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Man, Chloe from life is strange is the worst

I think it was episode 3 where I finally decided I didn't like her. You get a call from your friend who you saved from committing suicide and is going through a lot of emotional trauma.
"OH MY GOD MAX HANG UP THAT HELLA PHONE I THOUGHT I WAS YOUR FRIEND WHAT IS HELLA WRONG WITH YOU"
 
Gbraga said:
I really like Chloe. Yes, she can be kinda annoying at times, but I feel like the game is very much aware of that, and shows their friendship very well. Max complaining about her in her journal is a big reason why I like her characterization. She's not a failed attempt to make you love her, she's just a flawed human beign. I can't speak for everyone, but I never had a friend that I absolutely loved every single aspect of him/her, there's always stuff you just put up with because, overall, you love them.

So, yeah, there were times when I was thinking "Jesus Christ, Chloe, shut the fuck up", but that's ok, I don't have to hate her because of this.
Click to expand...


Well said.
 
I didn't hate Chloe but I didn't get the deep connection to her the game was going for. Which sucked for me because all the other characters were pretty damn good.

As seen by my avatar though, Kate is best.
 
She became increasingly annoying after a pretty good start. The end of the game
presented an easy choice

...I kid somewhat. I didn't hate her by the end, but I didn't see what all the hooha over her was, especially when other characters presented more interesting friendships and relationships.
 
MillionStabs said:
I think it was episode 3 where I finally decided I didn't like her. You get a call from your friend who you saved from committing suicide and is going through a lot of emotional trauma.
"OH MY GOD MAX HANG UP THAT HELLA PHONE I THOUGHT I WAS YOUR FRIEND WHAT IS HELLA WRONG WITH YOU"
Click to expand...

The phone call happens
before Kate's suicide (attempt). IIRC Max doesn't give Chloe any indication why it would be significant. Sure Chloe is being selfish and bitchy towards Max answering the call, but given how Max left their friendship (5 years of no contact, including a month of being back in town) she doesn't exactly owe Max the benefit of the doubt.
 
Die Squirrel Die said:
The phone call happens
before Kate's suicide (attempt). IIRC Max doesn't give Chloe any indication why it would be significant. Sure Chloe is being selfish and bitchy towards Max answering the call, but given how Max left their friendship (5 years of no contact, including a month of being back in town) she doesn't exactly owe Max the benefit of the doubt.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was one of those moments where if a character just explained what was going on, it wouldn't have been an issue. But Max doesn't. Why not? For the drama.
 
Chloe is a realistically flawed human being. She's someone whose been through a lot and like any troubled person, it kind of asks you a lot to be friends with her. I thought that was really great and I thought she as a character was really great, even when she was making me pissed at her because that's what it's like to be friends with someone like that. And she actually develops over the game as she comes to rely on Max again.

In any case, it's Max who's the real monster between them.
She leaves Arcadia Bay right after Chloe's dad dies, makes no effort to maintain any contact between them, and then when she comes back she avoids her. Wow, great friend there Max.

Chloe had a hard life.

It got better once I chose her over that shitty town.
 
MillionStabs said:
I think it was episode 3 where I finally decided I didn't like her. You get a call from your friend who you saved from committing suicide and is going through a lot of emotional trauma.
"OH MY GOD MAX HANG UP THAT HELLA PHONE I THOUGHT I WAS YOUR FRIEND WHAT IS HELLA WRONG WITH YOU"
Click to expand...

Here is the thing. Chloe had zero context of what was going on with Kate. When she apologizes during the hospital scene she even says as much. Chloe can be an ass but she always recognized when she was wrong.
 
GlamFM said:
It felt like what it was. Grown ass men writing 15 year old girls.

Not authentic at all.

Like a rap song if it was written by my French grandfather.

There were maybe 2 lines in the first two episodes that didn´t make me cringe.
Click to expand...

Well were going to have to agree to disagree then. Because that is not how I internalized it at all. Its one of my favorite experiences with a game to date.
 
Loakum said:
There is an legit reason why Chloe acts like that. It's her defense mechanism. Chloe loves Max, but she's pushing her away because everyone she ever loved has left her.
Rachel, Her Father, and even Max when she left town for an number of years
. Chloe's whole new persona is an badass angry chick who won't let anyone hurt her again....but that's just an lie. Chloe is hurting, and she's afraid to allow anyone close to her to help her ease the pain. There is an reason why ALL the characters behave the way they do. When you dive deep into everyone's story, you will understand more about them. Me, I love All the characters.....except for one....
Click to expand...

