***[SPOILERS] Rachel's "FATE" [SPOILERS]***

[Perfection]

I just finished this game. I have not played LIS 2. I'm aware it's implied that Rachel eventually dies at the hands Nathan and all of that♥♥♥♥♥♥.. BUT is she really dead??

I don't remember specifically being told or find out that Jefferson took pictures of her WHEN SHE WAS DEAD. Maybe, she'll end up being just another victim of his, without actually dying.

I saw this quote from the devs but still "Michel Koch: It's quite hard, quite dark, the way you discover her, but that's something we also wanted to push, because... it's like some times in real life, when you have someone that's been missing for months. Most of the time, the reality is, that person is dead. We knew for a lot of players, there was this fantasy of finding her alive or that she was a time traveler or she was something else. But for us, Life is Strange is not a fantasy game, even if there are sci-fi elements."

He says it's not a fantasy game but freaking Max gets to have super powers out of nowhere, bends the universe to save her true love, Chloe. Plus the way Rachel starts the fire it seems obvious to me that it's definitely not natural, the firefighters in the hospital seem to agree, the fires literally stop when she gets stabbed! So it is in fact a fantasy game, Rachel doesn't have to die. I'd like to have my own canon where Rachel is simply another victim, the same events that have happened in LIS 1 (without the death of Rachel) eventually lead to Max somehow finding out about Jefferson, so she saves Chloe & Rachel. They'll live happily ever after, all 3 of em together :333

Also this a lil more detailed and better explained --> https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/comments/9xjfcc/all_rachels_eventual_faith/

[nihilistninja]

The handy search feature can find you dozens of topics discussing Rachel status amongst the living and potential powers. It really has been discussed to death at this point.

Rachel is absolutely, without-a-doubt dead. It's not implied that Nathan killed her, it's outright told to the player. There is at least one photo of Rachel dead and being buried, it's not shown to the player but Max comments on it:

"Why is he putting her in the ground like that?"

Max won't be saving her in any future game in the main series as DONTNOD have stated that they have finished telling Max and Chloe's story. Unless, of course, SquareEnix licenses another third-party game as they did with Before the Storm. So you only recourse for seeing these three together is fanfiction.


Article interviewing the director and producer of LiS - https://www.player.one/life-strange-episode-5-devs-talk-rachel-amber-and-chloes-complex-relationship-tease-482294

You might have heard many fan theories about Rachel Amber’s death by now. Some fans had a hard time believing it was actually Rachael Amber’s body in the ground because they didn’t see her face. Sorry guys, Rachel Amber is dead.

“It’s her. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve seen some people on the Internet we don’t see [Rachel Amber] so maybe it’s not,” Barbet said. “It’s her but for different reasons. Regarding the age rating, showing a dead body would affect it.”

Baghadoust added, “The fact Chloe is recognizing her is enough. It’s just the way we wanted to show the scene with the music and cameras…We took a lot of time on this. It could have been not so great if [we showed her.]”

[Riddler]

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

Do you agree with me?

Simply no. ;)
Rachel is dead. Nathan accidentally killed her. This is 100% sure.

[Perfection]

İlk olarak nihilistninja tarafından gönderildi:

The handy search feature can find you dozens of topics discussing Rachel status amongst the living and potential powers. It really has been discussed to death at this point.

[/quote]

No need to be a douche. Did you miss the "I just finished the game" part...? anyways, this exists https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17197344/life-is-strange-before-the-storm-ending-deck-nine

This might sound crazy but what if they gave a pop up at the start of the game telling you something like "Rachel is dead, there's nothing you can do to change that. These are your memories, Chloe's memories" then the game starts...

I knew she was 99.99% "dead" but you spend the whole game protecting your friend, falling in love only to let her die in a sense. Life is Strange 1 was like this too but you could save Chloe! The game wasn't pointless, I'm a super Bae over Bay and I just don't get how people would choose that over Chloe aka the whole point of the game. Idk I just felt they could've done the same with this game, have the option to save her. The endings are meaningless if her faith has been decided. Chloe's faith was also decided but Max changed that. Rachel did have magical powers aswell :c

[nihilistninja]

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

No need to be a douche. Did you miss the "I just finished the game" part...? anyways, this exists https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17197344/life-is-strange-before-the-storm-ending-deck-nine

I was only giving you a friendly reminder that there's a under-used feature that people should be checking for exisitng threads that may answer their questions. Having 'just finished the game' doesn't somehow make you immune from checking first. But you taking it as 'being a d*uche' shows you to be a overly sensitive child so no worries, I'll move along after this.

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

This might sound crazy but what if they gave a pop up at the start of the game telling you something like "Rachel is dead, there's nothing you can do to change that. These are your memories, Chloe's memories" then the game starts...

I knew she was 99.99% "dead" but you spend the whole game protecting your friend, falling in love only to let her die in a sense. Life is Strange 1 was like this too but you could save Chloe! The game wasn't pointless, I'm a super Bae over Bay and I just don't get how people would choose that over Chloe aka the whole point of the game. Idk I just felt they could've done the same with this game, have the option to save her. The endings are meaningless if her faith has been decided. Chloe's faith was also decided but Max changed that. Rachel did have magical powers aswell :c

It was made clear from the very beginning that this was a prequel to the original game and thus would need to lead into it and not make any changes to the overall story. I'm not saying the prequel was perfect in this regard, as it certainly creates a number of inconsistencies in the history of LiS, but it doesn't introduce anythig that destroys the story completely like allowing the player to prevent Rachel's death.

So much of the story of the original game revolved around Rachel's disappearance and discovering her unsavory background that having her alive and around for those events would destroy the entire flow of the game. Without Rachel's death, Chloe wouldn't have been so desperate and pushing Max to find her (and she might not have been as willing to reconcile with Max if she still had Rachel and who knows if Rachel would have accepted Max), Nathan wouldn't go of the deep-end and drugging/assaulting Chloe leading her to the bathroom confrontation (probably preventing Max gaining powers), and David wouldn't start investigating events allowing Max and Chloe to uncover his files leading them to the Dark Room.

