Talk: Max

Info source

The information in the intro paragraph for Max sounds like interesting stuff. I'm assuming it comes from The Game. What else did The Game say about Max? In what context was that material revealed? I'd like to discover more on my own, but we're an XBox household. – Blue Rook 22:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)_talkcontribs

Bump! Blue Rook 19:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Haha, get a PS2! (I haven't played The Game in a while, so I can't remember the details.) --Proudhug 21:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Status discussion

I made an edit that Max could be dead or alive since the cutscene in the game shows Jack hitting Max two times in the chest since the guy was wearing a kevlar vest. We weren't exactly given the straight answer that Max is 100% dead.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.85.234.166, 03:12, 26 May 2006

He was shot in the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest? And that's it? He didn't plummet into a volcano or get torn apart by cougars or anything? Sounds to me like he's most likely alive, then. --StBacchus 08:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

He was wearing a bulletproof vest? I don't remember that. --Proudhug 08:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I distinctly remember Max being killed in the end. You have to shoot him in the head at the end, and he was shot once more. It seems like this was the coup de grace for Max. The only people that are denying it are the people that want Max to be a part of a huge secret conspiracy with Graham and the bluetooth gang. I don't think he was wearing a bulletproof vest, you have to shoot him in the head because he takes Kate Warner hostage. He never gets arrested nor stands up after you shoot him. Jack is immedietally rushed out for medical attention, while Max, who would be in far worse shape, was left on his boat. - Xtreme680 16:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Xtreme, try watching that final cutscene in the end and look *VERY* closely on Max's chest. Yes, I have beaten the game and know about the head shot, but the cutscenes normally say otherwise for story-related purposes. For example, Robert Daniels was automatically shown as wounded in a cutscene despite the fact he wore a kevlar vest in the player-controlled firefight. In this case, the very final cutscene showed that Max was wearing a vest.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dibol, 05:13, 27 May 2006

Daniels also moved after you shot him. Why go to the trouble of having Jack shoot him again if they wanted him to live? I do recognize now that Max was wearing a vest, but I think it's unlikely that he lives considering they didn't have to show Jack shooting him at the end, at close range and considering Jack had almost no choice but to shoot to kill. He slumps to the ground at that point, and is never arrested, and while Jack is rushed for medical attention, Max lies there on the ground. - Xtreme680 14:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Even if the gunshots didn't kill him, they severly injured him, he would've needed medical attention right away, and no one gave it to him, they left him lying there. Besides CTU Agents would've swarmed the boat and search for evidence, if one of them noticed Max, they would've checked his pulse.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.215.96.187, 14:40, 31 Dec 2007

Since Blue Rook has brought this up again here, let's review the facts. You claim that Wayne stated that Max was arrested, Rook. I don't recall him saying this or when it was, but assuming it's is true, we need to see if it blatantly contradicts The Game, in order to render the game's ending non-canon.

I've reviewed the final moments of The Game. In-game action has Max holding Kate hostage on his yacht and the player, as Jack, has to shoot Max in the head to complete the game. Once this is accomplished, it goes to a final cut scene. Now, as stated above, the cut-scenes often slightly alter or ignore some the in-game events in order to tell a consistent story. In this case, the headshot wasn't fatal and Max slowly collapses to the ground while Jack and Kate embrace. It's also worth noting that Max appears to be wearing a Kevlar vest in this scene. Max then reaches up with his gun and shoots Jack, while Jack shoots Max twice before falling down. Jack's first shot shows him firing while simultaneously being shot himself, and the second one shows Max being hit and a silver spark coming up from his chest, reinforcing the vest idea. Max then rolls over and closes his eyes, appearing to die. No subsequent shots show him moving. Chase and Tony then arrive arrives in a helicopter and Chase takes Jack away to get medical attention. Tony stays behind with Kate for some reason and then we cut to black after one last shot of Jack in the chopper. It's entirely plausible that Max survived both shots and was arrested either then or at a later date, especially given the series' resurrections of both Victor Drazen and Tony Almeida himself.

