YOU KNOW THE SADDEST PART? if this was a story about abusive relationships and how "friends" are only your friends when you are "useful" for their own goals and the actual message is you HAVE to let go of people for the sake of yourself this would been an outstanding story!

One of my favorite rants against Chole was this comment “ I’d trade Chloe for a bag of chips and a soda, and yes both are expired”

It's funny how Max has actual reality-changing powers yet Chloe is the one who changes events through the power of gaslighting...

Chloe: “It’s the men who need to be controlled” Also Chloe: won’t take her fucking finger off the trigger if she were in a puppy orphanage.

No one can ever give me a good reason for letting a town get destroyed for Chole.

I sacrificed Chloe in the End because i can't just let entire Arcadia Bay be destroyed just so save one person, or like Spock said it "The need of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

When the character you're supposed to like gets pissy about you answering a call from the one I character I did like, you know they fucked up

“There’s something so relatable about Chloe” I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of

There is this manga called "Fragtime". It's about the relationship between two girls, Moritani and Murakami. Moritani discovers she have the power to stop time and Murakami is the only one unaffected by this strange power. They started to use this small time spam when everything is frozen to hang out. But the thing is... Moritani's power is slowly fading away and she starts fearing to lose Murakami's interest. And we want to know how their relationship will develop and if their love will survive Moritani's power vanishing. So, I just think "Fragtime" is a better version of "Life is strange."

To make unlikable characters likable they need to have a likable core. They need something to their personality that hints at something deeper down, and I think that's the problem with Chloe. Her actions and attitude are bad, but she doesn't do anything that could be seen as positive. I think her friendship with Max was supposed to show that inner goodness of hers, but the writers messed up and accidentally made their relationship toxic. Which makes her look even worse. Like sure she's self-centered and hypocritical, but if she was a good friend to Max people could look past her faults. Unfortunately she treats her supposed friend just as badly as everyone else.

people like chloe? seriously, max deserves better than her. plenty of other girls in arcadia bay who *arent* abusive

IMO, The only character who wasn't an asshole in Life is Strange is Kate, and that's kinda bad

The most unrealistic part of this game is how everyone responds to Chloe. She talks to people like how a 13 year old thinks a "badass punk girlboss" talks. If this was real life she'd get punched in the face everyday and have no friends.

A lot of people defend Chloe solely because of her tragic backstory, but there's a fine line between making a character sympathetic and having a character beg for the audience's sympathy. They don't use her background right at all because she uses it as a crutch and an excuse. She's supposed to be a friend but it's almost always about her, she never questions herself until the last 20 minutes of the game (even then she only calls herself selfish twice while giving Max all the responsibility of this decision which will result in people dying). There are only so many "woe is me" comments until sympathy becomes disdain and your character becomes one-note. It would've been way more tolerable if the game was at least somewhat self-aware about it, but you really are being told that we should like Chloe if not love her.

Anyone who likes Chloe and relates to her is a person who never grew up past high school with MASSIVE red flags

Basically - Biases are fine to have, but as a writer it is important to objectively survey your characters' actions and values to attain the view you want viewers/readers/players to have of them.

Honestly, her stepdad isn't even bad, he's paranoid, but the game itself shows that he has ample reason to be paranoid, and is damn sure right more often than not.

i sacrificed chloe EASILY. max was just gonna have to keep saving her and i honestly dont think chloe ever truly loved max the way everyone makes it seems like she does. max was simply a rebound from rachel. people just romanticize/sexualize lesbians too much and want chloe and max together so bad.

I never understood why we never had much of a backstory for Max. What was her life outside Arcadia bay like for example? She came back all timid and shy so we can imagine it wasn't wonderful. But there was little context.

I will never stop laughing at Travis reaction when it's revealed that Jeane lived in a crappy apartment

Flawed characters grow and develop. Terrible characters start and end being jackasses.

I think Chloe is way worse than Alex because at the very least Alex gets called out for something, that’s really a new low when ALEX from Yiik is technically more redeemable (not by a wide margin, Alex is still the worst in many aspects) than the love interest of the main character that you’re supposed to like. I’m glad Life Is Strange is being criticized for how terribly it portrays a “cute lesbian relationship” when really it’s one of the most toxic relationships I’ve seen in fiction.

