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The central cast of BioShock Infinite.

Warning! Due to the nature of the game, there are many spoilers on this page, many of which are unmarked.
Tread carefully.


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Main Characters

    Booker DeWitt 
See his page here.

    Elizabeth 
See her page here.

The Founders

    Comstock 

See his page here.

    Lady Comstock 

Lady Annabelle Comstock (née Watson)

Voiced by: Laura Bailey

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/comstock_a_434.jpg
Click here for her appearance as the Siren 

"Love the Prophet, because he loves the sinner. Love the sinner, because he is you. Without the sinner, what need is there for a redeemer? Without sin, what grace has forgiveness?"


The late wife of Comstock, who supposedly gave birth to Elizabeth a mere seven days after conception. She is worshipped as a martyr after her (supposed) assassination at the hands of Daisy Fitzroy.


  • All-Loving Hero: Much loved by her servant staff for this reason, and why she stuck around Comstock despite his supervillainy. This did not end well. It's also deconstructed, implying that the reason she was like this is because she was codependent.
  • Alternate Self: Ken Levine confirms she and Booker's wife are the same person.
  • The Atoner: In contrast to the saintly persona Comstock built around her, her personal Voxophone recordings reveal she was some sort of dangerous Femme Fatale before she joined up with Comstock. However, Comstock convinced her to seek redemption and she genuinely devoted herself to being a better person, which is why she remained so loyal to Comstock even after she began to realize just how much of a monster he was.
  • Ax-Crazy: After being raised from the dead, infused with Elizabeth's hatred.
  • Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In one universe, she was married to a self-proclaimed Prophet and was easily the most powerful woman in the city where everyone loved her. In another, she was married to a deadbeat former Pinkerton agent with a serious case of PTSD, and died in childbirth.
  • Came Back Wrong: All those with Tear Sickness did, but the Siren is the only one to actually go Ax-Crazy. Partly because the Siren isn't just her, but also Elizabeth's feelings of who she would be. Once Elizabeth talks to her, she calms down.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: She sees Elizabeth as the product between the affair of Comstock and Rosalind Lutece and refuses to listen to the latter's explanation of how Elizabeth's existence.
  • Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Her appearance in the painting of her in-game, seen above, is clearly based on this painting of Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt.
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: She's the strongest humanoid enemy in the game, bar none.
  • Dead Alternate Counterpart: In the reality in which Booker rejected baptism, she died giving birth to their daughter. Because Comstock was sterile, her death was simply postponed by two years.
  • Death by Childbirth: She died giving birth to Anna/Elizabeth in the reality Booker rejected baptism.
  • Demoted to Extra: In a sense. During development, the Siren is supposed to be a recurring opponent and Lady Comstock will not be the only one. In the final version, only a single Siren appear as a recurring boss.
  • Dramatic Irony: Lady Comstock believes that Elizabeth is not her daughter. This is only half true as she IS her daughter from an alternate timeline.
  • Flunky Boss: Despite her high health, Lady Comstock herself is objectively a pushover. She only possesses a single, medium-range AOE attack, and she telegraphs it well in advance. What makes her dangerous is her small army of zombie soldiers which she can resurrect if they are killed (unless you vaporize them).
  • Fluorescent Footprints: She leaves behind glowing footprints whilst traversing Emporia.
  • Foreshadowing: She asks if it's possible to redeem Comstock. It was, by killing the man who would become him and leaving the alternate DeWitt who would never become him.
  • Heel–Faith Turn: Before she met Comstock, Annabelle Watson used to take advantage of many suitors, although how exactly is never specified other than it was sinful.
  • He Knows Too Much: Comstock killed her (and the Luteces) once she caught on that Elizabeth was not their daughter in order to keep that information from reaching the public.
  • Large Ham: As The Siren.
    Lady Comstock: BASTARD CHILD BASTARD!
  • Last-Name Basis: Only referred to as Lady Comstock; her first and maiden names are never revealed except by Word of God, though her first initial can be seen on a Hall of Heroes advertisement.
  • Leitmotif: "Lacrimosa", the third section of Mozart's "Requiem", is associated with her. As the Siren, she sings a heavily distorted version of the song.
  • The Lost Lenore:
    • So, so much. And so, so played with, given that the person she was the Lenore to was the one that murdered her.
    • Her alternate self's death was also mourned by the same person till this very day and coped her death by drinking and gambling. To remember her, Booker named their daughter after her.
  • Necromancer: Raises enemies from the dead as the Siren.
  • Nice to the Waiter: According to Daisy, Lady Comstock treated her servant staff a lot better than most, especially considering who she was married to.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: The Siren is not so much as a ghost but Lady Comstock being suspended between life and death as well as being influenced by Elizabeth's resentment towards her.
  • Posthumous Character: Died nineteen years before Booker reaches Columbia. Until Comstock uses Elizabeth's powers to resurrect her as the Siren. But even that isn't really her.
  • Red Herring: Believed to be Elizabeth's mother, but it's revealed that Comstock was infertile and thus couldn't have had a child with her. She didn't take kindly to that, thinking Comstock and Rosalind were having an affair behind her back. When that was debunked by Rosalind, she confronted Comstock, who murdered her and framed Daisy Fitzroy. There are hints, however, that she is an Alternate Universe version of Elizabeth/Anna's mother: her closest friends growing up called her Anna, which may mean that protagonist!Booker did the religious thing, and named his child after a dead relative.
  • Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: She's an example of where this trope doesn't work. Destroying the heads of her undead minions will kill them, but she can put the heads back. Complete vaporization, however, will do them in for good (most of the time).
  • Simple, yet Opulent: Her blue dress has very few trimmings, but is still fittingly fancy for someone of her status. Most of the fanciest stuff — the pearls, lace, bodice, hat — aren't even worn when Elizabeth puts on the dress.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: She looks quite similar to Elizabeth, especially when their clothing matches. She is implied to be an alternate universe version of Elizabeth's mother. The gate even mistakes Elizabeth for Lady Comstock when she has on the same dress.
  • Super-Scream: Sings loudly enough to reach the other-world.
  • Tragic Monster: Gets turned into the Siren, born out of Comstock's mad science, grief, and Elizabeth's negative feelings for her.

    Jeremiah Fink 

Jeremiah Fink

Voiced by: Bill Lobley

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jeremiah_fink.jpg
"So I say, be... the bee!"

"Lately, I've been hearing a whole mess of funny new ideas. Paid vacation... Eight-hour days... Workers' compensation! Those are anarchist words, my friends! And the anarchist is the friend of hunger, the comrade of want, and the partner of disease! And I, for one, will be goddamned if I'm going to let an anarchist come between you and your livelihood!"


The major leader of industry within Columbia, one of its richest citizens as well as the sole owner of most of its businesses. Though affable, his business practices are wildly unethical, to the point where he demands sixteen-hour work days and ruthlessly exploits the underclass of Columbia in the name of profit.


  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Not that it helps him stop Daisy Fitzroy from shooting him in the face.
  • The Alcoholic: Within the private church of his home Elizabeth finds over a dozen bottles of Absinthe.
  • Animal Motifs: Jeremiah loves to employ this trope in his propoganda to keep workers in line. Workers are cattle, those in charge are lions, and those who don't work are hyenas. He also tells his employs to be like the bee, a constant worker.
  • Asshole Victim: Downplayed. While Fink is a horrible human being and had certain karma coming his way, his last moments of defending a child and feebly begging for his own life evoke a measure of pity and uncertainty for the situation as Fitzroy seemingly loses her mind from her bloodlust.
  • Bad Boss: Constantly makes excuses why he won't better pay his employees, give them any time off or make their workloads easier. Usually comes down to "The Vox are planting ideas in your head!" or "I don't want anyone taking advantage of you!" (Except him, obviously.)
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: In his research on the Songbird, Fink used countless animals in inhumane genetic experiments. Elizabeth is enraged at the discovery.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: His role in Columbia. Comstock certainly isn't a "good guy," but he's convinced himself otherwise. Fink comes to realize that Comstock needs him to oversee the less-than-heavenly aspects of life in Columbia to help keep his conscience clear.
    Fink: The truth is, I don’t have a lot of time for all that “prophecy” nonsense. I tell you, belief is... is just a commodity. And old Comstock, well, he does produce. But, like any tradesman, he's obliged to barter his product for the earthly ores. You see, one does not raise a barn on song alone. No, sir! Why, that's Fink timber, a Fink hammer, and Fink's hand to swing it! He needs me... lest he soil his own.
  • Beneath the Mask: It can be inferred that, behind his hammy public persona, Fink is genuinely depressed with his place as Comstock's mule judging from his private quarters strewn with alcohol and vandalized shrine of Comstock.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: With a fellow Mad Scientist Dr Suchong. Together they perfected the vigors/plasmids and finalized the Big Daddies (and the Songbird). While Suchong was the inventor of both, Fink contributed a lot, which is explained in Burial at Sea.
  • Blatant Lies: Pretty much of his Canned Orders over Loudspeaker claiming that his unscrupulous treatment of his workers is for their own good.
  • Boom, Headshot!: How Daisy Fitzroy takes him out during the Vox Populi rebellion in the third universe that Elizabeth and Booker visit.
  • Composite Character: He's more-or-less Dr. Suchong, working within the law rather than outside it to attain profits. He also mimics the theatricality and cowardice of Sander Cohen.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Of the "Robber Baron" sub-variety — he's a money-grubbing industrialist who enjoys trampling on his workers' welfare and maximize profits in any way he sees fit. He's practically everything wrong with unregulated 19th-century business tycoons.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: Significantly more serious than most examples, but has the top hat, handlebar mustache, and utter lack of anything resembling human decency.
  • Dirty Coward: Both used and averted. While he clearly is afraid of the Vox and runs from their forces, he does die trying to protect a child that may have been his.
  • Egopolis: Finkton. The only part of town controlled by him. It is a Shantytown, though...
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Possibly, seeing as in his last moments before Daisy Fitzroy shot him, he was standing almost defensively in front of a child who may have been his son. Judging from Voxophones, he also seems to have at least some affection for his brother, Albert.
  • Eviler than Thou: Played with. In a few Voxophone recordings, it's shown than Fink has no scruples at all, whereas Comstock at least feels somewhat guilty about some of the horrible things he does to keep Columbia operational (or at least, Fink seems to believe that he does). However, Fink ends up dying unceremoniously without actually doing much of anything about halfway through the game, while the last act of the game goes to great lengths to show that Comstock is much more evil and ruthless than he initially appears.
  • Evil Genius: Like any industrialist, he no doubt outsources a lot of his work, but he's nonetheless shown to have a technical background, and is responsible for the production of much of Columbia's high technology, including Songbird and the Handymen. This is why Comstock hired him to assassinate the Luteces, as only he had the skill to sabotage their machine in such a way that their deaths would look like an accident.
  • Family-Values Villain: As part of his "upstanding follower of The Founders" public image, he insists he can't allow his workers any sort of leisure time, lest their idle hands turn to whiskey, women, and dice. As shown in Burial at Sea, his private altar is actually shrouded in dust, littered with bottles of booze, and mocking comments from Fink himself are scrawled on the floor and statues. There's even a knife jammed into The Word of the Prophet book on the pew.
  • Faux Affably Evil: His jovial mannerisms do nothing to mask his arrogance.
  • Hypocrite: Fink outright admits in private that he doesn't buy an ounce of Comstock's rhetoric, and certainly doesn't see him as a divine or holy figure (one Voxophone hints he's actually an atheist). Certainly nothing wrong with that viewpoint, especially given what a monster Comstock is, but Fink takes complete advantage of Columbia's theocratic governmental structure. He actually persuaded Comstock to find an excuse to treat non-whites as lesser citizens in Columbia purely so he'd have a basis for how to exploit and mistreat his workforce. He also has no trouble exploiting peoples' loyalty and divine viewpoint of Comstock to get the best deal for himself. Also, despite saying his workers shouldn't have leisure time lest they turn to whiskey, women and dice, he's probably an alcoholic himself.
  • Hidden Depths: In Burial at Sea, Elizabeth explores Fink’s tower and finds a giant clock with a huge segment labeled “WORK”, much smaller ones “PRAYER” and “TRAINING”, and the smallest being “LEISURE” and “SLEEP”. Your first thought is that this is for Fink’s workers with a 16-hour workday and deprivation of any meaningful rest and recreation. Then you realize it’s Fink’s own timetable. His bed is small, facing a myriad of security screens and surrounded by telephones. The leisure room is filled with diagrams and other work-related stuff, and the only item related to leisure is a confiscated film projector with Fitzroy’s propaganda. The guy may be despicable and flagrantly hypocritical in many other ways, but it's evident he puts himself through the same torturous labor he enforces on his own workers.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: Upon observing Booker in combat at the fairground, Fink starts sending him compliments by way of gifts. It turns out that he's actually hoping to employ Booker as his new security chief after the old one, uh, got the sack.
  • Insane Troll Logic: His justifications for treating his workers like slaves make no sense to anyone but himself. Here's just one example:
    Not happy with your pay? Well, be of good cheer. History tells us the painter Seurat would take no money for his art! Why, that George Washington would only accept the presidency if he were paid a single dollar a year! So, don't let money come between you and your craft!
  • Lack of Empathy: It is clear from the get-go that Fink doesn't seem to give a damn about anyone but himself. However, his last actions in defending a child and a Voxophone lamenting about his brother indicate he is capable of some empathy.
  • Large Ham: He is a ridiculously theatrical and bombastic villain. Interestingly, this may be an act, as he is much more subdued and rational in his Voxophone recordings.
  • Mad Scientist: In addition to being a mechanical genius, he is responsible for the Vigors and manages an extensive network of biological labs.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Fink was selected to assassinate the Lutece twins because he knew how to make the incident seem accidental. It didn't stick, or at least in the way Comstock wanted to.
  • Meaningful Name: The name "Fink" is actually pretty old and derived from finch — the bird — but these days, it holds general connotations of scumminess and dishonesty.
  • Narcissist: Brought into sharp relief by the hundred-foot-tall golden statue of himself outside his factory.note  And of course, the town being named "Finkton".
    Booker: [upon seeing the statue] *whistles*
    Elizabeth: Well, the man's got an ego.
    • Zig-zagged in Burial at Sea. While all public areas of Fink’s building are excessively pompous, his private quarters are surprisingly modest.
  • Necessarily Evil: In a strange way, his position in Columbia. While Comstock is the beacon of hope and virtue to the people, he allowed Fink to oversee the unpleasant parts of life in the city and the day-to-day dirtiness that comes with keeping the city afloat (One Voxophone implied Fink first started taking aboard a servant-class to address civil unrest at Columbia not being as heavenly as promised). Having Fink handle these things means Comstock can believe himself to be uninvolved in the suffering it causes. Fink even comes to realize this in a Voxophone, pointing out that he's indispensable because he lets Comstock hold onto a clean conscience.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He seems to be inspired by various 19th century industrialists, notably George Pullman (who also built a town for his employees and paid them in tokens worthless outside company stores, exactly like Fink) and Henry Clay Frick who had similar attitudes toward strikes, at one point hiring 300 Pinkertons and siccing them on striking workers, the similarities being such that Frick was probably the direct inspiration for Booker's "I've worked for men like Fink" line.
  • No Honor Among Thieves: According to Burial at Sea, he was working with Suchong for a mutual goal... until he succeeded by himself and then broke the alliance with the doctor, causing the two to go back to spying on each other.
  • Obviously Evil: Even before you learn the true nature of Columbia, it's still easy to guess that Fink is a villain due to his smarmy attitude, giant top-hat, and curly mustache. Not to mention that once he appears, he immediately prompts Booker to throw a baseball at an interracial couple (in what appears to be a public execution through a version of stoning), complete with a racist joke. The fact that the game allows the player to toss the ball in Fink's face instead is immensely satisfying (sadly, Booker is interrupted by the police before he can actually do it).
  • Odd Friendship: His correspondence with Dr. Suchong, a Korean, through the tears to learn how to derive the ADAM into salts can seem rather unusual as it goes against the racist doctrine of Columbia. However, this is subverted in that Fink is a man driven by profit and doesn't even buy into Columbia's doctrine despite being a racist.
  • Only in It for the Money: In the Voxophone recordings, he explicitly says this is the sole reason he works for Comstock.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: Most of his tech is copied from things he saw through the tears, and a Voxophone in the Clash in the Clouds DLC by Rosalind accuses him of patent theft even before he found the Tears. Given Rosalind has no reason to lie, she's probably not wrong. This is taken further in Burial at Sea: Vigors are plagiarized from Dr. Yi Suchong's work with Plasmids.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • In his very first appearance, he presides over the stoning of a mixed-race couple and when Booker hesitates, he teasingly accuses him of "taking your coffee black."
    • A Voxophone recording found not long afterwards reveals that he was once involved in the transport of "Negro convicts" from Georgia to use as cheap slave labor in Columbia, and tells Comstock to pass them off as "seeking forgiveness" for "rising above their station" if it helps ease his conscience. Fink himself obviously doesn't care so long as he gets workers.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Compared to Comstock's stance as a Visionary Villain. While hardly anyone's idea of a saint, Fink is ultimately just a selfish, unscrupulous man whose political connections with Comstock gave him the means to run certain areas of Columbia like his own private fiefdom. His only goals are to further his own wealth at the expense of others. Even he likely would've been horrified by Comstock's plans for Columbia, and what it would mean for the people living below them.
  • Sadist: He loves the "work" he puts his "employees" through.
    • Then again, Burial At Sea shows that he at least puts himself through the same working hours as his workers.
  • The Insomniac: If he really does follow the schedule set by the large clock in his room exactly, then that would indicate he only sleeps for a few hours a day. It's not clear if he's truly functional and healthy from such sleeping habits, but the evidence of him also having alcoholism might imply he's not, or even be related to it.
  • Smug Snake: Fink certainly has enough influence and cunning on his side to make him a formidable enemy, but his over-inflated ego and profound greed keep him from being truly impressive.
  • Straw Hypocrite: Claims to be a devoted follower of the Prophet, but his private altar and Voxophone recordings reveal him not only to be a pretty flagrant atheist, but also showing contempt to Comstock's claims to prophethood. Comstock apparently knows this, but lets it slide because Fink's industrial output gets results. Fink mainly uses religious rhetoric to keep his workers in line and justify his mistreatment of them, but they don't buy it.
  • There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: He believes there are three:
    Fink: You see, a company is like Noah's Ark. You have the lions, whose purpose is to keep order amongst the lesser creatures. Then you have the cow. The beasts of burden. Now, they provide meat, milk, and labor. And then, well, there are the hyenas. The troublemakers. Who only serve to rile up the cattle. The hyena is a trickster. They live to stir up trouble. So, you beware the hyena. They will leave you with naught but the sound of their laughter!
  • Wearing a Flag on Your Head: The band of his hat is striped red, white, and blue.
  • Workaholic: The only thing he shares with his employees is the length of the working hours. And then he does muse on his inventions a bit more during the leisure times.