Warren gets way too much undeserved hate.
 
AWizardDidIt said:
In any case, it's Max who's the real monster between them.
She leaves Arcadia Bay right after Chloe's dad dies, makes no effort to maintain any contact between them, and then when she comes back she avoids her. Wow, great friend there Max.
Click to expand...
The first part may be a bit low, but I don't think the second part is exactly surprising given the first.

Friendships fall apart in the face of moving and tragedies. That's life.
 
The phone thing was dumb. If you take the call she gets into an argument with Joyce and blames Max, but realistically, nothing was stopping her from going outside and waiting.
 
GlamFM said:
It felt like what it was. Grown ass men writing 15 year old girls.

Not authentic at all.

Like a rap song if it was written by my French grandfather.

There were maybe 2 lines in the first two episodes that didn´t make me cringe.
Click to expand...

It's not just outdated slang, unnatural expressions, and inauthentic cultural markers. There's also the disjointed quality of the dialogue as a whole. Conversations frequently fall victim to sudden shifts in topic or focus, or else find characters saying or doing imbecilic things. The script reads like a pastiche of derivative YA novels rather a convincing study of human behavior.
 
orthodoxy1095 said:
The first part may be a bit low, but I don't think the second part is exactly surprising given the first.

Friendships fall apart in the face of moving and tragedies. That's life.
Click to expand...

Sure and again that's pretty realistic when you're a teen just getting on with your life. But at the same time it's reasonable Chloe might treat Max like a shithead at times because of that and especially given the circumstances of her life.
 
Lightning Count said:
Warren gets way too much undeserved hate.
Click to expand...

I don't hate Warren at all, really. Warren made sense to me as a geeky, awkward teenage kid who likes a girl. The thing a lot of people forget about him is that he's also two years younger than Max is, so while she's 18 and just starting to come out of super awkward teenager land, he's 16 and still smack dab in the middle of it.
 
TAJ said:
I haven't played it yet. Worse than Emily in Until Dawn?
Click to expand...

You could compress all the dumb and bitchiness into 1 cosmic point and it wouldn't come close to that feculent waste of flesh.

As for Chloe yas she can be trying. I get what they were attempting to do with the separation stuff. But at times man you wanted to push her into oncoming traffic.
 
AlphaDragoon said:
I don't hate Warren at all, really. Warren made sense to me as a geeky, awkward teenage kid who likes a girl. The thing a lot of people forget about him is that he's also two years younger than Max is, so while she's 18 and just starting to come out of super awkward teenager land, he's 16 and still smack dab in the middle of it.
Click to expand...

Wait Warren is 16? When is this mentioned?
 
She was an irredeemable piece of shit and every transparently cynical attempt by the writers to make me like her only made me hate her more.
 
PfantzyPantz said:
Respect to you guys who are trying to defend her. She was my favorite character, though I found her to be very relateable, so I guess it's the Shinji thing where if someone doesn't understand they just hate the character.
Click to expand...

I liked Shinji, loathed the hell out of Chloe.

She made me put down the game and finish Tales of the Borderlands instead.

Subhuman Filth said:
Well, when the entire climax of the game is dependent
on you caring enough about Chloe to weigh the option of choosing her over Arcadia Bay, then yeah she is a terrible protagonist and a terrible character in general. There was no hesitation in me sending her to the void, especially when thousands of lives are at stake.
Click to expand...

Agreed 150%.
 
Yea she was a terrible person. I almost wished you could just keep one of the big changes in the storyline true because she was a much better person.
 
Astral said:
Wait Warren is 16? When is this mentioned?
Click to expand...
His Blackwell student record shows his birthday as November 20, 1996, and the game takes place in 2013.

On Twitter, Michel Koch (Co-Game Director and Art Director) added that "he's almost 17 since the game takes place in october". Max does say in her journal that "it feels good to have at least one strong ally the same age here" when referring to Warren, so him being almost 17 makes that statement fell less off (she was born in 95).

tumblr_nolqpmOx5Z1utdvoao2_1280.png
 
Yeah, worst part about the whole game. Horribly unlikable.

The fact that the ending is pretty much a ' lol do u even like her' really upset me. Shit character, shit ending.
 
Heroman said:
It is not our fault that game gives you very little reason to like her or why would max like her, she like sasuke from Naruto, sure we know you been though some rough shit but that doesnt mean you can act like a ahole to everyone.
Click to expand...

