rubik's dude
Member
Felt like this deserved its own thread as I'd like to see other people's takes on this. Bit of a long read, but an upfront thanks to anyone who makes it all the way through.
The Gordian knot: Kobayashi Maru and Expedition 33's endings
The two endings present to us a fallacy and then ask us to make a choice based on that fallacy. You're forced to assume that there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are ideal, hence the Kobayashi Maru dilemma from Star Trek, or in other words, the Gordian knot. Faced with two difficult decisions, you're forced to pick one and live with the consequences of the other. However, critical, out-of-the-box thinking unlocked a solution to the seemingly impossible problem presented in the Kobayashi Maru scenario.
Similarities, differences, and the unknown
But one of the key differences between these two scenarios, is that once a decision is made in the Kobayashi Maru, there's no going back. Both decisions have final consequences. In Maelle's ending, nothing is final. Both worlds keep spinning, and there exists the potential for the same exact two outcomes, or more, at a later point in time once more information is known.
As of right now though, we don't know the extent of the painters' powers. We don't understand why they die if they stay in the painting too long, or how long they'd have to stay before they'd die. We don't know much about the outside world or how time flows there compared to the painted world, or even how "real" the outside world is. We don't know if chroma in the canvas is encoded with the DNA of the people it came from and if the people who are brought back are the same or just a facsimile.
We're uninformed on a lot of important details that could help inform our decisions better or elicit the potential for a third option, specifically because the game doesn't want us to consider a third option. You could argue the Kobayashi Maru is the same in that regard. There was never supposed to be more options, or a "solution," it was only meant to be a test of character. But there was a solution, and it was to manipulate the parameters of the scenario itself, which brings us to the other key difference.
The equivalent solution here would be to program our own ending, which isn't possible unless we're one of the developers. And as we've established, the developers don't want to give us a third option, or an ideal outcome to the problem they've presented. The scenario itself is just as rigged as the Kobayashi Maru, but without the ability to rig it back in our favor.
Conclusion
So, in the absence of the ability to pick an ending based on a more informed decision, and in the absence of the ability to make our own ending possible, and short of not picking an ending at all, Maelle's ending is the most reasonable choice to make, given that it has no immediate consequences as far as we know. Now this isn't an endorsement for that ending, because I don't endorse either of them. Just like how I wouldn't endorse being a part of the human centipede, but if I had to pick, I'd pick the front.
However, in the absence of any alternative, and given how restricted we are, Maelle's ending is the only one that leaves the path open for something to happen later on where the canvas can exist and the family can grieve, since theoretically, I could say, "Alicia eventually leaves the canvas once everything is stabilized to go grieve with her family, and Renoir stays true to his word and doesn't destroy the canvas," and it could potentially be true.
Lingering points in regards to Maelle's ending
1. Verso's soul would still suffer in Maelle's ending because he always wanted to play the piano, not paint.
Not quite, we're never given a reason to believe that Verso's soul is suffering because he's painting and not playing the piano. In fact, quite the opposite. He loved the world that he painted, with Esquie, Monoco, and the Gestrals, as we know that Verso and the other members of the Dessendre family played in the painting during better days.
Based on dialogue from the faded boy himself, Verso's soul was suffering because of the death and destruction Clea and Renoir were causing to the world he'd created after the fracture. Death, rebirth, death, rebirth. That was the problem. The act of painting itself wasn't the issue, and in Maelle's ending, Clea and Renoir aren't around anymore, so even in Maelle's ending, Verso's soul doesn't have to suffer anymore.
2. The people at the end are only Maelle's playthings, and the world is her sandbox.
Based on context clues shown during Maelle's ending, we're given every reason to believe that this isn't the case:
Context clue #1: Verso asks Sciel during a bonding dialogue if she'd be happy with a Pierre clone. Sciel says before meeting Verso, yes. But after seeing how it torments him, she wouldn't wish that on anyone. Yet at the Opera House, we see her happy with the Pierre that we see.
Could it be that Pierre is a clone and that her views have changed again, and that she'd be okay with subjecting a Pierre clone to existential dread? Maybe, but it's much more likely that he's the real thing.
Context clue #2: At the Opera House, we don't see anyone killed by a Nevron. If Maelle were only creating copies and not bringing back the original people, we'd have likely seen some of the people killed by Nevrons, like Lune's parents, for instance, or the deceased members of Expedition 33. Instead, the only people we do see are those whose Chroma returned to the canvas (Pierre, Sophie, Gustave).
Context clue #3: Gustave still had a mechanical arm. If we're operating under the assumption that Maelle is creating a utopia with clones, it would make sense for her to have given him his arm back as well.
Of course, this doesn't conclusively prove anything. But it is convincing enough that I'm much more likely to believe they're the originals, and not just clones. But as I mentioned earlier, this is just one of those things that falls into the "unknown" category. An argument could be made either way, since we just don't know.
3. The inhabitants of the canvas aren't real, the Dessendre's are.
Again this falls into that "unknown" category. Are the Dessendre's more real than the painted world and its inhabitants? Or were they too, made by someone else? The writers perhaps? How "real" is the "real" world? We don't know, and so we can't conclusively say that either of them are any more or less real than the other.
