She was nothing compared to Max for me. Is it because the fandom doesn't know a lot about her? She doesn't have the depth I imagined her to.. maybe this was a me problem. But she just seems like a side character with no real interesting traits. People made out as if she'd been butchered but all that happened was she didn't get to meet her mother, am I missing something?
I'm the opposite of obsessed with her. I really wanted to play Before the Storm because she sounded so great in Chloe's stories. Then I met her in the game and really wondered if this was the same person Chloe was so enthusiastic about. I found her extremely manipulative and unpleasant; she was nothing special in my eyes, just a complicated teenage girl with a Cluster B personality disorder. I understand that you're supposed to see her through Chloe's eyes, who idealized her. Maybe I saw a little too much of my own teenage self in her. I used to be quite similar to her. Before my diagnosis and therapy.
I think it’s also because Chloe clearly had a strong crush on this alluring, mysterious girl who gave her attention. Very typical teenager situation that gets you in worse situations and problems - especially when you’re a teenager that feels so misunderstood and mistreated by others. Then finally someone sees you and gives you the attention you want.. Even if in reality that person causes you more harm and damage. Rachel as a flawed antihero/antagonist character works really well, and an article I read a while back called her the perfect name: Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl (instead of dream girl) and I absolutely agree with her. If she stayed in Chloe’s life, I feel like Chloe would end up being so much worse, on such a worse path. - But from Chloe’s point of view, this was her first crush likely, her first love, and often even if toxic people look fondly. Add to it a death and.. Well, death makes you forget all the bad and focus on the good, because you miss that person.
You either get or don't. It's that simple. For instance, there are a ton of people shipping Chasemarsh, which is completely impossible to me, and I truly don't get it.
But I also understand that other people have completely different perceptions, and I can respect that.
But, just give you an example. One of the big reasons I relate to Rachel is due to her family trauma. I haven't experienced the same thing she has, but it's not far off.
You can get Sera to meet her. When Rachel asks Chloe how she can convince her of her being serious, ask for the bracelet. When you talk to Sera, Chloe will then bring it up. Then, Sera and Rachel meet in the final cut scene.
It’s not about Rachel meeting or not meeting her birth mom. It’s about everything that came before. All the lies, Rachel having to be picture-perfect etc.
She likely has borderline, just like Sera. They’re both toxic and destructive.
to #1, it's possible to do that without the bracelet, but you have to choose juuuust the right dialogue options a bunch of times in a row. if anyone wants to do this, probably best to follow a walkthrough or guide like this one.
Isn't she histrionic? Like, confirmed by the devs or similar?
Idk
If she was, probably brought on from knowing her dad was lying to her about her real mother.
She was a more interesting character when she was dead tbh.
I think the same thing. After playing Before the Storm, I found her unbearable. I wanted to tell Chloe to forget about Rachel. It would have been better to keep the "mystery" of why she was so loved.
It really was the opposite of Twin Peaks. I didn't really care about Laura Palmer at first. She was a prom picture and a mystery. Then I saw Fire Walk With Me and read her diary. She became one of the most compelling characters in fiction. Rachel Amber was just shitty once we found out more about her.
It’s why I always tell people to play LIS 1 first and then before the storm AFTER. If you play before the storm first, it really skews your perception of how Rachel is written in LIS 1… and makes her so much more unbearable and makes you not get why Chloe keeps going after her 😣 it’s wild what BTS did.
This is because before the storm idealized her in a stupid way. We know she was an extremely flawed character, but as you’re playing as Chloe they give you a biased point of view of her. (Except the totally comedically played off scene of her drugging someone??????)
Honestly, I thought that, while BtS might've shown some redeeming traits and why Chloe fell for her, it was clear to the players why this wasn't going to work out and why Rachel was going to become the person we learned about in the original games. Suppose it adds a tragic angle to her, but all roads were leading to the original game.
I do agree that It doesn’t diverge from where her character eventually ended up, I still think it was a more boring story to tell. The focus on Chloe, and her character was cool, but she also was the most focused on character in LIS1 by far.
