Life is Strange EP4: Captain Cringe

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Apr 19, 2017

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 62 comments


Link (YouTube)

I think our different reactions to Warren are kind of interesting. Chris and I both feel like Warren represents some earlier, terrible version of ourselves. Chris feels sorry for Warren, but I get mad / frustrated at him. To be clear, when I joke about bullying him I’m not saying I’d actually enjoy hurting him. It’s more that he’s sort of this embodiment of a lot of embarassing moments in my life and I’d love to destroy those moments. It’s not that I want to kick Warren’s ass, but I would like to kick the ass of what he represents.

Being middle aged sucks in terms of health and comfort, but it really is nice to not go through life burning some new humiliation into my memory every week or so.

 


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62 thoughts on “Life is Strange EP4: Captain Cringe

  1. MichaelGC says:

    I guess a ball thrown with sufficient force to smash a window is going to make your head smart for longer than twelve seconds. Say, fourteen.

  2. Henson says:

    I thought it would be interesting to draw on the RV window, but c’mon Max, “I’m so dirty”? That’s just asking to be taken the wrong way. I’m sure Frank is already sore about being treated like white trash.

  3. Daemian Lucifer says:

    The alyssa stuff does have consequences until the very end.Which erases all of them no matter which ending you choose.

    But still,Ill leave the discussions about the shitty ending when we finally get to the shitty ending.

    1. Henson says:

      But the Alyssa consequences are completely sidestepped by using an object right next to Alyssa when the consequences manifest. It’s ridiculous.

    2. Lachlan the Mad says:

      Honestly, you can say “Choice X has consequences until the very end, which erases all of them no matter what ending you choose” about literally every choice in the game.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Exactly!Which is I hate that shitty ending.And it really is hard for me not to rant about it.

  4. tzeneth says:

    Yay, Rutskarn remembers! It makes me happy, even though I think I posted something like that last week.

    Wait, does that mean I need someone to go back and add “This post will have consequences”?

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Your request will have consequences.

      1. TheJungerLudendorff says:

        Rutskarn will remember this…

  5. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Cannibal holocaust is actually the best movie to suggest to someone you are interested in.If they dont like it(most likely),at least youll know to stop trying,because youll never get a chance with someone who isnt nearly as weird as you.But if they tell you that they liked it,they are either as weird as you,or like you way more than you ever had imagined.

  6. Collin says:

    I don’t understand, Warren strikes me as sweet, casual and amusing. What do you mean by cringe? Does he do bad things later on?

    1. Lachlan the Mad says:

      It’s mostly that he’s being a little bit dishonest or uncertain in his way of dealing with women? He seems to be attracted to Max and wants to go on a date with her, but he’s too nervous about straight-up asking her out, so he’s throwing out all of these wishy-washy it-can-be-a-date-if-you-want-it-to-be-but-we-could-totally-be-friends-no-pressure suggestions. It’s a pretty common way for socially awkward guys to deal with women, and it rarely works in the real world. Chris and Shamus both acted like that around girls, as did a lot of other guy-nerds I’ve read who talk about this series (myself included, actually — I even asked girls to the drive-in!).

      It isn’t an honest way of dealing with your feelings, and it can go south really quickly if the girl doesn’t pick up on it. Wost-case scenario, it can come off as trying to trick a woman into a romantic relationship, which is not a nice thing to do. This is the kind of behaviour that makes some guys go on and on about how women don’t like “nice guys” and talk about the “friendzone” — which are actually just guy-code for “I accidentally made this woman view me in a non-romantic way, but I don’t value non-romantic relationships with women”.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Oh my god,Ive just realized now who was biowares inspiration for that awkward talk in andromeda!Even the plastic faces and weird animations are there.

      2. Shamus says:

        “which are actually just guy-code for “I don't value non-romantic relationships with women”Âť.”

        I HATE this interpretation of the phrase.

        When I was growing up, “friendzone” never meant this, and was never taken this way. It was simply an expression of disappointment. “I like her romantically, but she views me as a friend, therefore a romantic relationship is not possible.” That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we coined the more pithy “friendzone”. Having unrequited love is something a reasonable person can feel sad about. Shit, that’s like half of all poetry and pop songs.