This video reminds me a lot of the game "Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja", about a young ninja named Izuna who is upset about her family retiring to a remote village she finds backwater and boring. She is portrayed as being selfish, greedy, spoiled, entitled, and typically gets whatever she wants. When she doesn't, she's prone to throwing fits or playing with peoples' emotions in order to get her way. In fact, it was her greed and ignorance that kickstarted the plot of the game, with her stealing a special jewel that was meant to represent a pact between the village and the six gods who protected it, which led to the gods warping the personalities of all of the villagers as well as her family. Instead of realizing the mistake she made, she places the blame solely on the gods themselves and decides to take revenge on them only for the sake of her father and sister (brother and villagers, she couldn't care less). As Izuna confronts each of the gods, they each tap into a facet of her negative behavior, from her greed to her lack of empathy, to indirectly help her grow as a person. They also each give her an orb that only helps some of the people at a time (without giving away who they will specifically help) as a means to push her into interacting with the other villagers and learning more about them. This, in turn, leads her to developing social bonds with people she otherwise wouldn't never given the light of day, and becoming personally invested in their lives and their community. The story takes advantage of this by having her cure the only two characters she originally cared about halfway through the game. Though she could've just as easily dipped out at that point, she instead personally decides to seek out the eldest of the six gods and restore the pact that she broke, taking her first steps into a new chapter of her not-so-normal life. Though she still had a bit of an ego in the end (and continued to comedically abuse her brother), her journey made her a better and more empathetic character in the end, and she began to fully embrace her new life with a newfound appreciation for it that she hadn't seen before. It's a damn fine example of how a game can start with an unlikeable character and end with a very memorable and empathetic one. Hell, Izuna's still one of my favorite video game characters to date! There was even a sequel, "Izuna 2: Return of the Unemployed Ninja", that picked up right where the first game left off, keeping her new personality and life in tact while continuing to build on it even further with a new adventure. They're damn fine games, and I highly recommend anyone to give them a try. Through roms or emulation, of course, because they're stupid expensive nowadays!

I remember I unironically enjoyed this dumpster fire of a game back when I was a stupid, film school hipster... god I hate that part of my life even more than my early childhood.

I still hail Travis as one of my all time favorite protagonists. A crude and terrible man who has a sense of honor and humanity along with humor.

Chloe is Tumblr personified.

I really thought the option of choosing Chloe over a friend, whose real down on her luck that could eventually lead to her impending doom, was so ridiculous. It should be common sense to go and comfort your real depressed friend than to practically ditch them. Also, I noticed Rooftop Run playing in the background and I am such a fan.

I’ll admit, even if I still have a soft spot for Life is Strange, since I quite like its atmosphere, cringey charm and interesting time travel mechanics…the handling of Chloe’s character isn’t exactly the best. Like you said, I can get what they were trying to do with her, but there’s one big problem with this: Chloe *never* changes. The thing with flawed characters is that they either eventually develop into a better person, much like Cloud Strife, or eventually get their comeuppance, like Brand Armstrong. Or both in the case of Joel from TLOU. However, Chloe never does either of, outside of a optional choice near the end which (at least to my knowledge) isn’t even canon. Which overall just leaves you with an unlikable, half-baked character that the game expects you to care about. JoshScorcher also talked about Chloe in his Top Ten Hated Character We’re Supposed to Like list, and how she would’ve actually worked a lot better as an antagonist. And that I actually agree with! Have her and Max start out as friends, but over time Chloe’s demands become more unreasonable and taxing on Max, and it eventually comes to a boiling point where Max refuses to help her any longer. This then causes Chloe to become ballistic, and she becomes an antagonist who tries to sabotage Max’s life. But instead we basically get…well, none of that, and Max instead just puts up with Chloe’s abuse for practically no reason. Oy vey… And when Before the Storm actually had the chance to improve on Chloe’s character and make her more tolerable…well, as we saw, it clearly saw none of that. Like I said though, I still enjoy Life is Strange despite its flaws, since there are aspects about it that just appeal to me on a person level. And hopefully the writers have at least learned a thing or two from the previous three games, and improve upon their previous flaws in True Colors. Especially since it not only has the most interesting premise, but it apparently won’t be an episodic like with the previous games. So what we see is basically what we’ll get.

All I’ll say is Kate Marsh is the definition of deserved better.

I can't like a character who is abusive to their friends and uses them. I will never play Life is Strange.