Without Rachel's death the events of the entire first game collapse and the central mystery and direction for Max would vanish. As jarring as the post-credits scene in the Dark Room was it at least made it clear that the story from BtS doesn't have any effect on the events of LiS and Rachel's ultimate fate.

And finally, Rachel wasn't magic, despite some of the hints, there was no absolute proof that the fire was supernatural nor that Rachel was responsible. Unless you have some quote of developer interview than anything here is supposition.

[ᴛʜ3ᴘʀᴀᴠᴀᴛᴏ]

It's a prequel, you can't change what is already done.

[Perfection]

İlk olarak Riddler tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

Do you agree with me?

Simply no. ;)
Rachel is dead. Nathan accidentally killed her. This is 100% sure.

Nope, that is not shown in BTS. My playthrough makes a lot of stuff that happens in the original timeline highly unlikely or downright impossible like Rachel's death.

[WanderingSilver]

İlk olarak nihilistninja tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

No need to be a douche. Did you miss the "I just finished the game" part...? anyways, this exists https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17197344/life-is-strange-before-the-storm-ending-deck-nine

I was only giving you a friendly reminder that there's a under-used feature that people should be checking for exisitng threads that may answer their questions. Having 'just finished the game' doesn't somehow make you immune from checking first. But you taking it as 'being a d*uche' shows you to be a overly sensitive child so no worries, I'll move along after this.

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

This might sound crazy but what if they gave a pop up at the start of the game telling you something like "Rachel is dead, there's nothing you can do to change that. These are your memories, Chloe's memories" then the game starts...

I knew she was 99.99% "dead" but you spend the whole game protecting your friend, falling in love only to let her die in a sense. Life is Strange 1 was like this too but you could save Chloe! The game wasn't pointless, I'm a super Bae over Bay and I just don't get how people would choose that over Chloe aka the whole point of the game. Idk I just felt they could've done the same with this game, have the option to save her. The endings are meaningless if her faith has been decided. Chloe's faith was also decided but Max changed that. Rachel did have magical powers aswell :c

It was made clear from the very beginning that this was a prequel to the original game and thus would need to lead into it and not make any changes to the overall story. I'm not saying the prequel was perfect in this regard, as it certainly creates a number of inconsistencies in the history of LiS, but it doesn't introduce anythig that destroys the story completely like allowing the player to prevent Rachel's death.

So much of the story of the original game revolved around Rachel's disappearance and discovering her unsavory background that having her alive and around for those events would destroy the entire flow of the game. Without Rachel's death, Chloe wouldn't have been so desperate and pushing Max to find her (and she might not have been as willing to reconcile with Max if she still had Rachel and who knows if Rachel would have accepted Max), Nathan wouldn't go of the deep-end and drugging/assaulting Chloe leading her to the bathroom confrontation (probably preventing Max gaining powers), and David wouldn't start investigating events allowing Max and Chloe to uncover his files leading them to the Dark Room.

Without Rachel's death the events of the entire first game collapse and the central mystery and direction for Max would vanish. As jarring as the post-credits scene in the Dark Room was it at least made it clear that the story from BtS doesn't have any effect on the events of LiS and Rachel's ultimate fate.

And finally, Rachel wasn't magic, despite some of the hints, there was no absolute proof that the fire was supernatural nor that Rachel was responsible. Unless you have some quote of developer interview than anything here is supposition.

What inconsistencies were there with the original game? I see people say this but don't see specific examples.

[nihilistninja]

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

What inconsistencies were there with the original game? I see people say this but don't see specific examples.

I'll list what I remember off the top of my head, but please don't bother trying to justify them. My problem isn't that there's no way to justify or explain away these problems, it's that BtS introduced them and left it up to players to do the work of coming up with explanations for themselves.

In no particular order:

• Pompidou was an adult dog in a dog fighting ring that Frank frequented sometime prior to LiS, he had a change of heart and broke it up and freed the dogs, keeping Pomidou for himself. This was the first sign thatm somewhere underneath it all, Frank had some decent qualities and it explained Pomidou's temperament. BtS retconned this so that their new antagonist could give Frank Pompidou as a puppy.
  
  
• Chloe is at least 18 months and Rachel 15 months older than Max and most of her classmates from LiS which leads to some problems as in BtS she is shown being in classes with all of them when they all shouldn't be attending highschool yet. Chloe and Rachel haven't been held back a year as they're both straight A students at least prior to William's death. This is even worse for Chloe's class photo that has Warren in it who is a year younger than Max (he's 13 at the time of BtS). This choice of having LiS characters being Chloe's classmates seems to be either laziness or pandering to fans of LiS.
  
  
• In LiS Justin only knows Chloe as a blue-haired chick that followed Rachel around and didn't even remember her name - Chloe did seem to know him though seeing as she interacted with him twice in later episodes. In BtS he knows Chloe well to the point that he talks to her and texts her before Chloe made friends with Rachel and is comfortable 'borrowing' the weed from her locker.
  
  
• Beyond the age problem above, in LiS Victoria makes a comment on a couple of occasions that she came to Blackwell to be taught by Mark Jefferson. BtS seems to have her there purely so they don't have to come up with an original 'mean girl' character since Jefferson hasn't started there yet to draw her in.
  
  
• Joyce and David are shown as being married prior to Chloe's 16th birthday in LiS which was 3 months prior to BtS where he is only just moving in.
  
  
• Chloe is also shown having dyed the blue streak in her hair prior to the same birthday which she doesn't do until the last episode of BtS.
  
  
• Chloe was expelled on a different date according to her school records that Max uncovers during LiS for a different reason.
  
  
• Chloe is pretty clear in LiS that she hasn't heard anything from Max in 5 years but BtS has them in contact as recently as November 2009 over a year after Max moved.

There might be more, but those are just the ones that stuck out to me. And like I said, you or anyone else, myself included, can come up with justifications/explanations or reasons to minimise these inconsistencies, but that doesn't fix them, it just allows fans to ignore them.

