LIFE IS STRANGE [THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN 2021]

22/11/2021

13 FOR HALLOWEEN 13 FOR HALLOWEEN LIFE IS STRANGE

This is one the many ways in which Life is Strange elevates the conversation regarding LGBTQ representation; far from merely arguing that queer people have a right to exist, it dares to say that through our relationships and self-realisations, we can be more and better and more beautiful than the cultures that birth us.

Thirteen For Halloween 2021:

Life Is Strange

Article by George Daniel Lea

Life is Strange is a rare and radiant beasty that came seemingly from nowhere, dropping into the independent video game scene of 2015 with a force and significance far outweighing any expectation. A radical experiment in almost every way, the game was not released as a completed work but in episodic form as “chapters,” before garnering enough of an audience to warrant a more traditional, commercial release in later years.

Given how quickly video game culture moves and evolves, it might seem trite to say that the landscape of 2015 was exceedingly different from the present day: whilst the independent gaming scene was expanding exponentially and new, theretofore unheard voices proliferated with the rampancy of wildflowers, it was still very much the case that mainstream video game markets were extremely conservative, pandering to very particular, exclusive demographics whose assumptions and narratives had come to pervade the medium.

Life is Strange is one of several titles responsible for changing that. A peculiar narrative exercise, it foregoes most templates of genre or tradition and strains to be its own, peculiar species of entity. Ostensibly a point and click adventure, the game incorporates very little in the way of action set pieces or arcade-style button mashing, opting instead for a quieter, more sedate and atmospheric experience that is as enthralling as it was unusual for the time.

The central mechanic revolves around protagonist Max Caulfield (yes, that is a deliberate reference to Catcher in the Rhye, which is one of the central influences on the game's mythology and narrative) being able to mentally rewind time to greater or lesser degrees, and thereby change events around her to better suit her designs and desires. In technical terms, this provides the player a highly unusual puzzle-solving dynamic; in those scenes and set pieces where particular actions are called for, the player can allow events to play out and then rewind them, intervening at key moments to ensure they play out differently.

But this is not merely a technical exercise; the game succicntly interweaves the mechanism with its own mythology, making Max and her powers the fulcrum around which the plot pivots. Ultimately, Max discovers that her powers are far more profound than she ever realised; that, in extremis, she can alter significant or radical lifetime events to fracture causality and create entire different timelines.

However, what ostensibly seems like positive interventions often lead to terrible consequences; people she knew and loved in one timelines become different people entirely in those she has established through her actions. Tragedies that seemed like the worst of all possible outcomes lead to later connections and relationships that simply don't occur if they aren't allowed to play out as they should.

Ultimately, Max -and her childhood best friend, Chloe- embark on a journey of self-disovery and actualisation via Max's powers, by which they uncover dark secrets of their own pasts, that of the town in which they grew up, and come to realise some sense of identity through their relationship with one another.

This is, perhaps, the game's greatest narrative ploy; whilst it maintains throughout elements of science fiction and horror, the true tension derives from Max and Chloe as characters and how they relate to one another. Estranged since late childhood thanks to Max's family moving away from their hometown of Arcadia Bay, they come together again through an unlikely series of circumstances that initially spark Max's time-warping capabilities.

From her introduction, it's clear Chloe would have become a queer icon even were it not for the twists and turns her and Max's relationship take: a gender-proscription-flouting, punkish, rebellious late-teen, she is the very embodiment of a 2000s American youth; lost in the swirling maelstrom of cruelty and hypocrisy of the culture she is born to, flailing for some sense of identity, of who she truly is, in a world that will punish her for realising it. In that, she and Max are intertwined on a spiritual level; they both see and operate in ways that are beyond the designs and impositions of their hometown's “little America,” conservative culture, even of the family dynamics in which they find themselves.

This alone would have likely made the game extremely attractive to LGBTQ youth, since these are tensions that we naturally wrestle with throughout our lives. However, the game is brave enough not to just let these matters lie in the abstract:

One of the key decisions in the game allows Max and Chloe's relationship to take another turn, from the platonic into the romantic.

Once again, in the arena of video games, this degree of representation was extremely rare at the time, especially with regards to young women. Stories of queer youth tended towards the exclusively male, and often occurred in a manner that relied on stereotype and proscribed narrative rather than allowing the dynamics to develop naturally.

Here, Max and Chloe's relationship is not only believable in its complexity, but also develops in such a manner that will be familiar to many who experienced similar during their formative years. The game doesn't stray too deeply into the politics of their relationship, prefering instead to explore what it means for them as individuals, with reference to the identities they are building together. This, in turn, makes it one of the most natural and sincere video game romances that exists, thrown into harsh distinction against a backdrop of mystery, patriarchal horror and impending calamity.

Homaging the likes of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, a central focus of the plot involves a misogynistic serial killer who murdered a girl whom the town generally adored, but who is revealed to have had a dark and mysterious life beyond the public eye. Together, Max and Chloe uncover the truth of her disappearance, leading to one of the game's more biting commentaries:

The culprit of the murders ultimately turns out to be one of the game's many flawed Father figures; a teacher and photographer who has an especial relationship with Max and is extremely encouraging of her photography work. Like most of the icons of patriarchy in the game, he is revealed as being a source of danger and disturbance rather than wisdom; not a shepherd, but the most rabid and diseased of wolves. This factor is consistent throughout the game; Father figures are either absent, impotent or directly abusive, whilst the patriarchal culture of the town in which they occur always leads to the demeaning and denigration of women.

Chloe and Max thereby represent the potential to transcend that twisted engine; they have the means of turning away from it, defying it, not through Max's powers, but through their relationship with one another.

This is one the many ways in which Life is Strange elevates the conversation regarding LGBTQ representation; far from merely arguing that queer people have a right to exist, it dares to say that through our relationships and self-realisations, we can be more and better and more beautiful than the cultures that birth us. We have the means of perceiving and combatting their myriad, enshrined and accepted evils in a manner that, for the most part, our straight counterparts do not.

This comes to a head in perhaps the game's most controversial moment; a single binary decision in which Max can choose to save Arcadia Bay from destruction or Chloe from certain death. The choice comes down to one between tradition and conformity, nostalgia and sentiment or love, forging one's own tomorrow and the potential for better days that her relationship with Chloe represents.

Whilst the game came in for some criticism for the binary nature of the choice, in thematic terms, it underlines beautifully the same decisions so many of us who identify as LGBTQ have to make: do we conform, do we stay quiet and sacrifice the lives we could live for the cruel comfort of others, or do we dare break the engines we were born to by living as we are and inhabiting the states we dream of?

That decision is left -quite cannnily- up to the player. Having discussed the matter with many of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, I know what side we tend to err on.