Characters / Life is Strange: Max Caulfield

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Maxine "Max" Caulfield

"I take photos. Of me, the world, everything. It may sound sad, but I have a blast."

Voiced By: Hannah Telle (English), Kumi Tanaka (Japanese)

The main protagonist of Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange: Before the Storm's "Farewell" episode.

An 18-year-old girl that recently moved back to her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, Max is a shy student with a passion for photography. However, her introverted nature and interests make her somewhat of an outcast at Blackwell Academy. Max's mundane life is turned around one day when she somehow gains the ability to rewind time, and begins seeing visions of the town's destruction.

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A-D

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: She pleads with Mr. Jefferson in Episode 5 when he prepares a lethal injection, not because she's afraid of him killing her specifically, but because the town is about to be wiped out and she's the only one who can stop it.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Or "bad girl" in Chloe's case, who's portrayed as the textbook "rebellious teenager" and as Max's primary potential love interest. Despite getting in trouble twice by running cover for Chloe, Max notes in her journal that she had fun doing it and sees it as positive development for herself^note essentially, being drawn out of her comfort zone to try something new, as well as learning how to speak up for herself as a result of Chloe's influence.
• All-Loving Hero: It's possible to play her this way: You can have her express sympathy for Victoria after humiliating her, break up a fight between Dana and Juliet, comfort Kate (and ultimately save her from committing suicide), and generally try to help other people, regardless of how unpleasant they are. The only person she can't show the slightest bit of sympathy for is Mark Jefferson, who is unquestionably undeserving.
• Alternate Self:
  • 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.
  • In Episode 5, Max sees a vision of one of her own alternate selves during her Nightmare Sequence, who has a nasty disposition and brutally berates her for messing with time and being "Chloe's puppet" until the "real" Chloe shows up and tells her to shut up. Since this is a nightmare, whether or not this other Max is in fact an alternate self is up for debate.
• Always Save the Girl: The final decision to be made in the series is to play this trope straight or to avert it depending on Max's interactions with the rest of the cast besides Chloe and how friendly those interactions were. If she 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 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. The trope can also be zig-zagged if the player has Max be on friendly terms with the rest of the cast, leading her to choose saving Arcadia Bay because of her closeness with residents like Warren and Kate.
• AM/FM Characterization: Max appears to be a fan of indie and folk music bands such as alt-J (indie), Jose Gonzalez (folk), and Syd Matters (indie), which suits her hipster image.
• Ambiguously Bi: 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.
• Animal Motif:
  • Butterflies. Her guitar is decorated with them, she takes a picture of a blue butterfly shortly before her powers manifest, and she refers to her room as her "favorite cocoon." A butterfly icon appears whenever she makes a decision that can affect later events. In Episode 3, she can draw a picture of a butterfly on the fireplace at Chloe's house in the past. Her younger self's letter to Chloe in the time capsule the two find in Farewell has a blue butterfly on it. Butterflies are symbolic of transformation and immortality, which could represent the personal changes Max undergoes throughout the story as well as her using her powers to save those around her from death. Butterflies are also representative of the butterfly effect, and Max's powers can cause a Butterfly of Doom if she uses them recklessly.
  • Deer. In Episode 1, she wears a shirt under her hoodie that says 'Jane' followed by a picture of a deer (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 at Chloe's house in the past. Episode 4 strongly implies that the doe is 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 sacrifice Chloe to save the town in Episode 5, she can be seen wearing a deer-shaped necklace at the funeral. Alternatively, the phantom doe that Max encounters appears to be 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.
• The Atoner: Part of the reason why Max is so devoted to Chloe and is ready to do anything to keep her safe is out of guilt for not keeping in touch with her when Chloe needed it most after she left for Seattle (on the day of Chloe's father's funeral, no less).
• Badass Adorable: She's an undeniably a Cute Clumsy Girl, who has the power to rewind time.
• Badass Armfold: She frequently has this in the cutscenes.
• Badass in Distress: 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 at Jefferson's mercy until David comes to rescue her.
• Bad Powers, Good People: The sheer magnitude and flexibility of the time powers Max possesses gives quite a room for Videogame Cruelty Potential. In fact, the plot will sometimes require you to commit crimes to progress through the story. Fortunately, Max is simply too pure hearted to do anything malicious with her powers.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Chose to go to Blackwell Academy because of Jefferson's photography class and being a fan of his work. She wanted Jefferson to notice her talents. She got her wish, but Jefferson is also a sociopath who drugs and almost kills her while lamenting how good a photographer she is.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's one of the kindest characters in the game and a Time Master who can manipulate the actions of others in her favor. Jefferson learned it the hard way.
  • Also, when Nathan grabbed her by the neck in the parking lot, she uses her fingernails to scratch his face.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Max is a quiet Shrinking Violet who usually keeps to herself, so it surprises a lot of characters when the player decides to have her rightfully lash out at them for their mean actions.
• Big Damn Kiss: Potential one in Episode 5. 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. At the end of journal, she may bring up her romantic feelings for Chloe.
• Big Sister Instinct: Though she never resorts to physical violence over it, Max is fiercely protective of Kate and can choose to unleash a considerable tongue lashing on anyone she thinks is deserving of one for exacerbating Kate's depression or spreading/talking about the video.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: If Max kisses both Chloe and Warren, she will see them both in her nightmare noting that she's led both of them on. Even in this situation, however, Max doesn't seem to have figured out whether she's interested in either of them romantically.
• Blessed with Suck: Her time travel powers seem to cause more problems than they solve. The first downside is her having Psychic Nosebleed 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, saving William, but at the cost of dooming Chloe to a life in a wheelchair because she got into a car accident instead, so she ultimately goes back again and lets things play out normally. More broadly, 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. 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.
