History BioShockInfinite / TropesAToH

* ContinuityLockout: Generally speaking, players don't need to have any prior knowledge of the ''Bioshock'' series before playing ''Infinite''. However, prior knowledge of the earlier games makes the endgame sequence in which [[spoiler: Elizabeth and Booker briefly visit the underwater city of Rapture, setting of the first two games]] more meaningful. However this exact same thing could also be seen as an inversion because those who ''are'' familiar with the previous games [[spoiler: might actually be distracted slightly because the main game offers no context as to what Rapture has to do with Elizabeth and Booker and the plot of ''Infinite''; one has to play the DLC spin-offs to learn the connection]].

* BodyHorror:

*** [[MakingASplash Undertow]] gives Booker's arms octopus-like suction cups.

* AnAesop:
** A society built on racism is unsustainable. If things do not change, [[TheDogBitesBack it will eventually catch fire]].
** A revolution being against an oppressive regime does not automatically mean that the revolutionaries have a moral high ground.
** Revolutions have a high tendency to become the very thing they're fighting against (if not worse).
** [[spoiler:There are no shortcuts to atoning your past mistakes. Booker, while not a good person, took responsibility for his crimes which is the biggest thing separating him from Comstock (an alternate version of himself).]]
** [[spoiler: Hiding behind religion and believing it makes you right by default is a very slippery slope. Comstock took a single baptism and believed that it made him incapable of ever doing anything wrong. This led him to double down on his actions and commit even greater atrocities than the one he accepted the baptism to wash himself clean from in the first place.]]

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: Weapon barrels have a tendency to get extremely hot much faster in the game than they will in reality, but no example is more absurd than the Rolston Reciprocating Repeater, whose '''heat shield''' starts glowing bright red even before a full magazine is spent while the barrel underneath mysteriously remains cool throughout.

** Vigors, this game's equivalent of Plasmids, don't factor much into the plot or setting this time as much as Plasmids were in Rapture. Not only do they barely tie in with the game's central conflict, virtually nobody outside of Booker uses them, limited elsewhere to only a paltry number of EliteMooks. The game doesn't even give an explanation for how they work until ''Burial At Sea'' reveals [[spoiler:the tech was actually stolen from Rapture]].

** The conclusion of this whole mission involves Booker and Elizabeth [[spoiler:merging their universe with another [[ForWantOfANail where the Vox Populi already have their guns]], and thus the revolution is off to an explosive start. Unfortunately, not only does that mean Fitzroy doesn't know of the deal Booker made with her, this AlternateUniverse was one [[DeadAlternateCounterpart where Booker died]] and became a martyr for the revolution she's spearheading, so when she learns he's alive and well, she [[MistakenForAnImposter assumes him to be an impostor]] and thus turns the Vox Populi on him.]]

* ForWantOfANail: Thanks to the exploitation of tears, Elizabeth and Booker [[spoiler:visit different versions of Columbia; the one they meet in, a second one where the weapon dealer isn't killed, and a third one where Booker never found Elizabeth and died a martyr for the Vox cause and incited a revolution. Interestingly, they never seem to go back to the original universe they first existed in. Of course by that point the story officially doesn't care about the politics of Columbia and starts focusing on our protagonists exclusively, and the ending kinda makes that a moot point anyway]].
** The entire story [[spoiler: is the result of another nail that occurred when Booker went to a preacher to be baptised after the Massacre at Wounded Knee. The Booker we play as ran away from the preacher, while another Booker went through with the Baptism and changed his name to Comstock and spearheaded the construction of Columbia and the sale/kidnapping of Anna from the first Booker. At the end of the game, Booker and Elizabeth change the nail into the other Booker drowning during the baptism and preventing Comstock from existing and committing the atrocities of Columbia]].
** [[spoiler:This, in itself, leads to a nail in that it also undoes Elizabeth (we see all Elizabeths except possibly ''"ours"'' vanish as their timelines collapse, and it's left in the air if she remains or not), the Grandfather Paradox invoking as a result. The [[TheStinger epilogue]] is (possibly) the alternate (the only remaining possibilities after the elimination of Comstock) where Anna is not taken. The story of ''Infinite'', for all its multiple possibilities, is in fact a temporal mobius strip -- [=BioShock=] Infinity]].

** Another take on that plot point is that it is deconstructing sequels that rehash plot points from the original, like ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' did. Why are the writers simply giving us the same basic plot, with all the names changed and a superficially different setting? [[spoiler:Because you're stuck in a gaggle of parallel universes spawned from your own flaws and mistakes, and in the end, each and every story has its similarities]].

* BadFuture: Booker's vision of a [[TheEighties 1980s]] New York being destroyed by Columbia. (A billboard [[ShoutOut suggests it's]] Literature/NineteenEightyFour!) [[spoiler:Booker eventually learns this is a future where Comstock stripped away Elizabeth's free will, essentially turning her into a female version of him. Thankfully, future Elizabeth retained enough willpower to bring Booker to her and show him how to prevent it]].

* TheEighties: The setting of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tMjyGJdzwk Truth From]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zin6aKnJM5Q Legend]] {{Mockumentary}} trailers.

* TheGayNineties: The general atmosphere of Columbia, which was launched a good fifteen years before the events of the game. A number of scenes are also set around 1893. [[spoiler:Including Anna's capture and the PlayableEpilogue]].