Making sense of the lore in chronological order [SPOILERS]

[Dovaah]

So, the game has a lot of things going on and it can get a bit confusing so I'm writing this as some kind of compendium to put down events that are going on (please, feel free to add to the discussion, I'm no expert and I'm just doing this on my free time. I'll edit things if I can cross confirm them since I finished the game 3 times already.)

I'll mention the real world for what is happening to the Dessendre family and the canvas for what happens in the majority of the game.

This obviously takes into account that you understand the basics as in, what is an expedition and what is a gommage etc.

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- The real world in 19th century France (specifically Paris) has 2 factions in conflict: The writers and the painters. The Dessendre family is part of the painter faction. They're not the only ones but it's them that we follow through the story. The reason for said conflict is not explained but it seems to be brutal and the painters seems to be on the weaker side.

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As a reminder: The Dessendre family is composed of 6 members.
- The father Renoir, The mother Aline, The older brother Verso, The older sister Cléa, The younger sister Alicia and a dog (The dog was important enough to be present in the family portrait and some manor pictures you see in the game. There are two dogs: Monoco and Noco.)

Also as a reminder: The painters have the ability to paint on canvases that they can project their consciousness into. What they paint can be given life and their very own personalities within the limits of a canvas. The process of projecting leaves their body immobile in the real world but takes a heavy toll on them physically every day they spend in said canvas. You also have a mention of getting addicted to the process without realising it.

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- In the real world (unknown date) Renoir and Aline marry and paint many canvases together. Aline seems to be more knowledgable about the painting process since she teaches Renoir how to use his gift without getting lost in it.

- February 22nd of 1879, Verso is born.

- In the real world, Clea and Alicia (unknown dates) are born.

- In the real world, Aline teaches (unknown date) her children how to paint and use their powers.

- In the real world (date unknown) Verso paints a canvas where he puts either things he likes (an alternate version of Paris called Lumière. Other places might be locations he visited as a kid.) or what reminds him of his sister Alicia (Esquie and/or Monoco). He also paints a group of people called Gestrals, which are reminescent of a mix between manequins/paint brushes (more on this at the end)

- On december 33rd (it is mentioned like this) of 1905 in the real world, the writer faction launches an attack on the Dessendre manor and sets it on fire. Verso dies, Alicia gets badly disfigured and looses her voice as a result. Alicia mentions that Verso died because of her but no details are given about what really happened.


- In the real world, Aline is struck by grief. She gets more distant with Renoir as a result. She can't accept the death of her son but knows that one canvas they have in their atelier was created by Verso and thus, still contains a piece of his soul. As a result, she decides to project herself in the canvas to be with her son again but she would stay there for very long periods of time and would put her health in danger. Renoir doesn't approve of this at all. He wants to grief in the "normal" way. Painted Verso, Renoir, Alicia and Cléa are created by Aline (The small boy we keep seeing in the game is the visual representation of his soul.)

- In the canvas, painted Cléa meets and dates Simon.

- In the real world, Renoir tries to get his wife out of the canvas. He enters and tries multiple things to kick her out of it ( The creation of the axons + the Fracture).

- In the canvas, the continent is fractured (year 100), Lumière is displaced after a major attack by an axon on the city. Aline's power diminishes. Renoir takes the opportunity to erase everything he can (hence the gommage). Aline reciprocate by creating the paintress to defend the canvas. Renoir is sealed beneath the monolith. The monolith rises as a warning to let the inhabitants know that her strength is diminishing. She starts with the number 100.

- In the real world, Cléa wants to fight back against the writers and her parents would be a substancial force to help but their fighting in the canvas takes so long she decides to intervene. She goes in the canvas, paints nevrons to kill expeditioners and as such, deny her mother chroma that would be needed for her to fight Renoir. She meets the painted version of herself and hates it so she paints over it, making her copy create nevrons without pause.

- Simon is part of the first ever expedition 0 which was created to search and rescue inhabitants of the original Lumière. The real Cléa passes herself as being the painted one, she gives to Simon the power to take down axons and tricks him into going into the monolith (Not clear why she would do as such when she wants her mother out of the canvas but maybe she was playing against both her parents then). Aline has Simon enter the bottom of the monolith to fight Renoir but he's too strong and Simon's mind breaks.
Painted Verso and Renoir are also part of expedition 0 but they didn't seem to be present when all of this happened.

- As a response to Cléa's intervention, Aline the white nevrons.

- During expedition 0, painted Verso kills Julie (his lover) to keep the canvas going because she saw him die, come back and thus, became suspiscious of him. He sides with painted Renoir at that point but killing Julie seems to make him change his mindset. He retreats from the conflict entirely and becomes a neutral party until expedition 58 (needs to be confirmed) shows up. By then, he is tired of people dying around him and he wants for it to end, no matter what happens.

- This conflict between Renoir and Aline goes on for 67 years (in the canvas).

- The first expedition journal happens with expedition 84 (Julie and Simon have their own from expedition 0 but they aren't numbered)

- Alicia wants to help her family and parents so after being given instructions by Cléa, she goes into the canvas. The conflict between Renoir and Aline is however so strong that she gets thrown off the process and loses her memories and is being born as her own individual in the canvas as Maelle. During that time, painted Renoir wants his own family. He creates a barrier in front of the paintress to protect her as her erasure might lead to a gommage he doesn't want.

- The events of the game take place.

- Painted Verso witnesses Aline dying from the time she spends in the canvas and decides to make real Verso's soul stop maintening the canvas.

- At the end, in the canvas, you have the choice to beat painted Verso into submission to keep the canvas alive (leading to Alicia/Maelle's death) or to kick Alicia out. This leads to the canvas being erased and all the characters disapearing.

- Even if they got attacked in their manor, the Dessendre family seems to remain at the same location.

