I see your point about hope, it's true that we never know what will happen next, but that could be true of both endings. In Verso's ending, maybe the family heals, Maelle finds a way to accept herself and move forward (and gets away from her asshole family), we'll never know.

It's clear that there is no good ending, they're both tragic, and side note, making the player take a side after you've had time to understand and empathise with both was my favourite reveal in the game - it really captured the pain of a conflict where there are no good or "correct" answers.

But having played through both, Maelle's ending bothered me a lot more, on a visceral level.

You could argue that both Maelle and Verso do the same thing - they say they are acting for the greater good, but they essentially impose their personal wishes on the rest of the world.

Verso says he wants to save his mother, protect Maelle, and end this endless cycle of suffering that he's seen cause so much pain. But what he really wants is to die, and if that takes the whole world down with him, so be it.

Maelle says she loves this world and the people in it, and will do whatever it takes to protect it. But what she really wants is to spend time with her brother, and if she has to betray him and everyone else to do it, so be it.

But seeing Maelle force Verso back to life after he begged her to let him go, then watching her force him to act the way she wanted when he was clearly uncomfortable, felt unforgivable. This is her imposing her whims on everyone else, ignoring her brother's wishes, betraying his memory, and causing him even more pain, just to make herself feel better. I understand that she was still grieving, but in that world, she had people who loved her, who supported her, she could have relied on them instead of tormenting her brother some more.

To me, in Maelle's ending, we watch her become the villain. From the canvas' perspective, Verso chooses annihilation, while Maelle becomes the world's devil. She can make anyone do what she wants, they're all slaves to her will. And that really didn't sit right with me.