We Must Imagine Pricefield Happy
The breakup between Max Caulfield and Chloe Price established in Life is Strange: Double Exposure was-- well, let's back up here. Some would argue that the relationship, built on only a week's worth of insane teenage events after half a decade's worth of separation, was the exact type of overly passionate youthful folly that never lasts. People change a lot in those early years, they could easily grow apart.
And that's true- for real people. The thing about codependency is that fully-fleshed out human beings eventually hit a friction point with their codependent partner: they simply cannot sand themselves down into the perfect puzzle piece to keep the deeply emotional and close connection afloat. It turns out even the most agreeable, passive, submissive person is usually not interested in focusing 24/7 365 on molding themselves in this way for the rest of their life. But Max and Chloe are not real people. Life is Strange is a beloved series, but it's not the deepest character study- I don't think anyone could establish a case that it's overly detailed on the mundane but human idiosyncrasies that its characters would exhibit in the endless days and years that make up their lives (or at least, the ones that Max and Chloe would have that would make them less-than-ideal long term partners). It's a short game about a very short timeframe, and even with Max's journal entries, there's simply so much "realistic fidelity" of every character that never gets a moment in the spotlight. It's not quite Riverdale's "highs and lows of high school football," but this is still clearly a series aimed at a younger demographic, more concerned with conveying emotion than absolute verisimilitude.
In other words, Max and Chloe don't need to sand themselves down to fit together because they were built from the ground up with just enough detail to connect. You CAN imagine them as infinitely happy after the credits roll, because they don't have enough bumps and dead ends to stop the rolling. In order for a breakup to happen in Double Exposure, whether onscreen or in the murky depths of "between games," you'd need to define their puzzle pieces MORE, so that only then could the lack of fit create conflict.
But that definition never happens. It would have been less of a problem if the relationship was a disaster in the first game. For example, it might have been underwhelming, but no one would have been surprised by a throwaway line that Chloe was still estranged from her stepfather being the only reference to him ever again. But for Pricefield? By the time they reunite in Life is Strange: Reunion, the question on everyone's mind is- why would these people ever break up? They're insecure because they love each other so much?
There COULD have been a solid case for a separation, if the characters had been given defined edges, more points of incompatibility, but the work wasn't done: Max and Chloe's more "boring, everyday" (relationship) flaws are still just as nebulous as ever. They're still mostly cute dolls for the player to smush together- so it's weird to say those dolls abandoned their most emotionally entwined connection. Much ink has been spilled about how French adults trying to write quirky American teens created weird plot inconsistencies and strange characterization- and Max and Chloe''s relationship is often the prime victim of this-, but the game often gets away with it because that uncanny valley also enhanced its Lynchian mystery. And, despite its occasionally polished weirdness, the game IS dark and revealing when it wants to be, which highlights how if it had something sad or "realistic" to say about the Pricefield bond crumbling postgame, it would have. The later games have all the same awkward dialogue and characters that just don't quite feel like they could be the exact same way in real life, but they don't succeed in establishing the same -perhaps unintentional- surreal darkness that obscures that issue. Because of this, a Pricefield breakup in the less eventful sequels reads like a breakup from Mickey and Minnie Mouse- you're just like, "does this cutesy cartoon think this bond ever had the realistic adult friction needed for a painful separation to happen in the first place?" Yes, Life is Strange explores life and pain more deeply than a children's program about a talking mouse, but the authenticity of Pricefield is not one of those places. Pricefield was established as a two-piece jigsaw puzzle and then ten years later, someone was like, "eh, sometimes toys break." Uh yeah, but usually not this particular one- it feels pretty vital to explain how this arrangement no longer lines up. This toy was specifically made to preempt the eventual breakdown of so many real-life examples of young love, so that the two women would always walk together. "JK the emotional reality of the Life is Strange universe is now retroactively our own" just doesn't work when none of these characters could have existed in the same way in the real world to begin with.
