Who was worse, Sofia Lamb or Andrew Ryan? *Caution: Spoilers*

[Lingarn]

Faced with incontrovertible evidence that Jack was his son, Ryan was unwilling to harm him. Even though his child was designed to kill him, built for that goal, Ryan stopped short.

Lamb was willing to suffocate her child as she slept to attack someone. Her child was a means to an end, conceived for her ultimate goal, not by a malign conspiracy but by Lamb herself.

I don't think, given the player's perspective with relation to the children, one needs to employ misogyny to explain why most people consider one more evil than the other.

Aside from the children, they were both incredibly evil people. But where Andrew Ryan was driven to his most atrocious extremes by the implacable manipulations of an external force, the evils that Lamb performed were part and parcel of her plan. She had no adversary that pushed her to manipulate, to deceive, to destroy until the last day or so of her reign. Other than Delta, her greatest enemy was the people themselves -- their hopes, their desires, their ambitions.

Even so, each was willing and able to commit atrocities. While one might be more sympathetic towards Ryan, the reality is that both were incredibly evil.

[Crezth]

It's no more artificial than Rapture itself. That is, the result of smart people exploiting natural resources. The reason we don't really have those conditions in Western Democracies today is that we're smart enough to ensure a minimal condition that is not hopeless.

I'm not sure what your point is, here. I was trying to say the people were content - or at least not likely to go shooting up restaurants - until they got whipped into a frenzy. It is artificial and is contrasted against spontaneous acts of revolution.

I think they were both just as bad and manipulative. Ryan was a hipocrite. Believed in freedom, yet had rules for everyone. Lamb was more of a people's person, even though her beliefs were just as crazy. They both believed they were helping everyone, but in the end, they were both wrong.

~Mari.

Wise post. Hear hear.

Faced with incontrovertible evidence that Jack was his son, Ryan was unwilling to harm him. Even though his child was designed to kill him, built for that goal, Ryan stopped short.

Lamb was willing to suffocate her child as she slept to attack someone. Her child was a means to an end, conceived for her ultimate goal, not by a malign conspiracy but by Lamb herself.

I don't think, given the player's perspective with relation to the children, one needs to employ misogyny to explain why most people consider one more evil than the other.

Certainly (although I completely disagree with your appraisal of Ryan's final act). I am not a psychologist, though, and am not interested in explaining why people feel one way or the other. Killing one's child is a heinous act, but both of our antagonists here have committed so many heinous acts that stacking up the intricacies of individual "who killed their kid and how" is a little pointless. It's like trying to determine who is more sinister, Stalin or Hitler, and then rationalizing "Well, at least Hitler didn't kill his own people!" to determine the answer.

Aside from the children, they were both incredibly evil people. But where Andrew Ryan was driven to his most atrocious extremes by the implacable manipulations of an external force, the evils that Lamb performed were part and parcel of her plan. She had no adversary that pushed her to manipulate, to deceive, to destroy until the last day or so of her reign. Other than Delta, her greatest enemy was the people themselves -- their hopes, their desires, their ambitions.

And yet, they were also her first and only love. We have to remember, appraising Sofia is difficult. She isn't in this selfishly. She really isn't a tyrant. She is interested in everyone in the world being well.

Such selflessness ought to be praised beyond measure (being as this is a Judeo-Christian society which pretends to care about philanthropy), and yet we loathe her. For some people, it could be misogyny. For most, however, it's that we understand the ends do not justify the means.

This is the most basic metric of determining Lamb and Ryan's relative evil, and if we grant that much we see that they are equal in their evil - and inward motivations or external forces do not affect this.

Even so, each was willing and able to commit atrocities. While one might be more sympathetic towards Ryan, the reality is that both were incredibly evil.

Oh, yes. I agree completely.

[CMRankine]

I'm not sure what your point is, here. I was trying to say the people were content - or at least not likely to go shooting up restaurants - until they got whipped into a frenzy. It is artificial and is contrasted against spontaneous acts of revolution.

I was digressing from a digression, really, it doesn't matter. I agree with the main thrust of your argument.

[janissary12]

Faced with incontrovertible evidence that Jack was his son, Ryan was unwilling to harm him. Even though his child was designed to kill him, built for that goal, Ryan stopped short.

Lamb was willing to suffocate her child as she slept to attack someone. Her child was a means to an end, conceived for her ultimate goal, not by a malign conspiracy but by Lamb herself.

Lingarn, excellent points. Aren't some of the sources for Lamb's "Unity and Metamorphisis" of the Utilitarian philosophy? It that case, at least from the name, it makes sense that she would coldly risk Eleanor's life to snuff out Delta. She uses Eleanor, like a good Utilitarian would.

OTOH, we have Andrew Ryan, Supreme Egotist, and (although I've never understood this stance, but I've heard children are "extensions of their parents") who is SO egotistical his son must be an extension of himself, and thus he can't bring himself to destroy the son.

