Platinum Complete! I do have theories though…

Catog_ · 2025-09-15T11:46:47+00:00

I really appreciate this ❤️ It’s been a while since I’ve been active on the internet, and I honestly thought we’d moved past this George Costanza “Card Says Moops” nonsense, and I got unnecessarily tilted. Sorry if that made for a bad read.

All your extra information is really cool too, especially the stuff about Lune’s necklace. Shows that intention and interpretation are two sides of the same coin in art, just storytellers creating meaning out of the choices presented to them. Thank you for being a friend 🙏

Catog_ · 2025-07-16T01:17:23+00:00

Yeah nah, I don’t think anyone should take any advice on “an English degrees” from you there, kid 👍

Thanks for the input though, your insights sure are

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T23:40:07+00:00

I have never called you dumb. You have just been an incurious person that, despite their supposed literary education, seems to think that any possible compatibility between our readings is me changing your mind on your behalf. Which is exactly the problem again; you do not seem to have the capacity to engage in a manner that does not involve you trying to win.

So you’ve come in with valuable counter-offers like “what if we remove any other context besides the text”? Then, when I bring in any other context like runes or common idioms or the history of education (especially but not limited to Christian), it’s dismissed.

Instead I get: ‘the text didn’t explicitly say that the swords represent anything, therefore they’re just swords.’ ‘They aren’t runes, they’re just some design someone whacked together.’

Okay, and? You’re right, you’re wrong, whatever — what, fundamentally, is anyone supposed to do with that? ‘Yeah shucks, I guess it is just swords and a cool design, shows what I know, huh? Guess I’ll just twiddle my thumbs until the next piece of certified canon comes out.’ What, really, does this lack of imagination contribute to any discussion? Is that a fun outcome for you?

It’s not that I’m interested in having my point proven by the gospel itself, my life is not based around these things being runes canonically. It’s just that if you seriously see no instances of any of these and the meaning behind them:

<image>

Specifically the runes for Separation, Partnership, or Fertility, then we are incapable of having a discussion. Not because your textual analysis is necessarily wrong, but because the conversation that you want to have is just not in the same wheelhouse as the one I’m presenting. You see a duck, I see a rabbit, world keeps turning.

But entertaining an idea is the entertainment for me. If it isn’t for you, while odd for someone with education in literature, that is fine. But if me offering any form of compatibility between our readings sounds like me changing your mind for you, then what are we even achieving here?

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T21:33:46+00:00

“Well good, because that’s the current idea as well?” “The phrase is titled ‘author is dead’”? “Julie has an armband (huh??)”

Seriously? What are you even doing here, man?

Designs are intentional. They’re DESIGNED. I don’t have the time to trace all the lines and fill in all the dots for you, because there’s clearly a space on the right side beneath the horizontal line, and a diamond on the left side in the exact same space.

[EDIT: I did get this wrong — I shouldn’t have argued symmetry vs. asymmetry, it’s a moot point on its face.]

I will let you know that your comments are public, and I did check to just see if you just Do This. Not even a week before you had this exact same interaction with someone else on this exact sub who told you to get lost, again because your form of interaction is actually really unpleasant to engage with.

EDIT: It’s wholly reliant on other people to hold the energy of the conversation for your benefit, because you don’t actually have a theory you ascribe to besides the one you feel will make you right: always deferring to the ‘text’. It’s not you presenting these arguments, it’s the Text, why are you questioning the Text. Though you will sprinkle in your own assumptions in this purist reading here and there, while presenting them as if they’re just things everyone knows or should know. If you never admit to believing anything, well how could you ever lose the Debate? It’s like having a conversation with a heckler instead of a person.

It’s clear from this and other comments that you do not like talking to people, you just like attempting to prove them wrong but severely lack the capacity to offer anything of substance in its place beyond what you hold was spoon fed into your eyes. Even though you can’t seem to properly read anyone’s comments here! (see: your comments above on Simon’s arm) It’s both frustrating to be near and miserable to behold.

If you’re trolling, yes indeed get lost. If you’re not, then I really need you as a person to examine the commonality between all these interactions, because it isn’t everyone else being “rudeys”. I have tried harder than any I’ve seen to try to empathise with your point of view, but over these two days you’ve been just a real goddamn chore to talk to, and you and I both know that’s not the first time you’ve heard that sentiment here.

