Spoiler Alert: This piece contains major spoilers for Life Is Strange. Do not read this unless you have completed Life Is Strange – Episode 4.
I have always found the most interesting part of Life Is Strange is the relationships between the different characters and how the game tries to portray a very real (despite the time tricks) picture of being a teenager and all the drama that comes with being a teenager in the 21st century. It tackles difficult issues like bullying, victimisation, sex video scandals, drug and alcohol abuse and notably and suicide resulting from all those factors. On the more mundane side, we see the complexities involved in relationships with best friends, with parents (and stepparents) and navigating romantic relationships and the fallout from that.
And all those themes are against a backdrop where you can rewind time. Which is something I think many of us wish we could do when navigating a silly human life. Did you have a conversation with someone and you said something which they took the wrong way? Rewind. Did you let your boyfriend beat up a scumbag only to have him suspended and wish you had tried to stop him? Rewind. Is your best friend’s life miserable because she has an evil stepfather and that only happened because her dad died in a terrible car accident? Rewind.
Except, as we learnt in Life Is Strange – Episode 3, being able to bend time does give you the foresight of what other events you also wind up changing. If, on that fateful day you prevent William from getting in his car and then prevent his death, life is not happily ever after for Chloe in that reality. And instead of William having a car accident, Chloe has one which snaps her spine and leaves her completely paralysed. Which is better then? Her father dead and having Chloe find her way through that trauma or having Chloe with her family, but paralysed? Max realises in that reality that a paralysed Chloe, while still having her doting parents, is a Chloe that is experiencing slow respiratory failure and a Chloe that is going to die.
In one of the most heart-wrenching sequences I have ever played through, Chloe begs Max to help her die; because she is going to die anyway and she can’t bear the thought of her parents having to watch her slowly fade away. So I turn up Chloe’s IV and watch her fall asleep, watch her never wake up again. With my eyes so teary I can barely see my television screen, I grab hold of a photo of Chloe and Max from the day when William was supposed to die and focus, I rewind.
You play through that day again and instead of trying to hide William’s car keys and prevent him from getting in his car, you watch idly by, watching your best friend and knowing the choice you have made for her and what her reality will now be.
There is a theory of time travel or time bending that you can’t significantly change anything. That any change you make within a time line, is like throwing a pebble into a lake and even though it creates an immediate ripple around it, it eventually calms and the lake is at its previous state. That theory is that if something is meant to happen within a timeline, it will happen eventually. I don’t know if that is meant to be some proponent of fate or destiny but I do know that rewind has its limitations, and that Max while exceedingly precocious and wise sees her world (as we all do) within our own needs and the supreme power of being able to bend time doesn’t allow us to be as selfish as that.
The episode continues against the story of trying to find Rachel Amber and realising that her story is connected to the story of Kate Marsh and girls being drugged (and, it’s hinted at, raped) at Vortex Parties. It turns into an investigative game which ups the pace and the suspense.
It culminates with Max being drugged and while she is losing consciousness, watching as Chloe is shot and killed. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind.
Except it doesn’t work of course. It didn’t work when we tried to stop Kate Marsh from committing suicide and it doesn’t work now when we see Chloe die. We saved Chloe so many times before, but is this where it ends? How Chloe’s story, in all her realities, was meant to end?
Max is able to bend time. It makes her a god of sorts. But maybe it’s only meant for trivial things, like to unblocking a keypad because you’ve entered the incorrect code in too many times. Maybe the things that matter, we don’t get to change at all.
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