[Riddler]

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Riddler tarafından gönderildi:

Simply no. ;)
Rachel is dead. Nathan accidentally killed her. This is 100% sure.

Nope, that is not shown in BTS. My playthrough makes a lot of stuff that happens in the original timeline highly unlikely or downright impossible like Rachel's death.

Hey, i thought that too after i played it for the first time and wrote a few long posts about how some of the decisions are designed in a way that should give us the feeling we could change the future (e.g. Tattoo, Bracelet, Kiss). But the reality is, that you can't prevent Rachel's death. Call it fate or whatever, but even in the other timeline in LiS, where Chloe doesn't even know Rachel's name, she still disappears and probably got killed in the same way.

But it's fine if you feel better with your own version of the story, imagine your own timeline etc.. But BtS is a prequel in the end and you can't just ignore what happens in LiS. Even if some things are different, Rachel's probably still gonna hang out with Nathan and end up in the dark room.

[WanderingSilver]

İlk olarak nihilistninja tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

What inconsistencies were there with the original game? I see people say this but don't see specific examples.

I'll list what I remember off the top of my head, but please don't bother trying to justify them. My problem isn't that there's no way to justify or explain away these problems, it's that BtS introduced them and left it up to players to do the work of coming up with explanations for themselves.

In no particular order:

• Pompidou was an adult dog in a dog fighting ring that Frank frequented sometime prior to LiS, he had a change of heart and broke it up and freed the dogs, keeping Pomidou for himself. This was the first sign thatm somewhere underneath it all, Frank had some decent qualities and it explained Pomidou's temperament. BtS retconned this so that their new antagonist could give Frank Pompidou as a puppy.
  
  
• Chloe is at least 18 months and Rachel 15 months older than Max and most of her classmates from LiS which leads to some problems as in BtS she is shown being in classes with all of them when they all shouldn't be attending highschool yet. Chloe and Rachel haven't been held back a year as they're both straight A students at least prior to William's death. This is even worse for Chloe's class photo that has Warren in it who is a year younger than Max (he's 13 at the time of BtS). This choice of having LiS characters being Chloe's classmates seems to be either laziness or pandering to fans of LiS.
  
  
• In LiS Justin only knows Chloe as a blue-haired chick that followed Rachel around and didn't even remember her name - Chloe did seem to know him though seeing as she interacted with him twice in later episodes. In BtS he knows Chloe well to the point that he talks to her and texts her before Chloe made friends with Rachel and is comfortable 'borrowing' the weed from her locker.
  
  
• Beyond the age problem above, in LiS Victoria makes a comment on a couple of occasions that she came to Blackwell to be taught by Mark Jefferson. BtS seems to have her there purely so they don't have to come up with an original 'mean girl' character since Jefferson hasn't started there yet to draw her in.
  
  
• Joyce and David are shown as being married prior to Chloe's 16th birthday in LiS which was 3 months prior to BtS where he is only just moving in.
  
  
• Chloe is also shown having dyed the blue streak in her hair prior to the same birthday which she doesn't do until the last episode of BtS.
  
  
• Chloe was expelled on a different date according to her school records that Max uncovers during LiS for a different reason.
  
  
• Chloe is pretty clear in LiS that she hasn't heard anything from Max in 5 years but BtS has them in contact as recently as November 2009 over a year after Max moved.

There might be more, but those are just the ones that stuck out to me. And like I said, you or anyone else, myself included, can come up with justifications/explanations or reasons to minimise these inconsistencies, but that doesn't fix them, it just allows fans to ignore them.

I won't respond to every single point, but I will just mention a few things. They said that Chloe was "suspended for the school year", not expelled. Which means she would have to repeat a grade, but could come back in the fall. Although, at some points they acted as though she was expelled, which probably made it a little confusing. Funny enough, the first game had this same issue with Nathan. If you choose to blame him for what happens with Kate, they say he gets suspended, but at some points they also say he's expelled. They go back and forth on this, and can't decide if he's expelled or just suspended. So, even the first game contradicted itself sometimes.

In fact, here is a page that lists inconsistencies throughout the first season: http://life-is-strange.wikia.com/wiki/Inconsistencies_(Season_1)

Obviously some of those are pretty anal, but you get the idea. If the original game (and its developers) couldn't even keep things straight, then I'm not going to begrudge the other development team for making a few mistakes (or retcons, depending on how you look at it). And yes, I could come up with explanations for the other stuff, except the dates. But as the link above shows, even the first game messed up its own dates a lot.

[nihilistninja]

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

I won't respond to every single point, but I will just mention a few things. They said that Chloe was "suspended for the school year", not expelled. Which means she would have to repeat a grade, but could come back in the fall. Although, at some points they acted as though she was expelled, which probably made it a little confusing. Funny enough, the first game had this same issue with Nathan. If you choose to blame him for what happens with Kate, they say he gets suspended, but at some points they also say he's expelled. They go back and forth on this, and can't decide if he's expelled or just suspended. So, even the first game contradicted itself sometimes.

Chloe's expulsion is based on player choice in ep 2. If you let Rachel take the fall then she is kicked out of the school play and Chloe is suspended for her previous behaviour. If Chloe takes the full blame then she is expelled, not suspended.

I don't remember anything about them mixing up suspension with expulsion in LiS, but I'll take your word for it.

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

In fact, here is a page that lists inconsistencies throughout the first season: http://life-is-strange.wikia.com/wiki/Inconsistencies_(Season_1)

Obviously some of those are pretty anal, but you get the idea. If the original game (and its developers) couldn't even keep things straight, then I'm not going to begrudge the other development team for making a few mistakes (or retcons, depending on how you look at it). And yes, I could come up with explanations for the other stuff, except the dates. But as the link above shows, even the first game messed up its own dates a lot.

You do realise not a single one of these is a story inconsistency, right? It's almost like you just linked the first google result for inconsistencies in LiS and didn't do anything beyond skim through it. I took the time to read it, both now and when I originally came across it (however many months/years back that was) and it's not the impressive rebuttal you'd like it to be.

