History Characters / LifeIsStrangeMaxCaulfield

->''"I always wanted my life to be special... an adventure... but not without you. "''

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** Max also doesn't seem to believe that Chloe is interested in her romantically. If Max kisses her, she states on her diary that she believes Chloe is only interested in Rachel. It's ultimately left a bit ambiguous as to whether there is a mutual romantic component to their very close friendship.

* TheProtagonist: This to Chloe's {{Deuteragonist}}.

* AMFMCharacterization: Max appears to be a fan of indie and folk music bands such as Music/AltJ (indie), Jose Gonzalez (folk) and Syd Matters (indie) which suits her hipster image.
* AmbiguouslyBi: While the game allows you to choose whether she kisses Chloe, Warren, [[AmbiguouslyBi both]], or neither, Max will never officially state that she sees either of them as romantic partners, leaving her sexuality ambiguous.

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Kate, shall she rightfully befriend her. [[spoiler:Max is the one and only person that can refrain Kate from committing suicide by jumping off the roof of the girls' dormitory]].

* AmbiguouslyGay: While the game allows you to choose whether she kisses Chloe, Warren, [[AmbiguouslyBi both]], or neither, Max will never officially state that she sees either of them as romantic partners, leaving her sexuality ambiguous.

* CoolLoser: Max sees herself as something like this. Subverted in the fact that, despite being more awkward and less extroverted than many of her peers, almost all of them hold a deep admiration for her because she doesn't seem to care what other people think of her. Chloe seems to crush on her throughout the game, other characters compare her to a superhero or a guardian angel if she makes the right choices, many consider her a great friend, and ''even Victoria'' says she's the coolest person she knows at Blackwell. Despite this, Max remains extremely humble, and several Vortex Club members still treat her with outward disdain.

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* AlphaBitch: Downplayed. This Max's circle of friends now almost exclusively includes Vortex Club members such as Nathan and Victoria (who are themselves much more friendly), and her texts imply that she views less popular girls like Alyssa with disdain and treats her parents rather disrespectfully. Her journal entries are very sparse compared to those of Mainstream Max, and she seems much more interested in partying than school. However, she's still quite sweet; a text conversation with Victoria

* AlphaBitch: Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:the alternate version of her created when Mainstream Max saves William in Episode 3 seems to be a downplayed version, prior to Mainstream Max being catapulted forward in time and replacing her. This Max's circle of friends now almost exclusively includes Vortex Club members such as Nathan and Victoria (who are themselves much more friendly), and her texts imply that she views less popular girls like Alyssa with disdain and treats her parents rather disrespectfully. Her journal entries are very sparse compared to those of Mainstream Max, and she seems much more interested in partying than school.]]

** [[spoiler: At the end of episode 3, after going back in time to save Chloe's father, Max finds herself in an alternate timeline, in control of a version of herself that's popular, ambitious, a member of the Vortex Club, and even friends with Victoria and Nathan. Some of her texts, however, imply that she's still as insecure as ever on the inside.]]

[[folder:''Dust'' Timeline Tropes]]

* AnimalMotif: Many of the comic covers associate her with the blue butterfly from the first game, and she gets a tattoo of one on her wrist at some point.

* FictionalDisability: The main conflict of the Dust arc can best be described as this. For some reason, Max is flickering in and out of the Dust timeline, with each "flicker" becoming progressively more deadly. She eventually has to supplant herself into the Waves timeline just to stabilize herself.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: At the end of issue 4 she searches for and ultimately chooses a timeline where Rachel is alive and together with Chloe, because she believes this will make her Chloe happier. When she finally returns to the Dust timeline in ''Settling Dust'', she suggests trying to find a way to erase the time she'd left her Chloe behind, but Chloe tells her that she'd rather keep it.

* PlatonicLifePartners: She and Waves-Rachel are two wlw who are very close but entirely platonic with one another. Likewise, she has this relationship with Waves-Chloe, who is in a committed relationship with her Rachel.

* AnimalMotif: A doe for her. In Episode 1, she wears a shirt under her hoodie that says 'Jane' followed by a picture of a deer ([[VisualPun Jane Doe]]), she has sketches of a doe in her journal, and there is a ghostly doe that leads her to the lighthouse in her second vision. In Episode 2, she wears another shirt with a picture of a deer, there's a drawing of a deer in the bathroom at the Two Whales diner, and the ghost deer (which also happens to be unaffected by Max's power) shows up when she goes to the junkyard with Chloe. If you take a picture of it, it isn't visible in the photo. In Episode 3, there's a doe in a snow globe [[spoiler:in the past at Chloe's house]]. Episode 4 strongly implies that the doe is [[spoiler: Rachel's spirit, as it was standing over her grave in the junkyard in Episode 2 and is seen watching Max and Chloe when they discover her corpse in Episode 4]]. If Max chooses to [[spoiler: sacrifice Chloe to save the town]] in Episode 5, she can be seen wearing a deer-shaped necklace at [[spoiler: the funeral]]. Alternatively, the phantom doe that Max encounters appears to be [[spoiler: Rachel's spirit]], which might make the doe Rachel's spirit animal and Max's association with it {{Foreshadowing}} of her being Rachel's {{Expy}}.

