This Contains Spoilers
Without going into specifics, Life Is Strange is a story about growing up and accepting how unfair life can be. If you want to get more specific, it is about casting off the last innocent illusions of childhood; that everything turns out alright in the end, that there is always time to make up for past mistakes/failings, that bad things only happen to bad people, that its easy to see who is good and who is bad, that time heals all wounds, that good intentions inevitably produce good results, that indecisiveness only affects you, etc. It is a story about facing and learning to live with what you have done in your life, no matter how terrible those things are.
Even the purist or most ignorant of intentions can have negative consequences
One of the first things a player might learn about Max is that she is terrified of making wrong decisions, and thus believes that the safest course of action for her is not to make one. Max did not contact Chloe for five years, even though she wanted to, because she did not want to screw it up or fall short in some way. She did not try to answer questions in class unless prompted by her teacher or turn in a photo for the Everyday Hero contest because she was afraid of putting herself out there. Before the events of the game, Max never had to directly witness the negative consequences of her frequent inactions, and thus did not recognize it as a problem.Even after obtaining her time-traveling abilities in Episode 1, a power that allowed her to get better outcomes for her actions, does not initially change this belief. Using her time-travel powers, she could put herself out there without needing to worry about the consequences, as she could manipulate time to her heart’s content until she found a circumstance that she was satisfied with.
It was not until near the end of Episode 3, when Chloe justifiably snaps at Max for not reaching out to her for all those years, that the player starts to realize how problematic a character flaw this is. Instead of taking responsibility for her past mistakes and apologize to Chloe, Max tries to use time travel to fix the problem. Unfortunately, instead of making things better for Chloe as she had hoped, the alternate timeline made Chloe’s life even worse. This resulted in Max having to make a heartbreaking decision to restore the timeline to its original state. However, by spending time in the alternate timeline, Max finally realized that her constant lack of action, no matter how young, innocent, or well-intentioned she believed she had been when choosing to do so, had led to horrible consequences.
Sometimes, doing good things can amount to nothing
Over the course of the game, Max could use her time travel powers to improve the lives of the people of Arcadia Bay, in big or small ways. Arguably, her most beneficial actions are the times when she manages to save Chloe and potentially Kate from dying. Unfortunately, those good things were undone by the game’s final choice in Episode 5; regardless of what choice you make, all the times you helped people during the game are either retconned from the timeline, or the storm kills everyone (except Chloe) that you helped.Though harsh, this is also an important lesson to understand about life. You could move heaven and earth to help, only for that help to be rendered pointless or undone by something else. You could save a person’s life, only for them to die a short time later anyway. Live long enough, and eventually everyone finds themselves in a situation like this, and there is no solution or take-back or silver-lining. You just have to learn to live with it.
The Ending: Having to live with the horrible consequences of your recent actions, no matter how ignorant...OR...Having to live with the horrible consequences of your past inactions, no matter how innocent...OR...Imagining a third option that encapsulates both
Though she had never intended it, Max was the main reason Chloe ended up in that bathroom at the beginning of Episode 1. During the time travel segment in Episode 3, Chloe came across to me as an outgoing and passionate girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and had a deep love for those she cared about. The loss of the two people in her life that she was closest to in quick succession, her father and Max, led to overwhelming trauma and grief. The only other person who could/should have helped her, her mother Joyce, had to devote all her time to keeping the family financially afloat, and ended up marrying a person who, though a good man underneath, had unacknowledged PTSD that only served to alienate his new stepdaughter from them. Filled with untreated grief and trauma (due to their struggling finances, they couldn't afford therapy), overwhelming loneliness, and increasing feelings of abandonment, Chloe eventually came to believe that no one loved or cared about her anymore. Psychologically, this was the start of Chloe's evolution into the impulsive, self-centered, self-destructive, and self-hating individual we see at the start of the game. Chloe was acting out in order to fill the void in her heart.Desperate for love and affection, Chloe would naturally gravitate to anyone who would show her even a sliver of it. In her case, it was her supposed “angel” Rachel Amber, who would fill that void. However, through the course of the game, Chloe (and the player) learned that she didn't know Rachel well as she thought she did, and her "angel" was far from the perfect person that Chloe believed her to be. By their nature, humans, especially during adolescence, are heavily impacted psychologically by their environment and the company they keep. If Rachel had been everything she was made out to be, she would have been a net positive person in Chloe's life. Her positive influence should have helped Chloe overcome her feelings of grief and abandonment, encouraged her to complete a GED, and helped her reconnect with her friends and family. She also should have served as a voice of reason in Chloe's life, tempering the girl's more aggressive and destructive behaviors. It should also be pointed out that Rachel likely would have been aware of Chloe's feelings of abandonment and trust issues, and that keeping any