The vast majority of them are problems with different assets (pictures, school records etc) not matching information we get elsewhere (ie Victoria's age in her school record vs her social media), silly things like Max's journal sketch of David confronting Kate not matching the actual event the player witnesses or things easily explained by characters not being perfectly informed such as Max's journal entry having Nathan being 19 not matching his school records that have him 18.

Absolutely none of it affects the story, characters or their history.

It seems like your excuse is DONTNOD made a number of non-story mistakes in their game, so Deck9 is not responsible for anything problems they introduced into the overall lore with the prequel.

It's as if you want to claim that since DONTNOD had to patch in a change to Rachel's school record to ensure that her age was right and matched her missing person poster then Deck9 is free to have the entirety of Max's class (minus Kate and Max herself) attending class with Chloe at Blackwell in 2010 and then somehow all end up repeating a year so they end up graduating with Max in 2013. Or that since DONTNOD misplaced Frank's neck tattoo on occasion that Deck9 can rewrite Pompidou's origin story.

If you'd been thorough and honest with your google defense, you would have noticed the 'Before the Storm' tab near the top of that page you linked leading to the internal inconsistencies and mistakes within BtS itself. I didn't go into any of this or the nitpicky, anal-retentive problems, I was only interested with the problems with the actual lore of the game, so I find this defense really weak.

[Perfection]

İlk olarak Riddler tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak BicBoi TC#ProjectLibitina2019? tarafından gönderildi:

Nope, that is not shown in BTS. My playthrough makes a lot of stuff that happens in the original timeline highly unlikely or downright impossible like Rachel's death.

Hey, i thought that too after i played it for the first time and wrote a few long posts about how some of the decisions are designed in a way that should give us the feeling we could change the future (e.g. Tattoo, Bracelet, Kiss). But the reality is, that you can't prevent Rachel's death. Call it fate or whatever, but even in the other timeline in LiS, where Chloe doesn't even know Rachel's name, she still disappears and probably got killed in the same way.

But it's fine if you feel better with your own version of the story, imagine your own timeline etc.. But BtS is a prequel in the end and you can't just ignore what happens in LiS. Even if some things are different, Rachel's probably still gonna hang out with Nathan and end up in the dark room.

I don't think so, this is from the reddit thread;

EDIT: I believe I understand why there is so much hostility when it comes to Rachel here. Depending on how you played BTS and the choices you made, mine were all as far as I know near perfect and true to myself. Chloe had doubts about Rachel's sincerity from the very beginning BUT Rachel from her actions during the theatre (Rachel literally proposing to Chloe) and afterwards on their way home. They exchange a meaningful kiss. Rachel's sincerity is unquestionable from now on imo. She only "betrays" you once when you two go to junkyard for the first time but she didn't mean that and it was before the whole theatre. Chloe was nice to everyone, she even agreed and is happy that her mom is moving on and is finding happiness again with David. I even managed to help Nathan in a sense so she might not end up being as ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up as he was when Jefferson arrived. Samantha is with him, hopefully it helps. Rachel tells Chloe she's the only one person she trusts now... so of course I choose to tell the truth to Rachel at the end, Chloe didn't betray Rachel's trust and clearly delivered. And Rachel knows that. I even got to make it so Rachel met her real mom at the end! Oh and don't forgot about Chloe's nightmares with his dad. I believe his dad is the manifestation of the fear and doubt Chloe has towards the world and people in general. William is always seen toying and playing around with Chloe's emotions when she is clearly suffering. He makes fun of Chloe, her mom's new relationship and even paints Rachel as some sort of fake friend who is actually evil... He is manipulating Chloe, her own fears are trying to mess with her life. I think the people who for some reason think Rachel is a non important or even a bad person gave into these fears. So in summary, from what I've said and my actions, Chloe's actions, Rachel would never do anything to harm Chloe. As far as I know they're bound together for life considering what they've been going through, they both have almost died for one another. This here, is why some people have problems. For them this completely destroys a huge part of the original LIS 1 narrative and disturbs a lot of stuff (which is does) So they've decided to turn innocent and poor Rachel into a monster or a cold blooded fake friend who betrays Chloe AFTER EVERYTHING Chloe has done for her... Just so the main narrative of the main game LIS 1 makes sense... I can not do that and I will not. Rachel is alive ;)

So after ruining Rachel's fake but perfect life which Chloe did because Rachel demanded the truth, after all the ♥♥♥♥ they've been going through together and the fact that I got her real mother to meet her etc etc etc. That timeline where Chloe doesn't even know who Rachel is, is possible and "real" and Rachel could very well end up dying there but that was simply just 1 other timeline. They are infinite timelines and universes. I'm just saying Rachel would never ever leave/betray Chloe, because of Chloe's choices in BTS in my playthrough. It's impossible for Rachel to go back to the old "can fall in love with anyone at anytime" Rachel, that person is gone. The new Rachel after hearing the truth and seeing her real mom all because of Chloe would never end up in the dark room, let alone end up dying out of nowhere and go hang out with frank for some reason...

[WanderingSilver]

İlk olarak nihilistninja tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

I won't respond to every single point, but I will just mention a few things. They said that Chloe was "suspended for the school year", not expelled. Which means she would have to repeat a grade, but could come back in the fall. Although, at some points they acted as though she was expelled, which probably made it a little confusing. Funny enough, the first game had this same issue with Nathan. If you choose to blame him for what happens with Kate, they say he gets suspended, but at some points they also say he's expelled. They go back and forth on this, and can't decide if he's expelled or just suspended. So, even the first game contradicted itself sometimes.

Chloe's expulsion is based on player choice in ep 2. If you let Rachel take the fall then she is kicked out of the school play and Chloe is suspended for her previous behaviour. If Chloe takes the full blame then she is expelled, not suspended.

I don't remember anything about them mixing up suspension with expulsion in LiS, but I'll take your word for it.

