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plutherusContinuing my thread about playing through Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
In the second scene, we meet Chloe's mother and her boyfriend, and, more importantly, see her relationship with each.
It's good, nuanced writing for the most part, showing that Chloe's struggle isn't just against "authority" as a general class, but against the oppressions thereof. Although her attitudes are similar with her mother, Joyce, and with her mother’s boyfriend David, her relationship with each is very different. With her mother, she is trying very hard to get along. I tried to do something similar with my characters Veer and Victor: two people who care about each other very much both have things they just cannot bend on. It's a good source for conflict and is sad to watch when you can see "you could get along it you'd just..." but they don't.
David, on the other hand, doesn't care about Chloe, and it shows. As far as David is concerned, he's the man of the house, and therefore he is in charge. The fact she won't bow to his authority is a direct insult. What Chloe's mom calls "old fashioned", Chloe calls "misogynistic shit". Given David's first impressions on this scene, I'm immediately with Chloe on this one. The first thing he says to her is "You women always take forever to get ready." Never mind that he was waiting because Chloe was having an important conversation with her mother. (And he wasn't even ready himself anyway, as he was working on the car.) For the rest of the scene he proceeds to berate, belittle, and bully her. I counted. Out of his first six comments to her, five were insults and three of those were misogynistic. Unlike with her mom, she makes no attempt to get along with him. He hasn't earned that right. They do a good job here setting up future issues. Their first conversation revolves around him fixing the car and enlisting her help to fetch tools for him. The scene does dual purpose in further teaching game mechanics as well as growing both David and Chloe’s characters. He orders her to get a socket wrench, then tries to explain what a spark plug does. She tells him she knows, but he continues explaining it. This is repeated once he finds the issue.
It's a great piece of character writing. In half a dozen lines of dialog, they show us:
1. David has no respect for Chloe.
2. Chloe has knowledge of automotive repair.
3. Chloe chafes against David's overbearing sense of entitlement toward her.
All of these come into play later.
They also establish that Chloe fears David is trying to take the place of her father, who she isn't ready to let go of.
David's attitude seems to be that he has already taken the place of her father and she owes it to him to recognize that.
Then there's the fist bump. After fixing the car, he holds out his fist for a friendly fist-bump. The player at that point has the choice to accept it or not. I didn't, so he forced it by grabbing her hand. He even tries to lecture her about why she was wrong to refuse. It all adds to the awfulness of how entitled David feels to control everything about her.
It's her reaction that sells that, too. A lesser writer might have blown it off as a knee-jerk reaction. She's rebelling because that's what teenagers do. His action could be considered harmless. After all, he didn’t hurt her, there was no pain involved. Just some unwanted touching.Her strong reaction shows how creepy it really is. The fact that he is in a consensual relationship with Joyce does not give him dominion over the body of Joyce’s teenage daughter, and Chloe was absolutely right to resist it. Chloe herself doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain why it’s wrong, beyond “He’s a misogynist shit” but that alone should be enough.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
In the second scene, we meet Chloe's mother and her boyfriend, and, more importantly, see her relationship with each.
It's good, nuanced writing for the most part, showing that Chloe's struggle isn't just against "authority" as a general class, but against the oppressions thereof. Although her attitudes are similar with her mother, Joyce, and with her mother’s boyfriend David, her relationship with each is very different. With her mother, she is trying very hard to get along. I tried to do something similar with my characters Veer and Victor: two people who care about each other very much both have things they just cannot bend on. It's a good source for conflict and is sad to watch when you can see "you could get along it you'd just..." but they don't.
David, on the other hand, doesn't care about Chloe, and it shows. As far as David is concerned, he's the man of the house, and therefore he is in charge. The fact she won't bow to his authority is a direct insult. What Chloe's mom calls "old fashioned", Chloe calls "misogynistic shit". Given David's first impressions on this scene, I'm immediately with Chloe on this one. The first thing he says to her is "You women always take forever to get ready." Never mind that he was waiting because Chloe was having an important conversation with her mother. (And he wasn't even ready himself anyway, as he was working on the car.) For the rest of the scene he proceeds to berate, belittle, and bully her. I counted. Out of his first six comments to her, five were insults and three of those were misogynistic. Unlike with her mom, she makes no attempt to get along with him. He hasn't earned that right. They do a good job here setting up future issues. Their first conversation revolves around him fixing the car and enlisting her help to fetch tools for him. The scene does dual purpose in further teaching game mechanics as well as growing both David and Chloe’s characters. He orders her to get a socket wrench, then tries to explain what a spark plug does. She tells him she knows, but he continues explaining it. This is repeated once he finds the issue.
It's a great piece of character writing. In half a dozen lines of dialog, they show us:
1. David has no respect for Chloe.
2. Chloe has knowledge of automotive repair.
3. Chloe chafes against David's overbearing sense of entitlement toward her.
All of these come into play later.
They also establish that Chloe fears David is trying to take the place of her father, who she isn't ready to let go of.
David's attitude seems to be that he has already taken the place of her father and she owes it to him to recognize that.
Then there's the fist bump. After fixing the car, he holds out his fist for a friendly fist-bump. The player at that point has the choice to accept it or not. I didn't, so he forced it by grabbing her hand. He even tries to lecture her about why she was wrong to refuse. It all adds to the awfulness of how entitled David feels to control everything about her.
It's her reaction that sells that, too. A lesser writer might have blown it off as a knee-jerk reaction. She's rebelling because that's what teenagers do. His action could be considered harmless. After all, he didn’t hurt her, there was no pain involved. Just some unwanted touching.Her strong reaction shows how creepy it really is. The fact that he is in a consensual relationship with Joyce does not give him dominion over the body of Joyce’s teenage daughter, and Chloe was absolutely right to resist it. Chloe herself doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain why it’s wrong, beyond “He’s a misogynist shit” but that alone should be enough.
