[SPOILERS] LIFE IS STRANGE: Another take on series’ ending

[matecito87]

- DISCLAIMER -
HEAVY SPOILERS for the entire season. This is just my interpretation of the game’s story. Feel free to discuss or point out anything you disagree! I am posting it because I’m interested in seeing if there’s anyone else that interpreted it in any way similar to what I’m thinking.
-DISCLAIMER END-

I finished Life is Strange, Episode 5: Polarized last night. I’ve been playing it since Episode 1 launched. I have not replayed it because I wanted to get the story as a whole and making my decisions matter on the first run.

I was amazed by the ending. For what I have read online, this has been a divisive: some people love it, some hate it. I will try to discuss the ending from a different perspective and share some points of view that I have not seen posted online so far.

First of all, I will make my central point of discussion clear: I do not think that there is any ‘actual’ time-travelling involved in Life is Strange.

Life is Strange is a story about grief. About loss of a loved one. It’s about the inability to save that person and about the guilt, anger and sorrow that is involved in processing the harsh reality that that person is gone. It’s about all those ‘what ifs’ that cross your mind when you realize that maybe, just maybe you COULD HAVE done something differently and prevent the death of someone you love.

I will try to present a few points that I think are key to interpreting the game’s story in this way. Ultimately, the game is what you make of it and almost never what the developers actually intended for you to get. But, I think that DONTNOD’s view on the game has been vastly misinterpreted by taking all of the game’s assumptions and situations at ‘face value’.
Ok, let’s begin:

1. MAX’S STATE OF MIND

Max has been in Arcadia Bay for some time now. She hasn’t reached out to Chloe because she feels guilty for ‘leaving her’ when she moved to Seattle. Moreover, over the course of the game we learn that Max was at Chloe’s the day that William went out and had a car accident. I think this is a crucial point on young Max, which is the inevitable feeling when you’re around someone who dies unexpectedly: “WHAT IF I HAD DONE SOMETHING DIFFERENTLY? COULD I HAVE CHANGED ANYTHING?” I think this is part of why Max didn’t stay in touch with Chloe. William’s untimely death was just too much to bear, so it was easier to move on in a different city.

2. THE ACTUAL TIMELINE: CHLOE DIES ON MONDAY

Monday began as a typical day at Blackwell Academy. Max’s class had just finished so she went to the bathroom. She sees a butterfly and takes a photo. An angry teen boy enters the bathroom, mumbling to himself. She stays hidden and hears a girl and a boy having a discussion. She freezes. A gun shots. A person dies. We even know that Max didn’t recognize Chloe the ‘first time’ this happened. Actually, this is just WHAT happened. The police came, took Nathan into custody. They found Max in shock, hidden. News spread, Max learns that the dead young girl was actually her childhood friend Chloe.
While in custody, Nathan breaks and confesses about what he did to Rachel Amber and Chloe. He tells the police about Jefferson and the Dark Room, Jefferson is placed under arrest.

Chloe’s funeral is on Friday.

3. ‘GETTING TO KNOW’ CHOLE

We see from the photos by choosing the ‘SACRIFICE CHLOE’ ending that after Chloe’s death, Max visits Joyce and David. She spends time with them. She visits Chloe’s bedroom, gets to know her a little again. By spending time with Joyce and David at their house, looking at pictures (both old and new), listening to music Chloe likes, looking at her clothes, Max forms in her head a fantasy of what Chloe was like before Nathan shot her.
As news spread about what Nathan and Jefferson did at the Dark Room (and who the victims were), Max ties Rachel Amber (the girl Chloe used to spend time with) to the crimes. She has seen all the posters of someone looking for Rachel and may even find some of the flyers at Chloe’s. She knows Chloe was looking for Rachel. After she learns Chloe was Nathan’s victim, she understands the circumstances that led to their argument in the bathroom.

4. THE ‘GUILT’ TORNADO

“This is my storm. I caused this… I caused all of this”.

