"Ending A" isn't just immoral and bleak--it's literally impossible (ep 5 end SPOILERS)

[Valdyr]

I could make a whole rant about why the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending is absolute trash from both a moral/ethical and character-development standpoint, and maybe I will, but this topic is about something else. It's about what I think may be a fatal logical inconsistency that actually means this ending couldn't have happened. This gets into some confusing and fiddly details, so try to bear with me.

Episode 5 reinforces what we already knew about Max's photo travel--how when she exits the photo, an "Autopilot Max" takes over who lacks the memories of the future Max. That's why Max, in the selfie Warren took, had to specifically explain to Chloe that she would lose her memory after the end of their conversation. The "Autopilot" only knows what Max would have known and experienced at the point that the "snapshot scene" originally happened. Understanding this is crucial to what comes next.
We also know that in episode 1, the sequence of events is as follows:

1. Max has the tornado vision
2. Max "wakes up" in class with a need to go to the bathroom to wash her face
3. Max tears her selfie, takes the butterfly photo, sees a mysterious, sexy girl get shot, screams, and reaches out her hand
4. Max "wakes up" again back in class, establishing that the bathroom encounter was either a second vision or a real occurrence undone by an involuntary, erratic rewind; her torn selfie is intact and she does not have the butterfly photo
5. Max discovers she can rewind time, and uses it to fix her dropped camera, plus score brownie points with Mark "Mark Attack" Jefferson
6. Max proceeds to the bathroom to repeat the sequence of events from earlier, including taking the butterfly photo again, only this time she rewinds and defeats the accidentally-murderous Nate Dogg with a fire alarm

At the end of this sequence of events, we have established that the following proposition is true: the butterfly photo Max uses at the lighthouse in episode 5 was taken at a point in the timeline where Max already knew she had the power to rewind time. In fact, it was taken while she was in the process of returning for the specific purpose of using rewind to save the blue-haired girl.

So, having established all that, let's re-examine what happens in the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending. Max sits on the floor like a useless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and lets the most important person in her life get slaughtered as a blood sacrifice to atone for a crime she herself committed, and as in all the other "snapshot worlds", the edges begin to fade out as Max's consciousness leaves the scene and returns to its point of origin. The Max from Friday releases control and the Max from Monday "comes to" sitting on the floor and finds Nathan standing over the dead girl that she came in to save. What do you think happens next? This Max--the Max from Monday--doesn't know that her future self is an infamous coward & murderer who is willing to try letting Chloe die to fix her own mistake. All she knows is that she blacked out for a second and now this girl has been shot. So it's time to rewind! Naturally. She knows she can do that, because that's what she came in here to do. So Monday Max rewinds, Chloe is yanked back up from the floor, the bullet flies back into Nathan's gun, and Max is free to break the glass on the fire alarm with the hammer, break the skull on Nathan's brain with the hammer, shove Nathan, yell at Nathan, do any number of things to break up the confrontation without anyone receiving an inexplicably instantly fatal wound to the solar plexus.

Friday Max--our Max--"comes to" and finds herself still standing next to Chloe, holding the butterfly photo, as the storm swirls over the bay. And there would then ensue perhaps the most awkward conversation in history, where Max has to explain that she tried to accept Chloe's suggestion of murdering her earlier self, except it didn't stick. As long as Max is traveling into the butterfly photo, she can't write The Assassination of Chloe Price by the Coward Max Caulfield into history. So that makes the player's choice of endings rather less complicated.

Your move, DONTNOD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJcObz1k_E

If you have a logical reason to still think sacrificing Chloe is a good ending, that's fine, but if you refuse to even consider what I've just laid down, just be aware that you are a twisted, soulless kobold with ♥♥♥♥ for blood

[Palatine Katinka]

KIDINI eredeti hozzászólása:

You said that she created the storm by travelling time to escape death from it.
You don't create something by escaping it. If you escape it, it's because it's already there.

Maybe she didn't create the storm at all. Maybe it was just a storm, caused by the normal weather systems that we are told leads to storms in that area fairly regularly. Maybe sacrificing Chloe stops the storm (or in other words counters it) but saving her might not be the cause.

[yemmyb]

a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plus

[BEN]

Palatine Katinka eredeti hozzászólása:

KIDINI eredeti hozzászólása:

You said that she created the storm by travelling time to escape death from it.
You don't create something by escaping it. If you escape it, it's because it's already there.