• Boyish Short Hair: As seen in her alternate 13-year-old version in Episode 3, she had black-dyed hair with a Tomboyish Ponytail. In the present, she sports a messy brown bob cut.
• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Chloe's brawn. The beauty part can quality for both herself and Chloe, since both of them are very good-looking in different ways.
• Brainy Brunette: She's a brilliant student and logical thinker with brown hair.
• Breaking Speech: 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.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: During the final code puzzle in the Two Whales Diner bathroom during the Nightmare, if you enter an incorrect code 50 times, Max will say that she is going to make the designers pay for making all of these code puzzles (and the door unlocks).
• Break the Cutie:
  • If Max fails to save Kate from committing suicide, she breaks down in tears helplessly as she watches her jump to her death.
  • Suffers another one in Episode 5, courtesy of Jefferson kidnapping her and almost killing her in the Dark Room. Her Nightmare Sequence also attempts to break her spirit.
• Brutal Honesty: Some of her dialogue choices are rather... candid, to say the least.
  Max: [to Victoria] Like Mr. Jefferson gives a shit about you either. I mean, have you ever even watched his body language when you try to cuddle up to him? Sad face.
• The Cameo: In 2, if the player previously chose the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending, Sean will find a picture of Max and Chloe in David's trailer. She is also mentioned by David during his phone call with Chloe.
• Camera Fiend: She studies photography at Blackwell Academy. Therefore, she carries her camera around all the time. In sticking with her Hipster persona, it is a vintage 600 Series Polaroid.
• Catchphrase: "Wowser!" is Max's go-to exclamation, possibly to provide a dorky, childish contrast to Chloe's "hella".
• Character Tic: Max can be seen biting her lower lip every so often.
• Catapult Nightmare: Max does this at the beginning of Episode 3, having nodded off at her desk in her room.
• Childhood Friends: Max and Chloe were BFFs before Max moved. Their reunion is a trying time for both of them, as they both adjust to who the other has become in the mutual absence.
• Childhood Friend Romance: What her relationship with Chloe can eventually become, depending on player choices.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Following her Character Development, she starts off walking past a student being picked on without even giving the player the option to make her intervene in Episode 1. Then she pushes herself to rescue Chloe after she's shot shortly after despite not having a clue what's going on. Through character development, this escalates to possibly risking her neck to save a handful of individuals in the middle of a hurricane in a reality she intends to erase via Cosmic Retcon in a few minutes anyway in Episode 5 - depending, of course, on whether the player goes along with it.
• Coming Of Age Queer Romance: In the first game, she re-establishes her bond with her childhood best friend, Chloe when she moves back to their hometown, Arcadia Bay, for college. The two grow very close regardless of the player's choices, and one of the endings involves Max sacrificing Arcadia Bay to let Chloe live and kissing her. Max has not openly shown attraction to any other women during the game, so it's very likely that Chloe was the first woman she was ever attracted to.
• Companion Cube: Max owns a plant named "Lisa" which she sometimes talks to and can even call her "baby" at one point. It is almost comically easy to kill the plant. She also enjoys talking to inanimate objects and animals in general (for example, the bottles should you look at them before picking them up in the infamous bottle hunt of episode 2, and Kate's rabbit).
• Cosmic Retcon: This is literally her superpower via being able to rewind time. She can do this in a very straight sense by going back in time via photographs and changing things in the bubble of time she travels back to.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: She has a habit of making messes and breaking things — dropping David's files in oil, breaking Chloe's snow globe, etc. — but can use her rewind to undo them. That's up to the player, though. This is referenced in Episode 3, when she calls herself clumsy and decides to just get a chair to reach a high object as opposed to trying to reach for it and inevitably breaking it. This reaches its peak in Episode 4 if you have to sneak into the VIP area of the End of the World Party. Max ends up going around the back and accidentally pushes a speaker into the pool, stopping the whole party.
• The Cutie: She's a beautiful sweetheart and is very lovable.
• Cuteness Proximity: She's extremely taken with Kate's rabbit (there's even an option to photograph it as soon as you enter Kate's room), and will look after it in episode 3 onwards after Kate either kills herself or is recovering in hospital in the aftermath of her attempt. She also shows a similar reaction to Lisa the plant, of all things (to the point of being pretty broken up if the player has her accidentally kill Lisa through over-watering).
• Damsel in Distress: She is rendered helpless in the Dark Room but will make David save her.
• Damsel out of Distress: Zig-Zagged. She initially escapes the Dark Room by going back in time to warn David about Jefferson and submit her photo for the Everyday Heroes contest. However, after being called by Chloe about the Storm, she travels even further in time to destroy her photo so she won't be in San Francisco. This leads to Max ending up back in the Dark Room due to Jefferson burning her diary. David arrives to save her, but if it wasn't for Max's guidance, both she and David would be dead.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She wears a lot of black in the final two episodes but remains a heroic protagonist.
• Deadpan Snarker: It's mostly her internal thoughts that verge into this territory. The following is said upon observing a "gun-free zone" poster at school:
  Max: Good thing I left my AK at home.
• Death Glare: Delivers a frightening glare at Mr. Jefferson in Episode 5, after he mocks Chloe's death.
• Defiant Captive: When she's held captive by Jefferson, she hides her fear and makes Jefferson know how sick and twisted he is, and she shows determination to making sure he pays for his horrendous actions. Also a choice of dialogue to her abductor is "Eat shit and die" or "Fuck you".
• Determinator: Much like Chloe, nothing will stand in her way to find Rachel and her abductors. Even when she's held captive by Jefferson, she remains headstrong on finding a way to escape to stop the storm from happening.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": She insists on exclusively going by Max, stating at one point, "Max. Never Maxine." In "Farewell," which takes place when she's 13, she's annoyed to find a message written by her at the age of 8 in which she signed her name "Maxine," revealing the age range where she made the switch.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Depending on your choices, Max can mention several times how guns freak her out. Given how many times characters shoot others and themselves by accident (or deliberately), it's not hard to see why.