Meanwhile, in between the grief and the anger, an unbearable guilt starts to consume Max. “I COULD HAVE SAVED CHLOE”. If she had done something. Had she screamed, made a noise or sounded the fire alarm, moved. Something at all. Maybe, just maybe…. She could have saved her best friend. It’s common to relive in our heads those episodes (hence the name, episodic memory) where something went wrong and TRY TO FIX it and think about how those choices would have different CONSEQUENCES and lead to a reality different than the one where SOMETHING TERRIBLE just happened.

So Max, UNABLE TO COPE with Chloe’s loss, starts to build a fantasy in her head about what it would be like to be able to rewind time and change things. She feels GUILTY, and the tornado (as well as all the other apocalyptic sings) are just a metaphor for her guilt. Her world crumbles around her, and the tornado will be a strong storm that destroys everything on Friday: Chloe’s funeral. At that point, she will be unable to avoid the clash between fantasy and reality, so her guilt takes the form of a storm so powerful that menaces to destroy everything.

5. TIME-TRAVEL MECHANICS

The fantasy to save Chloe. To rewind and DO SOMETHING. This is the concept that I think DONTOND were trying to exploit in order to form their narrative. The actual ‘rewind’ mechanics were introduced as a means to make this story interact with gamers and keeping us engaged by playing all episodes. It’s the ‘game-y’ way to take a strong narrative and break it into a lot of mini-puzzles that delve deeply into the concept of what would you do if you had the power to alter time, as well as to explore what are the limits of such power. This is all going through Max’s head too. It’s her fantasy about what it would be like. She fantasizes about saving Chloe, she puts into the fantasy the search for Rachel Amber and the detective work that ultimately leads to what she already knows in the real world: Jefferson and Nathan were both involved in the drugging and kidnapping of all those young girls. She imagines what it’s like to be in the Dark Room, she fantasizes of pushing her power to the very limits.

In Episode 5 I interpreted most of the events as a clue to this whole notion of Max’s fantasy instead of actual time travel. First, we see her in and out of situations with ‘blurred’ edges: her fantasies are coming apart. Second, the nightmare-like sequence of her trapped in a bathroom. Third, the multiple-personalities in Chloe making out with other people and being ‘different’ than the Chloe we know, showing that Max never really did get to know present-time Chloe. Fourth, Max’s notebook when she is locked in the bathroom: an angry max, obsessed with Chloe’s death.

6. EVEN IN FANTASY, MAX IS UNABLE TO ‘FIX’ EVERYTHING

Whatever Max does, whatever power she fantasizes she has, the tornado still lurks in the horizon. The tornado is coming Friday. She saves Chloe only to see her be in mortal danger again: her mind KNOWS Chloe is dead, and is trying to make Max come into terms with Chloe’s death by attacking her fantasy over and over. Even when Max fantasizes about saving William or taking down Jefferson and Nathan, her mind plays tricks to her: she just can’t ever find a way to create a happy reality in which Chloe and her can live and get to know each other again.

7. THE TORNADO STRIKES ON FRIDAY

Finally, the dreaded day arrives. Max has to face her guilt. In the form of an EF6 mind-cracking tornado. Neither choice is about saving or sacrificing Chloe in the ‘actual timeline’. It’s about a coping mechanism within the fantasy to face Max’s own fears.

Sacrificing Chloe in the fantasy means letting her go in the actual timeline. It means Max has come to terms with what happened, with her inability to save her. It means Max realizes she is not an ‘everyday hero’ but an ‘everyday teenager’. It means letting go of her guilt and to begin to move on. The song ‘Spanish Sahara’ by Foals fits perfectly with the cathartic moment. (“I'm the fury in your head/I'm the fury in your bed/I'm the ghost in the back of your head/'Cause I am”).

Sacrificing Arcadia Bay means she chooses to not let go, to keep daydreaming and fantasizing about saving Chloe. It’s not much of a choice, she just can’t let go. That’s why the mood has a much darker tone and the music a much lower key. To be clear here, in this ending Chloe still DIED on Monday. It’s Max ongoing fantasy that would rather destroy the whole town that made Chloe’s death possible rather than let go of the idea that she could have done something to save her.

Either ending comes upon Max’s realization that life is not science fiction.

Because Life is just…. well, Life is strange.