    Albert Fink 

Albert Fink

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/albertfink.png
A musician by trade and brother of Jeremiah Fink. Albert was the one who introduced his brother to the use of Tears, after finding one in his studio.
  • Bit Character: The one time anyone gets to see him is when he's dead in his Magical Melodies studio.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: All of "his" music is stolen from bands he observed through his Tear — which is the reason why songs like "Tainted Love", "Fortunate Son", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and "Shiny Happy People", among others, can be heard throughout Columbia.
  • Posthumous Character: His only appearance is in the "Vox have guns" universe, where he's found lying dead on the floor of his studio after being killed, with his brother's Voxophone recording nearby.

    Songbird 

Songbird

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Songbird2_8470.png

The relentless mechanical guardian of Elizabeth. He resembles a cross between a dragon, a human and a giant bird, and seems hell-bent on preventing Elizabeth from escaping Columbia.


  • Achilles' Heel: For all his impressive strength and resilience, Songbird's body was not designed to cope with constant water pressure (or any pressure bigger than the levels at which Columbia is in); after diving into Battleship Bay in an attempt to pursue and kill Booker, the pressure at less than thirty feet is enough to actually fracture one of its eyes and force it to retreat. In the finale, Elizabeth takes advantage of this weakness by teleporting the Songbird, Booker and herself to Rapture — ensuring that Songbird arrives at the bottom of the ocean.
  • Advertised Extra: The creature appears in many of the game trailers and early game concepts had it as a recurring boss of the game. The player would decide on whether or not to attack Songbird or hide from it, which would affect Booker's relationship with Elizabeth and the overall ending. However, none of this is in the final game — it only appears in a few scripted events, is never actually battled in game, and in the end is easily killed by Elizabeth without a fight.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Songbird's final moments are an unexpectedly peaceful and somber affair, with Elizabeth comforting him and Songbird reaching out to her before he calms and finally breaks down.
  • Ambiguous Robots: He's obviously not human anymore, but it's unclear if he ever was, and it's unimportant as far as Elizabeth is concerned. Early designs Fink was working on included tests on gorillas and dogs. Diagrams at Fink’s laboratory show a human body inside the suit, though it may be for scale purposes only (and the actual Songbird is bigger than on the drawings).
  • Androcles' Lion: Episode Two of Burial at Sea reveals that all attempts to imprint Songbird to Elizabeth using pheromones, hypnosis, mental conditioning, etc, were colossal failures. Ironically, the solution came about from a simple act of kindness from the young Elizabeth, who took pity on an injured Songbird and reattached his loose breathing tube, leading Songbird to develop Undying Loyalty to her.
  • Ax-Crazy: The Songbird is capable of interacting with its environment in only one way to keep custody of Elizabeth—through violence. (Of course, due to gameplay constraints, the same is largely true of Booker DeWitt.)
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: He immediately grows suspicious when Booker enters Elizabeth's tower, and quickly degenerates into tearing the place apart, along with trying to kill Booker every time the two meet.
  • Creepy Crows: Sort of, has a raven motif going on along with the Songbird one.
  • Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Songbird's eerie cries are very high-pitched, like his namesake.
  • Disco Tech: He is activated by a series of notes that he can hear across Columbia. Playing the notes on a special set of pipes will summon him to the location.
  • The Dragon: Elizabeth even refers to him as Comstock's pet.
  • The Dreaded: You'll probably come to fear him anytime he shows up, due to how absurdly large he is, the way he tends to tear apart whatever structure you're in, and the fact that you can't harm him in any way.
  • Expy: In-universe, he was created based on Fink's observations of the Big Daddies of Rapture, which explains his need to protect Elizabeth, an alternate Little Sister. Even his eye color change is identical. In terms of obsession and because of his mysterious past and transformation, he is similar to Subject Delta.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Implied, when his eyes turn green.
  • Feathered Fiend: Of the Steampunk variety. Subverted as he doesn’t have actual feathers, nor are his attacks resembling a bird’s - he prefers punching his victims with fists rather than raking with talons of his feet, and his beak cannot be used as a weapon.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Such a lovely name for such a terrifying beast.
  • Gas Mask Mooks: More of a boss than a mook, but his headgear is basically a huge gas mask with a hose connected to the beak.
  • Giant Flyer: Songbird is huge. In fact, it makes a Big Daddy look like a child in size comparison. During one of its encounters, Songbird's head could barely fit through a door. It's remarkably agile for its size, able to swoop down on its target with impressive speed. The fact that it was apparently built in the late 1890s is incredible. Episode Two of Burial at Sea reveals that Songbird is actually a fusion of technology from 1890s Columbia and 1950s Rapture, created in conjunction with the Big Daddies, hence why they have many similar traits.
  • Heel–Face Turn: He becomes your ally once you've acquired a MacGuffin from an alternate future Elizabeth to allow present day Elizabeth the ability to control him. He is incredibly useful in taking down those Vox airships that descend on you at that point.
  • Hero Killer: The crux of Bad Future Elizabeth's message to Booker is that every iteration of him that confronts the Songbird in pursuit of Elizabeth dies in the process. In order to avoid this fate, she hands him a note for the younger Elizabeth to decode, which tells her how to control the Songbird.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: You can't actually defeat Songbird at any point in the game by yourself, often being forced to run away from him and it's outright stated that it's impossible for Booker to defeat him; Elizabeth says that there was no timeline where Booker ever fought Songbird and won. The only reason Songbird is defeated at all is that once Elizabeth's powers are fully unlocked, she puts him in Rapture's waters, where the water pressure destroys him.
  • Implacable Man: You don't fight him so much as inconvenience him so you can run away some more... and given that he can destroy battleship-sized zeppelins and entire floating islands in seconds, you really can't inconvenience him much.
  • Invincible Villain: Is immune to everything short of water pressure, and according to Elizabeth there is no timeline where Booker defeated the Songbird. Only by transporting him to Rapture does he finally die.
  • Ironic Nursery Rhyme: Inspired one about him.
    Songbird, Songbird, see him fly
    Drop the children from the sky
    When the young ones misbehave
    Escorts children to their grave
    Never back-talk, never lie
    Or he'll drop you from the sky
  • The Juggernaut: With the exception of water pressure, nothing can stop Songbird. Shooting at him is a waste of ammunition, and he tears through zeppelins with no effort at all.
  • Leitmotif: Both this song and a short whistling tune which signals his arrival. It's actually the notes C-A-G-E played in sequence, and someone who plays it can control him.
  • Logical Weakness: Songbird is built to work in the skies, not in the water, so water pressure is his worst enemy. He finally dies upon being transported to Rapture, where the ocean depths crush him to death.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Has been programmed to kill anyone who tries to help Elizabeth escape from him. Even if he reclaims her, he'll continue attacking in rage unless she claims responsibility herself and apologizes.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: His very first appearance involves him ripping the Monument Island statue almost in half in his attempts to retrieve Elizabeth and destroy the intruder Booker; further appearances show that he's more than capable of knocking airships out of the sky and tearing the roofs off of buildings with his bare hands. During the finale, he not only destroys Vox Populi airships and zeppelins with ease, but obliterates what little remains of Monument Island, taking the Siphon along with it.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like the Big Daddies of Rapture, his eyes change color to indicate his mood: green means he's friendly, orange means he's neutral, and red means he's aggressive.
  • Stalker with a Crush: To Elizabeth, explicitly meant to have undertones of an abusive relationship.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Booker gains control of the Songbird for air strikes in the end of the game using a whistle, until the whistle is damaged by the power surge from the Siphon being destroyed.
  • The Unfought: Despite all of the foreshadowing and build-up, you never end up in a boss battle against Songbird. Instead, he joins your side for a battle against an army of enemy Zeppelins. In fact, it's stated that Booker will always fall to Songbird, and only succeeds when an Elizabeth from the future has him pass Songbird's control song over to her past self.
  • Unstoppable Rage: When he finds out that Elizabeth has been taken, the resulting rampages destroys much of the city. And you're on the receiving end of much of it.
  • The Unreveal: We vaguely learn how he was made, and that he was probably once human, but we never learn exactly who — or what — he was. He is by far the most mysterious entity in the game.
  • Was Once a Man: One of Fink's Voxophone recordings reveals he is a cyborg. Given his sheer size, it must have taken a lot of augmentation.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Water, specifically water pressure. When he dives into Battleship Bay after Booker, what little water pressure there is causes his glass eye to crack. So you can imagine what happens when Elizabeth opens a Tear leading to Rapture...
  • Yandere: What, the obsession and tendency for murderous rages didn't tip you off?

    Saltonstall 

Henry Saltonstall

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saltonstall.jpg

"The needs of our great city of Columbia must come before the desires of any foreigner, whether they be enemy or friend. For I have looked into the future and one path is filled with amity and gold, and the other is fraught with the perils of a hostile and alien world."


A Columbian politician, he was originally a major character. He's never seen in the final game, but is still mentioned.


  • All There in the Manual: His first name is only used in the board game BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia.
  • Ax-Crazy: Only in the gameplay preview, however. When Saltonstall spots Booker carrying one of the sniper rifles that he was giving away for free, he ends his speech to an audience of empty chairs, screams that Booker is an assassin, sics his Vigor-using goon on him, hops a Sky-Line, climbs into an artillery turret, and begins launching explosive rounds - not just from several miles away, but from a distance of no more than 20 feet, aiming directly at a populated building.
  • Bald of Evil: Well, in the trailer, he's still got some hair on the back of his head. Enough for the Vox to scalp, anyway.
  • Dirty Communist: His pin morphs into a hammer-and-sickle symbol the moment he turns hostile in the 2010 demo. Probably an early form of tear sickness.
  • The Ghost: Was removed from the game proper despite being a major character in the trailers. The citizens still talk about him though, and his flayed scalp makes an appearance in the final game, so most likely he is just behind the scenes.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Because he's firing so closely to his target, Booker telekinetically catches the shell in mid-air and ejects it back at him, blowing both him and his cannon to pieces.
  • Large Ham: In the 2010 demo.
    Saltonstall: CHARLES! ATTEND!!

