Warning: this whole post will contain Major Spoilers. And since quite a few people don’t like the good Major, I figured I’ll warn you. Despite his military rank, the guy can be quite annoying – especially when he tells you that “Bruce Willis was a ghost” or that “it was his sled”. So yeah – if you haven’t finished Bioshock and you don’t want to get spoiled, you probably should stop reading around… Now!
Yeah, right now. Otherwise, you will get spoiled.
Those of you who did play the game will probably recognize the quote from the posts title. Those are of course the last words of Andrew Rayan before you club him to death with his own putter. Which btw, is actually completely justified – anyone who has a putting mat in his or her office should be severely beaten with their club. But I digress.
In case you don’t remember Ryan’s speech, let me remind you:
Bioshock – Andrew Ryan & Atlas Speech by shaddyhacker
Why did Andrew Ryan do it? Why did he order you to kill him? What is the exact meaning of his last words. I’ve been pondering this for a while now and I can see several possible explanations. I wanted to briefly discuss some of them here and then listen to your thoughts on the topic.
Assisted Suicide
One possible explanation is that Rayan realized that his dream lies in ruin, and that he became what he despised the most – a social parasite. His own actions perverted Rapture into a twisted police state. He willfully engaged in acts that were completely against his beliefs – censorship, forceful nationalization of private corporations, trade sanctions and etc. He realizes he was drunk with power, and acted like a complete a hypocrite.
When he meets you he demonstrates that he has complete control over your actions. He could easily make you kill yourself, or send you after Atlas instead. But he chooses not to. As if to atone for his sins he decides to take himself out of the equation.
He was slave to his own desires, dreams and goals. He was clinging to power where he should have let go a long time ago. This addiction to power has led him astray and caused the downfall of his city. So he chooses to die as a man, and take the blasted city with him.
Then again, if this was his choice, wouldn’t he choose to die stoically proudly? Something in his frantic repetition of that phrase tells me he is not really repenting.
No one kills me, but me
Perhaps Rayan doesn’t see the error of his ways, but simply realizes that his death is inevitable. Atlas seems to be hell bent on destroying him, and with Rapture going to pieces he really can’t expect to live much longer. So he chooses to defy Atlas and die of his own accord.
He decides to take his own life now before Atlas can take it. He won’t give him the satisfaction. His last words are a mockery – he openly taunts you and Atlas. You are a mindless puppet that can be easily controlled, and Atlas is a fool for sending you. You only got this far, because Rayan allowed you to. At any point he could have said: “kill yourself, would you kindly” – but he never did.
That still, doesn’t ring completely true. When he says the line “A man chooses, a slave obeys” he almost seems to be pleading with you.
Awakening the Ghola
My favorite theory is that Ryan is making a desperate attempt to break your conditioning. He figures that the act of killing your own father (estranged or not) is so traumatic that it will free you from the conditioning. Which is actually not as crazy as it sounds.
In Frank Herbert’s Dune series this is actually the standard method of awakening the genetic memories of Gholas – vat grown clones. Since birth they are conditioned with a compulsion to kill a carefully selected target upon hearing a trigger word. Once the clone is the correct age he is exposed to the target – an important person from the life of the original person whose DNA was used for cloning (or a convincing double). It’s usually a spouse, lover, parent, sibling, mentor or favored pupil. When given the trigger the Ghola is compelled to commit the murder, but also incapable to do so. The psychological trauma is so great that it breaks the conditioning, and somehow gives the Ghola access to the memories of the original.
Perhaps Rayan is trying to do the same in a last ditch attempt to both save his life, and save yours. The fact that he doesn’t make you kill yourself shows that he won’t kill his own child, no matter what. So he puts his own life on the line trying to snatch you out of Atlas’ clutches. It also explains why he allows you to get so close. This is the only way he can attempt to counteract the brainwashing you underwent.
Of course he couldn’t allow you to just waltz into his office – that would be suspicious. He must keep Atlas in the dark, and he makes you work for it. He is probably hoping that all the hardships you need to undertake, and the persistent danger will weaken the conditioning.
Until his last breath, he believes you are actually stronger than the compulsion. His last words are directed at you, and you only. Ryan tells you to break your bonds, and be a man. He tells you to choose, because he truly believes you can. The whole experience he designed for you – the stress, tension, fear – all are aimed to fuck with your head, and put you in the right frame of mind. One in which the brainwashing can be shrugged off.
Sadly he is mistaken, but I think this is a decent theory. How about you?
Why do you think Rayan gives you a golf club, and orders you to kill him? What is his purpose? What are his last words supposed to mean? I’d love to hear your take on this.
My take is a mix between your first and third theories. Ryan saw that his dream had been crushed and knew he had to take responsibility. He couldn’t take back control of Rapture from Fontaine, thanks to you kind help, and eventually activated the self destruct mechanism in a last desperate attempt to blow the city along with all its dangers. When you get to him, his mind is already set on suicide : he was waiting in his office for the self destruct to go off, playing golf… As you meet him face to face, he realizes his options are to either take you and Rapture with him or let you kill him. Either way releases him from his responsibilities, that he can’t deal with anymore.
What would have made sense would be to just stall you until the self destruct went off, something he could have done very easily. Escape is not an option as that would mean witnessing the horrors Fontaine will do once totally in control. However, I guess taking his life achievement, his all-time dream come true and his child was too much to bear for an aging man, and he chose to simply let go. He tries to break your mental conditioning, with the slight hope that at least you can be saved, and is okay with both outcomes : either your release, or his.
I think Ryan is not dead. Think back in the game a bit. Think back to the audio diaries:
This was a good way for Ryan to get Fontaine out of the way. Maybe we will find out in Bioshock 2, or even 3 (I have read that 2K is already planning the third game).
I kind of agree with the last theory.
Ok, remember how Tenenbaum talked about how only people with Andrew Ryan’s Genetic code could respawn in the Vita Chambers? Doesn’t this mean that as soon as you killed Ryan he respawned himself elsewhere? I agree with Craig.
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.
Oh wait, had he used a chamber he would’ve spawned in the next room and you would’ve seen him.
@ 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.
‘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
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?
@ 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.
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… … -.-?
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.
@ 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?”…
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.