[CMRankine]

OTOH, we have Andrew Ryan, Supreme Egotist, and (although I've never understood this stance, but I've heard children are "extensions of their parents") who is SO egotistical his son must be an extension of himself, and thus he can't bring himself to destroy the son.

Or feels that Jack's victory is his victory.

[Lovesick]

...Progressing straight into a water-logged hellhole full of monsters and psychopaths anyone would want to escape from. Right?

Well, scientifically they were progressing in the discovery of ADAM.

But yes, that eventually led to a whole new type of hell down there. xD

[Winterkid]

Sofia Lamb = Lousiest Mother EVER and Social Collectivist
Ryan = Total Egomaniac Visionary and Chronic Workaholic Capitalist

Tough call.

[Z008MJ]

Sofia Lamb = Lousiest Mother EVER and Social Collectivist
Ryan = Total Egomaniac Visionary and Chronic Workaholic Capitalist

Tough call.

Good summary. Infact, rather great indeed. No, to be honest, it's quite perfect.

[Adam James Walker]

The thing about Ryan is that he was pushed to his betrayals, he wouldn't have instated the death penalty if the smuggelers weren't such a threat to the city; he wouldn't have nationalized Fontaine Futuristics if he had been able to stop the smuggelers. He wouldn't have modified the structure of plasmids to make the user vunerable to mental suggestion, and so destroy free will itself, if he had no other options to defeat Atlas. Yeah, what he did was cruel and hypocritical but he tried to do it for the good of the city; in his diary in FF he talks about how he will begin breaking up FF after people calm the f**k down, but they didn't the riots never stopped and he never got a chance.

Lamb is just stupid really, how one can bold facedly claim that she works for the good of everyone and then sending hordes of Splicers at you as cannon fodder I have no idea, or jumping onto Sinclairs escape pod while getting ready to kill everyone in Persephone. What good did she actually do for anyone, yeah she united the Splicers again after the death of Ryan, but she also spent alot of time churning up hate and spite amongst the lower classes; the lower classes were un-happy but they knew why they were poor, because they weren't good enough, because there business got beat by a better one. Then Lamb starts showing up and destroying everything, more of a spin doctor really.

[Splicedwhale]

@SplicedWhale, yeah, she's got a little Kobra Kommander in her.



I think we're assuming, based mostly on the testimony of Sinclaire and Ryan (her rivals), that control was her end goal. She sought power as a means to the end of creating a harmonious society, which is daft but not selfish. That she panicked when a seven-foot-tall drill-wielding monster came to kill her is not necessarily an indictment of her character or her methods.

If she really wanted a harmonious society she would have found a way of disposing of ADAM(knowing the effects early on being in psychiatry) and liberated the people from Ryan. She seemed to have a knack at beating him in public speaking.

No doubt it would be between her and "Atlas" then but I'm sure she could have found a way before things got out of hand.

Brainwashing people does not create a perfect society. In Brave New World when everyone is numb and uncaring on drugs and swallowing anything the party gives them everyone may be happy but they aren't truly happy

[majorjackass]

Lamb vs Fontaine is what you should ask.

Simple answer. Lamb.

Ryan began his "quest" with good intentions (I.E. build rapture.) His "turn to the darkside" was reactionary.

Lamb's quest was a pre-meditated, calculated plan to populate the planet with "selfless humans". This is why she needed the memories of the best and brightest. (catch up on your audio diarys people..) She took advantage of a people who were already in bad shape to further her own agenda. Please stop calling her "not selfish". (Quite the politician really)

In truth though, someone nailed it on the forth or fifth reply when they said "Both were bad, the point is that extremists are bad in any form." Take a look at some of the developers comments in the Deco Devolution art book to confirm...

[Lingarn]

We have to remember, appraising Sofia is difficult. She isn't in this selfishly. She really isn't a tyrant. She is interested in everyone in the world being well.

Such selflessness ought to be praised beyond measure (being as this is a Judeo-Christian society which pretends to care about philanthropy), and yet we loathe her. For some people, it could be misogyny. For most, however, it's that we understand the ends do not justify the means.

I completely disagree. Nothing about her position was selfless.

Her devotion, her fanaticism to her goal was just that -- a devotion to her goal, not the actual good of everyone. She would harm, kill, and cast aside anyone else for the achievement of her goal. Her ultimate end was to destroy the humanity of others, to make a society of perfect robots -- eliminating the essence of that she claimed to love. When the her plan failed, she was on the escape ship as Rapture was to be destroyed alone -- a real utilitarian could have packed the ship with survivors.

She may have believed that she was selfless, but her actions were nothing but selfish.

Lingarn, excellent points. Aren't some of the sources for Lamb's "Unity and Metamorphisis" of the Utilitarian philosophy? It that case, at least from the name, it makes sense that she would coldly risk Eleanor's life to snuff out Delta. She uses Eleanor, like a good Utilitarian would.

You know, I think it wasn't until your post that my reason for choosing that example crystallized in my mind.

