TEAM VERSO

[Kofina]

Verso's choice is the right one, don't let the Maelle Sympaths make you think otherwise!

[wildcardbitches]

It's pretty obvious that's the real choice and I'd argue anyone who thinks differently should see counseling because creating a fake world to live in where you are god is pretty opposite of a healthy mindset.

[Ratsplat]

Nothing is truly concrete, and so, discussions about what is right and wrong will go on for eternity.

[Cataclism7]

What's stopping Aline or Alicia from just recreating everything in a new canvas?
I know why Aline chose this canvas in particular: because it was created by Verso and has a piece of his soul in it. But it is never stated that the "fake" family that she painted depends on his soul being there, and Maelle/Alicia is able to repaint Lune and Sciel.
So, what's stopping them from painting everything again in another canvas?

You could argue that since it's a different chroma then the people wouldn't be the same as in this canvas, that they would be just copies. But the painted family are already copies of the real ones anyway, so I don't see why Aline, at least, couldn't get lost in a new canvas. Like changing your crack dealer. Diferent dealer, still crack.

[GodMan]

Verso's ending is very selfish, as the only thing you do is freeing Maelle off the painting all the while doing a genocide on the whole painted world. It's not the case if the world is fake. If people living there are self conscious, then morally they have the right to live.

Maelle wants to live in the painting, since its there that she has all her friends (at least thats what we know, since there isn't much said about the outside world other than the war with the writers). She would live and she would die there sooner or later depending on her powers and health that would let her be there. Her life outside is miserable. Broken family that will forever live with Verso's death, scarred face and no ability to speak. If you had a choice between staying and living happily or going back to the warzone between families what would you choose?

Its whole other story that she actually becomes tyrranical in her ending, moving Verso as her puppet, but objectively it was the best decision to be made.

[Cataclism7]

Originally posted by GodMan:

Verso's ending is very selfish, as the only thing you do is freeing Maelle off the painting all the while doing a genocide on the whole painted world. It's not the case if the world is fake. If people living there are self conscious, then morally they have the right to live.

Maelle wants to live in the painting, since its there that she has all her friends (at least thats what we know, since there isn't much said about the outside world other than the war with the writers). She would live and she would die there sooner or later depending on her powers and health that would let her be there. Her life outside is miserable. Broken family that will forever live with Verso's death, scarred face and no ability to speak. If you had a choice between staying and living happily or going back to the warzone between families what would you choose?

Its whole other story that she actually becomes tyrranical in her ending, moving Verso as her puppet, but objectively it was the best decision to be made.

Verso is such an ass that forcing him to play feels like the good thing to do lol.

[Weltall8000]

I kinda hate Verso as a character and gameplay party member, but, I think he's right.

He seems to not view the denizens of the canvas as real people, wants what is best for the real people, and wants the fantasy to end, putting him out of his experience of eternal misery.

[starrynite120]

Originally posted by GodMan:

Verso's ending is very selfish, as the only thing you do is freeing Maelle off the painting all the while doing a genocide on the whole painted world. It's not the case if the world is fake. If people living there are self conscious, then morally they have the right to live.

Maelle wants to live in the painting, since its there that she has all her friends (at least thats what we know, since there isn't much said about the outside world other than the war with the writers). She would live and she would die there sooner or later depending on her powers and health that would let her be there. Her life outside is miserable. Broken family that will forever live with Verso's death, scarred face and no ability to speak. If you had a choice between staying and living happily or going back to the warzone between families what would you choose?

Its whole other story that she actually becomes tyrranical in her ending, moving Verso as her puppet, but objectively it was the best decision to be made.

They morally have the right to live if they're self sustaining. But they're not. They require the soul of someone who wants to stop to continue painting. You could perhaps view them as parasites. Unknowing parasites, but still parasites.

This is simple if they can just be left alone and no one gets hurts. But someone is hurt by their continued existence. That makes it morally grey, there's no clear "right" choice.

[archmag]

Originally posted by wildcardbitches:

It's pretty obvious that's the real choice and I'd argue anyone who thinks differently should see counseling because creating a fake world to live in where you are god is pretty opposite of a healthy mindset.

Alicia didn't create this fake world. She went into it and by accident was born as a child and grew up in it. It was never fake for her for 16 years. She has friends in it. She isn't very social but she still has some people she cares about.

Imagine tomorrow god comes to you and says this world isn't real and here is a button for you to destroy it. Will you press it and destroy everything that exists in this world and wouldn't you be considered a psychopath because of that?

Verso is a psychopath. This world is real for him, he knows it is real for Maelle too. He still decides to destroy it because "he is too tired living in it". Maelle in her ending removes his immortality and lets him live a normal life. That's what a good ending is. They both live their full life in a world they consider real.

We play the whole game from the view of the people living in this world so we should consider how they feel and not how some outsider gods feels. If we played as those gods maybe we would feel different. But I played as Lune, Sciel, Verso, Gustave, Maelle, Monoco and Sophie, all 7 were born and spent all their life in this world, so it is understandable that I would think from their point of view and not as an outsider.

If I were thinking as an outsider then I can go one level up and see that family is just part of the game, they are not real, so I shouldn't care for them either. But if you choose their feelings over feelings of the ones who you played as the whole game it is weird.

Originally posted by GodMan:

Its whole other story that she actually becomes tyrranical in her ending, moving Verso as her puppet, but objectively it was the best decision to be made.

I don't believe she is moving or controlling him. He was waiting when he was going to play considering what he feels now, thinking if he is happy. She removed his immortality but didn't kill him outright hoping he can still enjoy this life like this ("If you could grow old. Would you... find a reason to smile?"). Even at the end her decision to stay was to make him happy too. She is becoming corrupted though and starting to lose her face because of staying too long in the canvas and starting to spend her chroma on other things now that her mother and father are gone from it.