Flashforward to Day 3 when you say that Wayne Palmer mentions that Max was arrested instead of killed. I haven't watched Day 3 in a long time, but it seems to me that even if Max was incontrovertibly killed in The Game, Wayne's statement would have to be looked at as either a misstatement, a lie, or a retcon. Our policy is to only jump to the retcon conclusion as a last resort, and I don't see that that's the case here. At best it's an interesting BGIN. I'd be interested in reviewing exactly what Wayne's line about Max was to see what he context is, but it seems to me that there are valid arguments for putting him as Alive, Deceased or even Unknown, even without any retcon or IU contradictions. --proudhug 01:58, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

Wayne never says Max specifically. He just says "the man in charge". This could mean Trepkos or another associate for all we know. He probably is referring to Max in context, but he wasn't specific enough. --ASHPD24 02:00, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... well that makes it even less of a blatant contradiction, then. It's possible that CTU could've found further information about another "man in charge" (Trepkos or not) either from interrogating Max if he survived the shootout, or from searching his yacht if he didn't. But no matter how you slice this, there's no irreconcilable contradiction with The Game and the show. The only issue is what Max's status should be. --proudhug 02:10, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like you both may be forgetting an important fact: Max explicitly was the "the man behind the attempt on your life" with no questions asked or doubts remaining. This is established in the TV show unequivocally: recall that Trepkos had absolutely no idea what Max was talking about when the second plan with Mandy went into motion. The assassination attempt on Palmer was between Mandy and Max only. The apparatus of people involved in the rest of Day 2 wasn't in the loop. (The line stated by Wayne has been in the Trepkos BGIN for months if you want to check it.)

Now that I have shown that Max is the person Wayne was referring to, it is clear that he was arrested and not killed within the continuity of the TV show. Then, a bunch of years later, a console game comes along and has you lay him out with a headshot? There's no argument that he lived through that inside the continuity of The Game. He's freakin dead, complete with a satisfying and dramatic death scene, and that's the end of it. Also you've killed all his people in giant gunfights. Game over.

... Except now it's clear that these are two completely different continuities, irreconcilable to the last detail. Max's group is shot to death in the Game, and so is he; but in the show, he is "arrested" and his top tier people are "put away as well" which means arrested.

Proudhug as always I deeply respect you and your views but I'm not seeing any other way around this. That the TV series and the Playstation game are different continuities is naked fact. It's not clear to me how I'm expected to stand for you using sledgehammers to ceaselessly slam the square Game continuity peg into the round TV series hole. The same goes for the novels and the comics and the rest of the contradictory stuff. These things are great and they belong in the project but you're taking an unwarranted and unjustified creative step when you force all this into 1 continuity. Instead of quibbling with the semantics and the fine details of whether Max survived a direct gunshot to the face and whether he fell slowly etc. etc. etc., please just take a moment and look at all this through the lens I'm laying out here. Everything will resolve itself. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 23:26, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

When you say "the apparatus of people involved in season 2 didn't know about it", you mean all the characters that we saw didn't know about it. There could be someone above Max, telling him what to do (let us not forget how many people were behind the assassinations of david palmer and michelle dessler) - the thing is nothing was explicitly stated about the baddies at the end of s2 cos it was all so quickly done and shown in such tiny bits(maybe "tacked on" is too harsh a phrase). There is also the possibility that Wayne Palmer, and indeed the whole justice department, were wrong about who was "behind the assassination attempt" - yes we know that trepkos didn't know aobut it, but perhaps he tookthe rap for it to save the face of Max's oil company.

There are a myriad of possibilities that make the game and s2 work together. Yes I am making creative leaps in order to concoct a story, but the fact that I can shows that it's not a total contradiction. To make the different things work together, we end up with ridiculous situations (like Parker and Biselli turning up to 23033 Pine Canyon and somehow not noticing Ted Paulson being taken away in an ambulance, or the recent number crunching I just did on the flight 221 article to show that there were roughly 100empty seats, despite Tony's statement "why would the plane take off with an empty seat"), but sometimes we end up with quite interestigng ways of the two sources working together (I think Ted Cofell situation worked out quite good). But in terms of this particular argument (about Max) I don't think there is a contradiction.--Acer4666 23:51, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

Very well said. And it's the truth - we don't know it was explicitly Max being referred to. It could've been Trepkos. It could've been his ever-present friend. It could've been someone unseen. It could've been someone above Max if there were. The fact of the matter is, no name said = no conclusive evidence that it was Max that Wayne was referring to. --ASHPD24 00:19, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

To reiterate here:

• It's really not that hard to reconcile Max's death with Wayne's statement. As illustrated, there are numerous ways for it to work.
• Max clearly didn't die from the "headshot" since he subsequently shot Jack Bauer. Dead people don't often fire guns. And the last shot we saw him take that "finished" him definitely hit him in the bullet-proof vest, as we see sparks come up from it, not blood.