I think that what bothers me most about Lamb is that she is utterly inhuman. Killing your own child is something that the majority of people would balk at. It is unthinkable. For Lamb, suffocating Eleanor was the same as birthing Eleanor -- a means to an end.

I think if you look closely about what the audio diaries reveal about Lamb, she shows many of the signs of a sociopath -- outward perfection, a lack of feeling for others (she demonstrated no strong affection for anyone), constant deception (using her position as a doctor to uncover the means to manipulate others, her card games designed to test her own self-control), and of course a tendency to view others as objects -- pawns to be used.

Her actions are certainly consistent with an oversimplified Utilitarian ideal, but her ability to perform those actions seems to indicate something fundamentally missing in her.

OTOH, we have Andrew Ryan, Supreme Egotist, and (although I've never understood this stance, but I've heard children are "extensions of their parents") who is SO egotistical his son must be an extension of himself, and thus he can't bring himself to destroy the son.

You could certainly argue the case. The reason that destroying one's children is an abomination may be egotistical, may be biological, may be different for each individual. But I think it is something that marks a difference in him and Lamb.

Or feels that Jack's victory is his victory.

I'd disagree with this, because he openly states that Jack is his greatest disappointment.

In truth though, someone nailed it on the forth or fifth reply when they said "Both were bad, the point is that extremists are bad in any form." Take a look at some of the developers comments in the Deco Devolution art book to confirm...

That is certainly what the developers intended to show us, but I think that this is an oversimplification.

Very few people think that Mother Theresa or the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves as a form of protest were evil, but they were unquestionably extreme in their devotion to their ideals. The difference is that their zealotry did not lead them to force their ideals on others, and this is the key flaw in Ryan and Lamb: They were sure they knew what was best for everyone, and they were going to make it happen.

That is why their actions were selfish, not selfless -- instead of sacrificing their own ambitions to embody their ideals, they tried to sacrifice everyone else.

[CMRankine]

Okay, we all seem to agree that they're both equally terrible, except that one of them is really worse. Let's take that as a given.

[majorjackass]

That is certainly what the developers intended to show us, but I think that this is an oversimplification.

You're 100% correct. I honestly didn't think anyone would think it through, so I "talk radio'd" it. Thank you for proving me wrong though.

[Crezth]

The thing about Ryan is that he was pushed to his betrayals, he wouldn't have instated the death penalty if the smuggelers weren't such a threat to the city; he wouldn't have nationalized Fontaine Futuristics if he had been able to stop the smuggelers. He wouldn't have modified the structure of plasmids to make the user vunerable to mental suggestion, and so destroy free will itself, if he had no other options to defeat Atlas. Yeah, what he did was cruel and hypocritical but he tried to do it for the good of the city; in his diary in FF he talks about how he will begin breaking up FF after people calm the f**k down, but they didn't the riots never stopped and he never got a chance.

Lamb is just stupid really, how one can bold facedly claim that she works for the good of everyone and then sending hordes of Splicers at you as cannon fodder I have no idea, or jumping onto Sinclairs escape pod while getting ready to kill everyone in Persephone. What good did she actually do for anyone, yeah she united the Splicers again after the death of Ryan, but she also spent alot of time churning up hate and spite amongst the lower classes; the lower classes were un-happy but they knew why they were poor, because they weren't good enough, because there business got beat by a better one. Then Lamb starts showing up and destroying everything, more of a spin doctor really.

Some are born wicked, some have wickedness thrust upon them. But the end result is the same: wicked. Even if Ryan didn't mean to become evil, he became evil all the same.

As for Lamb, once again, you're suffering from a misinterpretation of the source material. The "good" she did was one part hope, and one part plan. She had a plan she was absolutely convinced would make the world a better place.

In terms of motive, that makes her equal to Ryan.

Brainwashing people does not create a perfect society. In Brave New World when everyone is numb and uncaring on drugs and swallowing anything the party gives them everyone may be happy but they aren't truly happy

I'm not sure Lamb agrees. She probably thinks if she reaches the goal in the end, then all that she had to do is forgiven, and the world will be better off.

Lamb vs Fontaine is what you should ask.

Simple answer. Lamb.

Ryan began his "quest" with good intentions (I.E. build rapture.) His "turn to the darkside" was reactionary.

Lamb's quest was a pre-meditated, calculated plan to populate the planet with "selfless humans". This is why she needed the memories of the best and brightest. (catch up on your audio diarys people..) She took advantage of a people who were already in bad shape to further her own agenda. Please stop calling her "not selfish". (Quite the politician really)

In truth though, someone nailed it on the forth or fifth reply when they said "Both were bad, the point is that extremists are bad in any form." Take a look at some of the developers comments in the Deco Devolution art book to confirm...

Ho ho ho, well. I shall not stop calling her selfless.

Certainly, her quest was pre-meditated (that makes that a "plan," I believe, but then again blueprints are evil things). Certainly, she desired to populate the planet with selfless humans (and I have listened to audio diaries thankyouverymuch).

