Expedition 33, hope and playing God
A warning for those who come after. This will be a spoiler heavy one. For Clair Obscur Expedition 33, yes, but I will also mention the Xenoblade series (1 and 3 specifically) and Nier Automata. Their endings too. If you haven't played and don't want those games spoiled, consider yourself warned and stop here.
I repeat, stop here!
Also, let me be clear: I like the game. It was made with passion and I don't think it's bad. However, this is gonna be a critique, and as such I'm gonna bring out what I did not like about it. About the ending specifically. If you feel like the game is flawless and should be let free from criticism for whatever reason, please stop reading as well.
You've been warned!
You good? Nice.
Let's go back in time, in late May / early June last year. I still haven't beaten the game, but I just reached act 3. Every non Dessendre citizen of Lumière gommaged by Renoire. First reaction shock, as someone in italian politics would say.
Then Maelle becomes aware of her power as a painter and paints back many of them, our party member companions first of all.
"So this means I can see my husband again" comments Sciel. "So this means Gustave might be back before the ending" I think. "It wouldn't be that strange, the situation being the way it is. Would I like it?" No. I wouldn't. It's a game about mourning and accepting the death of our loved ones. That would defy the message of the story... Right?
I get my answer a few weeks later, after a good amount of side content, when I decide to actually beat the game. I have to decide. 9S or A2... I mean... Verso or Maelle. Destroy the canvas and force Maelle to return to the "real world" or save the canvas and let Maelle stay there, living the best of lives, in her endless now. As a Xenoblade 3 fan, that's the determining factor that makes me take Verso's side. That's the right thing to do. It's painful to see everyone go. Lune's look is terrifiyng. But in the end... There's hope. For Maelle, I mean. She would be able to push forward and fondly remember the friends (and family) she lost.
Watching Maelle's ending solidifies my reasons for picking Verso's. It was unsettling. Scary. Gustave is back, yes, same as Sophie and Sciel's husband, but in a way that feels wrong. "So that's what they were planning" I think. "Me thinking having Gustave back to be a mistake was exactly what they wanted! Escapism bad! That's the message of the game!"
And that made me actually feel quite satisfied. I liked how Clair Obscur Expedition 33 ended.
Fast forward, some more months passed. More people finish the game, both unknown and friends. Some of them were happy to pick Maelle's ending. "Don't you feel guilty, murdering the friends you made? You started this adventure because you felt sad for them, don't you? Didn't that really sad prologue served that purpose?" Thinking about it... Yes, I feel guilty. I care for them. I care for them more than Maelle, Verso or anyone in the Dessendre family, actually.
Is Maelle's ending all that better than Verso's for them, though? Is being puppets with no free will any better than death?
Thing is, in this moment of the game, while you're deciding to side with Maelle or Verso, you're playing God. And I enjoy the concept, but it's also very unfortunate, as you have no choice to play as a benevolent God. You're gonna be the Zanza of this world, the selfish one. And there's no way your subjects can make a Shulk-like stunt and wish for a world with no Gods. Only thing you can do is fulfill Verso's selfish request or Maelle's selfish request.
An that made me think: was there a possibility to both save the people of the canvas and not have Maelle rot in there? The more I wonder about that, the more I realize burning the canvas felt like destroying your child's game console because they're addicted to it. Except many people live in your child's game console. We know that at the end of the game Maelle will not leave the canvas unless forced and, even if she left the canvas, she'd be back in no time. Because she learnt nothing during the whole game. But maybe force her out and hide the canvas and make her believe it was destroyed? It doesn't need to be a hidden forever. Give the girl time to grieve and to mature. And then maybe she could be back sometimes in the future in a more healthy way. This is just one possibility and maybe an unrealistic one, but I feel like the writers (the real ones) actively didn't want us to have a hopeful ending for Lune, Sciel and all the others. That's a choice they are absolutely free to make. But a choice I will fight against because I also have free will to do so.
Nier Automata is a game I absolutely adore, mostly because of its ending. The game is definitely not an happy one and the endings you reach fighting as A2 or 9S are both less than desirable. But you, as the player, have hope and that's enough to gift the world of Nier Automata with a new beginning. It's not the sad pessimistic endings that make the game work. It's faith in humanity. And that's what Expedition lacks. To me at least. We live in a world of egoist people who will never change.
A friend some days ago told me that, to her, Clair Obscur felt like two different stories, and the one you start with is the one that gets sidelined. I think that that's exactly the missing piece in my reasoning. Maybe the original idea was to have Verso's ending as the rightful ending for the Dessendre family story and Maelle's ending for the story of the people of Lumiére, but, as I said, I don't think the latter is executed well. The message of the story of the people of Lumière is best summarized by the iconic quotes "For those who come after" and "When one falls we continue". Does that really matter if no one comes after or everything is resolved with godlike powers?
I don't know. Maybe I just hate Maelle's selfishness (and I won't refrain to say that I do), maybe I just don't like French pessimistic approach to storytelling, maybe I just hate when people reject all of my reasoning because "the people of the canvas weren't real anyway" (wrong). Maybe it's all of it. And maybe you do not agree with me. That's fine: let's discuss in a civil way or agree to disagree.
Take this for what it is, the result of 10 months of pondering on some videogame cutscene.