Thoughts on Max Caulfield post-game
One thing I've been enjoying is posts by @herpartnerintime concerning Max Caulfield post-Storm, as it touches on things that many Pricefield fans believe: the events of the game fucked Max up something fierce. I know I've long been a proponent that Max kills herself in a post-Bay setting as she has no one to support her after she lets Chloe die - no one she can talk to. And that isolation can be a killer... but I think I've been selling Max short.
It is most unlikely I'll be buying Double Exposure, but I will say this: the anti-Chloe sentiments that were leaked by a writer for Deck Nine by some at Deck Nine (that the Bae ending is the evil ending and foolishness like this) has ended up crafting a new dynamic... one that is actually hinted at with the original game.
Max Caulfield is far stronger than we've given her credit for.
Rather than abandoning her photography (as I long said she would) or ending her life, the Max Caulfield of Deck Nine has chosen to go into photography and into regions that are "environmentally impacted areas" (ie, the aftermath of natural disasters). Whether it is a Bay or Bae ending, she is drawn to areas destroyed by nature, much as the Storm had/would have destroyed Arcadia Bay. She documents these areas, showing the aftermath of these events in haunting and evocative photography.
This Max Caulfield internalized everything she went through and in a way embraced it and the pain that the Storm brought her. Again, it doesn't matter which timeline she chose at the end, this is her penance - either for letting Arcadia Bay die, or for letting Chloe die.
If I were to suspect, in a post-Bay setting, this Max never told anyone about the Storm or about what she and Chloe went through before she murdered her best friend. Safi may very well be the first person she trusts enough to admit this to. But Safi may also be the first person she encounters and got to know and then found her dead. Max may have not used her Rewind less because of the environmental concerns and more because she was not going to use it for her own gain... and in a post-Bae setting it seems Chloe is no longer just dying over and over again (though honestly that only happens thrice, and Jeffershit was behind the third - and further, one of those might not happen depending on the choices Max makes).
The strength of Max in the post-Bay setting also holds true for her in a post-Bae setting. Max likely internalizes what she went through, but does open up to Chloe - she'd have to in order for Chloe to have remained with her for three years as of LiS2. And I could even see a way that Deck Nine would abandon Pricefield in a post-Bae setting by having Chloe feel that Max's... obsession with natural disaster photography was perhaps a bit... unhealthy for Max, and either be separated from her, or having broken up with her. (Honestly, I hope this is not the case but I have no trust in Deck Nine.)
tl;dr - Max may be far stronger than I, and some others, have believed and in an odd way Deck Nine's Double Exposure has revealed this stronger Max Caulfield. It's something to think about.