secrets from her would have hurt Chloe a great deal if she found out about them. The fact that she probably knew this, and still kept secrets from Chloe indicates that she did not care about Chloe as much as Chloe cared about her. If Rachel had been a true friend to Chloe, then Max likely wouldn't have needed to reconnect with Chloe at all for Chloe to start regaining her former self. From playing Life Is Strange, Rachel did not appear to be a positive influence for Chloe at all, and was likely more flawed, self-centered, and manipulative than Chloe believed. Unfortunately, Chloe was likely so starved for love and affection (and was so afraid of losing it) that she unconsciously ignored any flaws in Rachel that would threaten their relationship. If Chloe had been more aware of Rachel’s flaws and the issues with their relationship, she likely would have been more willing to leave after Rachel had gone missing; agreeing with everyone else that Rachel must have already left Arcadia Bay. Unfortunately, because of the rose-tinted glasses Chloe kept on for their entire friendship, she ended up staying long after she probably would have left. Also, because she wasn't the positive influence Chloe and everyone else made her out to be, Chloe never overcame her rashness, impulsiveness, or self-destructive behavior. As a result, Chloe made the terrible decision to blackmail someone she knew was not mentally sound, and ended up dying alone in a bathroom from a gun shot wound.
Maxine Caulfield was the only person who could have saved Chloe, not from the events in the bathroom, but from the domino effect that led her to it. She was the only person in Chloe’s life that had the desire, understanding, love, patience, and time to help Chloe heal from her grief and feelings of abandonment and return her to the good person she used to be. This was clearly demonstrated at the climax of Episode 5; despite having reconnected only four days before, Chloe had overcome her hatred towards Arcadia Bay and past self-centeredness to the point that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of the town. Through their interactions, it became clear that Max was the true "angel" of Chloe Price, but she was too late, by a razor thin margin. If Max had bothered to at least reach out enough to make Chloe believe she hadn’t been abandoned, to serve as the positive influence that Chloe needed in her life, she might not have fallen for the possibly toxic friendship that Rachel provided her. This would have drastically changed Chloe's fate, and possibly even Rachel's. However, Max didn’t, because she did not understand that her inaction could cause such terrible consequences to herself and others. As a result of Max’s inaction, Chloe ended up dying alone in that bathroom, believing that no one loved her, that everyone she loved had either died or abandoned her. Never knowing that her best friend, her "true angel", sat less than five meters away from her.
This finally brings us to the last choice of the game: Sacrifice Chloe or Sacrifice Arcadia Bay. To me, the choice was not about Free Will VS Destiny, Emotional Need VS Rational Thinking, The Needs of The Many VS The Need of The One, or The Greater Good. For me, it always came back to the game’s central theme, that any choice, whether to act or not, has a consequence, and most of the time people can do nothing except live with it. Max must somehow find the strength to live with the knowledge that her past inactions led to her best friend’s death, even though she was too young/innocent to understand the consequences of her lack of action. Or, she must learn to live with the fact that the use of her time powers created an event that wiped out her hometown and killed over a thousand innocent people. The problem I have with these two endings is that I cannot imagine a scenario in which Max, or anyone else in her position, would have the mental fortitude to live with those consequences and turn out alright. Life Is Strange is about living with the consequences of your actions and inactions, no matter how horrible they are. The problem is, there is always a limit to how much horribleness a person can handle, and Max would have crossed that limit regardless of which of the two endings she picked. Neither of the two endings are acceptable to me, as I cannot imagine Max (or Chloe if she lives) getting at least a mildly hopeful ending (and that is regardless of what the developer's say).
Because of this, I consider Sacrifice Max to be my preferred ending to Life Is Strange. First, Max would be dead, so she wouldn’t have to live with the back-breaking guilt of the other two choices. The ending would epitomize her character development; even if she had known in Episode 1 that Chloe was the blue-haired girl in danger, she hadn’t yet gone through the experiences that would have made her willing to try and save her. Most important of all though, is that it would have demonstrated to the world/fate that she had learned BOTH of the lessons provided by the two endings. By choosing to sacrifice herself, Max is acknowledging that her previous history of inaction, despite being too young to understand the consequences, led Chloe to that point in her life. Max is now choosing to replace her previous inaction with an action that will likely result in her death, and she has learned to accept that consequence. As for Chloe, the Sacrifice Max ending would likely have been the best ending for her as well. In the only canon ending in which she lived, she would have had to live with the crushing guilt that someone sacrificed hundreds of lives for her sake, knowledge that few people would have been able to handle. However if Max sacrificed herself Chloe would have realized, despite having to grieve the loss of another loved one, that someone did love and care about her even if they never said it, which lay at the heart of all her problems. This potentially could have resulted in her finally overcoming her current problems and living a long and happy life. Is it possible that Sacrifice Max wouldn’t stop the storm? Of course, but based on the little evidence we had at the end, the probability was no different than assuming that Sacrificing Chloe would do the same.
