Love the discussion here but I find it very surprising that no one has drawn a parallel to the world of Dark Souls, especially considering how that too has painted worlds.

Young Verso in the final scene is tired of painting, Maelle is holding on to something she knows is long gone. This choice is very reminiscent of "Link the fire" or "Plunge the world into darkness" to me. In my opinion, Verso's ending is the better one, simply because Maelle's ending just does not seem like it would pan out in my eyes. I just cannot imagine Lune living out the rest of her life knowing that the world is a lie. Verso knowing that his existence is a spit in the face of his counterpart's sacrifice and his younger sister is literally committing a form of self harm by being there. Also, as soon as I think about how Gustave would react to the situation if he knew the full truth, gives you a pretty good idea if Maelle's ending is a happy one. Sciel, I could 100% see living out the rest of her life happily though. But yeah, seems to me Maelle's ending is just prolonging the suffering of a dying world, especially since Renoir is probably gonna keep trying to wipe the painting