SPOILER Ending

[Luna]

Hi guys

In my opinion Maelle's choice was definitely the best one.
I know many people find her an immature child who should return to real life, but she's the only one who accepts the responsibilities of creating a world and accepts her painful destiny to defend the people they created.

If you have the power to create worlds, you have to expect consequences and accept them.
Verso should have understood that.

Should a spirit be considered false because it was created by a human ? If this is true then Maelle seems to me to be the least selfish of this family.

Whatever, in my opinion, the so-called "real world" doesn't seem any different from the one in paintings. Look carefully. The writers seem to have already won the war anyway.

What do you think guys ?

[Loi]

I agree that she's the least selfish, and whilst maintaining their survival is a positive, giving them everything they want and erasing their grief is robbing them of verisimilitude - to the extent that some players feel like they aren't real anymore.

But you can definitely also read it as her making a sacrifice for them, losing herself in the canvas for their continued existence and to live a life she actually wants to live, even if it's shortlived.

[Gunslinger 🚬]

You're right, in the end Verso didn't even have any arguments in response to why Maelle should destroy the canvas and live in the shell of her burnt body, he just took out his sword...

[German Economy]

I dont think her intentions were that noble, you can pretty much see in the aftermath that she has this paint over herself, which i at least interpret as her loosing herself inside the canvas, she can pretty much do whatever she wants, creating life or taking it, ignoring everything else, which her mother tried and we stopped her forcefully.

Hard to judge without truly understanding the mechanics behind this, personally i know too little about the outside world but in my opinion versos ending is the better one.
She has family that is still alive and even if it hurts you gotta move on and i dont think it would be possible without everyone on board.

Loosing Maelle to the canvas is pretty much the same as her being dead too, stuck in this fictional world, to me it seems that the parents wont be able to move on without her.
Clea i am not sure, she seems to be pushing herself which i think is not healthy too in the long run, but it appears at least from the stuff i found relating to her that she does not want this "painted" self to be.

[Elsuya]

My main thing with the endings is how Lumiere's people are treated.
Verso obviously is just very VERY tired and wants to help their real family to grieve together.
Maelle however wants to stay in the painting until it literally kills her. Which is what Aline's was doing. So obviously Verso does what the real Verso did and wants to save her. But erasing everyone to do so is just cruel.
The endings are very sad, but I do wish there was a third option if you do something, anything. The void of two diffrent ways of sadness is just unbearing for me.

[Loi]

Originally posted by German Economy:

I dont think her intentions were that noble, you can pretty much see in the aftermath that she has this paint over herself, which i at least interpret as her loosing herself inside the canvas, she can pretty much do whatever she wants, creating life or taking it, ignoring everything else, which her mother tried and we stopped her forcefully.

Hard to judge without truly understanding the mechanics behind this, personally i know too little about the outside world but in my opinion versos ending is the better one.
She has family that is still alive and even if it hurts you gotta move on and i dont think it would be possible without everyone on board.

Loosing Maelle to the canvas is pretty much the same as her being dead too, stuck in this fictional world, to me it seems that the parents wont be able to move on without her.
Clea i am not sure, she seems to be pushing herself which i think is not healthy too in the long run, but it appears at least from the stuff i found relating to her that she does not want this "painted" self to be.

I'm loving seeing people's interpretations of Maelle or Verso acting for themselves or for others, it's the reason I love endings like these and I'm suddenly here on message boards talking about the game - something I rarely do.

It also is worth noting how myopic these endings are, there's so much scope outside to ponder if you so choose. In Maelle's ending we know she is sitting in front of a canvas in her family manor entranced - how long were her parents 67 years or her 16 in that world? Days? Months? Years? Are they going to just let her rot or will Renoir or Clea go in to pull her out?

And in Verso's ending what does the family do from here? Is Clea getting her family back to fight in her war against the Writers? Is Maelle able to paint or will she still be driven to restore her friends from the canvas?

Good stuff.

[Luminous Centipede]

Originally posted by Loi:

I agree that she's the least selfish, and whilst maintaining their survival is a positive, giving them everything they want and erasing their grief is robbing them of verisimilitude - to the extent that some players feel like they aren't real anymore.