Trying to explain the absence of the perfect bittersweet ending, Sacrifice Max:
Sacrifice Max will always be my canon ending for Life Is Strange, but I think I understand why the developers did not include it (other than it being the obvious choice, or a lack of budget). Life Is Strange is about living with the consequences of your actions and inactions, no matter how horrible they are. That lesson is pointless if you are dead, and thus don’t have to live with it. However, like I also wrote above, everyone has a limit to how much horribleness they can stomach, and the developers have stated that there is no canon ending to Life Is Strange. Thus, we are allowed to make up our own minds about what the ending should be.The option to save Chloe and why it exists:
...aka Max is not Commander Shepard.
At the end of Day 5, you are presented with a binary choice — Save Arcadia Bay or Save Chloe. The game sends you clue after clue, hint after hint that Chloe is a Doom Magnet and trying to save her only causes bad things to continue to occur. Almost every day has you trying to save Chloe's life, be it Nathan with a gun, Chloe shooting at junk, Chloe playing on the train tracks, Chloe becoming a quadriplegic who is slowly withering away, Chloe being killed by Mr. Jefferson and so on. The game is telling you that YOU DONE FUCKED IT UP!! when you saved Chloe the first time, and the only way to prevent the tornado from wrecking the town is to go back to Day 1 and let Nathan kill Chloe. Now, accepting that realization and fixing the timeline would have in itself been an excellent ending — by providing An Aesop about causality, how linear time strongly enforces it, and the disastrous pitfalls of messing with it. So why does the game allow Max to not learn that valuable lesson, instead opting to save Chloe?
It is because Max would have to learn the Hard Truth Aesop that sometimes an innocent life must be sacrificed for the greater good.
Now, consider who is this particular Aesop useful to? It is usually people with tremendous responsibility and a great deal of authority over people, who will assist that leader. People like ship's captains, mission commanders, field commanders, secret agents, law enforcement superagents, ICU personnel doing triage, emergency medicine specialists, governors, presidents, prime ministers etc. For the most part, these people volunteered for the job, or were otherwise qualified for it, thus they are receptive to this lesson. Now consider what Max Caulfield is? She is a shy introverted photography nerd who is in high school. She is just concerned with navigating high school cliques, not navigating a spaceship through a mine field. She just wants to make it through her Science, Lit and Art classes, not make it through a Zerg Rush, a Macross Missile Massacre and a Beam Spam. The most risky thing she would have ever considered doing, is to dip in the pool with Chloe and maybe steal a kiss, not say, infiltrating an enemy base and stealing vital intelligence. She is content to trade barbs with Victoria, not trading broadsides across the bow. Max is even an Actual Pacifist who Does Not Like Guns. She realizes, like other teen superheroes such as Spider-Man do, that with her ability Comes Great Responsibility. But should she be expected to learn the harsh truth about the brutal calculus? Should she be expected to at that age bear the burden of sacrificing Chloe, knowing that doing so will save the town? Or would it be ok for Max the high schooler to just want to be with Chloe?
Ultimately that is the choice the game puts to the player. Should you as the player act like you are playing Deus Ex or Mass Effect 3 and make the cold calculating choice? Or should you realize that you are role playing as an eighteen year old introverted art student and act with the heart?
THAT is the choice in the end.
The ending cutscenes play out accordingly. Sacrifice Chloe and all you see Max do is cry — she weeps uncontrollably, huddled in the corner as Chloe gets shot, then is shown crying at the funeral. This cutscene is a What the Hell, Player? montage saying, "Look! Because you made her act according to the brutal calculus when she wasn't prepared to handle it, she is now broken!" The other cutscene where she saves Chloe shows a happier Max. Yes, the town was destroyed, but in the end she didn't lose her true companion. She isn't as broken about Arcadia Bay being destroyed and whatever loss of life may have occurred because they are abstract things, while Chloe is a concrete real thing that she didn't have to sacrifice.
