Good afternoon, in this issue I will talk about several characters at once and practically close the gestalt of my analysis of Bioshock! However, this time I decided to move away from psychoanalysis in favor of the general impression and stories about character design, developer comments and book versions of these characters.
I tried to go through all the information I could get my hands on, namely: creative inspirations that the designers themselves talked about, similarities to real people that I saw, early concepts and statements from Ken Levine and other game designers.
What is Triptych? And this is the name for a work of art combined into several works connected by a common concept. I don’t count my articles a work of art and therefore I use this only as a convenient name that refers us to Sander Cohen, because of whom I had the desire to write not just one analysis, but several at once. Initially, I planned to write a “pentaptych”, but the volume turned out to be enormous towards the end of writing, so I left two more analyzes for the next part.
The sources that I used to collect the material are below:
I decided to go through some of the games in the series to dig up more information, below are all the games I reviewed:
BioShock
BioShock 2
BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea – Episode Two
Well, since this is a continuation of old articles, here are the links to them:
The blog turned out to be very huge, so below you will see information on the structure of the article (they are clickable):
P/s. Why didn’t it take so long? I got very sick due to allergy season, and I also need to have my tonsils removed, in any case, I took sick leave from work and was treated. Since I took upon myself the responsibility of finishing the analysis of the Bioshock characters, I decided to strictly complete what I started.
Posted by small article for you. The average reading time for my friends who beta tested and helped correct “Ashipki” is an hour and a half.
I decided to release a podcast, but it turned out because of my throat more difficult than I expected, it’s only one part, I’ll update it in the future and try to release a video)
Proof of the pen, but keep in mind that this is an old version
First part of the Triptych. Sander Cohen
Sander is an American Jew among the characters, his race in the game is presented as some kind of victims who can also harm others.
I had figured Sander Cohen as a sure thing. Cohen is one of the most Jewish names there is, as it translates directly to “priest” in Hebrew. And, with his “congregation” of artists that he had assembled, this seemed to make a lot of sense.
Ken Levine about Sander Cohen in the article: Faith In Rapture
I decided that Sander Cohen was the right choice. Cohen is one of the most Jewish names, as it is translated in Hebrew as “priest.”. And with his "community" of artists that he had gathered, it seemed to make sense.
By the way, the bunny mask that Sander is holding in the first picture refers to his obsession with love for rabbits, many of his musical compositions and theatrical performances, one way or another, are associated with the idea of the “Mad Bunny” in the form of dance, words in music, etc.
Design
This character is a very well-written figure in the game, and we can learn many interesting aspects of his biography from the novel Rapture by John Shirley. My retelling will be in a separate chapter, below, of this triptych.
Well, diplomacy – deep things hidden from the average viewer, we can learn from some articles in which Ken Levine, the game designer of the game, talked about the creation of various characters, including this hero.
Let’s talk about his visual appearance, he is dressed in an elegantly tailored tuxedo, consisting of a white shirt, red tie, trousers and jacket, thereby immediately hinting to us as the viewer that he is a person close to or a member of the officialdom – a group of people close to power.
And his mustache, oh alluring mustache! They refer us to such an interesting person as Salvador Dali, I think you can see the parallel yourself, but his makeup is quite interesting, designer Rob Waters (Robb Waters) when creating it, was inspired by a scene from the film “What Happened to Baby Jane”?“ (“What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"), which will be below:
I really enjoyed giving Sander Cohen a face. Ken had given me the direction of sort of an embittered artist type character. I thought this guy should be memorable and eccentric-looking. I based him on Dali as he was the definition of an eccentric artist, I then wanted to add some more theaters to the character so I thought about adding the pancake and crazy make-up. My source of inspiration for this was taken from the movie “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”.” I saw this movie when I was pretty young and remember being so unnerved at the scene where Joan Crawford is applying make-up in such a crazed and desperate way. In a nutshell, it scared the crap out of me and that imagery always stuck with me.
Interview Robb Waters
I really enjoyed giving Sander Cohen a face. Ken gave me the direction of a kind of embittered character. I thought this guy must be memorable and eccentric. I based him on Dali, since he was an eccentric artist, I wanted to add more theatricality to the character, so I thought about adding (red cheeks) pancakes and crazy makeup. My inspiration for this came from the movie What Happened to Baby Jane?"I saw this movie when I was quite young and I remember being so excited by the scene where Joan Crawford puts on her makeup in such a crazy and desperate way. In a nutshell, it scared the crap out of me and those images have always stayed with me.
