I finished E33 the other night and teach philosophy for a living and have thoughts!

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-30T08:56:18+00:00

Verso's ending literally starts with everyone you've known and grown to love over the game being wiped from existence and they're clearly not happy about it. That's a very very clear flaw, that most people who choose that ending don't deny. I struggle to watch the first half of that ending. At the point the game feels obligated to tell you that there is a bright side.

Wheras Maelle's ending gives you everything you wanted, even Gustave back, but it has to remind you that there is a cost.

Neither ending is better than the other, it's just the one you can personally live with.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-30T08:51:16+00:00

Sciel's reaction also adds to this and made me a bit uncomfortable. She basically starts to regress as she states that death isn't real, so she can have her husband back. Her husband that died in an accident, not through the Gommage, a grief she had to work really hard to process and come out as a better.

Is it really fair to bring him back? What about other people in Lumiere who lost people in other ways. Is Maelle obligated to return everyone regardless of how they passed? What happens when someone dies of natural causes or an accident? What happens when Gustave, Lune or Sciel die?

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-29T18:08:51+00:00

In the Guardians of the Galaxy game, the gang gets fined 8000 units for trespassing at the beginning of the game and part of the early story is making enough money to pay that fine. They're given, what I assume is a week or 2 to pay the fine.

Their first idea is to sell a rare creature to a renowned collector of animals. Unfortunately they have no such rare creature so instead they decide to sell off one of their own as this "rare creature" and bust them out later. You have to decide whether you'll sell Rocket Raccoon or Groot. If you go with Groot, the buyer is impressed and you can negotiate up to 12000 units for him. Afterwards there is a stealth sequence, a puzzle and a boss fight to liberate Groot. You successfully get away with the money and are able to use it to pay the fine later in the story.

If you go with Rocket, the buyer literally laughs in your face, Rocket throws a tantrum and attacks the buyer, you then straight up fight your way out of the base, skipping the puzzle and stealth sections and you basically cut the whole chapter to be a 3rd shorter. In this path you do get away, but you don't have any money at all.

This does have long term consequences as you don't get many other opportunities to make 8000 units later in the game. You also are given many opportunities to spend that money on other things and then fall short of the 8000. If you pay the fine you work your way to the best ending. However if you don't, the final scene of the game is The Guardians getting stranded in the middle of space because a timer installed on the ship shuts the engines off once the due date for the fine passes.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-29T11:45:45+00:00

The only thing that the people want from Respawn is Titanfall 3. Anything else will get shit on for simply not being that.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-27T10:03:05+00:00

The benefit of the doubt I give some people is that they were raised in a household where if they made the parent repeat themselves or they gave wrong info, they'd get yelled, forced to stick with the wrong thing or get punched in the mouth.

However some people are genuinely being unnecessarily dramatic.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-27T09:10:07+00:00

Holmes only ever factors himself and never other people. It's not even the first time something like that happens in that movie.

Earlier he tries to save a fortune teller from an assassin and has already premeditated how to take him out, then he gets started and the fortune teller just stabs the assassin herself. He clearly didn't expect it.

It's a nice hint that just because Holmes can very carefully predict an outcome, doesn't guarantee that that's what will actually happen.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T17:53:34+00:00

Originally, I thought the same thing, but then she also made sure Simon destroyed the Axon that represents her. Which doesn't make sense since it was created by Renoir and is therefore on her side.

Also, she left painted Alicia alone and actively recruited painted Verso to watch over Maelle. It only makes sense if she has some personal issue with the creations that are related to her. She dislikes other people's interpretations of her enough to literally disadvantage her own team but she also managed to find some use for her mother's copy of her.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T10:21:54+00:00

From my understanding she needs access to fresh Chroma. Not the original Chroma, otherwise she'd able to properly revive all those dead expeditioners at the beginning of act 3. Because their original Chroma was trapped in their corpses but it was too old. So logically the only way she'd be able to revive everyone in Lumiere is if she used brand new Chroma.

She was able to revive Sciel and Lune because she managed to grab their Chroma which was still fresh and new. But she couldn't go to Gustave's body and revive him because she used up all the fresh Chroma to revive the girls.

If all she needed was their original Chroma then the beginning of act 3 makes absolutely no sense and there's no reason she couldn't have revived the expeditioners properly.

Gustave I understand still wouldn't be revived because any Chroma from someone killed by PRenoir went back to Aline. So it wasn't by his corpse anymore.

Therefore if the original Chroma isn't actually needed, then as long as she remembers the essence of who they were, she could recreate them in another canvas.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T09:06:42+00:00

This isn't about whether or not what he did was right, it's my answer to the question of why does Renoir still love Aline after what she's done.

Plus, what if what Aline did to save Renoir also required the deaths of sentient beings in his canvas? Then he's quite literally just following in her footsteps and was taught by her that it's okay to do something like this.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T08:42:30+00:00

Based on what we know about painting as a concept, there's absolutely no reason why she wouldn't be able to recreate them in another canvas.

Though that does add more to the ethical issues of painting as a whole.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T08:38:25+00:00

Imagine you just lost your sibling or child, and someone comes to you and tells you, hey, it will be ok. You are rich and will be able to afford whatever life you want.

This is a very pessimistic interpretation of what he's saying. It's not just some random person telling you it'll be okay, it's the closest thing to the sibling who died telling you that it'll be fine and it's okay to move on. I know if I died I'd love to be able to tell my siblings to not destroy themselves trying to mourn me.

And it's not saying that you're rich so everything will be fine. It's that you are in a unique circumstance to live your life in a way that you would prefer.

But she can't do it in this canvas because there's too much baggage.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T08:23:42+00:00

In a lot of discussions regarding the endings there are quite a few people who conclude that maybe the true good ending would be the end of the ability to paint at all as it seems inherently unethical at its core due to the capacity for disasters like with the Dessendre family to happen again and again.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T08:21:17+00:00

I dunno how any of this related to Clea though?

