I’m surprised at how often this discussion comes up about Lena’s hypocrisy. Both she and Ian have been cheated on and struggle to cope with it, but Lena’s hurt feelings first and foremost manifest as anger, while Ian’s similar feelings make him bummed out. So they cope with it differently (though not that differently; they can both choose to fuck more or less every person they find attractive) and justify their actions in different ways.
Yes, Lena does exactly what Axel and Cherry did to her, and it’s a shitty thing to do. But it’s also a very understandable coping mechanism (if not the healthiest). And what does a kid do if they’re bullied in school? They’ll quite likely find another kid to bully themselves, to cope with all of it and maintain a standing within some kind of real or imagined hierarchy that you don’t want to be at the bottom of. And then they find some way to justify it to themselves, because it’s a shitty thing to do. People justify things to themselves or blame others all the time when they do something that doesn’t fit with their image of themselves. And when you’re 23, like Lena, your image of yourself (and also who you actually are) is still very much being shaped.
Almost everyone close to Lena, except Ivy, expects her to act nice and dutifully and be a good girl. Lena mainly sees herself that way too, but there’s a giant gap between that and her anger at Axel and Cherry and her almost nymphomaniac side. So when she crosses the line of how she and her family, friends and colleagues expects her to act, it easily spirals out of control. I think all of this generally is very good portrayed, and easily believable, though I admit the story would be better of if Lena sometimes reflected more on her own hypocrisy.
This whole idea that Lena can do so much more than Ian without any consequences, is also very exaggerated. One thing I’ll concede, is that Lena probably will have a path where she can make Ian forgive her for much more than she’ll herself forgive him for; based on the new cuck variable, how Lena could get an extra thrill from cheating, and how Ian could act more resigned (while Lena gets angry) about being treated badly. So yes, we’ll quite likely get a path where Lena can do more or less what she wants and get away with it, while Ian has nowhere near the same freedom. And then this discussion will come back, with increased intensity.
But Lena also has a submissive side, and Ian has a chad variable that is starting to affect the story more, so not even that imbalance seems a given. Another aspect is how the two of them end up if they’re betrayed by the other. Ian still has a big group of friends, a lot of obvious love interests and a father who supports him financially. Lena has her two roommates, who both are slightly crazy; Ivy, who cares about her but definitely also has some fishy stuff going on; a family she has to support instead of get support from; and a crowd of sleazy guys who circle around her without being interested in much more than her body.
Ian is worse off than Lena in some ways, other times it’s different. In the Patreon Q&A’s Eva has written about how she sees the two paths, and why they’re not supposed to be parallel/identical. I don’t see the reason why they should be (except that it might feel unfair if you’re playing mainly for one of the protagonists), and either way it would be an unconstructive limitation to the story if Eva constantly had to make sure to balance the two stories out.