Sander Cohen was my favorite character to design. Ken described the character by saying he’s a bitter artist who is a psychopath, and so for me I instantly conjured up this eccentric character very influenced by Salvador Dali, Obviously, his mustache and physical features really influenced me, and that was my initial fuundation.
Robb
I wanted to sort of make Cohen a little larger than life, give him a little something different, sa that’s when I came up with the makeup. The thought was he had sorta lost his marbles and his face was really screwed up from being in the war, He’s very vain and eccentric, so between the war and being nipped and tucked (that’s why his nose is all screwed up.) he tries to make himself look better
by himself covering up with makeup, and he’s kinda nuts so he draws big eyelashes on his face and smears lipstick on.Robb
Sander Cohen was my favorite character I developed. Ken described this character by saying that he was an embittered psychopathic artist and I immediately pictured this eccentric character who was heavily influenced by Salvador Dali, obviously his mustache and physical attributes really influenced me and that was my initial impression.
I wanted to kind of make Cohen a little bigger than he really is, give him something special, and that’s when I came up with the makeup. It was believed that he had kind of lost his temper and his face was very distorted due to the war, he is very vain and eccentric, so in between the war and getting his hair cut (that’s why he has such a wrinkled nose) he tries to look better by wearing makeup, and he is a bit crazy, so he draws on big eyelashes and puts on lipstick.
When he got it done, he moved on. Now on his way lay Fort Vesely, the bastion of Sander Cohen, a mediocre artist and self-proclaimed genius who, among other things, was Ryan’s protégé.
The completely crazy Cohen occupied the fort and began to mock the residents of the city. The corridors here are full of dead bodies covered in liquid nitrogen. They froze in the poses Cohen put them in. To cross the fortress and get to Ryan, Jack had to take part in the owner’s little game.
Cohen asked him to kill three of his former assistants and document their deaths in photographs. Cohen needed the photographs to complete his latest masterpiece, an ominous quadriptych. These places were permeated with a surreal and unhealthy atmosphere, but Jack had no choice – he had to play along with Cohen’s madness.*
Book “The Making of the BioShock Trilogy”:
Chapter 1. The plot of the game is “Please be so kind…”
Note on Quote:
I don’t know exactly why, perhaps the author took information from Ken’s interview about the singer’s “lack of talent”, in which he meant himself and misinterpreted it, but in this book they write about a mediocre artist, although in fact many of his works were warmly received by the mass viewer and listener, which can be found out in more detail in the book.
Although they call him in it, conditionally, freak, but he was obviously more talented than many, and from his more striking moments in his biography one can learn that many of the posters in the city were his work, well, “Arise Delight” – the city’s anthem, is his composition.
Let’s be honest, these are not exactly massive works, but even such were accepted; in the book they sometimes describe him as “a man from not that era/a man from the renaissance era”.
I will attach some of his paintings below and you can subjectively assess the presence or absence of his talent:
A figurative piece.
Last dance
"Sun and Moon dancers"
“In this work, Cohen intended to show us the struggle of a great man doomed to breathe the swampy air of a parasite.”.
Arturo
"Miasma" is an expressionist painting created by eccentric artist Sander Cohen. Against the background of iridescent colors, it looks like a strange, disturbing figure with a wide open mouth. This and other paintings can be seen in the Artist’s Struggle Gallery in Episode 1 games Burial at Sea.
Who voiced
He was voiced by Ryder Smith (T. Ryder Smith) is a multifaceted actor, he was seen in the film “Brain Scan” – a horror film in which the actor plays the “Trickster” main antagonist who persuades Michael, the protagonist of the film, to play and thereby kill victims in reality. Doesn’t remind me of anything?)
As we see here, there is an obvious parallel with Sander Cohen, but Ryder himself did not fully understand why Ken Levine chose him for this role, although many, when working on this character, took their inspiration from old Hollywood horror films and thrillers, which I will mention in more detail in the block about the location, but maybe they just didn’t tell him that.
We hd a lot of fun recording this. Ken Levine was in his office in Boston and I was in a recording studio in New York, and we did it all by phone. I’m not sure how Ken had cast me – we had never met – but we played around with some voices for Sander until we found one he liked. We’d do several takes of each speech – sometimes many takes – with both of us laughing after he called cut. Ken kept saying “Now try one really big, really go for it”.