I’d of made Rachel playable I think, Chloe as playable didn’t really work as well in terms of being choice based either because she had such a developed personality.
That's fair. That said, since it was a prequel, I guess I saw it less making your own stamp on the story, but being able to experience stuff that we're told about in the original game. On that level, I do find it adds a lot to replaying the original game, even if it just reinforces what we already knew (case in point, we knew that Chloe missed Max badly and it meant everything to her to get her back, but watching how much the separation hurt Chloe makes them reconnecting feel even more impactful).
I suppose they could've made Rachel the player character, but her defining trait is that we see her from the perspective of others and have to guess what's true and what wasn't. While BtS did show some genuine moments from her, I think, at the end of the day, not even Chloe ever got to know the real Rachel in the end. With BtS, we might've gotten to see a bit of the human being, the context clues of how she became who she was, but I don't think we were ever supposed to really know her. Even the alternate Rachel in the comics, who was a much more stable and reliable person, is never given a direct point of divergence from the original, so we'll never know if she managed to get the help the original Rachel couldn't or had always been a different person right out of the gate.
Frankly, my only real complaint about BtS was that it seemed to really muddy what Chloe and Rachel's relationship was. In the original, it seemed to be heavily implied that, while she'd convinced herself that she had a chance, Chloe's feelings for Rachel had always been unrequited. However, BtS gives you the option to show them having a mutual attraction, making it hard to explain how they got to the point they did at the time of Rachel's death. Of course, the original game was pretty vague and mostly implied things. I think it the comic that was the first franchise installment to outright say that Chloe had been in love with Rachel (and, since the story was set post-game and had Chloe in love with Max, we understandably don't get more details than that).
I love Rachel Amber.
she was such an enigmatic/divisive chameleon to everyone in AB and at Blackwell its not surprising that she has the same effect on the fanbase. I personally can't get over the tragedy of her character in the long term. In my first playthrough i wanted so badly to meet Rachel and by extension for Max to and also for her to be reunited with Chloe. That said in the end when the frank bombshell dropped followed by the big reveal of her fate i was devastated.
i love max, but we know less about max than we do rachel.
at least we've met rachel's parents! we haven't even stepped foot into any of max's homes and it's honestly fine because she's the ambiguous main character. i think you just don't like rachel which is also fine.
I want to like her so bad i just cant lol its disappointing, i didnt even realise the game ended in the last episode, that was the worst ep to me
myself and many others agree with you about episode 3...before the storm needed 5 eps!
see i guess i thought i was a popular opinion. after BTS she became my favorite 😭
I think Rachel was more interesting of a character than Max
Main character of a choice based game syndrome. They tried to let you insert yourself into max as much as possible.
She does have an arch, but it’s limited in scope because of the genre. This is an area I think a TV show could actually improve on.
I dunno, maybe because i like tragedy of Rachel Amber, Laura Palmer, i like voice acting of Kylie Brown, i like BtS and Chloe falling in love with Rachel
Rachel was a mystery, chaotic, reckless expected to be this perfect student because of her dad, the popular student everyone loves. I think that's why chloe liked her so much and was drawn to her the same way everyone else becomes drawn to her. When I played the game I were more interested in Rachel than max. Then the doe appearing I'm guessing we're a spirit manifestation of Rachel leading max.
She reminds me of a toxic ex. And to me it’s wild that people excuse her and call her not toxic. Yes she went through her own problems ABSOLUTELY, but that isn’t an excuse for the type of person she is and became. It explains it but doesn’t justify it.
(said toxic ex was the prime reason I had to end up doing therapy for 2 years. She too was oh so charming, enigmatic and alluring at first.)
Every time I play before the storm I just get so uncomfortable and see all the red flags. She does use people, even if she may not be aware of it. There’s some fantastic articles online about it too which I enjoyed reading. But I feel like she would have become like her mother if she hadn’t died. The whole thing between her, Chloe and then Frank is.. A mess.
