@deco-devolution:
It does align with canon though. For better or worse, the things we know about Sander Cohen are this unsettling. He’s a human trafficker (Burial At Sea) he regularly kills and plasters human corpses (BioShock) he is implied to have forced the disciples into unwarranted criminal and/or sexual situations thru in game dialogue (BioShock) had his competition murdered (BioShock) and of course forces Jack to hunt down his followers (BioShock) as a last art piece. All of this happens without the aforementioned content of the books which as far as I’m concerned, fits with his trend of violent and abusive behavior. Interestingly enough, there’s no implication he’s legit interested in the boy (though I can see your thought process) as in the game Cohen has a strange obsession with human suffering as art. And you’re right, Sander IS written as the classic homophobic “gay male predator” trope (as I’ve said before).
TL;DR: His entire characterization is what strikes me as problematic but this octopus incident/erotic performances isn’t too unusual when compared to his established pattern of violent and (implied) sexually abusive behavior.
We can definitely agree to disagree here if you’d like to drop the conversation after this, but there’s some things that you say that somewhat confuse me.
A lot of the things you list here is regular Bioshock villain (or, dare I say, Bioshock character) behavior. Like killing people, being violent, and doing disturbing things while under the influence of ADAM. Because of this I don’t really see these particular things as a proof for possible predatory behavior.
I haven’t really touched Burial at Sea for a while, and I am not really planning to (in my mind it’s not canon), but I do hate his actions there. I see how they can be perceived as confirming this ‘pattern’ as well, but this game was also made after the release of the book.
When you talk about disciple dialogue, I know which ones you mean, because I know pretty much all Fort Frolic dialogue like the back of my hand (mostly because of @fxrtfrxlic) and none of it implies something unwanted going on.
“You wanna lock us in, old man? Oh, that's fine with me. I used to love you. I used to think you were a musical genius. You know why? Because you paid my rent!”
This is an excerpt from the Audio diary from Silas. As you see; there’s obvious signs of relationships, and how far they went are mostly kept up to interpretation... which is definitely problematic as he is their boss, but it’s not nearly to the same extend as what is portrayed within the book.
The only thing that could hint to anything sexually forceful going on is this dialogue from Hector
"The things that man had me do... FUCK YOU!"
but since we know that Fort Frolic wasn’t always the most legal of places when it came to the criminal industry, it could very likely refer to that as well.
There’s also these somewhat suggestive and / or flirty Radio messages
“Come down now, little moth. Life... death... the burden of the artist is to capture!”
“I know why you've come, little moth. You've your own canvas. One you'll paint with the blood of a man I once loved.
Yes, I'll send you to Ryan. But first you must be part of my masterpiece. Go to the atrium. Hurry now. My muse is a fickle bitch with a very short attention span.”
“You'll find Finnegan in cold storage. I discovered him in Marseilles in 1937. He admired my painting, I admired his... carriage. He was the first of my disciples to bite the hand. Kill him any way you fancy, but I'd prefer it if you could involve burning in some fashion.”
“He was a nasty one... and my favorite. But I think I like him better this way. Take his damn photo, chop chop!”
“You flutter all around the Fort, taking life as you go. You're not a moth, you're an angel. I've never painted an angel... maybe I should.”
(For full transparency; I actually did look these up just to make sure I got them right.)
As much as I understand your discomfort with his character and how he is portrayed even within the first game, that does not mean that his portrayal was as damaging as it is today from the start.
He was violent, off putting, and somewhat strange... but all Bioshock enemies were! But he wasn’t predatory in the way that the book makes him out to be. And none of his negative character traits came from the fact that he is gay; it came from the fact that he was a mad artist with a personal vendetta against his past lovers.
And, as a villain, he was pretty cool before he got negatively tokenized.
