A man chooses, a slave obeys

“A man has a choice... I chose the impossible.”

― Andrew Ryan

One of the major themes of Bioshock, and Andrew Ryan's personal motto.

The theme of self-determination and the question of destiny in the game is embodied by this phrase. During the game, the player, Jack, is given many choices, both tactically and morally, but his actions turned out to be illusory: his will had been controlled and driven by Frank Fontaine, under the guise of Atlas, via the phrase he'd been conditioned to obey, "Would you kindly..."

Ryan, once he identified who Jack really was, first openly controlled the player with the code phrase, forcing him to do humiliating actions with pet commands, then used it to have the player kill him.

"The assassin has overcome my final defense, and now he has come to murder me. In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No... A man chooses; a slave obeys. You think you have memories—a farm, a family, an airplane, a crash, and then this place. Was there really a family? Did that airplane crash, or... was it hijacked, forced down, forced down by something less than a man, something bred to sleepwalk through life until they are activated by a simple phrase, spoken by their kindly master. Was a man sent to kill, or a slave? A man chooses, a slave obeys. Come in. [opens door] Stop, would you kindly. 'Would you kindly'. Powerful phrase. Familiar phrase? [cascade of memories of Atlas ordering Jack with the phrase "would you kindly"] Sit, would you kindly? STAND... would you kindly? RUN! STOP! Turn... A man chooses, a slave obeys! [hands Jack his golf club] KILL! [struck in the head by the club] A MAN CHOOSES... [another strike] ...A SLAVE OBEYS! [another strike] OBEY!! [Ryan is killed with a final blow]"

Unable to stop, Jack was forced to acknowledge that he never had a choice, even his "plane crash" was due to Jack hijacking the plane and deliberately crashing it at the lighthouse.

Jack's new quest: self-determination.