Upon finishing Bioshock Infinite, I was left with an overwhelming feeling of knowing less than I knew at the beginning of the game. Staring into the faces of eight very different Elizabeth/Anna’s, some of which I knew and some of which I did not, and being told I was simultaneously Booker DeWitt and Father Comstock probably threw me through the biggest loop. It was not until I watched a rather lengthy explanation on YouTube that I began to understand the game’s somewhat warped model of string theory and relativity and all the physics I do not understand (confession: I have never taken a formal physics class).

My understanding as it stands is that in the model of the infinite lighthouses, where each lighthouse represents a different universe with slight to vast variations from another infinite number of other universes, there was one where a sterile Comstock existed and a separate one where Booker DeWitt existed. In each of these universes, the other is the counterpart to the other, but Comstock did not exist in his own universe until after the Battle of Wounded Knee, a formative experience in Booker’s life. Some number of years this separation occurs and Columbia secedes from the United States, Booker has a daughter, Anna, in his own universe. Comstock being sterile, cannot produce offspring but finds out about Booker who is genetically identical to him with the help of the Luteces. Anna is then kidnapped by Comstock and raised as his own; Comstock kills the Luteces to prevent the truth about Anna/Elizabeth coming out. Booker, a widower and now childless, essentially goes on a several year bender filled with drinking, gambling, and God knows what else. We start the game when his mind constructs the idea that he needs to find Elizabeth to settle a gambling debt, when in reality he is trying to find his daughter.