Living in an Underwater city sounds like a mystical utopia. One may think of living an exotic life as a mermaid swimming among marine life, but in Rapture there is no room for any mermaids or “parasites”. Instead, Rapture offers man a place where man is entitled to the sweat of his brow, a place where one is not limited to legal morality and does not need to fear being censored, a place where a man can experience and live in absolute freedom. Rapture is a city that is an embodiment of extremes, which makes it a perfect place for a trickster to manipulate for his own gain. In other words Rapture serves as the perfect place for a con-man to blend in seamlessly as an opportunist businessman.
In Bioshock, is a first person shooter game released by 2K Games. The player In Bioshock, is a first person shooter game released by 2K Games. The player controls a man named Jack, who is only heard speaking at the beginning of the game where he is recounting his memories with his family, while opening a package as he is aboard an airplane, after Jack takes on the role of the silent protagonist, to allow the player to fully be immersed in their role as Jack. A silent protagonist is the perfect canvas for the player to portray their own personality onto the character. After the plane Jack is on crashes into the Atlantic ocean he finds himself stranded on a small island with nothing but a lighthouse. As he enters the light house a dramatic light turns on and the protagonist is led to a bathysphere, a submarine that leads him to Rapture. The grand look of the city hides the forces that led its citizens to insanity and city to shambles.
As the player enters the city he is contacted via a small radio by a man named Atlas. Atlas quickly takes on the role as Jack’s guide and helps him navigate the unfamiliar city. As the only voice on the radio, Atlas quickly gains the player’s trust, making it easier for the player to do everything Atlas instructs. Atlas deceives the player and the city throughout the game by hiding his true intentions. He perceives people as disposable and as means to get what he wants, which is to gain control of Rapture and use its power to conquer the surface.It is not until the player kills Andrew Ryan, the founder of the city, that Atlas reveals his true identity, Frank Fontaine, a fraud.
Frank is a man of many faces and the embodiment of a trickster. Just like many tricksters (e.g. Rumpelstiltskin and Doopliss from Paper Mario) very little people know his name, in this case Frank’s last name, adding more mystery to the character, giving him power. As a orphan and runaway Frank found work at a theater as a stage boy. This job gave Frank the arsenal and knowledge of using acting and disguise as a way to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. Just like the trickster, Frank shapeshifts into different personas throughout his life as a means of getting ahead. He further embodies the trickster by using his cunningness to get away with his crimes and avoids punishment. After learning the FBI is investigating him for an interstate Bookmaking operation, he quickly switches his name to Frank Gorland, and goes to the extreme measure of making a false birth certificate. This will be the first step into getting his career as a conman started.
In 1946 Frank Gorland conned bar owner, Harve Murton, by having him sign a cIn 1946 Frank Gorland conned bar owner, Harve Murton, by having him sign a contract for loan to pay off gambling debts, after failing to pay Gorland ended up with his business. This is another example of the trickster taking advantage of a gullible soul in order to get what he wants, he saw the business as a good way to make a profit, and used bartending as a way to eavesdrop. While bartending he overhears gangsters talking about a fixed fight where boxer Steele is to lose the match. Gorland sees this a great opportunity to make some extra cash and comes up with the alias “Lucio Fabrici.” Gorland used his ability to turn into a different person to take advantage of his situation and outsmart his opponents. As Lucio he sneaks in before the fight to convince Steele that the gangsters had a change of plans, which results in Steele winning the fight and Gorland having the last laugh by betting that Steele would win and getting all the cash.
While bartending Gorland meets FBI agent Voss who was involved in the Intertse bookmaking investigation, and is now pursuing information about Andrew Ryan’s “North Atlantic project.” Voss blackmails Gorland into passing on any information he overhears along to him. Later a drunken woman is heard talking about her husband mysteriously death while working under Andrew Ryan’s project. This aroused his curiosity, he tailed a pair of sailors to their ship called The Olympian, where he learned about Ryan’s plan to build an underground city by assaulting a worker and scaring him by telling him he was an FBI agent. Here Gorland took on a new identity in order to gain information. As a way to get involved in the operation Gorland pretends to be delivery man, Bill Foster, whose job is to bring a ship of canned food from Seaworthy constructions warehouse. As a delivery man he is able to gain the confidence of a manager who gives him more details about the project. He then takes this further by Hiring Reggy as muscle to scare Harve Merton, who eventually gives Gorland information about a man named Frank Fontaine, a smuggler who owns a fishery, he is known for smuggling goods from Cuba to the United States. Gorland arranges to meet Fountaine, at the meeting Golarand persuades Frank Fontaine into thinking that Voss is planning to frame him for smuggling drugs and has a warrant for his arrest. This scares Fontaine into the brash decision of selling his fleet to Gorland. However Gorland has no intention on paying him, and instead has the intention of becoming him. He pushes Frank Fontaine overboard causing him to drown and takes on his new surname.