    First Zealot 

The First Zealot

Voiced By: T. Ryder Smith

"Sweet mother of Columbia, why do we worship three symbols in your memory? We worship the sword, so that we might avenge you. We worship the raven, so that we might cover the city with eyes. We worship the coffin, because it symbolizes the weight of our failure."


One of the leading members of the Fraternal Order of the Raven, affiliated with the Founders Party.


  • Politically Incorrect Villain: As expected from a KKK Expy, he and his Order are heavily racist. As a reminder, these are the people who demonize Abraham Lincoln for abolishing slavery in the US, and sanctify John Wilkes Booth for killing him.
  • Voice of the Legion: Like with every Zealot of the Lady, his voice is heavily distorted in his single voxophone, mixed in with the cries and screeches of crows.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: As well as The Unfought. He appears only on a single Voxophone recording. He may be the priest at the Order sermon, also the Zealot mini-boss shortly after (whom Booker dispatches quickly), but this is not confirmed.

    Esther 

Esther Mailer

Voiced By: Laura Bailey

"This is the moment we trained for. The False Shepherd is here. The day was not exact, but... the Prophet's sight proves out again. The specimen must be taken alive. If she dies, I suspect they will give us to the bird. And whatever pieces it leaves behind will bear no names... That was cigarette number six. This waiting is insufferable."


A citizen of Columbia and a high-ranking member of the city's police. She's set up a trap at Battleship Bay's gondola station to try and re-capture Elizabeth and kill Booker.


  • Ambushing Enemy: She's readied an ambush for Booker and Elizabeth with several undercover cops around them as well, not making herself hostile until Booker reaches the ticket station.
  • Cigarette of Anxiety: She goes through half a pack waiting for the ambush at Battleship Bay.
  • Foreshadowing: Esther addresses Elizabeth as "Annabelle". Though this was simply a ploy to confirm her identity, it also foreshadows Elizabeth's birth name as Anna DeWitt.

    Powell 

Dr. Harrison Powell

"The procedure should help immensely with the... issues we've had with the girl. Once the device is implanted, any effort on her part to... alter the state of things will emit a most painful electric shock. Pavlov made a dog salivate. We'll make this one weep."


One of the two doctors present during Elizabeth's attempted reconditioning at Comstock House, more interested in the scientific development of the experiment rather than the pain he's putting Elizabeth through.


  • Asshole Victim: When Booker deactivates the siphons at Comstock House, Elizabeth opens a Tear to an open field ravaged by a tornado which sucks both him and Pettifog, killing them.
  • Deadly Doctor: He and Pettifog were both ordered by Comstock to induce electric torture upon Elizabeth if she tried to use her powers to escape. He also didn't care about Elizabeth's well-being in the slightest, even as she pleaded for them to stop.
  • Electric Torture: Comstock ordered him and Dr. Pettifog to torture Elizabeth with direct shocks to her body in case she tried opening her Tears.
  • Lack of Empathy: He shows zero empathy for Elizabeth, who he dispassionately tortures.

    Pettifog 

Dr. P. Pettifog, M.D.

Voiced By: Yuri Lowenthal

"Can't we give her something to quiet her down?"


The other doctor in charge of Elizabeth's torture at Comstock House.


  • Asshole Victim: Dies in the same tornado that kills Dr. Powell. Given he was helping him torture Elizabeth on Comstock's orders, no tears are shed.
  • Deadly Doctor: Helps Dr. Powell torture Elizabeth with powerful shocks to discourage her from using the Tears.
  • Lack of Empathy: Just like his fellow doctor, he has no regards for Elizabeth's well-being and even sounds annoyed at her pained cries.

Vox Populi

     General Tropes 
  • Anti-Villain: For as violent and unmerciful as they are, the fact still stands that they're a slave rebellion looking for emancipation.
  • Ax-Crazy: While admittedly hard to blame them (the Founders they're slaughtering enslaved them), their revolution is much more about razing Columbia to the ground and slaughtering its people rather than overthrowing them.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Their weapons work in a unique and creative way but face stiff competition from the Boring, but Practical Founder weapons. Vox weapons only become common in the final third of the game and still need to be individually upgraded so, more often than not, players will stick to the weapons they've already spent a small fortune upgrading.
  • Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Their revolution seems more focused on reducing Columbia to rubble painted with the Founders' blood than overthrowing the Founders.
  • Evil vs. Evil: The game largely paints the Vox as being just as evil as the Founders they're at war with, hence why Booker (and later Elizabeth) are apprehensive about joining them.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Whatever good intentions they were founded on were drowned out by their increasing bloodlust, eventually becoming little different than the Founders themselves (aside from the racial politics of course).
  • Motive Decay: What was initially a civil rights movement seeking equality for Columbia's oppressed underclass has long since degenerated into getting violent Revenge on the Founders.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: They're more akin to a hoard of bloodthirsty barbarians.
  • Tragic Villain: Even for as bloodthirsty and destructive as they are, they are still slaves seeking freedom so it is hard to really blame them for showing so little mercy (it helps that the Founders largely deserve it).
    Fitzroy 

Daisy Fitzroy

Voiced by: Kimberly D. Brooks

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fitzroy_daisy_6629.png
"There's already a fight, DeWitt. Only question is, whose side are you on?"

"The one thing people need to learn is that fear is the antidote to fear. I don't want to be a part of their world. I don't want to be a part of their culture, their politics, their people. The sun is setting on their world, and soon enough, all they gon' see... is the dark."


The face of the Vox Populi, working to free Columbia from the iron fist of the Founders so it can be seized by the iron fist of Daisy Fitzroy instead. Originally a hapless servant girl, she went on the run for the murder of Lady Comstock, which radicalized her. Daisy is highly intelligent and resourceful, with once-noble intentions that have been worn down over several years of fruitless fighting into an all-consuming thirst for violence. She returns in Burial At Sea where we get brief glimpses into her deeper motivations.


  • Anti-Villain: She turns on Booker immediately after he completes her quest and leads a revolution against Columbia, which generally involves mass murder and setting buildings to blaze. Additionally, she proves more than willing to kill children in order to achieve her goals. However, she's got REALLY good reasons to hate Comstock's group and she's at least well-meaning and she only went through with the attempt on the child in question's life because the Luteces A: put her up to it and B: they assured her that she would be killed by Elizabeth before she could actually hurt the kid.
  • Ax-Crazy: While the Daisy we meet is bossy and ruthless, she pales in comparison to an alternate Daisy, who's more than willing to kill children if it means putting a stop to people like Fink. However, in Burial at Sea: Episode Two, we learn she was faking being that insane in a Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred! maneuver.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: It initially appears, from early press releases as well as the first few hours of the game, that Comstock and Fitzroy are equally positioned in terms of being the main antagonists of the story... however, Fitzroy is killed rather unceremoniously halfway through before the plot even really takes off, and the finale clearly shows that Comstock was always the main event, and that Fitzroy is entirely incidental to the multiversal destiny of the main plot.
  • Black Boss Lady: Very competently runs the Vox Populi, making her a dangerous foe.
  • Broken Pedestal: Elizabeth admires her for attempting to bring about a better lot for Columbia's underclass until she gets a glimpse of how Fitzroy's people operate.
  • Cutscene Boss: You never get to fight her. DeWitt simply distracts her long enough for Elizabeth to kill her.
  • Dark Action Girl: A radical who doesn't hesitate to take matters into her own hands.
  • Dark Messiah: She is the violent messiah that will save Columbia from the Founders, whether it wants to be saved or not.
  • Decapitated Army: Averted. Despite dying right before the start of the final third of the game, the Vox Populi revolution continues without her, with their troops being the primary enemy force for the rest of the game.
  • Dirty Business: Hates that she has to fake her insanity and attempt to kill Jeremiah Fink's son, but the Luteces tell her that she needs to do so to make Elizabeth desperate enough to kill.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Although her death doesn't slow down the Vox at all; up to the near-end of the game, they're still very much a threat.
  • Driven to Villainy: After Lady Comstock's death, every Founder in Columbia wanted her head, but she evaded them for more than 15 years. Then she started going after them.
  • Everyone Has Standards: She is not happy when she thinks the Luteces want her to kill a kid.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Daisy justifies her actions, most prominently attempting to execute a child implied to be Fink's young son, by stating that simply cutting down the Founders isn't enough, you need to "pull them up by the roots" before they can sprout again. In the ending, Elizabeth and Booker end up using the exact same logic to put an end to the entire cycle by killing Booker before he can become Comstock. Of course, the difference lies in that Booker chooses to kill himself to eliminate his proven inner darkness, rather than slaughter an innocent child under the assumption he might turn evil like his father was. Burial at Sea reveals that the Luteces had her pretend to try to kill Fink's son so that Elizabeth would be able to kill Booker.
  • Expy: She's a perfect counterpart to Atlas, the freedom fighter of Rapture in the previous games;
    • Atlas and Daisy both rose to prominence in their respective cities following a devastating historical event that showed the cities' leaders for who they really were (Andrew Ryan's ordered murder of Frank Fontaine and seizing of his capital for himself, and the murder of Lady Comstock which was also an ordered job by her "loving" Prophet and husband), resulting in both of them being vilified by said leaders as the brutal villains out to destroy their cities' ways of life. Atlas' cause was so conveniently timed that it felt like the ideal turnaround the downtrodden of Rapture needed, while Fitzroy took up arms because there was literally nothing else to be done in her situation but fight back and become Columbia's pariah if it meant she'd get even the chance of social reform;
    • The key differences between them lie in motivation and execution, but both of them are tied together by their "duplicity"; Frank Fontaine used the assassination ploy to make himself invisible and, as Atlas, led a revolution and all-out war against Andrew Ryan as a brutal long con scheme to make himself ruler of his city and able to fully exploit what it offered, seeing his "fellow rebels" as nothing short of tools for his goals. Fitzroy, on the other hand, leads a revolution she fully believes in and treats the rest of the Vox Populi like actual comrades in arms, acting with brutality due to being denied the satisfaction of revenge against Comstock for so long while still having a moral standard she wouldn't cross, and acting against Booker and Elizabeth near the end because of her role as a sacrifice in the grander scheme.
  • Frameup:
    • It turns out that she was framed for Lady Comstock's murder, in part because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    • In Burial at Sea, it's revealed she frames herself as a Broken Pedestal invoked A Real Man Is a Killer so that Elizabeth transforms from "a girl into a woman".
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Went from a fugitive scullery maid to a violent revolutionary.
  • Good All Along: We discover in Burial at Sea that she sacrificed her life to motivate Elizabeth to kill Comstock by deliberately invoking A Real Man Is a Killer.
  • Good Counterpart: Burial at Sea gives a pretty good comparison between Fitzroy and Atlas. Fitzroy comes out looking much better than she did in the main game when put up directly next to Atlas, who's shown to be pretty much pure evil, regardless of the persona he's putting up.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told: Well we do eventually get to learn it, but Booker and most of the Vox and Columbia regard Daisy as an Ax-Crazy psycho when she was actually a Stealth Mentor for Elizabeth to destroy Comstock and Columbia.
  • Hero of Another Story: In Burial At Sea, she is shown to interact with the Luteces and seems familiar with Elizabeth.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Burial at Sea: Episode Two reveals that Daisy intentionally martyred herself for her revolution and that the attempted murder of the child was an act put on to force Elizabeth to kill her. According to the Luteces, this was the only way Elizabeth would have the necessary strength and resolve to ensure Comstock's downfall.
  • Improbably High I.Q.: She scored extraordinarily high on an IQ test that she took, though this is because the psychologist that was testing her was using a highly-racist and sexist version that made the internal assumption that she would naturally score far lower than a white male. She, being a smarter-than-average intellectual, really threw it off.
  • In the Back: Stabbed by Elizabeth from behind in order to save the kid she was holding hostage.
  • Ironic Echo: While rallying the Vox Populi, she notes that Fink and Comstock see them as nothing but livestock. When she is about to murder a child, she compares him to a weed. Though this was all part of the plan.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Declaring Booker an enemy for "confusing the narrative." Definitely when she tries to kill Fink's son simply for being the child of a Founder, however, Burial at Sea: Episode Two reveals that not only was it an act, she initially refused to go through with it, refusing to hold Fink's son accountable for his father's actions. She only agreed after the Luteces tell her that she'd be killed before she could go through with it and that her sacrifice would strengthen Elizabeth's resolve to take down Comstock once and for all.
  • Malcolm Xerox: A rare female example. Burial at Sea reveals she's been overplaying her militant attitude to make it easier for the Luteces to have her killed.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • Both Booker and Elizabeth note she's Comstock by another name. Of course, she would die rather than admit it.
    • In Burial At Sea, Elizabeth realizes that she and Daisy aren't all that different either.
  • Rebel Leader: For the Vox. It's decidedly not a very sympathetic portrayal. Until Burial at Sea makes her more sympathetic, that is.
  • Rebuilt Pedestal: When Elizabeth finds out her Hidden Depths in Burial at Sea.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: She's pretty even-keeled up until the revolution occurs, during which time she becomes belligerent and bloodthirsty. Word of God says that the Vox were based on the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist group active in West Germany that lashed out aimlessly over what they saw as the excessive influence of former Nazis in the government. Subverted in the end, as Burial at Sea reveals through audio diaries that she had reservations about a starting a violent revolution (even though she felt her hand had been somewhat forced) because she knew innocents may be harmed and that her "soldiers" would go too far. In the end she was more like Emma Goldman than Pol Pot, but the loose coordination of her organization and later her death would keep her from keeping a handle on the Vox armies' more disgusting actions.
    "Yeah, there's a war comin'. You can smell it in the air. Fear. Hatred. People dyin' every day. But how many more will suffer if we rise up? Violence begets violence, I know this. I've seen this. The rational mind argues for a peaceful solution, to find a common ground, but... what common ground is there to find for a father who watches his child bleed out in the street? How do you deny him his vengeance? I know that fire that burns deep inside. I know it all too well. And when the time comes... will I be able to stay the hand?"
  • Sadistic Choice: From the Luteces: Your part in the play (have Elizabeth kill her to give her the resolve to kill Comstock) or the play itself (the revolution will fail).
  • The Scapegoat: She was framed for Lady Comstock's murder, in part because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • She Who Fights Monsters: In her quest to take down Comstock and everything he stands for, she becomes exactly what he always claimed her to be. Played with in Burial at Sea, where it's revealed that while she didn't really want the revolution to be civil she didn't want it be too violent either. Though she did try to kill Booker because his being alive didn't fit her narrative. Subverted in the case of trying to kill Fink's son; she never actually believed in murdering the Founders' children and was faking the attempt in the first place.
  • Stealth Mentor: It is revealed that she served as this for Elizabeth in the main game, in Burial at Sea.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: She is charismatic and idealistic, as well as tough and clever — all admirable qualities — but bent solely upon destruction. However, as shown in Burial At Sea: Episode Two, most of the destruction is a subversion and Training from Hell.
  • With Us or Against Us: Asks Booker this right out, even if his presence in the city has nothing to do with it.
    Fitzroy: There's already a fight, DeWitt. Only question is, which side you on?
    • In an alternate universe, it's implied he joined forces with her, but was martyred, which gave the resistance the spark they needed to rise up against the Founders.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Seemingly attempts to shoot Fink's son in the head, stating that she has to start "pulling weeds from the roots". This is her Moral Event Horizon as far as Elizabeth is concerned. Also, a Voxophone from Downs reveals that Daisy uses kids as messengers, preferably non-English speakers who can't divulge anything if caught (something that Preston Downs considers an act of "low cunning"). But Burial at Sea: Episode Two reveals that Fitzroy was actually told to put on an act for Elizabeth by the Luteces, who told her that she needed to force Elizabeth to kill her in an attempt to harden her (and in exchange set forth the actions that lead to Comstock's downfall) and that she's actually disgusted with the idea of killing Fink's son.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: One of the reasons that the Daisy in the universe where Booker joined and died for the Vox wants Booker dead is that aside from thinking that he's an impostor or a ghost, she considers Booker more useful to her as a martyr than alive as a possible complication.