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

In fact, here is a page that lists inconsistencies throughout the first season: http://life-is-strange.wikia.com/wiki/Inconsistencies_(Season_1)

Obviously some of those are pretty anal, but you get the idea. If the original game (and its developers) couldn't even keep things straight, then I'm not going to begrudge the other development team for making a few mistakes (or retcons, depending on how you look at it). And yes, I could come up with explanations for the other stuff, except the dates. But as the link above shows, even the first game messed up its own dates a lot.

You do realise not a single one of these is a story inconsistency, right? It's almost like you just linked the first google result for inconsistencies in LiS and didn't do anything beyond skim through it. I took the time to read it, both now and when I originally came across it (however many months/years back that was) and it's not the impressive rebuttal you'd like it to be.

The vast majority of them are problems with different assets (pictures, school records etc) not matching information we get elsewhere (ie Victoria's age in her school record vs her social media), silly things like Max's journal sketch of David confronting Kate not matching the actual event the player witnesses or things easily explained by characters not being perfectly informed such as Max's journal entry having Nathan being 19 not matching his school records that have him 18.

Absolutely none of it affects the story, characters or their history.

It seems like your excuse is DONTNOD made a number of non-story mistakes in their game, so Deck9 is not responsible for anything problems they introduced into the overall lore with the prequel.

It's as if you want to claim that since DONTNOD had to patch in a change to Rachel's school record to ensure that her age was right and matched her missing person poster then Deck9 is free to have the entirety of Max's class (minus Kate and Max herself) attending class with Chloe at Blackwell in 2010 and then somehow all end up repeating a year so they end up graduating with Max in 2013. Or that since DONTNOD misplaced Frank's neck tattoo on occasion that Deck9 can rewrite Pompidou's origin story.

If you'd been thorough and honest with your google defense, you would have noticed the 'Before the Storm' tab near the top of that page you linked leading to the internal inconsistencies and mistakes within BtS itself. I didn't go into any of this or the nitpicky, anal-retentive problems, I was only interested with the problems with the actual lore of the game, so I find this defense really weak.

First of all, I was aware of the page for inconsistencies with Before the Storm. I also feel like you're making a bunch of assumptions about me, accusing me of being "dishonest". Also, I find it a little hypocritical that you dismiss the various date and age inconsistencies in the first game, but then point out the date in the text messages in Before the Storm.

As far as story inconsistencies in the first game, I already gave the Nathan example. But a bigger and more obvious example would be the use of Max's powers. The first time she uses her powers in the bathroom it not only reverses time, but also sends her back to the classroom. Its established throughout the rest of the game that Max's powers don't work that way, so there's a contradiction right off the bat. Her powers aren't supposed to teleport her to different locations, unless she uses a photograph. Much like the Pompidou example, you could try to come up with your own explanation for this, but it is still an inconsistency, since the game itself never explains or justifies it.

[nihilistninja]

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

First of all, I was aware of the page for inconsistencies with Before the Storm. I also feel like you're making a bunch of assumptions about me, accusing me of being "dishonest". Also, I find it a little hypocritical that you dismiss the various date and age inconsistencies in the first game, but then point out the date in the text messages in Before the Storm.

As far as story inconsistencies in the first game, I already gave the Nathan example. But a bigger and more obvious example would be the use of Max's powers. The first time she uses her powers in the bathroom it not only reverses time, but also sends her back to the classroom. Its established throughout the rest of the game that Max's powers don't work that way, so there's a contradiction right off the bat. Her powers aren't supposed to teleport her to different locations, unless she uses a photograph. Much like the Pompidou example, you could try to come up with your own explanation for this, but it is still an inconsistency, since the game itself never explains or justifies it.

Well, hopefully the OP doesn't have too much of a problem with how of the rails this topic is getting, as I'm about to run it further into the ditch.

First off, I want to acknowledge that it's a fair assement of my position to have the opinion that I hold DONTNOD to a different standard than Deck9 based on what I've posted so far, but hopefully I can get across why I believe that the inconsistencies that you linked are on a different level than most of the list I posted and make clear that my actual issue isn't the existence of inconsistencies but rather the narrative impact of particular inconsistencies.

Now I don't believe that LiS is a perfect game, all of the inconsistencies on that list are real issues, even if a lot of them seem to fall under incorrect assets being used. I also have problems with a bunch of the dialogue and voice acting choices and believe that the entire final episode vacillates between average and bad, particularly the choice to have all of the mysteries of the Dark Room and Rachel's death answered in a heavy-handed exposition by Jefferson.

My problem with BtS certainly isn't that it fails to live up to some non-existant perfection that I hold LiS up as.

Now I'll go into a few points in reply to your post before I break down exactly what my problems with the inconsistencies I posted are, as I agree that just listing them as I did gives a real image of hypocrisy.

So getting to your comment on my dismissal of the dates and age inconsistencies and why I assumed that you were either dishonest or didn't read the article fully. Here's the full list of the date/age related inconsistencies:

- Chloe's car repair quote - the date on this document is 10 days after Max finds it, in fact after the storm is due to hit Arcadia Bay. There's no defence here, it's obviously a mistake. But what effect on the actual story does it have?
- Max's journal entry stating that the last time she and Chloe hung out was when they were 13, but due to their age difference there was no time when they were both 13 at the same time. Once again a mistake, but how important is it? Especially when it is a journal entry from a character and hence has a fair bit of license for unreliable narration.
- Nathan's character entry in Max's journal has him aged 19, but his school record has him aged 18. Again, how much of an issue is this, and how easily is it explained as Max being mistaken?
- Victoria's social media states a birth date that makes her 18 and she says in dialogue that she is 18, but her school record has a different date making her 17. Again, probably a mistake, possibly explained by Victoria lying to make herself seem older. The unreliable narrator issue again.
- Rachel's age being different on Chloe's missing person posters compared to her school record. Absolutely a mistake seeing as they patched it with a new version of the record to correct this and have Rachel aged 19.
- Max claiming that Warren is the same age as her in her diary but his school record has him as over a year younger. Once again, a mistake by the developers or a sign that Max isn't a perfect narrator?
- There are 2 versions of a disciplinary report for Nathan found throughout the game with different dates on them. Definitely a developer mistake, but what real narrative problems does it introduce?
- The scratched out heights on Chloe's wall and the same heights in the alternative reality are different. Again a mistake of no narrative importance.