But you can definitely also read it as her making a sacrifice for them, losing herself in the canvas for their continued existence and to live a life she actually wants to live, even if it's shortlived.

A big thing that stands out for me, is how almost robotic Verso seems in the Maelle ending. He doesn't quite seem in control of himself, and it leads me to wonder how "free" that continued life is for people. She also has effectively enslaved the remaining soul of the original Verso, to continue painting for as long as she chooses. Her eyes also get overtaken in a similar way to Aline and Renoir, perhaps signifying that she actually ends up perpetuating a new cycle, or that she may just be prolonging the inevitable.

In the Verso ending, everyone we meet, the world we, the player, know, the characters we've grown to love, the world we set out to save is destroyed. It likely helps break the cycle of grief that the Dessandre family experiences, but at the cost of dooming a world. Renoir's way of talking about the canvas worlds reminds me of how some groups of people act dismissive when they hear someone is emotionally effected by fictional media. A sort of "It was made up by people, so it doesn't actually matter" vibe.

Neither ending is GOOD, frankly, there is no good ending, and I think thats the point. Its an impossible decision that leads to great loss either way. No matter what, people suffer. Grief has thoroughly devastated the Dessandre family, and that has caused harm that reaches far beyond them, even if they dismiss or don't see it.

[Loi]

Originally posted by Luminous Centipede:

A big thing that stands out for me, is how almost robotic Verso seems in the Maelle ending. He doesn't quite seem in control of himself, and it leads me to wonder how "free" that continued life is for people. She also has effectively enslaved the remaining soul of the original Verso, to continue painting for as long as she chooses. Her eyes also get overtaken in a similar way to Aline and Renoir, perhaps signifying that she actually ends up perpetuating a new cycle, or that she may just be prolonging the inevitable.

I agree wholeheartedly, and just wrote about this in another thread:

Originally posted by Loi:

Originally posted by Slayer:

Verso sees it from the stage. It literally corrupts her.

I think Verso's reaction at the end is a bit more complex than that. Maelle has given him everything he said he wanted (if you consider aging a sign that his immortality is gone - if she will even let him die), and he's playing at a concert again. But is that really what he wanted? Did this Verso ever actually play piano or is this his mother's memory of her son implanted in him?

His body language suggests he's unsure of himself, he said "I don't want *this life*" - is this life she's given him truly better than the oblivion? He wanted to live once, but he doesn't seem to have a choice since what's happening to Maelle is exactly what he didn’t want to happen to her.

And it definitely ties in to "Break the cycle." from the promo posters - the expeditions? Or the grief? The expedition cycle is broken but is Maelle just another painter to be rescued in a different cycle?

Originally posted by Luminous Centipede:

Neither ending is GOOD, frankly, there is no good ending, and I think thats the point. Its an impossible decision that leads to great loss either way. No matter what, people suffer. Grief has thoroughly devastated the Dessandre family, and that has caused harm that reaches far beyond them, even if they dismiss or don't see it.

It is the point, and whilst I do understand that people want a more "satisfying" ending, I don't always feel like that's the right choice. If people get their third "Lumiere" ending where things work out for them without any negativity and with Maelle not losing herself, it would just be like many other games where it would be considered the "true" ending and the others would be dismissed as "bad/not canon" ones.

[Luminous Centipede]

Originally posted by Loi:

It also is worth noting how myopic these endings are, there's so much scope outside to ponder if you so choose. In Maelle's ending we know she is sitting in front of a canvas in her family manor entranced - how long were her parents 67 years or her 16 in that world? Days? Months? Years? Are they going to just let her rot or will Renoir or Clea go in to pull her out?

Time definitely seems to move faster in the canvas. In Verso ending, Alicia doesn't look 32, Clea doesn't look much older either. Its hard to pinpoint the exact time scale, but assuming that being in the canvas slows down your real bodies biological needs, perhaps months? I think the only set in stone date we have is when Verso died, the 33rd of December, 1905.

