Top 10 Most Evil BioShock Characters · 11:20am February 27th
I just outted BioShock as the greatest video game ever, which I stand by. You can come at me with all the Marios and Zeldas you want; BioShock is the peak of video game storytelling and corresponding gameplay. Indeed, I would say that the BioShock franchise as a whole is the best story in video game history (aside ffrom Burial at Sea, but put that to the side). From the deep sea depths of Rapture to the to the sky heights of Columbia, BioShock never fails to carry a morally bankrupt society filled with truly vile characters. Being the villain enthusiast I am, why not look over the most depraved of the lot.
Here are the 10 most evil villains of BioShock. Beware of spoilers (seriously, if you've never played the games and have any desire to enjoy the story, give this list a pass).
10. PAT CAVENDISH
To those only familiar with the games themselves, you would be unfamiliar with Partrick Cavendish. Having his only role in the canon novel, BioShock: Rapture, Pat Cavendish is a constable for Rapture's corrupt justice system. A bona fide dirty cop who is violent with prisoners and gun-crazy in the field, Pat goes on to line his pockets by selling off people to be killed by serial killers like Cohen and Steinman, and even selling off little girls to Suchong to be made into Little Sisters.
In the climax of the novel, when sent to take in Bill McDonagh, he tries to take in the man's wife and daughter just because he can, and is ready to gun down his constables when they object. All in all, Cavendish showcases the inherit problems with Rapture' monetary-based justice system and is as bad as a cop can be.
9. STANLEY POOLE
Stanley Poole is a conniving weasel of a man who, before arriving in Rapture, acted as a bribery-taking journalist, works for Andrew Ryan to get Johnny Topside turned into a Big Daddy and later gets Sofia Lamb arrested. After which, he turns Dionysus Park into a den of hedonism for his self-satisfaction, during which he sells off Sofia's daughter, Eleanor, to be turned into a Little Sister. It isn't until Sofia gets out of prison that he truly shows the depths he'll sink though. By which I mean, he floods Dionysus Park, killing at least hundred of people, to cover his sorry ass. And when Delta unfloods the park in BioShock, Stanley refuses to let him pass until he takes care of the Little Sisters, all to keep his arse covered. Even when he's found out, if confronted by Delta, he tries to pass it all off as 'nothing personal'.
A truly pathetic rat of a man, Stanley Poole is a deeply loathsome character.
8. DR. J. S. STEINMAN
During the events of the first game, Steinman is a complete madman, driven to please Aphrodite by mutilating people to death in an ever-vain attempt to achieve his abstract vision of beauty.
In the Rapture novel though, we get more insight into Steinman's personality; his drug-induced hallucinations being more a reflection of his narcissism and delusions of grandeur than true criminal insanity. Once in the confides of Rapture, he could fulfill his sick fantasies. Even before the Rapture Civil War, he was performing his fatal surgeries on people, using Adam in is experiments that prologued his victims' suffering, all for the sack of his delusions. Not to mention the plastic surgery he provides to Fontaine, helping him to continue his plans as Atlas.
By the time of the game's story, he's spliced off his gourd and has completely given in to his obsession and spends his days subjecting any splicer he gets his hands on to his futile goals of creating his idea of beauty.
7. JEREMIAH FINK
When you first enter Columbia in BioShock: Infinite, it seems quite heavenly. Then Jeremiah Fink tries to get you to stone an interracial couple.
Fink is the head scientist of Columbia after the 'murder' of the Lutece Twins; creating Handymen, the Vigors, and so on. Lording over the oppressive Finkton and Shantytown, Fink thinks nothing of abusing and overworking people or sending with men to their death to test Booker DeWitt to torturing prisoners for information even if it means their death; Fink is disturbingly casual about taking the ugly side of Columbia. For Jeremiah Fink, it's all about his ego and his profit.
6. SOFIA LAMB
Sofia Lamb is set up as an ironic opposite to Andrew Ryan. While Ryan promoted his selfish vindettas, Sofia preached her ideals of a more Utopian idea. However, her goals to create a 'Utopia' involved abusing her daughter, abandoning and throwing away the lives of her followers, creating the Big Sisters and sending them to kidnaps little girls from the surface and create more Little Sisters, and so much more; all done with a disturbingly detached attitude. Whether she's smothering her own daughter right in front of Delts of turning Sinclair into a Big Daddy out of spite, or setting an entire building filled with her followers to drown while she escaped in a submarine; Sofia proved herself to be every bit as selfish and hypocritical as Ryan.