I went in to do a few retakes a month later and asked one of the Irrational Games reps there at the studio what the character of Cohen looked like. He showed me a few early renderings and I said “Wow!” and told them that I looked kind of like that in a play I had just done.
Tider Smith on his portfolio page
We had a lot of fun recording this. Ken Levine was in his office in Boston and I was in a recording studio in New York, and we did it all over the phone. I’m not sure how Ken matched me – we’d never met – but we looked for voices for Sander until we found one he liked. We did several takes of each speech, sometimes many takes, and we both laughed after he announced that it was all over. Ken kept saying, “Now try something really big, really go for it.”.
A month later I came in to do some reshoots and asked one of the repslei Irrational Games in the studio, what Cohen’s character looks like. He showed me some early work and I went, “Wow.”!” and told them this is what I looked like in the play I just directed.
Cohen at Burial at Gamblingsitesnotongamstop.co.uk Sea
Ryder on stage 1
Ryder on stage 2
The actor spoke about another interesting fact: during the development of the second part of Bioshock, his voice was recorded for someone “some giant robotic creature” – most likely this meant the cut content in which they wanted to return the character, quote: “as Freud’s 20-foot Rabbit Monster.”
But let’s return to the character, we may be confused not only by the fact that he has an awkward face, but also the tuxedo itself is somehow torn and stained… with blood? This character is clearly going through hard times in a dying city. But where did it all begin?? Let’s go back to his past.
Events of the book
But the strangest thing here was Sander Cohen himself. A fading Broadway star, he wore a silver jacket that would have suited a Busby Berkeley dancer, matching trousers with red stripes down the sides; his boots, with heels like those of Flemish dancers, shone perhaps too much. His head resembled an onion, his hair was thinning, and the curl that stood out sharply on his forehead and the roguish mustache, the tips of which pointed upward, did not help much. He wore a surprising amount of makeup and even what looked like eyeliner.
Bill noticed that Cohen’s left eyebrow was always raised, kept above his right and never lowered, as if frozen in an expression of eternal irony.
[1] Busby Berkeley (1895-1976) – American film director and choreographer who staged large-scale dance numbers with a large number of participants.
Bill McDonagh describes Sander in Rapture
For a moment 1946 years, Sander Cohen had his own theater on Broadway (or rather, he partially rented it) and an exhibition space in which he gave performances and held exhibitions. He had remarkable works that were highly appreciated by the public, these include the music albums “Kissing the Tulip”, “Nobody Understands Me”, “Hop – Straight to Heaven”.
But he was quite stingy with his actors and actresses, paying little, sometimes even meager salaries, which is why many left him, and those who remained did not have good acting skills, which in fact gave rise to the reputation of a “dubious genius”.
In general, many of his works at that time were “extravagant”; for example, I’m looking at an exhibition of naked, naked Greek gods, but there were also more or less “mundane” works, such as “YOUNG DANDIES” – a simple theatrical performance for the amusement of the public, with simple musical numbers .
In general, he was a person who loved interesting creative solutions, which emphasizes his lively mind and great creative curiosity. By himself, he preferred more men than women, many things indicated that in the theater he devoted a lot of time to his male “protégés,” and he had not just warm feelings, but it’s probably easier to say “more than friendly” for Andrew Ryan.
Cohen’s behavior, as Atlas says, corresponds to paragraph 8 (in the 50s, in accordance with paragraph 8, military personnel accused of sexual perversion were discharged from the US Army)
Atlas in the first part of the game
My protégés are an example of artistic courage, they stand in their poses almost completely naked, in a cold room, minute after minute, as if frozen in place! “He shook his head like a stallion, whispering: “There is a fierce competition between them in trying to please me.”! Oh, how hard they try to succeed in this, but art calls for the agony of self-sacrifice, for its laying on its altar!
Sander Cohen about his protégés
IN 1948 (this year in the book) the year when Ryan finally completed his “North Atlantic Project” called the underwater city “Delight” and invited him as his favorite artist to “dream project” — “a place for geniuses”, in which the latter could have as many viewers as he wanted, even if the latter did not like it.
Clarification: The invitation itself was in 1946 according to the book, at that moment the city was already partially built, judging by the game. Perhaps there is confusion in the book. In any case, keep in mind that in games based on audio diaries, events began in 1996.
