sickening to think about life is strange in the context of it just being like.. a bunch of scared kids. you know? there are no one-dimensional characters. each and every one of them is deeper than they seem at first glance, deeper than most casual players assume them to be.
some of them are questionable — take chloe, warren, victoria’s friends. even max to an extent. some of them plain suck — take nathan and victoria herself. some of them are plain good, like kate.
but they’re all teenagers, fresh into adulthood and figuring it out as they go, and some of them are doing good and some of them fuck it up bad.
especially victoria and nathan. victoria is bitchy and downright cruel at times, but she’s not heartless, and she does show remorse (even if it’s too little too late.) nathan is.. a lot, i could talk about him for hours (and have), but his character boils down to a freshly 18 year old who was repeatedly abused and did some very, very bad things as a result.
none of them are evil. we see as much in the alternate universe. they’re full humans, of course, and they’re flawed and some of them have done bad things, but they’re all just a bunch of high schoolers.
everything, and i mean everything bad that happened was due to the adults — jefferson, frank, wells, david, mr. amber, frank, damon, so on and so forth. people approach this story with frustratingly little nuance, and i suppose i understand because most of us are the same age as the protagonists (or younger).
but stripped to the bare bones LIS is a story about a bunch of kids who were abused, taken advantage of, lied to, and ignored by the adults around them. they’re certainly not all innocent but none of them are evil.