With his new identity as a businessman, Fontaine sends letters to Andrew Ryan with every shipment. In his letter he talks about admiring and agreeing with Ryan’s ideals, and takes the chance of asking Andrew Ryan to let him be a part of Rapture. He tells Ryan that he will be a valuable asset by setting up a fishing business with a modified submarine. Fountaine saw Rapture as the perfect place for a con. In 1948 Andrew Ryan invited Frank Fontaine to Rapture. For while Fountaine made more money by smuggling items from the surface. By doing this Fontaine is a man of duality and doesn’t care if he is following the principles of any type of authority. By smuggling items from the surface he messed with the structure of Rapture as a place that is supposed to live in isolation and separate from the surface.While at Fontaine’s fishing dock, scientist Brigid Tenenbaum comes across a worker whose injured arm has been healed by a sea slug that contains Adam, a substance with medical properties. Tenenbaum goes to Fontaine asking him to fund her research. Fontaine immediately makes a deal with Tenenbaum with promises of any profit she makes from her research going to him. Fountaine is selfish and only cares how he is going to come out on top. He takes every opportunity to gain power and prestige in order to get what he wants.
Fountaine opens Fontaine futuristics and hires Tenenbaum and Yi Schong to make plasmids that allow one to saind superhuman abilities. After many experiments the scientist came to the conclusion that little girls were the best candidate to produce adam. Little girls were turned into Adam making machines by having a slug implanted into their stomach. In response to this Fontaine came up with a deceptive plan to get as many little girls as they need. Fontaine does not care about who he hurts in the process as long as he gets what he looks for and continues to gain power.
Fontaine builds an orphanage as a front to harvest Adma. He deceives working class parents by telling them that they can send their girls here to be taken care of and educated. Fonstaine paints himself as a helping hand, gaining the trust of the people and then uses his “charity” as a way to boost public image. Even Andrew Ryan saw him as an example of a man working to better himself. However, Andrew Ryan quickly changed his mind about Fountaine after discovering his smuggling ring. Ryan saw it as a threat because it might reveal the location of the city and send chief Sullivan to shut down his ring. Fountaine, feeling pressure, came up with plan B to take over rapture. He comes up with an elaborate plan of creating the perfect sleeper agent. He managed to get a hold of Ryan’s unborn son by making a deal with Ryan’s mistress Jasmine Jolene. The baby was then to be brainwashed and genetically altered so the child will age much faster than normal. This would make the child an obedient assassin, programmed to do any bidding followed by the phrase “would you kindly.”
Frank Fontaine will then continue to deceive the people around him by faking his death in a shootout with Andrew Ryan’s men, once again allowing him to escape punishment from crimes. This gives the city false hope that the enemy has been defeated, and gives Ryan a false sense of security. Founstaine will then emerge as a changed man once again.
Atlas is the complete opposite of Fonstaie. Painting himself as a hero of the working class and a family man. Founstaine became a force of chaos by taking on his revolutionary persona of Atlas. In Bioshock 2 the player can go into Frank fountains office and find an audio diary with Frank fountain plan to adopt his atlas personality. There is also a fake family portrait titled The Fontaine Family, as a way to add legitimacy to his Fontaine perona. As Atlas, Founstaine is able to charm the masses by handing out supplies and telling them what they wanted to hear. His actions set the motion for the Rapture civil war, against Ryan and Atlas army of slicers. By causing a revolt Atlas disrupted the economy and terrorized the social structures that rules Rapture. However Fontaine never passes up an opportunity to make a profit and as Atlas he still manages to produce plasmids in illegal labs. Eventually Andrew Ryan finds Atlas and traps him by gaining control over the splicers, citizens who have been corrupted by the high levels of Adam that are in their bodies. With no way out, Founstaine activates his sleeper agent and leads to a moment where the player finally encounters Andrew Ryan.
It is in Andrew’s Final moments that the player and Jack finally come to the realization that he is in reality a helpless puppet doing the bidding of Frank Fontaine. The game further makes this clear by Atlas giving the player one last command; to override the system so he can take control. Fountain confess to the player his deceptive ways, and his true self is shown after a sinister laugh. Jack then manages to be free himself from Fontaine’s control and confronts Fontaine at Point Prometheus, who is now a splicer with inhuman strength. In Fontaine’s final form he takes almost a godlike persona. He feels unstoppable because of his newfound powers that were granted to him by Adam. His body turns into almost a statue like perfect figure. Fontaine hides at an exhibit at an old memorial museum and injects more Adam. Almost alluring to the image that he will never accomplish and to the fact that no matter how much Fontaine gains he will never be satisfied. He taunts Jack by telling him he is now an unstoppable force. Jack however is able to weaken Fontaine by draining his Adam, stripping him of his powers, Fountains final death is in the hands of the many little girls he ruined by exploiting them for a profit. Fontaine embodies the trickster by being a shapeshifter and using this ability for his own selfish gain and interest. Fontaine does what it takes to come out on top regardless of who he has to step over, he is a cunning man who is full of deception and mystery. After all he did manage to fool the player into thinking they had free will.
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