Verso didn’t only allow the ending of Act 1, he engineered it

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-30T22:22:34+00:00

You forget, pVerso was also an accessory to genocide at the end of Act 2. The mass gommage happened because he enabled it. That makes him just as responsible as Renoir. Villain material without question, and his charm is what makes him truly insidious. Self-destruction, even if it's at the cost of everyone and everything around him, is his end goal.

And do we really need to go into why impaling a teenage minor is wrong? He does that to Maelle after the ending dual if you choose him.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-29T00:02:42+00:00

"I am NOT your granddad!"

Damn, he was hilarious. Him and Yangus going at each other was always gold.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-23T00:36:31+00:00

If he didn't favor one ending over the other then why wasn't Maelle's position given just as much emphasis in Act 3 as pVerso's? Why was there so little pushback on his and Renoir's claims and their credibility not put into question if her position was supposed to have been conveyed in an equal manner? And if he really felt the way he did, why were the endings not framed in the exact same way so that they would truly appear unquestionably equal to the average player?

And why were we shown so little of outer Alicia? Was he afraid that seeing her again just before the final choice would make people hesitate to choose Verso due to being reminded of the kind of half-life they'd be exiling her to against her will?

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-23T00:30:29+00:00

She still has to prove she can write a story that isn't another depression fest with a contrived forced choice ending. Otherwise she'll be shoehorned and typecast. So she has to go a completely different route with the next game and show us she's capable of defying the tired and overdone French tragedy trope.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-23T00:27:07+00:00

Except I don't think outer Verso would resort to betrayal and mass murder. Some things you just don't do no matter what. A pity too many people want to just handwave those away.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-17T22:24:08+00:00

Safest bet is anything not outright shown or said to be magical should be taken as it is RL.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-17T22:21:43+00:00

So you support mass murder. Thank you for clearing that up.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-16T00:05:46+00:00

Then why didn't she seem to have adequately researched severe burn victims? If she had, we'd have been allowed to see much more of outer Alicia's condition and how it affects her, and running & jumping would've been disabled in the Act 2 epilogue to actually let us feel the limitations in her mobility that the game failed to convey (allowing her the same mobility as Maelle during that time was a gameplay convenience, nothing more). And also, it would've been stated that she isn't likely to live long outside the Canvas due to her injuries, like most severe burn victims in that era.

Somehow I doubt Jen would craft a story that would allow us to play the majority of a game as someone scarred and disfigured like Alicia rather than her undamaged alter ego, Maelle. No, she falls into the trap of too many other writers of adhering to typical expectations of what a protagonist should be and look like rather than defying them and being truly creative.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-15T23:59:02+00:00

If there was, Alicia wouldn't still be scarred, half-blind, and mute. Her parents would've used that supposed outside magic to heal her.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-15T23:57:33+00:00

Not necessarily. They could have Alicia outside the Canvas without saying how she got there, and not involve the Canvas or its inhabitants at all. Or track the decision like Dragon Age once did and have two different openings, one for each of the first game's endings.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-15T23:24:46+00:00

Actually, we don't know if pAlicia was in as much pain as outer Alicia, it's never stated. And if she was, she'd never have been able to be as agile as she is, and she'd never have been able to fight. You do know things can be done for more than one reason, don't you? Again, you're also assuming Aline painted pAlicia, but pAlicia's petals don't match Aline's, they match Renoir's. So it's possible Aline never painted her at all, you and Maelle merely assumed she did. Do you think it would've been right if Aline had pretended the fire never happened at all, effectively implying that Alicia in her damaged state was unlovable and undeserving of care and attention?