[goodbye_bonito]

Game: Tells you how important it is to be able to break the cycle of grief and to let go

Gamer: MaeLe EndInG iS ThE CorRect OnE!!!!1

[Loi]

Originally posted by Luminous Centipede:

Originally posted by Loi:

It also is worth noting how myopic these endings are, there's so much scope outside to ponder if you so choose. In Maelle's ending we know she is sitting in front of a canvas in her family manor entranced - how long were her parents 67 years or her 16 in that world? Days? Months? Years? Are they going to just let her rot or will Renoir or Clea go in to pull her out?

Time definitely seems to move faster in the canvas. In Verso ending, Alicia doesn't look 32, Clea doesn't look much older either. Its hard to pinpoint the exact time scale, but assuming that being in the canvas slows down your real bodies biological needs, perhaps months? I think the only set in stone date we have is when Verso died, the 33rd of December, 1905.

Yeah the Inception vibes are massive in this game, it feels like a major influence.

[Elsuya]

Originally posted by goodbye_bonito:

Game: Tells you how important it is to be able to break the cycle of grief and to let go

Gamer: MaeLe EndInG iS ThE CorRect OnE!!!!1

Yeah but also remember about the beings in the canvas. That's why the community is split... Although I a lot of "I don't want to support Verso because he is a lying piece of- but I think it's the correct ending"

[Loi]

Originally posted by Elsuya:

Originally posted by goodbye_bonito:

Game: Tells you how important it is to be able to break the cycle of grief and to let go

Gamer: MaeLe EndInG iS ThE CorRect OnE!!!!1

Yeah but also remember about the beings in the canvas. That's why the community is split... Although I a lot of "I don't want to support Verso because he is a lying piece of- but I think it's the correct ending"

Multiple endings just invite this discourse (unless you have a "true" ending to trump the others and render them glorified Game Over screens). You can either view that cynically (they wanted to erase the canvas but begrudgingly threw in an option where it survives in questionable circumstances), or as something to promote interpretations about reality, identity, life, elitism, grief etc. as is happening in all forums on this game.

I like to think it's the latter but I get people who think otherwise - especially if you're not used to it.

[Aradner]

I just finished, and i am sad to say that it sucks seeing the ending choice so fundamentally flawed. Basically, your choice is to either:

A) Burn one of the most important memento they have of a family member, because otherwise they cant possibly move on.

B) Take over the last memento of their family member and pervert it into grotesque caricature of itself that its original author would never want for it.

What pisses me off more, is that Maelle kinda had it figured out when she said her goodbyes to her father, just stay a while longer, fix what was destroyed, and let Verso's creations live on in their own little world as part of his legacy. It could be followed by Maelle letting broken Verso rest with everyone at peace.

don't get me started on whether or not the inhabitants of Lumiere could be considered sentient, cause if yes then its even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Loi]

Originally posted by Aradner:

I just finished, and i am sad to say that it sucks seeing the ending choice so fundamentally flawed. Basically, your choice is to either:

A) Burn one of the most important memento they have of a family member, because otherwise they cant possibly move on.

B) Take over the last memento of their family member and pervert it into grotesque caricature of itself that its original author would never want for it.

What pisses me off more, is that Maelle kinda had it figured out when she said her goodbyes to her father, just stay a while longer, fix what was destroyed, and let Verso's creations live on in their own little world as part of his legacy. It could be followed by Maelle letting broken Verso rest with everyone at peace.

don't get me started on whether or not the inhabitants of Lumiere could be considered sentient, cause if yes then its even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I think they're unambiguously sentient, and that's the tragedy. It's heartbreaking and I love it.

[Aradner]

Originally posted by Loi:

I think they're unambiguously sentient, and that's the tragedy. It's heartbreaking and I love it.

Yeah, but if they are, that means this whole story is, no matter whose side you're on, about a bunch of selfish gods that pervert someone else's loving creation into their own selfish needs, with all the very sentient life in it to suffer for it. And worse still is as I said, Maelle seems to understand this for a second right after fighting her father, and then just goes insane in her mother's footsteps a second later.