Unanswered Questions After Finishing Expedition 33 (After Scouring Every Detail) * SPOILERS *

[The_Thing]

Hey everyone,

After finishing Expedition 33 three times and went through every single detail I could find (from environmental storytelling to paintings and optional dialogues), while the experience was incredible, there are still a few lingering mysteries that I can’t quite piece together. I wanted to share them with you all and maybe get your takes. Below are the questions I’m still wondering about:

1. Is there a connection between Goblu and Sophie?

When we encounter Goblu in Flying Waters, Gustave touches the rose and sees a brief vision of Sophie. Immediately after, Goblu attacks, as if to protect the rose. Is Goblu somehow connected to Sophie? Was her Chroma used in Goblu’s creation after she was Gommaged? Or is Gustave simply hallucinating due to grief and the rose just triggered a memory?
To complicate things further, Goblu appears in a painting inside the manor's living room in Monolith Year 49, suggesting it might exist independently of Sophie altogether.

2. What is the black sphere?

That eerie black sphere, like a massive eclipse with a red glow, keeps showing up:

Behind Renoir during the Monolith fight.

Beneath the Monolith during Simon’s encounter.

In the liminal "between-space" when Alicia first enters the canvas.

Is it just there to look cool and mysterious, or does it hold deeper meaning? Is it tied to the Canvas itself or maybe the metaphysics of Chroma and creation?

3. Who is the young boy in Maelle’s ending? Is he a fragment of Verso’s soul?

This is still unclear. The boy could be:

A random survivor or orphan

One of Gustave’s apprentices

Or… Verso’s soul fragment

Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter. Here's why:

The boy resembles Verso and has black hair, unlike Gustave’s apprentices, who have blonde and brown hair.
The apprentices are always portrayed as a trio, so why would Maelle choose just one of them? Also, it’s implied that time has passed inside the Canvas. If it was one of the apprentices, they would’ve grown up too, yet the boy looks relatively young.

Also, from a thematic standpoint, it makes far more sense for Maelle to be accompanied by someone meaningful rather than a random child. Considering how deliberate and symbolic the game is in every scene, placing an anonymous boy beside the protagonists during such a poignant scene, in a such an emotionally charged ending, would feel out of place and inconsistent with the game’s narrative style.

NOTE: To those who might say that Verso's soul is tired and wanted to destroy the canvas all along, so it can't be him, I say this: this is only true in Verso's ending. During various interactions, the Young Boy states that he loves to paint and he believes the world and the living beings inside the canvas as real and have souls. Right before the final fight with Renoir the boy states "maybe I should continue painting, if that was a choice". In Maelle's ending the conflict is over and the world and people are restored, and finally Maelle granted him that choice.

[Talbot]

3. Who is the young boy in Maelle’s ending? Is he a fragment of Verso’s soul?

There are a lot of truly insane theories for this but I think you're dead-on for what the most logical answer is: it's Soul Verso.

All the other theories require weirder jumps, but Maelle trying to help him enjoy the Canvas again is both extremely in character for her and very much in her best interests, and anyone else it could be requires a way larger narrative leap (arguably the *second best* theory is that he's Lune & Verso's son, so the competition for "reasonable" is not exactly fierce).

[Saelin]

1. No one knows
2. No one knows
3. No one knows

All three are up for interpretation, here are mine
1. Probably no relation
2. The black hole is often used to represent the event horizon, a space between two places. Probably to make it apparent it is neither lumiere nor the real world. It can also represent nihilism, but don't think that is the case here.
3. There's entire thread discussing that subject that someone else can link. It was pretty interesting.

[The_Thing]

Originally posted by Talbot:

3. Who is the young boy in Maelle’s ending? Is he a fragment of Verso’s soul?

There are a lot of truly insane theories for this but I think you're dead-on for what the most logical answer is: it's Soul Verso.

All the other theories require weirder jumps, but Maelle trying to help him enjoy the Canvas again is both extremely in character for her and very much in her best interests, and anyone else it could be requires a way larger narrative leap (arguably the *second best* theory is that he's Lune & Verso's son, so the competition for "reasonable" is not exactly fierce).