        But then a few years ago I noticed people using “friendzone” differently. Guys would use it in an accusatory manner, as if “friendzone-ing” indicated the woman had behaved in bad faith or been deliberately manipulative. Instead of being a sad thing that anyone could experience, it became an immoral thing perpetrated specifically by women against men. Because of this, the word “friendzone” got this horrible reputation.

        But because I’m old, I’ve still got the old definition in mind. So to me it sounds like this:

        “She doesn’t like me in a romantic way, and so I’m disappointed.”

        “Oh? So you don’t value women as people then?”

        I have watched this particular misunderstanding boil over into many pointless internet fights.

        1. Lachlan the Mad says:

          As a proud self-hating-but-self-aware millennial, I do agree with you in spirit! It’s entirely possible for two people to have different views of their relationship, and it’s entirely possible for only one of the participants to view the relationship as potentially romantic. That’s a part of human nature. Pretty sure it turns up in Shakespeare somewhere. But you’re also right in saying that the meaning of the word “friendzone” has migrated, thanks mostly to excessive use by shitty people.

          I think the main point of disagreement here is what we have to do next. It might be possible to reclaim “friendzone” to mean “she doesn't like me in a romantic way, and so I'm disappointed”, with no negative connotations about the woman in general. But in my opinion, the word has been ruined and we should just think of some other word to mean “friendzone but not in a misogynist way”.

          1. Shamus says:

            Oh, I’d agree the word is ruined. It’s like the transformation of the word “literally”, except charged with gender politics. You can shout into the storm all you want, but you can’t change the migration of language.

            Still, it’s a bummer.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              You can shout into the storm all you want, but you can't change the migration of language.

              Actually,you can.Just how it morphed into something literally stupid,it can morph into something sane again.But instead of figuratively shouting into the figurative storm,you should literally just educate others and be literally patient.

              For example,SFDebris used to use the word sentient,but now is using the correct sapient.This will slowly seep into the minds of his audience,and their offspring.And just how some entertainers back in the day ruined the words by pouring the ignorance into their work,Chuck will unruin it by pouring cognizance into his work.

              Or,to tie this back,there is archer doing the good work for figuratively.

              So if you dont like how a word or a phrase has morphed into something,dont be angry,dont be disappointed,dont just accept defeat,fight the good fight and educate the masses.

              1. Of course, on the flip side, don’t be surprised if “educating the masses” will not be received well, and potentially make people roll their eyes at you as a pedant. (“Well, ACTUALLY, the word ‘decimate’ means to kill one person in ten, not to destroy vast swaths of anything….”) That fight is probably lost at this point. You can die on that hill, if you’d like, but it ain’t bringing that original definition back.

                (Things like conflating “bimonthly” with “semimonthly” and “penultimate” with “ultimate” make me sad, but I generally accept that we’ll never get the language straightened out on that front. Differentiating between “less” and “fewer” is still something I steadfastly adhere to, though, because everyone has pet peeves about something.)

                1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                  Again,its never lost.If it took this long for the word to change,why do you expect that its hopeless to change it back because it had a way shorter time with the new meaning?

        2. Son of Valhalla says:

          Friendzone still means friendzone to most people, or some people, or no people, I presume. I’ve always taken friendzone as meaning “I’ve tried to be in a relationship with this girl and I want to be romantic with her, but she instead likes me as just a friend, so now I am friendzoned.”

          Which I think is the same thing as “She doesn't like me in a romantic way, and so I'm disappointed.”Âť

          Come to think of it…
          I tried to be in a relationship with this girl.
          I want to be romantic with her.
          But she wants me as a friend.
          Therefore, I’m friendzoned.

          ^ that’s some philosophy logic in action, unless it’s a fallacy. In which case, oh well.

          1. Lachlan the Mad says:

            Yeah, that’s the traditional use of the word that Shamus is talking about, but it’s kind of been ruined by misogynistic “Nice” Guys who can’t tell the difference between romantic and platonic relationships. Their logic is more like:

            I tried to be in a relationship with this girl.
            I want to be romantic with her.
            But she wants me as a friend.
            Therefore, all women are misandrist witches who just want to sleep with bad boys instead of nice guys like me.