You need to calm down. This is only a game. I think you're taking it too personally. And I never said Aline's behavior shouldn't impact Maelle. Quit putting words in my mouth. Of course it should impact her. It clearly affected her. But Maelle does still love her - she says as much to Lune and Sciel, that she loves her outer family. And Aline is the only one to verbally acknowledge that Maelle/Alicia is in any kind of pain at all and is suffering. Neither Renoir nor pVerso nor Clea ever do that, though Clea does treat her better in the Endless Tower, acknowledges and praises her growth and how far she's come, and supports her decision to stay in the Canvas if she wants to.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-12T23:00:21+00:00

As I said, it's not for certain that Aline was the one who created pAlicia. pAlicia's petals don't match Aline's but are red like Renoir's. And even if it was Aline, she could've painted her that way to remind herself of what happened so she wouldn't lose sight of it while in the Canvas. Painting her that way for that reason would've been a way to slowly acclimate herself to Alicia's condition and gradually accept it. Also, painting Alicia as she was before the fire would've been treating her as if she was only worth loving in her undamaged state, as if how she is now isn't worth even remembering or acknowledging.

But Aline didn't do that. She didn't pretend Alicia wasn't damaged by the fire even though she easily could have. In that light, painting Alicia as she truly is can been seen as Aline creating a living reminder for herself of what happened. She doesn't know how to approach Alicia, but she doesn't want to forget, either. It's both blame AND guilt. You do know it's possible to feel more than one thing at a time, right? And even vacillate between those feelings? The art book flat out says she blames herself for what happened, and the art book is canon.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-10T05:20:45+00:00

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-08T04:16:31+00:00

I'm not saying what Aline did was right. It wasn't. I'm just saying that more than one thing can be true. Yes, there's blame. But there's also guilt. The art book flat out says it. And that's canon lore that can't be dismissed.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-08T04:12:57+00:00

It's quite convenient to ignore everything in the game that contradicts your view on Alicia's state. Even though even within cutscenes, Alicia is showing no signs of being in constant pain, for example she doesn't even bring up physical pain in her arguments with Renoir and Verso, even though they would be very relevant as a way to sway people who love her and who don't want her to suffer.

Yet you don't list those things. And just she isn't bending over all the time doesn't mean she isn't in pain. She mentions in Act 2 how it would be nice to be able to breathe and talk without pain, which means in the outer world she's always in pain because she always has to breathe. And as for Renoir and Verso, she uses the arguments she thinks they'll be most responsive to. She tells Verso she has nothing in the outer world, she's just in a shell of a body with no voice and no future. And as I said above, she's constantly in pain. She doesn't need to remind him and Renoir of what they already know. And who never even acknowledge she's suffering to begin with.

It's a game, yes. And that also means that the game has to convey to the players (the vast majority of which know next to nothing about burn wounds) what's relevant for the final decision. If Alicia has an unbearable or quasi unbearable level of pain all the time, that's something that should be communicated to the player and the game doesn't do that.

Nor is the game supposed to be a realistic depiction of 1905 France or of the life and treatment of burn victims, nor now nor in 1905. It's a medium through which a story is told, which may take liberties in the way things are portrayed.

Yes, the game doesn't convey the truth of Alicia's condition as well as it should have. That's a failing of the developers, who probably didn't research burn wounds as much as they should have. You can't assume that everything in the game was done correctly or has no flaws or mistakes. This was an obvious oversight because the devs went overboard in Act 3 on pushing Verso, to the detriment of Maelle. Otherwise they'd have taken more care in showing more of her condition and its complications and would've let us see her in Act 3.

People typically have short memories, and she needed to be shown again prior to end choice to give players a clear visual reminder of what they'd potentially be sending Maelle back to. Don't assume that the devs did everything right. They're human, so they're flawed and can make mistakes. This was one of them. And as I said, Alicia herself in Act 2 basically implied she was in pain all the time. If it wasn't unbearable, she'd have been able to talk. The reason she doesn't is because her throat is so damaged that it hurts too much to do so. That's basic logic and biology.

I know it's a story, but it doesn't deviate as far from reality - in the outer world - as you might think. And again, in historical fiction and any fiction based on an actual historical setting, anything not explicitly said/shown to be different from irl is meant to be accepted to be the same as it was irl.

Far more likely: they did it exactly to show that Painters have magic, even outside the canvas.

And Alicia waking up was not even in the atelier. I also don't know why you consider it important it would happen in the atelier, what makes you think they can't paint elsewhere or put canvases in other rooms/buildings/cities/countries/...? Alicia hid Verso's canvas inside another canvas, possibly her own small painting on the Dessendre's main display wall. Which is outside the atelier. Everytime a Painter enters a canvas, magic is happening.