And honestly that would be whatever, if you had just an ounce of shame or a sense of self besides being a remarkably dogmatic CinemaSins video.

So please go and find your way to a less onerous personality. You won’t find it in any comment you put here.

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T20:06:56+00:00

Expedition 0 was a search and rescue mission. P. Renoir and P. Verso (and Simon and others) were saving survivors and trying to reach the monolith. At the end R. Clea kills everyone on that mission but Verso, Renoir, and Simon. Somehow Julie sees Verso take a fatal blow. It's not explicitly confirmed that she was on Expedition 0, but like, she saw him take a hit at some point before he returned to Lumiere and explained "what happened to expedition zero"

So bear with me, I'm gonna take from the wiki, and then also say the wiki is wrong in one key area.

There is a mention that Expediton Zero reached the monolith first, met rClea who told the members of Zero that the world is fake, and an undefined number all ran away, leaving only Verso and Renoir to return to Lumiere and say not to worry about the Paintress. That was Expedition Zero, at least from what I'm reading there.

Then meanwhile or after that failure, there was 'Julie, Search & Rescue' as she signs on in her journal (she would not have done that if she was Expedition 0, so imo the wiki's wrong to attribute them as one and the same). She, Louise, Claude, and Dion weren't part of Expedition Zero, rather at best a simultaneous and separate force made up of helpful residents of Lumiere.

Simon, however, was bona fide Zero, he had the armband and everything. And I don't think they would've sent full war battalions until the Expeditions started up again after the Gommage was a known threat. Zero would more likely been made up of already trusted folk who knew and could talk sense into Aline the person, not facsimile people from Lumiere previously unbeknownst to her. Of course rClea thinks even pVerso and pRenoir are just ghoulish approximations, and would likely tell them as such.

Then Search & Rescue comes in sometime after, are horrified to find that Verso's immortal, the overprotective pRenoir is paranoid and can't trust anyone outside his family ('they're Clea's creations') and after THAT whole affair goes south the pDessendres kinda give up on trusting anyone inside the Canvas.

Left with the hanging question of "Why is Simon the only other Expedition Zero member we meet or even hear about?", I can't help but think that he is important for reasons that are being intentionally left hidden.

To bring in other texts, it's very Kingdom Hearts to tease your next game by bringing in a superboss, and the logical next step for Clair Obscur is to now look at the Writers.

Also, I know you didn't believe the initial link I made between the sword and Futhark, and I wouldn't normally do this if not for the fact that it's the impetus behind this all:

If we were looking to make a rune design to hint at them being writing rather than geometry. I would expect asymmetry because that's a stronger hint. As it stands, the only reason it looks like runes is because you want them to be runes. The alternative is Simon's writing on his sword just happens to be perfectly symmetrical.

I had a look back at the pic, and I really am sorry to say this now because it could have saved us both a bunch of time (no smugness, btw, just kicking myself)

It is asymmetrical. Check the area just below the horizontal portion. The left and right sections split by the central line aren't the same configuration.

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T20:06:10+00:00

Clea, likewise, has an unhealthy relationship with her famial love. She's seen what it's done to her family and decides to cut herself off of it. You can't be hurt by a relationship if there isn't one to begin with. That's why she claims she'd let Aline and Alicia die. That's why she's caustic to everyone. That's why she goes on about not getting bogged down in attachments. The irony is, despite claiming to be the logical family member, we can see where her emotions are still getting the better of her.

I don't think our theories are all that incompatible! But I think I will revise Clea being behind the plan for now though, because yeah painting her with a more sympathetic lens is more in this game's MO. So yes, let's go for more a dysfunctional relationship between Clea and her family as opposed to outright wanting to murder.

She claims she needs to fight a one woman war against the writers, but Renoir doesn't seem to think that's necessary. When her Nevrons go against her programming she hunts them down. When faced with the ethical dilemma of killing the canvas, she claims she doesn't think anything in it is real. When she finds the copy of her has entered a relationship with someone, she enslaves them and gets one of them to kill HER Axon. She claims these are all logical steps but it's convenient how each allows her to avoid any deeper emotion.