However, you have mis-appraised her intent. You think she's doing it for herself, but she's not. She doesn't want money, or power, or ADAM. She wants to better the world, that is the crux of her intentions. By all logic, that makes her selfless. Yes, she does awful things to get there, but once again, she isn't doing it for personal gain, but universal gain.

I completely disagree. Nothing about her position was selfless.

Her devotion, her fanaticism to her goal was just that -- a devotion to her goal, not the actual good of everyone. She would harm, kill, and cast aside anyone else for the achievement of her goal. Her ultimate end was to destroy the humanity of others, to make a society of perfect robots -- eliminating the essence of that she claimed to love. When the her plan failed, she was on the escape ship as Rapture was to be destroyed alone -- a real utilitarian could have packed the ship with survivors.

She may have believed that she was selfless, but her actions were nothing but selfish.

Now, you might say that her being devoted to her own ideas makes her selfish, but I'm not sure. She is the type of person who is convinced that there is only one correct answer to the big question of "how." It doesn't make her selfish, it makes her narrow-minded, and probably bigoted.

Also, I don't think she was trying to escape in the end. Or if she was, it was so that she could try to "restart" utopia. Obviously, utopia won't start itself; and you can't kill a Delta without breaking a few eggs and detention centers.

I want you to explain to me exactly how Lamb is selfish. Her intentions are for the world to benefit, not herself. She didn't do any of this for herself. How does that make her selfish?

[janissary12]

She took advantage of a people who were already in bad shape to further her own agenda. Please stop calling her "not selfish". (Quite the politician really)

In "The Screwtape Letters", Screwtape writes his (demonic) nephew that one of their (Hell's) great accomplishments was a perversion of language that equated 'unselfish' with 'generous'.

[janissary12]

Lamb is just stupid really, how one can bold facedly claim that she works for the good of everyone and then sending hordes of Splicers at you as cannon fodder I have no idea, or jumping onto Sinclairs escape pod while getting ready to kill everyone in Persephone. What good did she actually do for anyone, yeah she united the Splicers again after the death of Ryan, but she also spent alot of time churning up hate and spite amongst the lower classes; the lower classes were un-happy but they knew why they were poor, because they weren't good enough, because there business got beat by a better one. Then Lamb starts showing up and destroying everything, more of a spin doctor really.

If you swallow the swill that Rand served up, sure. But collusion among competitors can bring down a firm or an entire class --you think all those Black people after the (US) Civil War were stupid or lazy, or that the systematic de-facto conspiratorial oppression against them prevented them from getting ahead? People can become or stay poor for many reasons, and capability needn't be one.

All you need is a short run of bad luck. And as the news from Goldman Sachs today clearly illustrates, there are people more than willing to engineer your bad luck for you.

[Crezth]

In "The Screwtape Letters", Screwtape writes his (demonic) nephew that one of their (Hell's) great accomplishments was a perversion of language that equated 'unselfish' with 'generous'.

Thanks for posting this, I wasn't able to get that across in few enough words... if at all.

If you swallow the swill that Rand served up, sure. But collusion among competitors can bring down a firm or an entire class --you think all those Black people after the (US) Civil War were stupid or lazy, or that the systematic de-facto conspiratorial oppression against them prevented them from getting ahead? People can become or stay poor for many reasons, and capability needn't be one.

All you need is a short run of bad luck. And as the news from Goldman Sachs today clearly illustrates, there are people more than willing to engineer your bad luck for you.

I think I'm in love <3

[Lingarn]

I want you to explain to me exactly how Lamb is selfish. Her intentions are for the world to benefit, not herself. She didn't do any of this for herself. How does that make her selfish?

She did all of it for herself.

Rather than sacrificing her own life, her own ambitions, to make the world a better place, she sacrificed everyone and everything around her. The entire endeavor was to create her utopia, her vision of perfection.

Her world has no humans in it, only mindless automatons. How can that benefit anyone but her? There will be no one else left.

[Big Bad Sister]

I think that janissary, Crezth, and I are the unholy trinity of anti-Ryanists against the rest of these boards.

Thank you, janissary, for stating so articulately the truth that poverty is NOT necessarily caused by laziness or inherent inferiority. If it were, then Andrew Ryan would have no right to complain about communists robbing farmers of their land, since the real reason that the farmers are so poor is that they are just bad at farming, while fat-pocketed communist dictators are clearly hardworking and productive, as evidenced by their vast wealth.

Even Ayn Rand never claimed that poverty was always "just" or "right;" she just didn't think that it was UNJUST, just as being killed by an animal or a natural disaster was not unjust. Objectivism doesn't have the same conception of "justice" as the Judeo-Christian moral tradition; indeed, Rand's "ethical egoism" sought to supplant traditional Christian morality.

