Currently taking my time doing side content, and I can’t help but think that a few aspects of this game seem baffling when thinking about it more deeply… This will obviously contain Major Spoilers for the game.

Table of Contents: Part 1: Thoughts on Clair Obscur, Part 2: WMG on Clair Obscur, and Part 3: Final Thoughts.

Why are there only five playable characters by the end? In a game with three slots for characters in battle and an option to have the reserve crew engage in battle if the main crew dies, this definitely feels as if someone is missing. I originally thought maybe they cut Gustave’s return, but Verso takes his Pictos and it seems as if Gustave was always meant to die.

Gustave’s death leads to a narrative problem in Act III: Despite Verso and Maelle talking about him as if he’s dead, why doesn’t Maelle just revive Gustave? She was able to revive Lune and Sciel due to strong emotional bonds with them. Both fighting one of the Axons which shows Maelle’s personal bond with Gustave and Maelle’s own character development establishes her familial love for Gustave, so why doesn’t she bring him back when she clearly has the power to?

Despite the foreshadowing, which was indeed done well, Maelle effectively becomes a completely different person because of this plot twist in Act III. The build-up and development of her Alicia self was firmly established by Act III, but she still effectively became a different person and the original Maelle that we knew is often only talked about in passing or sidelined, unless it is to talk about Gustave.

The biggest clue that something was afoot and that this was a change that was more likely due to budget constraints is the option to write in Gustave’s journal. Why bother? What purpose did it serve? In both endings, either Maelle is tossed out of the painting and the Painting is destroyed or Maelle resurrects everyone and the journal becomes pointless anyway, because Gustave and everyone else who died is brought back to life. Maelle’s behavior towards Verso in her own ending is very contradictory to allowing Painted Alicia (Verso’s own sister) to die because that’s what Painted Alicia wanted. Again, they did a very good job to smooth it over, if there was a change from any supposed original idea that they had, then they wrote a mostly great story so that we wouldn’t notice. For example, Maelle commenting absently that “they’re just Gestrals” and showing a dismissive attitude towards their wants and needs does a good job to foreshadow her own ending. It arguably explains her contradictory behavior towards Painted Alicia and Painted Verso.

Yet, the two childhood backgrounds is still somewhat jarring to me to the point that I think it is possible that they changed the story due to budget constraints. I think Gustave’s journal and the lack of six playable characters further reinforces this idea. To be clear, I think the Alicia plot twist was definitely meant to occur and that it was part of the story, but I don’t think that Alicia and Maelle were originally the same person. Due to Alicia’s plot twist feeling somewhat last-minute despite the foreshadowing, I think Maelle was originally just suppose to be Painted Alicia and that disfigured Alicia herself was originally the real Alicia and was likely meant to be a surprise additional character for Act III. That would explain the discrepancies: why Maelle writes in the journal, why Maelle doesn’t revive Gustave, why Maelle and Verso’s character relationship’s final question is even there when Maelle can just resurrect Gustave whenever she wants, and the jarring nature of Maelle having two different childhoods and effectively becoming a completely different person by Act III. Even other side-stories like Sciel mourning her baby are effectively null and void, because why wouldn’t Maelle be nice enough to try to resurrect her baby for her? Why wouldn’t she be able to do that with enough practice with her Paintress powers? Yet, if Maelle and Alicia had originally been conceived as two separate people with Alicia coming in late and not having as much of a strong bond with Expedition 33, then it does make sense that the characters would behave in the way that they do and why Maelle would even pose the question at the end of her character relationship to Verso.