What does it really mean to Sacrifice Arcadia Bay?
Life is Strange is about changing the past- but not with superpowers.
Chloe Price dies early on, but she'd been hurtling toward that fate for quite some time. Max Caulfield had the ability to perhaps change that trajectory before the game even starts. But she didn't.
Max and Chloe have been separated for 6 years and during that time Max did not reach out to her friend once, leaving Chloe vulnerable and alone, especially after the disappearance of Rachel Amber.
But all is not lost-but it still has nothing to do with superpowers. When the game starts, Max has been back in Arcadia Bay for 1 month-- but STILL has not contacted Chloe. They only end up "coincidentally" (or whatever passes for coincidental in this universe) running into each other-- and only after Chloe has already died once.
Could Max have made a magical difference in Chloe's life, years before becoming magical? We cannot know-- but Chloe brings up the radio silence early, in her next appearance after her undone death. She has just returned from the grave but is not looking over her shoulder for murderers-unless she is indeed talking about what really killed her. (Yes, she doesn't know she'd been shot-- I mean from the perspective of her as a literary character, not from her limited in-world perspective.)
Max is given a rewind-not the literal rewind powers of the game- but a chance to undo the guilt she has about never reaching out to her imperiled friend. The world gives them a week to help and cherish each other, for Max to steer Chloe toward life over and over again- but Chloe Price is already dead.
You cannot wait until supernatural forces save you from your mistakes. Life must return to the way it was. This was only a respite, a charity to give the girls a little more time together, for Chloe to smile in the sun before she goes, for Max to see that she can help the ones she loves if she accepts the call to action. Now, reality rushes back in- the storm coming to collect its due. And so, Chloe d- (<<<)
Chloe was a lesson: you cannot wait until supernatural forces save you from your mistakes. Max has learned the value of speaking out for others, Max has changed, but life must return to the way it was (<<<)
Chloe was a lesson; Max has learned (<<<)
Chloe was (<<<)
Chloe (<<<)
Max does not want to lose her friend, she, like the central figure in all parables, now sees the error of her ways, the moral the universe was trying to impose, and pleads for mercy.
And the opportunity presents itself, but with a cost: if she wants this fantasy, this world where she saved her friend to really be real, she must rip up reality to have it. The underpinnings of the world that demand Chloe Price's death must be torn out and renovated for her to live. At one point in the past, there would have been no need to suffer such brutal refurbishment- but we'll never know when. Could a kind word or friendly text have undone this without any time magic just a year ago? A month? Two weeks?
But that is not all that must be undone. In order to mend this, Max must surrender her ability to mend. Sacrificing Chloe involves using her powers to go back in time-- sacrificing Arcadia Bay involves forfeiting the opportunity to do so. She must rip up the photograph, rip up the past, rip up everyone else she has saved- the world is giving her the chance to go back and change one grave mistake- but if she chooses this, she will never be allowed to do it again. If she wants to pay this outlandish premium to continue the free trial of a world where she saved Chloe Price and Chloe Price saved her, she must tear out the part of her that has learned what happens when it is too late to act.
Max will be giving up the idea of Chloe Price: (that Max can make a difference, but also that bravery is not optional: her inaction has consequences): in exchange for the Chloe Price. And this will not just destroy the people of Arcadia Bay, but all the future Chloe Prices that Max may have saved with the moral weight of Chloe's passing on her shoulders.
So, what will it be, Caulfield? Be an Everyday Hero, motivated by a personal flaw that led to tragic loss, immortalize Chloe Price in your mind's photograph as a reminder for what drives you, for what to never do again? Are you at Blackwell Academy to learn how to capture the human essence, to reflect on your own? What's a daguerreotype?
or do you surrender the abstract lifelong picture for the tangible, present emotion? Do you follow that big blue butterfly: chaotic and beautiful, untethered to record or reason, with no guarantees about its impact, positive or negative? It flutters: no photograph, no security: no checkpoint to reload. It's fragile: at any moment, all the pain put into its protection could be wasted by an uncaring universe. But it is yours for as long as you can hold on to it, paid for with a promise of all of your love; all the love that you now can never learn to reflect onto anyone else except her.
There's no easy answer. After all, Life is --
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