"MY SISTER DIED RIGHT HERE!" "Chill out, we almost just died ourselves!" *cuts to MangaKamen holding Alex to whoop him* i died EDIT: sepiroth and the toad censor got me again

tbf, another factor that ties into Travis being more likable than Chloe is performance....the acting on Chloe's part ain't great whereas Travis's voice actor puts on a performance that is a deranged and unhinged killer, but also reminds u of the fact that ur playing as a giant dork. With that last tidbit being what we find endearing

Well, I got my "Why Chloe sucks" part of the video. I'm happy. You know, you comparing Chloe to Travis reminded me of the scene where Travis tears Sylvia down after killing Alice Twilight. Like imagine if he met Chloe and saw all the terrible things she does and gets away with. He already gave Sylvia a piece of his mind. God knows he'd have something to say about Chloe. Edit: Wow, over 300 likes?! Guess my comment in "The Death of Dead Rising" video has just been dethroned.

Unintentional Though it May be, Chloe dying is a really good Example of A toxic Relationship ending. At first, It's hellish, It feels like your fault and it feels like a giant mistake, but as time goes on and you get the right help, you end up enjoying a far better life. Max loses Chloe, and to her, it may be horrible in the moment, but think about what it'll be like for her later, she doesn't have the guilt of the bay's destruction, she knows a lot more and can help out other people, and she can get into a new friendship, my bet, ending up with Kate, Preventing her from Ending her own life or even attempting it. But what if she let's Chloe live? Well, it's not going to be good, many people die and lose their homes, which will have a guilt complex to Max, Her relationship with Chloe is going to hang in only because of their choice, which will cause it to strain and Break, and There may be even worse fates should they keep on living, who said the hurricane would be the only time fate tries to get back at them?

Chloe is so bad an entire town gets destroyed by a tornado just to kill her

I’ve seen Joshscorcher suggest that Chloe could’ve worked better as an antagonist and that staying with her would’ve been the bad ending. Personally while I like his idea, if we had to make Chloe a character to like I would have made Chloe be forced to I don’t know… ACTUALLY DEVELOP and realize how much of a shithead she’s been especially if we had gotten a part in the story where Max had it up to Chloe’s BS.

Life is an incredibly boring game. And strange.

11:39 "I'm sick of you losers dragging Chloe down" Man, David said that to defend Chloe and yet that girl is blind to realized that

The fact that Chloe got upset you would answer the phone call for Kate pissed me off. Especially since she was suicidal, but yeah Chloe was very unlikable in the game.

There's one important bit of information left out about Travis and Jeane's relationship. It's not just that they are step siblings. Jeane was also Travis's childhood love interest. They were in a romantic relationship, Travis had no idea she was his step sister. But Jeane knew, she hated Travis because he got a normal life with his father while Jeane was abused by their father. There's actually a portrait of Jeane in Travis's apartment (which is ripped up in the second game). So this is what causes Travis to blackout. The love of his life kills his parents in front of him. Their whole relationship was a ploy for Jeane to get her revenge. It's also arguably why Travis has a problem killing woman in the game, because subconsciously he sees Jeane in these women, a person he loved. But he has to overcome that attachment to her in order to get the revenge that Silvia planned out for him. It's what makes the end rather bittersweet. He gets his revenge but now he knows why she did what she did.

Kate Marsh was the only character I liked in Life Is Strange.

I’m really glad that more people are tearing Life is Strange a new one. It is easily one of the worst stories I’ve ever experienced in a video game

42:46 I dunno if that was intentionnal but Chloe's picture being square-ish, rough and having no depth while Travis' is more rounded, looks more refined and three-dimensionnal, is a brilliant way to show the differences between the two, even without words,

Fun fact Ashly Burch was voice actress of Enid from OK KO Let’s Be Heroes(Enid even dress as Chole in Let’s Watch The Pilot). Enid has a relationship with Red Action, who also have time travel powers/device. Both jerk characters(Enid was lazy, Cynical, Snarky and Red-Action, hot-headed, irresponsible and she even bullied KO once) and have their own personal problems. Difference is Enid and Red action both have character development from their personal problems. Enid and Red Action’s relationship is far better and healthier than Max and Chloe. Really Wish Cartoon Network didn't cancel the Red Action's spinoff, Hue Troop

My biggest problem is Max. She only reacts. She isn't a character. She's a tool.

