Is Marie the only reason to choose that route though. Is the north route meaningless ? I’m asking just the difference between the two.
I’m guessing you can’t save her if you go north instead of south?
Yeah, if you don't go south, you lose Marie for good. You also lose the chance of rescuing your mother and preventing her mind from being broken. The Abbott and Claire's friend possibly (definitely) get raped and unable to be rescued.
Going North does give you a lot more scenes in terms of sex and you do have the opportunity to rescue Beth before she's sold off. But Beth can be rescued later since she does go to the island. From the scenes that I have seen (and I have seen all of them since I have started the game over 6+ times,) I know that Marie kinda becomes Claire sister.
Mostly, because if you manage to rescue Marie, you rescue Claire's mother with her, instead of just Claire's mother by herself. And should you rescue Marie with your mother, the moment you are able to get the refugees a place to stay, Marie hangs out with Claire's mother. Then once Claire actually buys a place to call home, (I.E the Breeding Ranch or the run down slums apartment) when Claire moves there, Claire takes her mother with her, along with Marie. Because at this point Claire's mother becomes a short of a surrogate mother for Marie at least that's what I see. And Claire's mother becomes attached to Marie since it was Marie that kept her from drinking the water in the first place. So Claire's mother owns it to Marie to look out after her.
Which leads to the first night in the new home in which Claire, her mother and Marie share a bed together. (Nothing sexual just for comfort due to everything that they have experienced in the past weeks.) But from what I can gather is that some time in the future Claire should be able to have a sexual relationship with both her mother and Marie, if not just Marie.
That's why save scamming is highly recommended to see all of the scenes that the game has to offer.