            1. Daimbert says:

              It’s a bit more complicated than that. The term “friendzoned” still does have that precise connotation where someone — usually a man — wants a romantic relationship with someone — usually a woman — and ends up getting told “I just like you as a friend”. The problem is that it’s been expanded beyond that by all sides into include perceived MOTIVATIONS for the various actions, and that’s led to a war over who is the evil one in this, when in reality, for the most part, most of the time no one is, although in both cases some, shall we say, less than nice people are involved. The whole “Nice Guy(tm)” think has developed the same way.

              We can start with the main advice that shy and socially awkward and not-successful-with-women men get, which is: Don’t start out pushing for a relationship or sex from the start. Instead, try to get to know women as friends first, and THEN if you like them enough look for a relationship. As has been pointed out, it’s actually REALLY HARD to move from a friendship to dating if you’re a man. Or, rather, if she isn’t interested in you at least somewhat from the start, being friends with her and then trying to move to a relationship isn’t easy. But, again, that’s the advice that men are given, mostly because most of the people who give relationship advice are women and since for the longest time they could be passive in approaching men, that sort of approach worked for them: go out and make friends, and eventually you’ll probably get asked out (or at least have someone make it abundantly clear that they are interested in you). But socially awkward men don’t know how to read signals all that well, and so focus on, well, at least the WRONG friends, the ones who like them well-enough but are legitimately not interested in a relationship with them, as opposed to the ones who, in fact, actually really like them and are dropping all of those subtle hints that the men really, really aren’t getting. Which, of course, leads to frustration on their part as well, with those clueless men.

              The problem is that eventually a lot of these guys notice that while starting as friends first leads to them getting friendzoned, the men who are the most successful don’t do anything like that. This, of course, can lead to frustration with the advice they are given and why that advice is so, well, completely bad. And then we get the “Nice Guy” part of the equation, where they notice that the OTHER advice they are given is to treat women well, not be too aggressive or creepy, and not be too blatant in pushing for sex … and not have success. Meanwhile, the men who DO have success seem to have no problems pushing boundaries and being aggressive and can even be outright abusive and yet are far more successful than the “Nice Guys” are.

              Meanwhile, the “Nice Girls” are wondering if a boob job will get them noticed by those men who are annoyed at not being able to have success with those women who are chasing the bad boys.

              Anyway, the “Nice Guys” complain, essentially, that they are trying to do everything everyone tells them to do and that everyone says will work and it isn’t working, in a very frustrated tone because, well, they’re frustrated. And the reaction to that tends to be either “You need to keep trying; it’ll happen eventually” which obviously doesn’t help, or else — and usually eventually — a reply that the “Nice Guys” aren’t really nice and so don’t really deserve success because they only wanted to be friends or be nice to women in order to get sex, which makes them a creep, and thus women were perfectly right to ignore them. This, of course, doesn’t settle things because arguably the men the women are choosing are WORSE, and they were only doing the things that everyone told them were the appropriate way to go about that in first place.

              So into this simmering sea of frustration enters the reason the “misogyny” tag is assigned: the PUAs. Some of them are men who were generally successful with women on their own, and some of them are converted “Nice Guys”, but their message is essentially that all of the things that people tell you women want are NOT want women want, and if you learn their techniques you’ll be much more successful with women. The techniques and attitudes are borderline, I’d say, because while their attitudes aren’t ones I find conducive a number of them are misinterpreted. For example, “negging” is often seen as trying to insult a woman to break down her self-esteem and make her vulnerable — and thus something that would work best on women with low self-esteem — but I was around on shyness newsgroups when some of the big players were posting about this and the real intent is that it’s supposed to be a PLAYFUL insult used on very attractive and very popular women to demonstrate that he wasn’t so desperately attracted to her that he had to be afraid that she would get mad at him and so was walking on eggshells around her, which would indicate experience and confidence, at least that if she got mad at him he’d have other options. Now, given that attractive women often DON’T have really high self-esteem, whether that is how it actually works is debatable, but the intent is not how some people make it seem.