[NOPE]

Originally posted by Amitaya:

Sacrificing Chloe, apart from being a no-go for Max if you really play her completely immersed, means she doesn't let go and tries to fix time again - not knowing if there may be an even bigger tornado as result. It also means she's completely heartless and it also means Rachels attempt at saving Chloe was futile (and thus the whole "game") but that's another story.

I can't live with that. Max is killing her "boyfriend" and Chloes mother. And a bunch of other guys.. she is not heartless if she saves them :I
She also goes back to stop changing what cannot be changed. At the first try Max couldn't help her. So may it be. Stop changing destiny.

[certified gaymer]

Originally posted by Amitaya:

It's literally 'strange" how people come to the wrong conclusions by the correct explanations in this gane. You wrote it up nicely until the point of what means 'letting go' and what doesn't.

Sacrificing Chloe, apart from being a no-go for Max if you really play her completely immersed, means she doesn't let go and tries to fix time again - not knowing if there may be an even bigger tornado as result. It also means she's completely heartless and it also means Rachels attempt at saving Chloe was futile (and thus the whole "game") but that's another story.

Not killing your loved one, but letting the tornado destroy the town means letting go. And that's exactly what she says when you choose that option "Not anymore!". It means she realizes that not everything can be fixed. Even the song that plays then - Syd Matters Obstacles - says something like that.


From an emotional standpoint it's completely impossible to kill Chloe. An article that explains this better than I ever could is here: http://twinfinite.net/2015/10/my-life-is-strange-ending-was-selfish-and-thats-hella-fine/

The game is literally about letting go of those that you've lost. And on a realistic note, that storm happened because Chloe was alive and didn't die, it's so obvious but people seem to get it mixed up that the ending to Save Chloe is the final time Chloe's life is threatened. Choosing Chloe over hundreds, maybe thousands, of people is actually heartless.

[Dark Angel]

All actual fiction stories, which suddenly ends like "fantasies of main protagonist", are pointless. If it only happens in her head then story no need in next biggest plots:
- Dark Room and whole Nathan/Jefferson relationship;
- friendship between Chloe and Rachel, Rachel and Frank.
WHAT FOR? She just lost her friend and imagining of investigation of crime? Which she not connected even in her dreams? And if Jefferson did all of this in real world, then why Max so care about this? Did he kidnapped her for real? If he not then why Max dreaming about kidnapping?

There is no need to try to find a hidden message in place, where nobody put it in. It just a story about girl, who can rewind time. Yes it unrealistic. But sometimes we want stories about girls, who can rewind the time no matter what.

[kangirigungi]

Originally posted by Amitaya:

It's literally 'strange" how people come to the wrong conclusions by the correct explanations in this gane. You wrote it up nicely until the point of what means 'letting go' and what doesn't.

Sacrificing Chloe, apart from being a no-go for Max if you really play her completely immersed, means she doesn't let go and tries to fix time again - not knowing if there may be an even bigger tornado as result. It also means she's completely heartless and it also means Rachels attempt at saving Chloe was futile (and thus the whole "game") but that's another story.

Not killing your loved one, but letting the tornado destroy the town means letting go. And that's exactly what she says when you choose that option "Not anymore!". It means she realizes that not everything can be fixed. Even the song that plays then - Syd Matters Obstacles - says something like that.


From an emotional standpoint it's completely impossible to kill Chloe. An article that explains this better than I ever could is here: http://twinfinite.net/2015/10/my-life-is-strange-ending-was-selfish-and-thats-hella-fine/

I don't agree with the OP's interpretation of the game, but if we make the assumption that it is true, then the Sacrifice Chloe ending does mean letting go. Please read the posts you are replying to more carefully.

Even if we take the game events at face value, the thing is more complicated. The most important plot in the game is surely Max and Chloe's relationship, but it is also much more than that. Max builds affection, even friendship, to many other characters of the game. Heck, not long before the ending, she risks her life to save Alyssa's (depending on your choice, of course), even though she was going to rewind that whole timeline. Sure, if you ♥♥♥♥ on all the people in that scene, then sacrifice Chloe at the end, you are probably playing Max wrong. But if you go all the way to save those people, then both choices are legitimate and in character for Max. It is clear that at the ending, Max is torn. It's shown throughout the game that Max does care for several of the characters.