And that's the complete list of date and age inaccuracies within LiS. Do you undertand why I think that you either didn't read them or are misrepresenting them? Out of eight, half are definitely developer mistakes, one of which was corrected in a patch, three are inconsistencies between Max's journal and information we find out later and the final is inconsistencies between Victoria's stated age between her own account and her official school record.

None of these inconsistencies are on the level of having Max's entire graduating class attending highschool with Chloe and Rachel as if they had done so they should have graduated before Max started at Blackwell. And you seem to have misunderstood why I gave the date for Max's final text message, but I'll get to that when I break down what exactly my problems with these changes are. I'm not dismissing them, they absolutely exist, it's just that as I'll get to I don't think they have any of the narrative issues that some of the list I posted have.

Next is your statement about Max's first use of her power being entirely different from any subsequent use. This is entirely accurate and an obvious inconsistency. You may view what I say next as me trying to justify it away, which would be entirely fair, but I'll try anyway and you can accept it or not.

First, this is a problem with video games as a whole. The abilities a character has in cutscenes and lore are often wildly inconsistent with the abilities that same character has when controlled by a player. How often have you played a game where the protagonist has busted out some crazy power during a cutscene only to leave you thinking that if they'd been capable of that when you were pressing the buttons that you wouldn't have died 20 times to the last boss. Or a character dies in an RPG cutscene and you think 'Hey, moron! Why don't you just use one of the 700 revival items clogging up my inventory?'

This is typically because the abilities that a character needs to advance the story and the abilities that a developer can reliably allow players to use are completely different.

The LiS-specific justification, and one that is apparently accepted by the majority of fans that I seen expressing an opinion on it, is that this one use of Max's powers as she awakens them is different from typical rewind she uses for the rest of the game, a one-off the same as her later time stop ability. Personally I view it as the perfect version of the photo-jump ability Max gains later in the story, the ability to permanently overwrite a previous version of herself and allows her to live her life from there, whereas the photo-jump restricts her to jumping to a particular instance using a photo as medium where she possesses her past self for a limited time with a limited field of movement.

Take that as you will, as it's possible that you're completely right and it's an unexplained inconsistency, but it could as easily be answered by either of the above explanations. To my particular interest, what real impact on the overall narrative does this inconsistency introduce? None as far as I can see, particularly as Max is demonstrated to have a few different uses of her powers throughout the game so one more is not a problem.

Finally, I'll end this stupidly long post breaking down what exactly my problem with the various inconsistencies I listed are in the hope that it shows why I view them differently than those listed on the page you linked. If at the end of this you still think I'm being a hypocrite then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Chloe's Hair

We'll start off with the one retcon I actually like, Chloe dyeing her hair during BtS rather than having it already dyed as at that point as in LiS. I actually view this as a positive change, even though it is absolutely a retcon, as it makes the story stronger. As Chloe is gearing up to move to the climax of her story she takes the time to undergo a bit of an image change using items from the three most important people in her past before going on to complete the task given to her by Rachel, the most important person in her present.

Chloe takes her father's suspenders, her mother's boots and dyes her hair with the dye left from her and Max's childhood adventures. It's a pretty powerful image of Chloe building the precursor to her more iconic look from the original game this way and possibly my favourite moment in the entirety of BtS, but unfortunately it's the only inconsistency I view as positive as it's the only change that seems to have a good reason and, in my opinion at least, makes the story better by adding to Chloe's character.

Max's Classmates

Next is the collected inconsistencies in the appearances of Max's classmates, the ones appearing in the game and the ones we only see in Chloe's class photo. Deck9 shows that they are capable of writing their own student characters really well in Steph and Mikey, and to a lesser extent Drew and Eliot. If they can do it with these four, why resort to using Max's classmates, and why in Chloe's class photo have the rest of them make cameos as faceless figures and names?

I view this retcon as a mix of laziness and cynical pandering to returning players from LiS. The have existing character models for Max's classmates and an understanding of their charactisation, this saves Deck9 from the effort of making some filler characters for the drama club instead of Juliet, Dana and Hayden, a new female rival for Rachel instead of Victoria and the roles that Nathan, Justin and Evan fill, while at the same time hopefully gaining some goodwill from player already familiar with these characters.

If Deck9 had put the same effort into making new classmates for Chloe that they did in Steph and Mikey, I wouldn't have a complaint. They are obviously capable, so I can only see the reasons I listed as why they made the choice. I clearly don't think it was a mistake in the ages of the characters leading Deck9 to think that they would be attending class with Chloe.

Chloe's Messages from Max

On to the retcon of Max and Chloe still being in contact as late as November 2009, over a year after Max left Arcadia Bay and less than four years before her return, when Chloe claims that she hasn't recieved as much as a call or text Max in the five years since she left, this is confirmed in Max's journal entry on Chloe. My problem here is that LiS makes it clear that Max disappeared from Chloe's life completely no contact from the moment she left Arcadia Bay, while BtS retcons this to them having been in some sort of regular, but probably increasingly sporadic, communication prior to Max ghosting Chloe completely after that final message.

It's the completely different picture of Max and Chloe's separation that BtS paints that is my problem, not that Chloe mistakenly claims that she hadn't heard from Max in five years when it is now retconned as four. In LiS Max appears to drop Chloe completely the moment she leaves Arcadia Bay for whatever reason while BtS retcons it as more that she made an effort for a number of months before gradually moving on with her life and leaving Chloe behind.