E-L

• Earn Your Happy Ending: If Arcadia Bay was sacrificed, in Life Is Strange 2, David will keep a photo of her and Chloe in his trailer. Based on a phone call David has with Chloe, they're both alive and well, either living in or visiting New York, and are on much better terms with David, sometimes even visiting him.
• Endearingly Dorky: As a total sweetheart she is, she's also clumsy, socially-awkward, and dorky in a sheepish and quirky way.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Did not expect her favorite teacher and photograph idol Mark Jefferson being the mastermind behind the Dark Room and a serial killer who murdered her best friend in front of her.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Max is overall a very sweet girl who can show sympathy toward even the likes of Nathan and Victoria. However, once she discovers Jefferson's involvement in the Dark Room, she shows nothing but contempt and disgust towards him for all the terrible things he's done, and promises that he will face justice for his crimes.
• Fanservice: Of sorts in Episode 3, during the scene at the pool. Granted, it's a great character scene, but her and Chloe strip down to their bras and panties to go swimming with a Fanservice Faux Fight.
• Fatal Flaw: Oddly enough for a game protagonist (but fitting for the Teen Drama aspects of the story), Max's is Sloth. Much of the conflict in the epilogue chapter of Before the Storm stems from her inability to simply tell Chloe she's moving to Seattle and it establishes that she fails to live up to her promise to maintain their friendship after she leaves. A large appeal to her rewind power both as a story and as a gameplay element is that it helps her redo scenarios in which she lacked confident decisiveness. Part of Max's Character Development is learning to not sit back and allow bad things to happen because she was too apathetic, insecure or otherwise just slow to take action. The ending of Episode 5 firmly establishes this character arc by forcing Max to make a decision that cannot be reversed.
• Forced to Watch: In the end of Episode 4, she gets drugged by Jefferson and can't use her rewind power, and can only watch as Chloe is being shot to death.
• Flipping the Bird: Not physically, but if you choose to rearrange Victoria's meticulous photo wall into a crude middle finger and take a picture, you get a trophy.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Her last choice in Episode 5: Go back in time and sacrifice Chloe to save the town, or save Chloe and let the storm destroy the town, killing untold hundreds and rendering all of Max's hard work to make them happy all for nothing?
• Futile Hand Reach:
  • In Episode 1, as Nathan fatally shoots Chloe. It's not exactly futile though, given that she ends up discovering her rewind powers as a result.
  • In Episode 2, shall Max fail to stop Kate from jumping off the roof of the dormitory.
  • In Episode 4 as her power fails to work and she witnesses Chloe being gunned down in front of her.
• Gender-Blender Name: It's short for Maxine.
• Girly Run: Her running animation is quite awkward-looking.
• Give Geeks a Chance: Despite Max's initial claim of viewing Warren as (quote): "a geeky kid brother", she still admits twice that she thinks he's cute regardless whether the player chooses to pursue a relationship with him. If she writes on his dorm plaque in episode 4, Warren will text her thanking her for it and says he won't wash it off. To which Max replies, "You better not. It's permanent."
• Good Feels Good: She admits that she loves being a hero.
• Growling Gut: In Episode 2, Joyce claims to hear Max's stomach rumbling before serving her breakfast in the diner, although it is never heard. It seems to just be a bit of cheerful, motherly exaggeration on Joyce's part.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: As shown in the above picture, Max is a quiet, antisocial individual who puts on her earphones to listen to music to shut off the noise around her. It showcases from the beginning that before reuniting with Chloe, Max is pretty much in her own world.
• Heartbroken Badass: If she chooses to sacrifice Chloe instead of Arcadia Bay, she can do nothing but sob in the corner of the bathroom.
• Heroic BSoD: Starting at the end of Episode 3, Max goes into this because she realizes that no matter what she tries to do, Chloe's life is going to be terrible.
• Hero Protagonist: Max is the main character of the game and is also the one with the rewind power. In addition she's does good deeds for others and consistently tries to do the right thing.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Max often comically digs at herself for being too pretentious or hipster. In Episode 5, everything comical about it goes away as you step into Max's nightmare. Max sees everyone as hating her — including herself.
• Hipster: Falls squarely into this trope, and is frequently called out on it by Victoria and her posse. She even calls herself out on it a couple of times. Doesn't help that she much prefers the old analog cameras over digital ones, has a rug on her floor with "Keep Calm And Carry On", says things like "Are you cereal?", listens to indie music and believes that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is one of the best sci-fi movies ever made. To her credit, she is aware that she certainly comes off as one, but it doesn't bother her.