Here's a good way to make an asshole character become likeable: people calling them out on their bullshit. If Max calls Chloe out on her shit, and Chloe reflects on it (even slightly) she would be likable. A character I _love_ to hell and back, Kratos from the God of war series, is one of my favorite characters in games. What makes him amazing is because of the fact he can be considered as evil, but I love him because he has a reason on to be who he is, I could see anyone can go down his path, and I can kinda relate to him. _Everyone_ calls him out on his bullshit, he always regrets the shit he does, and (le gasp) he would do anything to wash away his past. Chloe on the other hand, she is just too egotistical to reflect on anything.

Me at 15 playing LiS: yeah chloe is pretty cool Me at 19 revisiting the game: Jesus Christ that's a whole load of red flags that remind me of my toxic ex. Max get the hell outta there

I used to enjoy playing LIS and the characters, but as I got older and spent my time playing other games something changed. When I played Before the Storm, something I was looking forward to, I couldn't stand Chloe. Yeah I pittied her, but she became insufferable to me. And looking back at it, I wonder how the fuck I even liked Chloe. I dare say Rachel encouraged the bad behavior of Chloe, and made her into the toxic person she is. It takes one bad apple to spoil a bunch as they say. Maybe it's because I've grown more mature, maybe it's because I've dealt with people like Chloe at one point that I cut my ties with them - but I no longer see Max and Chloe's relationship as a good thing. Chloe's emotionally abusive and controlling to Max, and people should realize that.

No disrespect to anyone who does like Life Is Strange. However, I never got the love for it. To me, it comes across as a weird love child of Dawson's Creek and Degrassi. But if it was written by a stereotypical Tumblr user. If I wanted to watch drama, I'd try to find clips of 80s era Days Of Our Lives. Or I'd watch Soap. Soap being an 80s sitcom that was a satire of soap operas. And it was brilliant. And yes I know comparing a serious story to a satire is stupid. Trust me. However, I feel the comparison works given the drama theme. Also, at least Travis is funny. Sure, it's lowbrow humor but it's funny none the less.

I remember playing the first couple of episodes of Life is Strange and I realised how dull it was and how much the characters suck.

Between any game by David Cage, The Last of Us Part 2, and this Tumblr dumpster fire getting awards for having writing that is cringe-inducing and incompetent at best and downright disgusting at worst, I can no longer take game awards seriously. How this game managed to become a hit to the point of getting a third game this year is beyond my understanding.

Honestly halfway through this game I felt like I was witnessing a very manipulative and sort of abusive relationship between Chloe and Max. Especially when Chloe blames things on Max she couldn't control or something that happened because of Chloe's actions. So when it came to romance options. I was actually hoping Kate would become one. Since I felt like Kate and Warren were alot better friends than Chloe.

The moment Chloe wanted to steal money from the handicapped fund to pay off her drug dealer was the moment I lost all sympathy for her.

I feel like if Life is Strange ran with the more meta approach of "Chloe doesn't change because she's not even supposed to be alive right now. She was supposed to die in the first scene. There's no character development or arc for her because she's not even supporting to be here- she's stuck as the person she died as" it would be much better and would do a better job leading into the final decision. Where instead of Max constantly saving her seeming redundant, only to be revealed at the last moment as the universe trying to kill her despite Max's efforts, there'd be more buildup throughout the game and more signs that, as much as Max loved her and wanted her alive, her first decision to save her was a mistake, and show her realizing and accepting that over the course of the chapters as she becomes more independent and okay with the idea of moving forward, with her powers being more of a metaphor of her refusal to leave the past behind and harming herself because of it.

You put In all these jojo references knowing that Max has time powers and that Chloe is an abusive/toxic friend and we would make a connection that Chloe is a main antagonist stand user, with max being killer queen in the bites the dust ark? THINK, KAMEN, THINK!

Basically a flawless video! I guess I am strange though, because I don't think being abused by your father excuses becoming a mass-murdering serial killer for hire. Likewise, why not take your brother with you or something? She just left Travis there to suffer, but luckily he's got the mental fortitude of a diamond wrapped in adamantium.

I’m gonna be honest if LiS had a Kate Marsh romance opinion, it’d probably highlight how shitty Chloe is I mean seriously KM’s friendship alone is stronger than Chloe’s whole “relationship” with Max but that’s just my opinion and I defiantly wanna hear others^^

Anyone else find it ironic that the same girl Whos ok with stealing from a handicap fund also ends up being handicapped in another timeline

If No More Heroes treats women poorly then i'd hate to see a game that actually does treat them poorly lol. Jokes aside though, i've never played Life is Strange (not really interested in interactive novel type games) but I feel like one way they could've made Chloe better is for her to have some lasting consequences to her actions since it just sounds like she get's to have her cake and eat it too especially due to how Max can time travel. Then again, I guess that might be the point of the game that these characters never learn due to essentially having infinite chances but I feel like it would've been a better direction to go down.

