Or why the ending’s generally accepted outcome is in fact, happy.

BIG BIG SPOILERS FROM HERE FORWARD, STOP FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE IF YOU DON'T WANT THAT!

(By this, I mean the drowning of Booker to cause any timelines where Booker chooses the baptism to cause drowning, leaving non-baptism Bookers to never sell Anna to the now non-existent Comstock, no Columbia, etc.)

I am like a lot of you. I became very attached to Elizabeth over the course of the game. I felt like I had been punched in the gut by the ending realizing that ‘our’ Elizabeth more than likely no longer existed. (Regardless of the center Elizabeth in the drowning scene actually being ‘our’ Elizabeth or not due to the missing brooch. Future DLC maybe?)

However, let us take a step back and look at what Elizabeth’s life actually was before, and during Bioshock Infinite. Her first 20 years of life are spent locked in a tower in Columbia, completely alone and trapped. Her only real companionship is Songbird, and she may have interacted with Rosalind Lutece a few times. Aside from that, her only ‘human’ contact is through whatever books and recordings her jailors decide to give her.

In comes Booker, in what must have been a terrifying moment. 20 years of solitude shattered in an instant. Cue running scene, and fall into Battleship Bay.

Tl;dr exists below:

Day 1: Elizabeth spends 30-1hr game time (let’s say 2-3 hours ‘real’ time) having fun exploring the beach and arcade. At this point, it is already close to sunset, so after the first firefight (which is horrifying to her) and going to boardwalk, night has already fallen.

Night: Boardwalk, followed by Hall of Heroes, Boardwalk again, First Lady airship. Smack Booker with a wrench for lying, abandons ship.

Day 2: Running from Booker, get captured, running from Booker again, descent into Fink Mfg. Going through tear in Good Time Club (it seems they did not travel though time in this tear, only dimensions), Shantytown, though another tear, back to Fink Mfg., fight alongside Vox, fight against Vox, Elizabeth kills her first person by stabbing Daisy. Take First Lady, attacked by songbird and crash.

At this point, we are still only getting to sunset on the second day of being free from the tower unless the time period where Booker is unconscious from being wrenched in the face is longer than it looks (which I find unlikely with how far Elizabeth actually got away)

Day 2 Dusk/Twilight: Emporia, Songbird scare, event leading to opening Comstock house then Elizabeth is captured by Songbird.

Tl;dr: Elizabeth has only spent about a day and a half with Booker before being captured and taken to Comstock house.

From the tears in Comstock house, which can guess that by the time of the rescue, Comstock and cronies have torturing/experimenting/brainwashing Elizabeth for at least six months. (Though I guess, this is debatable, as Old Liz could have sent you back to any point, but I doubt they would have made such a distinction through the tears if we were not meant to assume this timetable)

Cue end of game lead up, which again, takes place at most in one night.

Bigger Tl;dr Elizabeth spends only a day and a half free after her 20 year imprisonment before being tortured/brainwashed/experimented on for six months. That sucks.

Is this existence really worth it? By drowning Booker/Comstock we prevent creating (by the game’s rules) infinite sold baby Anna’s and imprisoned Elizabeth’s, and we get a lot of drowned Bookers and live Bookers who kept Anna.

At least by preventing Comstock and Columbia, we create some universes where Anna exists with Booker, where before we (by the game’s rules of stating only two outcomes are possible after the baptism) had none.

This ended up being much wordier than it was in my head, but I had to get it out. Closure I guess?

I will still miss our Elizabeth though.

Even bigger Tl;dr: Elizabeth’s life was terrible, maybe existing only as Anna is better.