At first everything went quite well, for the first couple of years of his life in “Rapture” Cohen sang and danced in his own “Fort Jolly”, which Ryan gave him to make all his dreams come true; it housed “adult entertainment”, which included a casino, cabaret, etc.
He painted many paintings/posters, which were located in the creative museum, and made several new productions/cabarets, but gradually, when more than 9 years had passed (1956) it’s starting to become boring, after all, even Ryan began to get tired of his company. He did not invite him to parties and partially avoided his company, but then Ryan had other problems, which we will talk about in the next part of the articles.
Sounds a little bland to me. No fire needed. There is no sensual heat that I enjoy so much..
Cohen on his new music album
But strangely enough, he rejected these ideas, because he lived according to the principle: “The Creator must create!”, and other problems for him do not deserve even attention.
If his boredom became critical, then he extinguished it in drugs, alcohol, and in general, looked for ways to make it as interesting as possible have fun, including with his protégé students:
The artist loved to take everything to the extreme. After their last little adventure in Arcadia, which included dancing naked with the Saturnians and persuading a teenage boy to become the lover of an octopus, they miraculously managed not to end up in jail. They were just one step ahead of the constables.
Protégé on Cohen
Note: Perhaps the author hinted at a relationship here, or if you please, made a reference, on the novel by Cleopatra and Mark Antony, in which the latter led a very wild lifestyle and, according to stories, loved to dress up as a beggar and staged various performances with her or with friends, but always ran away from the police of that time.
If you think he’s in the game gone crazy, then this is not entirely true, he was initially quite insane even taking into account his non-aggressive behavior, both before Rapture and after several years of living in it.
It’s not really surprising, because a person who is constantly obsessed with the idea of creating and demonstrating, who feels the need for human attention and recognition, simply cannotoocan let go of his hands like that, he needs incentive and motivation to move on.
The isolation of Delight and the unlimited nature of the audience give a good adrenaline rush and cause constant excitement in the behavioral norm, which pushes for too abnormal experiments.
One day, together with his student Martin, they pumped themselves up with new plasmids that gave teleportation and freezing. Having caught, with the help of corrupt constables, several violators in Cohen’s opinion, they froze them, creating “a magnificent triptych of human suffering” and this inspired Sander.
Eccentric? He’s a killer! I went on ADAM. Kills people for fun at Fort Vesely. Covers their bodies with cement, makes statues and displays them in his back room.
Sullivan (Chief Constable/Sheriff of the city) on the events at Fort Jolly in 1959
We already know the rest of the story from the game and audio diaries. Cohen was a man of culture, but with crazy notes, he did not want to see competitors in front of him, and Anna Culpepper became that. She was a singer whom Ryan personally invited to Rapture and to the city council, but when she began to criticize the decisions of the latter, she had to be removed, to the delight of Sander.
Regarding your response to Anna Culpepper’s latest insult to musical taste: there’s plenty of talent in Rapture, so why do you keep wasting newsprint on this mediocrity?. That beats me. Where it is not secondary, it is simply boring. Where she’s not boring, she’s too predictable. Where she is not predictable, she is dangerous.
Audio diaries from BioShock: An insult to musical taste
In general, Sullivan disliked both representatives culture, but for a long time he could not do anything with them, although as soon as Ryan said to get rid of Anna, the latter did not think very long and killed her.
In the city of Rapture, Sander Cohen had a rival – Anna Culpepper, who dared to accuse him of being a lackey. The singer and actress did not hesitate to condemn the owner of the city in her songs. In addition, she openly ridiculed her creative opponent for groveling in front of Ryan. Cohen got Culpepper executed. She was dealt with by Sullivan, the head of security.
From the book The Making of the BioShock Trilogy
Location
The location itself was created by Paul Hellquist, a computer game designer who even received a BAFTA award for it. Shortly after the end of development, BioShock left Irrational Games due to his relationship with studio head Ken Levine souring. He briefly worked at Gearbox and served as creative director for the Borderlands sequel.
In an old interview with PCgamer magazine, he noted that:
“I begged the art team to help with the plaster statue scenes, which were kind of my baby,” says Thomas. “I really wanted Cohen to use the living and the dead interchangeably in his ‘art’ so that when you finally made the decision to kill or spare him, you could make some kind of counter-statement, up to and including taking a final death portrait of the man himself.” Thomas also worked closely with the AI team, including John Abercrombie, to make the plaster statues move when you weren’t looking.
