The Monsters Hidden in Plain Sight: What Life Is Strange Actually Shows Us
Friday night after the release, I played Life is Strange: Reunion. And oh my gosh, it was delicious to play. The story is richer than ever. And there are situations in the game that just validated what I thought would happen.
Spoiler warnings, obviously.
But this isn’t a game review. This is me pointing out the things people rarely address — the actual antagonists of both Double Exposure and Reunion. The ones hiding in plain sight.
There’s this ongoing topic I always end up circling back to: the people whose actions are more insidious are the higher figures at Caledon University. Some people point at Safi posing as Lucas and saying things to his son as the worst thing possible, and I have to disagree. That’s just short‑sightedness. It bypasses the actual perpetrators of the story, and Lucas is one of them.
Lucas’s son ended up living with his mother after Safi posed as him, which is probably the best thing for that boy, because Lucas is not a good person. He’s unethical as a professor — he abused his position and plagiarized a student’s work. Maya Okada. By plagiarizing her work, he gained a lot of money and fame from it. Even got a movie deal, which we learned in Double Exposure. And not only that, he’s one of the core factors in why she unalived herself. Yasmin and Vinh are the other culprits of why Maya Okada chose to end her life. And they hid the plagiarism behind “mental illness” as the main reason, when in fact she was taken advantage of by a mentor/professor, and the administration covered it up.
I’ve written blogs about schools not caring about students, only about the reputation of the school. It’s like entering the job field and thinking HR is meant to help employees, when in fact it’s the opposite — it protects the interests of the company. I can attest to that because HR did nothing for my coworkers when I was working in retail. My coworkers were smart enough to read the signals early and transfer or take other offers instead of pursuing the problems they were facing.
The school setting is not much different. You have to have solid evidence to back up any claims. But because Lucas took Maya’s manuscript and hid it — probably the only copy she had — she had no proof. And because of the hierarchy, because he was established, no one would’ve taken Maya’s side. That’s more insidious than what Safi did, trying to get a bit of vengeance for her best friend, who died because her work was stolen and her mental health was weaponized against her.
And I know what that feels like. My mental health was used against me when people harmed me. They automatically invalidate your claim if you have a history of mental illness or emotional struggles. I can attest to that. It happens. It’s why things get pushed under the rug.
So the moment someone says Safi is a bad person and her actions are the worst ever, I have to point out what Safi’s mother did, what Lucas did, and how the administration will side with a perpetrator to maintain their image, and then the victim takes their own life because of it. That is true evil. Those actions go under the radar because they’re so normalized.
When I played Reunion and found out Lucas was teaching at a high school, it made me sick. I wouldn’t want a person like that shaping young minds, which is what he said in the game about why he likes high schoolers better than college students. He said college students have a more fixed mindset. That conversation alone made me think: holy shit, he’s an insidious bastard who will use any narrative to boost his ego and gain a following. That man should be nowhere near education. But his school hired him, probably knowing he plagiarized a student’s work and is indirectly responsible for her death.
And I have to say it: if Lucas were a woman, she would’ve been banned from being an educator. But because Lucas is a white‑presenting man, he was able to get a job at a high school “to shape young minds,” he said.
I don’t know how much clearer the game can be about who the actual antagonists are.
Knowing this, I always choose the side of the person who is the most misunderstood and scrutinized for going up against the entity that actually harms others. Harm that leads to death. That’s more insidious than Safi telling Lucas’s son whatever she said. That kid is probably in better hands with his mother, anyway. Lucas is a piece of shit human being. I wouldn’t want any kid in his care because of his lack of empathy and ethics. He abused his power. It led to the death of a student. And yes, he’s indirectly responsible — and so are Yasmin and Vinh.
And Vinh… he represents the individual who upholds the pillars that destroy people like Maya Okada. The higher‑ups gave him an invitation to a better life. A good job. Opportunities. All he had to do was look the other way.
Then there’s the demolition team in Reunion — illegally going against a court order, at the Abraxas house late at night, with explosive charges set in the basement. Max and Loretta could’ve been killed. The door literally said to cease demolition. No one expected a demolition team to be there late at night. And Vinh was aware of it. Teller and Yasmin were behind it. And in Teller’s office, the house was supposed to be condemned due to severe water damage from the storm. But we saw the house, and Max said it, the house looked fine. In my opinion, it looked like it was in great shape. That tells me an inspector was paid off. And that does happen in reality as well. It’s absolutely insidious that you can’t trust an inspection done on your home, because a builder or the company can pay off someone willing to approve it for a large sum of cash. Corruption is everywhere. And the game is quietly telling us this because it’s a legit thing that happens. If you have money to pay someone off, and they’re willing to accept it, here we are. Corruption at its finest. The elites are mentioned constantly in the game—the real antagonists of reality itself. Because they are known to do it.
Safi is just a shape‑shifter. She didn’t know much about her abilities or the consequences. Max’s powers are the ones that can do the most harm. Her abilities are the reason places get destroyed. Max can’t accept outcomes. If she makes a mistake, she rewinds. She never sits with consequences. She shuts down, shuts people out, tries to fix everything. She’s a chronic people‑pleaser. It’s why Amanda was anxious and paranoid about Max rewinding things, because she is known to do that.
And you know who else experienced similar judgment? Bianca from Wednesday.
A siren who can manipulate people with her voice. She wears a charm to prevent it. However, her ex, Xavier, accused her of using her powers on him, and we don’t even know if that’s true. He was being a jerk. Even during the dance, he asked her to erase his feelings for Wednesday because he couldn’t deal with them. And she said no. I could see that Bianca truly liked him. She wanted to be loved and seen by him. You can’t get that by manipulating it. She used her powers to get into the school, sure, but that doesn’t mean she used them on people she cared about. She was trying to escape the cult her mother had raised her in. And to escape the leader who was exploiting her and her mother.
So yes, Max, Bianca, Safi, they all relate. Women with abilities are judged for the very thing that isolates them.
I don’t see Safi as an antagonist. I see a woman just as lonely as Max, with abilities that set them apart. Vulnerable to judgment. Villainized. At some point, apathy sets in. And Max shot her in Double Exposure. Max has different sides, too, but that’s not the point here.
The point is that the real antagonists are the ones hidden in plain sight. The ones with systemic power to ruin someone’s life entirely. Maya Okada was the victim of that. And probably many others.
Safi isn’t the monster. Max isn’t the monster. Bianca isn’t the monster.
The monsters are the ones who hide behind institutions, titles, and reputations — and they’re the ones who get away with it.
Let that sink in.