233 - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 [Part 2] (feat. Joe Kassabian)

I finally beat it doing Maelle's ending first. God damn it was good. They weren't joking about how hard you can break the game once you get pictos PLUS the luminas. Gang all running combo attack I and III, Inverted affinity, Maelle with cheater as ai hadn't unlocked the lumina, all had us wrecking shop first turn

The endings still frustrate me a lot. I think the thing that goes unexplored within the game - or at least something I feel it inadequately captures - is that Maelle/Alicia has not only grief for her brother, but grief for a life that she will never have. One of the Act 3 sidequests touches on it, but it leaves more unsaid than said. She, quite literally, no longer has a voice outside of what she is able to create. This canvas is not what is healthy for her, true - but creation itself will be one of her only ways of expressing herself, period. Physically losing one's voice is an extremely potent metaphor, and I simultaneously understand that exploring it would make the game lose focus and feel that the mere introduction of that element adds an element of complexity to the ending that completely torpedos my ability to fully accept the binary choice presented. The introduction of the Omelas Verso Ghost feels like an artificial weight towards one outcome, in that context. Certainly, the entire thrust of the game is making metaphorical things physical, but like. C'mon. It's also something that makes me feel a little bit odd about the game's gender politic. I can't articulate it fully, but it feels like the "patriarchical" approach is heavily favored, in where the best thing must be done to someone regardless of their input on the matter. I don't know how strongly I stand by that feeling, though. The final thing that I think the game touches on just enough to make the ending lose focus for me is the concept of grief for a -world- that was lost. It's something that weighs on me in the face of the climate crisis, for example, and it's brought up in the context of Old Lumiere juuuust a bit. As an aside, I think it's very interesting how reliably someone's feeling on the game's endings can be mapped onto which characters they identify most heavily with.

I'm a couple months late, but I did in fact subscribe to the patreon just to listen to this episode.

At the end of act 1 I did think that the plot was going to turn into this time travel plot where gustave, verso and renior were the same person suspended in time through paintresses magic, and that at some point we'd have to kill him to undo the curse or something. I am glad it wasn't that

I feel like the mission where you climb the tower and meet Alicia should have been mandatory, it significantly strengthens the story, specifically with Verso

There is a reward for writing in your journal, Maelle gets an ability in act 3 that's very strong called "Gustave's Homoge"

I find this game so interesting for how I almost love it but there's a lot I don't enjoy at the same time. I went through massive grief the year it came out and I honestly don't like how dark the endings are because of that. It feels punishing in a way I don't typically enjoy with games. It's not that I need everything to be squeaky clean by the end, but I also don't want complete bleakness to meet me at the end, when we're already living in such a bleak era. That said, I love the music, and I would have liked more time with Lune. I don't enjoy her and others getting sidelined in the back half of the game.

Coming back to say that I think what really bothers me about Act 2 onwards, is that Verso's introduction and replacement of Gustave as the main character considerably weakens the game. Gustave's sacrifice matters until it doesn't. After the Gommage reveal in Act 2, he gets dropped almost entirely even in mention (besides a brief cameo in the Maelle ending). This is frustrating, to me at least, because a) Act 1 is genuinely fantastic, and b) it could've been fixed rather easily. If you're gonna kill Gustave, make Maelle the main character for the rest of the game. Show HER journey grappling with grief, not just a few short scenes as a side character to Verso. If you *have* to keep the ending twists that frankly undo every single thing you've done in the game up until then, then at the *very least* make Gustave the metaphor for the real Verso's death. She can deal with the grief of her real world memories THAT way, which makes more sense narratively, and would piss me off way less. And to be clear, I like this game! I just wish it'd made different writing choices. 😔

Wow, I really disagree with "writers obligation to their characters" kind of thinking because characters aren't actually people? Also surprised by the amount of people who think the Maelle ending is the right one considering the recreation of these painting people seems to rely on the continued torture of a child's soul if we're taking everything in the story literally.

Hell yeah, Beaten Kaitos heads rise up.