• Humble Hero: If you succeed in saving Kate's life, everyone will call Max a hero. Max won't think of herself as one, however, and will feel barely less guilty than if she didn't succeed (there are even dialogue options where she'll beat herself up for not seeing it coming).
• Hypocrite:
  • As a result of the developers encouraging exploration, Max objects to Chloe breaking into the school gym but is fine with sneaking into other students' dorms.
  • She can also show this trait depending on what choices the player makes. She'll often tell Chloe that she can't waste her powers over minor inconveniences or for selfish reasons... only for the player to (potentially) do just that. Especially noticeable with choices that have no gravity whatsoever on her and Chloe's investigation, such as becoming more popular with the other students at Blackwell.
• Ideal Hero: Possibly, depending on the player's choices, Max can be humble, kind, heroic, intelligent, and morally upright in her interactions with others.
• I Hate Past Me: She encounters a time duplicate of herself in another nightmare sequence who calls her out on her mistakes, whether real or imagined.
• I'm Going to Hell for This: Said almost word-for-word by Max if she agreed with Chloe stealing the money from Principal Wells' office in Episode 3, when she sees a posted notice that modifications for disabled people are being postponed.
  Max: Oh, great. Chloe stole money from the handicap access fund. *sigh* We're going to hell.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Very downplayed, but still present. Max is shown to be nothing but a Nice Girl who's shy, does the right thing (most of the time), treats others with the utmost respect, and truly desires to save her town from the impending disaster about to strike.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Due to her kind nature.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • "Mad Max". First called that by Warren in the texts in the first episode and next by Victoria in the ending of episode 3.
  • If Max manages to save Kate in Episode 2, several characters around town will refer to Max as "Super Max." Coincidentally, this was also the name of her super-hero alter-ego in a comic strip she used to draw with Chloe.
  • Other nicknames she received from fellow students are: Maximum Overdrive, Spidermax, Maxwell Silver Hammer, Max Gyver.
  • She's also compared to a Ninja several times in the first couple of episodes, which eventually morphs into "The Blackwell Ninja(s)" being both her nickname and a collective nickname for her and Chloe by the third episode.
• It's All My Fault: Says this verbatim if Victoria ended up in the Dark Room because she warned her about Nathan.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Max remarks this about her post-powers life. While happy she can help those in need, she points out that her ability to manipulate time has made her life much, much more complicated, confusing, and dangerous than she ever imagined it'd be.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Downplayed compared to other adventure games. However, when collecting the clues for the investigation in episodes 3 and 4, Max and Chloe need to steal several pieces of evidence from the Principal's office, Frank, David, and Nathan. This is lampshaded in Max's journal:
  "It's not a good thing that I've internalized spying and stealing so casually over the past week... Everyday Hero, amirite?"
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: While she's nowhere near as bad as Chloe in terms of foul language, Max swears way more than just your typical Precision F-Strike, especially under stressful situations (although the player has the choices to be more polite with her words on some occasions). The best example is proven when taunted by Jefferson in the Dark Room, where Max's two possible responses are "Fuck you" or "Eat shit and die".
• Last Kiss: In one of the endings, Max goes back in time in order to let Nathan shoot Chloe, which leads to the tornado never happening. Depending on the player's choices, Chloe and Max will have a last passionate kiss before that.
• Last Request: At the Dark Room, Max ask for a choice of four different requests before being killed by Jefferson. It's actually a ruse to buy some time before Max can warn David, who came to save her.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Kate, should she befriend her. Max is the one and only person that can prevent her from committing suicide.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Not normally, but her alternate timeline self in Episode 4 is implied to be relatively vapid and aloof, judging by her diary entries and texts. Still, she's close with Nathan and Victoria, regularly accompanies Taylor to visit her sick mother, and, strangely enough compared to her usual self, actually made some effort to keep in touch with Chloe by sending her postcards and letters.

