So I just finished episode 5 and something was bothering me the whole time. Again, this is a SPOILER THREAD WITH SPOILERS

When you go back in time from the art gallery to your dorm to rip up the photo, why the hell does that cause Jefferson to not be arrested and thus have you end up in the Dark Room again? I remember Max saying something like "Oh, he ripped up my photos, that's why I'm here again." How does him ripping up her photos undo him being arrested? Am I being stupid and missing something really obvious here? From my understanding the timeline from that point should have been

• Max rips up her photo and doesn't enter the contest
• She doesn't submit the photo to Jefferson but still fucking has him arrested because why shouldn't she?
• the timeline continues on with Mr Jefferson getting arrested and Max doesn't get kidnapped and get sent to the Dark Room because Jefferson is arrested and there is no logical causation from her photo being ripped up to him not being arrested. Unless of course, there is, and someone would like to explain it to me.

Max ripping up the photo resulted in Jefferson destroying her journal, so she never had the opportunity to go back in time and get him arrested in the first place. She needed the photo in the journal to go back in time to begin with.

Time travel stories have weird and fun mental gymnastics, don't they?

Why and how?

I think it's because Jefferson, in some twisted way, actually did think Max was a good photographer and wanted her to enter the contest to let her win. In the dark room, when he opens her diary to see her pictures, he's happy to see the photo that he thinks she should have entered (as we know from that other timeline - she'd have won with it). However, opening it the second time around to find it ripped in half (or possibly, no picture at all) made him angry that maybe he was all wrong about her and she wasn't listening to him at all.

The guy was a control freak who wanted Max to follow everything he said, he saw the photo as validation. Without it, he became sick of her and so burned all of her diary in a fit of rage. At least that's how I interpreted it (since Max is unconcious for the majority of this).

@salbert: He destroys the journal after he captures her and already has her in the dark room. So the picture she originally went through is now gone and can't be used any more and that's why she ends up back there. He burns it in front of her or something.

If I remember right, the reason he does it is out of rage. Something about her not respecting photography or something so he destroys all her pictures.

@salbert: Okay, so in the original timeline in which Max travels back in time, she tricks Jefferson into showing her the journal. She then uses a photo to travel back to the past.

In the revised timeline, Max destroys the photo in the past before she can even bring it to class. What we kind of have to assume is Jefferson learned she destroyed the photo and grew angry over it. Let's say in the original timeline he knew she had the photo, but wouldn't enter it. In the revised timeline, he may have asked about the photo, and thus Max told him he destroyed it. Hence he destroys the journal out of frustration.

The connecting bit that's missing is not seeing on screen that bit about how he learns about the destroyed photo.

@dixavd: this is what I gathered when I thought about it after finishing the episode but man was it poorly conveyed at the time. There was some confusion at the time and I decided to just accept it and figure it out later, so I could focus on the rest of the story I was playing through without that tidbit distracting me. That detail maybe could have been handled better.

He sees it in the Diary in the Dark Room.

When Max goes into auto-pilot, she no longer knows about Mr. Jeffersons criminality.

@treetrunk: Ah, good catch. I missed that it was in the journal. I just assumed somehow he learned of it.

Ye, the core bit that they could have made more clear in the game (and the GBEast crew talked about as requiring a pen and paper to write down to make clear) is that to message David about Jefferson requires being aware of that, which means Max has to jump back from after the Vortex Party.

By ripping up the photo the change that percolates forward is that the torn photo is in the journal, so when Jefferson was originally complementary about the photo and "understood why you didn't submit" (due to Kate etc events), the new timeline he is in a rage when he finds you took a photo (which we know he things is the best photo for the competition) and then destroyed it. So he burns all your photos, so when you come to when no longer drugged and so capable of using a photo to travel back, there are no photos left. So that ripple of going back and texting David cannot happen. Which means you're stuck in the Dark Room still.

And as you're unaware of the future except in the moments when you've travelled back to and are limited to the space around the photo, that Max doesn't know to avoid the Vortex Party. Which is why the photo in the diner is the only hope.

It's all a bit contorted, but then most time travel plots get a bit like that.

The short answer: The Max in that timeline, who was in the dorm room after the photo was torn up, didn't remember anything when Max traveled back to her present timeline. She didn't know Jefferson was the killer or anything about the Dark Room. She carried out her investigation as she did and then got caught by Jefferson.

The longer answer with an example: Here's the best example of the above short version. If you remember in Episode 5, Max tells Chloe her plan to tell David about Jefferson, and she is basically going to go away, so Chloe has to tell her everything she just did. Also when the two are on the beach, Max has to ask Chloe what happened over the past few days. Future Max doesn't retain any new memories of Past Max and vice versa.

So let's say Max A is from the future. She is the one who saw Jefferson shoot Chloe, she is the one who entered the Dark Room, she is the one who won the Everyday Heroes contest, etc.

Max B is the Max at that moment in the time. The Max who doesn't know about Jefferson or Chloe dying. In her state of mind, she is going with Chloe to the Vortex Club Party to find Nathan.

• Max B and Chloe are walking to the Vortex Club Party, and they bump into Warren.
• Warren takes the picture with Max B.
• Max A travels through the photo at that moment. For that time period, the Max standing with Warren and Chloe knows everything, even though 15 seconds earlier Max B did not.
• Max A tell Chloe everything. How they should not find Nathan, how Jefferson is behind everything, and they should tell David so he can go get Jefferson.
• Max A then tells Chloe she will not remember any of this in a few minutes, because she is going to leave the photo. At that point, Max B will be standing there with Chloe.
• Chloe tells Max B what Max A just told her. Max B and Chloe go to David, Jefferson gets arrested.
• Jump forward to Friday, the day of the storm, Max A reappears in that timeline. At that point, Chloe has to tell Max A what happened between her and Max B.
• During that time, Max B was acting independently. The events between her and Chloe over those past two days lead them deciding to go to the lighthouse.

This applies to all of the jumping in the photo stuff in the game. Meaning, when Max saved William's life, her 13 year old self didn't remember she did any of that. She was not aware that William died and she saved his life. Her future self only reappeared on Wednesday, when she was talking to Victoria and she was in the Vortex Club. Likewise, Max had no memories of her going back in time again and deciding not to save William's life. She didn't live out the past 5 years thinking how Chloe ended up paralyzed so she purposefully went back and let her father die.

I think @clagnaught has what the game was getting at, but they do a very poor job of explaining it in the moment only explicitly spelling it out when you travel back through Warren's photo hours later. I found it very confusing and frustrating at the time as well.

@clagnaught: I know this post is "hella" old, but I just finished the game and had the exact same question as OP. Thanks for explaining something far better than thendevelopers did!