I still disagree (Gaming)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, August 15, 2013, 13:02 (3906 days ago) @ Jillybean
edited by Ragashingo, Thursday, August 15, 2013, 13:10

We see so little of the revolution - particularly because we keep using plot devices to jump into a slightly different timeline - that Daisy's turn is meaningless. She goes from slave to revolutionary to leader to villain in the space of a few jumps. Where is her journey? We're given absolutely no reason for her corruption other than the tired old saying "power corrupts".

Despite the jumps I think Fitzroy's motivations remained pretty much the same throughout the entire game. She was a good maid in Comstock House, and possibly even Lady Comstock's friend, but was unfairly blamed for her murder. She ran and hid in Finkton and had her eyes opened to just how bad people of her race, those not lucky enough to be serving in high up places like Comstock House, were being treated. At that point she realizes that a revolution is possible, that it just needs a spark and a voice that she can provide. Which she does.

I put forth that Fitzory was on the path to bloody revolution from the very first time we met her. Before that even. When we arrive in Colombia the police were receiving shipments of Skyhooks not because they were standard issue, but because Vox were using the skylines to steal and (if I remember correctly) kill. An earlyish Voxaphone has Fitzory musing that Booker might be someone she can use to get her revolution started. When they first meet after Booker and Elizabeth steal the airship Fitzroy doesn't come aboard to force Booker to help in some kind of peaceful protest, she wants guns.

We go through multiple tears and see things get worse and worse from then on, but were we ever lead to believe that any version of Fitzory was going to use those guns for peaceful purposes? I say no. Where is Daisy Fitzroy's journey from slave to villain? I argue that it happened many years before Booker even arrived, and that the only Fitzroy we ever saw in game was already a villain. The only different between early game Fitzroy and late game Fitzroy was the means to get her revenge.

The revolution becomes a second-act villain like it would in any game, with no more reason than because the game says "Oh and by the way, power corrupts". Infinite never pays any due to the stories it try to tell - it has no respect for those emotional journeys. It's so busy making its vulnerable, busty leading lady shed a few tears and look attractive bruised that it doesn't want to tell us why Daisy might be corruptible at all.

Again I disagree. I see Fitzroy's story as one of oppression, of being blamed for killing one of the most important people (white people no less!) in all of Colombia, seeing the true oppression of people like her down in Finkton, and seeking bloody, revolutionary revenge. Yes, the message that power corrupts is a part of Daisy's story, but I think you're closing your eyes to her backstory and looking for a character to have a journey when she had already had it and was set on a fixed course of action by the time we meet her.

That said, if you want to argue that a few hidden voxaphones aren't enough establish a character's motives I'd still probably disagree, but it would be very sympathetic disagreement. If that's even a thing.

P.S. I'm not touching the sexual argument, not because I don't want to, but because I tried and found I didn't understand enough of what you were trying to say or what you wanted to see instead.