Booker DeWitt

"One thing I've learned; if you don't draw first, you don't get to draw at all."

- Booker DeWitt

Booker DeWitt, a thirty-eight year old male, is the main protagonist of BioShock Infinite, whom the player controls throughout the game. Through his vocalization, the player comes to understand DeWitt's past experience and his ability to make decisions for himself. Unlike the other BioShock protagonist characters, DeWitt has his own identity, and the player is aware of it from the start.

History
DeWitt was a former Pinkerton Agent who was disgraced due to his use of extreme methods on the job. As a member of the Pinkerton Agency, DeWitt had been tasked with breaking up union strike efforts. At one point, he was part of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, and was present at the battle of Wounded Knee. His experiences at Wounded Knee mentally scarred him, which would lead to his future alcoholism and addiction to gambling. Following his discharge from the Pinkerton Agency, he became a private investigator.

Before the events of BioShock Infinite, DeWitt was going through a low point in his life, including the death of his wife when she was giving birth to their child. .

Events of BioShock Infinite
In 1912, Booker is contacted by a man who offered him a chance to pay off his gambling debts. The client gives DeWitt information about the location of Columbia and commissions him to find and rescue Elizabeth, a young woman held captive within the city, and bring her back to New York. Upon his arrival in Columbia, DeWitt hears explosions and gunfire in the distance, revealing the civil turmoil in the city. He arrives in Columbia sometime between 3 - 4 PM, due to the "Hudson's" shop docking time, and where the sun is at in the sky. In Columbia, Booker gains access to extraordinary abilities in the form of Vigors.

As Booker progresses through Columbia he is antagonized by Father Zachary Hale Comstock, the city's founder and leader who is seemingly gifted with foreknowledge and predicts Booker's future actions. He also experiences strange lapses in consciousness, always accompanied by a bleeding nose.

It is eventually revealed that Booker and Comstock are in fact the same person, but from different realities; after the battle of Wounded Knee, Booker DeWitt attempted to cleanse himself of his past through a baptism&mdash;in one reality, he accepted the baptism and became Zachary Comstock&mdash;in the other reality, Booker was unable to follow through, and rejected the ceremony, eventually falling into a life of alcohol, gambling and debt. To wipe away the debts, he made the decision to give up his child Anna to Comstock via Robert Lutece. However, Booker immediately regretted this decision, and chased after Lutece to get Anna back. In an alleyway, he came across Lutece, a young Comstock, holding Anna and a woman who stood within an unnatural hole in a wall&mdash;this hole, or portal, was a passage between Comstock's reality and Booker's. As he grappled with Comstock for Anna, Comstock and Lutece entered the portal, and Comstock ordered it to be closed. Ultimately, Comstock was able to take Anna through the portal as it closed, leaving Booker alone with Anna's pinkie finger lying on the ground&mdash;it had been severed as the portal closed.

After languishing in remorse for nearly twenty years, Booker reencountered Robert Lutece, who along with Rosalind Lutece offered him the chance to travel to Columbia and retrieve her. Booker then entered Comstock's reality, but the effects of entering a different reality wiped his memory&mdash;thus his mind created new memories. He believed that retrieving a girl named Elizabeth from Columbia and bringing her to New York would wipe away his debts&mdash;these false thoughts were reenforced by materials given to him by the Luteces, one of which is a picture of Elizabeth, with the words "Bring to New York Unharmed" written on the back.

Booker managed to rescue Elizabeth, and the pair journeyed across Columbia, experiencing the conflict between Comstock and the Vox Populi, as well as attempting to discover the source of Elizabeth's powers to create holes in dimensional time and space, and each of their connections with Comstock himself.

After Elizabeth is captured by Songbird, Booker goes after her; coming across a hospital-of-sorts. Booker encounters Elizabeth&mdash;from the future&mdash;who gives him a note to give to the younger version of herself, which Booker does after rescuing her.

Together, they head to the Hand of the Prophet, Comstock's zeppelin, where they confront him in his cabin. There, Comstock laments his actions, realizing that the truth would have been better than sending armies after Elizabeth and Booker. He grabs Elizabeth and demands that Booker tell her the truth about her missing finger, but Booker kills him in anger. Elizabeth believes that Booker does know the truth about what happened to her finger, but he doesn't remember it. They both decide to destroy Elizabeth's former home, where the siphon is located, which would remove the restrictions on Elizabeth's powers.

On the bridge, the Hand of the Prophet comes under attack from the Vox Populi fleet, but with the "Whistler" in hand, Booker is able to use Songbird to defeat the Vox fleet. He then orders the mechanical bird to destroy the statue where the siphon is. As the statue crumbles, there is a massive shockwave of energy, which renders the "Whistler" useless, and Songbird quickly turns on Elizabeth and Booker, but Elizabeth&mdash;the full extent of her powers restored&mdash;transports them all to Rapture, where Songbird finally meets its end, succumbing to the intense underwater pressure.