    Slate 

Captain Cornelius Slate

Voiced by: Keith Szarabajka

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/slate_cornelius_7164.png
"All my men have left is a choice: Die at the hands of a tin soldier, or a REAL one!"

"Veterans! You shed your hearts' blood for Columbia, lost limb and viscera in the godless Orient! Comstock did nothing! And yet — look up! Whose image squats above you, even now? At every angle an insult! If the Prophet would make a painted whore of our past, what fresh rape does our future hold? Let us now make our stand, and fill yonder hall with true Heroes!"


A former high-ranking military leader who rebelled against Comstock after the latter re-wrote the history books of Columbia to take credit for many of Slate's own achievements.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Both if you do or do not accept to Mercy Kill him upon catching up to Slate in the Hall of Heroes. At the end of the day, all he really wanted was some simple recognition for the deeds that he did.
  • Anti-Villain: Zig-zagged. He only wished for some recognition for his regiment for what they did, instead of Comstock stealing all of the credit, and was willing to give his men a warrior's death for their trouble; however, despite his emphasizing the notions of combat and valor, he doesn't shy away from the fact that his greatest battles were unprovoked massacres that killed hundreds of men, women and children.
  • Benevolent Boss: Was willing to die to get his men the credit they deserve.
  • Berserk Button: He absolutely hates it when people talk about Comstock's "achievements", especially when Slate is around to hear it. Comstock being heralded as the "Hero of Wounded Knee", when he wasn't even there, particularly makes Slate fly into a rage. At least, he didn't fight at Wounded Knee as Comstock, but as Booker DeWitt. It's implied that Slate knows they are the same person, but considers Booker to be the real one.
    "COMSTOCK WASN'T THERE! The Boxers took my eye and thirty of my friends! Is there even a stone to mark their sacrifice?!"
    "It was SLATE who killed for his country at Wounded Knee! It was SLATE who stormed the gates of Peking! SLATE!!!"
  • Blood Knight: As evidenced in his quote above, it's not fighting against a heathen foe that he cherishes, but merely victory in glorious combat.
  • The Cassandra: Shades of this, as he spends the entire museum segment complaining about things we only understand later. Including his insistence that if Comstock plans to turn people into "tin soldiers"... which, based on the inmates in Patriot masks in the asylum, may not be that far off the mark.
  • Catchphrase Insult: "Tin soldier." Slate says this rather frequently, using it to describe anybody he doesn't particularly like, especially Comstock for the way that Comstock rewrote history to make Slate an Unperson. Should you refuse the Mercy Kill, Slate will also call Booker a tin soldier.
  • Cutscene Boss: He powers himself up with Shock Jockey and it looks like he's going to be an actual boss fight, but he just ends up tossing down a few pre-scripted lightning traps before summoning more men to fight you and then running away. By the time you catch up to him, he's too exhausted to fight and wants Booker to Mercy Kill him.
  • Death Seeker: Slate wants to die like a soldier, and when finally confronted, demands you kill him. His men are little different, throwing themselves at Booker and Elizabeth in suicidal charges. Even when Booker makes it clear that he doesn't want to fight because he has "no quarrel with these men", Slate insists on it.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Comstock glorified Wounded Knee and the battles of the Columbian military as his own accomplishments, without so much as mentioning Slate's involvement or the sacrifices made by the men under his command. When Slate called Comstock out on this, he was removed from command and publicly disgraced.
  • Enemy Mine: With Daisy Fitzroy. In a voxophone recording, Slate admits that he and his men will be seen as assassins for helping Fitzroy and her Vox Populi kill off Lady Comstock. Slate doesn't particularly care, deciding "so be it" as long as it means he can hurt Comstock in some manner.
  • Entertainingly Wrong: Slate's driving grudge against Comstock is how he claims credit for the massacre at Wounded Knee and the quelling of the Boxer Rebellion, specifically for things that Booker did. The fact that Booker is right in front of him confirms his anger against Comstock. However, Comstock genuinely can take credit for those things, as he's an unnaturally aged Booker. And Booker himself is from a different reality. Both of these are things Slate couldn't possibly know.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Lost an eye during the Boxer Rebellion, and now wears a patch over his eye as a result. Even with only one eye, he can still throw around Shock Jockey and command a ton of respect from his soldiers.
  • Fallen Hero: He eventually stops caring about anything but a soldier's death for himself and his men, killing anyone (soldier or otherwise) who crosses his path in hopes of provoking a lethal enough response.
    "Tin soldiers don't fight wars... MEN DO!"
  • Fate Worse than Death: If he's spared in the Hall of Heroes, he's captured by Comstock's men and later found in one of Fink's interrogation cells, evidently mentally broken by torture or lobotomized.
  • A Father to His Men: His men love him, and part of the reason he rebelled is because Comstock took the credit for his men's actions, not even acknowledging the loss of his men in Peking.
  • A Good Way to Die: Wishes to die "like a soldier". His men also qualify for this, as they deliberately and recklessly throw themselves directly at Booker to force him to kill them.
  • Honor Before Reason: He prefers dying with his honor as a soldier, rather than being Comstock's puppet. By the time Booker and Elizabeth catch up to Slate, he's already lost what few marbles he had left, becoming a full-on Death Seeker. Even though Booker and Elizabeth clearly don't want to fight him, Slate gives them little choice.
  • I Die Free: Knowing what would become of him if he were to fall into Comstock's hands, he'd rather die by Booker's.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: He goads Booker by expressing admiration for his actions at Wounded Knee, as part of his gambit to have Booker kill him.
  • Large Ham
    "YOU'RE A TIN MAN, BOOKER! A TIN MAAAAN!"
    "IT WAS SLATE WHO KILLED FOR HIS COUNTRY AT WOUNDED KNEE! IT WAS SLATE WHO STORMED THE GATES AT PEKING! SLAAAAAAAAATE!"
  • Mercy Kill: When you kill him after taking the Shock Jockey vigor, Elizabeth is initially horrified but she concedes that this was probably the best for him. If you don't kill him, you can find him in Fink Manufacturing, quiet and broken by the Founders. If you kill him right away, Elizabeth notes it's what he wanted.
  • Metaphorically True: Slate's actually wrong about Comstock faking his service at Wounded Knee and the Boxer Rebellion. In the former case, it's just that Comstock was going by a different name back then: Booker DeWitt.
  • Not in This for Your Revolution: Slate is only affiliated with the Vox Populi simply because he despises Comstock and otherwise has no real interest in their ideals.
    Slate: They'll call us assassins, when our work is done. "Cornelius Slate, the swift left hook of the Vox Populi!" Hm. We'll be trading Comstock's lie for a new one. So be it. The Fitzroy woman and I are comrades of necessity. I doubt all the men who reddened Caesar's toga would still be seen breaking bread together in peacetime.
  • Patriotic Fervor: He and his men consider themselves true patriots, having fought bravely for America and later Columbia. That said, they would rather die with honor at Booker's hands rather than put up with Comstock's betrayal, since this would allow them to die fighting as soldiers.
  • Pet the Dog: A Voxophone from a female soldier under his command talks of how he also commanded her father. Slate recognizes her, informs her that her dad always wanted a son, and tells her that he hopes her father isn't stupid enough to value her any less for being a daughter.
  • Sanity Slippage: Slate seems to be slightly crazier at the end of his level in comparison to the start.
  • Shock and Awe: He possesses the Shock Jockey Vigor, which is the main reason why Booker pursues him. During the fight with Slate's men, Slate throws around electric crystal traps to cover the field.
  • Suicide by Cop: He wants Booker to kill him and his followers because he considers Booker to be the real hero, and suspects that being caught by Comstock is a far worse fate. Should you refuse to kill him, you'll find out that this wasn't wrong. Slate can eventually be found as a broken shell of a man thanks to the Founders if he's left alive.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: He wants Booker to kill him and his followers, just to spite Comstock. It's subtly implied that he knows that they are the same person, but considers Booker to be the real one instead of Comstock.
    "They haven't changed you, Booker... Not... one... bit..."
  • Unperson: Although he was at one point featured in the displays (a statue of his likeness crediting him with heroism in Peking can be seen in storage), his angry rebuke of Comstock's "service" led him to be branded a heretic; summarily, his rank was stripped, and The Prophet's biographers erased all of Slate's military achievements and appropriated them as his own.

    Chen Lin 

Chen Lin

Voiced by: Vic Chao

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chen_lin_bioshock.png

"Who are you? You speak up! Speak up! Can't hear you over all these machines! Very loud!"


A Chinese gun manufacturer who has secretly agreed to supply guns to the Vox Populi from his workshop in Finkton. Booker is charged by Daisy Fitzroy to get the guns for the Vox in exchange for the First Lady airship.


  • Alternate Universe: After discovering that the original version of Chen Lin has died in Founder custody, Booker and Elizabeth attempt to get around this by "borrowing" another version of him from a different universe, assuming this trope is in play. It doesn't end well.
  • Butt-Monkey: No matter what version of him Booker and Elizabeth encounter, he is never afforded much of a happy ending;
    • The first is arrested by the Founders and is revealed to have been tortured to death.
    • The second was driven insane by "reconciliation sickness": contradictory memories about two different versions of his life. Worse still, his gunmaking tools, the only things that might have kept him stable, have been seized by the Founders.
    • The third version of Lin and his wife are killed during the Vox Populi uprising. It's not even clear who did it.
  • Came Back Wrong: "Reconciliation" or "Tear sickness" drives him insane and delusional after a living and a dead version of him are merged.
  • Happily Married: One of the few constants throughout his alternate versions is that Chen Lin is married, and his wife whichever one he marries genuinely cares for him.
  • Living Macguffin: He is a gunsmith whom Daisy sends Booker after to secure weapons for the Vox in exchange for his airship back. The plot is very unkind to him. He (well, his death at least) also prompts Elizabeth to push the limits of her Reality Warper powers beyond what she grew comfortable with during her imprisonment.
  • Resurrection Sickness: When Booker and Elizabeth jump into a universe where he's still alive via a Tear, the merging of the two versions of Lin's minds leaves him bleeding and delusional.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: One version of Chen is married to a white woman who is the sister of Sansmark, Fink's head of security, which prevents him from being convicted for helping the Vox. However, others do seem to have a problem with this.

    Brother Love 

Brother Love

Voiced by: Terrence C. Carson

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/preacherraysmall.png

"This is what they want, brothers! To keep you so hungry, you can't speak but to beg! To keep you so ignorant, you can't think of solutions to all your problems! To keep you chasin' that almighty Silver Eagle, so you can buy everything they're sellin' to keep you down, brothers! But Daisy Fitzroy says there's another way... Another way comin' real soon..."


A preacher recruited off the streets of Finkton who uses his fire-and-brimstone sermons to proselytize over Columbia's radios for the cause of the Vox Populi.


  • Back from the Dead: He's first encountered in shantytown, and the player can kill him the very second they exit the elevator if they wish. He'll still be alive in the universe at the end of the game either way.
  • Bit Character: Seen in person only once near the elevator entrance to Finkton, where he's railing about the class system to a small audience. Afterwards, he is only heard over gunship loudspeakers.
  • Dragon Ascendant: His announcements serve as the 'face' of the Vox after Daisy's death.
  • Large Ham: He sounds a little hammy if you stop to listen to him preaching in the Shantytown in Finkton. He sounds really hammy when he preaches over the loudspeakers of a gunship.
    "They said they knew what was best for us... They said they knew what was coming... Did you see this coming, old man? DID YOU SEE THIS COMING, PROPHET?! You ain't gonna place your daughter on the throne! WE'RE GONNA PLACE HER IN HER GRAVE!"
  • Turbulent Priest: Leads the spiritual arm of the Vox against the Founders' established rule.

Other Characters

    R. Lutece 

Rosalind & Robert Lutece ("A Lady", "A Gentleman")

Voiced by: Jennifer Hale & Oliver Vaquer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lutece_rosalind_5251.jpg
"Chin up. There's always next time."
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lutece_robert_2396.jpg
"I suppose there is."

Robert: Why do you ask "what..."
Rosalind: When the delicious question is "when?"
Robert: The only difference between past and present...
Rosalind: Is semantics.
Robert: Lives, lived, will live.
Rosalind: Dies, died, will die.
Robert: If we could perceive time as it truly was...
Rosalind: What reason would grammar professors have to get out of bed?


A pair of mysterious figures who repeatedly appear throughout Booker's journey in Columbia at the most improbable of times and locations. The two are rather identical to each other aside from their gender, but seem to understand each other very intimately.


