"She was my angel" @theravenandthedoe - Tumblr Blog

fairymascot

are we happy ever after all?

chaosmaxine

max would totally teach chloe how to play the guitar, but it's pretty challenging when you're left-handed... 🎸

Say yes!

YES

blusthings

Stuck in the Closet with You by @rainboq is so heartwarming please go read it!

psychicskulldamage

I’m glad I’m not the only one who instantly thought of Chloe and Max when they heard Seven by Taylor Swift ♥

carusti

🚬🚬🚬

forestfolke

sorta redraws from the last life is strange 2 episode

brakken

the smile she’s found

brakken

in-focus version <3

forestfolke

sorta redraws from the last life is strange 2 episode

saphnoctis-deactivated20210829

I know I’ve said this before but I miss them so much 😭 and I literally screamed when I saw them in lis2

chaosmaxine

SEROTONIN BOOST!!!!

tangent101

Agency in LiS and BtS

When looking at why Life is Strange was such a popular game, while Before the Storm unfortunately was considered lacking, we first need to consider just what agency is in a story. Basically, agency is a character’s ability to be the driving force in their own story. How much of the Protagonist’s story is driven by that protagonist, and how much is from an outside source?

This can be problematic with computer games, or at least story-based games. While Skyrim may get away with being an Open Sandbox world where you can do what you want and to hell with the story itself, games like Life is Strange are a shared story where your actions help determine how that story comes about.

On the surface, the actions in LiS and BtS seem quite similar. Max can choose to water her plant, or not to. Chloe can do the same, but the player instead is given the absolute worse tool with which to do this, perhaps in a way to suggest Chloe is on a self-destructive streak that is destined to hurt those around her. Still, there is a marked difference… Max can choose to water her plant with bottled water she has on hand for that purpose. Chloe is dumping soda into her plant rather than, I don’t know, bringing the plant into the bathroom to water it? That the choice doesn’t exist honestly hints at Chloe’s lack of agency in her game, especially when compared to Max.

During each respective game, Max and Chloe each are drawn into the respective orbits of a destabilizing influence in their lives - Chloe for Max, and Rachel for Chloe. But there is one massive difference between the two, because Max has the ability to say “no” at various times, while Chloe is dragged along in Rachel’s mischief even if she doesn’t want to.

Take for instance BtS’s one truly fantastic moment, with Chloe being in a play. Leading up to the play you see Chloe snarking about the costumes and stating she would never want to do this. But Rachel doesn’t take no for an answer, no matter how much Chloe insists she doesn’t want to. She is overridden and finds herself in costume with the potential to truly screw everything up if the player is inattentive. For that matter, Chloe promises her mother she will not skip school. She shows up, she knows this is her last chance, and Rachel drags her off to skip school rather than, I don’t know, Chloe saying she has to attend classes or she’s going to get kicked out? And thus Rachel’s actions have consequences for Chloe and they’re not good ones. Chloe lacks agency.

With Max? Well, at one point you have the option to steal $5,000 from Principal Wells’ desk. It is cash in a plain white envelope with “handicapped fund” written on it which is honestly rather sketchy and makes me think Sean Prescott bribed Wells with “handicapped funds” that Wells ends up deciding to use for just that (though how a handicapped ramp into the dorms will help I don’t know, seeing you STILL need to go up a flight of stairs from the dorms to reach Blackwell itself). If you take the money, it makes things later on much easier. And the money is sketchy as I said. But Max can say no. And Chloe listens. Similarly, Chloe accepts it when Max says “no” to various things, including kissing her, taking Kate’s phone call, or even accepting blame for Chloe’s weed when David confronts her in her room. Max has the agency that Chloe lacks.

The biggest example of the lack of agency in BtS though is in the climactic scene where Chloe faces down Damon, the one-dimensional villain who stabs Rachel and causes the entire game to go off the rails. Chloe has Damon’s money and yet despite the fact Damon got everything he wanted he still chooses to drug Rachel’s biological mother - a woman that Damon kidnapped after Rachel’s dad blackmailed him. None of Chloe’s actions stop the end-game of Chloe knocked out and the wounded Frank Bowers wrestling the knife out of Damon’s hands and somehow managing to kill his berserk best friend as the ultimate White Knight (in sour armor).

Contrast that with Max in the Dark Room. Max is duct taped to a chair. She manages to get a leg free. She manages to escape the Dark Room using time travel shenanigans only to end up back in the Dark Room to save Chloe from the Storm… and then when David Madsen shows up to White Knight the rescue David ends up dead. Max has to Rewind and warn David and then uses her freed leg to trip up Mark Jefferson and allow David to catch Jefferson and knock him out. Without Max’s help, David cannot prevail against Jefferson. She has agency in this situation despite being tied to a chair and is instrumental in regaining her liberty.

Even the Final Choice for BtS and LiS demonstrate this difference in agency. For Chloe, the choice is let Rachel remain ignorant of her father’s actions that led to her biological mother almost dying, or telling her the truth and destroying a relationship based on lies. And seriously, I cannot see how anyone could choose the latter course of action, seeing there are multiple ways that Rachel can still learn the truth. Chloe’s choice lacks agency and the ending of the game plays out almost identically for Chloe and Rachel even if Chloe lies to Rachel. Meanwhile, if Max chooses Arcadia Bay over Chloe, she goes to a horrid funeral with a hysterical Joyce and she will be alone now and can never share what she went through to anyone… and if she chose Chloe, she and Chloe drive through the remnants of the town passing corpses along the way, knowing that her choice led to this. Her actions have consequence. And yet also have agency.

chaosmaxine

you are so smart!!!