Time and its inconsistencies Spoilers for ACT II ending and beyond.

[paladin181]

I'm gonig to fill the first paragraph with a bit of fluff so that the preview will not show this to people who accidentally mouse over it.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas lorem eros, laoreet vitae velit eget, congue efficitur nisl. Curabitur nibh ligula, congue vel feugiat quis, porttitor at purus. Vestibulum blandit tortor ante, in convallis diam condimentum a. Nulla nec ante purus. Vivamus at neque dapibus, facilisis diam eget, tincidunt ante. Vestibulum congue ex nunc, vel sodales orci vehicula id. Ut sit amet tellus ac ipsum fermentum gravida. Aliquam convallis, augue a viverra fringilla, urna nunc pharetra odio, in pulvinar tellus diam a nisl. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nam porta massa nec ornare tincidunt. Quisque feugiat mi nec quam tincidunt semper. Cras nec urna enim.

Now, so it seems like time flows differently inside the painting, like a dream. Unless we are to believe that Alicia hasn't aged in an actual 67 years. Because while she is in the painting her real body is out in the world. I would have to think it has been days, not years in the painting. Obviously in the lore of the game, Painters and Writers have magical abilities to alter worlds with their works, and alter the worlds of their works. Even imperfect copies like Renoir and Verso have these abilities to some degree. and Alicia/Maelle, who is not a talented painter, but is a painter nonetheless.

So I have a few questions: How fast does time flow compared to the real world, and what would have happened had Aline or Renoir died while in the painting?

[DarkFenix]

We're never given any specific ratio of time flow, but we can assume time flows much faster inside a canvas. Aline and Renoir had spent 51 years fighting inside Verso's canvas even before Alicia went in, at which point Clea wasn't even especially concerned about it.

I've seen someone mention that Esquie, at camp, says it's been centuries since he played with the real Verso.

Given the fairly short time frame of real life events (ie. the fire kills Verso, Aline goes mad with grief and enters the canvas, Renoir gives chase, etc.), we may be talking a time flow thousands of times faster.

[Saelin]

The time dilation stuff doesn't make too much sense if you try to figure out the ratio, so I wouldn't worry much about it. I mean, it's either that or Renoir is even worse than I thought

[Saelin]

On second thought, screw Renoir. Let's get into it.

According to the writer, Gustave's family is one of the founding families of Lumière, and his family history is at least four generations.

I'm not sure if that includes him or he's the fifth generation, but let's just go for minimal numbers (the worst case scenario) and assume he's fourth and that there were only three before him, with Aline only painting the first one.

Let's also assume each generation had children at 18 years old, again to keep things at their absolute minimum.

This means Gustave was born Monolith year 66 (4th). His parents were born 84 (3rd), and his grandparents born -2 (2nd), or two years before the Fracture.

So assuming the 1st generation (doesn't really matter their age as long as they're old/young enough to have kids) had got it on the moment they were painted by Aline, then Aline spent a minimum of three years in the canvas before the Fracture. Which probably isn't very long irl, and might make Renoir look even worse.

Now again, this assumes Gustave is the fourth generation (which I am skeptical about) and at least two generations had children at 18 (even more skeptical about, and thinking about it now that means they got it on at 17).

So the math maybe checks out, with enough liberty given to allow for it. The issue with the time dilation is the time Aline spent before Renoir Fractured the world. There are two opposing issues.

1. If not a lot of time passed in canvas, then significantly less time passed irl. This is bad for Renoir as it means he spent basically no time waiting to see if Aline just needed a little time on her own before launching what would be a potential century long war.

2. If a lot of time passed in canvas, that means that the Painted Dessendre family should have maybe noticed they weren't aging.

These probably both can't be simultaneously true.

[Talbot]

A week or two back I tried to ballpark the extent of the time dilation and while it relies on a bunch of unprovable assumptions to do so, I think the safe "range" is that it's somewhere between 1:100 to 1:200, meaning for every day in the real world, there's about 100 to 200 days in the painting.

[Saelin]

So I kept thinking about it and realized there is a possible explanation for some of the conflicting time frames.

Aline writes in her journal "... I know what he'll say, but this is the first time I've felt any surcrease. For a few moments a day, my heart beats again..."

Two things to unpack here. First, that this implies she was only spending a few moments a day in the canvas initially. This trips up a lot of people that point out this likely means she spent a" few moments a day" over weeks, maybe months of real world time, which translate to a long, long time over canvas time. This assumption then is that the Painted were around a long time and painted Verso was lying. But her journal doesn't mention the painted Dessendre family at all, only real Verso, his creations, memories, and memories unmade.

What if she hadn't created the painted Lumieres until shortly before the fracture? Maybe she spent potentially hundreds of in canvas years with Verso (faded boy) and his creations.

Which brings us to the second thing. She already knew Renoir wouldn't approve of her going to the canvas. What if this wasn't related to the painted Lumiere at all, which couldn't yet exist in any coherent time line?

We've been led to assume that Renoir is in the canvas because of Aline created a painted family and wouldn't get out, but what if the reason Aline decided to stay in the first place was because she knew Renoir would try to destroy the canvas if she hadn't, and she only created the painted shortly after making this decision to stay?

