I'm ten years and a transition late to the party, but I want to add a different perspective. Life is Strange (the first one, anyhow) is about growing up and the loss of innocence that accompanies it. Mark Jefferson practically shouts these themes at you in the Dark Room:
"I'm obsessed with the idea of capturing that moment when innocence evolves into corruption. That shift from black, to white, to gray...and beyond. Most models are cynical; they lose that naivete. However, some Blackwell students carry their hope and optimism with them like...an aura. And those lucky few become my models...my subjects."
Like many 18 year olds, Max Caulfield struggles with a sense of identity and direction in her life. She's committed to photography, but wishy-washy about entering the contest that would propel her career to heights most young adults could only dream of. She spends a lot of the story reacting to events driven by Jefferson, Chloe, Nathan, and others. Even own power is a reflection of her self-doubt and lack of commitment - she can rewind conversations and recent events to attain the optimal outcome, even messing with cause-and-effect to create outcomes which would otherwise be impossible. It allows the player to pick the "right" actions and it allows Max to be as good or bad of a person she wants to be. But even then, even after events which go as well as they could, she usually mumbles to herself about what could have happened instead - partly as a way to prompt the player, but also partly as an expression of her own uncertainty.
From the outset, it's clear this power has limitations - you can't rewind farther than a somewhat arbitrary amount of time. Both Max and the player face the major limitation of this power when Kate tries to jump off the roof. Max is able to use her power to get to the roof far faster than she should have been able, but burns out her usage for long enough that if she didn't care about Kate, pay attention to her, and say the right things, Kate might still jump.
The second time Max hits a major wall is during her first usage of the time jump ability - she saves William from his death, but unwittingly shifts events so that Chloe ends up paralyzed, alone, and waiting at the edge of death. This alternate timeline explicitly serves to instruct both Max and the player that changing events in the past can have unanticipated ramifications - the Butterfly Effect. What's left unsaid - but what's learned in each subsequent usage of this power, is that Max isn't able to manipulate time at will - in the San Francisco timeline she saves just about everyone, only to be unable to help when the storm finally hits.
A second, mostly-unspoken limitation of this power is that even while Max leaps backwards in time, time inevitably marches onward. When she undoes the first altered timeline, she returns to her original timeline not where she left off, but on a morning of lost time. And when Max leaps into a different timeline to visit a paralyzed Chloe, she leaves behind a different Max whose memories she doesn't share. This limitation is a small detail, but it's pretty important to understanding the work as a whole. Every time Max tries to change the distant past, her present self draws ever closer to zero hour.
Understanding the limitations of Max's power is important to understanding both the literal description of the plot of Life is Strange as well as the meanings underlying story. The story wouldn't exist if Max had unlimited rewind or didn't have to use her own photos as a medium to jump through time. If the game was about using time travel to fix every problem and make everything perfect, then why doesn't it end with the San Francisco timeline? Better yet, why doesn't it let you use Max's time jump power leap to a time shortly before Rachel Amber was murdered and tip off someone to the Dark Room, to Mark Jefferson or Nathan, or anything?
Instead, Max crashes through timelines and events like a bull in a china shop, helping people as she can but often causing just as many problems. Even if you try to build a working relationship with Victoria and do the objectively cool thing of warning her about her best friend's violent tendencies, that kindness backfires for reasons well beyond Max's own control. She is performing at superhero levels of magic power, but still can't control every outcome.
The Storm is sometimes seen as a cruel and arbitrary plot device, but it is no less arbitrary than Max gaining powers in the first place or any aspect of those power. But I don't think it needs to be explained or dissected - it doesn't matter if it was just because of primordial chaos or God or some other Divine Agent. Rather, The Storm serves both as a supernatural consequence of Max's constant usage of her powers and a thematic device as an inevitable, painful tragedy; the loss of innocence that all must face when growing up.
The Storm inexorably, violently tears apart Max's childhood in both possible timelines. In one timeline it destroys Arcadia Bay and with it all the places she grew up with and the people whose lives Max tried to improve - Warren, Kate, Joyce, David, Frank, and nearly every Blackwell Student Max bent reality to help in their own small struggles. In another timeline the storm destroys Chloe, her closest childhood friend, confidant, and (let's be honest) doomed lover - the one person who has stood witness to the hell Max has gone through in the past week. The Storm is there to remind both Max and the player that suffering can't be avoided forever, and running from it might only make the effects worse.