YES, thank you AJ. I completely agree with your point about a writers obligation to their characters. Every time I see a story where the characters go through intense suffering, and the writers are all like "oh look, isn't this terrible? Doesn't it suck that they're going through this?", I'm like "Motherfucker, you wrote this, it's your fault they are suffering!". And I think it's very unfair when writers end the story in such miserable places, where the characters are just left with this unresolved trauma having accomplished nothing, all for the sake of "Themes and such". It feels cruel and dismissive of these fictional people whom we have come to love and care about so much.

I think that one of the big issues that stories about trauma, grief, and escapism like this one or Evangelion have is that they don't really do much to show why the real world is worth living in, only that remaining in the escapist fantasy is bad. Like, you need to show why, despite all the painful and difficult things that you experience in the real world still existing, there are still good and wonderful things to experience in it as well. Most stories simply assume that you have some obligation to continue living, or that it is an unambiguous and obvious thing that you should choose, but when you think about the situations that led you to escapism, it questions that base good assumption. Why is it wrong for Maelle to stay in the painting when her life in the real world is going to be so lacking due to her disabilities? If she's just going to live the rest of her life with disfiguring burns and be unable to speak, you need to show how she can still live a full and fulfilling life despite that. I feel like the game makes a mistake creating the dichotomy between Maelle and Verso's endings. It makes absolute the reality that if you allow the painting to continue existing you will be trapped in this fantasy forever, rather than presenting it as a place you can go back to from time to time to enjoy. It's too absolutists in this. You can exist in both the real world and engage in fantasy, people do it all the time. It's the unhealthy over reliance on one or the other which is the mistake that Renior and Aline make. Choosing one or the other in extreme is the problem. Completely subsuming yourself in fantasy or stubbornly dismissing it are both wrong. One of my favorite moments in all of fiction is in All Quiet on the Western Front, where Kat and Paul steal some geese and have this beautiful midnight meal, and they enjoy the friendship they have. It shows that even in the middle of this horrible war, there is still this joy that can be had, that this is what life can be about, if it wasn't for this damn war that is preventing us from living this life, and that makes clear that war is something to be fought against as a positive goal. This is not escapism for Paul and Kat, this is what life should be and is, and that this war is something unnatural that we in the real world should overcome by preventing future war. Even though all the characters die by the end, you aren't left with the same sort of emptiness and hopelessness, because you can still see in the experiences of these characters what about life is good and worth living for.

I definitely found Aline escaping into the painting to be a closer metaphor to substance abuse, however it says a lot in how similar it functionally can be to escaping into memories and fantasy as a way of coping with grief, and I feel like the term "self medication" works really well in this case, as both are so similar. It's not an inherently bad thing to engage in dreams and fantasy, similarly it's not necessarily a bad thing to use medication to deal with those feelings as well, but it becomes dangerous when you spend to much time in this escapism, and become addicted and reliant on it rather than trying to move on and grow. To quote something that Joe is recently familiar with: "Where is my reality? Where your dreams end." Also, yeah, the more I hear about the way the different versions of people exist in the painting, the more I'm reminded of Evangelion. The version of me that exists in my mind, the version of me that exists in other people's minds, etc.

Joe has the same strategy for RPGs as me: You don't have to Git Gud if you Get Stronk

My apologies to Verso, but I just couldn't connect with him like I did with Gustave. Maybe they should've *also* given Verso big brown eyes like a baby cow.

Really excellent episode, just hearing about this game again had me tearing up. Slight correction though, the beast Renoir summons is a lion, not a wolf.

"And popcoooooorn" thank you Brian lmao

Really agree with Brian's take on the ending. Joe is right that the ending happens after the nuke has gone off, so to speak, but still I felt like the weight of the character's lives in the painting were not really given their due. You know, it's an intentional writing decision to make it so the nuke has already gone off by the time we get to that end, and that decision kind of stacks the deck to get rid of some of the stakes that might prevent you from choosing Verso's ending. No matter what decision you make, the game asks you to be more invested in the lives of the Dessendre family than in the lives of the people in the painting. If I were Sciel, for example, I'd be pretty pissed off by the Verso ending. *Verso* is the tortured ghost, not me. I just want to get my husband back and live a normal life. Why does the emotional arc of a family of aristocrats outweigh that?

