This all came about because I said “would you kindly get the door,” to a grad student named Patrick. Patrick, better versed in video games than I, hesitated slightly before giving me a wry grin and opened the door for me and the folks we were walking with.
It took me a minute to realize what I said. Well, specifically the manner in which I said it.
Would you kindly…?
You see, I’ve been using that phrase for a while. I mean, even before I knew what it meant to a certain legion of folks who found themselves surviving a burning plane crash and ending up somewhere between the surface and bottom of the ocean. Before 2007, I actually used it as a way to politely (I hoped) request tasks to be done of my brother or twin sister, or friends.
I also didn’t play Bioshock until seven years after it’d come out. But man, that explains the looks certain people gave me every time I used the phrase.
Patrick had a cool theory, a different way to look at Bioshock. He asked me to think of Bioshock as a commentary on games. Specifically, on how games were played. As if the whole game up to you beating Andrew Ryan’s face with a golf club was a tutorial on game design and gaming in general, and the rest of it is a reflection back on gamers.
I liked the concept, I hadn’t thought about the game in that way and Patrick was able to give me some further insight to support his theory from Bioshock: Infinite, without any spoilers, which was a game I haven’t yet played (I know, I know).
Would you kindly? didn’t cross my mind again until maybe a week later. See, there were these set of hate preachers–very common around my campus, unfortunately, and I finally decided to stand up to them.
So there I was, holding a stone in my hand, getting accused of being a sexual predator, being inhuman, spreading curses and plagues on the unwitting masses, and shoving “political agendas down the poor public’s throat.” All because I mentioned I was trans. I watched him craft this wonderful narrative that made me the “Other,” some sort of non-human monster instead of a 5 foot 3 inch terrified almost graduate.
You see, I thought that if I stood up to him, if I brought him the weapon he kept shouting at us about (he’d threatened to stone “stoners, sluts, and illegitimate children” at some point in his tirade over one of the days. Yeah, he and his sister(?) were there for almost two weeks, if I recall correctly), that maybe he’d actually throw the stone at me, and if he did, we could finally get the guy to be banned from campus. Plus, if he didn’t throw the stone, after saying how high and mighty he was, maybe that’d prove to others that he was really just yelling to yell.
As the man shouted at me, as I struggled not to shake every time he got closer, my brain warped his words into nice little phrases. Would you kindly keep YOUR kind out of bathrooms? Would you kindly conform to your designated sex? Would you kindly keep your mouth shut? Would you kindly stop existing?
After awhile, the man stopped spewing hate at me and moved on to a group of minority students, because they obviously needed the word of his god more than I did, and I had stopped being interesting because I’d just stood there with my rock.
I dunno, seems kind of like a stupid idea now that I look back at it. Obviously, he didn’t throw the stone at me. Obviously, I didn’t make any bit of difference. But at least I chose to try to do something, I guess?
—
My discussion with Patrick and later my encounters with the hate preacher made me realize how relevant the themes presented in Bioshock are today. I’m sure I’m beating a dead horse at this point.
“A man chooses, a slave obeys!” Andrew Ryan yells this at you right before (and during, if I recall right) you crack his skull open with a golf club. Yes, we’re treated to a rather interesting speech about freedom of thought and choice by a man who tried to make a perfect city at the bottom of the ocean. And who, in one way or another, silenced people who did not think it was perfect.
But when I think about that speech again, specifically the line above, it makes me think about today and media. People only see the problems they want to see, only get the information that is easiest and most widely spread (obey). Those who search for more information, seek truth and understanding of multiple viewpoints are silenced as socialists, “haters,” SJWs, “being too sensitive…” Pick your title.
It’s interesting that we have to choose to think. At least, that’s what Andrew Ryan seemed to spout off. And I struggle with this, because does he mean “think” as common sense, as human decency, as treating people respectfully and moving forward, or does he mean think as educate, as academic thought and merit?
There’s a whole lot of disparity that keeps people from “getting the best education.” Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s social standing, maybe it’s the fact that your university allows hate preachers and militant parties come and shout horrible things because of your race, creed, or appearance under the guise of “free speech”. Maybe it’s some form of institutionalized, societally accepted bias that supports some bullshit notion that you’re not as good as me, because I’m white, or because he’s male, or because she comes from a better background than you.
You choose, though. Someone does. Someone’s braver than me.
And Splicers rain down from the sky and tear their skin apart. How dare you say something’s wrong.
—
The primary for my state just closed and on one hand it seems like my vote counted for something and on the other hand the whole thing seems pointless. The current election in American politics is starting to look horribly like Ryan vs Fontaine, a battle between two people who shouldn’t have power but unfortunately we’re trying to give it to them anyway.
And even the candidate I’m rooting for reminds me suspiciously of Atlas. Too good to be true, too likely to be a front for something much worse.
You can’t tell me you don’t see it. This “make America great again” nonsense that sounds a lot like the Splicers telling you “no I swear it was fine before you got here, why’d you make it worse?” When I’m sitting here, not old enough to truly have an opinion but completely aware of how “great again” makes no sense. When was America totally great? Before we all got here? When there was no people? Before a bunch of Englishmen showed up and killed the indigenous folks who were already here?
Make America Great Again groups say, blaming immigrants, the poor, people of color, those LGBTQ+ identified for speaking up, for lashing out, for existing. Keep only the people who think like me, look like me.
Hell, I don’t think even Rapture went that far. Not that they lasted much longer. I think that they didn’t care where you came from or who you were, so long as you had the specific intellect they wanted. I mean, I know that’s problematic, but the fact that’d I’d risk myself there, even though I know how it ended up, versus trying to ride it out here makes me wonder about the state of everything as it is.