* AmbiguousSituation: Whether or not she's the same Max you play as, or one who happened to go through similar events, is left ambiguous. There's even implication that she may not be the ''true'' Dust-Max, and that she instead somehow flickered into the Dust timeline.

* CensorSteam: For ''some reason'' when she's looking through the multiverse for a reality to stabilize herself in, she's completely nude with her lady bits being covered up by multicolored fog.

* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Although she initially refuses to use her powers (or even check if she still has them) in the Waves timeline she still actively gets herself involved in other people's problems, such as Tristian's. Once she ''does'' begin using her powers she becomes a bit trigger happy, rewinding before even checking if the current scenario is actually worth the trouble. This eventually gets her chewed out by Waves-Chloe, who isn't overly fond of having parts of her life erased without her consent.
* DeadAlternateCounterpart: Not her, but the end of the comic's run implies that her counterpart in the Waves timeline had died at some point, which was why Dust Max was able to enter that timeline at all.

* DimensionalTraveler: What she ''actually'' does at the end of the Dust arc.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Initially believed herself to achieve this in the Dust timeline, only for the flickers to begin. She attempts this again in the Waves timeline, but misses her Chloe too much. She's now attempting it [[RuleOfThree again]] via trying to find a way back to the Dust timeline, and eventually succeeds in reuniting with her Chloe.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: At the end of issue 4 she hops into the Waves timeline, because it's one where Rachel is alive and is with Chloe, mistakingly believing that doing so will rewrite ''her'' timeline and make her Chloe happier. In reality, she simply jumped universes, and left her Chloe behind unintentionally.

* WrongGenreSavvy: When she jumps into the Waves timeline to stabilize herself she thinks she's resetting the timeline again, and making a world where Chloe is both alive and happy and where Arcadia Bay wasn't destroyed to achieve this. By the end of the Waves arc she realizes she's actually just jumped into an alternate universe, and that her Chloe is still out there waiting for her.

* ActionGirl: She takes gradual steps toward becoming one over the course of the game, and fully graduates into one by Episode 5.

* AmbiguouslyGay: While the game allows you to choose whether she kisses Chloe, Warren, both, or neither, Max will never officially state that she sees either of them as romantic partners, leaving her sexuality ambiguous.

* SupportingProtagonist: Max was the first in a long tradition of ''Life Is Strange'' protagonists to be this. Despite the fact that she's the one we play as and the one with the superpower, Chloe is the actual catalyst behind the game's action and the true hero in the sense that the story is centred around her. This is still true when Max makes her return in ''Farewell''; but gets {{Averted}} in the comics, where she becomes much more dynamic about choosing the direction the plot takes (you could even argue that's the whole point of her character arc in the comic series).

* TheHero: PlayedWith. She's the main character of the story, and the most level-headed among the game's cast. [[spoiler:If she saves Kate, people will be extremely friendly to her, calling her a "superhero" or a "guardian angel". Even if she can't save Kate, many still commend her for trying.]]

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: [[spoiler:The final decision to be made in the series]] is to play this trope straight or to avert it. If she [[spoiler:chooses to save Chloe, Arcadia Bay and its residents (including friends and family of the two) will presumably perish in the storm, which was caused by Max using her powers in the first place]]. On the other hand, she can [[spoiler:choose to sacrifice Chloe by using a photo to go back in time to the original incident and choose not to intervene, allowing Nathan to murder her but saving the town]].

* ActionGirl: Somewhat becomes one in the previous episodes but ultimately in Episode 5.

* AlphaBitch: [[spoiler: Interestingly enough, the alternate version of her created when Mainstream Max saves William in Episode 3 seems to be a downplayed version before Mainstream Max gets catapulted forward in time and takes over. This Max's circle of friends now almost exclusively includes Vortex Club members such as Nathan and Victoria (who are themselves much more friendly), and her texts imply that she views less popular girls like Alyssa with disdain and treats her parents rather disrespectfully. Her journal entries are very sparse compared to those of Mainstream Max, and she seems much more interested in partying than school.]]