[Shin Happens]

Yes, mass genocide for the sake of a suicidial psychopath and pathological liar who gaslights everyone from the very first second on and also for the sake of the utterly horrible Dessendre family (mostly the two parents and Clea) is surely the right choice........

Originally posted by starrynite120:

This is simple if they can just be left alone and no one gets hurts. But someone is hurt by their continued existence. That makes it morally grey, there's no clear "right" choice.

The thing is, the humans in the canvas are truly innocent, they NEVER asked for any of this, they know (knew) nothing of the true nature of the world. Apparently painters always leave something of them behind in a canvas, this is how their magic works. THEY are the reckless ones, they are irresponsible. We learn that Renoir was lost in his own creation before, even for a longer period than the current one. (i.e. more than 67 subjective years)

But never ever should you punish an entire civilisation that is innocent for the mistake someone else made. Also, the very ending entirely contradicts EVERY single encounter you can have with Young Boy Verso, his "faded/faceless boy" version, where he repeatedly tells you that he is sad about the death and destruction, that he never wanted for any of that, he even outright tells you that to him everything in the canvas is alive, real and has a soul and that in that he disagrees with Clea (you get this convo in the Flying Manor).

There is absolutely a morally right choice here: do not punish an entire civilisation for something they never were involved with in the first place. It's the duty of the Dessendres to treat their creation (or that of Verso) with love and kindness, not armageddon.

That they can't do that, apparently, tells us all we need to know about them. They are utterly horrible, selfish people who are either too dumb or too ignorant to see the consequences of their acts and think it all through.

Also, remember Verso painted this as a boy, apparently his only canvas, and then he lived for another 15+ years at least, he died in his mid twenties or so in the real world, and ALL this time the real Verso apparently did not give a hoot about his splinter of the soul in the canvas. Neither do all the other Dessendres, they are ok with that.

[Weltall8000]

Verso is basically an immortal demigod that is a copy of the world's creator (with less power) and has some affinity for the pantheon.

He has knowledge that his world is not "real." He knows he doesn't like it and that it prolongs the suffering of this family and as they suffer, they make their creations suffer.

Maelle is continuing this for her own amusement. Everything is subject to her whims.

It isn't genocide, they aren't even people. It's like talking to an AI chat script buddy.

[archmag]

Originally posted by Weltall8000:

It isn't genocide, they aren't even people. It's like talking to an AI chat script buddy.

People who think they are not real have bad imagination and can't make themselves to look at this world from the point of view of those people. They stop outside of that world even when they play as them for the whole game. They fail to connect with the characters they are playing as.

There are three layers or levels of immersion:
1. The world we live in - family's world isn't real, canvas world isn't real
2. The family's world - family's world is real, canvas world isn't real
3. The canvas world - family's world is real, canvas world is real

Why do you stop at level 2 instead of level 3 if you play as level 3 denizens for the whole game? Do you lack imagination to make yourself fully immersed? Why do you even go to level 2 then instead of just staying at level 1 and saying that neither are real so it doesn't really matter what happens to them?

The game is set in the canvas world, not in the family's world. So that's the default layer and everything that happens in the canvas world is real by game's setting.

[orcbuster]

Originally posted by GodMan:

Verso's ending is very selfish, as the only thing you do is freeing Maelle off the painting all the while doing a genocide on the whole painted world. It's not the case if the world is fake. If people living there are self conscious, then morally they have the right to live.

Maelle wants to live in the painting, since its there that she has all her friends (at least thats what we know, since there isn't much said about the outside world other than the war with the writers). She would live and she would die there sooner or later depending on her powers and health that would let her be there. Her life outside is miserable. Broken family that will forever live with Verso's death, scarred face and no ability to speak. If you had a choice between staying and living happily or going back to the warzone between families what would you choose?

Its whole other story that she actually becomes tyrranical in her ending, moving Verso as her puppet, but objectively it was the best decision to be made.

Thing is that both endings both basically kill of the people in the canvas.

they cease becoming people and become dolls which is much more gross.

The ideal would be that the creators leave the world alone but that isn't an option for obvious reasons.

Renoir was completely right in this regard: create, then let the artwork stand on its own and it becomes real. Reduce it to a dollhouse and you ruin the artwork.

[archmag]

Originally posted by orcbuster:

Thing is that both endings both basically kill of the people in the canvas.

they cease becoming people and become dolls which is much more gross.

Why? Why do you think they become dolls in Maelle's ending? They are still the same as they were before the start of the game, just without the fear of gommage looming over them. They are pretty happy conversing between themselves in the theater.

[orcbuster]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by orcbuster:

Thing is that both endings both basically kill of the people in the canvas.

they cease becoming people and become dolls which is much more gross.

Why? Why do you think they become dolls in Maelle's ending? They are still the same as they were before the start of the game, just without the fear of gommage looming over them. They are pretty happy conversing between themselves in the theater.

They have been like that for a very long time because that is the only way maelle allows them to be. They are not the people they were anymore, they've been reduced to this static dollhouse ideal she has because she refuses to let her ideal picture of them go. Its a really gross ending.

Its really odd to me how more people didn't pick up on this.

[Ogami]

Did anybody bring up that the "real" world is most likely also fake?
Look again what we see of it in the game. Once in the flashback at the end of act 2 and the Verso ending.
In both scenes everything in the background outside is invisible and covered in thick fog, the only thing visible is a Eifeltower looking silouhette.
Even more damming, in the scene where they show Versos gravestone it says
"Died December 33th 1905". That very strange, is it not?

I suspect we dealing with a Inception like "fake world inside a fake world" scenario and the supposedly "real" world is just a artifical created world itself.