So firstly, I gotta say I really do love this game. The art style, the music, the voice acting, the blending of Turn Based JRPG and Soulslike parry/dodge system and level design. I love the overworld, combat feel, extra bosses, unique character builds. Such a fun game to play.
That being said, I finished the game last week and something really bothers me about the narrative and it’s kind of spoiling some of the positive feelings I had for the game up that point.
Spoilers Ahead:
spoiler
The reason I fell in love with this game early on was because I connected with the themes of struggle and self sacrifice for future generations. In Act 1 and Act 2, that is clearly the focus of the game. We need to defeat the Paintress to make the sacrifices of all the prior expeditions worth it. I didn’t expect that narrative to necessarily be straightforward, but I DID expect that theme of self sacrifice for a better future would be paid off in some way…Boy was I wrong.
When you fight the final boss in Act 3 (which is way too easy btw), you are presented with a decision to either destroy the canvas (Verso’s ending) or save the canvas by forcing Verso to continue to live and Verso’s soul to continue to paint. (Maelle’s ending).
In my playthrough, I chose Maelle’s ending originally because I wanted to see my mission to completion. This whole journey we’ve been fighting and struggling to save the people of Lumiere (very clearly real people with free will, trauma, and complex emotional depth).
But the way the game presents this ending is odd. It almost tries to portray this as Maelle not accepting reality, and not focusing on the real world which is more important. The message seems to be that you should accept reality and let these people die. Which, like…wtf.
I care about my party members. I spent the whole game with them.
Then I went back and watched Verso’s ending separately and whew man this is what really set me off. We just let everyone fucking die except the Dessendres, and this is pretty clearly presented as the “good ending”. The colors are more vibrant, the music is more hopefull, the Dessendre family is together, and they are ready to greive and move on with their life.
Like I get what they were trying to do here, but I really don’t think this works from a narrative perspective.
The Dessendre family represents the “meta” narrative. They are stand ins for the for the player and people in reality. So the meta narrative is telling you that the world the painters built isn’t important and isn’t worth saving. And actually the fact that you might enjoy playing this game, is used as a meta narrative beat to make you feel guilty for wanting to stay in the world longer.
The goals of the main narrative, on the other hand, (ya know…“Expedition 33”) are completely thrown away and not really even acknowledged in either ending. Even if you choose Maelle’s ending there really is no self sacrifice. Everyone comes back; Gustave, all the people of Lumiere who were Gommaged, presumably anyone that Maelle has a memory of. And her argument for staying in the canvas isn’t because these people deserve to exist. The only justification she gives when speaking to Verso is “I need them”.
I don’t think either of these endings are “good”. I don’t mean that in a way where " there are pros and cons to both sides, you have to choose which pros and which cons you value you more". I mean, neither ending works to sufficiently as narrative resolution. And this gets into my biggest complaint about the game:
Verso
This guy is such a fucking twat and so unlikeable once you realize what his game is. He has the same goals as Renoir, he just hides his motivations from the party until the final moment of the game.
First off, when we’re introduced to his character it’s after the death of Gustave. In a conversation with Maelle at the camp, Verso admits that he could have saved Gustave but he chose to let him die. The reason being that Maelle wouldn’t have joined him otherwsie. Dude, wtf, the expedition is on a journey to defeat the Paintress, of course they would welcome your help. You’re already fucking lying to them, so I’m sure you’re capable of lying in a scenario where you save Gustave. Actually it would probably help to have 6 of you guys if you really want to expel your family from the Canvas.
Second, we go all of Act 2 with Verso withholding information, being super dodgy, not telling the party Renoir is his dad and who he actually is. Then at the end of Act 2, he betrays the party by helping Renoir kill everybody in existence in Lumiere.
Third, the party forgives him for that for some fucking reason and we continue on to the final fight in Act 3 where he betrays everyone yet again.
This is the would be protaganist who replaced someone who was far more noble and selfless. And then he doesn’t have any character arc, he’s just a bitch at the beginning and a bitch at the end.
Like why do you even have relationship levels with your party? You’ve clearly made up your mind that they don’t deserve to exist.
Sorry, for my vulgarity and rambling. This is just something I wanted to get off my chest. I find it pretty disappointing when a piece of media that I’m enjoying botches the ending.
I have a different interpretation of what the game was about, so my take away is very different, but I see your perspective and think its a good take.
