Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games.
Very good choice of masks and very metaphoric indeed.
It was not a sociopath city, it was a city of strung out drug addicts with few places to turn to get their fix.
Those above them however, they definitely reflected traits of amorality behind a banner of idealism. Their good intentions went down the shitter once Andrew Ryan began to fear his utopia was leaving his grasp (that and building a society underwater is extremely unrealistic).
Even without Fontaine's hand in play, the place would have fallen apart. The real poison was Dr. Suchong, a poison that outlived his own mortality. Even his origin story is dark.
I believe it was.
If you played Burial at Sea episode 2, you got to see Rapture at it's prime. There is a section in Rapture where you run across a daycare center, within you find loads of propaganda that reprimand empathy and glorify greed. This is a reoccurring theme throughout Rapture and even turned into a semi religious idea called "The Great Chain".
I love the idea of Rapture, where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientists would not be bound by petty morality and where the great would ultimately not be constrained by the small. I wish Ryanism was a real thing.
The city went down because fontaine appealed to the poor and weak, he so easily manipulated an entire city by showing a little empathy.
"Who needs to recruit an Army? Hell, you make these poor saps feel like they're worth a nickel and they'll die for you."
By the time Andrew Ryan tried to save his city it was lost to the parasites.
"If you played Burial at Sea episode 2, you got to see Rapture at it's prime. There is a section in Rapture where you run across a daycare center, within you find loads of propaganda that reprimand empathy and glorify greed. This is a reoccurring theme throughout Rapture and even turned into a semi religious idea called "The Great Chain". "
It promoted the values of being self-serving, but it did not go as far as to attack empathy (if anything, The Great Chain was his attempt at manipulating empathy in a robotic fashion). It began as a system of ideals, but too many needs and costs were ignored. In the first game, the audio diaries soon revealed that Andrew Ryan had no idea how to run anything, just how to speak eloquently and throw money and supplies at people to get things done. His weakness was that, as a leader, he was just promoting a philosophy with no idea of how to make it a functioning reality paired with a lack of foresight at the place's true dangers. It's no question why he became a pseudo-dictator once the values of the surface began to seep into his walls, seeing as the very freedom he offered was what would eventually destroy him.
I'd say it was an idealists (almost libertarian at points) wet dream that, as the pipes broke, became a little too wet. When problems were brought up, he threw money at them and ignored them as if they would fix everything through the sweat of another's brow, even when the requirements weren't possible or the requests themselves were a scam. He was first blinded by his vices and his ideals, and later, as he saw that the walls were crumbling around him, he denied what he was becoming in the name of "The Ends Justify the Means" if not "If I Can't Have It, Nobody Can!" related to his hatred of the surface. When he saw there was nothing left to save, he effectively forced your character to perform a "Suicide by Cop" moment.
In summation, he was an idealist who figured the world could sustain itself, but once he saw that it was tearing his world apart, he became the very thing he hated out of fear. In the end, it was obvious that it was all about him and his narcissism.
"I love the idea of Rapture, where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientists would not be bound by petty morality and where the great would ultimately not be constrained by the small. I wish Ryanism was a real thing."
Again, Suchong was the true poison. Even if the place had fallen apart around him, Suchong was the true Psychopath in that society. It's largely his fault that the splicers became what they did since he cared not for longevity, only creativity and his own survival. He even at a point convinced Ryan that the people could be mind controlled through pheromones and plasmids, an offer he accepted once he felt cornered and afraid. This fit Ryan's values in a dark and twisted way. His history was supposedly him surviving by poisoning the Japanese with Opium:
Suchong: "War a terrible thing. Japanese kill every man in my city, except for Suchong. Suchong have opium. Very good opium. This war, terrible thing, too, but not for Suchong..."
Ryan's philosophy was a fun one, but his means of building the world he saw was in his head was horribly misguided.
"The city went down because fontaine appealed to the poor and weak, he so easily manipulated an entire city by showing a little empathy."
Actually, it was thanks to Fontaine that the place kept itself up as long as it had. When the walls were falling apart, he offered to fix it with sloppy shortcuts. The children needed an orphanage to not be walking the streets, so he built one. The employees under Ryan's employ were fired, so he hired them to keep them afloat.
He aimed to undermine and conquer Ryan's society, but he was not poisonous beyond sloppiness and greed.
"By the time Andrew Ryan tried to save his city it was lost to the parasites."
What Ryan didn't realize was that every human is a parasite, and as he descended to his end, his narcissism began to break down as he saw he was one as well.
I see.
I would like to believe Rapture would be fine without individuals like Suchong or Fontaine. Ryan overcame the impossible to reach his(well, my) dream and fell just short of success. Rapture had so much potential, I mean besides plasmids they invented the Thinker, surely the next wonder of the world.
Agreed, Suchong was the lead contributor to Rapture's demise.
Empathy wasn't accepted in Rapture, in that room with the anti empathy propaganda you find a crossbow laying on the desk, which has indicators to it's use. If any abnormal signs of empathy arouse from the individual they were labeled parasites and blacklisted. Eerily similar to the Red Scare and McCarthyism in America. Would you say communism wasn't attacked during that time in the U.S.?
Do you prefer Columbia or Rapture?
"Empathy wasn't accepted in Rapture"
It was... but only in a twisted sense that he could control. He still promoted family values for example, which without empathy would make no sense.
If anything, he devalued the importance of it, and only really blacklisted them if they aimed to spread their agenda beyond themselves.
His fear of the harm that it could do was closer to reflecting his fear of things like Sophia Lamb's ambitions.
"I would like to believe Rapture would be fine without individuals like Suchong or Fontaine."
Rapture would have been fine if the looney didn't decide to build it underwater. At the very least it's fall would have gone very differently.
"Do you prefer Columbia or Rapture?"
Rapture would be easier to scam, but it was doomed to fail.
Columbia had longevity, but the society was cult-driven, and the costs were far too high.
To be honest, I prefer neither. Both were reflections of poor leadership pushed to their extremes. Philosophically however, Ryan, however narcissistic he was, hands down had the better views. He just enlisted the wrong people and let too much slide without his watching eye overseeing what was going on. The man spent his nights partying.