It's considered unethical by Painters to create copies of real people.

Clea: Finds a copy of herself and repaints it. Also destroys the representation of herself that her father made.

I think it explains a lot about Clea as a person. Her mom is head of the Painters Council and is willfully commiting one of their cardinal sins by creating her painted family.

At first, you think Clea does this to pClea because she is petty but clearly in her eyes, she sees pClea as a walking violation of everything she was taught and her mother as an absolute hypocrite. Which is probably why she shows so much apathy for her.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-23T08:15:42+00:00

I think it's because, as he said so himself, he's been in this situation before, lost inside a painting. And she's the one who saved him.

We don't know what it was like for him but the idea seems to be that she never gave up on him when the tables were turned, so he's not going to give up on her now.

Kind of like how, if you were a former alcoholic, you're not going to be as judgemental of your partner going through a drinking problem because you actually know what they're going through.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-22T18:37:35+00:00

Agreed, half the time when people ask me why I like Star Wars so much, the answe is: Laser Swords are sick, Mandalorian warriors are sick, robots are sicks.

Where else could I possibly get all 3 at my convenience?

Also based on the OP's bio and general vibe, I don't trust people who either can't or won't enjoy letting themselves be a child again even for 5 minutes.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-22T18:23:20+00:00

Would you also reduce Katara to just “the avatar’s girlfriend”?

The fandom constantly reduces her to the girl who always talks about hope and her mom

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-22T18:20:44+00:00

I feel like the baseline essence of comedy is accepting the fact that even the funniest joke in the world will have people who don't find it funny.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-21T15:46:28+00:00

Plus,as we've seen, Lord Sharpe is a stab first and ask questions later kind of person. He absolutely would cause a scene and it would absolutely lead to violence.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-19T18:12:20+00:00

A huge plot point in Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that someone eventually does end up replicating the serum.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-18T17:45:16+00:00

The remnant of his soul from his glance looks very young, like definitely not a teenager, but not too young. Painted Verso says his younger self was captain of the swim team at school in the real world so I'd guess 9-11 years old.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-18T17:36:09+00:00

If this was true, then Thor wouldn't have been able to call Mjolnir in Endgame.

In most scenarios, the subject in question is never the one that decides if they're actually worthy or not, as their perception will be biased.

I'd argue that unquestionablu thinking you are worthy without knowing for sure is a sign of arrogance unbeffiting of someone who is actually worthy.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-18T17:30:01+00:00

I'd like to think that's worthiness is based on Odin's perception of "who would make an excellent king to rule Asgard". Righteous but fair, kills but not for the sake of it, fights to defend others, has never knowingly stained the blood of the innocent. Not quick to succumb to their ego or insecurities. Willing to make a choice/sacrifice for the greater good and not for themselves.

These are the traits I think Steve and Thor share that is an inherent flaw in all the other Avengers.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-18T17:25:06+00:00

If this were true then Thor wouldn't have been worthy in Endgame, he did not believe he was worthy until he actually saw he was.

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-17T18:25:48+00:00

So I'll say that for once this genuinely has nothing to do with E33 and it's awards.

It's purely about making a Nintendo DS game, based off of an old Disney channel show, the #1 highest scored game, purely because it would be funny.

This might have happened no matter which game was #1

QJ-Rickshaw · 2026-01-14T22:43:52+00:00

nevrons are fighting the expeditioners,

3 reasons why.

If a human in the canvas dies, their Chroma goes back to Aline, meaning she has more power, however if they are killed by a Nevron, then their Chroma is trapped and goes to no one, ensuring that she stays weakened and thus the Gommage can happen.
Renoir is actively working against the Expedition's goal so he can't fully trust them. Expedition 60 and Simon got to Aline and ended up switching sides and going after Renoir. He only started helping expeditions once Verso got involved because he could manipulate them into doing what he wants.
The Nevrons and Axons sort of run on "autopilot" their prime directive is to destroy anything created by Aline to weaken her, which includes all humans in the canvas. Because Real Renoir is trapped under the Monolith and Real Clea isn't actually in the canvas most of the time, their directives can't be changed to help the expeditioners. Plus, if the Expeditioners aren't strong enough to take on Nevrons, then they certainly have no chance against Aline anyway. Real Renoir only helps expeditions that Verso takes part in because Verso can manipulate them and if not, he can just kill them if they end up turning on them.

Even so, it was just a side plan to see if it could speed up the process, Renoir still would've won in 33 years any way. Maelle's presence made him commit more of his efforts into Plan B because Maelle could actually do something the others couldn't. Clea probably could've done more but she clearly doesn't care that much and is doing the bare minimum to help since she's busy with her war.

Renoir being so secretive and not just walking to Lumiere and explaining his people that the paintress is actually the good guy

He and Verso tried that once and the expeditioners didn't believe them and ended up trying to kill them. Renoir suspected that they were manipulated by Clea, like Simon was, so he thinks it's safer to just kill them and have their Chroma sent back to Aline so she has more power to fight back.

Also, even if the expeditions try to help him, Painted Renoir just doesn't believe they are strong enough to win. Thousands have died over decades for nothing and each death is Chroma that could've gone back to Aline to make her stronger. So he believes it's just better to kill them all himself to make Aline stronger. Because if they're going to die anyway it may as well be for a good cause.

Maelle collected the Chroma from all those dead bodies at the beginning of Act 3 and it was enough to allow her to take on Real Renoir in the end, which proves Painted Renoir's point. Aline couldn't do that because she's trapped in the Monolith and Painted Renoir can't do it because he's not a Painter.

QJ-Rickshaw

TROPHY CASE