My problem isn't that there's now inconsistencies in a line of Chloe's dialogue and Max's journal, it's that this entire period of these girl's lives are different after the BtS retcon and it changes things to a more gradual growing apart while Chloe tries to hold on compared to the more jarring end to their relationship from the original game. I don't expect it to matter to everyone or you to think it matters at all, but that's why I take issue with it as I think LiS tells a better story of Max's insecurities and guilt coming close to ruining her relationship with Chloe whereas BtS makes it appear as a more natural growing apart.

Joyce and David's Relationship

I don't have much to say about Deck9 changing things so Joyce and David were only just moving in together in May 2010 rather than having been married for a number of months at that point in LiS. It's probably just a careless mistake that I don't have huge issues with. Of course I wish Deck9 was more on top of things, the game could have just as easily been set in an unseasonably hot March to have David moving in after a short honeymoon shortly before Chloe's 16th birthday which would have provided all the conflict he does in the game while still keeping the fire threat of the game.

Pompidou's Origin

This is probably one of the things I take the most issue with, changing Pomidou's origin from a fighting dog that Frank rescued to a gift from Damon Merrick.

LiS uses this story as the first sign that Frank has some good qualities buried somewhere inside, possibly justifying Rachel's feelings for him. Remember that prior to this Max and the player's only encounter with Frank prior to this was him attempting to cut Chloe open. It's important to his character and past as well as Max and the player's understanding of him and Max's empathy for him depending on how you play the game.

I can't think of a single reason for Deck9's retcon, it makes Frank's character significantly worse for no real narrative gain. I'm not sure if it's just a careless mistake or a sign that Deck9 was prioritising their story and characters over what was told in LiS.

Conclusion

I'd be surprised if you actually read through all of this, but it'd be nice to think that my time wasn't completely wasted here. If you did, hopefully I've made it clear that my problem with most of the inconsistencies (only Joyce and David's wedding and Chloe's expulsion really aren't worth mentioning) I listed was the damage I feel they do to the overall narrative of LiS, something I don't think is don't with any of the inconsistencies listed on the wiki. You're free to disagree of course.

I also don't have problems with retcons that seem to have a good reason or add something of value to the story as the change in Chloe's hair.

I hope that at least clears up my hypocrisy or double standards, my issue isn't the existance of inconsistencies but rather the problems I think they cause or the motivation I believe is behind them. As the wiki points out and you have made clear, LiS certainly has it's share of problems, but I don't think any of them reaches anywhere near what I've tried to convey here.

[WanderingSilver]

İlk olarak nihilistninja tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak phantom1931 tarafından gönderildi:

First of all, I was aware of the page for inconsistencies with Before the Storm. I also feel like you're making a bunch of assumptions about me, accusing me of being "dishonest". Also, I find it a little hypocritical that you dismiss the various date and age inconsistencies in the first game, but then point out the date in the text messages in Before the Storm.

As far as story inconsistencies in the first game, I already gave the Nathan example. But a bigger and more obvious example would be the use of Max's powers. The first time she uses her powers in the bathroom it not only reverses time, but also sends her back to the classroom. Its established throughout the rest of the game that Max's powers don't work that way, so there's a contradiction right off the bat. Her powers aren't supposed to teleport her to different locations, unless she uses a photograph. Much like the Pompidou example, you could try to come up with your own explanation for this, but it is still an inconsistency, since the game itself never explains or justifies it.

Well, hopefully the OP doesn't have too much of a problem with how of the rails this topic is getting, as I'm about to run it further into the ditch.

First off, I want to acknowledge that it's a fair assement of my position to have the opinion that I hold DONTNOD to a different standard than Deck9 based on what I've posted so far, but hopefully I can get across why I believe that the inconsistencies that you linked are on a different level than most of the list I posted and make clear that my actual issue isn't the existence of inconsistencies but rather the narrative impact of particular inconsistencies.

Now I don't believe that LiS is a perfect game, all of the inconsistencies on that list are real issues, even if a lot of them seem to fall under incorrect assets being used. I also have problems with a bunch of the dialogue and voice acting choices and believe that the entire final episode vacillates between average and bad, particularly the choice to have all of the mysteries of the Dark Room and Rachel's death answered in a heavy-handed exposition by Jefferson.

Next is your statement about Max's first use of her power being entirely different from any subsequent use. This is entirely accurate and an obvious inconsistency. You may view what I say next as me trying to justify it away, which would be entirely fair, but I'll try anyway and you can accept it or not.

First, this is a problem with video games as a whole. The abilities a character has in cutscenes and lore are often wildly inconsistent with the abilities that same character has when controlled by a player. How often have you played a game where the protagonist has busted out some crazy power during a cutscene only to leave you thinking that if they'd been capable of that when you were pressing the buttons that you wouldn't have died 20 times to the last boss. Or a character dies in an RPG cutscene and you think 'Hey, moron! Why don't you just use one of the 700 revival items clogging up my inventory?'

This is typically because the abilities that a character needs to advance the story and the abilities that a developer can reliably allow players to use are completely different.

The LiS-specific justification, and one that is apparently accepted by the majority of fans that I seen expressing an opinion on it, is that this one use of Max's powers as she awakens them is different from typical rewind she uses for the rest of the game, a one-off the same as her later time stop ability. Personally I view it as the perfect version of the photo-jump ability Max gains later in the story, the ability to permanently overwrite a previous version of herself and allows her to live her life from there, whereas the photo-jump restricts her to jumping to a particular instance using a photo as medium where she possesses her past self for a limited time with a limited field of movement.

Take that as you will, as it's possible that you're completely right and it's an unexplained inconsistency, but it could as easily be answered by either of the above explanations. To my particular interest, what real impact on the overall narrative does this inconsistency introduce? None as far as I can see, particularly as Max is demonstrated to have a few different uses of her powers throughout the game so one more is not a problem.

Finally, I'll end this stupidly long post breaking down what exactly my problem with the various inconsistencies I listed are in the hope that it shows why I view them differently than those listed on the page you linked. If at the end of this you still think I'm being a hypocrite then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Max's Classmates

Next is the collected inconsistencies in the appearances of Max's classmates, the ones appearing in the game and the ones we only see in Chloe's class photo. Deck9 shows that they are capable of writing their own student characters really well in Steph and Mikey, and to a lesser extent Drew and Eliot. If they can do it with these four, why resort to using Max's classmates, and why in Chloe's class photo have the rest of them make cameos as faceless figures and names?