              And now we add in one other part of it, which is the idea — which I think is a PUA selling point — that a number of women who know that a guy is interested in her in a romantic sense keep “stringing him along” because he pays more attention to her and does more for her if he’s in that state than he would if he was just a friend, and so they gain from the relationship. This triggers people to often claim that about a woman who, when the man makes his interest clear, THEN says that they are just friends, was really pulling this on them.

              So what we end up with are both of the extreme sides yelling and screaming at the other, with the PUA side pushing the “leading on” line and the … other side (I can’t think of a good name for them here) pushing the “You’re just pretending and lying” line. In between are all of those men and women who have no idea what’s going on but feel like they have to choose a side. Add in that, well, the number of men and women that fit all of the various stereotypes being tossed around is definitely non-zero — although it doesn’t seem to me to be the majority — and you get a hot mess.

              And the real problem is our screwed up way of going about getting relationships … but this comment is long enough as it is.

              (I tried to avoid getting into the really controversial topics or assignations, but if I did I apologize and am not really trying to attack any one or group here.)

              1. doran says:

                I enjoyed this post, but think you could break it up a bit more with sub headings in bold.

        3. Writiosity says:

          To be fair, that sort of politicised bullshit is rife EVERYWHERE now, thanks to a whole variety of dumbasses. Sometimes a phrase is just a phrase, it doesn’t need to have alternate meanings… though way too many people these days look for them just so they can attack anyone they don’t like.

          tl;dr – screw today, I want to go back to 20 years ago when most people I knew were actual reasonable human beings :/ (Also, hope this doesn’t go too far towards political talk for your site rules to be breached and the mighty banhammer to come out, lol)

          Also, your friendzone definition is spot on, exactly how it was intended and used here as well (UK).

        4. Phantos says:

          I had the opposite trajectory with the phrase “Friend Zone”. I wish I could go back in time and tell teenage Me:

          “Look, I know it would be fun if a nice lady let you touch her boobies, but you don’t have a lot of allies! And you’re gonna run out of even that many once social media becomes a thing, and the friends you do have reveal some horrific, ugly sides to themselves! If a gal wants to spend any time with you, even if it’s not X-rated, please try to appreciate that! You’re not rich, you’re not handsome and your personality stinks, so try to be grateful for any companionship!”

          Teenage me would probably not listen, because he was a much bigger asshole, but… shit, now a Friend Zone sounds like fun! Like it’d have slides and ball pits.

        5. I’m just glad that I’m not alone on this one. I am also Old(tm), and had always taken it to be in the fashion in which you mentioned: “I am romantically interested in this person, but that interest is unrequited; I am but a friend in her eyes.” Which was a disappointment, to be certain… but dude, “the heart wants what the heart wants” and all that. Didn’t mean I wasn’t happy to have those people in my life as friends and cohorts and associates who had my back, or were a sympathetic ear, or a shoulder to lean on in difficult times.

          And now it’s used as some sort of shorthand for “why, I view womenfolk as mere penis receptacles! my ingratiating efforts entitle me to naked fun times with said vixen, and any rejection of said advances are evidences of me being used in an untoward fashion!” Sigh.

          (I probably have a sub-rant brewing about how “nice guy” evolved from “an upstanding (if possibly needy) person with positive qualities, seeking a fulfilling relationship, but rejected for being too [shy / not conventionally attractive / otherwise odd]” to “dude who will flip out if he’s not getting enough sexual return on his cooing-with-faux-empathy investment.” But I suppose this is neither the time nor place.)

    2. Son of Valhalla says:

      Warren doesn’t really seem that cringey. It could be worse. He could actually BE dating.

      When I got real desperate to date in high school (for some reason…), I openly told a girl I wanted to kiss her. A week later we did. A week after that, we broke up. It was really stupid, and it definitely wasn’t easy.

      If I were Warren, I would’ve simply foregone feeling any love for Max. In the wise words of Yoda,” Fear (in this case, social anxiety) leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        But anger leads to passionfruit jelly .