5. FRANK FONTAINE
Ah, here he is; the criminal mastermind behind the first game. Frank Fontaine was a murderous con man even before he arrived in Rapture, and he took advantage of Ryan's inheretly flawed ideas to sew the seeds of his own grasp for power. From takign advantage of the vagrants to create an army of Adam-addicted followers to heading the creation of the Little Sisters and Big Daddys, Fontaine caused the Civil War to escalated Rapture into the hellhole it is in the game. To say nothing of his plots as Atlas, from murdering Elizabeth to manipulating Jack to Kill Ryan.
If there's one thing that Fontaine has over the likes of Ryan and Lamb, when the curtain is pulled back, he admitted to the evil bastard he is. The only genuine moment of kindness he has is making good on his agreement to not hurt Sally in his deal with Elizabeth, and he wouldn't think twice of harvesting her any other time.
4. SANDER COHEN
While Steinman at least kept his urges under control on the surface, Sander Cohen was already implied to be a serial killer before he came to Rapture. After he arrived, the sky was the limit to his depravity. Whether he was murdering people for his art, pimping out Little Sisters, or forcing a teenager to have sex with an octopus (yes, really), Cohen found himself perfectly at home in a place that defied morality.
Also unlike Steinman, in the game itself, Sander maintains his sanity in the main game (such as it is) as he sends the player to murder his own protégées, and having pictures taken for his masterpiece; showing a disturbingly sexual sadism in it all. While he does let the player continue afterwards, it's only because he wants Ryan dead too, and he'll attack at the slightest provocation.
3. DR. YI SUCHONG
While Fontaine and Ryan masterminded what made Rapture such a hellhole, Suchong was the architect. From the processing of plasmids that turned people into Splicers, to inducing the pheromones that made them slaves to Ryan, to creating of the Little Sisters and Big Daddys; Suchong has his hand in everything wrong in Rapture.
While even Fontaine and RYan showed hints of discomfort during the early days of these experiments, Suchong never showed any emotion in his mercenary exploits. Always showing an utter detachment in all his atrocities; from forcing Jack to break his puppies neck to hitting a Little Sister; Suchong was barely human.
2. ANDREW RYAN
The master behind Rapture and every single thing wrong with it. From his disturbingly selfish morales; to the point of calling altruism the root of all evil; to his hatred of the outside world, Ryan's dictatorship was evident from the start. But Ryan could hold on to his already amoral ideals, going against it whenever it suited him, most egregiously when he took over Fontaine's company after Fontaine's supposed death. Continuing the production of Little Sisters and Big Daddys, controlling Splicers with his pheromones, corrupting children with his sociopathic ideals in both schools and amusement parks, murdering his lover when he found out about her selling their baby because she desperately needed the money; Ryan clung to the delusion of his city's greatness, no matter how deplorable it's state got, imprisoning and killing all who spoke against his wretched reign. Even his close friends were turning into an impaled trophy to show his dominance. And in the end, he ends his final moments taunting his own son for being nothing but a slave.
The fact that there are people that consider Ryan a tragic character with understandable ideals disturbs me greatly.
Andrew Ryan was very close to taking the top spot and he's definitely the worst Rapture has to offer. But BioShock has one more baddie that just takes the top spot.
1. ZACHARY HALE COMSTOCK
Booker DeWitt committed great atrocities as a teenager in the Battle of Wounded Knee. His guilt for these action came to define him. While the Booker we follow refused to hide from his actions and become a depressed mercenary, another Booker sought to become a different person. A person who wouldn't feel guilt for anything. Thus, he became Comstock; a religious fanatic with a relentless racial antagonism. Building Columbia on a Christian- inspirated religon that painted himself as a messiah and allowed Fink to take care of the uglier side of this supposed paradise, Comstock went on to takign Elizabeth from another verison of himself, murdering his wife and framing Daisy Fitzroy, then 'murdering' the Lutece twins to cover his tracks. That doesn't even get to his ultimate plan to use Columbia (really a giant weapon) to destroy the world below, and torture Elizabeth into a reflection of himself to carry out his great plan.
While Ryan came close, Zachary Comstock takes the cake for a few reasons: his willingness to hurt those closest to him (from murdering his wife to torturing his daughter), the extent of his ambition (destroying the world is far beyond the goals of any other villain in the franchise), and the sheer pettiness of his motivation (when it comes down to it, all of the horrible things he does is because he didn't want to feel guilty); Comstock is BioShock's most evil villain and one of the most evil villains in all video games.