  • Alternate Self: They are confirmed to be alternate universe versions of each other.
  • The Atoner: Having given Comstock the technology to build his utopia and directly aided in the kidnapping of Anna DeWitt, the Luteces assist Booker and Elizabeth in undoing it. Robert in particular feels the most remorse about the whole ordeal; Rosalind was indifferent to the status quo, but Robert threatened to leave her if she didn't help. Though they remain emotionally detached throughout the game, they do mention that Booker's presence serves as a "hairshirt" to them.
  • Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Though they provide support at some key points, their answers to Booker's questions tend to be utterly useless. Justified by the fact that they're unstuck in time and by their beliefs about free will — from their perspective, there's no point in telling him anything, since they already know what will happen.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: For the most part, the twins seem fairly lighthearted and comedic, despite the air of mystery about them. Then it turns out that they're complicit in Comstock's rise to power and a very nasty incidence of kidnapping; true, they're doing their best to make amends, but it's still quite jarring. For good measure, it's strongly implied that they are in the habit of murdering the less noticeable of Comstock's assassins before they can reach Booker — the first and most obvious instance being the lighthouse keeper found shot in the head.
  • Big Good: A very, very bizarre version for the entire narrative. Thanks to their actions, Comstock is destroyed for good, ensuring their revenge, Jack manages to save the Little Sisters in Rapture in 1960, and, ultimately, both the hyper-nationalist Columbia and the hyper-capitalist Rapture are destroyed.
  • Birds of a Feather: Taken to its most absurd conclusion.
  • Born Lucky: Rosalind frequently bets against her brother, and loses nearly all of the time.
  • Bystander Syndrome: Of a sort. It's revealed that Rosalind originally agreed to work with Comstock for funds and his support for her theories. She couldn't care less for his plans for Columbia and "drowning in flames" the Sodom below; in fact, she privately considers his stint as a prophet an elaborate show. The only bright spot in her life was realizing she had an opposite-gender Alternate Self who was just as smart as she was, and also wanted to explore the possibilities of the Lutece Field. Once they are united in the same universe, Robert arrives with baby Anna, who is raised by Comstock as Elizabeth. Since they are among the very few who know Elizabeth's true origins, Comstock arranges to have them killed, which instead leaves them unstuck in time and space. Robert then decides to undo the entire chain of events leading to him kidnapping Anna for Comstock, forcing Rosalind to go along with him by threatening her with him leaving her reality if she refused.
  • Catchphrase: "X? Or Y?" Also, "[Blanks], [blank]ed, will [blank]."
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Their research and exploration into alternate dimensions set the events of the game into motion.
  • Chessmasters: They're more or less intangible in their current state. To accomplish Robert's goal of eliminating Comstock (and, later, helping Elizabeth to free the Little Sisters), the pair relies on intermediaries to carry out tasks for them. Sometimes this involves less carrot and a lot more stick.
  • Cloudcuckoolanders: They're very... out there.
  • Coordinated Clothes: They wear nearly identical outfits.
  • Creepy Good: They have no qualms about sacrificing the lives of others in pursuit of a bigger return.
  • Creepy Twins: Especially when they're being unhelpful.
  • Dead All Along: In a fashion. A Voxophone recording reveals that despite surviving their accident, albeit scattered in time and space, their original bodies did die and leave behind corpses for their funeral photographs to be taken.
  • Deadpan Snarkers: Booker even calls them on it at a point late in the game.
  • The Dividual: Of the Twindividual sub-type, and taken to the most extreme conclusion possible.
  • Expy:
  • Everyone Has Standards: In Burial at Sea: Episode Two it is shown that Rosalind in particular absolutely loathes Suchong after finding out his history and experiments and wants nothing to do with him. Robert playfully notes this might be because they're no different in their callous scientific view of the world, much to Rosalind's annoyance.
    Rosalind: A disagreeable fellow, this Suchong.
    Robert: That's surprising, I'd imagine he'd be right up your street.
    Rosalind: Hmph. I feel dirty sharing a universe with the man.
    Robert: How poorly we see our own traits in others.
    Rosalind: What do you mean?
    Robert: You both see the world through a lens of science.
    Rosalind: And what's wrong with that?
    Robert: Ask young Ms. Comstock.
  • Fashion Dissonance: It's not so obvious but their outfits in 1912 are nigh identical with the flashbacks in 1893, which would make their attire late-Victorian at best. This isn't helped by the fact that both Luteces were presumably killed years before the game takes place.
  • The Fatalist: Rosalind, in contrast to Robert's eternal optimist.
  • The Ferryman: DeWitt's story is bookended by the Luteces shepherding him to a lighthouse by boat: first to Columbia, and later to his execution at the hands of Elizabeth. This is how Booker perceives the trip between "doors" in the multiverse. Once Elizabeth lost her ability to open Tears, she was forced to charter the Luteces' "boat", as well.
  • Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Lampshaded. They concede that while it is indeed weird that they finish each other's sentences, it would be weirder if they didn't.
  • For Science!: Their primary reason for randomly popping up to bug Booker when not helping him.
  • Friendly Fire Proof: Parodied and Justified. As they are scattered in time and space, you can't hurt them, but if you try they will casually comment. "Missed"
    • In fact, they have many hilarious responses after that when trying to shoot them again and again. "you missed", "missed..." (exasperated tone), "missed again", "four out of five?" "another miss..." "... aaaand a miss" "We can afford to do this all day. The only question is, can you?".
  • Freak Lab Accident: Technically, it was sabotage intended to kill them and made to look like an accident, but the other particulars of the trope remain the same.
  • Gender Bender: They're genderflipped Alternate Self versions of each other.
  • Good Is Not Nice: They're the lead suspects in the torture and murder of the lighthouse keeper. He was probably killed to remove an obstacle from Booker's ascent to Columbia, while the implements could have extracted the passcode for the entrance bells.
  • Greater-Scope Paragon / Greater-Scope Villain: Columbia only exists because Rosalind was willing to let Comstock exploit her work if it meant she could finally bring Robert into her universe. However, they are ultimately the ones who spend who-knows-how-long bringing several dozen alternate reality Bookers to Columbia in order to save his daughter and fix the mess they started (even if it's more Robert's inclination with Rosalind just going along with it).
  • Great Gazoos: Before long, Booker just stops questioning how they keep tailing him, or the source of their reality-bending powers. Though they do have his interests at heart, they treat Booker rather like a toddler who needs constant supervision and scolding.
  • Half-Identical Twins: There's a justified reason for that.
  • He Knows Too Much: Comstock has Jeremiah Fink sabotage their machines once they, like Lady Comstock, become a liability to him.
  • Immune to Bullets: It's impossible to hit them at all. They just repeatedly tell you that you missed, even at point-blank range, or if you just try to hit them with your fists, and subtly make fun of you if you keep trying.
    • The Handwave is justified because their being scattered across space and time allows them to experience a state of Quantum Immortality, so that from their point of view, the bullet will always miss them, no matter how improbable the actual odds are.
  • Incest Subtext: Played with. See Screw Yourself below. It's not explicitly stated, but the tone of some of Rosalind's voxophone recordings can be somewhat... suggestive.
    Rosalind: Brother, what Comstock failed to understand is that our contraption is a window not into prophecy, but probability. But, his money means the Lutece Field could become the Lutece Tear — a window between worlds. [earnestly] A window through which you and I... might finally be together.
    Rosalind: You have been transfused, brother, into a new reality, but your body rejects the cognitive dissonance through confusion and hemorrhage. But we are together, and I will mend you. For what separates us now, but a single chromosome?
    • You can explore the Luteces' house later in the game. There is only one bed... and it's a double-sized bed.
    • In Burial at Sea: Episode Two one of the audio logs reveals that Robert wants to have children. Rosalind has apparently put a lot of thought into returning to a version of Columbia where they can go back to being ordinary humans and potentially start a family together, but she's hesitant to give up all the knowledge and power they've obtained after becoming Physical Gods. It's implied that this is the reason that Robert decided to attempt to save Elizabeth and Booker, even threatening to leave Rosalind if she didn't participate in the plan.
    • At one point, you see the Luteces dancing together.
  • Insufferable Genius: Both Luteces, but Rosalind especially. She didn't adjust her manners in the presence of Comstock or his wife, which probably shortened her lifespan.
  • It's Up to You: They're having a devil of a time (no pun intended) trying to rub out Comstock in spite of their omniscience. The best they can do is nudge Booker along, forking over vigors and keys when the plot demands it.
  • Karma Houdini: So, after essentially causing the entire mess by allowing Comstock to found Columbia and creating Elizabeth, what do they get? Why, all eternity to study The Multiverse in the company of each other, whom they are quite blatantly implied to be in love with. However, see Big Good for why this is somewhat justifiable.
  • Lady Macbeth: A downplayed example. Rosalind is the instigator in creating the trans-dimensional technology that caused all the trouble in the first place simply because she wanted to meet her male self, but she's also a fatalist who doesn't really care what people do or try to improve their lives. Robert, meanwhile, is more emotional and idealistic, forcing Rosalind to help him repair their mistake of separating Booker and Anna on the threat of leaving her if she didn't help.
  • Leitmotif: The song Lutece always leads to them. Like them, it's quirky, upbeat, surreal, somewhat at odds with everything else, and has an undercurrent of menace and the uncanny.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: 90% of their dialogue is idle bickering with each other. Which really doesn't help with the implied Screw Yourself angle, such as having only one bed in their house.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: There are no fatal explosions in Rosalind's world, only happy accidents. In Burial at Sea she drolly comments on Elizabeth's choice to give up immortality and return to Rapture. "You're trading omniscience and croissants for death and mildew?"
  • Mad Scientists: It's soon revealed they designed both the technology that keeps Columbia afloat and the first interdimension travel machine. They are also a bit nuts. Rosalind is implied to be the nuttier of the two due to her interest in studying phenomenon over its negative effect on the lives of people.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Their last name comes from the French word for the Roman city that became Paris. In a way, Booker did take Elizabeth to Paris as a baby.
    • "Rosalind" is the name of the heroine from As You Like It who, like her namesake in BioShock, has a male alter ego. It's actually a very obscure hint as to the true nature of the "twins", as a more initially obvious Shakespeare reference would surely have been to name her "Viola".
  • Morality Chain: Apparently, even after Comstock's attempted murder, Rosalind was just fine with letting things stand, having gotten what she wanted, i.e. an eternity to study science with her brother-self. Robert, having seen the natural end of all the Comstock futures (and possibly feeling guilty over the initial abduction of Anna), isn't as copacetic, and actually threatens to leave Rosalind forever unless she helps him fix things. So she plays ball, even if she thinks the whole thing's stupid.
    Robert: So you expect me to shoulder the burden?
    Rosalind: No. But I do expect you to do all the rowing.
  • Mother Nature, Father Science: Downplayed and inverted. Rosalind is the cold, intellectual one while Robert is the more emotional and the more morally concerned one, as he's the one that suggested they should fix what they caused.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Robert willingly went along with Comstock's kidnapping plot and even acted as his emissary, greeting Booker in the traditional Columbian manner and promising that Father Comstock "has absolved" him of his sins. At the time, Comstock still resembled Booker in appearance and couldn't pitch the sale of Anna in-person.
  • Mysterious Backer: The ones that hired Booker and put the whole game into motion.
  • Narcissist: Given that they're technically alternate versions of each other, they take this to an uncomfortable level.
  • Never My Fault: Zig-zagged. Rosalind cares absolutely nothing for the fact that she is to blame for the rise of Comstock and Columbia, but Robert recognizes his guilt in the matter and is determined to make amends for it.
  • Non-Linear Character: Due to being scattered across space and time, the Luteces can see the past, present, and future all at once. A good many of their personality quirks and supernatural abilities are derived from the fact that they can see all possibly realities.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: The two tend to pop in and out all over Columbia offering random choices to Booker and Elizabeth — none of which change the eventual outcome.
  • The Omnipresent: They were scattered across space-time by their accident, gaining the ability to appear wherever they wished. The metaphysics can be studied for ages, which is a good thing because they aren't going anywhere soon... Although the whole experience makes poor Robert's head spin ("Had to have had been?" "I don't think the syntax has been invented yet.")
  • Only Sane Woman: While they're equally brilliant, Rosalind seems to be the more mature. Exemplified by one scene early in the game, where the two of them can clearly be seen through the binoculars across from Monument Island: Robert is juggling while Rosalind looks on disapprovingly.
  • Opposites Attract: Despite being Birds of a Feather, there are subtle differences in their personalities; Rosalind is more serious, while Robert is more of a goofball. Not to mention that, as Rosalind puts it, where she sees King Lear, Robert sees only a blank page — she is a fatalist, while Robert is more optimistic. Rosalind is far more intellectual and dispassionate, while Robert is more moral and idealistic.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Ultimately Averted: their frequent squabbles amount to nothing more than some friendly Sibling Rivalry to pass the time, and it's clear that they're actually very fond of each other.
  • Physical God: A freak accident with Rosalind's dimension-bending machine made them able to bend the world to their liking, which explains how they repeatedly show up in random places doing strange things and how they can't be shot, even at point-blank range.
  • The Power of Rock: Rosalind was able to cure Robert's reconciliation sickness with the help of music to calm his nerves.
  • Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: Their combined research has allowed them to not only traverse alternate dimensions but also bend the laws of physics to their will, hence why Columbia manages to float at all. This also extends to surviving their own deaths, allowing them to exist across all time and space. Which would also explain why it's impossible to shoot them. The latter case is probably an instance of the quantum immortality thought experiment come true.
  • A Real Man Is a Killer: Burial At Sea: Episode Two reveals that they manipulated the entire situation that lead to Elizabeth killing Daisy, believing this was the only way she'd have enough strength to bring down Comstock.
  • Red Herring Shirt: These people turn out to have a lot more involvement in the plot than they initially let on.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Robert is the playful, optimistic, conscientious Red to Rosalind's stoical, fatalistic, and sometimes quite ruthless Blue.
    • Though, notably, Rosalind has the general contentedness with their lot in life usually associated with the Red, while Robert's desire to see changes in their situation is more in line with the Blue way of thinking.
  • Science Foils: The Lutece twins are both brilliant quantum physicists, but Rosalind is driven and creative in her research, while Robert is more cautious and mindful of the implications of their work.
  • Screw Yourself: As noted in Incest Subtext above their relationship is vaguely romantic. However, as they aren't actually siblings, rather, alternate versions of eachother, they are this trope rather than Incest Subtext.
  • A Shared Suffering: Implied at the end to be partially why Robert is more sympathetic to Booker's plight than Rosalind, as he experienced firsthand the painful physical and psychological trauma that comes with jumping between realities.
  • Sibling Rivalry: The source of their many minor squabbles.
  • Spock Speak: Rosalind in particular; just listen to her Voxophone recordings.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Sometimes they don't even bother waiting for you to turn your back before they just vanish into thin air. Especially after it's revealed that actually they're omnipresent across the multiverse.
  • The Stoic: Rosalind's Voxophone recordings and the conversation between her and Lady Comstock overheard through a Tear are invariably spoken in calm and indifferent tone, even when she's discussing something as presumably emotive as her ongoing attempts to cure Robert as he's dying of reconciliation sickness or, later, when he's seriously threatening to leave her; or Lady Comstock screamingly accusing her of being a "whore" and Comstock's mistress.
    • This is one of the few traits that the Lutece twins do not remotely share: Robert definitely loses his composure a couple of times, notably when he's so afraid to cross through the first Tear to join Rosalind that he seems about to back out of the whole thing.
    • Though even Rosalind is noticeably panicked in Burial at Sea: Episode 1 when she realises that the Tear is about to cut off Baby Anna's head.
  • Teen Genius: They appear to be in their mid-thirties at the oldest at their technical time of death in 1909, meaning that they must have been in their late teens when they wrote Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel and created the Lutece Tear in 1893.
    • Though Older Than They Look might be in effect, since they're Physical Gods. Comstock's premature ageing after too much messing with the Tear certainly seems to imply that physical signs of ageing, or lack thereof, might not mean much with people who've spent a lot of time hopping universes. Certainly, the Lutece twins don't appear to have aged in all that time, and the versions Booker meets in the 1893 flashback don't look or act like teenagers, but appear exactly as they do in 1912.
  • Those Two Guys: As with many of their associated tropes, it's played to the extreme: the revelation that they were scattered across time and space by their accident means that they quite possibly literally can't operate independently even if they want to (though they clearly don't anyway).
  • Time-Travel Tense Trouble: They complain that the English language doesn't have a tense to describe what they've seen. Robert, in particular, becomes obsessed with trying out weird tenses to explain his point of view in the second half of the game.
  • Troll: Most of their interaction with Booker that's not helpful, consists of them showing up to irritate him. A Voxophone recording similarly reveals that several days after their supposed death, they took the opportunity to show up and criticize the (terrified) photographer Rupert Cunningham of their funeral photographs for making them look "too lifeless".
  • Understatement:
    "Frankly, she doesn't seem all that cooperative."
  • Unexpected Character: At the end of Episode One of Burial at Sea, with zero foreshadowing.
  • The Unfought: Their distinctly unhelpful advice and the way they treat Booker are vaguely reminiscent of Fontaine/Atlas's manipulation, so one can be forgiven for thinking they would betray Booker.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite appearing at the tail end of Burial at Sea: Episode One, they are shockingly missing during Episode Two (save for a cameo midway through). What makes this even more baffling is the fact that had they just given Elizabeth a heads up that the Big Daddy was about to turn on her, she could've potentially avoided everything negative that happened to her throughout the course of the second half of the DLC.
    • Ultimately subverted when it's revealed that while Rosalind might be the wiser of the two, Robert apparently holds himself to a higher moral standard, expressing both compassion and regret for Booker and Elizabeth's situation and the role that they had played in it. Robert was also the one who decided that Comstock had to be stopped, even threatening to leave Rosalind if she refused to help.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Luteces were this for the Founders. Once Comstock had all he needed from them and was taking steps to conceal Elizabeth's true origins, he had Fink arrange for the pair to be offed in an unfortunate experimental "accident." It didn't exactly work as planned.

