Clair Obscur and Art as Escape

*FULL STORY SPOILERS AHEAD*

Near the end of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, there is a pretty major twist. Maelle, the adoptive sister to early-game protagonist Gustave (may he rest in peace) is revealed to be Alicia Desendre, daughter to Renoir and Aline (AKA the Paintress), and sister to Verso and Clea. The game goes a step further to say that not only is Maelle not her real name, but she isn’t even from this reality. This entire world we’ve explored and inhabited for the game, from Lumiere to the Monolith, all the people we’ve met along the way including our own party members, all of them are creations of the enigmatic beings called, the Painters, who can create worlds infused with life to the point that they become indistinguishable from reality. This world is the creation of Verso Desendre, who perished tragically in what appears to be an arson enacted on the family home, and is the last surviving relic of his life.

The Verso we’ve been traveling with this whole time is actually a fabrication by Aline, who in her grief entered the world of Verso’s Canvas and refused to return to her true family, creating new versions of them to protect her. Renoir, her husband, came in after her to try and bring her home, but the two became locked in an endless battle of wills as Renoir tried to destroy the Canvas from the inside and Aline did everything to protect it. You see, the Paintress doesn’t cause the gommage. She’s been holding it back. But as her power wanes and her sorrow deepens, her grip is slipping and she can no longer contain Renoir.

The Verso we’ve been playing as (or as Esquie puts it, Verso who is Verso’s cousin) has been working towards a singular goal this entire time: to defeat the Paintress, defeat Renoir (both the painted version and the authentic one) and to destroy the Canvas, dooming this world to obliteration and finally putting an end to this life he does not want, the life of a shadow of a dead man, cursed to immortality and unable to cope with the perceived meaninglessness of his existence.

Alicia, disfigured by the fire and left with the inability to speak, dove into the Canvas to try and rescue her parents, only to lose her sense of self during the process and wind up trapped there as a new being with none of her memories intact. She is born to new parents, painted ones. She is named Maelle. Her parents gommage and she is raised by Gustave and his sister. She learns to fight, and she becomes and Expeditioner to stop the gommage from ruining their world.

In this strange, turnabout manner, Alicia has approached the conflict of Aline’s inability to deal with the loss of her son from both sides, and when all becomes clear to her and her memories are restored she remains resolute in this quest with one additional goal: to stop her father from destroying the Canvas, the last piece of Verso’s legacy, this world he created as a young Painter where he would play with Monoco and Esquie who remember him with deep fondness.

This puts her and Verso in direct conflict with one another, though he refuses to admit what his true endgame is until the last moment.

After defeating Renoir and convincing him that this Canvas matters, that it ought to be preserved, that mourning Verso does not have to mean either losing oneself to the despair of his death or destroying all evidence of his life. That she can live in this world, and return to her reality. That she can grieve and heal from that grief.

Verso has other plans, and with his betrayal the true final battle begins, one in which the player is tasked with choosing a side and in doing so must answer a question for them self:

“How real is this world and its inhabitants? And is it worth preserving? Or is the lure of ultimate escapism to great a temptation to allow one to reckon with?”

Because one of the main themes behind Clair Obscur is that art is a double-edged sword. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It can take you away from your burdens, but it can also reflect them back at you. It can distract you from your reality, but it can’t save it.

Art, even video games who go above and beyond in many cases to cement that sense of immersion, that feeling of embodying another person’s experiences, cannot replace your life. Art and creation can enrich it, give it additional meaning, but they cannot erase the fact that you are a material being in a material reality, with pressures both physical and social placed upon you at all times.

Art is not an escape.

But it doesn’t have to be.

If you choose Maelle’s stance, you defeat Verso and remain in the Canvas. Not only that, but you undo the gommage, bringing Gustave and even Sofie back to life. In a deeply haunting cutscene, you see that even Verso has found something to live for, pursuing his true passion, music, and playing before an assembled audience of Lumiere’s citizens including Gustave, Sofie, Lune, Sciel, and Maelle.

Then a horror movie stinger accompanies an image of Maelle degrading under the effects of remaining in a Canvas too long as a Painter. In the end, she failed to escape her grief not just for Verso but for Gustave as well. She stays here, in this fabricated world, and it is implied that she will never leave. At any time, she has the power to, but she simply won’t.

And to be clear, while this is deeply tragic for Maelle, I think this is the good ending, at least in terms of being the most positive outcome for the most people. Because when all is said and done, you can argue over what counts as “real” but try playing the beginning of the game, seeing Gustave tell Sofie “I’m here.” as she gommages in his arms, hear her say “I know… I know.” and tell me that their feelings, their experiences, none of that matters because they were creations of someone else.

Aren’t we creations of our parents? And if you’re a religious individual, aren’t you the fabrication of a divine being?

It’s hard to define what is “real” because the word means so many different things, but to say that the lives of these people don’t matter and ought to be discarded simply because there exists another plane of being seems… well, deeply bleak.

Which takes us to Verso’s ending.

He defeats Alicia and destroys the Canvas, watching as Lune, Sciel, Monoco, and the entire world all fades away. His friends watch him with thinly suppressed hatred as he callously destroys their lives in an instant (Lune’s expression being particularly hard to watch). The Canvas world dissolves and we see a glimpse of Alicia in her real world, standing beside her brother’s grave. She turns to see her friends as an illusory image one last time before they fade away. She can move on, but that grief remains.

Either ending to this game is heartbreaking. No one comes out of this unscathed, and the player is left with a bitter pill to swallow. Pain is real, it follows you, it lingers, and you can lose yourself to destruction, even that of the self, in order to be free of it, or you can create and create and create anew, hoping each time that this will be what saves you.

But it won’t.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t create. We absolutely should! It can help us to heal, can help us to grow and understand ourselves and even cope with the agonies of our reality. Creation, particularly art-making, is one of the things that most gladdens the spirit and pleases the mind, even when the work is difficult. Expression makes one feel the most them self they can feel.

Art is not an escape.

But it can help you to be free. At least, for a little while.

Is that not precious enough to be worth fighting for?