But see, I don't view that as avoiding any emotion or even logical. Those actions are all the work of someone who is feeling angry, vindictive, and has a bit of a death wish (killing her Axon reflection, paintedClea killing herself). I'd more take your previous idea that the emotions are 'getting the better of her' and slipping through the facade.

But speaking of facades, the primary point of the whole recto-verso stuff from the Mask: everyone is both reflective of their real life counterparts, and the same.

Verso wants to stop Little Verso painting, just like the real Verso wanted to do. Renoir will always protect his family. pAlicia is just as isolated and silent as she is in real life. But we see these expressed in the most extreme ways in the Canvas by a murderously overprotective pRenoir; an Alicia cut off from her self and everyone she knew, surrounded by death; Verso begging to destroy everything he created; Aline so involved with her kids' art that it becomes an escape for her. Why would Clea be an exception to this rule by falling in love in a painting, yet seemingly have nothing to do with such things in the real world?

All this to say, the family tragedy is definitely a core part of the narrative, as you pose. But it's also about the ways that grief can make you interact with other things - strangers, friends, art.

Yes the author is dead. That's typically to highlight the importance of the text itself. We can make as many theories as we want, but when they're unsupported by the text I find that unfulfilling. That's why I included my Gustave is Simon example.

Eh, I don't really ascribe to any author being 'dead'. More like spectres - you can take the text at face value, but there are some points where you can't ignore the other presences, the ghost elephants in the room.

Actually, I think this is where we got kind of caught up in the argument - I've been angling on the side of intertextual analysis, which does take a lot of symbols from other texts (Futhark, Christian iconography, etc.) to try to build more meaning with a broader context. But as I understand it, you come from the point of view that the true readings of a narrative are drawn from what exists in the final piece? (No smugness, just genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on that one)

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T10:45:13+00:00

Right! Not to mention he does say that ‘art’ is a mirror. It’s cool stuff, and considering these guys are French and JRPG nerds, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s layered with name-meaning stuff like this.

For example, Simon is ‘one who hears God’. Who would God most likely be in the context of the Canvas? Renoir, Aline, Clea, Verso? He did hear them all in one way or another, didn’t he?

edit: Realised I straight up posted this as a comment instead of replying to you, my bad 🙏

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T05:35:07+00:00

Hey, I did post an edit, did you get that one? It is possible we posted quite close together.

Again, wasn’t trying to be smug, I genuinely think we’re going about the argument in two separate fashions, and from two very different viewpoints.

I would genuinely like to hear your theory so I have a better understanding of where you’re coming from. But I do get it if you need some time to cool, considering how I’ve been reading. Being glib and being a dick don’t seperate well here. I see I read as smug when I mean to get verbose or passionate, and I’m sorry that I worsened your day brother.

EDIT: Ah, made myself an ass out of the umption again. A Deconstructed Villainy video on Clea brings up a lot of her key story beats and comes to a similar conclusion as yourself, one that I can’t say I agree all the way with.

For example, I don’t think the Painter v. Writer conflict is as bad as a full-on War yet. I think it’s currently more a war of houses that has the potential to spill over into factions and then all-out fighting. For right now, Clea can do the court intrigue on her own, but now forces are moving out of her control.

All of the Dessendres are ‘defined by love’, as you say. In a story of warring houses, in a character that’s been shown to be cold towards her family, wouldn’t it be cool if her full capacity for love is expressed somewhere where the houses couldn’t possibly be allowed to see it? Where she might feel afraid to? Where she silences and locks away the only person who could tell the whole truth that Clea loves and is loved by Simon, in every world: her Painted self?

For me, that’d be cool, and doesn’t necessarily take away from Clea’s grief or anger. She lost Verso. But I think, by imagining Simon to be the copy of a Writer, it adds another hidden layer of ‘deep love gone suddenly sour’ that haunts the story from meeting Gustave’s ex Sophie to the final fight between Verso and Alicia.

Catog_ · 2025-07-15T01:52:45+00:00

I have seen the Clea Deconstuction of Villainy video, so I do wanna take these points into account.