Exactly. I completely agree. Now, as to if he is Lune's kid, I am not convinced because he doesn't have any Asian features. Also that would require only one of the two possible romantic choice's between Sciel and Lune to be canon, so I doubt it's her kid.

[Talbot]

Originally posted by The_Thing:

Originally posted by Talbot:

There are a lot of truly insane theories for this but I think you're dead-on for what the most logical answer is: it's Soul Verso.

All the other theories require weirder jumps, but Maelle trying to help him enjoy the Canvas again is both extremely in character for her and very much in her best interests, and anyone else it could be requires a way larger narrative leap (arguably the *second best* theory is that he's Lune & Verso's son, so the competition for "reasonable" is not exactly fierce).

Exactly. I completely agree. Now, as to if he is Lune's kid, I am not convinced because he doesn't have any Asian features. Also that would require only one of the two possible romantic choice's between Sciel and Lune to be canon, so I doubt it's her kid.

It also feels pretty character-assassinationy to me for Lune to end up with Verso given the events of Act 3, but YMMV.

I also think Lumiere still being wrecked and there still being rose petals everywhere in that ending suggests that not a ton of time has passed since the final battler. Like, maybe a week or two at most, but not nine years or however old that kid is (plus nine months).

[Crimsomrider]

1. There is no connection between them two, the flower simply reminded Gustave of Sophie. A single rose in a field of flowers, reminding him of the very same rose he carefully picked for Sophie and placed on her, moments before her death. To ultimately show he is still grieving for her and always will, because she was his world.

2. I always saw it as a space between realities that just looks cool. The problem is it is in so many places that if it does have some meaning it certainly escapes me, because it is in the sky, it is within the Monolith, it is below the Monolith, it is carried by Creations, it is carried by the Chromatic Danseuse.

3. Little Verso restored by Maelle so he can be with his sister and be happy again.

Little Verso throughout the journey constantly talks about how much he loves the Canvas, its people, wanting to protect his world and how much he misses being with his family (Maelle's motives), but he also talks about how the conflict that is destroying his world torments him and can't decide if he should stop painting (Verso's motives).

Therefore he acts as a neutral entity, unable to choose what he should do and thus leaving the choice to Maelle or Verso. In either case he gets what he wants.

Since the story is entirely about Maelle with him in its very center, him being Little Verso in her ending is the only conclusion that keeps endings intricately crafted and on point. Because in Verso's ending Maelle is holding the toy of Esquie, which is not her toy actually - it is her brother's, the last piece of him that she has in that ending.

[The_Thing]

Originally posted by Crimsomrider:

1. There is no connection between them two, the flower simply reminded Gustave of Sophie. A single rose in a field of flowers, reminding him of the very same rose he carefully picked for Sophie and placed on her, moments before her death. To ultimately show he is still grieving for her and always will, because she was his world.

2. I always saw it as a space between realities that just looks cool. The problem is it is in so many places that if it does have some meaning it certainly escapes me, because it is in the sky, it is within the Monolith, it is below the Monolith, it is carried by Creations, it is carried by the Chromatic Danseuse.

3. Little Verso restored by Maelle so he can be with his sister and be happy again.

Little Verso throughout the journey constantly talks about how much he loves the Canvas, its people, wanting to protect his world and how much he misses being with his family (Maelle's motives), but he also talks about how the conflict that is destroying his world torments him and can't decide if he should stop painting (Verso's motives).

Therefore he acts as a neutral entity, unable to choose what he should do and thus leaving the choice to Maelle or Verso. In either case he gets what he wants.

Since the story is entirely about Maelle with him in its very center, him being Little Verso in her ending is the only conclusion that keeps endings intricately crafted and on point. Because in Verso's ending Maelle is holding the toy of Esquie, which is not her toy actually - it is her brother's, the last piece of him that she has in that ending.

well said, your answer is very thoughtful. My conclusions align a lot with yours to be honest