#omg this post makes me come across as so anti-amanda or anti-thomfield

[mal3nko]

Something that I’ve come to notice is how surprisingly observant Vinh is when it comes to Max, specifically on an emotional level.

It’s interesting how, like Safi, Vinh is also able to pick up on the fact that Max has some sort of troubled past that she’s trying to suppress. But I feel like it’s even more impressive on Vinh’s part considering the fact that by comparison, Safi had been far closer to Max than he had been up until this point. I think it’s possible that Vinh is able to recognize a lot of the weariness that Max has been carrying around because he himself can relate to it, while also knowing what it’s like to try and hide it all away. It honestly makes me think back to the way the marketing described him as being “intelligent while also wielding social power”, as I think Vinh is someone who has trained himself to be able to read other people efficiently for his own needs in order to climb the social ladder, while in turn it has also made him a surprisingly emotionally intelligent person.

In contrast, it seems like Amanda has trouble picking up on Max’s hidden trauma, and is only able to view the more surface level stuff such as her grief over Safi’s death.

I think what intrigues me the most however is there scene together in Chapter 3. Max at this point in the game is feeling extremely depressed/insecure after Safi blew up at her, while also still reeling from everything that happened with Alderman. Amanda however isn’t able to detect the severity of Max’s demeanor until much later on in the scene.

It isn’t until Max continues to make self-deprecating comments about herself that Amanda is finally able to realize that something truly bad must have happened.

And this is no shade to Amanda! Not everyone has the ability to quickly pick up on someone’s emotional distress (we can’t all be miss Alex Chen!), and the girlie herself clearly has her own baggage to process considering the fact that she goes to therapy. But I think it’s interesting how Vinh is almost immediately able to notice Max’s dire mental state by comparison.

Something to take note of is that unlike with Amanda, Max actually does open up to Vinh about why she’s feeling so down here. When Amanda asked her what’s wrong, Max just kinda pivoted the conversation into questioning why the former even likes her, and from there she never got the opportunity to actually explain what had actually been bothering her despite it making more sense for her to do so in that timeline (minus the Alderman stuff lol) since Safi is obviously still alive over there. But with Vinh she just lets most of it out, to the point where she even slips up briefly and mentions how Safi is angry at her only to immediately realize her mistake.

And I love that! I love how Max has grown comfortable enough with Vinh in order to start being emotionally vulnerable around him. Up until this point she’s only really shown this type of vulnerability with Dead World Moses, which makes sense given the fact that they were both really close to Safi. This is something I think a lot about when it comes to their relationship post-game and how I think Vinh will be the first person after Safi that Max will open up to about Arcadia Bay/Chloe and all of the trauma surrounding her past.