Warning! Spoilers ahead!
About
“Would you kindly?” and “a man chooses, a slave obeys” are both quotes from the 2007 first-person-shooter science-fiction videogame, “BioShock”.
Origin
After Atlas directs Jack, the protagonist, to Andrew Ryan’s mansion, he fights his way to Ryan’s personal office. Andrew Ryan, casually playing mini-golf, explains how Jack is his illegitimate child who was taken by Fontaine, placing him on the surface as opposed to the underwater city of Rapture and genetically modifying him to age much faster. Fontaine was planning to use Jack in a war with Ryan, using his genetics to access systems such as the bathysphere, locked out long ago. Andrew Ryan then commands Jack around the room using the phrase “Would you kindly?”, showing the effect it has on him. The game then cuts to a montage of all the times one of the characters, Atlas, has used the phrase “Would you kindly?” to mind control Jack, finishing with a slide of him saying “Would you kindly head over to Ryan’s office and kill that son of a bitch?”. Realizing how Fontaine fooled Jack, Ryan then hands him his golf club, commanding Jack to kill him whilst repeating the phrase “a man chooses; a slave obeys…”, showing how he was dying of his own will and not as he was defeated. After Jack delivers the final blow to Andrew’s head, wedging some of of the club into it, Atlas contacts him and reveals himself to be Fontaine. Fontaine, realizing his war against Ryan was over, takes over his systems and releases security drones into his office, to finish off Jack.
Spread
After BioShock’s release in 2007, the phrase became popular, being used in many forum posts and comments, mainly 4chan.
Another first-person-shooter game, Far Cry 3, references the “Would you kindly?” phrase in one of the achievements.