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Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 and #3 continue the story of Alex, Steph, and the mysterious girl Lily. But, along the way — much like the games in the franchise — it takes the time to explore smaller stories using our characters as the catalyst for them. Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 and #3 look at two interesting aspects of life, one topical, and one that is a warning.
Life Is Strange: Forget Me Not #2
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 gives us two contrasting takes on memory loss or manipulation: positive and negative. First, we have the first of the memories inside Lily, a nerd named Conner, and his self-worth-shattering online relationship with a woman named Emily. Then we have the aftershocks of Alex manipulating the emotions of Steph to get her to focus in the previous issue, denying her the right to mourn her friend.
With Conner’s situation, we have a warning; relationships are hard work, two people have to work in tandem to make them work. When one is more invested than the other this can lead to heartbreak. Online relationships are even worse as you don’t have the capacity to personally see the attachment grow, just words on a screen.
The sad truth of the matter is that humans lie, everyone lies be it for a good or bad reason; emotions and memories intertwine when this happens. Conner had a good group of friends, and one of them even liked him romantically, but he was blind because Emily was playing with his emotions. She strung him along as validation for herself, siphoning his attention to bring up her self-worth, destroying his. Without her memory, he was able to move on, with the memory he wasn’t. But to truly grow he has to have it and move on.
The creative team of Zoe Thorogood and Claudia Leonardi are giving us a warning about online relationships and the fallout of them, how to be whole is to not forget but to forgive yourself.
What Alex did to Steph, a woman she loves, was the opposite of Conner’s situation. Conner needed to forget to reach forgiveness; Steph needed time. Grief only heals with time, and Alex denies that to her. While Steph still very much loves Alex, she is denied time to grieve with her other friends as a result of Alex’s actions. She had the mourning with Lily, a girl she hardly knows.
Delayed grief can be worse as it’s often explosive, yet another warning the creative team is giving us in Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2.
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #3
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 and #3 work well as companion issues; while Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 was a warning, Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #3 is a look at the effects of new advancing technology that is very topical: AI.
Steph and Alex have been economical in their attempt to give the memories Lily has back to the people it was taken from. They are a small band and need money, so they are partnering with a marketing firm to continue funding this adventure; they have been doing it by themselves, but it isn’t making enough.
Jenna — from the marketing firm they find themselves in — is indicative of the hollowness that AI brings out in art, only exacerbated by her marketing focus. Steph and Alex have a specific look and demographic they appeal to as a result. But the punk queer crowd isn’t enough if they want to bring in money. So while Steph is this slightly butch person that has wide appeal, the nerdy and Asian Alex isn’t what the marketing team wants.
They love her voice but she must be replaced with a buxom white lady, but Alex shouldn’t worry they will replace her in post, Alex will still do the music. After all, they fed the algorithm a few of their songs, and the sound was nearly perfect according to Jenna. Understandably, Steph is outraged at this — being the very artistic person she is. This replacement of not only her but her girlfriend’s work to be homogenized into something they aren’t is an insult.
Art, be it music, writing, or any other medium, is deeply personal to the individuals making it. A machine doesn’t have intelligence and creativity as we humans would define it. It’s simply a learning algorithm that connects A to B with the most efficient method in front of it. It’s hollow, without soul or meaning. If memories are the core of Lily’s power, then this shows that memory is key not just to people but to art as well.
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 And #3 Show How Memory Can Be Used
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 and #3 use their time to tell two micro stories within the larger macro stories. One hits close to home, being a stark warning about how memories and emotions can hinder and heal us at the same time. The other is how memories can be abused and exploited for monetary gain.
Life is Strange: Forget Me Not #2 and #3 work well in tandem.