    Preston E. Downs 

Preston E. Downs

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Downs_6909.png

"Now he's got me huntin' down this 'Daisy Fitzroy.' Hope he don't expect me to stuff and mount her! *laughs* Yeah..."


A bounty hunter who is employed by the Founders to track down Daisy Fitzroy. He never actually appears in the game, but multiple audio diaries by him can be found, which show his gradual shift from being a bounty hunter for Comstock to a member of the Vox. A model of him is also quite obviously used for Fink's head of security.


  • The Atoner: Becomes this while hunting Fitzroy.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Apparently happens to him after he joins the Vox Populi in the second world Booker and Elizabeth go to, according to the wall of targets in the police station in Shantytown.
  • Bounty Hunter: His trade and craft. At least, in most realities...
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • He set bear traps for Daisy Fitzroy's messengers, with the intention of catching them and interrogating them for information regarding her whereabouts. It worked, as he then discovered that Daisy was using children as messengers, which resulted in a young Native American orphan being mangled by his trap. After being forced to amputate the boy's leg, he takes on the responsibility of taking care of the child. Later on, he's sent to hunt down (alternate universe) Booker DeWitt, who turns out to be fluent in Sioux, the same native tongue as his ward. He then makes a Heel–Face Turn after learning why the boy is an orphan and why he is working for the Vox Populi.
  • Expy: He's essentially the Columbian version of Diane McClintock from Rapture, as an Allegorical Character representing the city itself and its shifting viewpoints due to the power struggles between their respective opposing factions. Namely, he starts off as a common Founder-aligned citizen until the gravity of the conflict comes knocking at his door and wakes him up to the real consequences of the conflict, leading him to sign up with the opposers as the Vox Populi rise in power.
  • Great White Hunter: He even makes a habit of scalping his targets. In the case of Comstock, he states that he'll give the boy the honors.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Depends on one's viewpoint. It matters little, though.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He explicitly compares hunting people to hunting animals.
  • Morality Pet: A Native American boy whose leg gets caught in one of his bear traps.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When he accidentally cripples a child with one of his efforts to hunt down Daisy.
  • Psycho for Hire: At first.
  • The Unfought: Not any sign of him in the flesh is ever encountered in the game, though an alternate Booker does meet him at some point.

    Preacher Witting 

Preacher Witting

Voiced by: Richard Herd

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/preacherwitting22.PNG
"Will you be cleansed?"

"Is it someone new? Someone from the Sodom Below? Newly come to Columbia to be washed clean, before our Prophet, our Founders, and our Lord?"


A blind old preacher in charge of baptism for those entering Columbia.


  • Call-Back: His first line when Booker interacts with him in Columbia is to ask "is it someone new?", the same question the first Spider Splicer asks when Jack first enters Rapture in the original game.
  • Forgotten First Meeting: As it turns out, Booker and Witting previously met 20 years ago when the latter offered to baptize Booker and wash away his sins. Neither of them recognize the other when they meet again though Witting at least has the excuse of being blind.
  • Ironic Name: He pretty much unwittingly kickstarted the entire plot of the game.
  • Large Ham: His sermons are very enthusiastic.
  • Preacher Man: His role in Columbia. In a slight twist, he seems to be more devoted to Comstock than to God.
  • Prophet Eyes: His blindness isn't clear from his movements, but his eyes have thick cataracts. It is unknown if he was born blind or if he lost his vision later in life. This also explains why he doesn't recognize Booker as the man he baptized in the past.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: This minor preacher Booker met when he first enters Columbia is later revealed to play a role in the rise of Zachary Comstock by baptizing a shell-shocked Wounded Knee soldier and rechristened him into a self proclaimed prophet.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Despite his name, he assuredly had no idea that giving a troubled young soldier a baptism would lead to Comstock's rise to power.

    Dimwit & Duke 

Dimwit & Duke

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duke_and_dimwit.jpg
Duke on the left, Dimwit on the right

Narrator: "Are you a Duke... or a Dimwit?"


Two mascots for "proper" Columbian children behavior; Duke represents the good and proper way to do things, Dimwit represents how not to do things. Their images appear all over Soldier's Field, with a toy line, voxophone players, and live stage performances.


  • The Ace: Duke.
  • Big Eater: In the ice-cream parlor, Duke is advertising the 5-cent "Patriotic Duty" special—one scoop each of strawberry, vanilla, and what looks like blueberry.
    • By contrast, Picky Eater Dimwit's special is a single scoop of "Lazy Lemon."
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The narrations shown in the game go over Stranger Danger, standing for the national anthem... and gun maintenance.
  • Butt-Monkey: Dimwit.
  • Catchphrase: Their voxophones all begin with "Are you a Duke? ...or a Dimwit?" and end with "Remember, boys and girls: Dont. Be. A Dimwit!"
  • Cowardly Lion: Dimwit.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Implied to be the case with Dimwit. One store clerk offhandedly mentions they have trouble keeping Dimwit merch in stock. Which means people love Dimwit not despite, but because of his flaws... either this or Columbian parents have very low opinions of their children.
  • Expy: Their role as Columbian propaganda characters promoting the city's agenda makes them this to Rapture's "Jim and Mary" public service announcements heard throughout the first game, with the bigger difference being that all of Dimwit and Duke's "stories" are pre-recorded and specifically aimed at children, while Jim and Mary's banter has noticeable escalation with Andrew Ryan's growing delusion and has a generalized target audience.
  • Hollywood Homely: Invoked, In-Universe. Dimwit with his mussed hair, big nose, big teeth, and unkempt uniform is meant to be seen as this by the Columbian kids.
  • Homage: To Goofus and Gallant from Highlights children's magazine.
    • Ryan the Lion and Peter the Parasite in Burial At Sea are ones of them.
  • Inside Joke: The "Fearless Flintlock" voxophone was delayed three times. Just like Infinite.
  • Leitmotif: In the voxophone recordings, Duke has a light piano flourish, while Dimwit has a sour discordant chord.
  • The Merch: In-Universe. And it's all over the place.
  • Patriotic Fervor: Meant to instill this in Columbian children.
  • Professional Butt-Kisser: Duke is depicted as being the typical goody-two-shoes with a borderline sycophantic devotion to Columbia's authority figures (behavior those same authority figures clearly want to instill in the children watching.)
  • Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: They provide the page image, but are a very warped example; the two serve as an effective means of propaganda for Columbia's children, instilling in them the strict conformity, obsessive patriotism, and blind deference to authority that has become standard practice among the city's residents. Just listen to the narrations to their shows:
    Narrator: "When Duke sees a suspicious-looking character, he reports him to his authorities straight away. When Dimwit sees a suspicious-looking character, he ignores him, and focuses on his new scooter."
    Narrator: "When Duke hears the Columbian Anthem, he stands at attention and sings along, proud and clear. When Dimwit hears the Columbian Anthem, he just says... 'That song again? I'm too tired to sing!'"
    Narrator: "Duke cleans his father's rifle every Sunday without being asked. Dimwit shoots mice every afternoon and puts the old man's rifle back dirty."
  • Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Statues of Dimwit show him doused in ice-cream and holding his rifle backwards (it's a pop gun, but still)
  • Too Smart for Strangers: One public announcement encourages children to report suspicious strangers. Given that the authorities are militarized police armed with advanced lethal weapons...
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Dimwit is said to have a fondness for shooting mice, which is a telltale sign of mental issues in children. Notice that the narrator doesn't have an issue with this, but does take offense to Dimwit refusing to clean the rifle afterward as per his father's orders.

    The Interracial Couple 

Interracial Couple

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grand_prize2.jpg

An interracial couple met at the Raffle early in the game as they were about to suffer public humiliation (and possibly execution) by being pelted with baseballs.


    Sally 

Sally

Voiced by: Courtnee Draper

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bas_sally_photo.png

Sally is an orphan living in Rapture. Following the closure of Fontaine Futuristics, she is adopted by the Booker DeWitt of that universe. Booker lost her at one point and spent a long time trying to find her until Elizabeth approaches him with a lead on her possible location.


  • And Then John Was a Zombie: After her disappearance, Sally has been turned into a Little Sister by Suchong.
  • Creepy Child: Once it is revealed that she had been turned into a Little Sister.
  • Creepy Doll: Her doll, Sarah, is missing its head, a reference to how Anna DeWitt was killed in Comstock's original timeline. By the time she is rescued by Jack, it has been repaired. Interestingly, Sarah greatly resembles Elizabeth when Booker first met her at Columbia.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: As Elizabeth is dying, Sally holds her hand while singing "La Vie En Rose."
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Elizabeth foresees that Sally will be eventually saved by Jack and cured of her conditioning in the Good Ending of the original BioShock.
  • Happily Adopted: She was initially adopted by Booker before he loses her. Some time later, she is rescued by Jack and becomes one of the Little Sisters adopted by him.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: Booker almost burns her alive in order to get her out of the vents. Later, Atlas attempts to extract the ADAM inside her only for Elizabeth to convince her to spare him. Atlas also attempted to perform a transorbital lobotomy in order to get Elizabeth to tell him the location of the "Ace in the Hole".
  • Missing Child: Booker lost her while he was at the casino and spent days searching for her only to be told by Sullivan that she was dead. Upon finding out she's at Fontaine's Department Store, Booker continues to look for her only for her to be turned into a Little Sister. In the second chapter of the DLC, it's Elizabeth's turn to look out for her after she is kidnapped by Atlas.
  • Replacement Goldfish: It becomes clear that Booker sees her as a replacement for Anna, after accidentally killing the infant in his original timeline when he was still Comstock.
  • She Is All Grown Up: A woman implying to be Sally appears in Fact From Myth is interviewed by the show regarding the existence of Rapture. When she is shown pictures of items from the city, she becomes horrified when she sees a painting of Elizabeth and Booker dancing and quickly locked herself in her house.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: It's her kidnapping that sets the gears in motion for Jack of the first Bioshock to come to Rapture and finally put an end to Ryan and Fontaine's tyranny since Elizabeth has a crisis of conscience for using Sally in her scheme to kill the alternate Comstock and returns to that timeline to save her, in turn giving Fontaine what he needs to summon and control Jack and the entirety of the events of the first Bioshock. If Elizabeth's dying words are any indication, Jack ultimately saves Sally and the Little Sisters there as well.

Enemies

    Police 

Police

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/108_figure21_1_2.png

Policeman: "Not getting out of here alive, Vox… What you've done?! Yer gonna burn…"


Columbia's police force, carrying truncheons, pistols, or even Sky-Hooks to attack Booker with, and will chase him throughout the city in order to protect the citizens from the "False Shepherd". Interestingly for Columbia's gender dynamics, many of them are female and many of the female officers are highly ranked and obeyed without question.


    Soldiers 

Soldiers

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/founders_soldiers.png
Founder soldiers

Founder Soldier: "He who crossed the Delaware, with flaming sword and wings of angels, watch over me and lend me strength."


The game's most common enemy, coming in three variations; The most common is the Flying Squad, the military branch of Columbia in service of the Founders and Comstock. Exclusive to the Hall of Heroes are Slate's Men, soldiers who were disenfranchised by the city along with him and seek Booker to give them a soldier's death in battle. Finally there are the Vox Troops aligned with Daisy as the siege of Columbia kicks off.