Let's say that the series had ended at Season 6 and the plot we know as Season 7 was instead used for a PS3 video game. Would you have the same objections to them bringing Tony back to life, when he was clearly seen to have died on-screen? Why is it okay for the TV series to come up with implausible retcons, but not other media? You say that you don't see any way around this, but it seems to me that you don't want to see a way around it. I apologize for the accusation, and I hope I'm wrong and you are open to see how they can fit together, but it honestly currently appears otherwise to me.

And as a tangential side-note, this is my all-time favorite series of annoying retcons:

Logan: Oh my God, you gave the order to have David Palmer killed.
Cummings: That was an unfortunate, but necessary intervention.

- Day 5: 12:00pm-1:00pm

Jack: You conspired to make have me take the fall for David Palmer's assassination. What makes you think I'm not gonna kill you myself?
Nathanson: Because I can help you find this nerve gas.

- Day 5: 3:00pm-4:00pm

Audrey: Are you saying that President Logan ordered Palmer's assassination?
Jack: Henderson gave the order but […] President Logan was complicit.

- Day 5: 11:00pm-12:00am

Jack: David Palmer?
Graem: Yes, I gave the order for his assassination…

- Day 6: 12:00pm-1:00pm

My point here is, how many times have we watched 24 and thought, "What?? That makes no sense at all. Oh well, it's an interesting twist, despite being completely ridiculously improbable." I mean it goes right back to the Nina mole twist, or even the Alan York one! But as I said, you seem to think it's okay when the TV show does it, but not when any other media does it. I mean really, that itself makes The Game fit in with the show, doesn't it? --proudhug 03:41, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

All that Season 5 business does not apply to the Max situation, because that was about a group of like-minded people who shared the same beliefs on the details of their conspiracy. They were not just working in the same day but they all explicitly agreed on killing Palmer. Max on the other hand did not work as closely with his people! I'm not making a hypothesis here: the last episode with him in Season 2 proved this.

I challenge you guys: no more semantics, guesswork, or fabricated hypotheses to support the alternative. Proudhug is making a comparison to another season (potentially useful but confirms nothing) and ASHPD24 and Acer are both shooting out random possibilities without any IU support.

I'm presenting a string of logic derived from IU facts directly from the show, not guesswork like the opposition is doing. It may be helpful for me to lay it out like this in a step-by-step process:

—(1) Max directly orders Mandy to attack Palmer. No one else is seen to be aware of—or involved in—this process

(at this point, if you disagree, you must provide IU proof of who else was involved on the Mandy hit on Palmer. if you DO agree move on to the next point)

—(2) Wayne says David's administration "not only arrested the man behind the attempt on your life, but you also exposed his organization and put his top tier people away as well".

(at this point, if you disagree, you must go away because Wayne actually said this)

—(3) The man who was behind the attempt on David's life is Max.

(at this point, if you disagree, you must provide IU evidence that someone took the fall or was framed instead of Max)

—(4) Therefore Max is in prison.

And the point of that Game ending is clearly to show that Max is shot to death. It makes no narrative or dramatic sense to have him survive that encounter. It is logically clear that these continuities are separate.

I don't want to sound like a tool but it's sort of disappointing to see everyone making stuff up to support the opposition when the details are so clear. Wayne's statement is perfectly clear. He's talking about Max. If you doubt that, then you might as well doubt that David Palmer was born in America because we weren't shown a full-screen close-up of his birth certificate. You might as well doubt any spoken line because of whatever postulation you can summon at the moment that may make it untrue. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 05:21, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

My IU support is the fact Max was shot to death on the yacht. Therefore Wayne can't have been talking about him. Does that lead me to an impossible situation? No, as I demonstrated above, there are possibilities (not supported ones, just my imagination) that make it feasible. I don't need to support them, because I'm not stating any of them happened, but they could've done. There are many things that the writers don't show - how did Ostroff manage to set up a meeting with someone who had a CTU keycard within minutes of Bierko deciding to target America instead of Russia? Surely that is a complete contradiction? Explain that to me, with IU support, and not using your imagination at all, or we must remove that storyline from the wiki--Acer4666 08:25, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

I see that my answer may seem quite short in response to that step by step process you laid above, so I can answer to that if you like. Steps 1, 2, and 3 (the ones you have explained and expanded upon with italics) are very valid, however the jump to step 4 (which you haven't explained at all) is not a logical step.