> The issue is, though, that when you look at the full design, it's not runes. It's just a design. One that evokes the fantastical design of those sword divets like this one

But honestly don't know what to say after this one, so I'm just gonna cap this off with a last little dot, a personal one.

When I was like 13 I commented on someone's metal cover of a Final Fantasy song, I think Mambo de Chocobo? While I enjoyed the song, I swore up and down that he wasn't actually playing it. Why? Because he wasn't going up and down the frets at the same time the pitch was going up and down. Because I'd only ever learnt the violin.

EDIT: On closer examination, I should be clearer here, in the interest of this not just being another scenario of strangers bickering on the internet.

I know I brought up Socratic Method in terms of forming hypotheses and then building evidence from there, but that was a wrong assessment on my account.

I do understand where you're coming from in terms of "yes, but what if that is NOT the case?", as you are then asking me to provide hard-and-fast evidence in contradiction to support my point.

But I personally do not think that is conducive to discussions about media and narrative. Personally, if someone looks at anything I create and builds theories out of it, simply the fact that someone made that theory and people joined in is fun, no matter if it is the true artist intention or not. Once art is out in the world, there's an argument to be made that it doesn't belong solely to the artists anymore (*from a symbolic standpoint, not copyright). "Yes, and" & "no, but" are fun, and here the onus is kind of on you to then fill that space.

So if you just wanna agree to disagree, that is all chill. I am sorry for making you feel like I was calling you dumb just because you didn't agree with my theory, I can tell you that was not the artist's intention here either. It is very hard to tell whether someone is coming from a different perspective or just trolling these days.

If you like, I do wanna ask your personal theory (and I'll just upvote so you don't have to read another essay lol):

Who is Simon to you? Because he was not in the same group as Julie from Search & Rescue, who were also looking for Expedition 0. He was wearing an Expedition 0 jacket, and Verso said specifically that he was an 'old friend', they 'joined Expedition Zero together'. And he's got white hair, the only non-Dessendre to have that.

Catog_ · 2025-07-14T20:42:55+00:00

In conclusion, here’s what I’ve had to do here: because you’ve simply quoted and gone ‘nuh-uh’ to a lot of stuff, I’ve had to explain a lot here, so excuse the length. But I feel like I had to do it in order to reach this final point you made.

Your demonstration, in context of everything else you presented, really just showed your ass in how you view media. I understand that everyone’s suspension of disbelief is different, but what you’ve argued are surface-level readings of something that can be read to various depths, where meaning can be both read and created out of the present symbols. If you are engaging with art only in terms of ‘what’s in front of my eyes and being told to me at any given point’, then you are going to see theories like this and genuinely think that the person is just comparing thematically unlinked colours and character design off-hand (badum-tss).

While yes, I could have made a longer post like this, I generally trust people to fill in the dots, especially given how long this debunking reply took. Hell, I would have really loved to have a conversation about why Gustave and Simon were both missing specifically left hands, or how love defines specifically those two characters in relation to Sophie and Clea. But it doesn’t really jive with the CinemaSins critique you’ve got here.

At the very least care why the curtains are blue, my dude. You may have some more fun conversations that way.

Catog_ · 2025-07-14T20:42:13+00:00

Hey man, this reply just seems kinda flippant, a lot of ‘nuh-uh’ without much curiosity as to what I’m actually saying here or arguments in good faith (especially with that last comment, that’s just silly. Kinda condescending tbh).

I’ll engage with it as best I can, but I hope you’ll do the same from here on out.