Maybe she didn't create the storm at all. Maybe it was just a storm, caused by the normal weather systems that we are told leads to storms in that area fairly regularly. Maybe sacrificing Chloe stops the storm (or in other words counters it) but saving her might not be the cause.

I understand your point, Time travel stories are always flawed and have always many questions left at the end. So yeah, what you say could be true.
But thinking that is like denying one ending and the reality of the choice. The story tells us that Max created the storm, and whatever flaw we may see in it, it's irrelevant to the purpose of the story and the story itsel, since it's not about time travel. I do think saving chloe set a chain of events that leads to the storm, these events being about her using her power to meddle with time to change the what happens. The symbols in the game leads us to think that saving Chloe is the butterfly effect that sets the storm in motion. So if we allow to think that saving Arcadia Bay is a murder, we can safely say that in this way to think, saving Chloe in the bathroom sets create the storm.

At the end of the day, what we think is relevant to ourself and makes us make the final choice. It's our choice our story. In my story, according to what is told, saving Chloe creates the storm so undoing it is preventing it.
If you don't think so and think that sacrificing AB is the only choice, fair enough, it's your story too ^^.

I will end my post by saying that i stand on the fact that you don't create something by reacting to it. It makes no sense.
And also a little reminder:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/92865/life-is-strange-co-director-discusses-the-games-endings-production-and-answers-chatty-questions

Oh, and i love Max, i love Chloe, i love this game.

[Eanne]

In french, this is the Story of LiS :)

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/26/5/1498852557-lis-v2.jpg

Green for normal Max (powerless)

Bleu Super-Max

[Palatine Katinka]

That image does a good job of showing how using the butterfly photo doesn't restore the original timeline since Max has already deviated from that timeline at an earlier point, branching off after destroying Williams photo and then again after destroying her contest entry. Both those events happened before taking the photo of the butterfly thus the photo Chloe hands her at must be part of this new timeline and not going back to the origin point unaffected by Max's power.

[Biggest ella fan]

i miss waifu

[Eanne]

Palatine Katinka eredeti hozzászólása:

That image does a good job of showing how using the butterfly photo doesn't restore the original timeline since Max has already deviated from that timeline at an earlier point, branching off after destroying Williams photo and then again after destroying her contest entry. Both those events happened before taking the photo of the butterfly thus the photo Chloe hands her at must be part of this new timeline and not going back to the origin point unaffected by Max's power.

Than you :)

the red lines are for showing the time loop that cause AND be caused the first death of Max ^^

[Pamela]

Battlekruse eredeti hozzászólása:

BAE > BAY :LIS_pixel_heart:

Chloé is too important to be sacrificed :LIS_butterfly:

So true! Chloe is so kick ass!

[Pamela]

everything being discussed here is flawed. let it go people. and love the game.

[Rasen1138]

Yup, nothing about that ending makes sense. Pricefield ending only ending.

If they wanted to give a valid reason to sacrifice chloe, they could have written it out as she also has powers. They could have made it so she has the power to control the weather and doesn't know it. Then maybe they could have delayed actually finding rachel, and when discovered Chloe loses control and the tornado happens. Then somehow max has to either stop chloe or let the town be destroyed.

Plus then maybe they can dive more into where the power comes, and personally I just think it's more interesting if there isn't only one super powered person.

[V]

As long as you enjoyed the game thats all that matters, there is no best/bad ending, and people will continue to interpret/rationalise the story/choices in their own way for many more years :) ..it was a good journey.

[Rasen1138]

On the plus side, knowing nothing I do matters in the end. A second playthrough is kinda fun where I just say screw it. Not helping anyone, not caring what people think of me, using my time travel as little as possible so that when the ending tries to guilt me I can tell them to f off, and then watch all the newfound enemies burn in a tornado.
Can't be a hero, I shall be a villain.

[BEN]

The picture is wrong on so many levels, and no one can see it?
It doesn't matter how flawed may the time travel be in the game, it's just not how it is told.
And if we forget what is told, we miss the point.

[Sonda]

They were left without idea in the last chapter

[commander cool]

I'm really glad that they are people who agree that the ending didn't make sense. I got a lot of heat for questioning the ending, nice to see some people in the community willing to debate, and theorize, etc...