Tears To a Sea of Doors:Feminist Challenges to Law in <i>BioShock Infinite</i>

BioShock Infinite is embroiled in the First-Person Shooter system of colonial and patriarchal violence, but unlike other games in the genre, draws attention to these aspects in order to challenge them. While the game has received both praise and criticism for its handling of race within this context, its depiction of femininity has largely been criticised for its denial of agency to female characters, its continued reliance on the patriarchal avatar of Booker DeWitt and the hypocritical contrast between the violence they respectively cause. However, rather than denying any of these criticisms, when considered within the full context of the game, we instead can read these as aspects that foreshadow the game’s ending which ultimately equates the video game avatar with the racist and patriarchal antagonist of the game, Father Comstock. By contrasting the characters of Lady Comstock, Daisy Fitzroy and Elizabeth, the game ultimately argues for a feminist viewpoint that neither supports the patriarch nor ultimately becomes him. Instead, through a reading of the Sea of Doors alongside the work of Barad, we find a queer femininity that disproves the foundations of the patriarchal worldview and the logic of the systems that support it.