1) Yes, it's true that we didn't see anyone else involved in the assassination. However to say that implies that no-one else was involved, doesn't make sense. Not to get into too much existentialist debate, but just because we don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

2) Yes, Wayne said that.

3) Yes, Max was a person behind the assassination attempt. Might not have been the only one, we cant say that for sure (no in-universe evidence definitively states he was working completely alone)

4) Woah, there sally! Not definitively stated. Very likely, but not 100% certain.

If the Game didn't exist, we would take it to mean that Wayne was on about Max (this is an assumption). We make such assumptions all over the place (like your example of assuming David Palmer was born in america), ie everyone could be lying. We have no cause to question such things. However, if cause to question it comes up (like Max getting his head blown off), then we have to ask whether this causes a complete contradiction or not. In this case, it doesn't.

We all have our own personal bugbears about eu content overriding stuff from the show - and it is annoying when someone comes up with an implausible solution that isn't supported by in-universe evidence. But for the canon policy to work, we have to make these things fit as best we can ;)--Acer4666 12:02, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

We can't make up stuff to help force details from EU content to override the show, so we can't say Max's obvious death on his yacht in The Game invalidates Wayne's comment. And to say that Wayne wasn't talking about Max is an insult to the show. There was only 1 man shown to be "behind the attempt on your life" and we have no place assuming anything else about it because of an EU source that contradicts it... a source which came out years later! So, I'm beginning to realize something about the structure of the wiki which is behind my posts here at this Talk page. I'm starting a thread over on Forum:Separate continuities; the forum seems to be the best place to talk about these implications that go beyond Max. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 04:52, May 19, 2011 (UTC) —— Actually, I'll make that thread after I get an answer on something. Apologies for jumping the gun. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 05:11, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

No one's making anything up to force anything. It is possible for the two pieces of story material to fit together. Period. That's not made up, it's a fact established above. And that's all we need here! We don't have to prove that anything specific happened, just that there's no contradiction. No one's trying to prove something that wasn't seen on-screen, just that it's not impossible for the evidence to fit together. We're not "making stuff up to support the opposition." I don’t even know what the "opposition" is. We’re not trying to figure out how it works, only to conclude whether or not it's a contradiction. And by providing numerous hypothetical examples of how the facts can be reconciled, we’ve proven that it’s not a contradiction. I hope you don't think anyone's advocating that we include any of these hypotheses as IU fact.

To say that casting doubt upon a character's lines is an insult to the show makes no sense. Just because Wayne said something doesn't mean it's true. We can point to countless instances where characters have either lied or been misinformed, including Wayne himself. Our policy is to accept dialogue as truth, unless there's reason not to do so. In this case, there are many good reasons to question what Wayne said.

You say that it "makes no narrative or dramatic sense to have [Max] survive that encounter." Did it make narrative (or even logical) sense to have Tony survive Day 5? Hardly. But that didn’t stop them from doing it anyway. This is 24 we're talking about here.

"And to say that Wayne wasn't talking about Max is an insult to the show."

And to say that The Game is in a different continuity is an insult to the game. Have you even played the game yet? Or watched the ending at least? You keep saying he's obviously dead, but ignore the strong evidence that he survived. Is there some deeper reason you really don’t want the two to reconcile? In my opinion, there's a much stronger case for Max's survival than there is for Wayne lying or having been misinformed. The evidence I provided above pretty much clinches it for me that he wasn't killed, even without Wayne's vague line. And if he wasn't killed, he was almost certainly arrested, as stated. Since we can't prove conclusively either way, I'd advocate we put his status as "Unknown." --proudhug 05:18, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Wait, please help me get some details straight. No, I haven't played the game, because I don't have a Playstation or the Game itself, so I'm relying on your account here.

You say that the headshot drops Max on his back. Jack then has to shoot twice more. Your entire argument about Max "possibly surviving" these shots seems to revolve around a spark coming out of his vest on the second shot. Really? Sparks don't come from bulletproof vests when struck in real life. They come out from bulletproof vests in Playstation game cutscenes. I went nuts YouTubing this and never saw anything more than a fine mist of dusty particles come out from any vest that was shot, from weapons of many calibers. The point here is that the spark is a side effect of the game's special effects programming. It says nothing and proves nothing because it makes no sense and it the result of a console game's programming limitations or minor dramatic oversight.

What about that first shot? the one Jack fires as Max shoots his own bullet? I need to know more about that one.