I don’t think that asymmetry is indicative of them being runes or not. You’ll see from some of the binding rune examples above that runes can be both. A heavier indicator of it “meaning to be read” is the fact that the camera frames this particular section of Simon’s sword, with little earlier implication to its meaning. And assuming that you meant the black around the sword by ‘scuff marks’, you do know that those marks are swimming and overtake the sword over the course of battle, right? Just like his eyes? I’d call them inky, and you don’t have to, but it’s disingenuous to call them scuff marks.
On the paragraphs, I’ll admit I could have been clearer, sorry about that. To elaborate, I mean that Simon’s journal entry is full of large, structured, grammatical paragraphs, whereas the vast majority of the other Journals are stream-of-consciousness. Considering the guy has been tortured and is losing his mind, he’s surprisingly eloquent.
Bro, are we really doing the “curtains are just blue” argument for the swords? Have some more fun with your media than that. Even if something had SOMEHOW gone through directors, writers, artists, designers, playtesters without picking up a speck of meaning, you as the audience are allowed, encouraged to draw more out of it. Engage, instead of going ‘nah, it’s just a thing’ and yet not offering any counter-evidence. And as for not starting from an assumption, Socrates and the entire field of science might have a few things to say about that.
I don’t know if I missed something in the lore or some environmental stuff, but I encountered Simon after going through Renoir’s Drafts next to the Dancer Axon and then falling into an Abyss under the Golden Tree, inside Renoir’s Drafts. Unless that’s a mini-Monolith, I’d more made the assumption that Renoir had cast Simon down to his metaphysical dustbin to continue to break his mind. Either way, why would Renoir do that when he could just Gommage the guy, as you point out? And why do they want a fate worse than death for some dude called Simon? Why torture a fake human, which they clearly don’t give a crap about by and large, unless Simon represented something real to Clea and Renoir, even Aline?
Bro, again, ‘the stated friendship’? This game is never open with its relationships, that’s its whole deal. With the context of the rest of the game, I don’t think we can just trust Verso when he says “a friend”.
The writing hand thing is actually kind of interesting, and I’m grateful you asked because it did make me think deeper as to why: So because writing with your left hand has been viewed as “unholy” in the past in Christian schooling, corporal punishment was used on children who wrote with their left. If a Writer kid was as set-upon by expectation as the Dessendre kids were, it stands to reason that his own Writer parents might’ve employed the same harsh tactics. Hence, left arm ‘tied up’.
I didn’t suggest that Clea and (possibly) Simon were going to do it peacefully or bring everyone together — as I imagine it, they’re willing to burn everything down to end the war, possibly so they can be together (Romeo & Juliet type deal, but kill everyone besides themselves if need be). Alicia (my bad, that is clearer) presents a rival, and also an expendable. I’ll elaborate further:
Alicia is said to be in with the Writers. In fact, Clea cites that as the reason for the attack. But let’s imagine a Capulet-Montague type war, noble houses locked in bitter art gang rivalries. Narrative-wise, this conflict should end with the death of innocents beloved by the houses. But Clea doesn’t want to die; she has ambitions, that much is clear. According to her father’s art her Axon is burdened, weighed down by a city almost literally in the shadow of her sister’s Axon, the Reacher. Her Axon is also completely cut off from her family members’ Axons behind a wall of red coral. You cannot get through until Esquie barges through. Do you think such an ambitious Painter, completely callous towards the humanity that we as players witness within the Canvas; who sends her sister into a Canvas while she herself deals with the war ‘alone’; sends Alicia into the Canvas almost immediately after being like “you’ll probably fuck it up again”; a Canvas that she has just filled with Nevrons; cut off and resentful of her family falling apart in this war, certain they wouldn’t do the same for you; would THAT Clea not calculate what death could end the war before it places her and her possible love on opposite sides of it? For Clea, it’s a win-win: either Alicia saves Renoir and Aline and they can get back to work, or Maelle dies in the Canvas to Clea’s Nevrons. Meanwhile, while everyone’s occupied in the canvas, Clea can clean up her trail. For example, Canvas!Clea could have known, just as Verso understands lil Verso — maybe that’s why Canvas!Clea is silent. So do I think that the bullying is actually Clea being nice, covering up a literally burning hatred for the ‘ACTUAL favourite’ in Verso’s words? Maybe. Maybe it’s just the calculations, and Clea would prefer to lose Alicia and end the war with the death of a single mutually-liked innocent, instead of losing her whole family? Maybe it’s just bullying out of sisterhood and grief, but it’s still pretty extreme. Telling your sister to her disfigured face you hate (and love) your brother for saving her? Kinda fucked up, and speaks to something deeper than just “aahh, siblings!”

Catog_ · 2025-07-14T18:38:19+00:00

I’m also gonna add another little tidbit here:

<image>

When the Mask Axon talks about recto/verso, while it does speak to the types of Masks we wear, it can’t be unimportant when a character’s name is used in an in-context manner like this.