I got to admit, when I first played the game, I liked Chloe. Mostly because the way she looked was just "my type" at the time. Pretty ashamed to admit that. Also, if you constantly side with her, like I did, she acts grateful, so you don't realize that she takes your support for granted. But even I picked the ending where you sacrifice her. What gives me the right to sentence an entire town and countless of its inhabitants to death, just to spare Chloe the consequences of her own actions? Also, I assumed that the double moon and the hurricane were a DIRE warning sign that altering Chloe's fate was completely destroying the timeline. I thought that the universe needed Chloe to die, and if it didn't happen in the bathroom, it would happen in her own room, in the scrapyard, on the train tracks, or somewhere else. Maybe the hurricane was even the universe's "nuclear option" to get rid of Chloe, who had become an anomaly. And if that didn't work, maybe an asteroid would be next. Besides, saving Chloe wouldn't even do her any favors. She's homeless now, she lost her mother too, her town is wiped off the earth, and she's left to wonder if her life was worth more than anyone else's. She has a truck, Max, and maybe the handicapped fund she stole. You really think she's going to be alright?

Something’s wrong when the literal child kidnapper/murderer isn’t as unlikable as one of your main characters.

Thank you for your perspective, I literally waited for years for the people to start to call Chloe out for her BS. Part of the reason why I hate Chole with burning passion is the fact that I was in her exact situation, my father died, somebody who I thought of as my best friend since childhood ditched me, and I had an abusive stepfather (although I find David to be more misguided than anything, but some of his actions are straight-up awful and I can not defend them with clear consense), so I'm so so sorry to hear that you had a similar experience, a situation like this is awful, I know this first hand, but it doesn't give you a free pass to become such trash of a person like Chloe. Also, let me say this trope "it's okay that they do bad things, they have problems, it's natural that they act out", needs to die, and I do think it is straight-up harmful to people like me and so many others because it further paints us as sorta a "walking timebombs" rather than normal human beings who justs tries to navigate their lives. Either way, it's a very good video, keep it up :)

Brah, sometimes I feel like the ONLY person who freakin' HATES Chloe. I let her die SO FAST, the ending was a freakin' no brainer for me. lmao Kate & Victoria were great, loved those two.

Well I like LIS, but yeah, Chloe is not a redeemable character.

"There's something so relatable about Chloe - and I think that's why a lot of people love her - is because we all have something in us or something about her that we already have." Pointing fingers at everyone but yourself when you are at fault is not relatable, it's repugnant and if it's something you relate to, you should take a hard look at yourself and re-evaluate your entire life.

Edgy teens: Chloe is so relatable because she’s wounded and therefore has an excuse to be an absolute shit human being. Just like me.

Honestly for me the most annoying part of life is strange is how hypocritical it is. When chloe does drugs, plays with guns, and acts like a greedy shithead max acts like shes being cool and sticking it to the man, but when she looks at frank, david, or the principal doing the same things she calls them creeps and douchebags And it just has weird morals all around. They act like putting surveillance cameras on school grounds is some sort of violation of human rights when it would solve literally every problem that the school has when it comes to frats, murders, and druggies

imo Nathan was the “terrible person done right” in LiS, especially with context for his actions. He really got the shortest end of the stick.

My favorites hateful character is Felix from fire emblem three houses and Chole from miraculous ladybug before they ruined her.

Thanks to remind me of that cringy "The Spirits Within is the best Sci-Fi movie ever". I know that the idea was to make Max a hipster but even hipsters would take movies like Donnie Darko over FFSW. Then again, between this and "Pulp Fiction is about time travel", it's clear that it written by people who are the living definition of the "How do you do, fellow kids?" meme.

-I'm forever salty the game was unfinished and they rushed the final 2 chapters because deadlines, crying fans, and it was going to be to complex. The story's ending arc was suppose to be different or at least....It appears that way if you were following the game at the time and look at how much was scrapped and when you look at what was put in it's place....I mean...fk man -The final episode is just a bunch of nonsense nothing dream scape that shoulda been more meaningful if we explored the power(s) and what was happening to arcadia AHHHH im forever salty about this cause I loved the game up to that point and the idea of what it was covering. Rushed nonsensical ending was rushed and nonsensical. :( Life is strange

Chloe is literally just a character in a final destination movie. She survives death, and it keeps coming after her. I can assure you that shortly after 2, she’ll probably fucking die.