Title
The game is about grief, and more specifically about dealing with/processing grief. The game kinda beats you over the head with it after the fake out narrative of the “Expedition” in Act 1.
Your party members, the NPCs, the fantastical creations of the painters, all don’t exist - they aren’t real. They’re all just set dressing for this awful canvas-grief-capsul of escapism that the Dessendre family created and have been languishing inside of for 67 years.
Each of the family members is dealing with the death of Verso in a unique, but still bad, way. The Mother locks herself into the memories of the past, disregarding her surviving family members and letting her corporal form waste away, and wallows in the sadness of her memories of Verso in the one place she still feels a connection to her dead son.
The Father originally entered the canvas to “free” his wife, but ends up crushed under the weight of the Mother’s grief and is literally imprisoned beneath the Monoliths that has become a physical manifestation of the mothers grief. Instead of doing the hard part of helping his wife deal with her grief, he falls into a similar pattern of complanceny in maintaining his grief rather than addressing it. (Painting to bring order to the chaos in his life. “The one thing he can control”)
The older sister, Clea, throws herself into her work of dealing with “The War” rather than addressing her grief, and as a consequence leaves the rest of her family to fend for themselves.
The younger sister, Alicent/Maell, clearly feels intense guilt for causing the fire that killed Verso. She’s scarred physically and emotionally, and entered the canvas to save her parents but got confused and became a baby who forgot everything and had to grow up again? (Honestly this part of the narrative really confused me.) She forms bonds with the almagamation of her dead brother and father (Gustave) and other Expeditioners which complicates things when she finally realizes what’s going on, but instead of actually dealing with her grief and confronting the reality of the situation and everything she’s gone through throughout the course of the game, she wants to basically stay in the Matrix and have a chance at living her “good life” in comfort.
That’s why the Maell ending is portrayed how it is. You’re ignoring everything you’ve learned from the family members you’ve been trying to save to basically go “Living in a delusional fantasy while my family wastes away as grief husks is super rad actually.” Verso by contrast actually wants things to be resolved. He’s been living as a weird grief golem for nearly a hundred years, he’s watched every member of this family trap themselves in this delusion and no longer wants to be apart of it.
It’s very metaphorical and junk.
I loved the game and thought it was very well done. Seriously one of the best I’ve played in a long time.
I still think it’s a great game and I respect that most people seem to appreciate the ending.
I think if I could just sum up my criticism; I know that the story is about grief. I don’t think they did a good enough job resolving the questions of agency inside the canvas that they set up through getting to know our party, the gestrals, the sentient white nevrons, etc. The ending prioritized having an intersting meta-narrative conclusion, as opposed to delivering on the themes of the expeditions (you’re literally walking over a bridge of expeditioners bodies at one point). In doing so, they undercut the importance of developing a relationship with our party and the world that we just spent 60 hours in. But I’ll get over it.
That’s fair, and I also felt short changed after it became apparent that the strong themes of sacrifice for the future were just a hook that was disregarded pretty quick. I was very interested in the lore of Lumiere and the previous Expeditions, but that all disappeared after the game decided that wasn’t actually important.
Yeah the themes definitely fall apart a bit by the end. I think the writing tried to do too much and the result was a bit of a mess. I think that Alicia (not maelle) is probably where the themes do come together. She wanted Maelle to try find a different conclusion but her message wasn’t delivered by verso and in her final scene she barely acknowledges verso because fuck him lol
Spot on.
pet theory
Have you heard about the theory that Verso faked his own death since he wanted to be a writer and his family would not allow that and made him paint?
It goes really well since the aspect of himself in the painting would have his nature, which is a manipulative liar who doesn’t care how much harm and suffering he causes as long as he gets what he wants.
That he needed a witness to sell the story and planned for Maelle to see but didn’t want her to get hurt. The tragedy of the family punishing Maelle for something Verso did while he’s off with a new family. The Maelle ending is the good ending; no genocide and she stays away from her abusive family who chased two kids away.
Makes for a much better capstone to the story than the ones presented.
That would make sense and fits with my view that the family is really not great. Clea was never shown to be anything other than vindictive and mean spirited, Renoir doesn’t care about life inside the canvas, Aline does but only because she’s using it as a tool grieve for her son. Verso is on team Renoir. Maelle is the only one that sees things clearly because she’s the only one who has empathy for the regular people.