I view this retcon as a mix of laziness and cynical pandering to returning players from LiS. The have existing character models for Max's classmates and an understanding of their charactisation, this saves Deck9 from the effort of making some filler characters for the drama club instead of Juliet, Dana and Hayden, a new female rival for Rachel instead of Victoria and the roles that Nathan, Justin and Evan fill, while at the same time hopefully gaining some goodwill from player already familiar with these characters.

If Deck9 had put the same effort into making new classmates for Chloe that they did in Steph and Mikey, I wouldn't have a complaint. They are obviously capable, so I can only see the reasons I listed as why they made the choice. I clearly don't think it was a mistake in the ages of the characters leading Deck9 to think that they would be attending class with Chloe.

Chloe's Messages from Max

On to the retcon of Max and Chloe still being in contact as late as November 2009, over a year after Max left Arcadia Bay and less than four years before her return, when Chloe claims that she hasn't recieved as much as a call or text Max in the five years since she left, this is confirmed in Max's journal entry on Chloe. My problem here is that LiS makes it clear that Max disappeared from Chloe's life completely no contact from the moment she left Arcadia Bay, while BtS retcons this to them having been in some sort of regular, but probably increasingly sporadic, communication prior to Max ghosting Chloe completely after that final message.

It's the completely different picture of Max and Chloe's separation that BtS paints that is my problem, not that Chloe mistakenly claims that she hadn't heard from Max in five years when it is now retconned as four. In LiS Max appears to drop Chloe completely the moment she leaves Arcadia Bay for whatever reason while BtS retcons it as more that she made an effort for a number of months before gradually moving on with her life and leaving Chloe behind.

My problem isn't that there's now inconsistencies in a line of Chloe's dialogue and Max's journal, it's that this entire period of these girl's lives are different after the BtS retcon and it changes things to a more gradual growing apart while Chloe tries to hold on compared to the more jarring end to their relationship from the original game. I don't expect it to matter to everyone or you to think it matters at all, but that's why I take issue with it as I think LiS tells a better story of Max's insecurities and guilt coming close to ruining her relationship with Chloe whereas BtS makes it appear as a more natural growing apart.

Pompidou's Origin

This is probably one of the things I take the most issue with, changing Pomidou's origin from a fighting dog that Frank rescued to a gift from Damon Merrick.

LiS uses this story as the first sign that Frank has some good qualities buried somewhere inside, possibly justifying Rachel's feelings for him. Remember that prior to this Max and the player's only encounter with Frank prior to this was him attempting to cut Chloe open. It's important to his character and past as well as Max and the player's understanding of him and Max's empathy for him depending on how you play the game.

I can't think of a single reason for Deck9's retcon, it makes Frank's character significantly worse for no real narrative gain. I'm not sure if it's just a careless mistake or a sign that Deck9 was prioritising their story and characters over what was told in LiS.

Conclusion

I'd be surprised if you actually read through all of this, but it'd be nice to think that my time wasn't completely wasted here. If you did, hopefully I've made it clear that my problem with most of the inconsistencies (only Joyce and David's wedding and Chloe's expulsion really aren't worth mentioning) I listed was the damage I feel they do to the overall narrative of LiS, something I don't think is don't with any of the inconsistencies listed on the wiki. You're free to disagree of course.

I also don't have problems with retcons that seem to have a good reason or add something of value to the story as the change in Chloe's hair.

I hope that at least clears up my hypocrisy or double standards, my issue isn't the existance of inconsistencies but rather the problems I think they cause or the motivation I believe is behind them. As the wiki points out and you have made clear, LiS certainly has it's share of problems, but I don't think any of them reaches anywhere near what I've tried to convey here.

Okay, first of all, about Max's power. You ask how this affects the narrative. If the player could use that same ability throughout the game as it was presented in the cutscene, than that would have changed some things. Max could have used that ability to more easily evade David in episode 1, and maybe make it so Chloe didn't get caught. Remember, not only did Max teleport that first time, but a fair amount of time had passed from Max sitting at her desk to rewinding time in the bathroom. Depending on how much time you spend examining things and talking to people, it could have been as much as twenty minutes. Max also could have used that ability in episode 2 when Chloe is on the tracks. She could have teleported back and made it so Chloe never got stuck in the first place. Presumably they didn't let you do this because it would have made things too easy, and interfered with the story they wanted to tell.

As for Pompidou; I'll be honest, I had actually forgotten about the dog's background in the first game, since it seemed like a minor thing to me. Maybe the same was true for the writers of this game. Maybe they just forgot. But since you came up with a possible explanation for Max's unique power usage, I could try to explain the dog. There are two possible ways to explain this. 1. Its not the same dog. This first dog dies at some point (maybe an accident?) and Frank later gets another one, which he also names Pompidou. Maybe in memory of the first dog, or maybe he just really liked the name. 2. It is the same dog, and Frank sold it to dog fighters at some point for money. But he had a change of heart and got it back. Maybe neither of those are perfect, but it could at least make it easier to reconcile things.

Now, Max texting Chloe... In the first game Chloe said it had been five years, but it could be assumed that Chloe was exaggerating/being hyperbolic when she said that. although, an occasional short text every month or two isn't much contact. Hardly anything considering their former relationship. There was no indication that Max had called or visited. And I'm not sure about it being a natural growing apart. It would have been understandable under different circumstances, but Chloe's father just died when Max left. Chloe needed Max, and in Farewell Max promises Chloe that she'll still be there for her, but breaks that promise. Maybe its not exactly the same as what was presented in the first game, but I don't think it diminishes it.

Also the classmates... Its true that some of them probably shouldn't be there, but I could overlook it. The writers probably knew the fans wanted to see those characters, and maybe the writers themselves did too, if they were already fans of the first game themselves.