  • Badass Bandolier: Armoured short-range and mid-range soldiers for both sides have a bandolier of shotgun shells and machine gun rounds, respectively.
  • Badass Cape: Unarmoured Founder and armoured Founder & Vox Snipers wear capes, while unarmoured Vox snipers wear a Badass Longcoat instead.
  • Cheap Costume: The Vox melee units go into battle in their working clothes and sometimes wear makeshift face masks.
  • Cold Sniper: The Founder-loyal ones only. Vox Populi ones love to scream and yell at you.
  • Color-Coded Armies: In contrast to the Founders' blue, the primary color of the Vox Populi is red.
  • Cool Mask: Unlike the Splicers in Rapture, who wear masks to hide their deformities, many of the soldiers from both sides wear masks for protection.
  • Expy: To the Splicers. They use similar tactics and moves as Rapture's decayed population, but instead of citizens having gone insane and malformed from substance abuse, these are trained military officials serving the ideology of their respective factions and mounting fully organized strikes to deter Booker in ways the Splicers would never be capable of with Jack.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: Many of the militants' outfits are asymmetrical, with ammo packs and belts on different parts of their uniforms.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: The male soldiers wear stylish goggles just as part of their headgear.
  • Heavily Armored Mook: Toward the end of the game, many soldiers start wearing bulky leather armor padding, allowing them to take much more damage.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Averted. Snipers usually fight from only a reasonable distance away. Logical given Columbia is mostly winding streets and courtyards, so there's not much room for mile-away marksmanship.
  • In the Hood: Certain Vox militants wear hoods with "devil horns".
  • Intentional Engrish for Funny: Vox snipers have thick accents and tend to mangle their sentences a bit.
    Vox Sniper: I kill you now!
  • Malevolent Masked Men: Many soldiers from both sides fulfil this trope.
  • No Indoor Voice: Founder affiliated Soldiers will loudly shout random Bible quotes during battle.
  • Old Soldier: Slate's disenfranchised troops. They still remain loyal to him after forty years.
  • Pipe Pain: The melee units affiliated with the Vox often carry what look like rusted metal pipe fragments.
  • Skewed Priorities: It is shown that will stop fighting Booker and pray when ordered to by Comstock; even if Booker starts killing them they will not stop praying.
  • Sniper Duel: Pretty much every area occupied by them will have a sniper rifle stashed somewhere nearby so Booker can duel them.
  • Unique Enemy: The very first Sniper encountered in the game is one of Slate's troops.
  • Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Uniforms in white and blue, of course, and the higher-level female cops actually go into firefights dressed as Lady Liberty, spiked metallic mask and all.

    Automatons 

Basic Security Automatons

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bioshockautomaton.PNG

Mechanical machinations that serve as a means of security for Columbia. The two types seen include the small flying Mosquitoes and the three different types of Turret Automatons: Barrage, Gun and Rocket, found throughout the city.


  • Airborne Mook: The Mosquitoes, which are essentially gatling guns hoisted on balloons. You run into these late in the game.
  • Bottomless Magazines: They never seem to run out of ammo and have plenty of it to acquire from their destroyed husks.
  • Elite Mook: Barrage Automatons are huge turrets that rain down fireballs onto targets in front of them. Tellingly of how strong they are, Booker only faces them three times in the main story.
  • Expy: Naturally this to Rapture's Security Devices, although they differ in application and design, without mentioning the inability of full-time hacking:
    • Mosquitoes are only similar to the Security Bots in that they're both small flying machines with automated machine guns, but they have a fixed flying pattern instead of an automated targeting system that lets them follow the player around;
    • Turret Automatons in Columbia have a much more human-like aesthetic than Rapture's own Turrets, but are far more localized and situational, appearing often in airships to defend them from trespassers, or being mounted on important buildings like the Bull Yard to keep supposed criminals at bay.
  • Haunted Technology: A common strategy in battle is to use the Possession Vigor to temporarily "hack" the Automatons and make them fight for the player against the other troops in the field, which also draws fire away from Booker as they'll defend themselves against them. Unlike with Rapture, however, the Vigor doesn't last too long and they will continue to attack Booker once the effect wears off.
  • Mecha-Mooks: They're generally a bit more durable than human enemies, but for the most part are stationary aside from the Mosquitoes, so you can usually hide from them and fire from cover.
  • More Dakka: The Machine Gun Automatons will just keep on firing upon you. So will those pesky Mosquitoes.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The spotlight turns from yellow to red when they spot you. Their lights turn green when you possess them.
  • Steampunk: You can see it clearly. Very clearly. The Machine Gun Automatons have World War I era helmets, while the Rocket Automatons sport Civil War kepis.
  • Those Magnificent Flying Machines: The Mosquitoes are flying turrets suspended by balloons.

    Beasts 

Beasts

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/founders_beast.png
A Founder Beast

Heavily-armored troops wielding heavy weapons like RPGs and Volley Guns, seen often during enemy assaults covering them from afar with their explosive artillery. Much like the other Soldiers, there are three variations belonging to each of the factions fought in the game.


  • Achilles' Heel: Vigors. Bulky as their armor is against your weapons, it doesn't protect them from Vigors save for halving the effects of Undertow and Charge. Possession in particular will work exactly the way it does with other soldiers, giving you a strong temporary ally in the field and then making them kill themselves right afterwards.
  • Armor Is Useless: Downplayed; it does increase their resistance to gunfire, but enough shots to the head and the head casing will be blown clean off, giving them a very exploitable weak spot. It is, however, completely useless against the player's Vigors.
  • As the Good Book Says...: Founder-aligned Beasts, like the soldiers, will sometimes shout random Bible quotes during battle.
  • Cool Helmet: Some of the Founder Beasts have golden lion helmets, while Vox Beasts wear helmets in the shape of bull heads or devils.
  • Heavily Armored Mook: Their armor allows them to take much more damage than regular soldiers.
  • Mad Bomber: They're violent and aggressive against Booker regardless of faction, and will always use weapons whose ammunition is explosive and broadly damaging.
  • Mighty Glacier: Due to their heavy armor, it takes some effort to bring them down... unless you use Possession on them.
  • Super-Soldier: They are tougher and have more hit points than normal soldiers.
  • Unique Enemy: The very first Beast you see wears the same uniform as Slate's troops, and is the only Slate-specific Beast fought in the game.

    Firemen 

Firemen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fireman.png

"BURN IN THE NAME OF OUR PROPHET!"


Heavily-armored members of Columbia's military, these Heavy Hitters are burning for eternity in iron maiden-like devices powered by a bottle of Devil's Kiss. Equipped with the Vigor, they are often sent into situations that ordinary police officers or soldiers cannot handle alone. During the Vox Populi uprising, Vox-aligned Firemen start appearing as well.


  • The Atoner: According to the player's guide, Firemen are actually former Columbian criminals who've been captured by the Founders and sealed into iron maiden-like suits that constantly burn them, before being equipped with Devil's Kiss and put to work as shock troopers. Their dialogue suggests that they honestly believe they're repenting for their "sins", and that their fiery attacks are infernal judgment meted out against the enemies of the Prophet.
  • Ax-Crazy: They have a tendency to spout many fire related threats, and sometimes even shout nonsense that has nothing to to do with the situation at hand.
    YOUR FLESH WILL BLACKEN AND CHAAARRRR!
  • Clingy Costume: They have been sealed into those suits for all their lives. Their exact appearance underneath is unknown, but it's implied that the suit helps keep them alive while also keeping them in constant pain.
  • Degraded Boss: Initially, the Fireman is encountered as a boss — or at the very least, a miniboss. As the game goes on, however, Firemen are frequently encountered as high-class mooks.
  • Elite Mooks: After being degraded.
  • Expy: They are very similar to the Terran Firebats and Fanatics from Warhammer 40K.
  • Large Ham: Firemen are very shouty. Just listen.
  • No-Sell: Predictably, they are immune to Devil's Kiss.
  • One-Way Visor: Presumably they can see out, but from the outside it looks mirrored. This is Truth in Television with welding masks; The mask is very reflective so the sparks from welding don't blind the welder with light alone.
  • Playing with Fire: Hurling fireballs, using an AOE fireburst attack, and then potentially exploding when they die.
  • Pyromaniac: Implied, given that they're very enthusiastic about seeing Booker "BURN IN HELL!"
  • Reformed Criminal: In a twisted way — they're only "reformed" in the sense that they're now serving Comstock instead of defying him. Once the Vox uprising is in full swing, they appear to be more commonly aligned with the rebel forces than with the Columbian military and police.
  • Superpowered Mooks: Amped up by the Devil's Kiss Vigor.
  • Taking You with Me: A critically-damaged Fireman will activate a self-destruct and charge in your general direction. Pretty painful if it connects, but they only have a few seconds to reach you and tend to be easily outwitted by using environmental cover or Vigors to stall them. They also detonate prematurely if you damage them enough.
  • Tragic Monster: Some of their non-combat lines include "Let me out, it burns, it burns!" and "There's no forgiveness without sacrifice!" Sometimes they sound pained and exhausted even if uninjured. So... what kind of effect has constantly being steeped in Vigors had upon them?

    Crows 

Zealots of the Lady

Voiced by: T. Ryder Smith

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zealot.jpg

"No rest! No rest until the Lady's killer is in chains!"


Elite members of the Fraternal Order of the Raven, the Zealots of the Lady and their underlings are a religious movement that demonize Abraham Lincoln for his role in ending slavery in America and venerate his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, as a saint. While she was alive, they also worshipped Lady Comstock, hence their name; they blame themselves for failing to prevent her untimely death, and have sworn to vanquish the enemies of Columbia in their Lady's name. Furthermore, their devotion to blackbirds has led them to adopt the Murder of Crows Vigor as their weapon of choice, making the cultists challenging Heavy Hitters. Up close, they wield deadly swords to supplement their Vigor powers.


  • The Atoner: How they view themselves. They've taken the death of the Lady Comstock personally, lashing large coffins to their backs and vowing not to rest until "the Lady's killer is in chains". Enemy chatter indicates that this vow is wearing on their already tenuous sanity. Vox-aligned Zealots fill a more straightforward example of this trope, fighting against their former allies.
    "Pardon me Lady, please? [sobbing] Take this weight off my back, because I cannot bear it."
    "Come back! Don't let me fail Her again!"
  • Ax-Crazy: They're quite clearly mad, carrying around coffins and occasionally talking to the late Lady Comstock as if she's still there.
  • Big Brother Is Watching: According to the First Zealot's voxophone, they favor using the Murder of Crows vigor so they can "cover the city with eyes". It's strongly implied he means this literally.
  • Close-Range Combatant: They have no ranged attacks, but can easily approach you using Murder of Crows.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Apparently, the Order keeps around prisoners for exactly this reason.
  • Creepy Crows: Quite so. They utilize the Murder of Crows Vigor, dress in black, and are perpetually surrounded by flocks of crows. Even their meeting hall is infested with birds; nests in their statues, straw all over the place, and a lavish feast laid out and left to rot presumably to attract them. They don't even seem to bother cleaning up the mess the crows leave everywhere.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: They're first introduced by one of their number using his Vigor to execute a Chinese captive in this way.
  • Degraded Boss: At first, the only one encountered is the head of the Lodge, and is officially a boss; then, as Booker continues across Columbia and the other dimensions that contain it, he starts meeting them as mooks.
  • Elite Mooks: After becoming a Degraded Boss. By the end of the game they show up with no fanfare.
  • Expy: Imagine a Houdini Splicer with Insect Swarm instead of Incinerate!; dressed in a Black Cloak and spouting Religious Horror instead of a more personal brand of crazy nonsense, as well as favoring the Thuggish Splicer approach of close-range attacks.
  • Enemy Mine: In the second half of the game, they are suddenly aligned with the Vox Populi. The most likely explanation being that, they found out it was the leader of Columbia that murdered Lady Comstock, and they teamed up with the Vox to get their personal revenge.
  • Heel Realization: Vox-aligned Zealots seem to have discovered they had been deceived by Comstock and are eager to make him and the Founders pay for it.
  • The Klan: Strongly reminiscent of them, particularly with their hooded uniforms. They're also the Columbian mooks with the most evident and aggressive displays of racism.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: Yep, they unquestionably are.
  • Mark of Shame: The Zealots have a clothing-based version of this in the form of the large wooden coffins they have chained to their backs, as a reminder of their failure to protect Lady Comstock.
    "We wear our shame as a weight on our back. Lady, forgive those who deserve not your forgiveness."
  • No-Sell: They are immune to Murder of Crows, since they make use of it themselves.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: The Fraternal Order of the Raven takes this to an extreme — they're a turbo-charged, super-powered, government-sanctioned Ku Klux Klan that demonizes Lincoln and worships his killer as a saint.
  • Religion of Evil: More of a cult; as a crazier version of the KKK, it fits. They do seem to portray John Wilkes Booth as a saint, after all.
  • Secret Circle of Secrets: Fittingly, since they are the Klan Columbia-style.
  • Superpowered Mooks: They can dissolve into a flock of crows to flit from place to place in a manner reminiscent of Houdini Splicers.
  • Teleport Spam: Can teleport in and out of combat in the form of a Murder.
  • Unique Enemy: There is only one Zealot in the whole game (wearing a unique red outfit) who fights for the Vox Populi, and a couple (wearing soldiers' uniforms) who fight for Slate's soldiers; the others all work for the Founders.
  • Voice of the Legion: Zealots speak in strange, echoing voices. It's unclear whether it's caused by their masks or if it's some sort of side effect of their Vigor use.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting/The Worm That Walks: Each of them possess the ability to transform themselves into a flock of crows, which they often use in order to escape being injured in combat.
  • You Can Run, but You Can't Hide: Much like the Wader Splicers in the first game, they have several quotes to this effect.
    "You won't hide long from her! She knows no blindness!"
    "I don't see you, but she does! She does!"
    "I can't hide, and neither can you!"

    Patriots 

Motorized Patriot

Voiced by: Robin Atkin Downes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/motor.jpg
"Reap what you sow!"

"The Lord judges. I act."


A "Heavy Hitter" automaton enemy built in the likenesses of US Presidents, particularly the ones worshipped by Columbia's religion. Originally designed as tour guides and propaganda machines, the Founders repurposed them as walking tanks with heavy armor and giant Gatling guns sent to kill Booker and apprehend criminals as the Vox rises in power, with the rebels using their own brand of Patriot fashioned after Abraham Lincoln as a response to Columbia's demonizing of the great emancipator.


