a choice is better than none, no matter what the outcome

personality

Elizabeth is the literal definition of 'sheltered', since she'e been hidden away in the tower on Monument Island for as long as she can remember. She's a highly intelligent young woman, having been able to teach herself many skills from the books and items that Songbird brought her growing up, everything from lock picking, decoding ciphers, painting, to speaking multiple languages, all without any kind of external instruction. A fierce determination and curiosity fuels her, and she believes that anything can be accomplished with work and a positive outlook. So while it would be incorrect to call her anything but highly educated, it's important to differentiate between "books smarts" and "street smarts".

Because of her isolated upbringing, she is both naive and idealistic; it's not that she she doesn't have any idea of how the world works, it's that she has the wrong ideas of it. Her views on how things 'should' work have been coloured by reading about them in books. She believes in chivalry, in strong morals, and in good overcoming evil, and she's modeled her own ethics on these foundations. When Booker offers to take her to Paris, she agrees to go with him without having any proof that he's telling the truth (he's not). Only when she recognizes the coordinates being put into The First Lady airship's controls as directing them to New York, rather than Paris, does she realize that she's been deceived-- before that, it appears as though that possibility hadn't occurred to her. Likewise, she initially finds herself in favour of the Vox Populi movement, because she thinks that they are fighting for equality and the 'right' causes. Only once she witnesses their brutality does she realize that they are as cruel as Comstock is, just in different ways.

'Good' and 'bad' people are strongly delineated in her mind, at least at the beginning of the game. It's partly for this reason that she reacts with such horror when she witnesses Booker unflinchingly killing the agents sent by Comstock to retrieve her, and why she is repulsed to learn the things he did during the Wounded Knee Massacre. This perception changes as the game's story progresses, as does her belief that she herself is a 'good' person, and that gives her a fearlessness that often contradicts how she is supposed to have been brought up (and often her sense of self preservation). She defends herself against Booker (ironically, with a book) before she even fully processes that she's seeing another human face to face for the first time she can recall. Later, she feigns crying at being lied to, only to use it to knock Booker out with a wrench aboard the airship. Yet these instances, to Elizabeth, don't register as her doing 'bad' things, because they're in reaction to perceived threat. She doesn't really understand the ways she's putting herself in danger, not being worldly, and therefore providing a direct foil to Booker's cynical and hardened attitudes.

Elizabeth has a deep yearning for adventure and to see the world, made stronger by her ability to remotely view other realities through her Tears. Her longing to go to Paris represents not only a desire to see the city, but the chance to be free of her Tower, and to for the first time in her life, define who she is. At her initial canon point, she does not know that she is Comstock's daughter (his "Seed") and the one prophesied to inherit leadership of Columbia and lead it against the world below. When she learns this from an inscription in the Hall of Heroes, she reacts with anger and disgust, wanting no part of his scheme. She has a similar reaction when she realizes that Lady Comstock, believing that Elizabeth was a bastard child, was part of the reason she was locked away in the Tower for so many years. Likewise, she grew up trusting Songbird as her friend, and was grateful to him as her link to the outside world, but as she got older, began to resent him and see him more as her jailer than her provider. Seeing the mock-up of the Tower and realizing that her entire life has been spent under close observation of scientists trying to discern her control over the Tears, she is more angry than afraid.

Ultimately, Elizabeth wishes to be normal and to define her life as she wants, rather than being the product of other people's decisions. Now that she is away from Columbia, away from the revelations she's had about Comstock and the true nature of Columbia, she is determined to leave her past behind.

Layout by Tessisamess