Think of the issue this way: Christians, following the Christian concept of justice, have always questioned the notion that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and just, because how can a just and all-powerful, all-knowing God allow evil and injustice (accidents, natural disasters, and crimes by humans against other humans) to happen? Some people say that God is not just, and some even say that there is no God at all, since they'd rather not live in a universe with an unjust (read "evil") God.

Rand went one step further, and said that not only was there no God; there was no such thing as justice, and because there was no justice, acts which Christians may regard as "unjust" (such as oppressing or taking advantage of the poor, letting sick people die, and leaving widows and orphans destitute) could not be "unjust" because the very concept of justice is social and legal fiction.

Instead of justice, Rand advocated "ethical egoism," in which "justice" is a social construct that individuals agree to observe in exchange for the benefit of the self. Human beings agree to respect the "rights" of other human beings, in exchange for having their own rights respected - HOWEVER, if human beings do not desire certain rights, they should not be coerced into respecting the same such rights of other people in exchange for those unwanted rights. Justice is a business transaction, and no one should be forced to buy a product that he does not want (the product being rights). Therefore, practices such as charity (giving *INTEREST*-free loans to poor people) should not be considered moral obligations, since the people who are being pressured to give the loans may not wish to receive loans in turn, since they may not NEED them, and even if they ever DO need them, they may not WANT to be indebted to the people who are willing to give them loans; they'd rather make their own way in the world, without owing any debt to anybody. Thus, if people DO need help, they should make arrangements with people who DO want to help them, and NOT pressure those who do NOT want to help them to do so. Charity is therefore an individual choice and not a moral duty.

* I meant "INTEREST," NOT "DEBT"

[CMRankine]

She did all of it for herself.

Rather than sacrificing her own life, her own ambitions, to make the world a better place, she sacrificed everyone and everything around her. The entire endeavor was to create her utopia, her vision of perfection.

Her world has no humans in it, only mindless automatons. How can that benefit anyone but her? There will be no one else left.

Oh, come on. Ryan made those automatons. She tried to make a society they could live in.

I may be a little lost. Are you contrasting her selfishness with Ryan's selflessness?

[CMRankine]

I think that janissary, Crezth, and I are the unholy trinity of anti-Ryanists against the rest of these boards.

:`(

I know I'm new here, but dayyum.

[Lingarn]

Oh, come on. Ryan made those automatons. She tried to make a society they could live in.

I may be a little lost. Are you contrasting her selfishness with Ryan's selflessness?

Not in the least. I think each was tremendously selfish.

I am responding to the notion that Lamb was selfless, which I hold to be untrue.

[Big Bad Sister]

Phew, you have no idea how honestly frustrating it is to see so many people trumpeting Galt's Gulch around here. I'm not a politically savvy person but I do give such things thought, and for awhile I bought into Ayn Rand pretty heavily. I quickly grew out of that phase, however. So I appreciate your denouncing Rapture.

I will caution, however, that the gulch is as likely in any scenario to fail as the commune. We have many real-life examples of failed communes to prove this. The gulch may be fictional, but we can tell from the way people act in our world that the gulch's realistic fate is not unlike what Rapture demonstrates.

I maintain that Fontaine is a great example of why the gulch cannot work. There will always be someone who plays the system instead of the game, who goes behind the control panel and fiddles with the wires. He doesn't need to buy people with money or ideas, he can buy them with compassion (or a semblance of it). Fontaine is the elementary monkey-wrench in Ryan's Rapture, and a great example of why Rapture could never be AND thrive.

Consequently, Delta is an example of why the commune cannot work. It is perhaps a little more tortured a metaphor, but you never know when a great man will stand up against the multitude and demand his right to choose and live as he desires. All the more dangerous if he has a drill and superpowers.

Thank you for the compliments, Crezth.

I agree that a commune is bound to fail as well as a gulch. No group of people can live totally isolated from the rest of the world in a dangerous environment and reasonably expect that nature will be kind to them and not allow disaster to befall them. However, I think that a commune in Rapture's situation would be longer-lasting than a gulch, only because cooperation is preferable to competition in survival situations. Of course, no commune is perfect, and many of them turn out not be cooperatives at all, merely systems of domination and control.

The longest-lasting societies in history have been collectivistic societies in which individual rights are considered secondary to the survival of everyone in the group. Collectivism and individual rights are not mutually exclusive, and proof of this can be found in the country of the United States, which prides itself on the individual liberty that its citizens enjoy, but is very much a collectivistic society in which the needs of every citizen trump the desires of the individual.

:`(

I know I'm new here, but dayyum.

Okay, I'll coddle you and expand my trinity to a quad.

Happy?

[CMRankine]

I didn't mind getting left out of the triad so much as getting lumped into "the rest of the boards". Maybe not so binary?

[Big Bad Sister]

Not in the least. I think each was tremendously selfish.

I am responding to the notion that Lamb was selfless, which I hold to be untrue.

I don't think that Lamb was selfless. We as a society like to conflate the qualities of selflessness and unselfishness. Many people accuse newborn children of being selfish. Actually, newborn babies are totally selfless, because they have no concept of self. Selflessness is a mental state of being, not a virtue or a moral quality.