        1. Son of Valhalla says:

          Yoda is disappointed in Mace, it seems. Looks like he wants to…

          throw him out the Windu.

  7. Ninety-Three says:

    So it’s really weird that the game will have you get caught looking at Dana’s pregnancy test, because as far as I know, it’s literally the only time you will get caught looking at things, including the many other times that you rummage through people’s stuff right in front of them.

    I don’t like it, because it only serves to draw attention to how weird it is that no one else minds you going through their stuff, which inevitably leads to the immersion-breaking reminder that you are the protagonist of an adventure game. Or worse, you take it as a cue to discard one of the many “It’s a videogame, don’t think about that aspect too hard” rules, and you come to really weird conclusions like “Everyone except Dana is living in some kind of anarcho-socialist commune with no notion of property or privacy”.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    She didnt recognize her in the bathroom because blue hair is a new thing,and while we saw her face clearly,max did not.This is the first time max looked at chloe clrearly.

    1. silver Harloe says:

      Agreed – five years ago Chloe probably wasn’t into blue hair – she was like 12? She might not have even realized hair dye was on option yet. And it might not actually have been an option depending on her living situation 5 years ago.

      1. Lachlan the Mad says:

        Yeah, you can see one of the last photos Max & Chloe took together in Max’s room (I’m fairly sure that they looked at it in Ep 3?). The blue hair is a new affectation.

  9. Daemian Lucifer says:

    You should definitely go for the warren romance.Because no one does it.Everyone either chooses the standard “max is asexual” route,or the generic “max is gay” route.

    And with that,it really is weird to have a video game where the gay option is more generic than the straight option.

    1. Gruhunchously says:

      It is funny the way it feels that in some other game, Warren would be the gay side option where as Chloe would be the more developed straight “canon” option (lookin’ at you, Bioware).

      Anyways, I say let’s have Max be bisexual and display interest in both of them

      1. Ivellius says:

        I would argue bisexuality is the most “canon” interpretation of Max.

    2. Henson says:

      In my playthrough, Max totally had the hots for Daniel. Draw me, sexy latin lover boy.

    3. Mephane says:

      Fun fact: I went the “Max is gay” route because I sort of assumed this would be the canon route. It may sound silly now, but when playing the game it felt just obvious because of a combination of Going Home and Blue Is The Warmest Color lingering in my mind. It also made me immediately assume that when Chloe was looking for Rachel, she was looking for her girlfriend.

      1. Christopher says:

        I remember there being some mystery when the game came out what was going on besides the time travel stuff, but I felt pretty certain it was all girls liking girls when I saw Chloe’s design. Blue, shorter hair on girls in real life doesn’t scream lesbian to me, but it sure does in non-anime fictional character design contexts. “Blue is the warmest color” is probably to blame for some of that.

        I think you assumed right, anyway. You get the option to display or not display affection, but Chloe is the single main character besides you that the game is about, and you can “romance” her more than you can anyone else, at least as far as I’m aware. Though truthfully, you never really get into a relationship with someone.

    4. Christopher says:

      I definitely went that route, basically out of seeing a lot of Warren in myself. And I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants the plot of the game to make less sense.

      So Josh, if you wanna be wacky and break stuff, go for Warren.

    5. Zekiel says:

      Genuine question – why is “Max is asexual” the standard option?

      Personally I went with responding positively to Warren’s advances since I thought he was dorky and sweet (and more to the point I felt like Max would too) – and I had no inkling that Chloe would be a possible romantic interest. Once that became clear I went with the “burgeoning homosexual awakening” trope and Max totally fell for Chloe, leaving poor old Warren as just a friend. Max (and I) felt a bit bad about that.

      1. Ivellius says:

        Being more interested in Chloe doesn’t mean Max couldn’t also be attracted to Warren. She also has a crush on Jefferson.

        I guess you could argue my Max was somewhat asexual, but it was more “Being in a relationship with Chloe would be taking advantage of someone’s emotional distress,” and my other option was Captain Cringe.

