Did Max died during the original timeline (Theory)?

[Doesnotcompute83]

While at my work's restroom yesterday, I was thinking about the restroom scene in LIS. I came to the realization that the one who was messing with time all along wasn't Max, but Chloe. Ever since the game ended, a lot of us believed that speculated that Max was given time travelling powers so that she could spend time with Chloe one last time; we all knew that Chloe was the butterfly that Max met at the start and end of the game.

That said, what if Max was never given the ability to rewind? Would the outcome in the restroom end up the same? The game narrative tells us that yesm the outcome would result in the death of Chloe. Throughout the game, we believed that Chloe has to meet her maker in the restroom so that the world can be in peace - that is, for the disasters to end, the initial time meddling of Chloe surviving shouldn't be interrupted. However, even before Chloe's demise by Nathan, time was altered, resulting the timeline we seen in the Bay over Bae ending isn't the real timeline.

Think about it. Other than for Max to gain superpowers and a photo from the blue butterfly, what other purpose did it had by showing up at that time? The most obvious, yet overlooked purpose of the butterfly being in the restroom was to prevent Max from being spotted by Chloe and Nathan. When we first see Chloe, we see her checking all the stalls, yet overlooking the space behind the further stall from the girl's restroom entrance; since the butterfly is implied to be Chloe's spirit, she knew that her past self wouldn't check that area. That said, if Max wasn't distracted by the blue butterfly, she would have certainly met and reunited with Chloe at that moment, causing a completely different scenario to occur.

Maybe in this scenario, Nathan sees the two in the restroom together and freaks out, believing that Max is working with Chloe to extort money from Nathan, causing him to kill Max. Maybe Chloe, who have lost everyone she loved, died lonely at an old age and somehow went back to time to save the one person that meant everything to her even if it meant sacrificing her own life.

From the way we were given two endings and how it is likely that another season of LIS will be made, I feel that the Bay over Bae ending isn't what it is crack up to be, and that the disasters didn't end with Chloe's death, but was delayed; the ending felt too much of a quick solution for it to disappear and I feel that Max would be the one who failed in stopping the disaster in order for the series to have more than one season. I feel that even though Max and Chloe won't be the focal point in season 2, the new cast will clean up the mess started by the cast in season 1 so to speak. This would also help explain any connection between season 2 and 1 - if Chloe's death fixed the timeline indefinately and the game is going to have a new cast, what is there to connect the two seasons if no one other than Max would remember the different timelines? By having the problem not go away and having a huge disaster happen years before the start of the game (if the new season starts several years after the first), the progtagonist in season 2 might be the person who successfully stops the disasters by fixing the timeline.

What do you guys think? Do you think that the timeline would be different if the butterfly didn't appear in the game at all?

[Woodstock|Blackwell]

Your theory makes sense, but it's still far-fetched to me. I don't think Nathan would pull that move in the bathroom. He'd probably walk out as soon as he saw Max, he was already nervous/stressed, who knows... The game has so many unanswered questions that you can fit the gaps with countless theories that can all make sense.
It was an interesting read tho'.

[bryrk]

Tbh I thought that when Nathan dropped the gun it would shoot and kill Max :]

[ndruha]

Originally posted by OverthinkingPigeon:

Tbh I thought that when Nathan dropped the gun it would shoot and kill Max :]

What if it happened and everything else was just a post-mortal dream Max have seen, so called "bardo" in buddhism :)

But I have another crazy theory - what if Max didn't exist and Chloe didn't exist and no other characters existed in reality, and it was really indeed just a player playing LiS who got involved so much into story that he believed everything and everybody was real :-p

[Korbin]

If there were no butterfly, Max would be at the sink when Nathan shows up. What would he do? He would pretend to have accidentally chosen the wrong restroom and disappears immediately.
But since Nathan isn't normal at all, you could construct anything you want.
They could start arguing and in the end, Chloe and Max are shot by Nathan. Chloe comes back as the butterfly and saves Max. Max saves Chloe and the chaos is perfect.

[Palatine Katinka]

I think the story would be vastly different if when Max went back 5 years she made sure Chloe knew to not let them drift apart and to not let Max's poor social skills and lack of decisiveness get in the way of them remaining friends. She gave that speech while William walked out the door about how she'd always be there for her but it probably made Chloe feel even worse about Max then not being there for her. If she'd done something like write messages to herself reminding her to call or text Chloe then Chloe might not have gotten into as much trouble as she did.

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by Korbin:

If there were no butterfly, Max would be at the sink when Nathan shows up. What would he do? He would pretend to have accidentally chosen the wrong restroom and disappears immediately.
But since Nathan isn't normal at all, you could construct anything you want.
They could start arguing and in the end, Chloe and Max are shot by Nathan. Chloe comes back as the butterfly and saves Max. Max saves Chloe and the chaos is perfect.

You're right that Nathan shows up - I thought Chloe shows up first. This would make the butterfly not showing up preventing Chloe dying or as you said, something would lead up to an arugment where someone like Max dies. Nathan is unstable so he could have become paranoid and hassled Max, thinking that she is there to support Chloe - Chloe might have defended Max, causing her or Max to die. However, the butterfly could be the bootstrap paradox in a way as in what had happened the first time around.

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by Palatine Katinka:

I think the story would be vastly different if when Max went back 5 years she made sure Chloe knew to not let them drift apart and to not let Max's poor social skills and lack of decisiveness get in the way of them remaining friends. She gave that speech while William walked out the door about how she'd always be there for her but it probably made Chloe feel even worse about Max then not being there for her. If she'd done something like write messages to herself reminding her to call or text Chloe then Chloe might not have gotten into as much trouble as she did.

It would be, though we have to keep in mind that William alive Max is a different Max than the one we play as. That said, Max went back to the present after William walked out the door, so she wouldn't have time to write anything to remind the other Max of what is going on. That Max might be unaware of time travel.

Sorry in advance for the spoilers I will about to give in regards to another, unrelated Steam game that deals with autopilot mode. The game Zero Time Dilemma talks about the "autopilot" individual a lot - they use an example of Marty (called "M" for copyright reasons) from "Back to the Future" for example to explain autopliot mode. As a result of Marty changing the past, he went to another reality that belong to the other Marty who existed in that reality. According to the Zero Time Dilemma, he ended up in the reality that the Marty we followed

Here is an in-game explaination of it. Again, this is a spoiler of another game if you plan to play it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2RXXlq9EIA

[Palatine Katinka]

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

It would be, though we have to keep in mind that William alive Max is a different Max than the one we play as. That said, Max went back to the present after William walked out the door, so she wouldn't have time to write anything to remind the other Max of what is going on. That Max might be unaware of time travel.

I was actually refering to the second time Max uses that photo, when she's trying to get back to her normal reality. Instead of all the time we previously spent trying to prevent William leaving, Max spends that time standing by the fire watching the photo burn when she could have been trying to send a message to her past self. Ah well, benefits of hindsight and having had about a year to think about it... Sometimes I have to remind myself how ironically little time Max has to think.

[Jackrabbit_V6/ RSProduxx]

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

and how it is likely that another season of LIS will be made,

oh god i truely hope so ... hopefully Vampyr will generate enough income for 10 seasons LiS :D

[Doesnotcompute83]

Originally posted by Jackrabbit_V6:

Originally posted by Doesnotcompute83:

and how it is likely that another season of LIS will be made,

oh god i truely hope so ... hopefully Vampyr will generate enough income for 10 seasons LiS :D

With all popular LIS has become with a digital series in the works, it is safe to say that a season 2 will be a reality.