The Gordian knot: Kobayashi Maru and Expedition 33's endings
The two endings present to us a fallacy and then ask us to make a choice based on that fallacy. You're forced to assume that there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are ideal, hence the Kobayashi Maru dilemma from Star Trek, or in other words, the Gordian knot. Faced with two difficult decisions, you're forced to pick one and live with the consequences of the other. However, critical, out-of-the-box thinking unlocked a solution to the seemingly impossible problem presented in the Kobayashi Maru scenario.
Similarities, differences, and the unknown
But one of the key differences between these two scenarios, is that once a decision is made in the Kobayashi Maru, there's no going back. Both decisions have final consequences. In Maelle's ending, nothing is final. Both worlds keep spinning, and there exists the potential for the same exact two outcomes, or more, at a later point in time once more information is known.
As of right now though, we don't know the extent of the painters' powers. We don't understand why they die if they stay in the painting too long, or how long they'd have to stay before they'd die. We don't know much about the outside world or how time flows there compared to the painted world, or even how "real" the outside world is. We don't know if chroma in the canvas is encoded with the DNA of the people it came from and if the people who are brought back are the same or just a facsimile.
We're uninformed on a lot of important details that could help inform our decisions better or elicit the potential for a third option, specifically because the game doesn't want us to consider a third option. You could argue the Kobayashi Maru is the same in that regard. There was never supposed to be more options, or a "solution," it was only meant to be a test of character. But there was a solution, and it was to manipulate the parameters of the scenario itself, which brings us to the other key difference.
The equivalent solution here would be to program our own ending, which isn't possible unless we're one of the developers. And as we've established, the developers don't want to give us a third option, or an ideal outcome to the problem they've presented. The scenario itself is just as rigged as the Kobayashi Maru, but without the ability to rig it back in our favor.
Conclusion
So, in the absence of the ability to pick an ending based on a more informed decision, and in the absence of the ability to make our own ending possible, and short of not picking an ending at all, Maelle's ending is the most reasonable choice to make, given that it has no immediate consequences as far as we know. Now this isn't an endorsement for that ending, because I don't endorse either of them. Just like how I wouldn't endorse being a part of the human centipede, but if I had to pick, I'd pick the front.
However, in the absence of any alternative, and given how restricted we are, Maelle's ending is the only one that leaves the path open for something to happen later on where the canvas can exist and the family can grieve, since theoretically, I could say, "Alicia eventually leaves the canvas once everything is stabilized to go grieve with her family, and Renoir stays true to his word and doesn't destroy the canvas," and it could potentially be true.
Lingering points in regards to Maelle's ending
1. Verso's soul would still suffer in Maelle's ending because he always wanted to play the piano, not paint.
Not quite, we're never given a reason to believe that Verso's soul is suffering because he's painting and not playing the piano. In fact, quite the opposite. He loved the world that he painted, with Esquie, Monoco, and the Gestrals, as we know that Verso and the other members of the Dessendre family played in the painting during better days.
Based on dialogue from the faded boy himself, Verso's soul was suffering because of the death and destruction Clea and Renoir were causing to the world he'd created after the fracture. Death, rebirth, death, rebirth. That was the problem. The act of painting itself wasn't the issue, and in Maelle's ending, Clea and Renoir aren't around anymore, so even in Maelle's ending, Verso's soul doesn't have to suffer anymore.
2. The people at the end are only Maelle's playthings, and the world is her sandbox.
Based on context clues shown during Maelle's ending, we're given every reason to believe that this isn't the case:
Context clue #1: Verso asks Sciel during a bonding dialogue if she'd be happy with a Pierre clone. Sciel says before meeting Verso, yes. But after seeing how it torments him, she wouldn't wish that on anyone. Yet at the Opera House, we see her happy with the Pierre that we see.
Could it be that Pierre is a clone and that her views have changed again, and that she'd be okay with subjecting a Pierre clone to existential dread? Maybe, but it's much more likely that he's the real thing.
Context clue #2: At the Opera House, we don't see anyone killed by a Nevron. If Maelle were only creating copies and not bringing back the original people, we'd have likely seen some of the people killed by Nevrons, like Lune's parents, for instance, or the deceased members of Expedition 33. Instead, the only people we do see are those whose Chroma returned to the canvas (Pierre, Sophie, Gustave).
Context clue #3: Gustave still had a mechanical arm. If we're operating under the assumption that Maelle is creating a utopia with clones, it would make sense for her to have given him his arm back as well.
Of course, this doesn't conclusively prove anything. But it is convincing enough that I'm much more likely to believe they're the originals, and not just clones. But as I mentioned earlier, this is just one of those things that falls into the "unknown" category. An argument could be made either way, since we just don't know.
3. The inhabitants of the canvas aren't real, the Dessendre's are.
Again this falls into that "unknown" category. Are the Dessendre's more real than the painted world and its inhabitants? Or were they too, made by someone else? The writers perhaps? How "real" is the "real" world? We don't know, and so we can't conclusively say that either of them are any more or less real than the other.
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