Such a bummer to have an emotionally stunted family of French artists as your gods.

If only we got the Francois ending

Over a year later and we're still having E33 ending discourse, I love it

clair obscure's endings can be summed up like this: One person is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, The other person is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. You can flip that around and look at Verso and Maelle through either lens. that's why i adore those endings.. they both suck on closer inspection

Edit: i dont mean theyre badly written but both are actually grim and quite sad. Theyre both beautifully written but that can be said about most of the game

E33 is one of those games where when you think someone is the villain you come to understand their perspective and can't even blame em. And that happens like 3 or 4 times.

I've always seen this conflict has having to come to a middle ground. You can still mourn your deceased relatives, but you can't be attached to them otherwise you'll end up in your own spiral.

27:14 one VERY cool little detail that I didn’t notice until much later after playing it, is that when everyone is waving goodbye at Alicia, Gustave is actually waving at her to join them. He’s not waving goodbye.

Finally somebody who considers the value of the painted but sentient life. Always thought this was missing from the dialogue about the endings. Great video

I think if Gustave lived we would have had a different and happier ending for everyone.

27:21 when they're all fading away, Gustave looks like he might even be gesturing at her to follow vs waving goodbye. As in follow into death

Personally I think one theme a lot of people try and force themselves past is part of the point is sometimes you don't get to find the "best" outcome which is an ugly truth of life.

15:00 the paint around the eyes is just what shows youre in the painting, the reason it appears is kind of as a herring of how she knows exactly what she's doing and that she's 'dooming' herself in a way

It's interesting seeing a take that's almost identical to the one I have, but from the inverted perspective. Everyone's right, and it's almost impossible to make the "correct" choice when no matter what your making the wrong one.

Peak talking about peak. Finally

People argue if maelle or verso are the bad ones, when in reality it was the mother. She broke the family by forcing everyone to fight because she had a favorite son. She shouldve been there for her family through a time like this but she always had a favorite and didnt care for alicia that much. Of course alicia  was going to look for love elsewhere. And she also cause verso suffering by giving him immortality.

I always like seeing actual good deep analysis like these and the ones on the gow videos. Most mainstream channels are scared of actually going deep and thinking about the storyline or morals of the character.

As a disabled person I'd hide in a painting too.

5:24   Minor correction. Alicia didn't exactly decide for herself to enter Verso's portrait, Clea more-or-less forced her too.

Of course they're both wrong!  They made two bad endings for a reason... but one of them involves a genocide so there's no more discussion to be had about which one is the worst of the two bad endings.

7:03 I also wonder what Verso must feel knowing he's dead, and having to watch his family essentially fight over his corpse. He already tried to save Alicia's life once, and the result was his mother and Alicia becoming obsessed to the point of "overdosing". I feel like I'd also become desperate and consumed by guilt in a situation like that.

Also, as far as Alicia's talents go, I'd argue that Renoir also sees potential in her, judging by the reacher. Does it fly because Renoir is belittling her fear of heights, or is the whole point that it's flying despite of that?

Aaaand as far as the endings go, I did pick Maelle first. I thought that if anyone could reason with her, it was Gustave. I don't think he'd want to see her real body wasting away just to live a fantasy. But then the moment I saw him in the end it hit me, that's not Gustave anymore, he's just as dead as Verso. The moment Maelle got in control of the canvas, it all turned into an echo box for her. Does the Gustave in the end even know anything that happened?
I think that's also why she doesn't just unpaint Verso. Having him "alive" is the whole reason why they're all fighting over the canvas.
The conscious life in there is definitely trickier to think about, but I also can't shake off the feeling that they pretty much become puppets in the hand of Maelle in her ending soooo, are they really conscious if they have to go along with every whim from a 16 year old?

And finally, does it get better? No, you have to make it better, even if that means having to climb while dealing with fear of heights. It's going to suck and be a pain, maybe even become terrifying, and only in the end you'll know if you made it.

Also it's 3am and idk what I've been writing here, I think I'm just rambling.