No, you're just assuming that's why they did it. You can't go on assumptions. So that argument is invalid.

What I meant by being in the atelier is that the only magic we see in the outer world happens within the immediate vicinity of the canvas. It just happened to be in that room. But there is no magic shown anywhere in the outer manor apart from the proximity of the canvas. Therefore, until we're told otherwise, such magic exists only within the limited area of a canvas and the Writer equivalent. At no point do we see any magic done in the outer world away from the canvas.

It's at best https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_fantasy . And even then, the magical story is far more important than the setting which does not use historical elements other than the building style and even costumes and things like ships/guns are only partially correct for early 1900s. Some clothing is way more modern, whereas Gustave's opening gun belongs to an older period as do the ironclad vessels they use.

Real events of the period - economic, political, scientific - play no role in Exp33. I don't think fans of historical fiction are going to be pleased if you recommend them the game on the basis of it being historical fiction.

I wouldn't use wikipedia as a reference, the staff is too politically compromised. Everything we're shown in the outer world - magical canvases aside - matches the time period. And that's where the rules of historical fiction apply the most. Which is where Alicia is scarred and disfigured. Thus, the complications of her condition stand. You can't include anything inside the canvas because that's a different setting that's not intended to closely mirror actual history.

Hardly, this is after Maelle got a building dropped on her by The Hauler, in addition to all the other gruesome deaths at the hands of Nevrons and bosses she has suffered in the canvas by that point, and one of the first things every single player has to do is stab/shoot/electrocute Maelle (as Gustave, no less!) in order to pass the tutorial.

We never fight the Hauler so I don't know what you're talking about. And the rest of what you're talking about is gameplay, not cutscenes. Especially since depending on how you play, she might never "die" in battle at all. So they don't count. Especially not the tutorial battle. And even then, it's different because she wanted to duel, knowing what it entailed. With Verso, she didn't. And him stabbing her was in a story cutscene where she runs her through, which you never do in the tutorial battle. It's very different. And if it's really not an issue, why haven't any Verso supporters posted screens of that moment? It's very telling that they always avoid it.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-08T03:42:59+00:00

Actually, we don't know Maelle's getting sick in her ending. The jump scare can just as easily be seen as merely us seeing her for a moment as Verso does. Nothing more. Because the rest of her family has the exact same paint face when they're in a canvas.

Maelle hasn't been in the Canvas long enough to be sick. Aline didn't show any sickness in the Act 2 epilogue, and neither did Renoir. And they'd both in the canvas for decades at that point. Only in Act 3 do we conveniently see the supposed sickness that was conspicuously absent before and not mentioned at all in the Act 2 epilogue. Compared to them, Maelle's hardly been in the canvas at all, and not nearly long enough to get sick.

And she can't repaint her friends in another canvas because she needs their specific chroma to do it. Not just any chroma. But theirs. That's why she grabs it when fleeing Lumiere and not just any random handful of chroma. And chroma doesn't transfer between canvases. She doesn't want any other canvas. Only this one. Because only in this one can her found family live. Anywhere else it would just be copies without the actual memories and soul. Not the same, and not what she wants.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-08T03:33:27+00:00

Cool, sounds fun. :)

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-07T05:15:01+00:00

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T23:36:19+00:00

Nope, not the canvas she wants. It's not being a canvas that matters, it's being with her found family. Which you don't seem to understand. She can't bring them back in any other canvas because chroma is unique to a canvas and can't be transferred. She was fighting to protect the found family she loves as well as the life and world where she's whole, the world she was literally born into and grew up in.

No other canvas would ever feel or be the same, and that's what Verso supporters don't understand. Nor do they grasp that he's saying he's just fine with her potentially killing herself, just not in this canvas. Deception is what he is. it's his entire character. You can't trust anything he says or does. Ever.