I never really agreed with the whole "David back-handing Chloe is going too far!" thing. Chloe has stolen his gun, was caught with drugs in her room and was completely out of line with how she spoke to David when he rightly confronted her about the drugs. Chloe is a 19 year old drop out with no job who lives parasitically off her hard-working mother while contributing nothing to the household. It has been made clear in the game that Joyce does not discipline Chloe, likely because she's trying to "take-it-easy" on her daughter. However, this has not benefited Chloe in at ALL and has enabled her to become the entitled brat that she is who fears no consequences for her actions. Chloe is now at the point of regularly engaging in illegal activity. This is not the time to continue being "easy" on her. As a 19 year old, Chloe will be tried as an adult in court. The "she's just a kid" excuse won't hold up when she's arrested for: -Larceny -theft -trespassing/breaking and entering -unlicensed firearm possession and use -Illegal drug use -underaged drinking At the age of 19, grounding is no longer an option since Chloe is considered an adult by law and her parents no longer have the legal authority to keep her in the house. Talking does not work with Chloe as she refuses to listen, even when spoken to gently (see any convo with Max or her mother) or she'll just yell the other person down (David). Harsh punishment and strict action is what she needs in order to get her act in order before she ends up in jail. No one likes doing this, but sometimes a situation calls for it. Chloe gets in multiple people's faces far too brazenly. Doing that to the wrong person, especially considering that she has a foot in the drug trafficking world, is going to get her killed. That single backhand was not abuse. A stepparent is still a parent and as such it is David's job to lay down discipline. Chloe needs to learn that actions have consequences and while 19 is a little old, it is not too late. You cannot engage in illegal activity, get in everyone's face acting big and bold, curse folks out and think that nothing bad will ever come as a result. A smack is too harsh? What do you think will happen when Chloe so much as LOOKS at someone the wrong way in prison?! Lastly, smoking IN the house is blatantly disregarding the HEALTH of both Joyce and David. Smoke travels throughout the house and second hand smoke is actually worst to inhale than first hand smoke. Need I remind you that Chloe pays no bills in this house that she's turning into a health hazard. Feel free to disagree, but that slap was 100% earned.

considering the people who usually praise chloe are themselves just as toxic as her... well its easy to see the connection... i could not finish Life is Strange solely because of Chloe being such a toxic person.

Hey dude, you're not alone. Even when this game was first released, I never liked Chloe. She's just teen angst personified in this very fragile glass bottle that's cracked all over and is too broken to fix.

I was in a toxic relationship for a while with someone I thought was a good friend. I kept trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, buried the hurt I felt because they were my friend. But the emotional manipulation eventually became more frequent until I finally broke down. Whenever I engage with Chloe and Max in LIS, I'm reminded of that relationship, of dealing with a person who never apologizes for how abusive her words can be, who tries to cast blame on everyone else so she doesn't have to take any responsibility. If the story actually engaged with Chloe's harmful behaviour, I might have loved it, but instead, it keeps trying to emphasize Chloe and Max as "the ideal friends / couple." And I just cannot get behind that.

"Shit i shot myself" -The one that must control the guns

A certain type of people praise Chloe. Most people don't.

It honestly amuses me that just about everyone who I've seen talk about this game absolutely hates it

One of my favorite "Unlikeable" characters is Neku from The World Ends With You (for the western translation, apparetnly the original material was a bit different), He starts off as an asshole but you actually get to see him grow and develop throughout the course of the story which is rewarding for those who can stick around and not get turned off by the opening chapter. Getting to see characters who start off as unlikeable transition into something greater is one of the most rewarding things to see in a narrative If it's done right

Man, LiS did a really good job making David redeemable after his initial introduction. Every time he shows up, he’s right to suspect things are amiss and potential suspects he needs to keep track of. It’s like when Alan Moore wrote Rorschach. He made Rorschach everything he hates on political and ideological grounds, and didn’t understand why people loved Rorschach because of it. Hint: Don’t want people to love a stand in that you made out of hate? Don’t write them in ways most people can relate to and understand. David is introduced as this hard line asshole, but by the end, you see a flawed man that is simply trying to be best family man he can be. More than you can say for Chloe, who doesn’t ever question herself or motives

Ah, Life Is Cringe. It's been a while. About an hour to be precise, because that's when I got done watching Whitelight's video about it.