The difference is Sasuke doubles and triples down on ass holery when all the facts are laid bare, Chloe does not.
 
Montresor said:
But it's really lame how she says Step-Fuhrer and Hella? So what - she's an 18-year-old punk-rock girl in modern day America - these people will have vocabulary and mannerisms different than you.
Click to expand...

Here's the problem, though. Actual 18 year olds don't talk like that. Chloe's dialogue sounds like a 40-year old french man out of touch with modern culture trying desperately to act like a teen, because - what do you know? - that's pretty much exactly what her dialogue is!
 
Oh good I wasn't the only one. Thought maybe my cranky old man was showing.

My dislike lessened a tiny bit after that "it was all a dream" type section. She was a product of her upbringing, and she could potentially not be an asshole given the right circumstances.
 
BiggNife said:
Here's the problem, though. Actual 18 year olds don't talk like that. Chloe's dialogue sounds like a 40-year old french man out of touch with modern culture trying desperately to act like a teen, because - what do you know? - that's pretty much exactly what her dialogue is!
Click to expand...

But I know actual 18 year olds... that actually say hella. I exist in a university with them... I know folks who are seniors like me that say hella.

Trust me there is some "I don't understand the children" writing in there, though.
 
Village said:
But I know actual 18 year olds... that actually say hella. I exist in a university with them... I know folks who are seniors like me that say hella.

Trust me there is some "I don't understand the children" writing in there, though.
Click to expand...

I think one of the main issues is that a lot of the slang is just used awkwardly or even incorrectly. Additionally, some slang works better with certain dialects over others, so there can be this weird mismatch that technically isn't wrong but just sounds off. I think there's a lot of onus on the voice actors and/or directors in making it sound natural, but they can only do so much to save a poor script.

But, again, I gotta point to the reality is unrealistic effect. There are plenty of times I hear people using slang that, while it's perfectly natural for them, still sounds stilted and painfully awkward to me. That's just one of the pitfalls of using slang in fiction.

Maybe they should have gotten an 18-year old Oregon punk chick as a subject matter expert, lmao

Fridge Logic Moment: It's really weird that we never actually see the punk rock chick listen to punk rock.
 
Village said:
But I know actual 18 year olds... that actually say hella. I exist in a university with them... I know folks who are seniors like me that say hella.

Trust me there is some "I don't understand the children" writing in there, though.
Click to expand...

The whole hella thing was odd to me because she seemed to be the only one that spoke like that. So where did she get it from? It wouldn't make sense for it to be Rachel Amber because it seemed like the only other person she hung around with was
Frank, and he doesn't speak like that.
You usually pick up on slang from other people you talk to sorta like how Chloe's way of speaking starts rubbing off on Max.
 
I like her. She's petulant and manipulative but also sympathetic, and if you're deep into Max's character you'd realize that she feels a lot of guilt for "abandoning" Chloe when Chloe needed her the most and she puts up with Chloe's shit as a kind of atonement.

It's a very human co-dependent relationship, toxic as it may be.

Contrast this with a character like Morrigan (DA:O) and it's night and day. Morrigan is messed up because of some high fantasy mother issues bullshit and while she's supposed to be sympathetic she feels like a bunch of checkboxes you tick off to sleep with. It's not half as believable as Chloe is.

Bae is love. Bae is life.
 
Village said:
But I know actual 18 year olds... that actually say hella. I exist in a university with them... I know folks who are seniors like me that say hella.

Trust me there is some "I don't understand the children" writing in there, though.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt some 18 year olds say "hella," but like hiryu said, the bigger issue is how liberally its used and how awkwardly placed it feels in the dialogue. And it's not just that, it's how Chloe says stuff like "I'm hungry like the wolf!" as if a teenager in 2013 would use lyrics from Duran Duran in everyday conversation.
 
I was thinking about this a little more. I think people who never had her flaws would find it difficult to relate to her.

Personally at 19 I blamed everyone for my problems and thought the world was against me. It's incredibly immature, but I feel at 19 you simply don't have the experience to tell you otherwise.
 
This thread is wrong, Chloe is the best, fuck Arcadia Bay
place is a wasteland now anyway
. Max&Chloe forever yo. I don't know I love being the straight man to her nonsense, felt like my childhood/teenage years all over again.
 
AWizardDidIt said:
Sure and again that's pretty realistic when you're a teen just getting on with your life. But at the same time it's reasonable Chloe might treat Max like a shithead at times because of that and especially given the circumstances of her life.
Click to expand...
I can take her being a bit of an ass to Max (and subsequently me in Max's role), but that's not where the bitchiness begins and ends. Her childishness extends beyond that relationship.