I do NOT see the comics as canon and do not add it to the story. I see it as very separate 😅 (In fact I don’t like that the comics basically focused on Rachel and Chloe as a ship predominantly. But I’ll take the comics over DE.)
I honestly liked the allure of dead Rachel Amber in lis1 compared to BTS. Its hard to trust D9 with Rachel as we have no idea if dontnod would of wrote her that way.
Rachel is objectively more interesting than rachel and after the first game making her this mysterious awesome person that everyone loved people went into BtS already interested in rachel
Rachel fans aren't gonna like this, but it's the truth: they just think she's hot.
Because she's way more interesting than Max. She's talented, beautiful, intelligent, but secretly struggling inside with what she wants vs what her parents expect from her. She's popular but also pretty nice to everyone and has interests most people wouldn't expect.
Max is nice, but compared to Rachel she's a bit bland.
You see I’m playing through before the storm right now, I love Rachel Amber down. But I don’t like how you find out she’s being going behind Chloe’s back with Frank. That’s kind of scummy. Other than that she’s cool.
Rachel was sixteen, as much as she isnt my favourite, she was getting groomed and raped. It wasnt a betrayal to chloe.
If you're talking about BtS Rachel idk I don't understand too
I feel like people is actually obsessed with Kate Marsh, who I REALLY dislike. I always find a lot of Kate content and just the normal amount of Amber's.
That said, I just don't mind Rachel Amber. Before I played BtS I used to think that she was great and cool, but in BtS she just act like a brat. "I'm upset so I'm going to destroy a forest", ok, girl, I guess if you were still alive you'll be using chatgtp to pick your dinner.
I get why Chloe acts like an ass when you met her, she strugles with her home situation and she was already abandoned by Max before. But Rachel? She has everything she needs and she's loved. She just throw a tantrum because her dad kisses a woman who's not her mom.
I agree the fandom is pretty obsessed with Kate Marsh. Some of her reactions to Max’s decisions are just as unreasonable and harsh as some of Chloe’s, and yet she has a reputation as an angelic “cinnamon roll” whereas it’s pretty common for people to think Chloe’s difficult.
I don’t dislike her, but she’s really not as perfect and perfectly sweet as people seem to think.
"Obsessed" is a bit strong, especially when you state everyone. As already noted, some people liked and/or understood her. Others didn't like her at all, which is fine. While BTS wasn't perfect, i think people should at least try understanding her behavior.
I see her flaws and see her as not a great person but she's also complex and interesting and pretty and people painted a mystery in their mind for her which adds to it. Plus she was good at being liked, made everyone like her easy so its only natural it worked on the audience!
idk man shes cool and all but shes as obvious of a plot device as isha was in arcane negl
if you'd genuinely like to know why I like the character, here's a link to what I wrote one of the other times the topic came up. (edit: and more of my perspective on Rachel). enjoy :)
Transition goals.
Not physically because I couldn't be half as beautiful as her, but maybe I could borrow her confidence.
I feel like she has a lot of depth, more so than Max (which makes sense, because Max has to be likeable and blank-slate enough for people to choose different paths as her).
She portrays a charismatic, outgoing personality to people in public, but on the inside, there's a lot of turmoil and she's unsure of who she is or what she wants. Her gravitation towards enneagrams and star signs perhaps shows that she seeks to understand herself and her personality, but changes herself to fit and be loved so much that she's never really sure. It makes sense to me why she moves from Chloe to Frank to Jefferson so easily while Chloe's still stuck on her - she's searching for some person who will make her feel something, but it never works because that's kind of an internal thing you have to figure out for yourself. She's so used to validation from being able to perform "roles" with other people that she doesn't know who she is outside it, which is why I think she can come off as ambiguous or boring to some people.
I'm not charismatic or outgoing as her, but I do feel like I perform socially and struggle to understand who I really am at my core, so I envy her in a way
This is my interpretation of her character, I'm open to other interpretations 😁