Unselfishness, on the other hand, is a virtue and moral quality. Unselfishness is the acknowledgement that there is more to this world than ourselves, and that the world does not revolve around us. Unselfishness entails the recognition that this world is inhabited by other people, who have as much right to exist as we do, and that these other have their own selves and own desires, and that their self-interests are no less legitimate than ours.

Andrew Ryan believed that self-interest was a man's highest calling, to use a religious term. Sofia Lamb believed that every man had the right to have his needs met, and an obligation to meet the needs of others in turn. Andrew Ryan served only his own needs; Sofia Lamb was concerned with the needs of others as well as her own. Andrew Ryan was selfish; Sofia Lamb was unselfish...while Ryan was still alive. After Ryan died, and Lamb took power, she began to change. Power corrupts, after all.

Kidnapping little girls from the surface to turn them into monsters into selfish so much as simply unjust - it's robbing Peter to pay Paul when you don't have the money to pay Paul. Injustice does not always originate from selfishness.

The decision by Sofia Lamb to smother Eleanor can be characterized as selfish or unselfish; the truth is ambiguous. Selfish because Sofia Lamb does not want to lose her daughter to Delta. Unselfish because she feels that Delta and Eleanor's cooperation with him are threats to the well-being of the Family. (Oh, and before anyone raises what I call "the argument by blood relation," killing one's own child is not morally worse than killing anybody else. It may be more painful for the parent, but it's no worse objectively than the murder of a total stranger.)

Lamb's final decision to enter Sinclair's escape pod and escape to the surface with Delta and Eleanor certainly is selfish, because, in doing so, she is abandoning the Family for her own self-interest in having a relationship with her daughter. People have argued that Lamb does not love her daughter; I disagree. Lamb loves too much, but love can be a selfish quality. Love can lead you to sacrifice yourself for others, or to sacrifice others for the one that you love. Lamb does both.

I didn't mind getting left out of the triad so much as getting lumped into "the rest of the boards". Maybe not so binary?

Sorry, but if you're not with me, you're against me. There's no in-between. (And yes, it's all about me. I am Andrew Ryan reincarnated as a female.)

[majorjackass]

@Big Bad Sister, Janissary, Crezth.

You win.

You've proven that you have the drive to relentlessly pummle me with your opinion. (You've also demonstrated an understanding of semantics.)
Unfortunately, you haven't changed my mind. Your opinions contain too much emotion, mixed in with your logic. This makes your comments appear "extreme", and somewhat condescending.

You can take that with a grain of salt though.. I'm a computer geek for life and work, so just about anything outside of electronic devices seems to mix too much emotion with logic.

[venom11]

i think sofia lamb was worse because she reborned rapture. she had control of all splicer in rapture and ryan...well nobody loved ryan. he didn't have control over rapture. spilcers were doing what sofia said,in ryan's time splicers were doing whatever they want.

[Crezth]

She did all of it for herself.

Rather than sacrificing her own life, her own ambitions, to make the world a better place, she sacrificed everyone and everything around her. The entire endeavor was to create her utopia, her vision of perfection.

Her world has no humans in it, only mindless automatons. How can that benefit anyone but her? There will be no one else left.

Uhm, no. There is a lot of evidence in the fiction to demonstrate that Lamb existed outside the self (with a lot of discipline, to be sure; and at great personal cost). There is very little to show that she is selfish, except your personal feelings about her.

It was her VISION of perfection, but EVERYONE's utopia.

Even Ayn Rand never claimed that poverty was always "just" or "right;" she just didn't think that it was UNJUST, just as being killed by an animal or a natural disaster was not unjust. Objectivism doesn't have the same conception of "justice" as the Judeo-Christian moral tradition; indeed, Rand's "ethical egoism" sought to supplant traditional Christian morality.

Think of the issue this way: Christians, following the Christian concept of justice, have always questioned the notion that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and just, because how can a just and all-powerful, all-knowing God allow evil and injustice (accidents, natural disasters, and crimes by humans against other humans) to happen? Some people say that God is not just, and some even say that there is no God at all, since they'd rather not live in a universe with an unjust (read "evil") God.

Rand went one step further, and said that not only was there no God; there was no such thing as justice, and because there was no justice, acts which Christians may regard as "unjust" (such as oppressing or taking advantage of the poor, letting sick people die, and leaving widows and orphans destitute) could not be "unjust" because the very concept of justice is social and legal fiction.

Instead of justice, Rand advocated "ethical egoism," in which "justice" is a social construct that individuals agree to observe in exchange for the benefit of the self. Human beings agree to respect the "rights" of other human beings, in exchange for having their own rights respected - HOWEVER, if human beings do not desire certain rights, they should not be coerced into respecting the same such rights of other people in exchange for those unwanted rights. Justice is a business transaction, and no one should be forced to buy a product that he does not want (the product being rights). Therefore, practices such as charity (giving *INTEREST*-free loans to poor people) should not be considered moral obligations, since the people who are being pressured to give the loans may not wish to receive loans in turn, since they may not NEED them, and even if they ever DO need them, they may not WANT to be indebted to the people who are willing to give them loans; they'd rather make their own way in the world, without owing any debt to anybody. Thus, if people DO need help, they should make arrangements with people who DO want to help them, and NOT pressure those who do NOT want to help them to do so. Charity is therefore an individual choice and not a moral duty.