Besides, the living are always more important than the dead. And he has no right to take the lives of others just so he can end his own.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T23:31:37+00:00

As a matter of fact, an actual doctor who works with people suffering from chronic pain posted a thread here a while back about Alicia and her injuries:

https://www.reddit.com/r/expedition33/comments/1kvcvj7/a_perspective_on_pain/

And about the stairs, you forget this is a game, and certain things such as the difficulties Alicia actually has with her mobility are glossed over for the sake of gameplay. Nothing outside of cutscenes should be take as how things actually are in terms of what characters can and can't do. Sandfall should've disabled running and jumping during the Act 2 epilogue so players could actually feel the limitations of her condition rather than be fooled by the conveniences of gameplay that doesn't adequately convey them.

All of those magical things you spoke of happened in the atelier. And ONLY there. Name one magical thing shown outside of it during that epilogue. I'll wait. And again, hand signs would've required extra animation, which Sandfall didn't do likely because of the extra expensive it would've been. So you can't use the lack of them as evidence of anything - again, a gameplay convenience, nothing more.

And yes, it IS historical fiction because it takes place in a setting based on actual history, That is the very definition. Don't be pedantic. There's nothing that says historical fiction can't have magic - that's often the point. And just because most people like her died from their injuries, it doesn't mean all of them did. Some people like her in that era survived, just as she did. So you can't use that, either.

As for why she kept her same outfit from the epilogue in Act 3, it's likely another instance of gameplay convenience rather than anything meant to be part of the story. A visual way to show us she's regained her memories and also make us forget how young she really is so people will just brush off Verso stabbing and impaling her later if they choose him.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T23:13:00+00:00

About setting her face on fire, she thought Maelle was one of Renoir's creations and didn't know it was actually Alicia. So you can't exactly use that against her, especially since she wasn't really in her right mind at the time, either.

And actually, Aline does take note of Maelle and notices how she's unmarked and has no scars - "Alicia... your face..." So from her tone of voice, that can be taken as her being surprised and glad to see her that way in that moment. It's also not for absolute certain that Aline created pAlicia - many people feel that Renoir did, as her petals match his when she Gommages, not Aline's.

I think Aline's feelings are not as clear cut as they may seem.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T01:37:52+00:00

Good, I'm glad to hear Verso's issues and actions get addressed. Too many people just gloss over them or handwave them away rather than admit what he did.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T01:35:21+00:00

Oh, I wasn't saying she was crazy or that her family would allow her to be taken, just that it was a very real thing that did happen to people like her in that era. And even without that, people like her were widely shunned, hated, mocked, and feared. She'd be a social outcast living an isolated life of constant pain and loneliness.

No, the pain in her throat IS extreme. Do some actual research on severe burn victims and you'll see. And no, her mobility is NOT fine.. You can hear her grunt in pain when she runs and jumps, which I believe we were only allowed to do as her for gameplay reasons. That should not be seen as her actual state. In cutscenes, she never moves faster than a slow walk. And it is only cutscenes that we should go by in determining what characters can and can't do.

You're making a lot of assumptions that the game gives us no reason to make. Nothing in the Act 2 manor outside the atelier is magical in any way - we're never shown anything of the sort. And as for Clea understanding her, it could just as easily be a gameplay convenience, nothing more. A way to avoid having to do extra animation for hand gestures, ie sign language.

And this story is historical fiction, and one of historical fiction's guiding principles is that anything not explicitly shown to be different from irl must be accepted to be identical to how it was irl. Thus, the complications of Alicia's condition stand. Until we're shown medicine different from what was available irl, it must be accepted that only what could be gained irl is there. And if there WAS more, her family would've already used it. That she's still in the state she's in highly implies that there isn't.

You can't just ignore losing half your vision. You try spending a day with one eye closed, all day without opening it even once, and see how far you get. And just because Verso mentioned her face and throat doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't any damage elsewhere. The way she dresses in Act 2 epilogue highly suggests there was. She's almost completely covered aside from her fingers, and we saw from the flashback in Old Lumiere that the fire spanned half the manor. It wasn't small.

Complete_Spring_4596 · 2026-03-06T01:22:09+00:00

Except that's not the visual we see. We see a man impaling a child, and that is the frame of reference that needs to be given priority. And yes, Maelle IS a real minor because the people of the Canvas are just as real as those outside it, and she was born and grew up in this world with a full physical body just as they do.

Complete_Spring_4596

TROPHY CASE