-Spoiler in description- What do you think about the end of Bioshock infinite?

Question

As the title says, this contains spoilers regarding the end of Bioshock infinite, so please don't read if you haven't finished it. 

I spent a little while reading up and gathering my thoughts after finishing the game to get my head around the ending of Bioshock, and I can grasp the majority of it. They go back to the point where Booker is at the baptism thingy after wounded knee, and all the variations of Elizabeth drown Booker to stop him from becoming Comstock. Ok, cool; so the universe never branches off, and this means that Booker dies at this point and neither Comstock or Elizabeth ever come to exist. Ok, three things I just don't understand: 

1) How can Elizabeth(s) travel back to that point and kill Booker, if doing so means that they never come into existence? Surely this is a paradox?

2) Elizabeth talks about the constants and variables: "There's always a lighthouse, always a man, always a city". She goes on to say that her, songbird, Booker etc. are a constant in each universe, but its sometimes different. At the end, there are several Elizabeth's, meaning that there are several variations of Columbia and what have you. But obviously she is demonstrating that Rapture is just another form of these constants, where you have Jack as Booker, Andrew Ryan as Comstock, the big daddies (delta in particular) as songbird and Elizabeth as... a little sister? Ok, cool. But does that mean that Columbia doesn't exist in the same realities as Rapture? Does that also mean that Booker actually is Jack? If so, why was it only Elizabeths that appeared at the baptism to drown him and not tons of her equivalents in different realities, like the reality in which Rapture exists? By killing Booker, have they not only prevented Columbia from existing but have they also cancelled out Rapture being built? See where I'm coming from with this?

3) If we just ignore the paradox in point one for arguments sake, why oh why does Booker wake up in his apartment after the credits have rolled to go and check on Anna? Surely he's 100% dead now? By drowning him, Comstock is prevented from ever existing, but also Booker dies there and then. Is this just a cushy fairytale ending to such a well told story? Because if it is, I think it kind of kills it. But maybe I'm missing something here completely? 

If anyone could offer their views or explanations to these points, I'd really appreciate it. 

Cheers!

Aaron · Accepted Answer

1) She only kills the Booker that becomes Comstock. Since Booker (our Booker) is her father, she would still be born.

2) Columbia wouldn't exist in the same universes as Rapture, but Booker is not Jack, Comstock is not Ryan, etc.. The characters from Infinite are not related to the characters from Bioshock 1 in any way. They are parallels of each other, in that they are variations of the same constant, but they are not related. Rapture would still exist because Ryan still exists. Comstock is not Ryan, so Ryan would still found Rapture. Hopefully that made sense, because this is one of the harder things to explain. Basically, like I said, Infinite's characters aren't related to Bioshock's characters. Booker didn't go to the baptism in one universe and become Andrew Ryan somehow. Comstock and Ryan are parallels of each other just like Columbia and Rapture are parallels of each other. "The man" is the constant, but his ideals and who he is is a variable. That's how it works for every other character.

3) Like I said, Elizabeth only drowned the Booker that would accept the baptism and become Comstock. Elizabeth takes Booker to two rivers at the end of the game. Booker runs away at the first river, but accepts the baptism at the second river. The second river is in the universe where Booker became Comstock. By killing Booker in that universe, Elizabeth changed the variable. Instead of the variable being "reject or accept", it became "reject or die". So, since Elizabeth only killed the Bookers that would become Comstock, our Booker's timeline reset to the day that he sold Anna. Only this time, there is nobody to buy Anna, and Booker gets to live with her. Thing is, he still has his debts, so who knows what's going to happen with that.

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-Spoiler in description- What do you think about the end of Bioshock infinite?

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