The resolution of the Storm marks Max's transition into her adult life - like many, she is forced to carry a deeply rooted, silent trauma while the rest of the world goes on as normal. However, each ending has a small lilt of optimism - in one timeline Max and Chloe are there to support each other through the grief and guilt of what they've done. In another timeline, she has the support of her friends at Blackwell and the Prices to share their grief with. The last view of Max's face in the game shows her turning from an expression of despair to a smile. Max has lost her innocence just as Mark Jefferson predicted, but she didn't lose her hope and optimism - at least not completely.
We join Chloe Price at the low point of her life. She is traumatized from her dad's death, feels abandoned by her best childhood friend Max, has an abusive step-dad who isn't handling his own PTSD well, lashes out at others at the drop of a hat, has obvious substance dependencies, and experiences multiple violent, traumatizing events in Before the Storm. Although meeting Rachel Amber is in many ways positive for Chloe, it is not unambiguously so as it leads her to ultimately become expelled from Blackwell despite otherwise excellent grades. And then Rachel disappears, and Chloe desperately grasps to reclaim that connection. Enter Max.
The relationship between Chloe and Max is self-evidently the most important one in the game, and not just for Watsonian plot reasons. Max's time travel is motivated almost entirely to save or otherwise directly help Chloe. Max is probably the first person in a long while to take Chloe's troubles and emotional needs seriously - and not only that, she provides a means for Chloe to meaningfully advance her search for Rachel. In turn, Chloe drives Max forward, encouraging her to break out of her shell and make bolder choices than she would have alone. Chloe and Max are there to protect and comfort each other on the dangers of their quest - Max comforting Chloe when their search for Rachel is tragically completed, and Chloe comforting Max about her experiences in the Dark Room. The moments of conflict and codependency show that they're not a perfect couple, perhaps not even a good long-term couple (Double Exposure notwithstanding) - but in this moment they're what the other needs.
Max and Chloe only get to that lighthouse - both a literal safe haven from the Storm and the culmination of their character arcs - because of each other's love and support. Max's love and support gives Chloe the strength to break past her anger, cynicism, and selfishness to the point where she considers the needs of others. This marks the final refutation of Mark Jefferson's ideology - a renewal of hope and optimism in the face of tragedy and suffering through love. While it's understandable that she'd care about her mom's safety, the Chloe from earlier that week probably wouldn't have cared if David or most of the town had died in a maelstrom. Instead, Chloe becomes the person who can care enough to sacrifice her own existence for others because of Max.
"Max, you finally came back to me this week, and… you did nothing but show me your love and friendship. You made me smile and laugh, like I haven't done in years. Wherever I end up after this… in whatever reality… all those moments between us were real, and they'll always be ours. No matter what you choose, I know you'll make the right decision."
Chloe's support throughout the game helps to build her self-confidence, coming to a head when Chloe literally gives the means Max to travel back in time with the butterfly photo and places her utmost trust in her. Max becomes the person who can make the sacrificial choice because of Chloe.
Part 3: The Butterfly Effect
I've often seen the sentiment that the tragedy of Life is Strange is that Chloe dies not knowing how loved she was. While that's true to an extent, and I'm sympathetic to the outrage and insistence on keeping Chloe alive that usually accompanies it, I would gently suggest that this is missing a key part of the story.
Our Max carries everything with her through time. From the objects she carries to complete various puzzles to the experiences she carries from timelines that may no longer exist, Max is the through line of all the shown possible realities, the proof that they existed. Even if one Chloe dies alone and afraid on the floor of a bathroom, she dies because another Chloe gave her consent to be sacrificed for the good of others. The ending of the renewed timeline isn't merely a hard reset of the continuity - it exists because of the previous timeline. Far from being erased, these timelines all existed, echoing faintly but inexorably like the flap of a butterfly's wings that creates a Storm.
Here the love and care Max and Chloe shared with each other stops Nathan's rampage, exposes Mark Jefferson's crimes to the world, prevents Kate from attempting, and gives closure and the possibility of justice to Rachel Amber's spirit. And the bittersweetness of it is that Max is now alone, the only one who understands how any of this came to be.
Arcadia Bay isn't a better place without Chloe Price - Arcadia Bay is a better place because of her. Arcadia Bay owes its existence to a girl who wanted nothing more than to escape it and never look back.
And I dunno, that thought just gets me, you know?