I get it, she's had a hard life. That doesn't excuse her for being an awful person.
 
Wow, I liked Chloe. Her phone thing didn't seem that bad considering how Max gave her absolutely no context and she has no idea what Kate's going through at the time. She apologized and owns up to being a jerk once she finds out.

I guess I just don't see how she is obnoxious and an asshole to anyone outside of her parents, which she regrets later on considering how she tells Max to basically leave her to die to save her mom. And the whole step-fuhrer thing I was like, whatever about.
David is redeemed later but he also hits her if Max doesn't step in to take the blame, which is pretty bad in my book.
I can understand her anger, frustration, and isolation, and I can sympathize with her a lot.

BiggNife said:
Here's the problem, though. Actual 18 year olds don't talk like that. Chloe's dialogue sounds like a 40-year old french man out of touch with modern culture trying desperately to act like a teen, because - what do you know? - that's pretty much exactly what her dialogue is!
Click to expand...
Hella is super common. Anyways, seriously as a 22 year old Chloe's way of talking did not seem strange to me at all. Her hungry like the wolf comment didn't seem weird either. Some teens do listen to Duran Duran - I was one of them! Furthermore, song references are totally used randomly in everyday speech, depending on the social group you run in, and Chloe's usage of it rings as true to me considering how the game hits you over the head about how everyone in LiS is seemingly into music in a 'I listen to a lot of artists that aren't Top 40' kind of way.
 
Lokimaru said:
The difference is Sasuke doubles and triples down on ass holery when all the facts are laid bare, Chloe does not.
Click to expand...

*sigh* that sinking feeling when you realise that you have a Sasuke as a friend. :(

Unfortunately I haven't even start my first decision in LiS so I can't decide if Chloe is as bad as everyone here has been saying. She sounds toxic though. Having awful life does not give you a free pass to treat others badly, especially those who clearly care about you.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Chloe quite clearly has a somewhat depressed/unstable personality. She was being completely unreasonable, yes, but in a way that still fit her character.
Click to expand...

The real flaw with that segment wasn't how Chloe acted but that Max wasn't given a chance to defend herself.
 
Rembrandt said:
Her getting upset at you for
answering kate's call
was the dumbest shit ever.
Click to expand...

Yeah the phone incident is the worst. I could understand if she was temperamental but ultimately had redeeming qualities but she was just a shit. Max's guilt over Chloe's life was one of the bad parts of the game for me and is also why the conclusion didn't have the impact it should have had. Life is Strange is great but we needed more reasons to see why Max cared so much about Chloe. Maybe more of their friendship before she left/ returned or something. Something to explain how these people are still so close despite one being just awful.
 
Going by Max's journal if you answer the call, she doesn't say anything because she thought Chloe was being petulant so she didn't feel like she needed to explain shit. Chloe has issues and was being an ass at that part, and that's Max's takeaway too.

Also keep in mind that this happens on episode 2, Kate wasn't
on suicide watch yet
and the thing with the drunk party video was still mostly unexplained. People keep looking at that scene in hindsight, but without the whole picture Kate can even come off as being sort of weird/clingy at that point with some of her texts.

Journal entry if you answer:
She still had to get pissed off at me because I dared to answer Kate's call. I'm not a fan of Chloe's petulant side. She tried to make me feel like an ass, but screw that. Kate was so happy I answered I actually felt worse for her. Chloe has to know I can have two friends at once...​

Journal entry if you don't answer:
Kate called, but I didn't answer because Chloe was giving me the stink eye. And to be honest, I don't like Kate being so needy toward me. Even though I keep acting like I'm her spiritual bodyguard. Man, I do suck. I'll make it up to Kate. At least Chloe is happy...​
 
Fuu said:
Also keep in mind that this happens on episode 2, Kate wasn't
on suicide watch yet
and the thing with the drunk party video was still mostly unexplained. People keep looking at that scene in hindsight, but without the whole picture Kate can even come off as being sort of weird/clingy at that point with some of her texts.
Click to expand...

This to.

Although I will say... to me at least, it was very clear by that point that
Kate was mentally unstable. I didn't think that she was actually going to commit suicide, but she clearly needed help. Which is why I answered the call.
.

Geez, I loved episode 2, favorite of the game by far. Everything about it was just so on point. Even the infamous junkyard scene... while I can see why people dislike it, it slowed down the pacing just where it needed to be slow down.
 
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