M-Y

• MacGyvering: In the barn, she opens a lock by tying one end of a rope to the lock, the other end to a heavy machine up a platform, then pushing the machine to the ground. She even lampshades it:
  Max: Max-gyver strikes again.
• Male Gaze: She and Chloe go for a night swim and the audience is treated to a shot of her backside while she slowly walks into the pool. See Fanservice.
• Maybe Ever After: No matter who the player chooses between Chloe or Warren, the game still ends on an ambiguous note.
  • The game's narrative is more generous towards Chloe, such as allowing Max to turn down Warren's movie invitation in episode 2 and follow up by accepting Chloe's dare to kiss her during episode 3. This will result in the kiss scene at the climax of the final episode if the player chooses to sacrifice Arcadia Bay. But in Max's final journal entry, she admits that she still isn't sure what her actual feelings toward Chloe are.
  • Max initially notes in her journal that she sees Warren as a good friend and as sort of "a geeky kid brother". But if the player accepts Warren's movie invitation and has Max write on his door slate (episode 4), Max will have the following internal monologue:
  Max: (thinking) "I can have a little fun with Warren for a change. And besides, he's the one who wants to "go ape". And sometimes, you have to take a chance and see what happens."
• Meaningful Name: Max Caulfield, as in Holden Caulfield. She even gets to say "phony" once in a while. More significantly, she spends most of the game trying to save Chloe's life by staying close to her and rewinding time in order to avert her deaths, similar to the way Holden wants to protect kids from falling off a cliff. Some of the most important scenes in the game even take place on the cliff next to the lighthouse.
• Mental Time Travel: In Episode 3, Max discovers she can travel much further back in time by focusing on an old photograph of herself and Chloe, arriving on the day Chloe's father died. Unlike her normal use of her powers, this places her in the body of her younger self. Though she's limited by the locale of the photograph — the first floor of the house, in this case — she's nevertheless able to rewrite history by changing what happened.
• Messy Hair: Her brown bob cut is portrayed as this, yet she is still a very cute girl.
• Morality Pet: If the player chooses, she can be one to Chloe, and prevent her from doing questionable things such as stealing from the handicapped fund or violently resolving the conflict with Frank. While Chloe will then often grump about Max not doing what she wants, there are some instances, such as taking Kate's call, where she'll eventually come around to her point of view and admit that she herself was wrong.
• Mundane Utility: She considers using her power to sleep in for a few minutes in Episode 2, though she decides against it.
• Murder by Inaction: Unavoidable as the final choice forces Max to either sacrifice Chloe, or Arcadia Bay by allowing it to happen.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Her unspoken (yet perfectly clear) reaction to the state of her world at the end of Episode 3 after rewinding five years to save Chloe's father from being killed in a car accident. Among the major changes are Max being member of the Vortex Club in seemingly good standing and Warren dating Stella, but the change that really hits home is when she finds that Chloe is now a quadriplegic.
  • Her reaction in Episode 5 when Warren more or less tells her that her saving Chloe probably caused the storm to happen. The whole thing sends her into a nightmarish guilt trip.
• My Greatest Failure: She's utterly broken and guilty in the event where she fails to save Kate from killing herself. Through the rest of the gameplay, it clearly has a deep impact on her.
  Max's Diary: All my amazing new superpowers were worthless. I'm nobody's hero.
• Nice Girl: While the player has the option to make some pretty mean decisions, personality-wise Max is generally a kind and patient person. The fact that she's one of Kate's few friends says enough.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: One of the game's main themes is that Max's time travel powers can sometimes make things worse:
  • If you water Max's houseplant Lisa in both Episodes 1 and 2, it drowns. Due to a scripting error which prevented a text from Max's mother warning about this, most players didn't know any better until Episode 3, where it was patched.
  • At the end of Episode 3, Max manages to prevent William's death, but For Want Of A Nail results in Chloe requiring a wheelchair and breathing device, Max is now a member of the Vortex Club she despises, Victoria is apparently one of her best friends, and Warren is dating Stella.
  • In Episode 3, Max can erase a voicemail from a cop alerting David that the police (correctly) suspect that Chloe broke into the Blackwell swimming pool. If Max deletes the message before David and Joyce can hear it, the police decide to question Chloe. Allowing David to hear the message causes him to lie to the police and give Chloe a fake alibi.
  • In Episode 5, if Max warned Victoria about Nathan and she believed her, Victoria will go running to Jefferson for help. Jefferson decides that Victoria has learned too much and kidnaps and murders her.
  • In Episode 5, Max finds out that saving Chloe in the beginning from being killed is what causes the storm.
• Not So Above It All:
  • She's easily drawn into Chloe's mischievous ideas.
  • Max generally wants to use her powers for good and avoid needless antagonism, but even she's not above trolling Frank by spilling his beer and knocking his beans to the floor, then rewinding to avoid his wrath.
• Now or Never Kiss: 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:
  Max: (thinking) "At least I kissed Warren once to let him know how I feel..."
  • 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 to be strange. It was like we were flipping off the cruel universe... and, if I was gonna die, I wanted one kiss from a boy I cared about."
• No, You: If Kate's suicide attempt is unsuccessful, she may come across graffiti saying that she should have jumped. Max's response is that the person who wrote the graffiti should have jumped instead.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Zigzagged, regarding Warren's crush on her. Max seems unaware of it 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 Now or Never Kiss example.
  • Max also doesn't believe that Chloe is interested in her romantically. Even if Max accepts Chloe's dare in episode 3, she writes in her diary that she believes Chloe sees her future with Rachel, rather than her. Their paired ending leaves it ambiguous as to whether they're still just friends, or something more.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Her friendship with Chloe in a nutshell. Max is introverted and sheepish, while Chloe is extroverted and rebellious.
  • Despite being of two different cliques, she and Dana genuinely like each other.
• Online Alias: She apparently likes to go by Noir Angel online, according to her file (in keeping with the theme of "Max" related nicknames).
• Only Friend: If the player makes the effort to have Max befriend Kate, it will be the one way to refrain Kate from committing suicide. Once that is succeeded, Kate will tell Max she is the only person who cared enough about her when she was going through hell.
