Bridgette Tenenbaum
From BioShock Wiki
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| Bridgette Tanenbaum | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Born | c. 1920 |
| Birthplace | Germany |
| Arrived in Rapture | c. 1946 |
| Physical Description | |
| Gender | Female |
| Hair Color | Brown |
| Eye Color | Brown |
| Appearances | |
| Appears in | BioShock BioShock 2 |
- "She's damaged goods, all right. Just like all those chumps they scraped out of them prison camps. But she's no crackpot... she's gonna make me the kinda scratch that'll have Ryan look like he's runnin' a paper route."
- ―Frank Fontaine[src]
Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum is a genetic scientist who helped originally develop ADAM. She is also the "mother" of the Little Sisters; she created them, and cares a great deal about their safety. The player is able to win her allegiance by saving the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them for ADAM.
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[edit] History
Tenenbaum managed to survive being held prisoner in World War II, where she discovered she had a love for science. The Germans picked up on this and put her to work as a doctor for them at the age of 16, mainly on experiments using prisoners as guinea pigs. Tenenbaum would notice that what some of the doctors were doing was wrong and corrected them. She was a scientific genius at a very young age.
It is implied that Tenenbaum is either Jewish or (more likely) is of Jewish ancestry due to her surname and the conditions she was held under. She is likely a German of Jewish ancestry, since Fontaine and other citizens of Rapture refer to her as a "Kraut," one audio diary even directly calling her German. [1] However, in her Audio Diaries, she seems to be indifferent to the Nazis and the Holocaust in general.
After her arrival in Rapture Tenenbaum was the first to discover ADAM. She discovered a slug that changes the body and the mind giving the user many powers. At first she was snubbed by the scientists of Rapture but with the help of Frank Fontaine she was able to get her invention off the ground and quickly became the most well known woman in Rapture.
With Fontaine's help she was able to create the Little Sisters, but once she realized what she was doing she became disgusted with herself because they had awoken her Maternal Instinct. Realizing that she was simply creating monsters, Tenenbaum began to hate herself for what she had done.
[edit] BioShock
By the time Jack arrives in Rapture, Tenenbaum has seen the error of her ways and begs Jack to help the Little Sisters. If Jack does what she asks he only retrieves 80 ADAM per rescue, but after every three rescues she rewards him with 200 ADAM and various other items, including rare Plasmids (Hypnotize Big Daddy 1 & 2). If Jack chooses to harvest the Little Sisters, he retrieves 160 ADAM, and she does nothing but express her anger towards him. Jack's choice is left to the player.
Towards the conclusion of the game, Tenenbaum helps Jack by removing Fontaine's mental conditioning, and showing him what he really is, making herself his one and only true ally. She frees him and lets him live a real life. Her final fate is revealed in the sequel; preliminary coverage from GameInformer Magazine says that regardless of Jack's actions, she left Rapture with her own group of Little Sisters.[2] It is not known if she interacted with Jack after this, especially regarding the good ending where he rescues five Little Sisters and raises them on the surface. Further contact seems to be implied, however, by the line in the good ending "You never said what was your reward..."
[edit] Video
[edit] BioShock 2
After the events of BioShock, Dr. Tenenbaum spent 10 years living on the surface[3]. The events involved in the kidnapping of girls from the surface to turn them into Little Sisters caught her attention, and drew her back down to Rapture.
She has been quoted as saying "She is taking girls and turning them into...creatures like her. All of this...it is my fault."[4] With "she," being the Big Sister, one of the remaining Little Sisters Tenenbaum brought to the surface with her.[5] She is shown communicating via radio with the protagonist, the first Big Daddy ever made, in a picture shown in the magazine.[6] It is unknown what role, other than providing information about the Big Sister, she will have in the sequel.
Her presence in BioShock 2 was fully revealed in the debut gameplay trailer on GameTrailers TV, where the Big Sister is seen running around the halls of Rapture and Tenenbaum says to the player, via radio: "What was that? Was it her? Follow her!"[7]. In BioShock 2, she appears slightly aged. Unlike in the first BioShock, Tenenbaum will feature her own model.
| Leaked Quote |
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[edit] Audio Diaries
[edit] Notes
- Bridgette Tenenbaum in particular shows the short comings of Rand's egoist theory. While Bridgette no doubt was acting in her own interest up to the time when she started helping the Little Sisters, she none the less was consumed by a sense of guilt which she could not control. Tenenbaum thus shows the inherent short coming of egoism (Objectivism) since any sane adherent is bound by a sense of guilt which the egoist philosophy cannot control but only navigate around.
[edit] Trivia
- Tenenbaum's name may be inspired by Ayn Rand's original last name, Rosenbaum.[8] It is also hinted that Tenenbaum was of Jewish heritage (she was kept in a German concentration camp for some time), a characteristic shared by Rand.
[edit] References
- ↑ Fontaine's Breakup
- ↑ Article in GameInformer Magazine, Page 35, "Whether or not you saved or harvested the Little Sisters in the first game, some of them still managed to escape with Tenenbaum."
- ↑ 2K Marin's Jordan Thomas Interview by Tom Bramwell at Eurogamer
- ↑ Article in April issue of GameInformer Magazine, Page 34
- ↑ Article in April issue of GameInformer Magazine, Page 35, "The Big Sister is one of those girls who has returned to Rapture and transformed herself."
- ↑ Article in April issue of GameInformer Magazine, Page 31, top right image
- ↑ BioShock 2 Gameplay Trailer GameTrailers.com
- ↑ Ayn Rand on Wikipedia