Renoir would love Adventures in Oddyssey, considering he’s so focused on the family

I've gone back and forth a few times, but now i've settled on Versos ending, I can't help but feel so badly for Lune. Verso has lied and betrayed her at least twice. Depending on choices made, she may have forgiven him, and even let him into her heart. Then, at the end, he volunteers to destroy the canvas. Lune has been the most mission-oriented member of the party from the very beginning, and her work to try and save Lumiere has consumed her life and sacrificed social connections since she was literally *six years old*. For better or worse, this IS her life. Then at the 11th hour, this fucking guy turns everything you've toiled for to dust. Literally. She has every right to be furious. It's been said many times that "so long as one of us stands, We Continue" and she sits, but its true. If looks could kill, Verso would have dropped dead immediately.

hi i'm the one person who is about to play baiten kaitos. I skipped it in time don't worry

I have a lot of messy thoughts on Verso that I'm not the best at articulating, so please bear with me if this is rambling and incoherent or goes no where. The Dessendre family is pulled in different, destructive directions because of their grief over Verso's loss. None of them are thinking of what he would want for them. I think Painted Verso taking little boy Verso's hand is meant to show that he's the real Verso's last advocate. That the real Verso wouldn't have wanted any of this and gladly would've destroyed the painting himself. Which I think is also why the little boy Verso is implied to be in pain from the constant painting. As the last piece of Verso's soul it simply isn't strong enough to hold back the grief of his family. It's the painting personified in that sense. Which I think makes Alicia's ending doubly tragic: not only is she forcing Painted Verso to live out an existence that pains him against his will, she's forcing the last piece of the real Verso to do the same. I think that's also part of why Painted Verso is given the secondary protagonist role after Gustave's death. If Gustave and Alicia are the mourner's perspective, then Verso is meant to give the mourned's perspective. So that the player might understand that advocate role a bit better.

There's an underrated moment in the monolith between the mini Forgotten Battlefield and Monocos station, where you turn a corner, and suddenly there's a grave amongst gold and red petals. The grave itself has a copy of Gustaves arm on it, and the headstone has a Visages-style mask looking down at it in sorrow. I had to pause and stare at that for several minutes gathering the implications of that. While ascending, I obviously gathered that it was a reflection of the world outside of the monolith. Upon seeing this grave though, it shows that the monolith is changeable, the expedition has been observed from afar, and (presumably The Paintress) is aware of Gustaves death, and saw fit to make a little memorial to him.

throwing that other guy in as protag after Goustav gets killed feels cowardly and sexist. I'm just going to say it. Maelle should have been the front after that. It would be like if Gurren Lagan threw some other brotherly figure in after the first got got. I understand there's in world story reasons for that, and I don't exactly care.

The waves never stop. Going on 9 years since I lost my stepdad. And the grief still comes. I'll see or hear something that tickles a memory of him in my brain and there it is. Still hurts. I think I'm going to miss him forever, and that's ok. I don't want to forget.

Thank you guys, for everything

just realized that this is episode 2(33) 🤔

Honestly the waves never stop, they just get further and further apart.

You know it’s a banger when me and others are up in the comments talking about how much we cried

I remember briefly hoping during one cutscene that Luna and Sciel would become a thing

Oh so this is just literally a story about a branch of my family. Kinda weirdly upsetting.

Yall have all managed to write episodes/interatitials/closers that have moved me deeply. but man someone has to ban this Josh Boerman guy from podcasting for competitive balance

Glad I finished this episode on the way home instead of at work. If you were trying to make a grown man ugly cry at 7am on the highway, WAY TO GO!

Gustav Graves? From DIE ANOTHER DAY?