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Nothing screams "freedom" louder than being in a building in a city trapped in the bottom of the ocean.

I don't think a remorseful Ryan wanted to be killed by his failures.  "But Atlas is out there, and he aims to destroy me, and destroy my city. To question is to surrender. I will not question."  Rather, confronted by his inevitable assassin, he hands over his golf club, choosing the manner of his death, demonstrating a man always chooses.

I think this is a critical misread of Ryan's death at least. His final speech expresses no remorese and if anything sounds triumphant. As far as he is concerned, he has destroyed rapture and proven that he is a man by selecting his own way of dying. These aren't the actions of a man who regrets enslaving a population

I've always loved the double meaning of "No Gods, No Kings, Only Man" in relation to the citizens of Rapture. There's nobody to tell you what you can and can't do, but there's also nobody to save you when everything goes to shit.

Another thing about Ryan’s death is that Jack is his son. Ryan accidentally impregnated his mother. Jack’s mother then sold Jack’s embryo to Fontaine. So Ryan is being killed not only a slave but his own son. Ryan greatly valued freedom and the closest person to Ryan is the exact opposite a slave.

Me: Ha! I killed Cohen and took a picture of him for some sweet, sweet, irony~

Leadhead: Cohen wanted you to kill him and take his picture, you did exactly what he wanted.

Me:......he played me like a fiddle....

Maybe the real parasites were the friends we made along the way?

One thing I'm surprised didn't get mentioned: that line Ryan has about a time to live, a time to die.  Yeah, it's from the song "Turn, turn, turn" (which came out years after Bioshock takes place), but the line is originally from the bible (specifically, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).  

Ryan has strayed so far from objectivism that he's quoting the bible.

Another point regarding "The Great Chain": Ryan describes it as becoming more rigid and strong with everyone pulling it towards themselves in whatever direction they choose. But if you have a bunch of people pulling an actual chain every which-where, neither the chain nor any of the people pulling it go anywhere, they're just stuck in place until someone gives or something breaks, and then it all comes crashing down.

35 minute in depth analysis of a modern classic? Leadhead you spoil us

I don't really agree with the analysis of Ryan as penitent. Here are my reasons:

1. I think the only reason Ryan does not kill you once you get right up to him (which I have no doubt he could do - he's entirely in control of Rapture's security) is because he knows Jack is his son, and therefore has access to his personal Vita-Chambers - so killing him is useless. More, too, he likely feels disdain towards killing someone who has blood-ties to him, even if he probably feels more disdain for your being controlled by Fontaine.
2. Saying that Ryan wanted to die to atone for forcing the citizens of Rapture into servitude doesn't really add up. A similar situation is presented in one of the audio logs, where he has the beginnings of a qualm about the use of the Little Sisters - but he soon soothes his own fears by saying something akin to 'but we all pulled on the Great Chain, and her little hand was right next to mine'. If he's able to talk himself out of that moral qualm, it seems unlikely that he'd be self-aware enough to wish to atone for the brainwashing of the citizens of Rapture.

I personally believe that the only reason he faces Jack as he does is because even if he is a hypocrite, he is still a brave man, and if there is truly no escape, he will face death coolly.

ryan- makes city free of government.
ryan- also becomes government.

You missed the opportunity for a "HypocriSea" joke

I would say that Sander Cohen's craziness as an artist isn't due to lack of having an audience, but more to do with having the lack of duty to an audience. His madness, I think, will have begun long before the fall of Rapture, with his art getting more and more abstract, and less and less meaningful.

Art is how a culture knows itself, and the artist that is an individualist (which Raptures is full of), and feels he has no responsibility towards his audience, will no longer be making art that someone can appreciate to know about the people of whom he is a part, something grounded in reality, and instead only makes art that comes from, and is about, himself. Cohen's art is a twisted expression only of himself.

I feel like this video can be summed up with one sentence, for both Andrew Ryan and just normal people in general when it comes to ideologies:
"When a person cares more for an idea, than the actual living breathing people that make up said idea-the game"

I always thought Ryan handing you the golf club and telling you a man chooses was him trying to break through the brainwashing command by trying to confront you with it.
It just didn’t work and he was killed for it.

Good video! However I noticed one detail that was wrong. Diane McClintock went to Steinman because Diane was injured in the Kashmir Restuarant bombing not just because Ryan blew her off and didn't attend the ball. This is because her story is, she was injured in the bombing committed by Atlas and after she began seeing Ryan's flaws, Diane ironically joined Atlas' cause but then is ironically killed because she walked in on him talking in his regular Frank Fontaine accent.

Yeah I always found it funny how Ryan's plan fundamentally doesn't make sense. His city was made to have no rulers, but a big part of his beliefs is that you own what's yours and by every definition Rapture.. the whole city IS HIS. It was his idea, his money and company funding it, and his will as he always states. I can see what he was trying to do. Created a top council to oversee the very basics of operating the city.. intentionally created to stay out of people's business as much as possible and it even seemed like Ryan was trying to keep himself out of the council and put himself down with everyone else.. starting out "buying fish futures" and the like.. creating his own businesses.

It was only after he saw someone, Fontaine, becoming more successful then him that he started to turn on his own beliefs. He started taking the city being his to heart and eventually started to see the city and everyone IN it as his.

Ryan: "At last I am alone, Fontaine is gone, Lamb is gone.. or close enough. At last I am alone, alone.. with MY city."

Ah Bioshock, I saw my friend playing it when I was 17. And now all got old, and watching this at early 30s. Even after almost 15 years, it is still a recommandable game for gamers. Its graphics aged well enough for newcomers to pick up and play.