It's worth noting that Maelle literally has this exact thought in her ending, that she can't risk leaving or Renoir might destroy the canvas.

A lot of the events could just because a control freak father is trying to push what he wants to everyone, through force, and no one is comfortable talking to him about it (or know it's pointless to).

[Talbot]

Originally posted by Saelin:

Aline writes in her journal "... I know what he'll say, but this is the first time I've felt any surcrease. For a few moments a day, my heart beats again..."

She also doesn't say, "for a few moneys a day, while I'm only temporarily in the painting, my heart beats again..." so another fair interpretation is that she's in the painting full time, and even that only gives her a few moments per day of true relief.

[Kethanid]

Dying in the painting I'm assuming just kicks them out to their bodies in stasis. Or at least their form while channeling. The time ratio though, not sure.

[parent child bowl]

Renoir is a recovered canvas addict. He knows exactly what Aline is doing because he went through that himself and needed to be saved by Aline.

If Aline didn't show crack addict behaviour, Renoir would have had no reason to act.

[RejectedByAnthonyDavis]

Time dilation, whatever the ratio, makes Aline's reappearance in the final battle unintentionally hilarious and embarrassing for Alicia/Maelle.

Because it essentially means that she managed to find Alicia's "well hidden" canvas mere minutes after being ejected from it.

Great idea, Maelle.

[paladin181]

Originally posted by RejectedByAnthonyDavis:

Time dilation, whatever the ratio, makes Aline's reappearance in the final battle unintentionally hilarious and embarrassing for Alicia/Maelle.

Because it essentially means that she managed to find Alicia's "well hidden" canvas mere minutes after being ejected from it.

Great idea, Maelle.

According to Clea, Alicia is a ♥♥♥♥ up anyhow.

[Talbot]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

Renoir is a recovered canvas addict. He knows exactly what Aline is doing because he went through that himself and needed to be saved by Aline.

If Aline didn't show crack addict behaviour, Renoir would have had no reason to act.

Because no one who's ever had a traumatic experience ends up hyper-vigilant as a result and later lets that trauma drive them to overreact to something else, right?

[Talbot]

Originally posted by RejectedByAnthonyDavis:

Time dilation, whatever the ratio, makes Aline's reappearance in the final battle unintentionally hilarious and embarrassing for Alicia/Maelle.

Because it essentially means that she managed to find Alicia's "well hidden" canvas mere minutes after being ejected from it.

Great idea, Maelle.

It's probably more hours or even days than minutes, given that the Expedition presumably took a few in-Canvas weeks to gather all the corpse chroma, but the point stands.

[Saelin]

Originally posted by paladin181:

According to Clea, Alicia is a ♥♥♥♥ up anyhow.

I suspect Clea might resent Alicia a bit since she's the youngest and likely the spoiled child. I think the only one in the family she was really close with was Verso, and might have taken it the hardest.

Originally posted by Talbot:

Because no one who's ever had a traumatic experience ends up hyper-vigilant as a result and later lets that trauma drive them to overreact to something else, right?

I don't think it's even that though, I think it is just always about control for him.

[Kethanid]

Originally posted by Saelin:

Originally posted by paladin181:

According to Clea, Alicia is a ♥♥♥♥ up anyhow.

I suspect Clea might resent Alicia a bit since she's the youngest and likely the spoiled child. I think the only one in the family she was really close with was Verso, and might have taken it the hardest.

Originally posted by Talbot:

Because no one who's ever had a traumatic experience ends up hyper-vigilant as a result and later lets that trauma drive them to overreact to something else, right?

I don't think it's even that though, I think it is just always about control for him.

For Renoir I feel it's guilt, he feels it because he wasn't there to save his son, or was unable to. In the final fight, he says, I want it to be fixed, I need it to be fixed. His reasons aren't entirely about the other family members, he's being selfish as well, which is understandable, he's suffering also.

[Dinobot]

Originally posted by Saelin:

Originally posted by paladin181:

According to Clea, Alicia is a ♥♥♥♥ up anyhow.

I suspect Clea might resent Alicia a bit since she's the youngest and likely the spoiled child. I think the only one in the family she was really close with was Verso, and might have taken it the hardest.

Originally posted by Talbot:

Because no one who's ever had a traumatic experience ends up hyper-vigilant as a result and later lets that trauma drive them to overreact to something else, right?

I don't think it's even that though, I think it is just always about control for him.

Nah, if you had read through what Clea said to Alicia/Maelle in the forgotten battlefield and endless tower then you would know Clea is been very nice to Alicia/Maelle.

Clea is simply the grown up. At this point, the only grown up in the family. Renoir is just been too soft while Maelle is going through rebellion period lol Aline is just way lost, she failed as the head of the painters, failed as a wife and mother since Renoir, Clea, and Alicia/Maelle are still alive in reality/real world.

Honestly I don't get this control thing, in the end Renoir chose to leave the canvas, knowing Maelle had just lied in his face. That doesn't look like a control freak.