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For the gestrals: They seem to be mannequins/paintbrushes a child would use as toys (hence why they like to fight and how waiting for them to be reborn have them being put in jars kinda like how you put your pencil in a cup when you don't use it.)

The curator: He is the real Renoir and provides help to Maelle/Alicia to get rid of painted Renoir AND Aline.

Painted Verso mentions that he prefered to learn piano rather than painting growing up but kept this to himself (conversation at camp) and the mask keeper axon is based after him so it seems that there is an emphasis on Verso not expressing what he feels and just keeping it in, even to his detriment.

Esquie can be seen in Alicia's arms in one of the endings but he also seems to have a deep connexion with Verso (comforting painted verso across the years and the wine being stashed in Esquie)
The toy itself might have belonged to Verso first before he gave it to Alicia or Alicia took it after Verso's passing.

[Dovaah]

Already noticed things I forgot heh. Fixing it now lmao.
Let me know if you feel like something is missing !

[Dovaah]

Edit:

- Taking the expedition journals into account.

- Taking the current conflict situation in the ending into account.

- Taking painted Verso's relationship with Julie into account

- Taking painted Verso's morals and ideals changes across the years into account.

- Correcting the origins of the painted versions of characters thanks to goodbye_bonito

- Correcting the mention of the Dessendre's family dogs thanks to luellessi

[dgresevfan]

Hold on.... So does this mean the Paintress was never responsible for deleting people?

What WAS causing people to vanish at younger and younger ages like that?

[Dovaah]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Hold on.... So does this mean the Paintress was never responsible for deleting people?

What WAS causing people to vanish at younger and younger ages like that?

Renoir was responsible. He wants the paintress (aka Aline) out of the canvas so the gommage is him gaining more power overtime and erasing the canvas little by little. The paintress tries her best to fight him off but since she has been there for a very long time, her strength is diminishing.

[Rezonus]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Hold on.... So does this mean the Paintress was never responsible for deleting people?

What WAS causing people to vanish at younger and younger ages like that?

When Renoir starts trying to erase everything (gommage) Aline makes the paintress to defend the canvas and the number represents her strength with the number starting at 100.

So she simply doesnt have the strength to protect them from erasure anymore.

[Swaylor Tift]

This ist great, thanks man! Leaving my comment here, to find it again, wegen I'm done with the game. (Beginning of Act 3 atm, and still trying to make sense of iT all)

[goodbye_bonito]

Painted Verso, Alicia, Clea and Renoir are made by Aline. As her family. I would assume city of Lumiere also created by her for them to live in as a happy family. Before real Renoir intervenes that's it.

Real Verso did a fantasy part of Canvas.

Real Renoir did not paint any people in there.

Real Clea repainted painted Clea into that zombie state that is now mass manufacturing Nevrons. And she repainted Simon into that monster. She the only one in the family with the skill to repaint other's creations

[Herbaman]

as far as im aware, Clea was responsible for almost all nevrons, aside from those made by Renoir around the axons and under the monolith. she made them to deny Aline chroma by trapping it inside the bodies of expeditioners they killed. the version of Clea that Aline made was painted over by the real Clea and ordered to keep making nevrons in her absence while she continued the outside war.

Simon was in love with Clea and she convinced him (painted him a little) they could be together if he killed the paintress, once he met the paintress, she convinced him (painted over him a little) that he needed to go below the monolith and kill the curator to save the world and then he could be with Clea, hence you end up finding him down in the abyss immortal and messed up from multiple paintings and 67 years of boredom.

[Dovaah]

Originally posted by goodbye_bonito:

Painted Verso, Alicia, Clea and Renoir are made by Aline. As her family. I would assume city of Lumiere also created by her for them to live in as a happy family. Before real Renoir intervenes.
Real Verso did a fantasy part of Canvas.

Real Renoir did not paint any people in there.

Real Clea repainted painted Clea into that zombie state and repainted Simon into that monster.

This actually holds ground since, it didn't make sense for me why painted Renoir would kill expeditions when they are part of a world Aline wants to stay alive and thriving. I'll edit this, thank you !

[goodbye_bonito]

Originally posted by Dovaah:

Originally posted by goodbye_bonito:

Painted Verso, Alicia, Clea and Renoir are made by Aline. As her family. I would assume city of Lumiere also created by her for them to live in as a happy family. Before real Renoir intervenes.
Real Verso did a fantasy part of Canvas.

Real Renoir did not paint any people in there.

Real Clea repainted painted Clea into that zombie state and repainted Simon into that monster.

This actually holds ground since, it didn't make sense for me why painted Renoir would kill expeditions when they are part of a world Aline wants to stay alive and thriving. I'll edit this, thank you !

Yes, it's a tragedy of situation. Expeditioners want to destroy Painters because they think she is a reason of the Gommage. Painted Renoir protects her because she is his family.
Also notice the color of petals. Painted Renoir has white petals during his powerups in battle and cutscenes, Aline's white petals.

While Gommage is red petals - Renoir's.

And Alicia's I think are yellow.

[luellessi]

We actually know the dogs names; the first time we control Alicia in the manor we can "talk" to the dogs and learn one is called Monoco and the other one is Noco :)

[Dovaah]

Originally posted by luellessi:

We actually know the dogs names; the first time we control Alicia in the manor we can "talk" to the dogs and learn one is called Monoco and the other one is Noco :)

I thought they were other toys of Alicia. Thank you for the info, I'll edit this !

[Dovaah]

Edit:

- Adding some theories in the end section based on bosses and characters

[Dovaah]

Edit:

- Adding some theory about Esquie in the end section

[Dovaah]

I made this a guide !

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3475683474

I think this game's lore is very good so any further input on events would be greatly appreciated !