• Other Me Annoys Me: The Nightmare Sequence has a guilt trip part where an Alternate Self of Max delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to herself. It isn't made clear if this is an actual alternate self, or just Max's own subconscious guilt, however.
• Personality Powers: We see throughout the game that Max has a lot of trouble with seizing the day, constantly dragging her feet with doing things she knows she should do but which are scary or difficult (e.g., handing in her photo, getting back in touch with Chloe) and then being ashamed and trying to make amends when she gets called on it - in other words, she keeps making mistakes and then trying to fix them retroactively. Guess what her powers enable her to do once she gets them? Of course, Be Careful What You Wish For...
• Phrase Catcher: She's frequently called 'nosey' by various characters throughout the game, including herself.
• The Protagonist: Max is the player character, with the game's events playing out from her perspective.
• Psychic Nosebleed: Max repeatedly gets nosebleeds after using her Rewind power, particularly when she uses it a lot. She's even prone to getting weak and passing out. For these reasons, she frequently warns Chloe that her powers are probably temporary and not to be relied upon.
• Pungeon Master: Her inner dialog is peppered with lame puns.
  Max: Max-gyver strikes again.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Shared with Chloe when they asked Frank to help investigate Rachel's disappearance in Episode 4.
• The Quiet One: She starts off as this, but gets more assertive with each episode. Her friends in danger seems to bring out the assertiveness in her, given her fierce defending of Kate should the player choose those dialogue options.
• Race Against the Clock: At the end of Episode 1, on Monday evening, Max discovers that a tornado will happen on Friday, meaning she has about four days to get the bottom of whatever it is that is happening.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: If she was hostile to Victoria, she'll deliver a brutal one in Episode 5:
  Jefferson: Are you okay, Max?
  Max: Not until Victoria knows that hiding behind a screen and posting videos of people is totally fucked up. You know how easy it is to hurt somebody, to destroy their life? Are you proud of yourself? If you have any feelings left, you should think about your actions.
  Victoria: Listen... [scoffs] I — I didn't...
  Max: Of course you did! You're so insecure, you can't even be happy with your own talent. You have to try and bring everybody down to your mean and ugly level!
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Quiet and reserved blue to Chloe's volatile red.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Max's memory isn't affected by her power, which is necessary to certain dialog-related choices. When she changes history in Episode 3, she winds up in an Arcadia Bay which is much different than she remembers it, since her memories don't update with the timeline. Inverted in episode 5, when she goes back in time via Warren's selfie to warn Chloe, she has to tell Chloe the plan and how to implement it (as well as reassure her that she'll believe her), as as soon as she jumps back, the past version of herself will go back to no longer having any of the timeline she jumped back from's memories.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • In Episode 4, she has two: helping euthanize Alt!Chloe or letting her friend suffer, then staying in the new timeline with William alive or returning to the original timeline where Chloe lives but William is dead. The first choice is up to the player, but the second Max makes on her own.
  • In Episode 5, her final choice is to either sacrifice Arcadia Bay to the tornado, or sacrifice Chloe by going back to the beginning and letting her die as she was supposed to.
• Secular Hero: Max mentions in her journal that her parents never took her to church and that she is not particularly religious.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: She sports a messy, brown one ever since the game begins.
• Screw Destiny: In Episode 5, at the final decision Max can decide to sacrifice Arcadia Bay and tear off the photo taken when Chloe was almost shot by Nathan Prescott, even if Chloe insists it's her fate to die at that point; she had pieced together by then that avoiding it culminated in the prophetic storm.
• Second Love: The game's narrative heavily implies that Chloe was in a relationship with Rachel until her sudden disappearance. She doesn't show any romantic interest in Max until the latter's return to Arcadia Bay, years later. Whether or not Max reciprocates is left up to the player, based on their decisions.
• Secretly Selfish: The "other" Max (most likely a reflection of her own conscience) briefly seen in her nightmare in Episode 5 accuses her of using her rewind powers for self-centered ends, such as getting the chance to say the right thing in conversation and come across as more socially skilled than she actually is (thereby making herself more popular), or saving Kate from suicide to cultivate a reputation as a hero. Max tearfully argues against this, but she's clearly stung by the possibility of it being true. Whether it is or not is left up to the player's interpretation.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Max is already cute to begin with in her hoodie and jeans, but in the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending, she wears a black dress with high heels and jewelry for Chloe's funeral.
• Shipper on Deck: She thinks Warren and Brooke would be perfect for each other, because they're alike, and can seemingly nudge them together by not going to the drive-in with Warren.
• Shrinking Violet: Her introduction has her completely drained by social interaction, and seeking to isolate herself. Juliet notes that she never talks, instead staying behind her camera all the time. Max seems aware of this, as she describes herself as living behind the safety of a camera lens, but also notes that it doesn't mean she doesn't care. She just doesn't often have a lot to say.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers an epic one to Jefferson in Episode 5 when she's held captive by the latter:
  Jefferson: I can't compromise my vision with amateurs.
  Max: You are an amateur. Look at the trail of death you've left behind. You can't blame all this on Nathan! I don't care what you do to me. You're gonna die, motherfucker! For Chloe, and Rachel, and everybody else!
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Warren is presented as Max's secondary potential love interest and the Nice Guy option in contrast to Chloe's "bad girl". The game's narrative often emphasises that he's well-meaning and a supportive friend to Max, even if she turns him down. Max herself will readily speak up on Warren's behalf and states twice that he's one of her heroes.
• Slasher Smile: Her alternate version in Episode 5 sported heck of a one when Chloe mocked the aforementioned Max.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: She moved with her parents to Seattle five years before the story begins, and only returned within the previous couple months in order to attend Arcadia Bay's finishing school. Due to the length of this period, most people don't know Max upon her return. The trope is in full effect when it comes to Chloe, however, as she is a far cry from her thirteen-year-old self. This is also why Max initially doesn't recognize Chloe when the latter gets shot in the women's bathroom.