Making their way to a Bathysphere, Booker and Elizabeth rise to the surface, encountering a lighthouse&mdash;the same lighthouse that Jack would come across in 1960&mdash;They enter to find millions upon millions of lighthouses, which Elizabeth reveals to be other realities, all "constants and variables."

They eventually enter a door which leads to a watershed event in Booker's life&mdash;the baptism after the Wounded Knee massacre. As he did before, Booker rejects it, but Elizabeth reminds him that Comstock was there as well, and that they need to find him.

They then come across Booker's residence and find that there is a crib with Anna, Booker's daughter, inside.

Elizabeth tells Booker that Comstock, like them and everyone else, lives in millions and millions of worlds&mdash;only by completely erasing him from existence will his atrocities be undone.

After reliving his failed attempt to save Anna from Comstock&mdash;which is the reason he branded "AD" on his right hand&mdash;he finally realizes the truth; Elizabeth is really Anna DeWitt, his daughter.

Finally, Booker returns to the site of the baptism, and is joined by many different variations of his daughter, who tell him that he must die where they stand for Zachary Comstock and all his sins to be erased—for Booker and Comstock are one in the same, and if he dies, the Booker DeWitt that became Comstock will not be able to do so. Booker submits, and is drowned by the ensemble of Annas. Since Anna has no longer been kidnapped by Comstock, all variations of her vanish from existence. All dimensions involving Comstock cease to be, and the events of BioShock Infinite are seemingly erased from the timeline.

Epilogue
"Anna. Anna!? Anna? Is that you?"

- Booker DeWitt

Booker awakens in his residence, the date October 8th, 1893 &mdash; the same day he lost Anna &mdash; and opens the door next to his desk, where his daughter's crib is, while calling out her name.

Behind the Scenes
195 POUNDS OF WEIGHT A WHITE MAN WITH GREEN EYES BEARS A SCAR OVER THE RIGHT EYE"
 * As tradition with the hands of BioShock's protagonists featuring a distinct mark or tattoo, the back of Booker's 228px-Kit-bi04.jpg hand has the scarred initials "A D".
 * These initials might've been branded by Booker himself as a reminder of his daughter Anna DeWitt (A.D.).
 * Wanted posters, first shown on the cover of EGM, list some of his specific features:"A MALE OF 37 YEARS 6 FEET OF HEIGHT

- EGM Wanted Poster


 * The scene depicting Booker with his belongings is very much resemblant of the scene featuring Jack opening his suitcase in Bioshock.
 * Before Troy Baker was hired to be the voice of Booker DeWitt, Irrational Games had Stephen Russel (the voice of Garrett in the Thief games) voice the part.
 * Booker DeWitt is stated to have been a Pinkerton agent before the events of Columbia. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency (now Pinkerton Government Services, Inc.) was founded in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton; throughout its history its services have ranged from security personnel and private investigations to private military contracting work
 * Booker served in the United States Army; he even owns a box engraved with his name saying that he served in the 7th Cavalry Regiment.
 * During his time in the Army, he held the rank of Corporal.
 * Originally, the early version of Booker's arms were seen covered by sleeves from a pin striped coat. This version remained in most of the early gameplay footage, even after the artwork debut of his appearance from the EGM cover, which had him appear with rolled shirt sleeves. It wasn't until the 2012 Beasts of America trailer that Booker was finally given rolled sleeves to match his artwork appearance, along with the initials "A D" branded over the back of his right hand.
 * Booker's contract as a Pinkerton agent expires upon his death as shown in the loading menu
 * Bryce DeWitt was a theorectical physicist who promoted a many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics similar to what Bioshock Infinite is based around
 * Although it is never mentioned or confirmed in-game, is it heavily implied that Booker himself is part Native American. This is possible as stated in a voxophone belonging to Comstock that states that his family tree "shelters a few teepees" and another voxophone that reveales that DeWitt is capable of speaking the Sioux language.

Trivia

 * If you decide not to draw your weapon or decide to do nothing at the ticket booth in Battleship Bay, the man behind the counter will stab Booker in his right hand. For the rest of the game, Booker will sport a somewhat stylish hand-wrap with a small blood stain on his right hand


 * On Monument Island in the Columbia statue, shortly after seeing Elizabeth's first tear into Paris when watching her through the one way glass, Booker says "This job's getting worse all the time". This is likely a reference to Lando Calrissian's famous line in the Star Wars trilogy, "This deal is getting worse all the time"
 * This is supported by the fact that while in the tear, a movie theatre is shown to be playing "The Revenge of the Jedi"
 * Technically, Booker can be seen as a Columbian version of Jack from the first Bioshock, due to the "Man and a Lighthouse" theory presented at the end of Bioshock Infinite. The same could also be said for Subject Delta, but only very loosely.