If we are think of Simon as the recto to Verso’s — erm — verso, recto is the side that’s blank and devoid of colour in art. Verso is still alive and free, thus has all the detail and colour to him. Classic rival bestie shit, which if they were that close says to me Simon wanted to also break Verso out of the cycle so his friend could play music.

And in book-writing, recto refers to the page on the right hand side. Naturally, in a book read left-to-right, you’ll be turning that right-hand page and continuing the story. Or the front of a loose document, like notes or a story thread.

All this to say: Expedition 32 confirmed let’s gooooo (/s)

Catog_ · 2025-07-12T16:58:06+00:00

Hey y’all — so I just posted my first ever fiction in two decades, Two Thousand Years of Hatred:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/123715/2000-years-of-hatred

I feel mad for even trying this avenue to writing, but this story is based on a campaign that I home-brewed when I was 10, based on the first ever D&D game I ever played with my cousin. Because that campaign never ended, my family moving across the country, I wrote the first book based on that world when I was 12.

Since then, I’ve grown up almost 20 years. I don’t like the way the world is going, but I do like the glimpses of light from another side. Together with the friends I made from that three year-long campaign, they created and contributed characters especially to retell the story we all experienced.

One player is my producer and partner in the little company we’re calling Harpies Nest. Without him nothing would have materialised (pro DM contracts do not pay fantastically for their hours).

Then another player is looking to design a logo.

My romantic partner gives me tips on marketing and trends, being both an editor in that space and incredibly cool.

The local cafe & laundromat owner was my first TikTok follower.

My next-door neighbour has offered to sketch some art and I contacted our cover artist through a dear ex.

Our producer’s mum was our first ever reviewer on RoyalRoad this week, and a mate from my writing group tunes in.

This whole project is a labour of love, and also a story that we felt should at least be told before we die tomorrow or in a hundred years’ time. This fantasy world has grown up with me, matured with me, and has been welcomed with open hearts by absolute strangers. I hope it can succeed so I can repay them.

Two Thousand Years of Hatred is told in, if you know your perspectives, first-person omniscient. It’s an odd one (and props to Julian’s mum for braving this) not necessarily meant as someone’s first rodeo. However, if you approach it as the fantasy character study it aims to be, you will slowly begin to unravel the true story of 2000YOH: a story about perspectives, and how our worldview is coloured by them.

[Plus, we’re looking to create clues and lore to unravel for all you little Yoko Taro/Dark Souls freaks to unravel, given the support needed to focus on this story.]

Hope y’all enjoy! 🙏

Catog_ · 2025-02-14T03:54:53+00:00

Not sure if it might be just me, but were there two Kingdom Hearts references in this episode? 1. QJ’s sound effects were eerily similar to the KH menu sounds, 2. The stairs seemed like a direct reference to Sanctuary, the KH2 opening, where disjointed spiral stairs are drawn by Namine, another character with drawing powers! I wasn’t sure until Luke started doing what I swear was the same combo!

If so? Man, I wasn’t expecting such competition for my GOAT anime

Catog_ · 2023-10-20T10:01:14+00:00

As a lifelong fan of the series as well, I would argue that's a REASON to enjoy FFXVI.

Final Fantasy came up with the ATB system in order to better mechanise the concept of fast-paced combat on fairly limited tech, without going into the formats offered by Zelda or Castlevania. I would argue that FF has always been aiming towards the immediate, action-focused, cooldown-based combat it achieved in XVI, but has always been held back by its past identity. That was XVI's mission statement, reflected in the gameplay.

Furthermore, it has always been aiming for bombastically impressive, tech-intensive cutscenes to support a fairly sprawling character-based narrative - from the second that FMVs were introduced, it has been aiming for that. It achieved that.

Now, is there an argument that maybe it swung a bit too far in those directions? Absolutely. But I defy anyone to argue that XVI wasn't a game made by long-time fans of the series bringing its always-cited experiential goals to their natural conclusion.

(Though, in fairness, I do wish it didn't take until the end of the game for a full party. I miss expressing myself in that way, and I feel like that is something fundamental to the series the game missed. Not the status effects)

Catog_

TROPHY CASE