• Temporal Sickness: Traveling back in time repeatedly often results in headaches and a Psychic Nosebleed. If she's not careful, it can cause her to faint.
• Time Master: Max has the power to rewind time, keeping herself static while time moves around her. This allows her to effectively teleport, learn things then rewind and pretend to have known them already, and take objects then bring them back with her. However, the total time she can rewind is limited to a few minutes (by her own perception, anyway), with attempts to push that limit causing headaches and nosebleeds if she pushes too hard. After overtaxing her abilities during Episode 2, she briefly stops time in an effort to get to Kate. In Episode 3, Max fears getting stuck in that state if she isn't careful.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Both, with different people. She's the girly-girl (sort of) to Chloe's tomboy, and the tomboy to Kate's girly-girl.
• Tomboyish Name: Maxine Caulfield.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: How she styled her hair when she was younger.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Max insists on going by "Max" rather than "Maxine," wears only unisex clothing, and spent her childhood pretending to be pirates and superheroes. At the age of 13, she says that makeup is good for acne and Halloweeen costumes, but otherwise she just doesn't get it. Her one girly interest is going to tea rooms with Kate.
• Took a Level in Badass: The entire game follows Max's growth from a Shrinking Violet into an Badass Adorable hero.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She makes several comments about her love of bacon, including that it's the main reason she doesn't become a vegetarian.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • In Episode 5, Max can take and wear Chloe's necklace when she finally escapes the Dark Room. Of course, it is on its rightful owner when Max manages to rewrite time again.
  • In the "Sacrifice Chloe" ending, Max wears Chloe's spiked wristband.
• Trauma Conga Line: In the first episode she watches Nathan kill her childhood friend, and in the next she potentially can see her other best friend commit suicide. In the next episode she sees an alternate reality where Chloe's dad is alive... but Chloe herself was paralyzed in an accident, and is very sickly. In the next episode she is faced with the decision of putting that alternate Chloe out of her misery, or watching her spend the rest of her days in pain and stressing out her family. In the same episode she sees Chloe shot to death by Mr. Jefferson, and is kidnapped, drugged, tied up, and nearly killed by him. She later comes across multiple dead bodies and dying people when driving through a storm-ravaged Arcadia Bay. When she finally gets to Chloe, she passes out and has multiple nightmares that all the people she is or was close to hate her, everybody assumes that she'll kill them, and her own alternate self tells her she'd done nothing good for those around her. At the finale, she either has to go back in time and let Chloe die to save Arcadia bay, or allow the oncoming storm to destroy Arcadia Bay and everyone she knew and loved to spare Chloe's life.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Her time travel powers first enable after witnessing Chloe being shot to death by Nathan in the girls' bathroom.
• Troll: She can be this in Episode 3 when you choose to start messing with Frank at the diner.
• Undying Loyalty: To Chloe. She is ready to go through a literal storm and change destiny itself for Chloe.
• The Unreveal: We never find out where Max's power came from.
• With Great Power Comes Great Perks: Though much of it is up to the player, one of the ways Max uses her new power is to better connect with those around her. As Brooke lampshades in Episode 4, Max seems "invincible" compared to just last week.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: A surprise reveal during episode 4, if Max doesn't stop Warren from beating up Nathan. You get to hear her thoughts about it if you hesitate before leaving the boys' dormitory:
  Max: (aroused) "Whoa, Warren went full alpha on Nathan... and it was good. But scary."
  • Her own subconscious will call her out on it during the nightmare sequence in episode 5.
  nightmare Nathan: (mockingly) "Did you get all hot and bothered when your wimpy boyfriend gave me a beatdown? Oh-HO, Max, you're WAY more disturbed and dangerous than me!"
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: While still said bluntly, she can possibly give a good wake-up call to Victoria in Episode 5:
  Jefferson: Are you okay, Max?
  Max: I will be when Victoria realizes that hiding behind a screen, posting videos of people is incredibly cruel and unfair. [to Victoria] You're smart enough to know how easy it is to hurt somebody, to destroy their life. I just want you to think about how much it would hurt if somebody did that to you. You can always make the right choice, Victoria. I know you've got a good heart. I've seen it.
  Victoria: Listen...I...I didn't...
  Max: You don't have to explain. There's no reason for you to be so insecure you can't be happy with your own talent. Wouldn't it be better to lift people up than to bring them down? You could inspire people...
  • If the right words are chosen, she can give a heartfelt speech to Kate on the rooftop in order to save her from jumping to her death.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In Episode 3, Max uses a photo to go back in time and change circumstances so that Chloe's father doesn't die in a car crash. She succeeds, only to discover Chloe in the new timeline was the one involved in the car crash and is paralyzed in a wheelchair. Furthermore, in Episode 4, the alternate timeline makes it clear that Chloe is going to die soon anyway due to the severity of her injuries. Max uses the same photo to go back to her timeline, learning her lesson. Chloe is then killed by Mr. Jefferson at the end of the episode, and Max can't rewind it because she's been drugged. Ultimately, Max can fight fate, but fate makes her pay a heavy price by wiping out Arcadia Bay, instead.
• Youthful Freckles: Adds to her cute, sheepish bookworm appearance.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In Episode 5, Max travels back to the beginning of the game, texts David with everything she knows about Jefferson's crimes, and submits her photo into the Everyday Heroes Contest. This results in Jefferson and Nathan getting arrested, Kate never attempting suicide, Chloe surviving, and Max winning the Contest. The game starts what appears to be a playable epilogue with Max examining her work in an art gallery in San Francisco, but then she gets a call from Chloe and learns that the tornado she saw in her visions is real and it's about to destroy Arcadia Bay. Max manages to travel back in time and destroy her photo so she doesn't win the contest, but as a consequence it undoes her sending the tip to David, since Max doesn't act with knowledge of the future while on "autopilot." Jefferson also burns all her photos when she's taken to the Dark Room, which means she can't try to send the tip again.