  • American Robot: Animatronic versions of famous U.S. presidents who blare anthems, spout slogans, mount stars and stripes flags, and wield Peppermills.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: The gears on their backs are their primary vulnerability, though head shots will do in a pinch until you've completely blown it off. They won't be dead, but pretty close.
    • Though it's resistant to stunning, like all Heavy Hitters, damage from the Shock Jockey Vigor will ignore its armor and so can bring it down swiftly, especially if combined with burst weapons like the Shotgun and Machine Gun. If nothing else, the Shock Jockey will stun them just like every other enemy you use it on, giving you time to circle behind them to shoot them in the back.
  • Clockwork Creature: They are composed of basic clockwork mechanisms — wires, gears, and a basic frame.
  • Cloudcuckoolanders: They are constantly spouting non-sequiturs.
  • Degraded Boss: The first time you encounter it, it's a lone boss match. It's extremely tough, it has a dynamic entry... and ten minutes later, you're fighting another one with a horde of soldiers. By the end of the game you're fighting two at once every few minutes.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Programmed to mow down enemies of Columbia with huge guns while spouting their lines as if always giving a grandiose speech.
  • Gatling Good: Wield deadly Peppermill Crank Guns.
  • Giant Mook: They're almost twice as tall as a normal man and behave the most like a "standard" FPS Giant Mook out of any enemy in the series; they can take a lot of bullets, are equipped with a minigun-like weapon, and slowly walk relentlessly towards you while firing.
  • Hazy-Feel Turn: Regardless of whether a Patriot represents Founders or Vox, they have the same voice blaring from their speakers. Presumably, the man who recorded those messages switched sides.
  • Horned Humanoid: The Vox version is based off the Order of the Raven's portrayal of Lincoln, which includes Devil horns.
  • Implacable Man: Ken Levine has said that what makes these such dangerous enemies is that they have no sense of self-preservation and simply march forward through any damage and danger to focus relentlessly on attacking the player.
  • Job-Stealing Robot: Slate doesn't think very highly of his replacements. The Patriots are called in as strike-breakers (of sorts) when the veterans go rogue.
  • Large Ham/No Indoor Voice: They spout loud, bombastic propaganda in the middle of combat, whether dealing or taking damage.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Patriots march forward at a steady pace, pumping bullets into their foes with deadly precision... until you manage to keep out of their line of sight long enough. Then watch those things double in speed and smack you with their guns before you know what's hit you.
  • Losing Your Head: Their heads pop off if you shoot it enough times. However, unless their health is completely depleted, it doesn't stop them from continuing to attack you, though their accuracy does seem to suffer a little from it.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: Masked robots, anyway, all wearing porcelain faces of old presidents; except for the ones on the Hand of the Prophet, who wear Comstock masks.
  • Mecha-Mooks: They are entirely robotic and never waver from their pursuit.
  • Patriotic Fervor: Built for it and noisy about it.
  • Propaganda Machine: A literal one, embodying all of Columbia's values: cacophonic jingoism, raw militarism, and historical white-washing (pun intended). The Vox-affiliated Patriots do the same, but instead promoting their values of rebellion, revenge against the Founders and worship of Daisy Fitzroy.
  • Robot Me: In the "Vox have guns already" Columbia, Comstock uses versions modeled after himself. Other versions are modelled after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
  • Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: They were originally used as tour guides: why would they need to be strong enough to carry a BFG? Since Columbia is paranoid about foreigners, they might be used to summarily execute any spies who've come under the guise of tourists.
  • Uncanny Valley: Intentionally so on the part of the game's artists. The rigid painted George Washington mask on the mechanical frame really sells it.

    Handymen 

Handymen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/handy.jpg

"I miss my old body! It was so... so warm! "


Handymen are primitive cyborgs employed in Columbia as brute labor. They are created from the merging of a crude exoskeleton (with the proportions of an ape) and human bodies, most of them unwilling participants and only having gone through it out of medical reasons. Due to the imperfect nature of the process, however, most "Handymen" have lost their sanity and are in constant pain.


  • Advertised Extra: They appeared prominently in almost every preview and trailer, and were billed as this game's equivalent to the Big Daddies. Booker fights four in total, and they have as much relevance to the overall plot as any of the other re-occurring enemies.
  • And I Must Scream: Unable to sleep, suffering from constant pain and barely sane — all things considered, these guys were probably better off sickly and crippled...
  • Apologetic Attacker: If you listen carefully, you'll realize that quite a few of their combat "taunts" aren't actually taunts at all. They're shouting at you to run away so they won't be forced to hurt you in the incoming berserk rage. And when they electrify the Sky-Lines, they'll preface it with "GET DOWN!" or "GET OFF THAT THING!", as a warning that if you don't let go, things will very shortly suck. Further emphasized by the fact that, in the Bad Future version of Columbia, a photograph of a Handyman has been added to a bulletin board of known sinners — the "sin" in question being pacifism.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: A glaringly obvious one in the form of their still beating hearts on display in the front of their bodies. Justified by the fact that they were designed for labor, not combat — they might even have been intended to be easy to shut down in case they ever get out of control.
  • Bald of Evil: Since no Handyman is shown with hair, presumably it's part of the transformation process. It doesn't help that it's stated most Handymen are to be made out of the physically infirm or terminally ill.
  • Body Horror: A majority of their dialogue is them cursing Comstock for what he did to them, screaming about how their transformation has them in constant pain and demanding their original bodies back.
  • Cheap Costume: Handymen loyal to Vox Populi go into battle wearing only strips of red cloth wrapped around their torso and face.
  • Clothing Damage: Non-fanservice example; the Founder Handymen apparently were once dressed in formal-looking jackets and trousers, but thanks to the exertions of their work, their uniforms have been worn down to rags.
  • Covered with Scars: What parts of them remain flesh are, at any rate.
  • Cyborg: Steampunk ones.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The very first trailer for Infinite featured the viewpoint character being attacked by a Handyman.
  • Elite Mooks: Without a doubt, they are among the toughest enemies you'll face.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: One of their primary attacks. They can leap very far as well.
  • Giant Mook: They don't start out small, but they get progressively bigger until they challenge Songbird for position of Largest Enemy in the Game.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: Capable of picking up and throwing both friends and foes.
  • Human Resources: The basic principle behind the Handyman? Take a sick, possibly dying person and cram them into a crude augmentic exoskeleton to keep them working. Worse, there's a rare quote from Vox Handymen that makes it clear that Comstock and Fink are willing to make Handymen out of perfectly healthy people if they think there's a need for them.
    Comstock took my body away... wasn't even sick!
  • Incurable Cough of Death: Sometimes after exerting themselves, they will stop and cough violently, pausing from their otherwise rapid rate of movement. Given many of them are implied to have been sick patients before being made into Handymen, this may be related to that, or difficulty getting enough oxygenation in their artificial bodies. This is the point at which they are most vulnerable to careful shots from the player.
  • Kill It with Water: Though they're resistant to Shock Jockey, perhaps due to being powered by it, this means that the basic water blast attack of Undertow will temporarily paralyze them, giving you a better chance to land a heart-shot.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The Handymen are terrifyingly fast and agile for their size. Their suits also give them Shock and Awe. And even if you attack their weakpoint, they can still take considerably more damage than most other enemies.
  • No-Sell: They are immune to the effects of Possession.
  • The Quiet One: Handymen can talk, it's just that not many of them are in the mood to do so outside of combat.
  • Shock and Awe: Can use their suits to manipulate electricity, throwing balls of it at Booker and electrifying Sky-Lines.
  • Shrinking Violet: The first Handyman encountered in the game is clearly an example; exhibited at the fairgrounds before a sizable audience and at least one photojournalist, he is seen hiding his face with his hands and flinching at the camera flashes.
  • Superpowered Mooks: Powered by Shock Jockey, capable of using it, and partially resistant to it as well.
  • Uncanny Valley: Their massive hands are deliberately modeled after porcelain dolls of the era. And their feet are fashioned like hob-nailed boots (with some bent nails hanging out).
  • Unique Enemy: Only one Vox Handyman is encountered in the game, in the Factory.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Thanks to their current condition, the Handymen are often overcome with fits of berserk rage — combat being a very easy way to ensure a rampage.
  • Was Once a Man: Ken Levine hints that there is something very sad as to why they are in mechanical bodies. The posters of their transformation at the 1912 Columbia Fair showing a bedridden and ill man in the "before" image hints at what this might be.
    • When you reach Columbia's shipping district, you can find a Voxophone with a recording by a working-class woman that says her husband was dying of stomach cancer, and she permitted him to be turned into a Handyman because that's still better than him being dead. A Voxophone located in Fink's Handyman construction area in Burial at Sea: Episode Two (in a room filled with sickbeds) confirms that every Handyman you see in the game is what's left of a terminally ill workman in Fink's employ.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: Most of the Handymen-to-be were disabled or in a critical condition around the time they were modified, and the adverts still emphasize the "rebuilding" aspect of the process. Of course, none of them mention the obvious problems in it.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The poor guys are in constant pain from the sensory overload they are subject to, clearly want to be left alone, and unlike the Big Daddies of Rapture, who have Little Sisters to love, they have no one. Late in the game you can find a group of Vox soldiers standing around a just-killed Handyman taking their picture with it like big-game hunters. That anecdote under Was Once a Man about the woman whose husband was terminally ill? The dead Handyman is clutching another Voxophone to his chest, this one of that same woman saying how proud she was to be his wife.

    Boys of Silence & Lunatics 

Boys of Silence

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boi_0.jpg

The disturbing guards of Comstock House, stationed all throughout the facility. They use their hearing and a white light indicator to search for unwanted movement, triggering nearby enemies tied to them via Tears. Despite being classified as a Heavy Hitter enemy, the Boys are impossible to kill and will disappear upon summoning their troops.


  • Bad Future: Revealed to have been created by a version of Elizabeth that fell prey to one of these outcomes. They patrol Comstock House in the future where Columbia attacks New York the same way Booker once dreamed about.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Unlike their flunkies, they're functional enough to serve a basic purpose from the outset. It doesn't mean they're any more stable than they are.
  • Child Soldier: Implied. Given that their school uniform-like outfits appear to be a few sizes too small for them, the Boys were likely recruited, trained and conditioned when they were children.
  • Demoted to Extra: The featured Heavy Hitters trailer implied they'd be scattered throughout the game on the streets of Columbia. Instead, they only appear in one level towards the end of the game, and you only encounter about five. It was also implied you could kill them if you were stealthy enough, but in the final version, hitting them just alerts them to your presence before they vanish.
  • Enemy Summoner: Their purpose is to survey the rooms of Comstock House for possible intruders, then alert the nearby Lunatics surrounding them if they do sense someone too close.
  • Expy: Their function as watchers of Comstock House is similar to Rapture's Security Cameras, making the Boys a living, organic version of them. The early trailers for Infinite even teased them as being Columbia's equivalent of the cameras until they were delegated to the late game.
  • Eyeless Face: The helmets have giant ear horns and no visible eyes, with a clear purpose of focusing on hearing someone instead of seeing them. Yet, the Boys of Silence use a light to spot any intruders.
  • The Faceless: Via wearing a large, all-enclosing helmet which never comes off. The helmet is attached to a leather shoulder strap with metal clamps and padlocked shut. Word of God is that the mystery of what was underneath was what helped sell the idea as being really creepy.
  • Future Shadowing: Their headgear can be found in Fink's Handyman construction area in Burial at Sea: Episode Two.
  • Ironic Nursery Rhyme: Inspired one about them:
    "Watch where you step! Don't say a word!
    You'll be in trouble if the Boys have heard!"
  • Jump Scare: Right after you open the gate to Elizabeth's room in the security hall, you turn around to find one standing right behind you. He is immediately set off.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: To summon other enemies. When they detect you, they emit a piercing shriek that alerts anyone around to your presence (it also deals very small damage if Booker's too close).
  • Patrolling Mook: This disturbing enemy scans the surrounding area for any intruders. If a Boy of Silence detects you, he will call in other opponents to attack you.
  • Reality Warper: Able to pull in minions from other dimensions via Tears connected directly to them.
  • Sense-Impaired Monster: They're fitted with oversized helmets that reduce sensory input to a pair of large ear trumpets and a narrow slot for vision. This sensory deprivation combined with heavy psychological conditioning makes them incredibly sensitive to sound and motion, useful as Living Motion Detectors and enforcers of the World of Silence.
  • Villain Teleportation: The Boys of Silence have a limited ability to open Tears of their own, allowing them to escape if threatened and leave behind only the Comstock House inmates tied to them.


Lunatics

The inmates of Comstock House, all of them wearing masks representing Columbia's worshipped presidents. If a Boy of Silence is tipped off to Booker's presence, it will "activate" the Lunatics surrounding it to attack him.
  • Alternate Self: They were forcibly exposed to every single alternate version of themselves all at once by Elizabeth in the bad future. They are simultaneously themselves and not.
  • And I Must Scream: Their "treatment" involved exposing them to their alternate selves all at the same time, as well as permanently connecting them to the Tears the Boys of Silence have control over. Along with having to wear the president masks, these people are completely broken, unable to coherently form any sentence that properly expresses the pain they feel and only capable of rambling nonsense most of the time, even when attacking.
  • The Faceless: Like the Boys of Silence, the Lunatics wear masks that hide their real faces.
  • Empty Shell: The bad future version of Elizabeth exposed them to their alternate selves in order to break apart their minds and free will, in a similar vein to how it happened to herself at Comstock's hands in that future. All that's left of these former citizens are crazy, broken shells that attack intruders on command.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Given the murals at the entrance to Comstock House, it's implied these are former Columbian citizens that failed to adhere to Elizabeth's strict rule and methods after Comstock's brainwashing, and becoming broken guards for the asylum is their punishment.
  • Primitive Clubs: They all have ripped bed posts and wooden chair legs on hand to attack with, further showing how they've been reduced to brutal savages that attack trespassers on command.
  • Zerg Rush: Their only strategy when turned hostile is to rush at Booker all at once with no finesse or strategy.

    Frosty Splicer 

Frosty Splicer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frosty_splicer.png
An enemy exclusive to the Burial at Sea DLC, these Splicers have consumed a massive amount of the Old Man Winter Plasmid, turning their bodies into ice.
  • An Ice Person: The result of over consuming the Old Man Winter Plasmid.
  • Body Horror: As a result of overconsumption of the Old Man Winter Plasmid, these splicers have icicle-like tumors growing on their bodies, in addition of having blue skin and glowing eyes.
  • Degraded Boss: Like with the first Fireman, the first Frosty Splicer fought is considered a boss but when encountered again, they are fairly weaker.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: These ice-based enemies can be handily defeated by fire-based attacks.
  • Logical Weakness: Using Devil Kiss or Radar Range will make short work of them.
  • No-Sell: In Episode Two, they are resistant to tranquilizer darts. At best, the darts can only slow them down.
  • Reused Character Design: They are based on the Shock Jockey Junkie enemies during the development stage of the game.

Alternative Title(s): Bio Shock Infinite Protagonists

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