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: [[spoiler:The final decision to be made in the series]] is to play this trope straight or to avert it. If she [[spoiler:chooses to save Chloe, Arcadia Bay and its residents (including friends and family of the two) will presumably perish in the storm, which was caused by Max using her powers in the first place]]. On the other hand she could [[spoiler:choose to sacrifice Chloe by using a photo to go back in time to before she knew she had powers, and allow Nathan to murder her]].

* BadassInDistress: [[spoiler:She gets kidnapped and used as one of Jefferson's "models", and after an attempt to save Chloe puts her back in the Dark Room, she is pretty much helpless to Jefferson's mercy until David comes to rescue her]].

* BigDamnKiss: Potential one in Episode 5:
** [[spoiler:If Max sacrifices Chloe to save Arcadia Bay, the two of them share a passionate kiss if Max/the player chooses to kiss her in Episode 3 and supported her throughout the playthrough (see RelationshipValues). At the end of journal she may bring up her romantic feelings for Chloe.]]

* BlessedWithSuck: Her time travel powers seem to cause more problems than it solves. Initially, she manages to avoid lots of trouble, even save people's lives. The first downside is her having PsychicNosebleed when she rewinds too much. Later, at the end of Episode 3, she uses a photograph to go back 5 years and change the past, [[spoiler:saving William, but screwing up completely because now Chloe got into an accident and is dying in a wheelchair. She has to use time travel again to undo this.]] Also, weirder and weirder natural phenomena start to appear, apparently caused by her using her time powers. This ends in a huge tornado in Episode 5. [[spoiler:In the Sacrifice Chloe ending, she chooses to undo everything she had ever changed, including saving Chloe, in order to save Arcadia Bay from the tornado.]]

* BrainsAndBrawn: The brains to Chloe's brawn. The ''beauty'' part can quality for both herself and Chloe, since both of them are very good-looking.

* BreakingSpeech: Gets to give a great one to Victoria thanks to hopping around the timeline and finding out loads about her. Significantly it isn't a cruel speech, it just takes down Victoria's jerkass demeanour in a few sentences, leaving her mildly stunned.

** If Max fails to [[spoiler:save Kate from committing suicide]] she breaks down in tears helplessly as she watches her [[spoiler:jump to her death]].
** Suffers another one in Episode 5, courtesy of [[spoiler: Jefferson kidnapping her and almost killing her in the Dark Room]]. Her NightmareSequence also got her this nearly throughout the episode.

* SecondLove: Chloe is heavily implied to have been in love with Max when they were tweens, which is partially why Chloe is so angry that Max abandoned her. It's also heavily implied that Chloe fell in love with Rachel at Blackwell, making Rachel her second love. However, after Rachel's disappearance and Max's return, Chloe seems to reestablish her romantic interest in Max, but she never explicitly states her feelings.

* SlasherSmile: [[spoiler:Her alternate version in Episode 5 sported heck of a one when Chloe mocked the aforementioned Max.]]

** Her feelings toward Warren are even harder to determine. Max initially notes in her journal that she sees him as a good friend and as sort of "a geeky kid brother". But if the player accepts Warren's movie invitation and has Max [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XkSmyBx4_s write on his door slate]] (episode 4), Max will have the following internal monologue:

** [[ZigzaggingTrope Zigzagged]], regarding Warren's crush on her. Max seems unaware of his feelings for her for most of the game. Though whenever anyone raises the subject, such as Dana (in episode 1), Kate (during the hospital scene in episode 3), or Chloe (episode 4), Max will plainly state she already knows. It's ultimately left up to the player to decide whether the attraction remains one-sided, or not, as noted in the NowOrNeverKiss example.

* NowOrNeverKiss: Depending on whether the player has chosen to romance Warren and if they've met all the prerequisites leading up to the diner scene in episode 5, Max will be given the option to kiss him before she travels back in time to try to save Arcadia Bay. If the player examines Warren immediately after the kiss, Max will have the following inner monologue:

** She'll then add the following entry in her journal: ''"Considering how insane my life has been this week, kissing Warren in the middle of a deadly storm didn't seem all that strange. It was like we were flipping off the cruel universe... and, [[LampshadeHanging if I was gonna die]], I wanted at least one kiss from a boy I cared about."''

** [[ZigzaggingTrope Zigzagged]], regarding Warren's crush on her. Max seems unaware of his feelings for her for most of the game. Though whenever anyone raises the subject, such as Dana (in episode 1), Kate (during the hospital scene in episode 3), or Chloe (episode 4), Max will plainly state she already knows. It's ultimately left up to the player to decide whether the attraction remains one-sided, or not, as noted in the NowOrNeverKiss example.