        1. Henson says:

          That’s not asexual, to my mind. ‘Asexual’ seems to describe a state of being regarding your own sexuality, a ‘sexuality in general doesn’t interest me’ vibe. Your approach to Max (and mine) are more ‘I’m not interested in pursuing these particular people the game presents as romantic options’.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Because asexual is the thing you get if you dont pick either of the two.

  10. Ninety-Three says:

    I feel like the photos are actually some sort of out-of-universe thing

    They are and they aren’t. It’s one of those things that the game didn’t think too hard about (like her powers which sometimes don’t teleport her, or her inventory which sometimes doesn’t come with her, or her “too much time travel” nosebleeds which sometimes don’t happen).

    Like, sometimes you can look at the photos you took and Max will comment on them, which implies they exist in-universe, but other times the photos will be potentially relevant to the plot but be ignored. Sometimes both of those will happen to the same photo, it’s odd.

    It is a recurring theme that this game really doesn’t want you to think too hard about Max’s powers, which works right up until the ending when suddenly the plot hinges on how exactly Max’s powers work. But I’ll save those complaints for when we get to the ending.

  11. Ninety-Three says:

    Shamus talks about Warren in terms of “People who weren’t Warren vs people who were”, but I think that’s missing out on a group of people. When I was young, someone else played Warren to my Max, so I saw it as something of a “If you could go back knowing what you know now, what would you do?” scenario.

    Unfortunately, approaching it that way really doesn’t work, and not just because the Warren subplot is minor and underdeveloped. The game gives you some choices about how to interact with Warren, but more often than not, Max makes her own choices and how she feels is pre-written. It felt like the game kept offering to let me steer, then snatching the wheel away from me and going in a totally different direction. That’s frustrating in any roleplaying experience, but it’s especially frustrating in a friendship/romance plot where you really need the player to be in sync with their character.

  12. Daniel England says:

    I liked The Spirits Within when I saw it. I found the way it treated the soul endlessly fascinating, and used that to help develop my thoughts on that subject… I was also 6 years old when I saw it.

    Warren is a teenage boy. And that’s why I like him. They could have turned him into this self-actualized guy who actually respects women (rather than, you know, seeing them as some kind of virginal canvas upon which a pure reflection of yourself will take shape,) but Warren is awkward and unsure of himself, yet also self-focused. Also, take a moment to recognize how well the dialogue between Warren and Max is. You instantly get a sense for their relationship and see that they have a really good report.

    Also notice how well the scene between Chole and Max is written. Chole, once she is certain that Max is okay, immediately lets loose 5 years off frustrations towards the way their friendship just kinda ended. Chole is direct because she’s done pretending, and she’s experienced some of the shit “real life” as to offer.

    I’m always going to respect this game for a lot of what it does but, as we move on towards later episodes, I really think it loses focus on the stuff that really worked in this game. And Oh No, I Want to Talk About the Ending had happened, so I’ll put a pin in my thoughts here. Hopefully I’m not exhausted by the time this game is finished.

  13. Phantos says:

    Regarding Warren:

    I can think of two cliched, unpleasant ways that a story could take a character like him. To LIS’s credit, it sidesteps both of them.

    He doesn’t become the Nice Guy Who Gets Frustrated And Then Forces Himself On Max, nor does the story decide to make Max give him a Pity F***. Both of those outcomes, I was afraid the game would eventually lead to.

    Max does have some (I’d say valid) fear that he could become either of those. It is awkward to watch him in the first couple of episodes. By the end though, he’s handled his un-reciprocated feelings way better than I did at his age. He remains one of Max’s truest allies.

    1. Christopher says:

      I think it’s to Warren’s credit that as a character, he’s actually way more useful and helpful to his crush than I was back then. I’d assume it was the same for lots of people, Warren gets shit done. Him being a true friend is the nicest possible ending to that story.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Though he is a shit scientist.

        1. Christopher says:

          Whatever man, as I recall he’s spot-on about everything somehow! All those time travel movies and bomb-making movies really helped. It’s very convenient that he’s smart and doesn’t just watch anime or play video games, but I guess that’s all justified with this kind of prestigious school.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Being correct because he read the script does not make him a good scientist.