* I meant "INTEREST," NOT "DEBT"

Food for thought. Too bad I can't add anything of value except for that.

I agree that a commune is bound to fail as well as a gulch. No group of people can live totally isolated from the rest of the world in a dangerous environment and reasonably expect that nature will be kind to them and not allow disaster to befall them. However, I think that a commune in Rapture's situation would be longer-lasting than a gulch, only because cooperation is preferable to competition in survival situations. Of course, no commune is perfect, and many of them turn out not be cooperatives at all, merely systems of domination and control.

The longest-lasting societies in history have been collectivistic societies in which individual rights are considered secondary to the survival of everyone in the group. Collectivism and individual rights are not mutually exclusive, and proof of this can be found in the country of the United States, which prides itself on the individual liberty that its citizens enjoy, but is very much a collectivistic society in which the needs of every citizen trump the desires of the individual.

Naturally. The trend of civilization is towards more society, more collective control, and managing public property. It is less repulsive to our minds to work together.

@Big Bad Sister, Janissary, Crezth.

You win.

You've proven that you have the drive to relentlessly pummle me with your opinion. (You've also demonstrated an understanding of semantics.)
Unfortunately, you haven't changed my mind. Your opinions contain too much emotion, mixed in with your logic. This makes your comments appear "extreme", and somewhat condescending.

You can take that with a grain of salt though.. I'm a computer geek for life and work, so just about anything outside of electronic devices seems to mix too much emotion with logic.

So were you spitting venom when you posted this? I really hope you didn't think you could post this and then walk away thinking "Oh yeah, I am a master of debate." Of course, with a name like majorjackass...

Let me see if I've got you right. You disagree with us despite our superior reasoning, and attribute our "victory" (your words, not mine, for some reason you view this as a battle of some sort) to mere semantics and stubborn addiction to opinion.

Then you go on to call us overemotional, condescending, and even extreme. Pot, meet kettle.

Then after that very loaded paragraph you tell us we can - by your grace - take what you say with a grain of salt. Then you distance yourself from humanity while trying to appear to be "cool" to fellow computer nerds.

Bravo, sir, you have skirted the issue while giving the semblance of relevance. Many important men have done the same, like Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. It is a valuable skill for a parasite to have.

[MetroidJunkie2008]

I'd say Lamb was more psychopathic and willing to do whatever it takes. When she stopped Eleanor's heart long enough to break the bond with Delta, she risked killing Eleanor and, thus, her "life's work"
I believe that single event makes her worse than Andrew Ryans, you don't see Andrew doing that to Jack in the game.

[Crezth]

I'd say Lamb was more psychopathic and willing to do whatever it takes. When she stopped Eleanor's heart long enough to break the bond with Delta, she risked killing Eleanor and, thus, her "life's work"
I believe that single event makes her worse than Andrew Ryans, you don't see Andrew doing that to Jack in the game.

Yeah, Andrew Ryan never tried to kill Ja-

oh... wait...

[janissary12]

Thanks for posting this, I wasn't able to get that across in few enough words... if at all.

If there's one thing a degree in Journalism is good for, it's brevity.

[Big Bad Sister]

Yeah, Andrew Ryan never tried to kill Ja-

oh... wait...

Lame argument: But at least he didn't know that Jack was his son! Because your son's life is so much more important than anyone else's life, only because of your own hormonal emotional attachments to him! And Eleanor's life was worth so much more than the lives of the other Little Sisters, so Delta can harvest all of them and still be considered morally superior to Lamb because at least he didn't try to kill his own piece of human chattel - I mean daughter!

[MetroidJunkie2008]

Lame argument: But at least he didn't know that Jack was his son! Because your son's life is so much more important than anyone else's life, only because of your own hormonal emotional attachments to him! And Eleanor's life was worth so much more than the lives of the other Little Sisters, so Delta can harvest all of them and still be considered morally superior to Lamb because at least he didn't try to kill his own piece of human chattel - I mean daughter!

Technically, it's up to you whether Delta is morally superior or inferior, I went through the game without harvesting once.

[Winterkid]

Yeah, Andrew Ryan never tried to kill Ja-

oh... wait...

Andrew Ryan knew about "Would you Kindly" and could easily have done what Lamb did to Delta.

[MetroidJunkie2008]

Andrew Ryan knew about "Would you Kindly" and could easily have done what Lamb did to Delta.

Good point.

[The_Iceman_Cometh]

I would say Sofia. Andrew created Rapture and never had the intent of using ADAM, until Tennenbaum, Suchong, and Fontaine convinced him to. Ryan just wanted to build a city.