Paul Hellquist
"I begged the art team to help with the plaster statue scenes, which were kind of like my baby," Thomas says. "I really wanted Cohen to use the living and the dead interchangeably in his art, so that when you finally made the decision to kill or spare him, you could make some kind of counter-statement, including a final portrait of the man himself [here’s a credit for taking a photo when Cohen was killed]." Thomas also worked closely with an AI team including John Abercrombie to make plaster statues move when you’re not looking.
The designer wanted to create a place where Vice of human hearts connected with design and surroundings. He wanted his creativity to be bright and intense, with crazy notes. Each element of the location had to be part of the soul of the main boss, so that the place was revealed from even more creepy sides!
This is noticeable in the plaster statues that sometimes move when no one is looking at them, and in the splicers that run along the ceiling and live between the walls, and in the heavy Big Daddies that should clear this location, but cannot, because their goal is different, and no one disturbs them, which makes them similar to the corrupt constables who were often in this area and who "knew how close your eyes" to what’s happening.
Interesting fact: The obsession with statues that Paul added to the game was associated with the films Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock and The King of Comedy by Martin Scorsese.
The entire location was built as colorfully as possible, as if gradually coming to life like the very soul of the creator who gives his last “Requiem”.
I roughly divided the game into 3 acts, they will be below:
Act 1. Test of Courage. Cohen wants us to be surprised and pass his test of our determination, but the first thing we experience is surprise at what is happening after blocking the location in such an unusual way, a pink color appears from the spotlights, large masks and statues come down from the ceiling, and thus they give us a task: “to move further we need to do what Cohen asks.”.
The second thing we see is the danger in the face of the splicers, who begin to run towards us in a crowd, but this is a rather difficult enemy, which is difficult to destroy, and this strengthens our resolve.
Act 2. Verification of actors. Who is stronger? Old actors or a new one, not previously used anywhere? Destroy or be destroyed, seems like a simple rule, but how it touches the audience, it’s always interesting to watch the action, what happens to others, that’s what Cohen thought, emotions are in suffering, assemble a quadriptych, check out the characters, let’s sing a requiem for Ryan together.
Act 3. Climax! All heroes, one way or another, appear on stage! However, just showing up would be boring, so you need to give the final performance, let it be a waltz, yes a waltz, desperate and unpleasant, the hero must feel the flow of emotions and enter into it, and then leave, having received the impression and rewards that he deserved by playing his role in this performance!
In every movement of this location one can feel the spirit of madness and fear, which personifies the entire city of “Delight” and all its inhabitants. It’s not in vain that all dirt takes place in a semi-basement, in fact, Paul was planting a reference to the films here, all the dirt always flows into the basement.
As for me, even now there are few such locations in modern games that could give such a general vibe and sense of flow with what is happening on the screen and in this location.
Now let’s let’s take a plunge in the second part, what was in the developer’s ideas, but what did not make it into the game:
Eric Sterner Sketchbook Level Development 2K Marin, Bioshock 2: Sketchbook example showing initial level idea development.
From the notes above, it is clear that the location in the second part was called “Escape from Cohen’s Nightmare” – Cohen’s nightmare, implying that this is his nightmare, which came true, where he is like crazy -hatter- The rabbit leads the performance, divided into acts as in the first part.
Now he does this in the location of Radio and TV studios, falling into a deadly trap, the hero survives and goes to Act 2 where he participates in "chess game between the mad hatter and the queen", passes it and enters the cinema, where through the gate he enters Act 3 and ends it.
The second act, as you can see, was originally supposed to be a meta allusion to "Alice in Wonderland", but it’s different alternative version that is more similar to the creation of American McGee:
Alice: Madness Returns
This means that there was an idea to create a dark and crazy space, which, a few years later, they were able to do in Madness returns. True, Cohen had the role not of a “mad hatter”, but of a “mad rabbit” 6 meters tall (somewhere around 20 feet), as I said at the very beginning, he really loved them.
Author’s note: I searched, but didn’t find any connection between the designer’s level and this game, I saw that in the comments to the art book there was a mention of a backer with the same last name, but somehow it’s hard to compare it.
Author’s note 2: Another observation, when I was looking for parallels I came across Art from the concept artist of the second part Colin Fix, but it’s about something else altogether, although there are similarities.
