History BioShockInfinite / TropesIToP

* LookBehindMe: As a policeman revs up his Sky-Hook, Booker throws the baseball he's holding to distract the cop's partner -- and then positions his face in the path of destruction.

* [[GoLookattheDistraction Look! A Distraction!]]: As a policeman revs up his Sky-Hook, Booker throws the baseball he's holding to distract the cop's partner -- and then positions his face in the path of destruction.

** The code for an elevator is 0451, which is a reference to the title of ''Literature/{{Fahrenheit 451}}'' as well as door codes in all of the following games: both ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' games, ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', the first ''[=BioShock=]'', and ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution''. Yeah, Ken Levine and Ion Storm really like that number.

* PunkPunk: ''Infinite'' delves in Victorian[=/=]Edwardian steampunk, much like ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'', in addition to the Biopunk of the first two games.

* NoOSHACompliance: The following could be considered ValuesDissonance and FridgeBrilliance, as modern public safety regulations didn't exist back then, and anyone who falls off the city might well be viewed as having been judged by God for some private sin.

** One of the means of travelling around Columbia is via a magnetic rail system known as the Skyline traversed via hand-held hooks. It's very fast, there's no safety nets, and landings appear to be rough and you'll probably feel horrible pain, but this wouldn't make gameplay fun so [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality it's an Acceptable Break for Your Shoulder... er, Reality]] as you use them (during the gameplay demo, Booker jumps from one rail to another and laughs with relief that he's not now plummeting to his death). [[JustifiedTrope The Sky-Lines weren't originally intended]] for people's use, according to [[WordOfGod Ken Levine]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XYPgH_HFCU&feature=relmfu in a video]], their purpose is to move bulk cargo containers about Columbia (though one [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]] comments that reckless youths sometimes joyride on them with crude wheels.) However, the Vox have apparently been using them to smuggle themselves around the city and establish hideouts and safehouses along them in areas unreachable on foot. The hand-held hook Booker uses was one of several that were recently issued to the Columbia police to help them hunt down Vox operatives and flush them out.

* NotInThisForYourRevolution: Booker feels this, especially given [[EvilVsEvil the two sides]]. This gets complicated in the third universe, where [[spoiler:apparently Booker fought for the Vox Populi and died a martyr]].

** All those early gameplay trailers are ''extremely'' different from the real thing. A few lines and scenes are retained but in different contexts or settings. [[spoiler: In fact the whole selling point, the civil war, is barely the focus. The whole game is more about [=DeWitt=] and Elizabeth than Columbia itself]].
** Even the TV spot for the game counts. It revolves around Booker saving Elizabeth from being hanged by the townspeople and features Booker {{one hit kill}}ing a Handyman. This doesn't happen in-game, and if it did, the Colombian military/police would be ''very'' upset with the local populace.

** Elizabeth is in 1912... but according to the marqee, the theatre is playing ''[[Film/TheReturnOfTheJedi La Revanche Du Jedi]]'', meaning the other side of the tear is on or after 25 May 1983.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice:
** Elizabeth does this [[spoiler:to Daisy Fitzroy]] to save a young boy's life.

* [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum Imported Interdimensional Phlebotinum]]: [[spoiler: Fink seems to have spent a lot of time exploring the Tears, which is implied to be the source of the technology behind the Vigors, Songbird, the advanced AI... and the anachronistic music]].

* InfantImmortality: Generally, civilians and children in Columbia will mysteriously disappear the second a gunfight starts, though justifiable as they ran for cover away from the shooting as most civilians would in the real world. There is one time the game puts a child in mortal peril, [[spoiler:but he gets rescued almost immediately, and then disappears just like the rest.]] Also, in those occasions the player can open fire on the civilians, adults can be killed but children are impervious to any amount of shooting and bombing. [[spoiler:However, baby Anna does lose a finger between portals]].

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Averted. There are female soldiers who will attack you from time to time. And in some areas with civilians where you have your weapon out, you can kill civilians, including women, though children are [[InfantImmortality invulnerable and can't be killed.]]

* OminousFog: Happens sometimes in Columbia, sometimes obscuring visibility during a firefight, other times giving an ethereal quality to a location Booker is approaching. Of course, being a flying city, this is not ground fog, but ''clouds'' that Columbia is passing through. Some it also comes from steam vents or is just plain smoke given off by the city.

** Songbird's eyes change color depending on his status (green=calm, yellow=alert, red=hostile), just like those of the Big Daddies.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Repeatedly.

and it's your sole duty to keep them from our shores!\\

(To face down an alien!)\\
If all you see around you are yellow, black, and brown\\
And they've got their sights on all the pure sweet white girls in your town\\
Lock your pistols, load the cannons, make sure bayonets are fixed\\
Or else you'll rue the day that the races intermix\\

* PetTheDog: The only field the ultra bigoted and elitist Columbia doesn't excel in is in its treatment of women, which ironically would be rather progressive when compared to how some countries today treat women. Women serve on the frontlines as men and hold powerful positions in Columbia, with misogyny apparently being looked down on. However, it appears that the undoing of sexism in Columbia may have been for more pragmatic purposes for Comstock, as a highly intelligent woman was responsible for its creation and the female Elizabeth is its messiah.

* MysteriousBenefactor: [[spoiler: R. Lutece and R. Lutece, repentant scientists (well, one of them anyway), cross-timeline twins, deceased but still moving, and yes, the ones who hired you. You're their "hair-shirt," no less, because they remember paying you for your daughter. You don't, of course]]. Comstock also repeatedly claims to have one, although whether he's just delusional (like Dr. Steinman was) or if he's actually managed to make contact with ''something'' is never addressed.

* {{Lobotomy}}: The fate of [[spoiler:Slate]] if his life is spared. Because TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything, you can opt to [[MercyKill put him out of his misery]] and Elizabeth will comment on it, saying, "I guess that's what he wanted."

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Jingoism, racism extreme even for the early 20th century, religious zealotry, YellowPeril and TheSavageIndian.

* MostWonderfulSound: The Beep-Beep-Beep sound of an enemy airship about to crash and burn. It sounds like an old timey alarm klxon or horn and it means you just seriously messed up somebody's day.