Lamb on the other hand, wanted to "destroy the self". In other words make it so people no longer had free will, but instead did what was best for "the family". When she had Elanor, her intent was to raise Elanor to be the first to destroy the self in the mind. This becaime nearly imposible with Elanor's change into a Little Sister. So instead she put Elanor to take the decisions of other people. She did this by kind of using Elanor's brain as a filter. The memories stayed, but the ADAM left. This is the differenc between what happened to Gil and what was to happen to Elanor. Gil would take the ADAM body and mind, but Elanor would only take the mind part. She wouldnt be horribly disfigured like Gil, but she would be practicly insane. This is what Lambs "treatments" did. She made the treatments to help Elanor from going insane. She did all of this to take control of Rapture. She was about to succeed when Elanor re-awakend Delta came along. Then BOOM you have a story and a horrible enemy who wants to destroy free will and control thousands of insane spliced up people.

[Ryan's number 1 fan]

Lamb *looks at username*.........what?

[Crezth]

Andrew Ryan knew about "Would you Kindly" and could easily have done what Lamb did to Delta.

Andrew Ryan still knew about Jack's status as his son before Jack reached his room. I think from about the famous "nostalgia" line onwards, Andrew had a very solid inkling of Jack's true nature.

So why didn't he WYK him? It is possible Ryan didn't believe that WYK would work, or was even morally opposed to it (fat chance, because he controlled people with mental suggestion anyway). There are in-numerous explanations for Ryan's premature death. Most likely, however, Ryan did it to prove a point - little attachment to Jack whatsoever.

I would say Sofia. Andrew created Rapture and never had the intent of using ADAM, until Tennenbaum, Suchong, and Fontaine convinced him to. Ryan just wanted to build a city.

Lamb on the other hand, wanted to "destroy the self". In other words make it so people no longer had free will, but instead did what was best for "the family". When she had Elanor, her intent was to raise Elanor to be the first to destroy the self in the mind. This becaime nearly imposible with Elanor's change into a Little Sister. So instead she put Elanor to take the decisions of other people. She did this by kind of using Elanor's brain as a filter. The memories stayed, but the ADAM left. This is the differenc between what happened to Gil and what was to happen to Elanor. Gil would take the ADAM body and mind, but Elanor would only take the mind part. She wouldnt be horribly disfigured like Gil, but she would be practicly insane. This is what Lambs "treatments" did. She made the treatments to help Elanor from going insane. She did all of this to take control of Rapture. She was about to succeed when Elanor re-awakend Delta came along. Then BOOM you have a story and a horrible enemy who wants to destroy free will and control thousands of insane spliced up people.

Um, thanks. I believe many of us know the story however (even though you sort of missed the mark on explaining it).

Lamb's plan may be repulsive to your imagination, but in terms of what she did do and what her projections were, she still did about as bad as Ryan (who murdered many and controlled people with mental suggestions).

Lame argument: But at least he didn't know that Jack was his son! Because your son's life is so much more important than anyone else's life, only because of your own hormonal emotional attachments to him! And Eleanor's life was worth so much more than the lives of the other Little Sisters, so Delta can harvest all of them and still be considered morally superior to Lamb because at least he didn't try to kill his own piece of human chattel - I mean daughter!

Yeah, this bit always exasperates me. As a human being and therefore intelligent animal, I will probably value my son over all of humanity as well. What separates Sofia from us, therefore, is that she has transcended animal instinct to become something higher than herself, that values all humanity equally and does not allow genetics or family ties to disrupt that.

It's not a clear cut answer. If the question is "Who is more human?" then the answer is most likely Ryan. But humanity doesn't equate to goodness.

[Big Bad Sister]

Yeah, this bit always exasperates me. As a human being and therefore intelligent animal, I will probably value my son over all of humanity as well. What separates Sofia from us, therefore, is that she has transcended animal instinct to become something higher than herself, that values all humanity equally and does not allow genetics or family ties to disrupt that.

...until the end of BioShock 2, when she abandons the Family in Rapture in order to save her relationship to her daughter.

It's not a clear cut answer. If the question is "Who is more human?" then the answer is most likely Ryan. But humanity doesn't equate to goodness.

I don't think that Ryan ever valued Jack in a human or fatherly way. He himself insisted, "All that matters to me is me." If he valued Jack in any way, it was only in the way that a slave owner values his slaves, as flesh and blood commodities to be used and disposed of. And in Ryan's eyes, the people of Rapture were his indeed his slaves to use and dispose of as he saw fit. Being the narcissist that he was, Ryan was never able to value other people as individuals in their own right; a person only meant anything to Ryan if he or she was of practical use to him. Most slaveowners at least acknowledge the humanity of their own children, but not Ryan. Jack was just a slave to Ryan of a different sort; if the splicers were protectors of Ryan's city, then Jack was the steward of Ryan's legacy.