Bioshock Infinite - The First Step Of The Past

I've always thought that the introduction to any film, television show, video game or book is the most important part to set up story. Sure people have different ways of doing this. Some like to start it out with a high octane, action filled opening while others like to go softly and more subtle.
But my favourite has to be one where it feels like there isn't a great deal of things going on but it's enough to keep you interested. Tense yet calming.
The very beauty of introductions like these is that even though upon first glance you are seeing what you are meant to be noticing, you are also being secretly shown hidden messages and clues at what happened, what is happening and what is going to happen.
With the case of Bioshock Infinite this is a very important plot point to do with the past, present and future. I find the introduction to Infinite very beautifully done even if this piece of writing is to do with my own interpretation of events in the timeline.
Please allow me to explain what I find so fascinating about the introduction to an amazing piece of art.

Booker DeWitt

Booker DeWitt is lost.
His life, even he realises, isn't worth much and that he's not a good man. He is filled with regret and despair from his past as a soldier. Now he has his own private investigation business and gambles his life away with dangerous people in New York. After having bad luck with his gambling habits, two people request that he bring back a girl from Columbia to erase his newly created debt. DeWitt is somewhat confused by this but realises that it must be done.
These two same people take him to a lighthouse off the coast of Maine for him to start his debt investigation of the girl. Upon leaving him he asks if anyone would meet him there to which he gets no response.
Now here I believe the message starts and is a very subtle way of retelling his past.

DeWitt's personal belongings bearing his regiments insignia.

At the foot of the lighthouse is a young sixteen year old Booker, armed with a handgun he was just given, who has just started his life as a member of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army.

Upon entering the lighthouse, the first thing DeWitt sees is a basin full of water which is used to cleanse man of his sins. He rejects it as a silly notion which reflects his life as a soldier. There is no God for him to fear or worship so his life as a state appointed killer is made easier and allows him to take part in acts of violence.
His violence is shown as Booker travels up the stairs of the lighthouse to find that there is a mess, a scuffle has taken place and the more he travels up the more mess he finds. Booker picks up a phone but hears nobody which shows that nobody is listening, God is not there.
The debris from whatever event happened represents DeWitt when he took part in the brutal massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890.

Booker staring into the basin in the lighthouse.

Finally Booker reaches the top floor but finds only a man strapped to a chair with a sackcloth over his head with a wound in his head.  (There is no certainty of a gunshot.)

After a sergeant had accused him at Wounded Knee of having a Native American bloodline, Booker brutally tortured and murdered the Native Americans to avoid being stigmatized by his fellow men. Here he had earned the name 'The White Injun' because of his taking trophies from his victims, namely scalping them.
The corpse in the chair in the lighthouse has been brutally tortured before death, as seen by the pool of blood, a bloody chisel and a knife nearby. With the blood soaked sack cloth over his head it has the visually similar look of man who has been scalped.
A note is attatched to the man which reads 'Don't disappoint us' which would have been what the soldiers of the army that looked up to Booker said which led to him being known as a hero.

The body in the lighthouse.

As Booker reaches the light in the lighthouse he is pained by loud noises and a deep red coloured sky. The cries of his victims, the deep colour of red seen at every battle he participated in. The sea of blood underneath. After the battle, as everybody called him a hero, DeWitt felt nothing like one. He was pained with regret, shame and despair.
As the only one who seemed to regret what event occured there he felt very alone and isolated just as he is at the top floor of the lighthouse.
Booker sits down in a chair and is clasped into place and cannot escape no matter how much he struggles.
This is his mind not letting go of what he has done and forcing him to think of everything he has caused to others.

Booker approaches Preacher Witting for the baptism.

As the chair rotates forward suddenly his gun falls from his jacket holster into the flames of the shuttle below.
For the first time in his life, after what happened at Wounded Knee, he begins to think of redemption and forgiveness. He wants to be absolved of his sins and become a new man. His gun cast into the flames represents his fear of hell and the notion of one day paying for what he has done as a soldier. At this point he wanted it all to end, he no longer wanted to be known as Booker DeWitt, the White Injun, the hero of Wounded Knee.
To be reborn after the battle, Booker visited a priest, Preacher Witting, and attended a baptism ready to leave his old life and start anew.
But suddenly moments before being baptised he stopped and rejected it, saying that his sins could not be washed away by a 'dunk in the river' and continued on being Mr DeWitt.
In the lighthouses chair, he looks out of the window at the water below and see's a reflection of himself, like the reflection he would have seen staring down into the water at his baptism. As the shuttle leaves the lighhouse it mimics Bookers day of rejection. With all the water around him he could start a new life but instead decides to leave just like how the shuttle takes him away.

DeWitt staring out of the shuttle window.

"I don't know, brothers and sisters. But this one doesn't look clean to me..."
                   ―Preacher Witting