Next, about Wayne. There is no reason within the show to suspect that he was incorrect or lying. Any time a character lies or is misinformed, it makes sense within the continuity of the show or it's simply a continuity error. No regular fan who watches the show and pays close attention says that Max was killed: he says that Max was arrested in a brief line at the start of Season 3. The Game came out years later, and does not invalidate what the show established. I'm not saying that the Game is non-canon, I'm saying it's a separate but equal continuity. Emphasis on the "separate" for this conversation.

You're only seeing my "dislike of the Game" but focus on the details I'm providing. I'm not just sitting here whining about how I don't like it, and, think for a moment about what I'm seeing: your deep appreciation for it and your instinctual desire to make these two fit. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 05:46, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

Also, "providing numerous hypothetical examples of how the facts can be reconciled" never, ever proves that anything is "not a contradiction". They're hypothetical. Here's an example: a space alien in the form of a vapor came to Earth and took over Jack's body. Jack Bauer ceased to be, the moment this alien went inside his skull. But nobody IU knows this. I can provide numerous "hypothetical examples" to support how this could happen, to reconcile how that story is part of the same continuity as the TV series. But... it wouldn't work, because hypothetical examples don't prove scat. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 05:51, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

The "headshot" is a mission requirement but doesn't play into the actual plot, it seems. Once you shoot him, he staggers for a moment and then slowly falls to the ground. Whether it's really a headshot or not doesn't really matter since he 100% survived to fire a shot at Jack several seconds later. The result of Jack's second shot is unknown as we only see Jack getting hit himself, but Max is still moving when we see Jack's third shot hit him in the flak jacket. Didn't you argue a while back that we shouldn't include CTU agents who get shot as deaths on the "Deaths on 24" page since it's assumed they wear vests? This is the same situation. I don't know about real life, but in movies you often see people get knocked unconscious when they're shot wearing a vest, only to come to later on. I believe that even happened to Jack in Season 8, didn't it?

"Think for a moment about what I'm seeing: your deep appreciation for it and your instinctual desire to make these two fit."

Haha, hardly. The plot of the Game is absolutely ridiculous and I only have appreciation for how fun it is to play as Jack Bauer. I'd never tote the game as being brilliant writing, since it's pretty bad at times. However I still put it scores above Season 6, so go figure. You're right though that I have an instinctual desire to make it fit, but that applies across the board with all of 24, even the flaws within the show itself.

"Also, "providing numerous hypothetical examples of how the facts can be reconciled" never, ever proves that anything is "not a contradiction"."

Um, that's exactly what it proves. All of the examples we've given were plausible within the realm of the show's reality. Nothing as farfetched as your "hypothetical" example has ever happened in the 24verse, but things way more farfetched than the reconciliations we've proposed have occurred within the show itself. --proudhug 12:39, May 19, 2011 (UTC)

The Game canon or not?

We're assuming Jack killed Max, and "the man responsible for the attack on (Palmer's) life" who Palmer arrested was Trepkos, because Jack kills Max in the game. However, Live Another Day lists a kill count for Jack, and Max isn't on there. Does that mean this game is non-canon, or did whoever made the list forget to include him the same way as Abu Fayed (why was Fayed excluded? He was one of the main villains and Jack hanged him). Ghostkaiba297 (talk) 00:16, July 2, 2014 (UTC)

Anything listed on the show, movies, games, novels or comics is part of the canon. The on-screen kills only show what is seen on-screen on the show itself so anything from the other material is not shown for that project and we're not making a list of people who can be killed in the game since it would be too subjective.

Also please note that I've also brought up people who were confirmed as being dead after-the-fact like Serge on Day One but everyone else has insisted that the on-screen kills only pertain to on-screen not be changed to Kills by Jack Bauer.--Gunman6 (talk) 01:15, July 2, 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the scene in Live Another Day where it showed a list of Jack's kills, not the list on this wiki. Max should be between Scott and Peel. Ghostkaiba297 (talk) 02:22, July 2, 2014 (UTC)

The CIA list could be incomplete, we could be seeing only a part of it, or maybe people never knew Jack killed Max. The fact that we see Jack actually killing Max is the only confirmation we need. Thief12 (talk) 02:32, July 2, 2014 (UTC)

It was an incomplete list because of either one of those scenarios as well as the fact that the writers even used our wikia as a source for the brief graphic design shot as stated in an interview with Jon Cassar. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gunman6 (talk • contribs) .