[ SECRET POST #4492 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4492 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #643.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/rSxY9Th.png

[(Anonymous)]

Judaism is a complex thing, and in a lot of ways it exists simultaneously as a religion, a culture, and also an ethnicity. And that's all I have to say about that.

[(Anonymous)]

Being Jewish is certainly an ethnicity. But Judaism is explicitly a religion. I grant "culture" - that's true for all mainstream religions, really, because religious ritual and ceremony and other traditions can bleed into normal life even if you don't really believe anything.

[liz_marcs]

Heh. I juuuuuust started getting into video games after years of being video game-curious while being put off by the toxic culture. My brother who's been playing for years, but has managed to avoid the toxic gaming culture after sticking his toe in and fleeing screaming from the scene, said there were plenty of games I'd enjoy and it's fairly easy to ignore the fandom if I play single-player or cooperative player games with people I know.

His recommendation: Start with Bioshock. The Collection.

Which is to say OP, I'm PSYCHED to see this comment because I can get the context of what you're talking about.

That said, the Tumblr fan isn't all that far off the beam.

Brigid Tenenbaum is explicitly a Jewish character and a Holocaust survivor to boot.

Andrew Ryan is basically a gender-switch Ayn Rand, who was herself a Russian-Jewish emigre. So, maybe more implicit than explicit there. But assuming the Russian-Jewish part (emigre or first generation American), that would by extension make Jack (the protagonist) at least partly Jewish.

Based on the rest of the series, I don't think Andrew Ryan would give a rat's fart about whether anyone was Jewish, just as long as they (along with everyone else in Rapture) was a-religious.

I think Frank Fontaine played the Christian religious angle only as a way to co-opt the smugglers, but didn't really give a damn beyond that. And Sofia Lamb was a stone-cold religious nutjob of the Christian variety.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[feotakahari]

To be fair, getting really angry with God is a long and storied Jewish tradition. This is also where people get Jewish Lex Luthor and Jewish Edward Elric.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, there's plenty of people who are ethnically Jewish and are atheist. As a few commenters above noted, being Jewish has many facets.

[(Anonymous)]

Fandom being fandom, not surprising.

[scrubber]

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/09/faith-in-rapture-ken-levine-shares-thoughts-on-creating-authentic-diversity.aspx

Ummm...

“If you dig into the audio logs, Ryan was born in Russia (much like Ayn Rand), he was middle class (much like Ayn Rand),” Levine tells me as we begin our conversation. When the Bolshevik revolution happened, his family business was destroyed. That was a defining event for him: the nationalization of all these industries, his family business was destroyed, and Jews weren’t exactly beloved in Russia to begin with, but especially a Bourgeois Jew.”

One might think that moving to America after that would amplify the sense of freedom a young Andrew Ryan felt. However, it was quite the opposite. Any restriction chafed.

“His family came to America, and he lived his life in response to that event, that that would never happen to him again,” Levine explained. “He had a mistrust of government, a mistrust of socialism, a mistrust of all those things. That led him to becoming the guy he was. Even America was too government-oriented for him. It’s why he created Rapture. It’s all a response to this thing that happened when he was a kid, and because he was Jewish.”

Like half the cast of Bioshock 1 is Jewish. There are plenty of Jewish atheists, like Ayn Rand, who don't like religion. I think maybe you didn't see "Jewish" as an ethnic/cultural label that the person you talk about is almost certainly using.

[liz_marcs]

Thanks for this. I assumed that since Andrew Ryan is basically the gender-switched Ayn Rand that he'd match her on this. I'm glad to see that I wasn't off base there.

Plus, wouldn't it be more like three-fourths of the main cast (Andrew, Brigid, Jack) confirmed? Fontaine/Atlas definitely isn't.

Of the other major characters, Dr. Steinman and Sander Cohen *might* be based on their last names. Peach Wilkins and Dr. Langford I would guess aren't based on their last names.

So even if we make some generous assumptions, you're looking at a little over half.

sorry I'm late

[scrubber]

No problem! Some of the dialogue surrounding the franchise over the years has done a lot to irritate me, so I will keep a working knowledge of it probably forever.

Ken Levine confirmed in another interview (I probably couldn't find it, I read it like 5 years ago) that Cohen and Steinman are Jewish. It's extra-canonical, but like you say, if you know common Jewish surnames you can make some educated guesses. I think the main writer for Bioshock being a Jewish man who reads a lot of history does an awful lot to inform the world he made.

Oh yeah, I forgot the Jewish atheist at the heart of it all! Levine himself, haha.

And I didn't mean that literally half the cast is Jewish, just saying that Bioshock in particular has many Jewish characters, and I think for a reason.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't even played the game and even I know that...