emaciated, yet supernaturally strong and fast. They hunt down enemies of the Family like dogs; attacking from afar with offensive Plasmids, then rapidly closing the distance and impaling their target with a harpoon lance. If Delta is a question to Lamb, then Big Sisters are the answer. They show how depraved she is and just how far she’s willing to go in order to build her idea of utopia.
This only perpetuates the cycle of violence Delta is causing. She won’t embrace Eleanor or any of the Little Sisters as a caring mother, and she’s unable to see Delta as a free-willed, loving father because of the violence she forces upon him from the moment he reawakens. She represents elements of maternity, yes, but in reality she is dogma. She is the unwavering expectation of success forced upon children by overdemanding parents.
Eleanor: Daughter Dearest
Eleanor is a deeply troubled woman. As a child, she wasn’t given the affection she needed from her real mother and was forcefully bound to Delta. Like him, her bond is genuine yet artificial. However, she loves him to a fault. She accosts him constantly throughout the game, encouraging him to keep pushing through Rapture and pleading for him to find her while simultaneously sending him care packages and Plasmids.
In the 11th hour, Delta is dying. Sofia smothered Eleanor for just long enough to make his body begin to shut down. As he weakens, the player loses maximum health, which creates real, tangible consequences and cements Delta’s condition through gameplay. Seeing what’s happening to her father, Eleanor makes a choice. She willingly sheds a portion of her humanity and becomes a Big Sister to protect him. Whereas Delta’s condition was thrust unto him by society, Eleanor made her choice out of love and recognizes that she may never be the same, and Delta is going to die anyways, but doesn’t care. She wants to be there for him because he did everything for her, and depending on the player’s choices, because he showed her what it means to be compassionate or what it means to have self-preservation.
After a confrontation with the last of Sofia’s splicers, Eleanor and Delta ascend to the surface, like the damned rising from Hell. On the way up, depending on the player’s actions, Eleanor will either spare or kill her mother. The player’s actions as Delta override whatever feelings she may have for Sofia. This also applies to her treatment of Delta himself. Depending on the player’s treatment of the Little Sisters, Eleanor will treat Delta differently in his final moments. Saving lots of Little Sisters makes her compassionate and wise, and she chooses to take Delta with her by draining his ADAM. She frames it as “you are my conscience, Father, and I need you to guide me.” However, harvesting lots of Little Sisters makes her cruel and selfish, caring only for her own survival above all else. As she drains Delta’s ADAM, she says “You chose to survive, no matter the cost. And I will not let your instincts go to waste.”
While Eleanor’s actions are the same in both the “pure” good and bad endings, the context in which she does them are vastly different. Whether Eleanor values survival or compassion, and whether Delta proves Sofia and her Family right or wrong depends entirely on the player’s actions. Pop Matters puts in well in an article:
…the multiple endings depending on daddy’s choices leave the possibility that Eleanor could be terribly corrupted by the legacy and lessons of a distant father or ultimately turn into a compassionate and forgiving person. The final say is determined by the decisions of the “surrogate father”, the player (possibly one that hopefully makes better decisions than the long absent, actual ones).
Pop Matters: Father’s Day Is Over, But Daddy Issues Remain in ‘Bioshock 2’ and ‘Red Dead Redemption’
Conclusion
There is more to Bioshock 2’s ending than good and evil outcomes. If the player spared and killed during their playthrough, Eleanor will hesitate when going to drain Delta’s ADAM, and he (as well as the player) are given one last opportunity to shape Eleanor. Either he chooses to let her continue, and the ending continues mostly in line with both other options, or he can push Eleanor’s needle out of the way and choose to die. This causes a heart-wrenching ending to play out (see Video 2.)
Delta wasn’t given a choice in becoming a Big Daddy. He wasn’t given a choice in being bonded to Eleanor, or being resurrected, but he was given a choice to teach her what matters in life. Whether that is compassion and forgiveness or self-preservation and retribution depends on the player’s actions, but it is a choice nonetheless. He drives Eleanor to act, lest she be deprived of the means to do so as he was. When he makes his choice to lay down and die, he isn’t just embracing his end. He is freeing Eleanor from the shackles of interparental violence. For once in her entire life, Eleanor is free to make choices for her sake, not for Delta, Sofia, Rapture, or the Little Sisters.
Perhaps freedom is the greatest gift a parent can give to their child. After all, they mold their children.
Works Cited
Ables, Brent. “The Cycles of Violence in Bioshock: The Collection.” Kill Screen – Previously, 28 Sept. 2016, killscreen.com/previously/articles/cycles-violence-bioshock-collection/.
Boock, Indigo. “Dr. Sofia Lamb: The Vixen, the Soldier, and the Mother.” GeekGirlCon, 10 Apr. 2017, geekgirlcon.com/dr-sofia-lamb-the-vixen-the-soldier-and-the-mother/.
Williams, Christopher G. “Father’s Day Is over, but Daddy Issues Remain in ‘bioshock 2’ and ‘Red Dead Redemption’, PopMatters.” PopMatters, 20 June 2010, www.popmatters.com/bioshock2-red-dead-redemption-fatherhood.
Blind Squirrel Games. Bioshock 2 Remastered. Version 1.0.122864 for PC, 2K Games, 2016.
About the Author
Aaron Preziosi is a self-made writer and student based in Massachusetts. Majoring in Journalism & Professional Writing, he plans to put his writing skills to use in conjunction with his passion for video games in order to create engaging, illuminating reviews and thought-provoking analyses.