Let’s return to Sander’s personality and draw conclusions
I could be the pride of Broadway, the darling of Hollywood. But instead I followed you into this wet hole. And when you needed my light, I shined for you. And now I’m rotting here, waiting for an audience that. never. won’t come. I’m writing something for you, Andrew Ryan. This is a requiem.
BioShock Audio Diaries: Requiem for Andrew Ryan
The situation in the city is already quite sad and at the center of all the action is a crazy, terribly creative genius! He directs this process as a theatrical production and creates his own requiem for the person he loved.
Splicers are people who have become very strong as well as dependent on ADAM, they crawl along walls and kill for a new dose, but in search of something? What Ryan wanted, namely, the happiness that he promised.
It is not surprising that they attacked Jack, because he was a threat both to Ryan and to themselves, controlled by pheromones they wanted to stop him from obeying Fontaine.
In several articles, Ken Levine said that he would like to make Cohen gay, who enjoyed some success due to his eccentricity and obvious ostentation of the image. We can also take into account his Jewish-American origin, where he goes by the name “Priest”, we can conclude that he needed to attract attention in order to distract from the historical confusion at the end of the war and thereby create a flock around himself, at least from protégés, the same abnormal like himself.
Which one should I play for?? For whom should I create?? Is it really for your own sake?? What remains for me – the actor must play his role, the artist must paint on his canvas, the dancer must present his act! That’s why I will give my last performance to Ryan, who doomed me to suffer from obscurity in this hole!
This phrase could have belonged to him in his internal reflections – everything is there, the direct motivation for his madness, the desire to create and be noticed! However, we won’t hear this either in the game or in the book. One can only draw a conclusion about this by reading all the information available about him.
It is difficult to guess how he thought about it and what he finally came to, although it is clear that for the sake of some irony over life he took away someone else’s existence, thereby creating his own perverted creativity.
Delight dies, but why?? Because of them. forever in the background. In the Lyceum, in the galleries of Soho, and even here, in this so-called Utopia. People of little faith. But Ryan understands. He and I are on the same wavelength. Yes, there is blood on the streets. Yes, people sometimes. disappear. And those creepy girls.. Well, maybe the Little Believers believe that a picture can be painted without staining the cuffs.
Audio Diaries from BioShock: Little Faith
Initially, he was conceived as a kind of object of another, internal, moral choice, kill him or let him live? Each player must answer for himself based on his “moral compass”.
He has hysterical personality disorder (HPD)/(IPD). You can argue with me and even object, but I see that this character needs attention, any kind, that’s why he constantly tried himself in different areas of art and wanted to achieve some significance in them, even if he didn’t succeed, just to satisfy his inner desires.
He took some “relationships” too literally, like in the book his relationship with McDonagh as if they were bosom friends, although this is not the case. He acts with his protégés as if they are more than outside actor or one-day viewer, but he doesn’t need this, what he is looking for, a lover or friend who will share his interests?
His ideas, apparently caused by delusion, were expressed as such in view of gigantic impressionability from all art in general, and taking into account that accompanying IRL is narcissistic disorder draw appropriate conclusions.
I think that Cohen is the most interesting character in the whole game, many people leave his role insignificant, but in fact he has a very good influence on dive into the underwater world Delight and leaves behind a huge impression.
And you thought everything? No, let’s move on!
Second part of the Triptych. Tenenbaum
The second part is dedicated to a difficult personality such as Brigid Tenenbaum – the Mother of Plasmids, she is known for her scientific research, which was quite inhumane. This part of my Triptych will be quite dark.
Our heroine herself, like Sander, is Jewish, only she was born in Germany during the time of Hitler. As you understand, this makes her a rather interesting person with a lot of traumatic experience, for example, she was in Auschwitz (Auschwitz) and worked with Dr. Mengele in a German prison for Jews with whom we know what happened there.
I was in Auschwitz, and already at the age of 16 I realized that I was in love with science. German doctor, he conducted experiments. Sometimes he made scientific mistakes. I tell him this and he gets angry. But then he asks: “How does a child know this??“I answer: “Sometimes I just know, that’s all.”. And he: “Why are you telling me then??“Well,” I told him, “since you’re doing such things, at least do them correctly.”.
