It’s obvious that Andrew Ryan is a lot like Comstock in the last Bioshock game, with all of his compulsive obsession to create a city and fight against a group of resistance and government. Maybe, Irrational should make the next boss of the next Bioshock game to be different from the rest of the series, although using the similar concept would still work great and sell great.

@ Craig A. Betts:

Sorry, but that theory is void… before Ryan orders you to kill him, you can plainly see that he had shut off his Vita-Chamber before. He intended to be dead forever…

And my theory for Andrew ordering Jack to kill him is… well think of it this way, throughout the game the player should have started to doubt Atlas’s intentions and suspect something else. And if you were like me, as soon as Andrew said “A man chooses, a slave obeys” you began to realize something was determinately going on. What better way to prove a point, then sacrificing your own life (which was already in peril anyway), to get the most important of points across to your son. Which is “Why am I doing this?”…

I felt like he did it because Andrew Ryan, above all, believed in the will and the capabilities of man. He created a world because he thought that people could accomplish great things if they were not restricted by government.
He made the command because he believed that the strength of will would overcome it. After all, in his mind, nothing is stronger than human will, and no one would want to be a slave instead of a man.

Awesome discussion you guys got going on here. I loved the plot twist in Bioshock. I’ve beaten the 2nd one (bad ending only/ first one, good and bad only, not neutral, though neutral is just bad with a sad tone instead of angry least I’ve READ theres a neutral ending in the 1st) Anywho… to anyone who might read this and be interested enough to reply…

Ryan won’t kill his own son, huh? What in the sweet name of merciful JESUS did he think was gonna happen to you two when the self-destruct went off, huh?!?! Crazy f***… (Andrew Ryan not the poster, lol :P)
Did he want Fontaine to save you by stealing the city? Why? Why would he want him to steal his city, even though it’s ruined? I thought he said he’d sooner destroy it, than let Frank have it…

Coming from someone who has NOT played SS OR SS2… The WYK(Would You Kindly) room was confusing for me at first. I didn’t examine it. Just grabbed all I could carry and moved on. Ryans speech was still definitely the climax. But I [still] wouldn’t go so far as to say that Fontaines transition was an anti-climax. More of a turning point for me. It kind of drew attention away from Andrew, and thawed that frozen, locked-up feeling of disbelief, (which was much needed, ty very much :P) Kind of put me in a “pissed-off-ready-to-kick-your-ass-for-revenge” kind of mood, you know? At that point, I realized or decided, “whichever you prefer…” ;) that Andrew Ryan was the good guy, at least in my own personal opinion. The Anti-climax for me was easily getting locked out of Tenenbaum’s Safehouse -.- Yeah. Thanks for that. I rescue ‘your’ “little ones”, you save my life and never want to see my face again. That sounds fair… (:P)

But I really must grind this rant to a screeching halt. It’s getting awfully late. Hopefully this isn’t one of those webpages that virtually no one reads, Ha ha ha… ha… Ha… … -.-?

@ Andrew Ryan:

Heh! Very interesting question.

Hypothesis #1: Jack would follow the most recent order. It would be logical to condition him in such a way that a new order will override previous one. As in:

“Would you kindly press that button… Oh crap! Wait… Wrong button… Errr… Would you kindly not press that button!”

This could be used as a fail-safe, so that you can switch-off a previously issued order half way through if needed.

Hypothesis #2: Jack’s brain would short circuit and he would stand their indecisively unable to do one or the other.

Personally I like hypothesis #1.

Does somebody know what would have happened to Jack if both Atlas and Ryan gave him different orders at the same time using the “Would you kindly” phrase?

‘Choice’ is one of the major themes of Bioshock, and is inherent in Andrew Ryan’s personal motto. The theme of self-determination and the question of destiny in the game is embodied by this phrase. During the game, the player, Jack, is given many choices, both tactically and morally, but his actions turn out to be illusory: his will had been controlled and driven by Frank Fontaine, under the guise of Atlas, via the phrase he’d been conditioned to obey, “Would you kindly…”

Ryan, once he identified that Jack was actually his illegitimate son, first openly controlled the him with the code phrase, forcing him to obey pet commands to convince him of how powerless he really was. Andrew Ryan then used this phrase to have the player kill him.

“Stop, would you kindly? (Jack reacts instantly, and obeys the command involuntarily) ‘Would you kindly’… Powerful phrase. Familiar phrase? (Jack experiences a cascade of memories of Atlas ordering him around with the phrase, “Would you kindly”) Sit, would you kindly? (Jack obeys) Stand, would you kindly? (Jack obeys) Run! Stop! Turn. (Jack obeys) A man chooses, a slave obeys. (Ryan hands Jack his golf club) Kill! (Jack obeys, striking him with the club) A man chooses! (Jack strikes again) A slave obeys! (Jack strikes again) OBEY! (Jack kills Ryan with a final, deadly blow)'”
―Andrew Ryan

Unable to stop, Jack was forced to acknowledge that he never had a choice, even the “plane crash” that sent him to Rapture was due to Jack hijacking the plane and deliberately crashing it at the lighthouse.
-BIOSHOCK Wiki

@ Hector B:

Yeah, I think his Vita chamber is disabled. This isn’t to say that there is not another one somewhere else that restored him to life. But I doubt it.

Oh wait, had he used a chamber he would’ve spawned in the next room and you would’ve seen him.

Although I automatically assumed that it was an attempt to break the mind control (and in the process teach his son a life lesson about not succumbing to peer pressure), the vita-chamber argument seems to make perfect sense. Of course, we’d have to wait for the sequel to resolve that question.