I think for me, part of the contrast between Travis and Chloe is also in the tone each one abides by in their respective games. Travis is in a game series that to my understanding is incredibly goofy and satirical, making him fit right into this world where things are more over the top and bombastic. But it also has a lot of heart as a result of being so straightforward. Whereas Chloe is in a game that is very grounded in reality, and is trying to get you invested in people that have very real problems that are true to life. So when Chloe is openly admitting to blaming others so she doesn’t have to take responsibility for her own actions, it makes her even less appealing to me because it reminds me of real people who act the way she does.

There's a simpler reason to why Chloe fails as a character that's an asshole but could be loved and why Travis succeeds as a character that's an asshole and IS loved: Disillusionment.

I got a funny little annecdote for you: I briefly worked for Square Enix back around 2017. More of a freelancer than a contracted employee. I was tasked with helping them at their booth during that year's E3. Life is Strange's next installment was coming out and was being previewed in a press-only room behind all the demos available to the public. Everytime a group of them would come out, they would slap a "Best Of Show" sticker near the entrance, signifying that this was their favorite game in the entire show floor. A year where Dragon Ball Z Fighters was being demo'd not too far from us in the Bandai Namco booth for example. I'm not kidding you here, every single person that gave it that award, evey single one, looked like they used tumblr way too much for their own good: unnatural hair color, piercings everywhere, scrawing as can be, terrible sidecut haircuts, lots of plaid, one of them even had a Soylent bottle which I was amazed they managed to open seeing as their wrist were smaller than their phone was wide. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it myself. At the very least I now know the audience this caters too: the YIIk crowd. I still have my swanky Square Enix jacket too.

I dont care about LiS but I love reviewers tearing it down because of Chloe. Like good golly, Chloe reminds me of someone toxic I know irl. And of course, I'm here because of NMH. Travis, such a loveable jackass

Chloe dying was legit the FUNNIEST shit that I ever seen (both the intro and ending)

honestly, a bit off topic, but i love when you insert the Master chief death yells in your videos. i wonder if anyone else appreciates it.

Yes more writing lessons! Time expand my brain cells

My issue with Chloe isn't that they made her a shitty character with a toxic personality. That's okay. The issue is that they tried to frame her terrible behavior as some kind of chaotic good. Well, that's a very tricky thing to pull off, because you constantly have to straddle the edge of doing things not acceptable to a functional society, and not making the character totally irredeemable.

I’m playing life in strange today and I realized Chloe is a bad person when she got mad for answering Kate’s call. I also don’t think she’s a good friend because of how he treated Max like a puppet, and shes also a thief.

Easy... just make them not be a jerk all the time

People who relate to Chloe are people who need a reality check and need to change themselves.

"It's men that needs to be controlled." *Literally performs multiple muzzle flashes, no trigger discipline and shooting herself, reckless use of a dangerous weapon and manslaughter with a firearm*

Chloe could've been improved if she was still brooding, but quietly helped other people, and maybe still lashed out at times, but was self-aware enough to apologize for it.

Based on conversations I had with friends who like Chloe, I think most of her fans are lesbians (or other wlw) who saw themselves represented back when we had a lot less representation in mainstream media. I mean, it may not be spelled out in the game, but it is almost impossible to miss the fact that Chloe is chasing after a woman she very clearly loved. I personally couldn't look past the fact that she got annoyed and tried to manipulate Max when she was getting a call from a friend who was drugged and possibly abused, that kind of lack of empathy and entitlement erase any other positives the character may had had. I did NOT play the prequel game, and I don't think I could be paid to do so

This game winning “awards” means nothing. Awards (especially for games) today are by and large, masturbatory. Chloe being beloved is more a condemnation than validation

When it comes to writing a character, likability isn’t important, as long as they are complex, we can slowly cling to things we the audience like. Like a wise man once said, “ A character doesn’t have to be likable, as long as they’re interesting, I’ll watch.” Max is more tolerable and somewhat more likable than Chloe, but that doesn’t make me wanna follow her on her journey, as she’s a pretty meh character. Say what ya will about Chloe, but at least she has something to her, albeit being a stereotypical rebellious teen, it’s something.

Life Is Strange has absolutely no right to be popular in any capacity. It does absolutely nothing right at all