What was the point of Nathan and Samantha in BTS?
One of the things that still puzzles me in BTS is Nathan's inclusion and Samantha's character. In interviews for BTS, it is said we will see why Nathan becomes who he becomes in the first game. In BTS we meet Samantha, someone who has an active interest in Nathan. You can help Nathan or let Drew toss his perv photos in the fountain. You can tell Sam to encourage Nathan, leave him or let him go altogether. In the final chapter we can see Nathan and Samantha together, Sean victim blaming Sam in the hospital or a therapist talking to Sean and it ends with Nathan and Sam together, Sam giving up Nathan or Nathan alone. But none of this adds up to the Nathan we meet in LIS 1..
I don't know why Nathan is even in the game. Chloe stated that she met Nathan in a bar trying to rob him. Now she met him in Blackwell? Nathan. In Life is Strange Episode 1’s Cliff chapter, Max will ask Chloe about Nathan. Chloe will tell Max:“I met him in some shithole bar that didn’t card me. He was too rich for the place and too wasted. And he kept flashing bills…” in Before The Storm, Chloe knows Nathan from Blackwell. but the way she describes her predicament to Max sounds like she is describing her first impressions from the first time she ever met or had one-to-one dealings with him (i.e. no previous encounters before that).
The choices Deck 9 did with Nathan doesn’t explain anything about the character he would become in the first LIS. If Nathan had to be in the game, I don’t think Samantha should’ve been in the game. Nathan’s social circle is Rachel, Victoria and Hayden. There is no missing persons posters in Arcadia Bay aside from Rachel. Samantha being the first Dark Room victim does not hold up. And that’s the problem, we don’t get to see Nathan being friendly with Rachel, Victoria or Hayden. We see him being bullied by Drew North. Wouldn’t it make much more sense for Nathan and Victoria to be bullying Drew and Mikey and Chloe and Steph defending them and Nathan and Victoria trying to get Chloe expelled for that? Okay if what they were trying to do was a timid Nathan who slowly gets to become the king of Blackwell who was being mentally and emotionally abused by Sean and Jefferson, it did not work. We never see Nathan with his friends. We never see Nathan with Rachel aside from one picture. We do not get to see Nathan and Hayden. Nathan and Victoria are as close as brother and sister, we never get to see that and I think that’s where BTS failed Nathan.