BioShock Audio Diaries: The Love of Science
Design(t)
It [Auschwitz] happened between 1942-1944, and she was 16 years old at the time, so we take the average date between 1925 and 1928 and get 1926 (and 6 months) year of birth.
In the first part of the game, events begin with 1960 years old, which means she was somewhere around at the time of the first part 34 years old. Well, she’s been in the city since 1946, so it turns out that she was ~20 years old then.
BioShock 2 takes place in 1968, so it turns out that ~42 years, but she already looks like a graying old woman, which is quite interesting.
In the first part she looked like ordinary mutant with a female texture, but keep in mind that, according to the developers, they simply did not have enough budget to implement a full-fledged model, so instead of it there is a stub; in fact, taking into account its design, it should have looked something like this:
At Auschwitz, I was assigned to conduct genetic experiments on other Jews. They called me "Wunderkind", miracle child. The Germans, they are unable to talk about anything else except blue eyes and the shape of the skull. And I was wondering why one is born strong and the other weak? One is smart and the other is a fool? So many murders. and at least these Germans achieved something useful!
BioShock Audio Diaries: Useless Experiments
Do not find any similarities with Elizabeth from Burial at Sea? Most likely this is true, because when developing the heroine they took the original design from Tenenbaum, since this is "Maternal image", and he himself was taken from the German actress Geraldine Fitzgerald (Geraldine Fitzgerald), whose appearance Ken Levine used to convey the impression fatal beauty, which I think they were really able to convey, at least in cosplay. We don’t see her models in the game
An interesting fact about the character design – the game originally featured a model designed by J.I. Styles, (By the way, the same person also made Big Daddy), which was planned to be used in Tenenbaum’s flashback, in which she was dressed in overalls and was a "mean girl with an attitude", but in the end this did not make it into the game, since the idea of \u200b\u200bthe character was already determined, and this design ended up spoiling her narrative concept.
Let’s change the model of the jumpsuit to a dress and make the image more feminine? Come on. — Development of BioShock Infinite
Brigitte Tenenbaum followed him in – a very young woman, outwardly attractive, but with bruises under her eyes, a shapeless tuft of brown hair and a distant expression on her face. The scientists were in lab coats, and a shabby brown dress was visible from under Tenenbaum’s coat.
Tennenbaum from 1949
Tenenbaum at this point in Rapture’s history is just about taking care of the Sisters. She’s not as selfish anymore and more about survival. Her hair shows this-it’s just waking up in the morning and throwing it in a ponytail. I’m throwing my clothes on. I’m doing my business. Lamb is all about precision – keeping everything perfect – so she would actually spend some time in the morning doing her hair.
Colin
As a designer, I tried to make nearly every single element
other be asymmetrical: One collar is popped out of her sweater, one’s tucked in, one sleeve is rolled up, one down, half of her shirt’s untucked, the other half is tucked in, she has a rip on one shoulder and not the other. She wouldn’t wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say ‘oh, my shirt’s untucked’ or oh, my collar’s a little funny’ whereas most people would. She doesn’t pay any attention to that sort of thing.Colin
At this point in Rapture’s story, Tenenbaum is simply looking out for the sisters. She’s not so selfish anymore and cares more about the survival of [the little girls]. This is evidenced by her hair – she simply wakes up in the morning and puts it in a ponytail. I’m pulling on my clothes. I mind my own business. Lamb is always a neat person – she does everything perfectly – so she spent some time in the morning brushing her hair.
As a designer, I tried to keep almost every other element asymmetrical: one collar of her sweater was out, the other was tucked in, one sleeve was rolled up, one was down, half of her shirt was untucked, the other half was tucked in, she had a rip on one shoulder and not the other. She wouldn’t wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, "Oh, my shirt isn’t tucked in" or "Oh, my collar is a little weird," like most people. She doesn’t pay attention to things like that.
Judging by what the designers concluded, we see that initially she was more than a supporting object and she had an additional role, but before the release of “Minerva’s Den” her fate was cut out from the main outline of the narrative.
What a pity, that they did not give her additional disclosure in the main plot of the game, although the story received about her from the same Audio Diaries and book made me impressed.
Who voiced it?
The voice actress for this character is Anne Bobby. She is quite an interesting figure in horror films zero and I think fans of this genre are well familiar with it, at least from the film “Night People”.
In her later years, she is very reminiscent of Tenenbaum from the second part, which she partially mentioned in an interview when she was filmed for some studio needs since working on the first part.