Alternate Timeline Tropes (Unmarked Spoilers)

Maxine Caulfield (Alternate Timeline)

When Max uses her powers to change William's fate, she is catapulted forward into a new timeline and her consciousness replaces the new version of herself, who is friends with the Vortex Club. As her very existence is a Walking Spoiler, all tropes will be unmarked.

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• Alpha Bitch: 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 Taylor reveals that Max took her to visit her mother in the hospital.
• Alternate Self: To the Max the player controls.
• Color Motif: When Max temporarily replaces her, she's wearing a purple sweater. Purple can represent wealth and flamboyance, which fits with her more up-market clothing style due to Victoria and Nathan's influence) and ambitious, confident personality compared to her main counterpart.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted. Unlike the main timeline's Max, she still sometimes refers to herself as Maxine. This causes some confusion when the alternate Victoria addresses the main timeline's Max (inhabiting her other self's body) this way, only to be corrected.
• The Ghost: Due to the main Max temporarily replacing her, we never actually see this version of her. Her personality is mainly glimpsed through her journal entries and text messages.

Dust Timeline Tropes (Unmarked Spoilers)

(Dust Timeline) Maxine "Max" Caulfield

The Max who acts as the main protagonist of the comic series. She's from a timeline where she sacrifices Arcadia Bay to keep Chloe alive. She may or may not be the same Max that you play as. Note: All tropes for this Max will be unmarked, so beware of spoilers.

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• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Whether or not she's the same Max you play as, or one who happened to go through similar events, is left ambiguous. An author's note says that the comics are only one possibility of many and aren't necessarily meant to be taken as canon.
  • In Settling Dust, her conversation with Tristan implies that her counterpart in the Waves timeline died at some point, leaving a "space" that allowed her to enter that timeline.
• Animal Motif: 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. She also wears a butterfly necklace during her speech at the Arcadia Bay memorial exhibition.
• Big Damn Kiss: Gets one with her Chloe in Issue 4.
• Censor Steam: 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. When she and Tristan appear in the Transect together, they're both fully clothed.
• Character Development: This Max is much less likely to drag her feet than Game-Max was throughout the earlier episodes.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: 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 Tristan's. Once she realizes she still has 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.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart:
  • During one of her flickers, she comes across a grave for a version of herself who died in the same car accident that killed William Price.
  • 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.
• Didn't Think This Through: A newly developed flaw of hers. She's far more confident than she once was, but it causes her to go into situations she isn't prepared for. This causes Waves-Chloe to chew her out in the 2020 run of the comic.
• Dimensional Traveler: As her flickers become more powerful, she develops the ability to enter what she calls the Transect, a Void Between the Worlds where she can view glimpses of her other counterparts across the multiverse. At the end of the Dust arc, she uses the Transect to travel to a timeline where Chloe and Rachel left the bay together, but discovers that she unintentionally left her timeline's Chloe behind. Settling Dust has her return to the Dust timeline with help from Tristan.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Initially, she and Chloe were living together in Seattle, but the flickers force them to return to Arcadia Bay. She attempts this again by entering the Waves timeline, believing it will rewrite her timeline, but discovers that she simply jumped universes. When the possibility of reuniting with her Chloe is raised, she tries again. She eventually succeeds, for good this time.
• Fictional Disability: The main conflict of the Dust arc can best be described as this. For some reason, Max is flickering between the Dust timeline and others, with each "flicker" becoming progressively more deadly. She eventually has to supplant herself into the Waves timeline just to stabilize herself.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: At the end of issue 4 she 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.
  Max: If I could turn it all back... Make it like I never left. If I could take away our time apart-
  Chloe: No. The answer's no, Max. I want to keep all of it. Missing you. Needing you. How it felt having you come home to me. I want to keep all of it.
• Must Have Caffeine: In one issue she refers to coffee as "sweet sweet lifeblood."
• Official Couple: With Dust-Chloe.
• Platonic Life-Partners: She has this relationship with the Waves timeline's versions of Chloe and Rachel. Chloe and Rachel are in a committed relationship, and are platonically close to Max.
• Relationship Upgrade: The Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending leaves the status of Max and Chloe's relationship ambiguous. In this timeline at least, the two begin dating.
• Shipper on Deck: While she misses her Chloe dearly, she's clearly supportive of Waves Chloe and Rachel's relationship.
• Ship Tease: While looking through the different timelines she sees one version of herself relaxing with Rachel on a beach (and later looking through a book with her), another who seems awfully close to Victoria, and a third who is embracing Warren, thus hinting that the Amberfield, Chasefield and Grahamfield ships may be canon somewhere in the multiverse.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: By the end of the Waves arc she realizes her Chloe still exists and desires to return to her.
• Took a Level in Badass: This Max is far more proactive than early season 1 Max.
• Trapped in Another World: Her situation for much of the comic's run, being forced into the Waves timeline and longing to get back to her own universe.
• Walking Spoiler: This is a post-game Max, so many tropes involving her are this for game Max.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: When she jumps into the Waves timeline to stabilize herself she thinks she's resetting the timeline again, making a world where Chloe is both alive and happy and where Arcadia Bay wasn't destroyed. 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.

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

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