  14. Christopher says:

    Does Max know Warren likes her? I’m pretty sure there’s a line later to that effect, but it sure seems like everyone here besides her knows it.

    1. Jokerman says:

      I am going on some really hazy as hell memory of this right now… but doesn’t Chloe outright mention it in one scene? The “kiss” scene i am pretty sure she does, and Max doesn’t seem to surprised at the mention of it… so yeah, id say she knows, but ain’t sure about it…

      I pushed her further away from Warren in my playthrough, he is a well meaning kid… but he absolutely does creep me out, i kept him squarely in “friend zone”

  15. Parkhorse says:

    It’s a really common thing in media, but seriously, picking up a pregnancy test out of the garbage? With her bare hands? She knows that’s been peed on, right? Ew…

    1. Gruhunchously says:

      Not even a rewind is going to get rid of whatever residue that left on her hands.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        To be fair,pee is the cleanest bodily fluid you could get in contact with.For a healthy person,that is.

  16. Redrock says:

    Never understood all the Warren hate. The guy is sweet and smart and goofy and pretty brave. He is too shy to admit he is in love, sure, but in my playthrough he never got angry or demanding or nasty about being “friendzoned”, which is what the so-called “nice guys” do. You know, the ones who think that a woman owes them sex for holding the door, or something.

    On the contrary, I have noticed multiple points in the game, where Max’s behavior could be genuinely seen as manipulative. I think that we get the impression that she knows about Warren’s feelings pretty early on. I can’t quote the exact scene, but I vaguely recall that some of the comments Max made to Chloe or to herself about easily recruiting Warren’s help for something or other and being sure that he wouldn’t refuse came off as a bit cold. At least that was my impression.

    So while Warren can be akward and cringe-worthy, he never came across as dishonest or creepy. So I really don’t understand where all that negativity comes from.

    1. Christopher says:

      I mean, most of the hate for him is people saying “Oh GOD, I was like that”, and that doesn’t mean that everyone were creepy and dishonest and hate women. It means that we see ourselves in him being hopelessly onesidedly, awkwardly in love with someone with zero interest in him, putting on moves that aren’t working at all. That’s what makes him hard to watch, but I don’t actually hate him. Shamus says as much in the blurb. He’s just an on point reminder of miserable teenage romance attempts. It’s a very true to life character that you can project onto whatever humiliating flirting attempts you did yourself.

      There’s a big discussion in the comments further up about the whole nice guy/friendzone thing, but I think it’s pretty clear cut that in Warren’s case he’s not an embittered, womanhating prick. He’s in the friendzone in the traditional sense of the word(I like this woman romantically while she views me as a friend, and that’s really sad), and a nice guy in the literal meaning of the saying.

      1. Redrock says:

        To be honest, I wasn’t really referring to Spoiler Warning, but to the general discussion about Warren on the Internet. There were a lot of really negative opinions in the reviews, even a few articles and think-pieces, as I recall. I have no issue with statements that Warren is awkward and generally cringeworthy. That’s pretty much the way he was designed by Dontnod. But there is also a lot of real negativity, where he is called creepy, stalker-y, etc. A lot of gamers seem to hate him, and not in a reflective “I hate that part of myself” way. And that is what I don’t get.y personal view of Warren pretty much mirrors Chris’s. I feel sorry for the guy.

        1. Christopher says:

          I’m sure that for some people(Baychel mentioned it I think, shame she wasn’t here this week), Warren was a guy they knew who had a crush on them. I don’t think Warren is bad, but just like I can project onto him whatever embarrassing stuff I did when I was in junior high/high school, I can imagine people projecting onto him whatever awkward nerds came onto them. Some of those guys probably were assholes, or stalkery, or creepy. It’s been a while, but I remember an article by Leigh Alexander talking about how tired she was of “awkward guys”. That’s not something I can relate to on a personal level, but I can certainly understand why this dude might not exactly resonate with you.

    2. Zekiel says:

      Totally agree with this post (i.e. Redrock’s)! I like Warren and I don’t really understand people who don’t. I totally understand why people might choose for Max to reject him, but not why they hate him.

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